Major Crimes That Happened on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving crimes are their own strange autumnal tradition. Where most people regard Thanksgiving as a time for family, remembrance, and gratitude, others see it as a time for conflict, robbery, and even violence.

From Thanksgiving murders to holiday cannibalism, let’s take a look at the most notorious crimes committed on Turkey Day.

The Deer Stand Murders: A Thanksgiving Ambush in Minnesota

Laws regarding self-defense in your home vary by state. Most states consider lethal force in the face of the threat of death or bodily harm to be justified. 

You cannot, however, make your house appear empty and set up a position to shoot intruders you expect to break in. That is what Bryon Smith learned after he ambushed a pair of teenage cousins in his Little Falls, Minnesota, home on Thanksgiving Day 2012.

Smith shot and killed Haile Kifer, 18, and Nick Brady, 17, in his home, according to ABC News. The retired United States State Department security engineer was thorough in his preparation for the pair’s arrival. He put a chair between two bookcases, laid out a tarp, and packed extra ammunition. To pass the time as he waited, Smith read a book. He even had snacks and bottled water at hand.

Peter Orput, the county prosecutor, likened Smith’s set-up to a hunting blind.

“Some of you hunters will think this sounds like deer hunting,” Orput said. He pointed to a photograph of Smith’s basement, telling jurors, “That’s the deer stand, right there.”

Smith did not testify in the case, but his attorney told jurors in closing arguments that his client was frightened by earlier break-ins and was only defending his home.

Smith left the bodies in his basement a day before contacting the police.

Smith’s Explanation and the Recording That Undercut It

Sergeant Jeremy Luberts was the first to interview Smith after the killings. He wanted to know why Smith waited to notify authorities of the shootings.

“That one really sticks out in my head,” Luberts told Kare 11, recalling the interrogation. “And his answer. He didn’t want to bother us on Thanksgiving. How many people would not call right away if something like that happened?”

Smith seemed to be laying the groundwork for his attorney’s argument that he committed the murders out of fear. He spoke into a recorder he set up to record the event, saying, “I refuse to live in fear,” according to The Minnesota Star Tribune. 

The recording of the murders, available on YouTube, indicates more anger than fear. The tape records the loading of a weapon, the subsequent gunshots, a reload, and Kifer moaning, “Oh, God,” immediately after being shot. Smith told Kifer, “You’re dying,” as he shot her repeatedly. Kifer fell silent, and Smith called her a “bitch.” Smith paused, then said, “Cute. I’m sure she thought she was a real pro.”

Later in the recording, Smith said that he “had to do it” because law enforcement had not stopped previous break-ins to his home. He also expressed his view of the two dead kids. 

“They weren’t human,” Smith whispered into the tape machine. “I don’t see them as human. I see them as vermin.” Focusing on Kifer, he added, “This bitch was going to go through her life spoiling things for other people, thieving, robbing, drug use. It’s all fun, cool, exciting, and highly profitable until somebody kills you.”

Robbed at Gunpoint for a Thanksgiving Turkey

Emergency operators hear all sorts of frantic pleas on 911 calls. Perhaps none was more alarming and seasonally appropriate than the one made by Jimmy Mulligan to the Bridgeport, Connecticut, police on Thanksgiving Day, 2013.

“I was just robbed at gunpoint right there,” Mulligan explained to the 911 operator, according to NBC Connecticut. “They took my turkey.”

Mulligan was accosted on his way to a friend’s house for a holiday dinner with turkey and stuffing.

“Somebody came up behind me, pushed something in my back, told me to face the garage, give them my wallet, and let go of the plastic bag,” Mulligan told dispatcher Denny Viera.

The plastic bag contained the turkey and dressing. Officer Daniel Mendez investigated. He and Viera knew the prospects of getting Mulligan’s meal back were slim, so they decided to do something else.

They bought turkey dinners for Mulligan and his friend and delivered them to the friend’s house.

“When he gave them the meals, Danny said they were the happiest guys on earth,” Viera said.

Woman Eats Her Husband for Thanksgiving Dinner

Some people just do not like turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. Omaima Nelson made that abundantly clear in 1991 when, fed up with her husband, she killed and fed on him. 

The former model and nanny stabbed her husband, William Nelson, in the chest and stomach with scissors. She then beat him to death with an iron, according to Investigation Discovery. Omaima was in her 20s at the time, and her husband, a former pilot, was 56 years old.

Nelson followed up the killing by dismembering her husband’s body, including cutting off his head, hands, and genitals, according to the district attorney. She then boiled his head and hands, placing the head in her freezer.

