Valentine’s Day turns deadly in these murder cases
I don’t know about you, but my favorite kind of true crime show is the Dateline-esque “the spouse did it” type. And there are plenty of those cases happening on Valentine’s Day, when love turns to murder and romance turns to tragedy. But other murder cases occurred on the day for lovers, including cases of missing persons.
Forget the rom-coms, check out this list of Valentine’s murders instead, murders related to relationships gone bad, missing children, a case involving Oscar Pistorius, and others on Valentine’s Day, even a case of a killer prostitute from 1930s Texas.
Dateline NBC: “Deadly Valentine” (Season 22, Episode 53)
Baptist missionaries Nathan and Denise Leuthold live a seemingly happy and devoutly religious life in Peoria, Illinois. On Valentine’s Day 2013, after Nathan reports a possible home invasion, police find her dead from a gunshot wound to the head, in what looks like a botched robbery. They learn that Nathan was having an affair with a Lithuanian exchange student, Aina Dobilaite, which they both deny, but Denise’s notes in her day planner, and text messages between Nathan and Aina, suggest otherwise. Subsequent investigation continues to point to Nathan as the prime suspect.
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Dateline NBC: “A Perfect Spot” (Season 23, Episode 36)
Keith Morrison tells the story of Richard and Stacey Schoeck, who make a date to rendezvous at a secluded park on Valentine’s Day 2010 in Lula, Georgia. But when she arrives, she finds him dead from five gunshots. Police learn that Stacey is having an affair and question her boyfriend, who has an alibi. They use cell phone and financial records, along with tire marks, to uncover a murder-for-hire plot planned to look like a robbery, involving co-worker Lynitra Ross and personal trainer Reginald Coleman. One particularly chilling piece of evidence: Ross had sent Stacey a text wishing her a “Happy Valentine’s Day,” as if to let her know the deed was done. Although Stacey claims at one point that Richard molested one of their children—with no evidence—life insurance seems the likelier motive.
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On the Case with Paula Zahn: “Dance to Doom” (Season 24, Episode 8)
Dateline NBC: “After the Dance” (Season 30, Episode 14)
Ft. Worth, Texas. February 16, 1974. 17-year-old Carla Walker hasn’t returned home from a Valentine’s Day dance with her boyfriend Rodney, who finally arrives at her parents’ house covered in blood, saying that a man pistol-whipped him and abducted Carla when they were parked at a bowling alley after the dance. At the scene, police discover her purse and a gun magazine. They locate her body four days later in a culvert, strangled and raped. They search for the owner of the gun without success, but another abduction occurs, one in which the girl escaped, and Rodney identifies the suspect as Carla’s killer. But he has an alibi and is not charged with Carla’s murder. The case goes cold until 2018, when a new detective collects DNA from Carla’s dress and bra and uses the burgeoning field of genetic genealogy to match it to Glen McCurley, who confesses to police. However, he pleads not guilty, but in a courtroom twist, changes his plea to guilty after his confession is played during the trial.
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Primal Instinct: “Murder on Camera” (Season 1, Episode 5)
Deadline Crime with Tamron Hall: “If I Can’t Have You” (Season 4, Episode 4)
In Plainville, Connecticut, a case of jealousy leads to a chilling 911 call and a Valentine’s Day murder. Tiana Notice has been leading a seemingly uneventful life until her boyfriend of only a few months, James Carter, confesses that he was sentenced to five months for domestic abuse charges against an ex-girlfriend. She decides to date other men while he’s in jail, and upon his release, she ends their relationship. Unable to let go, he begins to stalk her, and she receives threatening emails from his new girlfriend, Jessica. Tiana goes to court to get a restraining order against both of them and discovers that Jessica doesn’t actually exist. Frightened, Tiana’s father sets up a surveillance system in and outside her apartment. On Valentine’s Day 2009, James sends an apology email to Tiana, who finds him waiting at her apartment. He pulls out a knife, stabbing her, and despite her injuries, she is able to call 911 saying that she’s bleeding to death, but the ambulance is too late. The surveillance system captures the murder on audio.
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Dateline NBC: “The Rise and Fall of Oscar Pistorius” (Season 28, Episode 45)
Model and paralegal Reeva Steenkamp is dating South African Paralympic and Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius, when he murders her on Valentine’s Day in 2013. He shoots her four times through the bathroom door at his house in Pretoria, insisting that he thought she was an intruder and feared for his life. But his neighbors report hearing yelling that night, and further investigation reveals that Pistorious had been abusive and controlling towards Reeva. What was his real motive?
