True Crime Stories

Changing Sites and a Re-launch

2023-07-18T14:27:00.004-07:00

I ran into some issues with this blog and I am no longer updating it.

I looked at other servers but maybe it is just that I am old school and stuck in my ways but I did not find another that gave me all of the things I wanted and was looking for. So in the end I stayed with Blogger.com

Many of the stories here will be there but it is not a copy/paste situation. I am researching every case again and putting them together again. Who knows, maybe my position has changed, maybe not. Maybe there is more information available. Keep in mind I started this one in 2012 and while I try to update things when I am made aware, that does not always happen.

I will say that currently I have decided not to have comments approved before posting but I will try to keep an eye on them and will delete those I find inappropriate. Please know that does not mean I will not allow comments that go against my position, that is not my style but in the same respect, I will not tolerate disrespect of other commenters. I also will delete spam comments that are made and trust me that is often.

Sorry for the inconvenience .... Here is the link

https://letstalktruecrimestories.blogspot.com/

JoAnn Parks

2022-09-04T12:38:00.002-07:00

I came across this case when I was reading a book called “Burned: A Story of Murder and the Crime that Wasn't” by Edward Humes. Much like the book I read recently on the murder of Roger “Scott” Dunn, the case did not end when the book did. In the latter case there had been a prosecution without a body. The book was published in 2005 and in 2012 Scott Dunn's body was finally found. Humes' book was the story of a woman who was convicted of starting a fire that killed her three children. This is one of those cases in which I was glad I read the book to know more of the story because while researching the case online there was not as much information as was provided by the book. Burned was published in 2019 and argued that JoAnn Parks had been wrongly convicted of murder. The book very much dove into the investigation that was later taken over by the California Innocent Project (CIP) as well as what had been discovered about the nature of fire since the “crime” had occurred in 1989.

I was thankful that I had read Humes' book, not only because it was very informative but also because once I sat down to do my research nearly all of it surrounded more recent events in the case. In 1993 JoAnn Parks received a sentence of life without parole after being convicted on three counts of first degree murder. Prosecutors argued, obviously successfully (which we will be getting into) that she had purposely set a fire that had claimed the lives of her three children. Over nearly thirty years there were many filings and arguments looking to have at the very least a new trial and at the very most, to have her exonerated completely. All of the court proceedings failed. But, then in 2020 Governor Gavin Newson commuted JoAnn's sentence which made her immediately eligible for parole. It was another nine months but in January of 2021 she was released from prison. When you research the case however it is a bit misleading. Most everything says that she was exonerated, wrongly convicted or a combination of these things. In reality she was not exonerated, nor as of August of 2022 has it legally been found that she was wrongly convicted. That is not to say that I agree with these rulings, I am just stating the facts. In fact, in August of 2021, after her release the previous January the courts ruled once again. CIP was specifically asking for her to be officially exonerated but the courts basically said that it all still came down to a “battle of the experts” and refused to grant the motion. What all of this means is that it is going to be up to you to decide what you think. As always I will give you the information that I have gathered through my research. I have already expressed a bit of my feelings but as usual you will also hear more of what I believe.

In the early morning hours of April 9, 1989 JoAnn Parks ran to the home of her neighbors, Bob and Shirley Robinson, in Bell California (now basically a suburb of Los Angeles) and banged on the door. They did not need her to tell them why she was there because as soon as they opened the door they saw flames coming from the newly converted apartment the family had moved into just a week earlier. JoAnn informed the Robinson's that her three children, four year old Ronald Jr, two year old RoAnn and one year old Jessica, were still inside. While Shirley first called the authorities she then went out to stay with JoAnn and Bob ran to the burning home. He entered the home and while it seemed as if he was gone for quite some time, he did not get very far and nearly collapsed from the smoke himself. Another neighbor had been walking home when he noticed the flames and had grabbed a nearby garden hose to try to help put it out while waiting for firefighters to arrive. Both this neighbor and Bob Robinson, along with at least a few police officers who reached the scene first would say that they could hear the children screaming during this time.

One of the officers that reported this was not permitted to testify in JoAnn's 1993 trial because prosecutors would say that his recollections had changed over time and they claimed he was unreliable. Reality is that is that his core issues and testimony were consistent not only with the evidence, but with other testimony. The “unreliable” part was that the officer later seemingly made an effort to sound as if he had made more efforts than he actually did to save the children. Let me start with saying that while I do believe he made what could have been a fatal mistake (I will get into this in a bit) in his efforts, that he did do all that he could or at least knew to do to save the children. I believe his story later likely changed more out of guilt. The fact that three children, who were alive when he arrived and were not saved can weigh heavily on someone. And, the officer was not the only one to make such claims. JoAnn Parks would do the same in a later interview apparently after her husband made a comment, for others to hear, all but blaming her for their children dying. In another interview she too apparently made it seem she had done more to reach her children. But, while the prosecutors took these statements deliberate lies and used them against JoAnn and the officer, I honestly do not see them this way. The prosecutor gained leverage by taking this position but again, we will get into that in just a bit.

Authorities went inside the home once the fire was out. RoAnn and Jessica were found in their room and while Robbie was also found in his room, he was found in his closet. The home was all but destroyed either by the fire itself or by the firefighters who went through it after looking for hot spots. A fire investigation is much different than other crimes scenes and investigations. Yes, sometimes evidence is destroyed or moved, sometimes on purpose (usually maliciously) or by accident in other crimes but when it comes to fires almost ALL evidence is affected. First, the fire itself can destroy everything it touches. That obviously depends on a lot of things. If something is not destroyed by the fire, it could be damaged or destroyed by the water used to put the fire out. Then firefighters comb through the structure with pick axes where they dig through debris, move things around and often throw large flammable and damaged items outside of the structure itself to prevent the fire from reigniting. So, when investigators go in to see where a fire may have started or why they may not see the entire picture.

I will use a good example of this in this particular case. It was said that the Parkses had an “old style” (remember they said this in 1989... so it was old for that time) television. The television had been obviously damaged. The question over the years would be whether the damage the television suffered came from the fact that it was the source of the fire, or damaged by the fire itself. It is unclear if the television was available to be examined to investigators. Two investigations were done in this case. The first determined that the fire was an accident and electrical in nature. Whether the television was examined is unclear. What we do know is that a second investigation was made and in that case we know the television was not examined. There were indications that it was somehow available, whether still in the rubble in or outside the home, but that the investigator chose not to examine it. That being said only a trained investigator would likely be able to tell the difference between knowing if the television was the source of the fire or damaged BECAUSE of the fire. Then again right around the time of this fire in 1989 and into the next few years some investigators were starting to learn that everything they had been taught about arson investigation may have been wrong.

For decades those investigating fires were told what to look for to determine how the fire started, including knowing the signs of where the fire started and knowing when an accelerant is being used. Around the time of the fire at the Parkses home things were starting to change. But, let me say that it was not, and still apparently is not an easy change or one that everyone accepts willingly. And, as we know and have seen so often when it comes to court battles it seems that either side is capable of finding an “expert” that will testify for their side. This case has often been argued by the court in appeals to be “a battle of the experts” and sadly this seems to be why nothing has really changed. A seasoned and well respected arson investigator by the name of John Lentini was one of the first to discover that everything he had been taught about fire had been wrong.

Lentini was one of many investigators who had the opportunity to examine an area after a wildfire had gone through the area. The significance in this was that they knew the fire had technically started some distance away from the structures that they looked at. This meant they knew the fire had not started with an accelerant, nor had their been an electrical fire. The other advantage that these investigators had was that the fires had been allowed basically to burn out themselves so there was not the typical water damage, nor were firefighters going through these structures and moving things around. What they did know was that something called “flashover” had occurred. Flashover happens when oxygen comes into an area of a fire and will basically engulf a room in flames. It does not mean that the entire room technically catches fire at that time, but it does mean that flames have touch basically every section of the room. It will and generally does spread naturally but some items in an area when there is flashover can immediately catch fire also. Lentini and his fellow investigators were surprised to see things like “V” patterns in the structures they looked at after the wildfire. They had been taught that these patterns were classic signs of an accelerant being used and the origin of the fire. They absolutely knew this was not the case here. They also absolutely had to know that flashover had occurred in these structures. As windows would have cracked and/or busted out oxygen would have entered the structure and “fed” the fire.

Learning these things Lentini basically began a whole new level of research when it came to fires. Not long later Lentini was called into another case of a house fire where a man was accused of setting the fire that killed several members of his family. The initial investigators had ruled that it was arson and since the man was the only survivor in the home the prosecutors decided he had started the fire. So, Lentini seemingly found a home just a few doors down that was empty and laid out the exact same way. He was somehow able to obtain the rights and the ability to use this home as a “test” home. It was said to have been furnished similarly to the man's home and a fire WAS set. Of course in this instance they would have known where it was set and how. When it was all said and done once again Lentini was able to prove that the same marks in the original fire were found in the demo fire, showing that marks in the original fire that had been pointed to as signs of arson were not true.

Lentini made it his mission to re-evaluate fires and basically become a “new” fire expert. He eventually started working with the CIP and looking into old cases. Many who had highly respected Lentini were now at odds with him and despite his proof, they disagreed with his findings. Many of the “old school” investigators vehemently disagreed with Lentini, as well as prosecutors. One has to ask if this stubbornness to accept the now proven science behind fires was attributed to simple denial or the fact that they knew that every single case that involved arson would be under review. How many innocent people had been sent to prison, or even received a death penalty. These questions came about fiercely both before and after the 2004 execution of Cameron “Todd” Willingham in Texas who was sentenced to death for starting a fire that killed his children. Many believe to this day that he was wrongly convicted, let alone executed. Many prosecutors believe cases like these are hills worth dying on.

So, as I stated earlier, the initial investigation into the fire at the Parkses home was ruled accidental. In fact, neither JoAnn or her husband, Ronald, were not aware that a few short days later the investigation was opened again or that nearly three years later it was still being conducted. I do not want to say that they had moved on, but I guess that is what they did. They had moved away and were both working and outwardly doing well it seems. So why was there another investigation done?

A few days after the fire a woman by the name of Kathy Dodge contacted authorities in Bell. Dodge had been a neighbor of the Parkses in late 1988. Earlier that year, prior to Dodge meeting the family, the Parks family had their first home fire. That fire had been ruled accidental and electrical and there was ample proof of this. In fact, there were multiple witnesses that there were electrical problems in the house while the Parks family were renting and a day or so before the actual fire the fire department had come in and had the electrical turned off on the house saying there was a hazard and the landlord needed to speak to an electrician. It had been said that if more than one appliance ran the breakers would trip. The following day however, while Ron was at a park with the two older children JoAnn apparently turned the breakers back on in the home saying they needed it for whatever reason. She then left with their youngest child, Jessica and met the rest of the family at the park for a picnic. While they were gone the fire started and the family lost everything. However, unlike the second fire, no one lost their life. The family did not have insurance and there was no indication that they had any financial motive to have started the fire. After this fire they had moved to a nicer area and this is where they met Kathy Dodge.

By most accounts the family was doing well there, maybe better than they had at any point in time before. JoAnn became friends with Kathy Dodge, for a while at least. At some point the two women had a falling out. Kathy accused JoAnn of stealing some sort of cashier's check that she had received. Kathy even called the police who could not prove that JoAnn did anything at all. It was alleged that while Kathy never found the cashier's check she was able to have one re-issued, that is if it was missing at all. You may understand in a bit why I have said this. Soon after this argument Ron Parks was laid off from his job and soon the family was homeless again. Kathy told authorities that before the Parkses left that she and JoAnn had made up but whether JoAnn had agreed with that seemed a bit unclear for me. There was some indication that Kathy may have stated that they had made amends so that she did not seem to be a bitter person because the things she told authorities were pretty damaging. I want to take sections of what she said and examine them but note that when she told them to authorities they not only seemed to take them at face value and they spread them to other investigators.

Kathy stated that JoAnn had made comments that if Jessica had died in the previous fire that the couple would have gotten quite a bit of money. First, no one was in the home when the home caught fire, let alone baby Jessica. Secondly, there was absolutely no evidence that the Parkses had any kind of life insurance on any of their children at any point including at the time of either fire. In fact, there was no evidence they had any sort of renters insurance during either fire. The couple had filed a lawsuit after the first fire against the landlords but it was later dropped after the second fire occurred. Lastly, while some of the statements made by Kathy were said to be corroborated by a few other people, from my understanding that was not completely true. I was led to believe that those who had said they had heard these statements also would later say that they never heard them from either JoAnn or Ron Parks, but from Kathy herself saying that they had been said.

Kathy told authorities that JoAnn gave the children cough medicine on a regular basis so that they would sleep throughout the night. Autopsies were done on the bodies of the children and it was determined that no cough syrup was found. At some point Ron's ex-wife was interviewed and she stated to authorities that while they had been together Ron had given cough syrup to their son (I have no idea what came of this child but it does appear that his name too was Ron, odd, I know). This of course does not mean that Ron, who was much older than JoAnn had not “trained” her to do the same with their children but again, nothing was present apparently during the autopsies.

These were the main things that Kathy Dodge would allege and as I said were passed on to investigators. She would add things as well as seemingly take things away from statements throughout the investigation. In the end when JoAnn was put on trial in 1993 Kathy Dodge was on the witness list but the prosecutors decided not to call her. Between her inconsistent statements, her criminal history and some other things apparently they felt she was too unreliable. But, it was her statements to authorities in the beginning that re-opened the investigation into the fire that had already been ruled accidental.

The CIP would delve into this a lot and talk about how bias came into the picture. In fact, at some later point they would present to the court a witness who discussed how not only fire investigations had changed over the years but also how allowing fire investigators to have unrelated information presented them with a bias opinion before ever going inside a structure. The fire investigator who went into the home the second time, after Kathy Dodge's statements to authorities, not only knew about these statements but he also knew that he had been the investigator at the previous fire, one that he ruled accidental. I will be the first to admit that for a family to have two fires within two years would be unusual but I also do not think that especially this investigator should have taken that into consideration since he himself ruled the first one an accident. I say this because this particular investigator, even when faced with the science and research discovered by Lentini and others, refused to admit he could have been wrong in the case of the second fire. And yet, while he did not go back and officially change the ruling on the first fire that he investigated involving the family, he did indicate that he may have believed it too was set. In fact, years later, after CIP was involved in the case and talked to the prosecutor about looking the case over they found an “expert” who not only agreed with the ruling on the second fire but in his report repeatedly called JoAnn a “serial arsonist.”

So the second investigation began after Kathy Dodge had made her call and as I stated the investigator knew the allegations that were made. This was done before any toxicology could have returned to prove there was not cough syrup in the children's bodies. It was later said that no only did he know these things, that he had discussed them with another before going inside. Once inside not only did he determine that this was not an act of accident but of arson, he stated there were two points of origin. One was in the front room around the cord of the television set and the other was in the room where the girls slept. Later he would revise a little saying that the cords in the front room had “nicks” in them and he believed that while it was attempted to start a fire her that it had not taken off. He would be asked about his examination of the television as well as if he could absolutely determine where these “nicks” came from. The answer to the first question was that he had not examined the television and despite any answer he may have given there is no way he could have known for certain that the “nicks” came from someone tampering with the wire. They could have just as easily come from the axes used by firefighters. The investigator also made the claim that four year old Ronnie had been barricaded in his closet indicating that someone had put him there before the fire. He would claim that a laundry basket had been put in front of the closet. The said laundry basket was plastic and it was unclear whether it had mostly melted away or if it had completely melted away. There was a mark near the door where the investigator claimed the basket must have been at some point during the fire. The problem was too that no one could say for certain if when investigators went into the home after the fire if the closet door was open or closed. When he left the home the investigator had alleged believed that both Ron and JoAnn were guilty of starting, or at least attempting to start, the fire.

I want to stop here for a moment and go over these theories of the investigator. He knew going into the home that Ron Parks had some electrical experience; he also knew that their last fire had been ruled accidental due to a circuit overload to and extension cord. In addition to this he also knew that when the fire started Ron was at work. His working theory was that Ron had set up the wires in the front room to basically be a delayed detonator. When that apparently failed he believed that JoAnn had set a fire in the girls' room. He also believed that at least one of them had barricaded Ronnie in his closet. He was also armed with all of the stories that Kathy Dodge had told. In the end since no one could prove that Ron had anything to do with the fire and JoAnn was the only parent home when it occurred prosecutors eventually filed charges against her and not Ron.

While we all know that a prosecutor does not have to present the court with a motive, we also know that juries like to have them. Whether they present a motive or not there has to be a reason and the evidence has to make that reason make some sort of sense to someone at least, even if it is only to the perpetrator of a crime. Financial motive was ruled out. Not only did the family not have insurance to protect their belongings (despite having a previous fire), there was no evidence of insurance on the children. So it appears that the alleged motive became simply wanting to be rid of the children. But, I take issue with this too. First, once again, there was no evidence that there was any kind of cough syrup or any other sort of drug or chemical in the bodies of the children that would have allowed them to maybe sleep more heavily. If we go by the investigators theory, of which the prosecutor based their theory upon, then only one of the three children were “barricaded” and a second fire was started in the room where the other two children slept. This makes little sense not to mention that Kathy Dodge was the ONLY person who indicated that JoAnn was not a good mother or made particular comments about her children and she was so discredited that the prosecutor never ever called her to the stand to testify. I should say that there were a few others who made the claims about JoAnn's parenting but in the end they admitted that they heard these things from Kathy Dodge and had not seen or heard anything directly from JoAnn. And yet still these allegations from Dodge were used as first the basis to come to decisions in the case and later based in the theory made by the prosecutor.

As I stated earlier the prosecutor also chose not to allow one of the officers that was first on the scene to testify, claiming that his story had changed. I already spoke about why I believe this was the case and I touched on the fact that his main allegations or report was not only substantiated by others, but very important. Everyone agrees that when the officer arrived at the scene the children were alive and could be heard. There was desperation all around to reach them. The officer went around to the back of the home where their windows were. He reported that the fire had not yet fully engulfed at least the girls' bedroom. However, this is when he likely made a fatal mistake. In his effort to reach the children he began breaking the window. After, or during that effort, “flashover” occurred and not only all but blew the officer back from the window, it overtook the room. There were witnesses to this who saw the officer being pushed back. The significance in this is the fact that Lentini had discovered that “flashover” had the ability to create patterns in which until that point they had been told were signs of arson. Whether the second investigator refused to believe “flashover” occurred or simply dismissed the fact that it had the ability to make these patterns is unclear. But this same investigator argued that a second fire was started in the girls' bedroom and it seems to contradict the other information given. But, because the prosecutor did not call the officer to the stand that information was not given to the jury.

JoAnn's attorney had his work cut out for him. In the process he actually upset one of his main witnesses. Lentini testified about the new progress made in fire investigations. It was not widespread by that time in 1993 so there was some push back from other investigators. This would be the beginning of what many consider the case becoming a “battle of the experts.” Lentini was upset because his core belief was that the fire was not arson but electrical in nature. And, while I understand him being upset with the defense attorney there is also a part of me that understood what the defense was doing. Obviously it would be best to basically stick to one theory, especially if you are a prosecutor. However, when it comes to defense attorney's their job is to create holes in the prosecution theory and show the jury there is reasonable doubt. While yes, the defense was arguing that JoAnn had not set the fire that killed her children, they also knew that if the jury believed it was arson they could sentence her to death and he wanted to prevent that also. The defense put Ron Parks on the stand. He was not a likable guy anyways and he proved so in front of the jury. The defense theory was that if the jury believed the investigators that the fire was set and that there had been a failed attempt in the living room, and Ron Parks had electrical experience that they would not believe she planned to set the fire alone. Ron was not charged with anything so the defense believed if the jury believed Ron was also involved they would spare JoAnn the death penalty believing he also was involved and faced nothing. They may have actually right in that aspect. Ron made some comments on the stand that did not sit well with some people, including JoAnn. First, he came off as very distant but when he talked about his children he spoke as if he never thought of them or about their lives, let alone their deaths. He actually referred to his children as “spilt milk.”

The defense was not sure until the end whether Kathy Dodge was going to testify, and in turn were unsure whether they would put JoAnn on the stand. They felt as if Dodge testified JoAnn would absolutely have to. They would confront her with Dodge's allegations and let the jury see her for who she was, but putting a defendant on the stand is always risky because you never know what the prosecutor has in store for them. In the end since Dodge did not testify, neither did JoAnn and the defense felt that for the jury it would come down to which side of experts they believed. They were correct in many aspects but in this area they were wrong.

Throughout the fire, and even on into the night JoAnn's neighbor, Shirley Robinson stayed practically next to her. While there were some allegations by people who either saw JoAnn from a distance or had sporadic contact with her throughout that time that they found her behavior or emotions odd, Shirley Robinson disagreed. However, Shirley's observations did not fit into the prosecution narrative. During the time of the fire one investigator kept going over to the two women and was assuring JoAnn that her children were first, “going to be” and then later were okay. In fact, after knowing that the children did not survive the investigator still convinced JoAnn of this and also convinced her to go to the police station for an interview. On the surface this interaction seemed like nothing in the realm of the investigation. It was not something the defense was concerned about and it is likely the prosecution did not give it a second thought themselves. It was at the police station that JoAnn would be informed about the fate of her children and it was where Ron and JoAnn first had contact after the fire. Again, despite other reports, from mainly officials, Shirley Robinson maintained that JoAnn was devastated by this news, and later her husband's reaction. After the verdict in the case jurors would stun the defense when they announced that they came to their decision that JoAnn was guilty based on the fact that she left the scene of the fire without physically seeing her children. It was their belief that a mother would not have left the scene without knowing for certain where and how her children were. But, as I stated earlier, she was not given the death penalty. Her sentence for three counts of first degree murder was life in prison without the possibility of parole.

CIP (California Innocence Project) were asked to get involved a few times in the next several years. At least once they had denied looking into the case. Eventually they did take the case and began diving into fire investigations. They even had an “arson review panel” look over the case and they determined not only one fire began and that was in the front room but also that there was absolutely no evidence that something was barricading the closet door in Ronnie Jr.'s room. CIP went to the prosecutors with their case and were hoping that they would agree that fire investigation had changed and they would admit and see that an injustice was done. In fact, according to CIP attorney's the prosecutor even gave that impression at least initially. In fairness, it is the prosecutors job to look into the case and determine the accuracy of what the CIP gave them. Even still, the CIP was shocked at the response they later received.

The prosecutors found an expert of their own that looked the over the case. Not only did this person still proclaim that the 1989 fire was a case of arson, and accessed that JoAnn had set that fire, he also proclaimed that the previous fire, a year earlier, was also arson (apparently without any evidence to prove such) and repeatedly called her a “serial arsonist” in his report. So, based on this report the prosecutor was not about to agree with CIP and agree to releasing JoAnn in any manner. This forced the CIP to file for an hearing with the court.

The court heard the case in 2016. The CIP argued that in the original trial that “investigators and the jury were misled by bad science, or no science at all.” The part that blows me away is that apparently the state “admitted much of the evidence was false” they still “ignored changes in science and opined that even with the false evidence that evidence presented was true.” Yes, those were quotes and it is a lot of in my opinion, talking out both sides of their mouths. They were in essence saying.... yeah.... the evidence may have been false.... but it was good evidence. In the end the judge “called it a case of a battle of the experts” and the CIP lost. They kept up their fight but it seemed they could not get past basically how the judge ruled.

The CIP created what became known as “The California 12.” It was a list of twelve people who had been incarcerated that the CIP believed were wrongly convicted. It has been said that when JoAnn Parks was released after the Governor had granted her clemency she became the 9^th of the twelve people to be release. I cannot tell you for certain how many of those people were or have been exonerated or if they were simply released.

One of JoAnn's supporters had been a man by the name of Bob Lowe. He was a former Los Angeles fire department captain and an arson investigator. Bob would die before JoAnn was released but his wife and children took over his fight for her. In fact, upon her release it appears that she had to first spend time in a place much like a half way house and then the Lowe family planned to take her in. It is unclear whether the CIP will continue to fight for her complete exoneration since their most recent loss has just occurred in August of 2021 where once again the judge faced opposing experts.

I promise I am coming to an end here and I apologize for any mistakes within. I have had a lot going on in my life the last month and a half and doing research and then sticking with the case to get it composed has been a challenge. In fact, I initially had another case researched first and it seemed to be taking me so long to get everything together that I lost interest in it and that hinders me in putting it together. I almost got to that point with this case but I really think it is an important case that should be heard.

On that note I want to add a few things. I found a notation that Ron and JoAnn divorced at some point and in 2009 he remarried. He died in 2011. I also want to note that on Findagrave.com you can find the stones of the children (as well as Ron also) along with a story. Within that story it is said that JoAnn suffered burns on her face and hands due to the fire. I found this interesting because from my understanding, and most accounts, her story was that she opened her bedroom door, saw the fire and knew she couldn't get back through so she went out an outer door from her bedroom. Some have argued that leaving her own inner door open, and then possibly the outer door also could have fed the fire, which helped it spread more. I am not here to determine if that is true, nor am I here to fault her for that if it is true. None of us were there and it was not our children or even our home on fire. We have no idea what we would do and how we would react. That being said I still am uncertain about the burns. Nothing I found, including the book, indicated that she was treated for any burns at the scene or at the hospital later. While if she had burns on her body it may not completely vindicate her, it also could have possibly given the defense more to work with. The prosecutors may have tried to argue that she received them while setting the fire or even claim she had minor burns and caused them purposely so it “looked like” she tried to reach her children, the defense could have also likely worked with it also saying she made an effort and could not reach them.

As I said in the beginning this is a case that as of now has “legally” been solved but if you believe Ed Humes, it was a crime that never was. It will likely always come down to what each individual person believes.

Donald Ruby

2022-07-26T11:52:00.002-07:00

Once again I have come across a case that as I sit down to put things together I am unsure what my opinion is on what occurred in the case. There is not a lot of information out there on this case and I was forced to rely partly on comments made on some websites to which I will, as always, let you, the reader know when things like this occur. Part of the reason that there is not a lot of information about the crime itself or the victim is the fact that the person who was convicted of the crime, Donald Ruby, was not only exonerated but was said to be “factually innocent.” There is still a dispute on that apparently both from the public and from law enforcement.

On May 27, 1984 in Perry County Pennsylvania a cardboard box was found along the shore of the Juniata River. Inside the box was the torso of a woman. The legs had been removed at the knees; the arms had been cut off at the shoulder and the head had been removed. Neither the limbs or head have ever been found. About 10 months later there was a small article in the local newspaper about how the torso was preparing to be buried without identification when authorities received a phone call. The call was from a woman, that is clear, but it is not clear if that woman claimed the body could be that of her sister, sister-in-law or ex-sister-in-law, as I have seen all three claims. The woman claimed that thirty-one year old Edna Posey had been missing for about that period of time. The torso ended up being identified as Posey through scars and birthmarks found that allegedly matched her.

Many say that this was the start of investigators having “tunnel vision” and focusing in on Donald Ruby. Ruby had been a scoutmaster for many years and Edna Posey's son, Randy, had been a member of his troop. Edna Posey was said to have “fought mental illness and alcoholism for years” and sometime in 1983 she had decided to go into treatment and gave guardianship of her twelve-year old son to Donald Ruby and his wife. People who knew Edna said that, while a resident of Maryland herself, she had gone to Ruby's home just days before her body was found to get her son back.

The story goes that on May 25^th Edna went to Donald Ruby's home. Her son says that night the two of them fell asleep on the couch together. At some point in the middle of the night he said a loud noise woke him up and he noticed his mother was no longer on the couch. It took a year and a half but in September of 1986 Donald Ruby was arrested and charged with first degree murder. His trial was conducted in February of 1987. At the trial Randy testified about not seeing his mother on the couch that first night but he also testified to some other things. He stated that there were two occasions where he and Ruby had been “engaged in wrestling matches” and he believed Ruby had become “sexually aroused.” He also stated that Ruby once took him to an adult bookstore and allegedly asked him once if he could take pictures of him in the nude. The state called an FBI agent to the stand who profiled Ruby as a pedophile based on Randy's testimony “and the fact that Ruby had been a longtime scoutmaster.” It was said that the defense did not object to this witness or this testimony. A forensic pathologist stated that the autopsy indicated that Edna Posey had died between 18 and 30 hours before her body was found, which was not long after going to Ruby's house.

It is unclear whether Donald Ruby testified in his own defense but at some point he had told investigators that he had taken Edna Posey to buy clothes on the 26^th and then dropped her off at a convenient store in Middletown about one that afternoon saying that she said she was meeting someone. He claimed that was the last that he had seen her and that he had believed that she “had left and gone back to Florida where she had been in a psychiatric facility.” What is known is that Donald's wife, Leigh testified at the trial. She claimed she was with Donald and Edna during the shopping day but, prosecutors were able to prove that she was lying because they had obtained her time card from work proving she had been there all day. She would later obviously have to admit that she was not with her husband but said she thought she was “helping” him.

There was not a lot of forensics, but then again it was 1987. There were some questions about the box that the torso had been found in but while there was apparently some sort of evidence that Ruby had used the product that came in the box, it also appears it was very common. The jury convicted Donald Ruby and on March 31, 1987 he was given a life sentence.

The case was appealed and in March of 1992 the court vacated the conviction and ordered a new trial. Something here happened that I had not seen before, at least not in the manner in which I found it. I have talked a lot lately online about what the function of the appeal courts as people are discussing the fact that both Johnny Depp and Amber Heard have filed notice that they plan to appeal the verdict in their case. The general rule when it comes to appeals is that the court decides if decisions made by the judge were accurate and legal AND that the attorney at the trial had to object to the ruling. Appeals are not used to bring forth any new evidence, that is a whole different part of the courts. Since I did not see the actual appeal papers I cannot say for certain but I believe that the appeal in this case may have also included the claim of ineffective counsel. I say this because the reason the court vacated the conviction was based on the fact that they believed the FBI agent should have never testified and told the jury that he had basically profiled Donald Ruby as a pedophile by saying he “fit the profile,” for two reasons. The first is that apparently he had come to this conclusion based just on Randy's testimony and the fact that Ruby had been a scoutmaster. The other reason was that Ruby had never been charged, or aside from Randy's testimony accused, much less convicted of being a pedophile and telling the jury this information “cast a light on him that he could have committed the murder.” It was noted that the defense attorney had not objected to this, and that was noted which is why I believe it is possible that ineffective counsel was also argued.

In May of 1993 Donald Ruby went back on trial. This time the defense had not just additional evidence, but evidence that disputed the evidence presented by the state. A new expert testified that based on pictures that were taken at the time that the torso had been found and an analysis of blowfly eggs the time of death was not 18-30 hours before the body was found as had been testified in the first trial but closer to just a few hours prior. They also determined this based on the dew that was absent from the “swath” or path left when the box had been slid down the hill to its resting place. It appears that they were able to determine that Donald Ruby was at his home some ninety miles away at that time. Other evidence presented by the defense was DNA from semen recovered from the torso. It was said that there was evidence of three different men, and none belonged to Donald Ruby. I will touch on this again in a bit because there has been controversy about whether these samples have ever been tested again, or placed into the CODIS system. On May 20, 1993 Donald Ruby was acquitted and released after serving more than six years in prison.

