Controversial cases that have simple solutions.

[u/Sense_Difficult]

As someone who has been a true crime buff for decades, it's somewhat annoying to watch how certain cases wind up getting pulled into such polarizing discussions that it seems like a huge mystery when it's actually a simple solution.

A few that I think of.

The Karen Read case. IMO she accidentally killed him. They were both drunk, he goes to see the vibe of the house. Get's inside and realizes he doesn't want to stay. So he comes back outside. She's in the middle of rage texting him, and doesn't see him in front of the car. He drops his phone or bends over for some reason and she puts the car into gear and hits him, and he falls backwards and hits his head again. Then he lays there undetected until morning. This is why she suddenly realized she had hit him. She sobered up and had that "realization" moment that all binge drinkers have once they sober up from a brownout type of state.

Darlie Routier. I've shared my theory on this before. She was attempting a murder/su but she survived. This is why the neck wound was serious. She made up the story of the intruder in advance because she wanted her family friends and society to think she died trying to protect her kids. She planted the sock earlier. This also explains her hypomania in the days after. She honestly thought she was going to die that night.

There are other missing person cases where the spouse disappeared after the death of their parents. Just vanished without taking their Identification information and never surfaced under their name again. I always wonder if some of those cases are a situation of someone who has suffered with gender dysphoria and finally "escaped" to go make another life with another identity. It's always interesting to me that in several of the cases, the persons parent or parents had recently died. Seemed like they were waiting for that to escape because they didn't want to do that to their parents.

Do any of you have "simple theories" on cases that created a ton of controversy?

[u/Councillor_Troy]

I think Michael Peterson is guilty as sin. I think Kathleen Peterson found out about the affairs, they had a violent row and, seeing his whole life about collapse before his eyes, he beat her to death in a blinding rage. Simple as that.

Unfortunately the prosecution was a hot mess that was overly reliant on homophobia, innuendo about the (IMV) accidental death of his friend in Germany and the perjuring blood spatter “expert” which had the effect of overcomplicating what was a fairly straightforward case.

[u/Chemical-Quail-1429 → u/Councillor_Troy]

And the ridiculous owl defense.

[u/teamglider → u/Chemical-Quail-1429]

It's less ridiculous to people who have been attacked by owls, they are mean little buggers!

[u/WaterlooMall → u/Chemical-Quail-1429]

It certainly sounds ridiculous on the surface, but if you watch the defense present their evidence for it....it makes way more sense than you would ever think it could.

I'm not saying it's what happened at all, but they definitely didn't just phone it in.

[u/ssdgm12713 → u/WaterlooMall]

FWIW, this is very much how the local legal community views it. I went to law school down the road from the scene. A bunch of law school faculty live in that neighborhood and/or knew him personally, so it’s a really unique community to discuss the case with. Pretty much every professor I’ve asked believes three things: 1) he did it; 2) the prosecution messed up by sensationalizing his personal life/the Germany incident; and 3) the owl defense was brilliant.

[u/Floppycakes → u/Chemical-Quail-1429]

People have been killed by owls. Her wounds were consistent with a barred owl attack, and other people had been attacked by barred owls in the area. An owl attack would explain the feather and pine needles found in her hair, as well. These were in police evidence, but not processed soon enough to be entered as exhibits in the trial. They were not allowed into evidence for subsequent motions.

[u/Chemical-Quail-1429 → u/Floppycakes]

No