by Darcia Helle

Justice Blackmun: “Rather than continue to coddle the Court’s delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.”

We like to say that “Justice is blind”, but justice is decided upon and meted out by people, and people are not flawless, unbiased machines. To ensure fairness, we have trials with lawyers and a “jury of our peers”. On the surface, this seems to offer an even balance for the accused and the accuser. The jury hears all the facts and no one person gets to decide a person’s fate. The letter of the law and justice prevails. An ideal system when it works. The problem is that the very same laws meant to protect the innocent sometimes hurt them instead. Jurors do not get to hear all the evidence, and what they do hear is interpreted by lawyers with an agenda. Sometimes those lawyers want to get at the truth. Sometimes they just want to win. Judges sit at the top of this legal pyramid, complete with their own very human preconceptions, ideals, and biases. In the hands of the lawyers and judges, the law is surprisingly easy to either bend or hold rigid.

Aerosmith had it right when they wrote the song “Same Old Song and Dance”:

The judge let constipation go to his head

His wife’s aggravation, you’re soon enough dead.

This flawed system latched onto Edward Lee Elmore, and there he found that “innocent until proven guilty” is just a meaningless phrase.

Edward Elmore was born on January 13, 1959 in the poor, black section of the racially divided town of Abbeville, South Carolina. He grew up in an environment where black people were not equal to whites. People of color only entered the ‘white sections’ of town to work, where they were treated as not much better than slave labor.

Edward’s mother, Mary Ellen Gardner, had 13 children by five different men. Edward’s father is listed as Henry Elmore, though Edward’s heritage was always in doubt. Edward had lighter skin than his parents and a reddish tint to his hair. Because of this, his siblings and other children taunted him, claiming he must have a white father. Regardless, Henry Elmore was killed when Edward was just two years old, and thereafter his mother had a steady string of men visiting, none interested in being even a part-time father.

Mary drank a lot and did little to protect or nurture her children. Consequently, Edward and his siblings were left to fend for themselves in a hostile environment.

Edward’s family was poor in a way most of us can’t fathom. They moved frequently, either because of eviction or in order to avoid rent collectors. Many of their homes were little more than shacks, with no running water or electricity. The kids all picked peaches and cotton to help earn money, and they’d often spend days collecting cans to turn in for the deposits.

Climbing out of such squalid misery would have been a challenge for the smartest and most capable among us. For Edward, it would have been a miracle. When he started school at the age of six, he could not do the most basic tasks such as name colors or draw a stick figure. He spent three years in the first grade. He had a speech impediment, tics, and was teased for being slow and “dim-witted”. In second grade, his IQ measured a mere 61, classifying him with “mild mental retardation”.

Despite his inability to learn, teachers advanced him through to third and then fourth grade. In fifth grade, at 14 years old and reading at barely a second grade level, Edward tired of the teasing and dropped out of school.

As an adult, Edward was not able to live on his own. He had tremendous difficulty grasping simple concepts. He never learned to tell time and, in fact, could not even draw the face of a clock. He didn’t understand the basic compass directions of north, south, east and west. Nor did he understand the concept of seasons. Maintaining a checking account was impossible because he could not do the necessary basic math. Fortunately, Edward did have one thing in his favor. By all accounts, he was a hard worker, likable, and honest. Clarence Aiken, a local contractor, hired Edward as a handyman. The job was his salvation and, eventually, his undoing.

Edward did odd jobs for the local white residents. One of those residents was the widow Dorothy Ely Edwards. She had no complaints about his work or his behavior. Indeed, the opposite was true. Dorothy was so pleased with Edward’s work that she’d asked him to return in a couple of months to touch up some paint on the window frames. This was in December 1982. In mid-January, Dorothy’s dead body was found in her home, and Edward’s world came crashing down around him.

Dorothy Edwards had a close relationship with Jimmy Holloway, her next door neighbor. After Dorothy’s husband died, Jimmy took it upon himself to watch out for her. Dorothy gave him a key to her home, presumably for emergencies, though he seemed to use that key frequently. Jimmy’s wife didn’t drink alcohol, and so Jimmy would often go to Dorothy’s house to have a glass or two of sherry. Neighbors routinely witnessed him sneaking out his back door and scurrying across to Dorothy’s home. Many people thought there was more to Dorothy and Jimmy’s relationship, an assumption that fit with Jimmy’s reputation as a ladies’ man. There were whispers of an affair. But none of this was ever remotely questioned as the murder investigation unraveled, a fact made even more baffling given the circumstances in which her body was discovered.

On January, 18, 1982, Jimmy Holloway used his key to let himself into Dorothy Edward’s home because, he claimed, he was concerned for her welfare. He knew she’d planned to leave town, to meet her boyfriend whom she had talked about marrying. But her car was still in her driveway and she wasn’t answering her phone. There was no sign of forced entry but, inside the home, Jimmy found an array of warnings. In the kitchen, Dorothy’s coffee machine was on and all the coffee in the pot had burned down to nothing. A partial denture was on the floor and, a few feet away, a pair of needle-nose pliers. One drawer was left open, with a pair of long-neck metal thongs sticking out. An empty bottle of sherry sat on the counter next to a bowl of fruit. The rest of the kitchen was spotless.

Jimmy continued through the house. He found an isolated bloody shoeprint in the dining room. In the den, the TV was on, the volume way up. Dorothy’s reading glasses had been set on the TV Guide, left open the previous evening. Nothing had been disturbed.

Jimmy then moved on to Dorothy’s bedroom, where the alarm clock had been steadily beeping since early that morning. Assorted items, such as breath mints, batteries, and tissues, were strewn across the white carpet. A serrated cake spatula, its handle bloody, lay incongruously amidst perfectly aligned family photos on the dresser. The bed was neatly made, though pushed away from the wall and out of its normal position. A pool of blood saturated the carpet in front of Dorothy’s closet. The door was ajar. What Jimmy did next was odd, to say the least.

Jimmy Holloway did not turned off the empty coffee pot that was burning, he did not turn off the TV, he did not turn off the alarm clock, he did not open the closet door, and he did not call the police. Instead, Jimmy left the house and got a neighbor to return with him. Together they walked back through Dorothy’s house, with Jimmy pointing out all the oddities. Then, with the neighbor looking on, Jimmy nudged open the closet door. There they found Dorothy’s bloody body crammed inside. And finally Jimmy called the police.

From here, this story becomes so unbelievable, the incompetence so complete, that the events defy explanation. Police arrived on the scene and allowed Jimmy Holloway to give them the grand tour. He pointed out everything he’d found along the way, ending with Dorothy’s body. He then showed them Dorothy’s checkbook, which he found on a table in the foyer, and showed them the register. On December 30, a check for $43 had been made out to Edward Elmore. Jimmy explained to police that Edward was a black handyman who’d recently worked for Dorothy. He expressed his concerns about this black man in this white neighborhood, working for a wealthy widow all alone in her home. And that was all it took for cops to decide Edward Elmore was guilty of murder.

Jimmy Holloway was never questioned in regards to Dorothy Edwards’ murder. Their relationship was never looked into. Neighbors were not questioned. Jimmy’s odd behavior was never considered. He was not asked about an alibi. He was not once considered a suspect by the all-white police department.

But all that is just the tip of the insanity here. Evidence was overlooked, lost, and deliberately hidden if it did not fit with the detective’s determination to “hang” Edward Elmore as rapist, robber, and vicious murderer. This continued to be the story told, despite the unavoidable fact that nothing had been stolen, that the issue of rape was questionable at best, and that the evidence had to be manipulated and/or ignored in order to point at Edward as the killer.

Edward Elmore, a poor, uneducated, mentally-retarded black man in a racially backward town was given a white court-appointed attorney who’d already decided he was guilty. The details of his so-called trial would be laughable if the situation wasn’t tragic. Edward, in his child-like confusion, proclaimed his innocence. He was sentenced to death.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a condemned man claiming innocence to get a new trial.

This story easily could have ended this way, with Edward Elmore executed for a crime he did not commit. Had anyone along the way, from detectives to lawyers to judges, done his/her job properly, Edward’s innocence would have been obvious. But, not only did they not do their jobs properly, they did all they could to suppress evidence that would have exonerated Edward at the start. He was black, he was poor, and therefore he was guilty.

J. Christopher Jensen is a prestigious New York City corporate attorney who signed on to a program launched by the American Bar Association in 1986, which was recruiting lawyers to handle the appeals of death row inmates.

In a telling quote, Mr. Jensen compares Elmore’s case with that of O.J. Simpson:

“You want to draw a perfect parallel. Look at these two trials. Two guys charged with murder. No eyewitnesses.  Lots of forensic evidence – blood, fingerprints, hair. Elmore gets a three-day trial, no meaningful defense. Simpson’s goes on for months. Look what money gets you.”

Jensen eventually brought Diana Holt, a young defense attorney with a checkered past and unshakable idealism, into the case. Although Jensen was her Ms. Holt’s mentor, and as one of Elmore’s appeal lawyers, was there with her during the hearings, but she did most of the casework.

What Ms. Jensen went through would test anyone’s faith in our justice system. The case is far too complicated for me to adequately represent here. In Raymond Bonner’s book about the case, Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong, the author walks us through multiple appeals that were denied on technicalities of law, where the enormity of the corruption is truly mind blowing. Along with the corruption comes the legal nightmare that keeps a convicted man ensnared despite of his innocence. At one point during the process, Justice Michael Wolff was appalled to find the Constitution would be used to knowingly execute an innocent man. In his disbelief, he says:

“To make sure we are clear on this, if we find in a particular case DNA absolutely excludes somebody as the murderer, then we must execute them anyway, if we can’t find an underlying constitutional violation at their trial?”

The reply was, “Yes, Your Honor.”

Diana Holt truly became Edward Elmore’s guardian angel. She persevered, when most other reasonable people would have given up. A full 30 years after Edward’s arrest, almost everyone involved acknowledged his innocence, yet he remained in prison. Finally, though, Diana Holt dredged up enough of the lost evidence, proved enough of the incompetence, and made enough noise to get Edward a new trial. Edward could have been freed, had the State dropped the case there. Incredibly, the prosecutor, who happened to be the son of the original prosecutor, wasn’t about to admit defeat and announced he would retry Edward Elmore for murder. Part of this was due to pride, and part was to keep Edward from suing the state for wrongful imprisonment.

At this point, Diana Holt was exhausted and Edward Elmore had been on death row for 30 years. Evidence was tainted. Many people involved at the start were now dead. The decision was made to negotiate. Edward was given the option to take the Alford plea, which meant he would plead guilty without admitting guilt. Doing so would allow him to walk free. And so he did. On March 2, 2012, despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence, Edward Elmore pleaded guilty to the murder of Dorothy Edwards.

Had it not been for the determination and dedication of one woman, the State would have executed Edward Elmore for the crime of being a poor, mentally retarded black male. How many others like him, who aren’t fortunate enough to have someone like Diana Holt on their side, now sit on death row?

[Prosecutor Billy] Garrett no longer supports the death penalty. He had seen how the system was abused and subject to manipulation. “Not human error, human manipulation,” he said. If the death penalty could be imposed in a case like this, without a fair trial, “then we don’t have the right as a civilized society to pass this judgment.”

Please click to below to view Darcia’s Helle’s many excellent posts:

“The Wrong Carlos”: Non-Violent Manchild Executed for Murder He Did Not Commit

The Electric Chair Nightmare: An Infamous and Agonizing History

Autopsies: Truth, Fiction and Maura Isles and Her 5-Inch-Heels

Don’t Crucify Me, Dude! Just Shoot Me Instead! Spartacus and Death by Crucifixion

To Burn or Not to Burn? Auto-Da-Fé Is Not Good for Women or Children!

The Disgraceful Entrapment of Jesse Snodgrass: Keep the Narcs Out of Our Schools

Why Should I Believe You? The History of the Polygraph

“Don’t Behead Me, Dude!”: The Story of Beheading and the Invention of the Guillotine

Aileen Wuornos, America’s First High-Profile Female Serial Killer, Never Had a Chance

The Terror of ISO: A Descent into Madness

Al Capone Could Not Bribe the Rock: Alcatraz, Fortress of Doom

Cyberspace, Darknet, Murder-for-Hire and the Invisible Black Machine

Darcia Helle lives in a fictional world with a husband who is sometimes real. Their house is ruled by spoiled dogs and cats and the occasional dust bunny.

Suspense, random blood splatter and mismatched socks consume Darcia’s days. She writes because the characters trespassing through her mind leave her no alternative. Only then are the voices free to haunt someone else’s mind.

Join Darcia in her fictional world: www.QuietFuryBooks.com

The characters await you.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

We all know that mother-in-laws (MILs) can be a problem; on the other hand, they can also be sweet as pie. I’ve had three of them so I am probably as experienced in dealing with the sometimes officious creatures as the next guy.

My first MIL was sweet, pliable and habituated to the anti-psychotic Thorazine. My ex and I could probably have taken advantage of her but to our credit we largely fought off the temptation. My second MIL was rugged as the Maine coastline and almost entirely focused on herself. She did tell me to stop f______ around and write some good commercial fiction, but that was close to 30 years ago and I was too dumb to listen, not that I would necessarily have succeeded. My third and final MIL spoke very little English and lived far away. This was ideal and we got along great.

So as you can see, I’ve been relatively lucky with my MILs. I’m not sure, however, that they would say they were lucky with me. Only MIL #2 is still alive and strangely, we’ve gotten along much better since her daughter and I divorced, although we o0nly run into each other every 10 years or so.

What brings this to mind is a recent case in which a Colorado Springs woman with a 2-month-old baby was faced with the daunting task of co-existing with her MIL who flew out from San Francisco to stay with her and help her take care of her 2-month-old baby while she was going through a divorce with her husband. Although one should never generalize, it’s probably fair to say that this does not appear to be a match made in heaven. I’m sure no one expected, however, that this odd coupling would turn out to be an utter disaster.

The MIL’s name was Deborah Rainey while the daughter-in-law, who was 20-years-old, went by the peculiar appellation, Ellyzabeth Rainey.  (Has anyone noticed that the spelling of common names has gotten very weird over the past 20 to 30 years? Could this be part of our cataclysmic national slide into the tar pit of extinction, as we merrily do our best to emulate our late friends, the dinosaurs?)

Kiri Blakeley of Café Mom (maybe she is the Café Mom) writes in rather entertaining fashion:

A new mother’s relationship with her mother-in-law can be strained at best, but this one turned nightmarish. Ellyzabeth Rainey, 20, was a new mom who was under a huge amount of stress — she reportedly suffered from bipolar disorder and was going through a divorce. No doubt her husband’s mother, Deborah Rainey, thought she was doing the right thing by moving in with the couple to help take care of their 2-month-old baby. But things soon became heated between Ellyzabeth and Deborah, who had a history of arguing, and then they turned into the stuff of horror movies.

Shortly before her MIL moved in, Ellyzabeth had been hospitalized for hearing voices that reportedly warned her that her mother-in-law was going to take everything from her, which, of course, would include the baby.  Now normally, it is not considered to be a good thing to experience auditory hallucinations, but if the voices are warning you about impending dangers at the hands of your MIL, you should probably pay attention, particularly if she’s planning on moving in with you while you’re going through a divorce. If I were Ellyzabeth, I like to think that I would have listened to the infernal voices and sent my MIL packing quicker than you can say “Jack Be Nimble” or would never have let her move in with me and my child in the first place. Sadly, Ellyzabeth did not listen to her voices of reason and apparently did not object when MIL Deborah moved in.

It apparently got very noisy in their Colorado Springs apartment on a certain Wednesday in April of 2013, so noisy that a neighbor complained to law enforcement.

Soon the police arrived to the tune of a baby crying and the sight of a bloody knife. It’s unclear what they said to Ellyzabeth, but according to the police report, she told the officers that she had just killed someone without identifying who it was. Then, she hurled her 2-month-old child at one of the officers and apparently tried to head for the hills. Perhaps she thought that Slender Man would take her in now that she had killed someone.

According to a second report by the Colorado Springs Gazette, before hurling her baby, Ellyzabeth held the child up to the officers and told them to prepare to catch it because she was preparing to make a run for it. When the officers asked her why, she reportedly responded, “because I just killed someone.”

She apparently did hurl her baby at one of the officers who caught it deftly. Then Ellyzabeth took off but she never made it to Slender Man in his mountain hideaway in the Nicolet National Forest; in fact, another officer chased her down and arrested her before she’d even made it out of the courtyard of the apartment building.

After being apprehended, Ellyzabeth reportedly told the officers she was tired of her MIL pushing her around and had just snapped.

It didn’t take long for the police to find Deborah’s dead body stuffed under a mattress. According to the Gazette, once the gig was up, Ellyzabeth told the officers that first she threw boiling water on her mother-in-law; then she threw free weights at her head; then she stabbed her multiple times (we can’t fault her for thoroughness). Then for good measure, she poured bleach into Deborah’s mouth and nose.

Ouch! This is what what one of my twitter friends would call five cups of crazy, none of which does poor Deborah any good.

The judge was not amused by Ellyzabeth’s peculiar behavior. Nor (in my mind wrongly) did he pay any attention to the fact that she obviously suffers from severe mental illness. 41 years in prison is a very long time for an individual who was clearly out of her mind at the time of the crime, even if she intended to commit the crime and was lucid enough to carry it out step-by-step.

Kiri Blakeley of Café Mom adds:

It doesn’t sound like Ellyzabeth got much mercy for having a mental disorder. Granted, it is difficult to feel sorry for someone who committed this kind of unspeakable crime. But it sounds like Ellyzabeth was in no position to be taking care of a baby at that time. It’s tragic she didn’t get more help before this happened.

Ellyzabeth reported that she has a history of domestic violence and was diagnosed as bipolar at the age of 10, but had never received any medication for her disorder.

*     *     *     *     *

I’m a bit surprised that Ellyzabeth did not plead not guilty by reason of insanity. To my knowledge, Colorado is one of the few states where in the event a defendant makes such a claim, the prosecution has the burden of proving that the defendant WAS NOT INSANE at the time of the crime. This is the John Holmes defense and is the reason that case keeps being sent back for more expert psychiatric opinions.

Meanwhile, Deborah is dead and Ellyzabeth is “up Crap Creek without a paddle.” This could be a case of a weak defense team failing to represent her properly, but I can’t draw that conclusion without more information.

by BJW Nashe

Carlos Castaneda’s journey from anthropology student to famous author to New Age cult leader makes for a strange tale that is far more disturbing than anything found in his bestselling books.

At the peak of his career, Castaneda crossed over an invisible line. He turned his back on the clear light of humane, rational thought, and stepped into a shadowy realm of manipulation, secrecy, and lies. It’s tempting to compare this to the metaphorical leap into the abyss that figures so heavily in his writings. Yet Castaneda’s real-life leap had consequences that were quite different from the magical escapades depicted in his writing. Once he became rich and famous and began facing scrutiny, Castaneda shunned the limelight and spent the next two-and-a-half decades pursuing a bizarre alternative lifestyle largely hidden from the public. He proclaimed himself a shaman and a sorcerer and assumed the role of a mysterious guru surrounded by a group of close followers.

When Castaneda passed away in 1998, several of his disciples simply disappeared. To this day, no one knows what happened to them. Since then, others from Castaneda’s inner circle have spoken out about their experiences with “the Nagual.” A highly complex, sinister, and sleazy portrait of the man has now emerged. The most detailed source of information is a memoir published by Amy Wallace (daughter of novelist Irving Wallace) in 2003 called Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castaneda. Robert Marshall’s discussion of Castaneda’s dark legacy in a 2007 article for Salon.com is also very informative, drawing on both Wallace’s book and interviews with other insiders who knew Castaneda well. We are ultimately left with a lasting image of Castaneda as a creepy cult leader who manipulated and controlled his closest female followers — known as “the witches” — to such an extent that they may have been led to end their own lives.

Stopping the World

What we know of Carlos Castaneda’s life prior to his meteoric rise to fame is fairly unremarkable. He was born on December 25, 1925 in Cajamarca, Peru. He immigrated to the United States in the early 1950s and became a naturalized citizen in 1957. In January 1960, he married Margaret Runyan. On August 12, 1961, Margaret gave birth to a son named Carlton Jeremy (“C.J.”) Castaneda. Carlos supposedly divorced Margaret in 1973, although records indicate they remained legally married throughout Castaneda’s life.

