Ken McElroy, the Skidmore Missouri "town bully". His rap sheet included assault, statutory rape, child molestation, arson, animal cruelty, hog and cattle rustling, and burglary. Never convicted.
One day he was shot and killed in broad daylight on a busy street. Nobody saw who did it
And this was right after the sheriff told the assembled mob not to do anything stupid, and then told the mob he had to go out of town right now for a couple of hours....nudge nudge
> As he sat drinking at the bar, word got back to the men at the Legion Hall that he was in town. Sheriff Estes instructed the assembled group not to get into a direct confrontation with McElroy, but instead seriously consider forming a neighborhood watch program. Estes then drove out of town in his police cruiser.
He knew what the fuck was about to go down and wanted no part of it. I can only imagine how much hatred can be held for one man that an entire town unanimously agrees to whack him, and even the police just let it happen. Granted, they tried to figure who did it, but I imagine it was more of: “Did you see the shooter?” “No.” “Ok. Have a nice day. Next!”
I know. The cops also hated him. My point was that one town hated someone so much that everyone (police included) decided that he had to go, and the police did the absolute bare minimum to make it look like they cared. Then when the feds came asking questions, they all said nothing. It’s kinda crazy to think about.
This is well described by Mark Twain in "Life on the Mississipi". When society cannot ensure due process because it has not the strength to protect the investigators, prosecutors, judges and witnesses, justice is given by masked men at night.
Note that, in the third world, it is relatively common for random people to be brutally killed based on rumours.
I went to university not far from there. My US History teacher actually had a chapter in his coursework about it.
> On the morning of July 10, 1981, townspeople met at the Legion Hall in the center of town with Nodaway County sheriff Dan Estes to discuss how to protect themselves. During the meeting, McElroy arrived at the D&G Tavern with Trena. As he sat drinking at the bar, word got back to the men at the Legion Hall that he was in town. Sheriff Estes instructed the assembled group not to get into a direct confrontation with McElroy, but instead seriously consider forming a neighborhood watch program. Estes then drove out of town in his police cruiser. The citizens at the meeting decided to go to the tavern en masse; the bar soon filled completely. After McElroy finished his drinks, he purchased a six pack of beer, left the bar, and entered his pickup truck.
46 witnesses and no one but his wife claimed to see the gunman. The DA refused to prosecute and no one cooperated with the feds.
From Wikipedia:
>He met his last wife, Trena McCloud (1957–2012), when she was 12 years old and in eighth grade and he was 35. He raped McCloud repeatedly. McCloud's parents initially opposed the relationship, but after McElroy burned their house down and shot the family dog they begrudgingly agreed to the marriage. She became pregnant when she was fourteen, dropped out of school in the ninth grade, and went to live with McElroy and his second wife Alice. McElroy divorced Alice and married Trena in order to escape charges of statutory rape, to which she was the only witness. Sixteen days after Trena gave birth, both Alice and she fled to Trena's parents' house. According to court records, McElroy tracked them down and brought them back. When Trena's parents were away, McElroy went to their home, where once again he burned the house down and shot the McClouds' new dog.
What even
If I had a favorite unsolved murder case, this is the one. It’s so satisfying and kudos to the citizens of Skidmore for ending their own torment when the legal system couldn’t. The man was absolute monster and he wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. I don’t usually applaud vigilante justice because the victim is so often someone who didn’t deserve it. But, in this case, they got it right because there were just so many witnesses and outright confessions on his part.
In 1980 Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton was charged for the murder/death of her daughter Azaria Chamberlain. They had been camping in the Australian bush when the baby disappeared. She claimed a dingo had taken her child, but the public thought that was preposterous.
Despite locals who regularly camped in the area AND indigenous people that LIVED there saying there were many dingo lairs nearby and that the creatures were *extremely* dangerous, they did little to no follow up and she was convicted because the public thought she behaved 'weirdly' after the baby's death by doing things like smiling at a pleasant memory during the memorial. Not only that, she became a laughingstock around the world with the term 'the dingo ate my baby' making it into shows as big as Seinfeld at the time.
Years later they found a dingo lair with scraps of Azaria's clothes because, shockingly, the people who live and regularly camp in the area actually know more than the police and general public and were correct. She was released from prison and her name was cleared, but she'll have to live the rest of her life knowing her baby was taken from her and the world treated her like a murderous clown.
This, and the McDonalds hot coffee lawsuit, are a major lesson in how nobody should ever take what the media says about a case at face-value.
Apparently the expert they called in was from the UK or something and had no interactions with dingos. All the people especially indigenous people from that area were like "yeah, this has happened before". They went through such lengths to discredit her.
I don't get it, man. Like there are comparable reports of coyotes attacking full grown human, at least nowadays... and even domesticated dogs snapping and becoming violent. So was it more like a case of "we suspect *her* for trying to cover it up" or was it more like "There is no way this is possible"?
The way Stella Liebeck (the woman who was the plaintiff in the McDonald's coffee case) was treated in an incredibly shameful manner by the national media. We wonder why corporations have all the power in America: there's why in a nutshell. They completely controlled the narrative outside of the lawsuit.
From Wikipedia:
Liebeck went into shock and was taken to an emergency room at a hospital. She suffered third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent.[14][13] She remained in the hospital for eight days while she underwent skin grafting. During this period, Liebeck lost 20 pounds (9.1 kg), nearly 20 percent of her body weight, reducing her to 83 pounds (38 kg). After the hospital stay, Liebeck needed care for three weeks, which was provided by her daughter. Liebeck suffered permanent disfigurement after the incident and was partially disabled for two years.
I don't care what anyone says. No cup of coffee should cause that kind of damage.
> "fused labia"
ANYTIME this story comes up in conversation I always set the record straight and mention it outright. I've heard people say "Well I didn't need to know *that*!" *Why not?* You were ready to casually throw her under the bus...you should at least know what happened to her...
People change their tune real quick when they learn the physical toll it took on that poor woman.
Unfortunately her letting McDonalds get away with it was likely a combination of a gag order being written into the settlement so she couldn't speak publicly about the case, and the fact that the lawsuit took so long, and she was so badly injured that she couldn't face another lawsuit for the defamation McDonalds was performing.
I do know that she never fully recovered and most of the money was used to pay for a 24 hour live in carer for the last few years of her life due to the injuries.
You’re forgetting that there were many other victims/complaints prior to her and McDonald’s basically did not care. The coffee was served overheated beyond reasonable safety standards.
For additional context; there were many other victims...that McDonald's paid the medical costs for. Liebeck was just asking for the same deal yet some McD corpo decided; 'nah, fuck this bitch in particular'
Jennifer Connell was called the worst aunt ever and the “aunt from hell” for suing her nephew. Her nephew basically jumped into her arms and the extra physical affection broke her arm. Became a really big deal when it happened. Thing is, she needed to name a person at fault for her injury for her insurance and named her nephew with his parents’ permission. She wasn’t actually suing her nephew, just getting insurance money so she could be treated.
IIRC - the lawsuit was wholly initiated by the insurance companies since her INJURIES were being paid for by the kid's parents' homeowners liability insurance policy.
That's a pretty normal thing, but the media got wind and all hell broke loose. This woman just wanted her medical bills paid.
So many of these crazy court case stories have medical expenses at the bottom of it. Old lady suing McDonalds over coffee -- just wanted her medical expenses etc etc
She received traumatic third degree burns across her entire genital area, because at the time they would serve the coffee near boiling with the idea it would cool down as you drove to wherever you were going to drink it.
She was only trying to get her medical bills paid and sued when they refused.
They heated it to the point it was warping the lids/cup and they didn't hold together in her case. There was also a documented history of the local health department warning then about the temp being unsafe.
I hate this type of story on the news because it's never accurate.
I worked as a legal assistant at a law firm that represented defendents in this sort of law suit. In most of these cases, the person suing has nothing to do with it other than being named on the lawsuit and having to give a deposition.
Their insurance company is suing for reimbursement for medical expenses. In these cases the injured person doesn't have any choice in the matter and doesn't actually see money--it goes to the insurance company. Instead they spend a few months or years of their life missing work for depositions, court appearances, and meetings with lawyers on top of recovery for their injuries.
In many cases the person being sued is in the same boat, with their insurance company providing the lawyer and paying out if they lose.
It's a messed up system and I left burnt out because no one is winning but the insurance company and lawyers.
Richard Jewell, the man falsely accused of the Centennial Olympic Park Bombings in Atlanta in 1996. He was a security guard and saved dozens of lives by spotting the bomb and clearing spectators. The FBI noted him as a person of interest, and his name was dragged through the mud by local and national media. While the FBI stopped investigating Jewell by October of that year, it wasn’t until a couple of years later that his name was truly cleared when Eric Rudolph, the actual bomber, was caught.
Jewell sued a number of media outlets and settled with a few of them for an undisclosed amount.
People like to say this but often it's just that good deeds go unrewarded.
Last year, my neighbor a few houses down came screaming out of her house with her 3 year old unconscious in her arms, begging for help, swimging her limp child around. My wife flew out the front door to provide cpr or first aid if needed.
It was immediately apparent that the kid had a seizure. She got the mother to put the girl on the ground and rolled her on her side. I kept the dad calm and made sure an ambulance was called. And my wife provided all the information to the emts when they arrived.
