True Crime Stories

I read the true crime book, In a Child's Name by Peter Maas, many, many years ago. I read it after seeing the television movie of the same name. The movie aired in 1991 when we were still on the back end of the era in which television mini-series' were a thing. I always remembered the movie due to how it ended on the first of two nights on the air. To be fair, my knowledge of all things criminal was not what it is today and the impression they gave in the movie is completely false, but it was still powerful. In the movie investigators had sprayed the home of Kenneth Taylor with Luminol while he was being investigated in the murder of his wife, Teresa Benigno-White. The movie would indicate that it was the use of this chemical that had led to his arrest, which is not really true. At the end of the first night however the movie showed Kenneth Taylor's parents sleeping in the master bedroom of the home and after they turned the light off the room began to gl...

I have often said here there I am neither and advocate for or against the death penalty. Sure, there are cases that are so brutal and vicious that I believe they do deserve that sentence but I also know that the cost to the taxpayer is much higher for death penalties, as well as the cost to house a death row prisoner. I have also said that in my opinion there should be no doubt as to who was the perpetrator in the crime before a death sentence should be given. The only real issue that I have in this case is that there were three people who participated in the crime and yet only one was sentenced to death, or even life for that matter. And yet, the one who would eventually be executed was the one who broke the case for detectives and readily confessed. On January 16, 1991 Gerald Bivins, Ronald Chambers and Scott Weyls began a crime spree. Their first stop was at store in Lafayette Indiana where they shoplifted blue jeans, holding the clerk at gunpoint. From there they...

I know I have done my last few blogs a little differently than the past ones.  I also realize that they have involved the murder and torture of children, some of the more gruesome cases there are.  It is not so much about telling the stories because of obsession with these types of cases per se, it is more making sure these children who were unmercifully tormented by their killers and that these children, in these cases, need to be remembered. They need remembered because they were truly innocent victims who had a whole life ahead of them; they were victims that were never able to grow to adulthood, marry or have children; but they also need to be remembered when it comes to looking at the behaviors of those who were in a position to help but did not so that these types of murders can hopefully be stopped. This is yet another case of child torture...in Indiana. Aiyana Gauvin was a beautiful 4 year old little girl who lived with her father, Christian, and stepmother, Mic...