More on Larry Hall

I wrote earlier about how Larry DeWayne Hall had confessed to the kidnap/murder of Laurie Depies. I thought his name sounded familiar, so I looked him up and found out he’d also confessed to kidnapping and killing Tricia Reitler. And I found this site, which links Hall to quite a few cases from Charley:

Aundria Michelle Bowman, 14, Michigan, 1989
Diana Jane Braungardt, 18, Missouri, 1987
Cynthia Louise Carmack, 16, Ohio, 1988
Debra Jean Cole, 12, Indiana, 1981
Janet Rose Dolgae, 28, Ohio, 1989
Shaylene Marie Farrell, 18, Ohio, 1994
Wendy Louise Felton, 16, Indiana, 1987
Julie Dalton Johnson, 29, Indiana, 1991
Tracy Marie Kroh, 17, Pennsylvania, 1989
Penny Dawn Lease, 23, Illinois, 1989
Donda Renae Martino, 32, Tennessee, 1994
Stacy Kathleen McCall, 18, Suzanne Streeter, 19, and Sherrill Levitt, 47, Missouri, 1991 (disappeared together)
Dean Marie Pyle Peters, 14, Michigan, 1981
Denise Diane Plfum, 18, Indiana, 1986
Kimberly Ann Thompson, 25, Illinois, 1986
Laura Lynn Thompson, 15, Pennsylvania, 1993
Paulette Webster, 19, Illinois, 1988

This looks to be pure supposition, though. I highly doubt Hall did all, or even most, of these cases. To begin with, two completely unrelated suspects have been charged in Laura Thompson’s presumed murder. And the prime suspect in Debra Cole’s case is her mother’s now-deceased boyfriend, who definitely raped and killed Debra’s sister later on.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Hall was responsible for a few on the list, though. He definitely is a sexual predator and a very dangerous man, and I bet the police have only scratched the proverbial iceberg when it comes to uncovering his crimes.

The site mentions a book. The local library has it. I’ll have to read it, if only to see if it has any additional information on some of those above-mentioned disappearances, many of which I don’t have much on.

Casey Anthony’s murder trial begins

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: for purely selfish reasons, I’m very glad Caylee’s body turned up when it did. If it had been very much longer, I would have had to add her to Charley, and that would have taken up a whole day to research and write.

And now, as Casey’s murder trial commences, the defense and prosecution are, of course, presenting vastly different stories: the prosecution says Casey killed Caylee by duct-taping her mouth and nose shut, and the defense says Caylee drowned accidentally in a pool and Casey and her family panicked and decided to hide the body instead of calling the rescue squad.

A meter reader discovered Caylee’s remains, some as small as a pebble, in a wooded area in December 2008 about a half-mile from where the child lived. Her skull was covered with duct tape that had residue from a heart-shaped sticker on it. […]

[Defense attorney] Baez also blamed the police department for botching the investigation, alleging detectives wanted to feed a media frenzy about a mother killing her child instead of investigating a mundane drowning.

Police “had murder on their minds. This couldn’t be an accident,” Baez said. “You’ll find that professional police work took a backseat in this case.”

Of course, it couldn’t be an accident! Why would the police have anything BUT murder on their minds when they find a toddler’s skeletal remains, long after her death, with the skull covered in duct tape?

I highly doubt this defense is going to get very far. It reminds me of the Valiree Jackson case from 1999. Her father admitted he buried her body and reported her missing, but said she died accidentally of a prescription drug interaction/overdose and he found her the next morning and freaked. He was convicted of course and sentenced to 56 years in prison. (He’s also a suspect in the 1992 disappearance of Valiree’s mother, Roseann Stone Pleasant.)

Loving parents who did not harm their children do not act this way if their child accidentally dies. Casey Anthony has a lot to answer for.

I finally did it

I registered with NamUs, at last. So I can use their “case tracking” thingy and get notified automatically when a case is updated, as opposed to my previous more entertaining but less efficient method of randomly going through their listings and clicking on this case or that one to see if anything’s been added.

Question, to all NamUs users: is there a way I can just “track all cases” instead of going through each individual one and clicking on the button, one at a time? There are over 5,000 cases I’d have to do this to and I’d rather not get carpal tunnel.