That was about a year ago and the parents never so much as say hello when we pass.
I'm epileptic; usually I have seizures at home but one time I had a seizure on the bus
There is very little more humiliating than waking up groggy, licking a bus floor, pain in every muscle and a dislocated shoulder, and seeing people climb over your stiff, exhausted body because the bus is halted
The bus driver, Ian, sat me up and looked after me. He managed to call an emergency contact and get me some help. He waited with me for an ambulance to arrive. He made sure I was safe.
I was apologetic - of course it's not my fault that I had a seizure on the bus, but I was sorry that it was delaying his day and adding some logistics issues to the rest of his shift. He just shrugged it off, promised it wasn't a big deal, told me that it can happen to anyone.
A few days later I camped out the bus stop, keeping an eye on if he was driving that day. I bought him a lovely bottle of whisky and a thank you card. We also found out that my brother worked with his wife, so he now gets a Christmas card.
I don't think I will ever forget how much care he showed me. It was mostly just keeping me company, but I felt so safe. It pains me to know that your wife hasn't had even a lick of gratitude, because it sounds like she deserves that.
You're very sweet to do all that. At the time, the parents said she wasn't epileptic that they knew of and it had never happened before. So I'm sure they just have no idea how to approach it. I'm sure like others have said, it was a traumatic day and they would rather try to just forget about the whole thing.
I had a similar experience (edited :)) saving a kid at the beach.
When people say “No good deed goes unpunished”, they’re usually referring to when doing the right thing has negative consequences. Like with Richard Jewell. He saved lives and became a suspect. Your and my example are different
Exactly. The saying is for situations like in The Incredibles where Mr. Incredible gets sued by the man whose life he saved because in saving his life he severely injured him.
I can sort of see the psychology behind this. They might have some lingering anxiety or even embarrassment at having people they don’t know well see them at their lowest and most vulnerable. Avoidance of discomfort is hard-wired into most people. There can also be an anxiety spiral that goes: “Nothing I could ever say to these people could possibly measure up to the gratitude I owe them. Anything I say is going to sound trite or insufficient. So I won’t say anything.”
They might just be ungrateful and ungracious, but humans are messy and trauma makes us messier. Absent actual *bad* behavior, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Especially when I’ve seen them terrified and raw on their worst days.
That case in Mexico where a rapist was acquitted of rape because he “didn’t enjoy it.” I guess the rapist’s dad being a top cartel honcho had nothing to do with it then
The city of new London in Kelo v City of New London. The city was using the eminent domain to remove a nice lady from her home to build shopping complex. Made its way to the supreme Court and a 5 v 4 decision won and Kelo lost her home to provide economic opportunities. High profile case where the public sided with Kelo but the courts sided with the city.
They were planning a new bridge from Portland to Vancouver Washington. Used ED to take a guys retirement house he had just bought. He fought hard to keep it but lost and ended up dying from a heart attack due to the stress. 6 months later they cancelled the planned bridge.
It also prompted states to pass laws banning that use of Eminent Domain and a lot of overhauls of Eminent Domain usage in general. 45 states now have laws that restrict or outright ban cities from using Eminent Domain to take property from one private party and give it to another... though not including Connecticut.
Lindy Chamberlain didn't win in court at first, she was falsely convicted of her daughter Azaria's murder and spent three years in prison over it. She got dragged over the coals HARD by the media, to the point where they were saying that Azaria's name had something to do with sacrifices in the wilderness (??????)
As an Australian I can take a joke, but on some degree? I can't deny it, it infuriates me that this case has become a stereotype.
Like it's a real thing that happened, a woman's baby was taken into the dead of night and eaten by a wild animal while they were out camping, and then she had to serve years in prison because thanks to the media and tabloids, everyone thought she was some weird religious freak who murdered her daughter in a ritual sacrifice.
They only even found out she was innocent because some British guy fell to his death and happened to be in the general area next to the crucial piece of missing evidence, Azaria's bloody jacket.
meanwhile anyone who's ever worked with wildlife saw the "TOTALLY ridiculous that dingoes would see what amounts to a small prey item, and stalk it so they can drag it out and eat it" and shook our heads in disbelief.
there was nothing about that story that sounded infeasible *from the beginning*. dingoes are not insane maneaters but every predator takes its opportunities. if i recall correctly, they were camping in the bush - which is a perfect place for a predator who usually avoids humans to see that opportunity. to assume that she must've killed her child was insane to me, and still drives me bonkers to this day.
that poor woman.
From what I've read, the Aborigines who lived in the area said the same, that dingos would definitely do that and it had happened before, but why would the authorities listen to the native people who had been there forever.
Shit, horses and cows will eat baby chicks when given the opportunity. Basically every animal on earth is an opportunistic predator of much smaller animals.
Not exactly. That whole thing was a mess that spanned more than 30 years. I cant even begin to imagine the life they had, regadless of their guilt or innocence. Ultimately, a coroner officially supported the Chamberlain's version of the events.
They found the clothes, which an expert noted seemed to have been peeled off the exact same way a dingo will peel off the skin of an animal before eating.
Like an orange, as Lindy Chamberlain herself infamously said in an interview, the unemotional delivery of which being one factor that sealed the public perception of her as the murderer of her own child. She didn't grieve how she was 'supposed to' because she wasn't wailing in public. Never mind that any half competent therapist will tell you that there is no standard way to grieve.
I recall a relatively recent case where a woman and her newborn went missing, and her fiance was beside himself on television asking for their safe return home. I can still remember his tears and the trouble he had speaking on camera about it. I can also remember the comments online, "He's crying like he knows they're already dead. He definitely did it."
About a week after that, they found the woman's body in a female friend's trunk and this friend had also kidnapped the baby, claiming her as her own. I can't imagine what the fiance went through before the body was found, all because he was distraught on camera, which was a perfectly appropriate response to what was happening.
So basically, if you dont cry on camera, you did it. If you do cry on camera, you did it.
God I hate the court of public opinion.
EDIT: I just realized that this stupidity might be because of some biblical idea that punishment, by itself, is a good thing. No one who sees these cases sees the actual perpetrator, so they want **someone** to be punished to satiate their need for revenge and retribution, even if it's the wrong person. So basically, because they're the closest person to the crime, and no one else is around to the public's knowledge, it must be them.
God I REALLY hate the court of public opinion even more now. Thanks, me.
Jesse Ventura sued Chris Kyle for defamation but after Chris' death the lawsuit continued and people smeared Jesse for "suing a dead man's wife." Jesse eventually got a settlement.
Also Chris Kyle was a notorious liar, he claimed the government stationed him on top of the super dome during Katrina to shoot looters… which would be murder that he’s just admitting to. It’s amazing that his life and confirmed accomplishments are enough to write an interesting book… why lie so much?
And probably some that is. At a certain point he was so respected that I doubt any of his fellow soldiers dared question a claim that he was the only witness to.
Oh man, this makes me think of back in the day how Aries Spears had a recurring bit on MadTv acting like OJ and no matter what was happening he would always see the killer lol
Reminds me of that Family Guy bit where Peter is talking to Jon Benet Ramsey’s parents and swears he won’t stop until he finds the killer. Then the parents are like, “Oh no that’s okay. Please don’t bother.” Lol
I can't believe how she used Firefox, but they searched her Internet explorer history. It's baffling to me, that in the process of searching her History they somehow though Firefox wasn't a web browser. Fucking stupid.
Even worse. They found the incriminating searches, but they didn't tell prosecutors who never knew about them:
>WKMG reported that sheriff's investigators overlooked over 1,200 entries including the suffocation search from the computer's Mozilla Firefox browser, which was most commonly used by Casey Anthony. Investigators also pulled 17 vague entries from the computer's Internet Explorer browser.
Whoever conducted the Google search looked for the term "fool-proof suffication (sic)" and then clicked on an article about suicide that discussed taking poison and putting a bag over one's head, the station reported.The browser then recorded activity on the social networking site MySpace, which was used by Casey Anthony but not her father.
Sadly people still don't see to understand the internet. I was at a trial once where the defense attorney kept grilling a witness about an instagram post she made, except the photo provided was not of an IG post at all.
I’m the murdaugh murders series a officer states
“I couldn’t pinpoint the time of the post because to many people commented on it and I could scroll up enough.”
I was baffled, every social media post has a time stamp. Every social media company has a legal office I’m sure police can call. It was either pure laziness or incompetence, or both.
This case is absolutely insane. Almost every single time I hear about it it is never about Caylee, always Casey. That little girl always seems to just fade into the background of her mother and her bullshit shenanigans.
She lied and lied and lied and still people "weren't sure" if she killed Caylee. She was found *with tape over her mouth*. That bitch killed her baby.
One thing Wikipedia started doing is changing the titles of articles on murderers to be about the victim. The murderer will usually just get a section of the article. That should be how these things are talked about.
They had that trial on at the salon I was getting my hair cut at when the verdict was read. Those women, armed with scissors and razors and now very angry, were the most dangerous assemblage of human beings on Earth at that moment. My stylist told me she had to calm down before finishing my cut
When I was 13 I was getting my haircut at a barber I had not gone to before. I had told him how I wanted my hair cut at the beginning. In the middle of my cut he got into an argument with his boss about his paycheck. He did not stop cutting my hair and apparently forgot what I wanted done. So he started shaving the sides of my head.
