Obsessed with True Crime discussion
Off-Topic -- more Coincidences #5
I'm sure we've all heard the name J.D. Vance enough lately to have it constantly in our minds. Well, I started an article about the Judas Priest lawsuit -- The Dreamer Deceiver: A True Story about the Trial of Judas Priest for Deadly Subliminal Messaging -- and was reminded of the name of the boy who survived the shooting: Jay Vance.
During the hurricane that hit Florida a couple of weeks ago, I was trying to remember the name of the town my daughter-in-law used to live in. I didnt get around to asking her, but in the book I am reading now, the parents bought a winter home in Port St. Joe. Eureka! That's it! Still don't know if the hurricane reached there. Hope everyone is ok.
I have been looking up the victims of Jake Bird and one of them is a child killed on July 1. I'm also reading Holly and just came across a fictional crime victim, someone's child who vanished on July 1.
I can't believe I almost forgot this one. I got an email from a co-worker asking if I was all right because when she was driving home on Halloween night, she went past a funeral home and saw my name on the marquee. I looked it up and it appears to have been my good twin: she has the same first and last name and middle initial, all spelled the same as mine, but she was almost 20 years older.If I had in fact been dead, I'm not sure what kind of email my co-worker could have expected in return.
Here's one! In MURDER By SUICIDE: A reporter unravels a true case of rape, betrayal and lies, they finally arrest a suspect in the case on Nov 17th. Today is Nov. 17th.
I was just startled at the diner when a woman say down across from me and for a second I thought it was someone I used to know named Sharon. Sharon died several years ago. So I did a course correction, opened my book to a new chapter -- and started reading about a new character named Sharon.
I'm partway into Some Unknown Person and Starr Faithfull just went into a diner and ordered turkey, gravy and potatoes. Today is Thanksgiving, and guess what I had for dinner right before opening the book?
On Friday I was thinking about how you don't find money on the ground very often because people don't carry cash like they used to. That night, coming out of the grocery store, I found a penny on the ground next to my car.
Koren wrote: "On Friday I was thinking about how you don't find money on the ground very often because people don't carry cash like they used to. That night, coming out of the grocery store, I found a penny on t..."Next time think about finding some twenties!
A few years ago a client of mine was killed in a road accident. The past 3 or 4 days I've seen his name popping up everywhere. It's enough to make me wonder if he's trying to tell me something from.the great wherever...
A true crime coincidence! I was over on Threads and saw the Starbuck's photo of the guy who shot the United Healthcare CEO. I commented, "Hmm, he looks not unlike Jake Gyllenhaal." A while later I was at Twitter and saw that James St. James, a TC author I follow there, had posted a different photo of the assassin and captioned it "Jake Killinhall."
Gimme a break, man. I opened up The Best American Crime Writing: 2004 Edition: The Year's Best True Crime Reporting to get away from all the post-election weeping and gnashing of teeth, only to discover that one of the articles in it was authored by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Fishface wrote: "I opened up The Best American Crime Writing: 2004 Edition: The Year's Best True Crime Reporting to get away from all the post-election weeping and gnashing of teeth, only to discover that one of the articles in it was authored by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr."D'oh! It just happened again! I was watching a Christmas action movie and the camera zoomed in on a car's license tag. The first 3 letters were RFK.
Another Ivan one! My brother sent me the Find A Grave of our long-lost maternal grandfather, Ivan, and it had some background details of his life. It turns out our great-grandfather's middle name was Alonzo. This landed in my email just hours after I was exulting because I finally found a photo of serial killer Alonzo Robinson after years of looking.
Here's a small one. I was adding an April 13th crime to my book of the dead, and it happened to open up to that exact date.
Fishface wrote: "Another Ivan one! My brother sent me the Find A Grave of our long-lost maternal grandfather, Ivan, and it had some background details of his life. It turns out our great-grandfather's middle name w..."Wow! Now here's another coincidence...My maternal grandfather's middle name is also Alonzo. James Alonzo Ray. Wouldn't be the same guy, would it?
Having a fairly common last name, it's not all that unusual to see someone in a book with the same name of a relative. Still, kind of fun to see the name of someone I know. Last night I was reading about the murder of Dominique Dunne. The bailiff's name was the same as my son's. First and last name the same.
Koren wrote: "Fishface wrote: "Another Ivan one! My brother sent me the Find A Grave of our long-lost maternal grandfather, Ivan, and it had some background details of his life. It turns out our great-grandfathe..."Just to keep it in the context of True Crime...James Earl Ray was the man who killed Martin Luther King, Jr. When I did a search I found out there is also a James Ray III who was convicted of killing 3 women and convicted of negligent homicide. Wow! Talk about a popular name!
