True Crime Stories

This was another one of those cases where I simply could not make the title be "The Case of...." because it just felt wrong, as if I was giving someone so full of evil some sort of credit in a way and if there is ever someone who does not deserve one ounce of credit or sympathy it would be John David Battaglia. John Battaglia was an abuser.... period.  Most of his abuse was directed at his two wives, however, there were others that were victims of his abuse.  As the classic abuser however, he was able to use charisma and charm to get out of things and to convince people that he was the victim.  Even when he was obviously caught he would blame the victim for pushing him to the point in which he abused.  Also, like many classic abusers, after he abused his spouse he would apologize and cool down to which the women would take him back and accept his apologies.    Battaglia's abuse to his first wife, to which he was often faced with legal problems bega...

I have blogged a few cases lately, as well as seen a few others on television, that have said to me that society has become one that when an unexpected, or suspicious death occurs that someone has to be blamed, whether the evidence is there or not.   In the two cases I have blogged (the Adam Kaufman murder trial and the Ronda Reynolds death case) investigators charged or attempted to charge the spouse of the person who passed away.  In both cases there were allegations of mis-conduct by the investigators.  In the case of Ronda Reynolds, the prosecutors have refused to press charges even though even the county coroner issued  warrants for the arrest of Ronda's husband and stepson.  In the Adam Kaufman case, charges were filed, and even a trial followed in which he was acquitted. I saw another case last night of a woman who was convicted in the poisoning death of her husband, yet there seemed to be little evidence to which conclusively pointed to her and some sa...

This was a case that I had not followed.  I subscribe to "In Session" on Facebook but I had not actually watched any of the trial or read anything on the case.  All I knew was that a man by the name of Adam Kaufman was being charged with the murder of his wife.  From what I had seen it seemed like one of the standard spousal murders that you often hear. Watching an episode of Dateline I found that my thoughts were far from the truth. In fact, after watching the show, and doing some research I am left asking myself if this country has not gotten so used to cases of a spouse killing another that things are not made up to make a case.   On the morning of November 7, 2007 Adam Kaufman called 911 saying that he had found his wife, Eleonora "Lina," in the bathroom slumped over a magazine  rack and not breathing. The case soon turned in "The Spray Tan" murder.  Just the day before Lina had gotten her first ever spray tan to prepare for a wedding.  There w...

This seems to be all the rage at the moment.  The History channel just finished a 3 night mini series on the subject, a new movie called Bad Blood comes to theaters next month and a few more books have recently been written and released.  Staying true to how I generally work when writing my blogs I looked beyond the movies, we all know they are not completely accurate, as well as try to work my through all the other works to come to an un-bias reality.  Considering this feud likely started in the 1860's and spanned several years sometimes makes it difficult to sort through.  This story rings true with the fact that both sides have a story and that the truth is somewhere in the middle so I will try to go with what seems to have been confirmed, for the most part, and state what is uncertain when I can.  Seeing as this feud not only ended nearly 120 years ago, it spanned nearly 50 years.   What we do know is that the McCoy family lived on the Kentucky side o...

This is a new show on Discovery ID.  I am watching the first episode now so I cannot say for sure exactly how good it will be but thought I would let other true crime buffs know about it. The premises of the show (hosted by Erin Brockovich) is to feature stories that have been made into movies and compare the real story to the story that the movie portrayed.   The first episode is the story of Aileen Wuornos and comparing her story to the one told in "Monster." I am not completely certain that this will be anything really knew than those of us who watch all the true crime shows or not just yet.  Just as in those shows the story is told, people are interview...etc.   

I tried to make every effort to separate my feelings in my book blog when I reviewed the book "In the Still of the Night" by Ann Rule.  I first heard about this case on a recent episode of I believe Dateline.  Ann Rule was on that show as well as Ronda Reynolds' mother, Barb Thompson and it talked a lot about their quest and their belief that Ronda was murdered, likely by her husband, or maybe by her stepson.  I had looked at a few articles on the subject at that time but that was a few weeks ago and once I started the book I stayed away from them so I could give an objective view on the book itself.  That blog can be found here:  http://mybookblogger-susan.blogspot.com/2012/05/in-still-of-night.html  It was a large struggle for me not to search for information while reading the book because I knew and felt that Rule's book was slanted towards one side and I also felt that it was full of holes.  To give Rule a small amount of credit, I realize that s...

This was another case that I caught on 48 Hours so I had to do a little research. It was also another case in which I felt some vital information was left out of the story to possibly slant it one way or another.  After watching the 48 Hours I was totally left wondering how Toby Holt was found guilty.  While I still question his guilt, either through research, or maybe I just missed it on the show, I found a little more, but not much. Robert Wiles, the son of a wealthy business owner, disappeared on April 1, 2008.  Robert was a pilot and high up in ranks at his father's business National Flight Services (NFS) in Lakeland Florida. Two days after his disappearance Robert's father, Tom received a text message from Robert's phone to check his email.  When he did so he found an email asking for a ransom of $750,000.  The email was signed "Group X." Toby Holt was the last person to supposedly see Robert Wiles.  Toby Holt also worked for NFS.  He was ev...