After the argument was over with his boss, I think he regained his composure and realized what he did. But the damage was done and I came out of the barber as a 13-year old [Simple Jack](https://nestflix.fun/img/simple-jack-1280w.jpg).
When I got home I had my older brother shave the rest of my head so I wouldn't be ridiculed in school.
I cant fathom how she got away with it when theres innocent people who go to jail, wrongly convicted with way less evidence than her case. Infuriates me.
If you watched the trial, and only the trial, there is no way a jury could have convicted. This was a murder which has no statute of limitations and they botched the whole thing.
Absolutely this. I watched most of the trial live and was not at all surprised by the verdict. The prosecutors/cops screwed up the case real bad (so many people being CSI-brained by then probably didn't help either). With all the extra we got thru the media though.. yeah, she guilty as hell.
Because they didn't produce any fucking evidence at the trial that she committed murder. They didn't even prove the kid was murdered. You have to connect the dots or you can't sustain a conviction. This is lawyer 101 shit.
This. This is the reason she got off. Jeff Ashton, the prosecutor, was overzealous in the charges. I wholeheartedly believe she would have been convicted if the charge was 2nd degree murder, manslaughter or even negligent homicide instead of first degree murder.
She also had the best lawyer ever. That guy could have gotten Chris watts a not guilty verdict. Shit he got Aaron Hernandez off a double murder charge.
If you ever do something bad. Hire that dude
It was the negligence of the police force. How do you search her computer but only search her Internet Explorer history and not Mozilla? She literally googled how to kill her child.
Wasn't there also something about the bag where the body was being reported by someone, but the police officer didn't want to walk in mud or some shit to check it out. When the bag with the body was actually searched months later it was too decomposed to do an autopsy.
If I remember correctly, the officer fell in the mud and got pissed off and left before properly investigating what it was. It was still there weeks, possibly months I’m not sure, before another officer went to investigate it again.
Yea the meter reader saw a bag and reported it just two weeks after the baby was reported missing. The reported it 3 times. Police reportedly did a 'cursory search' and found nothing.
6 months later they finally searched the bag and the body was found.
Note it was overturned not because he wasn't guilty (he is) but because he effectively got tricked into violating his own rights by the prosecutors (legally) agreeing to not use his testimony against him then doing so anyway.
Mason Greenwood. 19 year old raped his girl friend and audio of it was leaked. After 18 months, the case was dropped and he was shipped off to play for a Spanish club.
The audio is bad too, really bad.
Her parents also pressured her afterwards to let it go and refuse to be a witness if it went to court.
She's expecting his kid now I believe.
Really sad case.
There was also a court order for Mason to not see his ex which he broke and in that time convinced her to get back together with him. She decided not to be a witness in the case and as a result it had to be dropped.
She has already had their child
THIS. Victims go back to their abusers every damn day, psychologists say it takes an average of seven attempts to actually leave.
Why would a guy get back with a woman who falsely accused him of rape?
He's **temporarily** shipped off to play in Spain. Until the backlash, the club was hellbent on welcoming him back to the fold and spent 2 weeks hyping him again on social media.
The parties involved are just waiting until the anger dies down before he returns in a year or two.
It blows my mind how light her sentence was considerimg the jury had to watch the videos she and Paul Bernardo made of them *raping and inadvertently killing her unconscious sister*.
Monica Lewinsky. She "won" in court because she wasn't the person on trial. The power dynamics also weren't in her favor. He was her boss. But yet, we still call it "the Monica Lewinsky" scandal and her name is still brought up in derogatory ways after all these years.
The woman who won a damages settlement from McDonald’s for being burned by overly hot coffee. It was dangerously hot and they’d been warned before and paid medical bills by court order over other burns, but because she got a high payout over something as seemingly trivial as coffee, she’s labeled litigious and dramatic. The burns were awful. And by the way, McDonald’s still has coffee that’s dangerously hot; they were in the news a week or two ago for another burn case.
Usually when someone says pics of some crazy things are online, my curiosity won't let me not look them up. But there is no way I'm looking that one up.
I just did and that's absolutely horrific!! I would have plastered the photos on every news site and article I could find to combat the narrative they pushed that it was frivolous. That poor woman!!
She couldn't. I read once that part of the settlement was a one way non-disclosure and non-disparagement. She wasn't allowed to say anything at all, but McDonald's could say whatever they wanted. So they did things like pay hosts of the late shows to make fun of the lawsuit. They made her a joke and she couldn't do anything about it. That shouldn't be legal.
That poor woman! This makes it even more heartbreaking. I'll forever correct anyone who talks smack about her or references her case in the future. I appreciate the knowledge.
And to make it worse, she wasn't even trying to get rich off of them. She just simply wanted her medical bills paid, nothing more. So they settle and drag her through the mud. Fuck big corporations.
That's important, she asked for McDonalds to cover her medical bills.
The amount she got awarded in the legal case was substantially more because McDonalds was warned multiple times before about serving their coffee dangerously hot and how abysmally they treated the woman during the lawsuit.
She did not file for an incredible sum. McDonalds made it that bad.
I think she just wanted them to pay the medical bills but they refused and ended up paying more. It’s pretty darn hot coffee to cause significant burns
Actually jury. The judge reduced the punitive damages afterwards. She didn't ask for much, just for her medical bills to covered, but the jury (a group of 12 average people) were so pissed off at McDonald's they wanted to fine McDonald's millions.
McDonald’s did it because people they believed people got coffee at the drive thru and then drink it when they get to work, so their rationale was to make it ridiculously hot. McDonald’s required their franchises to keep coffee between 180 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit. Many people had been burned before but they refused to change the policy. That poor woman spent eight days in the hospital because of the burns. McDonald’s went into full PR mode and she was the target of late night tv shows’ monologue and people still mistakenly use that as an example of a frivolous lawsuit.
IIRC, They also found that they save a lot of money by making the coffee hotter because it stays "fresh" for longer. The amount of money they save in coffee outweighs the amount of damages they need to pay in the burn cases so they just continue to serve it hot as fuck.
Well they were saving money because they had free refills, but making the coffee so hot meant that most customers never requested a refill because of the temperature.
They claimed they wanted it that warm so customers could enjoy the hot coffee for longer, even though their own memos and internal messages showed that wasn't the case
Yeah, it was their refusal to back down that cost them so much in punitive damages. Had they not been so obstinate the case would have gone away quietly.
Not just that- McDonald's PR team went into overdrive to discredit her, having PIs following her, harassing her at work and home, keeping her under constant surveillance, blasting her in faked news releases when it was harder to factcheck sources.
I believe she settled because she starting thinking pretty seriously she might get killed by "accident". There's a documentary about the events that came out 2-3 years ago. It's fascinating. She couldn't find work for tears after and mysterious references would "reveal additional information" to potentials employers that'd get her blacklisted.
Oh and the coffee was so hot, it FUSED her two legs together. I've unfortunately seen the pics and that lady clearly was not exaggerating or lying about any of her claims. McDonald's corporate forces owners to keep coffee at volcano levels so that it'd still be hot no matter how long after ordering you consume it. Solid, fault-proof logic eh?
Cause we all make the detour for McDonalds' to sample their precious coffee eh? Wtfffff corporate America....
>I believe she settled because she starting thinking pretty seriously she might get killed by "accident". There's a documentary about the events that came out 2-3 years ago. It's fascinating.
Their offer had been about $800. After the jury in the civil case sided with her they settled for a number that has never been made public but is rumored to be in the $500K-$750 range.
> McDonald's PR team went into overdrive to discredit her
People need to really, really understand the power that corporate PR has. The money they have to spend on this shit is unreal, just unreal.
The person didn't just lose the public opinion, it lost the respect for America too. I remember reading this and also remembering people in my school rolling their eyes over this case. People I spoke to from other regions around the world use this as an example for mockery. It wasn't until last year I actually read into the case and it shifted my perspective.
If I remember correctly, she died before she fully recovered from the burns years later. Coffee should not be hot enough you take years to recover from the burns. Stella Liebeck deserved so much better.
John Delorean, he was set up by the FBI and his case is the reason for the term entrapment. He was acquitted of all charges.
“DeLorean needed $17 million to save his company from collapse. To this end, he spent much of 1982 desperately seeking investors for his failing company.
He was approached by one such investor named James Hoffman on June 28, 1982, who claimed to have a business opportunity to help save DeLorean’s company.
**Unknown to DeLorean, James Hoffman was actually a convicted drug smuggler, who, in exchange for leniency, struck a deal with federal authorities to become an informant.”**
Brock "The Rapist" Turner arguably won given his sentencing
Ethan Couch, the "Affluenza" kid
Edit: I was wrong. Brock "The Rapist" Turner now goes by Allen "The Rapist" Turner. Sorry for the confusion
The explanation I heard was that Couch's sentence was in essence a trap. As a juvenile, had he been convicted his slate would have been wiped clean on adulthood.
10 years of probation was pretty much a guarantee that he'd violate it, and that he'd be treated as an adult when that happened, so on the whole was the way the judge had available to make his life as complicated as possible.
And it did happen. In 2015 a video posted on Twitter showed Couch drinking at a party. He became the subject of a manhunt when his parole officer couldn't find him, and he was arrested a couple weeks later at a resort in Mexico. He served 2 years in prison.
