by JJ Rogers

I was born in Clarkston, Washington and grew up across the Snake River in Lewiston, Idaho.  The two cities are located in a deep valley at the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake Rivers.  They are not large cities and they didn’t traditionally experience the horrors of serial killers that metropoleis are known for.  That is, until the late 70’s and early 80’s when I was in my teens. That’s when everything changed.  That’s when one man, filled with loathing and complete disregard for human life, selected a series of girls and young women as the objects of his dark desires.

Every spring the Valley filled with excitement in anticipation of the Asotin County Fair, which was held on the Snake River just north of both cities. Everyone who possibly could attended. It was April 28, 1979. I was there. So was Christina White, a 12-year-old child.

At some point during the day Christina felt ill from the early spring heat, and her mother suggested she get a damp towel to cool herself down.  Christina went to her friend’s house, where she was apparently given a wet towel and also used the phone.  She reportedly called her mother, but no one knows what was said. After that, Christina was never seen again.  No one saw her leave the house at 503 2nd Avenue — she simply vanished.  The home belonged to Patricia Brennan, Lance Voss’s girlfriend.  Lance and Patricia were married 26 months later on July 24, 1981.

For the next two years the rumors concerning Christina White’s death swirled like eddies in the mighty Snake River. These rumors created fear in our closely connected region of small towns and cities. For the first time in our lives, our parents admonished us not to walk alone and began locking our doors, even in the daytime.

Then it happened again. It was unthinkable but it happened. On June 26, 1981, 22-year-old Kristen David vanished while riding her bike between Moscow and Lewiston-Clarkston.  About a week later, the dismembered body of the 22-year-old University of Idaho student was found in the Snake River. The rumors spread fast that her dismembered body parts were found in plastic bags floating down the river.

Then in September 1982 it happened a third time. Three people turned up missing who were last seen at, or near, the Lewiston Civic Theatre, where Kristen David, the dismembered biker, had once worked. These three victims were 21-year-old Kristina Nelson, her stepsister, 18-year-old Brandi Miller and Former Air Force Cpl. Steven Pearsall who was 35.

On her last evening on earth, Sept. 12, 1982, Kristina left a note in her apartment for her boyfriend indicating that she and Brandi were going downtown to do some grocery shopping at the Safeway store.  A logical route downtown would have taken them by the Civic Theatre.

Steven Pearsall, 35, worked as a janitor there — he and Lance Voss had recently helped build a pirate ship that rolled on a dolly complete with several ropes for actors playing pirates to slide down.  Steven’s girlfriend dropped him off at the theater around midnight on Sept. 12th. Steven’s plan was to practice his music.  He may have walked in while Kristina and Brandi were being attacked. Steven was never seen again, nor was he ever considered a suspect. He is presumed dead.

The bodies of stepsisters Kristina Nelson and Brandi Miller were found 18 months later in March of 1984 at the bottom of a steep embankment near the community of Kendrick, along with rope that is presumed to have been “borrowed” from the Civic Theater’s pirate ship that Steven and Lance had built together.

The authorities noted that three of the four female victims had similar names: Kristin, Christina and Kristina, and that all three were about the same height.

One person of interest was interrogated by the police, twice. That person of interest was Lance Jeffrey Voss, a big man standing 6’ 5” and weighing roughly 200 lbs. Voss was not only seen at the theater, but actually admitted to being there at the time of the murders, working on the pirate ship for the play with the missing Steven. Voss had also, of course, dated (and later married) Patricia Brennan, the owner the house on 2^nd Avenue where the 12-year-old Asotin girl, Christina White, was last seen alive. In addition, Voss admitted that he often drove the same route taken by 22-year-old Kristen David when she met her grisly fate.

Lance is quoted as stating, “I was in the theater, but asleep; yes, I just saw Kristina.” 

Lewiston authorities believe the same person killed Christina White, Kristin David, Kristina Nelson, Brandy Miller, and Steven Pearsall.  One Lewiston Police Captain went as far as to say he’s “99 percent certain” who the killer is.  But law enforcement doesn’t believe they can prove who the killer is in a court of law. Lance Jeffrey Voss moved back to the East Coast and no similar murders have occurred since he left town. It’s no secret that authorities want to bring formal charges against him, but to this day, they have taken no action.

Voss is a self-proclaimed survivalist who enjoys listening to Rush Limbaugh.  Here is a quote by Voss that I came across while I was researching the case. Hunting is of course very popular in our part of the world but Voss’s quote is certainly not something we would expect a hunter to say:

“By the way, don’t neglect edged tools/weapons in your survival kit.  After you’ve shot your dinner rabbit, preparation is much easier if you don’t have to gut it with a rock.  It can be done, but it’s not fun.”

This case is still open and surfaces from time to time in the Valley. Many of us grew up hearing, telling and re-telling this awful tale and much as we would like to, these are murders we cannot forget.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

In Coney Island Baby, the late Lou Reed intones in his distinctive manner, “And just remember certain people have peculiar tastes.” This is undoubtedly true, as we’ve seen so many times here on All Things Crime Blog. And as a certain peculiar “event” that occurred Monday night at the world-famous TCL Chinese theater in Hollywood demonstrates, certain people also have “peculiar ways” of dealing with the stress of confrontation.

I came across this bizarre story on a rather neat website called Mashable.com. Josh Dickey reports on a peculiar woman who, not unlike Chad Oulson, the victim in the Land ‘O Lakes Florida shooting/murder case, was confronted by a theater patron who asked her to turn off her phone because its glowing screen was bothering him. Unlike Chad, who was shot and killed by retired police officer Curtis Reeves at a screening of Lone Survivor, in this case, as their argument escalated, Ms. Glowing Screen arguably got the best of the of the requestor.

Josh Dickey writes for Mashable:

A man who asked a woman to turn off her cell phone at a Monday night screening of Mr. Turner was maced in the face following an awkward confrontation, an eyewitness who was sitting nearby tells Mashable.

The American Film Institute screening of the biopic at the TCL Chinese theater in Hollywood had just gotten underway when a man near the back row asked a woman sitting in front of him to turn off her phone, whose screen was visibly glowing.

According to Mashable’s intrepid eyewitness, the gentleman in the back row was extremely polite to Ms. Glowing Screen, reportedly asking her over and over again:

“Excuse me sir, could you please turn off your screen. (The man had apparently mistaken Screen for a male). After asking her to turn off her screen repeatedly to no avail, the man then resorted to the not unreasonable gesture of tapping the woman on the shoulder.

Screen, however, found “the gentle tapping” quite unreasonable. Eyewitness reports that she “flipped out” on him:

“She stands up and starts cursing, saying ‘You hit me, you hit me, I’m going to call the police.” That did not satisfy her, however, so she turned the phone’s flashlight function on and pointed it directly at the man’s face.

Then the standoff began and lasted for up to 60 seconds. Eyewitness reports that she continued “shining her light upon the world” even as the people around the implored her to “hide her light under a bushel basket” and sit down. Eyewitness calmly defended himself which was probably a mistake. Some people just can’t handle conspicuous calmness on the part of an adversary. In fact, Screen informed Calm (and probably none too calmly) she was carrying mace. She then “started digging in her bag”.

Oh shit! Time to run for cover!

Too late! Gig’s up!

Eyewitness reports that Screen “took the cap off the bottle, pointed it directly in his face and sprayed him at point-blank range.” After sitting there for a moment in shock, as Screen also sat back down, Calm and his female companion left the theater. On his way out, Calm did reportedly manage to slap Screen on the arm while saying something perhaps unprintable. (At least it would have been unprintable if I had been in Calm’s shoes.)

Once she had routed Calm with her mace bomb, Screen sat back to enjoy Mr. Turner. Her enjoyment was cut short 20 minutes later when “volunteers and security with flashlights came to escort (her) out of the theater. She did not put up a fight as she was leaving,” according to Eyewitness.

* * * * *

And thus we see how confused, stubborn and obnoxious we humans sometimes are. Screen was clearly way out of line, but Calm (despite his conspicuous calm) insisting on playing the role of the stubborn, albeit rational, male which drove Screen into a frenzy and led to her macing him.

Nothing infuriates irrational souls like rationality on the part of an adversary.

“Help me in my weakness, I heard the drifter say…”

And just for the record, here is a salient and necessary update on the Curtis Reeves Land ‘O Lakes shooting. Actually it’s old news but it’s new news to me.

Colin Daileda, also of Mashable, reports that Reeves “appears to have sent a text of his own right before the incident to his son, Matthew, minutes before he fired a shot.”

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

According to the Associated Press, Matthew Reeves, a Tampa Bay police officer, was supposed to meet his parents at the theater but was a bit late because “he had decided to wash his truck beforehand. Moments after he arrived, he heard a gunshot.”

Oddly enough, Matthew is the one who “held a t-shirt against Oulson’s chest as the man bled to death.”

Without a doubt, fate works in peculiar ways. If Matthew hadn’t decided to wash his truck and had arrived a few minutes earlier, Chad Oulson would probably still be alive and Curtis Reeves probably would not be facing murder charges.

“The world it turning/Hope it don’t turn on me.”

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

Although unlike Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy rarely elicits much sympathy or compassion from the “typical” true crime fan, oddly enough, his death by electrocution in the Florida State Prison, in the aptly named town of Starke, appears to have aroused compassion in the minds and hearts of certain individuals who witnessed his death, some of whom spent time with him prior to his execution. It must be admitted, however, that the vast majority of the crowd assembled near the prison were over-joyed by Mr. Bundy “frying in the hotseat.”

In an LA Times article dated January 24, 1989, Barry Bearak describes the scene with real poetic flair:

Ted Bundy, the notorious serial killer, died today in the electric chair after a night of weeping and praying, just as the sun rose over the north Florida plains.

Gone was the storied cockiness. He was ashen as two guards led him into the death chamber to be executed for the 1978 rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl. They strapped his chest and arms and legs to the shiny wooden chair.

Bundy’s eyes searched for familiar faces behind the glass. He nodded to some of the 42 witnesses, including the men who had prosecuted him. His lips moved in a faint mumble.

Then his head bowed. The shaved skull glistened where an ointment had been applied. It would enhance the work of the electrodes.

His Last Words

As is customary at these peculiarly American events, the Supt., a Mr. Tom Barton, asked Bundy if he had any last words at which point the murderer of more than 30 young women was momentarily at a loss for words. Them, his voice quivering, the man who has gone down in history as one of our most famous serial killers, spoke:

“Jim and Fred, I’d like you to give my love to my family and friends.”

Jim Coleman was one of Bundy’s lawyers. He nodded solemnly. So did Fred Lawrence, a Methodist minister out of Gainesville, Fla., who had spent the night with Bundy in prayer.

(Now this is downright odd. Could a just god forgive Bundy his most heinous crimes, even assuming his repentance was real, which was not necessarily the case. Furthermore, it’s well known that Bundy desperately hung on to life and did everything in his power to keep getting his day of destiny postponed.)

Barry Bearak writes:

With that, it was time. A last thick strap was pulled across Bundy’s mouth and chin. The metal skullcap was bolted in place, its heavy black veil falling in front of the condemned man’s face.

Barton gave the go-ahead. An anonymous executioner pushed the button. Two thousand volts surged through the wires. Bundy’s body tensed and his hands tightened into a clench. A tiny puff of smoke lifted from his right leg.

A minute later, the machine was turned off, and Bundy went limp. A paramedic opened the blue shirt and listened for a heartbeat. A second doctor aimed a light into his eyes.

At 7:16 a.m., Theodore Robert Bundy–one of the most active killers of all time–was pronounced dead.

One it was over, as he left the Q Wing of Florida State Prison, a witnessing newsman raised his hands to signal the news to the 500 or so civilians who were waiting eagerly in a dewy cow pasture cross the street. Based on the reports, these individuals were hardly among the sympathetic souls; on the contrary, they seemed to delight in what must have been an agonizing death.

Some of the onlookers began chanting with much enthusiasm, if not much originality, “Burn, Bundy, burn!” Others reportedly sang or hugged or banged on the frying pans they had brought along to “make a joyous noise”.

David Hoar, a policeman from St. Augustine, Fla., remarked moronically, “I wish I could have been the one flipping the switch.”

A Few Somber Souls

Following the execution, some of the witnesses came outside and began pacing the field. They were reportedly a somber bunch, and some are believed to have been shocked “at the celebration that filled the chilly morning air.”

“Regardless of what Bundy did, he was still a human being,” said Jim Sewell, who was police chief of Gulfport, Fla. Sewell, however, who was apparently suffering from post-execution stress disorder (PESD), stated that he felt great relief knowing that Bundy was finally dead.

The famous story, of course, is that of religious broadcaster James Dobson, who interviewed Bundy the night before his death. This is the interview in which Bundy “talked at considerable length about the process of desensitization” he underwent while raping, murdering and sometimes eating literally dozens of women in Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado and Florida.

Well, yeah… Of course, Bundy became desensitized while committing the awful murders with increasing regularity.

Many crime fans may also be somewhat desensitized merely from reading about and viewing endless violent crimes; I know I am. I don’t recall raping or murdering any comely females lately, though, which I guess is to my credit.

In his interview with Dobson, Bundy talked about how his addiction to pornography and subsequent thirst for more and more violent pornography had increased exponentially until “there was nothing more that would give him that high” other than rape and murder.

Bundy Claimed to Be Remorseful

James Dobson made a point of emphasizing Bundy’s remorse, “He wept several times while talking to me. He expressed great regret, remorse for what he had done, for the families that were hurting.”

Perhaps I am a cynic, but I am somewhat skeptical as to the validity of Bundy’s remorse. His weeping for the girls and women he raped and murdered could easily be mere projected emotion, displaced sorrow over the fact that he was going to die for his crimes. Bundy was a charismatic hustler and could easily have “pulled the wool” over Dobson’s eyes, who as a compassionate Christian probably wanted to believe Bundy felt sincere remorse and contrition.

