A parking ticket, a forged will and a floppy disk all ended cases

How did a parking ticket end the New York shootings?

Six people were killed and seven wounded in New York in 1976 and 1977, from Donna Lauria to Stacy Moskowitz. After a witness reported a strange man near the last shooting, police checked parking tickets written in the area. One led to David Berkowitz’s car and his home in Yonkers. He was arrested on August 10, 1977.^1,2,3

Donna Lauria was killed in the Bronx on July 29, 1976.^1,2 After the fifth attack, on March 8, 1977, ballistics tests tied that shooting to her killing, and police concluded that one gunman was responsible.^1,2 Stacy Moskowitz was shot in a parked car in Brooklyn on July 31, 1977, and died of her injuries.^1,3

A witness came forward days later. She had seen a man with what looked like a gun minutes before the shots, and she reminded investigators that officers had been writing parking tickets on her street that night.¹ A search of the tickets turned up Berkowitz’s car, and police traced it to his home in Yonkers.^1,2

He was arrested on August 10, 1977.^1,2 He later pleaded guilty and was given six sentences of 25 years to life.^1,3

How did a forged will expose a family doctor?

Kathleen Grundy, 81, died suddenly in June 1998. A new will left her entire estate to her doctor, Harold Shipman. Her daughter, a solicitor, reported her suspicions to police in July 1998. A forensic document examiner judged the signatures forged, and Shipman was arrested in September 1998.^4,5,6,7

Kathleen Grundy died in June 1998, at 81.^4,7 She had enjoyed good health, and her death was sudden and unexpected.⁴ Her doctor, Harold Shipman, certified the cause as old age.⁴

A new will, sent to a firm of solicitors in Hyde very shortly before her death, left her entire estate to Shipman.^4,5,6 Her daughter, a solicitor, suspected forgery and reported it to police in July 1998.^4,5,7 The Inquiry records that she had drawn up her mother’s 1986 will, was suspicious of the new one at once, and visited two of Shipman’s patients whose signatures appeared on it as witnesses before going to police.⁴

Police quickly realized that the beneficiary was the doctor who had been the subject of a police investigation only a few months earlier.⁴ The Inquiry found that the earlier check had ended on April 17, 1998, with no action.^4,5 Shipman killed three more patients after it closed: Winifred Mellor, Joan Melia and Kathleen Grundy.^4,5

The Inquiry records that on August 26, 1998, police were told of a forensic document examiner’s opinion that the signatures on the will had been forged and that the will had probably been typed on a typewriter seized from Shipman’s surgery.⁴ He was arrested in September 1998 and convicted in January 2000 of 15 murders and of forging the will.^4,5,6

In its First Report, published in July 2002, the Shipman Inquiry found that he had killed 215 of his patients and that Kathleen Grundy was the last.⁴ It concluded: “The forging of Mrs Grundy’s will led directly to Shipman’s downfall.”⁴

How did a floppy disk lead to a church computer?

Ten people were killed in and around Wichita, Kansas, from January 1974, when members of the Otero family were killed, to 1991, when Dolores Davis was killed.^8,10,11,12 In early 2005, the killer mailed a floppy disk to a Wichita television station.^8,9

Before mailing it, he had asked police whether a disk would be traceable to a particular computer, and police answered with a classified newspaper ad saying it would be OK.^8,10 Police then found that the file on the disk had last been saved by someone named Dennis, and that the disk had been used at Christ Lutheran Church.^8,10 An internet search identified Dennis Rader as the church’s president.^8,10

DNA testing confirmed the identification, and Rader was arrested on February 25, 2005.^8,9 He pleaded guilty that June to 10 counts of first-degree murder.^8,11 On August 18, 2005, he was sentenced to 10 consecutive life terms.^11,12

What did an online order add in the Idaho case?

Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, students at the University of Idaho, were killed in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13, 2022.^14,16 In a March 2025 filing, prosecutors said Bryan Kohberger had bought a knife with a sheath and a sharpener from an online retailer in March 2022.^13,14 The filing says a search warrant obtained in April 2023 limited the records to two windows: March 20 to 30, 2022, and November 1 to December 6, 2022.^13,14

Prosecutors argued that his account activity showing the purchase made it more probable that the sheath found at the scene was his.^13,14 They also told the court they would rely on other circumstances, not the account activity alone, to connect him to the purchase.¹³ He pleaded guilty on July 2, 2025, weeks before his trial was set to begin.^15,16