Shocking crimes across the U.S. a 2021 trademark
A sex-crazed gunman shot up Asian spas, a fiancé mysteriously returned home from a road trip without his girlfriend, a lawyer faked his own shooting for money, and a long-suspected serial killer was finally put behind bars. Amid the overall chaos of 2021 was a slew of shocking crime cases that captivated the country.
Atlanta spa killings
Robert Aaron Long, then 21, fatally shot eight people at three different spas in the Atlanta area on March 16, according to police. Six of the victims were Asian women.
Long pleaded guilty to four murders in Cherokee County, taking a plea deal that spared him the death penalty in exchange for four life sentences.
Long told the judge that the killings were motivated by his sex addiction and that he wanted to “punish the people that I could.”
But Long pleaded not guilty to four murders at two different Atlanta spas in Fulton County, where the district attorney is seeking the death penalty.
King Soopers shooting in Boulder, Colo.
Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, 21, gunned down 10 people at a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder, Colo., just north of Denver, on March 22.
One of the victims was a police officer, Eric Talley, who was first to respond to reports of a shooting.
In October, Alissa was ruled unfit to stand trial. Prosecutors immediately appealed the ruling, but it was upheld in early December. If Alissa ever stands trial, he’ll face more than 100 charges, including 10 counts of first-degree murder.
Indianapolis FedEx shooting
Shots rang out at a FedEx plant in Indianapolis, as Brandon Scott Hole, 19, fatally shot eight people at the plant on April 15 before dying by suicide.
Four of the eight victims were Sikhs, and the processing building employed many Sikhs. Hole would’ve known that, too, because he worked at the plant before his departure in 2020.
But the FBI said the teen was instead motivated to commit “suicidal murder” and simply chose a location that he knew well and would be easy to attack.
Ex-NFL player kills doctor and grandkids
Former New York Jets player Phillip Adams fatally shot Dr. Robert Lesslie, his wife, their two grandchildren and two HVAC repair technicians working outside the family’s home in Rock Hill, S.C., on April 7. The 32-year-old Adams, who had been treated by Lesslie before, later killed himself.
.
In mid-December, doctors confirmed that Adams suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a disease common among former football players that can lead to severe mental health issues.
Death of Gabby Petito
In August, 22-year-old Long Island travel blogger Gabby Petito was reported missing by her family on Long Island.
Petito had been on a cross-country trip with her fiancé, Brian Laundrie. He came home to Florida; she didn’t. Petito’s body was later found in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Her death was ruled homicide by strangulation.
After an extensive search, Laundrie’s body was found in Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park in South Florida. Laundrie has only been named as a person of interest in Petito’s death. His family’s lawyer said he died by suicide.
Murdaugh murders
The case of disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh is still unfolding.
Alex was the latest in a long line of powerful Murdaughs at the family law firm along the southern South Carolina coast, until things flipped upside down for the entire Murdaugh family in June.
Alex’s wife Maggie, 52, and their son Paul, 22, were fatally shot at their home, and no arrests have been made in their killings.
But the deaths sparked led to the unraveling of years of family secrets and suspected crimes, including Paul’s drunken boating accident that killed a young woman in 2019, the mysterious death of the family housekeeper in 2018 and surrounding legal saga, the suspicious death of a young man in 2015 involving Paul and his brother Buster, and Alex Murdaugh’s opioid addiction that led him to embezzle money from his own law firm.
With his world collapsing, Alex allegedly tried and failed to kill himself using a hitman. He’s currently in jail on a $7 million bond.
Robert Durst convicted
Robert Durst’s long and twisted criminal history became the subject of widespread fascination after the release of the HBO documentary “The Jinx” in 2015, and the eccentric scion of a New York City real estate family was finally convicted of murdering his friend Susan Berman in 2000.
Durst, 78, was sentenced to life in prison for the execution-style shooting because Berman knew too much about the death of his first wife, Kathleen Durst, in 1982.
Westchester prosecutors indicted Durst in that case weeks after his life sentence. Kathleen Durst’s body has never been found.
Durst’s body count also includes Morris Black, a Texas man he shot to death in 2001, though he was acquitted of murder after claiming self-defense. Durst was instead convicted of evidence tampering for dismembering Black and dumping the parts in Galveston Bay. Black’s head was never recovered.
Michigan high school shooting
The U.S. saw its deadliest school shooting since 2018 when 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley was accused of fatally shooting four of his classmates at Oxford High School on Nov. 30.
Crumbley’s parents bought him a handgun for Black Friday, and he brought it with him four days later while attending school in the far north Detroit suburb of Oxford, police said.
A teacher noticed concerning behavior from Crumbley’s in class, but his parents shrugged it off during a meeting with school leaders. Ethan went back to class before pulling the gun from his backpack and shooting the victims, according to authorities.
Crumbleys’ parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, were charged with involuntary manslaughter and captured after cops got a tip where they were hiding. All three Crumbleys remain in jail.
