True Crime Stories

While cases in which a defendant argues a Stand Your Ground or Castle Doctrine defense are often the most frustrating to me, they also are the most intriguing. So often this defense is argued in cases of neighbor disputes, which again intrigue me no matter how ridiculous some of them are. But neighbor disputes are not the only cases we hear this argument in. One of the most famous was the case of George Zimmerman in his defense against the murder of Trayvon Martin. In fact, this case was often compared to that one. That is probably why the defendant in this case thought the would surely not be convicted. Of course it happened in Florida, just like the Zimmerman case and just like the Casey Anthony case, two cases that ended in the acquittal of the defendant. I am sure there are plenty of cases that have successfully argue the Stand Your Ground laws. Although, we do not hear about many of them because in a true case in which that law applies the prosecution would have to a...

In August of 2000 twenty-three year old Amy Giles died in Jacksonville Florida. Amy was the daughter of Jacksonville residents Miriam and Jack Giles. A year and a half later Jack would also die in April of 2002. While I could not definitely determine how Amy had died, Jack's cause of death was a gunshot wound to his head while laying in his bed. Laying next to him was his wife, Miriam. She would tell investigators that Jack had never gotten over the death of their daughter and had suffered from depression. The gun used was said to be one that Jack kept in his nightstand drawer. The gun was found in his hand and it appears that little else was looked at, or collected as would be in a normal crime scene. Jack's death would be ruled a suicide. Miriam apparently stayed in Florida for at least a while because in 2004 she pleaded guilty to charges related to a “counterfeit check scheme.” It does not seem to have been too serious considering she only spent three da...