The Great Convenience Store Stickup

Please don't ever start doing dope...

By Robert A. Waters

Back in school, you and your buddies used to make fun of Nancy Reagan's slogan, "Just say no." So simplistic, you said, snickering with all your friends. 

Since then, you've been in jail a half-dozen times, and you just got out of prison a few hours ago. You've never been able to hold a job. You beat up every girlfriend you ever had when she attempted to leave your sorry ass. Your dad tried helping when you were young. He'd been in Nam and knew what real problems could be. Now every time you look into his sad old eyes, you feel utterly ashamed.

But that craving is still there, and it's only getting worse. The few dollars you got when you were released from prison have already vanished. You need more money. If you don't score some meth, you feel like you'll die. 

Your old prison buddy, who got out a few days before you, loaned you a beat-up little .22-caliber Saturday Night Special. It seems fragile, like it's missing a couple of pieces. 

It's only four in the afternoon, but you walk across the street from your dad's house and enter the store. Chips, candy, beer, you're not interested. You also don't notice that the surveillance video is state-of-the-art and covers every square inch of the place, inside and out.

A girl stands behind the counter. Got on a green jacket with the business logo. Straight brunette hair, can't be more than twenty. You walk up and stick the pistol in her face. "Gimme the money," you snarl. Her face drains white and she fumbles with the register. "Don't shoot," she whispers. You sweep the gun down, the barrel pointing at the till. She's panicking now, banging the keys with her fingers when all of a sudden the drawer pops open. Sounds like a gunshot. 

The girl grabs a bunch of bills and hands them to you. "That ain't enough," you say. "Open the safe." 

"It's time-stamped," she murmurs. "Please don't shoot me," she says. "I got a little boy. My husband..." 

"Gimme the rest of the money. Now!" 

"I can't."

You point the barrel at her face and cock the gun. Now you feel that same rage you felt when your girlfriends tried to leave. The clerk whimpers out one more word. "Plee-eease...."

When you squeeze the trigger, the gun barely makes any sound. A faraway car backfires. The girl staggers back, a smear of blood on her shirt. Her face looks like she can't believe this is happening. Then she drops like a stone onto the floor.

Oh Jesus, what am I gonna do now?

You finally notice the video behind the counter. You point the gun at it and try to fire at the camera. But your pistol disintegrates. Half of it drops to the floor, you're just standing there holding the grip.

Finally, what little mind you have left tells you to leave.

But as you rush out, a young couple walks in. They nod at you, they're friends with your dad.

You don't have long. You race to your dealer who lives around the corner and hand him the wad of cash. 63 bucks. He places a baggie in your hand. "Get out!" he screams.

You run back to your old man's house. He's lying on the couch, not moving. It's like he's either dead or zoning you out--like he doesn't want to even think about you and your perpetual crises...You run into your bedroom and lock the door.

You've got to get that rush before police arrive.

Suddenly, the door crashes in and someone kicks that baggie out of your hand. That fat cop you hate the most yanks your arms behind your back and cuffs you. Then he wrenches your shoulder up until you scream. 

He laughs.

You never even got that last high.

This is a composite of many convenience store robberies I've studied. With the exception of a couple of cases that were sexually motivated where the robbers kidnapped a female clerk, all were drug-related. In most cases, the robber does something stupid, like having a decrepit gun that disintegrates. He's almost always caught within a few hours. 

Dope has infiltrated our culture so that a large percentage of the population think it's cool to get high. More than 100,000 Americans OD every year. These are real lives, real people who died senseless deaths. And real families that will forever live with the heartache of needless loss.

It's only getting worse.

I'm afraid for my country.

I'm afraid for my grandkids.

If you believe in prayer, pray hard that this curse can be eradicated.

If you don't pray, teach your kids to "just say no." Yeah, it's kinda hokey. But it just might save someone's life.

The Case That Was So Horrific It Could Never Go To Trial

Was Justice Served for Madeline Soto?

By Robert A. Waters

"I'm pretty sure this was all an accident. I'm not sure that any one person [is to blame]. Maybe no one's to blame or everyone's to blame a little bit." Stephan Sterns speaking about how Madeline Soto (pictured) died. NOTE: Sterns murdered her.

