Which cases have sucked you in like the Columbine case?

The Columbine case has drawn me in, almost like no other case before. It's got such mix of quirky characters, tons of evidence to sift though, and late 90's nostalgia. It really takes me back- I LOVED the late 90's - good music and movies, cute clothes, and, for me, college!

But there have been other cases that have drawn me in too, and also can transport me back to a certain time or place when researching it. For me it been:

-The Manson Murders: Studying this case transports me right to 1969 Los Angeles. I almost feel like I'm there, and get to imagine two totally different lifestyles; the cult and glamorous Hollywood.

-The Casey Anthony Case: Takes me right back into the summer of 2008, in hot, humid Orlando. The mysterious case, then the trial of the summer. I didn't miss a minute of it!

Which cases have grabbed you and refused to let go? Which cases transport you to another time and place?

Mainly Columbine, but lately the Sol Pais one has really sucked me in. It's helped me understand part of the reason why I'm so fascinated with the case, and helped me realize a lot about myself.

To be brief, It's helped me realize that hearing about/seeing the pain others go through really affects me. Reading Sol's website hit me hard, almost as hard when I saw a picture of Dylan as a little kid shortly after reading his journals. The loss of innocence and the pain people feel as they grow up deeply saddens me, and it's prompted me to look at volunteering with troubled youth. It hurts to know that so many people carry so much pain with them every day.

I know what you mean! When I first started studying Columbine, I actually got a little depressed. I had gotten to know those boys a bit through all the journals, chats, videos, etc and I was sad about how they threw their lives away. Usually, stuff doesn’t bother me so much, but those two boys really got into my head.

The Virginia Tech shooting, and Seung Cho himself, have been on my mind a lot over the past few days. I've been on a research binge, scouring through old news articles for any new tidbits about his life, such as his hobbies and quirks. Since there's only a limited amount of information and no "mysteries" about the case aside from "why did he do it", which is a question that only Cho can answer, I'll get bored of it sooner or later.

And yeah, Columbine is like a warm slice of the 90's. Sometimes it feels like a giant fanfic. When I first got into Columbine I was a Dylan guy and thought Eric was kind of boring but now it's the opposite, I'm very fond of Eric and not particularly interested in Dylan. (Sorry Dyl.)

There hasn't been any that sucked me in like Columbine but 2 cases that had an effect on me were Randy Stair and Chris Watts. Both of those cases made me sad for weeks.

Oh yes, Chris Watts!! I was totally into that one. What an asshole!! Those kids were so precious.

Nothing has sucked me in like Columbine has. However, I am more interested in Adam Lanza lately. The release of the new documents has made me more interested in Lanza. Some of his habits (like how often he played DDR) are interesting to me. I'm not as interested in him as I am in Columbine, but I am gaining some more interest. I am not as much interest in the shooting itself, just Lanza.

I am the most interested in Columbine, but have interest in the Andrew Cunanan case, the Randy Stair case, and recently around here the A.J. Freund murder case. A.J. was a 5 year old little boy that his parents reported missing, but had mistreated and abused the boy and murdered him. Then buried him in a wooded area. Really sad, crimes against young children really upset me.

sympathyforEandD wrote:

And yeah, Columbine is like a warm slice of the 90's. Sometimes it feels like a giant fanfic.

I love that line: warm slice of the 90's. And it does seem to weird to be true!


The Cunanan case is very interesting too. I remember when that happened! I read the book "Vulgar Favors" and watched the series last summer. Both are very good.

Columbine now bores me, and has for a while.

I'm interested in Dylann Roof, Brenton Tarrant and Adam Lanza. I also have a general fascinations with shooters who target law enforcement and cops.

Adam Lanza and Stephen Paddock here...

A lots of serial killer before too

Recently, the Watt’s case and the Delphi murders have taken up a lot of my reading time

Sandy Hook shooting and terror attacks sucked me in.

LadyStardust wrote:

Oh yes, Chris Watts!! I was totally into that one. What an asshole!! Those kids were so precious.

Shannan Watts was a part of my family tree... not directly though. I am not going to say more about this since this detail is too personal. I wasn't even informed of the murders due to how I never see the Watts family.

AmericaMan wrote:

LadyStardust wrote:

Oh yes, Chris Watts!! I was totally into that one. What an asshole!! Those kids were so precious.

Chris Watts was a part of my family tree... not directly though. I am not going to say more about this since this detail is too personal. I wasn't even informed of the murders due to how I never see the Watts family.

Yeah, probably not a branch of the tree that you would want to lay claim to. I am sure if we look hard enough, we could all find a rotten apple in out family tree. Your's is just extra rotten and well known. My condolences, though. Those kids were super cute.

