Rebecca Reisner, Author at Forensic Files Now

Janice Dodson: Husband Hunter

A Gold Digger Preys on a Lonely Guy
(“Muddy Waters,” Forensic Files)

Janice Dodson sneaked into a hunter’s camp, stole one of his guns, and shot her husband to death with it, then slipped away unseen.

It was a crafty plot to collect nearly half a million dollars in insurance payouts while deflecting suspicion away from herself.

But once it looked as though her plan was working, she knocked off the grieving-widow act way too soon.

Relentless greed. According to “Muddy Waters,” the Forensic Files episode about the Bruce Dodson homicide, on the day after the murder, Janice took Bruce’s name off the couple’s mailbox, got rid of his things, and (worst of all) had his dog put to sleep.

In addition to being a murderer, framer, and fraudster, Janice Dodson had serious trouble delaying gratification and was an enemy to dogs everywhere.

For this week, I looked around for an update on her.

But first, here’s a recap of the episode, along with extra information drawn from internet research as well as the mass-market paperback Dead Center by Frank J. Daniels, the lawyer who prosecuted her:

Photo of the book Forensic Files Now — Book in stores and online

At long last love. John Bruce Dodson, known as Bruce, worked as a medical technologist at Delta Memorial County Hospital in Delta, Colorado. He was also a Navy veteran and a University of Maryland graduate.

The longtime bachelor was crazy about his new wife, Janice Dodson, a divorced registered nurse he met at work. Janice, who pronounces her name “juhn-eese,” liked to hunt game and wanted to interest him in the sport, too.

In fact, she was such an avid outdoorswoman that she wore a headdress shaped like a hunting hat, covered in lace and tulle, for her wedding.

I’ve seen a lot of regrettable bridal hat-veils, but Janice Dodson’s get-up deserved an “I object” more than any of them.

Bruce and Janice Dodson at their wedding. The front view, right, gives the full effect of the bride’s get-up

An actress, too. But back to the crime that’s actually illegal: On October 15, 1995, a hunter and Texas lawman identified as Doug Kyle on Forensic Files (the book gave his name as Brent Branchwater) found Janice leaning over the body of her 48-year-old husband. Bruce Dodson was bleeding from gunshot wounds, and his heartbroken spouse was screaming hysterically in shock and despair.

Janice made a good show of being loving. She placed Bruce’s vest and her sweatshirt over the body, wiped the dirt from his face, and straightened his glasses, Daniels details in his book.

At some point during the drama, she fainted convincingly enough that a helicopter was summoned to fly her to the hospital, according to book.

Different game. She told police that she went out looking for Bruce when he didn’t return to their hunting camp near Brushy Ridge Trail on western Colorado’s Uncompahgre Plateau. She found him wounded on the ground.

They had been hunting separately; she was looking for elk and he was hoping for a deer.

Medical examiner Tom Canfield, who already knew the victim from his work at the hospital, determined he had three bullet wounds, too many to call it a hunting accident.

Uncompahgre Plateau in Colorado — Colorado’s Uncompahgre National Forest

Police found a 308-caliber Nosling shell casing near the murder scene.

Former spouse suspected. Janice’s ex-husband, J.C. Lee, had been camping nearby the Dodsons. He told police his 308-caliber rifle and some of his Nosling shells were stolen from his tent the night before Bruce’s shooting.

Police learned that J.C. Lee and Janice Dodson had ended their 25-year marriage when he started dating their daughter’s best friend.

Police wondered whether Lee resented that Janice had moved on with another man.

Counting her money. Citing the unreliability of polygraph tests, Lee refused to take one, but he had a solid alibi. His girlfriend and a coworker vouched for the fact that he was hunting with them at the time of the murder.

Investigators soon turned their attention to the grieving widow from Cedaredge, Colorado. It turned out that she had purchased three insurance policies totaling $464,000 on her husband shortly before his death.

She may have wanted the money to pay off debts that piled up during her divorce, according to a Montrose Daily Press story dated November 23, 1998.

Mired in trouble. Investigators also discovered that while she was supposed to be visiting relatives in Texas to mourn Bruce’s death, Janice was actually gambling at a Louisiana casino called the Players Club.

No word on whether she won or lost on her wagers that night, but investigators started having good luck with the forensics.

Michael Dodson, left, and Janice and Bruce Dodson, far right — Michael Dodson, left, appeared on *Forensic Files*. Janice and Bruce Dodson are at far right

A NecroSearch International volunteer who helped search for the missing gun noticed an artificial pond lined with bentonite clay in the area where J.C. Lee had been camping.

Lurking in the distance. The mud that stained Janice’s clothing the day of the murder matched the bentonite clay from the pond — which placed her in Lee’s camp, where the gun first disappeared.

Investigators believed that she waded through the mud to sneak into Lee’s campsite and pilfer his Remington 308-caliber rifle and some of his ammunition.

The next day, she went hunting alone.

Investigators theorized that Janice found a hiding place and shot at Bruce at long range with the stolen gun. After the first bullet grazed Bruce, he thought a hunter had mistaken him for a deer, so he took off his orange hunting vest and waved it in the air, they believed.

Diabolique. Then Janice put two more bullets in him and disposed of the stolen gun, which the police never found.

Prosecutors suspect that Janice had planned to kill Bruce Dodson from the very start of their relationship — and conveniently pin the murder on her ex-husband, J.C Lee (the book gives his name as Mark Gordon Morgan).

It took three years to string the case together with ballistic evidence. In the meantime, Janice Dodson forgot about Bruce and started over. (As if throwing out his possessions weren’t enough of an insult, she allegedly dumped his ashes on the side of the road.)

Liquidating like crazy. She relocated to Nocogdoches, Texas, and married Bartlett M. Hall in Las Vegas on November 27, 1996. He took out $100,000 in life insurance to make sure his bride would be taken care of should anything happen to him, according to Forensic Files.

Fortunately, by the time the police arrested Janice in October 1998, no unlucky accidents had befallen Hall.

Maybe she still had enough money left over from pillaging Bruce Dodson’s assets. She had sucked the money from his IRAs, sold his horse, Glory, and put one of his two properties up for sale — he owned them before they met, but she persuaded him to put her name on the titles during their three-month marriage.

Her take. A jury found Janice Dodson guilty of first-degree murder after deliberating for three and a half days. On March 20, 2000, she received a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

The crime website Murderpedia has reproduced some hard-to-find stories about the case, including an ABC article with the following statement Janice Dodson made to Prime Time interviewer Chris Cuomo after the trial:

I still do [love Bruce Dodson],” Janice said. “The only way I can live with this, is that I have the peace of knowing I didn’t do it, and the prayer in my heart that some day the truth will win out.”

In a 2002, a three-judge Colorado Court of Appeals panel rejected her lawyers’ claim that Janice’s jury didn’t receive clear instructions.

Behind razor wire. Today, Janice is inmate #104430 at the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility in Mesa County. Her profile still lists her sentence as life without parole.

It also notes that she stands 5-foot-8-inches and weighs in at 150 pounds — trim by prison standards. Facilities tend to serve heavy foods that bulk up the inmates.

The prison participates in programs allowing inmates to help train troubled and neglected dogs to become service animals for army veterans, but it’s doubtful that any animal would trust the likes of her.

The insurance jackpot she hoped to collect ended up going to Bruce Dodson’s brother, Michael C. Dodson, and sister, Martha E. Asberry.

Their mother, Ruth E. Dodson, lived until 2002, long enough to see her ex-daughter-in-law put away for good, where she can’t hurt anyone else’s son.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube or Amazon Prime

Madison Rutherford: Con Man Walking

He Swindled a Senior Citizen, Then Sold Pizza
(“Past Lives,” Forensic Files)

If Yelp existed back in the 1990s, maybe Brigitte Beck would have enjoyed the retirement she deserved.

Unfortunately, she had no way of knowing that Connecticut financial adviser Madison Rutherford was a con man born John Sankey.

Forgot to mention. He probably didn’t tell his clients about the six months he spent in prison for larceny in 1993, shortly before he persuaded Beck to let him take charge of her six-figure nest egg.

Rutherford ruined Beck’s finances as well as his own, then tried to fake his own death for $7 million in insurance payouts.

Like other Forensic Files fraudsters (Ari Squire, Molly Daniels) who thought they were smarter than the insurance companies and police, Rutherford was done in by the forensics.

“Past Lives,” the Forensic Files episode about Rutherford, first aired in 2004 while he was serving his second term in prison, so I looked around to find out what happened to him after he exited the federal lockup in 2006.

Madison Rutherford, aka, John Patrick Sankey — Madison Rutherford

I also searched for an epilogue on Brigitte Beck, the mild-mannered German immigrant whose Forensic Files appearance always makes me teary.

So let’s get started on the recap of “Past Lives,” along with additional information from internet research:

Going for snob appeal. John Patrick Sankey was born circa 1964, the son of a New York City police officer, according to the Hartford Courant. He started to use the last name Rutherford at some point during his adulthood and filed for bankruptcy under that name in 1990.