It's hard to say who was running the asylum in Kissimmee, Florida.

There was Jennifer Soto. She rarely worked and when she did, she had to make sure she didn't earn enough so that her disability payments would be revoked. The asylum was a pill dump--everyone in the "family" of three seemed to be overly-medicated much of the time. Jenn, as she liked to be called, took sleeping pills for comfort. If she didn't want to face a problem, why not gulp down a benzodiazepine or two? She also had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. That required additional meds. Drugs were everywhere in the home.

The "family" lived in a 2200 square foot townhouse. It had four bedrooms. Jenn's father owned the place and even his daughter was forced to pay rent to live there. There were two female renters in the rooms upstairs. There was one kitchen that everyone used and a bathroom on  each floor.

The whole situation invited chaos.

Madeline Soto, Jennifer's daughter, had a make-shift bedroom she rarely used. A teenager, she still slept with Jenn, and sometimes Jenn and Stephan. On the night she was murdered, Jenn sent Maddie upstairs to sleep with her boyfriend while she (Jenn) slept. So what could go wrong?

Maddie's father lived a thousand miles away in Texas. So she had gown up in the chaos. Maddie had fought her way through 13 years, being force-fed pills just to exist. Like mother, like daughter. Jennifer claimed that Madeline had ADHD--attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Due to the drugs Jennifer gave her, Madeline sometimes could not stay awake in class. 

On Sunday, February 22, Madeline went to her grandmother's house to celebrate her 13th birthday. (Her mother had to work that day and couldn't attend.) Maddie came home in the late afternoon to find her mother's boyfriend waiting.

Stephan Sterns, 37, was a snake. He lived upstairs in Room 4. Like Jenn, he almost never worked. He bragged to her that at any time he could manipulate his parents into giving him money. And if they wouldn't hand over the cash, he would steal it, he said. He had actually stolen his father's Rolex watch. Sterns' parents lived two hours away. Sterns loved vaping, and playing Warhammer games and wearing his cap backward like a 1980s teenaged nerd. He seemed to think he looked cool. He collected trading cards and figurines, Tamagotchis and Battletech. He was so creepy that almost everyone of Jenn's friends who met him warned her to get him out of her life.

But for some reason, she ignored the advice.

Like Jenn and Maddie, Sterns took medication to sleep and for anxiety.

He had a secret. A dark deadly secret that had festered for years inside Room 4. The room was equipped with several inside door locks so no one would find out the secret. For at least five years, Sterns had been raping Maddie. Sometimes he doubled her sleeping pills so he could molest her while she was unconscious. Other times, he blackmailed her into succumbing to his dark desires. Or he would tell her he loved her, playing on her naivete to form an emotional pathway for sexual exploitation. 

Shortly after Maddie returned from her party, Sterns strangled her to death. Panicking, he drove her body around for hours looking for a place to dump it. Eventually, he found a row of out-of-the-way bamboo trees on private property off Hickory Tree Road in Osceola County. Five days after Maddie went missing, cops found her remains there.

In this era of amateur YouTube detectives, millions of viewers across the world learned details about Maddie's case. (I'm not putting the YouTubers down, just stating a fact.)

After recovering Maddie's body, Kissimmee PD took the lead in the investigation. Detectives had already arrested Sterns on 60 counts of sexual battery, molestation and child pornography. In addition to 1,700 images of Maddie being violated in every way possible, cops found a hard drive owned by Sterns that contained 35,000 images of random sexual acts with children. While the original charges consisted of Sterns raping Maddie, the 35,000 images on the hard drive were likely picked up off the internet. Cops think those images may have been bought and sold. Since Sterns rarely worked but always seemed to have cash to buy expensive figurines, many have conjectured that he sold those vile images via the internet.

A few weeks after Maddie's body was found, Sterns was charged with first degree murder. Prosecutors said they planned to seek the death penalty.

But the court cases never got that far. The prospect of 12 jurors watching 1,700 images of Maddie being raped was too much even for Sterns. Had he allowed those images to be seen, he wouldn't have a chance in prison. His lawyers persuaded him to plead guilty. In that way, he could avoid the death penalty and no one else would view the horrific things he did to Maddie.