It was said that Ruby's second trial “was one of the first, if not the first, to use DNA in a criminal case in central Pennsylvania.” At the time of his release it was said that Ruby had “lost his family” and did not have a “penny to his name.” I did find something that indicated that he had stated he had no plans to sue the state for wrongful imprisonment and I have never seen anything that he has. This brings me to comments that I found on websites. I may have actually found this case after watching Forensic Files although admittedly I do not remember the episode. I did see comments relating to this episode that stated the show had if not eluded to, flat out called Edna Posey a “tramp.” It seems there was a lot of victim blaming in this case, at least after Ruby's exoneration and the presence of multiple contributors of semen. It was also on one of these sites that I found a comment that was allegedly written by Randy Posey, Edna's son.

According to the poster that claimed to be Randy Posey, and I cannot confirm or dispute it was actually him, investigators have told him that the DNA semen samples were fairly degraded and there was not a lot left after the initial testing. He claimed that investigators indicated they did not want to waste what was left unless or until they were absolute certain they would get a match. That being said, I understand that, however what I am confused about is why the results from the initial tests have not been provided and compared. It was also eluded to the fact that they possibly were inconclusive. The poster claimed that there was still a possibility that the semen could have belonged to Ruby. Keep in mind that this was not something presented in court, or even a newspaper article, but from an ordinary citizen on the Internet.

Some may agree and/or believe that Donald Ruby is a pedophile but I cannot say that I believe this with certainty. I need more information than what I have found here or was even determined for me to decide how I feel about this. I do agree with the courts that it should not have been entered into the trial. The theory by the prosecution was that Ruby was infatuated with Randy and wanted to prevent Edna from taking him and while I admit that a few things that he stated did not sit well with me but again I need more information. He never claimed that Ruby had molested him. It simply said that he “believed” Ruby got “sexually aroused” when they wrestled a few times. Taking him to an adult bookstore was inappropriate but in the same respect was maybe just a stupid move. Then there is the issue where Randy alleged that Donald Ruby asked to take naked pictures of him. I want to know when these statements were made to authorities and were they all made at once. Did Randy believe Donald Ruby had done something to his mother and started saying things and when one thing did not seem to get anywhere, did he add something else? Now, I do question where Randy was on May 26^th when Donald claims that he took Edna shopping. It was a Saturday so one could not say he was in school. Donald's wife was at work. But, this was his mother, why did he not go with Donald and Edna? He was clearly old enough to stay home alone but would he have wanted to considering he had apparently not seen his mother in quite some time?

Did the state have the right person and blew the investigation and the trials? Did the investigators, and then later the prosecution have tunnel vision? Were they just trying to close out the case? For that matter was the body even that of Edna? I mean someone told investigators about a scar and birthmarks and from my understanding this was the only thing used for identification. Did Donald, or anyone he knew have the skill or skills to dismember a body? That is not something that is easily done. Was there semen of three different men found on the torso and if so why has this not been put through CODIS and at least looked into? All of these things seem possible to me and in my opinion the blame for the fact that a woman was obviously murdered lies with the state and the investigators.

I do not care if Edna Posey slept with every “Tom, Dick and Harry”; I do not care if she had mental issues or was an alcoholic. She did not cut her own limbs and head off, nor did she deserve to be found the way that she did. Had she been found in tact and in the woods, or in a field with a clear cause of death I think one could possibly believe that it was a suicide or an accidental death but the fact that she was dismembered means that someone else did that act. And, just like any other victim she deserves justice. If that person was not Donald Ruby then that should be known not just for her family but so the person is punished and Donald Ruby no longer under suspicion.

Clayton and Molly Daniels

2022-07-25T07:22:00.004-07:00

This is one of the few cases that I blog about that does not involve a murder. There was a “plan” for a death; there were other crimes; there was even a dead body involved. These things alone make the case interesting. However, the other side of this case is the almost humor in the stupidity, arrogance and idiotic ideas of the perpetrators. The fact that they thought they could get away with their crime seems so ridiculous. I do not think the show exists any more, I could be wrong, but there used to be a show called America's Dumbest Criminals. I completely believe that Clay and Molly Daniels would be candidates to be on that show.

On June 18, 2004 authorities in Leander Texas were called. My research was not clear as to whether when called if there was a vehicle still on fire, or even if it was hot at all. In the end what they did find was a Chevy Cavalier down in a ravine that had been burnt beyond recognition. The fire had burned so hot that even the metal on the vehicle had began to melt away. It was said that investigators thought it was suspicious right away but of course they had to have some more investigating done before deciding for sure. They could tell that someone had been in the vehicle but because the fire had burned so heavily the head and the legs of the person were no longer there, and all but ash. There were no skid marks on the road leading down to the ravine either. It was possible that the person behind the wheel had fallen asleep and had inadvertently driven down the ravine, crashed and the car caught on fire. But, a few of the officers had seen many car accidents and nothing compared to this one. None of it really seemed to make sense.

Investigators were able to determine that the car belonged to Clay and Molly Daniels, local residents. They went to the couple's home and talked to Molly. Molly told them that Clay had gone to his mother's home the night before but had never returned. Investigators would later say that Molly seemed to be unusually calm about hearing that her husband's car was in a ravine, had been burnt and that there had been someone in it, someone who was now obviously dead. It was said that family members saw some items that somehow had survived the fire and identified them as belonging to Clay.

Initial identification by the coroner, based on the information they were given also seem to identify the person from the car as Clay but I am quite confused of this. It was not just that my research indicated that everyone simply believed that because it was Clay's car, and some of his belongings that it was him, it said the coroner positively identified the body as belonging to him. It was said that the body no longer had a a head or legs and presumably the hands were likely too charred to obtain fingerprints so, in my opinion the only way to positively identify the body would have been through DNA. In my opinion this should have been done before any positive identification was released. Not only would a DNA test tell the coroner if the body belonged to Clay but as a Google search says the “simplest thing that DNA can tell you” is if it is a man or a woman. It does seem that despite a positive identification by the coroner at some point DNA was ran and compared to Clay's mother. But again.... remember, “the simplest thing that DNA can tell you” is whether someone was a man or a woman.

But, while investigators had suspicions and had to wait further investigation, Molly was moving on with her life. Her co-workers had gathered some money to help her out. Molly even put out flyers looking for a babysitter saying she was a recently widowed mother of two. She had a four year old son from a previous relationship, although Clay was the only father he had ever known, and the couple had a one year old daughter at the time of Clay's alleged death. Clay had mainly been a stay at home dad so now Molly needed someone to watch the children. Those in the community were sympathetic and helpful.

A few weeks after Clay had allegedly (and by now I know you are catching this phrase) died Molly began dating a man named Jacob “Jake” Gregg. It was clear that she had introduced Jake to her son as her new boyfriend. In reality Jake was Clay Daniels with dyed hair. It is unclear exactly who “Jake” was introduced to besides the children. It would seem unreasonable, but you can never tell with this case, that he would have been introduced to anyone that actually knew him prior to his supposed demise.

In the meantime DNA had been compared between Clay's mother and the body found in the burned out vehicle. It was proven that they were not related. But, let me go back to where I talked about before about how DNA absolutely can tell the gender of a person. I can only assume that at this point not only did they not find a genetic connection between the body and Clay's mother, but they now knew that the body in the vehicle was not even male. I cannot tell you how and when this plot was fully brought to light or exactly what investigators had when they made arrests in this case. I can only tell you what they had in the end and the theories behind it. One of the theories involves a completely different crime which I will obviously be getting into.

I can tell you that a search was done of Molly's home and of her computer. There was evidence that there had been ample effort made to create a new identification, birth certificate, and Texas driver's license for “Jacob Gregg.” There were also searches done about how to burn a body beyond recognition and how to fool arson investigators. Molly, and maybe Clay, would later admit that they had done searches on people who had fairly recently been deceased and buried in a local cemetery that was said to have a significant amount of people who were indigent and had few family members. Allegedly it was her idea that the body used would be that of eighty-one year old Charlotte Davis who had died in December of 2003, six months prior. Charlotte had been mentally and intellectually disabled all of her life and so in Molly's thinking she at her age she did not have a lot of close family members left who cared a lot about her or would notice anything at her grave. It is not clear if one or both of the couple dug the grave. There was some indication that Molly did it alone but I am unsure that was possible. The body was then put into Clay's vehicle along with one of his hats and dressed in some of his clothes. Lighter fluid had been spread throughout, specifically around the body and the car had been rolled down an embankment after being lit.

Prosecutors would say that the ploy was to obtain $110,000 in life insurance money. Defense attorney's, who could not argue really that their clients were innocent argued that it was not the greed for the life insurance money that was motive, but something else. At the time of all of this Clay was twenty-four years old. It had been found that when he was sixteen he had raped a seven year old cousin. It was years later that this crime had come to light and eventually he pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault on a child. Now, there is some confusion as to what his sentence actually was. One thing stated that “under a deferred adjudication deal, he had to serve 30 days in jail to start on June 21, 2004 (just a few days after the car fire) and then ten years on probation.” It also pointed out that he had to register as a sex offender. However, other parts of my research indicate that he initially was not to serve any jail time and only had the probation and registration requirements but that he had failed to report to his probation officer which had resulted in the thirty day jail sentence. Either way he was to report to the jail on June 21^st, just three days after the car fire. Molly's defense argued that her motives behind the plot was keeping her family together. She “feared” according first to her lawyer and then by her own words to the judge, that Clay having to register as a sex offender would prevent him from being around their children. While so many others were speaking of the ignorance of not only the plot itself but the fact that after they remained in the same area and did not move away, the defense was arguing it was still about keeping her family together.

From my understanding while both Clay and Molly pleaded guilty to their charges, a jury still decided their sentence. Molly pleaded guilty to insurance fraud and hindering apprehension in May 2005, while Clay pleaded guilty to insurance fraud, arson and the desecration of a body. Molly's jury decided to give her the maximum sentence of twenty years for insurance fraud. She was also given a ten year sentence on the other charge to run concurrently and fined $10,000. After her sentencing her father told the media, “If I was on the jury I might have gone for the max. That might make me sound like a bad father, but she did something really wrong.” In fairness it was said that he he had hoped she would get less but was not surprised at the sentence. It is not clear when she was released from prison. Her family became guardians of the children while she was incarcerated.

Clay's case is a bit more complicated. While he too pleaded guilty for the charges related to the faking of his death, he also still had the issues relating to the sexual assault. My information states that he received a thirty year sentences and that “1/3 of the 30 year sentence was in connection to a “probation” violation for the assault.” There were some that stated confusion on why he had initially received the sentence that he did as he was facing up to twenty-five years. Apparently it is a mandatory twenty-five years if the victim was under six. This victim was only a few months past that time. But, when I went to the Texas Department of Corrections website I became a bit more confused. It states that he is currently incarcerated with a “max out” date in December of 2034. He was eligible for parole starting in 2014 and his last denial occurred in March of 2021. His next hearing his in March of 2024. But, here is where it gets confusing. According to the website the sexual assault apparently had occurred in July of 1997 and he was charged with two counts of “aggravated sexual assault of a child” and a charge of indecency with a child. It states that he received 20 years for each of those charges. His max out date indicates the thirty-year sentence he received in the faking of his death and related charges so if he was later sentenced to twenty years for the sexual assault it must be running concurrently (together).

As I said in the beginning, these people should have been given an award for being the dumbest criminals. This was 2004, not 1954. Forensic technology may not have been what it is in 2022, but it definitely was not ancient. Aside from the stupidity of thinking that this would work in the first place, there are so many other stupid (and there is no other word I feel would be as fitting) moves made here. Lets start with the fact that they picked a female body. They had no way of knowing just how much of that body would burn even by using an accelerator and how identifiable it would be, let alone DNA testing being run. I mean they had the means and know how to search things like making new identifications, plastic surgeons in Mexico and how to fool arson investigators but they did not search enough to see how easily a body could be identified? I mean, lets be real here, not that it would have been a valid argument but if they at least had a male body and the DNA did not match Clay's mother they could argue that he was switched at birth or adopted.... or something. The fact that it was a female body just blows my mind. Then, the whole idea that they stayed in the exact same area and reintroduced him to her son as someone else, again, blows my mind. It was said that Molly believed that Clay had been “railroaded” in the molestation case but he pleaded guilty to those charges.

While what Clay and Molly did was disgusting in and of itself and obviously what they did was a crime but I am thankful that it was not a worse crime. However, I think they showed that being master criminals is not something they were capable of being. They were caught very quickly and I have no doubt they would have no matter the crime they attempted to commit.

William "Bill" Major

2022-07-22T04:56:00.005-07:00

I am pretty sure this is one of the cases that I discovered while watching “Forensic Files,” which is in my opinion one of the best true crime shows. Unlike other shows this one is only thirty minutes long so there is little time to be bias and it fully sticks to the facts. They have portions where they interview people of course but again, it is full of facts. You can generally find the episodes fairly easy through different streaming apps, including YouTube so if you have not seen this show and you like true crime, which if you are here I suspect you do, it is worth checking out.

Helen “Marlene” Oakes had been married to Bill Major for about nine years in 1980. They had married when she was sixteen and he was about twenty-seven. By 1980 they had two children, eight year old Donald and four year old LaLana and were living in Verona Kentucky. It was said that both Marlene and Bill were known to see other people through their marriage. In fact, it was well known that Marlene was involved with a man named Glen St. Hillaire. He lived on their property and worked with Bill but even Glen says that Bill encouraged the relationship.

My research says that in 1975 Bill had been convicted for the molestation of two boys. This obviously happened while he and Marlene were married but I did not find any more information about this conviction, including how much time he was given in prison, if in fact he served any time. My assumption is that this may explain the four years in between the ages of their two children. I also have no information about what Marlene may have thought about this but it seems apparent that they remained together.

Sometime around September or October of 1980 Marlene that she had caught Bill sexually molesting their son and she apparently “lost it.” She reported it in her diary, something she did with everything, and gave it to Glen to hold on to. She confronted Bill and let him know she was planning to divorce him. She wrote later in her diary that Bill agreed to sign the divorce papers if the abuse was not made public. She wrote that if he changed his mind she would tell her mother-in-law (although at least one report says she said her sister-in-law).

On October 11, 1980 Marlene talked to her sister twice. In the first conversation she told her sister her plans to divorce and about the abuse. She also told her that she had proof of this and that if something happened to her that the authorities would get the information and that it was somewhere that Bill would never find it. Presumably she was talking about the diaries that were now in Glen's possession. She called her sister back later and told her that she and Bill had had an argument she was upset but apparently it was not the last argument of the night.

It was said that Marlene and Bill were arguing and Glen was apparently around when it started because it was said that he left to “cool off.” It was not made clear whether he had been involved in the argument or just a bystander. When he returned to the property in the early morning hours he noticed that Bill was home. Marlene's car was gone and when Glen talked to Bill he was told that Marlene had left and took the children with her.

It was not until a few days later that Glen learned that Bill had taken the children to a neighbor's home and told them that Marlene had left and abandoned the children. He then sold several firearms to another neighbor and had expressed that he planned to move back to his native Rhode Island. It is unclear whether Glen or Bill contacted the police first but around the same time they both contacted authorities. It was said that Bill reported Marlene missing while Glen technically did the same, he also filled investigators in on other things too, including Marlene's diaries. A search was made but authorities did not seem to feel as if anything was off. It seems however, that the only two things gone were Marlene and her car. Even her driver's license had been left at the home.

It is not clear what was done at that time or what investigators believed. But apparently Bill did in fact move to Rhode Island and took Donald and LaLana with him. On November 29, 1981 a hunter was out on some land at a farm about a mile away from where Bill and Marlene had lived when he came across the partial remains of a skull. They were able to determine that the skull likely belonged to a white female, approximately thirty years old (Marlene was twenty-five) and that she had died from multiple gunshot wounds. The skull or at least the portion found did not have any teeth and at that point there was no way to identify the remains. Over the years some suspected that it was Marlene but as DNA made strides there were different reasons that it could not be checked because of the deterioration of the bones.

In the meantime Bill was living in Rhode Island and had remarried. The children, who were living with Bill and his new wife, not only lost their mother, but a new nightmare began. While there had been the allegation from Marlene's diary about Bill abusing their son, Donald, it was in Rhode Island where he not only abused Donald, but also his daughter, LaLana. It was said that he would take the children with him to work and sexually and physically abuse them. In 1984 Bill's second wife went to authorities after the children had come to her with their claims. They claimed that Bill would tell them each that if they ever told anyone he would kill their sibling. The police came to the house to investigate and it was said that just days later he threatened LaLana at gunpoint to “keep her mouth shut.”

In 1985 Bill was convicted in Rhode Island for the abuse of his children. He was given a fifteen year sentence and his children went back to Kentucky to live with Marlene's mother. It is unclear whether she formally adopted the children but I can say that at some point Donald began using the Oakes surname. Whether LaLana did also is unclear as it appears the name I have found her under is a married name but I can only assume that she too took her mothers maiden name. Marlene's mother apparently never held back the fact that she believed her daughter not only was dead, but that Bill had murdered her. At some point she shared these beliefs with LaLana.

Although he was sentenced to fifteen years Bill served eleven years in Rhode Island and he was then sent directly to Kentucky where initially he was to face charges related to his abuse against his son. Although he was held for a bit, I was unable to determine how long, charges were dropped when first authorities realized there was a statue of limitations on the charges and they did not feel they had enough evidence. But while he was being retained in Kentucky he had a conversation on the phone with his father. It said that the calls were not recorded. For me this fact seemed very odd to me until I thought about it being in Kentucky. I currently know of someone who is and has been in a county jail in Kentucky, which I am likely sure that Bill would have been, and while I cannot say that they do not record phone calls, I can say that their mail is “uncensored” and when approached about it they say they cannot stop something from being mailed to a particular address, which I also find odd but would make sense that the calls were said not to be recorded when Bill was in jail.

That being said, Bill's father claimed to authorities that he had confessed to murdering Marlene when they talked on the phone. Authorities knew that this alleged confession would not be enough to file charges and it was said there was “significant animosity” between father and son. My research then said that in March of 2000 Bill's father agreed to let his phone tapped and they had a conversation. My initial information indicated that this call was the “gotcha moment” and it led to Bill's arrest for murder. But, according to an appeals paper I found it sounded as if Bill did not trust his father's motives in the call and expressed that. In the call it was said that Bill had admitted to his father that he had previously admitted to the murder but he blamed it on the fact he was incarcerated at the time and emotionally unstable at the time of the confession. Bill and Marlene's daughter, LaLana stated that sometime after Bill's incarceration she confronted Bill about murdering her mother. She claims that he stated “if you think I'm going to tell you where your mother is buried, you're crazy.”

LaLana had become focused on finding her mother and finding out the truth. It was said that she was able to fully see the files that investigators had compiled and she basically did her own investigating. She had long learned about the skull that had been found not long after her mother had “disappeared.” She talked to investigators about what it would take to get testing done. It seems that it was not going to be just as easy as obtaining DNA but it was about comparing it to LaLana. There seemed to be an issue initially whether the state would pay for the testing, and it was sent for mitochondrial DNA along with a DNA sample from LaLana. In early 2001 it was reveals that the skull was a “maternal relation” to LaLana. There seemed to be no question that the skull belonged to Marlene.

In July 2001 Bill Major was official charged with the murder of his wife, Marlene and with tampering with evidence. Soon after his arrest Bill confessed, although like many murderers I do not know that his story was completely true. He told investigators that he and Marlene had argued in her car and that she had pulled a gun on him. He said they struggled, he took the gun from her and “lost it” firing it at her until it was empty. He said he took the body to the farm in which the skull was found, and dumped her into a sinkhole, covering it with dirt and pieces of rolled fencing. He stated he tossed the weapon in a nearby pond and pushed her car into the Ohio River near a ferry. He even drew a map to where he left her remains and yet still nothing but that portion of the skull was found.

Truthfully I am unsure how much of that story I believe. It is possible he shot her while in the car but he would have been covered in blood and it does not seem that he was gone a super long time and seems odd he would not have missed something. If it was her car then one can assume that she was in the driver's seat but he would have had to move the body to drive it away. Not to mention after doing all that he said unless he had help, which I never found evidence referring to this, he would have had to walk back to another vehicle somewhere, and again, he would likely have been covered in blood. Also, I do not necessarily believe that he dumped her body the way that he stated. It was learned that Bill had allegedly told several people, including Glen St. Hillaire, that if Marlene tried to end their relationship that he would murder her and had gone into details of how he would remove her teeth to make her body “unidentifiable.”

Despite his confession and other things when it came time to plead in the court he pleaded not guilty and took the case to trial. He had suffered a stroke in 1995 and was in a wheelchair at his trial. The jury took less than an hour to come to a guilty verdict and on July 28, 2003 Bill was sentenced to life in prison. But, in 2005 a appeals court reversed his conviction and sentencing. They did so because LaLana had testified about the abuse she suffered from her father and the threat he had made to her after things came to light in Rhode Island. Donald also testified to the abuse he suffered in both Kentucky and Rhode Island. The courts believed that the abuse suffered by the children in Rhode Island should not have been brought into the trial. Of course the abuse that Donald was said to have suffered in Kentucky played a key role, although Bill was never convicted for that. There was also evidence about firearms that the court said should not have been admitted because they were “factually unconnected” to the crime charged. I assume this was a reference to the firearms he sold to the neighbor just after Marlene had gone missing.

Bill was re-tried on the charges and was once again found guilty. He was given a life sentence for the murder and five years on the tampering with evidence charge. A 2009 appeal upheld the conviction and sentencing. On October 15, 2018 Bill Major died at the age of seventy-three in prison. It seems that no one claimed his body and he is buried at the State Reformatory Cemetery in Kentucky.

Willie McGee

2022-07-18T16:39:00.004-07:00

I have about three passions in life, true crime, genealogy and history. I admit that I am not an expert in any of these fields and I also admit that when it comes to history I am least interested in the World War II era. I do not know why, maybe it is the whole Hitler aspect, but I am least interested in that era. But, when it comes to civil rights and things like that I at least thought I knew quite a bit. I of course know about the cases such as Emmett Till, Medgar Evers and such. Apparently I had heard about Willie McGee or his name would not have made it to my list but I am unsure how much I knew. In my list it simply says “Willie McGee-Executed 1951.” I admit that even when I go through the list I do not go through every one of them each time so today was the first time I had really dug into the case. It is possible that previously when going through the list I just simply was not in the mood to do a case that involved execution. This makes me a bit sad because while yes, this is a case about an execution, it is also about so very much more.

This became one of those rare cases where I started putting together the story and when I went back to check some research to clarify some things that I ended up not only doing more research, but that research drastically changed the way that I felt about the case and I ended up erasing all that I had put together. It is a case that it appears that there are strong feelings on both sides of this case. Some believe an innocent man was executed; some believe sadly that he got what he deserved. Was Willie McGee innocent of the charges of rape? I cannot say for sure but I do believe two things. While I cannot say necessarily that I do not believe anyone should be execute for the charge of rape, I think it should be one of extreme violence that causes, again, extreme, injuries. And, as with all cases that involve execution I think there needs to be absolute proof and certainty that the person executed was guilty. So, while I cannot tell you if Willie McGee was innocent, I can tell you that I believe he was executed unjustly. And, that belief is based solely on the evidence of the crime. That being said, I also believe that a large reason as to why he was executed had to do with his race.

I do not know how many of you believe in “signs” so to speak. I am one of those people who believe that things happen for a reason, even if we do not know the reason. It felt a little eerie when I went through to do my second round of research on this case. I had come across a story written by an author who had been doing research on this case. He spoke to many people who knew the characters in this story and a few who had actually witnessed things. I like the approach that he took. Like myself, he was simply gathering information and then trying to put it together the best he could and make some sense out of it. He spoke about the age of some of the participants that he spoke to and admitted that at some points he would be on the fence about whether their recollections were accurate, but then in many areas found things to collaborate their stories. I will get more into that later, but while I was reading this story two things jumped out to me. First, while this case took place in Mississippi in 1945, one of the daughters of the alleged victim in the case has spoken and mentioned that in the early 1940's during World War II the family had lived in Evansville Indiana, the town I currently live in. She mentioned that she could not recall exactly when the family moved back to Mississippi but she did know that her youngest sister had been born here..... on February 24, 1944. I too was born here, although I spent most of my life out of the area, on February 24, 1972. For me I guess the sign was that I was supposed to find this story because in the end it did kind of change my perspective on things. But, let us get into the story and let you decide what you think.

In the early morning hours of November 2, 1945 married mother of three, Willette Hawkins reported that she had been inside her home with her family, asleep next to her youngest child when a black man broke into her home and attacked and raped her in her bed in Laurel Mississippi. The following day a man named Willie McGee was arrested, not for rape but on charges of grand larceny. He worked for a grocery company and apparently he had taken the money from at least one of the jobs, bought some alcohol and gambled and lost the rest of it. He had also taken the employee truck with him.

It was alleged that two of McGee's friends had told authorities that he had been in the area of the Hawkins home around the time of the reported rape. It was also said that shortly after his arrest that McGee made some sort of confession. Apparently it seems that in his first talk with police and a theme that was carried on throughout the case was said that McGee had stated that he and Hawkins had a consensual affair. This thought and theme went down into history as being at least possibly true, and part of the reason for that is that it made it into the newspapers. It was never brought up in court because his attorney's stated that being in the south, in front of all white juries, they never thought it would be believed. This is quite possibly true. There were people then, and people today, who believe/d that at that time a white woman would never have sex with a black man willingly.

From things that I have read, it seems that Willette Hawkins could not fully identify the man she says raped her. I will get into what she said occurred, where others in her home were located and what neighbors would say later, but again, from my understanding she was not specific as to who the man was and there were indications that she never positively identified Willie McGee. So, beyond a strange confession that was allegedly heard by the county attorney and “other members of the local political power structure” I am completely uncertain what evidence there was against him.

It appears that he was charged on November 9, 1945 for the rape charges. On December 3, 1945 it was said he was indicted on the grand larceny as well as the rape charges. It also says that he entered a plea of not guilty. This is where things get crazy, or more crazy I should say, in my opinion. It appears that within DAYS of the indictment McGee's first, of what would ultimately be three trials began. From all indications it was a one day trial and it took the jury two and a half minutes to deliberate before finding him guilty and he was sentenced to death. The odd thing is that in my research I found no information discussed about the rape in the first trial. It was as if it focused on the grand larceny charges. National Guard troops had to escort him to and from the jail and court because there were many rumors of lynch mobs consisting of white supremacists. The case was appealed and the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned the conviction saying that the court had failed to consider a change of venue out of Laurel.

McGee's second trial took place in November of 1946. This one was moved to Hattiesburg. As was the case with the first trial this jury too was full of white jurors. This time the jury took eleven minutes to come to a verdict of guilty. Once again McGee was sentenced to death. But again, the verdict was overturned when the court ruled that people of color had purposely been excluded from serving on the jury.

A third trial began in February of 1948. It was said that “for the first time in Jones County history, African Americans were registered” to be jurors. But still none actually served on the jury. Decades later it would be reported that “one of the prosecutors allegedly boasted that they had changed the roll of grand jurors to falsely include two black doctors whom they knew would remain silent.” So, if true, while it looked like they were not excluded on paper, people of color were still excluded. But, that would not be revealed until it was all too late.

Let's start and examine the prosecution and what they presented. The prosecution put both Willette Hawkins and her husband Troy on the stand. As I mentioned earlier it was said that Willette claimed that the man had come through a window in the house and had attacked her. She claimed that she believed the man had a knife and that he had threatened to kill her and her family if she made a noise. Troy testified that he and Willette had been up until well past four in the morning because their youngest daughter, who was less than two year old, was six. When he went to bed he testified he went to a bedroom in the back of the house. The media reported as if the room was simply right next to the room in which Willette was attacked but the article I mentioned earlier went into more detail after one of Willette and Troy's daughters had spoken out. The room that Troy slept in was not right next to the room she was in and added to the fact that she stated the attacker threatened her if she made noise it gave some more credence to her story than the media had allowed. Aside from that and evidence of his alleged confession I cannot say that anything else was presented, and keep in mind that I mentioned earlier that it seemed apparent that she was unable to positively identify her attacker, let alone that it was Willie McGee.

As far as the defense goes from my understanding in my research they did not present any witnesses and did very little cross examining of the state witnesses. However, with that being said there was a bit of a twist. A woman who stated her name was Rosalee McGee. She had given a sworn statement to the court stating she was Willie's wife and the mother of his children. She would say that she knew of the affair between Willie and Willette. While this was allegedly given to the court, it does not seem that it was presented in court considering my information stated the defense offered basically nothing and there were specific references that the idea of there being an affair between the two was not presented as it would not be believed. Rosalee was not Willie's wife, in fact her name was not even Rosalee. It was discovered later that her name was actually Rossetta Saffold. It is unclear what connection she may have had to Willie prior to the case or if she was simply sympathetic of his situation.

When he was arrested Willie was legally married and had four children with his wife, Eliza Jane. But, they had separated in 1942 and after his arrest Eliza Jane filed for divorce. Eliza Jane first moved the children away from the area but apparently still in Mississippi and then eventually moved them to the Las Vegas area where people of color were treated much better. Although life for Eliza Jane and her children remained in turmoil. In 1958 their twenty-two year old daughter Gracie died from a gunshot wound when she was injured trying to break up a fight. Eliza Jane remarried in 1959 and sometime in 1963 or 1964 she was murdered by her second husband.

Willie McGee's third trial would never be overturned. No one really expected that it would be. The Governor of the state, Feilding White was a known white supremacist and segregationist so no one ever expect when the courts stopped being supportive that White would step in and change things. On May 8, 1951 what was called “the traveling execution chair” was brought to the courthouse in Laurel Mississippi, where he had first been convicted, and constructed. In front of a crowd, thirty-five year old Willie McGee was executed for the crime of rape by the state of Mississippi.

Now, as I stated early on, I came across some late information that changed the tone of how I was feeling about this case. Let me be clear in the fact that I do not believe that Willie McGee, guilty, or innocent of rape, should have been executed for that crime. First, I do not think the crime warranted an execution. Secondly, I fully believe that his execution had to do with his race. I did find evidence that the prosecutor had sought the death penalty for at least one white man accused of rape around the same time period. The man, Laverne Yarbrough was convicted of raping a young black girl. But, the all white jury that he had chose to give him a life sentence. Thirdly, as a reader you have heard me often say that I am neither necessarily for or against the death penalty but I believe it should only be used for the “worse of the worse” and when there are absolutely no questions as to who was involved. From everything I have gotten that was not the case here. There were no reports about any sort of forensics like fingerprints or anything else, and remember, Willette could not say for certain Willie was her attacker.