After his first stretch in prison in 1993, John Sankey legally changed his name to Madison Rutherford and worked as a financial adviser in Connecticut.

He had a talent for making good investments for his clients, according to Forensic Files. His friend and neighbor Beck, in her late 60s and with no family in the U.S., named him as her executor and gave him power of attorney over all that she owned.

Rubbed the right way. Beck had moved to the U.S. at age 24 and worked as a nanny, then as a massage therapist at Graf Studio, a Stamford business owned by an older German couple who had taken a liking to her. When they died, they left her everything and she took over the business.

She got to know Rutherford through his wife, an attractive older woman named L. Rhynie Jefferson who was a client at Beck’s massage studio. The three became trusting friends.

Beck was also a neighbor of the couple, who reportedly delighted in spending their newfound riches on cars, travel, and their huge colonial farmhouse on five acres in Bethel, Connecticut.

The house at 74 Old Hawleyville Road in Bethel, Connecticut, where con man Madison Rutherford and his wife L. Rhynie Jeffereson lived — The house Madison Rutherford and Rhynie Jefferson occupied on Old Hawleyville Road

Magic recedes. Multiple media sources list Rhynie Jefferson’s occupation as fortune teller.

If she had any premonitions about the stock market, she stopped sharing them with her husband.

His luck at picking winning stocks ran out in the late 1990s, and he eventually lost more of his own and his clients’ money than he could ever hope to recoup on Wall Street.

The 34-year-old Rutherford had also spent all of Beck’s savings and taken out a mortgage on her house.

South of the border. Instead of telling his clients the truth and starting over, he decided to chase after $7 million in payouts from CNA Insurance and Kemper Corp.

In 1998, police discovered his rental SUV ravaged by fire in a ditch near Monterrey, Mexico, where he traveled to either buy or sell (sources vary) an exotic dog.

At first, it looked as though the car had ignited after skidding off the road.

Inside the vehicle, first responders found a body reduced to charred bones. An inscribed wristwatch and a medical alert necklace enabled investigators to tentatively ID the victim as Madison Rutherford.

Pry before paying. Rhynie Jefferson gave police one of Madison’s teeth that she said was removed during a dental procedure. Its DNA matched that of the teeth from the burned-out Suburban.

Mexican authorities signed off on the case as an accidental death even though their forensic specialists had doubts.

One of Rutherford’s U.S. insurers decided to do some of its own sleuthing before forking over $4 million to the widow.

L. Rhynie Jefferson who was married to con man Madison Rutherford and went to prison for her part in his insurance fraud scheme — L. Rhynie Jefferson

Kemper Corp. hired private detective Frank Rudewicz to search for an alive Madison Rutherford and engaged forensics expert William M. Bass to study the bones. Bass found that the teeth weren’t consistent with those of a caucasian person and the skull fragments came from someone older than 34.

Mess gets messier. Before authorities blew the lid off the fraud, Rhynie confided in Brigitte Beck that Rutherford was still alive. Soon after, he even showed up at Beck’s house with an outrageous story — that the FBI had staged his death because organized crime figures wanted to kill him.

The kind-hearted Beck allowed him to hide at her house for a couple of weeks. She had recently had a windfall of nearly $100,000, and handed it over to Rutherford to manage.

Then he disappeared again.

When the FBI showed up at her house, Beck at first denied seeing Rutherford. He and Jefferson had manipulated her into opening a checking account in the name B. Beck & Associates, which the con man used to launder money.

Lair discovered. The authorities soon found Rutherford by tracing a car he owned to a “Thomas Bey Hamilton” who worked as a comptroller for Double Decker Studios in Boston.

Management liked his work and was considering elevating him to CEO.

FBI agents ambushed him in his apartment in Boston on Nov. 7, 2000, and arrested him.

His fingerprints matched Rutherford’s. Thomas Bey Hamilton — who had books about how to change one’s identity in his Boston pad — was Madison Rutherford. The court kept him in jail pending legal action.

Plot revealed. When authorities showed Rhynie Jefferson evidence that Rutherford was cheating on her with other women, she spilled the whole story: On July 11, 1998, he staged the accident with a body stolen from a tomb in Mexico and then pedaled away on a bike. He sneaked her a tooth from the pilfered corpse after returning from Mexico.

A year later, Rutherford had planted a bag of clothes stained with his own blood in Mexico as a back-up explanation for his “death.”

Finger-pointing. Once Rutherford was formally charged, Brigitte Beck revealed that, between spending her cash and mortgaging her house, he swindled her out of $782,000. She had virtually nothing left.

Meanwhile, Rutherford tried to blame everything on his wife.

Rhynie Jefferson, he claimed, had seduced him when he was a 16-year-old lifeguard and later “manipulated and pressured him to maintain a lavish lifestyle that included providing for all manner of pets and livestock, including scores of free-range chickens,” according to a Hartford Courant story from July 21, 2001. (A neighbor, who called the couple weird, said that Rutherford considered the birds to be his children.)

‘Pain and loss.‘ In a Bridgeport courtroom, Rutherford’s father, John Sankey Sr., pinned his son’s problems on Rhynie as well, according to a Connecticut Post story. The elder Sankey also mentioned that his other son had recently died of leukemia.

In the end, Rutherford pleaded guilty to fraud. Without going into detail, he apologized for his crimes and said his eight months in jail so far were “hell” and that he promised to make the rest of his life “worthwhile,” according to the Hartford Courant.

Madison Rutherford while under surveillance in Boston

U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill gave him five years in a federal prison for fraud and “leaving a lot of pain and loss in his wake.” The authorities couldn’t charge him with embezzling Beck’s money because she’d given him power of attorney.

Rhynie Jefferson got 18 months in prison and three years of supervised release for her part in the scheme.

Epilogue for the cast. So what contribution to society has Madison Rutherford made since exiting the penitentiary?

Well, he’s not incinerating skeletons anymore, but he’s left a trail of disgruntled diners thanks to his foray into the restaurant business.

Rutherford, who now goes by the first name “Bey,” owned a restaurant called Pop’s NY Pizza that opened in Columbia, South Carolina, in 2006. By 2011, the place had a Yelp rating of one star and scathing reviews:

“If you care about your health PLEASE DO NOT GO,” Sam V. urged in 2011. Julie R. offered, “There was a hole in the door of the restroom, the toilet looked like it had never been cleaned and the toilet paper was on the floor with flies buzzing around it.” And Richard C. demystifies that the “god awful place…survives on drunken college students.”

Rutherford also allegedly neglected to pay his bills from local ad agencies, according to a post by writer Paul Blake in a blog dedicated to the now-defunct Columbia City Paper.

Not on the ball. Pop’s closed in shame, but Rutherford bounced back with Bey’s Sports Bar, also in Columbia. His Yelp rating rose to 1.5 stars, but customers scorched him and the place:

“Picture yourself in the worst bar of your life X 10,” writes Michelle M. “No mixers or straws, just liquor and beer.” Keith K. concurs, “There are really only 3 types of bars in Columbia: decent, crappy, and Bey’s.” And Keith S. confirms that the man with a fondness for the names of founding fathers took his standards of hygiene from their era. “Bathrooms are disgusting. There’s never been soap in the guy’s when I’m there.”

DirecTV sued Rutherford for allegedly pirating its services in order to broadcast games at Bey’s Sports Bar, according to the Columbia City Paper blog. Even worse, Rutherford routinely stole his waiters’ tips, according to a reader comment imported from the newspaper’s archives.

According to Lex, a ForensicFilesNow.com reader who was a bartender at Bey’s, the establishment closed in 2013 amid tax woes.

The shuttering of the business didn’t stop the Yelp reviews — people who watched the episode wrote in:

“What a piece of garbage this guy is,” writes Andy C., “stealing $500,000 from a trusting old woman.“

Bey's Sports Bar in Columbia, South Carolina, owned by Madison Ruthford, aka Bey Rutherford — Bey Rutherford’s place in Columbia, S.C.

More Epilogues. Regarding what happened to Rhynie Jefferson, the most interesting intelligence that came up was one of the reader comments also from Blake’s blog post (it’s a gold mine) from 2009. As of 2019, she lived in Oakville, Connecticut, was single and 75 years old. She died in May 2020, according to a reader who wrote in with a tip.

Finally, on to the emotional centerpiece of the story, Brigitte Beck. Once swindled out of everything and having had Chase Manhattan Bank foreclose on her house, she received some financial help from friends and continued to live in Connecticut, according to the Hartford Courant.

Beck died on January 18, 2008, at the age of 78. Two brothers and a sister, all living in Germany, survived her, according to her obituary. She’s buried in the East Norwalk Historical Cemetery.

