This week (August 11-17) in crime history – First federal prisoners arrive at Alcatraz (August 11, 1934); Sunset Slayer accomplice Carol Bundy confessed (August 11, 1980); Jonesboro School Massacre shooters were found guilty (August 11, 1998); Charlie Wilson, part of the gang that pulled off the 1963 Great Train Robbery in England escaped prison (August 12, 1964); Yosemite Slayer, Cary Stayner was born (August 13, 1961); Terrorist Carlos the Jackal was captured (August 14, 1994); Mary Winkler, who confessed to shooting her pastor husband was released on bail (August 15, 2006); John DeLorean was cleared of drug trafficking charges (August 16, 1984); Serial burglar and rapist, “The Fox” struck in Brampton, England (August 17, 1984); Old West outlaw Billy the Kid shoots and kills first victim (August 17, 1877)

Highlighted Crime of the Week –

On August 14, 1994, terrorist Illich Ramirez Sanchez, known as Carlos the Jackal was captured in Khartoum, Sudan, by French intelligence agents. Since there was no extradition treaty with Sudan, the French agents sedated and kidnapped Carlos. The Sudanese government, claiming that it had assisted in the arrest, requested that the United States remove their country from its list of nations that sponsor terrorism. Sanchez, who was affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Organization for Armed Arab Struggle, and the Japanese Red Army, was widely believed to be responsible for numerous terrorist attacks between 1973 and 1992. In 1974, he took the French ambassador and 10 others hostage at The Hague, demanding that French authorities release Yutaka Furuya of the Japanese Red Army. On June 27, 1975, French police officers tried to arrest Sanchez in a Paris apartment, but he killed two officers in an ensuing gun battle and escaped. In June 1992, Sanchez was tried in absentia for these murders and convicted. On December 21, 1975, Sanchez and a group of his men took 70 OPEC officials hostage at a Vienna conference. They made it to safety with somewhere between $25 million and $50 million in ransom money, but not before killing three hostages. Sanchez claimed responsibility for these crimes in an interview with the Arab magazine, Al Watan al Arabi. In the subsequent trial that resulted in his imprisonment, Sanchez was represented by Jacque Verges, who had reportedly helped to organize a failed rocket attack on a French nuclear power plant in 1982. Verges was also accused of sending a threatening letter from Sanchez to the French authorities so that Sanchez’s girlfriend (possibly his wife), German terrorist Magdalena Kopp, could be released. He bitterly denied the charges.

Michael Thomas Barry is the author of numerous books that include the award winning, Murder and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California, 1849-1949 (2012, Schiffer Publishing). The book was the WINNER of the 2012 International Book Awards and a FINALIST in the 2012 Indie Excellence Book Awards for True Crime.