Katfish ponders: A true-crime blogger in the 'Burg
By Mike Kroll
The Zephyr, Galesburg, Ill.,
November 5, 2009
There are
few places guaranteed to offer compelling drama in a real-life setting. One
such place is a criminal courtroom in the midst of a capital murder trial, or
even its preliminary stages. While this is typically the haunt of lawyers,
judges and the press plus the victim's family and friends it is also common to
find the courtroom junkies. In jurisdictions like Knox County there are very
few actual criminal trials (as the vast majority of criminal cases are plead
out) but every once in a while there is that scandalous and ghastly crime that
captures the imaginations of people even continents away, the alleged murder
spree of Nicholas Sheley IS one of those cases.
Sheley stands accused of a weekend spree of murders in June
2008 that took place in two states and left eight bodies, including that of a
Galesburg man found behind the East Main Street Hy-Vee food store. It is now 17
months since the crimes and Sheley's arrest and the
accused currently calls the Knox County Jail home as he awaits trial for the
bludgeoning death of Ronald Randall. During his incarceration in the jail, Sheley managed to get into a major fight this past April so
his first Knox County trial and conviction wasn't for Randall's murder.
As Sheley was sentenced to seven years in prison last week one
of the most avid spectators in that courtroom was Kathy Fisher of Knoxville.
Fisher is well known among on-line crime fans as Katfish
Ponder because of the blog she created (katfishponders.blogspot.com) where she
has followed the Sheley case closer than many
newspapers and reports in detail to her loyal readers.
“I have
been interested in crime stories ever since I was a kid reading those true
crime magazines,” explains Fisher. “As an adult I experienced some major health
issues that forced me to retire early but I still needed a constructive way to
spend my time and apply my mind.”
As she
recuperated Fisher began to watch the do-it-yourself cable TV channels and soon
she was into remodeling her home. “But I quickly discovered that remodeling was
expensive and physically demanding and then my husband had some major health
problems of his own. I needed another hobby and I turned to Court TV.”
Fisher was
quickly hooked. First on the compelling courtroom drama and then on the
detailed true crime blogs she discovered on the Internet. She found out that
she could literally immerse herself in all the details of a criminal event. She
got to know criminals, victims, lawyers, police officers and judges as they
played out their roles in the crimes she followed on television and the
Internet. She would get so intimately involved with the cases that she found
gavel-to-gavel coverage of some to be more emotionally wrenching than even she
could bear.
“My husband
thinks I'm kind of crazy watching all these trials on TV and the Internet and
then going to the courthouse to follow Sheley. He
sees all this as dark and depressing and says he will stick with his old
westerns. But he understands that this is my hobby.”
Before Sheley's arrest and the subsequent hearings in Knox County
Circuit Court Fisher had never attended an actual court proceeding in person.
She had watched hours upon hours of televised courtroom activity on Court TV
until that cable channel redefined itself last year. It was then that she first
began watching streaming video of courtroom action over the Internet, something
that still captures much of her time. “There was nothing like the 'in the
courtroom feel' of televised trials until I began attending real courtroom
trials myself.” But almost no one has been a more dedicated attendee of the
many various hearings regarding Sheley than Fisher.
“From the
beginning family and friends of Ronald Randall have conscientiously attended
hearings along with a number of regular newspaper, radio and television
reporters. I have come to know all the principals involved in the Sheley case, his defense lawyers, the prosecuting
attorneys, and the judges. I try to take meticulous notes in the courtroom and
I have done a lot of legal research so I now feel pretty comfortable with the
legal jargon. I want my blog to be an accurate and objective record of what
goes on in court and to that end I try to keep my own feelings out of it as
much as possible.”
“I see
myself as sort of the thirteenth juror and I eagerly wait for the next
development in the case. We haven't even gotten to the main trial yet and I
have already attended more hearing than I can count and read nearly all of the
legal paperwork that has been exchanged between the parties. I have learned
that getting this involved in a court case is not an inexpensive matter as I
must pay for copies of paperwork-- but it is still less expensive than
redecorating.”
Fisher
started her blog on August 30, 2008 and now 14 months later she has attracted
quite a following. “I find myself spending lots of time just looking at the
statistics of visitors to my site and of the over 10,000 unique visitors more
than one-quarter regularly return. I want to do a good job for those that read
my blog and yeah, I want to keep increasing those readers too.”
Many
involved in the legal system become cynical and jaded and begin to question
just how often justice is actually done in America's court system, but not
Kathy Fisher. “I'm not always happy with the system but I do believe that most
of the time the system works and I don't have any doubt that justice will be
done in the Sheley case. Hung juries are one of my
pet peeves but my biggest problem with the system is all the delays. In too
many cases I have found that these delays are more for the comfort and
convenience of judges and attorneys than legal necessities of the process.
Delayed justice is better than no justice be we could do better.