Mark Riebe
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| “ | I slipped my knife out of my pocket and popped it open real quick and I grabbed her. She made, it wasn't what you'd call a real loud scream but she made some noise. I told her to shut up, if she made another sound I'd kill her right there and then. | „ |
| ~ Mark Riebe confessing to the murder of Pamela Ray. |
Mark Riebe is an American criminal currently serving a life sentence in Blackwater River Correctional Facility in Florida for the murder of Donna Callahan. While in prison he confessed to twelve other unsolved murders, but later retracted these confessions and claimed that the US government had tricked him into confessing. He still maintains that he is innocent.
Crimes edit
Donna Callahan edit
In August 1989 Mark Riebe and his brother Alex Wells abducted a young woman named Donna Callahan from a convenience store in Florida. Callahan was pregnant with her second child at the time and begged to be let free. The exact details are unclear, but what is known is that Callahan was strangled to death in the back of the car as the two of them drove away. The brothers then buried her in a shallow grave nearby.
After the victim's father petitioned the US president himself, a special taskforce was formed to solve Callahan's disappearance. For seven years the case went unsolved, until finally Alex Wells confessed his involvement but said Mark had killed her. He led police to the body, buried just 350 yards away from Riebe's home. Both brothers were convicted of murder, with Riebe pleading guilty to murder to avoid the death penalty. He received a life sentence.
Other crimes edit
Over a period of four years, starting just months into his sentence, Riebe confessed to the murders of twelve women aged between thirteen and thirty-five. One of the women, Bonnie Ryther, was killed when Riebe was just seventeen. She was his first victim. Another victim, a fourteen-year-old named Andrea Durham, was a friend of Riebe's daughter.
Most notably, a year into his sentence Mark Riebe made a phone call to the father of a missing woman named Pamela Ray and confessed that he had abducted her from a motel car park and killed her. He gave details of the murder and of other murders that only the killer could possibly know. He later retracted all of these confessions and denied he was guilty, a position he reaffirmed during a 2017 interview with journalist Piers Morgan.
Trivia edit
- Riebe has been married four times. He cheated on all his first three wives, before being cheated on by his fourth in what he claims to believe was karmic justice.