At least she can rest in peace and be remembered. No one ever identified the deceased man whose grave Madison Rutherford desecrated.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

Also read a Q&A with a former Bey’s Sports Bar bartender

Daniel and Cynthia McDonnell: Good Cop, Bad Wife

Murder, Insurance Fraud — What Could Go Wrong?
(“Bed of Deceit,” Forensic Files)

As Forensic Files villains go, Cynthia McDonnell distinguishes herself as the queen of self-sabotage.

In a bid to collect on her husband’s life insurance policy, the freelance writer shot him as he slept in their Michigan house, then blamed the crime on an anonymous robber.

Quick revision. But Cynthia’s storytelling competencies didn’t exactly exceed expectations.

She staged the phony home invasion so poorly that she ended up having to fabricate a new explanation. She said that her husband killed himself — which meant no $300,000 insurance payout for her.

For this week, I checked into where she is today and looked for more information on Daniel McDonnell’s life.

American dream. So let’s get started on the recap of “Bed of Deceit,” the Forensic Files episode about the case, along with additional facts drawn from internet research:

Cynthia Lee Johnston and Daniel Joseph McDonnell married in 1975 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He originally came from Port Chester, New York.

By 1998, they had two children, a house in Bingham Township, Michigan, and what looked like a happy union.

Southwestern feat. Before Daniel moved to Michigan, he worked as a police officer in New Mexico and New York.

Forensic Files didn’t mention it, but the dark-haired blue-eyed Daniel was a local hero in Albuquerque, where he served as vice president of the Irish American Society and helped plan the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

On Christmas morning in 1978, while off-duty, he repeatedly crawled into a burning car in an attempt to reach a passenger trapped inside. After his second try, the gas tank exploded, but he slid into the overturned vehicle a third time. It was too late to save the woman, whose leg was pinned down, but McDonnell’s bravery was honored by numerous community groups, the Albuquerque Journal reported on January 17, 1979.

Little did he know that, two decades later, it would be his turn to become a victim of circumstance.

Diabolical plan. On the morning of December 31, 1998, Cynthia McDonnell took the couple’s daughter, Erin, shopping in Traverse City for several hours.

Their son, Patrick, 18, was at a buddy’s house; his father had dropped him off there the night before.

Cynthia said that when she returned from shopping, she found Dan, 58, in his bed with a bullet wound to the head.

Hole in the story. Judging from her hysterical-spouse routine on the 911 tape, police should have arrested her on the spot for bad acting alone.

But first responders usually start out by giving the survivor’s story the benefit of the doubt. They listened to her tale of shock and woe and missing cash from her husband’s wallet.

Investigators eventually noticed, however, that Cynthia didn’t have an explanation for how the intruder or intruders broke into the house.

Scene of the crime in Bingham Township, Michigan

Undeterred consumer. Cynthia then had no choice but to change her story, according to Forensic Files. The new version: She went into the bedroom to tell Dan she was going shopping and found him dead with a suicide note.

He had survived cancer but was depressed over the side effects of the treatments, she said. A note he left explained that he wanted Cynthia and the kids to get the insurance money — and instructed her to stage the scene like a murder so his policy would remain valid, she claimed.

So, Cynthia told police, she got rid of his note, then wiped his prints from his service revolver and threw it in a field. Then she went shopping.

Failing forensic tests. But Cynthia, who aspired to publish a murder-mystery novel, botched the plot in a number of ways.

The bullet wound was in the back of the victim’s head — people don’t generally shoot themselves that way. Blood evidence around his arm and pillow also contradicted her narrative.

And, as Forensic Files fans have seen many times, little things murderers inadvertently do or say often scream “guilty” even louder than the forensics (Ed Post and Brian Vaughn).

This speaks volumes. In Cynthia’s case, on the morning of her husband’s death, she went into the bathroom where Erin, 20, was showering and turned up the radio.

A mom who wants to pump up the volume on her child’s music?

It seemed fishy to Erin, too, who ultimately sided against her mother.

Clearly, Cynthia was attempting to mask the sound of the gunfire. A bullet hole in the pillow next to the body suggested another effort to muffle the noise, investigators believed.

The defense’s turn. In April 1999, Cynthia was arraigned on murder charges and held without bail.

At the trial in 2000, defense lawyer Pete Shumar argued for the suicide theory and said that Daniel had shot himself in the back of the head to make his death look like murder and hence eligible for the insurance jackpot.

Shumar also trotted out a couple of expert witnesses, including a psychologist who said that going shopping after a loved one’s death could be a reaction to trauma.

Cynthia McDonnell, who killer her husband, Dan McDonnell — Young Cynthia McDonnell

It’s only natural. As for Cynthia’s story shift from murder to suicide, the Record-Eagle reported Shumar’s explanation:

"I believe that all of us have changed our story at one point in time or another. It's human. She did it for her children."

(The Record Eagle article, from February 17, 2000, isn’t available on the paper’s website, but you can read it via a Google Group posting.)

Counter arguments. Leelanau County Prosecutor Clarence Gomery had plenty of ammunition for his side of the case.

In addition to changing the manner of the death, Cynthia couldn’t keep her story straight about what happened to the alleged suicide note, the Record-Eagle reported. She threw it in the garbage or burned it or shredded it and flushed it down the toilet.

There was also the fact that Daniel’s arms had no splatter, suggesting someone else fired the gun.

Retail report. And in the months leading up to the murder, Cynthia’s purchase of big-ticket items like new computers and furniture coincided with thefts of cash from a trust fund her husband was managing for a disabled relative, according to Forensic Files.

The bank had video footage of her multiple withdrawals, which added up to $50,000. She also forged her husband’s name at times.

The prosecution fought the notion that Daniel McDonnell would even consider suicide.

Lots to live for. He had beaten cancer, still worked part-time, was looking forward to a celebration for Erin’s 21st birthday, and was planning to buy a fishing boat.

Erin McDonnell, daughter of slain retired cop Daniel McDonnell — Erin McDonnell in court

After a trial that lasted a little more than a week, a jury convicted Cynthia, 45, of first-degree premeditated murder.

As Forensic Files fans will remember, her daughter, Erin, urged the court to give the maximum penalty. She got her wish, when Judge Thomas Power sentenced Cynthia to life without the possibility of parole. Off to prison she went.

Oh, come on. In a 2002 appeal, Cynthia claimed that her husband had been notified of the trust-fund theft — and his failure to take action right away was evidence that he was suicidal.

A three-judge appellate court panel unanimously ruled against the appeal.

Today, Cynthia McDonnell resides in Level II security in the Huron Valley Complex in Ypsilanti. It’s the same state prison Sharon Zachary calls home.

At 5-foot-3 and 240 pounds, Cynthia doesn’t appear to have participated in any hunger strikes. She’s resisted the siren song of any local artisans — she has no tattoos, according to the Michigan Dept. of Corrections.

Dubious career history. Incidentally, although Forensic Files gave her occupation as freelance writer, it’s not clear whether she ever had anything published. Nothing turned up online. (But, to be fair, back in the day, magazines and newspapers didn’t routinely slap stuff on the internet as they do now.)

Cynthia’s children maintain a Facebook page devoted to Daniel McDonnell’s memory including old photos of their happy childhood with their father.

Their kindly uncle, Kevin McDonnell, who appeared on Forensic Files and suggested he himself was ready to join his late brother soon, is alive and has a presence on social media.

(As if we needed more reasons to like the McDonnell family, they all appear to be animal lovers. Daniel’s obituary noted he did volunteer work for an Irish wolfhound rescue group.)

Cynthia McDonnell in an undated mugshot and one from 2019 (right)

The FB page doesn’t mention Cynthia or identify her in any of the pictures.

In an odd twist, the lawyer who prosecuted her, Clarence Gomery, pleaded guilty in 2015 to a murder-for-hire plot against a fellow lawyer he was warring with over a case.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the episode on Amazon Prime

Molly and Clay Daniels: Some Body They Didn’t Use to Know

Sobering crime behind a laughable scheme
(“Grave Danger,” Forensic Files)

Anyone who watches the “Grave Danger” episode of Forensic Files can’t help but be taken aback by the ridiculousness of Molly and Clayton Daniels’ crime.

Molly, an office receptionist, and Clay, an unemployed mechanic, robbed the grave of Charlotte Davis — who had died at the age of 81 in 2003 — then placed her body in a Chevrolet Cavalier along with some of Clay’s belongings. They pushed the vehicle off the road and set it on fire on June 18, 2004, in the hopes of collecting $110,000 in life insurance money upon Clay’s “death.”

OMG, it’s working. At first, things went as planned for the Leander, Texas, couple. Family members identified items from the burned car as having belonged to Clay. Molly used her new status as a widow with two children to coax aid from sympathetic community members. Clay hid himself from public view.

But Molly, 21, and Clay, 24, had always intended to remain together. Instead of moving someplace far away where no one knew them, they stayed in the same area. Clay dyed his hair black, and Molly began introducing him as her new boyfriend, Jake Gregg.

That didn’t work out so well. The authorities caught on pronto. A DNA test proved the charred remains in the car belonged to someone other than Clay Daniels.

