Guy Hadleigh's Blog, page 3

The Telgi Scam

Unraveling the Web of Fraud

In the annals of Indian financial crime, one name stands notoriously tall: Abdul Karim Telgi. A man behind one of the most audacious scams India has ever seen, Telgi fabricated stamp papers at scale, defrauding the government, businesses, and citizens alike. This blog dives deep into how he orchestrated a mammoth counterfeit operation, the widespread repercussions, and the reformative aftermath that reshaped India’s financial integrity.

The Rise of Abdul Karim Telgi

Early Background and Entry into the Counterfeiting World

Born in 1961 in Karnataka, Abdul Karim Telgi's beginnings were humble. He initially ran a small printing business. However, his ambition quickly eclipsed norms when he discovered a loophole in India's stamp paper system—a government-regulated process that could be subtlety exploited with the right forgery machinery and bribed officials.

Launching the Stamp Paper Scheme

Armed with basic printing equipment and corruptible contacts, Telgi began replicating stamp paper—the legal adhesive paper used for agreements, court documents, property deeds, and more. His operations initially seemed small-scale, but they quickly ballooned as demand soared. Real stamp paper carried high costs and limited supply; Telgi made cheaper, more abundant fakes that circulated through pandits, vendors, and moneylenders, embedding themselves across transaction-heavy sectors.

Mechanics of the Stamp Paper Scam

Counterfeiting Operations and Network

Telgi’s scheme relied on a multi-tiered network. He acquired blank paper meant for stamp paper—often through forged documents or by exploiting insider...Read More

South Korea's First Serial Killer

Kim Dae-Doo

In just 55 days, he slaughters 17 people across the country. His execution ends the spree, but not the questions over how he slipped past police.

Kim Dae-doo, South Korea's first male serial killer, will go down in history not just for the sheer horror of his crimes, but for the chilling speed and brutality with which he executed his killing spree. Born on November 17, 1949, in the rural town of Yeongam County, South Jeolla, Kim’s life seemed destined to be ordinary—yet it was marked by poverty, family pressures, and a spiraling descent into violence.

The eldest son in a large family of seven children, Kim's early life was shaped by high expectations. His parents dreamed of sending him to a prestigious middle school in a large city, hoping he would break free from the grinding poverty of their rural existence. However, Kim failed his exams and struggled academically, fostering a deep inferiority complex. His inability to meet his parents’ expectations left him feeling worthless, and as his teenage years unfolded, his dissatisfaction with society grew. His failure to adapt to a life of respectability led him to petty crime. At just 17, Kim was arrested for assault and tampering with evidence—a sign of things to come.

Despite his troubled start, Kim briefly attempted to turn his life around. After his release from prison, he worked a series of menial jobs in factory settings, trying to make an honest living. However, his reputation as an ex-convict followed him, leaving him embittered and resentful. The closed doors of society only pushed Kim further into despair. He became increasingly alienated, a man set adrift in a world that had never embraced him. The yearning for revenge, for control, started to consume...Read More

Chilling Forensic Investigations That Inspired “Flesh, Fire & Code”

A Book Born from Crime Scenes and Cryptograms

Every fingerprint. Every drop of blood. Every misplaced word.

They all tell a story.

In Flesh, Fire & Code, the first in the True Crime Cases – Forensic Investigations series, readers are taken deep inside ten real-life cases where science, psychology, and justice collide. From scorched remains to biological traces and encrypted threats, the creator of this series delivers a vivid, investigative journey that blends storytelling with meticulous research.

Among the book’s most gripping chapters is the account of the Zodiac Killer and the rise of forensic linguistics—a field that forever changed how investigators hunt criminals.

The Zodiac Letters: When Words Become Weapons

In August 1969, three identical letters containing cryptograms and sinister boasts landed on the desks of San Francisco newspapers. Signed “This is the Zodiac speaking,” they weren’t just confessions—they were tools of terror.

