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manwithacamera.com.au / Alamy Stock PhotoMark Chopper Read was one of Australias most controversial celebrities.Mark Chopper Read was a walking contradiction: a violent criminal who became a bestselling author, a man who openly claimed to have killed 19 people yet was never found guilty of murder, and an ex-convict who went on to become one of Australias most recognizable media personalities. Read was an understandably controversial figure. Before his writing career took off, his biggest claim to fame was having his ears cut off while behind bars. Later in life, he would write a childrens book, record a hip-hop album, and host a painting exhibition. His story inspired the Andrew Dominik film Chopper, which helped to launch comedian Eric Banas career. Some people wondered if Read deserved his celebrity status. Others questioned how much of his story was true in the first place. So, just who was Chopper Read?From The Streets Of Melbourne To Australian Prison YardsMark Chopper Read was born in Melbourne on Nov. 17, 1954. As a child, he was bullied at school and physically abused by his parents. By 14, he was a ward of the state, and he spent his teen years in and out of mental health facilities.During this time, he also became the head of the Surrey Road gang, and he took part in hundreds of street fights. He didnt win all of them but he wasnt afraid of getting hurt. He only wanted to inflict pain on those who had wronged him.Journalist Andrew Rule, who co-wrote Reads memoir, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2013, His main feature was not that he was necessarily bigger or stronger or tougher or a better fighter than all the others, because others would transcend him in all those things, but he was fearless of consequences.Mark Chopper ReadChopper Read in his younger years.Read turned to a life of crime, but he was no ordinary offender. He largely stole from drug dealers it was profitable, and they couldnt exactly report their losses to the police and later became a mob enforcer who kidnapped and assaulted people who had outstanding debts. His signature weapon was bolt cutters, which he used to cut off his victims toes one by one.According to Read himself, he never harmed an innocent person, and this came to define him. But the crimes that he committed were still punishable offenses, even though they were carried out against other criminals.So, Mark Chopper Read found himself imprisoned in the late 1970s after kidnapping a judge in an attempt to get a member of his gang freed. He would spend most of the next two decades of his life behind bars.Those were my very paranoid days, Read told The Guardian shortly after the release of Chopper. I was certifiably insane. I wasnt a well person. Prison helped Read build his legacy, but his knack for violence continued to be a problem. Mark Chopper Reads Life Behind BarsMushroom PicturesEric Bana as Mark Read in the 2000 film Chopper.While incarcerated, Read frequently found himself embroiled in gang-related conflict. He seemed desperate to start a prison war, but his violent attitude also made him an outcast within his own gang and eventually led to his fellow members stabbing him repeatedly. No one trusted him, he was unpredictable, former prison chaplain Peter Norden told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. When he came out of his cell, people gave him about a three-meter berth I always said in prison the people who were the most dangerous, were the most insecure people. He was a victim of the system, and mostly he wasnt a successful crook. Mark Chopper Read did not get away with most of the crimes he committed. His name appeared in headlines often, but at that time, he wasnt a celebrity just a repeat offender. Read didnt see it the same way, though.The media created me, he reflected to The Guardian. Maybe it was my black sense of humor in the face of adversity that appealed to one or two journalists. Im on some shooting charge and, the next thing you know, there are 50 members of the press in attendance. The case became a half-hour comedy session. Even the judge would burst out laughing.As much as he tried to act tough and laugh things off, however, Read had clearly grown desperate while behind bars. He had fallen out with his gang and made enemies of other inmates. He requested to transfer to another wing of the facility. Prison officials told him no. Find a GraveMark Chopper Read lighting a cigar with a blowtorch.So, to force a transfer, Read enlisted the help of a fellow inmate, and, together, they used a razor to cut off both of his ears. Doctors werent able to reattach them, but the act did get him transferred. As Mark Chopper Read wrote in his first memoir, Chopper: From the Inside: I told them, I will be leaving H Division, tomorrow. They said, no you wont and I said I would. So I went back and got Kevin to cut my bloody ears off. You reckon I didnt leave H Division straight away? The classo board nearly came down and carried me out themselves.Read was eventually released in 1986, but he returned to his old ways almost immediately. Just seven months later, he was accused of killing a drug dealer named Siam Sammy the Turk Ozerkam after supposedly shooting him through the eye outside a nightclub.In this case, though, Read was acquitted on the grounds of self-defense and according to