Worldwide ‘what?!’ The insurance company got justice at the subsequent trial, as did the late Charlotte Davis, when her former caretaker testified that the grave desecration made her heartsick.

The macabre element of Clay and Molly’s scheme may have made members of the general public shudder and grimace, but they still wanted to hear all the details. Prosecutor Jane Starnes wrote in an article in “The Texas Prosecutor” newsletter:

My sister-in-law in Hawaii called to say she read about me in the Hilo paper. Molly’s dirty deeds were reported in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland. A producer from CNN called. [A] People magazine reporter kept calling. A reporter from Tokyo called, asking insightful questions such as, “What color [was] Clayton Daniels’ hair before he dye[d] it black?” We got a call from a reporter in London from The Sunday Magazine.

Clay Daniels ended up receiving 30 years in prison for offenses including insurance fraud, arson, and desecration of a cemetery. Molly Daniels got 20 years for insurance fraud and hindering her husband’s apprehension. Molly’s family members took custody of the two small children the couple shared.

The redeeming part of this whole mess seemed to be that at least it didn’t cause bodily harm to any living person.

A live victim. But the motivation for the outlandish string of events had its roots in a real, devastating crime committed by Clay when he was 16 years old.

He raped a 7-year-old cousin of his circa 1996, although the assault came to light only years later. Clay pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault on a child and, under a deferred adjudication deal, had to serve 30 days in jail, to start on June 21, 2004, and then 10 years probation. His name would appear on the Registered Sex Offenders list.

Molly said on Dateline NBC that she believed the legal system had railroaded Clay and that a good man like him could have never molested a child. She wanted him to continue as a stay-at-home dad without any limitations on where they could live, and that’s why they hatched the insurance fraud plan, she explained.

Leniency…in Texas? Arson investigator Janine Mather, however, told Forensic Files that she believed Clay’s motivation was a reluctance to go to jail and appear on the RSO list.

But here’s the question that remains: Why did Clay initially get only 30 days in jail for rape? One third of the 30-year sentence he ultimately received was in connection to a “probation violation” for the aggravated sexual assault to his cousin — but that wasn’t handed down until after the burned-car caper.

I did a little nosing around online for information about Texas sexual assault laws and found that aggravated sexual assault on a child younger than 14 years of age, under certain circumstances, means a minimum sentence of 25 years. It’s automatically a minimum of 25 years if the child is under 6 years of age. But Clay’s little cousin was already 7 when the attack occurred.

The most recent U.S. Sentencing Commission fact sheet listed average sentences for sexual abuse offenders as 139 months to 235 months.

So had Clay Daniels done something to redeem himself in the years between the sexual assault he committed at 16 and his initial sentencing for that crime at age 24? It didn’t sound that way. “Grave Danger” mentions that, even during the eulogy at Clay’s funeral (held before he was discovered alive and raven-haired), his best buddy felt compelled to acknowledge that Clay was a seriously flawed character.

Minor on minor crime. The only, meager explanation I could find for the light sentence Clay received is suggested by a University of New Hampshire study commissioned by the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, which suggests that the age of an offender can affect sentencing favorably.

Clay Daniels with colored hair — Clay Daniels, dye job

The research revealed that “juveniles account for more than one-third (35.6 percent) of those known to police to have committed sex offenses against minors” — but that “a large majority (about 85–95 percent) of sex-offending youth have no arrests or reports for future sex crimes.”

That doesn’t mean, however, that these folks stay on the right side of the law: According to the UNH research, “[Of the youths who do] have future arrests, they are far more likely to be for nonsexual crimes such as property offenses.”

There’s one area in which Clay, with Molly’s help, exceeded everyone’s expectations.

Today, he’s an inmate in the Wallace Unit in Colorado City, Texas.

Molly served at least 12 years of her sentence and exited prison sometime after 2016. She is keeping a low profile. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

P.S. Below, please see a different explanation for Clay’s sentencing from reader Ash.

Debbie Dicus: A Deejay Signs off Too Soon

Ronald Blanchard Murders a Local Celebrity
(“Garden of Evil,” Forensic Files)

Gardening offers a break from the stress of commuting, worrying about money, and listening to your boss hear himself talk.

The city of Hampton, Virginia, provides community gardens for locals who want to rent a parcel of land for growing flowers or vegetables.

For Debbie Dicus, once a popular radio host on WWDE-FM in Norfolk, Virginia, the plot she used to grow vegetables in the community garden was probably a nice change from the sterile confinement of the studio.

Bad seed. Ronald Earl Blanchard enjoyed open spaces, too, but he paid homage to them in a different way.

When a housing development in Poquoson threatened to crowd out the woodlands around the trailer park where he lived with his grandparents, he and an associate set fire to one of the offending homes, the Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia, reported.

He got himself a suspended sentence for that stunt, a surprisingly meager punishment in light of the fact that Blanchard, his two brothers, and their father, Joseph, were well known to local law enforcement.

Young felon. But nothing suggested that Ronald Blanchard would turn into a murderer and would-be rapist until May 9, 1987, when Blanchard either happened upon, or set out to ambush, Debbie Dicus as she was tending to her vegetables in the community garden.

Blanchard was barely out of his teens when he committed the homicide, so for this week, I checked to see whether he’s still in prison.

So let’s get started on a recap of the Forensic Files episode “Garden of Evil,” along with information drawn from internet research.

Ronald Blanchard, who murdered Debbie Dicus — Ronald Blanchard

In May of 1987, Hampton police got a phone call reporting the body of a woman in a ditch near the community garden.

Violent struggle. The call came from Ronald Blanchard, a 20-year-old married father who said he stumbled upon the body while hunting for birds nearby.

First responders found Debbie Dicus, 31. She’d been beaten with a rifle and the wooden handle of a hoe and strangled. Some of her clothing had been ripped off, but she hadn’t been raped.

Dicus, a native of Greensboro, North Carolina, lived in downtown Hampton. She worked as a DJ for about three years at WWDE-FM and before that at station WTAR.

Sweet disposition. The late-night radio show that Dicus hosted was a mix of personal talk and music.

Her boyfriend, William Campbell, also worked as a DJ at the same station.

She liked her job but told friends she worried that one day a deranged listener would break into the studio and rape and kill her, according to Forensic Files.

When her murder premonition came true (except that it happened far from the radio station and it wasn’t clear whether the killer was a listener), it shocked locals in the friendly low-crime area around Hampton.

Dicus’ mother, Jean Reece Willison, heard the tragic news on Mother’s Day. She told the Daily Press that Debbie “loved everyone, people, animals, nature. She wouldn’t even kill a fly.”

Speedy police-work. Fortunately, investigators were able to solve the case quickly. A tracker dog named Rody sniffed the hoe handle used in the homicide and picked up the same scent on one of the bystanders near the crime scene: Ronald Blanchard.

Police arrested Blanchard four days after the murder, and a judge set bail at $130,000. A group of supporters came up with the money for Blanchard, whose own finances were a mess.

Thanks to the earlier arson incident, Blanchard owed Hartford Mutual Insurance $68,671 and he and his wife had to declare bankruptcy, the Daily Press reported on September 30, 1987. Paperwork listed the total value of the couple’s assets at $597.

Rape suspect. But Blanchard’s motive for the attack on Debbie Dicus wasn’t robbery. He didn’t steal the handbag sitting in her unlocked car.

He got to enjoy seven months of freedom between his arrest and the conclusion of the trial, which kicked off on October 27, 1988.

Prosecutors alleged that Blanchard intended to rape Dicus and killed her when she fought back. When he returned home to his wife, also named Debbie, she saw the blood on his hands and clothing, so he told her that he had found a body, and then called 911 to substantiate his story, prosecutors contended.

Murderer Ronald Blanchard and his wife, Debbie, during his trial for the homicide of Debbie Dicus — A *Daily Press* clipping

Odd demo. Investigators think that Dicus and Blanchard might have exchanged unfriendly words on at least one prior occasion. She once mentioned that she argued with a man about his hunting for birds too close to the garden.

To prove the prosecution’s theory that blood splatter on Blanchard’s white T-shirt came from beating Dicus, the prosecution performed a test using a hoe handle and a helmet with a blood-soaked sponge attached. Thankfully, the test took place outside and not in the courtroom.

Other evidence included fragments of the victim’s hair on Blanchard’s rifle, which police believed he used to beat her. They also found a broken-off piece of its cocking mechanism at the scene, more evidence of violence.

On the witness stand, Blanchard said that the damage to the gun happened when he dropped it at the scene in his rush to help Dicus.

Plaintive request. His testimony didn’t impress the jurors. On April 8, 1988, they convicted Blanchard of first-degree homicide, attempted rape, sexual assault, abduction, and use of a gun in a crime.

Blanchard’s wife, Debbie, burst into tears and cried out, “Can I give him a hug?” as deputies escorted her 21-year-old husband out of the courtroom, the Daily Press reported.

