Thanks to tons of sloppily researched listicles and YouTube videos, most people think H.H. Holmes was America’s first serial killer. Far from it; by the time Holmes took his first victim, there had already been at least 10 earlier serial killers.

In fact, the first known serial killers in the U.S. were a pair of men known as the Harpe Brothers, and their crimes — some of the most brutal and psychopathic in American history — spanned decades.

Micajah and Wiley Harpe weren’t actually brothers; they were cousins. The older of the two, Micajah, was born around 1748; the younger, named Joshua but who would go by Wiley, was born about two years later. …

The year 2020 was, well…you were there. It started out with the entire continent of Australia on fire, and it went downhill from there. We had so many hurricanes we literally ran out of letters to name them with. And we were hit with a plague more deadly than anything we’ve seen in a century. Oh, and just to make it interesting, it was also an election year.

But one thing remained the same: people continued committing crimes. And some of those crimes were either so shocking or so influential we couldn’t look away. …

’Twas the night before Christmas, 2008. The Ortegas — Joseph, 80, and Alice, 70 — were hosting their annual Christmas party at their Covena, California, home, about a half hour east of Los Angeles. There were 25 people in attendance, including Joseph and Alice’s five grown children and their spouses and children. One of their daughters, 43-year-old Sylvia, had recently moved back in with them after a bitter divorce.

Sylvia had married Bruce Pardo in January 2006. Bruce was a volunteer usher at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, and everyone who knew him described him as outgoing and friendly, someone who liked to be the center of attention. …

The holidays are supposed to be a time of peace and family togetherness. But in 1987, nearly every member of the Simmons family — including the children — were slaughtered by Ronald Gene Simmons. He took the lives of 14 of his family members (and two of his former co-workers), making it the worst family massacre in US history.

Unlike the more sensational “civil reputable” type of family annihilator like John List, Simmons was the more common type: the “livid coercive,” a dominating domestic abuser who is threatened by losing control over his family. For Simmons, slaughtering his family was more about his need to possess them than to spare them from humiliation or poverty. …

As dawn broke on Oct. 28, 2020, investigators in Hernando County, Florida, began searching a cluttered six-acre property belonging to the Mansfield family. They brought in heavy equipment and a team of forensic anthropologists to sift through the soil. After several hours, they announced they had found human remains.

While the Mansfields’ neighbors were shocked and saddened, many were not surprised. The heavily wooded, junk-strewn property had been the final resting place of at least four other women whose bodies had been discovered in the spring of 1981. They, as well as another woman in California, had been the victims of Billy Mansfield, Jr., who is now in prison serving a life sentence for their murders. …

March 23, 1997, Port Coquitlam, British Columbia: An elderly couple driving on a rural road outside of Vancouver spot a terrifying sight: a woman, bloody and wounded, desperately flagging them down for help. A handcuff dangles from one bloody wrist.

The couple takes the woman, Wendy Lynn Eistetter, to the nearest hospital. Eistetter has been stabbed numerous times, to the point of being partially disemboweled. But she is, somehow, still conscious. She tells hospital staff, and then police, a harrowing story.

Eistetter had been engaging in sex work on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, in an area called the “Low Track.” The Low Track is the poorest postal code in Canada, home to an untold number of addicts, homeless, and the mentally ill. …

Dec. 29, 1977, East Sacramento, California: Fifty-one year old engineer and father Ambrose Griffin was unloading groceries in his driveway when he suddenly collapsed. His wife rushed to his side, thinking he may have had a heart attack. But it was soon apparent that Griffin had been shot.

At the ER, his wife remembered that just before he collapsed, she heard him yelling at someone, and then heard two loud pops.

Despite their best efforts, the ER staff couldn’t save Griffin’s life.

At autopsy, a .22-caliber slug was found still inside his body; they matched two spent casings found in the street near the Griffin home. …

After a long, grueling campaign season, and a nail-biting election, the news networks called the race for former Vice President Joe Biden Nov. 7. Biden has since given his victory speech, in which he urged those who didn’t vote for him to give him a chance. He has also begun assembling a coronavirus task force, along with other cabinet picks.

In normal times, this would be utterly routine, not even worth mentioning. However, these are not normal times. …