All Things Crime Blog

by BJW Nashe

1. Dog Soldiers, by Robert Stone

Dog Soldiers may be the best thriller ever written by an American. Set in the tumultuous early 1970s, the story follows John Converse, a journalist on his way back to California from Vietnam, who decides that sending a shipment of heroin on ahead of him might be a good way to earn a small fortune. The deal goes horribly wrong, and Converse is swept up into a whirlwind nightmare featuring gung-ho soldiers, amoral drug dealers, corrupt DEA agents, and psychotic hippies. Dog Soldiers, which won the National Book Award in 1975, is both a gripping crime story and a profound exploration of post-sixties disillusionment — when the idealism of the civil rights and peace movements was obliterated by drug addiction, moral depravity, political corruption, and mass violence. Stone captures the era of Altamont, Manson, and the Weather Underground better than anyone else has. A must-read.

2. Gorky Park, by Martin Cruz Smith

Cruz Smith’s classic is set in late 1970s Moscow — a full decade before the eventual fall of the Iron Curtain, but you can already tell that the center will not hold. Homicide Investigator Arkady Renko seems to sense the inevitable Soviet slide. In the dogged, cynical, yet ultimately humanistic Renko, Cruz Smith has created one of the most compelling protagonists in all crime fiction. Arkady is assigned to a triple murder case when three corpses are discovered frozen solid in Gorky Park. When the murder trail leads to an American fur dealer, Arkady must navigate through a menagerie of shady characters that stretches from Moscow to New York City. He even manages to fall in love in the midst of all the intrigue. This sophisticated, vodka-drenched mystery, so rich in character and culture, accomplishes far more than the average, run-of-the-mill police procedural.

3. The Quality of Hurt and My Life of Absurdity, by Chester Himes

What to do if you’re an intelligent African-American man who’s run afoul of the law, spent five years in the Ohio State Penitentiary, and is sick to death of Jim Crow racism? If you’re Chester Himes, you head over to France, travel around Europe, drink too much, chase beautiful women, and write a series of brilliant noir thrillers. In these two volumes — which basically constitute a single autobiography, Himes pulls no punches in telling how it all went down. Essential reading for anyone interested in the politics of race, the European literary scene in its existential heyday, and the life of one of America’s greatest crime writers.

4. American Tabloid, by James Ellroy
Why not turn the Rat Pack Era and the Age of Camelot into a lurid, blood-drenched crime drama? Plenty of scandal, corruption, and violence comes ready-made with this material. All Ellroy has to do is apply his signature ultra-hardboiled style, crank up the intensity level, and presto, we have an assassination conspiracy novel so feverish that it makes Oliver Stone’s JFK film seem like an after-school sock hop. All the big players are here–the Kennedys, J. Edgar Hoover, Jimmy Hoffa, Howard Hughes, the Mob bosses. And Ellroy skillfully invents a whole cast of schemers, fixers, and thugs to do their dirty work. The language used to tell the tale is brutal and offensive; the rapid-fire prose and jittery pacing are relentless. Dense plotting unfolds like a flow chart from hell. At the end we’re not left wondering who really killed JFK, so much as we’re casting around for anybody who wasn’t somehow involved.

5. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane

Lehane’s novel is an emotionally wrenching tour de force that explores the lives of three working class Boston men and their families. One man is struggling to deal with the emotional scars caused by his childhood abduction, a second is devastated by the murder of his nineteen year-old daughter, and a third is a homicide cop investigating the girl’s death. Lehane is clearly a master of plotting and suspense. What’s most impressive here, though, is the depth and compassion he uses to explore the thoughts and feelings of his characters. Lehane understands that daily life for “ordinary working Americans” is often not that “ordinary”. His prose can veer from rock hard to razor sharp, to cynically humorous, to richly poetic — often in the same paragraph. This is American realism striving to achieve the scope and grandeur of Greek tragedy within a rock-solid crime novel framework. Ultimately, Mystic River succeeds not just as modern noir, but as a gutsy requiem for the dreams of all Americans forced to confront the harsh realities of class and crime.

6. Baise Mois, by Virginie Despentes

Think women can’t write disturbing crime fiction? We dare you to read Baise Moi (which translates as “F—k Me”). Despentes is a well-known in France as a radical post-punk feminist author, filmmaker, and provocateur. Here she takes two reckless women, arms them with guns and a ton of attitude, and turns them loose on a thrill-seeking, nihilistic, sexually-charged crime spree. Picture Thelma and Louise as vengeful ex-prostitutes or sex-workers, starring in a French version of Natural Born Killers. This book delivers a swift kick in the groin to patriarchal society. The film version (co-directed by Despentes) featured a couple of porn actresses in the starring roles.

7. Clockers, by Richard Price

Nobody writes dialogue better than Price. When his characters talk, they come alive on the page. They keep on talking in your ear even when you’re done with the book. In Clockers, Price alternates between two main characters as they grapple with the crack-addled mean streets of a tough New Jersey town called Dempsy. Strike Dunham is running a crew of dealers selling rocks on the street, but his panic attacks and dangerously unstable drug-king boss lead him to consider a possible change in lifestyle. Rocco Klein is a homicide cop six months away from retirement, struggling to curry favor from an actor who might portray him in a movie. Dunham and Klein’s treacherous paths of self-discovery and revelation intersect in a series of highly dramatic, nerve-shattering plot twists. This masterpiece of urban storytelling is both a searing character study and a clear indictment of American drug policy. There are no winners in the violent drug trade, and nobody ever wins the war on drugs.

8. Let it Bleed, by Ian Rankin

Edinburgh in winter time is no place for sunny dispositions or happy talk. Detective John Rebus will never win any “employee of the month” awards. He drinks too much, has a smart mouth that tends to talk trash to those in charge, and likes the jagged, shambling sounds of the Rolling Stones at their peak in the early ‘70s. He also has a distinctive way of digging deep into the most baffling crime investigations. Here a possible kidnapping and double suicide launch him on a back-alley pub crawl that leads takes us through the underbelly of Scottish society all the way up the ladder of power. Rankin has re-invigorated the British crime novel by incorporating elements of the best American noir, injecting a serious dose of rock and roll energy, keeping the IQ level high, and never taking his foot off the gas pedal. Let it Bleed is one of his best. Should be prescribed by doctors to anyone caught bemoaning the current state of crime fiction.

9. The Snowman, by Jo Nesbo

Nesbo’s Detective Harry Hole is the Norwegian cousin of Rankin’s Rebus. Both are lone wolves with problematic reputations. Hole’s drinking problem is much more severe, though. Hole intersperses his brilliant crime investigations with deadly alcoholic binges, frequently emerging from blackouts to somehow pick up the pieces and get on with his nightmarish but strangely addictive job. All of Nesbo’s books are worthwhile, but The Snowman marks a definitive step forward in terms of overall plotting, depth of character, and level of suspense. Hole’s attempt to solve a series of murders lead him into a dense maze of tangled psycho-sexual guilt and obsession.

10. Bangkok 8, by John Burdett

Horrific crime, wry black comedy, Buddhist philosophy, and Thai exotica are blended together in this shrewd concoction. Burdett’s first-person narrative, from the endearing perspective of Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, is one of the most compelling voices in modern crime–alternately amused, cynical, outraged, and humorous. He frequently addresses his farang (foreign) readers directly, as he patiently explains the absurdity of his travails. The juxtaposition of Buddhist meditation, acceptance, and nonchalance with the lurid, peep-show decadence and corruption of Bangkok is both insightful and entertaining. The story starts off with a man locked inside a car and executed by cobra bites. It only gets more bizarre from that point forward.

11. Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn

This powerful piece of crime fiction takes an In Cold Blood style Kansas family farm massacre and updates it to include our contemporary obsession with Satanic cult killings. The narrator, Libby Day, survived the murder-spree 25 years ago. Her brother is in jail for the crimes. Narrating from the present day, with flashbacks to the day of the tragedy, Libby lets us in on her current dilemma: a group of amateur sleuths and true crime fanatics called the Kill Club don’t believe her brother is guilty. They offer Libby money to help find out the truth, which leads to a gripping confrontation with the dark side of Middle America. A tremendous book by a great writer. Flynn is getting more famous each year, and she deserves it.

12. Sick City, by Tony O’Neill

An outlandish, grotesque display of cutting edge fiction straight from the bowels of Los Angeles. The story involves a couple of drug casualties who meet in rehab and end up trying to cash in on what they think is a secret Sharon Tate group-sex film. Needless to say, this scheme has its downside. O’Neill’s book reads like Celebrity Rehab turned into an x-rated Tarantino freakfest. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the new gonzo noir style, which uses extreme dark humor as a filter for the worst tendencies of contemporary culture. O’Neill’s throw down on the ridiculous, exploitative pretensions of media recovery gurus such as Dr. Drew is highly worthwhile.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

Life is hard and that goes for children as well as adults. Probably no one, though, has it as tough as a handicapped child with incompetent parents. I say parents in this case because even though 9-year-old Ayahna Comb had a father who now claims he would have done anything to help his child, the fact of the matter is he was not there when she needed him most.

Although Ayahna was 9-years-old at the time of her death in January from malnutrition and dehydration, she weighed only 14 pounds when her sister found her remains in the crisper of the “family” refrigerator in their Houston apartment when she and two friends were looking for a cheese stick snack.

Sasha Goldstein writes for the New York Daily News:

Amber Keyes, 35, faces a charge of injury to a child for allowing Ayahna Comb, a 9-year-old girl who suffered from cerebral palsy and couldn’t feed or clothe herself or move without a wheelchair, to wither away and die in January.

According to the Houston Chronicle, when Ayahna passed away, her mother Amber wrapped her in a blanket and placed her emaciated remains in the crisper.

It’s a funny thing about neighbors. In the case of Ayahna, they state that they became concerned when they didn’t see the child outside in her pink stroller being given her walk for months on end. But although they were allegedly worried, they kept their concerns to themselves, not that it would have made any difference since Ayahna was already dead.

And what about Ayahna’s sister? Where did she think her sister was when the tiny 9-year-old suddenly vanished? Perhaps Amber told Sister that Ayahna had been sent to live with her father or another relative. But I suspect that in her heart, Sister knew that something was very wrong but didn’t know where to turn or what to do about it.

And what about Father? According to KHOU-TV, Father – whose name is Armand Comb – told the station that Amber continued to tell him that Ayahna was alive (that did not necessarily mean alive and thriving) right up until her remains were discovered.

In fact Armand said that “he even spoke to Keyes (Amber), who pretended Ayahna was listening as Comb sang her a song.” That’s all well and good but why didn’t Armand speak to his daughter either before or after he sang her a song? Of course it’s possible that Ayahna only spoke with difficulty or couldn’t speak at all.

Steven J. Bachrach, MD, explains in an online article intended to educate friends and family members on how best to cope with CP:

“If CP affects the part of the brain that controls speech, a person with CP might have trouble talking clearly or not be able to speak at all.”

In any event, if we are to take Armand’s words at face value, he was available to help all along, or at least that’s what he told the reporters when interviewed in June:

“I just want to know what happened, man, and why. I was right here. I would have helped. I would have done anything.”

But most of all, what about Ayahna’s mother, Amber Keyes? Her story is that she panicked when Ayahna “stopped breathing one night in January”. She claims she tried CPR, but chose not to call the authorities when she couldn’t revive the frail child, choosing instead to place her daughters remains in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator which her family continued to use for the next 5 or 6 months.