On July 21, 2025, Sterns pleaded no contest to the murder charge and guilty to the sex abuse charges. He was sentenced to 21 life sentences with no chance for parole.

One major question remains. What caused Sterns to murder Maddie? Even after pleading "no contest" for her murder, he never told the reason.

Many theories have emerged. Some analysts say he "outgrew" her. According to this theory, molesters have a certain age preference. Maddie no longer looked like a child. She was a teenager fast becoming an adult. Did that turn Stephan off? Possibly. Would it have made him kill her? I doubt it.

It's more likely that Maddie threatened to expose her abuser. She had told friends that when she turned 13 she planned to go "live in the woods." That may have been a coded way of saying she wanted to end the abuse. I can imagine a scenario of Maddie confronting Sterns. Social scientists who study domestic violence have determined that ending a relationship can be a very dangerous time. What if Maddie informed Sterns that she planned to tell her mom about the hell she had suffered over the years. He knew the end of Maddie's silence would mean he would be imprisoned for life. In his mind, that could never happen. So the only viable alternative for him to continue his life as he knew it would be to murder his long-time victim.

One other scenario strikes me as plausible. What if Maddie was pregnant? Or maybe she thought she was pregnant? It is possible that Maddie had been brainwashed into thinking she was in a romantic relationship with Sterns. While this is despicable to think about, it's happened before. 

According to one of Maddie's girlfriends at school, they kept track of their periods together. They had started menstruating about the same time so they talked about it occasionally. Approximately two months before she was murdered, her friend told detectives that Maddie's periods had stopped. She may have told Sterns she was pregnant with his child. While she might have been ecstatic about having his baby, he would have been crushed. He knew the end had come. Murder, as Sterns saw it, was the only option.

One other fact supports this theory.

Cops found emails on the phones of Maddie and Sterns in which she pressured him to buy "mom," "dad," and "baby" tokens.

If Maddie was indeed pregnant, the information isn't likely to be released any time soon. But those tokens are certainly intriguing.

Some of the YouTube channels I used while researching this story:

The Fish Tank: Gavin Fish

Grizzly: Gisela

Nancy Grace

Vinnie Politan: Court TV.

Facing the Firing Squad

Victim Maurine Hunsaker

40 Years Later, It's Finally Time to Pay

By Robert A. Waters

Ralph Menzies looks like anyone's grandpa. Slightly overweight, maybe a little sickly, but probably nice enough. If you saw him in Walmart, you might nod.

You wouldn't know that from his youth Menzies could never stay out of prison for more than a few days at any given time. For his final crime, he kidnapped, tortured, robbed and murdered a completely innocent woman.

So now this kindly-looking old man faces a firing squad.

A lot of people say he's too old to be shot to death. Not only that, he had a crappy childhood. And he might have mental issues. And, even worse, he may have dementia.

Others say it's been a long time coming, that 40 years is too long for a family to have to wait for justice to be served.

On February 23, 1986, Maurine Hunsaker, 26, went to work at the Gas a Mat service station in Kearns, Utah. As a clerk, her job was to see that customers got gas in their vehicles and bought candy and cold drinks and beer if they wanted to. She may never have even realized that working in such a business is one of the most dangerous jobs in America.

The Salt Lake City Tribune reported that "Menzies is accused of killing Mrs. Hunsaker the morning after she disappeared from her job at a Kearns area self-service gas station February 23. A hiker found her body February 25 near a picnic area on Storm Mountain in Big Cottonwood Canyon."

Menzies had been out of prison for just three days. Instead of trying to find work, he decided to rob a store to get a few bucks for drugs. It was just the luck of the draw that he chose the place where Maurine worked.  

A staff writer for the Tribune wrote that "convicted killer Ralph LeRoy Menzies is an incurable psychopath who should die not just for the murder of Maurine Hunsaker but for his life of crime, prosecutors say."

As a juvenile, Menzies had a rap sheet five pages long. In 1976, just hours after being released from custody for other crimes he robbed a 7-11 convenience store. Two years later, he shot-gunned a cab driver. Had he been jailed for the rest of his life for either of those crimes, Maurine Hunsaker would likely have been able to live her life.

Instead, Menzies played the system. After he kidnapped Maurine, he allowed her to call her husband and tell him that she would be released later. Then Menzies used a long-bladed knife to stab her to death.

