True Crime Stories

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 she became friend

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 eventually ind

As the mother of teenagers as I watched (and researched) a show on this case and was truly touched.  I always try to remember when my own teenagers react to things that I too was once a teenager and just how "traumatic" everything seemed to be.  As with most parents I also tend to remember how as a teenager I did not have technology and things that are available to teens now days.   This case is a story of texting and driving, but it is also so much more.  On March 19, 2009 in Montana, 16 year old Justine Winter was arguing with her boyfriend through text messaging when she crossed the center line in her vehicle and hit a car containing pregnant wife and mother, Erin Thompson and her 13 year old son Caden Odell.   The argument had started over something stupid, at least by adult standards. It was over the fact that her boyfriend, Ryan discovered Justine had dated a friend of his in the past and he was jealous.  Throughout the text messages she stated she was going to cras

This story is different than the others within this blog because it does not involve murder but after just watching a story about it and reading up on the Internet (like I do very often) I am just floored by this story and the stupidity involved. Millionaire Reid Gray came home on the Friday before Labor Day in 2009, from work to find a note, written his his wife, Quinn's  handwriting indicating she had been kidnapped.  Over the next several days there were phone calls, from her saying that the kidnappers demanded $50,000.  She stated that they had indicated that this was in connection to a debt he owed a loan shark.  Reid was confused because he said he was never involved with a loan shark and even he found the ransom amount to be odd considering he made over a million dollars a year.  At one point Reid is informed that the kidnappers are aggravated with him and instead of dealing with him they began dealing with Quinn's mother. There was a bit of a "scavenger hunt"

It was the Roaring 20's and Hollywood was full of scandals!  On February 2, 1922, Henry Peavy, the valet and cook for director/actor William Desmond Taylor walked into his bungalow and found him dead.   "Fatty" Arbuckle had already had two mistrials in the murder of a woman and getting ready to start his third trial; while the public knew that there was a lot of 'scandalous' parties going on what they did not realize was that many of the beloved stars were addicted to alcohol and drugs which led to the said parties; and Hollywood was already on the fringe of getting a bad rap for being 'too sexy' or 'immoral' in their movies.  Granted, if you were to watch one of these movies now, it was still the "silent" era, you would likely laugh at how something would seem to immoral or the like but you have to remember that in 1939, nearly 20 years later, the movie Gone with the Wind, was given a R rating because it said the word "damn."

Keeping with the Hollywood theme for a bit.  This is a case that I have seen a lot about over the years and have heard the debates.  Even doing the research for this and learning or refreshing more I do not know which I believe happened. The official report is that George Reeves (45), television's Superman, went upstairs to his room while his finance and some friends were downstairs on the morning of June 16, 1959 and retrieved a gun out of a drawer and shot himself while sitting on his bed. Speculation followed as to whether it really was suicide or if it was murder.  Much of that came from the actions of his fiance I believe. If, in fact, George committed suicide it would not surprise me.  He had sort of a rough life.  His mother had claimed that he was born in April 1914 when he was actually born January 5, 1914.  He did not know the truth until he was an adult.  She had claimed this because his birth and his parents' marriage were less than the customary 9 month differe

I was never a Hogan's Heroes' fan. It is much more slap stick comedy than I tend to enjoy.  However, the story of Bob Crane's murder falls right into my fascinations with both true crime and Hollywood. While brushing up on this case, I was reminded of a few other Hollywood crimes (although the Crane case did not take place in California, let alone Hollywood), many of which have been unsolved.  But in my tradition of blogging about similar cases I will get to some of those, for now it's about Bob Crane. On June 29, 1978 Bob's body was found in an apartment in Scottsdale, Arizona, he was renting while doing a dinner theater play called "Beginner's Luck" by his co-star Victoria Berry, around noon.  According to Berry she had an "appointment" with Bob and that when he did not answer her knocks she found the door unlocked and entered the apartment.   Bob Crane was found in his bed with his skull crushed in and a cord wrapped around his

I really wanted to try and get another blog out soon after the last because I do not necessarily want this blog to be solely about tortured and murdered children.  However, I do want to stay with the current format I believe and make it more about the "story" than about the murderers "case."  Of course it comes down to wording and semantics, and maybe I will change that based on the story or case. On October 6, 1998 Ron Stovall walked out of his house in the morning while it was still dark to go to work.  He was ambushed by someone in the dark who began shooting at him.  Ron tried to run back into his home and get the door closed.  At this point Ron's wife Angelica was in the area and as Ron fell to the floor she attempted to keep the shooter out, unsuccessfully.  The shooter reached in the door and continued to shoot.  As the shooter left Angelica heard him say "This is for her."  Ron was shot at least eight times and died. As with all crimes of m