True Crime Stories

You have seen several cases from the Oklahoma City area from me lately. Sometimes that happens due to how I make my list of cases and whether they grab my interest when I am going through the list. This all started with the case of Curtis McCarty, a man who was sentenced to death three times but later released from prison. Often when I read about one case others are mentioned and that was such the situation with McCarty. Much of the information on his case centered around the local prosecutor at the time, a man named Robert “Cowboy Bob” Macy and a lab technician named Joyce “Black Magic” Gilchrist. In the process several other cases, such as this one, relating to Robert Lee Miller Jr. was mentioned, as questionable cases. Robert Lee Miller Jr. was convicted and sentenced to death in the murders of eighty-three year old Anne Fowler and ninety-two year old Zelma Cutler. Both of the elderly women had been raped and murdered in their homes. Anne Fowler had been foun...

You have often heard me give my thoughts on the death penalty. I believe that in someone is sentenced to death, let alone actually executed, there should be absolutely no question as to whether they are guilty of the crime. Now, some would say that there is no way to come to that conclusion but I do not necessarily believe that. I believe that in most cases DNA can absolutely determine the guilt of someone, at least someone who has physically committed the crime. Of course there are cases in which DNA really makes no difference. Those are the cases in which the defendant's DNA is all over a home and crime scene but then again it is generally their home or property they use on a regular basis. Now, DNA cannot prove the guilt of someone accused of hiring someone else to commit a crime and investigators have to look elsewhere for evidence. Murder for hire cases can be difficult to prove. I'm currently reading a book on the murder of Dr. John Hill in Texas in...

When a case goes to trial it is only on the rare occasion that every detail is known by the prosecution. Sure, we see confessions from people and there is always the evidence that is used to point to the defendant. Confessions are a tricky thing. When they are not coerced or proven to be completely false confessions, they are still almost always riddled with inconsistencies and falsehoods. This should come as no surprise considering the fact that those who give the confessions are generally involved in the crime. Perpetrators normally do not want to come off as a “monster” and for that and other reasons will often lessen their role and culpability to a crime. Most often a prosecutor is forced to come up with a “theory” when it comes to the motive behind the crime, but in cases in which there is not a confession they are also forced to come up with a theory on how things took place. It is not unheard of to hear of a “strange” theory or one that seems implausible, but...

You have often heard me say that it is not always the aspect of the true crime that fantasizes me, but the law itself and how things are conducted. Sometimes guilty people go free because either the evidence is not there to obtain a conviction or because the prosecutors did not do all that it took to get the conviction. Then are the times in which the prosecutor or the state witnesses did whatever it took, legal or illegal, to get their man. While in those cases, at least those that are caught, justice is not served for the family or families of the victims, it should prevent injustice being brought to innocent people. For people in Oklahoma City it seems it took decades. If you do a search on Curtis McCarty you will find him on websites for The Innocence Project and those claiming he was exonerated. You will also see on those sites multiple references to the fact that he was convicted of a “crime he did not commit.” Police and prosecutors have argued against t...

Just the other day I did a blog about a spouse on spouse crime and proclaimed I do not do them very often and yet here I am again sitting at my computer composing a story about a murder that was orchestrated by the spouse of the victim.  So what was it about this case that struck me that so many others similar to this crime do not?  To be honest, I made the ultimate decision to research and blog about this case when I found my way to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections website and I saw a 2013 mug shot of Brenda Andrew. I do not generally go to those sites until first I have firmly decided on the case I am going to do and I want to know what the status of their incarceration is.  However, I went to it this time because so much I read stated that Brenda Andrew was the only woman on Oklahoma's death row and I was curious as to if this was still true or if she had possibly received a change of sentence.  And then up popped her picture and I was stunned.  Not onl...