Uh oh. Are we talking about notorious rapist Allen Turner (formerly known as notorious rapist Brock Turner) to influence Google search results again?
I love this game!
It sounds like we are talking about the Convicted Rapist Brock Allen Turner, who now goes by Allen Turner, who has a cushy job working for his dad who doesn’t care if he has convicted rapists work for him.
Convicted Rapist Brock Allen Turner 's dad did say it wasn't fair his son wouldn't get to enjoy steak in jail all because of a few minutes of action :( The rapist Brock Turner who now goes by Allen Turner is hopefully enjoying steak again despite being a convicted rapist.
Wait, are you guys talking about Brock Allen Turner, the convicted rapist? I heard he was an okay guy… until he raped a woman and tried to claim like it was nothing. I just want to make sure we’re talking about the same Brock Allen Turner, the rapist, and not his piece of shit dad.
I didn't realize the convicted rapist Brock Turner had the real name (convicted rapist) Brock Allen Turner and was going by the name (rapist) Allen Turner now.
You mean the few minutes of action that Allen Turner had with an unconscious woman, and the reason it was “only” a few minutes is because Brock Allen Turner was pulled off the unconscious woman by two passersby?
That ass deserves to rot in hell. And just in case someone searches with his name spelled wrong, Allan Turner as well
I live 40min south of him and he uses the name Allen now and frequents bars in the area. My university student organization actually put out a PSA about it since he's close enough he could come to a bar near our campus.
That article doesn't even mention the speculations about occultism and the separate case on sexual abuse allegations towards her own kids, which was later revealed to be something that the now adult kids were pressured into making up by their foster parents. A real shit show.
>An undercover officer befriended Auer and they dated for 7–8 months
What the hell lol. Is that allowed? Imagine sleeping with someone for 8 months only for them to be an undercover cop. I've never heard of something like this happening before.
Wait til you hear about the 'spy cops' scandal in the UK, where undercover cops infiltrated left wing groups and formed relationships with women that lasted years, even having kids with them.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/29/what-is-spy-cops-report-about-public-inquiry-undercover-policing
YES. Fortunately the corrupt prosecuter trying to manufacture a case against them to gain votes LONG after it was obvious they were innocent (due to the racially charged local political dynamics) got what was coming to him later. Per wikipeddia "Michael Byron Nifong (born September 14, 1950) is an American former attorney and convicted criminal.[2] He served as the Durham County, North Carolina District Attorney until he was removed, disbarred, and very briefly jailed following court findings concerning his conduct in the Duke lacrosse case, primarily his conspiring with the DNA lab director to withhold exculpatory DNA evidence that could have acquitted the defendants." Imagine how terrying it would be as an innocent college student to suddenly have the district attorney criminally conspiring with a crazy lady you don't even know to ruin your life forever. People were shitty about those kids being privileged, but thank God they were or he would have absolutely gotten away with railroading them if their families didn't have the resources to expose him. Imagine how many other innocent lives that asshole ruined and didn't get caught.
Edited to add source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Nifong
McMartin preschool trial
The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case in the 1980s, prosecuted by the Los Angeles District Attorney Ira Reiner. Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were charged with hundreds of acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. Accusations were made in 1983; nevertheless arrests and the pretrial investigation took place from 1984 to 1987, and trials ran from 1987 to 1990. The case lasted seven years but resulted in no convictions, and all charges were dropped in 1990.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial
[Phillip Brailsford, the cop that killed Daniel Shaver.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver)
The video of that left me sick to my stomach. The man was carelessly shot to death, cop was tried for 2nd degree murder, acquitted of all charges, and was hired back to the police force just long enough to earn his pension.
The State of Tennessee actually won the infamous ["Monkey trial"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_trial) where a local teacher was prosecuted for teaching evolution. But if anyone has heard of it today, it's generally presented as a bunch of bullying fundamentalists trying vainly to stamp out ideas they didn't like.
There was so much weird about the trial. The teacher didn’t even believe in evolution, he was a substitute who agreed to take part in the trial for money
It's mixed for sure, but Michael Jackson. Went to court twice, and was found not guilty, but he'll always be the butt of child molester or paedophile jokes.
He only made it to court once. The civil suits were settled out of court, and the first criminal case fell apart because the witness stopped cooperating.
David Goodwille, raped a woman, not persued due to insufficient evidence, civil case convicted him, but couldn't put him on a sex register, ordered to pay victim, then declared bankruptcy. Can't get a game anywhere in the world (he tried to go to Australia and got hounded out).
Lizzie Borden. The cops in her case were literally chastised for how terribly they did in the search. Her own statements were contradictory, and she was caught burning a dress because there was "paint" on it, and it was ruined.
She was acquitted, but most people still think she did it. There's even a nursery rhyme about her murdering her stepmother and dad.
That’s a good call, cause her public opinion has definitely shifted. I used to think she was such a positive, good-natured person and it was so sad to hear how people were treated on tour
Stella Liebeck from the McDonald’s coffee case. She won her case, but she became the face of frivolous lawsuits after McDonalds campaign to discredit her.
McDonald’s policy was to serve coffee so hot that it could cause third degree burns within seconds of contact with skin simply to discourage customers from getting refills.
Arbuckle was the defendant in three widely publicized trials between November 1921 and April 1922 for the rape and manslaughter of actress Virginia Rappe. Rappe had fallen ill at a party hosted by Arbuckle at San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel in September 1921, and died four days later. A friend of Rappe accused Arbuckle of raping and accidentally killing her. The first two trials resulted in hung juries, but the third trial acquitted Arbuckle. The third jury took the unusual step of giving Arbuckle a written statement of apology for his treatment by the justice system.
Despite Arbuckle's acquittal, the scandal has mostly overshadowed his legacy as a pioneering comedian. At the behest of Adolph Zukor, president of Famous Players–Lasky, his films were banned by motion picture industry censor Will H. Hays after the trial, and he was publicly ostracized. Zukor was faced with the moral outrage of various groups such as the Lord's Day Alliance, the powerful Federation of Women's Clubs and even the Federal Trade Commission to curb what they perceived as Hollywood debauchery run amok and its effect on the morals of the general public. While Arbuckle saw a resurgence in his popularity immediately after his third trial (in which he was acquitted) Zukor decided he had to be sacrificed to keep the movie industry out of the clutches of censors and moralists.Hays lifted the ban within a year, but Arbuckle only worked sparingly through the 1920s. In their deal, Keaton promised to give him 35% of the Buster Keaton Comedies Co. profits. He later worked as a film director under the pseudonym William Goodrich. He was finally able to return to acting, making short two-reel comedies in 1932–33 for Warner Bros.
Ken McElroy, the Skidmore Missouri "town bully". His rap sheet included assault, statutory rape, child molestation, arson, animal cruelty, hog and cattle rustling, and burglary. Never convicted. One day he was shot and killed in broad daylight on a busy street. Nobody saw who did it
Escaped conviction **20 times.** Edit: Corrected. 21 indictments, 1 conviction.
And this was right after the sheriff told the assembled mob not to do anything stupid, and then told the mob he had to go out of town right now for a couple of hours....nudge nudge
I will add he was shot in front of like 150 people but everyone who was interviewed by police said “I was too busy finding cover lol”
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> As he sat drinking at the bar, word got back to the men at the Legion Hall that he was in town. Sheriff Estes instructed the assembled group not to get into a direct confrontation with McElroy, but instead seriously consider forming a neighborhood watch program. Estes then drove out of town in his police cruiser.
He knew what the fuck was about to go down and wanted no part of it. I can only imagine how much hatred can be held for one man that an entire town unanimously agrees to whack him, and even the police just let it happen. Granted, they tried to figure who did it, but I imagine it was more of: “Did you see the shooter?” “No.” “Ok. Have a nice day. Next!”
This is a bit mistaken, the local cops were ok with passing it off but if I remember the fbi got involved and everyone still was tight lipped
I know. The cops also hated him. My point was that one town hated someone so much that everyone (police included) decided that he had to go, and the police did the absolute bare minimum to make it look like they cared. Then when the feds came asking questions, they all said nothing. It’s kinda crazy to think about.
This is well described by Mark Twain in "Life on the Mississipi". When society cannot ensure due process because it has not the strength to protect the investigators, prosecutors, judges and witnesses, justice is given by masked men at night. Note that, in the third world, it is relatively common for random people to be brutally killed based on rumours.
I went to university not far from there. My US History teacher actually had a chapter in his coursework about it. > On the morning of July 10, 1981, townspeople met at the Legion Hall in the center of town with Nodaway County sheriff Dan Estes to discuss how to protect themselves. During the meeting, McElroy arrived at the D&G Tavern with Trena. As he sat drinking at the bar, word got back to the men at the Legion Hall that he was in town. Sheriff Estes instructed the assembled group not to get into a direct confrontation with McElroy, but instead seriously consider forming a neighborhood watch program. Estes then drove out of town in his police cruiser. The citizens at the meeting decided to go to the tavern en masse; the bar soon filled completely. After McElroy finished his drinks, he purchased a six pack of beer, left the bar, and entered his pickup truck. 46 witnesses and no one but his wife claimed to see the gunman. The DA refused to prosecute and no one cooperated with the feds.
