Lost In Lima Ohio - A true crime blog

Short on funds? Need cash now? You might be in luck, as the bounty for Brian Laundrie has now reached $30,000.  Sadly, there are few clues to where Laundrie is, so you may have to do a little work to earn that reward.  Where would you start? In a swampy Florida preserve? "Laundrie, who his parents say departed their home with his backpack on September 14 and told them he was headed to reserve, left his cell phone and wallet behind, a source close to the family told CNN on Thursday. The police were told of Laundrie's departure by his parents on September 17, officials said ." This is all theory, based on nothing more than than the shitty cards that are on the table- Brian returned home, sans Gabby Sept 1st. How many times did his parents ask him where the woman that would be their future daughter in law was, where the girl that had lived with them was... why wasnt she calling, why wasnt she texting? How many days would it take to become worried enough to call her family a...

It has been 11 years... dare I say hello to old friends?   There's a new crime, a new missing person, a new murdered woman, a new victim. Nothing has changed. All these years and still - its all the same.   Gabby Petito   She's just one of countless pretty white blonde girls that the main stream media has paraded in front of us, capturing our attention as they lay out the plot that will play across our TVs and phone screens as we wait... first for clues as to where she could be, then for the news she was found, we wait for the reports that it was a homicide, detais on her last encounters... we want to know the cause of death. More than that we want to know where her #vanlife sharing and who most of the world believes was her killer, boyfriend Brian Christopher Laundrie is.   How do they pick which missing person will make the best headlines? How do they determine that Gabby will bring more views than Mary Johnson ? or Dulce Maria Alavez ? Why not ...

The following cases will be airing this weekend on America's Most Wanted. Get more information on these and other cases on their website- www.amw.com Unknown Ben Novack Jr. Killer - A huge murder mystery surrounds the small town of Rye Brook in upstate New York. Detectives say South Florida millionaire Ben Novack Jr. was beaten to death as he slept in his hotel bed. Ben, the son of the former owner of Miami's famed Fontainebleau Hotel, was the second-largest Batman collector worldwide. Rye Brook police are hot on the trail of Ben's killers but are looking for that one last tip to bring them in. Happy Tran Pham - Houston police have been searching for 24-year-old Happy Tran Pham for more than two years. They say Pham was unhappy because the girl he was dating got back together with her ex. Houston detectives believe Pham's jealousy led to the murder of 29-year-old Pierre Mai, and they have surveillance video of the crime. Unknown Dorothy "Dot" Gay Howard Killer...

Matthew Calek evidently thinks its cute that as he gets older, he thinks the age of the males he's attracted to might get older to. Sadly for some teenagers- his current attraction seems to be boys in their teens. Calek was sentenced to five years in prison in Iowa in 2002 after a conviction for enticing a 15-year-old boy to engage in sex. Seven months after his release from prison while still on supervised release, Calek posed as a 14-year-old named "Josh" on MySpace and befriended a Philadelphia boy, 15, who was having family problems, prosecutors said. At Josh's invitation, the boy flew to Chicago in July 2006, but Calek sexually assaulted him in a secluded area and abandoned him, the charges alleged. Three months later, Calek posed as an MTV producer and enticed a 17-year-old boy to read a script for a possible movie role, according to his plea agreement. The script had a sex scene. The boy balked at first but later agreed to engage in sex with Calek while being v...

Dr. Earl Bradley, the Delaware pediatrician police believed to have sexually abused possibly 100 children, recieves complaints about his odd behaviors for almost a decade. A decade of jokes among colleagues who hinted at the strangeness of his practice, concerns voiced to his sister who was employeed by him, and even a few investigations into his actions by police. The case has shocked the close-knit coastal community of Lewes and the central Delaware town of Milford, where he closed an office in 2005 after police investigated him. The case is even more chilling because some alleged victims are no more than 6 months old. The governor is not the only one calling for a review. The state attorney general's office also has asked for an investigation. What they are likely to find is a lot of fingerpointing, but few willing to accept much, if any, responsibility. For example, officials who oversee the Board of Medical Practice claim they never received any complaints until after the ar...

