Piece Of Art

A new tragedy has hit Virginia Tech. Authorities are stepping up patrols near an area of Jefferson National Forest where two VA Tech students were found slain, during this first week of school. A man walking his dog in the forest's parking lot section of the Caldwell Fields area, Blacksburg, Virginia, early Thursday, August 27, 2009, found the bodies. They were 19-year-old David Lee Metzler of Lynchburg and his girlfriend 18-year-old Heidi Lynn Childs of Forest. When deputies arrived they found Metzler's body sitting in his car (a 1992 blue Toyota Camry), while Childs's body was on the ground nearby. The gravel parking lot of the campground and wildlife viewing area is popular among Virginia Tech students. A suspect has not been identified. Metzler was a sophomore industrial and systems engineering major and Childs, a sophomore biochemistry major. Caldwell Fields is a peaceful area away from the hustle and bustle of campus life, a hangout site for students, especially on t...

The reign of terror ranks up there with Jack the Ripper's, but few today have heard of the decapitating legacy of the "Mad Butcher." January 26, 1936 On this day 73 years ago, police found the third dismembered victim of the so-called Mad Butcher, sparking a citywide panic in Cleveland. The body of Florence Polillo, 42, was discovered in a basket and several burlap sacks behind a downtown business. Like the others, she was beheaded and cut with precision. The official count is 12 victims between 1935 and 1938, although the lead Cleveland detective believed the Mad Butcher could have been responsible for more than 40 deaths around Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Youngstown, Ohio. The victims were usually drifters whose identities were never determined. Sometimes the torso was cut in half; in many cases, the cause of death was the act of decapitation itself. One suspect, an actual butcher named Frank Dolezal, was interrogated for 40 straight hours until he confessed to killing Po...