People Who Solved Their Own Murders

There have been multiple cases where murder victims left messages and notes for the police to point them toward the killer. In some situations, victims created a digital trail for investigators to follow. These brave souls were able to exact their revenge on their murderers by letting the world know who killed them. Without their actions, police or prosecutors may not have been able to bring them to justice. 

Crimes solved by small clues are increasing more and more, thanks to technology. And not all hints are left on cell phones and laptops - some are posted on blogs and online boards like Reddit and WordPress, while others are written on good, old-fashioned paper. Check out these stories of victims who helped catch the culprits of their own murders from beyond the grave.

Modern technological advances in DNA have enabled victims to help police find their attacks. And in some cases, even their murders. One such example is Vanessa Marcotte. Marcotte was an up-and-coming accounts manager at Google, living a fascinating life in Silicon Valley. She was visiting her mother in Massachusetts when she went for a jog, during which she was attacked, raped, and murdered. Police had no clues, except for discovering that Marcotte had fought her attacker. Experts were able to extract the killer's DNA from beneath Marcotte's fingernails.

Tests were conducted and police found a match that led them straight to the killer. Angel Colon-Ortiz was arrested and charged with aggravated battery, aggravated assault, and assault with intent to rape and murder. 

Alexander Litvinenko was a former Russian intelligence expert who carried certain information and secrets with him to London. It was 2006 when Russia was still having its own version of the Wild West. Litvinenko thought he had escaped the clutches of the Putin regime and thus, welcomed a visit from a couple of former colleagues who met him for tea at a local cafe. 

Litvinenko was, of course, highly trained in observation of all others and all items around him. So, when he was taken exceedingly ill after taking tea with his old friends, he remembered that there was a certain pot from which only he had poured into his cup. He realized he was poisoned and informed police of the situation. While Litvinenko suffered and lingered in agonizing pain for weeks before passing, authorities searched and conducted tests on nearly every bit of crockery in the cafe where he'd taken the poison. His colleagues, of course, had long vanished.

One particular teapot in the cafe answered the question as to whether or not the poisoning had occurred and by what specific means. Police discovered the poison was the radio-active and fast-acting polonium. There was enough in the teapot's spout alone to kill several people. Unknowingly, the cafe staff had put the used teapot into the dishwasher and served it up to customers. 

Two young Indiana girls disappeared in February of 2017, striking fear into the hearts of their families and their community. The bodies of 14-year-old Liberty German and 13-year-old Abigail Williams were found on Valentine's Day, which made the deaths even more heartbreaking. The police immediately classified their deaths as a double homicide, the first in 20 years in the city.

Shortly after their bodies were discovered, the Indiana State Police released to the public an audio clip from German's cell phone that they believe is the voice of the murderer. It is only three seconds in length, but you can clearly hear a man's voice saying, "- down the hill." Police commended the maturity and cool-headedness of German for recording the voice of the suspect, calling her a "hero." They also found a photograph of the killer on the phone, and have commented that these are solid pieces of evidence that will hopefully point them toward catching the killer(s). 

Karen Perez was fifteen years old and had just completed her first year of high school in June of 2016. She went missing that same month. Initially, her family, community, and even her boyfriend helped search for her and spread the word of her disappearance. Rumor had it that she was last seen at her boyfriend's home. Within days, her body was found partially nude and crammed into a cabinet under the sink in a tawdry, empty apartment in Houston, Texas.

Even though she seemed helpless in death, Perez left texts on her cell phone and her boyfriend's cell phone that clarified what happened to her. Those text messages revealed that the boyfriend demanded she skip school on the Friday she disappeared and meet him by a local tennis court. His messages even came with a threat, with his final text stating that if she refused to meet him, he would kill her and that her life would "end on bloods."