As a young man, Castaneda enrolled in UCLA to study ethnography. He may have dropped out for a while — there are conflicting reports on his education — but records show that he graduated with a B.A. in anthropology in 1962. He went on to pursue a doctorate degree at UCLA, continuing his anthropology studies. Post-graduate education in California in the 1960s could be pretty free-wheeling. Castaneda was able to take advantage of this by reading widely in various esoteric disciplines and making frequent trips to the desert to conduct research. It was during his grad student years that Castaneda decided to start writing about his “apprenticeship” with a Yaqui Indian sorcerer named Don Juan Matus, whom he claimed to have met while immersing himself in the rich lore surrounding psychoactive plants in the Sonora Desert. Castaneda aspired to be a “psychedelic scholar” loosely modeled after Aldous Huxley, whose book The Doors of Perception was very influential at the time.

Castaneda’s first book, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, was published  in 1968 by the UC Press, which led to a book deal with Simon and Schuster. Castaneda followed his debut with two further texts, A Separate Reality (1971) and Journey to Ixtlan (1973). All three books were recognized as anthropological field studies, and marketed as popular non-fiction. Journey to Ixtlan was submitted as a doctoral thesis, for which Castaneda received a Ph.D. in 1973. The UCLA faculty were not the only ones impressed with Carlos’s writing. The books found a large audience with counter-culture types — which was a thriving market back in the early 1970s. Scores of long-haired college students, hippie travelers, metaphysical seekers, and dabblers in the occult found Castaneda’s books to be irresistible — a kind of intellectual catnip. These books seemed to be tailor-made to fit their various preoccupations.

The popularity of Castaneda’s early work is not difficult to understand. A talented storyteller blessed with natural wit and charisma, Carlos also had just enough erudition to be dangerous. His first-person accounts of traveling to the Sonora to become initiated into the magical world of Don Juan and his fellow sorcerers make for compelling reading. The desert setting is rendered in vivid detail, the prose is crisp and clear, and the characters are alternately fascinating, eccentric, and menacing. Most important, the subject matter is mind-blowing — a philosophical walk on the wild side, in which the narrator is taught to “stop the world” by breaking free from his habitual ways of thinking and perceiving. Stopping the world allows him to enter another dimension of reality — the “nagual” — that is filled with supernatural intensity. Becoming a “warrior” in this psychic zone involves various outlandish activities such as ingesting powerful hallucinogens, learning to control dreams,  talking to luminous coyotes and dogs, and turning into a crow and flying through the desert sky.

The star of the show is Don Juan Matus, who comes across as a psychedelic Native American zen master with a sharp occult edge. The world of sorcery is fraught with peril, often a life-and-death struggle against powerful dark forces. Yet Don Juan’s teachings contain a strong current of anarchic humor. The second book (A Separate Reality) opens with the narrator “Carlos” paying a visit to Don Juan in order to present him with a copy of the first book, which he is immensely proud to have authored. Don Juan declines the gift, suggesting that it be used as toilet paper instead. Then a new cycle of grueling apprenticeship begins, even more intense than the last time. Once again, Carlos’s mind must be blown to smithereens in order to obtain true visionary power.

Becoming Inaccessible 

Castaneda’s books would go on to sell more than ten million copies during his lifetime (and they are still selling today). He received glowing reviews from the literary establishment. Notable anthropologists from the nation’s top universities praised his work. With fame and success came heightened scrutiny, however. In 1973, Time Magazine ran an article by Sandra Burton that raised serious questions about the details of Castaneda’s biography and the credibility of his apprenticeship with Don Juan Matus. Richard De Mille (son of film director Cecil B. De Mille)thoroughly investigated Castaneda and published a book called Castaneda’s Journey: The Power and the Allegory  that declared the Don Juan books to be fraudulent — little more than a clever hoax. De Mille reviewed library records at UCLA to demonstrate that Castaneda imported the content of Don Juan’s teachings from a slew of historical and metaphysical texts. Castaneda’s true adventure, claimed De Mille, occurred not in the Sonora desert, but among the stacks of the university library. De Mille also argued that Castaneda’s details regarding the Yaqui Indians of Northern Mexico were insufficient or inaccurate. Most damaging, in the eyes of many, is De Mille’s assertion that Yaqui Indians do not use peyote in magical rituals as depicted by Castaneda.

In hindsight, it is hard to believe that anyone — including the faculty at UCLA — considered Castaneda’s writing to be literally true. The books might be based in part on field research and interviews with Native Americans. They may contain a certain level of poetic or spiritual “truth.” So does Paradise Lost, yet few of us today would claim that Milton’s masterpiece is a “true story.” These days, hardly anyone considers Castaneda’s stories about Don Juan Matus to be pure non-fiction — no matter where they are shelved in bookstores. Yet Castaneda’s books remain popular works of metaphysical literature that sit comfortably alongside Gurdjieff, Crowley, Huxley, and Ouspensky.

As criticism of his work intensified, Castaneda stopped talking to the press. He did not retreat from public life altogether; there were still parties to go to, and people to meet. After the Time article in 1973, however, Carlos gave no more interviews, refused to be photographed or filmed, and would not allow his voice to be recorded. He also forbade those close to him from speaking to the press or discussing him in any way without his approval. In a telling move, Castaneda also severed all ties with his estranged wife Margaret Runyan and their son C.J.

Castaneda had no interest in defending his writing as literature. He has been described as a trickster who pulled off the perfect hoax, because he never admitted to any fault whatsoever. In fact, he remained committed to the illusion of truth perpetuated by the hoax. He wanted people to think he had been initiated into a world of secret knowledge. He wanted to be recognized as an actual sorcerer. And he craved followers who believed in his magic. Since he was a famous figure, there were plenty of fans willing to sit at the feet of the master. Castaneda began referring to himself as “the Nagual” — as if he were a supernatural being with all-knowing powers. He was such a compelling fabulist that he apparently brainwashed himself into believing his own BS.

Erasing Personal History 

Castaneda continued publishing books throughout the 1970s and 80s. He also began organizing his followers and channeling their activities in certain strategic directions. Along with the philosophy presented in his writings, he also began promoting a spiritual practice called “Tensegrity,” which is best described as a movement technique somewhat similar to Tai chi. Carlos claimed the technique had been passed down through 25 generations of Toltec shamans. Castaneda established a Los Angeles-based corporation called Cleargreen, which promoted Tensegrity through workshops, seminars, and instructional videos. People paid up to $1200 to attend sessions where Castaneda and his disciples would speak and answer questions, while  Tensegrity demonstrations were performed by black-clad acolytes called “chacmools.” Books and videos were on sale, along with T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan, “Self Importance Kills — Do Tensegrity.”  The workshops were quite successful, often selling out. Castaneda was a marketable brand. (It should be noted that Cleargreen’s outreach continues to this day, with locations in Southern California, Europe, and Latin America.)

Behind the scenes, life at Castaneda’s compound on Pandora Avenue in Westwood was growing increasingly strange. At the core of the Nagual’s inner circle — which numbered up to two dozen people at any given time — was a group of intensely devoted young women who were all at one time or another romantically linked to Castaneda. They were referred to as “the witches.” Once they were lured into Castaneda’s orbit, he instructed them to change their names and cease all contact with their former friends and families. Then they were subjected to various methods of control: hypnosis, verbal and emotional abuse, mind games, bizarre rituals, dubious teachings, and sexual domineering. The women were forbidden from exhibiting any signs of illness, should they ever become sick. They began dressing in a similar style of black clothes and sporting the same short, dyed blonde haircuts. They each claimed to have been instructed by Don Juan Matus in the desert. Two of them were directed by Carlos to write their own books about these “apprenticeships.” The primary task of the witches, however, was recruiting new female members for the Nagual to share his unique magic with.

Within the group, three women were particularly close to Castaneda: Taisha Abelar, Florinda Donner-Grau, and Carol Tiggs. Tiggs at one point defected from the cult, but was eventually lured back by Carlos. Amalia Marquez, who served as president of Cleargreen Corporation, and Kylie Lundahl, a Tensegrity instructor, were also key figures in the Nagual’s inner circle. The individual with the strangest role of all in Castaneda’s inner circle was Patricia Partin, also known as “the Blue Scout.”

Patricia Partin grew up in LaVerne, California. After dropping out of Bonita High School during her junior year, she worked as a waitress for a while, and then at 19 got married to an aspiring filmmaker named Mark Silliphant. At some point during their courtship, Silliphant introduced Partin to Castaneda in 1977. Just 19 days into their marriage, Partin left her new husband and went to live with Carlos. She paid one last visit to her mother, during which she refused to pose for a family photograph. She never spoke to her mother again.

Castaneda renamed her Partin Nury Alexander. He also referred to her as “Claude,” or the Blue Scout. Young and attractive, she soon enjoyed a privileged status as one of his favorite disciples. Carlos claimed she possessed a rare energy that was “barely human.” In an exceedingly odd move, Castaneda officially adopted her in 1995, then explained to the other witches that he had “conceived her with Carol Tiggs in the nagual.” Carlos evidently enjoyed the conceptual incest involved in the adoption arrangement. Within the group, Partin was frequently infantilized. New cult members would be assigned the task of playing dolls with her. Castaneda at times deferred to her judgment regarding serious spiritual matters. He told the group that the Blue Scout had convinced him to start Cleargreen. He liked to use her special status as leverage in the mind games he played with the others.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Amy Wallace, who was closely associated with the group during the early 1990s, has provided us with the clearest picture of what life was like in Castaneda’s cult, with his harem of witches and his adopted daughter, the Blue Scout.

Castaneda first met Amy through her father, novelist Irving Wallace, who was friendly with the younger author. Carlos would often stop by the Wallace home in Los Angeles. Shortly after Irving’s death in 1990, Amy — who was then living in Berkeley — received a phone call from Castaneda in which he said that her father had visited him in a dream, saying that he was trapped inside the Wallace’s house, and needed Amy and Carlos to free him. (This pickup line probably only works if you are a famous New Age author.) Amy agreed to meet up with Castaneda in LA, and the seduction was underway. He told her he hadn’t had sex in the last 20 years (!), and soon persuaded her to join him in bed for a mystical experience. When she worried about possible pregnancy (the Nagual did not use birth control), Castaneda exclaimed, “Me make you pregnant? Impossible! The Nagual’s sperm isn’t human … Don’t let any of the Nagual’s sperm out, nena. It will burn away your humanness.” The vasectomy he’d undergone years earlier was never mentioned.

The courtship with Amy lasted for several weeks, and led directly into mind games and manipulation. At one point, Castaneda told her they were “energetically married.” However, when he noticed her checking the street signs around the compound — as if trying to get her bearings — he flew into a rage and banished her back to Berkeley. When she called on the phone, Carlos refused to speak to her. The witches instructed her to “let go of her attachments.” So she got rid of her pet cats. Then Carlos told her she was “an egotistical, spoiled Jew” who should “go get a job at McDonald’s.” After six months of this treatment, she was finally allowed to return.

Such expulsions were common within the cult, and could occur arbitrarily, without rhyme or reason. If the Blue Scout didn’t like you, obviously you were toast. As in most cult situations, random exercises of power were used to keep the Nagual’s followers fearful and subservient. The obvious question is, why would anyone, including Amy Wallace, ever want to return? Why would anyone stick around in the first place?

We can answer this question in four ways — personal, social, philosophical, and psychological. First, Castaneda could be a charming and charismatic leader, when it suited his purposes. His personal magnetism was augmented by an aura of genius and fame. Certain people were easily seduced by him. Second, group members enjoyed a sense of close family connection that may have been absent from their lives before. Being part of a group — even a dysfunctional, abusive group — is sometimes viewed as preferable to alienation. Third, for people who are seeking something deeper and more meaningful than a normal nine-to-five existence in the business world, the Nagual’s spiritual philosophy and sexual games provided a clear alternative. Fourth, people who join cults often experience — at least temporarily — a sense of joy in being liberated from the responsibilities of decision-making. Freedom can be a burden. When someone else — a charismatic leader — is calling all the shots, one can be carefree in one’s subservience.

So there were certain “benefits” gained from living in Castaneda’s cult. As far as cults go, the benefits of Cleargreen were notable. Still, most of us would soon find these benefits seriously overshadowed by the horrors involved. In a 2012 interview with the Examiner, Amy Wallace explained that her passionate love affair with Carlos was initially intoxicating, yet soon devolved into abuse and humiliation. He berated her in front of the others for being “fat,” even though she was a petite woman who wore a size zero. He blamed her for “killing” him. He flipped out when he discovered that she was taking Prozac. “He believed he was cursed forever because his penis had entered a Prozac-contaminated body.” She witnessed him expel members from the group for drinking, smoking pot, and for getting sick or injured. Meanwhile, Carlos was always on the prowl for nubile young women, sometimes engaging in activities that bordered on kidnapping. In hindsight, it’s surprising that criminal charges were never brought against him. In writing her memoir, Wallace recalled that at one point she felt so tormented that she considered suicide. “Just remembering how close I came still terrifies me. It was horrific to write about.”

Amy Wallace has published several other books on various topics, yet she received her highest praise from readers and reviewers alike for telling her story about life with Carlos Castaneda. She insightfully describes both the seductive qualities that lead people to follow cult leaders, and the nightmare that awaits them once they get caught up in the lifestyle. “My book is very much a warning,” she says.

A Leap into the Void 

In 1997, Castaneda was diagnosed with liver cancer. The diagnosis was kept secret from everyone except the core group of witches, because illness was not supposed to be part of the sorcerer’s playbook. The seminars and workshops continued on as if nothing was wrong. Meanwhile the witches privately supervised traditional and alternative treatments for the Nagual.

With his health declining, Castaneda rarely left the compound. Many of the witches purchased guns, according to Carol Tiggs. This is not a good sign for any cult, since it could lead to random violence or a Branch Davidian-style Waco conflagration. Another bad sign is when the cult leader is bedridden with a morphine drip, gazing at the flickering images of war videos on the TV/VCR, while his closest followers are busy burning his papers. Taisha Abelar was drinking heavily, yet she told Amy Wallace it didn’t matter anymore. “I’m not in any danger of becoming an alcoholic now,” she said, “because I’m leaving. So, it’s too late.” Wallace figures that this was Abelar’s way of indicating that her own death was near.

An end-of-the-world vibe permeated the group. Wallace had another revealing conversation during this tense time period. Tensegrity instructor Kylie Lundahl told her, “If I don’t go with him, I’ll do what I have to do… It’s too late for you and me to remain in the world — I think you know exactly what I mean.”

In April 1998, the witches and other members of the inner circle were packing up the Castaneda compound. A week later, the Nagual died at age 72. He was cremated at the Culver City mortuary. No one knows where his ashes ended up. Within a few days, Florinda Donner-Grau, Taisha Abelar, Patricia Partin, Kylie Lundahl, and Amalia Marquez had their phones disconnected. Then they all vanished, leaving no word with anyone as to their whereabouts (at least, not that we know of). A few weeks later, Partin’s red Ford Escort was found abandoned in Death Valley. Her sun-bleached skeleton would be discovered five years later in the desert.

Within the greater community of Cleargreen associates and followers, few knew that Castaneda was dead. Yet rumors quickly spread, leading to a sense of growing despair. Still, the workshops continued. Carol Tiggs assumed a leadership role within the corporation. She told one member of the inner circle that she was supposed to have“gone with them,” but “a non-decision decision” had kept her here to run the show. Tiggs banned all grieving and mourning within Cleargreen. Many reportedly took to drowning their sorrows in alcohol and drugs. Some contemplated suicide in order to “get close to Carlos.”

When news of Castaneda’s death was finally made public two months after the fact, Cleargreen members stopped answering their phones. A brief statement was soon posted on the web site claiming that “… Carlos Castaneda left the world the same way that his teacher, don Juan Matus did: with full awareness.”

Nobody knows for sure what happened to Partin, the Blue Scout, in Death Valley. Nobody knows the fate of other three women closest to Castaneda who disappeared shortly after his passing. Some Cleargreen people think they are still alive, and have started over in a new setting, with new identities. Most people familiar with the story think they committed suicide. Without the Nagual, they saw no point in going on. Perhaps they had formed a suicide pact. Maybe the Nagual knew all about it. Followers had frequently heard Castaneda and the witches talking about suicide — about “making the leap” together. The path of the Warrior included choosing one’s own death. Carlos reportedly once sent the Blue Scout out to the desert to locate possible suicide locations.

There is no record with the LAPD or FBI of any investigation into at least three of the disappearances — Donner-Grau, Abelar, and Lundahl. No one reported them missing, since they had been estranged from their families for years.

There is an open investigation into the Amalia Marquez case, due to the efforts of her brother Luis. He claims the LAPD ignored his requests for assistance until the skeletal remains of the fifth missing cult member — Patricia Partin — were discovered in Death Valley in 2003 and positively identified in 2006 using DNA testing. Still, Luis Marquez claims the LAPD has been reluctant to visit Cleargreen or question anyone there about possible foul play. When Luis contacts Cleargreen headquarters himself, he is told that the missing women are “traveling.”

In a related incident in 2002, a woman named Janice Emery from Taos, New Mexico, who was a Cleargreen follower and workshop attendee, jumped to her death in the Rio Grande gorge. According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, Emery was suffering from cancer. One of her friends told the newspaper that she ended her life because she “wanted to be with Castaneda’s people.” Another friend said: “I think she was really thinking she could fly off.”

A Different Sort of Leap

An astonishing fact to ponder: so many organizations devoted to spiritual well-being — from mega churches to fringe cults — seem to share a very disturbing characteristic: domination, control, and abuse of women. We see this feature in certain fundamentalist denominations of Christianity and Islam. We see it in the Church of Scientology. We know it was all-too apparent in the Manson Family, the People’s Temple at Jonestown, and the Branch Davidian compound at Waco. I’m sure there are other examples. In this sense, Castaneda’s cult is not exceptional or unique. It fits into a general pattern of misogyny and sexual subjugation seen in many other faith-based institutions and groups.

The domination and control of women is so prevalent in these organizations that one wonders whether it is more than just an ugly tendency or side-effect. Is it too much of a leap to argue that the domination of women just might be the primary goal or mission of the leaders of these groups? Are all of the mystical teachings and metaphysical doctrines just a smokescreen for the true objective? Is religion sometimes just a convenient way for men to control other people — in particular, women? It certainly starts to look that way, when we consider the case of Carlos Castaneda, AKA the Nagual.

Retired U.S. District Court Judge, the Honorable H. Lee Sarokin, has kindly allowed us to re-post his article, “The Missing Transcript Case Get’s More Curious — Part II”, which is included here in it’s entirety.

Judge Sarokin writes:

In an earlier (article) involving the case of United States of America v. Banks et als., I reported the assertion of the 6 defendants that, in addition to their claims of innocence, they contend that their 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination was violated. They claim that the presiding judge instructed them that unless one of them took the stand, their defense would be closed and their case over. The presiding judge denies giving that ultimatum. The answer lies in the transcript, but there is no record of that exchange. In my earlier post I mentioned that a separate civil suit was instituted against the court reporter to turn over the transcript. That suit was dismissed on legal grounds, but now having read the court’s opinion, its factual findings confirm without question the defendants’ contention — not about what was said, but rather that there is no record of what was said.

Judge R. Brooke Jackson, in an incredibly detailed opinion considering the miniscule nature of the claim, but obviously sensitive to the charges asserted, made detailed factual findings. His opinion should serve in lieu of a remand for a hearing on this sole issue. Very significant to me is that following this exchange between the defendants and the Court, Mr. Barnes, one of the defendants took the stand, and shortly thereafter it was government counsel that expressed concern. He asked the court to make it clear on the record that all parties “had every reason to believe that Mr. Barnes intended to testify no matter what happened in this case…regardless of the fact that the defense otherwise ran out of witnesses this morning.” Why would he bring it up, unless he was concerned that something had transpired which made that clarification necessary?

And then the donnybrook followed. Sample statements from the defendants at the original trial: “Actually, Your Honor, it was something we felt we had to do.” “And you also said if one of them (a witness) wasn’t available, we had to put one of us on.” “When we approached the bench, your words to us were ‘Put one of your witnesses on or one of the defendants will have to testify.’”

