True Crime Stories

There is a part of me that loves finding new stories that I have never heard about to research. Then there is the issue that the reason that I have not heard about them is that there generally is not a lot of information available. I came across this case from a more recent documentary show, which is where I get many of the ideas for my cases but I also know going in with those that not all of the information is accurate and is often exaggerated for dramatic purposes. Then the quest becomes trying to find as much information as I can that is not directly related to the television show and determine how accurate it is. It is sometimes quite difficult so when I put them together they often much shorter, which some of you may enjoy, than most of my blogs, but it also opens up to hopefully having someone related to the case to fill in the blanks. This has happened before. I have had friends and family members of victims and perpetrators post comments, not always in nice ways...

If you are a regular reader of my blog you know that I like to see appeal records to get information because I feel they are the best source of getting all the information that was presented at a trial to prove someone's guilt. I want to know what evidence was presented at the trial and see how a jury came to the conclusion that they did. I have not seen an appeal on this case as of yet and so I am still left with those questions. This does not mean that I do not believe in the jury's verdict or even that I think the defendant is innocent in any way, in fact it appears that the defense conceded that the defendant was involved in the death of his wife although there was still a trial. Sometime in early 1982 twenty-nine year old Amy Hurst moved from Michigan to New Port Richey Florida with her husband William. My research indicates that her two children from a previous marriage were living with her until the move when they went to live with their father. When her m...

On September 29, 2012 Harold and Toni Henthorn were hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. It was said to be a celebration between the two for their twelfth wedding anniversary. They went there together but only one of them would come back. Harold would call 911 from the trail to report that his wife had fallen 128 feet off a cliff along the trail. Obviously a husband and wife, on a trail in which one claimed the other fell to their death warranted at a least an investigation. It is never advisable to simply take the word of the only witness to a suspicious death. It took several months but investigators would come to believe that Dr. Toni Henthorn, a local eye doctor, would not just simply loose her footing on the trail as her husband would attempt to lead people to believe, but had been pushed to her death. By the time he went to trial in 2015 not only would prosecutors believe he had killed Toni, but they also believed that he had killed his first wi...

This became one of those cases in which I attempted to search deeper for things I wanted some answers to before coming here and putting things together. If you are a regular reader than you know I do not always agree with a verdict, although I respect a jury's decision. I have also often began composing a case in which I am uncertain how I feel about it. Many times I am still on the fence as far as things after I have put it all together. There are also the cases where I openly state I have questions about or issues where things did not seem clear. That is not necessarily the case here. This was a case where the specific facts were thin. I was able to find an appeal on record but it only gave me a few more specifics that I did not have. I was actually taken aback by not just how much little information it provided but the language in which was used. In general most appeals are very “bland” in their words which is fine because they should be in my opinion. An appeal ...

It is cases such as this one, and the one that will come after, that boggle my mind.  I will never understand the women (I am unsure I know of a case with a man) that conspire with their own children, most of the time who are only teenagers, and often times recruit their friends to commit murder.  Most often it is in attempts to get money from insurance policies. Of course there are the rarer cases such as Gertrude Baniszewski who recruited her children, as well as neighborhood children, to torture and murder Sylvia Likens, a teenage border in her home.  In that case the only motive that could be found was jealously of youth. But, regardless of motive, most of these women start throwing the blame solely on their children when they get caught.  I suppose Velma Whitehead should be given some credit that she pleaded guilty for her role in the murder of her husband, although most do not believe her expressed motive. On March 18, 2005 in Des Moines  Washington...

This blog will be a bit different than most because it takes place in Canada. Only on a few occasions have I discussed cases outside the United States because just as I try to respect our justice system I feel we should respect other systems, and yet I do not always agree with them, nor do I know the laws as well. Instead of using the word "prosecutor" they use the word "Crown" there but to avoid confusion for the most part I will use more traditional and American phrases. This case is a fairly cut and dry case no matter where it took place. On October 20, 2003 in British Columbia, Canada Ruby Ann Ruffolo reported her husband, John, missing.  He worked third shift for the armored car company, Brinks, and had failed to go to work the previous night, nor had he returned home in the morning. She stated that she had left while he was still sleeping the morning before and had been gone all day at rental properties that they owned. She said when she returned home John w...

Going into this one I am unsure if Michael Wilkie is along the lines of your "everyday" spouse killer, if he is a special kind of idiot, or he leans more towards the psychopath who just simply does not care.  I say this because while he started out informing authorities and the media that his wife was missing and attempting to plead for her to return he ratted himself out rather quickly when confronted.  Did he simply not possess the charisma such as people like say Scott Peterson and maintain his own innocence?  Or was he more along the lines of the serial killers who readily confess to crimes because they want the recognition?  I am not sure that if he would have held out that charges would have ever been brought against him.  That would have depended on the prosecutor and what they thought they could prove but I can almost guarantee they would not have found much of what they ultimately got, without his cooperation. In 2012 Michael Wilkie lived in Hend...