A "HORRIBLE MISTAKE"
Regretful killer seeks help with time travel
UNDOING BAD THINGS
In 2016, Anna Repkina, a 26-yearold Muscovite, broke up with her boyfriend of seven years. The fun-loving Russian woman, a fan of rock music and cats, decided to join some online dating sites, and it was via one of these that she met William Hargrove, from Oregon, also 26 and a Russophile. Repkina decided to fly to the USA to meet and spend the Christmas holidays with him. She returned home after the 10-day trip having been given an engagement ring by Hargrove. She made plans to move to Oregon and marry him in 2017. However, she was unaware that Hargrove was also dating Michelle Chavez, from whom he was renting a room. Chavez was living with her husband in a loveless marriage, and was engaged in a passionate affair with Hargrove. When she learned of his marriage proposal to Repkina, Chavez was both shocked and angry. She pressurised him to end his relationship with the Russian, and issued an ultimatum: to choose between her and Repkina. Within days, Repkina was dead.
The day after Easter 2017, her body was found on a remote Oregon road. She had been killed by a single shotgun blast to the back of the head. Among the detritus at the scene, police found a KFC receipt which they were able to trace to Hargrove, who, in the days following Repkina’s death, exhibited some strange behaviour. Checks on his computer usage revealed he had been scouring the Internet for information on time travel. He had saved screenshots of web pages showing how to perform a spell enabling one to travel back in time. Records of Hargrove’s WhatsApp conversations also showed him asking for practical time travel advice. He told a friend that he wanted to correct a horrible mistake his “best friend” had made, saying that he needed to go back in time “to keep from losing the woman that should be my wife”. So desperate was he that he offered his soul as a reward to strangers on the Internet who might be able to help him.
Hargrove was caught on CCTV at a number of ATMs, withdrawing cash from Repkina’s account. One video recorded him making a $200 withdrawal from a machine at a gas station, then engaging its staff in conversation, during which he hugged one of them while crying that his girlfriend had left him. In total, he withdrew $800 from her account, with which he made a car insurance payment, went shopping at Walmart for Star Wars LEGO, and bought some cigars and sweets. He was found guilty of murder in October 2020 and faces a mandatory minimum 25-year-sentence. cbsnews.com, Independent, 30 Oct 2020.
DANCING WITH DEATH
A 23-year-old man from Springville, Utah, has been charged with murder in the first degree, as well as domestic violence in the presence of a child and unauthorised possession of a firearm. Mike Lopez is said to have shot and killed his mother with a shotgun, afterwards dancing with his 14-year-old sister beside the body. Police say that on 23 December 2020, Lopez walked into the dining room where his mother,Victoria Ramirez, 43, was sitting with his two sisters, aged 14 and 17. “All four were seated at the dining room table when (Lopez) pointed a shotgun directly at the victim,” the charges state. “Mike turned towards his 14-yearold sister and they gave each other a head nod.” The 14-year-old is then said to have locked herself in a bathroom while the 17-yearold remained outside the door.
Mrs Ramirez told her son, “I know you’re going to kill me, and I love you”, before Lopez fired a single shot which struck his mother in the neck and face, killing her almost instantly. The 14-year-old girl then came out from the bathroom and stroked her mother’s hair before Lopez
grabbed her arm and the two started dancing next to their dead parent.
The 17-year-old sister then locked herself in the bathroom, where she climbed out of the window and ran to call the police, who arrived to discover Lopez lying in a filled bathtub. While being told by a policeman he was under arrest for shooting his mother, Lopez told the officer: “Someone told me to do it.”
Police say Lopez had THC in his system at the time of arrest. The 17-year-old sister told police she believed Lopez had been providing marijuana to her 14-year-old sibling, and said her brother had “been acting really strange lately… he has been meditating a lot where he claims to go to different dimensions and talking about a lot of bad people.” She said he had bought a shotgun and a handgun the day before.
When police interviewed the 14-year-old girl, officers noted that she “was acting very strange”, telling detectives that she and her brother “have been together a lot lately and they take turns sleeping so they can watch over one another”. She also claimed it had not been her mother who had been shot and “did not show any emotion” during the interview. deseret.com, 4 Jan 2021.