Inside Criminally Listed's Pitchfork Murders: Three Killings Linked by One Farm Tool
A pitchfork is, as the video puts it, a valuable farming tool — and a brutal murder weapon. Criminally Listed's 31-minute compilation, published in June 2022, builds three self-contained case files around that unsettling fact: a street killing in Scotland, a farm murder in upstate New York, and a home invasion in California that left two children dead.
The compilation format is Criminally Listed's bread and butter: three unrelated cases, each given a full narrative arc — the people involved, what happened, and how the justice system responded. What holds this one together is the weapon itself, and the video is at its best when it lets the details of each case do the disturbing work without reaching for theatrics.
With 82,000+ views on a channel of a million subscribers, it is a mid-catalog entry rather than a flagship — but the cases are genuinely well-chosen, spanning three countries' worth of legal outcomes: a triple murder conviction, a manslaughter plea, and a killer shot dead at the scene by police.
At a Glance
| Video | “3 Disturbing Pitchfork Murders” |
|---|---|
| Channel | Criminally Listed |
| Published | June 21, 2022 |
| Length | ~31 minutes |
| Views | 82K+ |
| Subject | Three real pitchfork killings: Edinburgh 2014, Attica NY 2015, Merced CA 2000 |
What the Video Covers
The first case is Edinburgh, Scotland, September 2014. Thomas Lamb, 46, gets into a fight at The Tower pub in Wester Hailes with three young men — James Watson, Paul Watson, and Graham Sim — who had been out celebrating James Watson's release from prison that very day. After Lamb leaves, the three follow him home and attack him in the street: one picks up a pitchfork, says “why finish him off,” and stabs him repeatedly while another uses a knife. The pitchfork is found lying on Lamb's body; the autopsy finds it cut his pulmonary vein and penetrated his aorta. All three are convicted of murder in July 2015 and sentenced to life with a 20-year minimum.
The second case moves to a dairy farm in Attica, New York, April 2015. When Douglas Mess, 52, fails to show up for his feed-delivery job, a search ends with their son finding his body buried under three feet of manure about a hundred feet from the house. The night before, Douglas and his wife Charlene had argued in the barn. The video lays out what investigators pieced together: Charlene stabbed him with a pitchfork, shot him once in the back of the head with a .22 rifle, bound his wrists and ankles with baling wire, and used a skid steer to bury him in the manure pile, hoping it would speed decomposition. She pleads guilty to manslaughter in June 2016 and receives the maximum 25 years.
The final and longest case is Merced, California, August 2000. With parents John and Tiffany Carpenter away, 14-year-old Jessica wakes to find a naked stranger in the living room — furniture moved to block every exit, the phone line dead. She escapes out a window to a neighbor's. The intruder, now holding a pitchfork, confronts 13-year-old Anna and 11-year-old Vanessa; Anna shields her little sister and is badly injured before the girls lock themselves in the laundry room and escape through its window. Police arrive to find the intruder in the hallway with the pitchfork; he charges, and officers fire 16 shots, hitting him 13 times. The killer is identified as Jonathan David Bruce, 27, who lived eight miles away with no known connection to the family — his motive never determined. Nine-year-old Ashley and seven-year-old John William Carpenter are found dead, both killed with the pitchfork.
Strengths
The cases are genuinely well-chosen. Three pitchfork killings could have been a gimmick, but each case here is substantively different — a group street killing, a domestic farm murder with an elaborate cover-up, and a motiveless home invasion — so the compilation earns its throughline instead of repeating itself.
The research shows its work. The video cites its sources, grounds each case in dates, autopsy findings, and court outcomes, and doesn't inflate what isn't known — the Merced killer's motive is left as the mystery it is rather than filled in with speculation.
The survivors aren't forgotten. The Merced section gives real attention to the three Carpenter sisters who lived — Jessica's escape, Anna shielding Vanessa, the laundry-room window — keeping the focus on the people who endured it rather than only on the man who caused it.
Weaknesses
The framing is a hook, not an analysis. “A pitchfork is a brutal murder weapon” is where the video's argument starts and ends. The three cases share nothing else, and the video never tries to say anything larger about the crimes — it's three case files in a trench coat, not a thesis.
Uneven depth across the three cases. The Merced case, with three surviving witnesses, gets the richest treatment by far; the Edinburgh killing is dispatched comparatively briskly. The compilation format means each story gets exactly as much room as its source material allows, and the imbalance shows.
Read the narration as summary, not investigation. This is a well-assembled retelling of reported facts, not original reporting — viewers wanting courtroom footage, interviews, or new detail on any of the three cases will need to look elsewhere.
Who Should Watch
- Compilation-documentary fans — if the multi-case format is your thing, this is a strong entry with three genuinely distinct stories.
- Case-file variety seekers — three countries' worth of legal outcomes in one sitting: a murder conviction, a manslaughter plea, and a killer stopped at the scene.
- True crime newcomers — each case is self-contained and easy to follow, with no prior knowledge required.
- Viewers who value sourcing — the video cites its sources and resists speculating where the record runs out.
7/10
A solid case-file compilation — three well-chosen, well-researched killings linked by one grim weapon, with the survivors kept in frame. Thin as analysis, but honest as a retelling, and the Merced section alone makes it worth the watch.
Source: Criminally Listed on YouTube (“3 Disturbing Pitchfork Murders,” published June 21, 2022); case background via the video's cited sources and contemporary reporting on the Edinburgh, Attica, and Merced cases.