What crime stories have you been obsessed by?

[WomenHour]

I was griped by the James Bulger murder 25 years ago

Anything with children, doesn't facinate me, but plays on my mind. Once I've read them I will think about them a lot.
Another which plays on my mind a lot is murder and torture of Junko Furuta. Horrendous things happened to that poor girl.

Jon Benet Ramsey. So interesting & so much conflicting information is out there. I don't have my own theory, tbh, I'm just fascinated.

Kris and Lisanne, the Dutch girls who went missing in Panama is absolutely fascinating to read into. Was it an accident? Who knows.

Oscar Pistorius - watched the whole trial live and the subsequent appeals. Fascinating is the wrong word but it was compelling viewing. Poor Reeva's last moments must have terrifying

Not obsessed but April Fabb . Disappeared in a country lane in Norfolk in the 60s. Never seen again

There is talk that Robert Black is behind the murder and it wouldn't surprise me of that predatory nonce .

@boltzmannbrains

He was found guilty because he had an affair I think, but even that was not exactly the affair it was made out to be, he had seen this woman twice.

He was found guilty because there was a huge amount of circumstantial evidence, because his own behaviour over her disappearance created red flags, because he repeatedly lied, and because there’s no logical alternative. It’s just too much a coincidence to believe someone else killed her and transported the body 90 miles away and just coincidentally dumped the body in the exact same part of the same body of water Scott “went fishing in” the same day, especially when he couldn’t answer basic questions about bait and catch.

His affair with Amber Frey was significant - it was six times they saw each other, not two, but each of those six times was a multi-day visit. He had at least four affairs while married to Laci. I don’t think he killed his wife because he was in love with Amber but he clearly wanted to be able to run around with other women, and the faked Divinity degree to impress Amber and other lies he told his affair partners are also interesting.

There wasn’t a huge amount of circumstantial evidence in the Laci Peterson case.

It was well reported in the press where he had been fishing and it was later that the body was miraculously found there.

Laci Peterson had been seen by several neighbours walking the dog the morning after she would have to have been killed if Scott did it.

It was also shown that it would not have been possible to throw a body overboard from the little dingy that Scott owned without it capsizing.

Black does seem to be thought responsible but that line of thought always confused me. I suppose there must be inside knowledge we don’t have.

The Angel of the meadow Manchester, I plus countless others must have walked past that poor woman’s body for 20+ years on the outskirts of Manchester whilst commuting.

Florencex, most of those claims have been debunked. He wasn’t in a “little dinghy” and could easily have thrown a heavy weight over if he’d used the back and not the side. The “neighbour sightings” were obviously of different people (one sighting was of a woman described as being dressed in clothing Laci did not own, which did not match either the clothes she was wearing when she went missing or when she was discovered, and the person who made the sighting also claimed to have witnessed the woman urinating in the middle of a public street, which is an incredibly unlikely thing for a woman like Laci to do). Two sightings were proven to have occurred a day earlier and the people just got confused as to what day they’d seen Laci. One of them was 80-something.

This is an excellent two- part write up analysing the theories for Scott’s innocence:

www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/ie57ja/extensive_twopart_write_up_on_the_murder_of_laci/

www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/ie5c6h/extensive_twopart_write_up_the_murder_of_laci/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Timmothy_Pitzen

This is another one i think about.His mother took him out of school.She killed herself and hes never been found.

Listen to 'That Chapter' on YouTube.

@lumberingaroundthehouse

One thing that does confuse me (regards if it was Black or not) is that April's cycle was found in the middle of a field, no flattened crops around it, no tyre marks . I would have thought that, had he been responsible, he would have left the bike by the road and got away asap

I listened to the Criminal podcast linked above, to the one about the woman who had a person living in her attic. Terrifying!!

When I was 17 I was living in a rented studio flat and would sometimes come home to find things had been moved, doors open when I was sure I’d closed them, a faint smell of aftershave. One day I was home sick with a bad cold or something and I actually woke up to see a man’s shadow through the glass panel in my bedroom door. Then the door started to open...

I think whoever was responsible must have thrown it.

Shannan Watts and her children murdered by her husband.
Utterly horrific.

12:13boltzmannbrains what happened next!

The Soham murders. So awful.

Not obsessed but ones that have haunted me for a long time after I read about them.

Joanna Yeates. It was at Christmas time and the furore with the media's character assassination on the landlord added to it.

Kim Wall. Horrible and I really wish I hadn't read about it.

Sarah Payne. I was a child and the idea of the bogey man who'll drag you into his van was very frightening.

Helen Bailey, the author who was murdered by her fiancé who wanted her wealth. I think he's recently been charged with murdering his first wife too. It's really frightening that someone can pretend to be a normal loving partner while secretly plotting that.

Caylee Anthony

I think the police know what happened to Claudia Lawrence but they just don’t have the evidence.

Pt2 - the door handle opened, and a man walked in. I pretended to be asleep as he opened my drawers, before freezing as he clocked me in bed, and quietly left.

I realised later it was my landlord who’d been letting himself in to check up on me. I don’t think he was a perv, I think he just was concerned about renting a flat to someone so young so wanted to keep an eye to make sure I wasn’t up to anything!

@Rafflesway

I have just looked up the Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom case. Totally shocking and being a real true crime geek, I was kind of surprised I have not come across this case before.

There does seem to have been justice though, other than for the woman who may have a a parole hearing coming up. 😡

Milly Dowler- I was the same age as her when she went missing and i used to watch the news every night to see if she had turned up and followed the story in all the papers.

Fred and Rose West- How they got away with it for so long was awful. I have a book on them and its very harrowing reading!

The Moors murderers-Myra Hindley's mugshot used to give me nightmares after i saw a programme on them shudders

Ted Bundy- The confession tapes on Netflix are really interesting, I've watched them a few times.

James Bulger-I still can't comprehend what happened to that little boy, I remember my Mum crying about it when it happened (I was only about 4 when he was killed).

I find the psychology behind why people do these things really fascinating.

Shannon Matthews
Just beyond belief that a parent could do that for money

@Iminaglasscaseofemotion

Anything with children, doesn't facinate me, but plays on my mind. Once I've read them I will think about them a lot. Another which plays on my mind a lot is murder and torture of Junko Furuta. Horrendous things happened to that poor girl.

I was watching a Japanese film last night that had a character called Junko - reminded me of this case. The fact that so many people, including the boy's parents just allowed it to happen, just horrible.

Sally Anne Bowman - not obsessed but it has a profound effect on me. We were a similar age and it was near to where I live. She was attacked in the mere seconds between getting out of her boyfriend’s car and getting to her front door.

Because of what happened to her even now my friends and I will make sure each other have stepped over the threshold into the house and closed the door before we drive away. I think sometimes they stories really affect you deeply, especially if you’re at a young age.