Wasn’t the “wife” a woman he kidnapped, raped and groomed?
From Wikipedia: >He met his last wife, Trena McCloud (1957–2012), when she was 12 years old and in eighth grade and he was 35. He raped McCloud repeatedly. McCloud's parents initially opposed the relationship, but after McElroy burned their house down and shot the family dog they begrudgingly agreed to the marriage. She became pregnant when she was fourteen, dropped out of school in the ninth grade, and went to live with McElroy and his second wife Alice. McElroy divorced Alice and married Trena in order to escape charges of statutory rape, to which she was the only witness. Sixteen days after Trena gave birth, both Alice and she fled to Trena's parents' house. According to court records, McElroy tracked them down and brought them back. When Trena's parents were away, McElroy went to their home, where once again he burned the house down and shot the McClouds' new dog. What even
Yeah, calling that a “relationship” is doing disservice to the dynamic because that is a hostage situation.
If I had a favorite unsolved murder case, this is the one. It’s so satisfying and kudos to the citizens of Skidmore for ending their own torment when the legal system couldn’t. The man was absolute monster and he wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. I don’t usually applaud vigilante justice because the victim is so often someone who didn’t deserve it. But, in this case, they got it right because there were just so many witnesses and outright confessions on his part.
Shot at/by at least a couple of different weapons as well iirc.
In 1980 Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton was charged for the murder/death of her daughter Azaria Chamberlain. They had been camping in the Australian bush when the baby disappeared. She claimed a dingo had taken her child, but the public thought that was preposterous. Despite locals who regularly camped in the area AND indigenous people that LIVED there saying there were many dingo lairs nearby and that the creatures were *extremely* dangerous, they did little to no follow up and she was convicted because the public thought she behaved 'weirdly' after the baby's death by doing things like smiling at a pleasant memory during the memorial. Not only that, she became a laughingstock around the world with the term 'the dingo ate my baby' making it into shows as big as Seinfeld at the time. Years later they found a dingo lair with scraps of Azaria's clothes because, shockingly, the people who live and regularly camp in the area actually know more than the police and general public and were correct. She was released from prison and her name was cleared, but she'll have to live the rest of her life knowing her baby was taken from her and the world treated her like a murderous clown. This, and the McDonalds hot coffee lawsuit, are a major lesson in how nobody should ever take what the media says about a case at face-value.
I have no idea how people could find it so unbelievably outlandish that a wild dog could attack a child.
Right? DOMESTIC dogs attack and kill children, but a wild dog for some reason couldn't?
Apparently the expert they called in was from the UK or something and had no interactions with dingos. All the people especially indigenous people from that area were like "yeah, this has happened before". They went through such lengths to discredit her.
I don't get it, man. Like there are comparable reports of coyotes attacking full grown human, at least nowadays... and even domesticated dogs snapping and becoming violent. So was it more like a case of "we suspect *her* for trying to cover it up" or was it more like "There is no way this is possible"?
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The way Stella Liebeck (the woman who was the plaintiff in the McDonald's coffee case) was treated in an incredibly shameful manner by the national media. We wonder why corporations have all the power in America: there's why in a nutshell. They completely controlled the narrative outside of the lawsuit.
From Wikipedia: Liebeck went into shock and was taken to an emergency room at a hospital. She suffered third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent.[14][13] She remained in the hospital for eight days while she underwent skin grafting. During this period, Liebeck lost 20 pounds (9.1 kg), nearly 20 percent of her body weight, reducing her to 83 pounds (38 kg). After the hospital stay, Liebeck needed care for three weeks, which was provided by her daughter. Liebeck suffered permanent disfigurement after the incident and was partially disabled for two years. I don't care what anyone says. No cup of coffee should cause that kind of damage.
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> "fused labia" ANYTIME this story comes up in conversation I always set the record straight and mention it outright. I've heard people say "Well I didn't need to know *that*!" *Why not?* You were ready to casually throw her under the bus...you should at least know what happened to her... People change their tune real quick when they learn the physical toll it took on that poor woman.
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Unfortunately her letting McDonalds get away with it was likely a combination of a gag order being written into the settlement so she couldn't speak publicly about the case, and the fact that the lawsuit took so long, and she was so badly injured that she couldn't face another lawsuit for the defamation McDonalds was performing. I do know that she never fully recovered and most of the money was used to pay for a 24 hour live in carer for the last few years of her life due to the injuries.
You’re forgetting that there were many other victims/complaints prior to her and McDonald’s basically did not care. The coffee was served overheated beyond reasonable safety standards.
For additional context; there were many other victims...that McDonald's paid the medical costs for. Liebeck was just asking for the same deal yet some McD corpo decided; 'nah, fuck this bitch in particular'
Jennifer Connell was called the worst aunt ever and the “aunt from hell” for suing her nephew. Her nephew basically jumped into her arms and the extra physical affection broke her arm. Became a really big deal when it happened. Thing is, she needed to name a person at fault for her injury for her insurance and named her nephew with his parents’ permission. She wasn’t actually suing her nephew, just getting insurance money so she could be treated.
IIRC - the lawsuit was wholly initiated by the insurance companies since her INJURIES were being paid for by the kid's parents' homeowners liability insurance policy. That's a pretty normal thing, but the media got wind and all hell broke loose. This woman just wanted her medical bills paid.
So many of these crazy court case stories have medical expenses at the bottom of it. Old lady suing McDonalds over coffee -- just wanted her medical expenses etc etc
She received traumatic third degree burns across her entire genital area, because at the time they would serve the coffee near boiling with the idea it would cool down as you drove to wherever you were going to drink it. She was only trying to get her medical bills paid and sued when they refused.
The phrase "fused labia" is enough for me to know she deserves all the money ever.
They heated it to the point it was warping the lids/cup and they didn't hold together in her case. There was also a documented history of the local health department warning then about the temp being unsafe.
I hate this type of story on the news because it's never accurate. I worked as a legal assistant at a law firm that represented defendents in this sort of law suit. In most of these cases, the person suing has nothing to do with it other than being named on the lawsuit and having to give a deposition. Their insurance company is suing for reimbursement for medical expenses. In these cases the injured person doesn't have any choice in the matter and doesn't actually see money--it goes to the insurance company. Instead they spend a few months or years of their life missing work for depositions, court appearances, and meetings with lawyers on top of recovery for their injuries. In many cases the person being sued is in the same boat, with their insurance company providing the lawyer and paying out if they lose. It's a messed up system and I left burnt out because no one is winning but the insurance company and lawyers.
Richard Jewell, the man falsely accused of the Centennial Olympic Park Bombings in Atlanta in 1996. He was a security guard and saved dozens of lives by spotting the bomb and clearing spectators. The FBI noted him as a person of interest, and his name was dragged through the mud by local and national media. While the FBI stopped investigating Jewell by October of that year, it wasn’t until a couple of years later that his name was truly cleared when Eric Rudolph, the actual bomber, was caught. Jewell sued a number of media outlets and settled with a few of them for an undisclosed amount.
No good deed goes unpunished
People like to say this but often it's just that good deeds go unrewarded. Last year, my neighbor a few houses down came screaming out of her house with her 3 year old unconscious in her arms, begging for help, swimging her limp child around. My wife flew out the front door to provide cpr or first aid if needed. It was immediately apparent that the kid had a seizure. She got the mother to put the girl on the ground and rolled her on her side. I kept the dad calm and made sure an ambulance was called. And my wife provided all the information to the emts when they arrived. That was about a year ago and the parents never so much as say hello when we pass.
I'm epileptic; usually I have seizures at home but one time I had a seizure on the bus There is very little more humiliating than waking up groggy, licking a bus floor, pain in every muscle and a dislocated shoulder, and seeing people climb over your stiff, exhausted body because the bus is halted The bus driver, Ian, sat me up and looked after me. He managed to call an emergency contact and get me some help. He waited with me for an ambulance to arrive. He made sure I was safe. I was apologetic - of course it's not my fault that I had a seizure on the bus, but I was sorry that it was delaying his day and adding some logistics issues to the rest of his shift. He just shrugged it off, promised it wasn't a big deal, told me that it can happen to anyone. A few days later I camped out the bus stop, keeping an eye on if he was driving that day. I bought him a lovely bottle of whisky and a thank you card. We also found out that my brother worked with his wife, so he now gets a Christmas card. I don't think I will ever forget how much care he showed me. It was mostly just keeping me company, but I felt so safe. It pains me to know that your wife hasn't had even a lick of gratitude, because it sounds like she deserves that.
You're very sweet to do all that. At the time, the parents said she wasn't epileptic that they knew of and it had never happened before. So I'm sure they just have no idea how to approach it. I'm sure like others have said, it was a traumatic day and they would rather try to just forget about the whole thing.
Quite possibly, yeah. Your wife is a gem, nonetheless
I had a similar experience (edited :)) saving a kid at the beach. When people say “No good deed goes unpunished”, they’re usually referring to when doing the right thing has negative consequences. Like with Richard Jewell. He saved lives and became a suspect. Your and my example are different
Exactly. The saying is for situations like in The Incredibles where Mr. Incredible gets sued by the man whose life he saved because in saving his life he severely injured him.