The Killer’s Final Phone Calls

Another peculiar part of the Executioner’s Song are the final phone calls, both of which Bundy placed to his mother in Tacoma, Washington.

According to the Tacoma News Tribune, at the conclusion of his second phone call, Bundy’s mother told him, “You’ll always be my precious son.”

*     *     *     *     *

Bundy was convicted of three Florida murders, and was blamed for dozens more.

Technically, the murder that broke the camel’s back was the 1978 slaying of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach of Lake City, Florida. After killing her, Bundy dumped her body under a collapsed hog shed.

George Robert Dekle, who prosecuted that case, and witnessed Bundy’s death, had this to say:

“The thing that kept going through my mind was the awful crime scene I saw 11 years ago. I kept saying to myself that is where it started and this is where it ends.”

*     *     *     *     *

I realize that my take on this is rather churlish but I can’t help it. I might feel differently if Bundy had murdered one or two women and then turned himself in so that he wouldn’t (indeed couldn’t) re-offend. But that’s hardly what happened. At the time of his arrest, he was going berserk and stepping up the pace of the killings sharply, much as Jeffrey Dahmer had done prior to his apprehension. If Bundy hadn’t been stopped when he was, he would have violated and murdered many more women and girls, with a tally reaching, perhaps, into the hundreds for the simple reason that he had utterly lost control and nothing short of arrest was going to stop him.

Click here to view our previous Ted Bundy posts:

Ten Fatal Facts about Ted Bundy’s Formative Years

14 Cold-Blooded Quotes by Serial Killer Ted Bundy

Book Review of Cicero’s Dead by Darcia Helle

Cicero Lamont dealt drugs in massive quantities making huge profits and lots of enemies until one night he was introduced to the steel bumper in a hit-and-run and now he’s dead. His daughter, Jade, has also just learned that her mom has committed suicide and now her brother, Richie, is missing. She hires Nick Crane to find him and to track down whoever murdered their father, but as the old saying goes, ‘be careful what you wish for’ because 300 million dollars cuts an awful lot of family ties.

Published: November 2014

Amazon / Amazon UK

My Review:

Sometimes an author will come out of nowhere with a debut novel that blows me away. Patrick Moore with his novel Cicero’s Dead is one such instance.

What struck me first was the realism, both with the dialogue and the characters’ interactions. Moore perfectly captures all the nuances. The characters are each unique and well developed, with all the little quirks that make them feel human. The dialogue is perfection. Nothing feels stilted or forced. The flow is natural, always fitting well with the speaker.

He nodded. “It looked like it hurt, but he didn’t move. It was scary, dude. Then Arnold locks eyes with me and says, ‘As you can see, I like handsome young men with sensitive features,’ and squeezes the last remaining drops of blood out of Richard’s mouth, and still he doesn’t pull away, even though his eyes were watering. I knew I was way out of my depth. I got mad. The son of a bitch had no right to hurt him like that, but at the same time, I felt this peculiar terror. You ever felt that, anger and terror, all rolled into one?”

“All the time. Not a good feeling.” To my surprise I realized I was sweating even though the night was breezy and mild. My tape recorder was whirring away in my pocket and I wondered what Brad would think when I played it back to him.

The plot is intricate without being overly complicated. While this is largely a crime story, we’re also given little twists to build suspense.

Brad asked, “What if Jade turns out to be the bad guy?”

“We’re all bad guys. It’s only a question of degree.”

I was hooked from start to finish, and I’m hoping Moore has plans for a second Nick Crane novel.

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 John Paolucci

The investigation into the Cleveland kidnappings is in many ways just beginning.  It brings to mind the case of a murdered 8 year old Hasidic boy by the name of Leiby Kletzky, who was dismembered, packed into a suitcase and discarded in a dumpster by the perpetrator Levi Aron, who performed the dissection of the child in his Brooklyn apartment.  Aron kept a souvenir of the incident, the boy’s feet, which he stowed in a freezer in the apartment.  In the Cleveland kidnappings, like in the Kletzky case, there appears to be a wealth of incriminating evidence against the perpetrators.  In cases like these, the investigators need to have the scenes speak to them, hopefully answering the question, “Are there more victims?”

What we did not have in the Kletzky case was a living victim who could provide investigators with patterns of the perpetrator’s behavior and habits.  Kletsky’s Brooklyn community has its own “Shamrim” patrols, and they generally do not call the police unless it is absolutely necessary.  Therefore, although we were able to learn that Levi Aron had twice been banished from the community, there was no paper trail to follow as to what activities caused this expulsion.  It was rumored that he had behaved inappropriately towards children, but no one would come forward and provide more specific details. Individuals like Castro and Aron exhibit behavior so abhorrent and predatory that investigators will adopt the theory that there are other victims besides those that are already known, and believe that the crime scenes will likely hold clues as to their identity if they exist.

Levi Aron was identified as the person who abducted Kletzky while the investigation was still being carried as a “Missing Persons” case, so in both the Kletzky and the Cleveland cases there was a presumption that there are living victims in the locations who are in danger, thereby giving first responders an exigent circumstance exception to the fourth amendment, allowing them lawful entry into the residences for the purpose of preserving life.  Once it is determined that no civilians’ personal safety is in danger, the residence must be secured until a search warrant is issued so as not to risk the suppression of any evidence at the subsequent legal proceedings.

So the Question Is: What Are the Investigators Looking For?

The Search:  Aron was a hoarder, so the apartment had to be documented in stages, as layers of Aron’s accumulated possessions were moved and removed, to allow overall and detailed photographs, sketches and measurements to be taken. The primary scene (apparent location of the murder) was the third floor wherein there was no air conditioning to provide relief from the humid, New York July heat.  Since it was confirmed that Aron kept a trophy from his victim in the form of body parts, we needed to be certain that nothing as small as a nail clipping was overlooked while searching the stinking mound amassed throughout the years of a child murderer’s life.  Items in jeopardy of perishing in that harsh climate, such as blood evidence, were given immediate attention to ensure their preservation for laboratory testing.  The items of evidence were methodically collected, packaged, documented and made ready for transport.  A police box truck transported evidence to a central location where it was logged in, bar coded and vetted according to the information that was available as the investigation progressed. Aside from the residence, there was also 1) the dumpster in which the suitcase was recovered which was removed to our forensic garage and processed for fingerprints and DNA, 2) Aron’s vehicle which he used to abduct Kletzky, and 3) Aron’s locker and work space at his job, where he showed up to work in the interim between abducting Kletzky and killing him.  It was unclear how Aron was able to leave a live 8 year old in an apartment, go to work and return to kill the child without any other residents hearing anything.

The Evidence:  As commanding officer of the unit in the NYPD’s Forensic Investigations Division responsible for managing all DNA evidence collected in New York City, I had over 1,400 items of evidence seized from the Aron residence.  The evidence was categorized and assigned to the appropriate unit for respective analyses.  I would expect a similar strategy to be deployed in Cleveland.  At a meeting prior to commencing the search of the Aron residence, the Chief of Detectives told the Crime Scene Unit, “I want that place down to f**kin’ 2x4s when we leave!” So it began.  The following are some of the categories of evidence and the types of analyses requested and possible results that were anticipated (certain details and results are being withheld to preserve the integrity of the case):

DNA Evidence:  Leiby Kletzky’s DNA profile was compared to blood evidence recovered from the apartment.  Blood saturated rugs and mattresses recovered at the scene, and specific areas on these items were sampled, analyzed and compared to Kletzky’s DNA, and DNA collected from Levi Aron, to determine if any of the profiles developed were foreign and possibly that of another victim.  All blood evidence matched Kletzky’s DNA profile.  Items such as stuffed animals and women’s clothing were scraped and swabbed to collect skin cells that revealed DNA profiles foreign to the victim and perpetrator, some of which were female.  Through investigative leads, it was revealed that Aron had a brief marriage to a woman in Tennessee, who when contacted identified the clothing as hers, and provided DNA exemplars from herself and her child. When these exemplars were analyzed they matched the foreign profiles. Therefore, the DNA avenue of this investigation yielded no leads as to additional victims.  Though this was good news, it was not satisfying to any of us because we believed that no killer performs a precise dissection of his victim on his first “at bat”.  The search continued.

Digital Multi Media (DMM):  All laptop and desktop computers and accessories, all CDs and DVDs, thumb drives, cell phones, cameras, video equipment and anything that stores electronic data, which Aron had plenty of, was seized.  A task force of computer crimes Detectives was assigned the duty of decrypting, downloading, reviewing and analyzing all data from these items.  Communications via telephone and email helped to establish a timeline of his travels and document persons with whom he associated and locations where he spent time while banned from returning to Brooklyn.  We sent Detectives to Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee tracking down his acquaintances and searching local records for missing children. Several of Aron’s associates had police records involving minor sexual related offenses, arousing further suspicions that Aron had committed other offenses.    The digital evidence was also searched for photos of children or child pornography.  Time and again, all leads were exploited, but no fruit was harvested.

Controlled Substance Evidence: Evidence collected from the apartment in the form of prescription bottles containing pills proved to have significant value in the investigation.  The NYPD Crime Laboratory Controlled Substance Analysis Section documented each prescription and tested the pills to determine if the contents matched the label, many of which were labeled “Controlled Substance”.  Results were forwarded to the Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) Department of Toxicology, where post mortem samples, collected at autopsy from Kletzky, were analyzed for the presence of these controlled substances.  The horror of Levi Aron’s deed was amplified when it was revealed through the toxicology examination that he had combined several of these controlled substances and made Kletzky ingest this noxious cocktail, rendering him unconscious, which would explain how the child remained silent while Aron went to work that day. The controlled substance analyses were vital in corroborating the series of events we believed had transpired just prior to the child’s murder.  It also explained how some of the incisions performed on this tortured child were made ante mortem.

In Cleveland, nothing will be “out of play” when searching the Castro house.  The victims have already provided DNA exemplars and may have to provide things such as hair samples and undergo other very personal examinations to assist with the investigation.  Remains as small as a miscarried fetus that was essentially beaten out of the mother could be hidden anywhere in the house if not discarded with the trash.  There is hardly an area or an item in that house that can immediately be ruled out as not probative.  Searches, swabs, photos, sketches, presumptive tests, DNA analysis and comparisons to the victims and Castro, floor boards to be pulled up, walls to be opened – there shouldn’t be anything but f**kin’ 2x4s left when they are done searching!  My heart goes out to the victims, their families and the investigators in Cleveland.

Please click here to view John Paolucci’s previous posts:

Dead Body at the Crime Scene – What Forensic Value Does It Have?

New York City Housing Police: A Bygone Era Worth Talking About

About the Author:  John Paolucci is a retired Detective Sergeant from NYPD who worked his last eight years in the Forensic Investigations Division, four of them as a Crime Scene Unit supervisor.  He was the first ever to command the OCME Liaison Unit where he managed all DNA evidence in NYC and trained thousands of investigators in DNA evidence collection and documentation. He developed a strong alliance between the OCME Forensic Biology Department and NYPD.  He also worked as a Narcotics Undercover and Patrol Officer in the Housing Projects of the South Bronx.   He is currently the president of Forensics 4 Real Inc., where he provides forensic support to private investigations, international and domestic.  He also trains students and law enforcement in forensic evidence and crime scene investigations and provides consultations with movie and television writers, directors and developers working on real crime shows and dramas.  www.forensics4real.com.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

We’re used to our teachers getting arrested for having sex with their students, and we’re used to our students getting abused at home by their twisted parents, but what we’re not used to is what happened to a 7-year-old special needs child at Viking Elementary school in Fresno, California.

It seems that last May Ledelldra Brooks, the mother of the special needs child in question, paid an unanticipated visit to her daughter’s school. Perhaps she had a premonition or perhaps she simply wanted to make sure things were proceeding apace. When Ledelldra arrived, however, she was appalled to find her daughter “sitting in a soiled diaper while locked in a makeshift cage.”

The cage was allegedly constructed out of a toddler gate and a crib gate, which were both attached to bookshelves. Based on the picture, the cage doesn’t look nearly as unpleasant as the homemade cages we’re used to seeing in the dungeon-like residences of the twisted folk who all too often viciously abuse their children at home. That being said, however, we assume (perhaps naively) that our school kids are not going to spend the day whiling away their hours in cages. Hell, it’s un-American, isn’t it?

After making her awful discovery, Ledelldra called the police and hired a lawyer. At this point, her attorney has filed two claims against both her child’s former teacher, Teresa MonPere, who now teaches at another elementary school, and against the elementary school administrators. (The filing of these claims is a necessary antecedent to bringing a lawsuit against the offending parties.)

One of the things that is really aggravating about school districts is that whenever something terrible happens at one of their campuses, they come up with the same tired pronouncement that always sounds the same. Dominic Kelly of Opposing Views writes:

“We take these situations very seriously,” Micheline Golden, spokeswoman for the Fresno Unified School District, said. “We conducted a thorough investigation consistent with our personnel procedures. I can’t share any outcome of that investigation because it is a personnel issue. Fresno Unified is committed to providing the best education possible for our special education students and being their advocates.”

CYA! CYA! CYA! (I don’t mean Catholic Youth Organization)

The offending teacher, Teresa MonPere, was put on administrative leave shortly after the incident which occurred in May. Considering she now works at Addicott Elementary, she apparently found a new position without too much difficulty.

At present, no criminal charges have been filed, but Ledelldra Brooks is biding her time pending the outcome of a school board meeting next week at which the issue will be discussed.

Naturally, there are two sides to this issue (though they are not necessarily two valid sides):

Special education expert Joe Bowling believes that what Teacher MonPere did to the child was “totally inappropriate”. Mr. Bowling explained his position to the Fresno Bee:

“This is not something I would put a child into and claim this is for their own protection. It’s a cage, this is what you would put a wild animal in. Obviously there are people in the district that need training. I can’t believe that somebody, an administrator walking in that room and seeing it, would allow that.”