The Court denied making such statements. Then when the government starting cross-examining Mr. Barnes, Mr. Walker, another defendant asked “for a retrial based on our being forced to testify.” So it is apparent that this was not some afterthought, some trial strategy, but rather a simultaneous assertion by the defendants immediately following the side-bar conference. I won’t bother going through all of the recitations regarding the defendants’ efforts to obtain the transcript, but rather focus on Judge Jackson’s findings. He did not find any skullduggery by the court reporter. Rather he concluded:

IRP Solutions Corporate Office

“No statement like that which was recalled by the court or that which was recalled by the defendants appears in the transcript…There is no dispute that something was said that does not appear in the transcript.” Judge Jackson quotes directly from the trial judge: “Unfortunately this portion of the sidebar was not transcribed by the reporter,” and comments that “The judge offered no explanation at the time as to why one of her statements was not recorded.” Later this explanation was tendered by her: “For whatever reason, whether the parties spoke too far from the microphones or the court reporter took off her headphones, the court reporter did not hear everything that was said at the sidebar…”

And finally the judge in the civil suit concludes: “It is undisputed that Judge Arguello said something that does not appear in the transcript — either the unedited or the final version.” So in all fairness, my use of the phrase “missing transcript” is not accurate. The transcript is neither missing, altered or destroyed, but rather the critical conversation apparently was not recorded and was never included in the transcript for reasons unknown. But having now resolved the factual issue so clearly by an independent court, one cannot help but wonder wherein lies the delay? If there is no way to determine whether or not the 5th Amendment rights of the defendants were violated, does the Court of Appeals have any other choice but to either reverse and remand for a new trial or dismiss? The defendants languish in prison still asserting their innocence. They deserve a prompt answer to a simple question. Can this issue be resolved without the transcript of what the court said to the defendants?

Click here to view Judge Sarokin’s previous IRP6 post:

The IRP6 Wrongful Conviction Case: A View from the Federal Bench (The Case of the Missing Transcript)

Click here to view All Thing Crime Blog’s previous IRP6 post:

The IRP6: A True Story of Debt Collection Gone Wild

For more information about the story of the IRP6 or for copies of the legal filings go to http://www.freetheirp6.org .

IRP Solutions round table part I and II:

http://youtu.be/PZRtW3To7RE & http://youtu.be/gRWML6a_WiY

The Honorable H. Lee Sarokin served on the United States District Court (N.J.), appointed by President Carter, and the United States Court of Appeals (3rd Cir.), appointed by President Clinton. He retired in 1996 after 17 years on the federal bench and now resides in Rancho Santa Fe, CA. He is also known for, overturning the Rubin “Hurricane” Carter wrongful convictions case in 1985.

by Lise LaSalle

In 2010, Colonel Russell Williams was chosen newsmaker of the year in Canada.

The year had started so well for this decorated colonel. He was a rising star in the ranks of the air force that managed Canada’s largest military airfield. As a pilot, he had flown Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, the prime minister and many VIP guests in military airplanes.

But the year 2010 ended very badly for Williams – his uniform was seized and burned by the military in an effort to erase any trace of him amongst their ranks. And this is also the year he confessed and pleaded guilty to charges of rape and murder.

From July 2009 until his arrest in February 2010, Russell Williams commanded Canadian Forces Base Trenton, one of the busiest Canadian airbases. He was relieved of his functions as base commander in February 2010 and formally charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of forcible confinement, and two counts of breaking and entering with sexual assault. Another 82 charges related to breaking and entering were subsequently added.  Or as I would call it: Collecting Artifacts.

Williams was sentenced to two life sentences for first-degree murder, two 10-year sentences for other sexual assaults, two 10-year sentences for forcible confinement and 82 one-year sentences for burglary (collecting artifacts). All the sentences were to be served concurrently at Kingston Penitentiary. The ‘’faint hope’’ clause of the Canadian criminal code does not apply to him, meaning he will never be a free man again.

Kingston Pen closed its doors in September 2013. It was the most famous prison in Canada, not only because of its infamous and notorious prisoners – Paul Bernardo, Clifford Olson, Hamed Shafia, Helmuth Buxbaum and Russell Williams, but also due to the fact that writer Charles Dickens, who toured the prison in 1842, had called it “an admirable gaol.’’

But the prison’s reputation was mostly built on the role its inmates played in building the city. They laboured to build a quarry in the village of Portsmouth and that quarry was made famous by writer Merilyn Simonds in her novel The Convict Lover. The inmates learned trades while at Kingston, and even the coffin Sir John A. Macdonald was displayed in when he died  in 1891, was made at the prison’s wood shop.

Inmate Russell Williams was transferred from Kingston Pen to Port Cartier prison in Quebec a few months before its closure. And Paul Bernardo was moved from Kingston to Millhaven penitentiary in Ontario. I hear that the inmates at Millhaven are quite pleased to enjoy the new privilege of hearing trains blowing their whistles from afar. So much for small pleasures.

Coincidentally, these two infamous criminals whose paths had crossed at Kingston Pen, had also met when they were young men studying at the University of Toronto in the 1980s.

Some say they were ‘pals’ and partied together but they both deny it. Paul Bernardo’s father stated that his son does not even remember Russell Williams/Sovka. They studied economics at the Military Trail campus and graduated in 1987. Some would love to think that there was a crime spree rivalry between the two, but that is absolutely unfounded.

Even though Bernardo and Williams had both lived in Scarborough, Ontario and attended the same university, their fate reunited them only much later when Williams ended up at Kingston Pen.

While Paul Bernardo was a busy bee becoming the Scarborough Rapist, Russell Williams kept himself occupied modeling his life to the ‘Top Gun’ movies he had watched in awe so many times. Like the hero of the story, he had decided to become a pilot. By all accounts, he worked relentlessly and diligently to achieve his goal.

At that time, there was nothing to indicate that Russell Williams was a troubled and troublesome soul. But Bernardo was already in full-fledge criminal mode. They also approached love very differently. A violent sadist, Paul could not have any normal relationship with a woman. He then met Karla Homolka and the rest is history.

But Williams, after a painful breakup, appeared to have finally met the love of his life, Mary Elizabeth Harriman, a senior executive for a medical Foundation. They were married for 18 years and had a solid and loving relationship. She became his ultimate victim, but much later, when she discovered her “perfect” husband’s secret activities.

David Russell Williams was born on March 7, 1963 and it is not until the age of 44 that he started his criminal behavior. He admitted having had fantasies of stealing women’s underwear in his 20s or 30s but his first break-in didn’t occur until 2007. That is when he started his strange ‘collection of artifacts’.

In fact, some American researchers led by Janet Warren, a professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia, have included Williams in a study into why certain prolific sex offenders keep ‘’artifacts’’ of their victims even if it represents a huge risk to hold on to that type of evidence.

They found that these collections are more than just fetishes. They give the perpetrators a sense of power over the victims and they may be ‘’central’’ to why they commit the crimes.

“The methods used to capture, document, and preserve these experiences differ among offenders, however each reveals his wish to create a collection of victims allowing both a reverie of remembrance and proof that he is capable of taking any victim he chooses, any way he likes,” the researchers wrote in an article for the journal Aggression and Violent Behavior.

They have studied the most prolific sex offenders from the past 40 years, including Williams.

They dubbed Williams ‘’the cinematographer’’ because he films his crimes, poses his victims and participates in the scenario he created. He wants to shoot the ‘’perfect porno.’’

Before becoming violent, Williams started slowly by peeping through windows, breaking into homes and stealing lingerie, and then photographing himself dressed in it.

It escalated to his first victim, a 20-year old girl that he sexually assaulted. He ‘collected’ her bras and panties, bed sheet and baby blanket. He proceeded to break into her home again to steal more lingerie, her driver’s license and other ‘artifacts’.

He broke into the home of a 47-year-old neighbour, and tied her up. He then forced her to undress and pose for photos. It was not the first time he had broken into her house to take photographs and steal some of her personal effects.

The first woman he murdered was a 37-year-old corporal in the air force. She was beaten, tied up, raped and strangled in her own home. He videotaped and photographed the crime after adjusting the lighting for a better shoot.

The last woman he murdered was 27. He bound and raped her and recorded her in various poses wearing lingerie. He brought her to his cottage in the country afterward to continue his assault before the final kill.

The researchers wrote that ‘’Filming these crimes allowed Williams to capture his fetishistic behaviour, cross-dressing and sexual sadism, but it also captured his conflicted gender identity.’’

“The turbulence of these opposing experiences of gender identity escalated into murder, and perhaps that is the core sexual fantasy that Williams sought to capture and resolve.’’

Many killers keep trophies or artifacts as reminders of their exploits. As a way to relive the moments of total control they crave for in their arguably powerless lives.

Some keep objects but others keep journals. They have a strong urge to write the stories of their crimes to relive the surge of pleasure they had experienced. It is a powerful desire to control the materials and to prolong the powerlessness of the victims and enhance their control of the situation.

“It is our impression,” the researchers wrote, “that the collection serves to weld together an experience of self that is of paramount importance to the offender and possibly constitutes the most fundamental motivation for their crimes.”

Sadly, the researchers said, “no treatment exists” to render such offenders harmless, meaning their “rapid identification and apprehension” is key.

Having said that, we are still left wondering why a successful man like Colonel Russell Williams felt so powerless. Why was he looking for a sense of power when his life seemed drenched with honor and rewards?

He was a highly respected man. From all accounts, he had a great relationship with his loving and very smart wife who was not emasculating him in any way. They had decided against having children because ‘he did not want to bring children into this world’. That should be a clue. What was it about this world that he found unfit for children? He knew firsthand about the EVIL LURKING.

His upbringing had not been smooth sailing but by no means tragic. He had a stepfather and from all evidence, did not have a deep connection with him. But he nevertheless, took his side when his mother divorced him and cut ties with her over it.

His heart had been broken by a young lady he really cared about and her rejection drove him to become a hero-pilot à la Tom Cruise in Top Gun. His marriage to Harriman was described as harmonious but she was older than him and kind of homely. Was she the safe respite he craved after feeling undeserving of the one his heart truly desired? Or was it a convenient match to harbor his gender identify issues?

It was divulged that at the time of his crime spree, Williams was taking a cocktail of prescription drugs for an excruciating bout of chronic joint pain he was suffering from, and that he feared, could end his career as a pilot. It marked the crucial moment when he crossed the line from fantasy to obsession and started acting out his sexual deviancy by collecting artifacts and wearing them, and then by detaining women to take photos which led to the rapes and ultimately the murders of two of them.

Was it the effect of the meds? We’ve heard of several cases of people becoming psychotic, oversexed, angry and compulsive after taking these types of medications.  Something was not right. Maybe he was having a hard time fighting his demons and was trying to find ways to numb them. Instead, they somehow became enhanced and he no longer resisted them.

Williams’ best friend was shocked when he found out about his crimes. They were extremely close, and as an educated professional and seemingly sincere man, he had not seen any cold feelings or cruelty emanating from his best bud Russell. Williams and his wife had a cat called Cleo and when it died not long before the crime spree, he was utterly devastated. So he was as flabbergasted as Harriman when they found out that Russell was moonlighting as a psycho rapist and killer.

Even respected psychiatrists where shaking their heads. Several of them as well as crime reporter Timothy Appleby from the Globe and Mail, do not consider Russell a psychopath. He demonstrated genuine consideration to his friends and colleagues and according to them, was capable of feeling shame for his actions. One of the victims he did not rape but rather blindfolded and photographed; she told him she had a migraine and he gave her Tylenol and patted her on the head. She said that she felt he had a conscience.

Not one of Bernardo’s victims ever made such a statement.

Before his crime spree, Williams was already suffering from full-blown obsessive-compulsive behavior. You can see it in the way he catalogued all his ‘artifacts’ with precise attention to detail. He had impeccable computer records and boxes and bags of lingerie neatly folded and classified.

He had child pornography on his computer but refused to plead guilty to possessing child porn even if he was willing to admit to all his other crimes. He was too ashamed and remained adamant against admitting any sexual attraction towards juveniles.

Appleby concluded that William is a ‘’paraphiliac’’ or sexual deviant with sexual obsessions that somehow took over his life.

When the police brought in Williams for interrogation after having accumulated overwhelming evidence against him, he confessed mostly to protect his wife and the military. Sgt Detective Jim Smyth used the Reid technique on him and was hailed as a hero for it, but I frankly did not see this typical routine as brilliant. Instead, what I saw in the interrogation videos, was Russell Williams spilling the beans the minute he found out they would search his house. Right away, he expressed concern for the pain his wife would suffer and for the damage the searches would cause to their new home she loved so much. He also knew they were going to find his ‘artifacts’ so he could not maintain the charade anyway.

At trial, Russell pleaded guilty to expedite the process. He wanted to avoid prolonging his wife’s agony and minimize the scandal for the air force. The minute he was in jail, he tried to kill himself by swallowing a cardboard roll of toilet paper. He left a message on the wall written in mustard to the effect that his feelings were too much to bear and his affairs were in order. They intervened just in time to save his life, even though he had jammed the door lock with paper.

When asked by detectives why he committed the crimes, he genuinely did not seem to know the answer. He was driven by deep dark obsessions.

His wife divorced him in order to hold on to her share of their assets. She was highly criticized by the public for suing the police department to get compensation for damages done to her house during the searches, even though it is an accepted legal practice. Williams is being sued by his victims and his wife was named in the suit. She wanted the divorce proceedings sealed but the judge ruled against her.

Some have been plain cruel to Harriman and they maintain that she had to know what her husband was up to on his nightly jogs equipped with a camera. But from all accounts, this woman had no clue her husband was a criminal. She only knew the stand-up guy she married.

According to Paul Bernardo’s father who was visiting his son regularly at Kingston Pen, Miss Harriman was a frequent visitor at the prison. She stuck by Russell as he did with his son. He describes her as a bright and classy lady. To Harriman, he never was a monster but her officer and gentleman. It must be very difficult for her to this day to absorb this twisted reality.

Williams’ collection of ‘artifacts’, as described by the researchers, might be an indication of the type of deep compulsion he suffered from. And until they find the key to this mystery, the only treatment is his incarceration.

If Williams was to cooperate with researchers looking into the root causes of collecting artifacts as a form of empowerment in cases of sexual deviancy, it would not redeem his crimes or bring back his innocent victims, but, like an antidote, it could lead to some unorthodox form of healing in an otherwise sick and wasted life.

I am convinced that like the rest of us, the doctors would jump at the opportunity to ask him, ‘Colonel Russell Williams where have you been?’

by Darcia Helle

August 15th of this year marks the 100th anniversary of the most gruesome mass murder Wisconsin has ever seen. The story has all the makings of a New York Times bestseller or blockbuster movie. We have the wealthy and world-famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who had the sense of entitlement that often accompanies being born into a respected and prestigious family. We have a torrid love affair, the ensuing scandal, and, of course, the crazed killer.

The roots of this tragedy go back to Chicago, circa 1909. By this time, 42-year-old Frank Lloyd Wright was already well-known as the leader of the “Prairie School” school of architecture. He’d been married to Catherine Tobin for 20 years and they had six children together. His life was, on the surface, idyllic. But Wright did the unthinkable; he fell in love with a client’s wife. Her name was Mamah Borthwick Cheney, and their affair rocked Chicago society.

Wright abandoned his wife and children, fleeing to Europe with his mistress and her two children, John and Martha. Not wanting to face the scandal back in Chicago, but wanting to return to the US, Wright decided to build a home on his maternal family’s land in Wisconsin. This new home was a sprawling one-story estate with multiple surrounding buildings, situated on 31.5 acres of land. And, like all proper estates, this one had a name. Because the estate sat on the brow of a hill, leaving the top of the hill unencumbered, Wright called it Taliesin, meaning “shining brow”.

In 1911, Wright, Borthwick — who by then had dropped her married name — and her two children quietly moved to Taliesin. Eventually the press discovered their presence, but the ensuing frenzy came and went. Wright and his new family then settled into a routine, with him back at work and Borthwick caring for the children and watching over the home. Their household staff included Julian and Gertrude Carlton, a married couple from Barbados. Gertrude did the cooking, while Julian filled a variety of roles from handyman to butler. Julian was considered well-educated and likable, though beneath that façade he apparently hid something dark and vicious.

On August 15, 1914, Frank Lloyd Wright was in Chicago on business. Mamah Borthwick had a house full of staff and workers, including a carpenter and his 13-year-old son. That afternoon, per family custom, Julian served dinner to the men in a separate room reserved for workers. Mamah and her two children ate on the veranda. As the men were eating, Julian entered the worker’s room and asked William Weston, the carpenter, for permission to get some gasoline in order to clean a rug. Weston gave his consent.

In retrospect, it was strange that Julian Carlton bothered to seek permission to get some gas. From this point on, the facts are fuzzy, but the order of events following his peculiar request seem to be as follows:

Julian, hatchet in hand, went to the veranda where Mamah and her two children were eating lunch. Catching them completely off guard, he first swung at Mamah Borthwick, killing her with a single blow to her face as she sat in her chair. Julian then turned to John, aged 11, quite literally hacking into the child before he had a chance to move. Martha, aged 9, tried to run, but Julian easily caught and killed her. He then poured the gasoline over their bodies and lit them on fire.

Julian took his hatchet and the rest of his gasoline back to where the men were dining. He poured the gasoline under the door and set the room ablaze. The room erupted in flames. One of the workers, Herbert Fritz, happened to be by the window, and was able to break it and dive out. This caught Julian unprepared and Fritz was able to escape. He broke his arm in the fall and his clothes were on fire, so he rolled down a hill to extinguish the flames which saved his life.

Emil Brodelle came next, but this time Julian was ready and he swung his hatchet taking his life. William Weston and his son Ernest then fled the flames straight into Julian’s bloody blade. Julian struck William as he launched himself through the window. William stumbled, then got to his feet and ran across the courtyard. Julian raced after him, striking him with the hatchet a second time. Weston crumbled to the ground and, likely thinking he was dead, Julian left him and returned to his carnage.

David Lindblom got past Julian with a nasty but non-fatal blow to the back of his head with the blunt edge of the hatchet. He was not so fortunate in escaping the fire. Despite Lindblom’s severe burns, he and William Weston managed to run to a neighboring farmhouse a half-mile down the road to call for help. Lindblom remained at the neighbor’s home, while Weston returned to the Wright’s estate to help the fire brigade extinguish the flames. The efforts, though, were futile. In less than three hours, most of Taliesin’s main house was reduced to ash.

In all, seven people lost their lives at Julian Carlton’s hands. They were: Mamah Borthwick, John and Martha Cheney, Emil Brodelle, Thomas Brunker, Ernest Weston, and David Lindblom, who later died as a result of the burns. Only William Weston and Herbert Fritz managed to survive the ordeal.

Hours after the fire, Julian Carlton was found hiding in the basement’s fireproof furnace. He’d swallowed muriatic acid (household name for hydrochloric acid) in a failed suicide attempt. An angry mob attempted to lynch him, but the police intervened and safely transferred him to county jail. Over the following two months, Julian starved himself to death. He refused to talk or explain his actions, and died without ever offering a reason for the brutal murders.

Gertrude Carlton was found in a nearby field that fateful day, apparently unaware of her husband’s intentions. She was taken into custody, but released shortly afterward with $7 and a train ticket to Chicago.

Survivors don’t offer us much in the way of insight. Later testimony stated Julian Carlton had once accused everyone in the Wright household of “picking on him”. One theory is that Julian’s primary intent was to murder Emil Brodelle, who had called him a “black son-of-a-bitch” just days before the massacre. Some claimed Julian had a disagreement with Mamah Borthwick and she’d fired him, giving him two weeks’ notice. Others said his wife Gertrude wanted to return to Chicago, and so he’d given notice on his own.

Whatever the truth is, we do know that Julian had been showing signs of psychological disarray. Gertrude stated that he’d been agitated and paranoid in the days leading up to the murders. He’d been acting strangely, staring out the window long into the night and sleeping with his hatchet beside the bed. Sadly, either no one tried or no one was able to intervene before his mind snapped and he went on his brief but gruesome rampage.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s grief struck deep. He could not bear to hold a funeral for Mamah Borthwick, but he did fund and attend services for all his employees. Angry about the hurtful gossip that had followed them throughout their relationship, Wright made a final tribute to the woman he loved in a letter he addressed “To My Neighbors”. It reads, in part:

Mamah and I have had our struggles, our differences, our moments of jealous fear for our ideals of each other—they are not lacking in any close human relationships—but they served only to bind us more closely together. We were more than merely happy even when momentarily miserable. And she was true as only a woman who loves know the meaning of the word. Her soul has entered me and it shall not be lost.

For months afterward, Wright suffered from conversion disorder, which is a psychological disorder thought to be brought on by severe stress. His symptoms included insomnia, weight loss, and temporary blindness. His sister, Jane Porter, took care of him during this time. As we know, Frank Lloyd Wright eventually recovered and continued on with his career, and came to be known as the most famous architect in American history. Julian Carlton, however, forever altered the course of his life, separating him forever from his dear Mamah.

Please click to below to view Darcia’s Helle’s many excellent posts:

Edward Elmore Rode the Legal Railroad to 30 Years on Death Row: His Crime? Simple! He Was Black and Poor

 “The Wrong Carlos”: Non-Violent Manchild Executed for Murder He Did Not Commit

The Electric Chair Nightmare: An Infamous and Agonizing History

Autopsies: Truth, Fiction and Maura Isles and Her 5-Inch-Heels

Don’t Crucify Me, Dude! Just Shoot Me Instead! Spartacus and Death by Crucifixion

To Burn or Not to Burn? Auto-Da-Fé Is Not Good for Women or Children!

