The Twitter handle @Tennessee is not owned by the government or a business. It was snatched up in 2007 during the early days of Twitter by a proud resident of the state, a decision that ended up costing him his life.
In 2011, 26-year-old Valerie Nessler was found guilty of arson and the first-degree murder of her 49-year-old roommate Jeffrey Wheatley, who she set on fire in the house they shared on April 7, 2010. Did she kill him because of a drug-fueled misunderstanding?
In 2007, 42-year-old pregnant Rhoni Reuter, who was the girlfriend of former Chicago Bears player Shaun Gayle, was found dead on her kitchen floor. Because there was no forced entry, police started looking at those close to her, including boyfriend Shaun. Divorced mother-of-three Marni Yang was convicted of murdering Rhoni and her unborn daughter Skyler in 2011. Now, ten years later, Marni Yang’s attorney is fighting to free his client on the grounds that forensics evidence on the body does not support that Marni is the murderer.
In 1993, 31-year-old nightclub owner Robert O’Dubaine was murdered in his apartment in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago. Robert’s girlfriend’s brother was found guilty of killing him, but years later he sought clemency because he claimed he’d been manipulated into murdering Robert by someone who may have killed before.
In 2007 35-year-old Nichole Payne and her son 16-year-old Austin Taylor Wages were found dead in their home in small-town Quitman, Texas,. At first, cops thought it was a murder-suicide, but soon investigators became convinced that it was only staged to look that way.
Curtis Lovelace was an All-American college football player turned prosecutor who ended up as a defendant on trial for murdering his wife.
Cary Stayner experienced a huge amount of trauma and loss in his life before he became a serial killer at Yosemite State Park in 1999. The tragic events of his life do not excuse his behavior, but they served as formative experiences that potentially shaped his frame of mind.
Cary was only 11-years-old when his 7-year-old brother Steven was kidnapped by a pedophile. Steven returned to the family seven years after that, forever changed. He was heralded as a hero for saving another young boy from a similar experience, and then suddenly died in a traffic accident at age 24. The year after Steven’s death, Cary’s uncle, who he was living with at the time, and who had allegedly molested him, was murdered.
On December 4, 1972, 7-year-old Steven Stayner was walking home from school in Merced, California when he was abducted by two men who worked at Yosemite Lodge. After over seven years of abuse Stayner was able to escape and also rescue a new victim: 5-year-old Timothy White. In 1999, Steven’s older brother Cary became a serial killer and who murdered four women while working at the Cedar Lodge motel in El Portal, California, near Yosemite Park.