Some people on social media, who could perhaps be considered to be of a decidedly “practical frame of mind”, seem to think that what Teacher MonPere did is no big deal, and that Ms. Brooks are the outraged media are over-reacting:

“What I’m going to say is not politically correct, and I’m sure I will get a lot of hate for saying it, but I am so sick of hearing whining parents complaining because their disruptive special needs children are not treated like the other kids,” said a commenter on the Fresno Bee’s Facebook page. “This enclosure is hardly a dungeon and I find it hard to believe that the child was traumatized by spending time in there. The teachers have their hands full with “normal” kids, and now they’re expected to take care of these kids also. When did changing a seven-year-old’s dirty diaper become part of a teachers job description? And, I notice it certainly did not take long for the mother to call the cops and then a lawyer.”

* * * * *

Now I’ve always been under the impression that school districts have special education teachers who are experts in dealing with special needs children, and one would think that this particular special needs child, who still is apparently wearing diapers at the age of 7, would receive that special help. Fresno, however, is an economically depressed area, and for all I know, the significantly handicapped children in its elementary schools are being “mainstreamed” along with the regular kids due to lack of funding and/or the lack of training of special-ed teachers. It’s possible that this is what happened in this situation.

Whatever the facts of the matter are, my heart goes out to Ledelldra Brooks who must have sh__ when she walked into that classroom and found her handicapped child in that “makeshift cage”.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

There is no finer public servant than a dedicated elementary school teacher who has spent decades performing the sometimes thankless but often rewarding job of imparting skills and knowledge to her youthful charges. It’s a job that requires a whole lot of heart to go along with the endurance, elbow grease and dedication.

Somehow, in the case of Lori Ann Anderson, who teaches elementary school in a tiny Ohio hamlet of less than 2,000 people named Cridersville, the “heart” may not have extended to the homefront where, it turns out, Ms. Anderson, with the “help” of her ex-husband, 53-year-old Charles Wycuff, allegedly raped her 12-year-old son on multiple occasions in 1999.

Weird. You betcha! Nina Strochlic of the Daily Beast writes:

Lori Ann Anderson, who’s been teaching for 29 years “without a single complaint,” appeared in court Monday and pleaded not guilty to 23 felony charges, including sexual battery, gross sexual imposition, and 11 counts of rape, along with two counts of obstructing justice. Ms. Anderson’s lawyer, Richard Kerger, told The Daily Beast that she is preparing to go to trial and that she is ‘relieved to tell her side of it.’

Naturally, tiny Cridersville, where this infamy allegedly transpired, markets itself as ‘small-town America at its very best.’ (My God, I grew up down on the farm just outside of a small town named Campbellsport that seemed to have plenty of civic pride. I wonder if stuff like this was going on in my town.)

Ms. Anderson was indicted along with her ex-husband, 53-year-old Charles Wycuff. Wycuff faces a whopping 54 felony charges. Ms.Anderson’s charges allegedly occurred beginning in June of 1999 when her son was a young teen. Although it’s unclear how this all fits together, Wycuff’s alleged offenses began two years earlier and his charges include pandering sexually oriented material involving a minor, rape, and sexual battery.

To my knowledge, there are only two crime areas where the statute of limitations typically does not run its course in 5 to 7 years: capital cases and sex cases. It’s very weird to think that this has been hanging over Ms. Anderson’s head for all this time and that she’s been going to class day in and day out all this time proceeding as if everything is normal.

A special prosecutor from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office certainly didn’t think ‘everything was normal’ which is why he had been investigating Anderson and Wycuff for more than two years before filing charges Friday.

It appears that the case would have stayed dormant forever were it not for the fact the victim apparently got his courage up, well over a decade after the alleged abuse, and went to the police.

Attorney Kerger is trying to deflect the blame in Wycuff’s direction, stating that he was “abusive, dominant, engaged in misconduct,” and that he was “pretty much in charge of orchestrating it.”

What the hell does that mean: “Pretty much in charge of orchestrating it?” It would appear to mean that Ms. Anderson was also involved. She and Wycuff have been separated and presumably divorced since at last 2003.

Wycuff’s lawyer is having none of it. He stated on Wednesday that his client “maintains he is innocent of all charges pending against him.” Nonetheless, Wycuff is not getting out and is being held on $500,000 bond.

Ms. Anderson’s son is now around 30 years of age and no longer resides in Ohio, according to Kerger. In what is so often the case in these bizarrely dark affairs, Ms. Anderson had another son living with her and Wycuff at the time of the alleged abuse, but that boy was apparently not mistreated.

Because she is a lady, Ms.Anderson is out on bail. Kerger believes she has been relieved of her teaching duties. Most recently, she was teaching first grade at Cridersville Elementary. Historically, she’s been teaching first through third grade in the public school system for 29 years, “without a single complaint.” Somewhat nonsensically, Kerger stated:

“She likes teaching kids, young kids.”

The fact that the investigation has been going on for years appeared to be reflected in Ms. Anderson’s rather worn look, which is evident in her photographs.

This is a very sad situation but if the allegations are ultimately substantiated, those feeling sympathy for Ms. Anderson will be few and far between.

by Lise LaSalle

After the initial shock of Brittany Murphy’s death on December 20, 2009, several questions were raised about her premature passing. Her husband Simon Monjack was in disbelief and at a loss to explain why his 32-year old bride could have encountered such a tragic end.

Monjack was a strange bird with a shady reputation. Unlike Brittany, who had been and remained one of America’s sweethearts, this out of shape older Britt had not won the heart of many. He was a talented photographer and an unemployed screenwriter, but his career was in Slow Mo and he had left a trail of unpaid debts and child support. The word around town was that he was an opportunist using Brittany for the lifestyle, and that he was ruining her career opportunities with his constant meddling. She had recently been fired from a movie set because of him.

On the other hand, mother and daughter Murphy seemingly lived happily with Monjack in their opulent home on the hill in the city of Fallen Angels. Sharon Murphy who had a front row seat to their relationship, only had positive things to say about her son-in-law and she even continued living with him after losing her daughter.

Monjack often spoke to the media of someone who could be “out to get us” and even opened his home up to reporters after Murphy’s death, revealing an elaborate security set-up.

“There’s actually 56 cameras that cover the house,” he said two months before his own death, as he showed off his high-tech security system.

“Inside the house, outside the house, down into the cul-de-sac.”

Along with the 56 cameras, he also had biometric door entries and even a system that scrambles the phone lines if someone tries to record conversations.

Monjack said that both he and Murphy were in fear for their lives and they believed someone was watching them. He even believed that they were in danger of someone “slipping them something.’’

The fact that he died on May 23, 2010, five months following the death of his wife at age 40, and of the same thing, acute pneumonia and severe anemia, also raised questions. But considering that he had cardiovascular problems, was overweight and like Brittany, was consuming loads of prescription pills, it might not have been such a surprise after all.

The LA County Department of Health examined the possibility of toxic mold having been found in the home as possible cause of death but it was later dismissed. After all, Brittany’s mother was living there and she was not showing any signs of intoxication. On the other hand, they found a huge range of over-the-counter and prescription medications in the two victim’s system.

Brittany Murphy was prescribed at least 200 pills monthly from 2008 through 2009, and it sometimes went up to 400. She was using an alias at the pharmacy for nearly two years before she was finally cut off 4 months before her death.

The records indicate that she was getting regular prescriptions of Hydrocodone, Clonazepam, Klonopin and Vicoprofen and certain months, the doses were doubled. The medications were prescribed by Dr. Richard Kroop who received a visit from the authorities during the investigation. He told the investigators that his pharmacy had cut off Brittany and her family 4 months before her death because, “We thought there was going to be an accident there.”

According to the autopsy, Brittany’s death was preventable. The primary causes were pneumonia, severe anemia and intoxication. The coroner believed her condition to be treatable, had she been taken to the hospital on time. The drugs pushed the outcome because of the pneumonia and anemia. So basically, she was sick and did not seek treatment so the anti-seizure medication, the acetaminophen and hydrocodone pushed her over the edge.

In spite of what her mother and widower tried to say at the time of her death, she had abused prescription drugs for years and it is a proven fact that opiate users often end up with anemia, heart disease, diabetes, pneumonia or hepatitis. In light of these facts, it is hard to comprehend why the coroner came up with such a simplistic conclusion as death of ‘natural causes’at the time, even if she had developed some health problems brought upon by the use of prescription drugs.

I was also quite surprised that the coroner’s office found no evidence she was abusing drugs. You only have to look at photos of Brittany and her husband during that period and consider what she was prescribed through the years to conclude that they were addicted to something. Brittany was emaciated and looking unwell. Her husband was bloated and not the picture of health either, but it was not as obvious as his bride. But I guess they chose to buckle the case with a pretty bow on top, and used the toxicology reports without trying to tie them to other logical possibilities.

It looked very similar to the Anna Nicole Smith case who also died because of her addiction to prescription pills.

Since her death, Brittany’s biological father, Angelo Bertolotti, has crawled from under his rock and petitioned the court to obtain hair, blood and tissue samples of his dead daughter to be analyzed for the presence of poisons in her system. He sent the strands of hair to a private lab and the results came up indicating the presence of 10 heavy metals as evidence of a poisoning death.

He is now writing a book called Britt with Julia Davis to explain his conspiracy theory. The documentary The Terror Within came out in 2012 and might be reloaded.

CNN obtained the report by forensic toxicologist Ernest Lykissa, who concluded that the hair from the back of Murphy’s head had higher than recommended levels of 10 heavy metals. “If we were to eliminate the possibility of a simultaneous accidental heavy metals exposure to the sample donor then the only logical explanation would be an exposure to these metals (toxins) administered by a third party perpetrator with likely criminal intent.”

Lykissa, who operates a toxicology testing lab in Deer Park, Texas, did not respond to several calls from CNN to discuss his findings.

The director of forensic medicine at the University of Florida, who is the president of the American Board of Forensic Toxicology, reviewed the report and was very critical of its content. ”It’s ridiculous,” Dr. Bruce Goldberger said. A conclusion of poisoning is an “inflammatory statement” that “is a baseless allegation and outrageous statement to make based on a single hair test.”

Her autopsy indicated no physical signs of poisoning, he said. “A hair test alone, without any clinical signs or symptoms, cannot be used to establish poisoning.” The private report also showed a normal level of arsenic, which would have been elevated if rat poisoning was involved, he said.

“She was a beautiful woman and likely had numerous hair treatments,” Goldberger said. “Chemicals in the hair treatment would alter the chemistry of the hair sample.’’

A hair sample can be affected by many factors such as hair dye, hair spray, prescription medications, foods, smoking even if occasionally and even the environment. So it would take way more than these private lab results to draw serious conclusions on the matter.

Sharon Murphy was infuriated by Bertolotti’s statements. She said ‘’I have no choice now but to come forward in the face of inexcusable efforts to smear my daughter’s memory by a man who might be her biological father but was never a real father to her in her lifetime.’’

She went on to say ‘’Angelo’s claims are based on the most flimsy of evidence and are more of an insult than an insight into what really happened.’’

Brittany’s mom thinks that Bertolotti is trying to profit off of his daughter’s tragedy with the publicity surrounding the poisoning ‘revelations’. She is convinced that a toxic mold found in the house may have killed her daughter and son-in-law even if the Los Angeles County Assistant Chief Coroner said there were no indications of mold in the house at the time.

Sharon disagrees and had filed a lawsuit stating that she discovered extensive water damage and mold infestation in the house where her daughter and, later, her son-in-law died suddenly; the Nina Bow Trust, which owned and operated the property, sued the contractor, subcontractor, and others back in 2006 over all of the perceived construction defects.

Britt and the Terror Within

Angelo Betolotti’s book and documentary explain how his daughter and Simon Monjack’s death are linked to Brittany’s support for government whistleblower Julia Davis.

In an interview he gave to the Fleur de Lis Film Studios in LA, Bertolotti said: ‘They were, in fact, under surveillance, including helicopters. Their telephones were wiretapped, Brittany was afraid to go home, because of the sneak-and-peek incursions into their residence and other terror tactics she suffered after speaking out in support of Julia Davis and being named as a witness in her lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security.’

Julia Davis claimed that while working at the US border with Mexico she uncovered evidence that dozens of potential terrorists had entered America in shady circumstances that may have involved the bribery of customs officials.

She has a whistleblower website where she wrote that family members and witnesses who supported her were ‘subjected to land and aerial surveillance, to the tune of millions – at the expense of American taxpayers.’

‘This included warrantless aerial surveillance with fixed-wing airplanes and Blackhawk helicopters, vehicular surveillance, OnStar tracking, Internet monitoring, wiretaps, warrantless searches and seizures and series of other outrageous, unwarranted retaliatory measures.’

On the National Whistleblower Center website, Julia Davis said she ‘prevailed’ in court against the Department of Homeland Security despite a total of 54 ‘retaliatory’ investigations being launched against her in an ‘attempt to discredit Julia as an upstanding law enforcement officer and a staunch American patriot.’

The site also has photos of Angelo Bertolotti with his daughter and visiting her grave. He also says that Brittany ”was called as a witness in the Julia Davis case.” He added: ”Brittany did tell me she was under surveillance and incidentally so was I.”

Craig Harvey, the chief of operations for the coroner declared ‘’we stand by our conclusions and opinion.’’ ‘’We have no plans to reopen the inquiries into the deaths of Miss Murphy or Mr. Monjack.“

Like so many others, I really enjoyed Brittany’s screen presence and persona. She had a unique quality with big meaningful eyes that could tell a whole story without words and a smile to light up the planet. The sadness of her passing is compounded by the ridiculous claims floating around since she left. I get the impression that this tender soul was surrounded by bloodsuckers in life and now in death. The terror is and often remains within, and in her case, her own husband and some members of her family seemed to have used her as a cash cow without much care for her mental or physical health.