In the same respect, it appears that the newspapers at the time began a campaign against Willette. She was harassed and taunted, as was her husband. One of the biggest problems is that many inaccuracies about the situation made it into the newspapers and then they made it into legend. Legend was that Troy Hawkins was in the room right next to his wife when she was allegedly attacked and he heard nothing. Reality is that he was much further than simply right next door. The newspapers were reporting it was a consensual relationship and that when Willette got “caught” she “cried rape.” But article I found late in my research put a new light on things. The interviewer had talked to Willette and Troy's children. The oldest daughter recalled being about eight years old at the time and stated she still remembered when her mother had began screaming and running through the house. In her account her father was closely following her but her account seemed to end there, at least about the night.

A man who was a teenager in 1946 says that he had gotten up early to go to work before school when he heard Willette screaming and crossing the street, completely naked. He says she came to their back door asking for his mother. His mother placed her in his bed, since he was already up, to comfort her and by his account it was indicated that it was his mother who took Willette to the hospital to be examined. The neighbor did not mention Troy in his account.

The newspaper claimed that Troy was a “traveling salesman” but according to the daughters at the time of the attack Troy worked second shift at the post office and was home when the attack happened. Allegedly they were sleeping in separate rooms that night after being up until “sometime after four in the morning” when their youngest child was sick. The daughters also went through the family history. I have spoke about the rumors of this being a consensual sexual relationship. While apparently it was not in the courts someone, somewhere, whether it was the fictional (unknown to be at the time) wife or Willie himself had allegedly spoke of specific incidents. Two things stuck out. One was the time period in which the alleged affair had taken place. The family had left Mississippi during World War II and moved to Evansville Indiana where Troy worked at a factory and their youngest daughter was born. The daughter was not certain when they for sure had moved back to Mississippi but one thing she was certain about, and the interviewer was able to talk to others and confirm, was that their mother had never learned to drive or had a driver's license. This also goes against the stories told about the affair because apparently at least one involved Willette allegedly driving.

It is said that if you go to Laurel Mississippi today and speak to those who know about this case you will hear that a majority of white people believe that Willie McGee was guilty of rape. Whether they believe he deserved to be executed is a different question that I am unsure how people feel. But, most of the black people in Laurel believe that there was a consensual affair between the two.

But, the article I read come up with a third option. Willette's daughters did speak about how after the attack their mother fell into a deep depression and her personality severely changed. It was even said that she became dependent on alcohol. I had found my way to this article after being curious about the fact that Willette had died on March 25, 1967 at the age of fifty-three and her husband Troy died a few days later on April 2^nd. It is not uncommon for couple to die fairly close together but they were both still in their fifties which did make it unusual. At first the article indicated that the daughters said that Willette was a sickly woman and had medical issues but it was not there that I learned the cause of her death. It was later when the interviewer talked to a older lady in the community.

The interviewer admitted that while talking to the elderly lady, who was in her 80's or 90's, he wondered how much of her recollection was true. She had claimed to know both Willette Hawkins and Willie McGee around the time of the attack and the trials. The interviewer knew that her recollection of how Willette looked physically was off which added to his skepticism. But, the woman had a theory. She thought Willie McGee was innocent. She claims that on the night of the alleged attack and into the early morning McGee was out gambling (his employers money) with her brother. She completely discounted the consensual relationship theory too. In fact, while she does not believe technically that Willette was raped at all, she does believe that Willette believed she had. According to the woman prior to the alleged attack Willette suffered from violent, realistic nightmares and it is her belief that this occurred on that night. As I said the interviewer was a bit skeptical even about how much the woman knew the family and then after visiting with Willette's daughters again he came across a picture that showed this woman with the children and it had her name on it. The woman had also mentioned the topic that had brought me to the article to begin with. Apparently the reason Willette and Troy died so close together, and at a relatively young age was that they had been involved in a car accident.

For me, I think I also have to discount the consensual relationship theory. That is not to say that I believe Willie McGee raped Willette Hawkins, or had any relationship with her at all. So that would bring the question as to why Willie would say this at all. I believe that it had to do with the times. First and foremost we need to remember that this was the deep south in the Jim Crow era. Interrogations were done differently than they are today anyways, regardless of who the person was. Investigators could literally do or say whatever they wanted to get a confession from someone. There was never an idea in that era that someone would give a false confession. To add to this people of color were literally considered less than. I was going to say “second class citizens” because that is what you hear but I do not think that adequately describes how they were treated at that time, especially in the deep south. Lets be fair here, we all know the “back of the bus” and separate water fountains and bathroom things but a person of color was to look at the other drivers at an intersection and if there was a white person at one of them they automatically got the right-a-way. Couples were not allowed to express PDA in public because it “made white people uncomfortable.” People of color were easily, easily, blamed and “framed” more or less for things. It is more than likely that the investigators physically assaulted Willie through his interrogation or at the very least there was the threat of physical abuse. In his mind he may have thought, regardless of his guilt or innocence, that if he admitted being with her he would avoid a beating and maybe have his best chance at a defense. It would also mean that he was not admitting to committing a violent rape. That being said, as I have mentioned, this was not brought up at the trial because the defense did not believe that the jurors would believe it. As I mentioned earlier, I think this is a valid point. The thoughts of the day was that basically no “self respecting” white woman (of which Willette seemed to be) would have willingly had sex with a man of color. So had that been said at the trial there was the possibility they could have angered the jury more because they would have thought he was lying, on top of being a rapist. It is likely that the defense relied on the lack of evidence and identification and hoped beyond hope the jury would see things differently than they evidently did. They likely knew if they saw him also as a liar who they also believed he was guilty that he would have absolutely been given the death penalty. Without the added ire they at least had a chance that the death penalty would not be imposed.

It was said that of all the people who were chastised throughout these proceedings and after, it was Willette Hawkins who received the most backlash. Her daughters spoke of how not only was she traumatized by the events of that night, real or imagined, they were real to her, but also by the media and the perception made of her that somehow made it into legend. She was portrayed as a liar who was responsible for the death of an innocent man. According to her daughter Willette's personality completely changed after the attack. She had issues with sleeping and doctors gave her medications that apparently did not work and then suggested that beer at night would help her. It was alleged that this led her to become an alcoholic near the end of her life. In fact the day after Willie's execution a newspaper published a front page article that said, “Willie McGee was murdered because the white woman who had forced an illicit affair upon him for more than four years suddenly shouted “rape” after the whole town discovered the story.” It was said that Willette sued over this but it is not clear what happened in that case. I have not been able to discover where the newspaper got that information.

It seems unreal that if the “whole town” knew about the affair that no one else, or someone credible, came forward with this information to the court. I get that it was “Jim Crow South” with their backwards rules and thinking but surely not everyone in that town felt that way. Then again, it was also a time of “minding your own business” and maybe someone did not want to get involved or feared the backlash of supporting Willie McGee. I suppose some could argue this is why despite the conviction Willette was chastised. For me though, and maybe it is just wishful thinking and hoping for the good out of people, if the whole town knew about this alleged affair why did it still take the jury only two and a half minutes to decide he was guilty and sentence him to death? Despite how any of those on the jury felt about people of color I question if they knew about the affair that they would have sentenced him to death. I do not think they would have had qualms about giving him a life sentence, but I would think at least a few of them would have feared the wrath of God if they condemned a man to death for a crime they personally knew he was not guilty of committing. So no, I do not think the “whole town” knew anything.

Doing this case has given me a whole new perspective on this era. I did not and do not consider myself to be an ignorant person by any means but this case showed me that there is so much more to learn about the history of our fellow citizens. In my personal opinion while there are those in this country that seem to think we should not teach this sort of history to our children, I disagree. I think we all need to know and understand this history. I think white children need to know how less than people of color were treated and understand why the 1960's was full of civil right movements; I think children of color should know, understand and respect how their ancestors were treated and how they fought for them to have a better life when they could.

The Wolf Family Murders

2022-07-10T16:33:00.003-07:00

So, I walked into my research on this one thinking that at worse I would have the issues that I often face doing a very, very old crime where dates and stories conflicted from read to read. I thought this case was pretty cut and dry... there was a mass murder, there was a perpetrator... the end. But thankfully for both you and I, I do not just stop at just a few things. I will dig and dig, sometimes to the point that I have to force myself to stop, this is just such a case.

This case happened in 1920 and is still considered to be the worse mass murder incident in North Dakota. It is also alleged that “this is believed to be the fastest administration of justice on record in any state” and I cannot be sure I disagree, at least from a legal sense. Whether justice was actually served is apparently up for debate. A book was released in 2010 called The Murder Family by Vernon Keel. I have checked my local library to see if I could manage to find this book and so far I have not had any luck. Apparently Keel is from the area where this crime took place and has done extensive research on this case. In fact, I read something in which he alleges an alternate suspect in this case but to be fair, without reading the book I have no idea how he came to this conclusion.

On April 24, 1920 a man by the name of John Kraft noticed that the same laundry had been hanging on the line at the Jacob Wolf Farm in Turtle Lake North Dakota for two days. Some reports say that as he headed to the house he heard a noise from the barn and so he went there first. Other reports say that John's wife was with him and they had heard a baby cry inside the home and went there first. Regardless of whether Kraft was alone, or in what order he went around the property what he found does not change.

Jacob Wolf was considered to be a well-known, fairly well-liked it seems and a prosperous farmer in the area. He lived with his wife, Beata (sometimes spelled Beatta) and their six daughters. It appears that not only did he own his farm but he owned another piece of land not far from the farm. In between his farm and the other land was a farm owned by a man named Joseph Meyer and just north of the other piece of land was a farm owned by Henry Layer. It would later be said that Jacob had told another friend a few weeks prior to April 22^nd that a “vengeful neighbor might do him harm” but the friend did not get the name of the neighbor, what the issue had been or even took it seriously.

So now, on April 24^th John Kraft was walking into a horror story. In the barn he would find the bodies of forty-one year old Jacob Wolf, his ten year old daughter Maria (also saw her name as Mary) and eight year old daughter Edna. They had apparently been shot and then covered by dirt and hay. Next he went into the house. It is not clear whether he went into the bedroom first where 8 month old Emma was found in her crib, alive or whether he looked down the cellar door and saw five more bodies. In the cellar was thirty-five year old Beatta, her daughters, thirteen year old Bertha, six year old Lydia and three year old Martha. Sprawled across them was the body of thirteen year old Jacob Hofer, often described as a farmhand. All but Martha, like those in the barn, had been shot. Martha had been killed with a hatchet.

It was said that the baby, Emma, was cold, weak and hungry when she was found. There also apparently was a rumor that she had seemed to be perfectly fine as if someone had been changing her and feeding her but apparently, Vernon Keel, who I mentioned earlier claims that he found no evidence of this. Emma was taken to a neighbor until her aunt, Christina Hofer, her mother's sister came and got her. Emma would be raised by Christina and her husband, Emanuel until about the eighth grade when the couple both began to have failing health. I will get more into her life story in a bit.

The sheriff was notified but because of the magnitude of the crime it was not feasible for him to investigate it alone so the chief of police from Bismarck was contacted. The problem was that the chief, who was apparently bringing in more investigators, could not arrive until the following day. Not only did the scene need to be secure until the others got there, but apparently protocol was that the bodies were not to be moved until the investigation was done. So that night the sheriff, along with three neighbors, all apparently related to Beatta stayed at the farm. One of the men was Emanuel Hofer. Not only was he married to Beatta's sister but Jacob Hofer, the farmhand, was his brothers son. The four men stayed the night keeping watch and as dawn was about to break the three neighbors decided to go to Hofer's farm and get breakfast. They agreed to bring breakfast and coffee back to the sheriff who continued to stand watch.

Not long after the men left the sheriff heard a car come up the road and stopped at the farmhouse. It is likely the sheriff was waiting to see what the man in the car was going to do before he exposed himself. The man got out and started looking through the windows of the house. That is when the sheriff made himself known. Initial indications in my research made it sound as if the sheriff did not know who the man was but that sees odd to me as the town was small and you would think he would have known everyone. The other reason I find this odd is because after getting the mans name, Henry Layer, when the other men returned later he asked if they had driven past Layer's farm on the way home. The theory became that Layer would have recognized Hofer's car and believing he, along with the others had left the scene it was safe for him to go there.

At any rate according to the sheriff over the next close to two hours he and Layer spoke but Layer never removed a hand from one of his pockets. Later it was said that Layer “kept pointing out obvious things to the sheriff.” After the other men returned and the sheriff had eaten the sheriff had taken Emanuel Hofer off to the side and confirmed his suspicion that he had driven by the Layer farm earlier that morning. Later Layer suggested that they go look for eggs in the barn, which considering the situation was described as “absurd” but the men decided to see where this went. One of the men went into the barn with Layer and while the man was in fact looking for eggs Layer suddenly yelled out that he had found some shotgun shells in some hay. Sure enough there were shotgun shells there but what the sheriff noticed most was that they were found in an area that had already been searched and that suddenly Layer's hand was no longer hidden in his pocket.

The Wolf Family family was laid to rest on April 28^th. There are pictures of their tombstones laying side by side, along with the one belonging to Jacob Hofer. Some reports say that Jacob's funeral was separate. A large stone was place that translated from German says “The Murdered Family.” In a row in front is an individual tombstone for each of the Wolf family members. Jacob Hofer is buried beside them. One of the reports I found said that at the funeral Henry Layer allegedly insisted each casket lid was raised so he could see their faces. I cannot say for certain this is true or whether it was done. It was also said that while Layer was at the funeral there were investigators at his farm searching and talking to his family.

A murder weapon was found near the farm in a slough but my research says that “tracing was unsuccessful” and “not even the manufacturer had a record of it.” The community of course was up in arms. They wanted to know who had committed this crime and they wanted it solved quickly. Rewards were offered and apparently two different men were arrested but I never found any names. It was only said that they were “false” arrests and the men were released. There was another incident where community members detained a young boy until investigators could arrive to which he too was released. At this point the state attorney apparently insisted there was to be no more arrests until there was absolute clear evidence. But, the eyes were still on Layer.

It was learned, or at the very least rumored, that Henry Layer and Jacob Wolf had at least one incident happen between them, although it could have been two. It was said that “livestock” belonging to Layer had trespassed on Wolf's land. I can only assume that this was the piece of land that he owned outside of his farm that was next to Layer's farm. This apparently did not go over well with one or both of them. Whether it was at this time, or possibly another time, it seems that one of Layers cows had been bitten by the Wolf's dog. Investigators came to believe that Layer was the neighbor that Wolf had spoken about to the friend prior to the murders.

Layer would be arrested. Now, a lot of the information says that arrest occurred on May 11^th, but a newspaper article I found said the 13^th. While I would normally believe the newspaper account as it occurred in that time period, I question that here. I found a calendar from May of 1920 and the 11^th is on a Tuesday. Knowing this and knowing things other articles stated, using days of the weeks, I do believe the 11^th is the correct date. To be fair, aside from rumor and suspicion, and despite the state attorney insisting on no arrests without evidence, I do not know what they had. A lot was made about the fact that he had gone to the farm early the morning after the crime had been discovered and his behavior then and some behaviors after. It appears that even Henry's wife, Lydia, had claimed he had been home all day on the day investigators believe the murders occur and she had detailed their activities. As I mentioned earlier the alleged murder weapon had been found but they could not link it to anyone. I saw a newspaper article that stated “blood soaked overalls concealed close to the five victims”(the ones in the cellar) were found but I cannot say anything more about them. Blood typing was available at that time, as well as the ability to take fingerprints but I found nothing that said the evidence against Henry Layer that caused his arrest.

We have to remember that interrogations were done very differently in 1920 than they are now. Investigators are still allowed to lie to you throughout an interrogation but even then the lies are looked at closely. Investigators are not allowed to physically harm a person or “beat” a confession out of them now days, but they could back in 1920. We have heard of modern cases where super long interrogations that end in a confession or went on with out food, water and other accommodations have harmed a case. Again, that was not the case in 1920. Basically investigators were allowed to say and do whatever they wanted. One of the biggest things though that is much different today is if someone is being interviewed and they ask for an attorney the interrogation is to be stopped immediately until an attorney can be found to represent the person. That being said, while I cannot tell you that Henry Layer actually asked for an attorney throughout his interrogation, even if he had he did not have to be honored as it is today. My research stated that Layer was arrested and brought into the station and interrogated immediately. It was said that for hours, upon hours he maintained his innocence.

While the interrogation was going on something else happened that was commonplace back then and taboo today.... a newspaper reporter was allowed to sit in during the interrogation. This was much the era of “yellow journalism” which I have discussed often within my blogs. Reporters and writers for the newspapers were more like amateur detectives. I have heard story after story about reporters being allowed to walk crime scene with detectives on their first runs as things were being first discovered. I have heard stories of scenes not being secured and reporters going in and trampling on things and allegedly finding evidence. While I will not say that every newspaper or news group in today's world could be considered legitimate, most of the ones at the time of this crime were more like tabloids. It was all about the drama; it was often about making things up so that newspaper got the readers and scooped the other competition.

After hours of what was described as “rigorous questioning” and maintaining his innocence it was said that the reporter in the room suggested to the investigator that pictures of the bodies, as well as baby Emma, were shown to Layer and see what happened. This was done and it was said not long later Layer confessed. However, this is only part of what allegedly made him confess to the murders.

During the interrogation Layer had been told that there was a mob outside the jail waiting to come in and lynch him at the nearest tree. I know there have been questions as to whether the mob actually existed but I was unable to determine whether it had been confirmed or not. Layer was told basically that everyone knew he was guilty so he may as well admit to it and that prison was the safest place for him at that time. He was also told that once he was sentenced to prison he could file for a change of plea and get a jury trial. The following is what Layer said in his confession....

Layer claimed that he walked to the Wolf farm and into the house and demanded that he be paid for the injury done to his cow by the Wolf's dog. Jacob Wolf ordered him to leave and when he did not do so Wolf allegedly grabbed and loaded his shotgun. Layer claimed that they struggled over the gun and that it “accidentally discharged” twice. He said one shot killed Beatta and the other killed Jacob Hofer. He then claimed that Jacob Wolf fled the house, while Layer got in the drawer and got more ammo. He then followed Wolf into the yard and shot him. At that point Maria and Edna began screaming and went running towards the barn and he followed them where he shot and killed both of them. He then went back in the house where he shot and killed Bertha and Lydia and then hit three year old Martha with a hatchet. He was quoted as saying “The reason I did not kill the baby was I believe, because I did not go into the room which the baby lay.”

His later comment indicated to others, or was thought to mean that had he known baby Emma was in the other room he would have killed her too. Some investigators would say that they did not believe Layer had gone to the Wolf farm to commit murder but it is unclear exactly what they thought.

It was said that Layer made his confession at about 12:30 am on Wednesday and by later that day he was in front of a judge pleading guilty to the murders. It was said that the judge discouraged this plea and pointed out that he had the right to an attorney. But, it was said that Layer insisted and the judge felt he had no choice. At that point likely less than or just near twenty-four hours after he was arrested, Henry Layer was give a sentence of life in prison “at hard labor.” “And, exactly forty-eight hours after his arrest he entered the state prison.”

As I stated in the beginning, on the surface this case seems pretty open and shut. Things like Wikipedia and Murderpedia do not go too much further than to say Henry Layer was the murderer.... pleaded guilty... got a life sentence and then died following an operation for appendicitis in 1925, just five years after his sentence. There is mention of Vernon Keel's book but not a lot of details in those places. It took quite a bit more digging to get more information.

It appears that immediately after entering the prison system Henry Layer began saying that his confession was given under duress and not true. This is when the allegations were made that the investigators had told him he was safer in prison and should file for a change of plea. He did apparently get an attorney, as the judge had suggested and they did file for a change of plea in November of 1920. The filing talked about the long interrogation efforts where the investigators allegedly intimidated him. There were also allegations that the officers involved had also beaten Layer to get the confession. I found a notation that said “their motion is strengthened when some new evidence is discovered on the Wolf family farm only days before the motion is filed.” I never found what that new evidence entailed. The judge, the same one who had tried to talk him out of pleading guilty and advised he should get an attorney, also denied his change of plea.

There have been many theories as to what exactly happened more than one hundred years ago. One is that it was Henry's wife, Lydia who committed the murders and that he took the rap for her. I have only heard this theory, not how this conclusion was made however. In February of 1921, long after Henry had pleaded guilty a newspaper reported that the AG of North Dakota was making trips to Turtle Creek and that more arrests were coming. Then very quietly the investigation ended the following month. In December of 1930 all of the AG files were destroyed in a fire and it does not seem that anything survived or was seen before that. It has been said that the issue involving the cow and the dog had occurred several months prior to the murders and there are many who believe this had been settled and was not a motive any longer. They claim that the two neighbors no longer had an issue with each other. It does not appear that any other neighbors were suspected or possibly even investigated despite the fact that Jacob Wolf had made a statement about a neighbor to a friend.

The only survivor, Emma, as I mentioned earlier went to live with her aunt and uncle, Christina and Emanuel Hofer. This is where things get a bit confusing. On Findagrave.com under Christine there is a narrative as to what occurred in relation to Emma. It had me on a quest but then I became even more confused. It was said that Christine and her husband had to fight to adopt Emma because the “appointed guardian of the Wolf estate wanted her raised in an institution until she could inherit the land.” I went on to find a newspaper article that said exact this at the time. The Hofer's had even gone to the Governor to help them. They did win custody of Emma but it was said that when she was in the second grade “someone claimed her aunt and uncle were unfit parents” and they had to fight again. Once again they were able to keep Emma. Where the confusion comes in at is that I was never able to find out who this “guardian of the Wolf estate” was, or at least not who these articles referred to. I found another article though that said two weeks after the murders an auction was held on the farm where livestock and household goods were sold. According to that article Emanual Hofer was the administer of the estate. I suppose “administer” and “guardian” could be different people but it still left me a bit confused.

Emma lived with the Hofer's until the early 1930's when their health declined. Emanual died in 1932 and Christina passed away in 1934. Emma was in the eighth grade and was sent to live with a couple named Emil and Vera Haas. They became her legal guardians. They owned the town store and according to Emma she was to work in the store for her room and board. She was forever known as “The Wolf Girl” and she struggled with that. Emma married a man named Clarence Hanson and they had three children. Once married the Wolf farm was being used again. That was around 1949. It is said as of 2020 the land “sits” quiet again, although apparently still owned by descendants.

Henry Layers family did not have things much better. After his confession his wife Lydia sent five of their six children to an orphanage in Minnesota. She kept her one year old son and sent four sons and her daughter, Blanche, to the orphanage. Two years later six year old Berthold Layer was killed when he was “run over by a farm wagon.” Sometime after 1925 when Henry died in prison Lydia remarried and Blanche, along with two of her brothers returned to North Dakota. Blanche was said to have stated that life back in Turtle Creek was difficult due to her family's connection to the crime. I should point out that I found something that called Blanche Henry's adopted daughter but I found nothing for certain to know the situation.

So, this brings us to the point where I pull things together and state my opinion, when I have one, and of course I do. Emma's son has been recorded as saying that while he, and presumably his family passed through time, do believe that Henry Layer was involved in the murders but they do not believe he committed the crimes alone. I saw nothing in which he stated where suspicions lie. He has also made a comment that while research indicated that Jacob Wolf was a well liked man, that he had been told from family that he was “not an easy man to get along with.” This actually makes me wonder if he was as “well-liked” as it was initially stated. I have to agree with Emma's son at least to the point that it does not seem possible that one person could have committed these murders alone. I think we first have to look at Henry's confession.

According to Henry's initial confession he stated that Beatta Wolf and Jacob Hofer were both killed when the gun “accidentally” went off, not once, but twice, while he and Jacob Wolf were struggling for the gun. Not only is it unlikely that a gun would “accidentally” discharge twice, but in both instances were close enough to people to kill them. I understand, and have seen pictures, of the home and know that the home was not very big but it still seems very improbable to have happened that way. I could understand where maybe three year old Martha could not have gotten away or understood enough to hide while Henry was allegedly outside killing Jacob, Maria and Edna. But Bertha was still inside and thirteen years old. Six year old Lydia was also inside. Some could argue that maybe Bertha thought she should stay to protect her three sisters but that doesn't explain why she did not sent even six year old Lydia to get help, obviously going in the direction opposite of Henry. The only way I see that one person could have done this is if Henry's story is true about Jacob Wolf running across the yard and shooting him, is that he does not then go to the barn leaving the three young girls, plus baby Emma in the house, but shoots Jacob from the door, kills the girls in the house and then went to find the two girls that had fled to the barn. Even then it still seems unlikely that this could have been done by one person.

I, of course, cannot say that Henry's confession was coerced but I absolutely believe it was possible. It was said that after hours upon hours of denying involvement he confessed after seeing the pictures of the victims and being told a mob was outside ready to lynch him. People do not just go in front of judges within hours of making an alleged confession, plead guilty and the judge sentence them and within forty-eight hours of his arrest is sitting in a prison cell serving a life sentence. I think all of this give credence to Henry's argument later that he was told by investigators that the safest place for him was prison until things died down. I am severely surprised however that the attorney he got after his sentence actually filed for a change of plea. I am going to guess though that it was not that simple. A change of plea is not uncommon, but not after someone has already been sentenced. I suspect that it was more likely something closer to having the conviction overturned and what we see as appeals in modern times.

There was a lot of nationality talk. The victims in this case, but also the Layer family were German/Russian immigrants. There was apparently a large population of German/Russian immigrants in the area. It was said that this crime hurt the immigrant community but this leaves me a bit pondering to me. It would seem to me that while yes, other immigrants in the community would have been hurt by this and upset that one of their own were responsible but considering the large population I do not see it being the big deal that was made out, unless the references were against the authorities. I keep thinking back to the Lindbergh kidnapping case. Part of the outrage in that case that took place twelve years after this one, in 1932, was the nationality of Richard Hauptmann who was a German immigrant. But the victims in that case not only were famous, or at least Charles Lindbergh was, and wealthy, but they were American born. I am just uncertain whether it had as much to do with the Wolf case as has been made out. At the very least it was not explained adequately.

I like cases that have trials; I like cases that have appeals that I can read. That is where the information gets out whether it is to the press or to the court. This is obviously not such a case. I cannot tell you whether investigators got the right man because other than hunches, theories and quite possibly a false confession I have no idea what evidence was used to come to this conclusion. Was Jacob Wolf referring to Henry Layer as the neighbor he had issues with or was there someone else? It's unlikely anyone will ever know for sure. That being said I think those websites that do not give the full story or speak of inconsistent things are doing a disservice. As I said, this is not as cut and dry or black and white as it appears on the surface.

The Murders of the Lawson Family

2022-07-05T16:19:00.000-07:00

You have often heard me state how I love hearing stories from the early 1900's and prior. But, you have also heard me state they prove difficult to research because it is hard to distinguish between fact, rumor, and just a story that becomes a legend disguised as a fact. This is just such a case. There often are just not enough facts known to make a decent story out of things and so things become “fillers” so to speak. I am not saying that I do not do the same sometimes, however, I do not state things as facts if I cannot prove them to be so, if there is conflicting information, or as in this case there is really not enough information in my opinion to know exactly what happened and in what order.

I will start with the facts that we do know. We know that on December 25, 1929 in Germantown North Carolina forty-three (some say forty-two) year old Charles “Charlie” Lawson murdered his wife and six of their seven living children on their farm. Several hours later he would commit suicide. His only surviving child was James “Arthur” who was sixteen at the time and had been sent on an errand prior to the crime being committed. The entire family was buried together and a tombstone, with three sides were erected showing all of the family members, except for Arthur, but including a son, William who died in 1920 of pneumonia at the age of six.

Now, if you search out this story you will hear a narrative of what happened when, and how. But, keep in mind that there were no eye witnesses to this crime so to know exactly what happened and when cannot possibly be known for certain. It does not mean that the narrative given is not true, it just means that it was likely the best theory had and had been repeated so much in the almost 100 years that it has become thought of as fact.

Some reports say that earlier in the day on December 25^th Charlie had taken the family to a town nearly fifteen miles away where they had a “shopping spree” and after buying new clothes wore them for a family portrait. Other reports say that this shopping trip happened a few days or weeks prior. In my opinion the latter was probably more likely. I know that in modern times we are used to many, if not most places being closed on Christmas Day and I feel as if that would have even more true back in 1929. Some saw this act as showing that Charles had premeditated the crimes; some reports stated that the family did not have the means to be spending the money they had; yet still other reports stated he was prosperous and “well off” indicating he did in fact have the money to spend. There is a picture available of the entire family including the baby, Mary Lou who was four months old when the crime occurred on Christmas.

The story goes that some time that day Charles sent his oldest son, sixteen year old Arthur, “on an errand.” Some stories will say that it was to a relatives home; others say that Charles and Arthur had been out hunting and allegedly ran out of ammo and sent Arthur to get more. Of course there are theories abound about why he sent Arthur away. Was it because he was the oldest son and at sixteen may have been able to resist Charles the most as opposed to the rest of the family? Was it because by leaving his oldest son alive his son could carry on his name? No one will ever know.

And then comes the theory of how each of the remaining members of his family died, and how. It is believed that Charlie hid out by the tobacco barn, basically lying in wait, as two of his daughters, twelve year old Carrie and seven year old Maybell was within his range as they headed to go visit an aunt and uncle that lived nearby. It is said that they were each shot by Charlie and his 12 gauge shotgun and then were “bludgeoned” to ensure they were dead. Their bodies were found inside the barn.

It is then believed that Charlie moved his way to the house where Fannie was on the porch. Reports say that seventeen year old Marie, who was inside the home screamed, but again, how can anyone know this? Everyone at that home were either already dead when the crime was discovered or soon would be without ever speaking to anyone or telling the details of what happened. It is believed that Charlie then went into the house and shot Marie. It has also been theorized that after Fannie was shot that four year old James William (yes, he had the same first name as Arthur and his middle name was the first name of Charlie and Fannie's child who died in 1920, a common thing in those days) and two year old Raymond had found a place to hide and that after finding them Charlie also shot them. From there it is believed that four month old Mary Lou was “bludgeoned” to death.

It is not clear whether the bodies were moved at all or just simply staged. It was said that Carrie and Maybell were still in the barn but it was not clear whether Fannie had been moved from the porch. But, the bodies were all laid out to the point in which their arms were crossed. Some reports say there were rocks under all of their heads while others say that only the girls in the barn had rocks and the others had pillows placed under their heads. It is also not completely clear who found the bodies. Some reports say that it was Arthur when he returned from his “errand” and other reports say it was other family members. Apparently the authorities were called and they, along with Arthur, and apparently many others who had heard about the crimes and gone to the home were all outside “several hours” after the murders were committed when they all heard a gunshot from within the nearby woods. Charlie was found dead near a tree from an obvious self inflicted gunshot wound. It was said that there were footprints circling the tree as if he had paced around for those hours before actually shooting himself. Most reports say there were letters to his parents on crumbled paper nearby. One report stated that one of them said “Blame nobody but I.”

Friends, family and neighbors all began looking for a reason. The first theory was that several months earlier Charlie had suffered from a head injury. Reports were that he had accidentally hit himself in the forehead with an ax. Many said that he had a personality change after this incident and the ongoing theory is that this head injury had caused him to go “mad.” But, it was said that after the crime, or at some point later, Charlie's skull was examined by professionals a Johns Hopkins Hospital “found no abnormalities.” Despite this it seems it became the prevailing theory as to motive, at least until several decades later.

