Twelve-part series on Amanda Brown

I just found this twelve-part series on that tells in detail the story of the kidnapping and murder of seven-year-old Amanda Brown in 1998. Her body was never found but her killer is on death row.

I saw a poll around the time Willie Crain was sentenced to death asking if they should allow the death penalty in cases where the victim’s body was never found. The idea being that there’s a margin of doubt there. To me it makes no difference. A jury is supposed to convict if there’s evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, body or no body. The standard of evidence is the same whether the defendant is facing the death penalty or a month of probation.

Andrea Gonzalez gets a memorial

I found this article about the missing child Andrea Gonzalez, who disappeared from Russellville, Alabama in 1993 at the age of five. Her father and stepmother were later convicted in her death, but her body has never been found.

Andrea never got a break in life. Her mother went to prison when she was little and she wound up in foster care in Illinois, which was probably a good thing considering she had obviously been abused in her mother’s home and had picked up stomach parasites and an host of behavioral problems. When Mom was released from jail, she didn’t seem all that anxious to reconnect with Andrea or her other two children. Andrea was sent to live with her dad and stepmom early in 1993, and her two siblings were put up for adoption. In less than a year she was dead, supposedly accidentally scalded to death in the bathtub. Curiously, rather than call an ambulance, her father and stepmother chose to get rid of her body and no one as ever found it.

Anyway, a Tennessee company has donated a monument in Andrea’s honor, which is on display near the Franklin County Detention Center in Alabama, along with similar memorials to raise awareness of child abuse. It’s nice that people still care after all this time.

Andrea’s case reminds me a lot of Haleigh Cummings. Except Andrea’s family is even more screwed up than Haleigh’s, and it’s not at all certain that Haleigh is dead.

Victory in Thompson case

As others have noted, Aaron Thompson was convicted of 31 counts, including child abuse resulting in death in the case of his daughter Aarone, who was reported missing in 2005 but is believed to have been killed about two years before. Aaron was acquitted of 24 counts, mostly related to the alleged abuse of the seven other children in his household, but this is definitely a victory for the prosecution. He faces 48 years in prison.

The jury was out deliberating for over a week. It looks like they took their job seriously and I’m glad of it.

Now, if only Aaron would ‘fess up and tell us where the body is. But why should he do that, what does he have to gain? And why should a psychopath do something for nothing?

Additional articles:

The Washington Times
The Associated Press
9 News
The Denver Post

And editorials:
The Aurora Sentinel
The Denver Post
The Latest Word

News on murder-without-a-body cases

The jury in the Aarone Thompson trial has still not reached a verdict, and it’s been over a week. They say the longer a jury is out, the more likely they are to acquit or to hang. But in this case they’re considering dozens of charges. I have confidence that they will do their duty.

A trial date has been set for Geralyn Graham, the accused murderer of Rilya Wilson. Rilya’s case gained national notoriety when it was discovered that she, a Florida foster child, had been missing for a year and a half without the Florida Department of Children and Families finding out. Geralyn was her foster mother. I’m a bit concerned about this case. Geralyn killed Rilya, I’m quite sure — but can they prove it? There’s very little evidence and a principal witness has backed out. Anyway, Geralyn is scheduled to be tried in March. She could face the death penalty if convicted.

Two suspects have finally been indicted in the presumed kidnapping and murder of Donald Dietz, a Michigan man who disappeared in September 2007. He was vulnerable — one account I read said he was autistic, though I’m not sure how they’d know — and he had a lot of money, and the police think these two guys killed him and stole his identity. Another article is here.

Brooke Wilberger found

As noted by one blog commenter, one person who emailed me, and Google News search, Brooke Wilberger’s body has been found. She was nineteen years old and between her freshman and sophomore year at Brigham Young University when she was abducted from an apartment complex parking lot in Corvallis, Oregon May 2004. The case got a lot of attention at the time, because of the sensational nature of the crime and because Brooke was the kind of victim the media loves: young, innocent, Christian, middle-class, blonde and very beautiful. Just like a slightly older Elizabeth Smart. They were both Mormons, even.

Joel Patrick Courtney was charged with Brooke’s murder in 2005. Well, this month he pleaded guilty and lead the police to her body. He will be in prison for the rest of his days. I’ve heard that Courtney is considered a possible serial killer and a suspect in the disappearance of Katheryn “Katie” Eggleston, but I don’t know if anything came of that lead.

Anyway…may Brooke rest in peace.

Still no verdict from Thompson jury

The jurors in the Aarone Thompson case have been deliberating for three days without reaching a verdict, and now they’re taking the weekend off. This doesn’t surprise me. It was a long trial and a complicated one, and they have like 60 charges to consider. I’m glad they’re taking the time to think about it.

Articles:

9 News
CBS 4 Denver
The Denver Post

Jury deliberations in Thompson trial begin

Aaron Thompson’s trial in the murder of his daughter Aarone is over and now the jury is deliberating. He’s facing like sixty child abuse related charges, including causing Aarone’s death. Fingers crossed, everybody. This man is scum and deserves whatever time they can throw at him. But it doesn’t help that there’s a dead person — Aaron’s girlfriend — to try to pin all the blame on.