 Britt gone too soon

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

Murder-for-hire was always a staple of the cold-blooded world of organized crime. Many a swinging dick has made decent money working as a hit man for the mob. Some of these buddy boys may have met a fate more or less identical to what they dished out. But, in a sense, these shenanigans were accepted as par for the course – just another seamy element of the gangland lifestyle.

Where we don’t expect murders-for hire is within the nuclear family. Say, for example, I decided to whack my sister Constance (I don’t really have a sister named Constance). I would be honor bound to off her and dispose of her body quickly and seamlessly, no easy task as we’ve seen so often.

But suppose you decide that you want to kill either Bro or Sis, or both of them, and suppose you throw in your parents for good measure. That’s a lot of killing for one man to attend to.

So what do you do? Fool that you are, you hire a hitman, and thus – you sign your life away. Why? I’m not sure why… But for some reason, the minute you shake hands with Mr. Hit Man and give him a retainer, you are doomed. Of course there can be some peculiar wrinkles along the way. That was certainly the case with 36-year-old Ryan Champion, who for still unknown reasons, allegedly hired a hitman to take out his parents and sister. Since we don’t know what his motive was, all we can do is cleave close to the shore and stick to the alleged “facts” as best we can.

Dylan Lovan of the Associated Press writes:

Vito Reservato

Ryan Champion, 36, was indicted in Trigg County Wednesday on the murder count, three counts of complicity to commit murder and complicity to commit kidnapping.

Along with Ryan Champion’s family members, the body of 22-year-old Vito Riservato was found last month at the family’s home in Cadiz, which is about 80 miles northwest of Nashville, Tennessee, in western Kentucky. All four died of gunshot wounds.

(This is why Kentucky has always been known as “the dark and bloody ground.” Once upon a time it was settlers and Native Americans. Now you just keep it in the family.)

The upshot of this is that the prosecutor (known as Commonwealth’s Attorney G.L. Ovey) believes that Champion hired Reservato to “take out” his family, and then killed him himself. Now it’s not hard to come up with motivation for killing the hitman. Eliminating this cog in the wheel means you probably won’t have to pay him in full and he’s certainly not going to make like a canary and sing a “dark and bloody tale”. Rather, he’ll be part of the “dark and bloody tale”.

Ovey, who is considered the top prosecutor in Trigg County, believes it started out as a murder-for-hire scheme, but “it didn’t end up that way.”

“In a murder for hire, he would’ve got paid, but … he was murdered,” Ovey said. Ovey is not well-disposed toward Champion and has vowed to seek the death penalty.

Although Ovey is convinced that Champion was behind the scheme and whacked Riservato, up till now, he has chosen not to speculate on what the mastermind’s motives were.

The victims are Champion’s parents, Lindsey and Joy Champion, and his 31-year-old sister, Emily Champion. Emily was employed as a veterinarian in Louisiana. Champion’s mother Joy taught for 30 years at schools in Trigg County.

Now lest we think Champion was a complete and utter idiot (in addition to allegedly being a stone-cold killer), he did apparently have a somewhat grandiose plan to deflect any unwanted suspicion away for him. During the period after the bodies were discovered, he adopted what might be termed the Big Lie approach, appearing on TV and radio proclaiming that he had “turned the tables” on Riservato, who according to Champion had barged into the house and started shooting.

It’s unclear if the police ever really thought Champion was innocent, but “Riservato was reported to be the lone perpetrator in the slayings until Champion was arrested Oct. 31.”

Champion – who has that “Wise Blood” look (those of you from the South may know what Wise Blood is) – had plenty of nerve. After the killings, he played Mr. Down-and-Out, posting updates on FB saying he had survived and was recuperating. He also posted that he was in need of money and looking for odd jobs to pay for bills and gas after the tragedy.

Poor Emily Champion was only in Cadiz for a short visit. If she hadn’t been there, Champion would at least have a sister to write him letters as he runs through his appeals on Death Row.

During the murders Big BRO and Vito certainly didn’t do her any favors, at least not according to Prosecutor Ovey, who says she was retrained by duct tape during the murderous assault.

Champion will be back in court in four weeks for arraignment. In the meantime, he is cooling his heels in Christian County Jail on a $5 million bond.

So let this be a lesson to you, Friendos. If you want to whack somebody in the family (or even the whole family), you must eschew all hitmen. You gotta do the dark and bloody deed yourself. That’s the only was you’re going to get away with it, but even with that time-honored approach, your chances of getting away with it are slim indeed.

compiled by Patrick H. Moore

NBC New York has just reported a new story in which a Connecticut couple has allegedly forced  a 9-year-old girl in their care  to wear an electrified PetSafe barking dog collar. The couple reportedly forced the child to “bark” to trigger the “shock treatment”. The child’s caregivers — if you would call them that — were apparently upset because the child had received a poor progress report from her school. Very fortunately, the child had the wherewithal to report the abuse to one of her teachers at school who in turn contacted the authorities. Although the “parents” claimed it only happened once, the marks on the child’s neck suggest that it was more frequent than that. The “parents” have been arrested and charged with numerous child abuse related counts.

Bad as this incident is, it arguably pales in comparison to a similar — though far more aggravated — form of abuse foisted upon an adopted 15-year-old child in Butler, Georgia last year. In May of 2012, police were alerted by members of the community that a girl was being forced to live outside in a chicken coop. The girl was taken into state custody and her adoptive parents, Diana Franklin and Samuel Franklin, were arrested.

Diana was charged with 12 counts of cruelty to children and 4 counts of false imprisonment, while Samuel was charged with 8 counts of cruelty to children and 8 counts of false imprisonment.

When given the opportunity to explain her sad plight to the police, the girl stated that her “parents” had placed an electric dog collar around her neck, which enabled anyone in possession of a remote key fob to administer shocks. The “collar abuse” was just one of several punishments used on the girl for various so-called offenses.

“The child basically said that there were just a series of fairly severe, what can be described as punishments, for various things that the child allegedly did, some as simple as not doing homework and then others like taking food,” said GBI’s Wayne Smith.

The police were unable to find the collar the first time they searched the Franklin’s home, but they did find a proof-of-purchase receipt. Once the Franklins were arrested, the police returned to the home and this time they found the collar. It matched the girl’s description and was sent to the state crime lab for DNA testing.

After the police got involved, several neighbors came forward to report that they witnessed the girl being forced to perform various types of manual labor in the hot Georgia son.

“I’ve seen her out working in the gardens, digging ditches in the hot sun with two or three older boys watching her,” neighbor Steven Balis said. “I’ve seen her toting rocks up the road – she looked like she was in rough shape.”

Another neighbor, David Spillers, stated that he witnessed similar activity:

“I saw her when she was out in the yard working in that garden out there and I saw her around picking up trash in the yard,” Spillers said.

Yet another neighbor said that Diana admitted to feeding the girl bread and water for days as punishment for not doing chores and working the “right way.” She also said that Diana told her she was only doing ”what the Bible says.”

*     *     *     *     *

Nothing aggravates me more than “bad religion” that (mis)uses the Bible verses of antiquity to justify the horrific mistreatment of children. If there is a god, I’m sure he/she/it is picking up the phone to call the eternal prosecutor.

by Lise LaSalle

On March 10th, 2014, the Canadian newspapers, especially in Ontario, were abuzz with headlines such as “Toronto panhandler loses stabbing appeal of man who refused to give cash’’ and “Panhandler loses appeal of her second-degree murder conviction.’’

The ‘Panhandler’ they are referring to in these articles is Nicole (Nyki) Kish who was charged and convicted of second-degree murder on March 1st, 2011 and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 12 years in the stabbing death of Ross Hammond.

Kish was not a panhandler but a young lady who had worked hard to be able to travel and experience life on the road as many others have done at her age. She had no criminal record and was an artistic girl who loved to sing and write songs. She was also an advocate for many causes dear to her heart. At the time of the encounter with Hammond, Kish was with her boyfriend and hanging out with some transient young people exploring the wild side of life. At times, some of Kish’s companions would ask a brother to spare a dime but it was not her way of life and she was by no means a panhandler standing in the street asking for money.

Nicole has steadfastly maintained her innocence since the 2007 death of Ross Hammond after a large street brawl near the Toronto intersection of Queen and Bathurst. In fact, the scene of the ‘crime’ was such a melee that despite all of the merchants and street witnesses who were present, none of them actually saw the crime. We know that Hammond ended up dead and that the scene was very chaotic. Numerous witnesses did see Mr. Hammond with a knife in his hand, and they all stated that he was drunk, angry and very abusive the night he was killed. That is the only certainty in this case. But no one saw anyone stab him. A young man called Jeremy Woolley was also stabbed — very likely by Hammond.

Hammond was stabbed in the chest 4 or 5 times and he did not die immediately. When the police showed up, they questioned him as they waited for the ambulance. He was asked twice about the knife and both times, he answered, “No comment’’.

On the night Ross Hammond died, Nicole Kish had been in Toronto for only a day and was walking on busy Queen Street celebrating her 21st birthday with her boyfriend and other young people.

Ross Hammond and his work buddy George Dranichak were downtown that night with some of their colleagues having a drink to try to boost their morale as the company they worked for was struggling. The media referred to them as ‘Internet marketers’ and described Nicole and her friends as ‘panhandlers’. This image was pushed hard by the media and because of some recent problems Toronto the Pure had been having with panhandlers and street safety in general, they were instantly wrongly perceived. The City wanted to rid its streets of dangerous people and well-dressed jocks like Hammond and Dranichak could do no wrong.

In reality, the two men were mostly purveyors of porn, and Dranichak, who was in the country on a visa, had a history of violence in the US. It was in his best interest to avoid trouble and any negative perception from the media or the police. Thus, his account of the events was sketchy to say the least, and nonsensical at times.

On the night of Hammond’s stabbing death, he and Dranichak, who were highly intoxicated, walked to a bank machine to withdraw some cash. They were approached by a woman identified as Faith Watts who allegedly asked them for some change. At a preliminary hearing, Dranichak testified that he and Hammond made sexually derogatory remarks and asked her to perform certain sexual acts if she wanted the money. He admitted that their persistence had caused the confrontation.

During his early interrogations, Dranichak never said that she demanded $20, but two years after that fateful night, he came up with this figure in an attempt to justify their outrage and inappropriate outburst.

Watts was carrying a knife and had taken drugs that day. She quickly got into a pretty heated argument with the two men and they traded insults. Her boyfriend joined in to help her. He ended up being pushed around and then beaten unconscious and Watts admitted pulling a knife because she was afraid. Nine spots of Hammond’s DNA was found on Watt’s clothing. Kish and Watts were similar in appearance and were often confused by witnesses including Dranichak who could not distinguish between the two of them at times.

Bystanders took notice of the fight and many joined in. There were surveillance cameras along the streets but they were lost while in police custody: the footage of one was recorded over and the other was lost entirely. Detective Giroux, who was working on the case, said that by the time the evidence box where the video was placed came into his possession, the video had vanished. Justice Nordhiemer attributed the loss of the video to the “frailties of human nature.’’

The fight was in full force on both the south and north sides of the street, and some think that Dranichak was the south side combatant with Hammond on the north side one. But as Dranichak heard police sirens, he made a coward’s escape leaving his friend behind. He jumped in a cab. Behind him was a guy named Hal Amero, who was known to have been involved in 18 knife fights, and could easily have killed Hammond. Kish was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, in the middle of the melee probably trying to help and pull people away from the attacker.

Witnesses reported seeing this Hal fellow throw a knife in a drainage sewer but the police never followed up on this tip.

Because Kish was stabbed in the arm during this attack, Justice Nordheimer  said that since she had been stabbed, there is an ‘’irresistible inference’’ that she must have killed Hammond. And the fact that Watts had blood from the victim on her clothes and boots was attributed to the ‘’limitations of physical evidence.’’ Although the knife belonged to Watts, Nordheimer suggested that it had changed hands three times before fatally wounding Hammond. What a strange roundabout way to avoid a straight line to the truth.

The police, the media and the Crown wanted the ‘panhandler’ case solved so that the good citizens of Toronto would feel safe again. So no one protested that strange and bizarre way of arriving at the conviction of a 21-year-old girl who just happened to be stabbed. And, this same girl stayed at the scene of the crime until the police and medical help arrived. Wouldn’t she have fled the scene like the others if she had anything to hide?

So, we might ask, how did the police end up charging Nyki Kish for this crime?

The facts  

• Out of 20 witnesses, no one saw Hammond being stabbed.

• Consequently, no witness saw Kish stab Hammond.

• Kish’s blood was on the knife Ross Hammond used to stab her.

• Ross Hammond’s blood was also on the knife.

• Hammond had cuts on his hands that were bleeding profusely.

• Hammond was stabbed multiple times.

• Hammond was conscious when police arrived. He never said Kish stabbed him and on a video (this one did not vanish) he stated, ‘’No comment’’ when asked about the knife.

These are the known facts.

And with this, the Canadian police charged Nyki Kish and a Canadian Court found her guilty.

What witnesses saw

Some witnesses saw a young man while leaving the scene stopping to show another witness that he had been stabbed by lifting his shirt. He also bragged about having been stabbed in earlier fights. His image is captured on a video showed by the media. But the police never found him or did they even look for him?

A video from a nearby pasta store was used to describe or ID four “major” participants. At the same time, many other “participants” were there at the scene but for some reason these other persons are allegedly “unidentifiable”. The police did not bother to question or ID Hal Amero, the likely killer, or his brother ‘Twitch’, for that matter, the two people who were later described by three separate witnesses as being the guys who, while leaving the crime scene, stopped to chat and brag about being stabbed, and even showed the stab wound(s) to all three.

The pasta video clearly shows Hammond and proves, apparently, that he not only had no knife, but that he had not yet been stabbed.

As the judges eliminated the other suspects, and with an assist from the defence, resolved that the Watts knife was the murder weapon, they seemed to think that they proved beyond any doubt that Nyki carried the knife across the street. 

