Cloudy with a Chance of Murder

Twenty years ago today, the world lost one of comedy's brightest minds when the incredible Phil Hartman was shot to death in his sleep. The culprit? His wife, Brynn, who took her own life a few hours later. Phil's murder was the first crime that ever really affected me; I'd loved him on Saturday Night Live  and Pee-wee's Playhouse, and at the time of his death, I had never loved a show more than I loved Newsradio . I couldn't believe that someone who brought so much joy to the world lost his life in such a tragic way, and I still remember the moment I found out about Phil's death. When Newsradio came back on the air in September 1998, their fifth season premiere dealt with the death of Phil's character, Bill McNeal, and I have no idea how the cast managed to get through it...I've never cried so much watching a TV show, and I never had the privilege of meeting Phil, let alone working with him like the amazing Newsradio  cast. I haven't been able to wa...

This isn't true crime, but when Tina Fey hosted Saturday Night Live  last weekend, one of the sketches was about a To Catch a Predator -like show called Pervert Hunters . I thought it was pretty funny, so I wanted to share it here...the sketch stars Tina Fey, Beck Bennett, and Mikey Day, and I hope you enjoy it. : )

It was huge news last month when a genealogy website helped lead to the arrest of the Golden State Killer, who police had been after for more than four decades. Last week another cold case was solved this way, and William Earl Talbott II, 55, was arrested for the 1987 murders of Jay Cook, 20, and Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18. A Double Murder From 1987 Was Just Solved Thanks To The Genealogy Website Used For The Golden State Killer I think it's great that investigators have found a new way to solve cases and bring closure to families who thought the killer of their loved ones might never be caught. I hope this leads to more murderers being identified and more cold cases being closed, and I bet some of these killers who were sure they had gotten away with their crimes are feeling pretty nervous right about now.

I'm going to ScareLA, a cool Halloween/ horror convention, in a few months and wanted an appropriate pair of earrings to wear with my Scream Queens costume...and I found them (on eBay)! I thought some of you true crime fans might like these too. : )

The Killer Book of Cold Cases  is a 2012 book by Tom Philbin that features more than two dozen cases that have never been solved or were considered cold cases for a long time until the crime was finally solved. Here are a few of the interesting cases Philbin covers in this book: -On July 21, 1957 in Hawthorne, California, a man robbed two teenage couples at gunpoint and raped one of the girls. After he left, he ran a red light and was pulled over by policemen Richard Phillips, 28, and Milton Curtis, 25. He shot each police officer three times, killing both of them and was finally arrested in 2003, thanks to the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Gerald Mason, 69, was arrested in Columbia, South Carolina, and blamed his heinous acts on alcohol. -New York Supreme Court Justice Joseph Force Crater disappeared in August 1930 while on vacation in Maine; he received a phone call, told his wife he was going to "straighten those fellows out" ...

I'm kind of addicted to the Justice Network and try to catch reruns of Psychic Investigators  whenever I can. I recently saw an episode about the search for Robert Piest, one of John Wayne Gacy's victims, and thought it was really interesting since I never knew that a psychic was involved in catching Gacy. The episode is on YouTube, so if you want to find out how psychic Carol Broman helped put an end to the killer clown's reign of terror, check it out! Psychic Investigators: What Lies Below

The Murder of Marilyn Monroe: Case Closed  is a 2014 book by Jay Margolis and Richard Buskin. Like Margolis' Marilyn Monroe: A Case for Murder , which I read a few years ago, this book examines the suspicious circumstances of Marilyn Monroe's   death. Marilyn died on August 4, 1962, at her house on Fifth Helena Drive, and though her death was ruled a probable suicide, many people believe that she was murdered and that Bobby Kennedy was involved. Author C. David Heymann claimed that when he was interviewing Peter Lawford, Kennedy's brother-in-law, for his Jackie Kennedy biography in 1983, Lawford confessed that he worked with Bobby Kennedy and Ralph Greenson (Marilyn's psychiatrist) to murder Marilyn. The day of her death, Marilyn had threatened to hold a press conference and tell the world about her relationships with both John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy, so Bobby convinced Ralph Greenson that Marilyn was also going to tell about her affair with the psychiatrist and t...

My Friend Dahmer is a 2017 movie starring Ross Lynch, Alex Wolff, Vincent Kartheiser, Anne Heche, Dallas Roberts, Tommy Nelson, and Harrison Holzer. The movie, which is about Jeffrey Dahmer's life as a teenager, is based on a 2012 graphic novel by John "Derf" Backderf, who was friends with Dahmer in high school. Jeffrey Dahmer (Ross Lynch) is a high school student in Bath, Ohio. He lives with his parents (Dallas Roberts and Anne Heche) and younger brother and spends his free time collecting dead animals and dissolving them with acid. He exhibits pretty strange behavior at school too, which causes aspiring comic artist John "Derf" Backderf (Alex Wolff) and his friends to form the "Dahmer Fan Club." They include Jeffrey in pranks, encouraging his odd behavior, and Derf often draws him (and these drawings would become the basis for Derf's My Friend Dahmer  graphic novel). When Jeffrey's parents start fighting all the time, he begins drinking ex...