Chalkboard Thoughts

       Cynthia M. Johnson was born on January 31st, 1961 to Pearl and Roy Johnson Sr.    Pearl and Roy divorced sometime along the way. Pearl remarried a man named Florine Volpe.    On October 30th, 1977, 16 year old Cynthia  Johnson left her home at 9157 Garfield Boulevard in Garfield Heights, Ohio, at about 7 p.m. with a friend. She told her mother that she would be back around 11 p.m. They went walking east down Garfield Avenue. It would have been dark out then. But they were together and that felt safe enough.     Sixteen year old Cynthia told her friend, Terese Perchinske, that she was going to meet a 39 year old male friend of her step father. The pair had met up several times in the past according to Terese and several other friends of Cynthia’s. The two were planning to meet up at a parking lot near Garfield and Turney. It wasn’t far from Cynthia’s home.   Terese said that she walked with Cynth...

     In an apartment above the Silver Dollar Saloon in Petersburg, a fire was set on September 11th, 1994. This was years before THE  9/11. That date did not carry the tragic memories and connotations that it does now. But 9/11/1994 was incredibly tragic for two Petersburg families.  Downtown Petersburg, Indiana   Firefighters found two bodies within the burned apartment. Twenty three year old Angela Houston and five year old Cara Michelle Abell had died in the fire. Both died of smoke inhalation.     Fairly quickly it was found that the fire had been deliberately set. Why would someone want to kill Angela Houston and little Cara Abell?     A suspect was questioned. There was an article in the newspapers at the time about a local man who was allegedly jealous and wanted revenge. Ronald W. Flener thought his girlfriend had been too friendly with some other man who lived in that building, Howard Martin....

         Fans of bluegrass music have probably heard multiple versions of the song “Poor Ellen Smith” over the years. It’s a bluegrass standard and part of a long tradition of Appalachian Murder Ballads. (Don’t let anyone tell you that the interest in true crime stories is a fad. People have always been drawn to the genre.)     But, did you know that Ellen Smith was a real person?     Ellen Smith was a young woman who lived in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was a servant in the home of Mr. Kennie Rose of 5th Street.     On July 20th, 1892, she went out to a rural area for a picnic at a spring. It was a Wednesday and a good day for the young servant to have her day off. She and the fellow she was with might have eaten cold fried chicken, pickles, fruit and biscuits. They might have cooled their feet in the spring. They were seen seated on the grass. Ellen was sitting upright and her date w...