Menzies is scheduled to die September 5. 

Maurine's son Matt, who was just ten-years-old when his mother was killed, has long complained about the length of time it takes for an execution to take place. Betty Sudweeks, Hunsaker's mother, recently stated that she is bitter at the system for the dozens and dozens of delays. "Maurine had a very lovely family," Sudweeks said, "and a husband she adored. She had everything to live for."

Ralph Menzies got $116.00 for the robbery.

Who Murdered Eddie Gaedel?

Midget Played in the Major Leagues

By Robert A. Waters

In 1951, baseball was still king. Every day in the summertime, massive crowds showed up to see the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers, and other great teams. But there were also ne'er-do-well organizations such as the St. Louis Browns, teams that had never gotten a whiff of a pennant or, God forbid, a World Series. Since he was unable to hire a team of winners, Bill Veeck, owner of the Browns, turned to promoting stunts to gain paying crowds.

His most successful stunt featured a 3-foot 7-inch midget named Eddie Gaedel. On the scorching hot day of August 19, 1951, the Browns were playing a double-header with the Detroit Tigers. As usual, the Browns lost the first game 7 to 2. In between the first and second game, Veeck's ground crew rolled a massive papier-mache cake onto the field. The 18,000 fans in attendance suddenly became excited--another wild feat was coming, they could feel it in their bones.

As the Tigers began getting ready for the second game, catcher Bob Swift took warm-up tosses from pitcher Bob Cain. Umpire Ed Hurley stood behind Swift ready to call the balls and strikes.

Then it happened. As the two bottom-dwelling teams got ready to play, a door in the papier-mache cake popped open and out stepped Eddie Gaedel. Half the size of most players, wearing an official Browns uniform with the fraction "1/8" written across the back, manager Zack Taylor walked to the umpire and stated that Eddie Gaedel would pinch hit for the scheduled number one hitter, Frank Saucier.

Gaedel, a showman, strutted toward home plate holding a child's bat.

The crowd, throbbing with excitement, erupted in laughter.

Umpire Hurley called Veeck and manager Taylor to him. This man is not a professional player, Hurley said. He will not be allowed to hit. Veeck quickly pulled out documents proving Gaedel was a member of the team. The doubtful umpire had no choice, the diminutive batter could play.

Gaedel stepped up to the plate. Veeck had warned him not to swing, to just crouch down and hold the bat on his shoulder. The crowd was standing now, ready to see the stunt play out. Pitcher Cain reared back and threw a fastball to the catcher. "Ball!" roared the ump. Too high. A second pitch was also a ball. Every time Hurley yelled "Ball," the crowds screamed. 

After ball four, Gaedel began jogging toward first base. He stopped twice and curtseyed for the crowds. Pandemonium set in. Gaedel reached first base and stood there. Manager Taylor then put in a pinch runner for Gaedel. As the midget headed to the dugout, the crowds gave him a prolonged and raucous standing ovation. 

Then it was over. As usual, the Browns lost the game. But nobody cared. Each fan would remember this game for the rest of their lives.

Eddie Gaedel was born in Chicago to a poor family. Whether it was due to people making fun of him because of his height, or a Napoleanic complex, he developed a surly personality. That, along with a yearning for juke joints and booze, made the little man a target for bullies. Even though he never won, our one-day hero always seemed to be itching for a fight.

Gaedel fought his last bout on June 18, 1961, ten years after he made baseball history. The Chicago Times reported that "an inquest has been ordered into the death of Edward Gaedel, the only midget ever to play baseball in the major leagues. He was 36 years old. The inquest was ordered after police noted bruises around the knees and on the left side of Mr. Gaedel's face after his body was discovered in the bedroom of his South side apartment Sunday." In addition to the wounds suffered by Gaedel, an autopsy showed that he died of a heart attack.

Rumor suggested that Gaedel was last seen at a bowling alley being followed by four ruffians. Reporters speculated that these men robbed him.

This story disappeared from the newspapers faster than Eddie Gaedel disappeared from major league baseball. While searching many newspapers, I could never find additional information about the murder investigation into his death. Did the cops drop the case after learning of Gaedel's heart attack? That might make it difficult to convict an assailant, so investigators may have decided to deep-six the case. 