Amber Keyes admitted to the authorities that after Ayahna’s death, “she continued to collect Social Security benefits in her disabled daughter’s name”.

Perhaps most damning is the fact that “Keyes didn’t take the girl to the doctor for two years prior to her death.” During the weeks before her death on Jan. 29, Ayahna became increasingly “difficult to feed”.

Dr. Bachrach explains that the following service providers can be beneficial to children with CP:

• a pediatric orthopedist

• a developmental pediatrician who looks at how the person is growing or developing compared with other teens

• a pediatric physiatrist (or rehabilitation physician), who helps kids with disabilities of many kinds

• therapists, like physical therapists to help with movement, occupational therapists to help with skills like handwriting, and speech therapists

Clearly, Ayahna received none of this help even though as a disabled child receiving benefits, some of these services would probably have been available to her if her mother had fought for her.

According to the autopsy, Ayahna “died of malnutrition and dehydration”. Her death has been death ruled a homicide.

The charging documents read:

“By not providing the proper parental care or seeking medical and/or professional assistance for [Ayahna's] condition, the defendant caused injury to [Ayahna] by omission, which led to the death of [Ayahna] due to neglect.”

Ayahna’s sister has been taken into protective custody. It is noted that at present, she has not been sent to live with Armand. Of course, we don’t know if Arm,and is Sister’s biological father.

And much like most real criminal matters, the deeper you dig, the worse it gets. It turns out that Amber Keyes reportedly “previously lost custody of a third child, who was 18 months old in 2002 when child services learned her boyfriend was abusing the tot and removed the child from the Houston home.”

Amber Keyes bail has been set at $50,000.

* * * * *

In this post, I’ve been somewhat tough on both Amber and Armand. But the fact of the matter is that that this mother should never have had children. For whatever reason, and I suspect she is not the sharpest tool in the shed, she does not have the ability to be an adequate caretaker. This does not necessarily mean that she didn’t try her best, but it does mean that her best was not nearly good enough.

by Robert Emmett Murphy Jr.

Nationwide, in the last four months, there have been four police killings of unarmed blacks:

Tamir Rice

The youngest victim was 12 years old (Cleveland, Ohio)

Two were not engaged in any criminal behavior (Cleveland, Ohio and New York, New York)

Another one was guilty of only the most trivial of misdemeanors (a second incident in New York, New York).

Only one was engaged in any kind of violent behavior. He was shot at a range of 35 feet and the majority of witnesses stated he was trying to surrender (Ferguson, Missouri).

Also notable, only one of the above involved police investigating what was potentially a felony (that was not the Ferguson case, which initiated with a stop for jaywalking, but the Cleveland case, where a child playing with a toy gun resulted in a 911 call).

In each and every case, none of these men or boys should’ve died.

Michael Brown

In each and every case, the police engaged in some action or actions that escalated the situation, instead of de-escalated it (this is true in the case of Ferguson even if you accept the officer’s story as an honest accounting of the incident; as it happens, I do not believe the officer’s account). Put another way, all these deaths are more the consequence of the choices made by the person who lived than the person who died.

Death of Eric Garner

Though, in a longer view, police killings have declined (according to the CDC, police killings of Blacks specifically has declined 70% over the last fifty years, down to about seven deaths per one million individuals), the tragedies of the last three months are proof enough that we desperately need to rethink policing, specifically in how it relates to low income communities and citizens of color (even with the drop noted above, the same CDC report demonstrates that Blacks are seven times more likely to be killed by a cop than Whites, and one other ethnic minority group, Native Americans, are even more subject to police killings than Blacks).

Funeral of Eric Garner

Two reforms are obvious: 1) mandatory police body cameras (in cities where they are already in use, Use of Force incidents have dropped significantly, but also worth noting is that complaints about the improper Use of Force have dropped even more precipitously than the incidents themselves); and 2) local prosecutors clearly should not handle the Use of Force cases involving the local police forces that they need to maintain a good working relationship with (in the Ferguson case, during the Grand Jury hearing, Prosecutors had the Officer under Oath, but failed to cross-examine him; the same charge has been leveled against the Prosecutors in the second of the New York cases, but without the transcripts being made public, these claims can’t be confirmed).

Law enforcement is inherently confrontational; the defining element of its daily interactions with strangers is the power of arrest. Moreover, law enforcement has become increasingly confrontational in the last two decades as dropping crime rates have been correlated with the application of the strategies of the “Broken Windows” policing philosophy. (The “Broken Windows” approach to policing is the notion that cracking down heavily on minor crimes will reduce disorder in the community which, in turn, will result in far fewer serious crimes.

Though “Broken Windows” has been given credit by some critics, it is actually difficult to establish a real causative relationship. Criminologist Richard Rosenfeld wrote in “Crime Decline in Context” (2002), “Homicide rates also have decreased sharply in cities that did not noticeably alter their policing policies, such as Los Angeles, or that instituted very different changes from those in New York, such as San Diego.” Now, in response to the two New York deaths, evidence of disproportionate punishments for Blacks for minor crimes which Blacks commit in numbers roughly equal to Whites, and other pressures, New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton has promised a series of reforms that seem to re-arrange, if not dismantle, many of the tactics associated with “Broken Windows.” This is especially significant because two decades ago, Bratton was essentially the father of “Broken Windows” being applied in real-world policing.

Rumain Brisbon

I wrote this Thursday night. I put it aside because I was struggling to compose a concluding paragraph. I woke up Friday morning to see there had been another Police killing of an unarmed black man, this time in Phoenix, Arizona.

That makes it five in four months.

by Robert Emmett Murphy Jr.

Nationwide, in the last four months, there have been four police killings of unarmed blacks:

Tamir Rice

The youngest victim was 12 years old (Cleveland, Ohio)

Two were not engaged in any criminal behavior (Cleveland, Ohio and New York, New York)

Another one was guilty of only the most trivial of misdemeanors (a second incident in New York, New York).

Only one was engaged in any kind of violent behavior. He was shot at a range of 35 feet and the majority of witnesses stated he was trying to surrender (Ferguson, Missouri).

In each and every case, none of these men or boys should’ve died.

Michael Brown

Death of Eric Garner

Funeral of Eric Garner

Rumain Brisbon

That makes it five in four months.

by BJW Nashe

Robert Anton Wilson was not generally known as a crime writer. Yet one of his best books, Cosmic Trigger, hinges on a truly horrific crime – the brutal murder of his 15 year old daughter in Berkeley in 1976. Wilson’s description of the crime, how it affected him and his family, and their moving response to it, adds considerable authority to a text that is already astonishing for its thoroughgoing exploration of outre subjects such as altered states of consciousness, mental reprogramming, political conspiracies, and interstellar telepathy.

Wilson first achieved fame — or at least notoriety — for his 1975Illuminatus! trilogy, which he co-authored along with Robert Shea, and which secured his reputation as a cult author and “guerrilla ontologist.” This remarkable work grew out of source material collected by Wilson and Shea when they were employed as associate editors for Playboy magazine during the late 1960s. Inspired by the huge number of conspiracy theory letters they received at the Playboy offices, the two writers decided to write a sprawling, anarchic epic that would incorporate as many conspiracy theories as possible, while simultaneously serving as a gigantic parody of the entire paranoid process. Everything from the Bavarian Illuminati to the JFK assassination made it into their trio of novels. Tossing plenty of adventure, sex, and humor into the mix, Wilson and Shea ended up delivering a classic that rivals the work of Philip K. Dick and Thomas Pynchon.

Robert Anton Wilson discovered after Illuminatus! was published that his odyssey was just beginning. New material kept coming his way in the form of an avalanche of communications from similarly obsessed people, alternative research by people such as John Lilly and Timothy Leary, and a series of strange coincidences. Wilson embarked on a lengthy form of self-psychotherapy, or what he referred to as “a process of deliberately induced brain change.” He wrote the autobiographical Cosmic Trigger in order to explain the strange twists and turns of that process. The Trigger is an astounding demonstration of Wilson’s unique mind at work. As a committed agnostic, he refuses to simply believe in anything whatsoever. Yet he also refuses to disbelieve anything, as well. He remains open-minded towards just about every wild idea he encounters in his far-flung research. Albert Einstein and Aleister Crowley both deserve a seat at the table. No concept is too strange for him to investigate with considerable intelligence and wit.

All of this is highly interesting and provocative. The sections on Kerry Thornley alone are worth the price of the book. (Thornley, co-founder of “Discordianism,” wrote a novel based on Lee Harvey Oswald before the JFK assassination, and claimed to be implicated, via MKUltra, in that whole conspiracy.) While writing his book, however, Wilson’s freewheeling philosophy was put to the test–perhaps the severest test there is. Here, in his own words, he describes the murder of his beloved daughter Luna and its challenging and ultimately life-affirming aftermath. From Cosmic Trigger:

On October 2, Luna–she who had perhaps levitated once, and who had most certainly taught me much about the Wheel of Karma–came to my room while I was writing and asked me to recommend a novel for her to review for a class at school. While we were discussing this, I was suddenly moved to say to her, “I’m awfully busy these days and we hardly ever talk together. I hope you know I love you as much as ever.

She gave me that wonderful Clear Light smile of hers and said, “Of course I know that.”

That was our last conversation, and I will always be grateful for the impulse that led me to tell her one last time how much I love her.

On October 3, Luna was beaten to death at the store where she was working after school, in the course of a burglary.

I was sleeping (taking a very uncharacteristic afternoon nap) when Officer Butler, a Berkeley policeman, came to the door and asked to speak to both my wife and myself. It has occurred to me that, because I never nap in the afternoons normally, my unconscious might have known and was preparing me with extra rest.

“It’s about your daughter, Luna,” the officer said. “Please sit down.” We sat down.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He was black and had the most pained eyes I have ever seen. “Your daughter is dead.”

“Oh, God, no,” I said, starting to weep and thinking how trite my words were: the Author who writes is always watching the human who lives, in my case. Horribly, I empathized totally with Officer Butler’s pity and embarrassment; I had lived this scene many times, 20 years ago, when I was an ambulance attendant and medical orderly. But in those cases I had played the role of the pitying and embarrassed witness to the grief of a suddenly bereaved family; now, abruptly and unbelievably, I was on the other side of the drama.

The next hour is very vague. I remember telling Arlen, “We were very, very lucky to have that Clear Light shining within our family for 15 years. We must never stop being grateful for that, even in our grief.” I was thinking of Oscar Ichazo’s luminous remark that “nobody is truly sane until he feels gratitude to the whole universe,” and beginning to understand what Oscar meant.

I remember sitting in the living room, talking very rationally with Graham, my son, and Karuna, my oldest daughter, and thinking, “Hell, grief isn’t so bad. I’ll get through this,” and a minute later I was sobbing uncontrollably again.

Late in the evening, I realized fully with total horror that this was going to be worse, much worse, than any other bereavement I have known. Having lost my father, my brother and my best friend in the last few years, I thought I was acquainted with grief and could distance myself from it by the Crowley techniques of breaking any emotional compulsion. But this was of a different order of hellishness than other griefs: losing parents or brothers or friends just does not compare with losing a child you have adored since infancy. I am going to suffer as I have never suffered before, I thought, almost in awe; and I remembered Tim Leary’s gallantry in prison and determined to bear my pain as well as he had borne his.

Then the phone rang and my dear friend, cyberneticist Michael McNeil asked me, gently, if we had considered cryonic preservation for Luna’s body, in the hope that future science would be able to resurrect her.