Mark Dicus, the victim’s father, told reporters that Blanchard deserved the electric chair, according to the Daily Press/The Herald Times on April 9, 1988.

Hefty sentence. Virginia allows capital punishment, either by electrocution or lethal injection — the condemned individual gets to choose — but it wasn’t on the table in the Dicus murder case because the rape was attempted rather than completed.

Blanchard received the maximum allowed for his crimes, two life sentences plus 12 years.

Ronald Blanchard, killer of Debbie Dicus, in a recent mugshot — Ronald Blanchard in a recent mugshot

Today, Blanchard resides in a State Farm, Virginia, prison.

Stay in the pen. He no longer looks like Heath Ledger, but he appears healthy and well fed at 5’8 inches and 190 pounds.

In 2006, Blanchard wrote a letter to Forensic Files producers that admitted his guilt in the murder and expressed regret for his crimes. Perhaps that explains why he hasn’t appealed his conviction over the years.

The possibility of parole remains, but it’s unlikely in the near future. In 2018, Virginia declined to grant Blanchard parole, noting his “history of violence” and “prior failures” while “under community supervision” and that parole would “diminish [the] seriousness of the crime.”

As far as updates for Debbie Dicus’ parents, there’s no recent information on her father, Mark, on the internet. As of 2009, her mother, Jean Willison, was living in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Her husband, Myron Willison — Debbie’s stepfather — died in 1997 at the age of 81.)

Good shepherd. Glennell Fullman, the K9 unit officer Forensic Files fans may remember from her appearance on “Garden of Evil,” has since retired.

Rody Von Braninck, the German shepherd who helped Fullman identify Ronald Blanchard as the killer, died at just 9 years of age, in 1989.

Rody, a German shepherd tracker dog, worked on hundreds of murder cases in Virginia — Rody on the case

But Rody accomplished a great deal in his short life.

The 110-pound canine operative worked on 700 cases, according to a Daily Press article about Rody, which also notes that, although he learned to attack viciously on command at a Swiss academy, he was kind and sweet to humans and other animals while off duty.

He even rescued a baby rabbit that strayed from its nest.

That’s all for this week. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube or Amazon Prime

In Cold Blood’s Newest Infusion

Q&A with ‘And Every Word Is True’ Author Gary McAvoy

Just a quick post this week about a new book related to the bestseller that helped lay the groundwork for Forensic Files and all other true-crime entertainment: In Cold Blood.

Gary McAvoy, author of "And Every Word Is True," a new book about the Clutter murders and "In Cold Blood" — Gary McAvoy

Truman Capote’s tome about the murders of four members of a wholesome Kansas farm family created the first nonfiction novel.

In Cold Blood demonstrated how character development, recalled conversations, a sense of place, and a narrative thread could make a real-life crime story as absorbing as a work of fiction like Tom Sawyer or a movie like Gone with the Wind.

The immediate success of In Cold Blood elevated Capote from a darling within literary circles to the most famous author in the U.S. He died in 1984, but his book never will.

Ever since it debuted in 1966, In Cold Blood has invited conjecture about what Capote left out of the story and whether it was really the definitive account of the shotgun deaths of Bonnie and Herb Clutter and their teenage children, Nancy and Kenyon, at the hands of intelligent lowlifes Perry Smith and Richard Hickock.

The ex-cons robbed the Clutters on November 15, 1959, because they mistakenly believed the house contained a safe with $10,000. Instead, they found barely $50 in cash.

A widely distributed picture of the Clutters, minus their surviving elder daughters, Beverly and Eveanna. Clockwise from bottom left: Nancy, Bonnie, Herb, and Kenyon. — The four victims.

The latest development in the In Cold Blood saga comes from Gary McAvoy, a writer and dealer of literary memorabilia who freaked out Kansas officials when they learned he was planning to auction off two notebooks that belonged to Harold Nye, a KBI agent who worked on the Clutter case.

Nye’s son, Ronald, wanted to help defray his ex-wife’s medical expenses with the proceeds of the sale, according to McAvoy. While Kansas did everything possible to stop his plans, McAvoy used the notebooks as part of his research for a book, And Every Word Is True, about hidden evidence and alternative theories related to the Clutter murders.

“Reading material from various sources just doled out shock after shock,” McAvoy says. “I saw information that showed there was so much more to the story than Capote wrote. And the fact that the state of Kansas sued us after 50 years shows there are still secrets being kept.”

While In Cold Blood makes KBI agent Alvin Dewey into the humble central hero of the investigation, the notebooks show the importance of Harold Nye’s work on the case, according to McAvoy.

Harold Nye Notebook Page — One of Harold Nye’s notebooks

The unsung Nye reportedly didn’t care much about the spoils of association with the glamorous Capote. On the other hand, Alvin Dewey and his wife, Marie, attended Capote’s Black and White Ball and dined with the likes of Gloria Vanderbilt. Marie Dewey received a $10,000 consulting fee for the movie version of In Cold Blood, according to McAvoy’s book.

With six years of legal battles having ended, And Every Word Is True will debut March 4, 2019.

I was glad to get an early look at McAvoy’s book. I became an In Cold Blood fan after coming across an ancient hardcover version in a Florida vacation rental years ago. Since then, I’ve read and watched everything I could find about the case.

And Every Word Is True has some new and salacious revelations.

The author answered my questions in a phone interview on January 13. Edited excerpts of the conversation follow:

When did you first hear of the Clutter killings? In the late 1960s. I was in Germany after being drafted for the Vietnam War and started reading In Cold Blood. The book was gripping. I could not stop turning pages.

Both killers suffered severe accidents in their youth. A car crash left Hickock with askew facial features (Capote noted that he looked normal when he smiled). Smith’s legs were damaged so badly in a motorcycle wreck that some sources describe him as “crippled.” But he could walk and do manual labor despite chronic pain. — Richard Hickock and Perry Smith

While researching your own book, what was it like to see the 17 original crime scene photos, with the victims shot in the head? I’m not someone with morbid curiosity but I’m also not squeamish, and I was honestly revolted by the photos. I was unprepared for them. It’s hard for me to square that Perry Smith was a part of this, as brutal as these images are.

Does that mean you agree with Capote’s portrayal of Perry Smith as a sensitive self-educated victim of a horrific childhood? Having read Perry’s writing, yes. He left a notebook with tabs from A to Z. He drew the Earth under “E” and writes about meteors under “M.” It was just an amazing font of knowledge. He wrote poetry and musings on life, and none of it said anything that would indicate he was a killer. Smith always referred to the Clutter murders as a horrible nightmare that should have never happened.

KBI agents Alvin Dewey and Harold Nye both worked on the Clutter murder case portrayed in "In Col Blood" — Alvin Dewey and Harold Nye

Were you surprised to learn that Perry Smith had a son?
I knew this years ago through my own research, but Jewell James doesn’t want to talk about it to writers. There’s a scene in the Sundance special [Cold Blooded: The Clutter Family Murders] where he’s walking along Puget Sound.

Your book says Capote took Harold Nye and his wife to gay-friendly nightspots, some with drag shows — in Kansas, no less. What’s the backstory? Capote was back in Kansas in the early 1960s and wanted more information for his book and wanted to open Nye’s eyes — Harold was homophobic. According to Ron, his mother, Joyce, was furious and she must have been hoodwinked to go there.

And Every Word Is True Cover by Gary McAvoy — Coming soon

In Cold Blood portrayed Herb Clutter as an ethically and morally perfect man — church-building, 4H-leading, cookie-baking, anti-tobacco, anti-drinking. Your book presents some other intelligence. Nancy wrote in her diary that Herb had started smoking. He was also said to be having an affair with the wife of a business associate. And Herbert Clutter had made enough enemies that Dewey, who was good friends with him, at first thought the murders were grudge killings. I leave it to readers to draw their own conclusions.♠

And Every Word Is True, published by Literati Editions, will be available on Amazon and everywhere books are sold on March 4.

David Draheim: Uniformly Dangerous

A Flex-Cuf Solves Jeanette Kirby’s Murder
(“Bound for Jail,” Forensic Files)

It was an unlikely person who took down David Draheim — and for a reason that’s kind of, well, quaint.

Authorities desperately needed something to tie Draheim to Jeanette Kirby, a jogger found stabbed to death in a sprawling Michigan park in 1986.

There were no eyewitnesses, and heavy rainfall had washed away any forensic evidence. Twelve years passed before police got a solid lead — and when they did, it came from none other than Draheim’s best buddy.

Bromantic story. Mark Greko and Draheim had once shared an apartment. Here’s the cute part: Greko was a self-admitted pack rat. He plucked an old item out of storage that shifted the stalled investigation into overdrive.

For this week, I looked around to find out what’s happened to Draheim and Greko since the Forensic Files episode “Bound for Jail” first aired in 2003, and also to learn a little bit more about Jeanette Kirby. Forensic Files mentions that she was in her mid-30s and divorced, but that’s about it.

