Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Criminal.
Martha Curnutt
This story has haunted my memory since I first heard it. I am fascinated by family history and while watching one of my favorite shows about celebrities doing their genealogy, I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen during one particular episode about Cynthia Nixon. She knew nothing about her father’s side of the family but would soon find out that there were skeletons in their closet that ultimately led to major prison reform around the country.
By Chelsie Speer5 years ago in Criminal
The Bloody Benders
Southeast Kansas had its very own serial killer family -- possibly the first serial killer family of the United States. The Bender family has long been a subject of gruesome lore in the area where I was raised, and over the decades, the interest has never waned. With the advent of websites that share newspaper archives, the depth of knowledge about this bizarre family as well as the spread of conjectures, misinformation, and hypothetical circumstances has only increased the mystery.
By Cindy Morrison5 years ago in Criminal
Unsolved mystery of JonBenet Ramsey
When it comes to crime and true crime at that I have always been a massive nerd and have always been interested on what exactly goes through the people that cause these crimes brains. In fact I have always been so into true crime and peoples brains I recieved a double major in both psychology and criminal justice. The story that has always had me obssessed is the mysterious death of the child beauty queen-JonBenet Ramsey.
By Hannah Lovell5 years ago in Criminal
Delivery Dangers
It was the summer of 1992 and my 12-year-old little brother was on a mission to win a grand adventure to visit Yellowstone National Park in the winter. All he had to do was be in the top five to enroll the most subscribers to the newspaper he delivered for, the Idaho State Journal, before fall. We all figured it would be an impossible feat considering our town only had around 300 people in it, and he was already delivering the paper to most of them. Of course, there was no way he could compete with employees in a large city, so it was a massive shock when we learned he had indeed won and would get to go on an amazing adventure.
By Viltinga Rasytoja5 years ago in Criminal
Sweet But Psycho
TikTok has become almost everyone's favorite form of entertainment during quarantine. The platform has catchy dances and unique challenges but this one seems to be a bit creepy. The song "Sweet But Psycho" by Ava Max has gained some traction on the friendly platform in 2020, pretty girls would make videos to this song and gain popularity but this one TikTok account decided to make the meaning of the song, literal.
By Tania Hill5 years ago in Criminal
The Mystery of SL-1
On the evening of January 3, 1961, nestled in the desert away from the rolling hills and titular waterfalls of Idaho Falls, Idaho, sat Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One. There have been plenty of fascinating and infamous nuclear accidents over the years throughout the world, but this one might just plague me the most. At this point, you may be asking yourself what this has to do with true crime? Just hold on to your pantaloons and we’ll get there.
By Joan J. Bell5 years ago in Criminal
My Journey Down the Rabbit Hole
Everybody’s gotten so de-sensitized towards people being arrested and claiming they’re innocent. Aren’t we all guilty of glossing over a story of some poor sap who got arrested for something “he didn’t do”? I know I am guilty of doing that--numerous times. However, fate had other things in mind & threw a monkey wrench my way. I didn’t see it coming and damn sure wasn’t prepared for it but my life was turned sideways by corruption. I never really paid attention to the news stories that featured the word “corruption” in them. I always believed the word was related to white-collar, victimless crimes. That could not be further from the truth. As a crime junkie, I never saw “corruption” listed as a cause of death, but it should have been. A double murder case with national media attention brought corruption to my front door and it will bring it to yours too.
By Jimmie Lee Staley5 years ago in Criminal
Clue in the Garten
You are a kindergarten at Isopropyl Elementary, Paoli, Indiana. No one has asked you why your school was named after rubbing alcohol. They are more likely to ask you about the double murders that happened last Thursday in your neighborhood. Given you are 6 and was hanging like a banshee in your school’s jungle gym when the crime happened—around eleven in the morning—would not really hold back anyone from asking you, a little girl, about the gruesome killings. You live in that neighborhood, in that quiet cul-de-sac, probably bike-raced with the kid sister or kid brother of one of the doomed.
