True Crime Stories

  This next case was another in which I saw on Deadly Women. It is another unusual case for me to blog about because the crime actually took place in a country other than the United States. In general, and for the most part, I do not do a lot of these types of cases because different countries have different rules when it comes to evidence and justice in general. But, this case was a very tragic case for one, and for two, it involved American citizens. That being said, and again I do not want to take away from the tragedy of this event, I must admit that while watching the story on the television show I actually snickered a bit. The perpetrator here, Theresa Riggi, made several attempts to take her own life and each of them failed which resulted in her being brought to justice through the courts. Theresa and her husband, Pasquale were married in 1989 in and lived a few years in California where Theresa was raised. Pasquale worked for the Shell Oil company and after a few year...

  While most cases of murder are “senseless” this case seems even more so than others. What makes it even worse is that there were signals that things could have turned violent and there were even many people who seemed to know that there was a plan. It is unclear if any of those people reported anything to the police, but there are reports that the victims had contacted the authorities on several occasions and that the local district attorney was made aware of these reports and yet nothing had been done. Before I get into the complete story I want to point out that my research was quite difficult. One of the first things I came across stated that the date of the murders was January 18, 2016. As I kept delving into information I realized that the actual date was January 18, 2014. Then there was an issue with names. I found Kirsten Westfall's name spelled differently several times, as well as her daughter Madison, as it was spelled Maddison more than once. In addition to...

This case shows us several things. It shows us that it does not matter your profession, anyone can be evil. It shows us that sometimes that evil seems to be in your DNA. It also shows us that no matter how slick you think you are, the odds of you avoiding justice are slim. Christine Belford and David Matusiewicz were divorced in 2006. David worked as an optometrist. They shared three daughters together and the divorce was ending in a very bitter custody dispute. David, and his family, would proclaim that Christine was abusive to the girls in his attempt for custody. It is unclear if custody had been officially settled in the summer of 2007 when David and his mother, Lenore, picked up the three girls from their Wilmington Delaware home allegedly headed to Disney World in Florida for two weeks. But, it is safe to say that keeping them for the next year and a half from their mother was not in the court papers. Christine obviously filed a police report and aut...

As I sit down to put this case together I am not exactly sure what I think about it. There were two trials against David Watson. The first trial ended in a mistrial when the jury could not come to a decision. Some of those jurors spoke out after the trial. And, there seemed to be much more information about that trial than the second one that was conducted about six months later and ended in his conviction. Some times it helps me see more or come to a better conclusion of things when I put them all together here, some times it does not. I suppose we will see which one this falls into. Linda Watson was last seen by her mother, Marilyn Cox, on August 20, 2000 when she dropped her off at her Tucson Arizona home. Linda's four year old daughter, Jordynn was with her father, David at the time. The following day a repairman went to Linda's home and while the back door was ajar Linda was no where to be found. Investigators would later find a broke cup inside t...

I have several cases put together that I have researched already but as is often the case this last one that I researched is the one that has grabbed my complete interest. It is one of those cases that I am surprised I had never heard of and to be fair I am unsure how it made its way to my list in the first place. If you are a regular reader of my blog then you know that I am an advocate for the mentally ill... the true mentally ill. You also know that even in those cases I do believe in punishment of some manner. The problem I have in this case is not just the fact that I question the fact that Teresa Spitz was truly mentally ill when she shot both her husband and her mother in law, but also in system that allowed her to in my opinion, fairly quickly re-enter society. Teresa Dickey and Peter Spitz were married in August of 2000. Many were skeptical about the marriage considering Peter was eighteen years older than the nineteen year old Teresa but most had t...

This case seems a bit puzzling to me. It is not confusing as to who committed the crime at hand because that is very apparent. It was obvious, and admitted, that Elizabeth Wall murdered her soon to be ex-daughter-in-law. We have seen cases like this before and like so many of the others that involve in-laws, there was a divorce and a custody case at hand. I feel as if the difference in this case is that while there was a custody case being fought, Elizabeth's son, Jerrod, may have had a better chance than some of the others that we hear about. It does not appear that the permanent custody issue would be settled any time soon, or even that there had been a complete hearing addressing issues either party had claimed to know for sure just who may or may not have had a leg up on the other. And yet, Elizabeth Wall decided that was not good enough. On June 23, 2016 Elizabeth Wall went to pick up her grandson's from their mother, thirty-five year old Jenna Wall. J...