Cause for alarm. Here’s a recap of the episode along with extra information drawn from internet research:

A retired nurse named Muriel Kirby got worried one day after her daughter missed their breakfast date on June 11, 1986.

No one had heard from Jeanette Kirby since she went for a jog in Riverbend Park in Ingham County, Michigan, on the previous day.

Murderer David Draheim as a young man — David Draheim

Twist of fate. Jeanette hadn’t shown up at her job as a Medicare analyst and didn’t call.

According to the Investigation Discovery network’s Stolen Voices, Buried Secrets, Jeanette had once hoped to embark on a career in law enforcement.

But she suffered from rheumatic fever as a child and missed a whole year of school. She recovered, but her heart wasn’t quite strong enough to do whatever one has to do to graduate from a police academy, according to “A Walk in the Park,” the ID network series’ episode about her murder.

Her cousin Nancy Bishop remembered Jeanette as kind and loving.

Awful discovery. The area where the Kirbys lived in Ingham County was known for being safe — until Jeanette went missing on June 11, 1986.

Jeanette’s empty car was discovered near Riverbend Park. A search party formed and, on June 12, 1986, Jeanette’s friend James Hornyak spotted what he at first thought was a mannequin in a ravine a half-mile away.

Hornyak later said on the A&E series Cold Case Files that nothing he’d witnessed in combat during the Vietnam War was as frightening as Jeanette Kirby’s murder scene.

Unfortunately, the site surrounding her body didn’t yield much evidence. The storm had obliterated any footprints or fingerprints.

Jeanette Kirby as a child with her mother Muriiel Kirby, father Paul Kirby and brother Joe Kirby — Jeanette, Paul, Muriel, and Joe Kirby

Work of a pro. The killer had cut off Jeanette Kirby’s clothes and tied her wrists with Flex-Cufs — the plastic hand restraints police often use. He had strangled Kirby and stabbed her to death.

Media accounts vary as to whether or not she was raped.

Because of the Flex-Cufs, local police wondered if one of their own could be responsible for the crime.

“This is someone with training, knowledge, and expertise in how to attack, disarm, and handcuff and then kill an individual in rapid succession,” Detective Pete Ackerly of the Ingham County Sheriff’s office said during his Stolen Voices, Buried Secrets interview.

But an investigation never turned up any suspects of note in local law enforcement.

The Flex-Cuf’s tiny metal tab solved the case

Bogus traffic stop. The Kirby case went cold.

Four years later, in 1990, an imposingly tall man impersonating a Michigan law officer stopped a female motorist and tried to force her into his truck. He threatened her with a 9-millimeter handgun and fired a warning shot in the air.

She resisted, and he fled the scene without her.

Golden boy. A gas station receipt identified the driver as David Draheim. He was a 33-year-old worker at a wastewater treatment plant in Holt.

The sandy-haired blue-eyed ex-Marine was also a volunteer firefighter. He had a good reputation and no criminal record.

Local law officials had no idea that the man they knew as an asset to the community was using an Ingham County sheriff’s hat and police-style flashing lights in an attempt to waylay women.

Waitress terrorized. But the knife and plastic handcuffs found in Draheim’s vehicle were different from those used on Jeanette Kirby, and the failed abduction took place 200 miles away, in Leelanau County.

Police still couldn’t connect Draheim with the murder.

Jeanette Kirby's brother, Joe Kirby, and mother, Muriel Kirby in court — Muriel Kirby and her son, Joe, react to the verdict

But the 6-foot-6-inch-tall Draheim received 40 years in prison for the attempted kidnapping of the female motorist as well as crimes from 1989 that Forensic Files didn’t reveal — two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a weapon, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections.

Draheim had repeatedly raped a waitress after pretending to be a good samaritan who wanted to help her fix a flat tire. She didn’t report the attack until years later because he threatened to kill her if she did, according to “The Cuff Link,” the Cold Case Files episode about the case.

Friend in a high place. Meanwhile, the Kirby case went cold again — until 12 years after the murder, when Muriel Kirby found a sympathetic ear in Michigan’s new attorney general.

Jennifer Granholm assigned two investigators to reopen Jeanette’s case.

They decided it was a good idea to interview Mark Greko, the aforementioned Draheim pal.

While living together in the early 1980s, both men had worked as security guards. During this same time, Greko found a stash of Flex-Cufs inside an old state police car he was rehabbing.

Mark Greko, David Draheim's best friend, during his Forensic Files appearance — Mark Greko during his *Forensic Files* appearance

Tab settles it. Greko said he remembered using one Flex-Cuf for a repair and wrapping a second one around the brim of the hat he wore as part of his old uniform.

He gave the rest of the Flex-Cufs to his roomie, David Draheim.

Greko singlehandedly turned Kirby’s case from ice-cold to red-hot by digging through his storage area and plucking out his ancient security guard hat — with the Flex-Cuf still attached. Being a pack rat paid off.

Hand restraints in tow. Investigators found the same distinctive production markings on the metal tab of the Flex-Cuf used on Jeanette Kirby and the one from Draheim’s pal’s hat. They came from the same batch manufactured in 1979.

Finally, authorities charged David Draheim with murder.

At the 2002 trial, Draheim’s wife testified that he routinely took Flex-Cufs with him when he went jogging.

Mother gets results. Another woman, a former acquaintance of Draheim’s, told the court that he had Flex-Cuf’ed her once.

Prosecutors contended that Draheim was scouting for a random victim when he spotted Kirby jogging and ambushed her on that day in 1986.

The jury found Draheim guilty of second-degree homicide, and he received 60 to 90 years on top of the 40 years he was already serving.

It was a long time to wait, but mild-mannered Muriel Kirby’s persistence got results.

Epilogue and updates: So where are the parties today?

David Draheim is serving his time at Saginaw Correctional Facility in Level II security, which probably means he’s behaved himself while incarcerated.

On Jmail, a service that allows inmates to seek pen pals, he identifies himself as a 295-pound bodybuilder who’s “sensitive to other people’s feelings” with “true family values.”

Draheim, who says he’s looking for a woman to correspond with, claims that there are doubts about his guilt.

David Draheim in court and in a recent mugshot — David Draheim in court in 2002 and in a 2016 mugshot

The innocence website hvots.altervista.org notes that Draheim saved several people’s lives through his firefighting work.

Draheim will be eligible for parole in 2050, when he’s 93 years old.

After her daughter’s death, Muriel Kirby started a chapter of Parents of Murdered Children and also added her voice to the Victims in the Media program at Michigan State University.

Unfortunately, her husband, Paul, had died in 1999, without seeing his daughter’s killer brought to justice. Muriel herself died at the age of 84 in 2006.

As for Mark Greko, the Investigation Discovery episode produced in 2012 used the pseudonym Mark Smith for him, which probably means he prefers not to be asked about the case anymore.

Greko still lives in Holt, Michigan, and works as a security guard for a mental health facility and as a rescue worker for the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office, according to his LinkedIn profile and other information available online.

Jeanette Kirby as a child at the beach — Jeanette Kirby

Incidentally, in case anyone has the wrong idea about Greko, it should be pointed out that a pack rat isn’t the same thing as a hoarder.

While hoarders live among mountains of junk and other stuff they’ll never need, pack rats squirrel away things that may prove useful some day.

And speaking of useful, Jennifer Granholm went on to serve as Michigan’s governor and is often credited with helping to save Detroit’s auto industry in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube or Amazon Prime

Kathleen Foley (aka Katy Doyle) Kills for a Player

Q&A with Prosecutor Michael McIntyre
(“When the Dust Settled,” Forensic Files)

After three hours of fruitlessly combing the internet for an epilogue for “Katy Doyle,” I tried watching “When the Dust Settled” one more time.

Murder victim Joseph Foley and Kathleen Foley — Joe and Kathleen Foley in happier times

Sure enough, the end credits of the Forensic Files episode said that some names had been changed.

It turns out that the woman who murdered her husband so she could divert all of her bandwidth to a workplace Romeo was actually named Kathleen Ann Foley.

Her husband, whom she shot four times in his sleep on July 30, 1998, was Joe Foley.

Kathleen, a 36-year-old psychiatric aide at Allentown State Hospital in Pennsylvania, probably didn’t know that her boyfriend, George Fleming, was romancing another woman on the side, but she certainly knew that he was married.

Nonetheless, Kathleen happily cashed in a $1,177 savings bond to give George, who worked in housekeeping at the hospital, a down payment on a Chrysler Concord.

While the widow was looking forward to using her husband’s $212,000 life insurance payout to underwrite new escapades with her Casanova, the police were slowly building a case against her. They didn’t believe her story that an anonymous intruder killed her husband.

Results of an autopsy on Joe Foley, a union official and recreational therapist at the hospital, conflicted with the timeline of the story that Kathleen offered. And the clothing at the crime scene was arranged the wrong way.

