A Variety of Cases

 

I have been sitting here going over my list of cases and nothing is really jumping out at me. I have researched one and working on it now but when it comes time to put it all together I like for things to be really quiet so I can think a little more clearly and put it together better. That only generally occurs late at night after my husband had gone to bed and only happens as long as I do not fall into another rabbit hole of some sort on television or Google.

I tend to try to do cases that “grab” me in the moment. When I am more interested in the case I will not only dig more into the research but I will also enjoy doing it more. That in turn makes them easier and quicker to do and, in my opinion, makes it better. Since this is a “re-launch” of sorts it is making it more difficult. I have vowed not to copy and paste from previous blog for a multitude of reasons. Information can change, sometimes even in much older cases, over time. Sometimes things are added; sometimes things are found to not necessarily have been accurate. And, let's be honest, my writing style has changed, hopefully for the better since I first began writing in 2012.

So, this blog is going to be a bit different. I am going talk about several different cases, mostly controversial ones where either the public was divided, the jury decision was highly criticized, or no one can decide who committed the crime. I am not going to dive deep into them at this point as I may compose a blog at a later date and will do little additional research other than what I already know and feel. In all of my blogs I ultimately express my opinion of the case and the evidence presented but I tell the story and present all or most of what I determine the most important evidence. That is not what will happen here. I will give a very, very condensed version of the story with a few facts and will express my opinion. So, let's do it!

Lizzie Borden

This happened in 1892 in Falls River Massachusetts. Lizzie was in her early thirties and lived at home with her father, stepmother and older sister. Lizzie would go to trial accused of murdering her father and stepmother, using an ax as the weapon. The prosecution theory was that Lizzie did it because while her father was wealthy he was not just frugal but some would say unreasonably so and the fact that Lizzie had never accepted her stepmother in her life. That seemed to be a learned condition from her sister who also resented their stepmother. She was acquitted at trial but many believe that was because the jury of twelve men did not have the heart to convict a woman, a now wealthy woman at that.

In the decades since the murders many theories have been looked into as to who was responsible for the crime. Those people, aside from Lizzie herself, included the housekeeper, who was also at the the home, along with Lizzie the day of the murder, Lizzie sister, Emma who was allegedly out of town that day, Lizzie and Emma's uncle from their mother's side who was visiting the area at the time and a mysterious “illegitimate” brother of Lizzie's that no one can ever really prove existed.

I cannot say for sure what I believe. I do think there was probably a rush to judgment in the case and there definitely was not a secured crime scene. But one could argue if they were going to rush to judgment and arrest someone still in the house they would have gone after the housekeeper who claimed to be napping during that time. Evidence was not collected in a timely manner, such as the alleged ax handle, or at all, such as a dress that was allegedly covered in paint and was burned. At the time there was either no way of telling if the blood on the ax was human or animal or if it could it was unclear if it was tested or just assumed to be human. Maybe Lizze was absolutely guilty and those who think the men did not have the stomach to convict a woman were correct. Who knows!

JonBenet Ramsey

If you are into true crime then this case should need little or no explanation. It is the ultimate unsolved case and a template on how NOT to conduct a crime investigation. There are a few main theories still believed over twenty five years later. The first is that despite investigators and experts clearing the family (the parents and older brother) that they were involved in some way. Some of those theories claim one or the other parent was responsible while another theory is that her brother killed her either on purpose or accidentally and the parents covered things up so they did not lose both of their children. The other theory is that investigators and experts were correct and the family was not involved and someone came into the home that Christmas night, sexually abused and murdered the six year old.

This is another case that I do not believe will ever be solved. The investigation was tainted and mishandled from the beginning and any evidence allegedly recovered will seem suspicious to everyone. I do not believe if there is ever a match made against DNA that has been said to be recovered it will ever lead to a conviction. There will always be questions about tainted evidence.

The parents were immediately suspected but in my opinion not all of those reasons were necessarily valid. The parents, especially the mother, Patsy, received a lot of criticism for the fact that JonBenet was featured in beauty pageants. Part of the criticism came from those who say the parents exposed their child to child predators by dressing her up as a grown up, other criticism related to this was that pageants were a lifestyle and robbed children of their childhoods. Where they did deserve to be suspects in my opinion was that they were the only known people in the house when their daughter disappeared. The ransom note was said to have been written with a pen and paper from their home. The ransom note was extremely long and very detailed. Even the ransom amount was suspect. The fact that the police did not secure the home and allowed people to roam hurt the case. Then one officer allowed the father, John and one of his friends to search the home and the first place they went was the basement where they found her always seems suspicious. John tainted the scene when he removed her body and carried her upstairs.