The Disgraceful Entrapment of Jesse Snodgrass: Keep the Narcs Out of Our Schools

Why Should I Believe You? The History of the Polygraph

“Don’t Behead Me, Dude!”: The Story of Beheading and the Invention of the Guillotine

Aileen Wuornos, America’s First High-Profile Female Serial Killer, Never Had a Chance

The Terror of ISO: A Descent into Madness

Al Capone Could Not Bribe the Rock: Alcatraz, Fortress of Doom

Cyberspace, Darknet, Murder-for-Hire and the Invisible Black Machine

Darcia Helle lives in a fictional world with a husband who is sometimes real. Their house is ruled by spoiled dogs and cats and the occasional dust bunny.

Suspense, random blood splatter and mismatched socks consume Darcia’s days. She writes because the characters trespassing through her mind leave her no alternative. Only then are the voices free to haunt someone else’s mind.

Join Darcia in her fictional world: www.QuietFuryBooks.com

The characters await you.

by Patrick H. Moore

Here at All Things Crime Blog we come across some very weird cases — some of which, of course, are very disturbing. There’s nothing funny, for example, about a 250 pound sadist plotting to sexually molest and cannibalize a young boy. Once in a while, however, we discover a case which — while undeniably disturbing — can also be viewed as darkly amusing, at least to one of jaundiced sensibility like mysrelf. The case of Meloney and Michael Selleneit of Centerville, Utah fits into this category and is unlike any case I have ever encountered, reading more like a Philip K. Dick novel than a true crime story.

It seems that Meloney, who is 55 and mentally ill, became convinced that her next store neighbor, Tony Pierce, was “telepathically raping” her. Notwithstanding her illness, Meloney found this in no way acceptable — and being a woman of pride and honor — she ordered her husband Michael Selleneit, also 55, to go next door and shoot the bastard.

Don’t think for a minute, though, that Michael was simply a member of the infamous “Honey Do” club and said to Meloney, “Yes, honey. I’ll do it. I’ll take care of it right away.” Instead of jumping the gun and going off half-cocked, he and Meloney sat down and discussed the matter carefully and conscientiously. According to the arrest warrant, Michael Selleneit was convinced that Pierce had been “telepathically raping” his wife for years, and was using crack cocaine to control her mind, which I assume means the purpose of the crack was to soften Meloney up so that she would be receptive to the “telepathic rape.” I realize this is a rather an odd concept, but like I said, this is a very weird case. In any event, according to the arrest affidavit, the couple discussed the matter and came to the conclusion that the only honorable solution would be for Michael to “go for it,” to use Meloney’s phrase, i.e., march over to Tom’s house and plug him. Meloney informed the police that she was not absolutely certain that Michael would actually go through with the attack. What she knew for sure, though, was that Michael would not have shot Tom without her encouragement. 

Without further ado, Michael — doubly fortified by his belief that Tony had been committing the heinous act for years and his wife’s encouragement — took the bull by the horns and marched over to Tony’s house where he found him gardening in his backyard. Michael came up behind Tony and shot him twice in the back with a handgun. Witnesses say that after the shooting Michael walked calmly back to his trailer. Fortunately, Tony received medical attention promptly and lived through the attack.

This is not a new case; the shooting occurred on Nov. 10, 2011. For the past two years, Meloney has been in a Utah state mental hospital receiving care for a variety of mental illnesses including schizophrenia. She had been previously found unfit to stand trial but the presiding judge, Thomas Kay, recently reversed his decision. Thus, since she had long since incriminated herself, not to mention the fact that there were apparently witnesses, Meloney pleaded guilty on Sept. 19, 2013 to illegally possessing a weapon, and criminal solicitation.

Michael Selleneit had already pleaded guilty in January of 2012 to attempted manslaughter and illegally owning a weapon. He was sentenced to two consecutive one-to-fifteen year prison sentences and is serving his time at a Utah mental institution. Michael had also been previously arrested in 1990 for sexual contact with a child.

Meloney Selleneit is current being held in Utah state custody. Although she was scheduled to be sentenced on October 31st, the date has apparently been continued.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is the largest city in a sparsely-populated state. With a population of somewhat over 150,000, it is more than double its size back in ’67 when I hung out there briefly with my crew when our VW Microbus developed engine trouble.

Although South Dakota is hundreds of miles east of the fabled Badlands, a huge national park known for its sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires – the sort of place you don’t want to get lost in – the “Badlands” recently came to Sioux Falls, metaphorically speaking, when a conventional-looking 30-year-old woman was arrested and placed in custody for allegedly raping not one, not two, but three little neighbor boys all at once in her apartment.

Rachel Skytta KDLT.com writes:

A Sioux Falls woman is charged with multiple counts of child rape, after her boyfriend found her with several young boys at their apartment.

According to police, 30-year-old Anne Elizabeth Doubler and the three little boys, who were in the 7-to-10 year age range, were all naked when her boyfriend and their four-year-old son came home to their apartment near the 600 block of N. Lewis Ave.

Unsurprisingly, law enforcement is quite confounded by this deeply disturbing case. Among other things, it’s still unclear how many other children may have been victims of this reported female pedophile.

“When we’re talking multiple victims, especially at one time, that’s something we don’t see very often,” said Officer Sam Clemens of the Sioux Falls Police Dept.

Clemens believes that there may have been a total of six prepubescent victims.

Ms. Doubler is facing multiple charges for first degree rape, sexual contact with a child, and sexual exploitation.

Although the precise details of the boyfriend’s discovery are a bit cloudy, according to the Café Mom, Kiri Blakeley, the boyfriend informed law enforcement that he walked into the apartment, and started to head upstairs, when he saw the au natural Ms. Doubler at the top of the stairs.

Although the boyfriend may have initially thought that Ms. Doubler’s nudity was for his benefit, he quickly learned that was not the case and called 911.

Police believe that the youngest of the potential victims is 5-years-old.

Female child molesters, who are sometimes frustrated or immature school teachers, usually target teenage boys, so if these allegations are true, this is an extremely unusual case.

One of the alleged victim’s mothers, a Ms. Batulo, who is very possibly of African descent and lives a few doors done from the suspect, told KDLT:

“She is bad, very bad. I asked the officer, I said ‘what is going on, what is she doing to my baby?’ I don’t feel good. I don’t like it.”

Ms. Batulo added that this wasn’t the first time that young boys had been over to the woman’s apartment. She said her son was shaking when he arrived home after the incident.

“The boys are seven and eight-years-old. I said ‘what’s she thinking’,” Ms. Batulo added.

“We don’t know if it necessarily started last night, or if it’s been going on for some time,” said Officer Clemens, elaborating further, “It really unusual to have multiple victims, especially in one instance. Especially, we had three and believe there’s up to six and there could be more as well. It’s pretty rare for something like that to happen.”

Although Officer Clemens seems to have a penchant for repeating himself, it’s certainly understandable given the circumstances.

When questioned, the boys described having sexual contact with Ms. Doubler.

Ms. Doubler is currently being held on a $50,000 cash-only bond. She apparently will be allowed to see her four-year-old son, but only during supervised visits.

If convicted of first degree rape, Doubler could face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The Café Mom writes:

I couldn’t imagine being a mom and not letting my child go play at a woman’s house — a woman with a 4-year-old child. A neighbor. This really makes you rethink whether women are always “safe.”

* * * * *

Damn! This sounds awful and it seems pretty clear that something very untoward was probably going on. However, we don’t know precisely what occurred between Ms. Doubler and the boys, and it’s important not to succumb to hysteria. It’s notoriously hard to get at the truth in matters of this sort when the only witnesses are young children.

by BJW Nashe

Now that the guilty verdict is in, and the moral issue of Jodi Arias’s crime is supposedly settled, it is time for other considerations to be brought to bear on this unsettling case. Suitably chastened by the firm, steady hand of justice, hopefully now we can all dry our tears, dampen our sense of outrage, stop chanting “USA!” outside the Maricopa County Courthouse, and finally view Jodi’s saga from the perspective of the true crime connoisseur. And in fact, at this point in our history, as inundated as we are with crime, whether we know it or not we truly have become crime connoisseurs. We are experts when it comes to murder – aestheticians of the bloody deed. We should all be awarded honorary doctoral degrees. Such expertise, however, inevitably leads us to legitimate questions of artistry. In the case of Jodi Arias, it is time for a thorough evaluation along these lines. The question is not whether she did it; rather, the question is how well did she do it, how artistically, how pleasingly?

The distinguished English essayist and habitual opium-eater Thomas De Quincey points the way forward in his brilliant and timeless essay, “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts” (Blackwood’s Magazine, 1827):

“When a murder is in the paulo-post-futurum tense, and a rumor of it comes to our ears, by all means let us treat it morally. But suppose it over and done… suppose the poor murdered man to be out of his pain, and the rascal that did it off like a shot, nobody knows whither; suppose, lastly, that we have done our best, by putting out our legs to trip up the fellow in his flight, but all to no purpose… why, then, I say, what’s the use of any more virtue? Enough has been given to morality; now comes the turn of Taste and the Fine Arts.”

For Jodi Arias, it is indeed “over and done.” And no, she is not “off like a shot.” Rather, she is caged like an animal, and will be fortunate to avoid the death penalty. Or unfortunate, if her initial response to the verdict is to be trusted. Arias has stated emphatically that she would prefer death to life in prison. In her first statement made to a TV reporter following the conviction, she explained her thought process:“Longevity runs in my family, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my natural life in one place. I believe death is the ultimate freedom and I’d rather have my freedom as soon as I can get it.” One can see why the insanity defense was not considered in this case. Jodi’s logic here is unassailable. If the past is any indication, she will be changing her position on this half a dozen times in the future. For now, however, it is death that is foremost on her mind.

It is worth noting that if death is the “ultimate freedom,” then Arias’ murder victim, Travis Alexander, strikes us as being “over-liberated.” The manner in which he was dispatched from this mortal coil stamped his “ultimate freedom” with an exclamation point. There was no debating the issue. We believe he likely would have preferred to continue living with little or no freedom, trapped in his dual role as Mormon church boy/debauched fornicator. But this was not be his fate.

If death is the “ultimate freedom,” perhaps we should all be murdered just to get it over and done with. But let’s not get sidetracked by too many thorny existential questions at this point. Our primary concern here is the fine art of murder insofar as this applies to Jodi Arias. In particular, we need to look closely at the character of the murderess, her choice of victim, and the style in which the crime was carried out — the various creative flourishes and crescendos the murderess employed.

The Character of the Murderess:

And Jodi Arias earns points right from the start for her physical appearance and her personality. No one doubts that she is an attractive young woman. Many would call her beautiful. The Creator endowed her with certain charms, and the plastic surgeon did the rest. Let us praise the Lord for the miracles of genetics, science, and medicine. We can all probably agree that any time a woman blessed with Jodi Arias’s good looks becomes involved in murder, the aesthetic possibilities are endless.

It is hardly on looks alone that Jodi Arias excels as a murderess, though. There’s no need for us to succumb to displeasing shallowness. We also need to consider her personality and behavior. Happily, Jodi presents us with a wealth of riches in this regard.

Jodi Arias has demonstrated a level of psychosexual dynamism that may be unsurpassed in the annals of female crime. She is able to combine the chilly manipulative demeanor of a top flight film noir vixen — say, Lauren Bacall circa The Big Sleep (1946) — with the red-hot antics of a 21st century porn star. This heady melange of cool, calculated mind-games and x-rated promiscuity was the elephant in the room throughout the circus that some dared call a trial. Emotional blackmail, fits of jealousy, and dysfunctional codependency? Jodi had it covered. Bondage? Degradation? Anal sex? Sperm facials? Jodi was up for it. Let’s be honest, the risque photos displayed at the trial, along with the phone sex recordings, and the naughty testimony concerning Spiderman underpants and rough sex following hot on the heels of a Mormon baptism — all of this turned a whole season of “Court TV” into an Arizona remake of the Marquis de Sade’s Crimes of Love.

And Jodi’s apparent psychological problems — her dissociative personality disorder, her mood swings, and her compulsive lying — only served to boost the scandalous nature of the proceedings. Likewise, her murder trial makeover, in which she was transformed from blonde femme fatale into a bespectacled, brunette librarian, simply rendered the subject matter even more salacious. What sex addict or voyeur has not, at some time or other, entertained fantasies of  “Greek love” with a librarian? We can only assume that Travis Alexander was no stranger to this concept.

None of this detracts one bit from the artistic quality of her crime. On the contrary, Jodi Arias scores extremely high when it comes to personal appearance, style, personality, and attitude. I can’t think of another murderess who presents such an enticing blend of psychological problems, undeniable attractions and untamed desires.

Jodi Arias’ Choice of Victim

When it comes to the matter of Jodi Arias’ victim, we find ourselves in a bit of a quandary. The esteemed De Quincey lays out three criteria in this category for a truly artistic murder. First, the victim should be a “good person.” This satisfies the Aristotelian notion that a murder shall invoke both terror and pity. If the victim is an evil sort, his/her murder, though terrifying, will arouse scarcely any pity at all. Second, the victim should not be a public figure. Killing a celebrity or well-known official takes on the more public flavor of an assassination, which tends to distract us from purely aesthetic considerations. Third, the victim should be in good health, for as De Quincey puts it, “it is absolutely barbarous to murder a sick person, who is usually quite unable to bear it.”Absolutely. Just because we are dealing with murder here, there is no need to descend to the level of mere savages.

So how does Jodi Arias measure up to these standards? On balance, she does quite well. But as in most areas of life, there is definitely room for improvement. Travis Alexander was certainly in fine health, and he was by no means a public figure or celebrity. His name would mean nothing to us, were it not for his violent demise. As far as being a “good person,” however, this presents us with distinct problems. By pretending to be a devout Mormon, all the while indulging in pre-marital sex binges on the sly, Travis Alexander was clearly a scoundrel. Perhaps not a scoundrel of the order of the venture capitalist and Latter Day Saint, Mitt Romney, but a scoundrel nonetheless. Anyone who rationalizes his clear delight in sodomy because he has convinced himself that the act poses no threat to his Mormon vows, since it is somehow not considered “intercourse,” is a confused and dishonest individual. Indulge in this perversion to your heart’s content, but please, spare us the fairy tales and rationalizations. Sodomy and religious dogma do not mix. Moreover, we would not be shocked to learn that Travis combined his delusional thought processes and beliefs with abusive behavior toward women.  Should we really be surprised that this type of man would one day be attacked by one of his female sex buddies, whom he idly chattered about tying to a tree?

Therefore, when it comes to her choice of victim, Jodi scores 2 out of 3. Her slaying of Travis allows for ample terror, but alas, none of the pity we would feel over the violent and untimely death of a “good person.”

The Artistry of the Murder Itself

Now we can move on to what is by far the most important part of our evaluation — the artistry of the murder itself. Here we must navigate through some fairly complicated terrain. The crime scene itself was a huge mess, the site of bloody pandemonium. Jodi turned that house into an abattoir. Travis Alexander was shot and then stabbed close to thirty times with a knife. His head was nearly severed. So what are we to make of this attempted masterpiece? Remember, we are discussing pure aesthetics here — the morality and legality of the matter having been thoroughly resolved. That dead horse that has been flogged quite enough already.

In terms of planning and execution, Jodi Arias exceeds all expectations. What is particularly striking is the combination of cold-blooded premeditation (ensuring her the coveted first degree murder conviction), with what can only be described as a passionate frenzy when it came time to close the deal. The Manson girls of 1969 inevitably come to mind. But they were unclean hippies. Jodi was well-scrubbed, perfumed, and no doubt clothed in Victoria’s Secret, or some similar lingerie. Plus, she had the audacity to have sex with her victim prior to killing him. Then she proceeded to hook-up with another fellow directly after the carnage. Surely this deserves bonus points! Let’s face it, Jodi would eat the Manson girls’ brains for lunch. Compared to Jodi, they were stoned bush leaguers.

When it comes to the choice of weapons, we are faced with a real dilemma. Perhaps De Quincey might guide us here. The learned and eloquent dope fiend, friend and contemporary of Wordsworth and Coleridge, was partial to stabbing and throat-slitting, above all other forms of killing. Bludgeoning was acceptable, but he had a special fondness for the dagger, and no use whatsoever for poison:

“Fie on these dealers in poison, say I: can they not keep to the old honest way of cutting throats, without introducing such abominable innovations from Italy? I consider all these poisoning cases, compared with the legitimate style, as no better than wax-work by the side of sculpture, or a lithographic print by the side of a fine Volpato.”

I feel precisely the same way about guns as De Quincey did about poison. Any moron can load up on firearms and ammunition at the local gun store. They can visit a gun show, or purchase guns online, and not even be bothered with a routine background check. Pulling a trigger and blasting holes in someone takes no great level of skill or imagination. It is simply a mechanical action, requiring no more aesthetic skill than starting a car or flushing a toilet.

We have no choice, therefore, but to rank Jodi Arias considerably lower than we would prefer on this account, simply because she made the aesthetically disastrous decision to use a gun. It’s a shame, because her knife skills are unsurpassed, truly off the charts. Her blade work and the ensuing bloodshed is reminiscent of both the disfiguring cubism of Picasso, and Jackson Pollock’s abstract expressionist splatterings and drips. The bathroom scene is a true wonder; it’s shocking that this was only her first murder. And the sexual activity takes us into the realm of transgressive Viennese performance art. (A pre-murder sex tape would have been an excellent touch, but you can’t have everything.) Moreover, Jodi’s incredible performance during the police interrogation – complete with yoga positions and pleasing gymnastics — is pure Dada. Hugo Ball would have surely applauded this tour de force.

All in all, the sublime and terrifying artistry of Jodi Arias’ act of murder is undeniable. Yet it will remain forever tarnished by the crass and tasteless use of a firearm.

I am reminded of Valerie Solanas, the deranged feminist revolutionary and author of The S.C.U.M. Manifesto(1967). SCUM is the acronym for the “Society for Cutting Up Men” (not the “Society for Cutting Up Mormons”). And that’s precisely what Solanis advocated: knife attacks in the face of male oppression. The typical man, as Solanas affectionately characterizes him, “is obsessed with screwing; he’ll swim in a river of snot, wade nostril-deep through a mile of vomit, if he thinks there’ll be a friendly pussy awaiting him…” The women she calls on to butcher these males are “completely self-confident, arrogant, outgoing, proud, tough-minded… capable of intense, witty, bitchy conversation.” They are also “hateful, violent bitches… given to disgusting, nasty, upsetting scenes.” And they are prone to “slamming those who unduly irritate them in the teeth.” These women, Solanas writes, would “sink a shiv into a man’s chest, or ram an icepick up his a__hole as soon as look at him, if they knew they could get away with it…”

Zut alors! Not exactly Oprah’s Book Club material–but an undeniably compelling screed from thoughtful and angry psychopath.

Yet when the time came to put her theory into practice, Solanas went for the gun. Not the knife, the shiv, the sword, or the icepick. The gun. You might recall that she’s the one who shot Andy Warhol in 1968, seriously wounding him as he stood there dazed and confused inside the inner sanctum of his famed Factory. Warhol somehow survived the attack. And Solanas had made a serious mistake. The shooting ruined her reputation forever. It also occurred on the same day as the Robert F. Kennedy assassination — which hurt her in terms of publicity. I am perhaps one of the few connoisseurs of crime who even remembers her name. And I only invoke her here as an example of how miserably one can botch an otherwise excellent and artful execution simply by choosing the wrong weapon.

Despite the imperfections noted, Jodi Arias’s slaying of Travis Alexander, when viewed as a complete event — an “artistic whole” — ranks extremely high in the annals of murder. Although Thomas De Quincy would rightly decry Jodi’s inexplicable use of a firearm, this blemish can and will be forgiven over time, considering the strength of the overall performance. Jodi Arias will be remembered for quite some time by all true connoisseurs of crime.

adapted by Patrick H. Moore

The world has changed greatly since the 1960′s and — generally speaking — individuals are held to a much higher standard of conduct with respect to sexual “indiscretions” and other form of blatant or serious criminal misconduct. In this post, the idea of which comes to us courtesy of Lachlan M. and Javier Yepes at Cracked.com, we will discuss three celebrities who “got away with murder”, figuratively speaking, in previous decades but would probably get far more than “a slap on the wrist” if they were apprehended for these crimes in today’s world.

We will start with legendary rock guitarist Jimmy Page before moving on to Vince Neil of Motley Crew and —surprise surprise — Sean Penn.