Such a leap of nonsense

It was a bench trial (no jury) and you would think that a judge would have seen through this nonsense, but Kish was nonetheless found guilty of second degree murder.

The overwhelming question in this whole saga for me was why on earth didn’t Nicole Kish take the stand to tell her story? When the police first came around to question her, she was medicated and told by her family and legal aid not to say anything. When the trial came around, her lawyers told her not to testify. She wanted to tell her side of the story very badly but they insisted that she remain silent.

Fifty witnesses presented confusing and contradictory testimony on the witness stand so the last thing Nicole’s lawyers wanted was for her to testify and sound like she was not being truthful or to simply confuse the matter even more. Because they had no jury to persuade, they probably were very confident that a judge could never find her guilty on such mixed and flimsy evidence or lack thereof.

But her not testifying was perceived negatively by the family of the victim and the public at large, who believed that the only reason she did not take the stand was because she had something to hide. It must have been excruciating for her to remain silent under these circumstances but lawyers are supposed to know best.

For reasons unknown even to her own defense attorneys, Faith Watts, who owned a knife and allegedly started the whole saga, as well has having numerous spots of Hammond’s DNA on herself while Kish had only a tiny speck of blood on her shoe because she walked near the ambulance where Hammond had bled, was allowed to return to the States and was not charged.

The media had damaged the public perception of Kish’s character, and when she was out on bail, she was prohibited from speaking publicly about the case. So no one heard about who she really was and that violence is not part of her makeup. She has always been a fighter for causes but never a violent fighter. Despite the negative media coverage, Nicole’s conviction sparked a ‘’Free Nyki’’ campaign advocating her release.

As an appellant, she raised two grounds of appeal: First, that the trial judge accepted and relied on unreliable evidence by concluding that she was the female armed with a knife on the south side of the street. Second, the judge failed to consider important exculpatory evidence that could have contributed to the existence of a reasonable doubt. Most significantly, the judge did not consider the possibility that Faith Watts, Jeremy Wooley, or the unknown third man involved in the final fight could have been the stabber.

The Ontario Appeals Court declared that it is not necessary for Kish to have done the actual stabbing to convict her on the 2nd degree murder charges. The OAC says that even if Wooley had done the stabbing, Kish was convictable simply by being involved in the melee on that side of the street.

[125] If Wooley administered the fatal stab wounds, the appellant would still be
guilty of second degree murder as a party (to the second fight, and as the transporter of the knife).

Justice Nordheimer put together a scenario which patently does not describe (by ALL accounts) a confusing, nighttime street melee where a good number of the principals and witnesses are inebriated, including the eventual victim.

There is also “hint” in the appellate decision that their own hands were tied because the defence did not attack Nordheimer’s simplified scenario; all the defence offered, really, was that “Faith Watts may have done it.”

Odd things about the rejection of this appeal

The Pasta video is used to confirm that Hammond was not injured or armed at the time he appears in it. Nonetheless, it could logically be argued that Hammond was carrying the knife and was already bleeding from a chest wound. The video is not of high enough quality for the court to really conclude anything about Hammond.

All four judges ignored the fact that Hammond was in possession of a knife and had it with him when lying wounded on sidewalk. Watts had testified that it was her knife which she used to scare Hammond to protect her boyfriend and that Hammond took it from her. No other witnesses ever saw a girl with a knife on the north side. And the ones who saw a girl on the south side admitted they could have easily mixed the two girls up.

After testing Kish’s items five times and finding no Hammond DNA, they tried a 6th time and it was fruitful. There was a trace of Hammond’s DNA near the sole of her shoe. Meanwhile, Watts has Hammond’s DNA all over her. She also had a bite mark on her arm and when she was arrested, she head-butted a police officer. In court, the Crown claimed that Kish was the aggressive one. Watts, who had a criminal record in California with more than a dozen arrests for drugs, theft and altercations with law enforcement, and the two males, Fresh and Wooley, who had entered in Canada illegally, were deported before Kish’s trial.

If Kish is the accessory then who was she accessory to and why did they release this killer without any charges? Remember that Watts admits to owning and brandishing the knife, which in any case is too short to have caused the fatal wound, but could have caused the minor back wounds.

It seems that the review of this case involving two well-dressed men and ‘panhandlers’ fell flat on its face. Brother can you spare a Dame?

Nyki’s parents are her champions and they visit her every week. Their goal has always been to make sure that their daughter comes out of this ordeal with the least amount of damage possible and to keep some normalcy in her life. Her mother Christine reads her a lot of stuff from Facebook, she plays her songs that have been written for her, and prints a lot of pictures and art made by supporters. They spend a lot of time talking on the phone.

Nicole’s sister is 7 years old and was 6 months old when Nyki got bail and spent 3 and 1/2 years on house arrest. They are extremely close and she has been visiting her at the Kitchener prison with the rest of the family on a regular basis. They even have sleepovers right there in the prison in the private family visiting house, where they live like a regular family for three day stretches. They cook, dance, make art and sing songs, watch movies and play in the backyard.

Nyki’s friends also visit her regularly. She is lucky that her family lives only an hour away as many women prisoners rarely get visits due to distance.

When the news of the rejection of her appeal came down yesterday, her family and her supporters were devastated. Nicole will remain strong because of her family, friends and supporters, who now are ready to continue the fight in the court of public opinion and this time, Nyki will lead the parade. It’s time to turn the tide and get this Dame a break!

I feel for the tragic passing of Ross Hammond and do not want his memory in any shape or form tarnished but in my opinion, his death is as much of a mystery as Nyki’s conviction.

Excerpts from “A Message from Nyki”

So the system is more corrupt and broken than even I believed. I believed in the appeal I just lost. I have believed since the day I was charged that somewhere within the system one of the many pairs of eyes that comprise it would see what has happened and stop it. Now last night I found myself lying awake wishing that I was guilty like they say I am, terrible as it sounds because then I could at least understand. But then I let my tears out and I stopped wishing such a terrible thing…

In my frantic state on my birthday in 2007, I did not even realize that anyone had been hurt but me. I screamed and screamed for those police to come and I was so angry at them when they came and told me that I was not their priority. But I called for the police, I did not run away that night, I had no reason to.

I never spoke about that night again though. This system has told me not to for this reason or that every single day since. But now, I have no reason not to speak. There are no avenues or safeguards in the system left to hold on to. I am confronted with the reality that I am systemically abandoned.

* * * * *

I am sorry I don’t reply to all the kind and caring letters I receive and I am sorry that I have left people fight for me outside without fighting beside you in here. I lost my hope but I have again found it and I will never let it go again, to speak not just for me but against the whole insane state of the institutions of law and justice. There is no equality or justness within them.

Thank you for the continued love and support of everyone out there who care about the truth or who care for me or who care about people doing the right thing. I’ll do my best to do the right thing too from in here. And that starts by ending the silence I’ve let occur.

So much love and solidarity

Nyki Kish

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

Suppose you’ve been dating a new man for a month. Things are going well and you’re beginning to think the relationship may have potential when one day, to your surprise, your new beau comes to you and tells you that he’s killed his sister and her husband for reasons he cannot explain satisfactorily, and takes you to see the bodies before they are discovered by the authorities.

According to her trial testimony, this is what happened to Ryan Wyngarden’s future wife Pam in November of 1987. Based on a report by the New York Daily News, at that time, out of fear that Wyngarden would also hurt or kill her, Pam did not come forward with the information. She and Ryan Wyngarden were married two years later.

Although it’s not clear what triggered her decision, two decades later Pam finally went to the police.

For his part, Ryan Wyngarden, 51, has expressed shock that his wife would finger him in the couple’s murder. At his trial testimony, he told the court that after his sister was found dead he went to see Pam and cried:

“I remember lying on her bed. I was saying ‘They killed my sister.”  

Once Pam turned Ryan in, it was probably inevitable that he would be charged with shooting Rick and Gail Brink in their Park Township home on Ransom Street north of Holland, Michigan on Nov. 21, 1987.

Although Ryan’s trial lasted a full three weeks, the jury deliberated for a mere four hours before returning to the courtroom and announcing their guilty verdict. At that point, Wyngarden’s family members began crying while he looked stunned and dejected.

*     *     *     *     *

When wondering why a brother might murder his sister and her husband, one would probably not initially hypothesize that the motivation was sexual jealousy, yet according to the prosecution, that is precisely the case here.

Ryan Wyngarden has admitted to engaging in inappropriate relations with his younger sister when he was 12 years old, but is adamant in claiming that did not lead him to kill her and her husband 13 years later, as the authorities allege.

Prosecutor Lee Fisher told the jury that the inappropriate relationship involved penetration on several occasions, starting when Ryan’s sister Gail was just 9 years old, according to the Grand Haven Tribune. Wyngarden’s testimony, however, is that the two were “comparing body parts” on the first occasion, but that “there was nothing sexual about it.”

According to Wyngarden, their next encounter was several years later. Wyngarden explained that the two had been smoking marijuana and “just groped on each other a little bit.” During a third encounter at a later date, Wyngarden admits that he and Gail touched genitals but insists they they did not engage in an act of sexual intercourse:

“My sister did not lose her virginity to me.”

Gail was about three years younger than Ryan.

During his several days on the witness stand, the prosecutors rigorously grilled the often argumentative Wyngarden about his sexual episodes with his sister and Wyngarden’s answers to the questions were often not directly responsive.

Wyngarden accused both the prosecutors and the police of putting words in his mouth and badgering him.

During his Wednesday testimony, Wyngarden admitted that during an October 2012 interview with detectives, he did not want to reveal the sex episodes and was evasive:

“It’s not something that I would just volunteer, but it’s not something I was that concerned about either.”

During the trial, the prosecutors keyed in on statements that Wyngarden allegedly made to others, including his sister Lynn, who testified that he had told her that he wanted to apologize to Gail because “he felt like he raped her.”

At one point, Wyngarden was overcome with emotion.

“I wouldn’t have killed my sister over this,” he said.

After repeated questioning on the issue, Wyngarden appeared dejected at one point and placed his hand on his chin.

During his testimony, the courtroom was packed.

Pam, as the key prosecution witness, was not allowed inside the courtroom as Ryan testified in his own defense.

During his second day on the stand, as the prosecutors relentlessly probed his sexual relationship with his sister, Wyngarden appeared to become increasingly frazzled and even combative, which probably did not help his cause with the jury.

“You guys are making it into a mockery, and you need a motive, and there is no motive,” he said at one point which drew a harsh warning from the judge.

*     *     *     *     *

It is of course not at all unusual for siblings to engage in a certain amount of sexual experimentation with one another. How far the siblings go, however, undoubtedly varies greatly from case to case. One likes to think that the exploration is typically limited to mere preliminaries but that of course is not always the case.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

After burning the candle at both ends from age 18 to 30 and living – shall we say – an irregular lifestyle, when I turned 31, I said to myself, “Get in shape, young man,” and so I started running. For the next five years I ran 3 to 5 days a week, 3 to 5 miles at a time. I ran in the blistering heat and summer and I ran in the cool NorCal rain. I was a running fool.

When you’re running like that and you’re heart is pounding and it’s about 95 degrees and you’re sucking air, you sometimes wonder if you’re hitting it too hard and how the old ticker is holding up.

Well, back in February of 2012, a 9-year-old rural Alabama girl named Savannah Hardin certainly hit it too hard while running for three hours, apparently in her own front yard, because her grandmother, 49-year-old Joyce Garrard Hardin, allegedly demanded that she run and keep on running. The bizarre run till you can run no more punishment was based on the fact that Savannah had stolen some chocolate that she was not supposed to eat due to a health issue.

Etowah County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Natalie Barton told CNN on Thursday:

“It is alleged that the grandmother was out in the yard with Savannah, and she was encouraging her with the words, ‘Move it! Move it! Move it!’ — much like a drill sergeant.”

Barton told HLN’s Nancy Grace (as if that strange lady had to get involved), “That young body simply could not take it. That is child abuse. (Garrard) overstepped (the) line.”

Not so fast says Joyce Hardin’s lawyers, who have filed “filed papers with the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals saying they found numerous problems with the state’s autopsy of 9-year-old Savannah Hardin in 2012”, as part of their attempt to get the capital murder charge Grandma Hardin is facing dismissed.

According to the autopsy report, the child, who was a 3rd grader at Carlisle Elementary School, was extremely dehydrated and had very low sodium levels.

Savannah’s stepmother, Jessica Mae Hardin, and her grandmother “were both arrested and charged with murder after the death was ruled a homicide by a state pathologist.”

Jay Reeves writes for the AP:

“A petition filed by the defense contends the girl’s autopsy was performed by a doctor who was later fired over allegations that included possible falsification of documents and dereliction of duty. The physician has since failed to testify in other cases and may not be available to testify in Hardin’s trial, the defense argued in the document.”

The defense contends the child died because of long-standing health problems, adding testimony about the girl’s physical condition and the autopsy could be vital at trial. Those lawyers have asked the appeals court to order a circuit judge in Alabama’s Etowah County, William Ogletree, to throw out the charge.”

Although it seems clear that Grandma Hardin did a truly dreadful thing by forcing a child with health problems to run for three hours because she stole some chocolate, the prosecution’s case for a murder conviction would seem to be weakened by the fact that Savannah died in the hospital three days after her marathon run. She apparently did not collapse while running but rather suffered a seizure that evening which led to her being taken to the hospital. The “authorities have said the girl was exhausted to the point of collapsing.”

Thus, although Hardin would clearly seem to be guilty of some kind of aggravated child abuse, based on what has been disclosed, I fail to see sufficient evidence of premeditation or that Grandma was trying to kill Savannah. On the contrary, Grandma was cruelly punishing the child for pissing her off. This is a far cry, however, from trying to kill her.

Some insight into the situation in Grandma’s front yard can possibly be gleaned from witness statements.

Rick Martin of CNN writes:

Several people had seen the third-grade student at Carlisle Elementary School outside in her yard running, but at first they didn’t suspect anything, said (Natalie) Barton (back in February of 2012).

