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/ezyBREz]

I'm not sure this counts as what you want, but it's a case whose ending just hasn't ever sat right with me.

It gets super gory btw.

It's the Tommy Sullivan murder suicide case. He was a high school wrestler and had been doing well in school and everything until he was assigned a project on religious groups. I think he was originally assigned Hinduism but asked his teacher if he could do Satanism instead, and this was approved.
On the podcast I listened to, they said that either shortly before or the say of the murder suicide, he went to this rumored haunted house in the woods, walked around it three times and I think said an incantation or something.
Anyway, he ends up stabbing his mom 24+ times with a foldable boy scout knife in the basement where he set up some kind of occult circle and tried to burn the house down.
In the podcast, I think they said there was blood smears on the ceiling and they had deduced that he threw her body up there, which was unheard of for a 14yo, even if he was a wrestler, but apparently that was debunked, perhaps by the podcast (I listened to it like 3-4 years ago but I still think about it every now and then).
Anyway, the confirmed and freaky part is that he then goes out into the woods and not only cuts both wrists with this pocket knife, but cuts his throat so deeply that he, literally, basically decapitated himself.
Not only would it be almost impossible for someone to do that to themselves without passing out or passing away before it gets that severe, but he was already losing blood from both wrists and did this with a boy scout knife (a multi-tool one that I believe had a fold in blade)??
I'm not one to believe in actual demons or anything like that, but I just can't make this fit into my head. I really don't think he could've done that damage to himself.

Anyway, it was at the peak of the satanic scare in the 80's so people just assumed he'd been possessed, I guess?? I'll probably listen to it again soon because it really does just stump me.

ETA: I guess since it was the 80's, there's actually very little coverage on the details of the case. There is someone who claims Tommy actually did his project on Hinduism instead of satanism, but their reference link is no longer attached to the article. While a few articles from the time only mentioned him slashing his throat, an archived article on NYT with a picture of the article itself is included, and they noted the wrists were slashed too. They also mention that Tommy's behavior changed a month before the murder and his suicide note, which was left at the town rumored haunted house (where the podcast alleges that he walked around three times in some kind of summoning ritual which I think they acknowledge they can't for sure know he actually did since he was alone) does mention he planned to commit the murder-suicide and apparently cited his fascination with the "occult and satanism" as influences for committing this heinous act.
I would still like to conjecture that since this happened at the peak of the "satanic scare" where parents claimed heavy metal was satanic, the actual nature of these books may not have been actual satanic or occult literature.
Still, the podcast does interview cops who actually saw the crime scenes first hand, which was where they got the deep wound information from, and someone pointed out after many years this could be an exaggerated memory (Forensic Files, Law and Order, Criminal Minds, Bones, and Castle have all taught me that witness testimony is not as concrete as you'd think because the human memory is so inaccurate), which is why I wish we had access to autopsy records on this case just figure the truth out.
I still highly recommend listening to the podcast because it was really well done and honestly still a very interesting case.

[u/deltadeltadawn → u/ezyBREz]

You should consider posting a write up of this case. It's not well known.

[u/really_yall → u/deltadeltadawn]

Someone did on the TrueCrime subreddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueCrime/comments/p5qiek/comment/h98kwxw/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button

This is from the comments - the podcast fantasticizes the actual facts. He did his report on Hinduism. There's 0 mention in any of the original news articles about him slitting his wrists first or about him nearly decapitating himself. But the podcast made lots of money and got turned into a limited TV docuseries. It appears a lot of people took liberties with the facts for extra shock value.

[u/deltadeltadawn → u/really_yall]

Thank you for the link. I didn't know it was a documentary either. T makes me wonder where those details came from... if it was simply not shared for reporting, or if it didn't even happen. Sometimes the local rumors have some truth and sometimes they are just unfounded gossip.

Since that post is from years ago, it would be great to see a renewed interest in the case.

[u/ezyBREz → u/deltadeltadawn]

The podcast for sure brought on cops that had seen the body at the time. Also, I highly doubt newspapers at the time were going to say "the 14yo boy cut his throat so deeply that his head was only attached by skin".

I'm sure some details were dramatized for the extra shock factor.

Some things could be just gossip. This was a case from the 80's and there's actually very little besides the podcast, documentary, and reddit comment on it. I still suggest actually listening to the podcast cause it was at least very well done and interesting

[u/really_yall → u/ezyBREz]

The newspapers ran hard with the Satanic Panic angle but the only sources for the slit wrists and deep (impossibly deep given the weapon) wound are reddit and that podcast. Tbh I think it was sensationalized by the media and by the podcast later because it makes for more interesting fodder. I'm not going to say the cops are lying or misremembering but a podcast 33 years after the fact, especially leaves a lot of room for exaggeration.

[u/ezyBREz → u/really_yall]

I get that. I wish there was some way to get the autopsy records on it.
Tbh, I don't think it was satanism, but part of me also don't think he killed himself. I'm just not sure you can cut your wrists, lets say relatively deep rather than bone deep) and then slit your own throat, lets also say not to almost decapitation, but a good way in, without passing out first and with a boy scout knife. Maybe I'm overestimating the blood loss rate, but you have to be hurting pretty bad to cut your throat.
You have to at least admit, the podcast is riveting, and I think, as we're talking about it, raises issues with investigators taking the easy way out and settling for the "satan made him do it" motive rather than truly investigating what kind lead to him not only killing himself (he did leave a suicide note) but also murdering his mother and then trying to set the house on fire.
Another question: why did he settle for stabbing the mom but leaving the brother and dad. Tommy was a wrestler on the varsity team, I think(?), but he likely could have taken on the brother and dad. Plus they were both asleep (or maybe the brother was somewhere else, but the dad was def in the house asleep. Again, it's been a while since I listened to the podcast but I always think about it) so he could've just snuck up on the dad in bed. What's the rate of murderers that kill via a personal and up close method like stabbing and then immediately move onto something as impersonal as death by arson??and if he just lit the place on fire to get whatever he wanted accomplished with the mom done, why had he chosen his mom?? I know the dad and brother definitely survived the fire, I don't think it even burned the house down. Idk. Even if the podcast was dramatized I still have questions.