True Crime Stories

I began reading a book about old Indiana cases called “Murders That Made Headlines” by Jane Simon Ammeson. The book is full of cases from the 1920's and before that happened in Indiana. I have not read every story but I did skim it to see what the cases were and added them to my list to research. In fact, I sat down all day yesterday researching a case and putting it together only to realize when I went to publish it that I had already done it in the past! I have double checked the others now :) When you search about this case you are given the impression that an entire family is involved. Four people from one family were arrested for this crime but in the end it appears that only one was convicted. I say “appears” because when you are looking up old cases, such as this one, I often find some conflicting evidence. Cases like these often prove difficult to research because things that are actually rumors or legends within the story often are passed down as fact and it i...

  My goal today is to get several blogs put together and published. May the Force be with me (yes, along with many of my passions is a love for Star Wars) as I attempt to make that happen. I have several already researched and I have attempted to do this one more than once but I'm like the dog who sees the squirrel (yep, animated movies too) and loses my attention span! I blog about more cases that go to trial than those that end in plea deals or any other way mainly because those are the better cases to research. There is always more information out there in cases that go to trial as there are more articles about information and those that end in convictions generally have appeals filed which also gives a lot of information. That being said, taking a case to trial is not always the smart thing to do for a defendant. It is said, and has often been proven, that prosecutors and judges prefer plea deals. It saves time and money for the county or state for one. Often prosecut...

While when it comes to murder we generally do not know when it will be someone's last day but we also do not know that any arguments you have with someone could make you a suspect in their murder. We all know that when someone is murdered the first people looked at are those closest to the victim and out of that group they will look at those who have had disagreements with the victim. Even the smallest of disagreements could look like a motive to an investigator. Then there becomes the fact that other people also know that investigators will look at these issues first and may try to take advantage of the timing, such was the case here. In the early morning hours of September 23, 2013 a multitude of gunshots rang out in the Paladin Club area of Wilmington Delaware. When all was said and done authorities would find the bodies of Joe and Olga Connell outside their condo in the bushes of their home. Although in fairness while Joe was pronounced dead at the scene, Ol...

This case was rather difficult to search adequately. Sure if you search Janie Lou Gibbs you can find plenty of websites to click on but when you start reading through them you start find a lot of inconsistencies. They are not necessarily simple and excusable ones. Later I will be blogging a case that took place in the early 1900's and in that case I expect the inconsistencies to things only because of the time period and how difficult those cases are to find consistent facts. I did not expect those same issues in this case mainly because it occurred in the mid to late 1960's. One of the biggest issues I had involved names. Several things state that Janie Lou's middle sons name was Lester so this is what I presumed was his name. Quite often in the cases that I research there will be a link to the Findagrave.com website but I do not always look over the site. Generally by the time I get to that point I have most of the information I need, but I also know that th...

If this next case proves nothing it proves that when it comes to the death penalty women are still favored a bit. Just the fact that Donna Roberts is the only woman on Ohio's death row may tell you this, but the fact that her sentence of death has been overturned twice can also lead you to this conclusion. There was always ample evidence that Donna Roberts was in on the planning of the murder of her ex-husband, Robert Fingerhut. It was so compelling that she has been sentenced to death not once, not twice, but three times now. One of the things that I found extremely interesting in this case is that in June of 2017 the judge in this case set an execution date of August 12, 2020. I have never seen an execution date set so far in advance, let alone from a case that has already been in the courts since 2003. At first I thought it may have simply been because Donna Roberts was a woman but then I discovered that her accomplice, Nathaniel Jackson, who was also sentenced to dea...

The trial against Brett Parker in the murders of his wife and his best friend was not really all that sensational in and of itself.  Of course, as all cases do, it had it's own twists and turns but the thing that I found most interesting or I suppose comical would be a better words is while his defense was not arguing he was mentally incompetent or necessarily of low intelligence as we so often see. No, Brett Parker's defense basically said he was an idiot.  And no, they were not saying this in the context of the fact that he had committed the crime and he just was not smart enough to cover things up.  They said it in the context of he was too dumb to have committed the crime AND covered it up.  Well, while the prosecution argued Brett Parker was not an idiot as his attorney seemed to indicate they surely had to admit that he attempted to cover it up.  So, maybe the defense attorney was correct about their client. On April 13, 2012 Brett Parker called 9-1-1 an...

On April 20, 2000 police in Dundalk Maryland, near Baltimore responded to a call.  They would find Stephen Cooke Jr. in the middle of his front room floor holding the bloody body of his girlfriend, Heidi Bernadzikowski.  He would say that he had come home to find her there with her throat slashed.   Police were almost immediately suspicious of Stephen and everyone knew it. Some believe they were simply suspicious because he was the closest person to Heidi and everyone knows those are the ones who are first looked at.  Others say the suspicion came from several other things such as their was no forced entry into the home and nothing appeared to have been stolen.  But, the most suspicious thing of all was the fact that investigators learned that just one month before her murder a life insurance policy for $700,000 had been obtained on the twenty-four year old and Stephen was the beneficiary. But, investigators had no evidence to prove Stephen was guilty. ...