Allentown State Hospital, where the Foleys and Fleming worked, closed in 2010

Still, Kathleen Foley maintained that an unknown thief took her husband’s life, and her defense lawyer tried to finger everyone from a local trade organization to a foreign terrorist group.

A Lehigh County jury rejected those contentions, and she received a life sentence on October 2, 2000.

But the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections doesn’t list a “Kathleen Foley” as an inmate, and newspapers haven’t mentioned her name in years.

What happened to her?

Fortunately, former District Attorney Michael P. McIntyre, who prosecuted Kathleen in 2000, agreed to fill in a few blanks about the case for forensicfilesnow.com. Following are excerpts from our phone conversation:

Michael McIntyre, Lehigh County prosecutor — Prosecutor Michael McIntyre in his *Forensic Files* appearance

Did anything about the case surprise you? I handled it from the arrest through the trial — I was the one pressing for the arrest. The amazing thing is how she remained free for 15 months after she shot her husband. It was soon after the time of the OJ Simpson trial, and the defense came up with the mantra “rush to judgment,” and investigators didn’t want to do that anymore.

What did you think George Fleming’s role was in the crime? The boyfriend was the whole impetus for this killing. Our theory was that he was selling Kathleen on something like “go ahead and kill him.” But he had an iron-clad alibi. We couldn’t find anything on him. He testified for the prosecution. In my heart of hearts, I thought he might have had something to do with it, but we couldn’t prove it.

George Fleming, seen in a Forensic Files screen shot — The other man: George Fleming

Why did Forensic Files use the fictitious last name “Doyle” for Kathleen and Joe Foley? No clue.

I read that Joe Foley was one of nine children. Did you meet any of the siblings? Yes, I met at least two of them and they pushed for the prosecution. They assisted me and told me to talk to this person, talk to that person.

Was Joe Foley a prominent citizen around the area? Joe Foley was well-known in the Irish community. He started a program that brought poor Irish kids to the U.S. for the summer.

What do you recall about the defense’s attempt to shift the blame away from Kathleen Foley? I think there was some kind of defense that had to do with Joe’s work life with the union. Or over the Irish program — they were saying maybe the IRA did it. I never put any credence in it. It’s the defense’s job to come up with theories.

Kathleen Foley only made one appeal attempt. Did that surprise you? It’s very rare. There’s no downside [to an appeal], nothing to lose.

Kathleen Foley served her time in the SCI Muncy prison — what’s it like? I’ve never been there, but I think it’s brutal, one of our toughest prisons for women.

Pennsylvania doesn’t list Kathleen Foley as an inmate. Was she released? No. She died a year or two years ago.

Was a fellow inmate to blame? I heard it was natural causes, nothing traumatic.

How did you like working with Forensic Files? It was a good experience. They found some gunshot residue on the nightgown that she wore, and we used that as evidence.

Are you still working for Lehigh County? I retired from the DA’s office in 2001, but they brought me back for one more Forensic Files, the Patricia Rorrer case. It was my half hour of fame — Foley was my 15 minutes.♠

The time in the spotlight was even more fleeting for Kathleen’s paramour George Fleming. It ended with the trial and the 2003 Forensic Files episode.

Scene of Joe Foley's murder in Fountain, Hill, Pennsylvania — Scene of the crime in Fountain Hill, a borough of Bethlehem, Pa.

The only subsequent mention of him that turned up in the media was a 2006 Morning Call item noting that his storage facility items would be auctioned off to satisfy a lien.

Incidentally, Kathleen Foley is not the only Forensic Files killer to sacrifice everything for a love object who ended up helping the prosecution. Sarah Johnson made the same mistake.

They both should have listened to my old hair-stylist’s advice, “Don’t lose your head over a little piece of tail.”

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube or Amazon Prime

Rae Carruth: An Update

An NFL Player Wants the Son He Almost Killed

Rae Carruth’s name recently resurfaced in the news because of his release from prison. His story never made it into an episode of Forensic Files, but it should have.

It features elements of a Greek tragedy, including an NFL player (because professional athletes are the gods of modern-day mythology), a woman strong enough to defy him, and an innocent child born into a crucible.

Carruth would make a perfect anti-hero for an epic saga, except for one thing: He didn’t have an objective like glory on the battlefield or ruling the world.

He just wanted to save himself some cash.

After Carruth, a wide receiver for the Carolina Panthers, impregnated a real estate agent named Cherica Adams, he urged her to get an abortion. He was already paying $3,500 to $5,500 a month to support a son he had with girlfriend Michelle Wright in Sacramento five years earlier.

Adams, 24, decided to have her baby anyway.

Carruth was well-liked within the Panthers. In college, he set a record for receiving yards

Carruth, then 25, had a contract with the Panthers for $3.7 million over four years, which breaks down to $77,000 a month. A few thousand dollars more in child support every month wouldn’t have meant trading in his Expedition for a Fiesta or shopping at Jack’s 99 Cents Stores.

Nonetheless, Carruth, who had made a couple of minor bad investments in his young life, decided to intercept any new demand for funds.

He enlisted some hitmen.

Then, on November 16, 1999, he arranged for an outing to the movies with Cherica Adams that involved her car following his on the way to her home.

On Rea Road in North Charlotte, Carruth blocked her black BMW with his SUV so the killers could ambush her via a drive-by shooting.

She sustained three gunshot wounds to her back and one to her neck but managed to call 911, explain what happened, and say that she thought Rae Carruth was responsible.

It’s hard to listen to the recording. She sounds so sweet at a time when she was in excruciating pain (every third word out of my mouth would have been an obscenity) and needed help fast.

Doctors at Carolinas Medical Center delivered Adams’ son by emergency Caesarian section.

The baby, named Chancellor Lee, was premature and had cerebral palsy. His mother lapsed into a coma.

Meanwhile, investigators had tracked down the men in the rented Nissan Maxima used in the shooting. Two of them immediately gave up Carruth as the mastermind behind the plan.

Police arrested Carruth in connection with the shooting, and he made bail.

After Adams died of organ failure on December 14, 1999, Carruth fled. The police found him hiding inside the trunk of a friend’s car in a Tennessee motel parking lot. He had $3,900 in cash with him and a container he’d used to relieve himself in the vehicle.

At the trial, shooter Van Brett Watkins testified that Carruth paid him to kill Adams.

In addition to his testimony, the prosecution had notes Cherica Adams wrote while in the hospital. One piece of scrawled writing said she had heard Carruth say that “we’re leaving now” to someone on the phone the night of the shooting.

Amber Turner, yet another girlfriend who Carruth impregnated, testified that in 1998, Carruth directed her to have an abortion and threatened “don’t make me send somebody out there to kill you,” according to court papers. (She decided not to have the child.)

Carruth’s lawyer, however, claimed the murder had nothing to do with Adams’ pregnancy and that Watkins shot her to punish the upstanding Carruth for refusing to finance a drug deal.

Van Brett Watkins, Stanley Abraham, and Michael Kennedy

Numerous witnesses for the defense testified that Carruth, who had no criminal record, was mild-mannered, kind, and never violent.

But there was no explaining away the evidence that Carruth blocked the victim’s car right before the shooting and then drove off without calling 911.

On January 2, 2001, a jury convicted Carruth of conspiracy to commit murder. He received a sentence of 18 to 24 years.

According to North Carolina Public Safety Department records, Carruth served his time in minimum security and didn’t make any trouble. He worked as a barber for his fellow inmates for $1 a day.

But shortly before his release from Sampson Correctional Institution on October 22, 2018, Carruth began making waves by declaring that he wanted custody of Chancellor.

He expressed regret about the death of Cherica Adams and apologized in a letter to her mother, Saundra Adams, who has had custody of Chancellor since he was a baby.

Carruth claimed that both he and Cherica were seeing a number of different people, and he wasn’t worried about her pregnancy at all because it wasn’t necessarily his.

A newspaper clipping with a *Charlotte Observer* photo of Saundra Adams with her grandson, Chancellor

In his handwritten 15-page note, he praised Saundra Adams for helping Chancellor overcome the challenges from his cerebral palsy. He learned to walk and talk, which doctors originally thought was impossible.

But Carruth also wrote a number of things not particularly endearing to the mother of a murdered daughter. For example:

"Never was Cherica under the illusion (or delusion) that I was ever going to propose marriage to her. Lust was the tie that bound us, not like or love... We randomly 'hooked up' a hand full of times and never made it about anything more than that."

Now, to be sure, Rae Carruth is not the kind of athlete who played too much football without his helmet. He double-majored in English and education at the University of Colorado in Boulder and made the academic All-Big 12 team.

But it bears repeating: He really should have done a more intelligent job of editing his declaration of contrition to Saundra Adams, including the part where he reminded her that she wouldn’t “be around forever” to take care of Chancellor.

Rae Carruth exits prison on October 22, 2018 — Rae Carruth exits prison in 2018

He insisted that Saundra Adams shouldn’t have to raise her grandchild — it was his job to do so.

