| 9 Aug 1969 |
Realizing that the lyrics to the Beatles song Helter Skelter prophetizes race war, Charles Manson sends members of his family to kill Sharon Tate. |
| 8 Dec 1980 |
Prompted by J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Mark David Chapman murders John Lennon outside The Dakota in New York. |
| 18 Jan 1983 |
After receiving instructions from a televised broadcast of the film The Magic Christian, Bruce Blackman shoots and kills his family. |
| 26 Oct 1984 |
19-year-old John D. McCollum kills himself with a .22 caliber handgun after spending the day listening to Ozzy Osbourne records. One year later, McCollum's parents file suit against Ozzy and CBS Records, alleging that the song "Suicide Solution" from the album Blizzard of Ozz contributed to their son's death. |
| 23 Dec 1985 |
In a school playground, James Vance presses a shotgun to his chin and pulls the trigger. He and cohort Raymond Belknap had forged a suicide pact while listening to Stained Class by Judas Priest. But where Belknap succeeded, Vance fails. The dumbshit lives, but it destroyed his face. He later uses his disfigurement to his advantage, terrorizing small children on his bicycle. Both kids' parents file suit against the band. |
| 8-Jul-1995 |
Inspired by a scene in the movie Warlock, 14-year-old Sandy Charles kills 7-year-old Johnathan Thimpsen in La Ronge, Saskatchewan, Canada. Charles then proceeds to boil strips of his victim's fat for a flying potion. |
| 19 Oct 2002 |
At his Toronto metal shop, artist Glen Soikie picks up a 12" adjustable wrench and bashes in the skull of Mexican musician Jorge Garcia-Briones. Evidently the pair had smoked some crack and then gotten into an argument about the 1978 horror classic Faces of Death. "Every time that fucking guy grabbed at me, I fucking hit him. He didn't stop fucking grabbing me." |