True Crime Stories

It is not often that I do a case here that has not fully gone through the court system unless it is a long unsolved case. However, I feel as if there really is not much more to know about this case despite the fact that Michael Bever, at last check is set to go to trial in June of 2017. His brother, Robert, has already pleaded guilty to the crime that the brothers committed together. Robert did so in order to prevent facing the death penalty but since Michael, who is being tried as an adult, was a juvenile when the crime was committed he is not facing death. Michael's lawyer has fought against the law that allows him to be charged as an adult saying that a sentence of life without parole should be unconstitutional. So far his efforts have been unsuccessful so barring some sort of compromise it looks as if his trial will commence as scheduled. At about 11:30 pm on the night of July 22, 2015 911 in Broken Arrow Oklahoma received a call from a child who stated his brot...

I finished researching this case asking myself a few questions. I did not ask myself if I thought Neil Entwistle was guilty of killing his wife and infant daughter; I did not ask myself if the evidence against him presented in trial was sufficient to convict him.  I asked myself if Neil Entwistle was my son what it would take for me believe in his guilt.  It has been over ten years since Neil Entwistle was tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and his parents are still proclaiming his innocence.  This is even as his story has even changed over the years as to where he was when his wife and child died. On the night of January 19, 2006 it is known that Rachel Entwistle was alive because friends and family spoke to her.  By the 21st it appears that people were worried about her but I have to be honest in saying that I am unsure completely why.  I do not know if she missed an appointment with someone or she had mentione...

On May 7, 1976 Elk Grove Illinois police went to the home of Frank Columbo to tell him that his vehicle, had been found abandoned in a bad area of town.  When the officer got to the door he noticed that there was a pile of newspapers on the step and the door was open.  As he opened it further he saw the body of Frank Columbo laying inside on the floor and back up was immediately called. Ultimately as officers arrived on the scene and examined the home they would be faced with an extremely brutal crime scene. They would find three bodies in which had not just been shot, but beaten, stabbed and tortured.  The bodies would belong to forty-three year old Frank Columbo, his forty-one year old wife, Mary and their thirteen year old son, Michael.  The only surviving member of the family was the Columbo's almost twenty year old daughter who no longer lived in the family home. Medical examinations and apparently evidence would find that the murders had actually occurre...

I have been doing this blog for nearly four years now and was a bit surprised to discover this is not a case that I had researched and discussed before.  Then again there are many crimes that I know quite a bit about (maybe that is why I could be considered a Death Hag) that I have not taken the time to sit and blog about.  As a true fanatic there are just certain crimes we know.  Many of them are the same ones... we know about John Wayne Gacy, Ed Gein, The Boston Strangler... just to name a few.  John List is one of those cases for me.  I gander to guess that I have not sat down to compile this one because there is so much out on the Internet that is accessible and for me personally since I know the case pretty well (although research lets me narrow down dates, names and places) it is unlike the ones that I research and learn more as I go along.  I mistakenly believe that because I know just about all there is to know about the case, then doesn't every els...

I have a new goal now.  Instead of going months at a time without working on my blog and then spending several weeks or a month doing nothing but working on it and allowing my genealogy to fall behind I have decided that Sunday is the day that I will work on this.  Now, that does not mean that I will be necessarily posting every week because it depends on my mood.  I have several now ready to type up from my research but I did not necessarily post them when I did them because I was not "feeling it." So today I was already working on my blog when someone pointed out the movie "True Story" that came out this past April starring James Franco.  It is based at least partly on the Christian Longo murder case.  This case was on my list and I have seen episodes of things about it but honestly it had been a while and the subject of the movie itself was not something that I had recalled.  After seeing the trailer for the movie I am very much interested in seeing it a...

I have taken a break from posting here for a while, although admittedly not as long as I have in the past.  Part of this is that when I do these posts I have difficulty multi-tasking and use a lot of concentration to make sure I have the details correct (or as correct as I can determine).  I love the channel Investigation Discovery and I no longer have it in my cable package but was given a free month to which it feels as if I taped every show I could get my hands on. When I watch shows like that, or when I am reading my true crime books, I keep a list of cases that I want to search in the future and consider blogging about.  I am now working through that list.  The first name on my list was Russell Gilman.  I did a cursory search to refresh my memory of that case and it involved the murder/suicide of a man and his family in Scottsdale Arizona.  I was not really feeling it so I moved on to the next name on the list and it was Susan Mullaly. Here I had jus...