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Secrets of the Morgue: “My Bloody Valentine” (Season 1, Episode 9)
Snapped: “Kimberly Hricko” (Season 1, Episode 5)
Forensic Files: “Whodunit” (Season 6, Episode 12)
Sins & Secrets: “Happy Valentine’s Day” (Season 4, Episode 2)
Deadly Women: “Behind the Mask” (Season 3, Episode 4)
Valentine’s weekend 1998, and Stephen and Kim Hricko plan a romantic getaway at a beach resort in Maryland. They attend a murder mystery play, and upon returning to their room, argue, so Kim leaves. When she comes back from taking a walk, she finds their room on fire, and firefighters discover Stephen dead. Kim insists that Stephen must have been drinking and passed out, accidentally setting the bed on fire with a cigar. As police investigate, they determine that Kim is less than the innocent wife she appears to be, and life insurance proves to be a strong motive.
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Blood Relatives: “Bloody Valentine” (Season 6, Episode 1)
Snapped: “Constance Tomich” (Season 24, Episode 23)
In Linton, Indiana, Valentine’s Day turns deadly when Connie Tomich finds her husband Ron murdered in their home. He had been shot, but evidence of a robbery is lacking. As detectives question those in his inner circle, they learn from Connie that he had received threatening calls from people he had laid off at work, but his supervisor counters that claim, saying there were no issues with his co-workers. Police discover that Connie was having an affair with Ron’s friend while he was working out of town. But Connie has an alibi: she was shopping with her daughter, Alyssa, and daughter’s friend, Melissa. Alyssa says she heard gunshots when they got home, after Connie and Melissa went into the house. A twisted plot unravels, leading to the killer, or killers.
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People Magazine Investigates: “The Delphi Killer” (Season 5, Episode 4)
Down the Hill: The Delphi Murders
In Delphi, Indiana, Liberty German and Abigail Williams decide to visit Delphi Historic Trails on February 13, 2017. When Liberty’s dad arrives to pick them up, they’re nowhere to be found. Police, family, and friends scour the trails for them and come across their bodies on Valentine’s Day. Audio from one of their cell phones reveals a chilling recording of a man saying “down the hill,” and police release the recording to the public to see if anyone recognizes it, or the sketches of the suspect. The case is unsolved to this day.
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True Crime with Aphrodite Jones: “Loved to Death” (Season 3, Episode 6)
Dateline NBC: “Valentine’s Day Mystery” (Season 18, Episode 24)
American Monster: “The Last Valentine” (Season 3, Episode 7)
Susan Hamilton and her husband John, an OB-GYN, live in a ritzy suburb of Oklahoma City. On Valentine’s Day 2001, he stops by the house between surgeries to find Susan dead in the bathroom, naked, bludgeoned, and strangled. John seems over-emotional during the police interview, and detectives figure out that the neckties used to strangle Susan came from his closet. They also discover her blood in his car and on the inside cuff of his shirt, as well as her jewelry hidden in a drawer, as if to stage a burglary. During the search of his car, they come across a Valentine’s Day card from Susan implying that there was a problem in their marriage, and after further questioning of her friends, determine that she had decided to divorce John because she thought he was having an affair with a stripper. Furthermore, his alibi doesn’t check out.
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On the Case with Paula Zahn: “Ring of Truth” (Season 8, Episode 14)
On February 16, 2009, a body is found on the side of the road in the San Bernardino Mountains. It is identified as Cori Desmond, whose Jeep is located 80 miles away in Redondo Beach, where she lived. She had left work in the evening on Valentine’s Day and was seen at a bar arguing with a man. A woman comes forward, informing police that her boyfriend, Tony Perez, never came home on Valentine’s Day and had been acting suspicious. Was he the killer? Or someone else she ran into that night?
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Disappeared: “Missing Valentine” (Season 4, Episode 5)
February 13, 2001. Pat Viola isn’t at home in Bogota, New Jersey, when her husband Jim returns from work with Valentine’s Day gifts. An alarm had gone off that morning while she was at work, but nothing is disturbed when she comes home at noon. Jim comes across her purse, phone, and epilepsy medications still in the house. Detectives learn that she had told a friend that she was upset about something, something a mystery to everyone, and needed to talk. Was it suicide? A seizure? The case goes cold, but her body is eventually found.
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The Real Story with Maria Elena Salinas: “Killer Valentine” (Season 2, Episode 9)
Dateline NBC: “A Haunting Stretch of Road” (Season 30, Episode 19)
Valentine’s Day weekend 2009 in Washington, DC, and Pam Butler is missing. When her family checks her home, they encounter an eerie scene in the bedroom with the sheets removed from the bed and a window unlocked. Her purse is also there. Police watch the video from her surveillance system and see her enter the house with her boyfriend Jose Rodriguez-Cruz on February 12, who leaves the next morning. He returns that evening with flowers, and the video catches him outside several more times. During questioning, he admits that they argued about his ex-girlfriend and then broke up. Cameras capture him carrying things out of the house over the next three days. A previous relationship in his life also involved a missing woman, deepening the detectives’ suspicions.
