Six real-life vigilante stories
When the law has failed, it's easy to sympathize with a person who takes justice into their own hands. The following accounts serve as a reminder of the depths to which personal trauma and societal horrors can drive individuals.
André Bamberski
For years, André Bamberski sought justice for the death of his fourteen-year-old daughter, Kalinka Bamberski. During the summer of 1982, Kalinka stayed with her mother and stepfather, Dr. Dieter Krombach, in Lindau, Germany. Her autopsy uncovered multiple injection marks, a torn vagina, and a white substance within her body. Strangely, no one had tested the substance, but someone had inexplicably removed her sex organs during the examination.
Dr. Krombach, a respected physician, faced only minimal questioning by the authorities. He admitted to administering a compound called Kobalt-Ferrlecit, which he claimed was for treatment, along with a sleeping pill. Later, it was revealed that he injected her with several other substances, including a dangerous combination of dopamine and Isoptin. There were even suspicions that Krombach might have been present during Kalinka's autopsy.
Months later, when André Bamberski, who lived in France, received the autopsy report, German prosecutors had already closed the case because of a lack of evidence. Bamberski hired a lawyer and started legal action against Krombach in France. The trial in absentia resulted in a conviction of involuntary manslaughter in 1995. Two years later, in a separate trial in Germany, Krombach confessed to drugging and sexually assaulting another 16-year-old patient. He received a two-year suspended sentence and lost his medical license.
The legal battle continued as the European Court of Human Rights annulled Krombach's manslaughter verdict in 2001, and they denied all attempts to extradite him to France for another trial. In 2009, Bamberski took extraordinary measures and orchestrated Krombach's abduction from Germany to France. Bamberski left Krombach chained to a fence near a police station. For this act, Bamberski received a one-year suspended jail sentence.
In France, Krombach faced trial for involuntary manslaughter. After additional victims testified that he had drugged them for sexual assault, the court sentenced him to fifteen years in prison. He was released after serving nine years on medical grounds in 2020.
Jason Vukovich
Born in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1975, to a single mother, Jason Vukovich's life took a dark turn when his stepfather, Larry Fulton, molested him. Fueled by a deep-seated hatred against those who had committed heinous acts, Vukovich targeted individuals listed on the local sex offender registry in 2016. The police found Vukovich in a nearby car with all the incriminating evidence they needed, including the hammer, stolen goods, and a notebook with his victims’ names, Charles Albee, Andres Barbosa, and Wesley Demarest, in it.
The authorities charged him with 18 counts of assault, robbery, burglary, and theft, but he ultimately took a plea deal. In 2018, the courts sentenced the “Alaskan Avenger” to 28 years in prison.
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Taking justice into your own hands-the aspects of vigilantism
Throughout history, individuals, groups, and organizations have taken matters of justice into their own hands. These are the common features and motivations that drive vigilante actions.
Gary Plauché
In February 1984, Gary Plauché faced an unimaginable nightmare when Jeff Doucet kidnapped Plauché’s eleven-year-old son, Jody, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and transported him to Anaheim, California. After Doucet had raped Jody multiple times, he allowed Jody to call his parents. The police traced the call, arrested Doucet, and returned Jody to his family.
In March 1984, Plauché pulled a .38 revolver and shot his son’s abuser with a hollow-point bullet into Doucet’s brain from three feet away. The judge sentenced him to seven years in a suspended sentence, five years on probation, and 300 hours of community service.
Gary Sellers & Robert Bell
In August 2007, the police in Helenwood, Tennessee, arrested and charged 53-year-old Timothy Chandler with the possession of child pornography. Chandler received five years of probation and had to register as a sex offender, but was then released on bond.
Two of his neighbors, Gary Sellers and Robert Bell, decided they didn’t want a pedophile in their town, and hatched a plan to frighten him away by setting the man’s home on fire. Chandler’s wife, Peggy, died in the blaze.
Bell pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and aggravated assault and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Sellers entered guilty pleas for the facilitation of second-degree murder and facilitation of arson. He received two concurrent twelve-year sentences.
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Portraits of six real-life vigilantes
In an ideal world, justice would prevail for every transgression. However, reality often falls short, and people resort to force and violence to exact revenge against those they perceive as wrongdoers.
Marvin Heemeyer
In June 2004, Marvin Heemeyer transformed a Komatsu D355A bulldozer into a menacing machine aptly nicknamed the “Killdozer”, and destroyed large parts of the town of Granby, Colorado. During this rampage, he ruthlessly demolished 13 buildings, leaving a wake of devastation amounting to a staggering $7 million in damages. Despite the menacing name of his vehicle and an arsenal of guns and rifles within it, Heemeyer's rampage only claimed his life.
The crux of his fury was the approval in 2001 for the construction of a concrete plant, zoned for a plot next to his property. Heemeyer vehemently opposed this decision and attempted to have the land rezoned to prevent the plant's establishment, all of which were rejected. Frustrated and weary from continuous bureaucratic defeats, Heemeyer sought vengeance against the town he felt had unjustly thwarted him.
Knights of Mary Phagan
In April 1913, the grim discovery of thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan strangled within the confines of an Atlanta pencil factory, shook the community to its core. Soon, the factory owner, Leo Frank, emerged as the primary suspect. According to popular belief, Frank, who had just fired Mary, murdered her after she refused his romantic advances.
Frank was charged with the murder and sentenced to death via hanging, but he maintained his innocence and appealed the verdict. In June 1915, one day before his execution, the Governor of Georgia commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.
This decision, though sparing his life temporarily, did little to quell the storm of controversy and tension that had engulfed the nation. In August 1915, 25 men formed a lynch mob, calling themselves the “Knights of Mary Phagan”. They stormed Milledgeville State Penitentiary, kidnapped Frank, and took him near Phagan’s home in Marietta, Georgia. The next morning, they hanged Frank from a tree.
Several decades later, a witness confirmed Frank’s innocence by claiming he’d seen Jim Conley, a janitor who testified against Frank, carrying Phagan’s body into the basement. Leo Frank had his name cleared in 1986 when the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles granted him a posthumous pardon.
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Wicked Justice is the second book in "The Empath Series", a paranormal suspense series about a reclusive empath rejoining the world and the people he left behind.