I was off welfare by then, and earning decent cash regularly from my writing, but it was impossible. “We don’t have that kind of money,” I said.

“We can raise it,” Michael said. “Paul Segall and all the people at the Bay Area Cryonics Society will donate their labor free. I’ve got pledges for enough money to cover the first year’s expenses…”

“Pledges? Who?” I said stupidly.

“People who appreciate your writings on longevity and immortality, and want to help you now.”

I was stunned. It seemed to me that my writings were still, even with the success of Illuminatus!, known only to small coteries in places like Texas and Missouri. By national standards, I was still very much an unknown.

“Hold on,” I said, and went to talk to Arlen. It was an excruciating moment. We had both felt that cryonic preservation was impossible on our income, and we were trying to accept the death of Luna with all the stoicism and forbearance we could muster. Would it be an unnecessary cruelty to ask Arlen to consider the long-range hope of resurrection? Within a few seconds, after I had stumbled through an explanation, Arlen said, “Yes. Even if it doesn’t work for Luna, every cryonic suspension contributes to scientific knowledge. Somebody, some day, will benefit.”

“Oh, my darling,” I said, beginning to weep again. Like Luna, Arlen was teaching me one more time how to stop the Wheel of Karma, how to take bad energy and turn it into good energy before passing it on.

The next day was a melodrama, since Luna had not died naturally and we were creating a precedent; nobody, anywhere, had ever before tried to cryonically preserve a murder victim. Michael McNeil and Dr. Segall consulted a lawyer before confronting the coroner and the D.A. directly; one false move and we might have lost the gamble, snared in bureaucratic tred tape and police business-as-usual. Fortunately, the coroner turned out to be a most broad-minded man and was immediately captured by the idea of the cryonic gamble.

Then, when all was going well, the next blow fell. Paul Segall called to inform me, haltingly, that Luna’s body had decomposed so far between the murder and the time she was found that cryonic preservation seemed virtually pointless.

“I suggest preservation of the brain,” he said.

I understood at once: that gave us two chances that were thinkable at this time (brain transplant and/or cloning), and who-knows-how-many other scientific alternatives in the future that we cannot imagine now.

“Do it,” I said.

And so Luna Wilson, who tried to paint the Clear Light and was the kindest child I have ever known, became the first murder victim to go on a cryonic time-trip to possible resuscitation. We are the first family in history to attempt to cancel the God-like power which every murderer takes into his hands when he decides to terminate life. Understanding fully the implications of what we were doing, I knew the answer to those who would ask me, as they did in later months, “Do you still oppose capital punishment?” The reply is, of course, that I oppose it more vehemently than ever. I have made a basic choice for life and against death and my whole psychology has changed in the process. If I still remember that all realities are neurological constructs and relative to the observer, I am nonetheless committed now to one reality above all alternatives: the reality of Jesus and Buddha, in which reverence for life is the supreme imperative.

I found myself remembering, over and over, the famous lines from Macbeth:

“Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord’s anointed temple”

These lines had puzzled me once, in high school; Duncan was murdered in his bedroom, not in a church. Later, of course, I learned that Shakespeare was employing the medieval metaphor that the body is the temple of the soul. In that metaphor, all murder is sacrilegious: for the body is the Lord’s dwelling and to kill it is to dispossess God, a bit, from the universe.

…

The police caught the killer in a few days. He was a Sioux Indian, well-known around Berkeley, given to threats of suicide, constant alcoholism and grandiose claims that he would do something “great” for his people some day. I suppose, in his mind, he was getting even for Wounded Knee when he beat my daughter to death. The guys who dropped the napalm on the Vietnamese children thought they were protecting their homes from the barbarian hordes of “gooks.” Gurdjieff used to say, “Fairness? Decency? How can you expect fairness and decency on a planet of sleeping people?” And during the first World War, he said, “Of course, if they were to wake up, they’d throw down their guns and go home to their wives and families.”

In the following week, I often found myself in a room, going somewhere, without knowing how I’d gotten there, or what I was looking for. I would think, almost with humor, “Oh, yes, you’re in Shock.”

I spent hours sitting on the sun deck, looking down over the cities of Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, and Daly City, and musing on the Zen paradox that every man, woman, and child down there thought they were as important as me, and they were all correct. I tried to write down or write out some of my feelings on the fourth day, but all I typed was, “The murder of my child is no worse than the murder of anybody’s child; it only seems worse to the Ego.”

Meanwhile, literally hundreds of people came by, to express their own grief or to contribute to expenses. Over 100 merchants of Telegraph Avenue, where Luna was especially known and loved, contributed generously, without being asked.

Tim Leary offered to cancel his lecture tour and come stay with us for a week, to help. I told him that it was more important to spread the SMILE message; but he called frequently on the phone thereafter to offer words of help to each of us in the family. One day he sent a telegram saying: YOU ARE SURROUNDED BY A NETWORK OF LOVE AND GRATITUDE. WE ARE ALL WITH YOU AND SUPPORT YOU.

A network of love… the phrase struck me hard; after all, I had spent at least ten years asking if the occult matrix in which I was embroiled was a conscious Network or just a quantum Net of synchronicity. A network of love was what the Christians mean by the Communion of Saints, the Buddhists by the Sangha, occultists by the Secret Chiefs, Gurdjieff by the Conscious Circle of Humanity.

…

The Berkeley Barb called and asked if I could pick out a few of Luna’s poems for a memorial page they were doing. (Over and over, that first week, I was astonished to find how many people outside the family realized what I had thought only we knew: how special Luna was, how rare and loving…)

Going through Luna’s notebook, I picked out five poems to send to the Barb. Among them was

The Network

Look into a telescope

to see what I can

see:

baffled by the sight of

constellations

watching me.

I was overwhelmed by the coincidence-synchronicity with Leary’s telegram (YOU ARE SUPPORTED BY A NETWORK OF LOVE…) and my long years of speculation about the Net or the Network. I took the new imprint, Tim would say; I entered a belief system in which the Network of Love was not one hypothesis among many but an omnipresent Reality.

Once my eyes were truly open to it, the Network was everywhere, in every tree, every flower, in the sky itself, and the golden merry light that had been Luna was part of it.

…

Among Luna’s papers, Arlen found a note Tim Leary had sent Her from Vacaville Prison in 1974, when She asked for a personal message in Tim’s handwriting. He had written:

Beloved Satellite,

We will be coming to join you in outer space

It is now four months since Luna entered cryonic suspension. I am now a Director of the Prometheus Society, a Maryland-based group engaged in lobbying Congress to create a National Institute of longevity and immortality research. Tim Leary and I are both deeply involved with the L5 Society, a group of scientists who are determined to send out the first space-city (designed by Prof. Gerard O’Neill of Princeton) by 1990.

Working also with the Physics Consciousness Research Group and Jean Millay and other bio-feedback investigators, I am convinced that Intelligence–a planetary rise in intelligence will also be achieved in our time. The Starseed Signals, however you explain them, did indeed contain the evolutionary imperative awaiting our generation.

Looking out my window down at the vast urban sprawl of the Bay Area, I sometimes recall that somewhere down there another you girl lies beaten to death, another poor cop is breaking the news to another pair of bereaved parents. We still have one murder every 14 minutes in this mad society.

I know, truly, that I have been a lucky man, and my family has been lucky, compared to what happened to the Jews (and most of Europe) in the 1930s and 1940s, or to the colored races on this continent for three centuries, or to the nightmare horror of Vietnam between 1940 and 1973. Or compared to most of human history, which is still, as Joyce said, a nightmare from which we are seeking to awake.

Tim Leary was here last week, lecturing at UC Berkeley. The news arrived that his appeal had been rejected by the New Orleans court and he might have to go back to jail again. Tim didn’t let anybody know about this (I found out from the only person in the room when the news came on the phone); Tim continued to radiate humor, cheer, and optimism.

Arlen had a conversation with Tim, in which she expressed gratitude for the example he had given us during the last three years of his confinement. “You convinced us that it is possible to transcend suffering,” she said, “and that helped us more than anything else in the first weeks after Luna’s death.”

Tim said, “That’s the whole point of all my work on brain change!” He hugged her excitedly. “That’s it! You’ve got it! Positive energy is as real as gravity. I’ve felt it.” Two hours later, at the door, Tim was stopped by one of our guests with a final question before he left.

“What do you do, Dr. Leary, when somebody keeps giving you negative energy?”

Tim grinned that special grin of his that so annoys all his critics. “Come back with all the positive energy you have,” he said. And then he dashed off to the car, to the airport, to the next lecture… and to God-knows-what fate in the fourteenth year of his struggle with his legal system.

And so I learned the final secret of the Illuminati.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

We have a few problems here. More often than not, cops seem to get away with killing civilians with relative impunity; if the reports are to be believed, college life has degenerated into a sickening rape-fest; and adults molest and abuse helpless children with disheartening regularity. As a cheerful, albeit thorough-going, cynic, up till now I’ve managed to largely block out the horror of our daily national existence with some success; at this point, though, I’ve got to admit that it’s getting to me. If something doesn’t change for the better, I may just have to hang myself. And it won’t be an act of auto-erotic asphyxiation – just a plain old “hang by the neck until dead”.

Meanwhile, I am alerted to a story that comes to us from Germany that is tragic, disturbing and strangely inspiring. Heroism with a terrible cost nut heroism nonetheless…

Sean Kelly of Opposing Views reports that “22-year-old Tugce Albayrak was in a restaurant in Offenbach, Germany on November 15th when she ‘heard two women screaming for help” in the restaurant bathroom. Although it’s unclear exactly how she stopped the sexual assault on the two teenagers, which was reportedly the work of two men, stop it she did. Maybe she waded into the restroom and told the creeps to “f___ off or die” or maybe she startled them so such a degree that they reluctantly terminated the assault.

Whatever the circumstances, there’s no doubt that Tugce, who was a very cheerful looking young lady of Turkish descent, saved the two women, who have been described as being in their mid-teens, from a very nasty fate. What Tugce didn’t know at the time was that she was going to die a horrible death shortly after rescuing the girls.

It seems that when she finished eating and left the restaurant, outside in the parking lot, Tugce was attacked by one of the creeps with a (baseball?) bat and beaten to death.

Oh Lord, why hath though forsaken us?

Sean Kelly writes:

According to The Independent, Albayrak suffered severe head injuries and was subsequently hospitalized and put on life support. Doctors told her parents that she was declared brain dead and would never regain consciousness, prompting the parents to take her off life support. Albayrak died on Friday, which was her 23rd birthday.

What Tugce did is obviously inspiring. Selflessness of this order is a beautiful – though not necessarily very smart – thing.

But what is also inspiring is the response of the German nation to her heroism. Tugce is being praised as a hero throughout the nation.

Since her death, many people throughout Germany have held memorial services, and candlelight vigils have taken place outside of the restaurant where she stopped the attackers who ultimately took her life. Some attendees at the vigils have taken to wearing t-shirts and holding signs that say “We love you” ( “Seni seviyoruz”) and “Thank you, Tugce” (Danke) in German.”

In addition to the memorial services and the praise that is being offered in her memory, “a petition to award her the national order of merit has garnered over 50,000 signatures, prompting a response from German President Joachim Gauck.”

“Like countless citizens, I am shocked and appalled by this terrible act. Tugce has earned gratitude and respect from us all. She will always remain a role model to us, our entire country mourns with you. Where other people looked the other way, Tugce showed exemplary courage and moral fortitude.”

