All Blog Posts from Crimesider

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Jamie Serich and Colin Hart were two Ohio high school seniors, found shot to death as they lay next to each other in a local cemetery.

But was this tragedy a murder or a suicide-pact?

That is what police are trying to figure out in the small city of Boardman, Ohio, just outside of Youngstown.

Serich, 17, and Hart, 18, were both students at Cardinal Mooney High School, whose football team just won the Ohio Division III championship Friday - its seventh state title.

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JUPITER, Fla. - Paul Merhige, the man police believe shot and killed four members of his extended family on Thanksgiving day and has since been on the run, was seen on surviellance video inside a gun shop a day before the killings.

Police say Merhige murdered his aunt, two twin sisters, one of whom was pregnant, and a 6-year-old girl, at a Jupiter, Fla. Home, after a family meal on Thanksgiving day.

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WASHINGTON - Days after American Amanda Knox was sentenced to 26 years in an Italian prison for murdering her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she'll meet with anyone who has concerns about the case.

Knox, of Seattle, and her ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were found guilty Dec. 4 of murdering Kercher in what the prosecution has called a sex game gone wrong. All three were college students in Perugia, Italy, when the 2007 slaying occurred.

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NEW YORK - Paul Cortez, who in 2007 was convicted of murdering dancer Catherine Woods in her upper East Side apartment, wants his conviction reversed and is requesting a new trial because of "inept" representation, according to an appeal which notes that his lawyers didn't show up until the fourth day of his trial.

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PERUGIA, Italy - American college student Amanda Knox was found guilty of murdering her British roommate and sentenced to 26 years in prison early Saturday after a year-long trial that gripped Italy and drew intense media attention.

Her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito was also convicted and sentenced to 25 years.

They were also convicted of sexual assault in the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old student from England.

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PERUGIA, Italy - An Italian jury has reached a verdict in the trial of American Amanda Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, who are standing trial for the murder of Knox' British roommate Meredith Kercher.

The court is expected to announce the verdict at 6 p.m. EST, from the eight members of the jury, including two judges, who were sequestered in a room in the Perugia courthouse.

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NEW YORK - As a child of thirteen, Sanford Clark was sent from his home in Canada to live with his uncle, Gordon Stewart Northcott, on a chicken ranch in Wineville, California. It was there that Sanford discovered that his uncle was evil and a rapist and murderer.

Written by acclaimed crime writer Anthony Flacco, with Jerry Clark, Sanford Clark’s son, providing a primary resource, The Road Out of Hell reveals the untold story of the Wineville murders that are featured in the Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie film, Changeling.

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PERUGIA, Italy - As her lawyers make their last efforts to convince a jury of her innocence, Amanda Knox also made a final statement to the court and swore she was not an "assassin" in the 2007 murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher.

Knox addressed the court in Perugia, Italy Thursday, before the eight members of the jury go into deliberations.

Her voice breaking as she fought back tears, Knox said in Italian she is "scared of having the mask of an assassin forced" onto her.

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SEATTLE - Prosecutors say Darcus Allen drove his old prison buddy Maurice Clemmons to a Seattle café where Clemmons shot four police officers and then, as Clemmons stumbled out with a bullet in his side, Allen helped him escape.

Now, they are considering charging Allen with aggravated first degree murder, which carries the same penalties as if he had shot the officers himself – life without release, or execution.

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CLEVELAND - Anthony Sowell, the former Marine now accused of killing at least 11 women and leaving their remains in and around his Ohio home, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the charges.

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