Talk:William Heirens

message: I have read many books about the case of William Heirens. In fact, I have my copy of Crimes and Punishment: A Pictorial Encyclopedia of Aberrant Behavior Volume 16 sitting next to me as I type this. On p. 84-85 it discusses some of the evidence in the three murders.
The focus of this article seems to be on the third case of murder, to the detriment of the first two.
According to Crimes and Punishment, the bloody fingerprint left at the sight of the second murder was not the only one. Several fingerprints of Heinren's were found at the crime scenes, particularly the second. I believe I have read the same in others, but will not state it since I do not have those references available at the moment.
The article does not address, in any way, William Heirens' underwear collection, or that many of his burglaries were to obtain woman's undergarments. It is difficult to understand the man if all factors are not considered, even though the underwear found in his home was discovered illegally. Opinion: The first two victims may well have surprised Heinrens in his activities and paid the price of his panicked mind.
In the case of the first two murders, the blood was washed off the bodies. This is not mentioned, even though it is a fact of the case.
I agree that it is unlikely that Heinrens killed Suzanne Degnan. Not simply because of the evidence, but because it would have been a massive change in his criminal pattern, and one that occurred without any interim or escalating stages. 
However much the author may wish otherwise, the way the article is written comes across as both weasel-worded and biased in favor of William Heirens. The way it reads does not present a balanced view of all the known facts, and leans far too heavily on the third case.
*****
Crimes and Punishment: An Encyclopedia of Abberant Behavior Edited by Jackson Morley
Advising Editorial Board: H. Montgomery Hyde, Colin Wilson, C. H. Rolph, J. H. H. Gaute, Nigel Moreland
copyright BPC Publishing Limited
And Credit Services Inc. 1974  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Condorcandi (talk • contribs) 07:27, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of Data 

message: Josephine Ross text here:
* police unable to identify or locate him.            Not so much information here
Frances Brown  text here:
* nightclerkwitness:35–40 years old and weighing approximately 140 pounds had got off the elevator
* year 45 minus birth date 28= 17 not age 35-40
Suzanne Degnan text here:
* He described the man as around 5'9" tall, 170 lbs and 35 years of age and wearing a light coloured fedora and dark coat
* year 46 minus birth date 28= 18 not 35 years old
The age difference is too big and agreed thre's not enough information here  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.151.35.218 (talk) 19:45, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The estimated ages are those given by the witnesses to police. There is no requirement that they be adjusted to match Heirens age. Wayne (talk) 08:55, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eye witness age mismatch 

message: This writer(s) of this article seem totally covinced of his innocence. While he may be innocent, we don't know so a more balanced article should be attempted by someone on the other side
173.165.104.27 (talk) 12:32, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I cant see anything not supported by reliable sources, you need to point out what is unbalanced specifically. It is not an indication of imbalance for an article to lean to innocence. We can only use what the sources give us and if that makes the article lean in a particular direction then so be it. Wayne (talk) 09:03, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It is also not an indication of balance, because you can't see anything wrong with it. There is. I just removed a sentence that claimed that "many remain convinced of his innocence" which in and of itself is a weasel-way of putting things since there is no definition of "many". Are we talking about more or less than half the population? There's no way to quantify this assessment. Ultimately, it turned out that the source didn't even use the phrase, but only spoke of "those that remain convinced of his innocence" - not even a slight indication regarding the quantity of this group of people. Apart from all of that, it's non-information. There are always doubters. Every murderer will have people vouching for their innocence years after their conviction. That is no information, but mere noise in favor to paint a nicer picture of a convicted killer that wasn't even paroled when he was a frail old man.92.73.150.160 (talk) 17:58, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: POV Unbalanced

message: The article makes a fairly radical claim that an alternate suspect, Richard Russell Thomas, actually confessed to the Degnan murder before Heirens was convicted. I found that pretty shocking, so I followed the citation, but I couldn't find any mention of this confession in the linked Tucson Weekly article. 
I don't want to change the information if it's accurate, but wanted to bring it to someone's attention for further research.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.195.61.79 (talk) 23:06, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Richard Russell Thomas "Confession" 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: It is not possible that an autopsy report could show "that she had been alive when taken from her home, murdered at a second location that was never identified, and then taken to the laundry room".Royalcourtier (talk) 00:27, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Limitations of autopsy reports 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: ...when someone/some group of people have put so much work in, but the article is grossly overdetailed to the point of being unreadable. Somewhere in here is a readable, balanced article struggling to get out. EEng 18:14, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  I always hate to say this...