This is not a crime, per say, but an interesting true story of surrogacy gone wrong. In 1985, Mary Beth Whitehead agreed to be a surrogate mother for Bill and Betsy Stern by artificial insemination. On March 27th, 1986, "Baby M" was born. Mary Beth decided she wanted to keep the baby, whom she called "Sara", while the Sterns named her "Melissa". She ended up kidnapping the baby during a long custody battle. The Sterns were awarded custody of Melissa, and Betsy Stern was allowed to adopt her. However, Betsy Stern's adoption of the baby was overturned by the Supreme Court of New Jersey and Mary Beth Whitehead was allowed visitation rights. When Melissa turned 18, she terminated Mary Beth's parental rights and formalized Betsy Stern's maternity through adoption proceedings.
In 1988 he case was turned into a movie, Baby M, starring JoBeth Williams as Mary Beth Whitehead, John Shea as Bill Stern and Robin Strasser as Betsy Stern.
JoBeth Williams as Mary Beth Whitehead
John Shea and Robin Strasser as Bill and Betsy Stern
This movie is very emotionally gripping. You feel for Mary Beth and you feel for the Sterns. I recently ordered a VHS copy on Amazon. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate any sites you could watch this movie online, but here is a preview of the movie.
They look like a couple of normal, good looking kids, right? Wrong. They are Canadian serial killers. Karla Homolka was convicted of manslaughter in the rape-murder of two teenaged girls, Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French. Paul Bernardo was convicted of the murders and admitted to having raped numerous women. They were also responsible for the rape-murder of Karla's younger sister Tammy. Karla was given a plea bargain in exchange for testimony against her husband, and served 12 years in prison. There was also evidence that Paul emotionally and physically abused Karla, though why she never tried to leave is a mystery.
The 2006 movie Karla tells the story from Karla's point of view and stars Laura Prepon as Karla and Misha Collins as Paul.
Audrey Marie Hilley (born Audrey Marie Frasier, June 4, 1933 - February 26, 1987) was convicted of using arsenic poisoning to kill her husband Frank and attempting to poison her daughter Carol the same way for insurance money.
Elisabeth Anne "Betty" Brodericknée Bisceglia (born on November 7, 1947 in Eastchester, New York) is a former San Diego socialite convicted of the November 5, 1989 murder of her former husband Dan Broderick and his second wife, Linda Kolkena. After a second trial, she was convicted on December 11, 1991 of two counts of second-degree murder, and later sentenced to 32 years to life in prison. (From Wikipedia)
