Defrosting Cold Cases

Green was convicted of rape in 1983 and sentenced to 75 years in prison. But last Wednesday, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Texas announced that new DNA testing proved that Green was not involved in the assault. Green said he can’t help but be angry about the time that he lost. The process Green faces [...]

The Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office (Lake Charles, Louisiana) arrested a man last Tuesday after he supposedly confirmed allegations involving a complaint made about sexually inappropriate actions with a juvenile that happened back in 1982. On July 19, 2010, officials received a complaint regarding 68-year-old John Weatherall of Lake Charles, LA. An investigation revealed that Weatherall allegedly [...]

Kansas City police announced today that they are reopening the investigation into the 40-year-old killing of Civil Rights and political leader Leon Jordan. In a news release, police said that they “have located the weapon used in the murder and partial fingerprints taken from the weapon and cars around the crime scene. The fingerprints were [...]

Detectives say there is probable cause to arrest Kyron Horman’s stepmother for the murder-for-hire plot of her husband, Kaine Horman, and possibly for the 7-year-old’s disappearance, according to a former sheriff’s official. “The detectives are telling them they have probable cause to arrest Terri Horman right now at least for murder for hire and possibly [...]

He spent half of his life in prison for a rape and robbery he did not commit. But last Friday, at the age of 39, Allen Porter is finally a free man. Porter’s case stemmed from a robbery and sexual assault at an apartment in southwest Houston on June 18, 1990. Three masked robbers burst [...]

A Texas state board said last Friday that arson investigators in the Willingham case used flawed science but were not negligent in an investigation that led to a controversial 2004 execution. The panel also said that investigators did not commit misconduct. Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004, 13 years after a fire killed his [...]

Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 for a fire that killed his three daughters. Prosecutors argued that Willingham deliberately set the 1991 blaze — but three reviews of the evidence by outside experts have found the fire should not have been ruled arson. The last of those reports was ordered by the Texas Forensic [...]

A medical team exhumed the body of former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu last Wednesday to try to ensure that the remains are really his, Romanian state media reported. Ceausescu was executed on Christmas Day 1989 in the only post-Berlin-Wall-fall of a Communist regime in Eastern Europe that got really bloody.  His remains were “quite well [...]

Amber Nicklas has learned her true name and is being given therapy to cope with the trauma of leaving the only family she remembers, an investigator said Monday. Amber was placed with an undisclosed California foster family until authorities can determine where she finally will live, Los Angeles County sheriff’s Capt. Patrick Maxwell said. He had no immediate [...]

Questions about how long a fire burned at Mrs. Martin’s apartment and possibly tainted DNA evidence on a pair of gloves found at the crime scene were brought up last Thursday during a hearing for Richard Lapointe. Mrs. Bernice Martin was raped, stabbed and strangled in her apartment in Manchester on March 8, 1987. Lapointe was convicted [...]