Top Stories
Stories in Criminal that you’ll love, handpicked by our team.
Treasure Hunt
Danny walked around the park, taking in the early spring day. The leaves were just starting to bud and the air smelled of fresh dirt. He’s had his head in his books so much lately that it felt like he was just coming out of a cave. It was good to be outside. After completing the loop around the pond, he sat on his favorite bench, the one that overlooked the water. He felt something underneath him and stood up again. A small black notebook, the kind he always imagined writers carried with them everywhere, sat on the bench.
By Erica Ellis5 years ago in Criminal
Stupid Assassin
The street below is as empty as it always is in the warehouse district at-- What time is it? Matthias Stone pushes up the sleeve of his simple black suit jacket. His silver watch reads 7:15, but he thinks maybe the hour hand approaching 8, and the minute hand being over the 3, means it is 8:03. He’s not sure why he even wears the thing, since he can’t read the time. One of these days he’ll invest in a digital watch, or get one of those phone things.
By Byron Hamel5 years ago in Criminal
We Were Partners
“Hello Tim,” I greeted, squeezing past the organized piles of junk on the floor of my brother’s apartment. I set the few bags of groceries I had picked up earlier for him on his cluttered kitchen counter. I suppose I’d forgotten what it was like to live single—no one cared about the mess. My nose wrinkled at the smell in the air. Just because we lived in Amherst, Massachusetts, the permeating stench of fish in his apartment did not make it any more bearable.
By Nathaniel Warren5 years ago in Criminal
The Yellow of Bolzano
On January 5th, 2021, Benno Neumair reported his parents missing from the house they shared on the edge of Bolzano, Italy. Bolzano is in the Alto-Adige region or Italy—northwest of Venice, in the alps, near Liechtenstein. It’s an area where the locals speak German rather than Italian. In fact, when I was at a language school in Bologna, learning Italian, one of the other students at the school was a man from Bolzano. That’s right—he was in his mid-twenties, grew up IN ITALY, and was learning Italian.
By Steven Anthony5 years ago in Criminal
The Monkey Selfie That Created A Copyright Legal Battle
Copyright is the right that authors have over their literary and artistic works. You have a copyright over the stories that you write. We give attribution to photographers of the images that we use as the one above because of the right that they have over their work.
By Olivia Marlene5 years ago in Criminal
Broken Windows Theory
In the 1980s crime in New York City had reached almost epidemic proportions. Apparently, New York was suffering by increased immigration and as a result a much younger population and, added to that, New Yorkers were hit hard by welfare cuts. It wasn’t safe to travel the subway and you would be advised not to go to certain areas, particularly after dark. Yet, by the end of the 1990s the city had cleaned up its act and saw a dramatic fall in the rate of crime.
By Charles Leon6 years ago in Criminal
Series Review: 'When They See Us'
So... when I saw this dramatic re-telling of the ordeal of the Central Park 5 being advertised on Netflix, I was already pretty sure that it was going to be must-watch television. I was also extremely apprehensive about seeing the events through the eyes of these five kids (now grown men) and being able to emotionally process it all. The case (and the legal and societal issues it brings to the forefront) kind of hits close to home for me as a parent, and as an African-American man. I'd seen the Ken Burns documentary on the Central Park 5 a while back, so I was already very familiar with the case, and some of the very problematic issues it brought to the table for the American public to address. Systemic racism, classism, and lack of accountability for law enforcement and agents of the legal system were all things that were at the forefront of the documentary. Ava Duvernay did an excellent job of showing the social and personal toll this case had on these men and their families, as well as the greater impact that the institutions of the law and media played in that accrued trauma. Every episode of this mini-series was visceral and traumatic. Whether it was the very public shunning of Yusuf Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, and Raymond Santana upon their release from custody as adults, to the entire fourth episode being devoted to the ordeal of Korey Wise's experiences at Riker's Island as an adult, the entire progression of the series takes a huge emotional toll on the audience watching it.
By Herbert L. Seward III7 years ago in Criminal
I Thought I'd Always Be a Criminal
I am a criminal, I heard that so often that I believed it. My mother told me that my father was killed in a shootout with the police, so I grew up with this idea in my head of who I was based on things I was told. Turns out that my father died almost thirty years after my mother told me that he did. I grew up dirt poor and my step father was physically abusive to me and my sister. We moved to a new city every couple of years, I always felt that I did not fit in. Kids, being who they are, would tease me about my Goodwill clothes and my parents ugly car. I started to steal candy from the local store early on and I learned that if I gave candy to the kids that they would like me or at least pretend to. As I got older I began to associate money with acceptance. I never felt like I was good enough for people to just like me, so I bought friends often by stealing and hustling.
By Daniel Sullivan7 years ago in Criminal
13 Expensive Things Owned by Celebrity Prisoners
13. Montauk Beach Home—Bernie Madoff Now sold for $21 million dollars after Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison for one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in history, this 3,000-square-foot home sits on a beachfront plot at the easternmost end of Long Island.
By Vidello Productions7 years ago in Criminal
