Why we start with records, not stories
Most people first meet a criminal case through a headline, a podcast episode or a documentary. Those formats are built around suspense: a hook, a reveal, a resolution. Public records are built around procedure. A docket lists what was filed and when. A judgment explains what a court decided and why. An inquiry report sets out what a public body found and what it could not determine. Reconstructing a case means working from the procedural layer outward, so that narrative never runs ahead of what was established.
This matters because the people in these records are real. A victim's family may read a timeline years later. A person who was arrested and never charged may still be searchable by name. Getting the sequence wrong, or treating an early suspicion as settled fact, causes harm that a correction cannot fully undo.
The five record types we rely on
| Record | Typical source | Reliability notes |
|---|---|---|
| Court dockets | PACER (U.S. federal courts); state court portals | Shows filings and dates; does not show the truth of allegations. |
| Judgments and appellate opinions | Find Case Law (The National Archives, UK); court websites; BAILII | Most authoritative statement of what a court found. |
| Official inquiry reports | Inspectors general, public inquiries, coroners | Detailed but scoped; read the terms of reference. |
| Agency statements | Police, prosecutors, the U.S. Department of Justice | Accurate on procedure; may reflect one party's position. |
| Contemporaneous press | Established news outlets | Useful for context; verify against primary records. |
A five-step reconstruction method
- Fix the jurisdiction. Identify the court, county or country. Procedure differs sharply between, for example, a California superior court and the Crown Court in England and Wales.
- Anchor the dates. Build the skeleton from dated filings: arrest, charge, arraignment, plea or verdict, sentence, appeal.
- Attach a source to every line. If a line has no document behind it, it is either removed or marked as reported but unconfirmed.
- Apply a status label. Each person named receives the label the record supports at that date, which may change later in the timeline.
- List the open questions. A reliable reconstruction ends by naming what the record does not answer.
Worked timeline: Golden State Killer, California
Convicted by plea Jurisdiction: Sacramento County Superior Court, with victims across multiple California counties.
- Arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo after a genetic genealogy lead and confirmatory DNA testing, announced by the Sacramento County District Attorney.
- Guilty pleas to 13 counts of first-degree murder and a number of kidnapping-related charges; additional uncharged crimes admitted under the agreement.
- Sentenced to multiple consecutive life terms without parole following victim impact statements.
What the record does not settle: the plea resolved the charges, so many factual disputes were never tested at trial. Statements describing the full scope of offences rest on the plea agreement and prosecutors' filings.
Worked timeline: the Central Park jogger case, New York
Convictions vacated Jurisdiction: New York County (Manhattan) courts.
- Five teenagers, Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise, are convicted in trials that relied heavily on contested confessions.
- Matias Reyes confesses to the assault; DNA evidence matches him. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office supports vacating the convictions, and the court vacates them in December.
- New York City settles the civil rights lawsuit brought by the five men.
This case shows why a conviction label is never the final word, and why we keep vacated and exonerated statuses as prominent as the original verdicts.
The 2002 affirmation filed by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office in support of vacatur is the key primary document; it is the basis for our later timeline entries.
The original convictions rested chiefly on confessions the men later said were coerced. The 2002 review relied on DNA and Reyes's confession.
The case is listed by the National Registry of Exonerations and is frequently cited in research on false confessions involving juveniles.
Common reconstruction errors
Treating an arrest date as a "solved" date
An arrest begins a legal process; it does not conclude one. We avoid the word "solved" unless a conviction stands.
Merging separate jurisdictions into one timeline
Multi-state or multi-county cases may involve different charges and outcomes in each court. We keep them as separate strands.
Quoting allegations as facts
An indictment contains allegations. We quote them as such and attribute them to the charging authority.
A reconstruction done this way is slower and less dramatic than a story told for suspense. It is also the version that holds up when a family member, a defence lawyer or a court reads it.