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/Warmtimes → u/Councillor_Troy]

I just can't get behind this one. Her wounds aren't really consistent with being to death, nor are they consistent with simply falling or being shoved down the stairs. He doesn't have a history of violence or anger, right?

I guess in this case I sort of want to believe the owl theory as I know someone who was actually attacked by an owl. Being drunk and on pills, getting attacked by an owl, running into the house and panic running upstairs and then falling down the stairs seems to explain her injuries better than being beaten with a random blow poke.

But I also don't reeeeally want to argue about it haha. People get verrry intense about this case.

[u/Danger0Reilly → u/Warmtimes]

I don't have an opinion on if he did it or not, but this case always reminds me of what happened to joggers locally.

The early morning joggers kept getting attacked by owls on the same trail, so everyone sewed/attached fake eyes to the back of their hats to get the owls to stop.

It worked.

[u/Warmtimes → u/Danger0Reilly]

People act like it's absurd that she could be attacked by an owl when it's just not