More incriminating evidence was found on the boyfriend's phone, including audio that preserved Perez's last moments alive. Police listening to the audio could hear the boyfriend demanding Perez have sex with him, even calling her by name. She refused him and he began choking her. Perez cried out, "I don't want to die!" towards the end of the recording. The boyfriend was charged with murder and taken to juvenile court for prosecution. 

Amarjit Chohan, an English resident and businessman, was murdered in 2003 with his wife, children, and his mother-in-law. His killers dumped his body into the sea, thinking they had destroyed any and all evidence of their vicious crime. And yet, messages can come back from the grave, even when the grave is underwater. When searchers discovered his body, they found a piece of paper tucked into one of his socks. It was a letter that was addressed to one of his murderers, Kenneth Regan.

The subsequent police investigation suggests that Chohan was kidnapped by Regan, Bill Horncy, and Peter Rees. He was tied up and held prisoner in a house for several days. Police speculate that Chohan, anticipating his own murder, used the letter in his sock as a way to provide police with a clue. 

Arturo Gallegos and Juan Gallegos-Rodriguez were hanging out at Arturo's apartment in Spokane Valley, WA, in early November of 2014 when they were shot at close range by an unknown assailant. When investigators searched the apartment, they found a journal kept by Gallegos. One of the entries helped to enlighten the police and led to the arrest of a suspect. While the murders occurred in November, the pertinent entry was written in July, four months earlier. On that occasion, Gallegos recorded the following:

"This morning my nephew Chris Ramirez knocked on my door and woke up, I opened the door, but I never thought he would come at me with a kitchen knife threatening me and saying he was going to stab me. I kept telling him that I hadn't done anything, that's when he started accusing me of being with his girlfriend."

No harm came to Gallegos that day, according to his journal. He was able to escape that time by locking himself in his bedroom. Local police have no record that he contacted them about the July incident. While that was not enough evidence to charge Ramirez with the murders, police were able to arrest him on an unrelated charge, so that they could hold him while the investigation continued. Later that year, Ramirez was charged with double homicide. 

South African teacher Cebisile Happiness Khoza went for a country drive with her boyfriend and fellow school teacher, Siyamamkela Odwa Nompumza. Their destination was isolated and on a quiet dirt road. It was there that Mompumza took a knife and brutally stabbed Khoza repeatedly, then doused her with gasoline and set her ablaze. He left the scene, confident that no one would have a clue as to what happened. He even had an alibi prepared for the police.

What Nompumza did not know is that as his girlfriend lay mortally wounded and on fire, she was able to scratch the first three digits of his phone number into the dirt road. This heartbreaking evidence enabled police to question and subsequently arrest her murderer. 

This one was the first of its kind: a blogger recorded what led to his and his sister's murder in his final post. It was 2005 and Simon Ng had been living in the United States for a while. Finding himself lonely, Ng enrolled in college courses and started his own blog. Then, one day, Simon and Sharon were found dead in their apartment, both stabbed to death. Without Simon's blog, police would probably still be searching for the murderer. It turned out to be one of Sharon's ex-boyfriends, a man named Jin Lin. 

On the day of the murders, Simon had blogged the following: 

“Anyway today has been weird, at 3 some guy ringed the bell. I went down and recognized it was my sister’s former boyfriend. He told me he wants to get his fishing poles back. I told him to wait downstair while I get them for him. While I was searching them, he is already in the house. He is still here right now, smoking, walking all around the house with his shoes on which btw I just washed the floor 2 days ago! Hopefully he will leave soon...”

Police speculate that it was only minutes later that Lin attacked Simon, stabbing him over and over in the chest with a kitchen butcher's knife. He then tied Simon up and began searching the apartment for money or anything of value. Disappointed with his findings, Lin lay in wait for Sharon's return. She arrived home at 9:30 and Lin immediately began stabbing her and returned to stabbing the bound Simon. Simon died at the apartment while Sharon died about an hour later in a hospital. Lin was convicted of the double murder in 2008 and is now serving a life sentence in prison without parole.