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See No Evil: “The Man in the Red Jacket” (Season 5, Episode 16)
Valentine’s Day 2015 in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. James Enright and his friend Victoria plan an anti-Valentine’s Day night. Things get slippery at the train station later that night when concerned citizen Victoria records a fight involving two men (one in a red jacket) and some others. When the man in the red jacket sees her recording him, he attacks her, punching her through the open car window. James, aiming to defend her, exits the car and is stabbed once in the chest, off-camera, but Victoria’s phone records the audio from the entire attack. The man in the red jacket, Taitusi Vikilani, turns himself in to the police, says he was drunk and can only remember punching Victoria, but not stabbing James. His friend, Jesse Sellam, who was at the station that night, had left town and someone else points the finger at Jesse for the stabbing. Who was the real killer?
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Crime Stories: “The Missing Mom” (Season 7, Episode 3)
Betrayed: “Beware the Au Pair” (Season 3, Episode 8)
Valentine’s Day 2007 in Washington Township, Michigan, should have been a romantic day for married couple Tara Lynn and Stephen Grant. Instead, he reports that Tara Lynn had been missing for five days after she left with someone in a black car. Detectives question her boss and nanny, but Stephen refuses to speak to the police and makes friends with the press instead, claiming that maybe Tara was having an affair. When a random stranger comes across a plastic bag with latex gloves and blood in it near their home, the police comb through their garage and discover a suspicious plastic bin containing a dismembered torso. They hunt for evidence in a nearby park and find other body parts, all belonging to Tara. The autopsy reveals the cause of death as strangulation, and Stephen confesses that he choked her in a rage after they argued on February 9, possibly over her work schedule or his affair with the nanny.
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Deadly Women: “Bad to the Bone” (Season 10, Episode 3)
1933. Toni Jo Henry, a prostitute and heroin addict in Shreveport, Louisiana, moves to Austin, Texas, and becomes a waitress. She meets former boxer Claude “Cowboy” Henry in 1939, who helps her quit her heroin habit. They marry, but her former life confronts her when a previous customer sees her at a bar and asks if she’s still turning tricks. Claude beats him to death and goes to prison, and she conspires with his friend, Arkie Burks, to rob a bank in order to get money for a new lawyer to help Claude. On Valentine’s Day 1940, they rob and murder Joseph Calloway, whose car they planned to use as a getaway car. Both are sentenced to death.
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No One Can Hear You Scream: “Big Sky Mystery” (Season 1, Episode 3)
In Poplar, Montana, in 2013, a state trooper comes across a strange scene on the side of the highway: an abandoned car, with the keys and two guinea pigs locked inside. The car belongs to Nicole Waller, who had gone to visit her boyfriend Cory Johnston in Fairview. Texts to friends say that she was returning home on Valentine’s Day because they couldn’t work out their problems. Cory contends that he hadn’t gone home the night of February 13 because they argued about him dating her friend Amy, and that Nicole was gone when he returned the next day. Surveillance video on Valentine’s Day shows a truck following Nicole’s car, a truck that the police learn belonged to Cody’s friend Bill, who had given Cody a ride that morning after he left a car on the side of the road. Unbeknownst to Bill, the car turned out to be Nicole’s. He also tells detectives that Cody had asked him for a barrel, the reason also unknown. They arrest Cody, even though Nicole’s body has never been found.
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Scorned: Love Kills: “A Fatal Affair” (Season 1, Episode 11)
Gwinnett County, Georgia, in 2010. A happy Valentine’s Day turns tragic. Shelley Dunn spends the day with her new boyfriend Travis, after leaving her jealous and abusive husband Chad. Chad gets a pocket dial from Shelley and hears a man’s voice in the background, enraging him. She goes to pick up the kids from him, and they argue about Travis. Chad stabs her three times in the back and stabs himself in the chest, all in front of their kids. She dies, but he lives, and is found guilty of murder.
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On the Case with Paula Zahn: “A Heartbreaking Discovery” (Season 20, Episode 15)
Boulder, Colorado. Valentine’s Day 2017. A missing persons case turns into a monstrous murder of a young mother. Ashley Mead is reported missing by a co-worker, and even more alarming, so is her 13-month-old baby. At her apartment, detectives find a partially cooked dinner, the door open, and her purse, glasses, ID, and cell phone left behind, but her car gone. Her ex-boyfriend Adam Densmore, who she was stilling living with, has also disappeared. They learn that Ashley’s last cell phone activity was two days earlier, coinciding with a loud noise coming from her apartment. Adam’s parents in Louisiana tell detectives that he had just been there with the baby and was on his way to Arkansas. Police question Ashley’s new boyfriend, search his home, and determine that he has a solid alibi. When they finally get in touch with Adam, he admits that he and Ashley had a fight, so he left with the baby. Detectives see scratches and a bite mark on his body, and a person at a gas station comes forward after stumbling across a suitcase with a human torso inside. The torso is identified as Ashley’s, and cameras show Adam putting the suitcase in the dumpster. They also find a saw in a shed at his parents’ house with blood and tissue on the blade.
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