By Seamus McGraw
(Continued)
Shades of the notorious Easter Sunday Massacre
The details that have been released in the Wise case paint a picture of almost unimaginable mayhem, a inexplicable explosion of violence reminiscent of the notorious Easter Sunday Massacre in Hamilton, Ohio, a quarter-century ago, when James Ruppert II gunned down his mother, his brother, his sister-in-law and eight of his nieces and nephews after a holiday dinner in his mother's home. Ruppert's motive also remained a secret, even after he was convicted of murder in the deaths of his mother and brother, though he was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the other slayings. He remains in prison, next eligible for parole in 2015, when he will be 78 years old.
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| James Ruppert |
The Leola slayings also echoed one of the most heinous family massacres of all time, the 1896 mass murder at the McGlincy Ranch in Santa Clara County, Calif., when James C. Durham killed his estranged wife, breaking her neck, apparently with his bare hands, axed her mother and father, bludgeoned to death a family maid, and gunned down two ranch hands before escaping. Dunham was never captured.
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| James C. Durham |
Still another bizarre case, this time in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, is similar in some ways to the Leola massacre. George Banks, an unemployed security guard, one day shot to death his former girlfriends and the children they bore him, along with other innocent bystanders.
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| George Banks |
Wise, authorities say, proved far less elusive. Neighbors reportedly saw him come and go from the house after the slayings, and within hours of discovering the bodies, police arrested the young man.
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