a 2013 report in the Herald Sun, he confessed on his deathbed that he had lied about killing Ozerkam and three others.Then, in 1992, Read was convicted of shooting a man in the chest and sent back to prison until 1998.This stint was a little different from Reads previous time behind bars, though. In 1990, journalist John Silvester had begun writing about Read to debunk claims that a cult following was developing around the criminal. Read wrote back, at first threatening Silvester, but quickly realizing that writing to the journalist could bring him more publicity. And by publishing those letters, Silvester inadvertently fostered the very cult following around Read he had originally debunked. Chopper Read As A Controversial Celebrity, Author, And MusicianMark Chopper ReadChopper Read and Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis.Silvester hadnt asked Read to write to him, but Read kept sending letters anyway to a nearly manic degree. He wrote so much, in fact, that his letters were able to be turned into nine books before the 90s came to an end with the help of Silvester and Andrew Rule. Most of them were published while Read was still in prison.Nobody had ever spoken or written in that way in Australia, Silvester told The Guardian in 2000. He said, Yeah, Ive done everything you think I have and worse, and he said it with black humor and a total lack of contrition. The first book, Chopper: From the Inside, was a smash hit and was quickly succeeded by Hits and Memories in 1992 and How to Shoot Friends and Influence People in 1993. What started as autobiographical and semi-autobiographical stories eventually turned into crime fiction and then, bizarrely, a childrens book. The books even helped Mark Chopper Read find love. A fan of his, Mary-Ann Hodge, began to visit him in prison, and the two married in 1995. When he was released three years later, they moved to a farmhouse in Tasmania, where they had their son, Charlie. Read grew bored with his farm life, however, and the marriage ended in 2001. He then married his second wife, Margaret Cassar, in 2003. They also had a son named Roy. Find a GraveIn 2007, Chopper Read filed for bankruptcy due to gambling debts.When I was 50 and I saw my second boy born, I became a fully paid-up member of the human race, Read later wrote. I have no regrets, but those moments told me what I should have been a good human being.Over the next decade, Read sold more than 500,000 copies of his books, inspired a cult classic film, performed live comedy across Australia, appeared in public service announcements, exhibited his paintings, and released the rap album Interview with a Madman. Then, he was diagnosed with hepatitis C and announced he would not be applying for a potentially life-saving liver transplant. Mark Chopper Read died on Oct. 9, 2013, at the age of 58. More than a decade later, his legacy remains as complex as it ever was.After reading about Mark Chopper Read, learn about the life of Freeway Rick Ross, the drug kingpin who literally read his way to freedom. Or, go inside the story of Tilly Devine, one of the most notorious women in Australian history.The post How Mark Chopper Read Went From A Deadly Criminal To An Australian Folk Hero appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Missouri State Highway PatrolRobert Eugene Brashers mugshot For 34 years, a brutal crime haunted the city of Austin, Texas. The so-called Austin yogurt shop murders occured in December 1991, when an unknown assailant murdered four teenage girls at an I Cant Believe Its Yogurt outlet before setting the store on fire. But despite the brutality of the crime, the killer was not identified until 2025. Then, DNA evidence linked the murders to a man named Robert Eugene Brashers. A violent criminal with a long rap sheet, Brashers was convicted of multiple crimes before he died by suicide in 1999. Yet the full breadth of his crimes was not fully understood until recent years. In addition to the Austin yogurt shop murders, DNA evidence also connected to Brashers to a number of other unsolved rapes and homicides which occurred across the South. So who was Robert Eugene Brashers? This is the full story of the murderer and rapist whose terrible crimes went undiscovered for far too long. The First Documented Crime Of Robert Eugene BrashersRobert Eugene Brashers was born on March 13, 1958, in Newport News, Virginia. Not much is known about his childhood, but the Austin American-Stateman reported that he was known as intelligent, manipulative, and skilled with tools and weapons.But what is known is that Brashers first documented crime occured in 1985. That November, Brashers met 24-year-old Michelle Wilkerson at a bar in Fort Pierce, Florida. According to reporting at the time, the two left the bar together and drank several more beers. But when Brasher made a sexual advance, Wilkerson rejected him. Then, when she tried to leave, he shot her in the head and neck with his .25 caliber automatic pistol.Missouri State Highway PatrolA suspect composite sketch from 1998 connected to a crime committed by Robert Eugene Brashers.Incredibly, Wilkerson not only survived but remained conscious. She was able to flee and hide until Brashers gave up looking for her, at which point Wilkerson sought help. She was able to offer a description of her attacker to the police including his car, the color of his