Koren wrote: "Fishface wrote: "Another Ivan one! My brother sent me the Find A Grave of our long-lost maternal grandfather, Ivan, and it had some background details of his life. It turns out our great-grandfathe..."Looks like two different families. Lucky for you as good old Grandfather Ivan was ejected from our family for domestic violence.
Koren wrote: "Last night I was reading about the murder of Dominique Dunne. The bailiff's name was the same as my son's. First and last name the same."That one was clearly meant for you, because how often in all the TC reading you've done have you ever learned the name of a bailiff?
Fishface wrote: "Koren wrote: "Fishface wrote: "Another Ivan one! My brother sent me the Find A Grave of our long-lost maternal grandfather, Ivan, and it had some background details of his life. It turns out our gr..."How far away are you from Champaign, Illinois. That was where my grandfather was born. He was born with the last name Rea but somewhere along the way changed it to Ray.
Koren wrote: "Fishface wrote: "Koren wrote: "Fishface wrote: "Another Ivan one! My brother sent me the Find A Grave of our long-lost maternal grandfather, Ivan, and it had some background details of his life. It..."Not too close to Champaign. Grandpa Ivan French lived and died in Battle Creek, Michigan.
Here's one. All day today, the news people have been talking about Jimmy Carter's funeral. Well in the book I'm reading in bed (The Girl in Red), someone just mentioned Guinea worms, the horrific parasite Jimmy Carter nearly eradicated through years of effort. I never heard of Guinea worms until President Carter made a point of clearing them out of this world.
I really lucked out today. I had a brainwave and realized that even though the website is down, I could make paper copies of the score sheets for our data collection at work and put them in everyone's mailboxes so they can keep collecting data until the site is back up. So I made 35 copies of each and after I put them in the mailboxes I had about 7 left. I was ready to stuff them in a drawer and forget about them when the secretary for a department in the other building appeared at the front window. There are 7 people in her department that need those copies I made, so I sent her back to the main building with them in a big envelope.I asure am lucky sometimes.
Driving to an appointment J listened to a guy on the car radio talking about his periodic retreats to a Benedictine monastery and how much good they do him. So in the waiting room at the appointment, I opened Black Like Me and the author started talking about how a retreat to a Trappist monastery did him a lot of good after doing the research for this book.
Mod
I was going to post that there is a Benedictine Monastery in Garrison NY, but there isn't.
A book one. I just started Blood Stains and immediately came across the name Sirois, which seemed awfully familiar. After wracking my brain I realized that was also the name of a character in the book I read last week, The Girl in Red. I have never seen that name anywhere before, which is why it jumped out at me.
Everyone in my dept today appears to have worn black pants.
Here's a crime one. I just learned that Larry Nassar, the self-pitying sports doctor and child molester, was sentenced (and got to hear the victim impact statements of 200 top female athletes) on the same day -- Jan 24th -- that I started reading the book. Ha!
I've been on a Google quest lately to find people I haven't seen in years. I was grumbling to myself behind the wheel of the car about one person I haven't been able to find, and to my shock, on the car radio, I heard the name of someone who was in the same college class where I met the person I've been looking for. Sitting at the table I looked up the woman's very-distinctive name, and up popped her photo on Google. Sure enough it was her.
Oh, man. I'm typing in this week's TC anniversaries and noticed, in my Book of the Dead, that this is the day Falco died. The music I have on to help me work is one I almost never listen to: Falco's "best of" album.
Here's a beaut: I just finished Hiding Mengele: How a Nazi Network Harbored the Angel of Death today, and by sheer coincidence, it was in this book I learned that this is also the 46th anniversary of his death: February 7th, 1979.
This morning I saw a video with Steve Bannon talking about "muzzle velocity," his metaphor for saturating the media with news stories to distract peoppe from what's really going on. Never heard that term before. Well, sir, just now someone at Reddit just asked why so many of the Son of Sam's victims survived and someone answered that it was a question of muzzle velocity.
I just put down my copy of The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America, which was talking about a scandal swirling around Alexander Hamilton in the late 1700s, and looked at Threads. Kathy Hochul was on a video in New York making an angry speech that mentioned Alexander Hamilton!
Before work I was adding new books to the TC shelves like mad. Two of them were on Lee Harvey Oswald. Well, just as I was leaving for home today a co-worker stopped by my cubicle to tell me about this guy she knows named...Lee Oswald.
I just started reading Blood Cold: Fame, Sex, and Murder in Hollywood and it mentioned on page 2 that one of the neighbors where the arrest happened was one of the Jackson 5. When I was picking up lunch just now -- immediately before opening the book -- I was listening to the Jackson 5.
