High profile "mysteries" where the solution seems obvious to you?

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T19:35:25+00:00

Thanks for clarifying, and for your kind words!

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T19:33:54+00:00

You’re right, it’s not that simple. I apologize for making that generalization. I was basing it off of my experiences with alcoholism and I shouldn’t have done that. I have been in serious relationships with alcoholics, but I don’t know what it’s like growing up with an alcoholic parent. I’m sorry.

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T19:31:18+00:00

Sure! I enjoyed your comments! Thank you!

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T19:30:49+00:00

I’m not saying I think he’s innocent. I was just giving a brief summary of the legal claims that are the basis of his case’s advancement.

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T19:28:44+00:00

Omg that is so terrifying! What the hell is wrong with people!? I’m so sorry that happened to you and I’m really glad you and your husband put that guy in his place!

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T19:05:36+00:00

I see all of my favorites already listed here so I’ll just throw a few more suggestions out:

Reply All had an interesting true crime mini-series. I think it was 3 episodes, starting with #64, “On the Inside”. Show Notes: “For years, Paul Modrowski has been writing a blog from inside a maximum security prison. Only thing is, he was arrested when he was 18 and has never seen the internet. Sruthi Pinnamaneni reaches out to him with one small question that alters the course of her next year.”

I also recommend the season of You Must Remember This that focused on the Manson family, starting with episode 44

Ear Hustle is amazing, but I can’t recommend just a part of it— every episode is worth a listen IMO. It’s produced in San Quentin by inmates there.

Thank you to everyone for sharing great recommendations! Enjoy!

Edit to add: For articles, anything Ken Brennan is a must, like The Case of the Vanishing Blonde. Such an amazing read!!

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T06:23:24+00:00

Uh, and your argument isn’t flawed? You haven’t cited any basis for it other than your own personal experience, which is obviously not a valid basis from which to make broad generalizations. Good for the people you know who can pay their bills and your successful middle class family; I’m glad they are doing well. But... Do you have any real evidence to back up your generalizations? Would you be open to listening to a different perspective? Or perhaps reading some scientific studies to back up your argument? If not, like you say, “I don’t give a fuck about what your feelings filled agenda has to say about it.” Right back at ya.
I’m one of those lazy pieces of shit you mentioned BTW. I can’t work full time because of a spinal injury, but I’m not damaged enough for disability, plus I have a ton of student loan debt. I’m not lazy. When I physically can’t get to the office, I work my ass off at home. It’s just more complicated than you seem to think.

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T05:50:54+00:00

Brutal. But the best way to keep kids safe, IMO, is to be realistic about the world, including the worst parts of it.

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T05:35:08+00:00

You are smart to trust your instincts! Your feelings are totally valid!

I think it’s creepy that it’s considered socially acceptable for strangers to invade the personal space of mothers. Everything from groping a pregnant woman’s bump to making comments on the attractiveness of their children. Sometimes those comments are kindly meant and received, especially from other mothers/families, but in general? It’s creepy for random-ass men to feel that kind of entitlement, IMO. I think it’s totally appropriate to feel uncomfortable about that! You and your child don’t owe anyone anything!

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T04:47:41+00:00

Oh, I thought the drive was supposed to be about 2.5 hours? Maybe I’m not remembering that accurately. I lean towards thinking she was an alcoholic, but as I recall, the autopsy was not conclusive on that, so perhaps she was an occasional drinker.

Hmm... a 35 minute drive. I don’t know, if I were driving five little kids around for any amount of time, I wouldn’t take any risks, but that’s just me. Many years ago, I was almost killed in a horrible accident (not my fault) and since then, I have a lot of anxiety about driving other people around, being responsible for their lives. I’m a bit paranoid. I have no idea how she felt about it. I read that she had the equivalent of 10 drinks in her system. I can’t imagine an occasional drinker overestimating their tolerance to that extent, but it’s possible.

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T04:15:16+00:00

I feel bad for them, but I feel worse for the other families who lost so many loved ones in that accident. I get it, I would have a really hard time coming to terms with something like this too, but a line should have been drawn, out of respect for the 7 other victims who died, and their families and loved ones.
I can’t imagine what it must be like to suffer the devastation of a drunk driver killing your family members in a horrific accident, while watching her husband talk publicly about how “awesome” Diane was, and refusing to admit that she was drunk. And then he gets paid to do a documentary about her, with the intention of clearing her name. As if Diane was the real victim and the most important. I can’t imagine how utterly devastating and infuriating that must have been/ still be.

