Christmas time is supposed to be the happiest time of the year but for many it’s also a time to remember those they have lost.
The family values and love can make some people feel lonely and some people have taken heartbreaking and drastic measures. For some, the festive season has been tainted by ferocious family feuds, mysterious disappearances, and murder.
Many of history’s worst Christmas crimes took place due to long-held personal grudges, as in the case of Bruce Pardo, who dressed as Santa Claus and murdered his ex-wife and eight members of her family on Christmas Eve in 2008 following his bitter divorce. Here at Daily Star, we have decided to take a look at 9 of the most grisly and gruesome murders that have taken place over Christmas.
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Murder of pageant star JonBenét Ramsey
(Image: ABL Studio/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock)
Child pageant star JonBenét Ramsey was brutally murdered inside her home on Christmas day – and 27 years later her murder remains unsolved. The beauty queen was just six years old when she was found dead in her home in Boulder, Colorado, on December 26, 1996.
Her frantic parents had reported her missing after they woke up to a ransom note demanding $118,000 but several hours later, her father found her corpse in the basement.
Her father John Ramsey previously told ABC: “I knew instantly what I found. I found my daughter,” her father John Ramsey previously told ABC. She was lying on a white blanket. The blanket was wrapped around her. Her hands were tied above her head.”
The Ken and Barbie killers
(Image: YOUTUBE/DISCOVERY)
Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka were known as the “Ken and Barbie Killers” because of their young and attractive appearances. In a sick and twisted move, they decide to rape Karla’s younger sister, Tammy, during their family’s 1990 Christmas party. Though the couple had not meant to commit a Christmas murder, Tammy choked on her vomit and died.
After the sexually-motivated murder of her 15-year-old sister Tammy (which they filmed) the evil pair went on to kill and murder two more young women, making videos of the sick acts which were shown at their trials. Bernardo also raped at least 20 women.
Sodder children
(Image: https://www.historicmysteries.com/sodder-children-mystery/)
On Christmas Eve a fire destroyed the Sodder residence in West Virginia and George Sodder, his wife Jennie and four of their nine children escaped. At first George and Jennie Sodder assumed that five of their children, aged between five and 14, had perished in the fire but the fatal blaze soon turned into one of America’s greatest mysteries as, once the flames had been put out, none of the bodies of the children trapped in the house were found.
One of the popular theories is that the Sodder children were kidnapped. A few months before the fire, George Sodder bickered with an insurance salesman regarding Italian leader Benito Mussolini.
The DownTown Posse
(Image: Dayton Daily News section clipping)
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A city was gripped by fear over Christmas of 1992 when a group of violent teenagers went on a savage murder spree that left a pile of bodies in their wake. In a terrifying outbreak of violence, four “bored” individuals went on a murderous rampage on Christmas Eve .
The gang was led by Marvallous Keene, 19, who was joined by his girlfriend Laura Taylor, 16, DeMarcus Smith, 19, and his girlfriend Heather Matthews, 20. The crimes of the gang were described by the Black True Crime Podcast as an “insane” “violent Christmas crime spree that had 1992 Dayton Ohio living a nightmare.”
Ronald Gene Simmons
(Image: Ronald_Gene_Simmons.jpg)
Ronald Gene Simmons made a conscious decision to kill all the members of his family. On the morning of 22 December he bludgeoned and shot his son Gene and his long-suffering wife Rebecca; then he strangled his three-year-old daughter Barbara.
After having a beer, Simmons dumped the bodies in the cesspit he had made his children dig. He the methodically killed the rest of his family and overall murdered 16 people.
Stagger Lee
(Image: missourilife)
You may have heard the popular folk song Stagger Lee but it is actually based on a real life Christmas murder. On Christmas Eve, 1895, a shooting occurred between a levee hand named William “Billy” Lyons and a part-time carriage driver and full-time pimp named Lee Shelton.
In the course of an argument, Billy snatched Lee’s Stetson hat from his head, whereupon Lee first struck and then shot him. Billy died of his wound shortly thereafter, and Lee was sentenced to a twenty-five-year prison term.
Bruce Jeffrey Pardo
(Image: AFP/Getty Images)
On Christmas Eve Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, 45, knocked at the door of his ex-wife’s family’s home while wearing a Santa suit. At the time his ex-wife was holding a Christmas party with over 20 other people in Los Angeles.
When an eight-year-old girl answered the door he immediately shot her in the face. He killed nine people including his ex-wife, her mother, father, sister and two brothers and injured three more before burning the house down with a home-made flamethrower.
Charles Davis “Charlie” Lawson
(Image: Wikipedia)
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Charles Davis “Charlie” Lawson killed his entire family on Christmas Day. Just before Christmas, he took his whole family to buy new clothes and get their family portrait taken and he then shot his daughters, Carrie and Maybell, as they were setting out to their uncle and aunt’s house. He stored their bodies in a tobacco barn.
He then came home and shot his wife Fannie and his other children in the house. He finally killed baby Mary Lou by bludgeoning her to death. The only survivor was his eldest son, 19-year-old Arthur, whom he had sent on an errand just before committing the crime.
Michele Anderson
(Image: Dan Levine/EPA/REX/Shutterstock)
On December 24, 2007, Michele Anderson and her boyfriend James McEnroe killed her parents, her brother and sister-in-law, and her brother’s two children in Carnation, Washington.
The murders took place in the home of Wayne Scott Anderson and Judy Anderson. Six people, comprising three generations of the Anderson family, were killed brutally.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
