True Crime Stories

It is surprising how often it amazes me how people who commit murder so often think they can commit it in a way in which they will not get caught. I realize that not every police department has a stellar force or have the ability to solve every crime but I also know that despite comments of the contrary there are people with common sense and in some crimes that is all that is needed. This is one of them. On July 2, 2009 Scott Pattison, from the small town of LaFontaine Indiana in Wabash County, called 911 from his vehicle. He would tell the dispatcher that he had found his wife, Lisa, inside their home pinned under a barbell on their weight bench and was headed to the nearby town of Marion Indiana to the hospital. He asked dispatchers for a police escort. An ambulance intercepted Scott on his drive and transported Lisa themselves. Upon arrival at the hospital Lisa would be pronounced dead. Despite having a small police force, and not a lot of high profile crimes in ...

I have debated on putting this case together just yet for a few reasons. The case was just decided in September of 2016 which means there has not been time for an appeal to be ruled on as of yet. I have stated before I like seeing the decisions of an appeals court because in my opinion they give the most accurate information about that was presented at a trial, how a jury came to a conclusion and what the appeals court thinks of the case. Newspaper and media accounts are not always accurate and often either keep out key details or exaggerate facts that are less important than they really are. It is not necessarily the media's fault. Society seems to thrive on sensationalism and admittedly I cannot disagree with that. The more “twisted” or drama filled a case is, the more interesting it becomes to people. It is just simply human nature. On the morning of June 23 rd 2012 a couple went to The Violet Andrew Park in Portland Texas, a small town just east of Corpus C...

This is one of those cases in which I am unsure after researching how I feel about it. We have all been a teenager and obviously some of us have been teenage girls. We said stupid things; we did stupid things. We have all, teenager or not, said things that we did not mean. I would even gander to say that at least some of us have fantasized or even stated out loud we would like to see someone we do not like dead. We may have even “planned” it all without intention of ever following through. But, what happens when you share these feelings with the wrong people and they put your words into actions? That was the question for two juries to answer in Alaska. On November 13, 2004 forty-eight year old Lauri Waterman was taken from her home in Craig Alaska by the boyfriend, and ex-boyfriend, of her sixteen year old daughter, Rachelle. She was tied up, force fed alcohol, beaten and suffocated. She was then placed in the back of her van and taken to a location far from her hom...

It is cases such as this one that reminds me just how stupid criminals are and the lengths that they will go to cover their own behinds. Rebecca Simpson had it all. She was the wife of a prominent, well respected attorney in the small town of Bridgeport Texas. She had anything money could buy and raised her children in a well manicured, luxury home. She had even had a boyfriend for several years that apparently had gone undetected, until it seems she decided that his wife needed to die and he needed to suffer also. Prosecutors would later claim that the motive behind Rebecca looking to hire someone to kill Shermane Watts and beat up her husband, Danny, came after a newspaper article in the small town paper highlighted a public argument that Rebecca had with Shermane. Reports were that Rebecca approached Shermane at the gym owned by Danny and that she had announced to her that she had been having an affair with Danny. Rebecca held a lot of clout in the small town and ...

This case is quite different than most that I do here. This is a case where I do not believe malice was intended but arrogance and greed is likely what caused the crime that was committed. This was not a perpetrator that was angry at another person and set out for revenge. This was a perpetrator who seemingly got too big for his britches so to say and likely developed a scheme that cost him the least amount to produce with the greatest amount in return financially. It is unclear just where, how or when exactly James Ray became known as a motivational or self help “guru” but it appears that he began to become famous or infamous in the field around 2000. It seems that much of his “teachings” were spiritual based and it appears that throughout the 2000's there was several incidents in which criticism of his methods were raised. Those incidents ranged from complaints of lack of training to safety issues to lack of trained professionals on sight. But, it appears that t...

The murder of one spouse by another is not something unusual. We all know that when a spouse, or an ex-spouse goes missing or is found dead the first people they look at are the current or former spouse. It has become almost so routine that it is not uncommon that when the news media announces there has been a murder and the person was married, social media is full of comments quickly blaming the spouse. It is difficult to do a True Crime Blog and not be bombarded with such cases but it also makes it difficult to keep my, what some would call “morbid enthusiasm” going. Of course you will find spouse on spouse crimes here, in fact the last one I did was a case of a woman convicted of hiring a man to kill her medically ill husband, but I try not to do them extremely often as well as attempt to report on the more “sensational” ones. This one I believe qualifies. Timothy Schuster met Larissa when they were both working at a nursing home in Missouri. The two would marry in 1...

Today is the first day in almost a month that I have sat down to blog. I moved into a new home and just have not sat down to do research. Per my normal routine I researched a few cases before I sat down to compose them. One of the cases I had actually started before my move and I would generally begin with that one. However, sometimes there is just a case that stands out to me and I am compelled to stop my research time and put that case together. This is such a case. The case itself is not overly interesting in the scheme of crimes that I blog about here but I think the motive and the behavior of the main perpetrator is what intrigues me. As the spouse of a disabled person I found her reactions to her husband's medical condition appalling to say the least. At her 2011 trial, her second, it was revealed that when she was informed that her husband, Jack Jesse, who was suffering from colon cancer, would need assistance in emptying and cleaning his colostomy bag she had r...