Columbine yes cause of the 90's I wanted to be in HS in the 80s or 90s and the killers seemed like guys I could've seen myself being friends with, I loved industrial music, and gamer. So I wanted to know more about them. Other than Columbine.
Ted Bundy, The Gainesville Ripper and The Nightstalker were the only cases I really, really researched and wanted to learn more about.

(redacted)

London Bridge Attack

The Setagaya Murders, apparently despite a lot of biological and circumstantial evidence, the culprit has never been tracked down

I don't like Columbine.

Besides Columbine: The Andrew Cunanan Case, Jodi Aries case and Richard Ramirez (The night stalker) are very interesting topics.

I mostly am into missing person cases. Brittanee Drexel, Brandon Larson, Maura Murray etc

Also Jon Benet

JonBenet too. I cannot recommend the "solvingjonbenet" blog enough.

Several serial killers. Probably Gacy most of all. Somehow Columbine is like them despite being mass murder, perhaps due to the element of deception for a year, or simply the media circus.

Also Casey Anthony, though I think not guilty was correct there which few will accept. Jodi Arias is interesting too, for I think like Columbine there are lies to avoid copycats.

The first case that sucked me in was the 2014 Isla Vista shooting. Before being aware of that case in 2017 i've never felt much interest in true crime, aside from my general curiosity. Seeing how vulnerable Elliot could be in his manifesto and YouTube videos was what made it to me. It's was almost like having this window into someone else's intimate life.
The same effect were more-or-less achieved by heavely reaseraching into other shooter's lives, but it never felt the same. Acutally, my enthusiasm by mass murder has diminished quite a bit in the last few years. I think that, as for now, i'm more fascinated by Adam Lanza than any other shooter, though.

cakeman wrote:

JonBenet too. I cannot recommend the "solvingjonbenet" blog enough.

Several serial killers. Probably Gacy most of all. Somehow Columbine is like them despite being mass murder, perhaps due to the element of deception for a year, or simply the media circus.

Also Casey Anthony, though I think not guilty was correct there which few will accept. Jodi Arias is interesting too, for I think like Columbine there are lies to avoid copycats.

I agree with you on Casey Anthony's not guilty verdict. Maybe the prosecution should have brought some actual evidence to the table, instead of cans of stinky air. You cannot sentence someone TO DEATH with such little evidence. Also, the prosecutors were so smug, I loved Jose Biaz showing them up in the end.

MysterionSZAF wrote:

The first case that sucked me in was the 2014 Isla Vista shooting. Before being aware of that case in 2017 i've never felt much interest in true crime, aside from my general curiosity. Seeing how vulnerable Elliot could be in his manifesto and YouTube videos was what made it to me. It's was almost like having this window into someone else's intimate life.

That's how Columbine was for me. I never expected to get into Eric and Dylan's heads so much. And they got into mine! But I could actually see them as vulnerable humans - not just as killers.

LadyStardust wrote:

cakeman wrote:

JonBenet too. I cannot recommend the "solvingjonbenet" blog enough.

Several serial killers. Probably Gacy most of all. Somehow Columbine is like them despite being mass murder, perhaps due to the element of deception for a year, or simply the media circus.

Also Casey Anthony, though I think not guilty was correct there which few will accept. Jodi Arias is interesting too, for I think like Columbine there are lies to avoid copycats.

I agree with you on Casey Anthony's not guilty verdict. Maybe the prosecution should have brought some actual evidence to the table, instead of cans of stinky air. You cannot sentence someone TO DEATH with such little evidence. Also, the prosecutors were so smug, I loved Jose Biaz showing them up in the end.

To quote a juror, "He [i. e. George Anthony] was there". Also, like the JonBenet case, the mom called 911, NOT the dad. I think basically Casey Anthony is sold as Susan Smith when it's JonBenet, with the man of the house, the most likely to murder, overlooked for bizarre reasons. They also do the "united front" of man and wife always together on tv so people fuse them in their minds, and think ""The Ramseys" or "The Anthonys" called 911.

I’d definitely say the Stoneman Douglas and Randy Stair cases are the ones that fascinate me a lot. They are both very different cases because Nikolas Cruz portrayed so many warning signs yet they were ignored and Randy just seemed like a normal quiet person until he went to the supermarket with his shotguns and murdered 3 coworkers before turning the gun on himself. Well as for Nik, I’ve watched his police interrogation countless times, especially the parts where he’s talking about his “demon”, and his brother visiting him. As for Randy Stair, I find it fascinating how he went from normal to deranged in such a short period. And yet he was so delusional but so down to earth at the same time. I’ve read snippets of his journal and listened to like an hour or two of his suicide tapes, just his mind fascinates me really.

