True Crime Stories

From time to time you will hear me say that this blog will be different than any other that I have done before. At my age that could mean one of three things. One, you should possibly be scared; Two, I really have done one like it in the past or; three, it really is true, this one is going to be different. As you can tell by the title this is more than one case. I may have possibly done blogs with different cases combined because they were similar cases that were resolved very quickly, or maybe they were from the same area. This case does involve two cases but I feel as if you cannot discuss one with out the other. While the crimes of Charles “Jack” Walls III actually occurred for many years prior to the crimes committed by Heath Stocks they were not know for quite some time after. There were a few rumors here and there and some say some authorities as well as prominent people in the town of Lonoke Arkansas knew about Walls and his activities but it was said that few believ...

I do not want to say that I have “discovered” the show Unsolved Mysteries because that would indicate that I knew nothing about the show and that would not be true. But I have “re-discovered” it and have been binge watching it while I research cases. It is not as if I really need more cases to add to my list, but then again you never know what types of cases may intrigue me at any moment. And, the while I do not care for cases that are unsolved as there is not an “ending” per se many of the cases that aired on the show back in the late 1980's have since been solved. This is one of them. I am unsure if it was a benefit that I had looked up the case from the promo for the show and since I was in between cases I was actually researching this case as that segment aired. There were several things I found that seemed to be different from my research. Normally I would give more credence to the news articles than a television show because they are generally bias or sensationa...

Sometimes a heinous crime can open eyes and make a difference somewhere else and make changes. Take for example that last week there was (yet another) school shooting massacre. Someone mentioned to me not long after the Las Vegas mass shooting last year that we have almost all become desensitized to these types of rampages. They do not seem to outrage us like they used to. Of course they still scare us but we feel helpless and discouraged that anything will change. I may be a bit naive in my thinking but for some reason this latest school shooting in Florida seems different to me. Maybe it is the outrage expressed by so many of the students. Maybe it is the availability they have to social media today. I am not sure but something tells me that this shooting may make a difference somewhere and enact some changes. Only time will tell. What I can say is that the case against Michael Bizanowicz did just that. Did it make enough changes? That I am not sure about but it did...

On February 14, 2013 Nathan Leuthold picked his four year old daughter up from preschool and returned to the home he was sharing with his wife, their three children and his wife's parents. It did not seem clear how long Nathan and his wife, Denise had lived with her parents in the Peoria Illinois but it had been quite some time. Nathan and his wife had been Baptist missionaries at some point and it was unclear if they lived with her parents in between trips, if they intended to stay living there or if this was just a stop to save up and get on their feet. At some point during their stay the family had also brought in a Lithuanian exchange student named Aina Dobilaite to live there for a short time. The Leuthold's had met Aina in her native country when she was six years old on one of their missionary trips. When Aina was eighteen Nathan sponsored her and she moved to the United States to attend college. It seems that Aina went to school in Florida for a while before...

When someone takes a plea deal it is generally for one of three reasons.... to avoid the death penalty, to get a much lighter sentence or to avoid putting the defendant's family through a trial. In today's world, as in this case, so often the defendant's family and the victim's family are one and the same. It is not unusual to see someone who is wanting to avoid the death penalty to make a plea and serve the rest of their life in prison. Nor is it unusual to see someone get a much shorter sentence than they were looking at. Sometimes this is done by lowering the charges or even changing them and allowing the court to sentence differently. This case involved a plea deal but the death penalty was never an option for prosecutors because the defendant was a minor when the crime was committed. The United States Supreme court had made this ruling in 2005, five years before the crime was committed. Whether the deal was very specific prior to entering the court is...

While cases in which a defendant argues a Stand Your Ground or Castle Doctrine defense are often the most frustrating to me, they also are the most intriguing. So often this defense is argued in cases of neighbor disputes, which again intrigue me no matter how ridiculous some of them are. But neighbor disputes are not the only cases we hear this argument in. One of the most famous was the case of George Zimmerman in his defense against the murder of Trayvon Martin. In fact, this case was often compared to that one. That is probably why the defendant in this case thought the would surely not be convicted. Of course it happened in Florida, just like the Zimmerman case and just like the Casey Anthony case, two cases that ended in the acquittal of the defendant. I am sure there are plenty of cases that have successfully argue the Stand Your Ground laws. Although, we do not hear about many of them because in a true case in which that law applies the prosecution would have to a...