Jimmy Page Kidnapped a 14-Year-Old Girl and Kept Her Prisoner for Several Years

In addition to his fantastic career with Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page turned in a monumental body of excellent studio work in the mid and late ’60s. He played on Tom Jones’s pop smash “It’s Not Unusual”, The Kink’s monster hit “You Really Got Me” and Van Morrison instant ’60′s classic “Gloria”, before going on to stardom with Led Zeppelin.

According to Lachlan M. and Yepes, in 1972, Page was hanging around a nightclub and laid eyes on 14-year-old Lori Maddox. Page sent roadie Richard Cole to Maddox’s table with the message, “Jimmy told me that he’s going to have you whether you like it or not.” The roadie then grabbed her and chucked her in the back of a limo.

From there, it was on to Page’s house, where the “affair” was quickly consummated. Page may have been sleazy but he was not unintelligent and he knew that if the word got out, hecould be in serious trouble. So for the next few years, although Maddox reportedly traveled with the band at times, she was kept out of the public eye as much as possible so that the relationship wasn’t brought to the attention of the authorities. Even in the wild ’70′s, you could still go to jail for something like this.

Page got away with it and never went to jail or got arrested. Lori Maddox may still be infatuated with him and calls him “romantic.” Perhaps this is a case of the Stockholm syndrome. Here are Maddox’s own words from Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga:

 “It was magnificent. Can you believe it? It was just like right out of a story! Kidnapped, man, at 14!”

Motley Crue’s Lead Singer Vince Neil Killed Someone While Drunk Driving and Only Got 30 Days in Jail and a Large Fine

Motley Crue has sold 90 million albums over their 30-year career. Known and loved for their hard rocking and hard-partying ways, the Crue consumed enough cocaine to put dozens of cocaine dealers’ children through college

Their shenanigans were so over-the-top crazy that it made them caricatures but no one seemed to care. After all, it was the hedonistic ’80s. But not everything they did was lovable. Certainly not the time they killed  a man.

On December 8, 1984, lead singer Vince Neil was enjoying day 3 of a three day party at his Vegas pad. The booze was running low so he jumped in a car with his rocker friend Razzle and drove to a liquor store. Out of control crazy, he soon lost control of the car and collided head-on with a Volkswagen coming the other way. Razzle died instantly, and the two people in the other car were hospitalized. One reportedly suffered brain damage and was comatose for a month.

Neil was convicted of DUI and vehicular manslaughter, which could have resulted in up to 10 years in prison. Being a superstar, Neil hired a “weasel lawyer” and paid him a lot of money. The lawyer talked the sentence down to 30 days in jail, five years’ probation, and $2.5 million in fines. Neil only served 20 of those 30 days because Motley Crue had a tour scheduled.

To his credit, Neil certainly realized how fortunate he was, stating:

“I wrote a $2.5 million check for vehicular manslaughter when Razzle died. I should have gone to prison. I definitely deserved to go to prison. But I did 30 days in jail and got laid and drank beer, because that’s the power of cash. That’s f_____ up.”

It is noted that Neil’s contrition has not stopped him from driving under the influence on one of more occasions since then.

Sean Penn Tied Up and Physically Abused Madonna

Sean Penn is one of our most well-respected actors. Who can forget his roles in “Milk”, “Mystic River” and “Dead Man Walking.” He is also a noted progressive who vehemently opposed our involvement in the war with Iraq.

Therefore, it’s easy to think of him as not only a fine actor but someone who cares about humanity.

In Penn’s earlier years, however, he was known for his violent and aggressive outbursts. The incident that could have resulted in severe repercussions including substantial prison time was the time he assaulted and battered Madonna in 1988.

Their marriage was a stormy affair and Penn’s heavy drinking certainly didn’t help. Finally, in 1988, after he flew into a rage over Madonna’s supposed affair with Warren Beatty, she called the marriage off. Penn responded by turning into an abusive nutcase. Although accounts of the beating vary with respect to details, here is the story according to Lachlan M. and Javier Yepes:

After he got good and drunk (again), Penn climbed into Madonna’s house, where she was alone. He then grabbed her, tied her to a chair, and assaulted her for hours, both physically and emotionally. He then went out for more booze, came back, and kept up the beating. Madonna only escaped after telling Penn that she had to go to the bathroom, which meant he had no problem battering, beating, bloodying, and bruising the supposed love of his life, but felt it would have been too degrading to make her pee in front of him.

While Penn was arrested, the charges were dropped because Madonna didn’t want to generate a media circus, which may have been the one and only time in her life that Madonna actually wanted the press to go away. A couple of decades of political activism and two Oscars later, and the world barely remembers an incident that would turn most people into a pariah.

*     *     *     *     *

In today’s world, any of the above three incidents would result in some serious prison time. For kidnapping and carrying on a sexual relationship with Lori Maddox, Jimmy Page could easily get 20 years or more in prison. For his DUI vehicular manslaughter, Vince Neil would probably be looking at two to three years minimum. As for the violent Mr. Penn, he would be lucky to escape with a year’s county time, depending on whether the authorities wanted to make an example of him.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

Although I’ve tortured myself trying to figure out why Queen Tammy and Crown Prince Sidney made the remarkably self-destructive decision to murder Heather Elvis simply because Tammy was jealous over Sidney “getting naked” with the attractive 20-year-old, up until recently, I really hadn’t made much headway other than the obvious – i.e., Tammy was insanely jealous because Heather was young and quite attractive whereas the old Queen (Disney-Mom Tammy) was “no spring chicken.”

This fact, and I think it is a fact, explains why Tammy was so angry, but it does not explain why they murdered the young thing (assuming they are guilty). Most everyone has been jealous at one time or another, and some of us have been extremely jealous – so jealous that we may even have engaged in revenge fantasies. However, no matter how badly we may have wanted to, we didn’t take the ultimate step; i.e., we didn’t whack the other man (or in this case the other woman).

So it was with a sense of relief that I came across an article by Tanya Root of the Sun News dated 3-12-14, in which she (perhaps unknowingly) provides the missing limk that leads the psychologically-inclined observer to jump up out of his or her bubble bath while exclaiming jubilantly, “EUREKA! I HAVE FOUND IT.”

Let us go then, you and I, and take a quick look at the information Ms. Root provides. She writes:

When police served search warrants last month at the home of two suspects (Tammy and Sidney Moorer) charged in the disappearance of Horry County resident Heather Elvis, officers found the home in disarray and multiple guns in the master bedroom where the entire family was sleeping, according to an incident report released Wednesday.

Police said the Moorers and their three children, ages 14, 12 and 8, were found to be sleeping in the downstairs master bedroom when police arrived the morning of Feb. 21, according to an incident report. Officers noted that one person was sleeping in an oversized chair, while others slept on a mattress at the foot of the bed and a mattress in the walk-in closet.

Aged, moldy food was found in the kitchen, trash on the countertops and floors, and the upstairs area, where the children’s bedrooms were located, was “in complete disarray nearly in an unlivable manner,” according to the report. Officers also noted hundreds of Legos scattered on the floor along with other toys, trash and clothing.

The backyard area also was covered in animal feces, according to police.

So why is this so important? Bear with me, we have one more important detail first.

In addition to the appalling mess, law enforcement also found two long guns leaning against the wall of the master bedroom, and pistol on the nightstand next to the bed.

Following the search of the residence and the arrest of the Queen and The Crown Prince, the children went to live with Tammy’s mother, Polly Caison.

On the day of the search, Horry County police took the couple into custody on obstruction of justice and exposure charges. Two days later, on Feb. 23, they were charged with kidnapping and then the following day the murder charges were added. Specifically, the kidnapping and murder warrants state that the Moorers murdered “Heather Elvis with malice, aforethought” at the Peachtree Boat Landing.

The indecent exposure arrest warrants state that the Moorers are accused of exposing themselves in public between Dec. 17 and Dec. 18 at 1325 Celebrity Circle and in Conway at Atlantic Avenue and Century Circle.

First, let me say flat-out that I’m astounded to discover that Tammy and Sidney were utter slobs. I mean, my god, isn’t Tammy thought of as the ultimate Disney Mom. Aren’t Disney Moms a bit like girl scout leaders, Sunday School teachers and other moral and ethical leaders of our society? Aren’t they supposed to be positive role models? Of course they are. And isn’t cleanliness next to godliness? That’s what I’ve always heard.

And although I can’t claim to be a Disney expert, I have been to Disneyland in California and Disney World in Orlando. The freakin’ places are incredibly well-organized. Slobs simply need not apply. Spit and polish like I’d rarely seen and may never see again (unless, of course, I go back for another go-round. Space Mountain here I come).

* * * * *

In Freudian psychology (not that I’m a Freudian), the famous Viennese psychoanalyst posits that the state of mind he calls the anal-expulsive personality, which is characterized by messy, wasteful, aggressive, and destructive and/or self-destructive behavior, stems from overly-lenient toilet training. That is, if the kid wants to smear his excrement on the walls, Mom says, “Go for it, Soul Sister.”

I once had a professor explain it like this: The anal-expulsive type is the guy who keeps his money crumpled up in a big wad in his pocket and when he wants to show off, he pulls the wad out and starts tossing it around like a drunken sailor.

In other words, anal-expulsive types lack self-control. They are aggressive and can’t keep their emotions in check. If they get mad, they get way too mad. This is apparently what happened with Tammy. She was so freakin’ jealous that she couldn’t see straight so instead of taking a chill pill, she talked Sidney into taking part in her evil scheme to kidnap and murder poor Heather, a supremely aggressive act that was destructive to Heather and to the Moorer children, and remarkably self-destructive to both Tammy and Sidney.

Thus, if we combine the Moorer’s environment, which based on the police search was incredibly messy and disorganized complete with a backyard full of dog feces, with their alleged aggressive actions – kidnapping and murdering Heather Elvis, we see that T & S encompass all of key qualities found in the anal-expulsive personality.

In other words, what set Tammy apart from a “normal” incredibly jealous woman whose husband is getting naked with a cute young thing, is the fact that based on her anal-expulsive personality, she simply could not control her emotions. Handcuffing Sidney to the bed at night for several months was not enough. Sending threatening messages to Heather was not enough. Nothing short of murdering her would do. And so Queen Tammy set the wheels in motion and Crown Prince Sidney apparently went along with her evil plan.

And just in case I haven’t convinced you yet and you’re not buying this theory, allow me to drag in the two indecent exposures on successive days as additional bits of evidence. At the time Sidney was 38, if I’m not mistaken, and Tammy was 42. Exposing yourself in public for sexual purposes as an allegedly mature adult is simply the grown-up version of smearing your poop on the walls during the toddler stage.

Or as Eddie Money sang in “No Control”:

Well I wasn’t born in trouble.
It’s my adopted middle name.
When you’re running with the devil,
Ya got no one else to blame.

He says I’m ok.
He might say I’m all right.
But, I lose control everywhere.
It keeps me up all night.

No control
I got no control
You bet I know
No no no
I got no control
Ahhh na na na no control.

Please click here to read our previous posts on the Moorer-Elvis saga:

Tammy Moorer’s Mother Polly Caison Will Defend Her Daughter with Her Dying Breath

The Sound and the Fury of Tammy Moorer!

How Tammy and Sidney Moorer May Have Lured Heather Elvis to Her Death

Heather Elvis’s Father and Sister Receive Death Threats

Swingers Sidney and Tammy Moorer Charged with Murder in Death of Heather Elvis!

Myrtle Beach Couple Arrested in Heather Elvis Missing Persons Case

by Starks Shrink

Luka Magnotta, dubbed by the media as the “cannibal killer”, is a Canadian who stands accused of the brutal murder and dismemberment of Montreal Concordia University student, Jun Lin. He is also accused of mailing the body parts of his victim to members of the Canadian parliament in Ottawa and two schools in Vancouver — charges to which he has pleaded not guilty. In addition, he is charged with distributing obscene material for a video posted on an Edmonton website called “1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick”, which depicts parts of his gruesome deed in graphic detail. His trial is expected to begin in September of 2014.

Luka Magnotta was born Eric Clinton Kirk Newman in Scarborough, Ontario. He is the oldest of three children. Little is known about his childhood save for reports that it was dysfunctional. We do know, however that he lived with his grandparents after his parents’ divorce and went to high school from 1998 to 2000. Classmates and teachers recall him as vain and prone to telling preposterous stories, mostly to nurture his own grandiosity. While all this is hearsay, it is supported by Luka’s own words, which are amply posted on the Internet. I believe that at some point, his deceit became his reality, and that he put immense pressure on himself to maintain his self-image.

We know unequivocally that in 2000 he was treated as an outpatient and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.  As many do, he struggled to accept his diagnosis and only took his medication sporadically.  He also had the bad habit of missing his doctor’s appointments and was hospitalized at least twice in 2003. For someone who had confabulated his whole life and believed himself to be superior intellectually and was undoubtedly an attractive physical specimen, this must have been a terrible blow because of the stigma associated with schizophrenia which many still believe to be a personal flaw.

At one point in 2011, he joined a support forum on Psych Central, which allows users to pose questions and answer other participants’ questions. A member posted that he hated his mother and Luka responded, using one of his known online pseudonyms, Vladamir Romanov. Luka described in detail his childhood travails and the abuse he suffered, none of which can be verified, of course. There were several paragraphs in which he describes having been held in a hospital ward against his will because he had been the victim of rape. He goes on to claim that he had been held for several days because his mother refused to give the doctors permission to release him, despite the lavish vacations and expensive gifts he had bestowed upon her even after the abuse.  He claims that this event transpired in 2010, when he would have been 28 years old, and would not have needed parental consent to be released, had he indeed been in a hospital trauma ward. I believe he is reliving his rage about having been held in an inpatient psychiatric ward at some earlier point, and even years later, his fury and hatred are clearly evident. His words reveal a juvenile’s tendency toward prevarication, putting him and his mother at extreme ends of the spectrum with Luka portrayed as the ever-generous son while his mother is cruel and callous. At the age of 28, he is still displaying a childlike social perception. These are traits that seem to be consistent throughout his life.

From 2000 onward, Luka’s life tool on a whole new direction.  In 2002, he went to work as a male stripper, using pseudonyms such as Rocco, Luka and Jimmy, though at this point his legal name was still Eric Newman. According to news sources, he had a transgender girlfriend during this time, who claims to have broken off the relationship because Luka was, in her words, “a pathological liar”.  It’s interesting to note that Luka is purported to have had several transgender girlfriends but also openly identifies himself as gay. The rumor surrounding Luka’s career is likely just that –rumor generated by Luka himself.  His claims of having been a porn star and model may have some basis in reality but probably more a toehold than a foothold.

For some, being a gay porn star may not be the height of aspiration, but Luka needed to be seen as a pinnacle of success in his chosen field and must have found it frustrating when the only roles he could land were mere bit parts in low-budget pornographic films. Maintaining the illusion of being a rising star and paying for cosmetic enhancements doesn’t come cheaply, and in 2005, Luka was charged with a myriad of fraud offenses. It seems that Luka had befriended a woman, who while legally of age 21, had the mental capacity of a 12-year-old. He persuaded her to obtain credit cards and racked up $10,000 worth of fraudulent debt. He pleaded guilty and was convicted of fraud and impersonation. The judge, however, gave Luka leniency based upon a letter from his psychiatrist, which indicated that Luka was schizophrenic but would have a decent prognosis if he was compliant with his medication and treatment schedule. He was given nine months of community service and a year’s probation. This incident displays Luka’s striking lack of concern for the welfare of others as long as they serve his needs, which at the time were financial. The Crown had also intended to charge him with sexually assaulting and videotaping the same woman but for unknown reasons withdrew the charges.

Over the next couple of years, Luka would work as a paid escort and continue to seek out and play bit roles in gay pornography both in print and on film. During this time, he legally changed his name to Luka Magnotta, a final desperate bid to rid himself of the Eric of his youth who was so vastly inferior to the Luka of his present and future. He also made several stabs at starring in reality TV shows, and one audition tape provides some firsthand insight into who Luka really is. The audition video is for a reality show about cosmetic surgery. In it, Luka admits to having had a number of procedures, including a cosmetic rhinoplasty and hair implants. What this tells us is that he is speaking about his insecurities concerning his appearance as he constantly compares himself with others in his chosen field. He indicates that he had always been good-looking but that at the ripe old age of 25, his looks were fading and he was ‘looking kind of ugly’. He goes on to add that looks are the number one priority for him, with intelligence coming a distant second, although he believes he possesses both of these qualities in abundance.  Some of what he relates in the video is intended to persuade the casting agents to select him for their program but his mask slips and we see glimpses of who he really is. In an effort to shock his audience with what he will tolerate in the name of physical perfection, he relates in quite graphic detail what occurs when he gets his hair transplants. Interviews with friends and family also confirm that as a youth, he was obsessed with his physical appearance, so this, at least, is not a performance. He was ultimately rejected for the program as was so often the case. That of course did not stop him from claiming online that he was a reality star.

By this point, Luka was busily creating the image of who he wanted to be through online personalities. He created upwards of 100 separate online accounts and over 20 websites, all dedicated to his favorite topic — Luka Magnotta.  Many of these personalities feature photos of Luka or promoted fan pages and blog accounts about Luka. He seemed to be seeking attention in whatever way he could. He went so far as to create online rumors romantically linking himself with Karla Homolka, and then used other sock puppets to dispute the rumor in order to stimulate discussion. When that didn’t result in sufficient attention to satiate his ever-growing appetite, he went to the headquarters of the Toronto Sun to dispute the online rumors, though the paper hadn’t published the alleged link. Though Magnotta railed against online ‘haters’ and wrote pages about the evils of cyberstalking on one of his websites, he planted the rumors himself and in fact, stalked himself more than others did. Magnotta definitely went by the old saw that no publicity is bad publicity.

By 2009, estranged from his family and lonely and broke (he’d filed for bankruptcy two years earlier, citing an unnamed illness and medical bills), he set out to find someone to hustle. He found his perfect victim in a traveling companion who was in was his 70s, and does not wish to be identified. They traveled to Europe with his old “friend” footing the bill and ultimately toured Russia, which made quite an impression upon Luka. After that, he would frequently claim to be Russian, posting photos from the trip in which he sports a jacket emblazoned with that country’s name. He would even post on Russian social media sites. Vladimir Romanov, as well as other Russian-sounding personalities, were born. He even used a fake Russian accent in another attempt to seem more exotic than he really was. His traveling companion must have fed his need for adoration and attention because by 2010, Luka would resort to radical and sadistic ways to increase his online following.

The kitten videos are notorious among animal rights groups and web-sleuthing groups. Most people equate animal cruelty with features of sociopathy, but typically sociopaths exhibit these tendencies in their youth, not at nearly 30. Luka was reveling in actions that generated attention through sheer shock value. He initially posted a video (not of his own making) on his Facebook account entitled “3 guys 1 hammer” in which the actual murder of a man in the Ukraine is shown – a veritable snuff video. He apparently enjoyed the negative attention so much that he moved on to experiment further with his own sadistic videos. In December of 2010, he posted a video entitled “1 boy 2 kittens”, in which a ‘boy’ (Luka in a hoodie) is shown killing two kittens by placing them in a vacuum sealed bag and asphyxiating them by attaching a vacuum hose. He then displays the dead kittens on a shelf inside a refrigerator. The video is emblematic of his sadism and contained elements that would eventually link him to murder of Jun Lin. In posting it, once again Luka clearly displays his affinity for notoriety; he had to know that this video would spark outrage, but perhaps he underestimated the intelligence and vigilance of others who also avail themselves of the internet.

The video ignited a firestorm amongst several groups, public and private, who fight against animal cruelty, most notably, a group calling themselves Animal Beta Project (ABP). Although the video was removed within hours of being posted, the fuse had been lit. These self-styled online investigators inspected the video frame by frame, analyzing every element contained therein in an effort to identify the ‘vacuum kitten killer’. They spent thousands of hours in research and discussion identifying tiny details, such as where a blanket shown in the video was manufactured and sold. For a time, the attention had Magnotta spooked; he had never anticipated the power of crowdsourcing an investigation. He became more and more paranoid when there was a reward offered for his capture, and even contacted an attorney. But his craving for the limelight ultimately ran roughshod over his instinct for self-preservation, and he infiltrated the sleuthing groups with some of his own fake Facebook personalities, alternately defending himself and hinting at clues that would lead the sleuths closer to his true identity. It is believed that when the group was unable to identify him, Luka, via a fake personality, posted a message from a puppet account, giving the group his name. It seemed that his rants about cyberstalking would soon come home to roost.

