True Crime Stories

The law has always been something that I have been fascinated with.  I used to think, and sometimes I still do, that my dream job would be to be a lawyer.  In fact, I went to school and although I left a few credits short, to obtain a Bachelor's Degree in Paralegal Studies.  When it is brought up in conversation my husband will often remind me that while being an attorney may be my calling it would not likely be as a defense attorney.  I will admit that if I were in fact a defense attorney I likely would not be a popular, or a rich one seeing as I am very much about personal responsibility and about the law.  If you are a reader of my blogs then you should know that there have been cases in which I believe the right person has been convicted for a crime, and yet I do not agree with the tactics taken to get that conviction.  There are also those that I believe are guilty who have been set free either because the state did not fully prove their case or becaus...

Sadly, when you follow true crime cases as I do, so many of them just seem "routine."  I have a list of names or cases that when it is time to sit down and do some research I start going through the list to refresh myself on what the particular case was about and look to find one that strikes me at that moment. It really is not as easy as it seems.  Think of it as if you are watching a movie and it just seems so unoriginal and predictable that you know the ending before you are half way through.  That is quite often the case for me with true crime cases and especially the true crime shows on television. Of course the difference with true crime cases is that they involve real people.  I should be clear in saying that while I find "excitement" or interest in the crimes themselves I am also just as interested, if not more in the legal process a case takes. I found this case, just as I have several of the last few cases, while I was researching another local case. ...

Murder for hire cases just amaze me, especially in the time we live in now.  I sometimes wonder if I am the only person on earth who knows just how many "hit men" are actually undercover cops or if by chance they get a legitimate hit man that does succeed that they have forgotten that the first person that is looked at are those close to or who have issues with the victim. And we all know the saying.... "Three people can keep a secret, if two of them are dead."  I have always wanted to be a lawyer and in fact I have gone to law school to obtain a bachelors degree in paralegal studies (we all know the paralegals are the ones who do the work :) ) and while I stopped just short of obtaining that degree obviously the law and legal findings still fascinate me. This is one of those case in which my husband would remind me just how badly I would be as a defense attorney.  In general I probably would not be a good attorney on either side.  I simply d...

I have often heard prosecutors say that they do not get to pick their witnesses and when you are dealing with criminals, you are more than likely to have criminals as your witnesses.  Before forensics obviously witnesses were all that authorities had.  Obviously there are going to be those who lie in hopes of either getting away with something they did or to gain something in another area. Over the decades authorities have learned, or at least most should have, that even the most innocent eye witness can be flawed and so to rely on this is not always a good thing. On April 4, 1989 a 911 call was received from a woman named Kim Hallock in Mims Florida.  She said that she had met up with an ex boyfriend, Charles "Skip" Flynn Jr. at a park sometime after 11 pm to talk and that they had been held up by a "black man" who then kidnapped them, took them to an orange grove and then proceeded to shoot Charles.  She had gotten away but Charles was still in the orange grove...

On the evening of May November 22, 2004 in San Antonio Texas a popular high school teacher, Diane Tilly, was packing in preparation for a trip when there was a knock at her door.  When she opened the door 15 year old Pearl Ann Cruz was standing there saying she had car trouble and asking to come inside and make a call. Soon Pearl and her father, Ronnie Joe Neal were inside Diane's house and by the time the night was over Diane would lay in field dead from several gunshot wounds. Most reports that I found stated that at some point before the murder Ronnie Joe Neal had gone to Diane Tilly's home, with his daughter, Pearl, in search of lawn mowing jobs.  The stories say that while she denied needing her grass mowed she had offered them an old swing set that was in her yard.  This was the claimed as really being the only contact made between the victim and her murderers prior to her killing. However, at his trial there was a Thanksgiving card shown that Ronnie Joe Neal...

I have a long list of cases to research to blog about.  I get the names of the cases through different media outlets... television shows, news articles, books and the like.  The sad thing is that it seems in today's world some cases just seem to "routine."  Over the last few days I have been going through my list and so many of them are spouse (or ex spouse) against spouse. We all know, at least all of you who are into true crime stories like I am, that when a murder occurs the first person looked at is a current or ex-spouse (or boy/girl friend) and sadly this has become the norm because it happens so often.  So when Phillip Naydenova found his wife, Slavka and her son Paul Wilson dead in their home it is not unexpected that media comments and outlets questioned his story in the beginning.  Phillip had stated that he had spoken to Slavka on the phone and she had told him that a woman who spoke Russian was at the door asking to use the bathroom.  This comme...

When the channel Investigative Discovery first came out it was, and remains my favorite station to watch.  Over the years I have changed cable companies and as it often happens it always seems that the next level of packages that they offer seem to only have a channel or two that you would care to watch and does not seem worth the many extra dollars that it costs so currently I do not have it. However, a few months ago I was given a free month and I am surprised that my DVR did not burn up with the literally hundreds of hours that I taped from that channel alone.  I spent that month, and the next trying to catch up and watch everything and when I found one with an interesting story I made a note of it so that I could research it more and possibly blog about it here.  This was one such story. It is not uncommon that I watch a television show based on a true crime and find that so much of the story was left out or sometimes it seems even fictionalized.  While admitte...