With nothing else to do for the evening, Valerie Casler was hanging out near a grocery store in Anchorage on Sept. 19, 2019, when a man with a foreign accent pulled up in a black Ford Ranger and asked her if she wanted to go for a drive. Casler, who was homeless and addicted to drugs at the time, climbed into the truck for what became an hours-long cruise through the city streets.
When the driver pulled over at a gas station and went inside to withdraw cash, she reached across the center console and pocketed his phone. Later that night, back at the tent where she was staying, she opened the phone and was horrified by what she discovered: dozens of graphic photos and videos of a naked woman being beaten and strangled in a hotel room that looked familiar to Casler.
"I had been up drinking and getting high for, like, two weeks straight," Casler, 52, testified about seeing the images in an Anchorage courtroom on Feb. 7. "And then I turned it on, and I was sober in less than five minutes." Casler downloaded the disturbing images on a memory card, which she later admitted she had stolen from a department store, and labeled it "Homicide at midtown Marriott."
Ten days later she turned the data over to police, unleashing an investigation that led to the arrest of a South African immigrant on suspicion of murdering two Native Alaska women. Investigators had analyzed the footage of a man boasting and taunting his victim. "In my movies," he says in one chilling sequence, "everyone dies. What are my followers going to think of you? People need to know when they are being serial-killed."
Denne historien er fra April 08, 2024-utgaven av People US.
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Denne historien er fra April 08, 2024-utgaven av People US.
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ACTOR ADAM PEARSON I Don't Think 'Why Me?" I Think 'Why Not Me
THE A DIFFERENT MAN STAR, WHO LIVES WITH NEUROFIBROMATOSIS, IS CHALLENGING HOLLYWOOD TO REFRAME DISABILITY
WHAT I KNOW NOW
NOW STARRING IN REBEL RIDGE, THE ACTOR GETS CANDID ABOUT CAREER LONGEVITY (54 YEARS IN THE BIZ!), FATHERHOOD AND SURVIVING LIFE AS AN '80S HEARTTHROB
STOUGHTON OR MURDER?
SHE WAS 23 AND EXCITEDLY EXPECTING HER FIRST CHILD WHEN SHE APPEARED TO TAKE HER OWN LIFE. NOW AUTHORITIES SUSPECT FOUL PLAY BY HER MARRIED POLICE OFFICER BOYFRIEND
JAMES MIDDLETON From Despair to Hope
IN AN EMOTIONAL NEW MEMOIR, PRINCESS KATE'S YOUNGER BROTHER OPENS UP ABOUT HIS STRUGGLE WITH DEPRESSION, LIFE WITHIN THE ROYAL ORBIT AND HOW HIS BELOVED DOG ELLA SAVED HIS LIFE
KEEGAN-MICHAEL KEY TAPPING HIS INNER CHILD
FROM PLAYING WITH ROBOTS AS A KID TO VOICING BUMBLEBEE IN TRANSFORMERS ONE, THE KEY & PEELE ALUM LOVES LETTING HIS IMAGINATION RUN WILD
Ina Garten I Learned to Believe in Myself"
IN A REVEALING NEW MEMOIR, THE CELEBRITY CHEF OPENS UP ABOUT ABUSE BY HER PARENTS AND A ROCKY PERIOD IN HER MARRIAGE TO HUSBAND JEFFREY: 'DEBILITATING FEAR TAUGHT ME ENORMOUS COMPASSION'
finding peace after loss
THE NASHVILLE ACTRESS'S YOUNGER BROTHER DIED UNEXPECTEDLY JUST AS SHE WAS WORKING TO OVERCOME DRUG AND ALCOHOL ADDICTION. HOW SHE'S PICKING UP THE PIECES, STAYING SOBER AND DOING HER BEST TO LOOK FORWARD
The Substance
Demi Moore is scarily good as an actress who drinks at the wrong fountain of youth
Tito Jackson of the Jackson 5 Dies at 70
A founding member of the iconic group, he last performed on Sept. 8
HALLMARK STAR ASHLEY WILLIAMS Honoring Her Mom On & Off Screen
Ashley Williams's new movie Falling Together didn't start as an homage to her mother, Linda, who died from dementia in 2016; it began with a failed apartment building-wide chili party she threw years ago.