Defrosting Cold Cases

Los Tocayos Carlos … the namesake Carlos … The Guardian has an excellent article about a Texas capital punishment case involving a wrongful conviction, switched identities, an unsolved murder, evidence not tested for DNA, sloppy police procedures and an execution. “Carlos DeLuna was arrested, aged 20, on 4 February 1983 for the brutal murder of [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Autopsy, Capital Punishment, Carlos DeLuna, Carlos Hernandez, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Finger Printing, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Knife Attack, Los Tocayos Carlos, Miscarriage of Justice, Police, Texas, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

Edward Jesus Elias and Leopoldo Chavez II, both 36, were found guilty of first-degree murder and special-circumstance allegations including murder during a robbery. They were teenagers at the time they killed Keith Combs and Eugene “Cliff” Ellis. Elias and Chavez were both sentenced to serve life without the possibility of parole. They both received consecutive life [...]

Tags: Autopsy, Crime Scene, DNA, Evidence, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Keith Combs & Eugene Ellis, Police, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, Witnesses

This newspaper article from August 14, 1974 was sent to me and it contains information about the crime scene re Teresa Sue Hilt that will make Sue jump up and down across the pond! Hair particles found at the crime scene showed the one who left that hair had a rare scalp disease that makes [...]

Tags: Autopsy, Crime Scene, Cruelty, DNA, DNA Database, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Finger Printing, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Knife Attack, Missouri, monilethrix, Police, Rape kits, Teresa Sue Hilt, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, Witnesses

Something has been bothering me immensely in the Zeigler case. I know, many things bother me in this case! But this is something I have not blogged about before. It is about the life term insurance policies and Zeigler’s bank accounts. It has been stated over and over again that taking out two life term [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Autopsy, Ballistics, Capital Punishment, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, FBI, Finger Printing, Florida, Forensics, Gun Fire, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Partial Finger Printing, Police, Prisons, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, William Thomas Zeigler, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

What are the consequences of the false arrest report and the lies told by Detective Frye under oath? We have to go back to the initial trial when Mr. Zeigler was defended by Mr. Ralph V. Hadley, III. Mr. Hadley started the Zeigler trial from the assumption that the documents he had received were correct. [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Autopsy, Ballistics, Capital Punishment, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, FBI, Finger Printing, Florida, Forensics, Gun Fire, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Partial Finger Printing, Police, Prisons, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, William Thomas Zeigler, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

The False Arrest Report The post below is based on the documents filed in Mr. Zeigler case as per the previous post. The documents were sent to me by Mr. Zeigler’s lawyers and I thank them for that. On Dec 29, 1975, Detective Frye from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office wrote in his arrest report: [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Autopsy, Ballistics, Capital Punishment, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, FBI, Finger Printing, Florida, Forensics, Gun Fire, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Partial Finger Printing, Police, Prisons, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, William Thomas Zeigler, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

There is a new and exciting turn of events in the case of William Thomas Zeigler. As loyal readers know, Mr. Zeigler has been on death row for the 1975 quadruple murders that took place on Christmas Eve inside his family’s furniture store in Wintergarden, Florida. When I started my posts about this case in [...]

Tags: Actual Innocence, Autopsy, Ballistics, Capital Punishment, Crime Labs, Crime Scene, Cruelty, Death Row, DNA, Evidence, Expert Testimony, Faulty Evidence, FBI, Finger Printing, Florida, Forensics, Gun Fire, Identification, Investigations Division, Miscarriage of Justice, Partial Finger Printing, Police, Prisons, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, William Thomas Zeigler, Witnesses, Wrongful Convictions

Police are taking new action in the Canadian cold case of Sharron Prior. According to this newspaper article: “This week, police announced an anonymous donor has stepped forward to offer a $10,000 reward. Police also set up a fresh command post in Point St. Charles, and set up a dedicated phone line.” Sharron disappeared on [...]

Tags: Autopsy, Canada, Crime Scene, Cruelty, DNA, Evidence, Forensics, Identification, Investigations Division, Point-St-Charles, Police, Rape kits, Sharron Prior, Unsolved Homicide, Victim, Witnesses

Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter a.k.a. Clark Rockefeller a.k.a. Christopher Chichester a.k.a. Christopher Crowe will go on trial in September 2012 for the 1985 murder of John Sohus, and whose wife, Linda (pictured on the left) is still missing. Gerhartsreiter is acccused with the murder of John Sohus, his then-landlady’s son. John and his wife Linda disappeared in the mid-1980s. John’s skull and [...]

Tags: California, Crime Scene, DNA, Evidence, Forensics, Identification, John and Linda Sohus, Police, Unsolved Homicide, Victim

A verdict has been reached in the trial of two men accused of robbing and fatally shooting two San Diego-based sailors more than 18 years ago in an area of Otay Mesa popular for after-hours drinking and bonfires. Though detectives who documented the murder scene recovered fingerprints and genetic evidence apparently belonging to the killer(s), [...]

Tags: Autopsy, Ballistics, California, Crime Scene, Cruelty, DNA, Eugene Ellis, Evidence, Forensics, Identification, Keith Combs, Unsolved Homicide, Victim