True Crime Stories

This case is one of those that I am sure that will make many of you shake your head asking how it could happen. It is a case in which so very little makes sense from the investigation, to the charges, to the verdict. It is a case in which apparently the jury did not believe the defense, or at least one of them, that their client was innocent, but also did not believe the story that prosecutors gave. How is that you ask? This trial had two defendants, with two very different outcomes. On the night of January 16, 2009 Linda Bonner returned to her Harrison Tennessee (a suburb of Chattanooga) home and found her husband bound to a chair. He was no longer breathing, which was not a huge surprise considering aside from duct tape being used to bound him to the chair, it was also wrapped around his head covering his mouth and nose. Franklin was known as a “lottery man” as well as the fact that it was discovered that he and his wife sold marijuana in small amounts. It seems it was an...

This is one of those cases where while I was doing the research I went back and forth whether I believed the convicted person was guilty or not. I would read something and question whether the jury got it right and then I would read something else and be convinced that they were absolutely right in their decision. A few minutes later I would flip again. In the end I can only really tell you, the reader, what I found and let you decide what you think. On the afternoon of July 2, 2015 a 911 call was made to the authorities in Clearlake California. A man had been shot while walking down the road in broad daylight. When officers arrived at the scene the man was still alive and the police officer turned on his body cam. The officer asked the man, Steven Galvin, who had shot him and he replied with the name “Cyclops.” The officer asked him a second time and again he said the same name. Galvin was taken to the hospital where he would soon die from his injuries, a gunshot wounds t...

I am a bit disappointed with this case and the information that I found available, but it is not necessarily that unusual when a defendant pleads guilty and forgoes a trial. I had a little ray of hope when another lawsuit was filed and it looked as if an interesting legal question would be answered but I later learned that the lawsuit was dropped. When I research a case, it is fairly simple. I start with a name that I throw into a Google search and then I add “and murder” unless of course I have a notation that it may possibly not be a murder case. If I have some difficulty finding what I need or sorting through results I will sometimes add a location. I generally go through about three or four pages to get most of what I need. I will also look at department of corrections websites and may check a few things throughout to clarify but that it usually all that it takes. This case took me through more than six pages in the initial search because the perpetrator, Marcus Dansby, re...

On January 16, 1991 firefighters in Camden Tennessee were sent to a home fire out in a rural area. The home belonged to Danny Vine, a prosperous mussel-shell diver. When firefighters arrived the home was so engulfed they knew they would not be able to save it, or anyone inside, if in fact there were people inside. They decided to basically let it burn until it got a point in which they could control it. This also meant that it would be a few days before they could get inside the rubble and start any investigation. Inside the burnt out home they found the bodies of Danny Vine and his fiance' Della Thornton along with the body of their dog. Investigators also found evidence that the fire had not been an accident and that an accelerate had been used. They learned that the victims had not been able to escape the fire because they had both been shot in the head, execution style, with a .38 caliber weapon before the fire had even started. It was apparently fairly well ...

You have often heard me talk about my list of cases and working my way through them. I do not always know how a case made it to the list or even what it is always about before I sit down to find a case that catches my interest at the moment and has me doing research. I am often surprised when I come across an interesting cases and I do not remember hearing anything about it, especially when not only it takes place in Indiana, but in Indianapolis specifically where I spent most of my “growing up” years. I lived there from the age of four until the age of twenty-eight. Now, granted I was not alive in 1900 when this case first “took place” nor in 1920 when legally it seems it was solved, but I had never heard of this case. Note that I used the word “case” and not “crime” when I described this story but also know that while the crime of murder has not and cannot probably ever be proven here that does not mean that there was not a murder, or even a crime. Because of the era in which th...

This is one of those cases that I have seen multiple episodes of different television shows and heard the story many times and yet is not one of the more than 700 cases I have blogged about. I do admit that there have been times that I have completely researched a case and put it together only to discover I have already done it and there are a few that I have done more than once on accident. I have tried to learn from those mistakes and check prior to wasting my time researching so I was a bit surprised I had not done this case. While the case itself is rather diluted and “crazy” the core motive is as old as time.... power and prestige. Byron Looper was born in Tennessee but spent much of his “growing up years” living in Georgia. At one point he entered the West Point Academy but he left before he graduated. I did not discover the reason that he left but considering later behaviors in life I wonder if this was not an early sign of things to come with him. For many years he ...

I love hearing about very old crimes that took place in the late 1800's or early 1900's. The problem however is that the research is a bit more difficult. In most cases it is harder to find legitimate sources or newspaper articles due to the age of the crime. Even when they can be found they can sometimes be questionable. While we may say what we will about journalism today, it was much worse back then. It was less about the facts than it was about the sensationalism of the crimes and the criminals. This leads to the bigger problem of allowing false information to be repeated and going down as legend. It can be difficult to weed through the information and determine what exactly is true. Browning Missouri is located in Linn County and is in the north/central portion of the state. In 1894 a horrible crime took place. As you will soon see, the motive for this crime is one we still see today. Two brothers, George and William Taylor were very wealthy and until the ear...

  In 1871 the Ringling Brothers Circus was started. It ran for 146 years before closing in 2017. There have been lots of “circuses” over the years but Ringling Brothers will always be considered one of the biggest, if not the best. But, as it is in all things, time changes things. Most believe that the downfall of the circus as we all remember and consider it revolved around the treatment of animals. Over the years there were several reports about how the animals were kept and treated and allegations of abuse. To be fair circus animals are caged the majority of the time, even when the circus was not in season and as time went on the circus was less and less “in season.” This prevented the animals from thriving, put their health at risk and many believed amounted to abuse to the animals. Because of these things, as well as high prices and less interest in the circus, slowly they began to dwindle. I cannot tell you when the circuses began using the train system to go from...