This day in History: Aug 23, 2006: Austrian teen escapes after eight years in captivity

Natascha Kampusch, an Austrian teenager who was kidnapped at age 10, escapes from her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, after more than eight years. Shortly after her escape, Priklopil committed suicide.

 

On March 2, 1998, Kampusch was abducted from a street in Vienna while walking to school. One of Austria’s largest missing-person searches followed, during which time authorities checked hundreds of white minivans after a witness reported seeing Kampusch being dragged into a white minivan.

 

 

Police interviewed Priklopil, the owner of a minivan, but didn’t believe he was a suspect. Kampusch was kept in a secret, windowless basement room at Priklopil’s house outside of Vienna, where she was physically and sexually abused by her captor. As time went by, she was allowed into the rest of the house and would cook and clean for Priklopil. He gave her books and a radio and she managed to educate herself.

Early in the afternoon of August 23, 2006, Kampusch, then 18, was vacuuming Priklopil’s car when he walked away from the noise to answer a call on his cell phone. Kampusch used the opportunity to escape and ran to the house of a neighbor, who called police. Several hours later, Priklopil, a communications technician in his 40s, killed himself by jumping in front of a train. Overnight, Kampusch became an international celebrity. She was articulate and seemingly poised, but hadn’t grown much or gained a lot of weight since her abduction. Kampusch initially made statements indicating she felt sorry for her captor, leading to speculation she was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Her mother later claimed that Kampusch carried around a photo of Priklopil’s coffin.

Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/austrian-teen-escapes-after-eight-years-in-captivity [23.08.2012]

This Day in History: Aug 22, 1933: The Barker clan kills an officer in their fruitless robbery

 

The notorious Barker gang robs a Federal Reserve mail truck in Chicago, Illinois, and kills Officer Miles Cunningham. Netting only a bunch of worthless checks, the Barkers soon returned to a crime with which they had more success—kidnapping. A few months later, the Barkers kidnapped wealthy banker Edward Bremer, demanding $200,000 in ransom.

 

 

After Kate Clark married George Barker in 1892, she gave birth to four boys: Herman, Lloyd, Arthur, and Freddie. Ma Barker, as Kate was known, was ostensibly responsible for discipline in the family, but she let her boys run wild. She defended her children no matter what they did, saying, "If the good people of this town don't like my boys, then the good people know what they can do."

 

 

 

All the Barker boys became involved in crime during their childhood: In 1922, Lloyd robbed a post office and received a 25-year sentence in federal prison; that same year, Arthur "Doc" Barker got a life sentence in Oklahoma for killing a night watchman, though later it would turn out that he was innocent; Freddie was next to see the insides of a holding cell after robbing a bank. While he was serving time in Kansas, Herman committed suicide in the midst of a heated gunfight with police after robbing a bank in Missouri.

 

Herman's death inspired Ma Barker to pressure authorities to release her other sons, and Doc and Freddie were set free. With Ma masterminding their criminal enterprise, the Barkers were at the center of the Midwest's burgeoning criminal community. When they tired of bank robberies, the Barkers tried their hand at kidnapping.

Their first victim, William Hamm, earned the gang $100,000 in ransom. Although the Bremer abduction in 1933 produced twice as much, it brought them a lot of heat from federal authorities. With the FBI on their trail, Doc and Freddie attempted plastic surgery. But this half-baked idea left them only with disfiguring scars, and Doc was captured in early 1935.

Doc, who was later killed while attempting to escape from Alcatraz in 1939, refused to talk to authorities, but police found papers in his hideout that led them to Ma and Freddie in Lake Weir, Florida. After a ferocious shootout lasting 45 minutes, the Barkers lay dead from the fusillade, machine guns still at their
sides.

Twelve years later, Lloyd Barker was finally paroled. He too met a violent demise, but not at the hands of the police—his wife shot him dead in 1949. Father George Barker, who was never part of the Barker gang, was the family's sole survivor.

 

 

 

Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-barker-clan-kills-an-officer-in-their-fruitless-robbery [22.08.2012]

This Day in History: This Day in History: Aug 21, 1911: Theft of Mona Lisa is discovered

An amateur painter sets up his easel near Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, only to discover that the masterpiece is missing. The day before, in perhaps the most brazen art theft of all time, Vincenzo Perugia had walked into the Louvre, removed the famed painting from the wall, hid it beneath his clothes, and escaped. While the entire nation of France was stunned, theories abounded as to what could have happened to the invaluable artwork. Most believed that professional thieves could not have been involved because they would have realized that it would be too dangerous to try to sell the world's most famous painting. A popular rumor in Paris was that the Germans had stolen it to humiliate the French.

 

 

Investigators and detectives searched for the painting for more than two years without finding any decent leads. Then, in November 1913, Italian art dealer Alfredo Geri received a letter from a man calling himself Leonardo. It indicated that the Mona Lisa was in Florence and would be returned for a hefty ransom. When Perugia attempted to receive the ransom, he was captured. The painting was unharmed.

 

 

Perugia, a former employee of the Louvre, claimed that he had acted out of a patriotic duty to avenge Italy on behalf of Napoleon. But prior robbery convictions and a diary with a list of art collectors led most to think that he had acted solely out of greed. Perugia served seven months of a one-year sentence and later served in the Italian army during the First World War. The Mona Lisa is back in the Louvre, where improved security measures are now in place to protect it.

 

 

Also Read: http://www.vanityfair.com/style/features/2009/05/mona-lisa-excerpt200905#
Taken from: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/theft-of-mona-lisa-is-discovered [21.08.2012]