True Crime Stories

I did a double check to see if I had already blogged about this case but it does not look like it. I try to appear organized and mark ones on my list I have done but then I find some that I check and sure enough I have already done them. There was also a time a while back where I thought I would be smart and research a bunch of cases at one time and basically write them out and post them when I got around to it. That was a bad idea. At my age I am lucky to remember what I researched yesterday, let alone any longer than that. I found myself doing double time by going back and reminding myself what a particular note in my research meant and in the end abandoned that way of doing things. In the process I had already researched many cases that I eventually just did not compose and decided I would just re-do them again later. I suspect this is one of those cases! One of the reasons that this case stuck with me was not so much how senseless and vicious the crime itself was (...

Just yesterday in my blog about Anthony Graves I discussed the issue of tunnel vision and gung ho investigators. Well, today here is a story that not only qualifies but in my opinion at a much higher degree despite the fact that Graves sat on death row for twelve years (sixteen years in prison total) and Julie Rea-Harper spent only about half of that in prison. This case involved two different trials and when that happens there tends to be less specifics found on each individual trial. Sometimes when you dig pretty deep you can find out more things and it becomes one of those cases that you have to start piecing things together and then try to weed out what information is true and what information is false although has gone down in legend. So we'll start with what we do know as fact and that is that on the night of October 13, 1997 in Lawrenceville Illinois, ten year old Joel Kirkpatrick lost his life. Joel was visiting with his mother Julie Rea (she would later marry...

When someone is exonerated for a crime they have been convicted of, but later found not to have committed (or at least enough evidence does not exist anymore to prove guilt), there are other injustices' aside from the incarceration of an innocent person. First of course there is the pain and suffering the innocent person's family has had to endure. There is the issue of public opinion of those convinced the defendant was guilty, with or without a conviction, or an exoneration. When the innocent person has children prior to being incarcerated, those children suffer not just generally financially but from the loss of having their parent in their lives. Many of those children move on, because let's be honest, what else can they do? But, there is always a void and many exonerated individuals have difficulty reconnecting with their children when they are released. But, even more than that I feel as if the victims of the crimes get lost in the shuffle as headlines domin...

Victoria Rickman I tend to not blog about cases until they have at least some sort of finality. Of course I many, if not most, of the cases here obviously involve cases in which there have been convictions and the defendant is in the appeals process. This case has finally, after over four years, gotten to that point. It has sat near, or at the top, of my list of cases for quite some time but the trial against Victoria Rickman has been delayed many times. A few weeks ago the television show 48 Hours did an update on this case and showed that the trial had finally commenced and concluded, but the show was about much more. I suspect that many of the readers here watch television shows like 48 Hours and Dateline , but also watch the Investigation Discovery channel with their multitude of reality television shows based on crimes. Over the years there have been several different shows following crimes. The show The Shift was always particularly interesting to me because it...

This post is like none other that I have done.  This is not one that will rehash the crimes committed by the "Manson Family" in the late 1960's.  If that is what you are looking for there is plenty to find elsewhere online ( I may even have another referring to things).  But, today is significant because today is the day that Charles Manson died.... finally... as many would say.   If you are a true crime "fan" then it is difficult to believe that you do not know the crimes committed and have an opinion on those involved.  You also know of course that Manson, as well as all of the followers that he was convicted with were initially sentenced to death but that was overturned a few years later when California abolished the death penalty.  You also know that every few years it seems that someone seems to be up for parole. Everyone has their own opinion as to if and when any of them should or should have been granted parole.  Susan Atkins, the pers...