“In the initial reaction, who thinks that it’s a punishment when you see a 9-year-old out in the front yard running?” the spokeswoman said. “It was a beautiful day here that day, she was probably just simply outside playing.”

Barton went on to say:

“(Neighbors) didn’t start putting two-and-two together until they saw the medics arrive at the house.”

Once again all this does is prove the child was running, and given the length of time she was forced to run and based on her age, it was clearly highly abusive, and could have been a contributing factor to her collapse later that evening. That is not premeditated murder, however.

Although bond was set at $500,000, Hardin has been held in custody since Feb, 22, 2012. She has pleaded not guilty and possibly faces the death penalty if convicted of murder. Her trial is set to begin on Feb. 12, 2015 in Gadsden.

The defense petition to dismiss was filed with the Court of Appeals in Montgomery on Oct. 28, and prosecutors have yet to respond to it. The appeals court released the document Thursday at the request of The Associated Press.

Among other things, the petition argues that Hardin’s trial has been delayed twice despite defense attempts to move the case along, which according to her attorneys, violates the woman’s constitutional right to a speedy trial.

Hardin’s defense also claims that she is suffering from numerous health problems in the Etowah County jail and should receive bail.

The judge has previously refused to dismiss charges against the grandmother, while the child’s stepmother is free on bond. The stepmother has also been charged with murder under the theory that she failed to intervene while the child was outside running while Grandma Hardin was allegedly cracking the whip.

I wish to note that I am in no way sympathetic to Grandma Hardin or the child’s stepmother. I simply do not see grounds for murder charges here, and it’s entirely possible that the prosecution is beginning to see the light too, which could, at least in part, account for the fact that they seem so intent on stalling.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

It’s well known that more than any other cause, money issues can put great strain on marriages and are often instrumental in triggering divorces. One doesn’t expect the money squabbles to erupt, however, during the wedding reception and one certainly doesn’t expect the irate husband to MURDER his own lovely wife right there at the reception before turning the gun upon himself.

If I might draw a brief comparison: My wife and I are both as tight as a well-wrapped Ace bandage, yet at our reception the thought of murdering her over money never entered my pea-brain.

Here are the facts:

On Saturday, Oct. 4th, Dr. George “Scott” Samson, 54, a Terre Haute, Indiana anesthesiologist and licensed gun dealer, exchanged nuptials with Kelly Ecker, a rather young  and pleasant looking 50-year-old nurse. They were both employed at Union Hospital.

So far we see nothing strange or potentially deadly about any of this.

According to Advance Indiana blogger, Gary R. Welsh, the plan was to hold both the wedding and the reception in a tent that had been set up outside their stately semi-rural home. Due to bad weather, however, (the first sign of doom?) a decision was made to move the wedding and reception to the Ohio Building in downtown Terre Haute.

So the wedding vows were made, presumably on cue, and the festivities began.  At some point, however, during the reception, Dr. Samson and his new wife Kelly began to squabble and then it got nasty.

“Did you see that? Did he really call her a gold-digging bitch?

“Somebody give that man a chill pill.”

Apparently there were no ‘chill pills” on hand strong enough to cool things out and things got so acrimonious that the embarrassed guests started leaving. Dedicated friends, however, chose to stick around.

Gary R. Welsh writes:

“The couple and guests retired to the couple’s home for an after-reception gathering. The last guests left the home a short time prior to the shooting as fighting between the two escalated.”

From that point on, the deadly (and apparently one-sided) battle escalated:

“Kelly made a frantic 911 call around 1:30 a.m. Sunday morning pleading for help. “He’s beating the shit out of me,” Kelly told the operator. “Who is?,” the operator asked. “My husband.” The call ended and moments later Kelly called back. “Help,” she pleaded. “Oh, my God. He’s going to kill me.” Multiple gun shots can be heard as the call ended.”

When the Terre Haute Police special response team arrived at the couple’s Eastern Vigo County home, they discovered Kelly Ecker’s ten-year old son and Samson’s elderly parents were present, which means they had witnessed the whole appalling affair. It was determined that our Coward of the Week, Samson, hid in the basement when the police arrived and at some point turned the gun on himself breaking what can only be described as a very tenuous connection. Based on an autopsy, “Kelly died of multiple gunshot wounds to the neck and chest.”

Dr. Samson had plenty of guns laying around the house. Gary R. Welsh writes:

Police recovered dozens of guns, including assault rifles and several hundred rounds of ammunition. The Vigo Co. Sheriff’s Department told WTHI-TV that Samson legally possessed the guns as a registered federally-licensed gun dealer.

Advance Indiana has an inside source who has divulged what led to the ferocious argument and Samson’s lethal actions. It seems that the original argument during the reception at the Ohio Building was all about money. The big-hearted doctor is reported to have told Kelly that she would never get her hands on any of his money, a desire on his part that was apparently reflected in a prenuptial agreement.

But wait, there is more to this. Advance Indiana reports that “Scott exploded when he went to pay the bill for the reception at the Ohio Building and learned that his wife had maxed out his credit card and the charge couldn’t be processed.”

So it appears that Kelly’s mistake (in addition to marrying this fool) was — in what could be construed as passive-aggressive behavior — maxing out his credit card. Ay Yi Yi!

And of course there is still more, thanks to Mr. Welsh’s excellent slething:

It seems that Kelly’s parents had serious concerns about her marrying the Good Doctor to such a degree that they chose not to attend the wedding.

This, if you think about it, may have been very unfortunate because there is just a slim sliver of chance that if Kelly’s parents had been there and had seen things deteriorating dramatically, they just might have called 911 much earlier and the horrible outcome could just possibly have been averted. But I realize this is a long shot.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

Not all serial killers are weird like Charles Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer. Or at least they’re not totally weird. They may even have redeeming features. A surprising number of the multiple slayers who are washed up on the rocks of justice and are serving lifetime prison terms, or are languishing on Death Row, once had families and children, allegedly presided at backyard barbecues and may have even gone to PTA meetings. Others were young men just coming of age who made mistakes they couldn’t undo.

Or so Sarah LeTrent of CNN would like you to believe. Witness this conversation between Melissa Moore, age 33, and her father, Keith Hunter Jesperson, in a post entitled “A killer in the family.” Jesperson was a long distance truck driver who strangled eight women while on the road and sent letters to the local police stations bragging about his conquests. He had the habit of signing his mea culpas with a Happy Face and was dubbed, the Happy Face Killer:

“Missy, you need to change your last name,” the shackled man in the orange prison jumpsuit said into the receiver, staring blankly at his 15-year-old daughter’s tear-stained face.

“That’s when I knew that these things were true,” recalls Melissa Moore, now 33.

Until that day, the man behind the glass partition, Keith Hunter Jesperson, was simply her father; the one who used to tuck her into bed at night “like a burrito.”

Keith “Happy Face” Jesperson went to trial and lost. He is now serving life in prison with no possibility of parole. If we dig a little deeper, we discover that LeTrent’s article is not telling us the whole story. Jesperson, who was Canadian born, had always been weird, the typical “loner” child with a propensity to torture. Wikipedia has this to say about him:

He had a violent and troubled childhood under a domineering, alcoholic father. Treated like an outcast by his own family and teased by other children for his large size at a young age, Jesperson was a lonely child who showed a propensity for torturing and killing animals. Despite consistently getting into trouble in his youth, including twice attempting to kill children who had crossed him, Jesperson graduated from high school, secured a job as a truck driver, got married, and had three children. In 1990, after 15 years of marriage, Jesperson was divorced and saw his dream to become a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman dashed following an injury. It was that year, after returning to truck driving, that Jesperson began to kill. Jesperson is known to have killed eight women over the course of five years. Strangulation was his preferred method, the same method he often used to kill animals as a child.

So despite his horrific childhood, the Happy Face Killer kept it together for a long while, many years as a family man, before he snapped and went on his killing spree. Melissa Moore no doubt realizes that there are worse things than being tucked into bed “like a burrito”. Might her day have come — if her father hadn’t been stopped?

Whatever the circumstances, very little hits a family harder than discovering that one of their members is a serial killer or a mass murderer. Children don’t even want their parents to sing in public. Imagine how they feel when they find out Dad is a murderer.

After much soul-searching, Melissa Moore made the reluctant decision to sever ties with her father. She changed her name when she got married and set out to build a new life.

In her article, Sarah Letrent states:

Moore is a part of an exclusive group, those who share blood relations with someone perceived by the public as a monster: a mass murderer. With that unenviable tie can come isolation, guilt, grief, fear, disbelief, even post-traumatic stress disorder, in addition to a very public stigma.

In the aftermath of a massacre, questions and criticism are frequently directed at the parents, spouses and children of the accused. The public sometimes sympathizes, often criticizes and even goes so far as to blame family members for the actions of their kin.

This issue of guilt by association can be extremely hard for the family members of serial killers to deal with. A part of you is horrified beyond words by what Dad or Junior (or in rare cases Mom or Sister) has done, but a part of you will still want to defend your shamed loved one.

Sarah LeTrent cites Michael Price, a professor of evolutionary moral psychology at Brunel University in London, who states that people are hardwired to defend their kin, like Melissa Moore did before she realized her father’s guilt.

“There will be strong psychological and emotional incentives to defend and remain loyal to the family member, and to delude and self-deceive themselves about the reality of their relative’s guilt,” Price said.

At the same time, Price said individuals may be prone to protect their own reputations and disassociate themselves from the killer to avoid being ostracized.

“They may experience anger at the relative for putting them in such a conflicted position,” Price said.

In short, the family members of convicted serial killers will be pushed and pulled in diametrically opposed directions. They may wake in the morning feeling the deepest filial connection to their fiendish family member and by noon they’ll be wishing that they had never even met.

One of the hardest things innocent family members face is the public expectation that they will step up to the plate and make a statement about what has happened. I know what you’re thinking, that you’d rather chew on barbed-wire, but the expectation is nevertheless front and center in the mind of the eager, avaricious public.

Recently Adam Lanza’s father, Peter, met with Robbie and Alissa Parker, the parents of 6-year-old victim Emilie, to discuss his son’s actions.

“One of the main reasons that I wanted to speak to him was I wanted to just speak to him as a father, one father to another father,” Robbie Parker told CNN’s Piers Morgan. “And I understand that, despite the circumstances, that he lost his son and that he needed to grieve that as well, just as much as I needed to grieve my daughter. And so I wanted to express those condolences to him, and I felt that we were able to do that for each other.”

You can’t help but feel considerable respect for Robbie Parker. I can’t help wondering how he feels about this revelation:

In documents released Thursday, it was revealed that 20-year-old Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza’s mother (whom he shot in the forehead before turning his guns on 26 more victims, as well as himself, at the elementary school) gave him money earmarked to purchase weapons and allowed him to keep a gun safe in his bedroom.

Susan Klebold, the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the Columbine shooters, finally opened up in a 2009 issue of Oprah Magazine with a personal essay titled “I Will Never Know Why.”

She wrote: “Through all of this, I felt extreme humiliation. For months I refused to use my last name in public. I avoided eye contact when I walked. Dylan was a product of my life’s work, but his final actions implied that he had never been taught the fundamentals of right and wrong. There was no way to atone for my son’s behavior.”

For pure carnage, Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people before shooting himself, in April of 2007 is at or near the top of the list. Of course Cho took the easy way out. His family was left to “meet the press.” On behalf of the family, Sun-Kyung Cho, the sister of the shooter, said:

“We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence. He has made the world weep. We are living a nightmare.”

The Chos haven’t spoken to the media since.

The bottom line is that having a serial killer or a mass murderer in your family will, more likely than not, turn your life into a special kind of mental hell. It will always be with you — and though strong souls may perhaps keep it at bay — the memory will never be silenced entirely. Among other things, unless you can somehow manage to live an entirely private existence, you will inevitably find yourself “in the cross hairs” of public expectation, obliged to rub elbows with the hungry masses and talk about what happened which somehow, paradoxically, makes all the listeners feel a little more alive.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

If we think back we may recall watching a rather bizarre movie called The World According to Garp in which the main character Garp is a loving but exceedingly nervous father. The film was based on the similarly titled book by best-selling author John Irving.

Garp was very nervous about his children’s welfare and spent much of his time worrying about the various pitfalls they could encounter. All parents, of course, worry about their kids to varying degrees. The world is a dangerous place and we had all best beware.

Stylish, perky 23-year-old Port Charlotte, FLA medical assistant Kayla R. Oxenham (cool two-tone hair) appears to suffer from (among other things) a peculiar variation of “kid worry”. Her fear was that at some point it might prove to be impossible for her to identify her 5 and 7 year old daughters as hers. Now this is undoubtedly odd; one generally knows who their kids are and can identify them by their distinguishing features such as their height, eye and hair color, and so on.

Kayla apparently pondered on how to come up with a foolproof way to identify her little girls, and after meditating on the problem for a while, decided to take a page out of the old West back in the days of ranchers and cattle drives. As we all know, as a general rule, ranchers would signify ownership of their longhorns by branding them with a hot branding iron, burning their ranch insignia (Lazy Q, Spotted Owl, Poisoned Toad) into their hide(s).

Based on her trendy, perky appearance, Kayla doesn’t look like a cowgirl but looks – as well all know – can be misleading.

Kayla, however, apparently didn’t have a branding iron handy so instead she grabbed a stick, heated it up with a lighter, and branded both children on their arms. Ouch!

According to the kids who later spilled the beans to the investigators, while making like Annie Oakley, Kayla told her little girls that she had forgotten “how much she loved fire.”

Kayla also told the girls that she was branding them “so that they could have ice cream.” This obviously makes no sense, but according to the girls, that’s what Mom told them, and we know how much kids love ice cream.

The abuse has apparently been ongoing for some time; David Edwards of Raw Story writes:

The 7-year-old girl recalled to investigators that the incident had started when her mother repeatedly slammed her 5-year-old sister’s head into a wall as punishment for locking a cat in their bathroom.