Lizzie Dearden reports that President Gauck has said that he will consider bestowing the national order of merit on Tugce posthumously. He has also written a letter of condolence to Tugce’s family.

Last Sunday, a large crowd gathered in Berlin to pay tribute to this fine young woman.

A surveillance video of poor quality reportedly shows a seemingly enraged man being held back by another young man in the parking lot as he struggles to reach Tugce. The man appears to break free and then hits her on the head. She falls to the ground and is still.

An 18-year-old Serbian teenager identified as Sanel M. is being held in custody. According to Offenbach police spokesman Ingbert Zacharias, the teen has “been the focus of several police investigations in the past, also in connection with an assault causing bodily harm.”

It’s also reported that when Sanel M. was arrested and appeared in court, he admitted that he “smacked the victim in the head.” He has reportedly made no other statements.

The two assault victims, who are believed to be between 13 and 16-years-old, have made statement to the German authorities.

* * * * *

Kirsten Grieshaber writes for AP:

Tugce, who was a student at Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, had the laudable goal of becoming a high school teacher. On Facebook, she had posted a profile picture of herself in front of a colorfully painted classroom blackboard.

Imagine if our nation, instead of seething with division and hatred, and arming itself to the teeth, could come together to make common cause and honor heroic souls for random and profound acts of human kindness. Imagine…

And don’t think everything is smooth sailing in Germany or that it is a homogenous nation. Like most European countries, there is plenty of discord between the native-born Germans and the immigrant populations. The point is that the nation has been able — at least temporarily — to come together in honor of Tugce’s heroism.

Meanwhile I’m out shopping for rope…

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

Texas troopers in both the Dallas and the Houston areas have sunk to a new low (or perhaps it’s just standard procedure in that part of the country). In a pair of videos posted online, female state law enforcement officers are shown probing the genitals and anal regions of three women they claim to suspect of possessing marijuana. One of the women was pulled over for littering. The other two were stopped for speeding. In one of the videos, a woman is seen bent over and grimacing as an off-camera police officer conducts the search. Before one of the searches, a male officer explains to the “victim” that he is calling a female officer over to do the search “because I ain’t about to get up close and personal with your woman areas.”

In both videos, a male officer asks the women if they have any marijuana in the vehicle and the women state that they do not. The troopers, using the sort of “mind like a steel trap” logic that compromises their integrity, decide that the women must be lying. And if there’s no marijuana lying around in the car, it stands to reason that it must be concealed within the women’s bodily orifices. After all, everyone knows that a lot of women are cruising up and down the Texas highways with the “killer weed” hidden deep within.

In the case of the littering victim, the “trooper logic” probably went something like this:

“Okay. She threw something out the window. Must be drugs. Therefore she must have more drugs. And if the drugs aren’t in the car, they gotta be inside her.”

Now clearly, if you’re driving along the highway carrying weed, you’re not going to throw it out the window just for the fun of it. People carrying weed usually want to hang on to it long enough to smoke it or hand it off to somebody else. They don’t want to just throw it away.

“Wait,” you say. “Perhaps she tossed it after she noticed the tell-tale red light flashing. She didn’t want to get caught with it.”

“Well then,” I say, “if that’s the case, the weed wouldn’t still be in one of her “cavities,” would it?”

Never mind, the troopers were certain that there was weed inside the women. I’m not sure if they were certain “beyond a reasonable doubt” or were merely going by Vegas odds, but they were pretty darned sure it was there. So they called in the female troopers to perform the searches.

In one of the videos, just before conducting her search of one woman’s genitals, the female officer informs the victim that if she “hid something in there, we’re going to find it.”

And it must be noted that in all three cases, the female trooper conducting the search used the same gloved finger to search both the victim’s anus and her vagina.

And although it nearly a moot point, it must be stated that all of this supremely invasive effort turned up not so much as a gram of the killer weed.

* * * * *

Although police do have broad latitude to search a vehicle when they have probable cause to believe that they will uncover contraband inside it, there is no legal precedent that extends this right to searching the suspects’ intimate parts. The Supreme Court held in a 2009 decision regarding a student who was strip searched by school administrators:

“Both subjective and reasonable societal expectations of personal privacy support the treatment of such a search as categorically distinct, requiring distinct elements of justification on the part of school authorities for going beyond a search of outer clothing and belongings.”

Admittedly, the Supreme Court’s decision rested in part upon factors specific to that case, such as the youth of the person subject to the search. Nevertheless, the Court stressed the fact that the authorities had no “reason to suppose that [the student] was carrying pills in her underwear.” This means that if officials want to conduct an unusually intrusive search into a suspect’s private areas, they must have a case-specific reason to believe that contraband will be found in those private areas. And as I’ve suggested above, it’s very doubtful that Texas troopers had any valid reason to truly believe that the three women searched in these videos were carrying marijuana in their body-cavities.

According to the New York Daily News, one of the officers involved in these incidents, Jennie Bui, was fired on June 29. Another officer, Trooper Kelley Helleson was also fired and charged with two counts of sexual assault. Two of the other officers are believed to be under suspension.

Click on this link for an in-depth discussion of this case and its aftermath.

by BJW Nashe

Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen’s death-trip punk romance culminated in her murder in October, 1978, followed by his death from a heroin overdose in early 1979. For thirty years, the prevailing view held that Sid, the troubled Sex Pistols’ bassist, was the one who fatally stabbed Nancy in their room at Manhattan’s infamous Chelsea Hotel. In 2009, a documentary film called Who Killed Nancy? was released, which drew upon “new evidence” to show that Vicious was most likely innocent of the murder. Several news outlets followed up with stories questioning the established version of events. The main point was that Sid was too incapacitated from drugs to kill anyone on the night of Nancy’s death, so comatose from the massive dose of sedatives (30 Tuinals) he had gobbled that he couldn’t even lift a knife, let alone stab anyone.

So Sid’s legend no longer includes murder. His reputation as a punk icon should survive this relatively minor setback. There’s still plenty of bad behavior on his resume. Sid remains a potent symbol of anarchy and rebellion. Yet make no mistake: the reality of his short life in the limelight was marked by absurdity. He was a bit of a joke. His real name wasn’t Sid, it was John Ritchie, and he wasn’t particularly “vicious.” He grew up as a shy misfit from London’s working class. He became a rock star even though he couldn’t play music. He hardly contributed anything at all to his band’s hit album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. During the recording, Sid was hospitalized with hepatitis. He was famous simply for being famous — the biggest rock star of his era, based solely on his image as the ultimate nihilistic rebel. In the end, despondent over the death of his beloved Nancy, and horrified at the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars, Sid didn’t even have the guts to commit suicide. In a gruesome twist, he had his own mother administer the fatal dose.

If the incompetent Sid Vicious didn’t kill Nancy, who did? We’ll probably never know for sure. All we know is she was found lying dead in a pool of her own blood, clad in her black bra and panties, on the floor of the couple’s hotel bathroom. The murder remains shrouded in mystery, clouded over by the hazy recollections of seedy drug addicts and punk rock bottom feeders, many of whom are by now either dead, or too damaged to provide much reliable testimony. Journalist Alan Parker, the director of Who Killed Nancy?, points out that there were fingerprints from six other persons found at the scene of the crime, yet none of them were interviewed by police. Parker claims that a likely suspect is a shady character named “Michael,” who presumably robbed an unconscious Sid of several thousand of dollars of cash he had in the room, and stabbed Nancy in the process. One suitably odd character, a fixture on the scene at the time, was a sometime actor and full-time addict known as Rockets Redglare. Redglare once told a journalist that Nancy was killed during the making of a snuff film. Just imagine the price this foul item would fetch on the murderabilia market. Rockets is long dead from liver failure, however, and he was never a very reliable source of information.

“Who killed Nancy?” Perhaps the more interesting question at this point is “Who was Nancy?” Nancy Spungen tends to get a bad rap as the insufferable groupie from hell who sank her claws into the great Sid Vicious, the iconic “James Dean of Punk,” and then dragged him to his doom. Anyone who sees the Alex Cox film Sid and Nancy is unlikely to forget Chloe Webb’s shrieking, obnoxious portrayal of Spungen. Yet this is a cinematic caricature, containing only partial truth. Take a closer look, and a more complex character emerges. One of the best pieces of writing on Nancy is Karen Schoemer’s October 19, 2008 piece for New York Magazine. [http://nymag.com/arts/popmusic/features/51394/] In Schoemer’s reassessment, Nancy emerges as a more compelling, albeit disturbing, embodiment of pure punk rebellion and martyrdom than does Sid Vicious, or any of the other Sex Pistols. For Nancy, as well as other women on the scene such as Patti Smith and Deborah Harry and Penelope Houston, one can argue that the stakes were considerably higher than they were for the men. And for Nancy, who didn’t play in a band, to nonetheless become a major player on the scene is fairly remarkable. Nancy is the first superstar groupie. She’s worth paying attention to.

Juliet From Hell

Nancy Spungen was a middle class Jewish girl from the suburbs of Philadelphia. She was highly intelligent, but psychologically and emotionally troubled. Her family didn’t know how to handle her. Nancy was evidently one of those people who seem to have been put here for the sole purpose of raising holy hell. As a child, she screamed and yelled until she got her way. Her parents would give in just to get some peace and quiet, or because they were incapable of seeking alternative solutions. Nancy once attacked her mother with a hammer. She was diagnosed as schizophrenic at age 15, and spent time in a mental hospital. The psych ward didn’t help much, and probably only made her more rebellious. Let’s face it: girls who are “different” in some way have typically been pressured to conform, through outright coercion or with more subtle forms of bribery, rather than encouraged to express themselves via suitable means (art, music, writing, or whatever). As a society, we have made considerable improvements in this regard, with further progress yet to be made. In the sixties and seventies, however, many American girls still found themselves boxed into fairly rigid social and familial structures. As the hippie movement crashed and burned, suburban middle class life remained stifling and restrictive for young women. I’m not trying to blame society, or the Spungen family, for Nancy’s “problems.” I’m just trying to situate her behavior in its proper context.

In any case, Nancy found her upbringing stultifying. As a teenager, she proved to be utterly unwilling to pursue life as a “conventional” American female. In 1975, at the age of 17, she took off for New York City to fling herself into the hard rock scene. She lived on the Lower East Side, and trailed after hard-partying bands such as the Heartbreakers and the New York Dolls. She worked as a stripper and a prostitute on Times Square, then used the money to buy drugs for the musicians she pursued. She soon gained a reputation for wild, reckless behavior. By most accounts, she prowled the groupie scene like a wild, rapacious animal. Nancy didn’t play the standard, submissive groupie role. She was aggressive and in-your-face. She refused to hide her sex-for-money work (other groupies tended to avoid such activity, or keep it secret). Nancy didn’t reject one code of behavior — that of her suburban upbringing — in order to run off to the rock and roll circus, only to conform to another code of behavior — the one pertaining to groupies. Nancy rejected all codes of behavior. She probably didn‘t even know about Crowley, but she instinctively understood his maxim, “Do what thou will, shall be the whole of the law.” Conformists among the rocker/groupie scene naturally came to loathe her. She was too punk even for most of the other punks — some of whom were merely posers, or simply not as extreme as Nancy. Nancy was gonzo. She slept around, got wasted, pushed people down stairs.

