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 […]
DNA
Michael VonAllmen: Cleared after 30 years
Cleared after 30 years in Louisville, KY: After 11 years in prison before being paroled in 1994 for being convicted of rape and other charges in 1982, Michael VonAllmen’s record is now clear. On July 15, 2010, a judge finally ruled to dismiss all charges with prejudice, which means the charges can never be brought back. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
The 1980 Tim Hack and Kelly Drew murders
Edward Edwards, of Louisville, Ky., was arrested after DNA connected him to the unsolved murders of Tim Hack and Kelly Drew, who disappeared from a Wisconsin wedding reception in August 1980. Their bodies were found weeks later in the woods. Investigators believe Hack was stabbed and Drew strangled. Authorities said the state crime lab matched Edwards’ DNA to […]
Riley Fox: Ignored Evidence
Looking back in the Riley Fox case it is always easier to point out how many mistakes police made during that investigation. Some goof-ups need to be exposed especially since it could have prevented an even bigger one. This ignored piece of evidence in the case of Riley Fox could have spared her father a […]