For those without access to a police scanner in St Louis, you can listen live online at Radio Reference.com The ABB Power Plant in St Louis came under attack this morning, when at 6:30 a man walked into the transformer plant entered with a AK47 and opened fire. The employees still in the plant are being told by police and rescue workers to stay put via text message and phone calls. It is presently unclear if the shooter was injured, his current whereabouts, but he is believed to be a disgruntled worker who possibly had worked at the plant for 25 years. Neighbors of Power plant saying they heard shooting this morning. That a man with gun shot two employees in the parking lot this morning, at a range of about 8 feet away. About 6:30 a.m. today, police got a call from a woman, very upset, who said that someone came in to the east side of the building and started shooting. "They are still shooting," a dispatcher told police officers rushing to the scene at 6:34 a.m. The scene w...

Rodney Earl Key was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2001 after pleading guilty to child abuse by a parent. After being denied parole twice, it was granted and he was released in April and put "under supervision". We can only assume that the supervision didn't involve enough of the supervision that Key needed (and would have certainly found while behind bars) since he once again has been arrested for charges involving a child. Police said Rodney Earl Key, 46, was in the sanctuary at the St. James Church in the 200 block of S. Augusta Ave. with an 11-year-old girl on Jan. 3 when he put her on his lap and put her hand up her dress, records show. The girl asked Key what he was doing and he said he was "going to give her a spanking but he couldn't because she was too sweet," according to charging documents. He then told her that she was to keep the touching to themselves Source: The Baltimore Times

Ted Bundy was described as charming, smart, good looking. John Wayne Gacy used to throw block parties for his neighbors and dress up like a clown. BTK was said to be efficient, friendly, and a regular nice guy. Yet they were all serial killers. Which is why it always strikes a nerve with me that people can assume serial killers can seem like "normal nice people" but sex offenders should be nasty, easy to spot creeps. Especially sex offenders who prey upon children, and need the trust of others in order to obtain a victim. Yet, once again- we've got a group of people just plain out dumbfouned that the whole "sex offender" picture they have in their head didn't match up with the "nice guy" in the neighborhood. I guess the new charges against him came as a shock... or would have if he was still live to be charged. According to arrest records, Ballance was a registered sex offender. He was convicted in 1998 of taking indecent liberties with a child an...

If the name Gilbert H. Escobedo doesn't mean a lot to you, then you might want to pick out at least one of the many books that cover his reign of terror in the 80s and 90s. The man dubed "the ski mask rapist" has been mentioned in numerous books over the last few decades, and with good reason. Escobedo, confessed to 48 rapes, although many people believe that the number is closer to double that. The plight of one of his victims is unfolded in Whispers of Romance, Threats of Death by Carol Cook (who, it is worth mentioning is one of the victims of Escobedo. Just the overview of the book gives a glimpse into the truly disturbing mentality of Escobedo, despite its assumed purpose of highlighting the fight of his victim to ensure justice: After Carol Cook was raped in her Dallas home, she had trouble trusting new people. Then she met Gilbert Escobedo, a respected member of the Christian community. He became her trusted business partner, and eventually her lover. But as Carol...

When I first came across the murder of Andrew Burd , it seemed a simple enough case. The murderer had already been discovered, charged, tried and convicted. It was an open and shut case. Hannah Overton, Andrews foster mother, had given the small child a lethal dose of salt. The resulting death, would have been painful and slow in coming. But the case was over, and we could at least grasp an instant of relief knowing that she would be behind bars for a long time, paying for the heinous crime she had committed against Andrew. Except that Hannah and her church were bound to protest, to put the blame for Andrews death on Andrea himself- and they were taking their fight all the way to the appeals court. They enlisted the onesided, often bias help of a national TV show, started websites in support of Hannah and attempted to discredit the prosecution. I encourage you to take a moment and revisit the link above, to remind yourself of this case, if only to remember Andrew for a moment and sha...

Its been too long....