After a year of playing cat and mouse, Luka decided it was time for a taunting encore, and posted two more videos in which he found ways to torture and kill kittens in even more gruesome ways. Throughout this time, Magnotta slipped quietly between Toronto, New York and London, perhaps using falsified passports, because by this time, there were police files on him in Ontario, based upon the insistence of the ABP activists. But even this amount of attention wasn’t enough for Luka, not nearly enough. Despite videos posted by ABP that named many of Magnotta’s aliases and revealed his photos as well as proof that he was behind the kitten videos, they gained little online attention. Luka craved much more.

In the weeks before the May 25th murder of Jun Lin, Magnotta took to message boards once again in the guise of many of his online personalities to promote a snuff video that did not yet exist. He characterized himself as a dangerous psychopathic serial killer, but was it confession or another attempt at notoriety?  But, on May 25, 2012, a video was posted that was to make the kitten videos look like child’s play. The video, “1 lunatic 1 icepick”  was posted to the bestgore website, was indescribably graphic and would eventually lead authorities to the body of Jun Lin, or at least to pieces of his body. The internet kitten-killer hunters, ABP, immediately connected the video to Luka Magnotta. They alerted police that they believed Magnotta to be in Montreal but were dismissed as being a group of armchair internet detectives with no real evidence.  Four days after the murder, a janitor in Montreal found the torso of Jun Lin in a suitcase behind Luka’s tiny disheveled apartment. But Magnotta had evaporated the very day of the murder. Shortly thereafter, severed body parts began to arrive at political offices and schools all across Canada and the Interpol search was on. He was apprehended ten days later on June 4th in an internet cafe in Berlin when he famously uttered the words, “You got me”.

This is the timeline and description of Magnotta’s apparent actions, but what does it tell us about Luka, the man, or should that be Luka, the boy? We know that Luka has schizophrenia; it was diagnosed and documented and he was known to eschew his medications which would have tended to keep his illness in check. Schizophrenia, in his case, was characterized by positive symptoms such as auditory hallucinations and paranoia, but schizophrenia is also characterized by negative symptoms such as flat affect and poor cognition. We do know that in the last years of his freedom, he did most of his living online and his life was mostly that of a recluse. When someone with schizophrenia is experiencing a relapse, isolation is a common warning sign. But what about him traveling the world in his imagination and posting his adventures online, with the help of photoshop, for the world to admire? Could his enormous need for attention be traced to his schizophrenia? Some clients affected by schizophrenia experience delusions of grandeur, often seeing themselves as Gods among men. Luka certainly felt that he was superior to most, as evidenced by his taunting games with those who pursued him.

However, studies show that criminals who suffer from schizophrenia are far more likely to have comorbid antisocial personality disorder, which could explain the inordinate percentage of the prison population who have schizophrenia. Studies show that there is a high rate of deficient affective experience which is “a personality style indexed by lack of remorse or guilt, shallow affect, lack of empathy, and failure to accept responsibility for one’s own actions”. While this often accompanies substance abuse, there is no indication, other than Luka’s own descriptions of his nonexistent party life, that he consistently indulged himself in drugs or alcohol.  His online search for attention resembles that of a small child seeking attention from his parents, at first mugging, performing and trying to obtain positive attention, and then when ignored, the behavior intensifies to acting out with accompanying tantrums until the desired attention is received. It is the attention that is the goal and whether the attention is positive or negative is secondary.

While much of Magnotta’s information is sealed from the press and public since he has not yet come to trial, we can still draw inferences from what he has presented to us. There are posts attributed to Magnotta in the months before the murder in which he describes himself as having a paraphilia — specifically necrophilia. It is obvious from the body of the text that Luka had been exploring legal and psychological documentation and was prepared to argue that the morality contained therein was arbitrary. He posted similarly about cannibalism. What was his aim? Was he seeking to understand the increasingly disturbing images in his own mind, generated by a psychotic episode? Or was he seeking for ways to create a world in which, through shock, fear and awe,he could finally be seen as a giant?

The videos themselves hold clues. In the kitten videos, he acts very loving toward the two kittens, even nuzzling them before carefully placing them in the bag in which they would be asphyxiated. He then photographs the dead kittens inside an empty refrigerator. The movements are calm and deliberate, without a sense of urgency, and appear to be done to both enrage and entertain the viewer. The icepick video contains clues as well. The actual murder is not recorded; we see a man bound to a bed, with his head covered, who is clearly alive, though his struggles are lethargic at best. The video is then edited to show the man untied and clearly already dead, with his throat slit. The ensuing indignities are carried out in a passionless way, I believe to show the viewers just how heartless he is capable of being. After dismembering the body, he goes on to remove a section of tissue using a fork and knife, presumably to bear out his online description of his own cannibalism, though he doesn’t show that on video. Perhaps he didn’t want to show his face or perhaps, as he had in the past, he was trying project a shocking version of himself that wasn’t grounded in reality. The same is true of his masturbation with the severed arm. It seems as though it was intended more for the viewer than for his own fulfillment.  He also included images of body parts in an otherwise empty refrigerator, which ultimately linked the murder video to the kitten video, thereby establishing his identity. Did he create the link purposely? And if so was he seeking to taunt ABP members again? It’s doubtful that he was crying out to be caught. Some surmise that he was imitating the murders in the film version of Brett Easton Ellis’s American Psycho based on the music he chose to use as a soundtrack. It’s not a great leap to presume that the main character in the movie would be someone that Luka would aspire to emulate, in fact his obsession with his looks and perceived ‘cool factor” were of paramount importance to him as were they to the character portrayed by Christian Bale in the movie.

He appears to be lucid while brutalizing Jun Lin’s corpse, and indeed, he took the time to stop and move the camera angles, reposition the body, take close ups of severed parts and edit the video. Given the time frames, he appears to have uploaded the video while sitting amidst the gore he had created. He then calmly packaged up the remains, disposed of the torso and mailed off the remainder of the body parts on his way to the airport while fleeing the crime scene. Typically, such organized thoughts and actions are not seen in a person in the throes of a psychotic break. Studies on mutilation of the victim’s body are sparse as it is a relatively rare phenomenon, and Magnotta’s actions don’t fit clearly into the usual classifications of this type of behavior. However, studies (such as they are) have discovered incidents of mutilation as being higher in offenders with schizophrenia  than the rest of the population, but have been unable to connect these incidents to a particular psychopathy. Furthermore, in Magnotta’s case, none of the known reasons for mutilation exist other than a frail, and probably unpersuasive, connection to schizophrenia.

We will never definitively discern Luka’s state of mind was during the actual murder unless this peculiar individual divulges it, and even then, reality and his version of the truth are often separated by a large chasm.  It is unlikely that Luka Magnotta will ever walk among us as a free man again. His online torrents about the nature of the crime before it occurred prove premeditation. His seemingly calm and deliberate actions in the murder video belie any defense that he was unable to appreciate his actions or stop them. Finally, mailing the body parts seem more like a misguided attempt at gaining infamy than the actions of a man who was legally insane. And if this is not enough to secure a conviction to Murder One, when he fled the country with assorted falsified documents, he demonstrated that he had the clarity of mind to make choices, which of course, were consistently the wrong ones.

It is a tragedy for Jun Lin and his family that throughout the course of Magnotta’s interaction with Canadian Mental Health services, his comorbid sociopathy was never noted which meant a parallel and appropriate course of mental health treatment was never initiated. Schizophrenia did not make Luka Magnotta a murderer but sociopathy almost certainly did.

Please click here to view The Starks Shrink’s Other Posts:

Going Postal Goes Fed-Ex!

How to Raise a Serial Killer in 10 Easy Steps

The Julie Schenecker Tragedy: Negligence, Finger-Pointing and the Death of Children

Luka Magnotta: Man, Boy or Beast?

The Disturbing Truth about Mothers Who Murder Their Children

Teleka Patrick Needed a Psychiatrist, Not a Pastor!

Rehabbing the Wounded Juvenile Will Save Their Souls (and Ours)

Skylar Neese and the Mean Girls Who Killed Her

by Mike Roche

Chad Oulson, 43 and his wife Nicole, 33,  of Land O’ Lakes, Florida decided to sneak away for an afternoon matinee screening of the movie Lone Survivor.  Chad, who had a day off from his job as a finance manager, joined his wife, Nicole, who played hooky from her job at USAA to enjoy the movie with her husband. Their three-year-old daughter was in pre-school.

Curtis Reeves, 71, a retired police captain, and his wife traveled from their retirement home to the same movie theater in Wesley Chapel, Florida, to watch Lone Survivor. The two couples sat one row apart. Before the movie started, one moviegoer was dead, one wounded, and a third escorted out of the theater in handcuffs and charged with murder.

Theatergoers complain of the frustration of inconsiderate patrons distracting them at the movies. How many times during a riveting scene have we been offended by the  jabbering  of an inconsiderate couple, or the intrusion of the bright lights emitted from a texting cell phone, or — even worse — when someone answers their cell phone in the middle of a movie. Many years ago, movie theaters assigned ushers to police the conduct of their patrons. Violators guilty of inappropriate conduct were illuminated by the beam of a flashlight, and a stern warning was bellowed by an acne-faced usher. Repeat offenders were not tolerated and were quickly shown the door.

On Monday, January 14, 2014, while waiting for the movie to start, Chad Oulson broke out his cell phone and began texting his three-year-old daughter who was in preschool. The three year old is destined for the gifted and talented program (GATE) and one has to wonder how many preschools allow their three-year-old pupils to engage in texting with mom and dad. Sitting nearby, Curtis Reeves reportedly became annoyed at the texting and requested the offender to stop. Oulson ignored repeated requests and continued his texting activity, apparently with his three-year-old daughter. Reeves, enraged by this insolence marched out to the lobby to alert management of this violation of the moviegoer’s code of acceptable conduct.

Reeves returned to his seat. It is unclear whether the theater’s management actually intended to intervene. Oulson reportedly confronted Reeves as to his tattling and then the simmering agitation escalated. A Pascoe County Sheriff’s report indicates that Oulson allegedly threw popcorn at the elderly Reeves, and according to Reeves, Oulson struck him in the face with an unknown object. Reeves then withdrew his .380 caliber pistol and aimed it at Oulson. Nicole Oulson perceived the danger and reached toward the gun. Reeves pulled the trigger and the bullet traveled through Nicole’s hand and into her husband’s chest. Chad Oulson collapsed and died on the floor despite the heroic actions of two nurses from the audience. Nicole Oulson was taken to the hospital where she was treated and released.

Curtis Reeves sat and placed the weapon in his lap. He was taken into custody by an off-duty Sumter County Sheriff’s deputy. Reeves spent 20 years as a police officer and retired at the rank of captain. He will now no doubt spend the rest of his life retired behind bars in a jail cell. Unlike the title of the movie, there are no winners, or real survivors in this tragic story – only losers. Either one of couples could have de-escalated the situation by simply moving a few rows away. Oulsen could have put his phone away or walked out to the lobby to continue his texting.

From retired Captain Reeves’ standpoint, this was hardly the time to pull a gun. No one’s life was in danger. Instead, pride overruled common sense, two wives will never again share their bed with their husbands, and a gifted three-year-old has lost her daddy.

 Please click here to view Mike Roche’s other excellent posts:

Family Annihilator Darin Campbell Murders His Family and Torches Lavish Tampa Mansion

Alex Hribal Was Desperate and Said He Wanted Someone to Kill Him

Columbia Mall Shooter Darion Aguilar Followed the Model of Notorious Mass Murderers

Peter Lanza Speaks: The Lethal and Unvarnished Truth about His Son Adam

FHP Officer Jimmy Fulford Fields Pipe Bomb Intended for Young Mother with His Bare Hands and Dies Instantly

Fire Department and California Highway Patrol Go 9 Rounds: Win, Lose or Draw?

The Boston Bombers: A Tale of Two Troubled Brothers

Don’t Text at the Movies, The Life You Lose May Be Your Own!

Killers and the Catcher in the Rye

Mike Roche has over three decades of law enforcement experience. He began his career with the Little Rock Police Department, and spent twenty-two years with the U.S. Secret Service. The last fifteen years of his career were focused on conducting behavioral threat assessments of those threatening to engage in targeted violence. He is the author of three novels and two nonfiction works on mass murder and also rapport building. Retired, Mike is currently a security consultant at Protective Threat LLC, and an adjunct instructor at Saint Leo University. He resides in Florida with his family.

Mass Killers: How you Can Identify, Workplace, School, or Public Killers Before They Strikehttp://www.amazon.com/Mass-Killers-Identify-Workplace-School-ebook/dp/B00GHZWC1M/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389112969&sr=1-2&keywords=mass+killers

Face 2 Face: Observation, Interviewing and Rapport Building Skills: an Ex-Secret Service Agent’s Guide http://www.amazon.com/Face-2-ebook/dp/B009991BII/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1354630000&sr=1-6

The Blue Monster  http://www.amazon.com/The-Blue-Monster-ebook/dp/B0054H8TMA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1312641741&sr=1-1

Coins of Death http://www.amazon.com/Coins-Of-Death-ebook/dp/B005RPZ256/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317860179&sr=1-3

Karma! http://www.amazon.com/Karma-Mike-Roche-ebook/dp/B0054H4OAG/ref=la_B00BHEIF78_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389724285&sr=1-4

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

Jerad Miller and his wife Amanda Miller, the Las Vegas cop-killers, were not your usual neo-Nazi white supremacist couple. In fact, it could be argued that they were not unlike Muslim fundamentalist terrorists who – as we all know – have a penchant for suicide bombings and flying hijacked airplanes into large buildings.

Of course, the Millers carried out their murders and mutual suicide pact in the best tried-and-true American fashion – with guns and more guns.

In an action that makes the blood run cold, Miller & Miller launched their attack at around 11:20 a.m. Sunday at CiCi’s Pizza restaurant in an aging strip mall about five miles Northeast of the Las Vegas Strip , when they opened fire inside the restaurant where Las Vegas police officers Alyn Beck, 41, and Igor Soldo, 31, were having lunch.

The police report that Jerad Miller shot Officer Igor Soldo in the back of the head, and then shot fellow Officer Alyn Beck in the neck, at which point Amanda Miller pulled a gun from her purse and also fired on Beck.

Dazed by the completely unexpected violence, restaurant patron Sheree Burns told KTNV:

“I just sat down to have lunch. The officers were sitting in front of me, at the table right next to me, and this man came in out of nowhere.

“I thought he was going to get a drink, the way he walked up and walked past them. And then he turned around, pulled a gun on his right and shot the bald officer in front of me.”

One of the two officers was able to return fire but to no avail.

As part of their Revolution of 2, after shooting and killing the officers and “liberating” their guns and ammunition, the murderous couple placed a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag and a Nazi swastika on one of the police officers along with a note saying something to the effect of “this is the beginning of the revolution,” Second Assistant Sheriff Kevin McMahill told reporters.

Dirty deed accomplished, on their way out, they passed Alvaro Lopez who told CNN affiliate KLAS:

“They had a backpack, and I saw a gun in their hand. He just told me to tell the cops that it was a revolution and that he’d just killed two cops inside CiCi’s.”

The killers then ran to a nearby Walmart where Jerad Miller fired off a round near the entrance. Joseph Wilcox, who was armed with a concealed weapon, “heroically” tried to confront Jerad Miller. According to McMahill, in the process, Wilcox passed Amanda Miller, apparently not noticing her, and Amanda shot and killed him.

(Note: Although a police representative had initially stated that the Walmart victim was female, a spokeswoman for the Clark County coroner’s office identified the deceased person on Monday as Joseph Wilcox.)

Although I have reservations about any private citizen carrying a firearm in public, there is no doubt that Wilcox “died attempting to protect others.”

Appalled by the proceedings, shoppers rushed toward the exit.

Pauline Pacheco reported to LKAS that as soon as she saw the armed man, she grabbed her father to get him out of the store:

“We saw when the man was walking. He was shouting, yelling bad words, and suddenly he had a gun.

“It was terrible, it was terrible. That man was crazy.”

Officers then converged on the Walmart and exchanged fire with the couple, at which point, Amanda Miller, after reportedly exchanging a few words with him, shot her husband repeatedly as the officers closed and then turned the gun on herself.

As if their deaths are not tragic enough, Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo were both married with children. Beck left behind his wife and six children; Soldo is survived by his wife and baby.

KTNV reported that a prayer vigil in the officers’ honor was planned for Monday night.

* * * * *

Based on the signs Miller & Miller left in the pizza restaurant, and what law enforcement found at their apartment Sunday night, as well as what has been culled from their Facebook postings, the neo-Nazi couple looked at law enforcement as oppressors.

“We believe that they equate government and law enforcement … with Nazis,” said McMahill. “In other words, they believe law enforcement is the oppressor.”

Krista Koch, a neighbor who lived near the murderers, informed CNN affiliate KTNV that the husband-and-wife team liked to dress up as the villainous Batman characters Joker and Harley Quinn.

What is even weirder is the fact that Jerad Miller reportedly sometimes dressed as Slenderman, the fictional horror character who recently made national headlines based on the role the mythological horror figure played in the stabbing of a 12-year-old girl in Waukesha,Wisconsin.

Revealingly, Koch also told KTNV that the couple had told her they were going to carry out an attack, but she thought they were “crazy,” so she unfortunately took no steps to report them.

Las Vegas police will be doubling up in their patrol cars for at least the next few days as officers mourn the loss of their two colleagues, who appear to have been well-liked on the force.

“We still have a community to police and we still have a community to protect,” said an Officer Gillespie on Sundaynight. “We will be out there doing it with our heads held high but with an emptiness in our heart.”

* * * * *

Mike Blasky, Colton Lochhead and Francis McCabe of the Las Vegas Review-Journal report that when the Millers left their downtown apartment Sunday morning, they were loaded for bear carrying one shotgun, two handguns, 200 rounds of ammunition, knives, first aid supplies, camouflage clothing and military-issued rations known as MREs.

According to one law enforcement source, the couple appeared “cool and calm” during the shooting spree, and that there was no indication that they were using drugs that day, although a toxicology report is in the offing.

During a news conference on Monday, senior police officials called the attack an isolated incident, but assured the citizenry that officers will take extra precautions as they patrol the valley in the coming days. Nevertheless, law enforcement believes that the Millers appeared to be working alone and were not part of a larger white supremacist plot.

As is often the case with maladjusted maladroits of this ilk, bad as it was, the mayhem engendered by the Millers didn’t begin to compare to their grandiose plans.

Kelley Fielder, who lived next door to the Millers and called them her “best friends”, was holding documents for them that included detailed plans to take over a courthouse and execute public officials. A file box containing the documents, along with three empty rifle cases and an empty box that once contained handcuffs, were confiscated by investigators during a search of Fielder’s apartment.

Unsurprisingly, Jared Miller had a long criminal record.

* * * * *

This is bad. I’m sure I’m not alone as I fight against the horrible revelation that our nation may be in the process of coming apart at the seams.

(Note: If you’re not sufficiently concerned already, click on this link and you will be able to access a number of Jared Miller’s highly disturbing videos.)

by Lise LaSalle

Eminem’s song for daughter Hailie – Now it don’t feel like the world’s on my shoulders, Everyone’s leaning on me, ‘Cause my baby knows that her daddy’s a soldier, Nothing can take her from me

Little Haleigh Cummings was reported missing from her family’s Satsuma, Florida, home on February 10, 2009. She was 5-years-old at the time with blond hair and brown eyes. The police in this small north Florida community had nothing else to go on, but this physical description.

Haleigh disappeared from the mobile home of her father Ronald Cummings, after being put to bed for the night. By the next morning, an Amber Alert and 14 months of search efforts and investigation into thousands of tips covering several states had begun.

Misty Croslin, 17, who was Ronald Cummings’ girlfriend at the time, was the last person to have seen Haleigh. Her story about the events of that night kept shifting and it became very difficult for the investigators to determine the exact time or circumstances of this vanishing act.

Misty Croslin

Croslin was the live-in girlfriend of Ronald at the time and while he was working that night, she was babysitting Haleigh and her little 4-year-old brother, Ronald Jr. At first, she claimed that Haleigh was sleeping with her in the big bed but eventually said that she was sleeping on a small mattress on the floor in the master bedroom, barely four feet from the bed.

Croslin said she went to sleep around 10:00 p.m. after doing laundry. Ronald Cummings was working the night shift as a crane operator. He says the back door was locked and secured by him before he left and that the deadbolt was hard to open even for an adult. No way that his daughter Haleigh could have opened it.

Croslin supposedly woke up during the night to use the bathroom and saw a light in the kitchen and the back door held ajar by a cinder block. Someone had opened that door and it was not Haleigh who was gone baby gone.

So far, the story made sense and was going to be properly investigated. But what came next could only be described with words spoken by Slim Shady: Let’s get down to business, I don’t got not time to play around, what is this, must be a circus in town, shut the shit down on these clowns, can I get a witness?

