True Crime Stories

Cases that involve the deaths of children are the most difficult to research and put together due to the emotional level. They are especially difficult when there are clearly signs that things could have been different if someone had acted upon their knowledge. This case is just such a case. Caroline Young lived in Hayward California located in Alameda County. In 1993 she had custody of her daughter Vanessa Torres' two children, six year old Darin and four year old Dai-Zshia. Reports are shady as to when she received custody of them. While all indicate that she had cared for the children for many years, some made it appears that she had gotten them each separately as infants but that may not be the facts. It was clear that Vanessa had been deemed unfit to care for the children and had spent some time in jail on drug charges and those relating to prostitution. However by 1993 Vanessa was not in jail and it was indicated that she too lived with Caroline and her ch...

This case was a rather quick case to research although I took a bit longer to not just get some statistics but to also add to my ever growing list of cases to look into.  This is case is considered to be more rare than most.  This is about a case not only of a woman in which was sentenced to death, but one in which the execution was enacted.  Sure we know the cases of Aileen Wurornos, Karla Faye Tucker, or even Mary Surratt but they really are rare, especially in what is considered to be the modern age of the death penalty.  For the record, the "modern age" of the death penalty is considered as beginning in 1976.  While during the 1940's and 50's support for the death penalty was waning and the numbers were coming down a bit it took until 1972 for the United State Supreme Court to officially abolish the death penalty.  It was then that anyone who was current on death row, some of the most famous were Charles Manson and his followers, were re-sentenced to li...

Cases from history are often hard to research properly.  Sure, we are able to access many old newspapers from the times, as we have for many years through things like microfilm and what not, but the problem lies in the newspaper accounts themselves.  Actually in all truthfulness, newspapers should not be isolated as being the only source that was unreliable. I am certain that books of the time, as well as the infamous 'murder pamphlets' as they were called, recalling crimes, also fall into this category.  I have mentioned before in previous blogs about what was known as 'yellow journalism.'  To put this in a type of modern terms it could be equated with The National Enquirer  or even movies based on true events.  Things were not just exaggerated but often flat out fabrications in order to make the story more interesting.  Today true journalism, at least when it comes to newspapers are generally more reliable than they were back in the mid-l...