True Crime Stories

I recently did a combined blog about mothers, Dora Buentrostro and Socorro Caro. They were both mothers in California that were convicted of murdering their children (three each) who would face trials while they continued to maintain that the father's of the children were the actual murderers and they were innocent. Both women were convicted and sentenced to death and remain on death row. The case of Sandi Dawn Nieves came in between those cases. While Dora Buentrostro committed her crime in October of 1994 she was convicted and the jury recommended the death sentence in July of 1998, one month after Sandi Nieves murdered her children. By the time Socorro Caro committed her crime in November of 1999 Buentrostro was sitting on death row and Sandi Nieves was awaiting trial, but she too was facing the death penalty. According to prosecutors and even Sandi Nieves' surviving son, who was fourteen at the time, on the night of June 30, 1998 Sandi Nieves told her five chil...

As I sat down today I planned to compile the Buentrostro case but instead thought that I would research the next one on my list. In the end I am doing something I do not believe I have done before. I am composing two different stories together not just because the similarities are so extensive but also because I think there is almost a bigger story behind the crimes, one that is often ignored, domestic violence from women. We all know about domestic violence. It has been around for centuries. It was first often encouraged, then expected, sometimes even legal, and later often ignored. But most of us were raised in an era where it was believed that domestic violence only occurred from a man to a woman. It seems authorities did not start taking domestic violence serious until more like the 1980's. What began as a movement per se to curb domestic violence in turn became an new kind of ignorance. Shelters and help lines were created.... for women. Police officers w...