This is the only confirmed case of cannibalism to take place on Thanksgiving.

Did Omaima Nelson Use Barbecue Sauce? The Disputed Detail

Nelson reportedly told investigators at one point that she dipped a portion of her husband’s body in barbecue sauce and tasted him. By the time of her 2011 appeal, she denied this claim.

“Of course she says that [she doesn’t remember] because the parole board doesn’t want to let a cannibal out,” Senior Deputy District Attorney Randy Pawloski said, according to New York Daily News.

She claimed her husband was abusive, including forcing her to have sex with other men in exchange for rent, money, and a car. Prosecutors at her trial, however, claimed Nelson had a history of manipulating men to get money and other valuables.

Former Costa Mesa Police Sergeant Bob Phillips led the investigation into the murder. According to the Los Angeles Times, at the time of her arrest, he said, “Omaima Nelson is the most bizarre and sick individual I’ve had the occasion to meet. No one needs to look to the Dahmers of Milwaukee or the Hannibal Lecters of the screen. A new predator has emerged, named Omaima.”

Nelson is eligible for parole in 2026.

A $648,000 Thanksgiving Wine Heist in Seattle

You might be getting the idea that murder is the only major crime committed on Thanksgiving. However, thieves are also active around the national holiday.

Two plumbers orchestrated the burglary of over 200 cases of wine valued at $648,000 from Seattle’s Esquin Wine Merchants in 2013. The perpetrators, Samuel Harris and Luke Thesing, used a copy of a master key they stole earlier to enter the store on Thanksgiving Day. The duo then cut through a sheetrock wall to access a secured storage area housing 450 private, climate-controlled storage lockers, according to The Oregonian.

According to Seattle Met, the pair spent 13 hours hauling the cases of wine to a Cadillac SUV to make their getaway.

The plan would have gone off seamlessly except for a few mistakes. For one thing, “The Plan” was the title of a document that Harris and Tessling created, laying out the heist in detail. Police found it during a search of Harris’s property. They targeted Harris when surveillance footage clearly identified his Cadillac SUV.

Along with The Plan, investigators found a kit for copying keys, a book entitled Thinking About Crime, and printouts of articles about committing crimes, including arson. The duo cut gas lines in an attempt to burn down the shop, according to The Drinks Business.

Mistakes That Exposed the Seattle Wine Heist

Harris was also caught on store surveillance video after the thieves failed to spray paint the lenses of all surveillance cameras. One got a clear picture of Harris. Store employees identified him as a customer who had rented a wine storage locker, according to The Seattle Times. 

Police also found receipts for items used in the theft. Investigators reviewed surveillance footage from the Lowe’s store where those supplies were purchased and saw Harris and Thesing shopping for them together. 

Courts sentenced both men after they pleaded guilty to their crimes in 2014. Thesing received a sentence of over five years. The court sentenced Harris, who was considered the mastermind of the scheme, to nine years in prison. He also pleaded guilty to stealing $250,000 worth of wine from a woman in Bellevue, Washington, in May or June 2013.

Pricilla Ford’s Deadly Thanksgiving Rampage

Thanksgiving, November 27, 1980, in Reno, Nevada, was a warm day. Tourists and locals alike swarmed the downtown streets. Some were window shopping while others were headed in and out of casinos, where a turkey dinner was on the menu.

Just before three p.m., a dark 1974 Lincoln Continental headed north on South Virginia Street suddenly accelerated. The vehicle jumped the curb in front of the Club Cal-Neva, plowing into a crowd of people at 40 miles per hour, according to the Reno Gazette Journal. 

The vehicle stopped about five minutes after the mayhem started. On the hood of the Lincoln was a shoe and a dying woman, according to  Nevada Appeal. The death toll ultimately reached seven. Five people died at the scene, one died later in the hospital, and another died a year after the tragedy. The driver injured 23 others.

Pricilla Ford, then 51, was pulled from the car and arrested. Her blood alcohol level was .162 – twice the legal limit. 

“It looked as though someone had gone through the streets with a lawnmower, mowing people down,” a Canadian tourist told the Reno Evening Gazette. “It looked like a battlefield—there were bodies all over the place.”

Ford asked officials how many people she killed. Authorities told  her, “five or six,” and she reportedly responded, “Good.”

Ford’s Mental Illness, Motives, and Conviction

Ford had been a “gifted teacher”, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, until 1970, when mental illness began to consume her. By 1980, Ford had been in and out of seven mental hospitals. Doctors diagnosed her as a paranoid-schizophrenic with violent tendencies.