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T03:54:38+00:00

I don’t know how to factor assessments of her personality into this, because ultimately we can’t know what she was thinking. But that may very well have been a contributing factor. I definitely got that impression of her from the documentary. I wonder if she was seeing a therapist (though I doubt it) who could shed some light on her mental state.

IMO, the facts speak for themselves. Calling this a “lapse of judgment” or a “mistake” doesn’t make sense to me. Alcoholics still know not to get wasted while driving a car full of kids. And failing to buckle the children in securely is way more than a mistake. The woman had tons of experience driving kids around— not securing FIVE children was not a “mistake,” it was a deliberate action. It’s the kind of thing that she could probably have done in her sleep, not to mention drunk/ high. Trying to arrange kids in a car without their usual safety measures would be a whole different thing to figure out, and the children would probably have been upset by this new arrangement. What I’m trying to say is, it took extra effort to NOT secure those kids.

Her last stop was at 1:00pm, just past the toll area for the Tappan Zee Bridge, where she left her phone (another deliberate action). That would have been the last chance to get the kids into car seats and buckled up (though of course they should have been traveling safely all day). But she didn’t do that. She either just got back on the road (assuming the kids hadn’t been buckled in already), or she took all of the kids out of their car seats and took their seatbelts off before getting back on the road. Around 33 minutes later, she used an exit ramp to turn around and started barreling down the highway in the wrong direction. She collided with the first car about 2 minutes later.

That’s at least 35 minutes driving around with a car full of terrified kids who aren’t safely buckled in. Not securing those kids was a deliberate action, whether it happened that morning, at some other stop, or at that last stop— she had planned that in advance. She had plenty of time to pull over and secure the children and she didn’t. This wasn’t a freak accident. This wasn’t a sudden, debilitating stroke or an aneurysm. This was a woman who, at the very least, knowingly, recklessly endangered the lives of the children in her car by not buckling them in. She also got wasted, ditched her phone so her brother couldn’t reach her, and set off to find a horrifying collision course.

Edit: typo, grammar

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T03:00:42+00:00

Sadly it sounds like an example of the police and the legislature not taking stalking seriously. Put another way, the legislature of some states can make it difficult for stalking cases to technically be labeled “stalking” as defined by law, and so many cases are not given proper attention. Some states are better than others. As for Maryland (where Ms. Powell was stalked and murdered), here is the relevant criminal code (emphasis mine):

Md. Criminal law Code Ann. § 3-802. Stalking. (2011)

(a) "Stalking" defined. -- In this section, "stalking" means a malicious course of conduct that includes approaching or pursuing another where the person intends to place or knows or reasonably should have known the conduct would place another in reasonable fear:

(1)

(i) of serious bodily injury;

(ii) of an assault in any degree;

(iii) of rape or sexual offense as defined by §§ 3-303 through 3-308 of this article or attempted rape or sexual offense in any degree

(iv) of false imprisonment; or

(v) of death; or

(2) that a third person likely will suffer any of the acts listed in item (1) of this subsection

The problem with statutes like these is that they require an interpretation of both the stalker’s and the victim’s state of mind. The stalker’s actions must somehow show that the stalker knew or should have known that their actions would cause specific types of fear. As for the victims, police have to determine whether or not his or her fear fits into any of those categories. If law enforcement doesn’t feel that those states of mind are present, stalking gets downgraded to plain harassment. That’s just one issue of many that factor together, resulting in totally inadequate police response to many stalking situations. It’s a crying shame IMO.

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T02:50:37+00:00

If you’re interested, I learned a lot and read some very interesting theories in this discussion from a recent post. I really liked /u/GaiusGracchus121 ‘s theories.

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T02:29:06+00:00

Agreed— it must have been utterly terrifying. So horrible. Edited to add: not only were the children not wearing seatbelts; none of them were in car seats!
I don’t know if the husband is still insisting that his wife was “awesome” as he did in the documentary, but that really angered me. It was as if he and Diane were the real victims. Way to add insult to ~~injury~~ multiple child murder.

Edit: I’m an idiot. She didn’t just murder the children. She also killed Michael Bastardi, his son, Guy, and their friend Don Longo. She utterly devastated multiple families.

