Memorable reality crime show cases.

Over here in the Movie deaths vs. reality thread, I mention what I thought was a Cold Case File (turned out to be a Forensic Files) about a couple axed in bed. The investigation was complicated because the husband got up, attempted to make breakfast and even went to check the mail before he died of his massive head wound. Several others remembered it too because, really!

There’s another case that stuck with me and I’m not sure which case file show it was featured on. It was about a Brooklyn boy grown to an adult who remembered having a sister when he was little. His mother was abusive and for sure on the crazy side. He began asking other family members about this sister he vaguely remembered-- the room in the tiny apartment no one was allowed to enter of course played a large part in this case. I think this apartment was in Bushwick or Brownsville or East New York. My memory gets things conflated a lot these days, so if anyone can tell me where this show aired, i’d appreciate it.

Now one episode I remember and know it was a Cold Case File was the one about the star of Hogan’s Heroes, Bob Crane. I believe this one is still unsolved. Any case stick in your mind?

A recent one from “Homicide Hunter”: Kenda was still a patrol officer when he and some junior officers arrived at a suburban house that had been shot up. The junior officers wanted to call in detectives, but Kenda decided to use it as a teaching moment instead. The officers discovered more bullet holes in a wooden fence and noticed that the bullets had been coming down. Somebody had been shooting at a street light!

One of the junior officers was familiar with a nearby engineering firm so Kenda enlisted help from the engineers to determine the origin of the gunfire. Armed with various papers and calculations, the engineers narrowed the search area opposite the street light. The officers soon found a woman and her teenage son, who had violated Mom’s rules and used a rifle without supervision. Kenda had the son and his buddy sit in the back of a patrol car for awhile before letting them off with a warning.

I seen that one ….my recent “WTF” was on an episode of “fear thy neighbor” where this uptight anal ocd guy harassed his somewhat slobby neighbor to the point the guy lost it and just emptied a sniper rifle in him

supposedly the city had almost 300 calls in a year and knew they were being used for harassment but didn’t tell him to knock it off……… ad eveb filed a restraining order so the dude couldn’t live in his house ……
So the guy went out of his way to harass mr ocd back and according to local yokel pd and da because he posted a pirate flag and painted “dead men tell no tales” well he was guilty no matter what the evidence was …….

I say if he got a good lawyer he could get a reduced sentence and be able to sue the city ……

The program you’re thinking of was on Cold Case Files; a construction worker dug up a skeleton of a small child in pajamas, and the year of death was approximated by codes in the tags of her pajamas. Her brother remembered “the little girl who always cried” but not that he ever saw her.

http://www.angelizdsplace.com/faceless13.htm (very old link)

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20614750/holly-lee-blake

Its pretty certain Bob Crane was killed by his pervert scumbag partner in perversion. Hit him over the head with a camera tri-pod. Scumbag was jealous he wasn’t getting enough action.

The ‘Forensic Files’ that sticks with me was one where some asshole killed his kid so he could run off with his little whore. What hit me so hard was that my kid was the same age (as the dead kid when I saw this) and a big part of solving the crime was a study of stomach contents. They were able to track the kid through the cheap-ass cereal he ate for breakfast.

The same cereal my kid ate, and we had in the pantry.

For years, I would almost break down and cry when I walked down the cereal aisle in the store, and had to grab a bag of that shit. :frowning:

This isn’t quite it. The child wasn’t buried, she was in a back room that was sealed off by the mom. There wasn’t a couple, just a single mom and they lived in Brooklyn.

Oh, I remember that one! Very sad case.

I remember watching a show on the ID channel (does it matter which one? they are all the same format with different names) and they did a story on Diane Downs, the woman who killed her own kids and tried to claim it was a failed carjacking, so she could run off with some co-worker who didn’t want kids.
What mesmerized me was the real TV footage they showed of her happily “recreating” the crime with a reporter, or talking about the tragedy in the interview while struggling to stay serious, but still slipping and cracking a few smiles. She was busted when one of her kids survived and testified against her.

That woman was messed up.

The child was buried after she died.

I also remember that episode, where it said that DNA cannot be obtained from stomach contents, whether in or out of the body.

(VERY black humor alert) Not long after I first saw that, a co-worker and I were talking about our favorite “This Is Spinal Tap” scenes, and I replied that Scotland Yard still doesn’t have the facilities…you really can’t dust for vomit.

I think that’s the one where one of the detectives recalled watching the heart monitor of one of the surviving children spike [from fear] when the mother visited her in the hospital. :frowning:

In the case I’m talking about the police found the body in the closed off room where the mom still lived many years later.

This 18 year old NY Post story references the case. Now to search with the name of the family to see which show it was on.

I’ve seen this story on at least three different reality shows dealing with unsolved crimes. During the police investigation, more than a dozen people claimed to be hiding underneath the pool table after they heard the first shot. Personally, I don’t care if it ever gets solved.

I suspect that it won’t be “solved” until after the shooter dies, or possibly even all of his children, because people are STILL afraid of McElroy.

I remember a Donahue show that had McElroy’s widow and lawyer on it. They both emphasized that the deceased victim had never been convicted of any crime, and they were upset that the police hadn’t worked to find the shooter.

Personally, I agree: This one should never be solved, and nobody should be prosecuted for it.

Vigilante justice, YAY! :cool:

He broke the He Needed Killin’ law.

I’m intrigued by the fact that he was indicted 21 times for crimes ranging from statutory rape to cattle rustling, beat the rap almost every time, and the last time managed to appeal the conviction and get out on bond. Who were the jurors on these cases - Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles and Jose Feliciano?

He had an OJ jury. :mad:

My absolute favorite Forensic Files case was the one where Madeline Murray O’Hare and her associates were murdered. I was going “Yes! Yes! Yes!” the whole time. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall, watching her face her last few minutes on Earth! :cool: