True Crime Stories

This case would be one that if you ever watch the television show How to get Away with Murder would be used as a case on what NOT to do.  I mentioned in the last blog that I finished that the defense in that case had all but said their client was an idiot, which was not the case there, but surely qualifies here. On August 31, 2006 in Metairie Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, Mary Elizabeth Marinello was headed to her car after a therapy appointment when she was gunned down in the parking lot.  It was 4:00 in the afternoon.  She would be shot twice in the face and die the next day at the hospital. Witnesses would say that they saw a "scruffy" man near the area and take off on a bicycle.  Surveillance video from the parking lot would show this person pacing back and forth through the parking lot for about twenty-five minutes for the shooting.  While some argued that the video was grainy and unclear to the point of not being able to be sure the gender of the...

The trial against Brett Parker in the murders of his wife and his best friend was not really all that sensational in and of itself.  Of course, as all cases do, it had it's own twists and turns but the thing that I found most interesting or I suppose comical would be a better words is while his defense was not arguing he was mentally incompetent or necessarily of low intelligence as we so often see. No, Brett Parker's defense basically said he was an idiot.  And no, they were not saying this in the context of the fact that he had committed the crime and he just was not smart enough to cover things up.  They said it in the context of he was too dumb to have committed the crime AND covered it up.  Well, while the prosecution argued Brett Parker was not an idiot as his attorney seemed to indicate they surely had to admit that he attempted to cover it up.  So, maybe the defense attorney was correct about their client. On April 13, 2012 Brett Parker called 9-1-1 an...

It appears I have gotten to another section of my list that has several spousal murders one right after another.  I have to admit that these are not the cases that I find most interesting.  Everyone, including perpetrators, know that the first place investigators look is at the spouse or significant other.  Few are smart enough to pull it off without questions.  Of course there have been a few that I have blogged about that have been acquitted of murdering their spouse.  Maybe they are guilty, or maybe the investigators who know the perpetrators is almost always someone closest to the victim had tunnel vision.  In the end it always comes down to what Jamie Foxx said in Law Abiding Citizen , "It's not what you know, it's what you can prove." It is not unusual when I am doing research on a case to find websites that are devoted to the idea that the convicted murderer is innocent.  This case was no exception. However, I think the appeals court nearly sa...

David Evans and Carol Miller were high school sweethearts.  In fact, they married when they were still in school.  She was a junior and he was a senior.  Nine months later the first of their five children would be born. Over the next several decades David and Carol would have their ups and downs in their marriage while it seemed their careers were doing well.  Carol had gotten a degree in education and eventually had moved herself up to being a principal at a school in their town of Jackson Ohio.  For his part David had a lot of endeavors.  First there was the farm that was attached to the several acres their home sat on.  Then there were several businesses they owned in town including a car lot and a gas station.  According to their children David would get a business started and then he would become bored with it regardless of the fact that it was successful and then he would move on to another.  The same could be said about the farm on t...

This case made it to my list after I had seen a few article titles in 2015 stating how the youngest person ever to be charged with murder was being released from prison.  As I do with many cases that I find like that I do not search them to get specifics until I am ready to sit down and do some research.  When I did do that I was left frustrated and disturbed. On January 6, 1999 thirteen year old Catherine Jones and her twelve year old brother shot their father's girlfriend, Sonya Speights in their Melbourne Florida home.  They apparently attempted to move the body and clean up the area but realizing what they had done they then decided to run to a friends home and stated they had shot her accidentally. When the friends parents stated they were calling the police the two children ran and hid in the woods.  They would be found the following morning. Despite efforts from their public defenders the state decided, and a judge agreed, that the two would be charged as ...

You often hear that someone committed almost the perfect crime.  I often tease my husband telling him that I watch all the true crime documentaries to learn what not to do because the vast majority of those shows are based on cases in which people got caught.  This is a case that could almost qualify as the perfect crime and had Jeremy Cord Woods kept his mouth shut odds are possible that he would have never gotten caught.  He would argue later that in essence he had been "forced" by the prison system to admit his crime but in my opinion that was more of an excuse to have evidence thrown out than anything else. Jeremy Cord Woods was living with eighteen year old Dawn Wallace in 1993 in Helena Montana. Dawn's seventeen month old son, Jaymes, also lived with the couple.  In June of 1993 both Dawn and Jaymes disappeared.  To be honest I am unsure just how much of an investigation was done into the case.   Then in 1994 Jeremy was sent to prison for ten year...

Yesterday while out with a relative it was suggested that I should look at this case.  I was given only enough information to allow myself to fall into a rabbit hole that I had to FORCE myself out of after a few hours.  Despite the fact I have been working through a list I had decided to take on this case next.  By the time I was done I had amassed more pages of notes than most cases that I discuss here.  In fairness, seeing as this case was from near the Evansville Indiana area I had a lot to work with as there is a website that I can access that has articles from the local newspaper, especially from this era.  This case took on national attention and the fact that today it officially remains unsolved added to the information available. Sometimes a case remains unsolved because there are no clues leading to a suspect. There are even cases in which someone has been found, tried and even convicted only to die during their appeals process which from a legal stan...

This turned out to be an odd case for me as I remain on the fence as to the guilt of the person charged and convicted.  I will admit that I lean towards the fact that the man is guilty, but I am unsure that I feel he received a fair trial, but in fairness I am unsure that a completely unbias and fair trial would have been possible.  It even appears that the jury had their own issues with what happened. When the victim, or even a defendant, in a crime has made a career working in the legal system it is often difficult to find people who did not know one or both of the parties, or have some association with them.  Such is the case against Gregory Harris in Baton Rouge Louisiana.  His wife, Chiquita Patrece Tate was a well known defense attorney in the area, she also appears to have been a long time resident too (possibly lifetime), and had done much of her law studies in the area.  This included working as an intern for other attorneys as well as judges. In th...