In 1990 a book was being published on the case and Charlie's niece, Stella had been interviewed. Stella was the daughter of Charles' brother Marion and around the time of the writing of the book would have been in her seventies. Things were a little unclear on how things went down but it appears that “an anonymous source” had heard a rumor during one of the tours (I will get into this in a bit) of the Lawson home after the murders. The rumor was a claim that Charlie had sexually abused seventeen year old Marie. It appears that Stella had already been interviewed and the book, White Christmas, Bloody Christmas was set to be published soon when she contacted the author again. She relayed a story that she claimed she had overheard Fannie's sister in laws, her aunts, including Stella's mother, discussing the fact that Fannie had “confided” in them that she was concerned that there was something going on between Charlie and Marie. Stella's mother, Jettie, died in May of 1928 so if true, then this was said long before the murders in December of 1929.

In 2006 the same author released another book on the case called The Meaning of our Tears and by then apparently they had dug deeper into the sexual allegations. It was said that a friend of Marie's claimed that a few weeks before the murders Marie had told her that she was pregnant and that the child belong to her father. The friend, Ella May, stated that according to Marie both of her parents knew of the situation.

It is unclear whether Arthur, Charlie and Fannie's only surviving child, ever stated or made a comment about this issue or even what his theory may have been about a motive. He apparently did not remain on the farm, or at least living in the house because it was said that Charlie's brother, Marion, opened up the house for tour at .25 a piece. A cake that Marie had made earlier in the day was on the table. It was said that people who toured the home began taking raisins from the cake a basically “souvenirs” and that eventually a glass cover was placed over the cake. It is not clear how long the “tours” lasted but they eventually did stop and the home was demolished at some point.

As far as Arthur goes, he was killed in an automobile accident in 1945 at the age of thirty-one. It was said that he left a wife and four children. I do want to point out that if you visit the website Findagrave.com you will find Arthur (listed as James Arthur). His tombstone says the years 1911-1944 but a contributor says that is wrong and his birth date was August 18, 1913 and his death date was May 5, 1945. I believe the contributor is correct for several reasons. First, several areas stated that Charlie and Fannie were married in 1911. Every story about this case indicates that Marie was seventeen at the time of the murders and the oldest child. Her tombstone states she was born in April of 1912. It seemed unreasonable to believe that Arthur was born in 1911, the same year they were married and yet be their second child, especially in that era.

The Murder of Roger "Scott" Dunn

2022-07-04T16:57:00.001-07:00

I told you I would get away from Kentucky this time!! Now I have moved on to Texas. I have seen this case covered on many crime shows including one of my favorites, Forensic Files. I am sure most of you have watched that show but for those of you who have not you should check it out. It is on several different streaming channels. It is a short thirty minute show that focuses solely on forensics. They do not have time to be overly bias one way or another in my opinion and is just long enough to give the facts.

I am also in the middle of reading a book that was written in 2005. It was written by Scott Dunn's father Jim, in collaboration with Wanda Evans and is called Trail of Blood. I already know that the book ended technically I guess we can say before the case actually did. It was said that Jim reportedly said after writing the book he was giving up his “obsession” with finding his son's body and it was time to just accept the inevitable, that his son was dead and had been murdered. But, by that time two people had been tried and technically convicted for Scott's murder and that is one of the reasons this case is most interesting. I have found conflicting evidence but I can for sure tell you that Scott's murder was the first “no body” case tried in Lubbock but it may have actually also been the first case without a body in the entire state of Texas. It was said that at the time of his murder in 1991 Texas had a law about having to have a body. We will get into that in a bit but for now lets just say that authorities were able to convince prosecutors they really did have a body.

In May of 1991 twenty-four year old Scott Dunn was living in Lubbock. He had grown up in Texas and Lubbock was his father's hometown. I am unsure how old he was when his parents divorced but in 1991 his father, Jim, was remarried and he lived in Pennsylvania with his wife. Jim would say that the last time he had talked to his son he had mentioned he had planned to marry a girl named Jessica. He had met the girl a few years before and they had briefly dated and then she had gone off to school but apparently now she was back and they had rekindled their romance. It was said that he was planning to take her to Pennsylvania to meet his dad sometime soon. Prosecutors would say she was finally the girl “decent enough” to meet his family. Scott installed automobile stereo systems and it was said he was quite good at it. There had been many shows and competitions and he had won quite a few. In fact, the shop he worked at was preparing for one when Scott disappeared.

On May 14, 1991 Scott had gone to a party and while there he had gotten sick. He ended up spending the night on his bosses' couch. The following day it was said that Leisha Hamilton picked him up. Apparently Scott and Leisha had been living together for a few months but no one in his family knew anything about it or even about her, but we will get to that in a bit. According to Leisha after picking Scott up he continued to be sick and spent the day in bed. That night one of his co-workers had come by and talked with him for a bit. Scott's car, his cherished yellow Camaro, was still parked at the shop where he worked and Scott asked if the co-worker would come by the next morning and pick him up for work as he was feeling better. The next morning, Thursday the 16^th, Leisha says that she talked to Scott, asking if he needed a ride to work, and he told her no, that the co-worker was coming and then she left for her job as a waitress. She would say that she came home after work and not only was Scott gone, but so were some of things. She would allege later that a few days after that her home was broken into and again, things belonging to Scott were gone. And yet his keys to his car were still there and his car was still sitting at his work. The co-worker stated that he had gone to Scott and Leisha's apartment that morning to get Scott but there was no answer at the door so he assumed that Scott had gotten to work another way.

On Sunday May 19^th Leisha called Jim Dunn in Pennsylvania. Jim had never heard of her, let alone knew that his son was living with this woman. She claimed that she found his number on a phone bill and thought he should know that she had not heard from Scott in about four days. Jim did not know what to think. She had relayed the story about him being sick and her coming home on the 16^th and he not being there. She had also relayed the stories about how her apartment had been broken into but even on other occasions things of Scott's was missing. He sat on this information for a little bit. Keep in mind this was not a situation like today where Jim could just pick up his phone and reach out to his son on a cell phone. In Jim's mind initially since he had never even heard of Leisha, he just assumed if what she was telling him was true that Scott had just simply up and left. He figured he would give it a few days even though he was perplexed and a bit worried.

He kept in touch with Leisha and as time went on he began taping their telephone calls. He also called Scott's boss. Their first conversation was not a good one. His boss was angry. He felt as if Scott had just up and took off and left him hanging, not just with the shop, but also for the competition they had. This left Jim concerned also but he did not get really any answers from the boss since he was so angry. A few days after her initial call to Jim, Leisha called again and she mentioned that she had gone to pick up Scott's car at his job because his boss had insisted on it and was threatening to have it towed. Again, this concerned Jim. How did Scott leave and not take his car? Not to mention it was said to be a prized possession and Jim did not think there was anyway that Scott would have left it. Part of him knew he needed to call the Lubbock police and report Scott missing but another part of him not only did not want to believe that this was the case, he also wondered if Scott had not just left Leisha and would turn up in a few days.

Some information says that Scott went missing on May 31^st and not on the 16^th but I think the confusion lies with when he was reported missing, which was almost two weeks after he was actually gone. In fact, his tombstone has the date of May 16^th as his death. I was quite surprised that even the website for The Charley Project used the May 31^st date. I do not use that site a lot because most of the cases I research do not start out as long term missing person cases which is a lot of what they are involved with. But, it had come up and I thought I would take a look.

Whether Jim finally reported Scott missing on the 31^st or not is unclear but that date does coincide with Scott being gone about two weeks. Jim contacted the Lubbock police department and they admitted later that initially they did not take the report super seriously. In fact, they had another case at the time of a missing person that they thought was in more danger than Scott Dunn. A few days later the other man showed up unharmed. The investigator would later say that looking at that case and the case of Scott Dunn they had misjudged which one was the more serious.

Investigators made their way to the apartment that Scott shared with Leisha. Pretty quickly they knew they were behind the eight-ball in this case and that something was not right. It is not completely clear whether Leisha pointed out to the investigators a spot under her couch or that they discovered it themselves. But, a piece of carpet had been cut out. She would claim that since Scott had left she had slept on the couch and had a sheet over it and had not noticed it but she had also told Jim Dunn of two nights since Scott had left that she had men over for the night. One was a co-worker and the other was a man by the name of Timothy Smith. Smith lived in the same apartment complex and Leisha seemed wishy-washy and inconsistent about just what their relationship was.

The investigators asked Leisha's permission to search the apartment and the other rooms and she agreed. While one stayed in the room with her talking to her, the other went into the bedroom. There was little to no furniture in the bedroom and Leisha had already told them that a blanket spread out in the corner of the room was the last place she had seen Scott. She claimed that she had not disturbed anything in that room in the two weeks he had been gone. That alone seemed suspicious but even more so when the investigator in the bedroom lifted the blanket and saw the piece of carpet cut out of the living room carpet patched into the carpet in the bedroom. They were able to easily pull the piece up. They were able to tell that it had been put down with basically duct tape and saw a dry, dark color in the padding and the floor. They immediately called in a forensic investigator to take a sample to be tested. They needed to know if the substance was blood and if so, was it human.

In the meantime they decided to take Leisha down to give an official interview. When it was over they asked her if she could remain out of her apartment for a few days so that they could investigate more and she agreed. Fairly quickly they learned that the substance they found was blood and it was human. It was decided to take a team inside the apartment and investigate more. They were able to spray luminol, a substance that will glow when it comes in contact with blood, even when it has been washed away or cleaned up. When they sprayed luminol on the carpet and the walls of the bedroom and waited to see if it glowed, to say that it did would be an understatement. Samples were taken of the areas and it was tested again. It was determined that the blood was type O.

Investigators were not sure what motive Leisha Hamilton would have had to harm Scott Dunn, nor were they sure she could have done it alone. By her own admissions Leisha kept up bring up Timothy Smith. To investigators she seemingly kept trying to push the idea that Smith had a motive to harm Scott. Jim Dunn called the Lubbock police every single day to see how the investigation was coming and it was said that investigators were beginning to feel like Leisha was calling just as much. She “remembered” something about that time or Smith had done something or said something “odd.” At one point she brought a bunch of notes and letters to investigators that were addressed to her and from Timothy Smith. Sadly those letters came to them after they had all but lost their chance to really interrogate Timothy Smith.

Investigators had gone to his home early on. According to the book I am reading he had already moved into another, bigger, apartment in the complex when they talked to him but my research for this blog indicated that he was preparing to move but had not done so yet. Either way when investigators went to talk to him one of them noticed a roll of duct tape sitting out. They went into another room and when they came back the tape was gone. Finding this even more suspicious they asked him where the tape had gone and he “played dumb.” Finally he pulled the tape out from beyond some books in a bookshelf. They tagged and bagged it for evidence. He then voluntarily went to the police station for an interview. He did not provide a whole lot of information but they did determine that Smith was very much in love with Leisha.

Investigators had already asked Leisha to take a polygraph test and she had agreed. They now asked Tim Smith. He also agreed and the investigators set up times for both of them with the polygraph expert. Leisha did show up for hers. She had been told that there would not be questions such as “Did you kill Scott Dunn,” but more along the lines of “Do you know what happened to Scott.” I never officially heard what her results were but I got the impression through the book that while she proclaimed to have passed investigators indicated she had failed in certain questions such as her knowing what had occurred. As we know polygraphs are not allowed in court and results are used more as an investigative tool, but they weigh heavily with investigators and help them know their next moves. Between the time of his first interview with investigators and the time for his polygraph Timothy Smith retained a lawyer and then declined to take the polygraph. Investigators were upset they had not pushed him harder when they had him and now they faced a brick wall. They were also getting all of this new information from Leisha pointing to him.

Timothy Smith was described basically as an “odd duck” who had not had a lot of relationships with women. But, he seemed to be obsessed with Leisha. Investigators would basically come to believe that this was by Leisha's doing. They read letters that Smith had written to her basically telling her that he felt she was stringing him along. There was mention of Scott, although not by name. Tim indicated that she was having a sexual relationship with them both at the same time.

Now, when you look up Scott Dunn you will see things that say things like he was a “lady's man” and talks about the fact that he was seeing “several women” at one time and engaged to one of them. I cannot say for certain that anyone knows anything about any other woman besides the Jessica that his dad mentioned early on in the investigation about his last conversation with his son. But, even if true, it does not appear that Leisha was much better. Since few people knew she even existed in Scott's life prior to his disappearance I think it would be safe to say that even fewer knew the dynamics of their relationship. I never found anything that discussed what Scott may or may not have thought about or said to anyone about Leisha. To be fair, I also did not hear anything about any other women except what his dad stated about his conversation about Jessica.

Speaking of Jessica, when Leisha first talked to Jim Dunn she indicated as if she had never heard of Jessica or even knew her name. Later she would comment that she herself had called Jessica after he disappeared, although that is not clear. What is clear is it was said that shortly before he disappeared Jessica had called the apartment and Leisha had answered. I am unsure what conversation they ended up having or what either woman had to say to Scott about it. My point in all of this is that the only person that gave information about their relationship was Leisha and she from the get go seemed to be saying she knew nothing, but basically if something happened it must have been Timothy Smith's doing.

Investigators suspected that Leisha, along with Timothy were involved in Scott's disappearance and they were convinced that it was more than a disappearance considering how much blood was in the apartment but they could not prove anything, especially without a body. The residents of the complex as well as the manager and the community at large were questioned about what they may or may not have seen around the time Scott disappeared. One nearby resident talked about seeing something odd at the dumpster in the complex. Investigators spoke to the people at the landfill to determine where the dumpster had been dumped around the time of his disappearance. Cadaver dogs were taken there but nothing was found. Many years later people would ask why those dogs had not been taken to the apartment and around the complex. Texas law at the time did not allow them to file murder charges against anyone without a body and this hindered investigators despite the fact that were all but certain, especially as time went on, that Scott had been murdered inside his own apartment.

In 1992 Jim Dunn, who lived in Pennsylvania heard about an organization called The Vidocq Society. It was a group of over eighty criminologists, some even from Scotland Yard, that was based in Philadelphia and they investigated cold cases as a hobby. Jim was able to convince them to look at Scott's case. After reviewing the evidence at hand and knowing the Texas law the Vidocq Society was finally able to convince the prosecutor in Lubbock that the “sheer volume of blood constituted a body” and they decided to dig in the case even further and eventually in 1997 they would charge both Leisha Hamilton and Timothy Smith with the murder of Scott Dunn.

I could find very little concerning the trials of the defendants. I did learn that they had separate trials. The prosecution theory was that Leisha had been involved and murdered Scott because either she had learned he was not faithful or he had told her he was planning to marry Jessica and was leaving her. Their theory as far as Timothy seemed to be that he too was involved because he wanted Scott out of the picture so he could have Leisha all to himself. I was able to determine that aside from knowing that the blood that had obviously been cleaned up, they were able to determine that the duct tape found at Timothy Smith's home came from the same roll as the one used to tape the piece of carpet down in the bedroom. They also found two hairs on the used tape, none belonged to Scott, but there were hairs belonging to both Leisha and Timothy. They had learned that Leisha had in fact gone to work on the 17^th of May, the day after it is suspected that Scott was murdered, but Timothy did not. Reality is that it was Leisha's apartment in which all of this happened. There was massive blood in that house and there is no way that it happened without Leisha knowing about it. I was never able to hear exactly how prosecutors theorized things happened or how much either was involved for certain. But, knowing what I have determined in this case it sounds as if they believed Scott was murdered on the 16^th (although without a body they were unsure how) and that at the very least Timothy Smith was involved in the clean up, if not also the murder. We all have to remember that Scott was gone for four days before Leisha even called his father, across the country, and it was almost two weeks before investigators got inside to look around.

I cannot tell you exactly what the charges were made against Leisha and Timothy. I can only tell you what at least part of the outcome of their trials were. They were both found guilty of at least something. Leisha got a sentence of twenty years. She was eligible for parole in 2009 but it was denied. The prosecutor vowed to make her serve out her sentence and it looks like that happened as she was not paroled until 2016. I cannot tell you what has become of her since. Timothy Smith is the one that I am most curious about. I am sure somewhere in the book I am reading this will be addressed but he apparently was found guilty of “something” because he received a sentence of ten years probation. I am going to gander to guess that it was something along the lines of tampering with evidence but I cannot say for sure. I suspect they could not prove that he was in the apartment when Scott was killed and probably believe that he was the one who came in and cleaned up the mess. This would make sense. Investigators and prosecutors already felt like Timothy was more like a puppet for Leisha and he did what she wanted him to do. It would make sense that she somehow killed Scott and then called Timothy to help clean it up the next day while she went to work. Considering the fact that his body was not in the home presumably it would have had taken two people to carry him out of the apartment especially since Scott was not a small man. Were those two people Leisha and Timothy or was there someone else involved?

In May of 2012, twenty-one years after Scott Dunn was presumed to be murdered some maintenance men for the apartment complex (now under a new name and ownership) were repairing a sewage line on the grounds when they came across the remains of a body. The body had been wrapped in a “blue vinyl type material” described as being like from a waterbed, a comforter and a sheet that was now in tatters. The body was found about 100 feet from the apartment once shared by Scott Dunn and Leisha Hamilton and in a shallow four foot by eight foot grave. Those who had been around over twenty years before, as well as investigators immediately believed that it was likely to be Scott Dunn. The body was not as decomposed as one would think as it was said that the material it had been wrapped in actually helped preserve it just a bit and kept insects and animals away. Still, it had been more than two decades so there is no way there could be a visual identification. But, there was a gold ring found near the body. Scott Dunn had a gold ring that his grandmother had given him. Scott's parents were both called before official identification and told of the body being found. It would be a few days before a positive identification would be made using dental records.... but everyone had been correct.... It was Scott Dunn.

Scott parents had long ago resolved that he was not coming back. In fact they had placed a tombstone at a cemetery in Lubbock never thinking his body would be found. But here it was 2012 and it was! It was said that 90% of his body was recovered and apparently all of his skull, that needed to be rebuilt. After doing so the coroner believed that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. A blood splatter expert had testified at one of the trials and stated that based on the blood there had been a minimum of four blows given.

Scott's body was released to his family and on June 16, 2012, 21 years, and one month to day he died, he was placed in the grave where his headstone had long ago been placed.

There was talk in the very beginning that the investigators were going to hold a few things back for a bit until they determined what had happened. They wanted to be sure that they felt no one else was involved. They must have come to that conclusion later as they were quoted as saying they did not expect there to be any additional charges filed in the case.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall wherever Leisha Hamilton (she was still in prison) and Timothy Smith may have been when Scott's body was discovered! The investigators were given a hard time that they had not taken the cadaver dogs to the complex and because it seems the grounds may not have even been searched. Surely if they had been a freshly dug grave would have been noticeable. On the other hand this case made history by being the first murder case presented without technically a body. I know what the Vidocq Society said, and I do not dispute the findings or the idea. It seemed rather obvious that Scott was killed in that apartment and had they not found a way to prosecute someone they would have gotten away with murder. It also set precedence which is something that can be good, or bad. In this case it was a good thing.

I absolutely believe that at the very least Leisha Hamilton killed Scott Dunn. I do not know that I can believe that Timothy Smith was also involved in his actual murder, but I do believe he was involved in the clean-up and the aftermath. If you believe Leisha's story then Scott was killed in the bedroom, the massive blood was cleaned up, the body was removed and aside from the carpet patches that she claimed to not notice anyway, which is ridiculous, nothing seemed out of place. She would claim some of his belongings were gone but nothing out of place. And all of this would have had to happen while she was at work that day. My theory is that either a fight ensued between Leisha and Scott or she already knew about the other women and had waited until the opportunity to strike Scott. I believe she caught him off guard, maybe when he was sleeping. No one ever mentioned her having any injuries, but then again by the time anyone saw her Scott had been gone for two weeks. That being said she did contact Jim Dunn four days later and so she could have been seen sooner by authorities if he had called sooner and she likely had no way of knowing that he would wait to call. I think when it was all over she made a phone call to Timothy Smith and told him what she did and come over. I think the two of them wrapped up Scott's body and got it out and buried in the dark of night and then she went to work the next day leaving Timothy there to clean up the rest. I think her plan was to set Timothy up to take the fall and for whatever reason she never thought they would suspect her. Boy, was she wrong!

Patrick Baker

2022-07-02T12:10:00.004-07:00

I bet you guys thought I would be done with Kentucky cases! Well, to be fair, I thought I was for a while too. I checked out a few more on my list that were clustered with the last several I have done recently and nothing “caught my bones.” So I moved on and it just so happened the next case that I decided to write about is from Kentucky. But, I will say this is not a death penalty case so it is not completely like the others. In fact, this case is quite interesting because it first involves what is called the “dual sovereignty doctrine.” Basically it means that state governments and the federal government are considered to be separate with their own laws and their own ability to prosecute. You may have often heard about “double jeopardy.” That is the law that says you cannot be tried twice for the same crime. But, with all things there are exceptions and this case is an example of one of those.

This case also addresses the power given to officials. We have heard a lot about that the last few years. There were questions about some pardons that Donald Trump issued to some people that had been convicted of crimes. There has also been questions of people who were in his inner circle who were asking about receiving pardons before he left office. Well, that is kind of what happened in Kentucky. Matt Bevin's term as Governor had been filled with strife and that is saying something. Bevin was a Republican in a pretty red state. I say it that way because they have only had three Republican Governors since World War II but most of their senators and legislatures are Republicans. This is the state in which hails Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, two of the most staunch Republicans in the business. This should not be a surprise really because Kentucky is a “coal state” and most of those are Red States. In fact, it is a big more surprising that they have had so many Democratic Governors. Now, I suspect part of his issue began right at the start. In 2013 Bevin, a wealthy businessman, decided he was going to run against Mitch McConnell for his seat the following year. McConnell runs some fairly vicious and some say false, attack ads when he's running and despite what many may think of him the people of Kentucky continue to elect him. So, Bevin lost and yet, after all the attacks on him when Bevin decided to run for Governor the next year Mitch McConnell was on his side. Now, I am not a fan of McConnell so I will say this behavior is not unusual for him. He quite often speaks out of “both sides of his mouth.” But, Bevin barely won the Republican nomination. In fact, he only won by .03 percent of the votes. He was serving that term, as I said filled with strife and decided to run again in 2019.

A big thing against Bevin throughout his term was an issue with teacher's pensions. I will not go into all the details about it but let's just say he did not have one of the biggest organizations in the state on his side when he ran again. He won the Republican nomination again, more than he had the first time but that's likely because he was the incumbent at the time and those are generally easier to win but then he lost to Andy Beshear who was the Attorney General and ran as the Democratic nominee. It is unclear if Bevin's next actions after finally conceding the election were in his mind legitimate or figuratively speaking sending a big middle finger to the State of Kentucky. When he was done neither political party was happy with him.

Within the last few days of his term Bevin issued more than 400 pardons and or gave clemency to some. It was said that a vast majority of these were to those convicted for low level drug crimes but they not all of them were. There were several that were questionable. One was to a woman named Elizabeth Stakelbeck who was said to be a friend of Bevin's wife and sister. She had attempted to hire a hit man to murder her ex-husband and his new wife. The hit man was an undercover agent. By December of 2019 she had served her time but said he issued a pardon because “the compelling testimony of Elizabeth's friends and family and her desire for a fresh start in life.” Another was a man named Johiem Bandy who at fifteen was given a thirteen year sentence for robbery and assault. He had served two years when Bevin pardoned him. In June 2022 he again was arrested and is currently awaiting trial for charges of strangulation, assault and other charges. A man by the name of Dayton Jones had his sentenced commuted. He had been convicted of sodomizing an unconscious fifteen year old boy. In 2021 he pleaded guilty in federal court for pornography charges and received an eight year sentence. And this brings us to Patrick Baker. This, I believe was the one that sent politicians on all sides over the edge. After he left office the new Attorney General and the head of the Republican Party in Kentucky asked the Department of Justice and the FBI to get involved and start an investigation into the pardons.

Baker came from a fairly prominent family. In fact, in 2018 Patrick's brother, Eric and his wife had hosted a fundraiser for Matt Bevin and his campaign. Patrick was convicted in 2017 and was serving a nineteen year sentence on charges of reckless homicide, first degree robbery, impersonating a peace officer and tampering with evidence. He had served about two and a half years of his sentence when in December 2019 Matt Bevin issued him a pardon. Bevin's reasoning was that he had been convicted on “sketchy evidence.”

On May 9, 2014 Patrick Baker and a man named Christopher Wagner posed as U.S. Marshals and entered the Stinking Creek (Yes, it really is a place) home of Donald Mills in Knox County in Eastern Kentucky. Once inside they held Donald, his pregnant wife and their children hostage while they ransacked the home looking for Oxycodone pills and cash. There is not a lot of information about how things got out of hand. Baker would claim that Mills pulled a gun on him and he was “forced” to shoot him. Authorities would see it another way. Donald Mills would be shot and killed while his wife and children watched. One report says his mother was also present and held him as he died, but to be fair I am uncertain about this. Some reports said along with the family there was a “guest” but never mentioned a name and only the one report mentioned his mother.

It is not clear exactly how both Baker and Wagner were caught. It could have been possible that Mills and/or his family recognized him at the scene but I cannot say for sure. According to Wagner who apparently testified in the 2017 trial, after leaving the Mills home the two men went to Bell County where they buried parts of the gun. He would take authorities to this area. Shell casings from the crime scene were said to be linked to the gun and the gun belonged to Baker. Even Baker does not dispute that he owned the gun used in the crime. I am also going to be a bit fair here and say I am uncertain exactly what other evidence was presented at this trial. I will get into what evidence there is against Baker in a bit but as far as this 2017 trial I am going to leave it at the fact that the jury convicted him. It appears that Wagner pleaded guilty and accepted a plea deal. He was given ten years each for the charges of first degree manslaughter and first degree robbery. It seems that they are running concurrently, meaning together and he is eligible for parole in October of 2022. According to the Kentucky Department of Corrections website it is likely that he will be paroled then but his max out date is in April of 2024, meaning he cannot be kept longer than that time.

Then came December of 2019 and Matt Bevin's flurry of pardons. Prosecutors and family members of victim were extremely irate because no one had been given any clue that this was going to go on. As an investigation was launched it seems that the federal government began looking at the more high profile cases involved, including Patrick Baker. Federal authorities made it clear they would do what they had to to get Patrick Baker back behind bars. It took them a bit, but let me tell you as someone who has had dealing with Federal prosecutors and the system, justice comes slowly sometimes.

In May of 2021 a federal grand jury indicted Baker on charges of using a gun during a drug trafficking offense. This is where the dual sovereignty doctrine comes in. I am sure Baker's attorney's attempted to stop the investigation and indictment using the idea of double jeopardy. I say this without seeing it because despite knowing that it is legal to do so I have never seen a case in which an attorney still does not try to use that legal maneuver. In the end his attorney's would admit that it was legal and there was nothing really to fight it. Instead there would just be a new trial, only this time at the federal level, and it would be their job to defend their client.

Baker's trial began in August of 2021. While I admitted that I do not know just what evidence was presented at his state trial what I can say is that if the same evidence that was presented in his federal trial was presented at his state trial Matt Bevin's comment that the evidence was “sketchy” is not accurate.

The federal prosecutors were able to show that this was a planned job by Baker. He had saved a picture of the Mills home from Google Earth on his Ipad and had been bragging to at least one person, some say more, that he was “getting ready to make a big score.” His ex-wife, among others, testified that he had confessed to the crime. To his wife in particular he had said that Mills “pulled a gun on me and I had to shoot.” Wagner also apparently testified at this trial also and told about the shooting and what they had done with the weapon. Prosecutors had a surveillance video from a Dollar General in London Kentucky that showed seven hours before the crime Baker was seen buying “plastic handcuffs.” The same type of handcuffs were later found just feet from where Donald Mills was shot. And, despite what you will hear me say later that Baker himself testified to, cell tower records tracked him from London, to Stinking Creek, to Bell County where Wagner stated they had buried pieces of the weapon.

Baker got on the stand and still proclaimed innocence. As far as the confession, he said that was not an actual confession to his now ex-wife, Lori Hammack, but he had said he felt “responsible” and she must have misunderstood him. He had to admit that the gun used in the crime was his, but he claimed that a man by the name of Adam Messer, a convicted felon, “found” it in his truck and took. He went on to claim that Wagner, along with Messer were the ones to blame for the crime, not him.

I did not hear anything about a jury or how a conclusion was made in this case. I only heard the conclusion and remarks from the judge. I cannot say if this was a jury trial or a bench trial (where only the judge decides) to be fair. But, if this case proves anything it is “careful what you wish for” and “maybe you should not run your mouth,” let alone commit crimes. Baker was found guilty. And this time the judge “wasn't playing.” Baker was sentenced to forty-two years in a federal prison, with three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay the victim's family $7,500 for funeral expenses. He was given credit for the thirty months he served in the state prison before Bevin pardoned him. The federal government calculates things by months so while I said forty-two years, by their calculations it is 504 months! This was more than double than the nineteen years he got sentenced in state court. To add to this he may have served half of that nineteen years in Kentucky but federal rules are much different. There is no parole. An inmate serves 85% of their sentence. Now, they are entitled to 10% or “up to one year” in a half way house or home confinement that does come off of the 85%. This means that Baker will have to serve 428 months which is more than thirty-five years.... minus the thirty months he served previously. He will be eighty-three years old before he is eligible for release.

I want to point out that when he was sentenced the judge stated that he had obstructed justice, not just by trying to destroy the weapon and bury it, but also by perjuring himself. The judge flat stated that Baker lied on the stand when he testified on his own behalf.

After the flurry of news when Bevin issued all of those pardons on the way out the door, and the calls for investigations over the next few months things seemed to die out. Other than the fact that the state began working on laws to limit the power of the Governor in some cases I have not heard a lot. In fact, I am unsure that any of those laws were passed. It does seem however that the federal government may not be done working on looking at those cases and the media is not against pointing out when someone Bevin pardoned gets in trouble again.

By the way, I promise my next one will not be a Kentucky story! I already know what I want to do next.

David Eugene Matthews

2022-07-01T09:07:00.002-07:00

This will be my fourth case that involves a death penalty case out of the state of Kentucky. One would think so many of them would be rather routine or at least similar in nature, but if these four cases show anything it shows that anything can happen, every case is different and you never know what legal maneuvers will be tried and which ones will fail and which ones will succeed. Some only succeed temporarily.

Marco Chapman murdered two children, injured their mother and sister and in the end volunteered for the death penalty. Yet the courts had to decide if he had that right. Thomas Bowling Jr. was convicted and sentenced to death for the killing a couple in their car and shooting their son but in my opinion there was insufficient evidence. He died in prison of cancer. John Garland was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of three people. He maintained his innocence until his natural death in prison, blaming his son. This latest case is one in which David Matthews was convicted of killing two people and claiming at trial that he suffered from “extreme emotional distress” and actually got a court to overturn his conviction before the United States Supreme Court stepped in and reinstated his conviction.