In Flesh, Fire & Code, the writer details how these letters became a turning point for law enforcement, pushing investigators to consider language as forensic evidence. Every misspelling, every unusual phrase was scrutinized like a fingerprint in ink.

The Birth of Forensic Linguistics

Before DNA and mass data analysis, detectives faced a new kind of suspect: the written word. The Zodiac’s deliberate misspellings (“Christmass”), old-fashioned terms (“to wit”), and cryptic phrasing revealed far more than idle threats.

The book captures the tension and innovation of this period, showing how early forensic linguists used syntax, vocabulary, and spelling patterns to create...Read More

Top10 Cold Cases Solved by DNA

These Top 10 Cold Cases Solved by DNA showcase how forensic science and genetic genealogy have transformed justice. From deeply buried evidence to family tree matching, technology gives a voice to victims and closure to families—even decades later

1. The Golden State Killer – Joseph DeAngelo (1974–86)

One of the most notorious cases ever solved with DNA was that of the Golden State Killer, Joseph James DeAngelo. His crimes spanned California from the mid 1970s through the 1980s. In 2018, investigators used genetic genealogy—combining crime scene DNA with public ancestry databases—to trace familial links and eventually match DeAngelo via discarded items like napkins or a razor. He was arrested and tied to 13 murders, over 50 rapes, and numerous burglaries.

📚 The New York Times – How the Golden State Killer Was Caught

2. Murder of Anna Jean Kane (1988, Pennsylvania)

Pennsylvania's cold case of Anna Jean Kane, brutally killed in 1988, remained unsolved for decades. Using advanced DNA genetic genealogy in 2022, investigators identified Scott Grim as the killer. Authorities linked DNA evidence from the crime to relatives in public databases, leading to his arrest and resolving a mystery over 30 years old.

________________________________________

3. Nancy Marie Bennallack (1970, Sacramento)

Nancy Bennallack, a 28 year old court reporter stabbed to death in 1970, had no answers for over 50 years. In 2022, forensic genealogy pinpointed Richard John Davis as her killer. Though deceased by then, DNA from family members in public databases confirmed his involvement, bringing...Read More

Top 10 Bizarre Crimes From Around the World

True crime is often gruesome, sometimes tragic—but occasionally, it veers into the utterly bizarre. From military misfires to criminal monkey syndicates, these are the strange-but-true cases that sound more like fiction than fact. Here are ten of the weirdest crimes from across the globe.

1. The Great Emu War – Australia

In 1932, Australia declared war—not on another country, but on a population of flightless birds. Following World War I, Australian soldiers turned farmers found their wheat crops under siege by 20,000 emus migrating inland. Unable to stop the invasion, the government deployed soldiers with Lewis machine guns in what became known as the “Great Emu War.” Despite firing thousands of rounds, the emus proved too fast and too spread out to kill efficiently. The birds outran jeeps, scattered quickly, and even dodged bullets. After several failed attempts and only a few hundred confirmed kills, the military retreated, and the emus claimed victory. The event became a national embarrassment and a source of bizarre humor around the world. It remains one of history’s strangest military operations—a “war” where humans, despite advanced weaponry, were bested by oversized birds with no tactical training.

2. The Human Sausage Scandal – Germany (1900s)

In early 20th-century Berlin, whispers spread about a butcher shop that made unusually tasty sausages. But behind the savory flavor was something sinister. Fritz Haarmann, known as “The Butcher of Hanover,” was arrested in 1924 after years of suspicion. Authorities discovered that Haarmann had murdered at least 24 young men and boys—many of them runaways or vagrants. But what horrified the public most wasn’t just the number of victims. It was the widespread rumor that he ground their flesh into sausages and sold them to unsuspecting customers. Though this detail...Read More

Left Luggage Murders

LEFT LUGGAGE MURDERS – BODIES IN THE BAG CRIMES AND TRIALS

The suitcase was found at a London railway station. It contained the legs of a young woman whose severed torso had already been discovered. Top pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury was called in to join the search for a killerwho stored away his victim like pieces of unwanted property !

