Land of the Lost

            The story unfolds as the nameless narrator’s condition is revealed.  She is a common woman

The case that I will be discussing is the cold murder case of Lucille Johnson from Salt Lake City, Utah. Unfortunately, at the time of the murder the investigators didn’t take certain evidence serious in the case. The investigators thought that it was just evidence that had no meaning. None the less, it ended up convicting the murderer, John Sansing.

In Isabel Allende’s novel The House of the Spirits, there are two definitive classes of people that are present throughout the novel. The poor class, including the peasants of Tres Marias and the socialist party members, has continual resentment towards the other class, which is the wealthy aristocratic class. The wealthy division of the novel shows little humanity towards the poor, treats the poor as servants, and control all politics involved in the country. The wealthy’s treatment of the lower class shattered the peace experienced by Chile because the poor and the wealthy maintained a struggle to co-exist with such division between their

When first introduced to the narrator, readers quickly pick up on how observant she is to the world around her. However as the novel draws to a close, many quick events take place with little to no explanation or commentary from the

The plot, or basic storyline, of this short story is about a black woman, Annie Johnson, based in the United States before 1905. Her marriage had collapsed due to her husband leaving her to pursue religion in Oklahoma and leaving her with very little money. The plotline develops on to show her struggle to support herself and her two sons and how she has to use courage to support herself and her family.

Some Americans remember where they came from; others don’t. That’s the case in Daniel Chacon’s story “The Biggest City in the World”. It is a story about Harvey Gomez who is a Mexican American young man whose grandparents migrated to the Unites States from Mexico. Harvey has only been to Mexico once in his entire life and neither of his parents has ever been there before. Therefore he doesn’t know anything about his native culture or language. In this story Harvey travels deep inside of Mexico for the first time with his Mexican history Professor David P. Rogstart and gets exposed to its culture and language. On the contrary, Carolina

was murdered, and she would definitely be worth finding justice for. The most reasonable theory

will never again be clean; she then unwittingly implicates herself and her husband in the murders of

What was believed to be a kidnapping of 6-year-old, JonBenet Ramsey, ended up to be the discovery of her dead body by her father in the basement, after multiple hours of searching in Ramsey's house (Saferstein, 2015.) A major issue with the case was that the house was not sealed off, and multiple people, including their pastor, were able to go to and from with no complications (Saferstein, 2015.) In defense of the police team, in the beginning, they had believed it to be a kidnapping with a note and all, and in the end, it turned out to be a murder. Of course the media's eyes immediately turned to the parents but one of the theories is, "The current theory stands that an intruder, with possible paedophilic motives, was responsible for her death, and while this has become a widely accepted working theory, there are several pieces of evidence that simply don’t add up" (Team, 2016.) The ransom note was 2 and a half pages long, her body was found in the basement of the families home, the cause of death showed strangulation and a blow to the head an hour or so before, and also pineapple that she had eaten recently with a bowl that led to her brother's fingerprints were all clues that didn't add up (Team, 2016.)

Mary Maloney is a pregnant wife of a police officer. Her husband came home one day and told her something sad. She ended up killing him. But for whatever reason got away with it. She came up with a smart alibi that proved she was innocent. And the police officers believed it. Mary was smart “she carried the meat into the kitchen, placed it in a pan, turned the oven on high, and shoved it inside. Then she washed her hands and ran upstairs to the bedroom. She sat down before the mirror, tidied her hair, touched up her lips and face. She tried a smile. It came out rather peculiar, she tried again. She rehearsed it several times more.”(Roald 14) Mary thought fast after she killed him because “as the wife of a detective, she knew quite well what the penalty would be.” (Roald 13) If it wasn’t for Mary’s alibi, none of this would have been believable.

On the night of the murder, the family had gone on an outing, and was preparing to retire for the evening. . In the early morning hours of December 26, 1996, shortly after 5:00 AM, Patsy Ramsey woke up in her Boulder, Colorado home. As she headed for the kitchen she found a ransom note on her kitchen staircase (CNNLawCenter.2006). The child and a ransom note were found hours later. The local police and friends and family soon gathered at the home. The local police’s progress was hampered because there were so many people in the home; the crime scene was not secured which caused chaos with the police investigation because things were cleaned and moved around (Jenkins, 2013). Given the confusion and disarray at the Ramsey home, the crime scene became significantly contaminated. Unfortunately, the police were unable to gather proper evidence and conduct an effective investigation. Furthermore, the murder was sensationalized by the media which tangled the issues even more.

Sabrina Butler was an eighteen year old mother who tried to save her child but, “her attempts at CPR were interpreted as fatal abuse” and she spent time on death row before being exonerated and found completely innocent of the murder charges ( ). Nicole Harris falsely confessed to punching her infant “because he would not stop crying” ( ). This confession came after detectives questioned her, without Mirandizing her, and immediately after the death of her child and having her other child taken away from her. The detective clearly manipulated her and used her child as “a tactic to secure a confession.” Luckily for her, her conviction eventually got overturned after receiving assistance by post-conviction attorneys, or she would still be in prison today (

In comparison to, Mrs. Freeman who is the complete opposite of Mrs. Hopewell whom she has worked for, for four years. O’connor does not show her point of view in this short story only what Mrs. Hopewell and Hulga describe her to be. She is described as very outspoken on whatever he thoughts are. She is very familiar and used to the unexpected due to her daughter Carramaes early marriage and pregnancy at the age of fifteen.

Over the next few days dozens of people who had seen Debbie the night of her murder went to the station where they were interviewed, gave blood and hair samples. The investigation seemed promising, but months later leads began drying out and detectives found themselves back at square one.

The life one treasures and takes for granted today can be so easily erased in the blink of an eye and gone tomorrow. Therefore, not only is it important to cherish how one lives for today and now, but it’s also important to how one can overcome the misfortunes and hardships they may suffer; tragedy can make a person or break a person. Mary Rowlandson’s experience during her eleven weeks of captivity as documented in “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” is a perfect answer to the above argument. The eleven weeks she experienced as a prisoner of her Indian captors proves to be a pivotal occasion in her life, which changes her feelings, lifestyle, and attitude as well towards her abductors. By the end of her horrifying experience, she rises more profoundly grounded in every way: mentally, physically, and spiritually with a new outlook on life, closer to God, and a newfound opinion of the Indians.