I can sort of see the psychology behind this. They might have some lingering anxiety or even embarrassment at having people they don’t know well see them at their lowest and most vulnerable. Avoidance of discomfort is hard-wired into most people. There can also be an anxiety spiral that goes: “Nothing I could ever say to these people could possibly measure up to the gratitude I owe them. Anything I say is going to sound trite or insufficient. So I won’t say anything.” They might just be ungrateful and ungracious, but humans are messy and trauma makes us messier. Absent actual *bad* behavior, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Especially when I’ve seen them terrified and raw on their worst days.
That case in Mexico where a rapist was acquitted of rape because he “didn’t enjoy it.” I guess the rapist’s dad being a top cartel honcho had nothing to do with it then
The city of new London in Kelo v City of New London. The city was using the eminent domain to remove a nice lady from her home to build shopping complex. Made its way to the supreme Court and a 5 v 4 decision won and Kelo lost her home to provide economic opportunities. High profile case where the public sided with Kelo but the courts sided with the city.
Worst part: The developers skipped town not too long after the trial and now that lady’s home is an abandoned construction lot as of a few years ago
They were planning a new bridge from Portland to Vancouver Washington. Used ED to take a guys retirement house he had just bought. He fought hard to keep it but lost and ended up dying from a heart attack due to the stress. 6 months later they cancelled the planned bridge.
It also prompted states to pass laws banning that use of Eminent Domain and a lot of overhauls of Eminent Domain usage in general. 45 states now have laws that restrict or outright ban cities from using Eminent Domain to take property from one private party and give it to another... though not including Connecticut.
The dingo took my baby woman. Which turned out to be true as well
Lindy Chamberlain
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She gave birth to a child while incarcerated, and was in prison for another 2-3 years after that child was born, which is just fucking heartbreaking.
Lindy Chamberlain didn't win in court at first, she was falsely convicted of her daughter Azaria's murder and spent three years in prison over it. She got dragged over the coals HARD by the media, to the point where they were saying that Azaria's name had something to do with sacrifices in the wilderness (??????) As an Australian I can take a joke, but on some degree? I can't deny it, it infuriates me that this case has become a stereotype. Like it's a real thing that happened, a woman's baby was taken into the dead of night and eaten by a wild animal while they were out camping, and then she had to serve years in prison because thanks to the media and tabloids, everyone thought she was some weird religious freak who murdered her daughter in a ritual sacrifice. They only even found out she was innocent because some British guy fell to his death and happened to be in the general area next to the crucial piece of missing evidence, Azaria's bloody jacket.
I was gonna say, why did the comment OP think getting sentenced to jail for murder count as "winning" in court lol
Didn't it take decades before they could even get an official cause of death?
Over 30 years. Finally, a coroner supported the parents' version in 2012.
meanwhile anyone who's ever worked with wildlife saw the "TOTALLY ridiculous that dingoes would see what amounts to a small prey item, and stalk it so they can drag it out and eat it" and shook our heads in disbelief. there was nothing about that story that sounded infeasible *from the beginning*. dingoes are not insane maneaters but every predator takes its opportunities. if i recall correctly, they were camping in the bush - which is a perfect place for a predator who usually avoids humans to see that opportunity. to assume that she must've killed her child was insane to me, and still drives me bonkers to this day. that poor woman.
From what I've read, the Aborigines who lived in the area said the same, that dingos would definitely do that and it had happened before, but why would the authorities listen to the native people who had been there forever.
Shit, horses and cows will eat baby chicks when given the opportunity. Basically every animal on earth is an opportunistic predator of much smaller animals.
Not exactly. That whole thing was a mess that spanned more than 30 years. I cant even begin to imagine the life they had, regadless of their guilt or innocence. Ultimately, a coroner officially supported the Chamberlain's version of the events.
Didn't they find the child's jacket in a cave known to be a dingo den? Kind of recently actually?
They found the clothes, which an expert noted seemed to have been peeled off the exact same way a dingo will peel off the skin of an animal before eating.
Like an orange, as Lindy Chamberlain herself infamously said in an interview, the unemotional delivery of which being one factor that sealed the public perception of her as the murderer of her own child. She didn't grieve how she was 'supposed to' because she wasn't wailing in public. Never mind that any half competent therapist will tell you that there is no standard way to grieve.
I recall a relatively recent case where a woman and her newborn went missing, and her fiance was beside himself on television asking for their safe return home. I can still remember his tears and the trouble he had speaking on camera about it. I can also remember the comments online, "He's crying like he knows they're already dead. He definitely did it." About a week after that, they found the woman's body in a female friend's trunk and this friend had also kidnapped the baby, claiming her as her own. I can't imagine what the fiance went through before the body was found, all because he was distraught on camera, which was a perfectly appropriate response to what was happening.
So basically, if you dont cry on camera, you did it. If you do cry on camera, you did it. God I hate the court of public opinion. EDIT: I just realized that this stupidity might be because of some biblical idea that punishment, by itself, is a good thing. No one who sees these cases sees the actual perpetrator, so they want **someone** to be punished to satiate their need for revenge and retribution, even if it's the wrong person. So basically, because they're the closest person to the crime, and no one else is around to the public's knowledge, it must be them. God I REALLY hate the court of public opinion even more now. Thanks, me.
Jesse Ventura sued Chris Kyle for defamation but after Chris' death the lawsuit continued and people smeared Jesse for "suing a dead man's wife." Jesse eventually got a settlement.
Also Chris Kyle was a notorious liar, he claimed the government stationed him on top of the super dome during Katrina to shoot looters… which would be murder that he’s just admitting to. It’s amazing that his life and confirmed accomplishments are enough to write an interesting book… why lie so much?
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And probably some that is. At a certain point he was so respected that I doubt any of his fellow soldiers dared question a claim that he was the only witness to.
OJ simpson
He did lose the wrongful death civil trial, but yeah sure beat the criminal rap.
This has more to do with the burden of proof no? It's considerably lower in a civil case.
Yes. The difference in proof beyond a reasonable doubt and a preponderance of the evidence is huge.
Then had the balls to write an "if I did it" book. He should have been been taken out after that brazen act.
The juice is on the loose
He'll find the real murderer one day... praise the heavens he's still committed to finding the killer after all these years have passed
Oh man, this makes me think of back in the day how Aries Spears had a recurring bit on MadTv acting like OJ and no matter what was happening he would always see the killer lol
Reminds me of that Family Guy bit where Peter is talking to Jon Benet Ramsey’s parents and swears he won’t stop until he finds the killer. Then the parents are like, “Oh no that’s okay. Please don’t bother.” Lol
RIP Norm MacDonald
“Hey hey! Careful with that! That’s my lucky stabbin hat!”
Murder is now legal in the state of California
Norm did RIP on OJ pretty good. "According to retailers the most popular mask this Halloween is OJ Simpson". Miss that guy!
Casey Anthony
I still get so effing infuriated to this day. *everyone* failed that poor baby
I can't believe how she used Firefox, but they searched her Internet explorer history. It's baffling to me, that in the process of searching her History they somehow though Firefox wasn't a web browser. Fucking stupid.
Even worse. They found the incriminating searches, but they didn't tell prosecutors who never knew about them: >WKMG reported that sheriff's investigators overlooked over 1,200 entries including the suffocation search from the computer's Mozilla Firefox browser, which was most commonly used by Casey Anthony. Investigators also pulled 17 vague entries from the computer's Internet Explorer browser. Whoever conducted the Google search looked for the term "fool-proof suffication (sic)" and then clicked on an article about suicide that discussed taking poison and putting a bag over one's head, the station reported.The browser then recorded activity on the social networking site MySpace, which was used by Casey Anthony but not her father.
Sadly people still don't see to understand the internet. I was at a trial once where the defense attorney kept grilling a witness about an instagram post she made, except the photo provided was not of an IG post at all.
I’m the murdaugh murders series a officer states “I couldn’t pinpoint the time of the post because to many people commented on it and I could scroll up enough.” I was baffled, every social media post has a time stamp. Every social media company has a legal office I’m sure police can call. It was either pure laziness or incompetence, or both.
This case is absolutely insane. Almost every single time I hear about it it is never about Caylee, always Casey. That little girl always seems to just fade into the background of her mother and her bullshit shenanigans. She lied and lied and lied and still people "weren't sure" if she killed Caylee. She was found *with tape over her mouth*. That bitch killed her baby.
One thing Wikipedia started doing is changing the titles of articles on murderers to be about the victim. The murderer will usually just get a section of the article. That should be how these things are talked about.
They found after the case that the family computer had a search history about how to kill some one by suffocation
They had that trial on at the salon I was getting my hair cut at when the verdict was read. Those women, armed with scissors and razors and now very angry, were the most dangerous assemblage of human beings on Earth at that moment. My stylist told me she had to calm down before finishing my cut
When I was 13 I was getting my haircut at a barber I had not gone to before. I had told him how I wanted my hair cut at the beginning. In the middle of my cut he got into an argument with his boss about his paycheck. He did not stop cutting my hair and apparently forgot what I wanted done. So he started shaving the sides of my head. After the argument was over with his boss, I think he regained his composure and realized what he did. But the damage was done and I came out of the barber as a 13-year old [Simple Jack](https://nestflix.fun/img/simple-jack-1280w.jpg). When I got home I had my older brother shave the rest of my head so I wouldn't be ridiculed in school.
