True Crime Stories

  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 ...

This case is interesting in the fact that I am unsure completely what the motive was in the murders. Prosecutors do not always know what a motive is but they know that juries want to know “the why” and are more likely to convict if they can understand why the murder occurred. Defense attorneys more often than not, have a completely different motive or reason, that is if they admit that their client was responsible. If they do not admit their client is responsible for the crime they will often place the blame elsewhere. The defense will also tend to “jump around” which is not necessarily a bad strategy since their goal is simply create “reasonable doubt” while the prosecution has to “prove” their case. In this case the prosecutors claimed that Cheyanne Jessie murdered her father, Mark Weekly and her six year old daughter, Meredith Jessie, to preserve her relationship with her boyfriend, Matthew Munroe. The defense would claim that Munroe was the actual murderer and that Cheyann...

  I started researching this case and then I almost decided not to continue. Since the case ended in a guilty plea and ultimately in the suicide of the defendant in prison there is not a lot of information out there that can really be “nailed down” and verified. But, I decided to continue for a few reasons. First, there are the heinous crimes that Rios committed, first the murder of an innocent young girl and then five days later to his own family including his wife and three young daughters. Secondly, there were questions raised as to why Rios was not deported to his home country of Mexico prior to committing murder. I will try to discuss both issues at length and explain what I can. In the end, and as always, I welcome feedback to possibly explain some of the things I could not or to clarify any confusing issues that I may have. Simon Rios lived in Fort Wayne Indiana with his wife, Ana and their three daughters, Liliana, Katherinne and Thannya. In 2005 the girls were ten,...

  The murder of a child is always especially senseless and often preventable. But, there is generally a “reason,” they are not ever good reasons, but they are reasons. Child murders are generally committed by two groups of people, pedophiles and parents, or those in a parental role. You often hear stories of a child dying at the hands of their mother's boyfriend; you hear stories of a child being starved or abused by their parents (or foster parents at times); you hear of pedophiles, generally already with a record, stalking and murdering children from time to time. Even still the latter is less common than murders by family members. This case did not fall into any of those categories. In the end even the perpetrator claimed they had no idea why they did what they did and gave no real answers. Melissa Huckaby would not have even been on the radar if she had not said and done some strange things. In fact the FBI had profiled the killer as being a white male between the ages o...

  This is a particularly disturbing case for me and that says a lot considering that all child murders are difficult for me when it comes to blogging. This is one of those cases where it appears that EVERYONE in this child's life failed him and there was absolutely no reason for it. On January 28, 2005 in Tampa Florida, three year old Ronnie Antonio Paris was removed from life support and died. He had been in the hospital, in a coma, since the 22 nd . His parents had claimed that they had been a friends house attending a bible study when little Ronnie had fallen asleep on the couch, never to wake up again. I am not sure any of these claims were true from the family attending a bible study to little Ronnie just simply falling asleep. Ronnie Antonio Paris was born December 9, 2001. In May of 2002 he was removed from his home and put in foster care. He had been taken to the hospital after having repeated vomiting, he was malnourished and it was even discovered the si...

  As I stated in my last blog, I have several cases put together that involve the murder of children. I also discussed the issue of false confessions in my last entry. In my last blog there was a confession and while the person later apparently pleaded not guilty and took his case to trial, he never seemed to not only change his story, but never claimed he was coerced in any way, and he told the same story to several different people at different times. This case is not like that and while I cannot tell you exactly how the confession came about, or what was said, I can tell you that the man who confessed almost immediately recanted and claimed coercion. The other difference in this case is that while investigators had a confession, DNA would later prove that confession to be false. We talk so often about mishandled investigations and crime scenes and this case is one in which this was very evident. On the morning of June 6, 2004 six year old Tyler Fox woke his father, Ke...

  I have a few cases researched and generally I try to go through them and put them together in the order I researched them but from time to time I will come across one that I really want to do before the others. I have often said that the most difficult cases for me are those involving children so when I get in a mood to do those types of cases I generally have several at one time and then you will not see them for a while. This one however, is like no other that I have researched, regardless that the victim was a child. I was extremely surprised that this happened more than twenty years ago and even in my state and I had never heard about the case. From a legal standpoint there is very little evidence that a crime even technically occurred. In fact, if Ronald Shanabarger had not confessed repeatedly he would have clearly gotten away and not sitting in prison right now. On the morning of June 20, 1999 in Franklin Indiana, Amy Shanabarger went in to check on her six month ...

Life got busy for a while and although I have several blogs already researched, I have not posted in more than a week. Sometimes that makes it a bit more difficult for me because I like to compose my blogs close to when I researched them so I remember things but, it is what it is. On October 15, 1930 ten year old Leona O'Loughlin was reported missing in Denver Colorado. It is not exactly clear who reported Leona missing. Her father, Leo, was a police detective but he was extremely sick on the day that she was reported missing. In fact, it was said that everyone in the house except for Leona's uncle, Leo's brother, Frank, was sick that day with varying symptoms. Aside from Frank, Leona lived with her father, her step-mother, Pearl, and step-brother Doug Millican, who was seven. It was unclear whether before she had gone missing if Leona was also sick. Leo's symptoms resembled the flu while Pearl's seemed to be acute poisoning, meaning sh...

This was one of those cases that while I was reading it, it was very clear that Milo Stanley had committed a horrendous crime and that he was guilty but in the same respect, I do not believe that he had a fair trial. Nor do I believe that the court ruled appropriately. This is not necessarily something that you have never heard me say about a case but the latter part in which I disagreed with the court, is a little more rare from me. I fear certain rulings from courts because official rulings that are upheld set a precedence meaning future cases can look back at them to help them make new rulings. In this particular case Milo Stanley confessed to the murders of his wife and five year old daughter but only after he had requested an attorney and questioning had continued. Milo's defense would later argue that this confession had been obtained illegally and that it should not have been entered into his jury trial. The appeals court later denied that saying that altho...

This is another case that was recommended to me that surprisingly I had never heard of, even considering all of the things that have been in the news the last few months and days. Researching this case also opened the door to several other cases to research as it appears that the current prosecutor in Philadelphia, Larry Krasner, has uncovered “gross misconduct” in many cases that took place in the city. Actually I found my way to an exoneration website and it appears that this is occurring all over the country. Apparently several drug cases out of Chicago have been thrown out and convictions overturned and thrown out due to the misconduct of a police officer who was found to have doctors results. It is not exactly clear what happened to cause Krasner to look into past cases but I have to say that he is looking to be one of the “good guys.” I can only imagine the gruff he is likely taking however. A new division has been created called The Conviction Integ...