Update in the Kimberly Dunkin murder: Brad Ballantyne, accused of killing Kim on New Year’s Day in 1993, will face a judge for the first time. Ballantyne was arrested in Vancouver, Wash. in mid-June. Dunkin was found shot to death in her car in the 4900 block NE Skidmore St. in Portland on Jan. 1, 1993. Ballantyne was arrested by […]
Amber Nicklas found after seven years
Amber Nicklas, a California girl missing for almost seven years was found last Wednesday by police in Phoenix, Arizona, authorities said. The girl had just turned a year old when she was abducted in September 2003. She had been in the care of foster parents in Norwalk, California, when she was snatched by three of […]
More information on Trey Noah
One suspect arrested this month in the slaying of Kendalia resident Trey 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 Sheriff’s […]
False Confessions
Lisa Black and Steve Mills of the Chicago Tribune have written an excellent piece about false confessions. False confessions are not so uncommon as you would think. Why would a parent confess to raping their own three-year old or murdering their own grandmother? If you really are not guilty, nothing in the world could make you […]
Arrest for Keith Combs and Eugene Ellis
Finally justice for Keith Combs and Eugene Ellis: 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 […]
Lapointe hearing July 7-8-9, 2010
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 Lapointe case in […]
Lapointe hearing July 6, 2010
During direct examination on Tuesday, Lapointe’s attorney, Paul Casteleiro, suggested that in his quest for a confession, Detective Morrissey overlooked inconsistencies in Richard’s admission to Morrissey and failed to ask important questions. In his confession, Richard said he had strangled 88-year-old Bernice Martin with his hands, but the medical examiner determined she had been strangled […]
Trial date for Bernard Jackson
The trial of Bernard Jackson, the man accused of four Waldo area rapes in the 1980s, is scheduled for 2011. Judge Charles E. Atwell is scheduled to preside over the trial, which will be in either April or July. A case management conference is scheduled for August 13, 2010. Earlier this month, Jackson entered a […]
July 6: Lapointe Habeas hearing
Tomorrow, the Richard Lapointe Habeas hearing will resume for three more days in the Rockville Superior Court. Lapointe was convicted for the 1987 murder of Mrs. Bernice Martin, his then-wife’s 88-year-old grandmother. He was sentenced to life without parole. After the Connecticut Supreme Court upheld his conviction, his lawyer filed a petition for a writ of Habeas Corpus that, if granted, […]
Hina Family Murders from 1989 cracked
On Wednesday, New Hampshire Attorney General Michael Delaney announced that David McLeod has been arrested in West Sacramento, California, on four counts of second-degree murder for “recklessly causing the death of the Hina family under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life,” according to a written statement from the attorney general’s office. […]