Unsolved homicides that haunt me…
Posted in Cold Cases in the News, Forensics, Help the Cops!
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 [...]
Posted in Forensics, Miscarriages of Justice, Vidocq Unscripted...
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 [...]
Posted in Cold Cases in the News, Forensics, Lapointe, Miscarriages of Justice, Unsolved Homicides
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 [...]
Posted in Cold Cases in the News, Forensics, Solved, Unsolved Homicides
Authorities will get a closer look at the hands of the man accused of sexually assaulting and drowning 3-year-old Riley Fox. Smudged prints were found on the back door to the Foxes’ Wilmington home at the time of the 2004 abduction and murder, but testing of those prints has yet to find a match, case [...]
Brad Ballantyne, accused in the death of Kimberly Dunkin on New Year’s Day in 1993, will face a judge for the first time. Ballantyne was arrested in Vancouver, Wash. in mid-June in connection to the death of Kimberly Dunkin. Dunkin was found shot to death in her car in the 4900 block NE Skidmore St. in Portland on Jan. [...]
Posted in Cold Cases in the News, Forensics, Missing Persons, Solved, Unsolved Homicides
One suspect arrested this month in the slaying of Kendalia resident Trey A. Noah claimed his co-defendant shot Noah in the back on Nov. 30, 2009 following an argument, records released last Monday show. The body of Noah, 20, was found in April off Doebbler Road in eastern Gillespie County, Texas. An affidavit by Gillespie County [...]
Posted in Cold Cases in the News, Forensics, Lapointe, Miscarriages of Justice, Unsolved Homicides
Lisa Black and Steve Mills of the Chicago Tribune have written an excellent piece about what makes people confess falsely. False confessions are not so uncommon as you would think. I understand that right now you shake your head and question Vidocq’s sanity…justifiably so! Why would a parent confess to raping their own three year old [...]
Posted in Cold Cases in the News, Forensics, Solved, Unsolved Homicides
SAN DIEGO – Authorities say DNA evidence led to an arrest in the 1993 killings of two enlisted sailors whose bodies were found in a field in San Diego County. Leopoldo Castro Chavez II was arrested last Wednesday on suspicion of gunning down the two men in an Otay Mesa field nearly 17 years ago. [...]
Posted in Forensics, Lapointe, Miscarriages of Justice, Unsolved Homicides
Christopher Cosgrove, Lapointe’s public defender during the criminal trial, and Henry Theodore Vogt, who sought a new trial for Lapointe in the late 1990s, testified during the latest hearing seeking a new trial for Lapointe. Paul Casteleiro, Lapointe’s current lawyer, focused on what Cosgrove and Vogt didn’t do when they handled the case in court. [...]