It was once suggested that the ideal place for a secret society to meet would be an open balcony overlooking a public square. The same kind of wild logic seems to inspire those murderers who use trunks for the disposal of the corpse. The ideal solution to the murderer’s problem would be to make the body disappear into thin air; next on the list, to hide it where it could never be found. Putting it in a trunk, where it is sure to be discovered is no way to conceal a murder.

The policeman and the pathologist, on the other hand, are bound to experience a certain satisfaction when a killer chooses this method of disposal. It gives them a sporting chance. For unless the murderer has the coolness and foresight of a master chess player, he is almost certain to have left a dozen clues that will eventually reveal his identity.

This was the view held by the Chief Constable of Brighton when, on June 17, 1934, he was called to the Brighton left luggage office to examine the nude torso of a woman that had been found in a plywood trunk. Railway clerks could recall nothing about the man who had deposited the trunk there on Derby Day, June 6th, the busiest day of the year. But there seemed to be an abundance of clues.

Sir Bernard Spilsbury examined the remains. They were of a young woman in her early twenties. The head, arms and legs had been removed; but the torso suggested that the girl belonged to the middle or upper classes. She had a good figure, with no slack flesh, and the...Read More

Macabre Crimes That Time Forgot

🌒 Macabre Crimes That Time Forgot: From Iron Boxes to Cult Butchers

When you enter the pages of Macabre: True Crimes & Mysteries, you’re not flipping through cold academic pages—you’re entering rooms where the walls still seem to breathe, where blood dried long ago but the shadows never quite left.

From Bangkok’s haunted canals to California’s delta marshes, these aren’t just stories. Below, we spotlight a few of the most unforgettable cases from Volume 1.

🛢 The Iron Box Killer (Thailand)

The water was supposed to wash away the sins.

Instead, it revealed them—sealed inside rusted iron trunks, floating like cursed relics through the khlongs of early 20th-century Bangkok.

In Thonburi, a “monk” named Boonpeng Buaklee claimed to offer divine blessings. What he actually gave his victims was death—slow, ceremonial, and deliberately grotesque. Upper-class women came seeking fertility and love spells. They left this world folded into iron coffins, doused in herbal ash, and dumped like cargo.

He was the last man beheaded in Thailand. But his real legacy? Fear.

Did You Know? Thai children still whisper about “Heep Lek”—the Iron Box—when telling ghost stories. He became shorthand for spiritual betrayal in a land where monks are meant to be sacred.

It wasn’t just the murders. It was where they happened—in temples, in shrines, under the guise of holy ritual. When faith wears the face of the killer, the entire culture flinches.

And some wounds never heal.

🎭 The Children of Thunder (USA)

California’s sunshine doesn’t bleach out madness. It hides it in plain sight.

In 2000, Glen Taylor Helzer—once a clean-cut Mormon missionary—decided God had spoken to him. Told him he...Read More

FORENSIC INVESTIGATION CASES

💉Blood, Bombs & Binary Clues: How Modern Forensics Speaks for the Dead

Every crime scene whispers a story. But it takes a forensic investigator to make it talk.

Late one night in small-town Indiana, a man in a bloodstained T-shirt made a frantic 911 call. In a Scottish pasture, a hunk of charred aluminum glinted beneath the December frost—remains of a plane obliterated midair. Across the ocean in California, DNA from a decades-old rape kit would unlock the identity of one of the most elusive serial predators in American history. And in Cardiff, a blood-soaked paper towel would hold the truth about a Valentine's Day massacre that sent three innocent men to prison.

These aren't just dramatic stories—they're real cases from Forensic Investigations: Flesh, Fire & Code, a gripping collection of true crime narratives where forensic science doesn’t just solve crimes… it resurrects the truth.

