True Crime Stories

As I was researching this case I realized I had stumbled across the real-life Justified and Boyd Crowder, although admittedly I cannot say if Robert Foley had Crowder's charm. Harlan County Kentucky is even mentioned. In fact, Foley's first conviction for murder was in Harlan County. On August 17, 1991 Robert Foley murdered two brothers, Rodney and Lynn Vaughn in his home in Laurel County Kentucky. It was said that there were ten other adults in the home at the time the shooting started and even several children. Witnesses would say that everyone, except it seems Foley had “checked” their weapons in a kitchen cabinet. At some point Foley and thirty-nine year old Rodney Vaughn had a confrontation of sorts. Allegedly Rodney pointed a finger at Rodney and warned him not to hit him again, Foley then knocked him to the floor and shot him six times. It sounds as if most of the people began to take off from the home but thirty year old Lynn Vaughn kneeled down by...

I have discussed a lot of cases that involve mental illness lately. Then again I do not think that is all that unusual in the types of cases that I generally blog about. I think most of us would agree that to commit most of the crimes that I discuss here one would not be the typical “normal” person. The difference here is that no one on either side brought it up. Whether that is because cases that use mental illness as a defense are not very successful is unclear. The other issue could be that while Molly Martens Corbett sat in one defense chair, her father sat in another. Their defense attorney's almost had to work together to come up with what they believed to be a believable story. It would be difficult to say when there was ample evidence that they were both involved in the murder of Molly's husband, Jason, that one of them was mentally ill while the other was not. Molly Martens and Jason Corbett met in 2008 when Molly traveled to Ireland from Tenness...

I struggled with what I was going to title this one. Most of the time I will title it based on the perpetrator. When there are multiple perpetrators then I will usually title it “The Murder of....” The difference in this case is that while one man, John Wayne Hearn, claimed to be the trigger man in three separate murders, there were several other people involved also. I will say that I disagree with investigators in these cases who proclaimed that John Wayne Hearn would not have been the murderer that he was if it were not for Debra Banister. I mean they met because he had placed an ad in the magazine Soldier of Fortune promoting the “skills of an ex-marine courting 'high risk' assignments.” Of course it does not say “murder” but first, I think the implication was there and secondly, when Debra Banister approached him about committing a murder he could have protested and said no. When all was said and done John Wayne Hearn would admit to the murders of Cec...

When I first began searching this name I had a bit of difficulty because I kept coming up with articles referring to Genene Jones, the Texas nurse accused of being involved in the deaths of several children. But, I knew that case was not the one I was attempting to look into even if I did not know for sure what case this was. In fact, even as I began my research in this case I still remembered little about the case. It seemed like one of those “run of the mill” cases I probably caught on one of those episodes of Dateline or something like it that showed videos of people attempting to hire someone to kill another person. Then it was Janeene's “side criminal activity” that I had remembered most from this case. On February 25, 2013 Janeene Lea Jones of North Port Florida, was arrested after she had attempted to hire a man to murder her current husband, Matthew Smith and a man named John Chamberlain who had been described as a tenant of hers. As is often the case Ja...

On the night of February 18, 2015 Michael Reese was found shot to death in his home in Morris Alabama. His wife, Cindy, told investigators that after work the couple had first gone to her mother's home, then to church before picking up food on the way home. However, instead of eating Cindy Reese had went to the grocery store and came home but when she walked in and saw the home in disarray she grabbed a phone and went outside and called 911. She claimed she had never seen her husband's body laying by the back door. In the same respect investigators also say Cindy never asked if Michael was alive or even what his condition was. Prosecutors would later say that was because Cindy already knew. By the following month not only was Cindy Reese arrested and charged in the murder of her husband, but so was Jeffrey Brown, a pastor at a local church, and Cindy's lover. Brown would be the first to talk and make himself a deal. He would eventually plead guilty to...

When I am researching a case I always try to have more than once source say something about a case in order for me to be certain about it, unless the source is an appeal through the court. I will often read comments by every day users on articles and sites but I make extra efforts to determine if those statements are true. Just this week I published a story in which I had seen several comments made about a person involved in the story that I dismissed as I had not found anything to support the comments. Then at the very last minute I discovered evidence to back them. In this case one of the first sites I came across was a crime and punishment website. If you have ever seen that site then you know that it is full of both, articles published in the media as well as comments and opinions from others. Someone repeatedly posted on this case saying that they were a family member of the victims and that William “Corky” Snyder was framed. Had the person stated they were a famil...

The only thing that this case has in common with the last two blogs that I have done is that the accused was a woman, oh and they were convicted for a crime. The difference here is that Susie Mowbray was retried after serving nearly nine years in prison and acquitted. There are some that think she should have never been charged and others who believe she got away with murder. In the end, whether you believe she was guilty or innocent even the second jury admitted it came down to the investigation conducted by law enforcement and the behavior of the prosecution. Several years later Cameron County Texas, where this case took place, would be rocked with a scandal involving corruption that most say was so deep and outrageous only a fiction writer could talk about it. It was not clear just how long the corruption went back but more than a dozen people were involved including a judge, a State Representative and several current and former members of the DA office. Some of th...