In 1977, having worn out her welcome in New York, Nancy traveled to London to dive into the exploding punk rock subculture. There she located a prize suitable for her groupie ambitions. The prize was Sid Vicious, the bassist of the Sex Pistols. One can assume that Nancy, by this point, could eat punk boys like Sid for breakfast. Yet the two clicked in a deeper way. Supposedly a virgin before he met Nancy, Sid quickly fell in love with her. To seduce Sid, Nancy had to be more than just a she-devil. She was quite intelligent, for one thing. Sid came to rely on her brains and her street-savvy as he shambled his way through life as a newly famous rock star. Nancy supposedly could glean whether a person was a con artist or a phony right away — something which Sid struggled with. And Nancy herself was no faker. A lone interview clip — one of the few bits of footage of Nancy that survives from that pre-digital era — is very telling in this regard. While Sid and a member of the band Dead Boys goof around and mumble incoherently, Nancy comes across as a far more spirited and articulate spokesperson for the punk movement. She’s quick-witted, argumentative, and rude. And she’s committed to the lifestyle. The rebellion is not part of some “act” for her. She’s not posing. She’s also not content to sit on the sideline. She’s as important to the scene as Sid. And why not? It’s not as if Sid had some great musical talent she was lacking. Punk in the early days tended to knock down barriers between bands, groupies, journalists, and fans. It was all one big scene. Of course, that would change in time.

In addition to intelligence, Nancy also possessed some measure of kindness, to go along with all the vitriol. Certain punk insiders, such as Legs McNeil, author of the punk history Please Kill Me, have pointed out that Nancy, contrary to popular belief, could be a warm, friendly person. McNeil says that while Nancy’s ill-tempered rages were hard to ignore, this aspect of her personality was over-emphasized and exaggerated — probably because she was a woman. Plenty of the guys on the scene were just as deranged as Nancy. She was no worse than Dee Dee Ramone or Joey Ramone or Stiv Bators or Johnny Thunders. Punk rock was not exactly teeming with stable, well-adjusted, polite over-achievers. Mentally ill drug addicts were everywhere. They were all crazy, but most of them were nice at least some of the time.

No Future

Sid and Nancy’s tumultuous romance scandalized the music world. They were the Bonnie and Clyde of punk, Romeo and Juliet from hell. The term “dysfunctional co-dependency” doesn’t begin to capture the depths achieved during their downward spiral. They took drugs, they fought, and they took more drugs. Sid made enough money for both of them to become seriously addicted. Their lifestyle made a complete mockery of terms such as “relationship” and “career.” They made a spectacle of themselves wherever they went. Their reckless self-destructiveness knew no bounds. Johnny Rotten sneered about having “no future.” Iggy Pop sang a song called “Death Trip.” Sid and Nancy actually took the death-trip. They were what “no future” looked like back in 1978. For many, it was a repulsive, shocking thing to witness. Yet for millions of disaffected youth, Sid and Nancy presented a seductive image of pure rebellion. They were the face of the new “Blank Generation.” They were against everything.

When the Sex Pistols embarked on their brief, incendiary tour of the United States, mainly playing gigs in the Deep South, Sid’s bandmates forbade him from bringing Nancy along. Again, as a woman she was too punk for the punks. Sid spent the tour stumbling through concerts, dressed in leather pants and a dog collar, his shirtless upper torso and his bare, skinny arms bleeding where he’d slashed himself with razor blades. At one point, he carved the words “Gimme a Fix” in jagged letters across his chest and stomach. The tour ended with a show at Winterland in San Francisco. It was the band’s last show. At the height of their fame, the Sex Pistols simply called it quits. Johnny Rotten’s famous last words onstage were, “Do you feel cheated?” While the others went straight to the airport to board a plane back to London, Sid headed across town to a shooting gallery in the Haight, where he supposedly overdosed on heroin. He survived, this time.

Sid and Nancy eventually settled back in New York, where Sid planned to launch his solo career. Nancy lorded her success over the scene that had spurned her. Now she was more famous than any of the New York Dolls and their groupies. But the drug abuse was way out of hand. She and Sid holed up in Room 100 at the infamous Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan. The Chelsea, a longtime bohemian stronghold, had once been the home of luminaries such as Dylan Thomas and Thomas Wolfe, who both wrote and drank their way to an early grave there, as well as Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, who found the old hotel inspirational and convenient. Andy Warhol’s experimental film Chelsea Girls captured the place in all of its late sixties, speed-freak, transvestite glamour. By the late 1970s, the hotel was a run-down, drug-infested flophouse.

The Chelsea Hotel was perfect for Sid and Nancy, who mainly laid around in bed, nearly comatose, as couriers delivered them drugs. Occasionally, they ventured out to Max’s Kansas City, where Sid fronted an all-star punk band including Mick Jones, Johnny Thunders, and Richard Hell. Nancy sometimes joined him onstage. For even the most hardcore punk fans, Sid’s junkie act, as he nodded off and slurred his way through sloppy punk cover-songs, was growing tiresome. Attendance dwindled. Sid had some success with a new single, his recorded version of “My Way,” in which he ironically made a mess of the tune made famous by Sinatra. By and large, though, Sid’s solo career was going nowhere.

Death

On the morning of October 12, 1978, tragedy struck. Sid woke up from a deep drug stupor and found Nancy lying on the bathroom floor, stabbed to death. Sid called the police, who showed up and charged him with the murder. The knife definitely belonged to him, recently purchased on 42nd Street. Sid made conflicting statements to the cops. He said he stabbed Nancy during an argument, but that he didn’t want to kill her. He said she accidentally fell onto the knife. Then, he said he simply couldn’t remember what happened.

If Sid had been out of control before, now he truly fell apart. Ten days after Nancy’s death, he attempted suicide by slitting his wrist with a smashed light bulb. He spent some time in the mental ward at Bellevue Hospital. On December 8, he was arrested and charged with assault after an altercation with Todd Smith (Patti Smith’s brother) at a concert by the band Skafish. For this, Vicious spent 55 days at Rikers Island. On February 1, 1979, he was released on bail.

To celebrate his release, on February 2, Sid Vicious attended a macabre dinner party at the New York apartment of his new girlfriend, Michele Robinson. Sid’s mother, Anne, herself a long-time addict, showed up to the gathering. Sid, who had undergone methadone detoxification at Rikers, was craving dope, and convinced his mum to score for him. Unaccustomed to his typical large dose, and surprised by an unusually pure batch of heroin, Sid overdosed at midnight. He was revived by his companions. He and Michele reportedly went to bed some time near 3:00 A.M.

What happened next was subsequently pieced together by police and the press. Apparently Sid, his death wish unabated, wanted another dose of heroin. Michele wanted no part of it, and left the room. Sid summoned his mother, who later confessed to journalist Alan Parker that she administered the fatal injection to her son. Parker surmised that she did this because she knew Sid didn’t want to face the horrors of a murder trial, and a likely return to prison. She allegedly found a note in Sid’s leather jacket that explained the death pact he had made with Nancy: “We had a death pact, and I have to keep my half of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby. Bury me in my leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots. Goodbye.”

Whatever the rationale, the end result was that Sid Vicious was found dead on the morning of February 3. He couldn’t be buried next to Nancy, because she’d been laid to rest in a Jewish cemetery. Instead, Sid’s body was cremated and his ashes were scattered over Nancy’s grave.

No Moral to the Story

Sid and Nancy both died too young — she was just 20, and he was only 21. What can we reasonably conclude about this unholy pair? I’d like to think that even if they were a joke, they were a serious joke — the kind of deadly serious, sick joke often needed to shake society from its doldrums. The fact that neither of them had any real marketable talent, yet still achieved great fame and influence, only adds to their punk appeal. “Talent” was just another elitist concept to tear down, smash apart, or deconstruct. As personifications of subversion, Sid and Nancy posed a symbolic threat to the established order — both within the music business and extending outward to society at large. Nancy in particular took punk rebellion to new levels of outrage, especially for women involved in rock and roll. Rock stars often get praised and rewarded for being nonconforming outsiders. Nancy shows us that the groupies and strippers and hookers who are so integral to the scene are often the ones who are truly living on the edge. Usually, they don’t become stars. Nancy did, so she deserves extra credit. She was outrageous.

Even if Sid and Nancy were a sick joke, I’d like to think they were more than just fools. I’d like to think that they did exactly what they wanted to do, and died exactly as they wanted to die. If that doesn’t please us, so what. Rehab and recovery and responsibility wasn’t in the cards for them, which is too bad. But I see no need to moralize about Sid and Nancy. They had a death pact. They never hurt anyone other than themselves. They certainly never claimed to be “role models.” Rather than judge them, I prefer to view them as fascinating creatures, part of life’s rich pageant. They became famous, and went viral, because we ultimately derive spiritual depth and power from the mad, crazy ones among us who cannot be controlled, and who refuse to play by the rules. Sometimes we need outrageousness, especially when it comes to art and music. We need it more than we need a “moral to the story.” And we need it more than we need to solve a thirty year-old crime.

So we might as well let Nancy’s murder serve as the final outrage: it will most likely remain unsolved forever.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

What is life but a constant setting, juggling and readjusting of priorities? After my daughter had been away at college for four weeks we received an aggrieved phone call from her in which she insisted she wanted to change schools next year. “Why after a mere four weeks?” we inquired. Simple. She didn’t like the priorities of her fellow freshman whose only ambition seems to be to smoke weed on a hillside not far from her hillside campus. We told her to hang in there and to not let their feckless priorities interfere with hers. Happily, she’s stuck to her guns and is doing well and has apparently abandoned her desire to transfer.

In her case, she fortunately had (and has) the power to reject the irresponsible lifestyle of a fairly large percentage of the freshman class.

But what if she was a child and had no choice other than to obey the delinquent demands of a selfish and unfeeling caretaker whose top (and apparent only) priority was to find the freakin’ missing remote control unit so he could glue himself to his mighty flat screen? And what if Mr. Caretaker was so intent on finding the remote that he told the child in no uncertain terms that she had exactly 15 minutes to find the remote or it was “Hit the Road Jacqueline?” And what if the child was unable to locate the little bugger and was put out on the street to fend for herself? And what if the reason she was under the thumb of Mr. Caretaker was because she and her brother and mother were homeless, which was why she was being ordered around by Mr. C in the first place.

If this were her lot in life, she would be in the precise same position as a 12-year-old homeless girl in Wicomico County, Maryland who – along with her 9-year-old brother – were tossed out onto the street by a real life Mr. C because she and her brother could not find the remote in the allotted 15-minute time period.

Vanessa Junkin of DelMarvaNow writes:

Two people face charges after two children sitting outside a store late at night told law enforcement they were kicked out of a Jersey Road home for not being able to find the TV remote…

Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to the Midway Minimart, at the corner of Jersey Road and Naylor Mill Road outside Salisbury, to check on the two children, a 12-year-old girl and 9-year-old boy, at about 11:14 p.m. Nov. 24, charging documents state. The girl estimated they had been sitting outside for about two hours.

Here’s how it allegedly happened:

The children’s mother, who doesn’t have a cellphone and undoubtedly is not flush with cash, was out searching for a place for them to spend the night. She had asked her friend, Leslie Ann Pruitt Parks, 44, of Salisbury, to watch her kids while she was out scouting around for a place. Leslie Ann agreed, perhaps without clearing it with her husband, 62-year-old Leonard Joseph Parks, 62, who was at work.

