Michelle Hynes LLB (Hons) is a multiple award winning law graduate from the University of Glasgow. She has recently finished studying for the Diploma in Legal Practice and is en-route to the Faculty of Advocates where she hopes to be called to the Scottish Bar. Michelle’s journey to the legal profession has been marked by personal tragedy. She […]
Archives for March 2011
Recap cclivechat March 25, 2011
A roller coaster CCLiveChat that went on for 90 minutes if we had not been called back to our daily duties! We started of with my request for help. There are cases were I could use help researching a cold case, post an introduction to the case, and then keep the case up to date. […]
More on the Laura Henderson-Ibach case
Laura Henderson-Ibach disappeared on March 28, 1986. She and her husband Jack Ibach were getting a divorce. The authorities suspect that she was kidnapped, murdered, and that her remains discarded somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness. Her remains have never been found but some of her personal belongings were. Charged and sentenced to life for this […]
Update Stephen Miera
Stephen Miera may have been forgotten by the media and the authorities but he is not forgotten by his family. His youngest sister, Antonia Light, emailed me some memories. Antonia remembered that her mother had hired a private detective to see what he could find out. She thinks that his last name was Stone. This private detective […]
Recap #cclivechat March 18, 2011
A fast-paced #cclivechat that still has my mind spinning… here goes: Joined by TRLeVeque, KatCop13, TanyaGoodwinDoc, SarahEGlenn, BlueDog89, IowaColdCases, WyndhamForensic, OceanBluePress, WorldCrime, and of course, ColdCaseSquad, our discussions focussed on digital forensics in the cases of Novak and Wei, we touched on the Linda Sohus case, we discussed extradition, Crime Stoppers, rewards, and facial mapping. The […]
Do you recognise this man?
On November 25, 2007, Jason Wei, restaurant owner and father of two young children, was murdered during a robbery at the Osaka Ya Sushi Restaurant at 815 West Naomi Avenue, Arcadia, CA. Despite efforts, there are few leads. I quote from the Arcadia Police Officer’s Association Info Blog: “The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted today […]
What happened to Linda Sohus?
From the LASD on Nixle: On March 15, 2011, the LA County District Attorney’s Office filed murder charges against Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter for the 1985 murder of John Sohus(26). Gerhartsreiter, of German nationality, is also known as Christopher Chichester or Clark Rockefeller. “In February of 1985, John (26) and Linda Sohus (28) disappeared from their home in the 1900 block […]
Vidocq presents the Legal Bizzle!
Our Legal Bizzle is an in house commercial/contracts lawyer, mostly doing outsourcing work. He spends his days arguing with sales managers and tries to work as much Latin as possible into his contracts. In the evenings, he blogs passive-aggressively at The Bizzle. He also tweets. His answers to my questions: 1: What is your most favourite part of […]
Week 10: sum it up!
A wonderful mixed bag last week of articles and posts to make you laugh, cry, break out in a rash or want to grab a shovel! Not necessarily in that order for this Sum it Up: Paul Cutler over at a Barrister’s blog has a post that you must read. It is a “how to […]
Guest post about Elizabeth Pfeifer
The Girl Behind the Blue Eyes – Who Was Elizabeth Pfeifer? I was asked by Alice to write about my sister, Elizabeth Pfeifer. Although the young woman I knew would be willing to come forward and speak for herself, she can’t. You won’t hear from Elizabeth because she’s been missing since April 12, 1986. Elizabeth […]
Elizabeth Ann Pfeifer’s troubling start in life
Elizabeth Ann Pfeifer’s life was troubled from the start. Shortly after she was born on December 10, 1965, she was given up for adoption. The Pfeifer family had already adopted Laura, also from birth. As you can immediately tell, we have a DNA problem here. If we ever find items that may hold biological materials […]
Luke Whyte on maximun security prisons
Meet Luke Whyte. He interviewed a sergeant at Pelican Bay State Prison, California (PBSP). “Pelican Bay State Prison is the end of the line; designed to contain and isolate California’s most dangerous inmates. In the event of an earthquake, its walls are designed to collapse inward.” Pelican Bay opened in 1989, principally to house the […]
The FBI on the 1965 murder of Rev. James Reeb
The FBI’s Cold Case Initiative is investigating the 46-year-old case of James Reeb, a Massachusetts minister who was beaten to death in Alabama while doing civil rights work, a spokesman said Friday. The FBI launched an initiative in 2007 to investigate unsolved murders from the civil rights era. A spokesman with the agency, Chris Allen, said […]
Recap #cclivechat March 11, 2011
With the best intentions, we headed into #cclivechat only to be slowed down by technology. Twitter web was not working as it should. According to some that was because priority was given to tweets regarding the situation in Japan. Others mentioned issues with @mentions and DMs. Anyway, we made an effort and did manage to get […]
Interpretation of a DNA Match
“What Are the Chances? Interpretation of a DNA Match” is a guest blog post by Sue Carney. Didn’t someone once say “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”? Whoever said it is another story, but the point I’m making is that when numbers are used to support a point of view, […]
Illinois abolishes capital punishment
He finally did it. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn abolished capital punishment. Quinn also commuted the sentences of all 15 inmates remaining on Illinois’ death row. They will now serve life in prison. From the Washington Post: “State lawmakers voted in January to abandon capital punishment, and Quinn spent two months reflecting on the issue, speaking […]
Update Manchester Building Female Skeleton
Remember the Manchester Building Female Skeleton I posted about? Police is still trying to find out who the lady was. “Workmen unearthed a skeleton while digging up the former car park on land between Angel Street, Dantzic Street and Miller Street – an area known as Angel Meadow. Police believed the remains could have been […]
Hope for Skinner!
Good news for Hank Skinner: USSC Justice Ginsburg, writing for the majority, said prison inmates may use a federal civil rights law to seek DNA testing that was not performed before their conviction. Lower federal courts had dismissed Skinner’s claims at an early stage, although other federal judges have allowed similar lawsuits to go forward […]
Recap #CCLiveChat Feb 26, 2011
We just hosted the first ever #CCLiveChat on Twitter and really, what an hour it was! Fantastic to see the participation and the enthusiasm. Joe and I were joined by several people and we wish to thank them not just for participating but for the genuine exchange of information: katcop13, lilaclounge, deaddollmovie, littlelawyer, worldcrime, Evie_G_L, Org9 […]
Recap #CClivechat March 4, 2011
Our second #cclivechat on Twitter was another succes. We were joined by authors and cops and had a few great discussions going on simultaneously. The first discussion centered on how cold cases are selected for review. What works to get the media’s attention, how difficult it is to get victims’ family members involved and, in what condition do […]