Regional Murder Mysteries

[Andrew Gable]

Personally, I don't know: I'm tempted to connect the Murder Swamp and Torso cases, but I'm not criminologist enough to say for sure. Those victims, as you know, were merely beheaded and not wholly dismembered like Torso did. I do, however, think that the McKees Rocks boxcar torsos were connected.

[sdreid]

I see where James Badal has a new book out entitled Hell's Wasteland which covers the Pennsylvania Torso Murders.

[Ausgirl]

The Andrew St, Windsor address where Frederick Bailey Deeming buried his wife is right around the corner from a flat I lived in for many years. So that's pretty regional (and sort-of Ripper related, too! if not terribly mysterious..)

And here's a very Thames-esque but conversely torso-less murder from 1937, in which some neatly severed limbs are found floating in a sugar sack, just a short tram ride from that flat of mine in Windsor. This one really is a mystery, however.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=K-1UAAAAIBAJ&sjid=EJIDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7345%2C4563861

[Penhalion]

I'm a long time reader but first time poster. Hi everybody!

There are two unsolved homicides that I feel a particular connection to. I had a brief career as a police dispatcher in a suburb of Chicago. I happened to be working (on the radio) at the times when these two reports came over. Although neither of them occurred in the town I was working in, I could hear all the 'chatter'.

http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Jaclyn_Dowaliby

http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Mike_O'Mara

[Cogidubnus]

Hello Penhalion

Not sure I can contibute meaningfully to this particular thread, but I can and do say "welcome to the boards" - hope you get as much enjoyment out of Casebook as I do

All the best

Dave

[sdreid]

I see where James Badal has a new book out entitled Hell's Wasteland which covers the Pennsylvania Torso Murders.

I assume he includes the 1940 McKees Rocks, PA victims although there's virtual certainty that they were killed in Youngstown, OH.

[sdreid]

According to the Torso Wiki article, the Torso movie is supposed to be back on the burner after being shelved - we'll see.

[sdreid]

It looks like it might be an independent movie now which could possibly be better.

[sdreid]

They won't have studio heads forcing them to falsify a solution because they think that's what the audience wants.

[GUT]

G'Day Stan

They won't have studio heads forcing them to falsify a solution because they think that's what the audience wants.

But they do want to sell tickets so may falsify a suspect because it's what they think the audience wants.

[sdreid]

That's certainly a part of it.

[sdreid]

Anyway, we will have to wait and see.

[sdreid]

Or wait and not see, whichever the case.

[RivkahChaya]

http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Jaclyn_Dowaliby[/url]

The Jaclyn Dowaliby case is very interesting in that the police consider it closed, because her father was brought to trial, convicted, and his conviction overturned. He is sometimes referred to as her stepfather, because he is her mother's second husband, but he adopted her. He was convicted because the jury saw what looked like impact marks from a fist on a door in a photo of one of the bedrooms from the house, and inferred that the father was violent.

The marks were not introduced as evidence, though, and were not made by the father, and in fact, were present already when the family bought the house. The photos were used just to show the layout of the house. The defense attorney learned this post-conviction, and used it to to get the verdict overturned. In the US, the jury cannot make up things like that, and can only consider evidence that is introduced, not that the members infer.

[sdreid]

Since the conviction was overturned rather than reversed, I assume he could still be tried again although that is unlikely without some new evidence.