This SATURDAY , June 20, 2009, AMERICA’S MOST WANTED will be airing the following cases. Harlem, New York … CARLOS THOMPSON… New York cops say rapper Carlos Thompson handed a .38-caliber revolver to a 13-year-old boy and ordered him to murder another teen. Now, more than a year later, Thompson is in custody. http://www.amw.com/fugitives/ brief.cfm?id=55482 Stone Mountain, Georgia … DERRICK YANCEY… Newly-released surveillance video shows Derrick Yancey, a former sheriff's deputy accused of killing his wife and another man, in his first hours on the run. Investigators say Yancey is seen buying a Greyhound bus ticket to California, but his whereabouts are now unknown. http://www.amw.com/fugitives/ brief.cfm?id=64701 Whitewater, Wisconsin … RICKY HOWARD… Cops in Whitewater, Wisc. say Ricky Howard is a perpetual danger to society. Throughout his life, Howard's been in and out of jail, but cops say in December of 1999, he reached a new low when he violently raped a 12-year-...

A WIFE AND MOTHER DISAPPEARS, LEAVING BEHIND A MYSTERY THAT WOULD HAUNT FRIENDS AND FAMILY FOR 30 YEARS "48 HOURS MYSTERY" ON SATURDAY, JUNE 20 As the wife of promising engineer Eugene Zapata and mother to three children, Jean Zapata was not your typical stay-at-home mom. Strong and independent, she was a trailblazer, one of the few female flight instructors of her day. But in 1976 she vanished from her Madison, Wis. home leaving behind friends, family and a mystery that would take 30 years to resolve. After just three weeks, the initial investigation into her disappearance went cold. The Zapatas’ youngest daughter Linda, who was 11 years old at the time, grew up thinking her mother had abandoned them. Linda remained haunted until she received a visit from local authorities 28 years later. Thanks to the persistence of Jean’s lifelong friend Peggy Weekley, the case had been reopened. And with the help of Madison detective Marianne Flynn Statz, these women were unit...

Guest blogger: Angela Dove, author of No Room for Doubt: A True Story of the Reverberations of Murder (Berkley/Penguin 2009). I was on the phone when the world dropped out from under my feet. Twice. The first time was when my father called me in 1988 to say my stepmother was dead. He didn’t use the word murder ; he talked around it. Someone had killed Debi, and it was not an accident. During the next few hours, I learned that I had been the last to see Debi alive; she had been killed in our Modesto, California home, with one of our knives, only a couple of hours after I left for spring break. My 3-year-old sister slept through the attack only a few feet away. And that person I had heard breathing in the back bedroom was not my father after all. Fast forward twenty years. Debi’s mother had asked me to write her story, and I was honored. Jacqueline “Jacque” MacDonald had channeled her grief over Debi’s death into a one-woman crusade to find Debi’s killer. I...

“THERE WASN’T A DAY WHEN I DIDN’T THINK HE WAS JUST GONNA KILL ME. [SOMETIMES] IT SEEMED I WAS BETTER OFF DEAD THAN LIVING THROUGH THAT.” KIDNAP VICTIM SHAWN HORNBECK REVEALS THE DETAILS ABOUT HIS INCREDIBLE STORY OF SURVIVAL IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH CBS NEWS “48 HOURS MYSTERY” –TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 2009 In October 2002, at the age of 11, Shawn Hornbeck, was kidnapped. Over the course of the next 4 ½ years, Hornbeck suffered horrific abuses at the hands of his abductor, Michael Devlin, until he was rescued by FBI agents in January 2007. In an exclusive interview with 48 HOURS MYSTERY correspondent Tory Roberts, Hornbeck speaks about what happened during the time he was missing. “Nobody knows the real story except for me,” Hornbeck tells Roberts in the revealing interview. “There wasn’t a day when I didn’t think he was just gonna kill me…[sometimes] it seemed I was better off dead than living through that.” Hornbeck describes what he endured during the years th...