Most people believe that in 1999 when a Boulder Colorado grand jury voted to indict the parents and the prosecutor declined, that they were looking at murder charges and were not prosecuted because of their wealthy status. That is not true. The grand jury recommended that they be indicted on obstruction of justice and neglect charges. The family had clammed up rather quickly and retained an attorney. They stopped answering questions and made themselves look guilty. The world was looking at them and to the world their actions were suspicious.

Over the last twenty-five years the case comes back to the forefront every few years. “New” things are discovered or analyzed or enhanced. There are arguments on pages all over the Internet among users as to whether the family was or was not involved and why or why not. It is said that a small amount of unknown male blood DNA was found on her underwear and also a different unknown male touch DNA also found on the underwear. I could not completely determine if these were full profiles or partials nor have I been able to determine when these samples were obtained. By late 1996 DNA was well known and used. Obviously it is more advanced today than way back then but it was widely used. This case was extremely high profile and wealthy people were involved and yet the issue of DNA being found was not something that was revealed in at least a timely manner. The latest I have heard about the case is that John Ramsey, now nearly eighty years old, is trying to have the DNA tested with more modern methods and asking that forensic genealogy be tried.

For my part I have to say I am on the fence on what to believe. There are parts of me that cannot get past the ransom note, the pineapple on the dining room table with Burke's prints (and in her stomach), and the 911 call made by Patsy who claimed later Burke was not up but could clearly be heard as well as Patsy commenting to him. I have always been stuck on the ransom note. Aside from its contents the fact that it was so long and written in the house bugs me. Why would someone spent that much time in the house and risk being caught unless they were not worried about it. And why write a ransom note at all if you are going to kill someone and leave them in their own house. But, the claim is there is DNA that does not match the family members. I either have to believe the DNA and that the family was not involved or I have to think with all the things done wrong in this case and how much the police department was criticized that it would not be a huge stretch to believe they have been less than truthful about many things. Some days I feel one way; some days I feel another. If I had to pick one case only to absolutely be solved and determine, without question, who murdered that little girl, it would be this one.

Casey Anthony

I, along with many in the country, was highly invested in this case. I watched nearly every waking moment of the trial and I still remember the day the verdict came in and my reaction. I try to be respectful of a jury and their decision and understand that their jobs are hard and they see and feel things differently than I do. But, to this day, more than ten years after that verdict the thought of it still angers me. It is one of the few cases where someone was acquitted of a crime that I believe they committed that I will actively avoid watching more about if Casey Anthony is involved. Within the last few years she came out with her “alleged” story after all these years and I refused to entertain watching it. I admit that I read a few news articles published about the documentary and it just reminded me why she does not deserve a moment of my time. In my opinion, the day she comes out and admits that she murdered her child and tells how she did it, I will watch that. She has nothing to lose, she cannot be tried again for the crime. I also avoid anything that involves her lead attorney, Jose Baez. I understand that he had a job to do and it was his job to get her off but he made some outlandish stories, and I call them that because that is how I feel about them, particularly about Casey's father, but also how Caylee died.

I will be touching on the OJ Simpson case in this blog in a bit and I will say what I believe about that case but let me say here that no matter what I thought about his guilt or innocence, the prosecutors did not present everything they had and answer all they could. That was not the issue here. Many jurors came back and said that they voted to acquitted because the prosecutors did not give them a cause of death. They were not given one because by the time that little baby girls body was found she was so decomposed a cause of death could not be determined.

Many were critical of Casey's mother and believe she lied about searches made on the home computer. Many called for her to be charged with perjury. Part of me disagreed. While it may not have been right, and I totally believe she lied, I do not think she should have ever been put in the position to testify against her child. I remember thinking how there are laws that prevent forcing a spouse to testify against another but there's nothing that prevents a parent from being forced to testify against their child. Spousal relationships come and go and are not the same as the bond between a parent and a child. Casey was facing the death penalty if she was convicted. No parent should have that on their conscious.