The only major league player to attend Eddie Gaedel's funeral was Bob Cain, the pitcher who walked him. "I felt obligated," Cain told reporters.

Blue Monday--The Day Fats Domino Disappeared

Rock 'n' Roll Legend Went Missing for 3 Days

By Robert A. Waters

On August 23, 2005, a storm formed near the Bahama Islands in the Bermuda Triangle. It moved fast, striking just north of Miami on the evening of the 25th. The roiling clouds and driving rains screamed across Florida with winds of 80 miles-per-hour. Twenty inches of rain soaked the Sunshine State. The storm kept drifting west, into the Gulf of Mexico. Once there, winds rose to 175 miles per hour and became a waterlogged thorn in the side of weathercasters. Where would it land?

On the night of Monday, August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina stopped playing games with the news crews. It smashed up on the southern shore of Louisiana. With winds now at 140 miles per hour and a storm surge of 27 feet, much of the city of New Orleans was doomed. Dikes broke, flooding obliterated thousands of homes and businesses, and more than 1,500 residents of Louisiana died. Twenty-four hours later, as the storm rolled out of the "Big Easy," it left a massive hole of devastation behind.

Many people disappeared, some never to be seen again. Among those who vanished was the famous singer, Antoine "Fats" Domino.

The Ponderosa Stomp Foundation wrote that "New Orleans' biggest musical export since Louis Armstrong, [Fats] Domino, sold more records from 1956 to 1963 than anyone but Elvis Presley and could have lived anywhere. He chose, when not on tour, to stay in the neighborhood he grew up in, holding court over heaping pots of red beans and rice in a living room with a grand piano and a couch made from the back of a vintage Cadillac. Musicians, neighbors, relatives, and visiting dignitaries were in and out the door over the decades." (Domino's home is pictured below.)

As the storm blew in, Domino called his agent. The singer stated he planned to "ride out" Katrina with his disabled wife, Rosemary.

Then he went silent.

Antoine Dominique Domino, Jr. was born February 26, 1928 in New Orleans. He learned the piano as a child and started playing local clubs in his teenaged years. In 1949, he released his first record, "The Fat Man." It sold over a million copies. Fats was on his way to fame and fortune. Hits such as "My Girl Josephine," "Blue Monday," and the classic, "Blueberry Hill," continued to chart. 

Domino lived in the Lower Ninth Ward at 1208 Caffin Avenue. His home lay directly in the path of Katrina. Throughout the night, winds roared and rain shot like volleys of bullets in the  darkness. The Domino home began taking water early. As the water rose in the house, Fats and Rosemary clambered upstairs to the second floor. 

Six feet, eight feet, ten feet, the flood continued to rise. By now, Fats and Rosemary feared they would die. Looking below, the world-famous musician could see his possessions floating around his home. His expensive white Steinway piano lay on its side, covered by the flood. It's legs and keys were never found.

When morning broke, the streets surrounding the Domino home were empty, except for floating corpses. Ten feet of water sloshed through the neighborhood, drowning many homes in the area. Late that afternoon, the United States Coast Guard began sending rescue crews out in small boats and helicopters.

No one could get hold of Fats. For three days, he remained missing. Fans of the singer grieved, sure he'd perished. Someone even painted "RIP Fats You Will Be Missed" on the front of his home.

Major news outlets, including CNN and Fox News, reported that the famous singer was missing and feared dead. His agent told reporters he had not heard from Fats for three days.

Finally, on September 1, CNN reported that Fats and his wife had been rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter. This was confirmed by his agent. The couple had climbed onto the roof to escape death. They were currently staying in a safe part of the city with their daughter's boyfriend.

Fats lost all his gold records and his National Medal of Arts award in the storm. 

One of the earliest members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Fats was also inducted into the National Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame and the Louisiana Hall of Fame. Over his career, it is estimated that the much-loved artist sold almost one hundred million records.

After Katrina, Fats never rebuilt his New Orleans home. He and Rosemary moved to Harvey, Louisiana. He died on October 24, 2017. He was 89-years-old. His beloved wife had preceded him in death.

His world-famous Steinway was restored and is currently on display at the New Orleans Jazz Museum.

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