Natasha Leigh

 A couple going through a “somewhat” bitter but escalating divorce led to a devastating double murder-suicide during the early hours of June 6th 2017. Carola and Miguel Arnau had been married for around ten years with two young children when Carola filed for divorce on February 22nd 2016. She described the marriage as “irretrievably broken”. Just a year later, Carola filed for a protection from abuse order accusing Miguel of “inappropriate contact” with their four-year-old son. The claim was dismissed as unfounded by Children and Youth Services. During this time, Miguel’s parental rights were temporarily suspended. All rights were restored on April 4th after Carola withdrew the protection order. Miguel would then sue for custody of the children, being granted a temporary order giving him shared custody. They split care every other weekend and after school until 7 pm. By April 20th, Miguel would drop the complaint against Carola, stating they would resolve the issues privately. On J...

Sentenced to 30 years for murdering her two kids out of fear they would be taken away because of her boyfriend's paedophilia charges. Lianne Smith had become fearfully obsessed with the thought her two youngest children, Daniel (11 months) and Rebecca (5 years), would be taken from her custody by social services. Her fear stemmed from her partner's police questioning in 2007 in regard to sexual abuse allegations made by her oldest daughter from another relationship. Right after the questioning, Lianne and her partner, Martin Smith, took Rebecca and fled to Barcelona. For the next few years, British police were unable to track down Martin for arrest that was until May 2010. Martin was deported back to the UK for trial, getting sentenced to 16 years in jail for 11 counts of rape, attempted rape, indecency with a child and indecent assault. Sarah, Lianne's biological daughter, waved her anonymity to share her story of abuse. It all began in May 1995 when she was 7. She said th...

A family of criminals that terrorised villages in Russia despite being a successful family. The ‘Gang of Amazons’ were a family of six that committed robberies and murders as and when they pleased over a span of six years, from 2007 to 2013. They lived in Divnaye, a small village in the centre of Apanasenkovsky District in Stavropol, Russia and they would say they were going on camping trips as a guise for their crimes. The matriarch of the family — Inessa Tarverdiyeva — was a successful nursery school teacher. It’s rumoured that she had a former lover leave her for another woman, he worked as a policeman in the area and it’s said his leaving fueled her extreme hatred of anything law enforcement related. The patriarch of the family — Roman Podkopaev — was a registered dentist. He was also the prime suspect in the suspicious death of Inessa’s first husband, they married shortly after his death. Inessa’s daughters from her first marriage were also involved in the crime spree. Her eldest ...

  A late-term fetus washed up from the San Francisco Bay shortly after so did his mom, their discovery led to the arrest of the least likely person. Laci Denise Rocha was born on May 4th 1975 to loving parents Sharon and Dennis Rocha. She was expected to be raised on the family's dairy farm just west of Escalon, California. Laci and her older brother would help out around the farm from young ages, enjoying the little jobs they did to help their parents. Laci especially enjoyed gardening with her mom. While the kids were both under ten, Sharon and Dennis divorced with Sharon taking the kids and moving to Modesto. They would visit their dad and the farm every weekend. Sharon would remarry and have two children with a man called Ron Grantski, who would play a big role in raising Laci and her brother. In junior high, Laci would find cheerleading. A sport that led to a supportive group of friends and a budding social life that followed her until she graduated high school. Soon after gra...

 How can an entire household get brutalised overnight and nobody for the next 110 years has solved it? At the end of a quiet street in Villisca, Ohio stood a white-panelled family home. During the daytime it sounded like the usual young family household, kids would be laughing and screaming as their parents watched them with loving gazes. It was one of those days when the kids were running wild with a couple of their friends, enjoying the promise of a sleepover. The night came, as it did every other day, and the house went silent as the inhabitants settled into their respective beds. Josiah (43) and Sarah Moore (39) were upstairs in their room whilst their four children slept down the hall from them. Herman Montgomery (11), Mary Katherine (10), Arthur Boyd (7) and Paul Vernon (5) all shared the room barely able to hold their eyes open from a day of excitement. Downstairs the pair of friends had settled into the guest room, Ina May (8) and Lena Stillinger (12) were alon...

What leads a person to kill their entire family and then go on a SCUBA tour in Mexico? Is it shame, guilt or something that no one other than the killer could understand? On December 19th, 2001 in Waldport, Oregon a team on a fishing boat were out on the Alsea river when they discovered a floating pale corpse on the water. It was clear to them that it was a child because of its small stature. The fishermen called the police who were instantly at the scene. They would discover that the body was that of a young boy, around 3 or 4 years old, dressed in only his underwear. They couldn’t find any clear injuries or signs of his cause of death but it was clear that in life he was cared for just from his appearance he was well-fed and healthy. The police initially believed that the boy had just walked into the water and sadly drowned. At first, the police waited for his carers to report him as missing but when that report never came, they had to take matters into their own hand...