Ford said she targeted Reno because child welfare caseworkers there had taken her daughter from her. Ford also claimed at one point that Joan Kennedy, then wife of Senator Edward Kennedy, had told her to commit the crime. She also claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus. Ford tried to sue Seventh-day Adventists and the Church of Latter-day Saints for half a billion dollars, contending that she was “America’s only authorized divinity.”

Ford was convicted on six counts of murder and sentenced to die in the Nevada gas chamber in 1982. At the same time, she was convicted on 23 counts of attempted murder and sentenced to a total of 460 years in prison.

Time ran out for Ford before the court could hear her appeals. She died of emphysema at the Southern Nevada Women’s Correctional Center in 2005.

Paul Merhige’s Thanksgiving Massacre 20 Years in the Making

According to Yahoo! News, Paul Merhige’s father barred him from their family’s 2008 Thanksgiving celebration. In 2009, Michael Merhige deemed it safe to invite his son to attend. Paul ended the festivities in three hours by shooting and killing four family members, including his cousin’s six-year-old daughter, his 73-year-old aunt, and his 33-year-old twin sisters, one of whom was pregnant with her first child.

According to Jim Sitton, who hosted the gathering with his wife, Merhige said, “I have been waiting 20 years to do this,” after he turned to walk away.

Paul, then 35, had displayed signs of violence toward his family since he was 20. He had been involuntarily committed to mental health facilities at least three times, according to the Palm Beach Post.

Merhige’s Decline From Honor Student to Psychiatric Crisis

Psychiatric professionals diagnosed Paul Merhige with severe depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder at age 19, conditions that left him unable to work. Before then, he seemed like a kid with a bright future. He was an honors student graduating third in his class at Gulliver Prep, an exclusive Miami-area school. He played football, baseball, and soccer, in addition to being a member of the French honor society. 

Merhige dedicated his senior yearbook page to his family. According to the Palm Beach Post, He thanked his parents for “all that you have given me”. He went on to express his affection for “all 32” members of his extended family, many of whom would witness his rampage on Thanksgiving Day 17 years later. Merhige wrote to the twin sisters he would later murder, “I have been so lucky to be blessed with having twin sisters and being your protective, older brother.”

The Mehige family is no stranger to domestic violence. According to NBC Miami, Paul’s aunt on his father’s side, Salwa Merrige-Abrams, shot her ex-husband and two children in 1973 before swallowing barbiturates, resulting in her death four days later.

The Unsolved Germond Family Murders

James Germond delivered milk from his Stanfordville, New York, dairy farm to the Borden Milk Company on Creamery Road almost every day — even holidays. According to the Poughkeepsie Public Library District website, company officials were puzzled when he did not make a delivery on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1930. Their puzzlement grew to alarm when he did not make a delivery the next day. So, they sent Willard Coons to inquire at the Germond farm.

According to Modern Farmer, when Coons arrived at the Germond farm, cows in the barn were mooing plaintively. He could hear the hum of a milking machine. He found the cows were not milked. Someone had left one cow hooked to the milking machine. 

“Hello,” Coons called out. There was no answer. He noticed the door to the wagon shed was slightly open and walked that way. Coons peered inside, and there were the bodies of James Germond and his 10-year-old son, Raymond. The body showed multiple stab wounds. 

Coons drove to the nearby farm of James’ brother, Paul Germond, to alert him, then back to report to Borden Milk officials. 

Paul Germond, his father-in-law, and A. J. Curry, a neighbor, went to the crime scene. The pair found James’s wife, Mabel, and their daughter Bernice dead on the kitchen floor. The killer had stabbed them both numerous times.

A New Theory Claims to Solve the Germond Murders

Police followed numerous clues, all of which led to dead ends. According to The New York Times, Dutchess County residents petitioned Governor Franklin Roosevelt, a resident of the county, to intervene in 1932. Governor Roosevelt directed the state’s attorney general to take over the investigation. A. J. Curry faced murder charges in March 1933. However, authorities dismissed the charges less than a month later when the prosecution failed to produce sufficient evidence.

Curry had served jail time for assault and was said to have an explosive temper.

The case is officially unsolved; however, Vincent Cookingham, Ph.D., thinks he has cracked the case. He is a distant relative of Sheriff Oakleigh Cookingham, who mounted the original investigation and brought charges against Curry.

Dr. Cookingham reviewed records and evidence in the case. In his book The Germond Family Murders: A Forensic Conclusion to a Cold Case, he argues that Curry was indeed the killer.