The Florida Department of Children and Families first received reports about possible abuse after day care workers noticed scabs on the children in late March. Medical examiners determined that at least one of the children had injuries consistent with burns.

In a decision that is undoubtedly going to piss a few people off, Kayla’s bond was set at $7,500 per child and she was released from jail on Wednesday. She reportedly denied beating her children, and refused to talk to police about the burns.

It is unknown whether she currently retains custody of her kids. What is known is that Kayla is no stranger to penal institutions; according to the Charlotte County Jail website, she works there as a medical assistant.

*     *     *     *     *

It should be pointed out that since her older daughter is 7, Kayla had her when she was a mere 16-year-old. Daughter #2 came two years later. It’s just possible that in addition to possibly suffering from some kind of a mental disorder, Kayla may not actually be that keen on motherhood and the joys and perils it brings.

compiled by Patrick H. Moore

So what do you do if you are married to a twice-convicted child molester and he (and possibly you) decide you want to begin manufacturing child pornography? Keep in mind that in order to manufacture child pornography, you’ve got to procure the children and then makes video of adults doing horrible things to them.

What you do is you set yourself up in the Day Care business and that’s exactly what Bailey Joe Mills, 33, and his wife Elizabeth Holland Mills, 35 (who describes herself alternately as a happily married mother and an exotic dancer), did. They rented a home on Nicole Drive, outside Sanford in Harnett County, NC, advertised that they were in the Day Care business, and went to work luring, molesting and photographing victim children ranging in age from 1 to 14.

Five people have been arrested in all. Bailey Joe pleaded guilty in August and Ms. Exotica Elizabeth pleaded guilty this week. They both reportedly face up 30 years in prison which is not all that unreasonable if the charges are true, which they appear to be considering that Bailey Joe and Elizabeth have both pleaded out.

Andrew Kinney writes for the News Observer:

Detective Brad Byrd of the Harnett County Sheriff’s Office says there is “no evidence” that the house was run as a day care. Still, the Sheriff’s Office says the man at the center of the case, Bailey Joe Mills, 33, “portrayed himself to be” a tutor, mentor and baby sitter.

Mills, a former Raleigh resident, has been convicted at least twice before of sex crimes involving children, according to criminal records.

Here’s how the authorities broke the case:

Back in early January, according to the Sheriff’s office, they discovered that Bailey Joe was exchanging highly suspect Facebook messages with a 12-year-old girl regarding payment for sex. When questioned by investigators, the child explained that she “was shown homemade pornography at Mills’ home,” and that there was another girl present.

This led to a search of the Day Care center where “videos and photos of men and a woman sexually assaulting multiple children” were found.

Elizabeth’s landlord, Siegrun Collins, who is shocked by what has transpired, stated that the perverse couple had been renting the three-bedroom house for about 18 months when they were arrested.

Collins also said that she had never seen any evidence that the couple was running a day care center. Nor had she ever suspected that they might hurt children. She states that she checked in every few weeks and that she rarely saw other children there with the exception of the couple’s two sons.

Collins described Bailey Mills as “down-to-earth and chatty.” Like many a fine “mentor”, he was unemployed. Elizabeth may have actually worked as an exotic dancer; in any event, according to Collins, she paid the $750 monthly rent herself.

Bailey Mills was arrested Jan. 5, and Elizabeth Mills was arrested Jan. 10.

The three other individuals arrested are Rashawn Rodriguez Drake Jackson, 20, Jordan Everett Busse, 29, and Tommy Keith Wall, 50.

Elizabeth and Bailey Joe, along with Jackson and Wall, are described as the folks who did the actual molesting. Busse is believed to have been involved in procuring the children.

Bailey Mills is charged with first-degree rape of a child, first-degree sexual exploitation of a child, statutory rape of a child, first-degree statutory sex offense and taking indecent liberties with a child.

Elizabeth Mills is charged with second-degree sexual exploitation of a child, first-degree statutory sex offense with a child and taking indecent liberties with a child, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Bailey Joe’s history of predatory sexual offenses against children includes the following:

In March of 1997, at the age of 16, he pleaded guilty to molesting a 4-year-old girl at Shelley Lake in North Raleigh. With the prosecution on board, he received a light sentence of three years’ of probation, reportedly because he had no previous record. He was ordered to have no contact with children younger than 13 and to refrain from hanging out in parks and at playgrounds. In addition, he was ordered to undergo psychological treatment and participate in a sex-offender program.

Two years later, Mills was convicted on two counts of assault on a female. The charges were triggered by allegations that he inappropriately touched a 14 and a 16-year-old girl. These were not technically sex offenses.

One year later, he was convicted of taking felony indecent liberties with an 11-year-old child whom he met at a flea market. This led to him being placed on the state’s sex-offender registry, which calls for 30-year registrations for “sexually violent offenses.”

Bailey Joe apparently took advantage of a loophole which allows folks on the sex-offender registry to petition to be removed from the list after 10 years, based on the belief (clearly false in this case) that after 10 years sex offenders no longer pose a threat to the public safety.

This is obviously a troubling standard. It’s well known that the urge to molest children, like any other addiction, is not something that completely vanishes from the psyche of the assailant after time and treatment. This is why we have 12-step programs that many individuals partake of till they’re old and grey.

Sigurd Collins, the Mills’ landlord, struggles to believe that Elizabeth Mills could have played a role in sexual offenses against children.

“She was a really sweet woman – she was fantastic with her boys,” she said.

Yet Sigurd too is accepting the horrible truth:

“Kids, especially that age – that’s what makes me mad – the babies. It shows again you can trust nobody.”

* * * * *

“It shows again you can trust nobody.” That’s probably an overstatement but the fact remains that it’s incredibly difficult to identify pedophiles and child molesters based on casual (or even close) acquaintanceship.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

Although a disturbing number of mothers (and fathers) neglect and abuse their children, it is, according to some reports, rather rare for mothers to purposefully take their own children’s lives. More often, when mothers do kill their youngsters, it is accidental as in rolling over and smothering them in the night or inadvertently asphyxiating them in a vehicle.

When mothers do kill their kids, it is usually either through abuse and neglect (Mary Lavonne Vaughn comes to mind), sheer malice (Kathryn Folbigg who murdered 4 of her children over the course of many years is a prime example), or as a direct result of mental illness (the famous Andrea Yates case in which Ms. Yates drowned her five kids because she wanted to save them from the fires of hell is an oft-cited example).

It is virtually impossible to project any positive feelings toward murdering mothers who fall into the first two categories. Mothers who kill their children as a result of serious mental illness, however, generally elicit sympathy, and even compassion, from those of us who recognize that the seriously mentally ill can’t control their actions. Nonetheless, and the recent conviction of Julie Schenecker is a prime example, a clinical diagnosis of schizophrenia or advanced bipolar disorder with psychotic features will not necessarily protect a perpetrator from being found guilty of first or second-degree-murder by a jury in a court of law.

Now, we have a brand new case in which an attractive and seemingly poised Southern California mother is being held (most likely without bond) for the TRIPLE MURDER of her three little girls, two of whom were in the toddler stage. The youngest victim was only a few months old.

By all appearances, the perpetrator, 30-year-old Carol Coronado, a resident of an unincorporated section of Los Angeles County near the South County City of Torrance, took excellent care of her children. This statement assumes that we can place our faith in images posted on Facebook, which of course is problematical. Based on the Facebook images, however, Ms. Coronado’s three little ones were neatly dressed and appear very well cared for.

Based once again on appearances, Ms. Coronado bears none of the tell-tale physical signs of mental illness. A typical snapshot of David Tarloff or Julie Schenecker placed side-by-side with a photo of Carol Coronado gives the distinct impression that two of the three are highly disturbed, while the third, Ms. Coronado, appears to be rather “normal”.

So what in the world happened to cause Ms. Coronado to murder her three tiny tots? Going by the available evidence which includes statements from family members, there appears to be little if any doubt that she IS the perpetrator.

Let’s review what is known keeping in mind that at this stage in an investigation, little is set in stone:

According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, on Tuesday, May 21^st, deputies were called to the 1000 block of West 223^rd Street at around 5:10 p.m. after the children’s grandmother found the girls’ dead bodies on a bed in the family home.

Michael Zennie and Louise Boyle of The Daily Mail write:

‘When they arrived, they were met by family members who told the deputies that a mother had killed her children,’ the statement said.

Inside the home, detectives found a horrific scene of three young girls laying dead in a pool of blood on the family bed. The children were pronounced dead at the scene.

‘The deputies were directed to the house by the grandmother,’ sheriff’s homicide Lt. Dave Coleman told the Daily Breeze of Torrance. ‘We did find the babies inside the residence.’

A neighbor, Ashley Madrid, told the Daily Breeze that the children’s father, a man named Rodolfo Coronado, was working on his car across the street when his mother-in-law discovered the horrific scene inside the Coronado residence.

‘I saw when they were bringing him out,’ Ms Madrid said. ‘He was crying. He was crying, ”She killed my daughters!’”

Madrid also apparently told the Daily Breeze that she was told Ms. Coronado had a kitchen knife in her hand and was trying to cut her wrists.

According to Madrid, sheriff’s deputies took Coronado, who was naked except for a blanket, first to a patrol car and then placed her in an ambulance.

‘She was full of blood on her face and arms,’ Madrid said.

Ms. Madrid stated further that the children’s grandmother told her that Coronado had called earlier in the day and said that she was going crazy. The grandmother had stopped by to visit her grandchildren, also no doubt intending to check up on her daughter.

Numerous media outlets have reported on this story and although the reports are very similar, as is so often the case, there are slight variations. CBS Local.com out of Los Angeles reports that the three deceased little girls were 3, 2 and two months.

According to this report, when deputies entered the home, Coronado was naked and bloody with a knife in her hand.

The neighbor, Ashley Madrid, seems to provide  a bit more information in this version, probably based on her conversation with the children’s grandmother. In addition to having blood all over her face, legs and arms, “Her face was like stone . . . just looking at the floor,” said Ashley.

CBS Local also reports that Coronado had formerly served in the army.

Lt. Dave Coleman reports: “At this point no, she didn’t say anything. She’s being detained and we will try to talk with her later.”

Probably the most important additional bit of news is the fact that detectives said Coronado’s mother first contacted them earlier in the day Tuesday, saying her daughter was stressed and asking them for help. As is sometimes the case, it appears that the county sheriff’s may not have driven out to Coronado’s house to interview her.

At this point, it is also apparently unclear whether Ms. Coronado had a history of suffering from mental health problems.

In addition, although detectives stated on Wednesday that several knives, presumably covered wholly or partly with blood, were recovered at the crime scene, it is not yet known whether the children’s deaths resulted from stab wounds.

The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office has placed a security hold on information related to their investigation.

*     *     *     *     *

I would have to say that of all the capital cases we’ve covered here on All Things Crime Blog, this is certainly one of the most horrifying.

Unless Ms. Coronado can prove that she is not guilty by reason of insanity (or finds some other legal defense), she will certainly spend the rest of her life in one of California’s notorious state penitentiaries.

Because at present no information has been disclosed concerning whether she has a history of mental illness, it is mere conjecture at this point to suggest that she could plead not guilty by reason of insanity.

California law with respect to this issue proceeds as follows:

The legal defense of insanity in California law means that you cannot be found guilty of a crime if you were legally insane when you committed it. Under California’s insanity defense, you are considered legally insane if you either

1. Did not understand the nature of your criminal act, OR
2. Did not understand that what you were doing was morally wrong.

This definition of legal insanity is known as the “McNaghten (sometimes spelled M’Naghten or McNaughten) rule.”

You can plead not guilty by reason of insanity at your arraignment hearing. For the insanity defense to work, you will then need to prove that it is more likely than not that you were legally insane when you committed your crime.

If you can convince the jury at your California criminal jury trial that you are not guilty by reason of insanity, then you will be committed to a state mental hospital instead of being sent to prison.

*     *     *     *     *

Every time I am confronted by this sort of case, I thank my lucky stars that I’ve made it into my 7^th decade without going stark raving mad.

If I was clinically insane, and if I had done something similar to Ms. Coronado’s alleged acts, assuming I didn’t kill myself, I suppose I would plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Anything has got to be better than spending the rest of your life in a California state prison.

Of course, this presupposes that I had recovered my wits enough to understand my lawyer’s advice and understood my legal options. And, of course, if the jury believed that I was sane enough to invoke a not guilty by reason of insanity defense, they would more than likely decide that I must have been fully aware of what I was doing when I committed the awful crime(s).

Over and over again, we have seen that it’s tough to win on an insanity defense these days. And, of course, there is some possibility that Ms. Coronado was suffering from severe post-partum depression.

Update:

Sandy Mazza of The Daily Breeze writes:

A Los Angeles County grand jury on Monday indicted a South Bay woman who allegedly killed her three children before she stabbed herself, and then attempted to kill her mother when she arrived at the family’s home to find the bloody scene.

Appearing in Compton court Monday morning, Carol Ann Coronado, 30, entered two pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.

From a strategic standpoint, it is interesting to note that Ms. Coronado had already pleaded not guilty to the charges in Compton court on May 29, but that guilty plea is now moot because the prosecutors sent the case to the criminal grand jury for possible indictment. Since the grand jury did indict, the previous pre-indictment charges will be dropped. The advantage of an indictment to the prosecution is that the defendant then loses the right to a preliminary to determine if a trial is warranted based on the evidence.

Ms. Coronado’s attorney, Stephen Allen of Riverside, is disappointed by the indictment. He wanted a preliminary hearing because that would have given the judge a pre-trial opportunity to hear results from extensive psychiatric testing done on Coronado.

“I’m kind of disappointed because there’s a lot of mitigating evidence that the District Attorney’s Office doesn’t have yet that explains what happened,” Allen said. “So I believe there were a lot of facts missing in what they presented to the grand jury. There are still a lot of unknowns. We’ve been doing a lot of psychiatric evaluations and I don’t have all those reports in yet.”