Haleigh laughing

The morning Haleigh was reported missing in Florida, a Memorial service was held in Orlando for Caylee Anthony. The media, especially HLN, had filled the air with this story and it had become the cash cow of the century for them. They kept the public enthralled with the ‘search’ for Caylee when we all knew from day one that she was dead, dead, dead. But it was profitable to keep her alive and missing. The girl’s grandparents played their part with brio in this charade at keeping their granddaughter missing from here to eternity. It kept suspicions from floating directly to the culprit, their daughter, known as ‘tot mom’.

It is not surprising that pretty little Haleigh would become the logical replacement for Caylee who was never missing but had been found nevertheless. So the networks jumped at the chance of interviewing the protagonists in this sad case of ‘real’ kidnapping. But boy would they be in for a big surprise. If they thought that Caylee Anthony’s case was gloomy, this investigation was going to blow the lid wide open from this Satsuma portable toilet.

Haleigh’s mother Crystal Sheffield

As it turned out, Ronald Cummings and his underage girlfriend, were living in a world surrounded by drugs, violence and shadiness. They were definitely in a state of 911. Ronald had obtained custody of his two children because their mother, Crystal Sheffield, allegedly had a history of drug problems and basically did not show up for a custody hearing because she had not received the notice. Being unemployed had also been a huge strike against her. This distraught and vulnerable mother who had met Cummings when she was also underage, described him as a volatile man with a drug-related past. She accused him of violence against her and the children. It so happened that Ronald was also another woman’s baby-daddy.

The fact that he would leave his two children in the care of a defiant, troubled, uneducated teenager constantly high as a kite demonstrated very well his lack of parental skills or care.

The circus really came to town when several TV stations started ‘trying’ to interview Ronald and Misty on their shows. It was like asking a donkey if God exists. Ronald was somewhat in control but his teenaged girlfriend would stare ahead with this glazed look. She was not just high, she was in a stuperous, narcotized state.

Ronald soon enrolled his mother Teresa for the media rounds because unlike Misty, she could cry a river in front of the camera and act distressed. Ronald would go down on his knees in front of the cameras, and cry an oxy/meth river of tears.

Misty awake but sleeping

When NBC host Meredith Vieira asked Misty why she changed her story so often, she woodenly replied, “I don’t know.’’ When Ronald was asked by Vieira why he had married Croslin recently, knowing full well she might have been involved in his daughter’s disappearance, he became rude and defensive and basically told her to mind her own business. It was not going well for the media.

Most of the stations pulled out but HLN kept on trucking with a string of guests like toothless grandma Flo and her crocodile stories and cousin Jo Overstreet with his ‘It was not me’ mantra. Jo was in town visiting family when Haleigh disappeared and he supposedly had a fight with Ron over a gun. Nancy Grace was not going to let go of this bone easily. She was never going to be hungry again and would maintain her ratings no matter what. In the meantime, most people were starting to say “frankly my dear Nancy, we don’t give a damn about these people.’’

Mark Fuhrman said it very well in his book The Murder Business:

“It had turned into too much of a white-trash nightmare, too much of a freak show. Viewers can take the bizarre, frightening underbelly of White America only in small doses in a careful context, as guests in Jerry Springer or Maury Povich’s circus acts or when they’re anonymous.’’

A colleague of Fuhrman called him from Satsuma to urge him not to make the trip there to investigate. “Everybody here is high on something.’’ “And everyone is a nightmare to interview and put on TV.’’

Nancy and her new boyfriend

Strangely enough, Nancy Grace, who is the queen of outrage when it comes to cases of missing children, took Ronald Cummings’ side in this saga. She invited him on her show and would soothe him and cheer him on during his ‘cry me a river’ displays for his lost daughter. She brought up every possible suspect, including illustrious cousin Jo, Misty, her brother Tommy, drug dealers, the pedophile brother-in-law, but in her eyes, Ronald remained white as snow, pun intended. He became her favorite pet rat. I even wondered if she carved Nancy loves Ro on a tree in the enchanted forest in her head.

We know that Nancy Grace went shamelessly after Richard Ricci in the Elizabeth Smart case and never apologized publicly when he was later found innocent. The poor man died in prison, no doubt aggravated by her actions. Poor Melinda Duckette committed suicide after being badgered by Grace. She also went after the Duke Lacrosse players with a vengeance. They were eventually cleared and declared innocent of the charges. What is it about Ronald Cummings that touched her heart? Maybe he was her perfect soul mate, considering the darkness they both share. They would have been perfect partners on Dancing with the Stars. What a hot tango they would have pulled off.

It never bothered her that Cummings had married Croslin shortly after Haleigh’s disappearance, probably to keep her from testifying against him. Who would marry the woman minding the fort when his own child is abducted under her watch? He obviously had to keep her close to minimize the possibilities of her singing the blues to the police.

We can only speculate as to what happened to this precious child. Many scenarios are possible but if they do not involve or incriminate Misty or Ronald, you would think someone would have spilled the beans by now. Misty claimed to have passed a lie detector test but according to Texas Equusearch who had administered the polygraph tests and a voice stress test, she had failed miserably. Ronald Cummings was asked by Nancy Grace about taking a polygraph test. He declared he had passed but there is no evidence and such information was never released by the authorities.

Cousin Jo

Grandma Flo cared

Grandma Flo said on TV that it was cousin Jo with Misty’s brother, Tommy Croslin, who threw Haleigh’s body in the river attached to cinder blocks because of a gun and some unknown dispute. I think this poor woman, in her own way, was trying to get to the bottom of this murky story. Rumors of trafficking circulated and of Misty not even being at the trailer that night. Did she leave the children alone while out on a drug binge as she had done recently with another cat? Ronald had tried to call her incessantly that night and she never answered. Some speculated they had a fight. The story of a drug debt floated around. Maybe some dealers took his daughter as collateral because he owed them money. A jail letter circulated stating that Haleigh died after ingesting oxycontin at the trailer. Either way, Haleigh’s demise was surely not one for the faint of heart.

For a while, a detective working for Haleigh’s mother claimed to have cracked the case. It was another dead end. They tried to revive the story in the media but it always fell flat because of lack of evidence. Two years ago, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office finally released a statement saying: “The ongoing investigation has minimized the likelihood that Haleigh’s disappearance is the work of a stranger.’’ Thank you, Captain Obvious!

Ron and Misty take the vows

It turns out that Ronald and Misty’s magical union did not last longer than their usual high. Meanwhile, the Putnam County police, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Task Force and the Office of the State Attorney decided to investigate them during a month-long undercover operation. They were arrested with Tommy Croslin for trafficking controlled prescription medications on January 20, 2010.

Their bond were set excessively high so they would have to be remanded while in jail to await trial and sentencing. They were looking at up to 25 years. One cannot help but think that the set- up was to entrap them into confessing about little Haleigh’s disappearance. The ball was in their court now.

It was a complete bust, literally. HLN played the tapes of their jail conversations and wheeled back grandma Flo to the forefront but to no avail. We heard of a sentence reduction for Ronald Cummings for cooperating with the authorities. Misty’s time in custody did not agree with her. She aged 15 years while incarcerated but never gave an iota of helpful information, in spite of the huge sentence she was facing.

It was very telling. If the truth about Haleigh was not despicable or dangerous, why wouldn’t one of them cut a deal? They obviously had a lot more to lose if they came clean.

Ron Cummings

The prison sentences they received were excessive. Ronald Cummings’ sentence was reduced to 15 years for agreeing to testify for the state in future cases involving the drug counts or his missing daughter, Haleigh. Misty received 25 years for a single count of trafficking Oxycodone. Tommy Croslin was sentenced to 15 years. It is utterly ridiculous to send drug addicts to prison for that long on those type of charges but that seems to be how they roll in Florida. In my opinion, they should have undergone mandatory drug rehab or received much lighter sentences.

This pitiful band of ill-equipped human beings were probably targeted and thrown in the slammer to pressure them into talking about the case. These tactics should never be allowed. Abuse of power is not acceptable even in cases of suspicion of a more severe crime.

Prison didn’t agree with Misty

During Misty’s trial, we heard of earlier abuse in her life. She came from a broken home and both her parents did time on crack cocaine charges. It is only normal to infer that the next logical step for that poor girl was to land in the trailer of a sick bird like Ronald Cummings. Unless of course, she could have received support or directions from a teacher, friend or family member; I hear crickets on that one. Ronald was also from the school of Hard Knocks with no sugar on top. He grew up with his grandmother and was arrested multiple times for possession of drugs including heroin and GHB, the rape drug, but the charges were dropped. His mama Teresa was a police dispatcher at the time so some speculate that she scratched someone’s back. He was awarded custody of the kids after he lied to Crystal about the hearing. He is dishonest and has a long history of Child Protective Service being involved with raising his kids. He likes young girls and also has a special needs child with one of them. What you would call a triple threat on the dating scene.

They are undoubtedly the product of their upbringing and surroundings. Like so many in small town America, they got caught in the vicious circle of drug addictions and trafficking and did not have the tools or the intellect to get out of Dodge. They are what famous attorney Vincent Bugliosi described as prime candidates for the mental poverty program. But in my opinion, there is more nature than nurture brewing in the mind of Ron Cummings.

Do I believe they are sorry for what happened to Haleigh? Hell to the yes I do! But not enough to come clean and do the right thing. Saving their hide became more important, which speaks to their character but also to the horror and terror that befell that little girl.

Haleigh full of personality

In my mind, this case is closed. I do not want to hear the details of her demise. If more guilty parties are out there, they will hopefully be arrested and appropriately sentenced but as far as this little girl goes, she is now free from a future riddled with drugs, neglect and prison. She was trapped in a vortex of emotional emptiness and on a slow ride to hell. The adults in her life never fought for her. They chose mediocrity and self-gratification. Maybe she would have escaped that life of moral and physical stupor and moved on to greener pastures. But let’s say that the odds were not stacked in her favor. We will never know.

Through time, many artists claim to have created their best work under the influence of drugs. But what is happening right now in places like Satsuma is the mind-body decimation of the residents addicted to prescription drugs and other dangerous and destructive substances like crystal meth. Not a romantic notion anymore if it ever was one.

Lately, I imagine her running in a gigantic field under a beautiful blue sky and she is falling into the arms of the Catcher in the Rye who catches her so she does not fall from the cliff — that beautiful image of innocence so brilliantly described in the novel.

Or maybe she is clicking the heels of her red ruby slippers three times to be transported to Oz. She might also be entering a rabbit hole to follow in Alice in Wonderland’s footsteps. For the religiously inclined, she might be in the arms of an angel. For the reincarnation believers, she might be one day reunited with Ronald, Misty and her mother after a long healing.

What counts is that by some Amazing Grace, she was lost and now she is found.

Author’s note: What I have related is only my opinion. I am a huge Eminem fan and I resent Nancy Grace but I have nothing against trailers. And I totally realize that some might hope that Haleigh is still alive or would want to know exactly what happened to her.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

The Julie Corey Massachusetts murder and kidnapping case has a little of everything – envy, treachery, extreme violence resulting in murder, gonzo surgery in which the alleged “surgeon” cut an 8-month-old-fetus out of the victim’s abdomen, abduction of the fetus, a snow job for the perpetrator’s on-again, off-again, boyfriend, and finally a stubborn refusal on the part of the accused since her arrest in July of 2009 to admit to any wrongdoing.

This appears to be a case in which the prosecution may very well have it right. Let’s first look at the purported facts from the prosecutorial perspective.

In a nutshell, it goes something like this:

Julie Corey, 39, a Worcester, Mass. woman, is accused of beating and strangling her pregnant friend, Darlene Haynes, on or about July 23, 2009.  According to the prosecutors, once Haynes had stopped breathing, Corey made a 9-inch incision on her abdomen and cut the fetus from her womb. She will finally face a jury next week nearly five years after the gruesome crime. Opening statements are scheduled for Monday.

Although the murder and fetus abduction is certainly plenty strange, what transpired next is not exactly Leave It to Beaver. Julie apparently tied off the baby’s umbilical cord with a ribbon and assumed the motherly role. The infant survived and two days later, Julie dropped her bombshell. She arrived at a family function on July 25, 2009, and told her part-time boyfriend, Alex Dion, and his family,that the baby was theirs.

Julie and Alex had broken up the previous October and at that time Julie reportedly told Alex that she was pregnant with their child.

Julie and Alex were apparently without means of support and following the family function, they appear to have moved into a homeless shelter in Plymouth, New Hampshire.

Several days later, the authorities apprehended Corey, Dion and the baby at the homeless shelter.

It is reported that prior to the arrest, personnel at the shelter had become suspicious that something was not right. In any event, a shelter worker told the Union Leader that Corey grew uncomfortable and suspicious when a nurse began photographing the baby with her cell phone.”

“She had a lot of post-traumatic stress and was obviously not a well woman,” the employee said. “She said a child had been taken from her before, and it’s not going to happen again.”

At some point, the shelter staff apparently alerted the police that something didn’t “smell right” and Corey was arrested on a Wednesday afternoon as she tried to leave the shelter with the infant.

Her boyfriend, Alex Dion, 27, appears to have sincerely believed that the child was his and was stunned when police moved in on the couple. The police believed his story and he was released after questioning.

“I am so confused. I don’t know what to think. I thought I had a brand-new daughter,” he said in an interview with the Boston Herald.

Mr. Dion informed the authorities that he and Corey had dated off and on for approximately two years, and that she had told him she was pregnant shortly after a breakup in October.

Dion said that on the night of the alleged murder, July 23rd, Corey told him that she was taking the deceased women Darlene Haynes, who was a friend, to the store. Corey told the Herald that Corey had phoned him several times later that night, saying she her water had broken and she had gone into labour. Dion further stated that early the next morning, Corey called to say she had given birth to a baby girl at a Framingham hospital. Mr. Dion told the paper he then called both their families to tell them the good news.

*     *     *     *     *

DNA testing has verified that Haynes, 23, was the mother of the baby.

The girl, who is now 4, is living with her biological father, Roberto Rodriguez, said Paul Jarvey, a spokesman for Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early Jr.

Corey and her lawyers are having none of this. She has pleaded not guilty to both the kidnapping and murder charges.

Attorney Louis Aloise, who represents Corey, outlined her defense in a simple but perhaps not convincing manner. She said Corey was not involved in Haynes’ killing.

“The defense is she didn’t do it. Others did it. She had nothing to do with the homicide at all,” Aloise told the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester.

Aloise said Corey came into possession of Haynes’ baby “by lawful means.”

The prosecutors are claiming that Corey was the last person seen with Haynes.

Fran Oswell, a neighbor of Haynes, told the Herald that she heard Haynes crying out on July 23 during what may have been the deadly attack.

“I heard that girl screaming. Mostly it was, ‘Leave me alone. Stop it.’ She was screaming in pain.” She said she also heard a man screaming. (What the heck is that all about and who is the screaming man?)

When this case first broke, it was widely covered by the New York press, CNN, ABC, CBS and other news outlets. Despite its high profile, however, the case languished.

Part of the delay was due to the defense attorneys requesting that charges be dropped against Corey due to lack of evidence. This was resolved at the end of 2011, about 30 months after Haynes’ death, when, according to the Huffington Post:

“The Worcester Superior Court ruled last week there was “substantial” evidence to link Julie Corey to the July 2009 slaying of Darlene Haynes and the abduction of her unborn child.”

Yet it was not until April 26, 2013, that a trial date finally was scheduled for January 2014.

*     *     *     *     *

One wonders whether the case will be largely circumstantial based on the fact that Haynes and Corey were friends; the accused was reportedly the last person seen with the victim; and Corey ended up with the baby, or if there is evidence linking the defendant to the crime scene. If there is, conviction would appear to be more or less a slam dunk. If the evidence is largely circumstantial – on the other hand – the jury may still convict Corey, who does not appear to have a whole lot of ability to win friends and influence people, with the exception of her buffaloed, one-time boyfriend, Alex Dion.

Assuming she is guilty, I would be very curious to know exactly what was going on in Julie Corey’s mind as she lured her close friend to a painful death prior to cutting her fetus out of her abdomen. Did she think she was going to get away with it? Or perhaps she didn’t plan ahead. In any event, we can be certain that she wanted a baby very badly.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

There’s little doubt that I could perhaps justly be accused of being an overly permissive parent. My beloved daughter is occasionally insubordinate and gasp may not always respect her dad and mom. On the other hand, she graduated from high school with an academic GPA of over 3.5 and will be attending a fine university in the fall. To my surprise, she even managed to pull a “B” in Calculus, which is more than her Dad could ever have done. She has a positive self-image and does not feel compelled to use drugs or go on drunken binges.

So although I would hardly claim to have been a model parent, I could probably have done much worse; in fact, I could have been like adoptive parents Johann and Kimery Jorg of Peoria, Illinois.

Johann and Kimery, who are 61 and 54 years old respectively, are apparently devout Christians of the “spare the rod and spoil the child” variety. They started out as foster parents before adopting their four children who range in age from 7 to 13.

Although the Jorgs reported favored their two younger children, they are accused of severely abusing their 11 and 13-year-olds.

Karen Brown of Arizona Family writes:

A Peoria couple are accused of abusing the children they adopted.

Police said over the last five years, the four girls, ages 7 to 13, had been fostered and then adopted by Johann and Kimery Jorg.

When Peoria police went to the home last week, they said they found a list of the punishments used on the two older girls, which allegedly included making the 13-year-old live in the backyard off and on since Christmas naked without even a bathroom.

The teen and an 11-year-old are reported to have been extremely malnourished and emaciated.

The fact that the Jorgs were abusing their two older girls came to the attention of Child Protective Services in a most curious manner. After several years of ladling out the abuse in a most appalling manner without much success (i.e., the girls still allegedly misbehaved), in desperation, these two model Christian parents consulted with a local behavioral health facility seeking help and advice on how best to discipline their two older daughters.

Here’s what the behavioral health facility learned, according to Peoria police spokeswoman Amanda Jacinto:

“The 13-year-old daughter was put in the backyard in what they call ‘deep prison’. She would live in the backyard. She would be forced to wear a diaper or sometimes not even a diaper. They would have bathroom facilities out there that involved a bucket. She would live out of a tent.”

Jacinto stated that one of the Jorgs’ creative punishments consisted of forcing the 13-year-old, who clearly got it the worst, to run for an hour or more barefoot in the oppressive Illinois heat and humidity. Another “winner” was swatting the poor child on the buttocks with a wooden paddle so often and so hard that she reportedly gradually grew a protective (and highly unnatural) leathery covering where she should have had normal skin. The couple also allegedly shaved the 13-year-old’s head as a punishment, reportedly telling her that she was so bad she didn’t deserve to have hair.

According to at least one report, the child was also forced to recite certain Bible verses ad nauseum.

Spokeswoman Jacinto informed that the punishments were mainly for stealing and lying. The 13-year-old admitted she had stolen some food because she was so hungry. One can hardly argue with her logic considering that although she stands nearly 5-feet tall, she only weighed 61 pounds when she was separated from her parents.

Fortunately, when the Jorgs told workers at the health facility how they had been disciplining the girls, the facility called Child Protective Services who then passed the “glad tidings” on to the police.

In a rather bizarre twist, when police went to the couple’s home to investigate, they found Post-it notes all over the kitchen reminding the suspects of what punishments still needed to be doled out to the girls.

The court documents state that Kimery Jorg explained to law enforcement that the girls have so many punishments she often doesn’t have time to apply all of them, so she writes the notes to remind herself of the remaining punishments the girls still “owe” her.

Are we getting sick yet?

“When we brought them in, they again stood by the fact that this was in the best interest of the girls,” Jacinto said.

As is so often the case with these demented types, the Jorgs played favorites and their two younger adopted daughters, ages 7 and 8, were not subjected to the same type of cruel treatment.

All four girls are now in the protective custody of CPS. The 13-year-old remains in the hospital due to severe malnutrition. Apparently in a case like this, the doctors have to be very careful to only re-introduce the victim to a normal diet slowly and carefully.

The Jorgs were arrested Thursday and are each facing four counts of child abuse. Each is being held on $100,000 bond.

* * * * *

It would appear that the Jorgs will ultimately be serving pretty substantial stretches in jail or prison.

Naturally, my first response is to wish I could beat these fiends senseless and them beat them some more as soon as they regain consciousness. But then the rational function kicks in and I realize that the Jorgs almost certainly learned these inappropriate parenting techniques from their parents and/or guardians. The specter and lineage of child abuse is a violation of all that is sacred and, sadly, is as American as apple pie.

by Patrick H. Moore

The Alphabet Serial Killer Joseph Naso enjoyed one helluva run but even his luck ran out Tuesday when a Marin County jury recommended the death penalty for the 79-year-old former photographer convicted of the decades-old killings of four Northern California women. Naso, who represented himself at the trial, asked the jury to spare his life but to no avail. He will be formally sentenced at a later date by Superior Court Judge Andrew Sweet.

