Hardest Filicide: The Ultimate Crime Trivia Quiz | Criminals

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Plano, Texas, November 22, 2004, an 11 month old girl was murdered by her mother who cut off her arms in a "religious frenzy." What is the name of this unfit mother?

Answer: Dena Schlosser

Dena believed that God had ordered her to cut off her daughter's arms, then her own, because she saw a news report about a boy being mauled by a lion and took it as a sign of the apocalypse. Dena was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to the North Texas State Hospital.

2. Andrea Yates committed a horribly regrettable crime when she drowned her five children in a bathtub in her Texas home. When did this tragedy occur?

Answer: June 20, 2001

Andrea was sentenced to life in prison on March 12, 2002. She would have been eligible for parole in 2041, but she was given a retrial based on the fact that the prosecutors used the argument that Andrea got the idea to kill her children from an episode of "Law and Order", which was later found to be non-existant.

She was found not guilty by reason of insanity in her new trial on July 27, 2006.

3. According to evidence given by Andrea Yates' defense, what form of neurosis had Andrea suffered with?

Answer: All of these

In her original trial the evidence that she had suffered from hallucinations and at times near catatonia, may have been supressed. She had even been prescribed anti-psychotic drugs before the killings. Unfortunately, the help and treatments she received were not adequate enough to prevent the deaths of five innocent children: Noah, 7 years, John, 5 years, Paul, 3 years, Luke, 2 years, and Mary, 6 months.

4. The bodies of five family members were discovered December 7, 1970 in their three-story Victorian mansion, in Westfield, New Jersey, as a phonograph of church organ music played in the background. The father of the family, and the man responsible for their deaths, evaded capture for 19 years. What is his name?

Answer: John List

John List meticulously planned the murders of his wife, Helen, his daughter, Patricia, 16, and his two sons, John Jr., 15, and Frederick, 13. His 85 year-old mother, Alma, who lived with the family, was also shot with the gun he purchased just two months before.

His crime and planned escape was so well premeditated that he arranged a "vacation" for his family so that friends and the children's schools would not miss them for weeks and he would have plenty of time to start his new life. He took the name Robert C. Clark, moved to Denver and even remarried.

He was eventually recognized after being profiled on "America's Most Wanted" and arrested in Virginia on June 1, 1989.

5. Perhaps one of the worst cases of serial infanticide prosecuted can be attributed to Sabine Hilschenz. In July 2005, nine infant corpses were found in flower pots, dirt filled aquariums and buckets on the patio and in the garage of her mother's home. In which country did this occur?

Answer: Germany

Sabine Hilschenz of Brandenburg in rural Eastern Germany (and her husband-though he was never charged) allowed her first three children to live. She apparently carried and gave birth to the additional nine children over the next 11 years while living with her husband and three living children.

They all claimed to not have known she had been pregnant; she claimed to have been too intoxicated on alcohol to remember the births. When she was arrested she was no longer living with her husband and three oldest children, but had a toddler by another man and was pregnant yet again.

She was found guilty of eight counts of second degree murder and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

6. Ronald Gene Simmons was found guilty in what many consider to be the worst family massacre in American history. Days after Christmas in 1987 it was discovered that he had murdered his seven children, four grandchildren, his wife and his children's spouses. Their bodies were discovered after Simmons went to town and shot six strangers, killing two. In which state did this happen?

Answer: Arkansas

Russellville, Arkansas was the town where the final two killings took place; the family was murdered 15 miles away in a remote area where some of the family lived in two mobile homes that had been put together and fortified with barbed wire and "No Trespassing" signs.

The rest of the family had brought their spouses and children to the home for a Christmas gathering. A total of 14 family members died, from his two infant grandsons to his 47-year-old wife. He was put to death by lethal injection June 25, 1990.

7. Matthews, North Carolina, January 20, 2006, a father who was home from work on medical leave due to depression fatally stabbed his twin five-year-old daughters when his wife left to get a hair-cut. What is this murderer's name?

Answer: David Crespi

Crespi was seeing a therapist and was on anti-depressants at the time of the murders, but that obviously was not enough to keep little Samantha and Tessara from his dark intentions. He explained to investigators that he felt that he was incapable of providing for his family and he figured that if he killed his twin daughters he would no longer be expected to do so. I think the best question asked of this man was asked by Oprah Winfrey when she interviewed him: "Why didn't you just kill yourself?".

8. This top ranking Nazi general murdered his six children, aged 4 through 12, with the help of his wife, just before the couple committed suicide as Soviet troops approached the secret bunker they shared with Hitler. What is his name?

Answer: Joseph Goebbels

May 1, 1945, Magda and Joseph Goebbels first told their children that they were being given a vaccine, then they were administered morphine to sedate them, then finally they were given cyanide. Their parents decided it was better they die than live and be branded as the children of one of the worst killers in the 20th century.

9. Schenectady, New York was the home of Marybeth Tinning, her husband and her children, before they died one by one. Nine children died in total. The eldest died at four-years-old, her brother at two, their adopted brother at two, and all six of the others died in infancy. What time period was cursed with these evil acts?

Answer: 1972-1985

It was believed by the doctors of these children that they had inherited a genetic disorder that was causing the "seizures" that Marybeth described. Then the two-year-old child they adopted died just prior to her eighth natural child being found blue at five months old and it became obvious that there was something far more sinister going on.

She was found guilty of second degree murder for only the last of her children, Tami Lynne, though the prosecution reserved the right to pursue charges in the deaths of some of her other children.

She was sentenced to 20 years to life.

10. This famous professional wrestler killed his wife, Nancy, then his seven-year-old son, Daniel, on June 23, 2007. He later hanged himself in their Fayetteville, Georgia home. What is his name?

Answer: Chris Benoit

It was determined that Benoit first strangled his wife, then the next day he sedated his son with Xanax and smothered him with a pillow. The medical examiner found no evidence that Benoit was using steroids at the time, but it was probable that he had previously.

I hope you found this quiz to be an adequate reflection on this most terrible of subjects, and I have faith that our society will learn to recognize warning signs better, react sooner, and offer compassion before evil events like these have a chance to occur.

Source: Author Leah457

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor DakotaNorth before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Filicide: The Ultimate Crime Trivia Quiz

The crime of filicide refers to killing one's children. By not forgetting these horrible events, perhaps as a society we can come to a mass concensus on a way to prevent them. I hope this can be considered my contribution.

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