🩸Case #1: The Eight Tiny Bloodspots That Divided a State

In 2000, David Camm, a former Indiana state trooper, came home to a scene from a nightmare. His wife and two young children were dead in the garage. Gunshots. Blood everywhere. His call to dispatch sounded broken, panicked.

But something wasn’t right.

Crime scene techs noticed eight minuscule blood spots on the front of his shirt. Barely the size of pinheads. To the untrained eye, they were meaningless. To blood pattern analyst Rod Englert, they were everything.

High-velocity impact spatter. Gunshot mist. The kind of spray that appears when you're close—too close—to the trigger pull.

Camm insisted he simply cradled his son’s bleeding body. But the droplets seemed to betray him. Prosecutors clung to them like gospel. The jury believed the science.

He was convicted.

But that...Read More

Grimes Sisters Murders

Grimes Sisters Murders

Chicago, Illinois – Winter 1956–57

It was the week after Christmas, and Chicago had begun to freeze. The streets of Brighton Park glistened with crusted snow, lit by the orange flicker of gas lamps and the flickering neon of the Brighton Theater marquee. That night, December 28, 1956, two girls—sisters—stepped into the cold and disappeared.

Barbara Grimes was fifteen, her younger sister Patricia just twelve. Pretty, polite, and Presley-obsessed, the girls left their home around 7:15 p.m. to watch Love Me Tender—again. Their mother, Loretta, didn’t think twice. The Brighton Theater was only a few blocks away. The girls were good kids. This was 1950s Chicago, and nice girls didn’t just vanish.

They never came home.

The City Mobilizes

When midnight passed with no sign of the girls, Loretta reported them missing. The Chicago Police Department took the case seriously almost immediately. The city responded with what would become one of the largest missing persons hunts in its history. Block by block, officers questioned witnesses, swept alleyways, searched movie houses, and combed through vacant lots, rail yards, and rooftops.

Over 300 sightings flooded in. One woman claimed she saw the sisters boarding a CTA bus. Another thought she spotted them at a South Side restaurant. Truck drivers across state lines said they gave the girls a lift. A security guard in Nashville was sure he saw them buying Cokes at a diner. None of it held up.

The papers printed theories like ticker tape—rumors of a teenage runaway pact, a secret boyfriend, even hints of abuse at home. But Loretta pushed...Read More

Barrels in the Pines

Barrels in the Pines: The Bear Brook Breakthrough

Allenstown, New Hampshire – 1985–2020

The first barrel was found by a hunter. It was the kind of place you wouldn’t stumble across unless you knew the back trails—deep in Bear Brook State Park, down a gravel road and tucked in behind a long-forgotten brush pile. It was November 10th, 1985. Cold, gray light filtered through the trees. The barrel was rusted, partially tipped over, with something spilling out of the cracked plastic lid.

It wasn’t garbage.

Inside were the remains of a woman and a young girl, wrapped in plastic. Unrecognizable. Decayed. Their bones coming apart at the joints, skin reduced to leather. Blunt force trauma had crushed their skulls. No identification. No purse. No wallets. Not even names.

The girl was between 5 and 11. The woman, perhaps 23 to 33. They hadn’t just been murdered. They’d been discarded—sealed up in that barrel like waste, like someone didn’t want them found.

They wouldn’t be the last.

________________________________________

The Second Barrel

For fifteen years, the case sat in silence. State police entered the victims into databases. Local missing persons were compared. The barrel was examined. Nothing. No fingerprints, no known suspects. A woman and child, dead and nameless, buried together in the woods like forgotten ghosts.

Then came May 2000. Another barrel. Same location—Bear Brook State Park. Same kind of container. Same horror inside.

Two more children.

Both female. One between 1 and 3. The other around 2 to 4 years old. Small bones. Tiny teeth. Again, plastic-wrapped. Again, murdered by blunt force trauma. Same method....Read More