Crime & Law

Surprising facts about true crime, historical scandals, law, and government.

Crime & Law Who is Robert Hanssen? April 30, 2021
Crime & Law Hundreds of thousands of people have, in fact, gotten away with murder. Based on UCR data, the US currently has 250,000 unsolved murders, a number that increases by about 6,000 each year. With a murder solve rate of about 62%, that means 38% of the time murderers walk away scot-free. April 26, 2021
Crime & Law The tobacco industry managed to shift blame of people falling asleep with lit cigarettes away from their products onto beds and sofas being too flammable getting the government to force flame retardants into all sorts of home products that now are linked to cancer etc. April 20, 2021
Crime & Law In 1998, a 10-year-old girl in Austria was dragged into a car and kidnapped. The case remained unsolved until she knocked on someone's door in 2006 saying: "I am Natascha Kampusch." She had just escaped the secret cellar of a local technician that abused her for 8 years. April 17, 2021
Crime & Law Police in Finland believe they have caught a car thief with the help of a dead mosquito they noticed inside an abandoned vehicle. Police saw that the mosquito had recently sucked blood and decided to send the insect for analysis, and the DNA matched the man on the Police Register. April 16, 2021
Crime & Law In 1991 a youth group in Denmark wrote to Gorbachev of Russia to ask for a free submarine. He said yes, and 3 years later they received a massive 76 meter (250 ft) submarine. April 10, 2021
Crime & Law The crime that led Sisyphus to push a boulder was cheating death. He made his wife not bury him properly before he died, chained death, and tricked Persephone into letting him briefly return to earth to scold his wife and ran away instead of returning to hell. April 6, 2021
Crime & Law Of the 22 people voted to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, 15 of them are are now either banned from FIFA for life, suspended, imprisoned, or fighting extradition to the USA to face federal charges. Only one still actually works for FIFA March 22, 2021
Crime & Law A US law firm set up honeypots on torrent-sharing site The Pirate Bay and then sued people who downloaded their torrents. The matter reached the FBI and the pirate site accepted to collaborate with the feds resulting in the crooked lawyers getting jail time. March 13, 2021
Crime & Law The F.B.I. and C.I.A. recruit heavily from the Mormon population because they are usually cheaper to do a security clearance on, they often speak another language from their mission trips and they usually have a low risk lifestyle. March 4, 2021
Crime & Law Apple's policy of refusing to repair phones that have undergone "unauthorized" repairs is illegal in Australia due to their right to repair law. February 14, 2021
Crime & Law The oldest method for pregnancy detection dated back 3500 years ago. Woman peed on barley and wheat seeds. If the seeds grew, she was pregnant. If the barley seed grew first it was a boy, otherwise a girl. If nothing grew she wasn't pregnant. The method turns out it's accurate 70% of the time! February 11, 2021
Crime & Law In 2014, New York City had $16 Million in unpaid parking tickets from foreign diplomats. The largest offender was Egypt, with about $1.9 Million. Diplomatic immunity is the main reason that those tickets remained outstanding. February 6, 2021
Crime & Law When Prohibition was enacted in USA, it took less than an hour for the first documented violation of it to happen February 1, 2021
Crime & Law Larry Hillblom, the H of DHL, regularly took "sex safari" trips to Asia to prey on underage girls. When he died in a plane crash, 4 of the illegitimate children he fathered were able to claim $50 million each from his estate. January 26, 2021
Crime & Law The people staying at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station over the winter have an annual tradition of watching "The Thing from Another World (1951)", "The Thing (1982)", and "The Thing (2011)" back-to-back after the last plane leaves for the season. January 25, 2021
Crime & Law Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has disdain for money and large wealth accumulation. In 2017 he said he didn't want to be near money, because it could corrupt your values. When Apple went public, Wozniak offered $10 million of his stock to early Apple employees, something Jobs refused to do. January 21, 2021
Crime & Law In 1991, a man broke into the Florida State Capitol & blockaded himself inside. His demands included pizza, beer, cigarettes, chinese food, weed, 666 donuts (for the cops) and phone calls w/ Ice Cube, Timothy Leary, & Lemmy from Motörhead. No demand was met, but the standoff ended peacefully January 18, 2021
Crime & Law The Exorcism of Emily Rose was based on real life events. Anneliese Michel suffered from Epileptic Psychosis as well as other mental disorders. She went through 67 exorcisms within a year and died of malnutrition. Her parents and priest were charged with negligent homicide. January 17, 2021
Crime & Law In 1986, two Russian airline pilots got into an argument over wether one could land the plane without vision. The main pilot pulled the curtains over the windows, insisting he could. Then, the plane missed the runway, flipped and killed 70 of the passengers January 12, 2021