True Crime Stories

In my opinion there are at least two types of criminals. There are those that progress in their crimes, even when they are caught and there are those that not only learn lessons after serving jail time but actively seek to change. It is hard to tell the difference in the beginning when they are caught for their first crime which sort of criminal they are going to turn out to be. Of course there are the ones who have already progressed in their crimes by the time they are caught for the first time. Larry Gene Bell was arrested for the first time in February of 1975. He had attempted to abduct a woman in a grocery store parking lot in Rock Hills South Carolina. He had approached her at knife point but her screams alerted people nearby and Bell took off. He was apprehended just a few minutes later after driving away. He bailed out fairly quickly but three months later he pleaded guilty to the crime. In those days victims were not entitled to be notified of any procee...

I do not know what to think about Roland Pitre Jr. It is pretty apparent that he is not a good guy by just his rap sheet but I am conflicted on just what kind of bad guy he is. He is either a horrible criminal, since he was caught often; a squealer who will rat on himself and anyone else he can in a second; or he is just a remorseless man who commits crimes and basically stands back and says, Yeah, I did it, just sentence me and let me be on my way. Ok, the last is just an assumption that I have made just by everything I read on him. It is likely that no one knows exactly when Roland began committing crimes or just how many he has committed in his lifetime. I would not be surprised to know that the only reason we know of the crimes in which he committed is simply because he was caught and there are others that he just was never caught for. Then again he seemed to be such a bungled criminal I am unsure that he could commit a crime without being caught. The first crime that...

I am going to do a little something different here. On my list of cases to research I had the name Nancy Newman. I had a notation that this was a crime committed in Alaska but like most cases I knew little going in. The difference in this case is that I found very little specifics on this case and I am curious if readers can either find more or know more. Here is what I can tell you.... Kirby Anthoney was originally from Idaho, as was the Newman family. John Newman, the husband of Nancy, was Kirby's uncle. The Newman family, that included daughters, Melissa and Angie, had been in Alaska for a few years when Kirby went to stay with them briefly with his girlfriend in 1985. It was said that Kirby left Idaho after being the prime suspect in the rape and beating of a twelve year old girl. The case did not seem to go anywhere because the girl was left with brain damage and could not identify Kirby. But this was far from Kirby's first run in with the law, nor was...

I think my first exposure to Richard Speck was through a show that would be produced after his death in 1991 showing the antics that had been allowed inside the prison system in Illinois. In May of 1996 reporter, Bill Kurtis received a video that had been made in 1988. Eventually the video was complied into one of the many shows that Bill Kurtis would be the host of and showed elicit sex and drug use among the prisoners in a way in which it was clear they were in no fear of being caught. Although the video was not released until several years after it had been taken it still had a wide impact on the Illinois prison system. Within the video Speck was shown and it was clear that one, not just by his own words but by his physical appearance that he had been taking hormones during his prison stay. If I were older I would have known who Richard Speck was considering at the time of his crime of 1966 it was dubbed as The Crime of Century. As we know this term is used rather ...