Problems arose when Leonard (AKA Mr. C) got home from work sometime after 9 pm and got thoroughly pissed off because he couldn’t find the remote control. (There is no evidence that the kids lost the remote but there is also no evidence that they didn’t lose it.)

The charging document reads as follows:

“Leslie’s husband, Leonard Joseph Parks, came home from work and told the kids to find the television remote within 15 minutes or they were getting kicked out of the residence.”

15 minutes came and went and Mr. C, a man of his word, then sent the kids packing. (According to the police, Mr. C literally pushed the kids out of his house.)

When the deputies spoke to the children, they told him that they hadn’t been fed since lunch time which means they had been without food for about 11 hours when they were rescued. The court papers state that the children were fed and turned over to Social Services.

Mr. C is charged with two counts of neglect of minor and two counts of contributing to the condition of a child. The children’s mother’s friend, Leslie Parks, is charged with two counts of conspiring to contribute to the condition of a child.

The couple was released from the Wicomico County Detention Center on $30,000 bond, and have bail review hearings scheduled for today. I presume they will not be detained at the bail hearing but will remain free as birds with plenty of time to scour the house for the remote while waiting for their January 29th trial date.

As of now, it is not known if the children were returned to their mother.

* * * * *

Poor kids… Imagine how abandoned and abused they must feel…

Although I was never as bad off as these two youngsters, we were quite poor during our first several years in California in the early 1960s, and I clearly remember the time we spent a full two weeks living in the Broadway Motel (it’s still there) in Oakland. I must have been in the 7th grade then and I don’t recall telling my new friends at Claremont Junior High on College Avenue in North Oakland that we had been reduced to living in a motel, 5 of us in one room.

The only good memory I have of that period is watching “River of New Return” with Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe on the black-and-white motel TV. I don’t believe they had remote control units for televisions back then, and to his credit, my father, despite whatever frustrations he may have been feeling, controlled himself beautifully and never even considered pushing my 10-year-old sister and me (I was 12) out of the room, down the stairs and out onto the dirty sidewalks of Broadway.

compiled by Patrick H. Moore

John Wrana died in July of 2013 at the age of 95. Over 65 years ago, Mr. Wrana served in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He fought in India and Burma and was shot down once. At the time of his Honorable Discharge, he had been promoted to sergeant. Although he lived in a Chicago assisted living home, Mr. Wrana did not die a natural death. Rather, the World War II veteran died after being shot a second time with a Taser and bean bag rounds fired by police because he was allegedly threatening the staff. His family adamantly insist that he was killed unnecessarily.

The Metro Newsday.com staff writes:

Police say that John Wrana, who lived in a Chicago assisting living home, was brandishing his cane, a metal shoehorn and a knife before officers shocked him and hit him with bean bag rounds.

The senior citizen had been reported to authorities because he was being ‘involuntarily’ committed for medical treatment by staff at the Victory Centre, the Chicago Tribune reported.

He was behaving in ‘combative’ manner, by threatening staff with his cane and a shoehorn. Wrana was reportedly scheduled to undergo a risky surgery, and was apparently afraid to end up on life support.

According to the police, when they arrived at the assisted living center at around 8:45 pm, they told Wrana to put down his weapons and surrender, but he refused to do so. The officers claim that he continued to berate staff and threaten them. They state that he then picked up a 6-inch knife. Wrana’s family’s attorney alleges that the Victory Centre staff did not see him do this, according to The Blaze who state that the staff claimed that he was sitting in a chair during the row, suggesting that the force used by authorities might not have been warranted.

In any event, Mr. Wrana was shocked by a Taser, hit with rounds of bean bag ammunition, and was taken into custody and then to the hospital. The Chicago Tribune reported that Mr. Wrana was still conscious when he arrived at St. James Hospital and Health Centers in Chicago Heights, a suburb of Chicago. Later he was moved to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he died at about 2:30 am, slightly over five hours after the incident.

According to the Southtown Star, the autopsy found that Mr. Wrana died from internal bleeding after being shot in the stomach with the 12-gauge shotgun with bean-bag ammo.

The Baze reported that the incident was ruled a homicide by the medical examiner.

* * * * *

After World War II, Mr. Wrana, a Massachusetts native, moved to California and worked in real estate before eventually settling in Glenwood, Illinois. His wife of more than 30 years, Helen, passed away in 2005. Mr. Wrana then lived with his 74-year-old stepdaughter, Sharon Mangerson, until his health took a turn for the worse.

The Metro Newsday.com staff writes further:

Grapsas and Wrana’s stepdaughter have questioned the official version of events laid out by police, insisting that the elderly man was sitting in his chair the entire time, and neither his family nor staff ever saw a butcher knife in his room.

‘The Japanese military couldn’t get him at the age he was touchable, in a uniform in the war,’ Grapsas told the Tribune. ‘It took 70 years later for the Park Forest police to do the job.’

Grapsas stated that he was told that between five and seven responding officers arrived at the assisted living center armed with a riot shield commonly used in demonstrations. His stepdaughter described the 95-year-old as a fiercely independent and still vital man who loved to play cards.

On the night of the tragic incident, Mr. Wrana’s doctor told his stepdaughter, Shirley Margenson, over the phone that even if he survived the scheduled surgery, he was likely to end up on life support.

Wrana than got on the phone with Sharon, thanked her for everything she has done for him and told her he loved her before bidding her farewell and hanging up. That was the last she heard of him.

According to their attorney, Mr. Wrana’s family are now deciding whether to file a lawsuit.

“This was a literal war hero,” Mr Grapas said. “It’s outright insulting when you have such lack of respect for someone who served our country to the extent he did.”

* * * * *

This sounds like it could be a typical case of police overkill (no pun intended). Since I was not there, however, I have no way of knowing for sure. There is a fairly simple solution to cases like this, however, in which the police are called when old people get emotional and start acting irrational. Back in the days of the Roman gladiators, one of the standard weapons carried by the combatants was a large thick-mesh net. One of the ways of subduing an opponent was to cast the net over him and cinch it tight thus effectively subduing him. Perhaps our men in blue might consider exploring THE NET as a new user-friendly way of subduing folks when they get out of control.

Update

Steve Schmadeke of the Chicago Tribune writes:

A Cook County judge on Friday postponed next week’s trial of a south suburban police officer charged with reckless conduct in the death last year of a 95-year-old World War II veteran.

Craig Taylor, a Park Forest police officer since 2004, was charged in April in connection with the 2013 death of John Wrana, 95.

The following 10 somewhat bizarre yet prophetically fatal facts about Ted Bundy (Monster Smooth) during his youth and young adulthood come to us from Bukisa.com and Wikipedia. Bukisa’s interpretations of these facts have been, in some cases, augmented and/or reinterpreted by Patrick H. Moore.

1) Ted Bundy was not his birth name.

The man the world would come to know as Ted Bundy Bundy was born Theodore Robert Cowell at the Elizabeth Lund Home For Unwed Mothers (now the Lund Family Center) in Burlington, Vermont on November 24, 1946. His mother Eleanor Louise Cowell (known for most of her life as Louise) moved to Tacoma when Ted was four and changed his last name to Nelson. Within a year, his mother met Johnnie Culpepper Bundy. When they married, Johnnie Bundy legally adopted Theodore and changed his last name to Bundy.

2) Ted Bundy thought his mother was his sister for many years.

To avoid the social stigma of having an illegitimate grandchild born to a young mother, his grandparents claimed him as their own. They told Ted that Louise was his sister and not his mother. Although Ted likely suspected that something didn’t quite add up, he did not definitively discover the truth of his maternal parentage until the end of high school or early in college.

3) No one is really sure who his biological father was.

Louise gives us two different stories. The name affixed in the father slot on Ted’s birth certificate was Lloyd Marshall. However, she later spoke of being seduced by a war veteran named Jack Worthington. There’s still another option, however, though it may be mere speculation. Some members of Bundy’s family think that his grandfather Samuel Cowell may also be his biological father. Samuel Cowell was a tyrannical bully and a bigot who hated blacks, Italians, Catholics, and Jews, beat his wife and the family dog, and swung neighborhood cats by their tails. He once threw Louise’s younger sister Julia down a flight of stairs for oversleeping. He sometimes spoke aloud to unseen presences, and at least once he flew into a violent rage when the question of Ted’s paternity was raised. Bundy described his grandmother as a timid and obedient woman who periodically underwent electroconvulsive therapy for depression and feared leaving their house toward the end of her life.

I don’t want to belabor the obvious but it sounds a bit dysfunctional to me.

4) He showed violent tendencies as young as three years old.

Ted showed an unsettling predilection for violence from a very early age. His maternal aunt Julia recalls lying down for a nap and waking up surrounded by knives with a smiling 3-year-old Bundy at her side. If this is true, it is totally freakish and as Bukisa says, paints an eerie, strange picture of an eccentric (in the worst sense of the word) toddler arranging knives around his sleeping aunt.

5) Bundy’s grandfather (who he thought was his father and indeed may have been) tortured animals.

AND, Bundy describes incidents of his grandfather Samuel abusing the family dog. Samuel would also swing neighbourhood cats around by their tails, and Ted himself reportedly mutilated animals with the ubiquitous knives that seemed to fascinate him so much. Ouch!

6) Young Ted was active in the Methodist Church and even served as Vice President of the Methodist Youth Fellowship.

Oddly enough, despite his anti-social and no doubt sociopathic tendencies, Ted, like John Wayne Gacy, was a joiner. In addition to the Methodist Church (Note: Patrick H. Moore went to the Methodist Church in Campbellsport, Wisc. for several years when he was a kid but he somehow escaped becoming a serial killer), Ted joined the Boy Scouts of America club. It all seems like somewhat of a charade, however, a fact Bundy seemed to intimate when he later stated: “I didn’t know what made people want to be friends. I didn’t know what made people attractive to one another. I didn’t know what underlay social interactions.” you get the sense that Ted may have been thinking all the wrong thoughts both in Church and at Scout meetings. He was often described as shy and introverted at this age.

7) His criminal activities began before he finished high school.

Ted tendency to be dangerously different, which manifested early with his penchant for knife arranging, was always apaprent in one way or another. According to some reports, he was a habitual liar. and a compulsive shoplifter. Although Bundy’s later claims must be met with some skepticism, he did say that he had gone the voyeuristic route at a young age and was a “peeper”. Bundy was arrested twice as a juvenile but the records were later expunged.

8) He majored in Psychology and graduated with a degree in 1972.

Despite what might be called demonstratively anti-social tendencies, Bundy also had a confoundedly conforming side. Just like any up and coming lad, he was off to college after graduating high school in 1965. He went through a period when he was engrossed in Oriental Studies and later seems to have settled on Psychology. He was a desultory student at first, though, which he believed cost him the love of his life, a well-appointed and well-off California girl, possibly from the San Francisco Bay Area, who for reasons of decorum, shall remain nameless. After his first and perhaps only love broke up with him for his lack of ambition, he rededicated himself to Psychology and earned his degree in 1972. He was well-liked by his professors and graduated with honors. He started dating a young mother (a relationship that lasted six years) while covertly re-establishing his relationship with his former girlfriend who dumped him. Ted ultimately proposed to the first woman and she accepted. Then two weeks later, he dumped her and began his killing spree. Nonetheless, he did not end his six year relationship to the woman with child until he was arrested for kidnapping in 1976. The general consensus is that most of his victims looked like his original girlfriend who dumped him (long dark hair parted in the middle).

9) He volunteered at a suicide crisis center alongside a now famous crime author, Ann Rule.