I have to believe that Karma in one form or another truly exists and Casey Anthony will know what that is one day.

OJ Simpson

I know that he was involved in a few cases but I am only going to address the murder trial at this time. I remember when this all happened. I remember watching the “chase” on television and the then the trial. It lasted too long for me to say I completely watched gavel to gavel but percentage wise at least at that time it was probably the most I had seen of a case.

One thing that severely bothered me throughout the trial was how the media insisted on dividing the country. Maybe that was not the first time it had happened obviously but for me as an adult it was a first time I truly noticed it and it bothers me to this day. I had been raised in the inner city at a time that for me then, and today, race was not an issue. I was one of those naive enough still at the time to believe we were evolving as a country. But, when the media did “polls” about where people stood on this case they not only divided people by whether they believed Simpson to be innocent or guilty but also by their race. I was told that the majority of white people believed him to be guilty. Well, let me just say that I have rarely ever, then or now, been in the group of majorities. But in fairness, my position was not presented at all.

I have always believed for the most part that Simpson did not murder his ex-wife, Nichole, and the innocent bystander who came to deliver something that was left at a restaurant, Ron Goldman. But, I did believe he knew who did and may in fact have had it done. He could have even watched but I have never believed he did it himself. That does not mean that I did not think he deserved to walk free. There was plenty of evidence presented that pointed straight at him that would have convicted any other person who was not as well known as he was. There is a part of me that believes he made sure it looked that way believing, apparently rightly so, that he would get off. But, that being said, the prosecution screwed that case up so bad I am not even sure that I could have convicted. They did not do their homework; they did not prepare their witnesses; they did not even present everything they had because they thought they had enough. No... a prosecutor throws out everything they have found that proves someone's guilt. You have no way of knowing which piece of evidence the jury is going to believe and which piece they will discount. You so much about circumstantial evidence case. Well never every case is a circumstantial case. Their job was to present everything they had and show that jury that everything combined led to his guilt and that it was not because he was just unlucky.

We all now know the glove did not fit and the worse part about that was that the prosecution had him try it on. I have absolutely no doubt that was his glove. It was proven later that he took medication for arthritis and had stopped purposely just to be able to say the glove did not fit. But, if it “does not fit you must acquit” and that is exactly what happened. Like the Casey Anthony case I will not watch anything that involves him personally because I'm not boosting the rating or sales. Surprisingly I did not even read the book he wrote “If I did It” even though I really should have later since the Goldman's were given all the profits.

I should mention that it was not just the media that divided us by race, Mark Furhman helped and the defense did also and they used race for manipulation. Simpson was not necessarily beloved in the African American community at the time of the murders. He was often thought as a “race traitor.” One of the defense attorneys said in one of the many documentaries that have been made that before the jury or the media walked through Simpsons home they had walked around adding and removing things to make it appear more “black.” They wanted him to appear to be another black man on trial and being wrongly tried. Please do not think that I am not well aware that African Americans, especially men, are not targets of law enforcement. I will be doing many blogs in the future about such cases and the injustice that was done but Simpson was not your average African American by any stretch of the imagination. Many believe that Johnny Cochran's presence, although no one can say he did not do his job whether you agree with how it was done or not, was brought in solely so that Simpson had a black lawyer.

I spoke earlier about how I would love to see Karma come back and bite Casey Anthony. I do not have to wish that for Simpson. He got his when he went to prison for burglary when reality was he was stealing his own stuff back from people who had stolen it from him. The sad part about Simpson is that he could have really been a hero for young African American boys. He could have shown them they could succeed when they worked hard. He probably paved the way for people like LaBron James. Thankfully it seems EXTREMELY unlikely that LaBron will let down a generation of young people.

The West Memphis 3

This is another case that I have researched very deeply and could probably tell you the ins and outs without blinking an eye. I have even visited the welcome center in Arkansas that happens to be located in West Memphis little just across the highway from where three eight year old boys were found murdered in 1993. It looks different today than it did then but the person I talked to was rather knowledgeable and not only found me as much information as she could gather, but explained to me what things looked like back than.