Death penalty cases are riddled with appeals. I do not believe that every state, but many have automatic appeals when it comes to death penalty cases. This case actually had more appeals than I have seen before due to the fact that it was appealed to the 6^th District Circuit Court at the federal level and then that was appealed up to the United States Supreme Court. Appeals are great because you get a lot of information out of them but they can also be tiring and mundane because sometimes they can drag on and on and it is easy to miss some things.

David Matthews had been married to his wife, Mary “Marlene” for about two and a half years in 1981. The lived in Louisville Kentucky. The last year of their marriage had apparently been full of many separations and court filings. David would move out of the home where Marlene and her young daughter stayed apparently because the home was owned by a family member of hers and she rented from them. David would go and live with his mother. It was said that within the five weeks previous to the end of June two warrants had been issued against David in relation to their relationship. The first one was a warrant in which it was claimed, apparently by Marlene, that David has sexually abused her then six year old daughter. The second one was a warrant related to David breaking into her home. It was said that David was arrested on the first warrant and was released but was forbidden to contact Marlene. He was not served with the second warrant before June 29^th.

Around mid-morning of June 29, 1981 Lawrence Cruse, Marlene's father, had gone to her home. It is not clear whether he was still married to Marlene's mother, Mary “Magdalene.” Because of this it was not clear whether Magdalene was living with Marlene or had simply spent the night in her home with her. Regardless, Lawrence walked into a nightmare. Magdalene was in bed with a gunshot wound to the back of her head. Amazingly, and sadly, she was still alive. It was determined later that she had laid in agony and convulsing for about eight hours before she would die. Inside the other bedroom Lawrence would find his daughter, Marlene. She had a gunshot wound in the back and one in the chest. It was determined later that she likely died almost immediately. The side door of the house had the screen cut and the glass broken; a pocket knife was found on the steps.

I can only assume that because of the history between David and Marlene he became the number one suspect and law enforcement immediately wanted to talk to him. They found him at his mothers house later that morning. It was said that he had already began washing the clothes that he had been wearing. I am unsure if he was technically arrested at that time or whether he was just asked to go to the station for questioning. Of course he could be arrested on the warrant for the previous burglary on Marlene's house. I did not find specifics on things but I would gander to guess that before going over to find him at his mother's home that law enforcement had ran a check on him, if for no other reason than to get an address and would have found the warrant at that time. It was said that the warrant was not served until after the crime. The warrant alone would have given them reason and cause to arrest him.

Seemingly while David was at the police station a search was done at his mother's home. It was said that the murder weapon, a .22 caliber handgun he had “purchased with borrowed funds just hours before the crime,” was found in a “secret” area below the floorboards of a shed that was in the backyard at his mother's home. Meanwhile back at the station David was denying that he was involved in the crime.

By the time David went on trial in October of 1982 he had changed his story. His defense attorney's not longer claimed that he had not committed the murders. They argued however that he had done so under “extreme emotional distress.” While David himself did not testify on his own behalf a psychiatrist who he had spoken to did. According to the psychiatrist he had been drinking heavily and doing drugs when he broke into Marlene's home around one or two in the morning. He said that he found Magdalene in a bed and shot her, believing her to be dead. That would be a good guess since the coroner would later say that the gunshot wounds indicated that the gun had been no more than eighteen inches away. He then went into Marlene's room where he said he had sex with her one or two times before staying with her until about six that morning. At that point he shot her. He claimed to have shot her twice because he believed the first one had missed.

I did not find or read through a lot of things from the trial and most articles and information revolved around his claim of “extreme emotional distress” but everything I found and read, from articles, to appeals to anything else claimed there was an overwhelming amount of evidence that made his guilt clear. This sometimes happens when there is a core issue that is disputed. You lose a lot of the little things that were said and done throughout the trial because appeals are generally very narrow in their findings and their reasons. In this case the big dispute came first whether the courts had applied the law correctly pertaining to extreme emotional distress and then later whether federal courts had the authority to make decisions.

On October 8, 1982 the jury convicted David Matthews of two counts of capital murder and one count of first degree burglary. On November 11, 1982 he was sentenced to death, times two and also given a twenty year sentence for the burglary. Over the years the Kentucky courts denied all of his appeals. In 2008 U.S. Judge stated that he believed that while Matthews evidence of guilt was “quite clear” that the trial court had not followed the law when considering the defense of extreme emotional distress. He claimed, and apparently it was true, although, subjective, that when a defendant showed clear evidence of extreme emotional distress that the law at the time required that the prosecutors showed that this was not true. If the prosecutors failed to do so, as this judge felt they had here, then the person could not be convicted of first degree murder, but of manslaughter instead, which did not qualify for the death penalty. He ordered that the case should be reviewed and either order a new trial, or of course they could overrule his decision.

This is where it gets a bit confusing. From my understanding this case then went back to the Kentucky courts who ruled that while he had claimed extreme emotional distress he had not shown “beyond a reasonable doubt” as required that this was the case, therefore the prosecutor did not in fact have to prove that he did not suffer from this. Their interpretation of the law, which is what they do, was that the prosecutor was required to disprove this only when there was overwhelming and convincing evidence from the defense. It appears to me that the only real evidence they had was a psychiatrist who testified about what Matthews had said to him and likely rendered an opinion as to his state of mind. As I stated earlier I did not find a lot of trial information but I am going to gander to guess that the prosecution had their own witness who likely testified differently as to Matthews state of mind or they felt they cross examined the psychiatrist adequately to meet the burden of proof they needed.

Then in 2011 a habeas corpus was filed in federal court. Basically a habeas corpus means that the person is claiming that their Constitutional right to “unlawful or indefinite” imprisonment is being violated. This was heard by the 6^th District Circuit Court. From the way I understood it, they agreed with the judge in 2008 that the prosecution had not, yet should have, proven “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Matthews did not suffer from extreme emotional distress. This led to another appeal that made its way to the United State Supreme Court in 2012. They finally ruled that both federal courts were wrong in their decisions. The ruled that not only had they both given poor examples of cases they used to bolster their decision but they ruled it was wrong that they were “using a federal habeas corpus review as a vehicle to second guess the reasonable decision of the state courts.” They ruled that the 6^th District “had no authority” to rule on this case at all. So when it was all said and done David Matthews' conviction and sentencing remained as they had been in the beginning.

I cannot tell you if today in 2022 what “line” Matthews lies in the “longest serving death row inmate in the state.” At one point he was listed third, then I saw he had “moved up” to second. He may be first at this point. He is not “moving up” because Kentucky is executing inmates, it is because they are dying. Some of illnesses; some of old age. Currently Matthews is seventy-three years old and has been in the Kentucky prison system, with a death sentence since 1982. The last thing I found surrounding his fight for release was in 2013. He had as a federal court to grand him funds to pay for a MRI to be used with “an expected clemency petition.” It was rejected on the grounds that this was not a federal case and they had no position or stake in the case.

John Roscoe Garland

2022-06-30T06:38:00.003-07:00

I have mentioned many times in the past that when cases make it to my list of cases to research they often fall in groups with related topics or places. I do not always do them obviously in any sort of order. It depends on my mood at the moment but sometimes, like now, you will notice the trend because my last two blogs were about men who were sentenced to death in Kentucky, and here we are with another one.

This is a case that going into it I thought was probably pretty cut and dry but then the more I dug, the more issues I saw. We all know that court cases come down to who the jury believes in the end. This was a case that pitted father against son inside the courtroom. It is seemingly a case that continued to pit father against son until the father died in prison in 2018.

Before I want to start telling the story I want to clear up something that I was confused about at first. The first thing that I came across was a Murderpedia page that took the facts of the crime from an appeal that had been filed. It stated that on “Saturday March 9, 1997” the victims of this crime had gone out. It went on to say that they ended their night in the early morning on Sunday and their bodies were found later that day. And yet I kept seeing things that said their date of death was March 9^th. This did not seem plausible if the story started out on the 9^th and we knew they were still alive at least at 1 in the morning of the 10^th that they would have died on the 9^th. Even each of the victims tombstones stated the 9^th. So, finally I pulled up a calendar from March of 1997 and discovered that Saturday was the 8^th and Sunday was in fact the 9^th, the day in which the victims died.

I cannot tell you at what time the bodies of twenty-six year old Willa “Jean” Ferrier, twenty-two year old Crystal Conaster, and thirty-eight year old Chris Boswell were found in Willa Jean's Whitley City Kentucky mobile home on that Sunday March 9^th, or even who found them. But, found they were, all in a rear bedroom of the home. Chris and Crystal were shot at least twice and Willa Jean was shot once. I also cannot tell you for sure exactly how law enforcement and John Garlands son, Roscoe first made contact with each other but he would be considered the “key witness” in this case.

In 1997 John Garland was fifty-four years old and was apparently divorced at least twice it seems. I found the names of an ex-wife in my research and also on Findagrave.com the name of the mother of many of his children. There seems to be no dispute that at some point John and Willa Jean had dated. It appears that at the time of the murder they had recently broken up. According to John's son, Roscoe, he was very jealous of Willa Jean dating other men, and according to sixteen year old April Sexton the night before the murders she was with Willa Jean at a local country music “dance hall” and they had driven around the parking lot a few times to ensure that John Garland was not there stalking her. So there seemed to be some fear from Willa Jean toward John Garland and it seems to be a valid fear. Investigators would find an answering machine tape at Willa Jean's home after the murder that would boost this idea. On the message John seemed angry and mentioned something about believing she was pregnant and a man by the name of Gary Roberts was the father. It was said that by March of 1997 Willa Jean was dating Gary Roberts but I never found anything that indicated that at the time of her death she may have been pregnant.

Apparently it was routine for at least Willa Jean and Crystal Conaster to go to the dance hall on Friday and Saturday nights. The night of Saturday March 8^th was no different and April Sexton had also gone along. While there thirty-eight year old Chris Boswell began dancing with Crystal and apparently decided to go home with the women. Willa Jean dropped April off at home between 12:30 and 1:00 that morning. It was said that they then drove to Gary Roberts house where they pulled in the driveway and honked the horn. Soon after, without contact with anyone apparently they then drove back to Willa Jean's home. This is where things get sticky.

According to Roscoe Garland he was with his father that night and they were going to go to some sort of auction. He says they got in a big traffic jam and had decided to turn around and not go. According to his account they then saw Willa Jean's car and John decided to follow. Seemingly he recounted watching them drop off April at her home, going to Gary Roberts' home and then ending up at Willa Jean's.

John's account was different. He claimed that yes, they were going to the auction and yes, they got into a traffic jam but that they still went although got there as the auction was ending. He first claimed that he had been with Roscoe basically the entire night and then later said that he dropped Roscoe off at his home and headed to visit his ex-wife, Eula Isgrigg. Eula first claimed that she did not see him until sometime on Monday, after the murders had been discovered. She later then said that she had seen him at at two in the morning on Sunday. Her initial claim for lying to the police was that she was scared although it was not specific as to what she was allegedly scared about.

Roscoe would claim that after getting to Willa Jean's home his father had gone inside and he heard some arguing so he went inside. He said both his father and Willa Jean looked disheveled as if they had “tangled” a bit. At some point Chris Boswell came out of the bedroom and Roscoe claims that John shot him; then he shot Crystal. Roscoe stated that John then shot both of the victims a second time before shooting Willa Jean also. Roscoe admitted, or claimed, depending on if you believe him or not that his father asked him to help cover things up such as moving things around the mobile home, help him burn some clothes and hide the gun, which was a .357.

Roscoe claimed that the following day John came to his home and gave his girlfriend some money to obtain a new .357 because he said everyone knew he carried a gun and it would look suspicious if he did not have one. Roscoe would later take authorities to where the weapon was located.

It was not clear exact when John was arrested and charged with the murders but he did go on trial either in late 1998 or early 1999. As I mentioned earlier Roscoe was the “key witness” in the trial against him. And, while the prosecutors painted a picture of John being the murderer it seems the defense not only disputed that but they pointed to Roscoe as the murderer. They hammered hard not just at the evidence against John, but also the lack of evidence found against him but most importantly at Roscoe's credibility. Roscoe had claimed that he himself had once owned the murder weapon but had sold it to his father long ago. The defense argued that was not true and that the weapon still belonged to Roscoe. The defense pointed out that John did not have an “extensive prior criminal history” but that Roscoe did. The noted that at some point apparently John had been given temporary custody of Roscoe's two children when they were taken from Roscoe and his ex-wife. Roscoe had also served prison time in the past for beating a man. They argued that Roscoe himself had a motive because despite having a girlfriend at the time he was interested in dating Crystal Conaster.

One of the biggest things they argued was that there was no physical evidence apparently linking John to the scene. To be fair, there was never any mention of any evidence linking Roscoe to the scene, but that agument would come later in an appeal.

Since I have already told you this is a death penalty case, and that there was an appeal in the case, it should be no surprise to you that the jury found John Garland guilty of the three murders. On February 15, 1999 he was sentenced to death. But, of course the story does not end there.

In January of 2007 John filed a pro-se motion asking for DNA testing on many items. The main thing included was a clump of hair that had been found in Willa Jean's hand and at least one strand found from fingernail clippings. The hair appeared to be blackish/brown in color and the only people who had that color hair were Chris Boswell (whose body was near Willa Jean's when found) and Roscoe Garland. It was said that the court denied this on November 5, 2008 but a copy was never given to John.

By the following month he had a public defender working on his case and on December 8^th they filed for DNA testing but only on the hairs mentioned above. This then became an argument between the state and defense attorney's. The state argued that this had already been denied and they had missed the chance to appeal. In April of 2009 the courts accepted the appeal as a “delayed appeal.” Part of the argument had been that if the hairs matched Roscoe that went with John's theory that it was Roscoe who was the murderer. The courts disagreed with this saying that even if the hairs did match Roscoe it only meant that he was more involved than he had testified to, not that John was not also there and the murderer. However, they sent the case back to the circuit court basically ordering them to conduct DNA testing. While they stated that it did not prove John was not there, if the hairs matched Roscoe it would point to his credibility as a witness which was seemingly highly relied upon by the jury.

I can get on board with this decision. In my opinion the courts were correct in their thinking. Roscoe admitted being at the scene and he admitted helping cover it up. If the hair was Roscoe's then it meant he also tangled with the victims, something he had not admitted to doing. But, it did not also mean that John was not present. However, allegedly there was no physical evidence putting John at the scene and Roscoe was the only person or thing that could and if the evidence showed he was obviously more involved than he had admitted to that made his entire story suspect.

Eventually the testing was done and the argument against Roscoe became moot because the clump of hair in Willa Jean's hand belonged to Chris Boswell. Then there were two other strands found. One was Willa Jean's, the other belonged to Chris. So, none of the hairs belonged to Roscoe.

Next I found a 2015 appeal in which apparently more items were asked to be tested for DNA but they had been destroyed previously making testing obviously impossible. The appeal argued that they had been destroyed in “bad faith” by officials. Basically what they were saying was that the items were destroyed and not kept because someone did not want them tested and hence hindered his ability to prove his innocence. The courts disagreed. While apparently some of these items had been included in John's 2007 pro-se filing, when his attorney's filed again the following year and it was listed as a delayed appeal they had only asked for the hairs to be tested. The court ruled that by doing so they had “abandoned” the request for the other items and in their view they were not longer needed. They also stated that they had not proved that the officials had “bad faith” when the items had been destroyed.

This seems to be the end of his legal fight. At that point in my research I went to the Kentucky Department of Corrections to see his status. Generally when I high profile inmate dies in custody, by any means, that is published in an article and is easily found. I had found nothing so I had no reason to believe that John was not still in prison. So I was a bit surprised to run a check and not be able to find him. I did find a Roscoe Garland Jr, apparently his grandson, currently serving time for sexual assault and drug possession.

Finding nothing in the DOC I next tried the Findagrave website where I discovered that on April 22, 2018 John Garland had died. It seems apparent that he died while in prison because I discovered that in 2017 one of his sons had died and John's town was listed as Eddyville, where the state prison is located. While there I did some digging and while it is not necessarily important to the case at hand, I did find it interesting. According to John's obituary he had had three children, one son and two daughters who had died previously. It also said he had two sons, and two daughters surviving. Interestingly both the sons listed here were named Roscoe... Roscoe Lee and Roscoe James. So I dug a bit further looking into the obituaries of some of his children, as well as their mother. John's obituary was the only one who listed the two Roscoe's. In his son's obituary his brothers were listed as Roscoe and Daniel. In a daughters obituary who passed after John died names were different still. I point this out because there are podcasts and things available on the Internet talking about this case and I saw a comment on one that stated that John apparently had two sons named Roscoe. I am just not certain of this fact.

So this brings us to the end, where I generally give my opinion on the case. I have to be fair, I am unsure what to think. There seemed to be nothing that linked either John or Roscoe to the scene aside from Roscoe's story. I find this in itself odd. If they were moving things around the mobile home and obviously one, the other, or both of them handled the gun, where are the fingerprints? I heard of absolutely none. If John's prints were on the gun then I would think that would prove he had used it. The fact that I did not hear anything about that and there were indications that they were not there or not available tends to make me wonder if he was wrongly convicted. I think this, and the fact that Roscoe had a criminal background helps John. But, then we have the answering machine message, the testimony of April Sexton that Willa Jean was scared of him and was cautiously looking to make sure he was not around that night gives John more of a motive. Add this to the fact that his ex-wife, who later changed that story, initially said she did not see him until the day after the bodies were discovered and that leads towards his guilt.

Another thing I found odd was the fact that Roscoe claimed that he and his father had followed Willa Jean that night. He said they saw her drop off April Sexton, then stop at Gary Roberts' home before going back to her home. For someone who was so worried and cautious about their surroundings you have to wonder if she saw him following her or not. Did she really not see them? Did she see them and just believe that once inside her home she was safe, especially since she had others with her? This question can obviously never be answered.

Did an innocent man spend twenty-one years in prison for a crime he did not commit or did a guilty man try to place the blame of three murders on his own son?

Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr.

2022-06-29T07:53:00.006-07:00

There are certain things that are so commonly heard in murder cases that they sometimes seem so routine and mundane. One of the biggest things you will hear is the argument about “ineffective counsel.” I have actually read an appeal in which a judge discusses his disdain for this phrase as that seems to be a “given” in an appeal after a conviction. He is not wrong but the sadder part about that is that there are cases in which ineffective counsel is very valid but it can get lost in the shuffle because so many make this claim. Now, let me be clear that while Bowling would basically make this claim after his conviction, personally to the judge and not necessarily through an appeal, I have to say I agreed with the judge on this point, one of the very few it seems, when it was denied.

Another thing you hear a lot, if not more than the claim of ineffective counsel, is that the defendant is innocent. More often than not state prosecutors (or federal attorney generals if it applies) prove differently either by a guilty verdict, or sometimes it can be argued through the evidence. But, just as I mentioned earlier, that is not always the case.

A third thing you hear a lot about is “circumstantial evidence” (sometimes this is called indirect evidence). You will hear an attorney argue that the case is “solely circumstantial” and a lay person would maybe believe that to mean there was not evidence to be found. That is not always the case. There are two types of evidence, direct and circumstantial. Direct evidence is that in which there is no refuting what happened. If you were to look up examples of direct evidence in murder cases one of the things you will see is a statement that someone physically seeing someone commit a murder is considered direct evidence. I agree with this but only in situations in which the person who testifies to seeing the murder is not directly involved with the murderer or associated with them. A statement from a passerby or a victim would be a better example. Circumstantial evidence is generally something or a combination of things that one has to infer that the person was involved. For example, someone identifies seeing a defendant running from a scene of a murder. You add that to other things like ballistic evidence, fingerprints, a license plate number... etc..and you have a PILE of circumstantial evidence that when combined allows the average person to believe that the defendant is guilty. So, when an attorney states things about a case being “purely circumstantial” at the attorney's in this case claimed the words alone mean very little. In fact, when I first came across the phrase in my research I am sure I rolled my eyes a bit as it seems as routine as the argument of ineffective counsel. But, just as I stated in the other two things, sometimes the attorney's do have a point.

I have often talked about here how when I start researching a case I go in with the belief that the jury got it right, no matter the verdict. As I research the case I either affirm that opinion in my mind or there are times that the research leads me to believe otherwise. Even in those cases I still try to remind myself that there was likely something that the jury heard that I had not found. This is often why I find interviews with jurors after a case so interesting. I have done cases here where former jury members have even commented. In one particular case the jury acquitted a person and while I believed the person was more than likely guilty I did not feel the state had proven their case and stated why. A juror commented on the case and confirmed my suspicions and why they came to that conclusion.

As you may have already suspected this is a case where all of these things were directly or indirectly claimed either by the defendant in this case or by his attorney's. But, this is also a case in which I have been left to wonder if the jury really did get it right and one in which I believe if the death penalty that was imposed would have been carried out that there may have been an injustice on more than one level. Let me be clear in saying that the defendant was never removed from death row either by a new sentence or through execution but by an illness that took his life.

On the morning of April 9, 1990 a car containing twenty-five year old Eddie Earley was in his vehicle with his twenty-two year old wife, Tina and two year old son, Christopher outside a dry cleaning business that they owned in Lexington Kentucky. Their car was rammed by another and then a man shot all three of them. Christopher would live, but both of his parents would die from their wounds.

There were several witnesses near the scene who would give law enforcement information about what they saw. It was said that at the scene authorities had determined that the car that rammed the Earley's car was a 1981 Chevrolet Malibu and they knew the color. They also knew a man by the name of Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr. but it was said they did not seek him out and followed some other leads. But, I am going to say right here and now, that while this was said to be the case, after doing my research on this case I have to wonder if that was really what happened. I find it extremely odd that authorities would say they knew the make, model and even the color of the car that allegedly rammed the car where three people were shot, two died and they knew someone that owned just such a car but did not go looking for him. I am left believing that that did not have as much information as quickly as was reported. They may have had a description of a car but as far as make and model I am not so sure. It does seem clear that they released information about what the car “looked” like at the very least.

The following morning Bowling's sister called the Lexington police. She told them that she had not seen her brother since about six the morning before and while she lived in Knoxville, her family owned property in the nearby county of Powell. She stated that she and her mother had seen the description of the vehicle they were looking for and had driven to the property in Powell county where they found Bowling's car. They had then driven back to her home in Knoxville where they found Bowling sleeping on her couch. Within hours authorities would pick up Bowling and also the car. They also found a .357 gun buried nearby. The Earley's had been shot with a .357. I will state here that initially my information stated that Bowling was arrested on the 11^th, two days after the crime, but it appears the following day seem to be more accurate. As always if that date is wrong, I apologize but in fairness the one day difference makes little difference. The only thing that I think it really affects is going back to what the authorities allegedly knew so early. If that is to be believed and in fact the arrest did not happen until the 11^th that would mean they still had not reached out to Bowling for two days despite supposedly knowing the make/model/color/year of a vehicle in the chrime and knowing Bowling owned such a car.

Ultimately authorities would charge Bowling with the crime and his trial began in December of 1990. The state provided three “eye witnesses.” One was a man named Larry Turner who apparently came up on the scene as the car was driving away and never personally saw the shooter. The second was a man named David Boyd. He did see the shooter and described him as about six foot tall, medium build, wearing a black jacket and a brimmed hat. But he never positively identified that person as being Bowling. The defense cross examined him but I will get to that in a minute. The third witness was said to be a man named Norman Pullins but he did not physically testify at the trial. My information said that he could not be found by either side but he had given an interview the morning of the crime. He had been in a building across the street from the shooting. It is not exactly clear what information he had or if it matched the description of Bowling. To be fair I am going to guess that his interview may have been just as important to the defense as it was the prosecution because I cannot imagine an attorney allowing this to be entered without some sort of benefit. A man by the last name of Brackett testified that he had sold Bowling a

.357 just a few days before the crime. A ballistics expert testified that the Earley's were in fact shot with a .357. There were others such as police officers and even apparently it seems his sister was called by the prosecution.

Now, it was said that the defense called no witness when it was their time. In fact between the conviction (you know this happened, I already said this was a death penalty case) and the sentencing phase Bowling file a pro-se (meaning without an attorney) motion asking to fire his attorney's saying they had not properly defended him. The judge denied this. That being said the defense did in fact cross examine witnesses and was able to get a lot of information out that way. When it came to David Boyd, the witness who made a description of the shooter they were able to show that his initial description stated the shooter had long hair, a dark complexion and quite possibly a mustache, none of which described Bowling. They were able to get Brackett to say that while he apparently sold and traded guns regularly that he kept no records and had a very poor memory. This was to show they could not be sure when the Bowling actually got the gun or even if the gun found was the one he claimed to have sold him.

I became a bit confused when it came to the testimony of the ballistics expert. I got the impression that it was possible that while the ballistics expert stated the Earley's were murdered with a .357 that they were unable without a doubt to say the gun found was the gun used. The defense was able to get the expert to say that the gun was one of hundreds, maybe more, that could have been used.

The defense was able to get out that there had been no blood found on any of Bowlings possessions, no prints on gun or the crime scene matching him. The only gunshot residue found had been on the inside left pocket of a jacket they had found of his (that was black) at his sisters home but no one could say where that came from. They were able to get out to the jury that Bowling had a low IQ and had been tested at the age of twelve or thirteen as having an IQ of 74, which is in the range of mentally challenged. The Supreme Court would rule several years later, in 2002, that such people could not be subject to execution. I will touch on this again in a bit considering at the time of the trial this was not yet a law. But, within all of this they were able to show that he had a history of being a “follower” and was easily manipulated.

They would never argue that Bowlings car had not been used at the crime but they did argue that no one could prove he was driving it. In fact, they made another very good point in my opinion. They were able to show that Bowling did not know, nor had he ever met the Earley's and while they are not required to provide a motive, the prosecution absolutely could not come up with one. More importantly the defense claimed that there had been a local family in which Eddie Earley had recently gone to the police about and reported drug actively. Some family members were arrested for that and were allegedly holding a grudge against Eddie. It was later said that Bowling claimed he was intoxicated on the day of the crime and remembers very little but that he was told by members of the family mentioned earlier late that afternoon to take his car out of town. I did find it interesting that I found nothing that indicated if his car was in Powell County Kentucky how he got to Knoxville Tennessee more than two hours away.

At the end of the trial the jury asked that the judge include in jury instructions things about extreme emotional disturbance, explain circumstantial evidence and instructions on reckless homicide but once again the judge denied this. They had also asked for other things like explaining what mitigating circumstances were. These are things such as mental illness, lack of intelligence, as well as the fact that he had apparently been a model citizen while behind bars. The judge denied this too.

The jury agreed with the prosecution and found him guilty. He was ultimately given the death penalty. Bowling joined with another inmate in a filing that challenged the constitutionality of the death penalty in Kentucky and they lost. As I stated, in 2002 the United States Supreme Court ruled in was unconstitutional to execute someone who had what they called “mental retardation” based on their IQ scores. According to the research most individuals have an IQ of between eighty and one hundred and twenty. The average person has an IQ of one hundred. The Supreme Court ruled that basically anything under seventy-five was considered to be “mental retardation.” It appears that the defense had shown back in 1990 that Bowling fell into this range and yet, by the time of his death in 2015 he was still on death row. On March 21, 2015, after spending time in a prison medical facility for cancer Bowling was taken to a hospital where it was said he was pronounced dead at the age of sixty-two.

I have so many questions about this case! We could sit here and argue for days about how in 1990 there was not the forensic testing available that we have now. And this would be very true but I found nothing in this case that would indicate that modern technology would have changed the evidence. All of the technology they needed they already had. There was ballistic testing; there was fingerprint testing; there was GSR testing. They even had what I would consider primitive DNA testing in 1990. But the problem is that there did not seem to be anything there. They argued, and the defense did not dispute, that Bowlings car had been involved. This only proved that it was his car that rammed the Earley's car. This did not prove that he was driving or that he was the shooter. Even those who saw the shooter made a description that did not match Bowling. I can only assume that there were fingerprints in Bowling's car that matched him, but it was his car, but it was said that there were none matching his at the scene. I got the impression that there was no GSR on his hands or his clothes, other than the pocket of a black jacket. The authorities apparently scoured the crime scene, the area in which his car was located and his sisters home and they found no evidence of blood connecting him. Presumably after shooting three people the shooter would have been covered in blood. Ballistic testing apparently could not say that the gun that was found near his car apparently buried was the gun used in the shooting and even if it did there were apparently no fingerprints to say he had used that gun and since it was with the car, and not with him and they could not prove that he had driven the car, then they could not prove he fired the gun.

As I stated earlier a prosecutor does not have to prove motive but in general juries still like to hear one. There was not one here. Sure, Bowling, who claimed to be intoxicated that could have rammed the car while drinking and driving but if he had been so drunk to ram the car, then he likely could not have functioned enough to not only get out and shoot the victims but leave the scene quickly, hide his car, bury the gun and get to his sisters house, which again I found no reference to how he got there. And, driving drunk and wrecking a car is a far cry from getting out of the vehicle and shooting three people.

I told you in the beginning that it was alleged that investigators knew literally at the crime scene, the make/model/year and color of the vehicle that had allegedly rammed the Earley's car and that they allegedly knew that Thomas Bowling owned just such a car. But, they alleged they did not go searching for him because they followed other leads. What other leads? Obviously the defense brought up one when they mentioned the family that Eddie Earley had reported but are you going to tell me that there was not enough investigators.... in Lexington Kentucky.... a far cry from a small town, to send one or more investigators to investigate the family and one or two to go look for and find Thomas Bowling? A mother and father had been gunned down in their car in the parking lot of their business and their two year old son had also been shot. You cannot tell me that there was not outrage about this and that they did not put MANY, if not all investigators on this case in the initial hours tracking down every single lead there was. Does that mean that they did not ever know exactly what type of car was used? No, it does not. But I absolutely do not believe they knew at the crime scene, or maybe even before Bowlings sister called the following day that he owned the car used. Sure, they had a description from eye witnesses and they released that which is what allegedly prompted his sister to look for his car and check out land owned by the family. In my opinion this was released and said to make it look like the investigators did not have tunnel vision and focused on Bowling in the initial stages. There is a complete difference in following ALL the evidence and leads in a case and focusing on one person. Having a vehicle description is a far cry from knowing everything about a vehicle and knowing a particular person owns such a vehicle, as they claimed, and then NOT following that lead is also bad investigating. So no, I do not believe that they knew this information early on and decided to “look at other leads first.” Does this mean that they looked into the family that the defense mentioned? I would hope so but I heard nothing more about it.

Taking that line is it possible that the family members involved in the other case could have manipulated Bowling into doing the deed for them? Maybe, but again where is the evidence? Is it possible that someone obtained Bowlings vehicle without his knowledge or even with his knowledge? Sure. While I did not see any real evidence presented that the other family was involved, in my opinion there was not enough evidence to prove that Bowling committed this crime. Then again, that is just my opinion.

Marco Allen Chapman

2022-06-28T05:40:00.003-07:00

Once again I have chosen to talk about a death penalty case. I know there are fierce people on both sides of this subject, I just do not happen to be one of them. I have often said that I am neither for, nor against the death penalty. I do believe there are cases that warrant it, but only those in which there is no question in whether the person is not only guilty, but that that conclusion was come to fairly. I also believe that in decades past that courts were too fast to carry out the death penalty. We have found too many, and one is too many in my opinion, of people who were executed only to discover later were innocent. Well.... you cannot ever fix that wrong! With that being said, I feel as if we do not do them fast enough today.