In conjunction with his psychology classes, he volunteered at a suicide crisis center where, it is believed, he quite effectively talked people out of killing themselves. At this point, Bukisa can only state: “Completely bizarre.” At the crisis center, Ted worked closely with Ann Rule who is now a well known crime writer. Ironically, at a certain point, she began researching the crimes Ted was committing, not knowing it was her friend who committed them. She later published a very readable book called : The Stranger Beside Me detailing her relationship with Ted, his numerous crimes and his trials.

10) Ted was heavily involved with the Republican Party.

Whatever his faults and they were legion, Ted was an activist. In 1968, he managed the Seattle office of Nelson Rockefeller’s presidential campaign and attended the Republican Convention in Miami. After his graduation in 1972, he went to work for the state Republican Party. He was later involved in a minor scandal when the Democrats discovered that stealthy Ted had been following one of them around posing as a college student, taping their speeches and pirating the information back to his home office.

So where do we go from here? Hopefully, as time permits, we will have the chance to take a close look at various phases in Monster Smooth’s incredibly diabolical life.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

The law is a funny animal and no matter how hard its pundits and practitioners try to “get it right”, it will always have quirks that stagger the mind of the bemused observer. Take the laws concerning rape and murder in the great State of Pennsylvania.

Let’s say a true miscreant decides to rape some poor hapless victim and then murder him or her to conceal the evidence. The rape prior to the murder would be seen as an aggravating factor that would allow the prosecutors to seek the death penalty. On the other hand, suppose the miscreant murders the victim first and then rapes the corpse as a result of bizarre necrophilia-type urges. Oddly enough, under Pennsylvania law (and many other states), abuse of a corpse including sexual desecration merely rises to the level of a misdemeanor and thus would not result in any possibility that the perpetrator would face the death penalty.

I must go on the record and state that a clean-minded soul such as myself who eschews rape, murder and necrophilia would never have even considered such a strange scenario unless it was brought to my attention by a current case. Oddly enough, there is such a case and it is truly disturbing.

On Nov. 21, a 53-year-old Northampton County Pennsylvania man named Gregory R. Graf allegedly shot his stepdaughter, Jessica Padgett, in the back of the head which resulted in her death. Graf then allegedly buried her body behind a shed on his good-sized property on Covered Bridge Road.

Ms. Padgett, a wholesome-looking 33-year-old woman who had recently married, disappeared that day after she left Duck Duck Goose Child Care in the small city of Northampton. That was apparently the last time anyone saw her alive. According to a police affidavit, her father shot her 10 minutes after she left the day care center. Her body, however, was not recovered until Nov. 26, five days later. In a gesture that will infuriate followers of true crime all across this nation, Graf reportedly joined the search party as family and friends searched desperately for Ms. Padgett.

Once Ms. Padgett’s body was discovered and dug up, Graf did not hold out for long. In fact, according to police he admitted to both shooting her and burying her. In the process of confessing, however, he shocked the investigators by saying that the reason he killed Ms. Padgett was that so he could have sex with her dead body.

Now a confession of this sort will certainly raise eyebrows, but strictly speaking it doesn’t rise to the level of irrefutable evidence. It was sufficient, though, to inspire the investigators to scour the bushes (or in this case the computer hard drive) for solid evidence of a post-mortem sexual assault.

So this is what the investigators did knowing full well that in a large percentage of sexual assaults of any kind, the disturbed perpetrator seems obsessed with a truly overwhelming desire to film his abominable act and save it for masturbatory purposes on either his smart phone or his computer hard drive.

Andres Jaurequi of the Huffington Post reports that according to Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, after Graf’s confession, the “State police searched Graf’s computer and found a video in which the suspect abuses his dead stepdaughter’s body.”

As a result of this corroborating evidence, which DA Morganelli had only hinted at prior to the discovery of the actual videotape record of the sexual assault, he “filed a misdemeanor abuse of corpse charge against Graf” on Friday. He also made it very clear that based on the visual evidence, there is no doubt that Ms. Padgett was dead at the time of the assault. The video is believed to have been recorded in Graf’s house.

Although the fact that Graf abused Ms. Padgett’s corpse will not turn this into a potential capital case, it certainly provides the evidence of premeditation that the prosecution needs to secure a first-degree-murder conviction. Under Pennsylvania law, to secure a murder conviction the prosecution must prove malice on the part of the defendant, and there is little doubt that the desire to desecrate a corpse will be construed as constituting precisely that. A first-degree-murder conviction will typically result in a life sentence which is sure to be the case here.

In an outrageous request that the judge denied, at a court hearing, Graf requested a public defender even though based on his financial wherewithal (Graf owns a fence company and he and his wife were in the process of building a second home in Florida), he can certainly afford to retain counsel.

In an additional oddity (as if this case isn’t tragically odd enough already), Graf turns out to have been supplementing his fence-building income by growing marijuana. Police reportedly confiscated a substantial amount of cannabis and cash when they searched his residence.

What adds an additional shocking element to this already shocking case is the fact that Ms. Padgett once described Graf on social media as “being like another father to her”.

Ms. Padgett’s grieving family has released a statement in which they called her a “beautiful and vibrant young woman”. Other than that, they have understandably chosen to not address the media at this time.

* * * * *

Who can fathom the dark and infernal desires that ravage the heart of humankind? This is a key reason we have religion – to explain the darkness that periodically overwhelms both individuals and nations, spreading waste and destruction in its wake.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

From 1991 through 2011, the violent crime rate in the U.S. either dropped or remained stable. Recently, however, the statistics have shown that the 20-year trend toward safe streets and secure homes could be coming coming to an end. Between 2011 and 2012, the violent-crime rate rose 15 percent, based on data from the annual National Crime Victimization Survey. I suspect that even without the statistics some of us had the feeling that the violent crime rate was rising. And more and more of these horrific assaults and slayings seem to be the “handiwork” of the mentally troubled. As if we needed any more proof of this sobering trend, a particularly abhorrent mass murder occurred on a Saturday night in October of last year in Sunset Park in Brooklyn where a mentally-ill 25-year-old named Mingdong Chen turned a normal family home into a slaughterhouse killing a mother and her four young children.

Larry Celona, Kevin Sheehan and Laura Italiano of the New York Post write:

A crazed man turned a Sunset Park, Brooklyn, home into a slaughterhouse late Saturday, leaving a 37-year-old mom and her four young children stabbed to death.

A 25-year-old suspect — preliminarily identified as the children’s mentally troubled older cousin — was arrested after being subdued at the scene, his feet bare and soaked in blood.

According to a law enforcement source, the police seized a machete and scissors from the home as evidence. Neighbors reported that the suspect — who reportedly lived at the home — did not flinch as cops led him in handcuffs from from the “house of horrors”. One of the children was removed from the house on a stretcher, the top of the little boy’s yellow pajamas cut open by paramedics in their struggle to save him. Sadly, the child was pronounced dead early Sunday morning at Maimonides Hospital.

The killer’s disconcertingly flat affect was very apparent, according to a witness who requested that his name not be used:

“He [the suspect] was bizarrely calm. He was completely composed and answering their questions — even as they brought out two black bags with the kids in them,” the neighbor said.

“He was still calmly answering their questions as the stretcher with the bloody child was rolled right past the car,” the neighbor said. “Again, he seemed unfazed.”

The children’s father reportedly came home from work too late to save his family, according to neighbors and law-enforcement sources, who stressed early Sunday that their information was still preliminary. For reasons not yet understood, the mother’s sister — who appears to have been in the house as the crimes were occurring — was not harmed, and called 911.

“The father walked in and grabbed [the stabber] and tried to stop him but it was too late,” said one law-enforcement source.

“He’s the father! He’s the father!” one neighbor could be heard screaming to cops as they arrived at the scene, apparently to ensure that he was not confused with the killer.

“The father was freaking out,” said neighbor May Chan. “He just came home from work and saw the police and they told him. He was hysterical… I always see (the kids) running around here. They run around by my garage playing. They run up and down screaming. They’re little kids … that’s so heartbreaking. Innocent kids, my God.”

Neighbors thought they were watching a horror movie.

“I saw the mom and the kid, just covered in blood,” said Kenny Lin, 33, who lives down the street. “They were both on stretchers.”

Rencong Lee, 26, said she saw a distraught 40-year-old woman — possibly another relative — being comforted by a friend.

“She said, ‘My family was cut … there’s so much blood,’” Lee said. “She was crying, I think she was panicking.”

Like the little 5-year-old son who was still alive when the authorities arrived but was pronounced dead at Maimonides Hospital, the mother, 37-year-old Qiao Zhen Li, was still breathing when the police and the paramedics arrived. She was transported to nearby Lutheran Hospital but had expired by the time the ambulance got her there.

According to sources, of the five individuals who were assaulted, not a single stabbing victim survived.

Police identified the victims as 1-year-old William Zhuo, 5-year-old Kevin Zhuo (the boy who was taken to Maimonides Hospital), 7-year-old Amy Zhuo, 9-year-old Linda Zhuo, and the mother, 37-year-old Qiao Zhen Li.

The suspect remained overnight at the 66th Precinct station house.

* * * * *

It’s hard to imagine anything more horrific than suddenly having a family member turn on you and your loved one’s with murderous intent, but this appears to be exactly what happened in this case. Hopefully, the surviving aunt and the father will be able to shed some light on why the slayer snapped and turned on those closest to him. The fact that he displayed no emotion as the scene unwound in uncanny and only adds to the overall horror of this heartbreaking scenario.

Update:

Mingdong Chen was found unfit to stand trial in January of this year after psychiatrists declared that he “is currently exhibiting symptoms of a severe mental illness.”

According to court documents, Mr. Chen told detectives that the multiple murders occurred because “I was thinking about not having a wife and job.”

He had been without a permanent home, “staying at his cousin’s house after his cousin had tried to move him to a residence in Flushing.” He had resented the Flushing accommodations, however, later telling investigators, “It’s a mahjong spot. I didn’t like staying there because it was too loud. So I argued and took a knife to them.”

Chen’s conspicuous mental instability was very evident during his interrogation where he “lashed out at detectives, allegedly punching one in the chest and attempting to kick one with his blood-soaked boot.”

The plan is to put him on medication and periodically reevaluate him “until the psychiatrists deem he is fit to stand trial. He is facing life with no parole.”

As of December of this year, there is apparently no word as to whether his mental state is improving.

by Darcia Helle

In 1870, New Orleans was a city divided by politics, class, and race. The Civil War had left much of the south reeling, and now the government’s Radical Reconstruction attempted to force change by integrating the black population into the white-dominated hierarchy. Some whites rebelled, clinging to their Confederate roots, while others who supported the change suffered ridicule and disdain within their community. The atmosphere was tumultuous. Racism was not only openly practiced but encouraged.

Former United States Supreme Court Justice John Campbell, who resigned in order to join the Confederacy, illustrates this point well. He had this to say to his fellow New Orleanians: “We have Africans in place all about us, they are jurors, post office clerks, custom house officers & day by day they barter away their obligations and duties.”

Racial strife was not the only or even necessarily the biggest cause of violence. New Orleans’ wealthy class had a hair-trigger temper when it came to real or perceived slights. Duels to the death continued to be a favorite way of settling these disputes, earning the city of New Orleans the title of ‘Dueling Capital of the South’. The reason for this ran to the core of their values. Class and reputation were vital to the people of New Orleans. They believed the way a person dressed, spoke, and carried him/herself to be a statement of character. A person’s reputation was unquestioned, upheld by the community, and so the residents held a zero tolerance policy toward slander.