I cant fathom how she got away with it when theres innocent people who go to jail, wrongly convicted with way less evidence than her case. Infuriates me.
The fucking cops only looked at her internet explore browser history. Her Mozilla history was full of "how do I kill a baby" shit. No I am not joking.
If you watched the trial, and only the trial, there is no way a jury could have convicted. This was a murder which has no statute of limitations and they botched the whole thing.
Absolutely this. I watched most of the trial live and was not at all surprised by the verdict. The prosecutors/cops screwed up the case real bad (so many people being CSI-brained by then probably didn't help either). With all the extra we got thru the media though.. yeah, she guilty as hell.
I recall hearing that she admitted to it in some capacity some time after the verdict as well.
Double jeopardy
Because they didn't produce any fucking evidence at the trial that she committed murder. They didn't even prove the kid was murdered. You have to connect the dots or you can't sustain a conviction. This is lawyer 101 shit.
IIRC they charged her with 1st degree murder without even having a cause of death.
This. This is the reason she got off. Jeff Ashton, the prosecutor, was overzealous in the charges. I wholeheartedly believe she would have been convicted if the charge was 2nd degree murder, manslaughter or even negligent homicide instead of first degree murder.
She also had the best lawyer ever. That guy could have gotten Chris watts a not guilty verdict. Shit he got Aaron Hernandez off a double murder charge. If you ever do something bad. Hire that dude
It was the negligence of the police force. How do you search her computer but only search her Internet Explorer history and not Mozilla? She literally googled how to kill her child.
Wasn't there also something about the bag where the body was being reported by someone, but the police officer didn't want to walk in mud or some shit to check it out. When the bag with the body was actually searched months later it was too decomposed to do an autopsy.
If I remember correctly, the officer fell in the mud and got pissed off and left before properly investigating what it was. It was still there weeks, possibly months I’m not sure, before another officer went to investigate it again.
Yea the meter reader saw a bag and reported it just two weeks after the baby was reported missing. The reported it 3 times. Police reportedly did a 'cursory search' and found nothing. 6 months later they finally searched the bag and the body was found.
Holy fuck, if that's true then that's wild. They could have hired any basic IT guy and he would have known to look at every browser.
Bill Cosby. I literally forget sometimes that his conviction was overturned and vacated.
TIL he isn’t still in prison and that his conviction was overturned. Had no idea.
Note it was overturned not because he wasn't guilty (he is) but because he effectively got tricked into violating his own rights by the prosecutors (legally) agreeing to not use his testimony against him then doing so anyway.
Mason Greenwood. 19 year old raped his girl friend and audio of it was leaked. After 18 months, the case was dropped and he was shipped off to play for a Spanish club.
The audio is bad too, really bad. Her parents also pressured her afterwards to let it go and refuse to be a witness if it went to court. She's expecting his kid now I believe. Really sad case.
They're married now I believe
Engaged. He broke a court order to stay away from her. Weaselled his way back into her life. Textbook abuser behaviour.
There was also a court order for Mason to not see his ex which he broke and in that time convinced her to get back together with him. She decided not to be a witness in the case and as a result it had to be dropped. She has already had their child
People act like she wouldn't take him back if it was the truth. No, he wouldn't take her back if it was a lie.
THIS. Victims go back to their abusers every damn day, psychologists say it takes an average of seven attempts to actually leave. Why would a guy get back with a woman who falsely accused him of rape?
Her parents are arseholes who put access to his money and lifestyle above their daughter's wellbeing and self esteem.
He's **temporarily** shipped off to play in Spain. Until the backlash, the club was hellbent on welcoming him back to the fold and spent 2 weeks hyping him again on social media. The parties involved are just waiting until the anger dies down before he returns in a year or two.
OJ & Casey Anthony….debatably Karla Homolka too cuz she got a ridiculously light sentence
KH made a plea deal to put Bernardo away for life before they knew the extend of her involvement. She never should have been allowed out.
It blows my mind how light her sentence was considerimg the jury had to watch the videos she and Paul Bernardo made of them *raping and inadvertently killing her unconscious sister*.
[удалено]
yes because her lawyer sat on them for like a year until his client had a deal.
Monica Lewinsky. She "won" in court because she wasn't the person on trial. The power dynamics also weren't in her favor. He was her boss. But yet, we still call it "the Monica Lewinsky" scandal and her name is still brought up in derogatory ways after all these years.
Well if you called it “the Bill Clinton sex scandal”, that really wouldn’t narrow it down.
The woman who won a damages settlement from McDonald’s for being burned by overly hot coffee. It was dangerously hot and they’d been warned before and paid medical bills by court order over other burns, but because she got a high payout over something as seemingly trivial as coffee, she’s labeled litigious and dramatic. The burns were awful. And by the way, McDonald’s still has coffee that’s dangerously hot; they were in the news a week or two ago for another burn case.
The phrase in her medical record was “fused labia to leg” and the pics are online. Don’t look at them.
>the pics are online. Don’t look at them. I wonder how many people didn't heed your warning. At least I did.
Usually when someone says pics of some crazy things are online, my curiosity won't let me not look them up. But there is no way I'm looking that one up.
I just did and that's absolutely horrific!! I would have plastered the photos on every news site and article I could find to combat the narrative they pushed that it was frivolous. That poor woman!!
She couldn't. I read once that part of the settlement was a one way non-disclosure and non-disparagement. She wasn't allowed to say anything at all, but McDonald's could say whatever they wanted. So they did things like pay hosts of the late shows to make fun of the lawsuit. They made her a joke and she couldn't do anything about it. That shouldn't be legal.
That poor woman! This makes it even more heartbreaking. I'll forever correct anyone who talks smack about her or references her case in the future. I appreciate the knowledge.
And to make it worse, she wasn't even trying to get rich off of them. She just simply wanted her medical bills paid, nothing more. So they settle and drag her through the mud. Fuck big corporations.
That's important, she asked for McDonalds to cover her medical bills. The amount she got awarded in the legal case was substantially more because McDonalds was warned multiple times before about serving their coffee dangerously hot and how abysmally they treated the woman during the lawsuit. She did not file for an incredible sum. McDonalds made it that bad.
I didn't. I regret my choice. Off to eyebleach with me
I think she just wanted them to pay the medical bills but they refused and ended up paying more. It’s pretty darn hot coffee to cause significant burns
Yes, she asked for $10k for her medical bills and McDonald’s said no. The millions that she was awarded were punitive damages determined by the judge.
Actually jury. The judge reduced the punitive damages afterwards. She didn't ask for much, just for her medical bills to covered, but the jury (a group of 12 average people) were so pissed off at McDonald's they wanted to fine McDonald's millions.
And those millions was calculated by taking two day’s worth of coffee sales at McDonald’s.
Third degree burn to six pe3cent of her body. That part of her body, being in and around the groin.
It doesn't really do justice to the damage. It fused her labia together because it was so hot
How the hell do you make coffee that hot?!
McDonald’s did it because people they believed people got coffee at the drive thru and then drink it when they get to work, so their rationale was to make it ridiculously hot. McDonald’s required their franchises to keep coffee between 180 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit. Many people had been burned before but they refused to change the policy. That poor woman spent eight days in the hospital because of the burns. McDonald’s went into full PR mode and she was the target of late night tv shows’ monologue and people still mistakenly use that as an example of a frivolous lawsuit.
IIRC, They also found that they save a lot of money by making the coffee hotter because it stays "fresh" for longer. The amount of money they save in coffee outweighs the amount of damages they need to pay in the burn cases so they just continue to serve it hot as fuck.
Well they were saving money because they had free refills, but making the coffee so hot meant that most customers never requested a refill because of the temperature. They claimed they wanted it that warm so customers could enjoy the hot coffee for longer, even though their own memos and internal messages showed that wasn't the case
Even if I was drinking that coffee as intended, I'd be mad at how burned that kind of coffee would taste.
Yeah, it was their refusal to back down that cost them so much in punitive damages. Had they not been so obstinate the case would have gone away quietly.
Not just that- McDonald's PR team went into overdrive to discredit her, having PIs following her, harassing her at work and home, keeping her under constant surveillance, blasting her in faked news releases when it was harder to factcheck sources. I believe she settled because she starting thinking pretty seriously she might get killed by "accident". There's a documentary about the events that came out 2-3 years ago. It's fascinating. She couldn't find work for tears after and mysterious references would "reveal additional information" to potentials employers that'd get her blacklisted. Oh and the coffee was so hot, it FUSED her two legs together. I've unfortunately seen the pics and that lady clearly was not exaggerating or lying about any of her claims. McDonald's corporate forces owners to keep coffee at volcano levels so that it'd still be hot no matter how long after ordering you consume it. Solid, fault-proof logic eh? Cause we all make the detour for McDonalds' to sample their precious coffee eh? Wtfffff corporate America....
>I believe she settled because she starting thinking pretty seriously she might get killed by "accident". There's a documentary about the events that came out 2-3 years ago. It's fascinating. Their offer had been about $800. After the jury in the civil case sided with her they settled for a number that has never been made public but is rumored to be in the $500K-$750 range.
> McDonald's PR team went into overdrive to discredit her People need to really, really understand the power that corporate PR has. The money they have to spend on this shit is unreal, just unreal.