There are those who are very pro-death penalty who will argue that as a tax payer they do not feel as if we should house inmates on life sentences and should speed up the process. First, let me point out that Texas used to execute so often that the joke was they had an express lane to the execution chamber and yet they much too late realized that there were errors not just in the death penalty system itself, but also in many of the cases. They have the longest list of exonerated people than any other state. Also, the reality of it is that it costs more to house someone on death row than it does to house someone for the rest of their lives... both of which many states are doing now anyway. There are constitutional rights to appeals in death sentences that are not afford unilaterally to other prison inmates. Those cost money from anywhere from transportation to courtroom time to lawyers, right down to often extra guards and special wings of the prison.

This case is a bit different. I have seen and written about cases in which a convicted felon has decided to drop all remaining appeals and tell the court that they were prepared to have the death penalty carried out. I have seen a case or two where the defendant at sentencing after a trial has requested the death penalty. In this case the defendant was still in the pre-trial process and he sent a letter to the judge asking to fire his attorney's, plead guilty to the crimes he committed and be given the death penalty.

On August 23, 2002 Marco Allen Chapman, not to be confused with John Lennon's assassin, MarK David Chapman, knocked on the Warsaw Kentucky door of Carolyn Marksberry sometime close to four in the morning. Carolyn, who was the city clerk of Warsaw, lived with her husband Chuck, who was on his way home after being out of the country for work, and her three children, six year old Cody Sharon, seven year old Chelbi Sharon and ten year old Courtney Sharon. It was said that Courtney had known Chapman for years but it was also said that he was dating her best friend that lived very close by and Carolyn had been encouraging her to leave the relationship because Chapman was abusive to her. The friend, who was many times referred to as “unnamed,” allegedly often spent the night on the Markberry couch to get away from Chapman. It was said that Chapman asked Carolyn to use the phone when she answered the door so she let him in.

Apparently according to Carolyn when she let him inside he immediately began attacking her with a knife that he had brought with him. Chapman was able to tie Carolyn's hands with duct tape and then using the a cord he cut from the vacuum he tied her to the bed frame where he proceeded to rape her and then stab her repeatedly. It was said that he literally broke two knives, one inside her chest.

At some point six-year old Cody was awakened by the noises. He went into his mother's room but it is unclear what was going on at that moment but it was said that Carolyn told him to go back to his room. Instead he went to ten-year old Courtney's room. She too had been awakened by noises in the house and Cody stated he thought their mother was in trouble. The two children went into the hallway where they were met by Chapman. Chapman attempted to take the knife he had and slit Courtney's throat. Apparently without realizing it he missed and instead cut her ear but Courtney was bright and smart. She fell to the ground and “played dead.” Chapman then turned to Cody and this time he succeeded and while he fell to the floor it seems he did not die immediately. Chapman then proceeded to go into seven-year old Chelbi's room where he also cut her throat.

While he was in Chelbi's room Courtney began her plan to escape. She would later say that Cody was still alive at that point and begged her not to leave him. Courtney explained that she was going to the neighbors home to get help. As she made her way out of the house Chapman heard the back door slam. He came out to find Courtney gone. It was said that he then stole some things and left. It is likely that he knew the authorities would be coming soon. In the mean time Carolyn, who was severely injured, but also still alive literally “gnawed through her restraints” and broke free. She had listened as her children screamed within the house. She crawled out into the hallway and then crawled to the neighbors home and made it to their porch. It was said that she “used her head to bang on the door.” Authorities received a 911 call about 6:00.

From my understanding both Chelbi and Cody were either already dead when authorities arrived, or likely died soon after. Carolyn was in critical condition and I am sure there were questions whether she would survive. Courtney, while injured, was less severe. Chapman was no where to be found but amazingly it would not take long. He was found in Shrewsbury West Virginia and arrested about 12:30 that afternoon. While they waited for investigators from Kentucky to get there, question him and take him back he began telling law enforcement there a story.

Those investigators said he seemed unremorseful. He claimed that he and Carolyn had been having an affair for about a year and that he had gone there to have consensual sex with her, knowing that her husband was out of town. He admitted bringing the knife because he said he planned to steal from her afterwards. He went on to say that they did have consensual sex and that Carolyn “raised all kinds of hell” when he told her he was going to steal from her. It does appear that through the course of the early morning, while no one believed the consensual sex part, he had stolen from her and Carolyn had given him all of her credit cards and what cash she had. It seems though that throughout his talk with West Virginia authorities he was starting to become remorseful and even asked the officers to kill him. By the time Kentucky authorities arrived it was said that he was remorseful and while he would claim to not remember a lot or even why he did it he did admit the crime.

Chapman was charged with two counts of capital murder in the deaths of Cody and Chelbi, two counts of attempted murder for Carolyn and Courtney, first degree rape, first degree burglary, first degree robbery and second degree “persistent felony offender.” The last charge apparently stemmed from the fact that at one time he had been charged federally for a bank robbery in Texas. Whether that was the extent of his criminal activity or at least times that he was caught is not clear.

As is routine his initially hearing in which his charges were read a not guilty verdict was given to the court and he was given attorney's to defend his case. It is not clear whether the prosecutor planned to ask for the death penalty or not. In January of 2004 during a “routine transfer” to court for a pre-trial hearing Chapman somehow got out of leg shackles and tried to make a run for it. Authorities tackled him just a few yards away while he still had a chain around his waist and was handcuffed. He would later say that this was an attempt to provoke the officers to shoot him.

In October of 2004 Chapman wrote a letter to the judge. He informed him that he wanted to fire his attorney's, change his plea to guilty and wanted the death penalty as his sentence. The judge did not just unilaterally accept this. He brought Chapman into court and asked him directly. Chapman was still adamant that this was what he wanted. The judge ordered what would be Chapman's second competency hearing. The first had determined that he was competent to stand trial. The second was after he had written the letter. The judge wanted to know if he was competent to be making this decision. A psychologist testified and told the judge that he did believe Chapman was competent but he also thought that with some mental heath treatment he would possibly change his mind. So, the judge ordered him to be treated for thirty days and re-evaluated. Once again he was evaluated and it seems despite being given an anti-depressant, Chapman was still as confident this was what he wanted as he had been prior.

The judge decided that he would grant Chapman's request, within reason. He allowed him to fire his public defenders but ordered them to basically “be on call” in case Chapman would need them. One of the attorney's objected to this “saying he wanted no part in Chapman's suicide” but the judge stood firm. The lawyer would later say that Chapman wanted to commit suicide and he was getting the Commonwealth of Kentucky to do it for him. Chapman would later be quoted as saying, “I guess it's kind of my Christian upbringing. Suicide is unforgivable. I figure if I'm not doing it myself it's not suicide.”

Chapman consistently asked that all appeals be stopped but that still did not mean his execution was a foregone conclusion or would be swift. While my research stated that the only attempt to stop his execution came from a group that challenged the state regulations on lethal injection, which the Supreme Court denied, I did find an appeal that was filed in 2007. While it was titled Chapman v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, it appears that it was not Chapman himself who filed the appeal. Again, it was said that he consistently asked that appeals be stopped. I do want to talk about this 2007 appeal however.

First, this is where I learned the information about the three competency hearings that were asked for in this case. The courts stated, “The case before us is to review Chapman's conviction and sentence in which we are asked to resolve several questions considering the death penalty in Kentucky.” It went on to say “The ultimate question is whether a defendant may enter into a plea agreement and volunteer for the death penalty.” The court ultimately ruled yes. In the end, while yes he received the death penalty for the two murders, he was still sentenced on the other charges. Because he was found to be a “persistent felony offender” the burglary and robbery sentences were enhanced to life terms. He had also received a life term for the rape of Carolyn. As far as the other charges I am uncertain what his actual sentence was.

Chapman would be quoted as saying “It's long and drawn out. I don't see why it should take so long. If a man is sane and competent, he ought to be able to get his wishes, especially when you plea bargain for it.” I cannot say that I disagree with him. Chapman was executed by the Commonwealth of Kentucky on November 21, 2008 at the age of thirty-eight at Eddyville Kentucky where the Kentucky State Penitentiary is located. A statement was read before his execution, written by him, he made a short statement and then after his execution another statement was released. It appeared that he was remorseful for his actions, which ultimately is a good thing but in the end does nothing for the family of his victims.

As of June of 2022 he was the last person executed by the state and only the third person since the death penalty was reestablished in 1976. As of January of 2022 it was said that there were twenty-six people on Kentucky death row and at least twenty-one of them were sentenced before 2000. It was also said that as of May of 2022 California had the most people on death row at 689 and yet has not executed a prisoner since 2006.

There is a part of me that completely understands the fact that the judge ordered two competency hearings after Chapman asked to be put to death. He wanted to be certain that Chapman understood what he was asking for and that he was of sound mind to make that decision. But, I agree with Chapman. It should have ended there. I do not believe that others had the right to come in and ask that that decision be changed. In the end he spent six years on death row, four years were after he had asked for the death penalty. While that pales in comparison to those who have spent more than twenty years on death row, it still seems unnecessary.

The Murder of Susan Ambrosino

2022-06-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

You have often heard me speak of very old cases, such as my last blog, and how difficult determining facts are. I run into a few things that are confusing on more modern cases, and I also state those things, but I am unsure that I have ever come across such a case that has taken place in the last twenty years which so many conflicting facts and information! Everything from what day Susan was killed, when she was found, to even the relationship between the fathers of her children seem to be at odds.

What I can tell you is that in February 2005 twenty-six year old Long Island New York resident Susan Ambrosino went missing and her brother made the report to law enforcement. Her purse was found in Queens and law enforcement decided to make a perimeter to search for Susan's car, that was also missing. The car was soon found. The front passenger seat had been covered up with a sheet or a towel but was found to be covered in blood. The body of Susan was found in the trunk of her own vehicle. It was determined that she had died the previous day when she was shot, presumably in her own car, in the left side of her head, just behind her ear.

Some reports say she was murdered on February 24^th; some say it was the 21^st. Based on that the date her car was found also changes. I attempted to dig a little deeper to try and resolve this. Findagrave.com shows a date of the 28^th but they do admit this may be the date she was buried and a picture I found of her ex-husband and daughter seem to confirm that it was the day of her funeral. I even pulled up a February 2005 calendar. One article said that her car was found on Tuesday which would have been the 22^nd, making her death on the 21^st; another said the 25^th; even a third with a picture indicated the car was found on “Monday” evening which was the 21^th, making her death the 20^th. So how do I try and determine which days are right? Well, I have to make an educated guess. I found an article that stated that Susan's brother reported her missing “early Tuesday” (the 22^nd) and that later that day her purse was found and then a while later after that her car was found. I also found an article written on Thursday, which was the 24^th that spoke about the fact that a suspect had been arrested the day before. So with putting all of that together and looking at how often, or not often things were said I believe that the most accurate seems to be that she was murdered on February 21^st, her vehicle with her body inside was found on the 22^nd, a suspect that you will hear about later was arrested on the 23^rd although not for murder just yet and she was laid to rest on the 28^th.

She how did she get there and what happened? As I said earlier Susan was twenty-six years old. Her daughter was said to be eight at the time of her death but then there were reports of nine a few days later. Regardless that means Susan was fairly young when she had her first child who's father was Keith Ambrosino. There was not a lot of information about when the couple got married or for how long they were married. To be fair it's not even completely clear whether Susan and Keith were officially divorced at the time of her death or just separated, but apparently they were attempting to rekindle their relationship. Some reports called Keith her ex-husband while others called him her estranged husband. There was one thing that stated they divorced in 2002 but I cannot say that was completely true either. What we do know, that seems consistent, is that the night that she died Susan called Keith. She told him that she had something very serious to talk to him about and he said she was very upset. It appears that he was awaiting to hear back from her to set up a time or place but he never did.

Keith would later learn not just what Susan had wanted to tell him but that the fact she wanted to tell him was allegedly, at least in part, the motive of her murder.

As I stated earlier it was not completely clear what the legal relationship was between Susan and Keith at the time of her murder. He would later say that he believed that part of the reason for the break up was that they had been very young at the time they got together. Keith was in the military for a time and at some point he was deployed. Initially he was supposed to be gone for up to a year but reports stated that he suffered a back injury and returned home after a few months. It was said that Keith had stated that Susan was definitely not looking forward to him being gone and it just being her and their daughter but that he had reassured her that his half brother Steven Schiovone (some reports say step-brother which is always an issue it seems but it appears that the two men shared a mother) and his girlfriend would be looking after her. After Keith came home he claimed things were very different and that it appeared his brother had gotten very comfortable in the home, with his child and especially his wife. Apparently Keith and Susan argued over it when Keith had asked Steven not to spend so much time at his house and this was allegedly the reason for the failure of their marriage.

The timing of this is something I have a question about. As I said earlier I found a report that the couple divorced in 2002, so nearly three years prior to Susan's murder but the reason I wonder about this is because in 2005 it is apparent that Susan and Steven were having or had had an ongoing affair and both Susan and Steven's girlfriend, the same girlfriend he had prior to Keith being deployed, were pregnant by him. I just find it odd that they could have had the relationship going on for that long with few people knowing about it or catching on. What I can tell you is that in February of 2005, at the time of her murder, Susan was between three and four months pregnant. Her family would later tell law enforcement that she was pregnant and that Steven was the father so they knew but it is not clear for how long they had known. This has been said that it was this “secret” that Susan had planned to tell Keith. Keith claims that he knew nothing about a relationship between Susan and Steven until after her murder.

I cannot say for a fact that at the time of her murder Susan and Steven were still involved. Her family would say that Steven had encouraged her to have an abortion and Susan had refused. In fact, apparently she knew she was carrying a boy and had given him a name. But, law enforcement were quickly made aware of the relationship and it almost appears as if they zeroed in on him fairly quickly. Experience tells us that both Keith and Steven would have been on the radar of law enforcement but the fact that on Wednesday, the day after her body was found that they arrested Steven (although not for murder just yet, there was not even an autopsy done as of yet) that they had pretty much eliminated Keith as a suspect.

Steven was initially arrested on charges of driving without a seat belt and driving with a suspended license and registration. It would be a few days before they gathered enough to file murder charges on him and in fact, it was the actions of one of Steven's friends that gave them what they needed. The crime scene had pretty much determined that Susan had been shot behind her left ear in the passenger seat of her car and then her body was moved to the trunk. An autopsy revealed that the gun had been a .380. They searched Steven's home, the one he shared with his pregnant girlfriend, and while they found manuals and other things connecting him to a .380, they did not find the gun. And then his friend came forward. Steven had asked the friend to hold a gun for him, it just so happened to be a .380, and had asked the friend to lie and provide him an alibi The friend refused and contacted law enforcement giving them the gun. It would be the murder weapon. He was officially charged with second degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon and tampering with evidence.

Have you ever noticed that after someone is arrested and the “story” is told in the newspaper and then they go to court for the first time and plead “not guilty” how often people get upset at that plea? I am not one of them. One hearing does not drag a case out and cost the community “so much money” as people will claim, for one, for two in a lot of the cases a judge will already enter a not guilty plea for a defendant in the initially hearing. While officially a plea has to be entered into the record, the initial hearing is really where the judge reads the charges and officially charges the person and tells them if and how much jail time they could face. It is also at this hearing where the defendant is told of their LEGAL right to representation. It is not unheard of for a defendant to enter the courtroom with an attorney but those who cannot afford one have the right to be represented by law and the initial hearing is when that happens. There is generally so much that goes into preparing a case and later possibly offering a plea deal that the average defendant does not understand and needs counsel. With that being said, you do not always here an attorney make a statement right away. It is not unheard of however and that was the case here. Steven's attorney very early on stated that he was innocent of the charges and stated “there's a lot more to this story than has been told.”

That all changed when in early 2007 Steven Schiovone pleaded guilty to second degree murder and in May of that year he was sentenced to thirty years in prison.

In 2010 Susan's mother began an event where every February diapers and newborn items were collected for mothers and donated in Susan's honor. It is called a Remembrance Baby Shower. Her mother died in July of 2016 and had been the main organizer of the event The following February Susan's sister took over the reigns but that year was a bit different that one year where they collected just diapers and at a much lower level than past years. Her sister explained that this was due to her mother's passing and vowed to continue the event every year and back to normal operations by 2018.

The Van Wormer Brothers

2022-06-23T12:17:00.001-07:00

I mentioned this case in my last blog. In fact, I had just learned of this case when I was doing research for the last. I love these sorts of cases but they prove very difficult to research. This case took place in 1901, execution were conducted in 1903 but the story started many, many years before that in the 1800's which makes things harder to confirm and separate fact from fiction. The core story, the execution of three brothers within just a few minutes of each other, is the one thing that cannot be disputed so please bare with me as I attempt to tell you the story that led up to this event. I can tell you that these events all occurred in the state of New York but I cannot necessarily tell you exactly where as nothing seemed to be consistent.

The three brothers were named Willis, Burton and Frederick Van Wormer. The first dispute not just how old they were but in what order they were born. The one thing that does seem to remain consistent is that Burton was the middle son. My initial research stated that Frederick was the oldest and that Willis was the youngest but later research indicated this was the other way around. Findagrave.com is one of the things that says Willis was the oldest but to be fair there are no tombstones available to see nor any other real documents to prove this. I attempted to find an 1880 census record to see if I could maybe fix this confusion but I was unable to do so. That could be for many reasons. One is that there is some confusion on the name of their father. Findagrave states that their father's name was Charles while a website called Executed Today says his name was John. Of course his name could have been John Charles. Other information indicated that their mother's name was Ella Smith. I was able to find a census record from 1880 with a Charles Van Wormer married to an “Ella S.” located in New York but there were no children listed as I could tell. By the dates I have seen by 1880 they should have had at least two sons. However, from here on out I will be referring to their parents as Charles and Ella.

I never found anything to indicate that there may have been more children born to Charles and Ella, but then again, I never found anything that indicated that there were not. At the time of their executions in 1903 it was said the boys' ages ranged from twenty to twenty-six. So this would have had the youngest, whoever he may be, to be born around 1883 (Findagrave shows the youngest being born in 1881). My early research stated that Ella has passed away when the boys were “very young.” I found something else that stated her year of death as being 1885. If Findagrave is correct on the years of birth for the children (even if they may be out of order, or not), it made the oldest of the three children to only be nine or ten. It was said that Charles was a steamship captain and was gone nearly all of the time.

My next set of conflicting information came from where the children went after the death of their mother. It appears that an unnamed aunt raised them but whether it was in the home that the children occupied with their parents or in another home is unclear. Regardless it was said that an uncle, Peter Hallenbeck, had the “mortgage” on the home. Peter was married to Margaret Smith, the sister of Ella. It was said that Charles sent money back home for the raising of his children. It was also indicated that this money was quite a lot for the times and the boys wanted for nothing. Of course some of this could have also been because of the sympathy that was poured upon them. It seems not just family members, but the community itself felt sorry for the children after their mother died, which may have led to the boys being less disciplined or controlled than they should have been.

It was said that the boys, at an early age became undisciplined and their antics began “nocturnal larks” meaning things done at night. There were indications that the boys were cruel to small animals such as cats and were rather bullish when they went to school, which was said to be only when they wanted to. Despite their antics it was also said that the boys were quite charming and respectful to elders, at least apparently to their faces. This all with the outpouring of sympathy towards them did not seem to help matters. The boys were soon in to petty thievery and when they were discovered much of the time they were “chalked up to boys being boys.”

But, as time went on and the boys got older and less disciplined their crimes became more heinous. In September of 1900 Charles died and so the income he had been sending back home now ceased. The boys had never had to work and had relied on their thievery and the money sent by their father. It is unclear what happened to the “aunt” that had cared for them but apparently the boys lived alone, together, at that time. Without Charles' money the boys expanded on their crimes. It was said that they became MAJOR chicken thieves in the area and would raid farms for miles, and miles around. They would apparently steal the chicken and then sell them into other cities or states. There was a report that at some point their barn had been opened and that while there were no chickens inside, there were enough feathers to make everyone in the county a pillow. They also began carrying guns with them and threatened anyone who resisted them.

Now, instead of having sympathy for the boys, the town now feared them. The boys' uncle, Peter Hallenbeck had also defended his nephews up to this point. Hallenbeck was well respected and fairly influential in the area. It was said that over the years he had paid more than $1,000 (a lot of money back then) cleaning up their messes. But, by the summer of 1901 even he had been pushed to the brink it seems. No one in the town stood up to the boys out of fear but Peter Hallenbeck apparently had an ace up his sleeve. As I mentioned before, the home in which the boys lived in was technically owned by Hallenbeck. It is unclear if he had received monies over the years for the home when Charles had been alive but it was also said that by 1901 he still held the mortgage to the home and he decided the only way to get the boys out of the area was to foreclose on the home and kick the boys out and that is exactly what he did. The boys ended up moving to the town of Kinderhook which was said to be close to twenty miles away from where they had grown up. It was also said that the boys were seething now at the actions of their uncle.

On December 24, 1901 Peter Hallenbeck, his wife and mother were at his home. He saw a buggy pull up and four men get out. It was indicated that Peter did not recognize the men but commented that he believed they were likely chicken thieves. Margaret Hallenbeck and her mother in law apparently went up to the attic to hide and Peter went and grabbed his shotgun. It was said that there was then a knock on the door and when Peter opened it there were two men wearing masks and two men with face paint and beards who opened fire on him. He was shot 11 times and died almost immediately.

Of course the brothers, along with a cousin, Harvey Bruce who had often ran with them on their exploits, were the first suspects. That was not the only evidence however. There were footprints in the snow that eventually matched the boys' shoes. There was also a hoof print from a horse with a “deformed” foot and an odd shaped shoe. Those prints led back to a stable in Kinderbrook. The owner of the horse stated that he had rented the horse to none other than Burton Van Wormer.

All three of the brothers and their cousin Harvey Bruce were arrested. To avoid the death penalty Bruce testified against the brothers. It is unclear exactly what kind of sentence he received or what happened to him after the crime. The trial began on March 31, 1902. The defense attempted to say that it was a “prank gone wrong” and claimed that they only fired at Peter when he pointed a shotgun at him first. There were reports that a shotgun was found next to his body. There was also evidence from the person who stated they had sold the men the disguises. The jury did not believe this was a prank and convicted the three brothers giving them each a sentence of death.

I surprised to learn that the electric chair had been invented as early as it was. It was first used in 1890. New York adopted the method in 1899. The brothers were held at Clinton State Prison in Dannemora. It was one of only three prisons at the time that conducted executions with Clinton being the least famous, and the least used. It was said that there were only 26 executions there, three of them being the Van Wormer brothers. They were executed on October 1, 1903, one right after another. It was said that each one went smoothly and it was all over within about fifteen minutes. Their bodies were transported back to Kinderhook where they were buried in a local cemetery. There are no markers, although it is said there is a post with the number “2” near where one of the boys lay.

I found an interesting article attached to Margaret Hallenbeck's memorial on Findagrave.com. It stated that after the trial Margaret, who apparently had no children with her deceased husband, Peter, the victim, in this case, was concerned that the brothers may benefit from her death so she made sure to made out a will. There was a line in the article that stated, “Bequests were also made to her sisters with the exception of Mrs. Van Wormer, mother of the boys. She is allowed the use of a small portion. The Van Wormer boys are cut off absolutely.” Now, I could see if their mother would have been mentioned, even though she had passed, many, many years ago, so that it was clear that her estate was not to be fully passed to her siblings and therefore their children. However, the notion that “she is allowed the use of a small portion” was completely puzzling considering that Ella Smith Van Wormer died in 1885, nearly twenty years prior. Obviously the reporter was either informed or something was going on here but I point this out because this is just one example of how difficult these cases are to put together sometimes. Margaret did in fact die in July of 1903 before the brothers were executed.

Roger and Rodney Berget

2022-06-22T11:25:00.003-07:00

These two brothers were listed, one after another, in my list of cases and I decided to go ahead and do both of their cases, even though their crimes are not related to each other. The fact that brothers, or relatives at all, can spend time in prison for separate crimes is not all that unusual but what is unusual and said to be unique is that they were both executed in two different states for two different crimes, several miles and years apart. My research stated that there have only been three sets of brothers executed in history but they were the only ones involved in different crimes. That being said I did a little research to see if I could determine if this was true.

I did find three other cases of brothers. One of those cases, that of Jonathon and Reginald Carr from Wichita Kansas I have already blogged about. But, those brothers are still sitting on death row. I should point out that in January of 2022 the state affirmed their death sentences but it is unclear if or when that will that place. Another case of brothers is the case of Karl and Walter LeGrand, whose case is on my list now. They were executed in February and March of 1999 by the state of Arizona when a person was killed during a bank robbery they were involved with. The third case I had never heard of and made it to my list for a future blog (maybe soon). It was the case of Willis, Burton and Fred VanWormer who were convicted and sentenced to death in 1902 for the murder of their uncle the previous year. The three brothers were executed by the state of New York in 1903, all within fifteen minutes of each other. Strangely these were a bit difficult to find without having specific names. As far as I can tell these were the only cases of such and so it does appear that the Berget brothers were in fact unique.

The Berget brothers had a rough bringing. It was said in the cases of both brothers that their father, Benford, was an abusive man. Some reports say that after he failed as a farmer in South Dakota he began to drink heavily and this contributed to things. It was also said that both boys, Roger being two years older than Rodney, were the last of their children and born after the failed farming attempt. When I was researching Roger's case there was even a mention that allegedly around the age of “nine or ten” his father had kicked him out of the home. It was said that he was living in an abandoned home and his mother would bring him food there. It went on to say that when his father found out about this he beat both Roger and his mother and proceeded to burn down the abandoned house. Now, this is one of those things that was stated but I could not determine if it was factual but I thought the allegation was rather significant. The boys' parents divorced in the early 1970's and both boys started getting into trouble with the law. I found something that stated that both boys had done “prison” time for the first time in their teens.

Throughout their lives the two boys were in and out of prison. In 1986 Roger was arrested in Oklahoma when he and another man on robbery charges. It was at this time that Roger confessed that he and another friend, Mikell Smith had kidnapped and killed a man named Rick Patterson in 1985.

On October 20, 1985 thirty-three year old Rick Lee Patterson, a middle school math teacher, was headed to his car in a grocery store parking lot. Roger and Smith forced him into the passenger seat the car and while Roger drove the vehicle, Smith sat in the back. They drove to a deserted area and tied Patterson's hands and taped his mouth and placed him in the trunk of the car. The two drove to an “isolated” area and when they opened the trunk they discovered that Patterson had gotten his hands free. They re-tied his hands behind his back this time and had him stand next to a tree. This is where Patterson was shot and killed with a shotgun. Some reports say that Roger shot the man twice, others say it was Smith who did this. A witnessed testified at one of the trials stating that Smith had told him that he and Roger had each shot Patterson in an attempt to make them both culpable so they could not snitch on each other. Regardless of which of the two men did the shooting, the following day Patterson's body was found by two hunters. Three days later Patterson's car was found in a field near Tulsa.... it had been burned out.

In 1987 Roger pleaded guilty to first degree murder but he changed his previous confession saying that he had not shot Patterson at all but that Smith had done the shooting. The thing I found interesting about this was that Roger apparently pleaded guilty without any sort of deal from the prosecution. Prosecutors wanted the death penalty and barring a deal that takes that off the table or cases where the defendant wants the death penalty, capital cases should be taken to trial regardless of the evidence. I mean, let's be real, there no sentence worse than death and if you take the case to trial the worse that can happen is the death penalty is imposed, which you are already at risk of receiving without a deal from prosecutors. And, Roger's case is a prime example why I believe in this. The judge did ultimately sentence him to death.

I want to point out here that it was said that when Roger confessed to the murder of Patterson, he also allegedly confessed to the murder of a man named James Meadows. This case has also made it to my list of future cases because it appears that Roger was not the only one involved and I am even unsure that it was confirmed he was involved. I found an article in which it stated that Meadows' step-son, Mark Liles, who himself was an inmate on Oklahoma death row was being investigated as being involved along with his mother, and James' wife, LaDonna.

Between his guilty plea and his sentencing Roger testified in Mikell Smith's trial. At his trial Roger's story changed again. He testified for the defense arguing that Smith was not involved or present at the time. Roger's attorney would later say that he believed his client did this out of fear of Smith. Smith was also ultimately convicted and sentenced to death but in 1992 was granted a re-trial. Before that could happen he made a deal in which he pleaded guilty and was given a sentence of life without parole.

Over the next several years Roger's attorney's argued against his sentence and asked for clemency several times. They often pointed out that in the many years Roger spend on death row he had never received any sort of write up or been in any trouble. And yet, his co-conspirator, Smith, not only was not on death row, while in prison he had killed another inmate, stabbed a guard and stabbed another inmate. According to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections Smith is serving four sentences. Of course there is the life without parole in the Patterson murder but he received a 500 year sentence in 1992 for assault, another life without parole sentence in 1994 for murder and in 2014 he received another fifty years for second degree murder.

Roger's attorney's failed in their bid to receive clemency for him and on June 8, 2000, at the age of thirty-nine Roger Berget was executed by the state of Oklahoma.

Just a few months after Roger pleaded guilty to murder in Oklahoma his brother, Rodney, who was serving time in a South Dakota prison on charges of grand theft and escape, made another escape attempt and succeeded. Rodney, along with five other inmates greased their bodies up with lotion, slipped through a hole in air vents and then cut through some window bars and escaped. It was said that Rodney was a fugitive for more than a month. I found no details on how he was captured or any sentence he may have received as a result.

In 2002 Rodney was released from prison. It was said that his sister threw him a 40^th birthday party, his first birthday party. But by the following year he was back in prison. This time he got a life sentence for attempted murder and kidnapping. In 2011 once again Rodney was thinking of escaping. It was said that over the period of several months Rodney and fellow inmate Eric Robert devised a plan. On April 12, 2011 the two men ambushed a guard by the name of Ronald “R.J.” Johnson. It was Johnson's sixty-third birthday and it was said he was nearing retirement after nearly twenty-four years in service. Rodney and Robert beat Johnson with a pipe and then covered his head in plastic eventually smothering him. When they were done Robert put on Johnson's uniform and hat and the two put two boxes on a cart. Rodney was inside one of the boxes. It was said that they made it through one gate but were stopped at the second by another guard. That guard was assaulted but the escape plan failed.

Both Rodney and Robert were given the death penalty. It is unclear whether they pleaded guilty or took their cases to trial. A third inmate, Michael Norman was given a life sentence for providing the pipe to the two men. Eric Robert fairly quickly it seems gave up his fight for an appeal and was executed on October 15, 2012. In 2016 Rodney filed an appeal to fight the death sentence but it was said that on advice of his counsel he decided to not more forward with it and he too abandoned his appeals. It seems that the idea of spending the rest of his life in prison was less appealing to him.