shirt, and his type of cigarettes and detectives were able to almost immediately track Brashers down. A year later, Robert Eugene Brashers was found guilty of the assault and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. However, he was released from prison for good behavior on May 4, 1989. And he would soon go on to attack others. Robert Eugene Brashers Life Of Crime And His 1999 SuicideOver the next ten years, Robert Eugene Brashers was arrested multiple times for a variety of crimes. According to Greenville Online, he was next arrested in February 1992 for having a stolen pistol and a stolen vehicle. Brashers also had a police scanner, a police jacket, burglary tools, and a fake Tennessee license, and was subsequently sent back to prison until 1997. Once again a free man, Brashers returned to a life of crime. He was arrested again on April 12, 1998 while trying to break into the house of a woman for whom hed done handiwork in Paragould, Arkansas. Though Brashers had cut the phone lines, and was arrested with a video camera and other tools he was released shortly after being taken into custody. At the same time, Brashers family had started to notice a startling change in his behavior. According to his daughter Deborah, who had been born in the summer of 1991, her grandmother often told her mother you let the devil in when you met this man. And after Brashers returned from prison in 1998, Deborah recalled to KFVS 12 that her father started acting crazy. In one chilling incident, Deborah remembered her father making an audio recording of himself as he cut himself with a knife. Deborah BrashersRobert Eugene Brashers with his family in an undated photograph.Never screamed, she recalled. Never yelled. Never showed an ounce of pain. [Of] anything in the tape whatsoever.Then, on Jan. 13, 1999, Robert Eugene Brashers life of crime came to an end. After stealing a car, he drove his family to a Super 8 motel in Kennett, Missouri. When police were notified about the stolen vehicle, they came to investigate. Brashers, armed with a gun, eventually agreed to release his family. But he would not emerge from the motel room, and, four hours later, he shot himself in the head. Brashers was alive for six more days, but he died of his injuries on Jan. 19, 1999.As it would turn out, Robert Eugene Brashers crimes were far more extensive than authorities realized when he was alive. Advances in DNA technology would connect Brasheres to a number of brutal rapes and murders, including the unsolved Austin yogurt shop murders of 1991. The Main Suspect In The Austin Yogurt Shop MurdersIn 2018, Robert Eugene Brashers body was exhumed for DNA testing. Advances in DNA technology were then able to connect Brashers to a number of crimes which stretched back to 1990. That October, the Missouri State Highway Patrol announced Brashers had raped and murdered Sherri Scherer and her 12-year-old daughter Megan in Portageville, Missouri. DNA evidence also connected him to the rape of a 14-year-old girl in Memphis, Tennessee, and the 1990 rape and murder of Genevieve Zitricki in Greenville, South Carolina. Then, in September 2025, investigators were able to connect Brashers to the 1991 Austin yogurt shop murders, a shocking quadruple homicide. HBOThe four young victims of the Austin yogurt shop murders. On December 6 of that year, four teenage girls 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison, her sister 15-year-old Sarah Harbison, 17-year-old Eliza Thomas, and 13-year-old Amy Ayers were brutally murdered at an I Cant Believe Its Yogurt Shop in Austin, Texas. Some of the girls had also been sexually assaulted, and their nude, bound bodies were found in a back room of the shop, which their killer had set on fire. The Austin yogurt shop murders became one of the most agonizing cold cases in Austins history, and though two men were arrested and even convicted for the crimes, they were both later released. Then, decades later, investigators were able to connect Rogert Eugene Brashers to the brutal crime through his DNA. When Brashers daughter, Deborah Brashers, was asked about this revelation, she told Austin radio station KXAN: My first thought was I was born in 1991 August where was he at then?Deborah also said she thinks her father will be tied to even more crimes in the future and she was right. As recently as October 2025, investigators announced they were looking into a connection between Brashers and a homicide in Kentucky, in which a woman was raped and shot. I held my father on a pedestal for a very long time because I did not think he was an evil person, Deborah remarked. I just thought he had mental health issues and he couldnt deal with it anymore. I never knew that he had psychotic issues that he dealt with that we didnt know about.Indeed, Robert Eugene Brashers seemingly lived a chilling double life until his 1999 suicide. And if it werent for advances in DNA technology, the true extent of his crimes might have remained forever unknown. After reading about the serial killer Robert Eugene Brashers, discover the macabre story of infamous killer Ed Gein. Then, learn about the most infamous American serial killers.The post The Chilling Story Of Serial Killer Robert Eugene Brashers, The Main Suspect In The 1991 Austin Yogurt Shop Murders appeared first on All That's Interesting.

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