The Internet Can Kill

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By Kristal Hawkins

Trial and Freedom

Rachelle Waterman was charged in Juneau in January, 2006, with seven counts, including first degree murder and conspiracy. This could have meant up to 99 years in prison.

Rachelle Waterman

The jury deadlocked, voting 10-2 to acquit Rachelle and stalling there. The jurors don't seem to have put high stock in Rachelle's own credibility. But most of them found Arrant's damning testimony even less persuasive, and, curiously, they were also unconvinced by Rachellle's own confession, believing that it might have been coerced by the state troopers and did not definitively prove that she played a part in planning her mother's murder.

The presiding judge, Patricia Collins of the Superior Court, ultimately threw the multi-count indictment out—and ruled that the videotaped confession was not admissible as evidence. The prosecution could have appealed, but never did.

Rachelle Waterman is free and evidently still blogging from Idaho at http://smchyrocky.livejournal.com/. And she's far from the only blogger with a dark side, as the troubling case of cannibalistic killer Kevin Ray Underwood shows.