On October 29, 2018 the state of South Dakota executed Rodney Berget. Both Rodney and Roger were buried together in the same cemetery as their mother who passed away in 2005.

We hear the phrase “born evil” a lot and I would gander to say that many people may believe this is possible of many murderers, especially serial killers. What I think this story shows is that while yes, we could argue maybe the boys were “evil” but that sometimes it's nurture, not nature that plays a role. If the story about Roger being kicked out of the home at the age of nine or ten is true then what kind of life did these children have? It was said that their legal troubles began in their teenage years and after their parents divorced. I did not hear about what kind of relationship they may have had with their father after the divorce but it does appear that both of their parents remarried. It seems that they were early pre-teens at the time of the divorce so clearly old enough to have known and witnessed the dynamics in the home. It is likely that their mother had little to no control over them as it appears she had little or no control over herself while married to their father. While we could sit here and argue all day about how they got there, why they got there or even whether they deserved to be executed I am sitting her thinking of Charles Manson.

Now, I am not necessarily trying to compare the Berget brothers to Mason as far as evil or crime wise as that is for another day. Maybe they were just as bad, maybe they were not. But, he comes to mind because he was most comfortable in prison. He had spent most of his life in and out of juvenile homes, county and state prisons. He knew very little of life outside prison walls …. even in 1969 when he was on Spahn Ranch and out of prison for a short period. Maybe they spent so much time in prisons for the same reason. It may very well have been the best and only real home they knew or were comfortable in.

Jeremy Musall

2022-06-21T16:36:00.003-07:00

I have put together over 800 blogs here. Most, although admittedly, not all involve murder. I have read countless appeals in cases and have almost exclusively true crime books for decades. I am in many true crime groups and even “death hag” groups on social media. I hear stories all the time. I read about them; I see pictures; I study them. It takes a lot to surprise when it comes to brutality; it takes even more to have gasp when I am reading about how a crime took place. This is one of those cases.

I often talk about how I come across cases and how they make it to a list I have compiled. Initially I removed the cases from the list when I blogged about them but I found that that hindered me from realizing I may have already done a case. That being said, not every case I have blogged about is on it. I generally have a sub-list started that I add to the bigger list later and when I do that sometimes I will work off that list first and not add them to the larger one. When I do blog about a case, or on the rare occasion in which I have researched the case and discovered there is just not enough information to put together, I highlight it to indicate it has been done or leave a note with it as to why I did not. That list is over 1600 cases long at this point. I do not always know where the cases come from. Sometimes they come from a list of cases I have found on a website online; sometimes I get in a groove where I am watching a true crime series and cases come from there. By the time I do them I do not always know exactly where I heard about the case. I can only assume that I got the name Jeremy Musall for this based on something to do with Indiana crimes, but I cannot say for sure. I am quite surprised that as many times as I thought I went though the list, often one by one, this case has never popped out to me.

The first thing that I came across in my research was an appeal filed by Jeremy Musall in 2013. As I stated earlier, this was a case that while I read about the crimes that Musall committed and the brutality that he placed on his victims I was left gasping out loud. I was surprised to discover that the state did not seek the death penalty despite the fact that the last person executed in the state was Matthew Wrinkles in 2009. I did actually find an article in which the prosecutor in Parke County Indiana very quickly stated that he would not be seeking the death penalty. There was speculation that this was because the last time the county had done so was several years prior and it had cost the county a lot of money and the judge gave the defendant a sentence of life without parole. When specifically asked if this was the reason for not seeking death for Musall the prosecutor failed to answer. As a reader you have often heard me say that I am not necessarily for or against the death penalty. I do believe that in particularly heinous crimes and where there are absolutely no questions as to who committed the crime I do find it an appropriate sentence. In my opinion, this case absolutely deserved to have the death penalty on the table.

In August of 2011 Jeremy Musall was twenty-eight years old. He was divorced, although I cannot say for how long, and he had a son but I cannot tell you how old he was. Musall had a pretty substantial criminal history full of violence. He had several arrests, at least one that resulted to jail time between 2006 and 2011. What I believe happened that resulted in less jail time than he deserved or would have gotten is it seems that each and every time he pleaded guilty to the crimes which likely resulted in a much lower sentence. In one case, in December of 2008 he was sentenced to a year in prison from a charge of “felony battery resulting in serious bodily injury.” By 2011 he had at least four previous charges of battery resulting in bodily injury, a charge of misdemeanor domestic violence, two charges of disorderly conduct, two charges of public intoxication and a charge of resisting law enforcement. It was also found that he repeatedly violated his probation on these charges that led to fourteen additional charges throughout that time. And yet, aside from his crime in 2011 I only found one other time in which he spent time in a state prison and that was from the 2008 battery charge where he was sentenced to a year. It was later said by a victim in his 2011 case “You almost took another man's life a few years ago and they let you out and gave you another chance.”

I know I have rambled, as I tend to do from time to time, before getting to the case before us but I wanted you to have a picture of Jeremy Musall. I wanted you, the reader, to see that the crime Musall committed in 2011 could have possibly been prevented. Officials had many opportunities to incarcerate Musall and prevent what occurred but especially in 2008 when he apparently severely injured another man. Murder is not the only thing that can result in a lengthy prison sentence and that was the last of many crimes before 2011. I could sit here and tell you that officials in the State of Indiana should be held accountable for murder and I am unsure that I am wrong, but as we know, that is not how the legal system works.

In 2008 a woman named Tanya Yeagley began dating a man named Joseph “Joe” Snow. The two would date “off and on” for the next several years and early 2010 they had a daughter together. In mid-2011 it was said that Tanya Yeagley dated Jeremy Musall for a period of three months. It appears as if they had just recently split up and Tanya and Joe got back together. It was not completely clear if on the day of August 12, 2011 if they were officially living together at a mobile home in Rocky Fork Lake in Parke County Indiana but they were together. Tanya would later say that throughout the entire day she received several threatening text messages from Jeremy Musall. It is unclear if she reported them or just simply did as many of us do and ignored them. Later, Musall showed up at the home unannounced. It was said that Tanya wanted to conceal the fact that she and Joe were back together from Musall so when he showed up Joe had gone and hid in a closet until he left. I found nothing that stated what was said or done at this point either between Musall and Tanya or what Tanya or Joe may or may not have reported. I have to presume that while it seems clear they were worried about Musall they had not contacted authorities.

Tanya and Joe had planned to go to one of their mother's homes but it was said that instead they stayed home and went to bed. It was unclear whether this decision was because of Musall or not. Tanya would later say that at some point in the middle of the night she was awaken to find Musall in the bedroom and he had begun to beat Joe Snow. Joe was knocked unconscious for a period of time and during that time Musall had demanded their cell phones. Tanya gave him hers but he did not get Joe's. At some point the badly hurt Joe woke up and tried to escape by crawling through the home. Musall chased him down, catching him in the kitchen. Musall repeatedly punched Joe and began strangling him all while saying “You're gonna fucking die tonight.” This was a phrase that Tanya would later say he said more than a few times, not just to Joe but to her too. After subduing Joe, Musall headed back to the bedroom where he grabbed Tanya by the hair and drug her into the front room while also punching her repeatedly.

While all of this was going on Tanya and Joe's daughter had woken up. She was twenty months old at this time. She was not just crying but she was said to be slipping and sliding in the blood, mainly that belonging to her father. Tanya said Musall repeatedly also threatened the life of their daughter.

Once both Tanya and Joe were in the front room of the home Tanya would say that Musall sat down, lit a cigarette and began drinking a beer. Musall proceeded to put the cigarette out in Joe Snow's eye! He then beat Joe, while Tanya and their daughter watched, with a vacuum cleaner until it broke. He then went into the kitchen and got a knife and began stabbing him. After this he bound Joe with duct tape and the vacuum cleaner cord.

Next he insisted that Tanya take a shower. It was not completely clear whether he took the shower with her. He then raped her first vaginally and then attempted, more than once, to rape her anally. He proceeded to perform cunnilingus on her and forced her to do the same to him. All the while he was taking pictures with his phone.

Tanya was supposed to be at work at 6:00 that morning and when she did not show her phone rang. Musall told her to call them back and tell them she would not be into work that day. She later stated that while she was preparing to do this Musall discovered that Joe had died. Musall removed the tape and vacuum cord and wrapped Joe's body in a quilt. He then placed Joe's body in the trunk of the car he had borrowed to drive to the home, grabbed Joe and Tanya's daughter, telling her that the child was going with him and she was to follow him in her car and if she did not both she and her daughter would die. Tanya asked to get the child's diaper bag and Musall allowed her to do so. When she did she found Joe's phone under the bed, grabbed it and hid it in her clothing. As she was following Musall to the next county over where he planned to basically dump Joe's body, Tanya used Joe's phone and called 911. Authorities responded but not before Musall dumped Joe's body in a cornfield and then got away. Tanya let them know who he was and that he had family in nearby Cloverdale. Shortly authorities found Musall at a family members home and found Tanya daughter unharmed. Some reports stated that it was Musall's mothers home where he was arrested, another said it was his grandmother's home. It is unclear which is correct.

On August 17^th Musall was officially charged. He was charged with murder, felony murder, two counts of burglary causing bodily injury (one for Tanya, one for Joe), felony rape and felony kidnapping. As I stated earlier, the prosecution fairly quickly announced they would not be seeking the death penalty.

Joe's official cause of death was listed as blunt force trauma to the head and strangulation. He had twenty different head and brain injuries. He had several skull fractures, a crushed windpipe and broken ribs. There was evidence of manual and ligature strangulation. Tanya was taken to the hospital and examined. She had multiple bruises and scrapes on her scalp, face and ears. She had swelling, redness and discoloration around her throat area and her arms, legs and back were covered in bruises.

A year later, in August of 2012 Musall went to trial in Rockville Indiana in Parke County. I found little regarding the trial and what may or may not have been presented. I did discover that on August 12^th Musall was sentenced to 165 years. A few of the charges like the two kidnapping charges were to be served concurrently, meaning at the same time... but ultimately he was ordered to serve the 165 year sentence. Prosecutors were asking for 215 years, but really when you get that many years, does it really matter? The judge stated that the aggravating circumstances far outweighed any mitigating circumstances that were presented. He has to serve eighty-four years before he is even eligible for parole in February of 2095. He will be one hundred and twelve years old so he will not be set free.

In 2013 Musall appealed the sentence saying it was “too harsh.” The courts disagreed. In fact, the court was quoted as saying “Musall's offenses are among the worst we have seen.” It was said that his sentence was an “aggravated term.” Now, I can tell you how they come to that conclusion but I am unsure that I know if it made a difference in how much of his time he would have to serve. I suspect that it is very little considering that he is only required to serve three years more than 50% of his sentence before being eligible for parole. What the court meant by the aggravated terms was the fact that Musall did not just shoot and murder Joe Snow... he tortured, strangled and beat him more than was ever needed to kill him. When it came to the rape of Tanya he did much more than “just rape” her... he beat and attempted to strangle her also.

As I was reading through the account of how things happened I was simply appalled. Not only did he torture and murder Joe, he tortured, beat and made Tanya realistically believe she and her daughter were next. Authorities and judges have said they hope that the baby, who slipped in her own father's blood was too young to remember this incident but regardless her entire life was altered on that night! This is one of those cases where I can confidently say he deserves to be UNDER the prison.

Ana Roybal

2022-06-21T06:58:00.002-07:00

I was a bit surprised at how little I found on this story. If I had not found an appeal on this case with some good information I am unsure that I would have even sat down to compose this story and I find that odd considering the case and the things involved. There has been an episode of the show, “Twisted Sisters” that dealt with this case and while I cannot recall that may be where I first heard this story.

On August 25, 2001 a man named Erik Anderson and his wife were driving past The 720 Club, a place described as being used by “self help groups” such as AA and others, in Kerrville Texas when they saw two women in the parking lot having an argument. He had his wife stop the car, called 911 and went towards the women. As he did one of women, later to be determined to be Ana Roybal, threw a knife (not in his direction apparently) and took off running. Ana ran into the building with Erik Anderson chasing her. He finally caught up with her and detained her until the police would arrive. As he was doing so Ana was screaming and yelling something about her social security checks. At the time no one knew for sure what she was talking about.

In the parking lot would lay Mary Moon, Ana's sister. She had been stabbed at least four times and one of those stab wounds punctured her heart. She was taking to the hospital and died a few hours later there. And, while it seems that Ana was arrested on that day it was several days before she was officially charged with murder on September 6^th. She would plead not guilty by reason of insanity.

I found reports that stated that in 1986 Ana had given birth to a son she named Michael but that she had almost immediately abandoned him with what it said was HER grandparents but I cannot confirm this. It may have actually been her parents and Michael's grandparents but I cannot be sure. It was said that she eventually lost custody of him. In 1995 her died and Mary, who was married without children began taking care of Michael. I was unable to determine when or where Ana was throughout all of this time.

Apparently at some point she had come back. At the time of the murder it was said that Ana had accused Mary of stealing her social security checks, having sex with her ex-boyfriend and for “allowing men to sexually assault her seventeen year old son.” I found nothing to state that these allegations were true in anyway. That being said, I would be remiss if I also did not point out that I found nothing that said they were false either. In fact, I found nothing at all other than the allegations so I am uncertain how Ana had come to these conclusions. It was eluded to that these were basically ideas that she had conjured in her head.

Ana's trial began on August 5, 2002. Several witnesses testified that she had “a history of bizarre and erratic behavior for many years” leading up to the murder. Two expert witnesses testified that she was “psychotic and delusional” at the time of the murder. I did find something that stated that Ana “had been prescribed medication for schizophrenia and other mental conditions” but it was not specific whether this had been going on for years or only discovered/treated after her arrest.

I found very little about what the prosecution argued at trial but I can only assume that they argued she was not “insane.” That is not a difficult thing to do though and there have been many arguments over the years about the rule of court when it comes to insanity. I have said it many times here before but the long and short of it is that if the person knows the difference between right and wrong then they are not legally considered insane. This is called The M'Naghten Rule in which has been considered, with very few alterations or edits since the mid- 1800's. Many have argued that the law itself is antiquated and I am unsure that I can disagree. We obviously know so, so much more about mental illness today than we did in the 1800's and I think making this basically a black and white issue is not necessarily justice. The only case in which I can think off the top of my head in which was ever considered differently, and then only after a trial and a conviction, is the case of Andrea Yates who drowned her children.

The jury convicted Ana and she was sentenced to sixty years in prison. According to the Texas Department of Corrections website she is eligible for parole in September of 2031 but they have her projected date of parole listed as her maximum date which is in September of 2061.

I did find something else interesting on the Department of Corrections website. In 1997 Ana was sentenced to two years on charges of “injury to a child.” I found nothing else related to this so I cannot give details but I did find this interesting.

Obviously with such little information I cannot say for certain whether I believe the jury “got it right” or not and in those cases I always defer to the jury and believe that they did. I can only assume that they relied on the M'Naghten Rule in determining her guilt which is the legal way to do things but I question whether this is one of those cases in which I believe that rule to be inadequate to use. I say this because I do know people who suffer not just from mental illness but from schizophrenia in particular. I am not one who believes that mental illness is a reason or an excuse to “get away” with murder, but I do believe that in cases such as these things should be looked into more and considered at a different level. I want to know things about when she was diagnosed with mental illness; was she prescribed medication at the time of the murder, and was she taking it; just how severe was her mental illness and how far back had this been an issue.

As lay people we often say that for someone to commit murder they must be “crazy” and while on the surface that may sound legit, I think that too goes too far “the other way” from the M'Naghten Rule. I believe there must be some sort of happy medium somewhere that takes into account mental illness or at the very least addresses this and provides some sort of therapy if there is going to be incarceration. This is something we are hearing a lot about especially at local levels. Jails are being overcrowded as it is and many are filled with people who keep returning because they are not receiving the care they need when they are there. I suspect Ana falls into this category, but then again I could be wrong. Maybe she cannot be helped and maybe being kept away from the public is the best solution, at least at this time.

Danielle Redlick

2022-06-19T13:56:00.002-07:00

I am putting this case together literally the day after the verdict was read. I admit that I heard a little about case throughout the trial but really knew very little about it except for the fact it was a case of a wife murdering her husband with a kitchen knife. I also heard rumors that her husband used to be her stepfather, but again, I knew none of the details. Today it is difficult to find those details because the first things to pop up revolve around the verdict. I do know that domestic violence was alleged and after the verdict the case was often compared to the now infamous Depp V. Heard trial that ended earlier this month. More specifically many of the law shows talked about the difference between Amber Heard's testimony and that of Danielle Redlick.

As I said finding deep specifics about this case proved to be a bit difficult but I will do the best that I can and hopefully any of you that watched the trial or know more can chime in. What I can tell you is that at the time of his death Michael Redlick was sixty-five years old. His wife, Danielle was twenty years younger than he and they had been married for fifteen years at that point. So, they were approximately thirty and fifty years old at the time of their marriage. They also had a fifteen year old daughter and an eleven year old son at the time of his death. At some point Michael had been married to Danielle's mother and after she died Michael and Danielle got together. Nothing was ever clear anywhere how old Danielle was when Michael became her stepfather or how long Michael and her mother were married. I saw things that said neither side super addressed this in the trial. The prosecution of course would not want to but it would have seemed helpful to the defense, or it could have been, again depending on how long that marriage had lasted and how old Danielle was when it began.

Some of you may be asking yourself why I feel the stepfather/stepdaughter relationship could have been important... here is why. In most families that involve a stepparent that stepparent is give authority over the children. They are expected to respect them and listen to them just as they would any parent. Depending on how old Danielle was when her mother entered the relationship with Michael can make a huge difference because it would have set the tone for Michael and Danielle's relationship. While we do not often use the words dominant and submissive in every day relationships, we do hear about them in ones in which there are allegations of abuse and we do not generally use those words when describing parent/child relationships but in this case that dynamic was different. If Michael was a huge authority figure to Danielle when he was her stepfather and she basically “did as she was told” then it would not be a stretch to believe that that dynamic remained between them when they became romantically involved.

On the morning of January 12, 2019 Danielle Redlick called 911 from her Winter Park Florida home. She reported that there had been a “tragedy” in her home and she believed her husband was “deceased.” She even told the 911 operator that she believed he may have had a heart attack. Now, over time Danielle's story would change repeatedly. In another version she attempted to say that Michael had stabbed himself. At her trial she told another story that involved self defense.

Now, I have heard and seen stories where there were comments that Michael was stabbed several times but from everything I could find that was not the case. He had one stab wound to his left shoulder, done admittedly, or obviously, not sure if it was both, and coroner believed he had defensive wounds on his arms or hands. Whether the coroner believed those “defensive wounds” were from the knife I cannot say. But, here is where it gets a bit sticky.

Even before her trial it was determined that after Michael had been stabbed Danielle had waited about eleven hours before she called 911. Prosecutors say that within that eleven hours she got on a dating website, attempted to clean up the blood in the house and his body and may even slept before later cutting her own wrists. I do want to say that I cannot say for certain that she cut her wrists prior to the 911 call but I found nothing that stated she spoke of this on her 911 call. So, either she had done it prior and did not call 911 for herself at all, or she did it after the 911 call and prior to the police arriving to the home. She seemingly did not, or could not dispute these things from happening.

The following month she was arrested on charges of second degree murder and tampering with evidence. At some point she was offered a plea deal where if she pleaded guilty to manslaughter she would receive a sentence of ten years. She rejected that deal. Her trial began on June 5, 2022 and lasted until June 17^th. After four hours of deliberations the jury returned with their verdict. They found her not guilty on the murder charge, but guilty on the tampering charge. I knew the case was going on and when it started but had only really turned my television on on the last day. The jury had returned that morning to deliberate so I knew they had only been deliberating for a few hours. I left my house and I received a notification on my phone (through the Court TV app) that a verdict had been reached. Again, knowing very little about the case other than she was facing a murder charge I remember thinking to myself this was a not guilty verdict. I just did not feel that they had been out long enough to come back with guilty. That being said I was unaware at the time about the tampering charge but even still I believe that was likely an easy decision to come to. Police officers had reported smelling bleach when they entered the home and found Michael's bloody shirt under some blood soaked towels. It was also said that there were “swirls” on the floor indicating there had been some mopping. But, lets be fair... she obviously did not completely clean up the scene before officers got there or they would not have seen these things. I think that is important and I will touch on that later.

The prosecution argued that Danielle was the aggressor in the family and that she had murdered Michael so that she could have a “new life.” They pointed to her going to a dating website, her lies to 911, her changing story, and stated that her slitting her wrists was a sign of guilt. Danielle and Michael's now eighteen year old daughter testified against her mother saying that she was very close to her father and saying that her mother was “toxic and very manipulative.” The prosecution made it sound as if Danielle had repeatedly stabbed Michael but I can only assume that they were referring to what the coroner referred to as defensive wounds. I say this because this is where some of my confusion came. I heard clips from the trial that showed the prosecutors closing arguments among other things and I kept hearing this being referenced yet my research and other things that I found repeatedly stated that Danielle stabbed him one time. There was at least one other witness, a friend of Michael's, that testified that Danielle was the aggressor in the relationship. The prosecution was asking for a sentence of life without parole.

The defense, for their part argued there was domestic abuse in the relationship and said Michael was the aggressor. They presented two witnesses, besides Danielle who testified she suffered from domestic violence at the hands of Michael. For her Danielle testified that on the night of his murder the couple had an argument and in the process she claimed that he had choked and attempted to smother her. She claimed that she was pinned down on her back by him and had been able to reach a drawer and retrieved a knife. She claimed she stabbed him once in the left shoulder, got away and ran to the bathroom to hide. She claimed when she finally came out that his blood was everywhere and she had even began to slip in it. She went to him and discovered him not breathing and attempted CPR. I cannot say for certain her reasoning for waiting eleven hours before calling 911 or what the defense would claim. While the prosecution argued this was all but a planned killing the defense argued that there was no way of anyone believing that a stab wound to the shoulder would have killed someone. I am unsure whether it was the defense or prosecution who presented the evidence but it was determined that the stab wound had hit a major artery and had punctured his lung. They estimated that he bled out in a matter of about six minutes. The defense also argued, “she doesn't have to have injuries, she just has to reasonably believe that his violent attack against her will cause death or bodily harm.”

After the trial one of the jury members was quoted as saying he “believed the state left too much room for reasonable doubt. When you have a history of abuse and so many other factors, and you can't say 100 percent, because this is somebody's life that is being determined then we can only do the best we can.” Michael's friend that had testified for the prosecution seemed to agree and criticized them for not portraying her as the aggressor in the relationship.

Throughout this case my mind kept going to the Susan Wright case. For those who do not recall this case there is a blog about it but I will give a quick version here. Susan Wright murdered her husband, Jeff, in 2003 in their Texas home, in their bed. She claimed that he was abusive to her throughout the marriage. She proceeded to bury him in the backyard of their home. Five days later she contacted an attorney, confessed and a few days later turned herself into authorities. She argued at her trial that basically she had PTSD after the event and while she did murder him by stabbing him 193 times, and bury him in the backyard she could not process that and believed he was still alive. The jury did not believe her and convicted her. She was sentenced to twenty-five years. Later she was given a new sentence but it was only five years left. She was released in 2020.

Danielle's case was not this extreme obviously as she called 911 eleven hours after she stabbed her husband but any time there is a delay it looks bad. There is the idea that was pushed in the Wright case of insanity or lack of awareness would be a more accurate wording. I think Danielle's defense attorney's were correct in their argument that a reasonable person would not have believed that a single stab wound to the shoulder would have caused death. I am unsure if I heard how long she allegedly stayed in the bathroom after the incident. But, as I stated earlier it was determined that it likely took less than ten minutes for Michael to die from the wound. While the prosecution alleged the eleven hours was spent basically for lack of a better phrase “doing her own thing” I think the defense argued it was more for being in a fog and lack of awareness.

The prosecution brought up that within that eleven hours Danielle got on a dating website and I want to address this issue. There was evidence that both Danielle and Michael had been unfaithful throughout the marriage. It was said that he had been the first (I did not see when this happened) and Danielle left him. Her defense attorney's argued that Michael had begged her to come back and then when that did not work he threatened to take their home and their children from her so apparently she went back. An article then stated that according to the defense, “when Danielle later began speaking to other men Michael became angry and jealous.” It is unclear what sort of arrangement the couple had but I wanted to mention this here because her being on a dating website sounds as if it was possibly a normal routine for her. It is not as if she stabbed and murdered her husband and then went online to a dating website for the first time. I fully got the impression that this was far from her first time. Am I wrong? Anything is possible but I feel as if it was the first time I would have found something that stated this. And, let's be fair, this may be one of the areas where both a juror and a prosecution witness saw the prosecution in failing to make their case.

It is clear that Danielle “tampered with evidence” and the jury was justified in that verdict but I also think the way things were tampered with tells us a story. The prosecution made it sound as if she was hiding things and lying and of course had murdered her husband with premeditation. And of course they made a huge deal about the eleven hours it took her to call 911. In my opinion the fact that there were bloody towels still laying around and officers reported finding bloody mop water and blood “swirls” on the floor says that she did not do a good job and I believe that is telling. If her goal was to hide things and cover things up she would have done a much better job at cleaning the scene in those eleven hours before calling 911. That is not to mean that if everything would have been clean and pristine when the officers arrived that things did not happen the way she testified. Think about the movie “Sleeping With the Enemy” about domestic violence. The woman faked her death to get away from her abusive husband but even when on her own she caught herself making sure things were exactly the way he had liked them such as everything being in its place and turned correctly.

In this case though I think the fact that she did not clean everything up, or clean up very well could indicate she was in a panic or anxiety ridden state at that time. The question would be why wait eleven hours to call 911 and make a half attempt of cleaning, rather than completely clean or do none at all. I do believe this points to her not planning for this to happen or having those thoughts in her head.

Early on I mentioned that many legal commentators have compared this case to the recent Depp V Heard case. Again, while murder was not the subject of the Depp trial, domestic abuse was. In both cases the alleged victim got on the stand and told their story. Legal analysts and body language experts have weighed in on both cases and say there were vast differences in their testimony. Most believed that Danielle sounded much more credible than Amber Heard in their testimony. To be fair I have only seen snippets of Danielle's testimony after the fact but I have heard the analysts. With this all being said I have also heard things as far as Amber Heard's testimony being either “too rehearsed” like when she faced the jury every time she answered a question, to not rehearsed or guided enough by her attorney's when she would get more hostile with the other attorney's or refuse to take accountability.

I do not know if the jury actually believed that Danielle was a victim of domestic violence or not. The verdict itself would indicate that they did. However, the comment from the juror gives the impression that this was more of a case in which the prosecution simply did not prove their case and the jury felt there was reasonable doubt. I feel as if the prosecution was “banking” on those eleven hours after Michael was stabbed as their “home run” of sorts and yet everything was not so cut and dry. This is how the law does, and should work. Some could say it was just another case in Florida where someone got away with murder. Florida has gotten this reputation since the Casey Anthony and George Zimmerman cases. In fairness I believe the prosecution in those cases proved their cases and yet the jury still acquitted them so people do have a point when it comes to Florida. However, I just do not feel that is the case here. It is the job of the prosecution to convince a jury beyond “reasonable doubt” that a defendant is guilty.... that is their job. It is the job of the defense to poke holes in the theory and create reasonable doubt. It has been said repeatedly when it came to the Depp V Heard case that her lawyers were “out lawyered” by his and this may be true but it was a civil case, not a criminal case. No one was looking at jail time and losing their freedom in that case. Danielle's case was different. This is why a defendant can file an appeal for “ineffective counsel” in a criminal trial. But in cases where the prosecution is out lawyered, well, that is their one chance and if they lose, they lose forever.

After the verdict a judge granted Danielle a bail and later that afternoon she was released. She is scheduled to be sentenced this coming August for the tampering charge. Most believe she will likely get a sentence of “time served.” The maximum sentence she could receive is five years and by the time of the trial she had already served three and a half. Florida requires that an inmate serve 85% of their sentence but most do not believe that she will get the maximum sentence in this case. If she were she to get the full five years she would have to serve less than a year more of time. I suspect that the prosecutor will push for the maximum considering they lost their main charge in court.

Virgil Decker

2022-06-18T06:57:00.000-07:00

I began reading a book about old Indiana cases called “Murders That Made Headlines” by Jane Simon Ammeson. The book is full of cases from the 1920's and before that happened in Indiana. I have not read every story but I did skim it to see what the cases were and added them to my list to research. In fact, I sat down all day yesterday researching a case and putting it together only to realize when I went to publish it that I had already done it in the past! I have double checked the others now :)

When you search about this case you are given the impression that an entire family is involved. Four people from one family were arrested for this crime but in the end it appears that only one was convicted. I say “appears” because when you are looking up old cases, such as this one, I often find some conflicting evidence. Cases like these often prove difficult to research because things that are actually rumors or legends within the story often are passed down as fact and it is difficult to determine which of those things are true and which are not.

On the night of March 12, 1921 a train was on the tracks near the unincorporated town of Atwood Indiana, near Warsaw Indiana. Basically what that means is that the “town” does not have a local government and today, more than 100 years later they are described as “existing by tradition.” In order to be an official town there must be a post office. Yes, I know that sounds odd but that is how it works. There are many of these little places all over, particularly in the northern part of the state where there is a lot of farmland. Also, many areas were named prior to this “rule” and the names have just kind of “stuck.” That being said, in 1921 the town was considered to be Atwood. As the train was on the tracks the conductor saw a horseless buggy on the tracks but it was too late for him to stop.

Eventually the train did stop but not before it hit and ran over the buggy. While the buggy was not little more than kindling, between the tracks laid a young man, unconscious but alive. He was taken to the nearby town of Bourbon presumably for medical care. It was said that he never spoke and he died just a few hours later. Several things at the scene, and the condition of the body, led law enforcement pretty early to determine this was not an accident.

First, it was discovered that the victim appeared to have been tortured. His lower jaw was broken and there were marks on his neck that indicated there was an attempt to strangle him. It was also said that “escelsior” was stuffed in his mouth. I had never heard of this and as long as the definition I found is correct, it was said to be “softwood” or softwood shavings. The victims clothes were wet and he was covered in sand.

Near the tracks was an abandoned Ford vehicle. At the time it was unclear if this vehicle had anything to do with the crime. Then there were horse tracks. It was said that the shoe of the horse was very distinctive. Law enforcement officials followed the horse tracks that led away from the crossing and it went to a farm owned by Fred Decker. In fact the horse was in the Decker barn. The horse had a harness on it still but it appeared as if it had been cut by a knife.

From the information I gathered, Fred Decker lived on the farm with his wife and at least his eighteen year old brother, Virgil lived with them. It is not clear whether law enforcement attempt to speak with anyone at the farm that night. I got the impression that this crime happened at night but I could not find anything that gave me any sort of time and it was later said that Fred and his wife had been out of town until about ten that night and that had been verified. It was said that in the “coach pocket” was a letter that “identified the victim as Virgil Decker.” I too this to mean as being part of the buggy that the train had destroyed and not necessarily on the victim himself.