This Denver Post editorial says a lot of the things I think about this case.

Aaron Thompson admits his daughter is dead

A few days ago I wrote about the trial opening for Aaron Thompson, who’s charged with, among other things, child abuse resulting in death in the case of his missing daughter Aarone. Well, in the opening statements yesterday, Aaron’s attorney acknowledged the child was dead. As most people predicted, Aaron’s story is going to be that his girlfriend Shely Lowe killed Aarone and Aaron only helped her cover it up. Lowe is the perfect person to put the blame on, as she died in 2006 and can’t defend herself.

This is the same defense Michelle Pulsifer’s mom used, blaming Michelle’s death on her boyfriend who had died by the time of the trial. It worked for Michelle’s mother, though only after two trials and two hung juries. (A few months ago I heard from one of the jurors in the second trial. Now I understand a little better why they couldn’t agree to convict her.) I think it’s going to be harder for Aaron Thompson, though. Aarone’s case is much fresher than Michelle’s — Aaron is going to trial three and a half years after his daughter’s disappearance was reported, whereas Michelle’s mother wasn’t tried until thirty-eight years after Michelle was last seen. Also, Aaron is a man. People tend to believe, correctly or otherwise, a man would be much more likely to abuse his children than a woman would.

And one other thing: if Aaron is only covering up Aarone’s death and didn’t actually kill her, why hasn’t he lead the cops to the body?

Jeanna Dale North’s mom dies

Jeanna Dale North disappeared from Fargo, North Dakota in 1993, when she was eleven years old. Later, Kyle Bell was convicted of her murder. He escaped from prison only a month after his sentencing and was on America’s Most Wanted as a result. They found him two months later and he is safely behind bars again.

Well, Jeanna’s mother died last week. She was only 58 years old. The article doesn’t say what the cause of death was.

I may have spoken about this earlier in my blog, but I’ve observed that parents of missing children tend to die young. Jeanna’s mother was 58, Debra Frost’s father was 58, Amanda Berry’s mother was I believe in her forties or early fifties, and Sofia Juarez’s mother just twenty-six. These were all deaths from natural causes, too, not accidents or anything like that. I wonder if perhaps the stress of having a missing child leads to a shorter lifespan. But I don’t have a lot of info on this and I’m sure no studies have been done. Perhaps parents of missing kids actually live about as long as anyone else and I only notice the ones who die early. Amy Billig’s mother died of a heart attack at age 80, after surviving a bout with what should have been terminal lung cancer (she was a smoker). Connie Smith’s father was still alive last I knew, and in his nineties.

Aaron Thompson finally goes to trial

Jury selection began today in the murder trial of Aaron Thompson, who’s accused of murdering his daughter Aarone (pronounced Aaron-ay, I think). Aarone’s case is particularly sad. Aaron took her and her siblings away from their mother in Michigan and moved to Colorado in 2001. He shacked up with Shely Lowe. The family — Aaron, Aarone, her brother, Lowe, Lowe’s brother and Lowe’s five children, that’s ten people — were living in Aurora when Aaron reported his daughter missing in November 2005. He said she ran away after an argument about a cookie.

Aaron’s story quickly fell apart. There was no indication of Aarone’s presence in the house — no bed or toothbrush for her, no recent pictures. She hadn’t been enrolled in school. She hadn’t been to see a doctor in several years. Most tellingly, her siblings, once they got away from their parents, told the police they hadn’t seen Aarone in about a year and a half. The Thompson/Lowe home was in bad shape and the children were all being abused; hardly a day went by when at least one of them wasn’t beaten for trivial reasons. All the children were taken into foster care. Lowe was pregnant when Aarone disappeared, and when the baby was born it too was taken from her. The police openly said Aarone had been murdered and they had a pretty good idea who did it.

Unfortunately, Lowe is beyond earthly justice — she died of heart disease shortly after her baby was born. She was only in her early thirties. Aaron was indicted on sixty charges, including Aarone’s murder and the abuse of the other children in the household, in May 2007. If he gets convicted he could get 48 years to life in prison. Aarone’s murder may be hard to pin on him. The defense can always blame Lowe, and she can’t say anything about it. But it sounds like it would be easy to convict Aaron of abusing his other kids, and he would serve substantial time for that.

That poor little girl never had a chance. Her so-called caregivers made her life a misery and ended it all too soon, then buried her body in some makeshift grave like so much garbage. Her siblings said she was locked in the closet a lot as punishment. One article I read said Aarone would stick her fingers out under the door and one of her siblings would touch them, just to let her know they were there. It’s just so incredibly sad — all the more so since Aarone’s mother is apparently a decent enough woman and, if Aaron hadn’t stolen the children, Aarone would probably be alive and well today. The case reminds me so much of Peter Kema’s 1997 disappearance in Hawaii.

No prison sentence would be sufficient for Aaron Thompson, I’m afraid. I just hope the jury realizes this as well.

Articles:
The Denver Channel
The Washington Times
The Denver Post
The Cleveland Examiner
Times of the Internet