HIGH TECH vs CHILD PORN FOX-TV’s “ America’s Most Wanted ” Highlights Florida’s First-in-the-Nation Statewide CyberCrime Sweep Using Groundbreaking Technology to Fight Online Predators The Internet may have revolutionized communications, but it’s also provided a dark cover for some of the most twisted predators: perverts who make and distribute child pornography. State- of-the-art technology is now revolutionizing the way law enforcement fights back. This week on AMERICA’S MOST WANTED (Saturday, June 13 th 9:00 PM ET/PT on FOX), host John Walsh will show viewers how authorities in Florida are using sophisticated technology – and how it’s yielded big results. Governor Charlie Crist created Florida’s CyberCrime Unit in 2005, while serving as the state’s Attorney General, with a mission to protect children from computer-facilitated sexual exploitation. Under Florida’s current Attorney General, Bill McCollum, the CyberCrime Unit has expanded to include a staff of more than ...

While I normally shy from all things Craigslist, and while Craigslist rapes aren't a new thing- I could not help but be horrified by this one. Police say a NC man used Craigslist to enlist another man in the rape of his wife. His wife called police early Sunday morning and said a man with a knife raped her in the bedroom of their home in Kannapolis, about 25 miles northeast of Charlotte, authorities said. Her husband was in the room, police said. Their two young children were also home, but were unaware of what was happening, authorities said. The husband sought someone in the ads to come to his home and have sex with his wife using "scare tactics," police said. It was without her knowledge or consent, police said. Authorities are still investigating the identity of the man who attacked the woman and it wasn't known if the husband paid him to do it. The woman was not seriously injured, but was treated at a hospital and released. SOURCE Sometimes, I wonder j...

When neighbors of an 11 year old rape victim spotted Jose Carrasquillo, whose photo had been released by police as a "person of interest" in the brutal rape, they could have stopped and called police. Instead, the angered crowd beat him- with wooden sticks, their fists and their feet. The attack on Carrasquillo was caught on tape by a nearby camera. Jose Carrasquillo, 26, is currently in stable condition after the videotaped beating by about a dozen West Kensington residents, according to police. The mob pummeled Carrasquillo for several minutes with wooden sticks, their fists and their feet, authorities said. Click here to watch the video. He suffered head injuries and was taken to Temple University Hospital. Police said Wednesday that he has been upgraded from critical to stable condition. The 11 year old rape victim had been on her way to school when her attacker approached her, began walking with her and then claiming to have a gun dragged her into a nearby backya...

America's Most Wanted: America Fights Back is known for it's dedication to putting criminals behind bars, but this week you can be apart of their efforts to help one convicted killer gain his freedom... and prove his innocence. TURNING THE TABLES: CRIME-FIGHTING SHOW HIGHLIGHTS CASE THAT COULD SET CONVICTED KILLER FREE. “America’s Most Wanted” Investigation Shows Justice May NOT Have Been Done. (May 28, 2009), Washington, D.C. – For more than two decades, “America’s Most Wanted” has profiled fugitives and asked the public to help cops chase them down. But in a special episode this Saturday May 30th (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX, AMW Host John Walsh will ask viewers to consider whether one man caught, tried and convicted of murder should NOT be behind bars. In a turnabout for a show that has helped thousands of people get justice, Walsh will investigate a case that raises the question of whether justice has truly been served. When police found the body of a Missour...

A MILLIONAIRE’S OUTRAGEOUS SEX LIFE MAY HAVE LED TO HIS GRUESOME MURDER – ON “48 HOURS MYSTERY,” SATURDAY, MAY 30 Charlie White was a larger-than-life Texas millionaire. Ambitious, bold and brash, he lived a lavish lifestyle that included a private jet, luxury vacations, parties and beautiful women. But it all came to a gruesome end in 2005 when police were called to his lakeside mansion. The eccentric millionaire had been murdered, mercilessly beaten, with an extension cord wrapped around his neck several times. By first impression, White was a very likeable person, but as police began investigating his murder, a darker image of White began to emerge, one of a cruel man with a dangerous mean streak sharpened by arrogance, alcohol and women. With an unbridled passion for the fairer sex, White bedded and rated the sexual prowess of over a thousand women, including strippers and prostitutes. And White didn’t stop there, satisfying his sexual appetite with the girlfriends of his...