These 10 Famous Homicides In Massachusetts Will Never Be Forgotten

The upper torso of 19 year old Swedish au pair Karina Holmer was found in a dumpster in the Back Bay in June of 1996. She was last seen in the Theatre District earlier that week. The other half of her body was never located and the case remains unsolved.

On December 26, Michael "AotC" McDermott slaughtered seven of his co-workers at while working at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield. He used an AK-47 variant, a 12-gauge shotgun, and a .32 caliber pistol to shoot each victim in the back of the head. When police detained him, he calmly stated that he did not speak German. At his trial, McDermott claimed that he had been for without a soul and that God had offered to allow him to travel back in time in order to kill Hitler and the last 6 Nazis. He claimed that this is what he had done in Wakefield. However, it soon came to light that McDermott may have actually been motivated by the garnishment of his wages to pay IRS taxes.

Wayne Lo is a Taiwanese-born American who shot and killed one student and professor and wounded four people at Simon's Rock College of Bard in Great Barrington on December 14, 1992. A gifted violinist and excellent student, Lo was accepted to Simon's Rock College of Bard in 1991. While at the school, he presented himself as a hardened racist and openly spoke about his fascist beliefs. He also wrote an essay stating that the way to decrease AIDS was to segregate homosexuals in the United States.

Lo quickly became an outcast in school. Students reported that Lo had been stockpiling ammunition in his room and school officials even intercepted a package containing 7.62 caliber ammunition, but after searching his room and questioning Lo, residence director Katherine Robinson decided that he probably did not have any weapons on campus (Lo said that the ammunition stockpiled in his room was a Christmas present for his father). The night after the search, a student whom had recently had dinner with Lo called the school to report that Lo was armed with weapons and was planning on killing the Robinson family that evening. The Robinsons responded to the information by staying at the home of another school official, but no other steps were taken and police

That morning, Lo had in fact purchased a SKS semi-automatic rifle at Dave's Sporting Goods store. Around 10 pm that evening, Lo opened fire on the campus of the school. In an interview after his arrest, Lo stated: "The fact that I was able to buy a rifle in 15 minutes, that's absurd. I was 18. I couldn't have rented a car to drive home from school, yet I could purchase a rifle. Obviously a waiting period would be great. Personally, I only had five days left of school before winter break ... If I had a two-week waiting period for the gun, I wouldn't have done it."

On the evening of September 11, Brendan Mess, Erik Weissman, and Raphael Teken were murdered in Mess's apartment. All had their throats slit from ear to ear, with such great force that they were nearly decapitated. The murder weapon was likely an ice pick or knife. Left piled upon their mutilated corpses were heaps of marijuana and money worth many thousands of dollars. $5,000 in cash was left at the scene. The biggest twist? Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspects in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, was the best friend of one of the victims. Officials now believe he may have been the killer in this case. A number of suspects have been considered over the years, the most unusual being the unidentified "Lisbon Ripper", a serial killer who committed a string of similar murders in Portugal around the same time.

The New Bedford Highway Killer is an unidentified serial killer responsible for the deaths of nine women and the disappearances of two additional women in New Bedford, Massachusetts, between July 1988 and June 1989. All of the killer's victims were known prostitutes and or substance abusers and their bodies were all recovered along the highway. Though authorities have not been able to tie all the deaths to one individual using forensics, the timing and location of all recovered bodies suggests a single killer.

Perhaps the most well-known of homicides in Massachusetts, the murders at the Borden estate in Fall River have endured in the collective memory of Massachusetts for over 100 years. On the morning of August 4, 1892, Abby and Andrew Borden were murdered in their home by an unknown person, though the popular sentiment was (and remains) that the killer was their own daughter, Lizzie Borden. Both victims were killed by hatchet-like blows to the head. Though she was ultimately acquitted, peculiarities in the evidence and Lizzie's own testimony cast the shadow of suspicion over her for the rest of her life. She remained a resident of Fall River until her death in 1927 at the age of 66.