True Crime Stories

On January 14, 2009 police in Gilbert Arizona would receive a call from Marissa DeVault. She would claim in the 911 call that an unknown assailant had come into the home she shared with her husband, Dale Harrell and had attacked him. Authorities would arrive at the home and Dale would be rushed to the hospital. Despite her claims of an assailant, Marissa would be arrested that same night on suspicions of aggravated assault. A claw hammer, covered in blood, would be found at the crime scene. This case took on the sensationalism that it did partly due to the Jodi Arias case. It too took place in Maricopa County, just the year before. Jodi too had at some point said an unknown assailant had come into the home of her on again/off again boyfriend, Travis Alexander. She, like Marissa would later do, often changed her story from being the assailant herself to not being responsible. In fact, it seems that Jodi and Marissa would meet each other while doing time. In the end M...

While researching this case I realized that at the time most of the first trial was going on I had a lot going on in my life and I just was not into this case as much.  Sure I knew the basics such as Jodi Arias was accused of murdering her boyfriend... was he an ex or not.... in his home and she had changed her story more than once.  I may have even known her victims name was Travis Alexander but beyond that I could not have told you a whole lot.  Sure this case was a media sensation because it had a scorned woman, a vicious murder, and a story of kinky sex to boot, but still it had not garnered much of my attention. Sadly, while it does have it's twists and turns and did have a large amount of media coverage, the reality of it is that there was not really a unique situation.   On June 9, 2008 in Mesa Arizona a group of Travis Alexanders friends went to the home he shared with a few roommates.  Travis was a motivational speaker and a salesman for a legal servi...