True Crime Stories

Residents of Fort Worth Texas were in for a surprise in January of 2007. Their friend, Eli Stutzman Jr. had been found dead in his apartment. They knew him as a shy, quiet man who made his living selling leather goods such as purses and bible covers. Some had been told that he has spent some time in prison but were told it was for a drug conviction. It seems that most knew that Stutzman had a liking for cocaine, something he did not necessarily keep a secret, so a drug conviction did not seem to be all that out of the realm of possibilities. What they did not know is that he had actually been convicted for the murder of his former roommate in Travis County Texas nor that he had served time concerning the death of his nine year old son in Nebraska. They also did not know that Stutzman's wife, Iola, had died in a mysterious barn fire in 1977 or that he was suspected of murdering to Colorado men in 1985. Eli Stutzman Jr. had once lived in Dalton Ohio and the member of...

This case is a rather hard one to figure out and research, not because there is not a lot of information but because there never really seemed to be clear cut answers as to not just exactly what happened, but why it happened. Many of the true crime shows such as 48 Hours , Dateline, and others have featured this case, first likely because of the extreme gruesomeness of the case but secondly because in a way it still remains a mystery.  Two people sit in jail for participating in this crime in some way but many wonder if the charges should not have been reversed between them.  Aside from the extremeness of the killing the other thing that interests me is a legal twist that was made several years later. On August 17, 2005 Sharon Sedwick received a phone call in her Corpus Christi Texas home from a law firm.  Her twenty-one year old daughter, Jennifer Cave, had just been hired by the firm as a legal assistant and this was to be her first day, but they were calling to let...

In a way I am much like a police detective in the fact that I like cases that are closed.  I like to know that the police and prosecutors got it right and they were successful in putting a criminal behind bars.  That is not to say that mysteries do not intrigue me and if you are a regular reader here you know that I often blog about cases in which there are many questions as to if the correct person has been convicted of a crime.  I have also often blogged about many cases in which a person has been exonerated of a crime in which they were convicted. In the same respect, for me I am unsure sometimes which is the bigger crime, the initial crime someone is charged with or the crime committed in which evidence is often skewed or outright fabricated in order to secure a conviction.  I am an ardent supporter of civil rights and the law.  They are in place for reasons.  If someone is going to be involved in situations in which a person's freedom is at stake I wan...