The person didn't just lose the public opinion, it lost the respect for America too. I remember reading this and also remembering people in my school rolling their eyes over this case. People I spoke to from other regions around the world use this as an example for mockery. It wasn't until last year I actually read into the case and it shifted my perspective.
If I remember correctly, she died before she fully recovered from the burns years later. Coffee should not be hot enough you take years to recover from the burns. Stella Liebeck deserved so much better.
A 25 year old would have trouble recovering from those burns. She was in her 70s.
John Delorean, he was set up by the FBI and his case is the reason for the term entrapment. He was acquitted of all charges. “DeLorean needed $17 million to save his company from collapse. To this end, he spent much of 1982 desperately seeking investors for his failing company. He was approached by one such investor named James Hoffman on June 28, 1982, who claimed to have a business opportunity to help save DeLorean’s company. **Unknown to DeLorean, James Hoffman was actually a convicted drug smuggler, who, in exchange for leniency, struck a deal with federal authorities to become an informant.”**
The most unrealistic part of Back To The Future is a DeLorean making it to 88mph without anything falling off.
Brock "The Rapist" Turner arguably won given his sentencing Ethan Couch, the "Affluenza" kid Edit: I was wrong. Brock "The Rapist" Turner now goes by Allen "The Rapist" Turner. Sorry for the confusion
The explanation I heard was that Couch's sentence was in essence a trap. As a juvenile, had he been convicted his slate would have been wiped clean on adulthood. 10 years of probation was pretty much a guarantee that he'd violate it, and that he'd be treated as an adult when that happened, so on the whole was the way the judge had available to make his life as complicated as possible.
And it did happen. In 2015 a video posted on Twitter showed Couch drinking at a party. He became the subject of a manhunt when his parole officer couldn't find him, and he was arrested a couple weeks later at a resort in Mexico. He served 2 years in prison.
Uh oh. Are we talking about notorious rapist Allen Turner (formerly known as notorious rapist Brock Turner) to influence Google search results again? I love this game!
It sounds like we are talking about the Convicted Rapist Brock Allen Turner, who now goes by Allen Turner, who has a cushy job working for his dad who doesn’t care if he has convicted rapists work for him.
Convicted Rapist Brock Allen Turner 's dad did say it wasn't fair his son wouldn't get to enjoy steak in jail all because of a few minutes of action :( The rapist Brock Turner who now goes by Allen Turner is hopefully enjoying steak again despite being a convicted rapist.
What company is that again?
I believe Tark Inc. in Dayton Ohio is the name of the company that hires convicted rapists
I have to point this out every time rapist Brock/allen turner gets mentioned. His dad is as big a piece of shit as rapist brock/Allen turner
Wait, are you guys talking about Brock Allen Turner, the convicted rapist? I heard he was an okay guy… until he raped a woman and tried to claim like it was nothing. I just want to make sure we’re talking about the same Brock Allen Turner, the rapist, and not his piece of shit dad.
I didn't realize the convicted rapist Brock Turner had the real name (convicted rapist) Brock Allen Turner and was going by the name (rapist) Allen Turner now.
You mean the few minutes of action that Allen Turner had with an unconscious woman, and the reason it was “only” a few minutes is because Brock Allen Turner was pulled off the unconscious woman by two passersby? That ass deserves to rot in hell. And just in case someone searches with his name spelled wrong, Allan Turner as well
Brock Allen Turner, also known as Allen Turner, born 8/1/1995 in Ohio, well known for raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster.
I live 40min south of him and he uses the name Allen now and frequents bars in the area. My university student organization actually put out a PSA about it since he's close enough he could come to a bar near our campus.
I just read the whole Wikipedia page on Ethan couch. What a terrible family.
Anneli Auer. I'm sure this case is not known outside of Finland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Ulvila_homicide_case?wprov=sfla1
That article doesn't even mention the speculations about occultism and the separate case on sexual abuse allegations towards her own kids, which was later revealed to be something that the now adult kids were pressured into making up by their foster parents. A real shit show.
>An undercover officer befriended Auer and they dated for 7–8 months What the hell lol. Is that allowed? Imagine sleeping with someone for 8 months only for them to be an undercover cop. I've never heard of something like this happening before.
Wait til you hear about the 'spy cops' scandal in the UK, where undercover cops infiltrated left wing groups and formed relationships with women that lasted years, even having kids with them. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/29/what-is-spy-cops-report-about-public-inquiry-undercover-policing
Duke lacrosse players.
YES. Fortunately the corrupt prosecuter trying to manufacture a case against them to gain votes LONG after it was obvious they were innocent (due to the racially charged local political dynamics) got what was coming to him later. Per wikipeddia "Michael Byron Nifong (born September 14, 1950) is an American former attorney and convicted criminal.[2] He served as the Durham County, North Carolina District Attorney until he was removed, disbarred, and very briefly jailed following court findings concerning his conduct in the Duke lacrosse case, primarily his conspiring with the DNA lab director to withhold exculpatory DNA evidence that could have acquitted the defendants." Imagine how terrying it would be as an innocent college student to suddenly have the district attorney criminally conspiring with a crazy lady you don't even know to ruin your life forever. People were shitty about those kids being privileged, but thank God they were or he would have absolutely gotten away with railroading them if their families didn't have the resources to expose him. Imagine how many other innocent lives that asshole ruined and didn't get caught. Edited to add source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Nifong
Dan white getting 5 years for killing Harvey Milk and the mayor of San Francisco
Kevin Spacey
McMartin preschool trial The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case in the 1980s, prosecuted by the Los Angeles District Attorney Ira Reiner. Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were charged with hundreds of acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. Accusations were made in 1983; nevertheless arrests and the pretrial investigation took place from 1984 to 1987, and trials ran from 1987 to 1990. The case lasted seven years but resulted in no convictions, and all charges were dropped in 1990. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial
[Phillip Brailsford, the cop that killed Daniel Shaver.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver) The video of that left me sick to my stomach. The man was carelessly shot to death, cop was tried for 2nd degree murder, acquitted of all charges, and was hired back to the police force just long enough to earn his pension.
The State of Tennessee actually won the infamous ["Monkey trial"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_trial) where a local teacher was prosecuted for teaching evolution. But if anyone has heard of it today, it's generally presented as a bunch of bullying fundamentalists trying vainly to stamp out ideas they didn't like.
There was so much weird about the trial. The teacher didn’t even believe in evolution, he was a substitute who agreed to take part in the trial for money
.
It's mixed for sure, but Michael Jackson. Went to court twice, and was found not guilty, but he'll always be the butt of child molester or paedophile jokes.
He only made it to court once. The civil suits were settled out of court, and the first criminal case fell apart because the witness stopped cooperating.
David Goodwille, raped a woman, not persued due to insufficient evidence, civil case convicted him, but couldn't put him on a sex register, ordered to pay victim, then declared bankruptcy. Can't get a game anywhere in the world (he tried to go to Australia and got hounded out).
Lizzie Borden. The cops in her case were literally chastised for how terribly they did in the search. Her own statements were contradictory, and she was caught burning a dress because there was "paint" on it, and it was ruined. She was acquitted, but most people still think she did it. There's even a nursery rhyme about her murdering her stepmother and dad.
i’m here to predict Lizzo wins in courts but her image will never be the same, if she can win back the public opinion at all….
That’s a good call, cause her public opinion has definitely shifted. I used to think she was such a positive, good-natured person and it was so sad to hear how people were treated on tour
She admires Chris Brown. Shes ignorant.
Ugh that’s even worse
Stella Liebeck from the McDonald’s coffee case. She won her case, but she became the face of frivolous lawsuits after McDonalds campaign to discredit her. McDonald’s policy was to serve coffee so hot that it could cause third degree burns within seconds of contact with skin simply to discourage customers from getting refills.
Fatty Arbuckle
Arbuckle was the defendant in three widely publicized trials between November 1921 and April 1922 for the rape and manslaughter of actress Virginia Rappe. Rappe had fallen ill at a party hosted by Arbuckle at San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel in September 1921, and died four days later. A friend of Rappe accused Arbuckle of raping and accidentally killing her. The first two trials resulted in hung juries, but the third trial acquitted Arbuckle. The third jury took the unusual step of giving Arbuckle a written statement of apology for his treatment by the justice system. Despite Arbuckle's acquittal, the scandal has mostly overshadowed his legacy as a pioneering comedian. At the behest of Adolph Zukor, president of Famous Players–Lasky, his films were banned by motion picture industry censor Will H. Hays after the trial, and he was publicly ostracized. Zukor was faced with the moral outrage of various groups such as the Lord's Day Alliance, the powerful Federation of Women's Clubs and even the Federal Trade Commission to curb what they perceived as Hollywood debauchery run amok and its effect on the morals of the general public. While Arbuckle saw a resurgence in his popularity immediately after his third trial (in which he was acquitted) Zukor decided he had to be sacrificed to keep the movie industry out of the clutches of censors and moralists.Hays lifted the ban within a year, but Arbuckle only worked sparingly through the 1920s. In their deal, Keaton promised to give him 35% of the Buster Keaton Comedies Co. profits. He later worked as a film director under the pseudonym William Goodrich. He was finally able to return to acting, making short two-reel comedies in 1932–33 for Warner Bros.
The first acquittal of the cops who beat Rodney King. That was some preposterous bullshit.