By Ted Guevara5 years ago in Criminal
The Case of Stephen McDaniel
I could talk about the manifesto of Christopher Dorner with the handful of people he killed and those he chose not to kill or the evilness of Chris Watts and the horrendous things he did to his very own family, but I feel the most interesting true crime murder to me is the case of Stephen McDaniel. Why do you ask? Simply because of how very close he was to not being caught even going as far as to talk to the local news about his victim, and because of how much of a “normal” person he portrayed himself as until he was questioned by the police where you can watch him have an internal implosion. Let's take it back to the beginning, two law students one by the name of Lauren Giddings and the other by the name of Stephen McDaniel. McDaniel having an infatuation with Lauren starting as friends they would talk to each other sometimes and even in the rarity that they would it was always over schoolwork, and things of that nature. Over the next few months, McDaniels would watch Lauren leave her apartment and record her doing so, and after learning her schedule he stole a master key and would break into her dorm room and go through her things. Lauren coming home after a long day at either work or school she would come into her apartment and notice things moved around saying “I feel like someone's been here”. Maybe if she went with that feeling what's to come would have never happened, but unfortunately, that's not the case. In May 2011 Stephen McDaniels broke into Laurens apartment while she was asleep in bed she noticed and began to scream McDaniels sprang on top of her and held her down in a valiant effort she stretched and screamed but McDaniels got the best of her and suffocated her to death. Three days later her friends came to look for her at her apartment, but McDaniels already cut up her body and disposed of it. In a plan to make him seem innocent he helped them look for her in the apartment when they found nothing they called the police. He went once to the police department and they suspected he did nothing but once the police find the torso and he’s told mid-interview and you can see the “oh I'm caught” look on his face which at the time might be confused for an “oh no my friend died” look. Then after the detectives found swords, guns, and condoms they asked him why he had condoms in his room if during the first line of questioning he said he was “staying celibate till marriage” which he answered “oh I stole them from someone else's apartment” and that gave detectives enough to arrest him on breaking and entering. Now comes my favorite part of the investigation which is the interview done after the torso was found. Enter McDaniels to the investigation room, he processed to morph into a blank face that suggests he doesn't know anything thing about Lauren or her murder. The investigators caught on to his guilty act and proceeded to grill him heavy on what happened and what he was doing at the time. The investigator even goes as far as to compare the murder of Lauren to him taking a cookie out of the cookie jar without permission. This leads to McDaniels going into an ever more state of dissociation and makes the tape ever more interesting to watch. Now anybody who wishes to be a detective and anything of the sort should watch this video, because of what's to come and how McDaniels react to the line of questioning. Every question asked is answered by a monotone “I don't know” or “no” but in the other interviews had by the investigator it suggests that this was the first time he acted like this. The torso found by police made him feel defenseless and it shows in the investigation video but he didn't confess to anything in the whole video, but somehow as humans, we know that he is guilty just by watching the video because as humans we know at heart how we react to things, and in watching the video anyone even an “evil” soul knows that McDaniels knows something he's not telling. The rest of the interview is a soulless monster saying “he doesn't know” what happened, but only a few days ago he was cutting her arms and legs off her torso. Why I find this to be the most interesting is because if they never found the torso they would’ve never caught this boy and all the other body parts were never discovered. Which to me is screaming that he almost got away with it, but as I said before, on camera you can see the moment of fear and terror in his face when he realized he's gonna have to pay for his crime. This is why I find this to be the most interesting case to me personally because of how he acts in the post-interview and how he almost got away with it if he put the torso in a different place. Even if he was just a little better at lying the police would have not suspected anything from him. This was a young man studying to become a lawyer. I find it so fascinating because what if he had time to get older and get better at what he was doing, and it makes me think of all the same kinds of people out there doing the same thing but not getting caught. It's a terrible crime but a really good look into how the mind of a murderer works.
By Jesus Abraham Torres5 years ago in Criminal
