General True Crime Shows

[kathyk2]

1 hour ago, LuvMyShows said:

Watching the "To Have and to Kill" episode of the new Oxygen show A Plan to Kill, I was once again amazed (in a bad way) at how detectives are so clueless when it comes to ambush murders. I'm talking about the type of situation where just as the person returns to their house, they are ambushed and killed. Unless someone has a perfect view of your door and can afford to wait all day/night for you to show up, it's going to take insider help to time it right. Yet I have never seen that be something that detectives think of in a timely manner. And in this case, they had been fooled for over a year and a half that the victim's wife was not involved, until someone else spilled the beans. They had never, ever considered the timing of the murder vis the victim's return from going on a fast food run for everyone, to wonder how the killer knew the exact time to be at the door.

And what a truly awfully atrocious piece of sh*t that woman was. She told her boyfriend that she had cancer and no health insurance, so he married her (ostensibly so she could get health insurance), and then she basically killed him for the life insurance not terribly long after...and of course, she never actually had cancer. And IIRC, she told the people who would do the killing for her, that he was an awful person that abused her, when he sooo didn't.

That case has been featured on several true crime shows. I really liked the case featured on Philly Homicide since I hadn't seen it on other shows.

[Vermicious Knid]

Sounds like an episode of Forensic Files as well.

I've been listening in my car to HLN on Sirius when I can't find any music I like. Yesterday they ran an episode of Nightmare Next Door that was also featured on Forensic Files about the murder of 9 year old Cindy Allinger. There weren't any substative differences between the programs really but I was struck this time by the realization the police were actully incompetent and would have been able to make an arrest months earlier.

The main suspect was Guy "Ras" Rasmussen who the neighborhood kids, including Cindy's sister, reported was inviting children to his cabin to play with his dog and drums. Cindy was told to stay away from him but just never told her mother she was still going to his home. They checked but he was not on the list of sex offenders. But that's all they looked at. They kept surveillance on him because he was the only real lead they had. He moved away but they didn't have any hard evidence and just kept watching in case he was a danger to other children. Well, months later, someone finally got around to running a criminal background check and it was right there; 5 years in prison for assaulting a 16 year old and a short stint for assaulting a 10 year old. Only then did they get a search warrant and were able to collect and test his clothing, which had both their DNA.

He had fallen through a very fortuitous crack in legislation. The law requiring sex offenders to register wasn't passed until a few months after he got out of jail and didn't grandfather in earlier conviction. My question is, what in the hell were the police doing that they didn't run a background check on their main suspect? Sure they got the guy, and it didn't take years, but they wasted months. Background checks are like, the very first thing that should be done. It seems many of the true crime programs don't realize instead of lionizing the police they are just exposing their poor performance. 

[LexieLily]

Is Feuds Turned Fatal not the same series as Fear Thy Neighbor?

[Annber03]

2 hours ago, LexieLily said:

Is Feuds Turned Fatal not the same series as Fear Thy Neighbor?

Pretty close, yeah :p. 

[LexieLily]

1 hour ago, Annber03 said:

Pretty close, yeah :p. 

Different cases or the same cases so I don't need to bother recording it? :p

[Annber03]

1 hour ago, LexieLily said:

Different cases or the same cases so I don't need to bother recording it? :p

No, different case. It's not just neighbors fighting with each other - the one I'm watching now involves a woman and her brother's ex having a whole feud with each other (the woman thinks her brother's ex is not a good perosn and hurt her brother and she's mad about it). But the general premises aren't too dissimilar.