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. 

[kathyk2]

Oxygen is airing a great documentary The Lady of the Dunes. It's about the murder of an unidentified woman on Cape Cod in 1974. I'll wait to share my opinions after I see the conclusion tomorrow.

[kathyk2]

The local police are heroes for their determination to solve the Lady of the Dunes case. They were determined to solve the case with limited resources. The State Police stonewalled the case by getting rid of physical evidence that could have been tested for DNA. They also made life difficult for one of the detectives by ruining her reputation. She got the FBI involved because the victim was found on federal land. It is worth watching if you haven't seen it.

[Elizzikra]

Is there a place to discuss the Netflix three-part series, Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey?

[SoMuchTV]

14 hours ago, Elizzikra said:

Is there a place to discuss the Netflix three-part series, Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenet Ramsey?

There's a thread in the Netflix forum:

 

[Vermicious Knid]

You may remember the case of Ron Rudin and his wife 'Black Widow' Margaret Rudin, who was found guilty of his murder and sentenced to prison. It was the subject of the Forensic Files episode 'For Love or Money'. In 2022 her conviction was overturned and she was released. Now a judge has dismissed the murder charges altogether and she can't be re-charged. I watched that FF episode just a couple days ago and was pretty convinced she did it. But at this point she's 81 and unlikely to be a danger to anyone else. 

[andromeda331]

1 hour ago, Vermicious Knid said:

You may remember the case of Ron Rudin and his wife 'Black Widow' Margaret Rudin, who was found guilty of his murder and sentenced to prison. It was the subject of the Forensic Files episode 'For Love or Money'. In 2022 her conviction was overturned and she was released. Now a judge has dismissed the murder charges altogether and she can't be re-charged. I watched that FF episode just a couple days ago and was pretty convinced she did it. But at this point she's 81 and unlikely to be a danger to anyone else. 

FF convinced me too. Everything pointed to her.

[Minivanessa]

I've just watched the Paramount+ original true crime miniseries, The Pillowcase Murders. I was familiar with the underlying story - in fact I may have posted about it somewhere in these forums, if not upthread here.

I thought it was well done. It's the story of the murders of at least 22 elderly people (all but one women) in the Dallas area - and the attempted murders of two women. Most of them occurred in upscale retirement living complexes, and the killer's MO was to smother the victims with pillows and steal their jewelry. 

Although I'd read about the case(s), it was still kind of jaw dropping to see how the deaths were routinely treated as "natural causes" even when there were yellow, and sometimes red, flags to be seen if anyone was looking. 

Those were upscale facilities, at least one of them in the "luxury" class. I'm not poor, but I doubt I could afford to live in any of them. But security was - lax, and sometimes nonexistent. And the corporate management policies seemed to be, shut up, don't make waves, don't call the cops, we don't want to get a reputation as a place with any problems. Ugh.

Once the suburban Plano cops got on the trail after suspicious deaths in a facility in their jurisdiction, the investigation widened into Dallas etc., and good grief there was a LOT of evidence of prior suspicious deaths that had been overlooked or ignored. 

I empathized with the grieving children, grandchildren, and nephew of the victims. They were plunged into a nightmare scenario and I applaud their strength and resilience, and persistence.

The perp was arrested and indicted for a big number of capital murders. He went to trial on two cases, and was convicted on both, with a life-without-parole sentence for each one. Those convictions ensured he'd never be free. The DA decided to dismiss the remaining indictments, and some of the survivors were upset by that. I thought some of them were really over the top and unreasonable about it. I can't remember the exact words but one or two of them said the dismissals meant their mother's case meant nothing and there was no justice, etc. At least one of them, however, acknowledged in passing that the DA and courts have limited resources. I mean, really, with all the serious criminal cases that must be pending Dallas in need of prosecution, how could the DA justify taking eleven more murder cases to trial, just to obtain essentially pointless additional convictions? That's a lot of courtroom and law enforcement time and resources that could be better spent. 

The series features the lawyers who represented several of the victims in litigation against the living facilities' owners. It was encouraging that one of the facilities apparently made meaningful security improvements, but the biggest most luxurious one, with the most murders, seems to be stonewalling. Bah.

Edited Saturday at 10:21 PM by Minivanessa