Ripper’s Rights Ruined?

In 1981, Peter Sutcliffe, now 61 years old, was sentenced to 20 life terms as the Yorkshire Ripper, responsible for the murder of 13 women and the attempted murder of seven others. When he was sentenced, the judge in the case told Sutcliffe that he would serve a minimum of 30 years. However, there was …

A Reasonable Explanation

According to Karl Taylor, a 27 year-old football coach from Covent Garden, London, Kate Beagley committed suicide by stabbing herself … in the face and neck … more than 30 times. She did this, Taylor insists, while he watched, stunned, as they sat on a park bench overlooking the River Thames. Once he realized she …

Like A Scene From CSI

In an experiment you’d expect to see on a CSI episode, the defense team for Robert Baltovich used two pig corpses as stand-ins for Elizabeth Bain’s missing body. According to the prosecutors, Baltovich killed Bain on June 19th, hid her body under bushes in a park, and returned two days later to move her body, …

Baltovich or Bernardo?

Who killed Elizabeth Bain eighteen years ago? Was it Elizabeth’s boyfriend, Robert Baltovich, whose friends describe as good-natured and intelligent, with no suggestion that he was ever inclined to violence? Or was it the infamous Scarborough Rapist, the serial killer Paul Bernardo, who was stalking his victims in Elizabeth’s neighborhood at the same time she …

Secrets keep an innocent man behind bars for 26 years

In my novel Trial By Fear, Simon Jacks, a defense attorney, is asked what would happen if a client accused of murder confessed to him. He admits that he couldn’t tell anyone because of client confidentiality, but he insists, “It doesn’t happen. Don’t go by what you see on television. It just doesn’t happen that …