The Fire

It was shortly after midnight on Tuesday, October 24, 1995 when Drs. John and Mary Forman were awakened from their sleep by their dog’s frantic barking. Their doorbell was ringing and someone was knocking on their side door. After urging from Mary, John woke up and went downstairs to investigate. Still half-asleep, he neglected to deactivate the home’s burglar alarm when he opened the door, which began to screech and blare.

The Formans’ neighbor, Dr. Debora Green, stood at their home’s side entrance. Debora and her husband, Mike Farrar, also a doctor, and their three children (Tim, Kate, and Kelly)…

In Search of Fame, Model/Actress Linda Sobek Instead Had a Deadly Run-In with Murder

Thursday, November 16, 1995 started off as a great day for 27-year-old Linda Elaine Sobek. She had recently scored a role on the popular sitcom “Married With Children,” which she felt would kickstart the acting career she was yearning for. In the meantime, the modeling career she had begun after graduating from Cerritos Community College and during her five-year stint as a Los Angeles Raiderette cheerleader (in which she was named Raiderette of the Year during her third year) not only paid the bills but had…

I believe he's guilty. His family was horribly overkilled and yet he ends up with a bruise/bump on his forehead, some scratches and a clean incision to his left chest area? He was the biggest threat in the house; why bash in a 5-year-old's skull and give the male Green Beret a tap?

If we're to believe his version, four hippie intruders, high on LSD, entered the MacDonald home on a rainy February evening through a back door. They walked through the master bedroom without awakening Colette. They walked down the narrow hallway without awakening Kimberley or Kristen. They walked…

The End

In the 1970s, West Hollywood was an enclave for those working in the movie industry, less expensive than Beverly Hills and Benedict Canyon, dotted with the irony of clubs and churches and mid-rent apartments. One such apartment building was located at 8567 Holloway Drive, just off Sunset Boulevard and the famed Sunset Strip. It was stucco with three floors and offered its tenants a carport; windows from the apartments overlooked the carport, which faced the narrow alley. The Park Wellington Towers, a resort-style luxury condo complex built in 1972, were almost flush to the alleyway.

The call came into the…

Jami

Jami Hagel was a pretty, outgoing 22-year old in 1986 when she first met Steven Sherer. Unfailingly happy and never moody, the only daughter of a family with three sons, she had been a feisty tomboy in her childhood and teens who had loved horses, baseball and climbing trees and was fearless. She delighted in her younger twin brothers and had a very close relationship with her mother, Judy, which never wavered, even into adolescence and adulthood.

The energetic girl matured into a caring and compassionate young woman who retained the bubbly, outgoing, and friendly nature of her youth. She…

The Murder

It was Thanksgiving weekend, 1992. Sunday night, November 29, was a quiet one in the Marietta neighborhood of Kings Cove, which housed comfortable, upscale homes that ranged from twenty years old to new. It was not long after 10 p.m. when one of the homeowners heard a knocking at his front door and opened it to two little boys, who were spattered with blood and holding hands. The older of the two told him that “a bad man shot my mom,” “a bad black man” with a “pirate gun.” He wanted the man to call his grandfather, who was a…

The End of the Dream

When Donnah Brown married Mark Winger in 1989, it seemed the beginning of a fairy tale. Mark was a nuclear engineer for the state of Illinois making $72,000 a year (over $150,000 in 2020 coin) and Donnah worked as an operating room technician. The only thing that appeared to be missing was a family. When Donnah discovered she could not have children, the couple adopted a baby girl named Bailey in June of 1995.

Donnah took their new daughter to visit her mother and stepfather in Florida in August and upon returning to the St. Louis airport she took a…

December 10, 2003 was to be a day of joy and celebration for the Whitaker family of Sugar Land, Texas. Kent, 54 years old, the comptroller of a family-owned construction business, and his wife Patricia, 51 years old, a former elementary school teacher, were thrilled to hear that their oldest son, 23-year-old Bart, was graduating from Sam Houston State University with honors. The trio, along with 19-year-old Kevin, drove 10 minutes or so from their home in the Sugar Lake subdivision to nearby Stafford to dine at the popular Pappadeaux seafood restaurant. …