I did research the Elliot Rodger case quite a bit, and even read a lot of his manifesto. It made me feel somewhat sorry for him because I could relate to some of what he said, not that I condone what he did. Randy Stair also interested me quite a bit due to his large online presence and the fact that he was on this forum.

Definitely the Charleston Church shooting.

Jokela, Kauhajoki, Aztec, Sparks Middle, Westroads, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Dawson

Randy Stair (Weiss market shooting) and Mamoru Takuma (Osaka school massacre).

The missing person case of Randy Wayne Leach who disappeared from an outdoor post-graduation bonfire near Linwood, Kansas one summer night in 1988. Crazy rumors of Satanic cults, missing feet, sick things of that natrue. The dude disappeared and has never come back.

.

Never heard of Randy Leach but indeed an interesting case.

Another interesting one for me is the Brian Wells case, the "pizza bomber" or "collar bomber". Also a good example of what I think was going on with police "setting up a perimeter" at Columbine due to bombs, rather than the usual story of hostages.

Nothing has ever sucked me in like Columbine.
That being said, I’ve also also had interest in / done quite a lot of reading about the O.J. Simpson case & Jon Benet Ramsey case, in the day...Also have been interested in the Las Vegas shooting/S. Paddock case...

Marianna wrote:

Nothing has ever sucked me in like Columbine.
That being said, I’ve also also had interest in / done quite a lot of reading about the O.J. Simpson case & Jon Benet Ramsey case, in the day...Also have been interested in the Las Vegas shooting/S. Paddock case...

I also have done alot of research on O.J. and Jon Benet. Very interesting cases!

Columbine is on my mind very often, but sometime i'm very interested by the Taconic crash especially the whole family dynamic and the chris watts case. Both are very horific so i try not to get too much into it. (Not that Columbine isn't horific, but it's still "kids killing kids" so it's give another perspective in my opinion).

Before Columbine it was the Zodiac Killer. I read a lot of true crime stuff and research a lot of different cases but I think these two sucked me in the most, for whatever reason.

I go through phases where I become obsessed with knowing everything about certain cases and then almost completely lose interest but Columbine kind of keeps coming back.

Things I've read alot about are the Jonbenet Ramsey Case (especially after that documentary where they rebuild the house) and the West Memphis Three. I am really interested in the Marc Dutroux case but it's difficult to read about without ending up on some stupid Pizzagate/conspiracy site.

None have really grabbed me quite like the Columbine case has. There’s just so much mystery, so much unanswered, and so much that may never be figured out that it’s really almost become an enigma. That’s just the best way I can explain that one.

But...both Virginia Tech and Las Vegas have gotten my attention. Nowhere near a Columbine level, but they peaked. Cho being so silent and so creepy may be what did it for VT, but Paddock in Las Vegas just had such a high count and left me (and lots of other people) wondering exactly why he did it, HOW he did it, what drove him to it, why there and then, etc. Its the closest to “Columbine level mysterious” I think I’ve found.

But, that’s the big three for me.

Columbine was what drew me into this sort of research in the first place. But I haven’t cared about Columbine in years. Now I mostly research parkland, sandy hook, and other shootings like that

I've been interested in many cases, but Columbine somehow stuck with me and whenever I think I'll drop it for a while, it always comes back. That's probably because I discovered it during my last year of high school, right before graduation, and I was a very troubled kid, most of the time pretending to be alright.

But yeah, I've been really into researching the circumstances of the 2015 Paris terrorist attack that occurred in Bataclan during EODM concert because I felt personally intimidated, since the target was my referent group and fellow musicians. That case gave me humongous creeps!

I also like to research a certain Japanese cases such as Tsutomu Miyazaki's murders, Junko Furuta case, Nevada Tan, Aum Shinrikyo crimes or older crimes and mysterious cases such as Manson family murders, Dyatlov pass incident, etc.

No other shooting interests me. They're all Columbine offshoot to me. I used to be into the Dyatlov Pass incident though.

Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Kerch Polytechnic College massacre and Suzano school shooting.

-Anders Breivik

-Brenton Tarrant

Elliot Rodger, Parkland, Dylann Roof, Sandy Hook & Anders Behring Breivik

Isla vista 2014, Dawson college, Sandy Hook and Las Vegas.

N/A

The Virginia Tech Shooting, just because Cho's level of deliriousness and mysteriousness is so weird, it is literally the deadliest school shooting in American history but it is barely talked about, despite the fact that the failures are very apparent. His level of planning, and the level of deaths, and the slow but steady decline into complete madness and rage from what to others was nothing more than a sullen, shy, lonesome man who hadn't discovered himself, not a person that wanted to murder random people, and definitely not one that said the incoherent things said in his 'manifesto'.