Why the peculiar nickname Alphabet Murders? A brief history lesson is in order:

The first phase of the “Alphabet Murders” (also known as the “double initial murders”) took place in the early 1970s in and around Rochester, New York, where three young girls were raped and strangled. Each of the girls’ first and last names started with the same letter and each body was found in a town whose name started with the same letter as each girl’s name (Carmen Colon’s body was found in Churchville, Wanda Walkowicz’s in Webster and Michelle Maenza’s in Macedon).

The Rochester Victims

Carmen Colon, 10, disappeared on November 16, 1971. She was found two days later, 12 miles from where she was last seen. Although her body was discovered in the town of Riga, the village of Churchville is the town’s center, and the town of Chili is nearby.

Wanda Walkowicz, 11, disappeared on April 2, 1973. Her body was found the next day at a rest area off State Route 104 in Webster, seven miles from Rochester.

Michelle Maenza, 11, disappeared almost eight months later on November 26, 1973. She was found two days later in Macedon, 15 miles from Rochester.

The Suspects

While hundreds of people were questioned, the killer was never caught. One man, considered to be a “person of interest” (he committed suicide six weeks after the last of the murders), was cleared in 2007 by DNA testing. In the case of Carmen Colon, her uncle was also considered a suspect until his suicide in 1991.

Kenneth Bianchi, who at the time was an ice cream vendor in Rochester at vending sites close to the first two murder scenes, was also a suspect. If you recognize Bianchi’s name, it’s because he later moved to Los Angeles, and in tandem with his cousin Angelo Buono, Jr., committed the Hillside Strangler murders between 1977 and 1978. Bianchi was never charged with the alphabet murders, and has tried repeatedly to have investigators officially clear him but to no avail. There is circumstantial evidence that his car was seen at two of the murder scenes and he remains under suspicion.

The California Alphabet Murders

The man convicted of the four California Alphabet Murders, which also date back to the 1970s, 79-year-old Joseph Naso, was  a New York native who lived in Rochester in the 1970s. He was arrested in Reno, Nevada on April 11, 2011. The California murder victims, like the New York victims, all had double initials: Roxene Roggasch, Pamela Parsons, Tracy Tofoya, and Carmen Colon (a different Carmen Colon than the Rochester, NY victim.) All four women have been described by authorities as prostitutes. Naso is also considered a “person of interest” in the New York Alphabet Murders . In his preliminary hearing in Marin County, CA, on January 12, 2012, his alleged “rape diary” was entered into evidence. It mentioned the death of a girl in the “Buffalo woods,” a probable allusion to Upstate New York. Naso was a professional photographer who traveled between New York and California extensively for decades.

Solving the Crime

The four killings were cold cases until 2009, when probation officers in Reno, Nev., conducted a routine firearms search of Naso’s home, who was on probation at the time for a felony larceny conviction in California. Inside his house, a macabre collection of evidence was discovered that led to his conviction. Naso apparently was a collector of sorts who was obsessed with the collectings references to the murders that he had committed. Police found a “List of 10″ featuring references to the killings, photographs of women appearing drugged or dead, and a journal with detailed descriptions of rape and violence toward underage girls and women.

• No. 3 on Naso’s list was “Girl from Loganitas,” who prosecutors believe was Roggasch. Her body was found near Lagunitas, a small town near the coast in Marin County. Court documents show Naso might have used his then-wife’s panty hose to strangle Roggasch in 1977.

• No. 2 on the list was “Girl near Port Costa.” Colon’s decomposed body was found in 1978 near Port Costa in Contra Costa County. Authorities have said DNA evidence collected from her fingernails tied Naso to her slaying.

• Parsons was found in 1993 in Yuba City, where Naso was living at the time with his son. Prosecutors presented evidence during the trial that Naso had photographed Parsons.

• Tafoya was also killed in Yuba City while Naso lived there. Her body was found on the side of Highway 70 near Marysville Cemetery in 1994.

Investigators also found news clippings of the slayings in Naso’s safe deposit box.

During the penalty phase of the trial, the prosecutors also presented evidence tying Naso to the unsolved killings of Sharileea Patton, whose body washed ashore in Tiburon in 1981, and Sara Dylan, a Bob Dylan groupie whose skull was found near Nevada County in 1992. Naso was not charged in those cases.

Naso was convicted of the murders on August 20, 2013. After hearing closing arguments from Naso, who said he “was not the monster that killed these women,” and from the prosecutors, who — in arguing for the death sentence — had presented grisly photos of the lifeless bodies, the jurors deliberated for a mere four hours before deciding on the death sentence. Naso will be formally sentenced at a later date by Marin County Superior Court Judge Andrew Sweet.

*     *     *     *     *

It should be noted that even if Judge Sweet agrees with the jurors and sentences Naso to death, it is rather unlikely that he will actually be executed. There are 725 inmates already on California’s Death Row and executions have been on hold since 2006, when a federal judge ordered an overhaul of California’s execution protocol.

It will take at least another year for prison officials to properly adopt the state’s new single-drug execution method and have it cleared by the judge.

by Patrick H. Moore

A funny thing has happened in the West Branch-Rose City school district in northeast Michigan where former teacher Neal Erickson has been sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison for sexually molesting a 14-year-old middle school male student with whom he’d developed a close relationship that crossed the line into illegal sexual conduct. You see, after Erickson was arrested, seven of his colleagues at the middle school where he taught wrote letters of support on his behalf to the sentencing judge in which they urged the judge to be lenient. According to his own admission, Erickson engaged in the sexual misconduct with the underage  victim for a full three years from 2006 to 2009.

Many of the parents, of course, were already enraged by Erickson’s conduct, but when they got wind of the fact that some of his colleagues were supporting him and asking for leniency, and that the district was supporting their right to support Erickson, they went absolutely berserk. In fact, many of the parents are so steamed that they have actually taken the rather unusual step of withdrawing their students from the district and finding alternative ways of schooling them. This is not just an isolated case where a few parents have removed their children from the district; rather, district enrollment is unofficially down a full 87 students.

Now this is of course rather embarrassing to the school district but as officials of all ilks typically do, district personnel are playing CYA to the best of their ability.

“I can’t speculate as to why the students have left, but there were certainly parents who vocalized that they were pulling their children out of school because of the teacher’s support,” West Branch-Rose City School Superintendent Daniel Cwayna told FoxNews.com. “We addressed the issue as best we could without infringing upon the teacher’s first amendment rights. There’s only so much we can do.”

The state’s funding formula is based on the number of students present and accounted for on the date(s) when the official headcount is carried out. This means that if other parents make common cause with the parents who have already withdrawn their kids and simply opt to keep their children home on Sept. 25, the day of the headcount, the school district could lose as much as $600,000 in state funding.

“It’s absolutely appalling, these … teachers who wrote the letters. How someone can support a child molester … I don’t understand,” Sam Cottle, a local resident with relatives who work in the school district, said in an article published by EAGnews. “None of these people have written a letter of support for the mom, dad, or son. What does that tell you?”

Many community members have also called for the resignation of school board member Michael Eagan because he sat with the teachers and Erickson’s family during the disgraced teacher’s sentencing.

At a town hall meeting held in August to discuss the issue with the school board in an open forum, nearly 200 people showed up. Unsurprisingly, Eagan was the target of their scorn:

“You are tearing our community up. Do you realize that?” Carol Smith, whose daughter attends the high school asked of Eagan during the meeting.

Eagan has “stood his ground” and refused to resign, prompting opponents to mount a recall. He has stated that he has no regrets over having supported Erickson and would do so again.

“I would still support the family. That’s who I am,” he told the newspaper.

Erickson, 38, was originally investigated last October after allegations surfaced that he had sexually molested the boy beginning when he was 14. He was arrested in December of 2012 and pleaded guilty on May 8th. Erickson asked for a lenient sentence, citing “stress” and financial hardship for his family.

The defendant’s attorney has contended that the victim did not suffer severe psychological damage, but the boy’s family has countered by stating that the incident left him depressed and angry.

Here are a few examples of letters to the Court written by Erickson’s supporters:

“Neal made a mistake,” schoolteacher Sally Campbell wrote. “He allowed a mutual friendship to develop into much more. He realized his mistake and ended it years before someone anonymously sent something to the authorities which began this legal process.”

Another teacher, Amy Huber Eagan, wrote, “I am asking that Neal be given the absolute minimum sentence, considering all the circumstances surrounding this case. I am also hoping that he can stay remanded to custody in the Ogemaw County Jail and not be sent to a prison facility.”

Teacher Harriet Coe weighed in:

“Neal has plead (sic) guilty for his one criminal offense but he is not a predator. This was an isolated incident. He understands the severity of his action and is sincere in his desire to make amends.”

But on July 10, Judge Michael Baumgartner ignored the calls for mercy and handed down a sentence of 15 to 30 years in prison accompanied by some strong words for Erickson’s colleagues.

“I’m appalled and ashamed that the community could rally around, in this case, you. What you did was a jab in the eye with a sharp stick to every parent who trusts a teacher.”

by Clarence Walker

Thursday, June 12th, marks the 20th anniversary of the brutal slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. On that day in 1994, Los Angeles police found the bodies of the slaughtered victims outside Nicole’s Brentwood condominium. The savage murders of this young couple triggered one of the highest profile and most controversial criminal investigations in U.S. history when Hall of Fame football star, O.J. Simpson, was charged with the twin murders. When Simpson went on trial in L.A. Superior Court in 1995, the entire nation was mesmerized and every twist and turn of the sensational trial was watched by millions, causing it to be dubbed the “Trial of The Century.”

Who can forget the slow-speed police pursuit of Simpson’s white Ford Bronco, with his driver, A.C. Cowling, at the wheel, while an emotional Simpson hunkered down in the vehicle threatening to kill himself? Fast forward to the trial and another stunning moment when O.J. attempted to try on the “infamous killer gloves”, famously remarking, “They are too small.” O.J.’s high-powered defense attorney, Johnnie Cochran, seized on this moment during his closing statements when he argued, “If it don’t fit, you must acquit.”

The case had endless compelling elements to captivate the public including sex, race, money, power, and a wealthy black man hiring a Dream Team to defend him against the charges he murdered two attractive white people, which led to allegations that a racist police detective had attempted to frame Simpson with questionable blood evidence.

In a recent news article, Los Angeles forensics professor, Don Johnson, said the evidence against Simpson was overwhelming and conviction should have been a “slam dunk”. Johnson said, however, that the jury primarily focused on the possibility that the evidence was planted by the police, specifically Detective Mark Furman, and that Detective Phillip Vanatter had compromised the prosecution’s position when he foolishly transported a vial of Simpson’s blood to a criminalist already at the crime scene sifting through the evidence.

If Buccal swabbing had been available in 1994, like it is now 20 years later, all Vanatter would have had to do was take oral swabs from Simpson’s mouth by using a cotton tip. This procedure would have eliminated the need for Vanatter to use the blood vial. At the trial, Simpson’s attorney, Johnnie Cochran, accused the police and prosecutors of “rushing to judgment” to convict Simpson at any cost, and claimed that the LAPD lab that tested the forensic evidence was sloppy and unreliable and thus failed to maintain any reasonable degree of integrity. In short, the lab’s findings could not be trusted.

The jury bought it hook, line and sinker, and acquitted Simpson on October 3, 1995, without even asking to review the DNA evidence.

Many experts believe that Simpson’s acquittal, and the resulting frustration on the part of those who firmly believe that he was guilty, was an initial step in forever changing how forensic scientists and criminal investigators deal with DNA testing.

What if Simpson was tried today in this era of advanced forensic testing? People today are far more knowledgeable about DNA testing, thanks to the Simpson trial and the slew of forensic crime shows that later materialized. Jurors these days usually expect DNA to be a part of the evidence, and sometimes they will complain in no DNA evidence is presented.

Of course, very little is foolproof:

“People think they understand forensics more than they actually do,” says Los Angeles State University Professor Lisa Graziano.

“DNA was so complex and complicated that nobody really understood it,” famed Fox anchor reporter Van Susteren said in a Washington Post article.

Or as President Harry S. Truman once said, “If you can’t convince them, confuse them.”

The Simpson trial began on January 24, 1995. Both the prosecutors and O.J. Simpson’s Dream Team acknowledged the importance of thoroughly educating the jury about DNA testing as it related to Simpson’s blood which the prosecution claimed was found at the crime scene at 870 South Bundy Drive. Simpson’s jury consisted mostly of laymen completely unfamiliar with forensic science and the scientific testing of evidence

Therefore, both the defense and the prosecutors had to tutor the jury in order to help them understand from a scientific standpoint how a suspect’s DNA profile is developed from a crime scene sample, a sample that, after testing, proved with high probability that it matched Simpson’s blood at the time to “one in 170 millions” among men of the American population.

Advances in DNA testing today of blood samples will match to “one in trillions” of the population worldwide. It took over a month for prosecutor Marcia Clark to put on the DNA evidence linking Simpson to the double murders, and the numerous scientific terms confused the jury. One elderly juror later told a news reporter that she had never heard of DNA, and didn’t fully understand what it was all about.

Another uphill battle for the prosecutors was the improper handling of some of the blood evidence — which gave the defense leeway to argue the blood evidence was either planted by Homicide Detectives or contaminated by shoddy lab work.

The State of DNA Testing in 2014:

With today’s advances in DNA testing, anyone who follows news events and watches real-life forensic crime dramas is fully aware that properly applied DNA evidence is so powerful and compelling that it can either exonerate a previously convicted individual, or conversely, lead to ironclad convictions. According to New York-based Innocence Project, since 1989, 316 people have been exonerated by DNA testing in 36 states. 18 of the 316 had been on Death Row.

For most jurors in criminal cases today, DNA evidence is readily accepted as constituting undisputed proof.

June 12, 1994: Crime Scene Evidence at 870 South Bundy Drive:

When CSU technicians recover blood from a crime scene, this evidence can positively identify a suspect and possibly solve the case. As any scientist knows, it is mandatory to correctly document, collect, and preserve this type of evidence. Proper chain of custody is the key to effectively processing and maintaining control over and maintaining the integrity of the evidence. If blood evidence is handled improperly, it can critically undermine the prosecution’s case, particularly in a homicide case.

Once O.J. Simpson became a prime suspect, the homicide detectives first questioned him about a noticeable cut on his finger. Simpson initially said the cut was the result of him carelessly handling either a golf bag or some luggage. Sensing the detectives didn’t believe him, Simpson quickly changed his story and said he’d cut his finger on a glass he’d broken in a Chicago hotel after hearing his ex-wife had been murdered. Detective Phillip Vanatter extracted a vial of blood from Simpson’s arm to have a criminalist develop his DNA profile. This is called a reference sample. What happened next with Simpson’s blood triggered allegations that Detectives planted Simpson’s blood at the murder scene. Detective Vanatter, perhaps innocently, broke a cardinal rule when — instead of checking Simpson’s blood sample into the forensic lab — he handed it off to a criminalist who was already collecting blood evidence at Simpson’s Rockingham estate.

Simpson’s attorneys also emphasized another critical problem to Judge Lance Ito. It turned out that the reference blood sample stored in the vial allegedly belonging to Simpson contained approximately 1.5 milligrams less blood when the lab finally received it compared to when it was collected. Attorneys Johnnie Cochran and Barry Scheck argued that the blood from the crime scene (which purportedly came from the “real killer”) was cross-contaminated with Simpson’s actual blood. Trial testimony showed that the “cotton swabs” containing blood drops recovered from the murder scene were left out to dry on June 13th, and sat for a day prior to being placed in the evidence bag for storage on June 14th. Attorney Cochran effectively explained in great detail how the original “blood-soaked swabs”, which belonged to the actual killer, had been either switched or mixed with Simpson’s blood in a nefarious attempt to convict him of the murders.

2014 Buccal Swab Testing:

In today’s world of more sophisticated forensic testing, reference DNA can be collected by utilizing Buccal swabs. Buccal swabbing involves a suspect who voluntarily agrees to allow an investigator to place a cotton tip into his or her mouth to collect oral saliva and skin cells mixed with saliva. The difference between Buccal swabbing and depositing a blood sample into a vial is that a Buccal swab collection kit is sealed and signed in the presence of a suspect or defendant. Buccal swabbing provides the following key benefit: If a kit is somehow opened and the swab removed, there is still no way for a corrupt officer or criminalist to extract skin cells from the Bucccal swab and plant them at a crime scene.

Investigators these days regularly perform Buccal swabbing due to its efficiency and reliability in order to maintain control of the evidence for subsequent DNA testing. If O.J. Simpson’s reference DNA had been collected on a Buccal swab, his defense team would have been unable to raise suspicion that evidence had been planted, or that the blood samples had been switched or contaminated.

The State of DNA Expert Trial Testimony in 1995:

At the Simpson trial, mixed profiles of DNA confused the jury. Terminology used by the DNA experts on the stand such as “cannot be excluded” were used frequently to describe the difference between a reference DNA sample and a mixture of two or more DNA profiles. The words, “cannot be excluded”, actually meant that there was enough information present from a developed profile to possibly be the same profile as the reference sample. But any DNA expert then would attest to the fact that one could not be “one hundred percent certain” that a profile actually belonged to a particular person.

The Testing Of Mixed Blood in 2014:

Advanced testing today now allows for the mixtures of profiles to be much easier to decipher. For example, experts say that a “YSTR” DNA typing of the Y Chromosome can be tested to determine a male donor and isolate the male genetic code on the Y Chromosome when the blood is mixed with a female’s DNA profile. A DNA expert can then re-type the male’s DNA reference sample using the “YSTR”, which can result in a gold mine of information for the prosecutor or the defense because it will distinguish between male and female DNA.

Recovered Hair Samples in June of 1994:

Strands of hair recovered off the shirt of victim Ron Goldman, and hairs found in a knit cap recovered at the homicide scene, were microscopically identical to Simpson’s head hair. However, in that era, microscopic comparisons of hair could not conclusively match an identified hair with another sample recovered from a crime scene.

2014 Mitochondria DNA Testing (MTDNA):

In today’s world of advanced forensic testing, if the hair samples found on Goldman’s shirt, including the hair samples found in the knit cap, still had a root or roots attached, advanced Mitochondria DNA testing would have the capability of positively determining whether the hairs belonged to Simpson, rather than suggesting that the hairs were “microsopically similar” to Simpson’s. Mitochondria DNA testing is highly valuable for extracting DNA from bones, hair, and other biologically degraded evidence. In today’s world, Simpson’s Dream Team would have a tough time trying to convince a jury that Mitochondria DNA matching Simpson’s found on a dead body did not actually belong to Simpson.

Conclusion:

We will never know with certainty that if O.J. Simpson went on trial today for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, that he would be found guilty by a jury more familiar with DNA testing and the general testing of forensic evidence. Yet we must admit that if a jury is more knowledgeable about evidence, and if the evidence proves guilt, then the jury is more likely to convict.

California State University Professor Lisa Graziano said in a news article that the CSI effect has changed the public so much that if the Simpson case took place today, “the science evidence could outweigh the mistrust and perceived racism of the LAPD.”

The cold-bloodied murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were tragedies of the first order. It is conceivable that the jury failed to convict O.J. Simpson because they put little stock in the DNA evidence introduced at trial, in part because of the “primitive” nature of DNA testing in that era, particularly when compared to today’s far more sophisticated techniques. Was the jury swayed by the claims of racism skillfully introduced by Simpson’s Dream Team? It is certainly possible. But what we know for certain is that the acquittal of O.J. Simpson for the two brutal murders stands as a line of demarcation that clearly revealed the need for more sophisticated forensic techniques, particularly with respect to DNA testing.

What is ironic is that in today’s world, advanced DNA techniques serve to not only convict guilty parties, but also have proved to be an incredibly powerful tool to exonerate wrongfully convicted defendants, as the work of the Innocence Project has so conclusively demonstrated.

Clarence Walker is a veteran news writer and freelance investigative journalist for online internet news publishers and offline hard copy publishers. He has written previously for New York-based True Crime Magazines, National Law Journal, Houston Chronicle, and Houston Forward Times Weekly Community Newspaper. He has also appeared in John Walsh’s America’s Most Wanted Crime Magazine & TV Show. Mr. Walker has served as a crime historian for Houston, Texas-based Channel 11 TV’s Cold Case Murder Series, hosted by reporter Jeff Mcshan. Mr. Walker currently divides his time between Houston and Southeast Arkansas, and is working on a series of crime books and as a story research producer for cable TV true crime drama shows.