True crime thread

I wasn't being snarky. It's all good. : )

 

I had a couple of thoughts - and they're just opinions of course . . . 1) The prosecution is will probably go for the death penalty. Now I'm not an attorney, but I'm not a total dumbass, either. I'm not so sure I would go for the death penalty, and here's why: CASEY ANTHONY. The prosecution totally overcharged based on the circumstantial evidence they had. Overconfidence and lack of a smoking gun did the case in. Because the went for Murder 1, they jury acquitted. They all FELT she was guilty, but that's not how reasonable is supposed to work, so in light of that, liker or not, they made the correct call. However, if the prosecution had gone for Murder 3 or even Manslaughter, she would have gone to prison, no question in my mind. If they take the death penalty off the table for Kohberger, the jury will be more likely to convict IMO.

Did he do it? They better have something indisputable if you ask me. I thought it was very forward thinking of Kaylee Goncalves' father that he is not averse to the idea that it could be someone else. Investigators getting tunnel vision is a known problem.

2) If Kohberger gets convicted, my guess is he maintains his innocence and never, ever, talks. It would be very satisfying to him to never reveal his motives or let anyone pick his brain with any success.

3) Over time, I've become convinced he was not after all of them whatsoever. He had a specific target, just like Leopold and Loeb had Bobbie Franks. However, I don't think it was completely ego driven just to see if he could get away with it. Stabbing is extremely sexual in nature (penetration). I'm sure there's some subconscious placebo effect going on with me strictly because I know what he's charged with.The guy reeks of something way, way, off because of it. He looks like he would be extremely awkward with women to me, so fixing somebody's little red wagon over displaced anger has to be in there somewhere.

Off of Kohberger for a second, I saw a Mexican documentary about one of the most notorious serial killers in Mexican history: La Mataviejitas (Juana Barazza). She killed a ton of elderly women. Well, she pulled no punches as to why. She literally said that she robbed and strangled all of these old ladies because she hated her mother so much that she was killing her mother over and over again. According to her, her mother sold her to some disgusting old man for a case of beer and the man sexually brutalized her. She felt no pity for these women because of who they represented to her: Mommy Dearest. That's about as cut and dry as you can get for an explanation with no shrink needed.

 

The prosecutor almost has to seek the death penalty. This was a multiple murder and was committed in a cruel and depraved manner. If this isn't a death-penalty case, what is?

One of the general attacks that the defense bar always makes on capital punishment is that the death penalty is unconstitutional because prosecutors are arbitrary and capricious in deciding when to seek it. Because this sure looks like a death penalty case, the failure to seek it here would just reinforce the arbitrary-and-capricious argument.

 

That's why it was just a thought. I completely see your side but playing Devil's Advocate here, I see mine as well. I have no doubt they'll go for it especially because it's multiple murder but if it isn't fairly iron-clad and the prosecution doesn't have something we don't know about, capricious or no, there are times where distasteful as it is the game of chess says take a lesser route if the chances of conviction are higher. You can't say that's not true.

Do you disagree COMPLETELY on Casey Anthony? Again, opinion, not facts, but I'm pretty firm on why she walked. Reasonable doubt, of course; but overcharging based on the evidence helped that along.

At some point we can all postulate about the composite picture that appears about why Kohberger may have done it but that doesn't prove he did do it. However, it won't help if they don't even have that to present. If the prosecution is on shakier ground than we know I'm right back at my original point.

 

It's always risky to try to predict what one jury will do based on what a prior jury did in another case. Each jury is different etc.

Seeking the death penalty here might actually increase the chances of a conviction. Here's why:

1. In a capital case, the same jury that assesses guilt or innocence will also decide whether to impose the death penalty.

2. Jury selection in a capital case is different than jury selection in a non-capital case.

Any potential juror who is an adamant opponent of the death penalty and says he/she could never impose the death penalty under any circumstances will be excused for cause. The jury will be made up entirely of people who say they could impose the death penalty in an appropriate case.

You could argue that this death-qualification process produces a more conservative jury that is more inclined to convict.

If the the prosecutor has a weak case, all bets are off.

 

I didn't know that Bryan Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial.

 

Did you know Trevor Bauer got railroaded?

 

That anxious-to-exonerate stuff is PR bravado that attorneys say to the media right after their client is arrested. The last thing this guy (and most other defendants) want is a speedy trial.

 

Prosectors are "demanding" Kohberger's Amazon order history. Now you'd think he wouldn't be dumb enough to order the murder weapon off of Amazon instead of paying for it cash in a different state while wearing a Groucho Marx disguise, but I guess you never know.

Circling back to Casey Anthony, it's mind boggling that the prosecution's "computer experts" only searched the Anthony's Google history while Casey used Firefox. They didn't check it. A whole plethora of juicy tidbits in her Firefox history that never made it to trial because they really were that stupid.

Edit: Autocorrect

 

This is bizarre. I only found one article just now that he was extradited to Alabama and he is reversing his not guilty plea and giving details of the crime.

I have no clue what this means and what it does for him other than it gets him out of federal charges for extorting money from Natalee Holloway's mother in 2010 in exchange for where her body was. That was the same year that he murdered Stephany Flores, a Peruvian diplomat's daughter.

That is also one hell of a creepy story. They were gambling together in a casino and she overheard someone mention that he was the one who killed Natalee Holloway. This is one version, but there are other variations of same: Flores went back to his room and they were drinking. He went to the bathroom and she looked up who he was/the murder on his laptop.

He came out of the bathroom and she confronted him - or he confronted her when he saw it - and he beat her to death with a *baseball bat. The next morning he went down to the lobby of the hotel, went across the street, and got a couple of coffees like it was nothing with her dead body in the room.

He is a sick bastard. I don't think Natalee Holloway was his first murder, and he would've kept killing. Obviously.

*Edit: Tennis racquet. There was also evidence of strangulation. His victim also had a fractured skull and a broken neck. Throw away the key.

 

He’s free from prosecution of the murder because Aruba has a statute of limitations on murder for some dumbass reason. It helps him get a lesser sentence for the extortion.

 

WTF?! There was a ton of monkey business and ineptitude going on in the aftermath of Natalee Holloway's 'disappearance'. The police sucked, Joren van Der Sloot's parents sucked, he was pretty much arrested and released a few times because his father was a big shot of some sort at the time. It was a total miscarriage of justice but their justice system doesn't seem too swift, anyway. He was constantly bragging that he killed her.

I obviously did NOT know that he was getting a get out of jail free card on murder just for talking shit that has a 10/90 chance of even being true from where I'm sitting. Van der Sloot is a deviant and a born liar. Statute of limitations, on murder?!

In what world do you get rewarded for saying how you killed someone and where the body is unless capital punishment is being taken off the table? I read this a.m. that "there is no body", and they're not going to look for one.

It's always been posited that he dumped her body in the sea, which in my mind probably means in little pieces. This POS will kill again if he gets out in 2038, although I think he got a ton of years added on for running a dope operation in prison. He was also sex trafficking young girls in Thailand. I don't know what happened with that.

He killed Stephany Flores 5 years to the day of Natalee Holloway's disappearance. That is crazy weird.

Edit: Autocorrect.

 

If there's any solace its the fact that he still has like 30 years left, maybe more, in prison in Peru. I would not want to be locked up in Peru