True Crime Stories

I am pretty sure this is one of the cases that I discovered while watching “Forensic Files,” which is in my opinion one of the best true crime shows. Unlike other shows this one is only thirty minutes long so there is little time to be bias and it fully sticks to the facts. They have portions where they interview people of course but again, it is full of facts. You can generally find the episodes fairly easy through different streaming apps, including YouTube so if you have not seen this show and you like true crime, which if you are here I suspect you do, it is worth checking out. Helen “Marlene” Oakes had been married to Bill Major for about nine years in 1980. They had married when she was sixteen and he was about twenty-seven. By 1980 they had two children, eight year old Donald and four year old LaLana and were living in Verona Kentucky. It was said that both Marlene and Bill were known to see other people through their marriage. In fact, it was well known that Marlene w...

  This case and the one I plan to do after this one, are both cases in which the perpetrators were executed in the state of California. I do not think there is a question in either case whether the perpetrator was guilty of the crime that sent them to their deaths but I do question the mentality of them both. But, here I am, as usual getting ahead of myself. Few people will argue that Robert Alton Harris did not have a horrible childhood. It was repeatedly said that he was born in 1953 early (some say two months, some say three) due to the fact that his father, Kenneth, had kicked his mother, Evelyn, in the stomach. Both of his parents were alcoholics. Court reports would say that at birth Robert suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome. While I cannot necessarily dispute this officially and knowing the history I am unsure that it is not technically true, I do question that was a diagnosis in 1953. At the time of his birth the Harris family was living at Fort Bragg in North ...

  While researching this case I often thought about the case of Sylvia Likens. If you do not know about Sylvia's case I have blogged about it here (it was one of my very first ones in 2012) and there is a lot on the Internet. In short Sylvia Likens and her sister had been left in the care of a woman in Indianapolis while their parents worked the carnival tours. Sylvia was beaten and tortured not just by the woman, but by her children and children in the neighborhood. She would be found dead in the home in 1965. At the time neighbors had seen things that today we would expect to be reports. I have often been put in the position of explaining to people when this case is discussed on the Internet how I defend these people a bit because of the time period and how people reacted to things. Of course I have never believed that Sylvia's death was justified and there were people in position that should have done more. What I never expected was to see a someone similar situatio...

  When I sit down to compose a blog I like to try to do that in one sitting with things quiet all around me. Currently I live with two small toddlers and by the time I have time for quiet I am usually too exhausted to think! Let me say, doing this at almost fifty is quite different than doing it in my twenties. At any rate I had finished researching a blog today and I thought I would just spend the rest of the day researching cases and over the next few days, when I may have some down time, I would put them together. But, then I came across this case and I wanted to go ahead and pull it all together. This case has been on my list for a very long time and I have never just really had a desire to dive deep into it. To be fair I think that is because on the surface all of the little information that I found all basically said the same things. This would have a lot to do with the fact that this case took place back in the early 1950's. Today I dug a bit deeper if for no other r...

  Late in the night of October 11, 1989 Cathy Paternoster and her boyfriend, Carl Fuerst were returning to their Spring Valley Lake, California home with two of their three children after a quick run to a local video store. As soon as Carl got out of their vehicle he was confronted with a man dressed all in black and sporting a beard. Before he knew it there was a hail of gunfire. When it was all said and done Cathy lay dead in the driveway of their home and he had suffered three gunshot wounds. One of his wounds had occurred after the gunman had started to come after him again and Carl lunged at him, knocking him to the ground and the gun discharged. The one good thing was that the struggle had apparently startled the gunman and he took off running. Despite his wounds Carl was able to get to a neighbors house to make sure the police were contacted. Almost everyone interviewed had the same suspect in mind... Eric Fagan. Cathy Paternoster had three daughters. At the time o...

I recently had a conversation with someone who knows someone awaiting a trial and has been assured that the person will spend significant time in prison. While I do not claim to know all of the evidence available it does sound as if the person will likely spend a few decades in jail. However, as I explained to the person nothing is certain, not even a conviction and sentence is always enough to let one's guard down. In fact, I know of a case in which a man was charged with incest of his child. He had confessed to the police at some point although later denied the charges against him. He went to trial and was convicted. He received sentence of I believe fifty years. The conviction was overturned when it was discovered that one of the investigating officers had continued to interview the man after he asked for an attorney. This is Law Enforcement 101... but it still occurs. The man got a new trial and was again convicted and sentenced to nearly fifty years. But, i...