True Crime Stories

The Murder of Angila Wilder We see it every day in true crimes. A person is murdered and their current, or former spouse is found to be responsible. They are always the first person looked at for the crime. It is not unusual for a new spouse or significant other to given the person an alibi that either later would be proven to be false, or that they retract after the relationship sours. What is less common, although not unheard of, is that the new spouse or boy(or girl)friend helped in the commission of the murder. Of course they too are often looked at as the perpetrator initially but it just seems too easy for a new spouse to claim innocence in the crime. Investigators may have their suspicions, but suspicions cannot make a case beyond reasonable doubt. It seems that most prosecutors are simply happy getting the ex-spouse and closing the case rather than dig anymore into the case. Cynthia Wilder, could have been one of those people if she had not had a conversa...

This is one of those cases in which you have to wonder if someone looked a little deeper, or got there a little faster if lives would not have been saved. A 911 call was made while the murders of a mother and her two teenage boys were happening, by one of the victims. When officers arrived at the scene just five minutes later and did not get an answer when they knocked on the door they determined that it was a “false call” and left the area. Now, either Oscar Franklin Smith was still inside or he had already left, leaving the back door to the home open. This means when the officers arrived they could have possibly caught a killer or at the very least found the back door open which should have caused further investigating. In August of 1985 Oscar “Frank” Smith married Judy Robirds Burnett. Judy had two sons, Chad and Jason from a previous marriage. Frank also had two children from his first marriage who were now living with his parents. The couple settled down in Nashv...

This blog is much different than most. It is one of those cases in which you cannot tell the story of one crime without telling the story of another. Actually in this case there are at least three crimes involved, all committed at different times. In fact, they were all committed in different decades! Jean-Claude Dominique grew up in Haiti. In the late 1970's a nurse named Eliette, who lived in the states sponsored Jean-Claude with the Immigration Service. Jean-Claude and Eliette would marry in 1980 while Eliette helped pay to put her husband through medical school. They took an apartment in Brooklyn and lived there with their two children, a son (born in 1982) and a daughter (born in 1984) until about 1993 when they moved to Long Island. By then Jean-Claude was an established and well liked doctor and Eliette worked as an intensive care nurse. From the outside, and even from the inside, at least to Eliette, the couple had it all. They had decided to keep ...

This case shows us several things. It shows us that it does not matter your profession, anyone can be evil. It shows us that sometimes that evil seems to be in your DNA. It also shows us that no matter how slick you think you are, the odds of you avoiding justice are slim. Christine Belford and David Matusiewicz were divorced in 2006. David worked as an optometrist. They shared three daughters together and the divorce was ending in a very bitter custody dispute. David, and his family, would proclaim that Christine was abusive to the girls in his attempt for custody. It is unclear if custody had been officially settled in the summer of 2007 when David and his mother, Lenore, picked up the three girls from their Wilmington Delaware home allegedly headed to Disney World in Florida for two weeks. But, it is safe to say that keeping them for the next year and a half from their mother was not in the court papers. Christine obviously filed a police report and aut...

This is a case of justice NOT served. This is not a case in which an innocent person was sent to prison or a murder went unsolved. This is a case in which it was proven, not once, but twice that the defendant had murdered his wife. The first conviction was overturned on a technicality that had nothing to do with the evidence. The second conviction was overturned because the courts did not agree with the prosecutors, or the jury apparently, that “premeditation” existed and in essence said that the prosecutors “over charged” in the case. The result was that Bruce Hummel was not only released from prison but prosecutors were barred from trying him again. This was not just a simple case of murder, not that there really is such a thing I suppose. This was a case in which not only does it seem clear that Bruce Hummel murdered his wife, Alice, in 1990, but he spent many of the eighteen years before his arrest sending gifts and cards and letters to the children that he and Ali...

**** The exact location of this crime seemed to be rather confusing. Some information stated that a few years before the crime the family had moved from Alba Texas to Celeste Texas to be closer to their church. Other information stated the crime occurred in Emory Texas. However, it seemed that even more claimed it still to have occurred in Alba. I have chosen to stick with Alba for two reasons. One it is in Rains County, the county in which the prosecutions took place, although in fairness Emory is located there also, while Celeste Texas is in Hunt County. Secondly, the Findagrave website lists the place of death for the Caffey's as being in Alba while their burial occurred elsewhere.**** It is not like I keep my blogging or my obsession with true crimes a secret from my family. I often bounce things off my husband and talk about the cases I have researched. He also helps me sometimes when I have questions about guns or things like that. When it comes to my gr...