True Crime Stories

On April 20, 2000 police in Dundalk Maryland, near Baltimore responded to a call.  They would find Stephen Cooke Jr. in the middle of his front room floor holding the bloody body of his girlfriend, Heidi Bernadzikowski.  He would say that he had come home to find her there with her throat slashed.   Police were almost immediately suspicious of Stephen and everyone knew it. Some believe they were simply suspicious because he was the closest person to Heidi and everyone knows those are the ones who are first looked at.  Others say the suspicion came from several other things such as their was no forced entry into the home and nothing appeared to have been stolen.  But, the most suspicious thing of all was the fact that investigators learned that just one month before her murder a life insurance policy for $700,000 had been obtained on the twenty-four year old and Stephen was the beneficiary. But, investigators had no evidence to prove Stephen was guilty. ...

I had debated on doing this case because I feared that my conclusions would make me seem harsh, which would not be my intentions.  In one sense it is like many of the cases that I blog about where in the end there are different conclusions as to what happened and it seems that no amount of evidence, or research will change the opinion of those on either side.  That being said, the loss of a child has to be one of the most devastating things for a parent to suffer from.  And while I do not believe there is any age in which it would be an easy thing for any parent I do believe there is a certain age in which makes things worse and Annie fell into that area.  She was sixteen years old.  At this point as a parent you are seeing your child's personality start to shine through; you are having more adult conversations with them and not shielding them from the little things you did when they were a child; they are on the cusp of truly deciding what they want to do with ...