This morning I was in a lobby waiting for my appointment to start and opened up my copy of The Serpent's Tooth. The first word my eye landed on was the name "Nancy." At that moment, the attendant opened the door and said "Nancy?"
Just a small one. I was adding a crime anniversary to my Book of the Dead and it opened to the exact page I wanted: October 18th.
Two of these today.1) I was looking for something else on YouTube and found a video on what they called "a mother's house of horrors." Naturally I looked, and it was about Megan Huntsman. Well, today her sentencing anniversary also came up in my Book of the Dead.
2) The next video that came up was about Hadden Clark. I didn't have time to see it all but it showed the police trying to batter a confession out of Clark as he begged for permission to talk to his lawyer. Well, sir, on the very next page in my Book of the Dead after Megan Huntsman, there's the anniversary of the murder of a guy named Charles Haden Clarke.
Here's one. I was looking up a murder mentioned in THE SERPENT'S TOOTH: A Powerful Family, a Glittering Legacy, a Brutal Crime and found an article saying that the killer will not be released before April 28th, 2056. Today is April 28th.
Here's one. Yesterday I started reading Searching for Savanna: The Murder of One Native American Woman and the Violence Against the Many. Before it got too dark last night I raced out to set in 2 plants that arrived in the mail. I was not sure I would have a good spot for the southernwood, but I discovered that one of my roses -- "Savannah Sunbelt" -- had died over the winter, so the new plant went in there.
A crime one! I was working on the crime anniversaries while listening in fascination to a radio show interviewing Elliot Rodger's mother, talking about how they do threat assessments and what they learned from his diaries and videos. Well, after the show ended I kept working on the crime listings, and discovered in another hour or so that we're 3 days away from the anniversary of the day he killed 6 other people and then himself. Maybe not a total coincidence, but it's odd that they would air this show days off from the anniversary instead of on the day itself.
I was just doing crime anniversaries and sallied forth on a side quest to collect photos of the Ranes brothers' victims. Then I put away the computer, got on my phone and quickly saw this video. If you watch carefully you'll see a photo of Larry Ranes with a shotgun photoshopped into it. At least I hope it's photoshopped. 
Larry
Behold the video:
https://www.threads.com/@nikkivinck/p...
I just finished reviewing Moby-Dick or, The Whale on my blog. While I was looking for interesting beetles on Pinterest a minute ago, this popped up.
I just had a big hole open up in my day and spent some time rebuilding the post that keeps disappearing from True Crime Anniversaries Photo Resources, the listing of all Randy Kraft's victims. Almost the last photo I added was Keith Klingbeil, may he RIP. Well, then I picked up my phone and opened up Bluesky and the second post was by a woman named Klingbeil.
I was just doing this week's crime anniversaries and at the same moment I was typing in the year 2019, someone in the radio said 2019 -- and they were talking about a crime!
I just noticed in Preacher's Girl: The Life and Crimes of Blanche Taylor Moore that one of the victims of the killer was named Reid. A surviving victim is recovering very slowly in a facility? town? called Reidsville.
Another! I just went to see 28 YEARS LATER; one of the main characters was a woman named Isla. I am still reading Preacher's Girl: The Life and Crimes of Blanche Taylor Moore and just came across a woman named Isla. There was also a person listed in the credits named Lucas Toole -- a baby who played a newborn named Isla -- but that's neither here nor there.
Two in two days!I went to the movies to escape the heat, and one of the scenes in 28 YEARS LATER involves a character coming across a woman giving birth who immediately dies. I went home, started reading CATFISH IN THE CRADLE, and within a couple of pages the protagonist comes across a woman in labor who gives birth and then immediately dies.
Today I was driving along the detour to get home -- every road in Michigan seems to have detours at the moment -- and was pleased to see that there's now a Buscemi's in the town where I live. (It was the only place you could buy deep-dish pizza by the slice in Metro Detroit when I was growing up.) Well, I got to work and was working a crossword at lunch hour and one of the answers was "Steve Buscemi."
Obsessed with True Crime
Books mentioned in this topic
THE CRACK CITY STRANGLER: The Homicides of Serial Killer Benjamin Atkins (other topics)The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy (other topics)
The Serial Killer's Apprentice (other topics)
CATFISH IN THE CRADLE (other topics)
Preacher's Girl: The Life and Crimes of Blanche Taylor Moore (other topics)
More...
EDIT: I was just adding anniversaries and discovered that the victim of the first murder I was going to list was born on January 3rd. This year would have been Edward Evans's 76th birthday.