Allen said he believes Coronado was suffering “some sort of psychosis” when she allegedly killed her daughters. She is now receiving anti-psychotic medication while awaiting trial in the psychiatric ward at Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles.

by BJW Nashe

Dear M—- :

You never knew me. You never even met me. But I know about you, because I have had the good fortune to be close to people who knew you and loved you. So I know what happened. That’s why I wanted to write to you about it. Your story needs to be told.

In 1973, you were four years old, living with your father in Berkeley. No doubt you were a lovely little girl, full of fun and games. You were drawing and painting pictures, learning how to read, playing dress-up, doing all of the things that lovely little girls so love to do.

During June of that year, you and your father were staying with friends in a house on Russell Street, located south of the University of California campus. You were lodged in a room downstairs. Your hosts, a man and a woman who made pottery in their home studio, had the upstairs room to themselves. The woman had an 11 year-old daughter who was very close to you, much like an older sister. She had her own room downstairs.

On June 16th, at 5:23 a.m., Berkeley police officers were dispatched to the Russell Street neighborhood to respond to reports of a prowler in the area. The officers were unable to locate the suspected prowler, so they all left the scene except for one. Sergeant Jimmie Rutledge, a 23-year veteran on the force, remained in the area to keep an eye out for the suspect.

Shortly thereafter, Sergeant Rutledge noticed an African American male loitering nearby. He suspected this man might be the prowler. The sergeant then made a terrible mistake. He approached the man and tried to arrest him single-handedly. When the suspect resisted, a struggle ensued. During the altercation, the suspect somehow managed to seize Sergeant Rutledge’s gun. He fired at the officer, fatally wounding him. He also shot and wounded a neighbor who ventured outside after hearing the commotion on the sidewalk.

You were just a young girl tucked in bed in a house down the street. You knew nothing of police outside looking for prowlers. You and the three adults in the home were still asleep. Your “big sister” — the young daughter of your host — wasn’t there; she just happened to be spending the night at a friend’s house. The tragic death of Sergeant Rutledge need not have concerned you, or any other four year-old. It was just bad grown-up craziness. There was plenty of that going on in those days. And there still is. No kid should have to be involved in it.

The man who shot Sergeant Rutledge, however, was familiar with the house you were staying at. He was an acquaintance of your father’s, and he knew the owners of the house. He was considered something of a friend. He knew you. I’m not sure how close he was to you. Berkeley has a big reputation, but it has never been a very large city. The locals often know who the other locals are, especially in the Telegraph Avenue area. You tend to know the regulars. You know the neighbors, the merchants, the riff raff. Many loose connections are formed. And Berkeley has always been a free-wheeling place, to say the least.

Anyway, the suspected prowler panicked after he shot Sergeant Rutledge, and he ran straight to the house you were in, probably just because he knew the people who lived there. I don’t know if he was on drugs or battling some form of mental illness. I don’t know what he was doing wandering around the neighborhood in the early morning hours (although this is not really strange behavior, by Berkeley standards). I don’t know about his previous experience with law enforcement. But he must have known this was a bad scene. Killing a cop is about as bad as it can get. So this guy was probably running on pure fear and adrenaline. Maybe he was desperate for help — just trying to get off the street so he could plan his next move and somehow get out of this mess. Most likely he was too confused to think clearly about much of anything at that point.

In any case, he managed to get inside the house you were staying in. I don’t know if he broke in, climbed through a window, or simply pounded on the door in order to be let in. But he ended up inside, and he was still carrying the dead officer’s gun. Nothing good could come of this.

I don’t know what exactly transpired inside the house. I’m not interested in recreating the scene through dramatization. I don’t want to fictionalize. I can only speculate, in an attempt to seek clarity. I imagine the suspect was frantic. I imagine the owners of the house, along with your father, tried to figure out what was going on. What happened? Why was an acquaintance of theirs waving a gun around inside their house, all wild-eyed and raving? I imagine they tried to talk him down, tried to persuade him to turn himself in. One of them must have slipped away to call the police. I’m sure there were harried negotiations over the phone. Yet the intruder would not cooperate. He was probably too deranged to listen to reason. Maybe he thought his friends had turned against him. He refused to leave, and he wouldn’t let anyone else leave either. As police arrived to barricade the house from outside, they were calling it a hostage situation.

I can only imagine how frightened and confused you must have been — just a child in the midst of all this madness. Likewise, I can only imagine the anger and fear and frustration felt by the three adults, who were being held captive by a guy they never imagined could be capable of such madness. Nothing in this scenario makes sense, or can be easily explained away.

Who knows what the intruder was thinking as time dragged on that morning? What demons had been unleashed inside his mind? Perhaps he had already been to prison, and was so terrified of going back that he became lost in a frenzy of desperation. Perhaps he had some wild idea that he might be able to escape, that he might be able to use hostages as a way out of this nightmare. I don’t know. His actions on that night were insane. And inside the house, things spiraled out of control.

At some point — as tension mounted to unbearable levels, with a small army of cops outside contemplating if and when they ought to storm the premises — the intruder crossed the line and did the worst thing he could possibly do in this scenario. He ended up firing Sergeant Rutledge’s gun again, right there inside the house where you’d been sleeping peacefully just a short while ago. He fired the gun, and he committed the worst crime imaginable.

He shot and killed you, an innocent four year-old girl.

He shot and killed you for no reason — other than the fact that he was caught up in a deadly situation in which he had lost all control. It makes me sick to think about it. I can’t conceive of anything more pointless and horrible.

Still brandishing the stolen gun, he then chased the other adults out of the house. On the front porch, he was shot dead by the police before he could harm anyone else.

By now the entire block had been sealed off. When the 11 year-old daughter who’d been away at a sleep-over returned later that day she found her house turned into a crime scene. She discovered that you’d been killed, shot by somebody she knew, with a gun taken away from a policeman who now was also dead. I can’t imagine how this felt for her at the time.

Sergeant Rutledge was buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California. He is one of only two police officers ever killed in Berkeley in the line of duty. At Berkeley City Hall, he is memorialized as a “fallen hero” who died while bravely fighting to protect the citizens of the town.

You are not memorialized anywhere, except in the memories of those who knew you, and in the thoughts of people like me, who know about your story. In searching the Internet for information about the incident, I note that Sergeant Rutledge is typically identified by name and praised for his service. His biography is spelled out in some detail. I find that you are barely mentioned at all. In the official story, you are merely noted in passing, a faceless victim who happened to be associated with the death of the “fallen hero.”

I am writing this letter because I know that you are not just a footnote to a “larger story” involving “heroism.” You are the story.

For the 11 year-old daughter who came home that morning to be confronted with a shocking tragedy, you will never be a footnote or a statistic. She was devastated by your death. Who wouldn’t be? She was troubled by the bizarre stroke of luck, or strange twist of fate, whereby she was not in the house that night, while you were. How does one come to terms with such a thing? She struggled to make sense of it all. I know that she went on living in Berkeley. She graduated from Berkeley High School six years later, and then attended the University of California at Santa Cruz, which is where I met her in 1984. That’s how I learned about your story. She told me about it. It wasn’t easy to talk about, but we were close. We were a couple. We got married in 1989, and spent many years together before we eventually got divorced, which was too bad. But we still have a beautiful daughter together. She will turn 13 next month. She’s in the seventh grade at Albany Middle School, and she performs as an acrobat and a trapeze artist for a professional circus troupe. You would like her.

I never met your father, and don’t know any further details of his life. I understand that he was a good man, a kind man. I can’t pretend to know what he went through after that fateful night in 1973. How does a parent ever recover from such a loss? Likewise, I can only imagine how difficult it was for the other adults to deal with this tragedy. I don’t pretend to speak for them. But I’m sure they felt awful because they were not able to save you, and to keep you out of harm’s way. I’m certain you know it wasn’t their fault, though.

I know that my ex-wife thinks of you every day, as she raises her own child in this dangerous world. Her mother still lives in the same house in Berkeley. She chose to reclaim the place as her home, as a sanctuary for a life of peace, rather than treat it as the scene of a crime one should flee from. Both women are strong individuals who have persevered. I know they will never forget you.

I often wonder how anyone can possibly believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful God, when someone like you, an innocent child, has her life snatched away so soon, for no reason. I don’t understand it; it makes no sense to me. So when adults talk about God, I don’t pay much attention. Spare me the grown-up theology; better to take a child’s perspective, when it comes to spiritual matters. One of my favorite writers, Jack Kerouac, may have summed it up best. Toward the end of his best book, in the midst of a high-spirited improvisation, he simply asks: “And don’t you know that God is Pooh Bear?”

You did not deserve what happened to you, and the people who knew you did not deserve to lose you. But then again, perhaps we as a society were not good enough to deserve you. Maybe you were too good for us. Maybe all of the children who are senselessly killed in our society are too good for us. Thousands of children and young people are wounded or killed by guns every year in America. (Precise statistics are not even available, due to idiosyncrasies in reporting.) If we are not able to prevent these atrocities from occurring, then perhaps we do not deserve to be blessed with the miracle of children. It is our tragedy. We have to live with it. And it’s up to us to change.

Maybe telling your story, and the stories of others like you, can help make a difference. Another one of my favorite writers, Joan Didion, wrote that “we tell ourselves stories in order to live.” Stories did not help you go on living. But your story might help others to go on. Perhaps your story can help us strive for clarity and wisdom in our lives, and to choose peace and sanity over the madness of violence. Every time I hear about another school shooting, or another accidental gun death, I think about you. Every time I hear someone say that guns can keep us safe, or that our best solution to crime is “a good guy with a gun,” I think about you. Every time I hear someone say that we need armed guards at schools, I think about you. Every time I notice children who are killed in wars being described as “collateral damage,” I think about you.

And I didn’t even know you. But I know your story. I used to resist a full appreciation, because I was ill-equipped to deal with it. It is easier to block out certain information, than to confront the full truth. After the tragedy occurred at the elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, however, I found myself thinking about you and your story, and began to understand its importance. As with all of the children who have been taken away from us, you have challenged us to at least try to live — in spite of all our flaws — in something akin to a state of grace. For that we are grateful to you.

That’s all I wanted to say for now. I think you know that God is Pooh Bear… Don’t you? Yes.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

A recent beating/death of an inmate at the at Tri-County Regional Jail in Mechanicsburg, Ohio provides an excellent snapshot of life in custody and the issues a convict faces once the iron door clangs shut. Let’s set the scene:

1) You have approximately 180 inmates at any time so this is a fairly small jail. A neat, clean brick building viewed from the outside.

2) You are a young man named Zachary Butler doing some time on a drunk driving charge. Although you appear to be a pretty regular guy and may not be in much danger of being raped, nevertheless, you are “the new kid on the block” and so you have to prove yourself to the more experienced convicts.

David Piersol

3) There is an inmate there named David Piersol whom the other convicts considered a child molester who was facing charges for “raping a young girl”.

4) Because rank-and-file jailbirds don’t like child molesters, they were harassing Piersol, although he appears to have suffered no serious damage until Zach Butler was ordered by the other cons to assault him.

5) It appears that Zach Butler had no desire to assault Piersol. However according to Butler, “other inmates…threatened to stab Butler with sharpened pencils if he didn’t carry out the assault.”

So it’s clear that Butler was stuck between a rock and a hard place. His defense attorney Chris Bucci “argued for a halfway house-type sentence, saying Butler was extremely drunk at the time, was egged on and feared for his life.”

Thus, it appears that Butler had a serious drinking problem, although some inmates who drink the prison home brew may be doing so merely to pass the time or to be one of the boys. It’s entirely possible that the group of convicts who were egging Butler on were also intoxicated.

At his hearing in front of Judge Nick Selvaggio, Butler seemed to accept responsibility for the fact his assault on Piersol (he hit him in the head several times with his knee) led to the man’s death. He did, however, try to deflect at least some of the blame onto the other convicts.

He also told the judge that he was told he had to “earn his tray,” referring to jail food trays, by attacking Piersol. In other words, you either take this pervert “out” or you don’t eat.

Andrew Welsh-Huggins, AP Legal Affairs correspondent writes:

Butler also said other inmates physically attacked Piersol later in a jail bathroom, an allegation rejected by Champaign County Judge Nick Selvaggio for lack of evidence.

“You don’t know with any certainty that other inmates were the ones that caused the blows to his head, do you?” the judge asked Butler.

“No, Sir,” Butler said.

Prosecutor Kevin Talebi also reiterated that there was no evidence that the other convicts did anything more than harass Piersol, but that the evidence showed that Butler struck Piersol “several times” in the head with his knee. Ouch!

“What’s clear is this defendant is the one who caused the death,” Talebi said.

A report by the Champaign County Sheriff’s Office states that Piersol was beaten on April 5 at the jail in Mechanicsburg and that he died a few days later.

Although Butler’s defense attorney argued for a halfway-house sentence, the judge rejected the request and sentenced him to five years in prison. The judge did agree, however, that Butler acted under “strong provocation” because of the threats against him.

Technically, the charges against Butler included one count of reckless homicide and one count of tampering with evidence, based on the accusation that Butler traded blood-stained pants with another inmate.

* * * * *

To his credit, “Butler took responsibility for the assault on Piersol, saying he’d learned that “life is fragile,” and he apologized to Piersol’s family.

“I made bad decisions,” he said. “I knew what I was doing.”

Judge Selvaggio added that “Butler had shown remorse and was one of the few offenders he’d seen directly address a victim’s family when apologizing.”

The judge pointed out, however, that “he couldn’t overlook the seriousness of Butler’s assault on Piersol and the fact Butler didn’t seek help for the victim afterward.”

* * * * *

So now Butler is going to the Big House where he will face a whole new set of problems.

What a mean old scene! Jail and prison, that is. Stay out if you possibly can. This is the best advice you’ll ever receive.