The Leeds Murderer Case

Simon Gittany was a male perpetrator. In almost 4 out of 5 intimate partner homicides the perpetrator was a male (Australian Institute of Criminology 1998).

On evening of June 9th 1959 in a small town named Clinton Ontario, a couple of hundred kilometres from London, Ontario, a fourteen year old Steven Truscott gave twelve year old classmate Cheryl ‘Lynne’ Harper a ride home on the crossbars of his bicycle, the pair rode along the Country Road. What occurred after this is still unknown, and is still debated due to the wealth of questionable information from varied sources. Around 11:20pm, Lynne’s father had notified officials of his daughter’s disappearance. Just two days later, Lynne Harper’s body was found in a forested area just next to the County Road. Lynne Harper had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.

Leanne Tiernan, a 16-year-old girl had been reported missing on November 26, 2000 in Leeds, West Yorkshire while she was walking back home after a day of Christmas shopping with her friend. Tiernan had taken a short cut home after a trip into the city and after departing ways with her friend, she was never heard from again. Police were desperate to locate the whereabouts of Tiernan as more than 1000 properties were searched, a 3 mile stretch of a canal was drained and garbage collections were stopped. Things were looking grim for the investigators as their only leads came from witnesses that said they saw a man walking his dog several times near the area where Tiernan had disappeared from. It wasn’t until nine months later, on August

Australian career criminal and convicted armed robber Stephen Asling, 56, has been convicted of the murder of respected underworld figure, Graham ‘The Munster’ Kinniburgh by the Victorian Supreme Court after more than a decade (Fox Koob 2017). In 2003, Asling and his accomplice, Terrence Blewitt, ambushed and gunned down Kinniburgh, 62, outside his home in Melbourne. The murder was by a contract with late underworld kingpin Carl Williams, who wanted Kinniburgh dead due to his tie-in with the Moran clan. Williams detested the Moran’s after he was shot and wounded during a dispute and it lead to a rivalry during the Melbourne gangland war (Deery & Murphy 2017). Asling and Blewitt was offered $150,000 to execute Lewis Moran however if they were

After analyzing prior situations and keeping in mind the perspective of novel, Clare’s killer has an obvious answer. Clare’s husband poses no real danger to Clare when he comes bursting into the party. Jack is outnumbered by the many black men in the room. They can easily prevent him from getting near Clare. He has only appeared up to three times in the novel. Every other time he is only mentioned in passing. If he was Clare’s killer he would been brought up more. Jack is also quiet a distance away from Clare as he is at the entrance while she is on the other side of the room. Clare would not have committed suicide because, she is not upset. She eventually wanted out of her marriage and her husband finding out her true racial heritage is the perfect way out. She smiles also seeing no danger in the situation. Brian did not kill Claire because like Jack, he is on the other side of the room amongst a throng of people at the entrance. There is no motivation as there is no affair. Irene even said she had no proof of infidelity

Colonialism is an ongoing practice that is marginalizing indigenous communities because of their race, class, gender, and sexuality. Qwo-li Driskill et al quoted Rayna Green claiming “that colonial discourses represent Native women as sexually available for white men’s pleasure” (34). From their first contact the Europeans through to the present day, Aboriginal, Indigenous, and First Nations women have been categorized and seen as Other. Sarah Hunt employs in her analysis a form of postcolonial critique used by Edward Said, who argues in Orientalism (1978) that there exist constructs of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes towards racialized others, including Indigenous groups, rooted in Eurocentric prejudice, serving as an implicit

On July 12, 2005, Liana White, wife and mother, disappeared in northern Edmonton. At 5:45 am that morning a woman called to report an abandoned car, left open with personal effects, including Mrs. White’s licence, scattered around it (Edmonton Journal, 2007, para. 2, 4). The next day her husband, Michael White, made a public plea for his wife’s return as they continued searching for her whereabouts (Harding & Shaw, 2005, Timeline of Events, para. 3). By July 14, Michael had become a suspect and the police were all too happy when he decided to lead a search party of his own, in the hopes that, if Michael was in fact the reason for Mrs. White’s disappearance, he would lead them right to her (Edmonton Journal, 2007, A Turning Point., para. 14).