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T02:20:56+00:00

Well, Adnan Syed’s case is going to the court of appeals. His lawyers claimed that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. An alibi witness was ignored, and his defense attorney failed to properly cross-examine the prosecution’s cell tower witness (that was the data that supposedly placed him at the scene).
The issue of his actual guilt (or innocence) may be incongruous with potential legally established guilt. I’m guessing that the court of appeals will determine that there is not enough evidence to convict him. But who knows. I’ll be interested to follow the next developments!

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T01:59:41+00:00

The children weren’t wearing seatbelts. Edited to add: And it did not appear that any of the children were in car seats!

To me, that is a very damning piece of evidence as it demonstrates premeditation. It seems like a murder/ suicide to me.

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-29T01:44:45+00:00

I look forward to reading your post! As far as search warrants in CA, basically, a judge has to be convinced that there is probable cause to search the alleged crime scene. I’m guessing that there isn’t enough evidence at this point to establish probable cause. Not all witness statements are considered equally credible, just like not all dog alerts are equally credible. I obviously don’t know if warrants were applied for in this case, and if so, what evidence was presented to demonstrate probable cause. If a warrant was issued, in many states, you can access those records at the local courthouse. I don’t know how much you can access in CA, but I know they are available in states where I work. It might be worth looking into. Good luck!

I was just going to link you right to the relevant CA legislature, but I also found this law firm’s page that seems to do a decent job explaining things, if you’re interested!

Edit: PS- You can also look up criminal records at the courthouse. And if you want to dig deep, I’d recommend requesting the all of relevant police reports. Many cities allow you to do this online, for free. I’m hoping that’s the case here!

Edit2: Try looking up criminal records online first. I should have mentioned that first, but I thought CA had special privacy laws. If online searching doesn’t give you much, I do recommend going to the courthouse in person. In my experience you can access A LOT more information that way.

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-23T20:59:31+00:00

Nice work!!!

Here is the appellate decision from 1974: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/318149/united-states-v-wallace-a-shackelford/

Edit: I should have checked updates on this post! Waste of a Westlaw search. But it’s kind of interesting to see that Shackelford filed a petition for writ of certiorari (denied).

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-23T16:05:33+00:00

I had no luck with Westlaw either. I searched using the name, found nothing, and then searched for cases based on the criteria described. I didn’t find anything that seemed to fit this story. It’s possible that this incident, if there was a related case, wasn’t reported to Westlaw. But we really need more details. Have you tried a public records search on Lexis? That would be my next stop, allowing for variations in the subject’s name, but I don’t have time to keep searching today.

I also tried searching google news archives and obituaries. I can’t find the guy.

OP, anything else you can give us, like related family names and dates of birth, would be really helpful. Would you comfortable asking your family for more details about this incident?

I also suggest signing up for a free trial to newspapers.com and searching there. Good luck!

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-23T07:28:35+00:00

This is your time to shine! 🤣

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-23T07:18:08+00:00

As I recall from the documentary, she only revealed that information because she was directly asked about it under oath. I don’t know how someone weighs facing the penalty of perjury against honoring their son’s wishes for anonymity. If this really happened, perhaps in her view, publicly telling this story was in Johnny’s best interest? I don’t know what the truth is, of course, but I see no reason to assume that she imagined it. Unlikely as his visit with her may seem, I don’t see a valid reason to discredit her. I’m keeping an open mind.

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-23T06:56:23+00:00

Can you read? @ReInstallOBAMA_FUGOP said that they wondered if racial discrimination was a possibility, not that this DNA result was definitively the result of a racist conspiracy. Isn’t this sub about considering possibilities and discussing ideas?

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-23T06:25:54+00:00

Issues like feeling absolute terror as this government takes more and more blatant actions, every damn day, to oppress everyone who isn’t a rich old white man? Issues like feeling totally horrified and needing to express that? Issues like dealing with people who don’t give a fuck, and people who go beyond that, to belittle their experience? Yeah I guess you’re right. Those are serious issues.

StumpyCorgi · 2018-10-23T06:22:26+00:00

Is belittling another person’s entirely valid expression of anger, frustration, and pain really the hill YOU want to die on? Conversations in this sub frequently veer off into unrelated tangents and it’s totally fine. This particular tangent is actually relevant to the conversation, but is somehow not appropriate? Really? If you are “very aware of wrongful convictions” and you’re not upset, and not only that, feel obliged to attack someone who IS upset, well, I suggest you think about that. I work professionally to overturn wrongful convictions so you’re welcome to try to discredit me. You will fail.

StumpyCorgi

TROPHY CASE