This case took place during the era of the “Satanic ritual” and “Pedophile Ring” time that happened in the 1980's through the mid-1990's. A variety of those such cases are also on my list to blog about at some point. It was period of time where people started believing that satanic cults were moving in and controlling people but there were the “experts” that could see the signs and were going to rid the world, or at least their small part of it, of these evils. Most, if not all, involved crimes with children. Many revolved around daycares and schools and involved allegations of child molestation. It would often start with an adult, who it would later be discovered had a few mental issues going on reporting a case of molestation and then a group of “specialist” would come in and talk to a bunch of children and rather than listen or really know what they were doing they would lead the children to say things. Groups of people were persecuted because no matter how outrageous and implausible the allegations were they were not investigated and it would ultimately be decided that a “ring” of pedophiles and if they could claim it was all in the name of Satan, all the better.

This was also the “goth” era or the beginning of such. If you asked an expert much of it was simple formula.... black clothing and heavy metal music were sure signs. And, if you were someone like eighteen year old Damien Echols who was exploring religions and mentioned Wicca all you had to do was find a crime and to put the suspect to. You heard me correctly and I meant it that way. So when three young boys were found naked and in a creek bed all they needed to do was find just the right person to settle the community down. As is the case with most of these types of cases the investigation was not what it should have been. Leads were not followed; the wrong people were asked to consult; the evidence was made to fit the suspects and when they could not do that they got tried to get the suspects to give them what they wanted. They started with a young boy who had intellectual issues and interrogated him for hours upon hours without a parent or a lawyer. They recorded only the portions of the interrogation they wanted and that was only after the boy had repeatedly told them he was not involved and then when he started to relent told stories that were clearly untrue. One example was that the crime had occurred around noon when the boys were in school and not in the woods where they were found. Investigators eventually got their story and got two others implicated.

Under false pretenses, things that were proven later to be complete lies and even with proven, yet not investigated information that there was juror tampering not only were the three boys convicted, one was sent to death row and the other two were sentenced to life. They spent eighteen years in prison, always maintaining their innocence and fighting their case only to have the same judge repeatedly deny every single thing that was asked for or ignore everything that was now proven to have been fabricated. Finally the judge in question was elected to a higher position and another judge would be taking over the case. Suddenly the state decided that if they could get the boys, now grown men, to take an Alford Plea (meaning they did not admit they were guilty, but took the consequences) they would be immediately released from prison.

By doing this the case would be legally solved and they would not have to look for the real killer or killers and the state saves face on paper. By having the men take the Alford Plea it also prevented them from ever getting a settlement from the state for wrongful imprisonment because on paper they basically admitted they were guilty. The state did this because it was almost a complete certainty that the new judge on the case was going to throw out the convictions and order new trial, he had all but said so. The state knew that the evidence they had used against those boys in 1994 was faulty and in many cases down right false. Many believe a lot of that information was faulty on purpose. If that ever came out there could have been way more at stake for people than three wrongly convicted men going free.

There are multiple documentaries that have been made throughout the years on this case and it is amazing to watch how some, not all, of the parents of the children believed the prosecutors in 1994 that these boys were responsible and they themselves realize that they had been framed. The men were released in 2011 and the parents of one of the three boys murdered still believed they were responsible for their sons death. I was unable to determine if anything over the years have changed their minds. The did protest or at the very least express their distaste and anger when the last of the Paradise Lost documentary on the case was nominated for an Oscar saying that the producers had all but in essence planted a seed of their innocence (which they did not agree with) and were profiting off the tragic death of their child. I respect their anger and their sorrow but I do not believe that anyone who knows this case can say that in 1994 three young men were treated fairly and received fair trials. In the years after there were multiple incidences of the flawed evidence but no one who had the power to have it checked did anything. Tragically in the end three little boys lost their lives and three teenagers lost not just their innocence but many years of their lives and no one has received justice.

The fight continues. Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin in particular are still fighting to have things tested and proven to prove their innocence. Their problem now is that most of the legal rules pertain to people still in prison fighting for their innocence so they need to break so new ground and from what I am understanding, that may just happen sometime soon.

I think I will end this here. I had a few others like The Betty Broderick case or the Jeffrey MacDonald case I considered talking about but maybe another time. And keep your eyes out because a lot of the cases I mentioned here may find their way to having their full story told here.