Herbert William Mullin was born on April 18, 1947, in Salinas California (Newton, 2000). Dr. Lunde and Morgan describe Salinas as a farming community in Monterey County South of Santa Cruz (1980). Herbert is the younger of two children his sister Patricia being the elder, born to Jean and Martin William Mullin. Jean, a devout catholic, and Martin, a military veteran; raised their children in what some would say a “nurturing, stable but perhaps strict Roman Catholic household” (Vronsky, 2004 p. 149). He was a gentle natured child and very bright. He played little league baseball and was a Boy Scout (Lunde, Morgan, 1980). Herb attended parochial school so he was separated from neighboring peers that attended the local

To the untrained eye 129 Spring Street, New York City, looks like your average building, one that's held dozens of businesses over the years and somehow seems to still remain busy; however, locals know a much darker story dating back over 200 years. The murder of Guelielma Sands, now known as the infamous Manhattan Well Murder, would be the first ever recorded trial in American history. The location of her murder: A well that has been buried beneath a completely average looking building for two centuries.

Almost every day, we hear about justice being served upon criminals and we, as a society, feel a sense of relief that another threat to the public has been sentenced to a term in prison, where they will no longer pose a risk to the world at large. However, there are very rare occasions where the integrity of the justice system gets skewed and people who should not have been convicted are made to serve heavy prison sentences. When word of this judicial misstep reaches the public, there is social outcry, and we begin to question the judicial system for committing such a serious faux pas.

Christine Jessop was a nine year old girl who after bring dropped off by the school bus at her home in Queensville decided to ride her bike to the park nearby to meet with her friends. After stopping to buy some gum at the local store she was last seen walking her bike up her driveway by her friend Kim Warren. She did not keep her appointment with her friend at the park, and would never be seen alive again (Anderson & Anderson, 2009). This small town instantly became involved in the search for the missing girl, but with very little evidence to go on time passed, and hope began to diminish for the safe return home of Jessop. On New Year’s Eve 1984, eighty-nine days after Jessop went missing, her body was found badly decomposed in a bush by Fred Patterson fifty-five kilometers from Queensville. An autopsy would later revival that she was raped and mutilated (Anderson & Anderson, 2009). The police still did not have a suspect in the case nor did they have any leads, but now that her body was found the police and the small town were the topic of media, increasing pressure

Murder on a Sunday Morning is about an African American boy who was wrongly convicted of murder. He was only fifteen years old when his life changed forever. While first watching the documentary, it seems to the audience that Brenton Butler, the convicted boy, is guilty. Mr. Stephens, husband of the victim, Ann Stephens, claims that Butler came over, tried to take Anna Stephens’ purse, and then before she could comply, he raised his gun and shot her in the face. Sadly, Mr. Stephens was the only eye-witness, which is a major red flag, as he is connected to the victim. After being forced by the detective, Butler confesses. Once defense attorney, Patrick McGuinness is involved, he has Butler tell the court of his innocence and thus beings the criminal proceedings for Brenton Butler.

Leanne Tiernan, aged 16 years old from Bramley, Leeds, disappeared on 26th November 2000 after a shopping trip in her home town. Her body was found in August 2001 in Lindley Woods, West Yorkshire by a dog walker. Familial DNA testing and animal DNA testing helped with developments of the case and towards the arrest of John Taylor. Leanne’s body was found by a dog walker in Lindsey Woods, West Yorkshire roughly 10 miles from her home. Her body was found wrapped in plastic bags with her hands tied up with plastic cable ties.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and analyze the practices conducted by law enforcement during the investigation of the murder of Ashley Smith. The following pages will discuss the crime scene investigation, the evidence collection, the investigative steps following the initial crime scene investigation, the interviews of witnesses and suspects, and other strategies performed by the acting case investigators. Constitutional challenges have surfaced regarding specific pieces of critical evidence and a section of this paper will analyze the admissibility of this evidence. Lastly this case’s law enforcement processes will be contrasted with textbook processes in an effort to determine the validity of the case’s outcome.

The day flew by and before I knew it, I was on my way to the library. My history teacher had assigned us a town history project, and I was determined to get some of the research done before football practice that night. The library was not one of my most cherished places to be. But i knew i had to get stuff done, so at the library, I headed straight for the history section, the familiar maroon carpet muffling my footsteps as I walk down the aisle. I reached the section where the library archives all of the old town newspapers from past years. Shuffling through the worn, yellowing pages, I grabbed a couple of random newspapers and brought them to a table so I could start my research. The articles were mostly the same: tree planting, speeches given by the mayor, and charity work, but nothing that would make for an interesting project. Frustrated, I flipped through more pages until one headline caught my eye: “MISSING CHILD”. Curious, I read the article and discovered that a little boy, Daniel Harding (6) had been kidnapped from his home in a near by city. I skimmed through the rest of the article until my eyes rested on the photo at the bottom of the page. My heart nearly skipped a beat as I recognized the face. It was me.