Why Is This Man Still In Jail?
A false confession to bad cops put a man in prison for rape and murder. But even conclusive DNA evidence hasn’t gotten him out.
Showing 25 articles matching murder mysteries.
A false confession to bad cops put a man in prison for rape and murder. But even conclusive DNA evidence hasn’t gotten him out.
Paul Solotaroff Rolling Stone Mar 2015 30min Permalink
He went from a viral pop hit to an arrest for conspiracy to murder charges in just under six months. Was Bobby Shmurda “too real” for his label?
Robert Kolker New York May 2015 25min Permalink
It is agreed that the 1977 political murder of a couple in Johannesburg was a political killing that covered up mysterious Swiss Bank deposits. Various reports implicate Cuban Nationalists, Italian Fascists and the CIA.
James Myburgh PoliticsWeb Jun 2010 Permalink
In the aftermath of a mysterious murder, exploring a part of the story that has received little attention: the young man who lost his life.
Rend Smith Washington City Paper Feb 2011 Permalink
How a loving daughter and star student stole barium acetate from her high school chemistry lab, put it in her father’s refried beans, and almost got away with murder.
Skip Hollandsworth Texas Monthly Jul 1996 25min Permalink
Fred Steese served more than 20 years in prison for the murder of a Vegas circus performer even though evidence proved he didn’t do it. When the truth came to light, he was offered a confounding deal: he could go free, but only if he agreed to remain a convicted killer.
Megan Rose ProPublica May 2017 35min Permalink
In America’s deadliest big city, the task of announcing each new murder falls to police spokesman T. J. Smith. One year ago, he confronted a killing like no other.
Luke Mullins The Atlantic Jul 2018 30min Permalink
A father took his 10-year-old fishing. She fell in the water and drowned. It was a tragic accident—then he was charged with murder.
Jordan Smith The Intercept Sep 2018 40min Permalink
In the fall of 1966, billionaire Doris Duke killed a close confidant in Newport, Rhode Island. Local police ruled the incident “an unfortunate accident.” Half a century later, evidence suggests she got away with murder.
Peter Lance Vanity Fair Jul 2020 35min Permalink
An interview with rapper Drakeo the Ruler after he was released from prison, having previously faced the possibility of 25 to life despite being previously acquitted of murder charges related to a 2016 killing.
Jeff Weiss The Ringer Nov 2020 Permalink
Two men with the same name. A murder, a manhunt, and a chilling question: Did a Florida court hand down a life sentence because of a mistaken identity?
Tristram Korten GQ Aug 2021 30min Permalink
As the summer months stretched into fall, Justin Edwards would sometimes bump into the man wanted for his attempted murder.
Kyle Hopkins Anchorage Daily News Dec 2021 20min Permalink
He was a hedge-funder with a coke problem. She liked to drink and was thrice-divorced before they got married. When the police arrived, she was clutching his dead body in the shallow end of their pool. She would soon be accused of murder—not by the cops, but her Internet psychic.
Stephen Rodrick New York Feb 2008 30min Permalink
His health failing and his business in tatters, the head of Death Row Records faces murder charges that could put him away for life.
Previously: Does a Sugar Bear Bite? (Lynn Hirschberg • New York Times Magazine • Jan 1996)
Matt Diehl Rolling Stone Jul 2015 20min Permalink
Clint Lorance had been in charge of his platoon for only three days when he ordered his men to kill three Afghans stopped on a dirt road. A second-degree murder conviction and pardon followed. Today, Lorance is hailed as a hero by President Trump. His troops have suffered a very different fate.
Greg Jaffe Washington Post Jul 2020 30min Permalink
Many of the 230,000 women and girls in U.S. jails and prisons were abuse survivors before they entered the system. And at least 30 percent of those serving time on murder or manslaughter charges were protecting themselves or a loved one from physical or sexual violence.
Justine van der Leun The New Republic Dec 2020 35min Permalink
The stories that sprung up around if not quite about Trump were as brutal and lazy as the man himself; they teased themselves endlessly from one episode to the next, building toward a brutal grand finale in which America’s heroes would murder its villains, on TV, at some time to-be-determined.
David Roth Defector Jan 2021 10min Permalink
The filmmaker on his relationship with former Manson Family member, currently serving a life sentence for murder. An excerpt from Role Models.
John Waters Huffington Post Aug 2009 1h Permalink
Rogue cops in the LAPD Rampart division’s anti-gang CRASH unit (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) were involved in everything from drug smuggling and bank robberies to, allegedly, the murder of Christopher “Notorious BIG” Wallace.
A group of misfit boys from the fringes of Las Vegas form a clique. Then, with murky motives, they decide to murder one of their own and bury him in a desert pit.
Vanessa Grigoriadis Salon Mar 2007 25min Permalink
A murder case in Mississippi catches the eye of amateur sleuths on Facebook, who proceed to harass everyone involved in the case.
Katie J.M. Baker Buzzfeed Jun 2015 30min Permalink
Last February, John Jonchuck Jr. dropped his 5-year-old daughter off a bridge to her death. This is the story of what happened, and what didn’t, in the years before the murder made headlines.
Lane DeGregory Tampa Bay Times Jan 2016 25min Permalink
In 1965, Wheat was sentenced to death for armed robbery and murder. When his sentence was commuted, he decided to devote the rest of his life to helping people.
James Ross Gardner Seattle Met Magazine Apr 2015 25min Permalink
She was last seen leaving a pickup bar, her body was found the next morning in the dirt beside a football field. He was ten. Thirty-six years later, the author investigates his mother’s murder.
James Ellroy GQ Jul 1994 15min Permalink
The murder of Mickey Bryan stunned her small Texas town. Then her husband was charged with killing her. Did he do it, or had there been a terrible mistake?
Pamela Colloff ProPublica May 2018 45min Permalink