MIKE GRACIA
On this day in 1973, a Senate vote confirmed Gerald Ford as
vice president after Spiro Agnew resigned to avoid being indicted for allegedly accepting bribes. Ford was the first
vice president to be selected under the terms of the 25th Amendment.
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Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr.
(born Leslie Lynch King Jr.)
(July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006)
On this day in 1933, a mob of people in San Jose, California, stormed
the jail where Thomas Thurmond and John Holmes are being held
as suspects in the kidnapping and murder of Brooke Hart, the 22-
year-old son of a local storeowner. The mob of angry citizens
proceeded to lynch the accused men and then pose them for
pictures.
Brooke Hart
The dead body of Brooke Hart.
Sheriff William Emig (left), suspect Thomas Thurmond,
and an unknown person are pictured.
John M. Holmes (center).
John Emil List slaughtered his entire family in their
Westfield, New Jersey, home and then disappeared.
Though police quickly identified List as the most likely
suspect in the murders, it took 18 years for them to
locate him and close the case.
John Emil List (September 17, 1925 – March 21, 2008)
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At the end of a sensational trial, former football star O.J. Simpson
was acquitted of the brutal 1994 double murder of his estranged
wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
In the epic 252-day trial, Simpson’s “dream team” of lawyers
employed creative and controversial methods to convince jurors
that Simpson’s guilt had not been proved “beyond a reasonable
doubt,” thus surmounting what the prosecution called a
“mountain of evidence” implicating him as the murderer.
On August 24, 1981, Mark David Chapman (above) was sentenced
to 20 years to life for the murder of John Lennon, a founding
member of The Beatles, one of the most successful bands in the
history of popular music.
On December 8, 1980, Chapman shot and killed the 40-year-old
singer, songwriter and peace activist, outside Lennon’s New
York City apartment building, the Dakota, where he lived with
his wife Yoko Ono and their young son Sean.
John Lennon (left) and Chapman minutes before the shooting.
