The Christmas period makes most of us go a little bit crazy at times, but it pushed these people to commit crimes related to the holiday.
1. When Ohio police pulled over a BMW on Christmas Eve in 2012, they saw the boot was packed with presents, which the driver of the car was supposedly dropping off to a nearby family. However, the beautifully wrapped gifts didn’t contain toys but almost 13kg of marijuana, worth around $336,000!
2. On Christmas Day 1893, Adelaide businessman Henry Oxley and his family were found dead. The walls were covered in blood, with Oxley lying on his bed with a razor in his hand. His wife and children had horrific head wounds. Carollers were initially suspected of the crime, but police eventually determined that Oxley murdered his family, before taking his own life due to being in debt.
3. On Christmas Eve in 2008, Bruce Pardo (above) put on a Santa suit and drove to his in-laws’ house in California, where he killed nine family members, including his ex-wife. He then sprayed 18 litres
of petrol into the home and set it alight, leaving a booby-trapped car outside his divorce lawyer’s house, before taking his own life.
4. A nativity donkey in Andalusia, Spain, was fatally injured in 2014 after a 146kg man climbed on its back to pose for photos. The man faced court, but the case was thrown out by the judge.
5. On Christmas Eve 1945, five children from the Sodder family (above) in West Virginia disappeared and were never seen again. Their father George claimed they were kidnapped by the Sicilian mafia as retaliation for his outspoken views. The family erected a billboard offering a reward for information. It remained in place until the children’s mother’s death in 1989.
6. Between 24 and 26 December 1992, six people were killed in one of Ohio’s worst-ever mass murders. The killers, who ranged in age from 16 to 20, shot victims over three days on their spree. Police caught them and one received the death penalty.
7. In 2010, Seattle-based Shon Shanell, 24, tried to convince police he was Santa after attempting to break into a house via a chimney. The only problem? He was naked and got stuck. When he was finally released by emergency workers, he was arrested and sent to prison.
8. In 2011, Michelle O’Dowd, 67, offered her friend Patti White, 41, a place to stay in her Florida home over the Christmas holidays. But when Michelle failed to turn up to work for her shift, her brother discovered her dead body under the Christmas tree, buried under piles of gifts. White (below) was sentenced to 45 years in jail for the killing.
9. In 1788, a makeshift colony of convicts and marines experienced their first Christmas in Australia. When prisoner Michael Dennison stole a pound of flour, he was sentenced to 200 lashes of the whip. But the Christmas spirit prevailed – only 150 lashes were delivered instead.
10. One Ohio man took Christmas decorating to another level in 2011. After getting high on bath salts, he broke into his neighbour’s home and decided to adorn it with Christmas decorations, before police found and arrested him.
11. Adolph Theodore Laudenberg became knowns as the “Santa Strangler” because of his resemblance to Father Christmas. After murdering women in LA and San Francisco during the 1970s, he was only arrested when he confessed to his daughter-in-law three decades later.
12. The 2012 annual Christmas parade in Ontario, Canada, took a turn for the worse. An intoxicated 24-year-old man in the crowd loudly announced, “Santa isn’t real!” Children were horrified and police arrested him for causing a disturbance and public intoxication.
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