Carruth walked out of prison on October 22, 2018, free except for nine months of supervised parole.

He moved in with a friend in Pennsylvania and began working from home, according to a Charlotte Observer story from December 11, 2018.

The article by writer Scott Fowler, who has followed the case since the beginning, reports that Carruth is now asking Saundra Adams to let him spend time with Chancellor rather than seeking custody.

For her part, Adams, who went on to become a board member of Mothers of Murdered Offspring, has said she will never relinquish custody — but she forgives Carruth and will consider allowing him to visit Chancellor, now 19.

Carruth speaks to his older son, Raelando, age 24, every day, according to Fowler’s story.

So, overall, it sounds as though Rae Carruth’s outlook is getting brighter — or at least as upbeat as a saga about a father who kills his child’s mother can be.

As for Carruth’s accomplices in the murder, driver Michael Kennedy received a sentence of 14 years and tag-along Stanley Abraham got 90 days. They’re both free now.

Triggerman Van Brett Watkins, whose attitude in the courtroom ranged from remorseful to menacing, got 50 years and is scheduled to stay behind razor wire until 2046.

Watkins apologized to Saundra Adams at the trial, and she forgave him.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the American Justice episode about the case.

Rachael Mullenix: A Thankless Child

A Teenager Overkills Her Mother
(“Runaway Love,” Forensic Files)

Note: Updated with a development from October 2022

The story of Rachael Mullenix brings to mind a couple of descriptive terms: pure evil and bad acting.

Rachael Mullenix before her mother Barbara Mullenix's murder — Rachael Mullenix

With the help of her boyfriend, 17-year-old Rachael stabbed her mother 52 times, then headed to Florida for some R&R.

That’s the evil part. The bad acting came during her police interview.

Rachael’s weepy explanation about why she’s the real victim is more excruciating than your friend’s cousin’s one-woman off-Broadway show.

Forensic Files told Rachael’s story in the 2010 episode “Runaway Love.”

For this post, I checked on what’s happened to Rachael since then and also looked for some background information on her late mother.

So let’s get started on the recap along with additional information drawn from internet research:

On September 13, 2006, a member of California’s Newport Beach Yacht Club spotted a dead body in the water.

Police could see it wasn’t the work of a shark or barracuda. A killer had left a butter knife embedded in the victim’s eye.

The body was in a degraded condition, but investigators managed to identify the victim as Barbara Mullenix from the serial number on her breast implants.

Members of the Newport Beach Yacht Club were unaccustomed to finding homicide victims in their midst

Barbara, 56, lived in an apartment in Huntington Beach, California, with her ex-husband, Bruce, and their teenage daughter, Rachael.

The couple had divorced years earlier in Oklahoma City, where Rachael Scarlett Mullenix was born in 1989, but ended up sharing the condo in California for financial reasons.

Barbara had dreams of stardom (which probably explains the implants) as an actress. She snagged work as an extra on films and TV shows, including several episodes of her favorite series, CSI.

Sources vary on whether Barbara, who was born on May 29, 1950, had been married once or twice before she met Bruce. She definitely had a son named Alex from a previous husband. Her obituary mentions a daughter named Traci.

Multiple media accounts report that Barbara was raped as a teenager. One story said that the attacker had impregnated her and she gave up the resulting baby for adoption. It’s not clear whether Traci was the daughter.

Rachael was the only child she and Bruce had together.

Ian Allen was Rachael Mullenix’s boyfriend

The mother-daughter relationship had highs and lows.

Rachael said home life was, on one hand, fun-filled “like Disneyland,” but on the other, stressful, with drinking and arguments about money between her parents, according to CBS News.

Although Barbara was understanding when Rachael got pregnant at age 15, she was none-too-supportive when, at 17, Rachael acquired a 21-year-old boyfriend named Ian Allen.

Barbara threatened to file statutory rape charges against Ian. She also showed up at Ian’s home and made a big embarrassing scene, according to Rachael. When she broke curfew, Barbara grounded her, preventing her from gallivanting around with Ian.

The lovebirds wanted to dispense with all the restrictions and run off together. After all, they’d known and loved each other for three whole months.

They decided murder was the best solution.

Days after Barbara made a commotion at Ian’s place, she turned up floating in the harbor. Bruce Mullenix had a solid alibi, so police turned their attention toward his daughter.

Rachael and Ian had disappeared after the murder, but they left enough forensic evidence to keep investigators busy.

In the Mullenix condo, they uncovered traces of cleaned-up blood splatter in a bedroom and Rachael’s DNA on a bloody sponge. They found fingerprint evidence from both Rachael and Ian.

They took note of an empty bed frame in Barbara’s room. A missing mattress is a veritable blinking sign that says Foul Play.

The kitchen contained knives that matched the one found in Barbara’s eye.

Detectives found that someone had withdrawn $300 from Barbara’s credit union account right after the murder.

They traced Rachael and Ian’s escape route from Florida to Louisiana, where authorities arrested the couple. A secret recording device in the backseat of a police car caught Rachael encouraging Ian to plead insanity.

LA Times clipping of Rachael Mullenix and her lawyer at the sentencing hearing — *Los Angeles Times* clip

The pair had left a mile-long electronic trail by texting each other dozens of incriminating messages about their plan. “After what my mom has done 2 U you can do what you want as long as U don’t get hurt or in trouble,” said one of Rachael’s texts.

But for criminal boyfriend-girlfriend duos, it can be a short trajectory from committing capital murder for the sake of love to turning against each other in legal proceedings. (Diana Haun and Sarah Johnson.)

Rachael fell first.

Once detectives got her alone in an interrogation room, she whined out an unconvincing story about how Ian killed her mother and she tried to stop him, but she was knocked unconscious and woke up bound and gagged in a hotel room with Ian.

As mentioned, it was a performance far worse than any high school production of Our Town.

And speaking of drama, prosecutor Sonia Balleste found out that Rachael had made a failed attempt at slashing her mother to death two years earlier, in 2004. Balleste suggested that the incident made Rachael realize that killing Barbara was a two-person job.

Rachael also made sure to be better-equipped her second time. Detectives determined that the couple used three different knives during Barbara’s murder.

Rachael Mullenix with boyfriend Ian Allen — Really worth murder?

Once completed, the murder didn’t seem to weigh on Rachael’s mind too much. Her jury got to see security footage of the couple acting friendly during their post-homicide victory tour in the south. She didn’t look like a kidnap victim.

At first, however, Ian backed up Rachael’s version of the story and accepted all the blame. But he did a 180 later and said it was Rachael alone who had killed her mother.

“He did the not-so-smart but chivalrous thing by saying, ‘I did it. I killed her,’ ” public defender Julia Swain told the jury, the LA Times reported on October 16, 2008.

Ian contended that Rachael committed the homicide in a fit of rage over Barbara’s years of verbal abuse and mean drunkenness — and that he only helped cover it up. Rachael couldn’t put the body into a cardboard box and throw it into the Pacific Ocean by herself.

While Ian betrayed Rachael, her dad stayed loyal. Bruce Mullenix denied that his daughter would ever kill her mother despite that his ex-wife could be abusive toward Rachael. As the Huntington Beach Independent reported:

“When she was drunk she would say things like, ‘I’m going to go up to school and go to class and embarrass you,’” [Bruce] said. “‘I’ll call up your friends and say things that humiliate and embarrass you.’ … You have to understand she was a completely different person when she was drunk.”

Nonetheless, the jury found Rachael guilty of first-degree murder.

After Rachael’s trial, a victim impact statement from one of Barbara’s friends denounced the teenager as having a “black heart” and throwing out her mom like “garbage,” the LA Times reported on October 11, 2008.

Rachael, wearing French braids for the sentencing hearing, looked like “a school girl with a broken heart,” the Orange County Register reported.

Little Rachael Mullenix and mom Barbara Mullenix — Rachael and Barbara Mullenix

When the judge gave her 25 years to life, her grandparents broke into tears and her grandmother cried out, “She’s innocent!”

Two years later, in 2010, Rachael lost an appeal claiming prosecutorial misconduct.

When I first wrote about the case, Rachael was residing in Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, with parole eligibility for 2027 at age 38.

But, according to a source close to the situation, Rachael Mullenix was released from prison on October 14, 2022 and is with her father, Bruce, in Southern California. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation no longer lists her as an inmate.

Ian Allen, also found guilty and given 25 years to life, is in Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe and eligible for parole in November 2024.

Rachael’s half-brother, Alex, apparently had no involvement in the legal proceedings and didn’t speak to the press, although he and Rachael weren’t strangers. They lived in the same house in Oklahoma before the divorce.

It’s sad that his mother was robbed of a chance to shake off her troubles and try for a second act in life.

You can watch the 48 Hours about the case on YouTube.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

P.S. Rachael’s brother, Alex Hagood, reached out to Forensic Files Now and defended Rachael in a subsequent interview.

Watch the episode on YouTube or Amazon Prime

Author: Rebecca Reisner

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