The following day, on March 13^th Fred Decker, along with his mother Calvin “Cal” and their mother, Lydia identified the body as that of Virgil Decker. However, the next day an Elkhart couple arrived and viewed the body and said it was their son, nineteen year old Leroy Lovett. According to the parents Leroy was a friend of Virgil Decker's and that two nights previously Virgil had picked up Leroy in a vehicle and was supposed to take him to visit Leroy's sister but he had never arrived.

Law enforcement learned quickly that both Virgil Decker and Leroy Lovett looked very similar to each other so they were not sure what to think. The Decker family insisted they did not know where Virgil was at the time so the local sheriff believed he needed to be looking for another person. What he did not know was whether he would find another body or a live person. It was said “up to the hour of the inquest both families continued to claim the body.” On March 15^th the coroner positively identified the body as being that of Leroy Lovett and the Decker family withdrew their claim. At that point there was a warrant issued for Virgil's arrest charging him with first degree murder.

It is unclear at what point the sheriff discovered what he believed to be the primary crime scene. I cannot say if this was before or after the body was positively identified. There was a “summer cottage” along the Tippecanoe River about a mile south of the railroad tracks. It had been empty since the previous fall. Inside there were broken windows and cupboards. Furniture was overturned but most importantly there was blood apparently everywhere. Some was just blood splatter but it was said that there were bloody hand prints on the door both inside and out. There was also an indication that someone had at some point crawled from the river back to the cottage.

On March 16^th “word came that Virgil had been arrested” and was being held at the jail in Marion Indiana. The local sheriff went there and brought him back to Warsaw that day. Initially Virgil claimed innocence. He said that on the 12^th he had been doing work on the farm. Apparently several people witnessed him several times in town throughout the day also. It appears that no one seemed to find anything odd with him, but to be fair I cannot say that with complete certainty. According to Virgil he left on the evening of the 12^th and went to Marion to visit an uncle.

It was discovered that within three months leading up to Leroy's murder that Virgil had obtained three life insurance policies on himself that totaled $24,000. Two of those policies paid double if he were to die accidentally. The policies cost $500 a year for the premiums and Virgil's brother, Fred, was the beneficiary on all of them. The theory became that Virgil had tortured and later set up Leroy to be murdered because he looked so similar to himself that people would believe it was him and his family, and ultimately he, could cash in on the policies.

Then it seems that Virgil began making a series of confessions. In the first two he alleged that another man from Elkhart, only using the name “Guy,” was the killer of Leroy. In his third confession he admitted that he was the murderer but could not give a reason with only saying “The devil made me do it.” He admitted that he had rented the abandoned car that was found, this was proven by a man who identified Virgil as the person to rent the auto only under a different name, and said that Leroy had decided not to visit his sister and it had been suggested they go to the “cottage” and “cook some chicken.” Still in a fourth confession Virgil named a family friend as the murderer but that man was proven to be innocent of the crime.

The case was sent to a grand jury and five days later they returned indictments of first degree murder not just against Virgil but also against his two brothers, Fred and Cal, and his mother, Lydia. Presumably the other indictments were due to the fact that the grand jury must have believed that the family was in on the murder to procure the insurance policies Virgil had taken out. Virgil requested that his trial be separate from the others and that request was granted. His trial began on June 1, 1921, less than three months after the crime. Prosecutors brought in pieces of things from the cottage showing the blood and evidence that had been found there. They also alleged that the “death weapon” was an iron bar that was about 2.5 feet long. Whether they produced that weapon is unknown. They also of course pushed the issue about the insurance policies but interestingly enough, despite the fact that there were others awaiting trial for the murder it was said that the prosecution claimed that Virgil, and Virgil alone committed the crime.

As far as the defense goes, they proved that it was the insurance agents that had approached Virgil and not the other way around indicating that at the very least there had not been a plan in place to fake his death or at least prior to obtaining the policies. Of course that does not mean that after getting them the idea had not come to him. They also pointed out that while Fred was listed as the beneficiary on all the policies he not only did not appear to have money problems, hence needing the money, but his father-in-law was apparently fairly wealthy himself so if Fred needed money he could have gone to him. The defense also argued that Virgil was well known in the Marion Indiana area and it would have made no sense for him to “run” there to hide if he had committed the crime. As we know he was found rather quickly after the warrant for his arrest was issued. The defense also provided two witnesses who stated they saw a “stranger” near the cottage and farm on the night of the crime. It appears that between this and the fact that it was allegedly proven that Virgil had been seen in town several times throughout the day the defense was banking on the idea of reasonable doubt.

On June 10, 1921, after three hours of deliberations the jury returned with a verdict of guilty. The prosecution had asked for the death penalty but the jury had recommended a life sentence. It is unclear how much of his sentence he served but according to Findagrave.com his name was actually James Virgil and he died in 1984 at the age of eighty-two. It also claims that he was married to a woman named Elizabeth who died in 1974. There were no children listed but then again that is not unusual whether there were children or not.

This is where it gets a little confusing. My initial information said that four days after Virgil's conviction Fred and Cal were released on bond and that Lydia was held not responsible and was released, with all charges dropped. It went on to say that Fred was tried for the murder in Columbia City at some point but was found not guilty and that Cal was never tried. However, according to a genealogy site that allegedly quoted The Elkhart Truth from January of 1922, Lydia had also been tried and given a life sentence but had been released on her “own recognizance” only to have the charges dropped later. This seems rather odd that she would have been convicted and given a life sentence only to be released and charges dropped. I feel as if this was likely misquoted or had misinformation and that it is more likely that charges were dropped before she ever went to trial. Lydia died in 1938 and I can say that at that time it appears that Virgil was still in prison in Michigan City.

There was one report that allegedly Virgil had placed his own overalls on Leroy's body and that may account for the letter that was found that initially had law enforcement believing that it was he who had died, but I cannot confirm this. I do agree that all of the evidence pointed to Virgil. There was the fact that a car that he was known to rent had been abandoned nearby, the horse that had presumably pulled the buggy to the tracks was found in the barn of the home he lived, and it was known that he had picked Leroy Lovett up at his home. It is less certain as to whether his family was in on it. It does seem that there was enough belief that they were involved because while doing a search you will find things that indicate they were all involved. Theoretically, the insurance policies could have been obtained, making Fred the beneficiary without anyone's knowledge of any sort of plan, but they would have had to eventually been in on it. It does not mean that when they identified the body as belonging to Virgil they were being deceptive. There is no way of knowing whether they would have known at that point that Virgil was still alive. I suspect that the prosecutor knew this too and after Fred was acquitted at trial he knew there would be no way to convict the others. Fred would have been the next best shot at a conviction. He lived at the home with Virgil, he owned the farm in which the horse had come from, he lived near the scene and he was the beneficiary on the life insurance policies. Failing to obtain a conviction there pretty much ensured the others would go free.

David Repasky

2022-06-14T11:14:00.004-07:00

When I research a case I basically put the information I find in different categories and give them the weight I feel it deserves. At the top of that list are appeal records. If I can find an appeal record that is not just the thing I rely on the most, but will also be the first thing I will read to get information. The next level is newspaper articles and those are pretty much sub-divided. From time to time I will find one that did a day by day or even a timeline throughout a day update article and those are fairly good. From there I have to be a bit skeptical because many times as stories are updated they will basically re-publish much of a previous article and if it had some facts confused or misleading it can become a bit of a problem. It may seem odd but the sources that I depend on the least are blogs such as mine. It is not that I do not have respect for most of those who do this, but I find a lot of misinformation in blogs especially when it comes to the legal issues. I recently blogged about a case in which there had been two trials that ended in hung juries. I found a blog that repeatedly stated that the person had been found “not guilty” and “innocent of all charges.” Neither of these statements are true in that particular case. Through blogs I may find new information that I have not discovered but I do try to verify that information.

With all of that being said, when it came to this case I did come across several articles but few were written at the time of the trial or during the investigation. Many were written a long time after, sometimes years. I also came across several blogs, but again, I tend to go through those with a grain of salt. Normally finding the little information that I found would have had me question whether I would even blog about this case at all. However, this case intrigues me, maybe it is because there is so little information with evidence and facts available. Based on the information released there is no way of knowing what, besides the word of a man who first was arrested with David Repasky on other charges and later confessed to helping him commit another crime, one more serious, and being granted immunity from prosecution, was entered into evidence proving David Repasky's guilt. So, lets dig in, shall we?

In June of 2000 David Repasky married his long time girlfriend, Amanda. They already had two children and Amanda was pregnant with their third. Amanda's parent had long been divorced and while she was very close to her mother, Lynda McClelland, it was also said that her childhood with her mother, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, had been difficult. Lynda had bouts of depression and expressed suicidal thoughts.

On the night of July 26, 2000 David and Amanda had gone over to Lynda's North Braddock Pennsylvania home because she was “upset.” This appeared to be one of the times that Lynda talked of suicide but it was said that she “did not seem serious.” This was the last time Amanda saw her mother. The couple left and went home to their home where they had a babysitter for their other children who decided to spend the night at their home. Amanda went to bed but David had stayed up. The following morning Amanda got up around 8:00 and David was not home. According to the babysitter he had left around five that morning. He returned between 9:00 and 9:30. I found nothing that stated where he claimed to have been or even what he looked like when he returned home.

It is unclear at what point Amanda realized her mother was gone. I saw a very quick reference that did not go into detail that she may have had a boyfriend but again, I have no real information on that. At some point in 2002 Amanda even went on the Montel Williams show when he had psychic, Sylvia Browne on his show. Regardless of what you think of psychics or Sylvia Browne specifically is another blog for another day. On this episode Sylvia told Amanda that Lynda had been abducted by a man with the initials “M.J.” and was taken to Orlando Florida and was still alive. It is not clear whether Amanda believed this or pursued the lead.

On March 10, 2003 David Repasky, his best friend Donald Wall and at least eight others were arrested and accused of being involved in a burglary ring that was responsible for “more than 300 burglaries in eight Western Pennsylvania counties.” It was indicated that David had in fact cooperated with authorities prior to the arrests being made and that Donald Wall knew about it. By all indications on that day Donald Wall began to talk about the disappearance of Lynda McClelland. I suspect however on that day he told them he had information because it was four more days before Wall took investigators to where Lynda's body had been buried and in the process he was given immunity from prosecution.

David went on trial in December of 2003. According to Wall, David had murdered Lynda in her home on the morning of June 27, 2000. Allegedly David was having an affair with Lynda although I found no other details other than this statement. Prosecutors would say that she was murdered because she had threatened to tell her daughter Amanda about the affair but this theory seems to have come from Wall who would claim that David said he had had sex with Lynda and then choked her and stood on her neck when she threatened to tell Amanda. This is where things get even more questionable. One article I read stated that Wall stated that he had dug a hole on some property that was less than a half mile from his grandmothers house. He may or may not have been living there at the time. There was an indication that he hung around and waited for David and when he did not show Wall went home and called him. Later he went back and said he found a body wrapped in garbage bags and duct tape and that he put the body in the hole and buried it. Another article however said that Wall told authorities that David had driven him to a store to buy trash bags and duct tape and that the two of them wrapped Lynda's body and put it in her basement, covered with clothing. Of course that does not mean that the first scenario I mentioned did not also happen but the latter information seemed to show that Wall was more involved than the first one had indicated. Three days after the body was found David was charged with the first degree murder of his mother in law.

David did not have a jury trial. The wording I found was “non jury” which indicates a “bench trial” meaning that only a judge was left to decide his fate. This is not unheard of in murder trials but it is also not all that extremely common. Pennsylvania is one of the few “commonwealth” states and they do things a bit different but they do still require that a jury be unanimous in criminal convictions. This is why it is unusual for someone to have a bench trial in a criminal case. Twelve (generally, or sometimes less depending on the state rules) have to agree on a verdict and that gives a defendant more of a chance to at the very least have the jury come to no conclusion and there be a hung jury. When only a judge is involved then that judge is the sole decider in the case. Again, I am not proficient on Pennsylvania law but some states require more than the word of a co-conspirator in order to file charges against another person. While Wall made a deal for immunity, it would still not have been enough, in some states, to file charges against David. As I said from the beginning I found little information on this case and the words of Donald Wall was the only evidence that I found. Does that mean there was not more? Absolutely not. It is completely possible that there were security cameras showing the two men going to a store that day to buy trash bags and duct tape. The problem is that I do not know.

The defense argued that David was framed because he had agreed to testify in the burglary case and would have testified basically against Donald Wall. Amanda, who had divorced David the month before his trial began testified about the night before and day of her mother's disappearance. There were comments made that Amanda absolutely believed her husband to be guilty in the murder of her mother. With all of this being said the judge declared David Repasky guilty and he was ultimately given a sentence of life without parole.

I found David in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections but with little information. Some states are better at this than others. Interestingly I found nothing related to Donald Wall there. Yes, he was given immunity in this case but there was still the alleged burglary ring that he and David had been involved in. In fact, I found nothing more on that case at all aside from the connection to Lynda's murder.

Did David murder his mother in law? Maybe but the media never released enough information to allow anyone to make an informed decision. Generally you will hear me say that we have to believe that the “jury got it right” but in this case there was no jury... there was a single person sitting behind a bench. In this case we do not even have twelve people that are able to come back and tell us why they came to the decision that they did. Some could say that the fact that Amanda believes it is enough and again, maybe he did do it, but was there really enough evidence to convict him? I have seen case after case where family members do not believe in their guilt until prosecutors convince them, but then cannot do the same to a jury. Sometimes family members want to believe there is justice for their loved one, regardless who it is and is willing to believe whatever law enforcement and prosecutors tell them. I am not saying that is for certain the case here but in my opinion more should have been released to the media at the time of the crime for informed opinions. At this point most will not question the verdict, and I am unsure that is valid.

What Unsolved Crime do you want Solved?

2022-06-12T07:50:00.006-07:00

I feel like I say this often.... we are going to do something a little different here. I do not blog about a lot of “unsolved” cases here because I am the type of person that likes a conclusion to things. In the same respect I have done several where someone was tried and acquitted such as the Casey Anthony and the O.J. Simpson cases.

As technology and advances in DNA continually evolve we are seeing more and more cases that we never thought would be solved in fact come to an end. There have been cases like that of The Golden State Killer that have been solved by using genealogy and DNA results to solve. Many cases sitting and awaiting trial right now are cases that were long ago cold such as the Sheila Keen-Warren case. She is accused of dressing up as a clown and murdering the wife of the man she would go on to marry in 1990.

Then there are the cases that likely will never be solved like the case of JonBonet Ramsey who was murdered in her home in 1996 or as in the case I recently blogged about, the murder of Brittany Eldridge. These are cases where the investigations were either so inept or too focused on particular people to ever think there will be justice. What about the Keddie Cabin Murders in 1981 where a woman and three children were killed? What about the mysterious disappearance of Amy and Scott Fandel in Alaska in 1978? Then there is always the question of who killed and dismembered “The Black Dahlia” in 1947. Who really was Jack The Ripper? Was it one man or were there simply copycats? What about The Zodiac killer? Has he really been identified? Were the murders of Tupac and B.I.G. related to each other and was B.I.G's murder retaliation? And if so was it, I do not want to say “justified” but legit in the idea that he was behind the murder of Tupac? Was Lizzie Borden really innocent or did the jury just fail to convict her in the murders of her father and stepmother because she was a woman? Who bludgeoned Bob Crane in his bed? Who murdered little Amber Hagerman who is now the namesake of Amber Alerts? Did Sam Sheppard murder his wife or did the “one armed man” do it?

If you were told that you could have one crime solved (and there be no question that it was the truth) that has never been solved or the identity of a suspected serial killer... which one would you pick? Would it be one of those I mentioned above? Would it be on that involves someone you know or were close to? I think for me it would be a toss up between either JonBonet Ramsey or Caylee Anthony. For the Ramsey case I truly just want to know who did it and how. Of course I have my suspicions, but so does everyone else. Lets have it solved, was it a family member or was it not? As far as the Anthony case, I, like most people truly believe that Casey Anthony is/was guilty. I believe there was plenty of evidence to prove that in her trial but the jury ruled differently. I have heard that they have said they ruled the way they did because, although it was of no fault of the prosecutors, there was no clear cause of death. I would just like to see the full truth out there. Of course Casey Anthony could never be tried again which is a shame but the entire world would no without question.

The Murder of Brittany Eldridge

2022-06-11T20:32:00.002-07:00

This is one of those cases that as I sit down to write I am unsure exactly what I think about the case. Sometimes when this happens by the time I am done I have leaned a little more in one direction. Currently I am unsure with the information that I have researched that this will be one of those cases. By the time I am done, I may still be on the fence.

In December 2011 twenty-five year old Brittany Eldridge was murdered in her Knoxville Tennessee apartment. Investigators believe she was preparing for a shower when she was attacked from the back.. She was choked and suffocated and then stabbed in the neck two times with what was believed to be scissors. Brittany was nine month pregnant with a son she planned to name Ezekiel. He would die in womb.

The father of Brittany's baby was a co-worker named Norman Eugene Clark. When Brittany had not shown up at work Clark called her mother and asked her to check on her because he could not reach her. Brittany's mother went to her apartment and found her body. The police were obviously called. Inside the home the contents of Brittany's purse were thrown about; televisions had been removed from their stands and placed on the floor; drawers had been open and rummaged through. But, according to investigators nothing was taken, not even Brittany's debit card that had the password code attached to it. Law enforcement believed that the scene was staged to look like a robbery. They noted the lack of forced entry.

Of course Norman Clark became a prime suspect right away and he was interviewed. He consented to have his car and phone searched. Investigators launched an investigation into Clark and learned that he was involved with several women at the same time, and it seems that none of them knew of the others. They learned through text messages that Clark was supposed to meet with Brittany on the night of her murder but he claims he did not show. It was said that his phone had been shut off about 9:06 pm that night but I never saw where it stated that when his phone was turned back on. It was also said that between 9 and 10 Brittany had sent three messages to Clark but I found nothing that told what those text messages said. It is not clear exactly what Clark claimed to have been doing but at 10:40pm another girlfriend of his, who was said to live just a few miles from Brittany, says she woke up and he was “in her bedroom.”

I am going to be fair here and say I am uncertain what happened or what was found that two and a half years after Brittany's murder Clark was arrested on May 14, 2014. My research says that there was no DNA found, at least none pointing to Clark, nor was the weapon, thought to be scissors found. In August of 2015 Clark went on trial. Prosecutors seemed to bank on his personal life as being the basis for their theory. They claimed that Clark killed Brittany because she had threatened to sue him for child support and that the mother of his other daughter would do the same (I found something later that said she was already receiving child support) and he already had “money issues.” Clark's attorney's argued the burglary angle. The trial ended with a hung jury. They had voted 11-1 for acquittal. Prosecutors decided to try him again.

Now, when there is more than one trial in a case prosecutors tend to have the advantage and in this case that was surely true. Both sides knew that all but one of the jurors had not believed that the state had proven their case. That meant if the prosecutors wanted to win they were going to have to step up their game. After the trial Clark did an interview with Dateline and prosecutors attempted to sue to get the footage before it aired. It was not clear if they were successful. Clark had been held in jail from the time of his arrest in May of 2014 until the en of his trial in August of 2015. At that point his bail was reduced and he was released.

Clark's second trial took place in September of 2017. From all that I can tell the only real difference is that prosecutors showed dash cam footage taken by a police officer speaking to him a few hours after hearing the news. They argued that he was extremely calm.

Aside from arguing that the crime scene was a burglary it appears the defense also spoke of the timeline. It is unclear when Clark says he got to the other girlfriends home but as I stated earlier she says she woke up at 10:40 to find him there. I cannot say exactly what time prosecutors argued the murders took place but obviously sometime after 9:00 as they spoke of his phone being off. I am also curious about the alleged three text messages that Brittany sent him between nine and ten, what they said, whether it was her, and when was the last one. The defense argued that if Clark were the murderer he would have had to do the deed, ransack the apartment (without leaving DNA), somehow and someway get rid of his bloody clothes and the weapon and then drive to the other woman's home. They also argued that twenty DNA samples were taken from the scene and not one of them matched Clark.

Just as his first trial ended in a hung jury, so did his second trial only this time instead of the jury being 11-1 for acquittal they were 10-2 for conviction. The prosecutor decided not to seek a third trial unless new evidence comes to light. Now, I want to be clear on what this means because I found a blog in which it was stated first that Clark was found “not guilty on both counts, twice” and then later stated he was “found innocent of all charges.” This is blatantly false and it is statements like this that irritate me because it gives out wrong information. First, if he would have been found “not guilty” in the first trial he never could have been tried the second time. That is nearly the number one rule of law... double jeopardy. But, because there was never a guilty plea by Clark who continues to maintain his innocence and neither jury was able to come to a decision this case is not resolved in the least. Does that mean it will ever be solve? In my opinion, no.

Did Norman Clark murder Brittany Eldridge? I do not know. But, based on the information I found, or I should say the lack of information I found, there was not enough evidence against him to prove anything. Prosecutors know that they need evidence and in today's world juries want DNA and forensic evidence. There apparently was none of that here. The dash cam video proves nothing. We all know that everyone deals with stress, grief and life experiences differently and that appears to be the best they had. Of course he would have been the prime suspect, and of course the fact that he apparently was involved with several women at once did not look good for him. But, those things do not make him a murderer. I do not believe that Clark will ever be convicted, even if he is tried again and there's absolutely no way that anyone else will ever be convicted for Brittany's murder.

Any evidence found against Clark at this late stage would be considered tainted considering there have already been two trials. The same could be true about evidence that could point to someone else but the prosecutor would have a very hard time selling a case to a jury with a new defendant. Any defense attorney worth his or her salt would hammer the fact that the prosecutors were so sure in from 2014.... until presumably someone else was charged that Clark was their man and they of course would likely push what they could about him. The long and short of it is that I honestly do not think this case will ever be solved.

And that is the biggest injustice of it all. A young woman and her soon to be born child lost their lives and no one will likely ever be held accountable.

The Framing of Michelle Hadley

2022-06-11T13:01:00.002-07:00

Coming off the Depp v Heard case, this case seems rather fitting to put together. This too is a case in which the accusing party was unquestionably believed in an attempt to ruin someones life. The difference here is that this case became a criminal case and the innocent party was looking at life in prison. She lost her job, her home, and her freedom for several months all based on the lies of other people. While the lies were bad enough, it was fairly clear early on, even prior to an arrest, that everything was not as it seemed and yet law enforcement continued in their pursuit against Michelle Hadley.

Twenty-six year old Michelle Hadley had met Ian Diaz in late 2013 on a dating website shortly after getting a divorce. Ian was thirty-five, lived with his mother and worked as an U.S. Marshal. By the following year the two were living together. In December of 2014 the two got engaged and in the early summer of 2015 they bought a condo together in downtown Anaheim California. Michelle had paid the $14,400 down payment and they had gotten a joint mortgage. By the end of summer they had split up.

I did not hear exactly what happened between the two but Michelle has said that looking back there were several red flags in the relationship and there had been some episodes of domestic violence. It was believed that Ian had kept a close eye on Michelle's computer and online activity throughout their relationship. He even talked her into changing jobs to a marketing position at a Disneyland Resort where he used to work. Looking back she is convinced that was so that his friends and former co-workers could help him keep an eye on her. Michelle also believed he was some how tracking her whereabouts. She would later say that anytime she seemed to be outside a particular area of a direct route of where she was headed she would get a phone call from him. He was very particular how she looked and dressed and always seemed to be pressuring her to do things his way. But, most of these things she looks back at in hindsight and sees the signs. Like many in those types of relationships she was deeply in love and feels like she was blinded by things. She never reported any violence or issues with police although it was said that she had talked to a few people, such as friends and family.

Michelle would move out while Ian would stay in the condo but she continued to pay half the mortgage, at least for a while. There were several email exchanges between the two and some were rather bitter. In one email in September of 2015 Michelle wrote to Ian... “Your sins are many, including defiling me and my family with your wicked and evil sexual acts, your financial coercion and irresponsibility, your gluttony, your greed, your lust, your sloth, your wrath, your envy, and most of all your pride. I will bring the full force of the Law and the Word of God against you to judge you.” It is not one that Michelle seemed to be particularly proud of but she had been angry and was “over” dealing with Ian and coming to an agreement about the condo. I quoted this one particular email because it played a few parts in things to come. By this time Michelle claims she was seeing Ian's vehicle following her places, including onto the campus of the local college she was attending. She had reported this to her school and they had banned him from the property. Ian then attempted to use the email she had written as well as the ban from the school property to obtain a restraining order against her but it failed. It is said however that his attempt by Ian did put Michelle on the radar of the local law enforcement.

By the end of 2015 it seems that Michelle and Ian had a legal written agreement that stated that Ian had until June of 2016 to fully assume payments on the condo and if he was unable to do so that it would be sold and the profits would be split between the two. It is unclear if Michelle was continuing to pay part of the mortgage each month while paying rent on her own apartment or if this was to have it legally changed.

It appears that both Michelle and Ian began moving on with their lives. Ian met a woman named Angela in January of 2016 and they were married a month later. It was said that she was pregnant and I will get more into that later but I will just say here that it is uncertain if she was pregnant or not.

By the end of May some weird things were going on. Michelle was getting notices from Google and Microsoft. Google sent her a message that an email account she had never started had been shut down. Microsoft sent messages that her primary email account was being used as a recovery contact for a “handful” of new Outlook addresses. Over the next month Michelle contacted the police at least four times to tell them she suspected someone was impersonating her online. She also contacted the FBI and the DOJ, nothing was done.

On June 6, 2016 Angela Diaz applied for and apparently received a restraining order against Michelle. According to Michelle she did not even know she existed let alone had ever met or spoken to her in any way. The restraining order was obtained because Angela showed several threatening emails she had received allegedly from Michelle. The emails had much of the same “tone” as the one that I quoted earlier. Many threatened Angela's life and included photos of women who had been beaten and naked. They had come from several different accounts seemingly belonging to Michelle. It is unclear if the police ever spoke to Michelle about this or what really was done over the next few weeks pertaining to the restraining order. Around this same time an ad on Craigslist was made looking for a “rape fantasy” partner. This too had the same tone as the emails.

On June 13, 2016, after the restraining order had been apparently granted someone using the name “Lilith Hadley” replied to the Craigslist ad and provided the address to the condo that Ian and Angela Diaz were living in. On June 21^st Michelle received an email from Craigslist asking her to verify that she had created a new ad titled “gang rape fantasy.” Michelle said she emailed them back about fake ads but never heard back from them. Three days later on June 24^th Angela Diaz called 911 saying a man had tried to rape her in the garage of her home. She had red marks on her neck and her shirt was ripped. A few hours later, while returning home after a date, the police went to Michelle's home and arrested her. Law enforcement had warrants to search her phone, tablet and laptop and ceased them. Michelle was interviewed and would later say that when she talked about Ian being abusive in their relationship she was dismissed and taunted basically because she had not mentioned it before. She also stated there was a lot of questions about her sex life post Ian Diaz that really had nothing to do with the case. She was charged with orchestrating the attack on Angela. Michelle's parents posted her $10,000 bond the following day and soon after the emails resumed.

On July 13^th Angela again called 911 and claimed that a “mysterious teen” was lurking around their condo. The following day Michelle was arrested again, this time on a one million dollar bond. The district attorney stated they believed that if Michelle were released that Angela would be raped or killed. This time her parents could not bail her out because it became an issue of whether they did that, or retained a lawyer to fight the charges. Michelle would spend the next three months in jail.

What Michelle did not know is that prior to her first arrest there had been evidence that many of the emails that Angela allegedly received had come directly from the condo itself. The second time emails were allegedly sent they had been done between her arrests where she did not have access to her accounts or her devices as they were still in police custody. She also did not know that in neither incident, the one where the man allegedly attacked Angela or the “lurking” teenager, surveillance cameras at the condo had shown no activity. By this time Angela was alleging that she had miscarried her baby due to the stress involved with everything.

It is believed that the police had universally believed Ian and Angela in their stories because he worked for as a U.S. Marshal and it was basically the “blue code” that stopped them from objectively investigating this case. Keep in mind that all of this went into full gear beginning the end of May and into June of 2016, right around the time Ian was to either take over payments of the condo, or sell it. Michelle always believed that while Angela was making most of the claims, with Ian's backing, that it was Ian who had actually orchestrated this plot.

And then on September 30, 2016, after he had sold the condo and had given nothing to Michelle, Ian went to the police and told them a new story. It is unclear whether Ian and Angela had an issue and had separated or whether he knew that authorities were going to figure out that the charges against Michelle were bogus and he needed to save himself. Ian was now saying that he believed that Angela had set Michelle up and that her claims of a miscarriage were bogus. He told them that when they married she was pregnant but that he had encouraged her to have an abortion because she was unsure who the father of the baby was and that a second claimed pregnant had never existed.

It still took another week to release Michelle from custody, although apparently charges were not dropped. It also took another three months before Angela was arrested on January 6, 2017 and Michelle was exonerated on January 9^th. Authorities would later claim that Angela had “faked checks, jobs, doctors notes and cancer” in the past. Investigators now took credit for solving the case and releasing Michelle saying that emails came from the condo, the area around Angela's father's home and her cellphone. Little was mentioned about Ian being involved but Michelle was not keeping quiet about that aspect. The case was being compared to the book and movie “Gone Girl” where a woman had faked her own kidnapping and possible murder to set up her husband, later she faked a rape to set up another man. Again, the Depp v Heard case has also been compared to this movie.

On October 17, 2017 Angela Diaz pleaded guilty to ten felony charges that included false imprisonment and perjury. She was sentenced to five years in prison. For her part it seems Michelle filed a few lawsuits. One was filed in California in 2017 and in December of 2018 she filed a civil lawsuit in federal courts. Another was filed against the city of Anaheim and the police department in 2019. She claimed that local police had “protected and believed” Ian simply because he was a U.S. Marshall; she claimed that law enforcement knew, or should have known, prior to her arrests that she was innocent of the charges; she alleged that three days prior to her arrested and the alleged attack on Angela law enforcement discovered that the emails were coming from the condo itself. In September of 2020 a judge denied the city in having the lawsuit dismissed and in August of 2021 the city of Anaheim settled the lawsuit for an undisclosed amount. It is unclear what has become of the others.

Still, Michelle was trying to regain her life. She moved out of the state of California and tried resume things. While she was never convicted of a crime and still has no criminal background, all it takes is a Google search of her name to find her story. She also tends to have to explain a void in her work history. She has alleged, and I have no doubt, that this has caused her much stress and anxiety. And still she pushed and pushed in her idea that Ian was behind it all.

It is unclear exactly what the circumstances were that finally led to Ian Diaz being indicted on charges that included perjury and conspiracy to commit cyberstalking by federal authorities in this case in May of 2021. I went to a legal website and saw that other charges included obstruction of justice and another conspiracy charge. As of now his trial is set to commence in May of 2023.

The scary thing about this is that any one of us could have been or even become Michelle. On the surface it does not seem possible considering how just a little bit of investigating would have uncovered the crime but it is possible because it did happen. Based on the charges Michelle was looking at a sentence of life in prison all because she walked away from a man.