By 1870, this self-appointed elite class had become the minority. Foreign born immigrants made up 75% of the city’s population. Prejudices went much deeper than skin color. Irish and German immigrants were considered lowlifes, their presence tolerated by the upper class only slightly more than the presence of African-Americans. This hostile environment made New Orleans one of the most dangerous places in America during the late 1800s.

Thomas and Bridgette Digby were two of the city’s Irish immigrants living in relative obscurity. They had fled their country during the mid-1800s, along with thousands of others known as the “Famine Irish”. By June of 1870, the couple had three children and were living in a working class section of New Orleans. Thomas drove a hackney cab, and Bridgette took in laundry and sewing from the wealthy residents. Nothing about them or their lives was remarkable at the time. Certainly nothing suggested that their names would be committed to history.

That all changed on the afternoon of Thursday, June 9. At the end of each workday, the Digby’s street bustled with activity as people made their way home from their various jobs. On this day, two of the Digby children were in their front yard playing while Bridgette cooked dinner. George Digby, age 10, was playing with a group of friends. Seventeen-month-old Mollie was being watched by Rosa Gorman, a white teenage neighbor who sometimes babysat for Bridgette. Rosa was standing by the sidewalk, holding Mollie in her arms and occasionally conversing with the passersby.

Two African-American women who’d been walking by stopped to chat with Rosa. This was not unusual, despite the racial tension within the city. Irish and German immigrants shared that part of the city with free northern blacks and former slaves. They frequently conversed and even did business with one another. The two women were familiar to Rosa. She’d spoken to them before, though she did not know their names.

As they stood talking, Rosa noticed smoke and flames coming from a storefront two blocks away. Soon the fire engine, pulled by a horse, raced by with its bell clanging. An excited crowd followed to watch Seligman’s Photographic Studio burn. Rosa wanted to join the procession to watch the firefighters at work. She called to George Digby to take his sister. While George grumbled, the taller “mulatto” woman extended her arms and offered to take Mollie so that Rosa could go. Rosa happily handed Mollie off, leaving the two children in the care of the two African-American women on the sidewalk.

In today’s society, this would seem an insane thing to do. We don’t leave our children with strangers, regardless of race or color. But communities were different in the late 1800s. Relying on one’s neighbors was not unusual. The main factor here was probably that these two African-American women were well-dressed, well-spoken, and familiar. In the city of New Orleans, where people based their opinions on appearance, this meant the two women were trustworthy.

This one incident on that June afternoon taught an entire community that looks are deceiving.

After Rosa raced off behind the horse-drawn fire engine, the shorter of the two women called to George, Mollie’s brother, and asked if he knew where a particular seamstress lived. He said he did, and so the woman took him by the hand and asked if he would take them there. The two African-American women, one holding Mollie in her arms and the other holding George by the hand, made their way through the crowded streets.

According to George’s later account, he soon pointed out the home of Mary Cooks, the seamstress in question. The shorter woman told George he was mistaken, that it wasn’t the home they were looking for. And so they walked on.

New Orleans in 1870 was racially divided, but it wasn’t unusual to see black women with white children. African-Americans and black Creoles often worked as nannies for white families. No one paid the four of them any attention as they joined the crowds on the busy streets.

Eventually they reached a public market. The woman holding Mollie, described as tall and wearing a “seaside hat”, handed George some money, directed him to a booth to buy some bananas for his sister, and said they would wait for him. When George returned, the women – and Mollie – were gone.

The events following Mollie Digby’s kidnapping created chaos within New Orleans. The city was in the midst of Radical Reconstruction, already bitterly divided by racial issues, and now two black women had stolen a white child. The rumors didn’t take long to start circulating. People claimed Mollie had been taken for voodoo sacrifice. Others said she’d been sold to roaming Gypsies. Then there were those who speculated that she’d been abducted as revenge against Thomas Digby for some perceived slight, or that she was being used to extort money from a former lover by claiming the child to be his.

As rumors swirled and people pointed accusing fingers, the newly integrated police force struggled to gain traction in the case. In June of 1870, 28% of the New Orleans police force was African-American. While the majority, and all ruling officers, were white, this did nothing to ease the minds of conservative – bigoted – white New Orleans citizens. They wanted someone to blame for the police department’s failure to find Mollie and her kidnappers. White Police Chief Algernon Sidney Badger, along with Jean Baptiste Jourdain, the detective in charge of the case, became easy targets.

At a time when newspapers had limited circulation, before TV news gave us images of tragedies across the country, and long before the Internet put this all at our fingertips, the Digby case made national news. The missing child, however, was not the driving factor. Sadly, kidnappings and missing children were fairly common occurrences back then. The interest here stemmed partly from the circumstances, with well-dressed, well-mannered African-American women stealing a white child. But, more than that, the nation paid attention because this was the first case ever to be handled by a black police detective.

The details of this case are too complicated and convoluted to share here. For a full account of this story, as well as fascinating details of the historical period, I highly recommend reading The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case: Rage, Law, and Justice in the Reconstruction Era by Michael A. Ross. The short version of this story is that the outraged and outspoken media and citizens pushed the police department toward an arrest. In fact, they demanded nothing less. The following is a typical newspaper quote during the weeks after Mollie’s abduction:

“We may say to the police of New Orleans, that unless this child be found, they will suffer a burning disgrace – a lasting shame.” ~ The Picayune

Nonexistent witnesses were conjured up, people embellished or outright lied, and police interrogated and threatened anyone thought to be even remotely involved. The intense emotions surrounding the case fractured the relationship between white and black Creoles. Before this, black Creoles and African-Americans existed on different planes, with black Creoles enjoying a higher status within their community. They were longtime residents, businesspeople, respected by the white-dominated population. With Mollie’s disappearance and the ensuing investigation, they found themselves scrutinized in ways they hadn’t experienced. Prejudice stung them as black Creole women became the lead suspects. The racial divide carried them along, lumping them in with the now freed slaves who couldn’t be trusted.

Eventually two black sisters – Ellen Follin and Louisa Murray – were arrested, after having been identified by three white ‘witnesses’. The preliminary hearing and criminal trial became the most talked about events in the city, as well as entertainment for the nation. The media was not so much concerned with facts of the crime, since the white-dominated papers, at least initially, assumed the women to be guilty unless proven innocent. The details the newspapers chose to share say much about the era and the mentality of southern society:

A reporter from the Picayune noted that Louisa Murray wore “a dress of brown checked summer silk and a very light brown and fleecy veil.” She was “a handsome quadroon” with “small features, thin drawn up lips”, and “a wealth of glossy hair”.

Another reporter noted that the two sisters were much alike. “Both are tall beyond the average women, and slenderly formed. They are… mulatresses, but are by no means deficient in good looks. They dress with exceeding care and evince in their appeal a great deal of taste.”

Perhaps the most astonishing part of this entire case, given the time period, the outright persecution of someone black to blame, and the lackluster defense, is that the two sisters were found innocent by a jury of ten whites and two Afro-Creoles. Not only were they found innocent, but the jury took a mere eight minutes to deliberate. Again, the newspapers played a large role here, though not in the way one might expect. As the investigative details became public, reporters latched on to the glaring improprieties made by police

The Commercial Bulletin wrote that it was “next to impossible that an inquest [could] be conducted with less regard to the rules of evidence, the suggestion of common sense, the proprieties of judicial proceedings, or the law indicating the duty of a committing magistrate.”

While the tumultuous times certainly contributed to Louisa Murray and Ellen Follin’s arrest, these same times also helped, on some subconscious level, to aid their defense. The sisters were well-known, well-respected, and well-educated Afro-Creole women. Had they been poorly educated African-American women, the trial’s outcome would likely have been far different. Also, Mollie Digby’s abduction came at a unique historical period. In 1870, New Orleans was a somewhat enlightened southern city. Just a few years earlier would have placed them in the midst of the Civil War, when Confederates demanded control and wanted to subjugate all people of color. Just a few short years later, this area of the south was taken over by White Supremists, ensuring no person of color held any position of power or authority. But during this seven month period, from June 1870 to February 1871, a racially divided city managed to look beyond color to see the core of injustice.

An especially intriguing aspect of this case is that, before the trial or even the arrests, Mollie Digby was found and returned home. Or so the story goes. A fair-haired child of the same age was certainly handed off to the Digbys, though we will likely never know for sure whether that child was indeed Mollie. When the child was first given to Thomas Digby, her father, a mere couple of months after her disappearance, he could not say for sure whether the child was Mollie. In fact, he initially denied she was Mollie and didn’t want to take her. With some cajoling from those who found her, he opted to take her back home to let his wife decide. Bridgette Digby saw her husband return home with the child in his arms, and she immediately declared that child to be Mollie. Most took her at her word, believing Bridgette Digby to know her own child. Others had doubts rooted in the fact that Bridgette had been institutionalized because of her inability to cope with the loss of her daughter. She’d only recently been released and, perhaps, was so desperate to have her child back that she deluded herself into believing the fair-haired stranger was hers. There appears to be no record of Mollie’s reaction to being reunited with her parents or, possibly, the two people who claimed her as their own.

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.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

In a rather interesting case, a British businessman, Shrien Dewani, was arrested in December of 2010 for allegedly hiring a hit man to kill his wife, Anni Dewani, in South Africa during their honeymoon just two weeks after they were married. Surpassingly strange, you say? Indeed. But it is nonetheless a fact that newly-wed husbands do occasionally murder their freshly-ringed wives (or in some cases arrange to have them murdered). Take for instance, the recent case of the Terre Haute, Indiana doctor, George “Scott” Samson, who shot and killed his wife, a lovely nurse named Kelly Ecker, immediately after their wedding reception because she ran up some bills on one of his credit cards.

The Samson atrocity was an open-and-shut case. Not only were there witnesses at the house who witnessed the slaying, but the good doctor also shot and killed himself before the police got there.

Not every case involving a newly-wed wife’s untimely death is this clear-cut, however, as the Samson-Ecker matter. The murder of Anni Dewani certainly was not.

What is known for certain is the following (please decide for yourself whether or not the husband Shrien conspired to rub out poor Anni):

Peter Hutchison, John Bingham and Dan Newling write for the Telegraph:

Mr Dewani, from Bristol, and his Swedish-born bride were honeymooning in South Africa, following a “fairy tale” wedding in India, when the attack happened on November 13.

They were travelling through Gugulethu, a township, when they were ambushed by two men who appeared to threaten their driver, Zola Tongo, and order him out of the car before also ejecting Mr Dewani.

This is how it began. The way it ended was “Mrs Dewani was found shot dead in the back of the car several hours later.”

A few weeks later in December, in a dramatic twist, a South African prosecutor, Rodney de Kock, with Anni’s father who had flown in from Sweden looking on, publicly announced that they were accepting a signed confession from Mr. Tongo. In his plea deal, Tongo admitted to murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping. De Kock also stated that Mr Dewani had orchestrated the murder:

“The alleged hijacking was in fact not a hijacking, but part of a plan of subterfuge which Shrien Dewani, the husband of the deceased, and the accused had designed to conceal the true facts, to wit: that the deceased was murdered at the instance of her husband.”

(Stilted legalese, to say the least.)

South African prosecutors

De Kock then read a lengthy confession signed by Tongo, “who sat in the dock with his head buried in his hands”, which explained how Mr Dewani had allegedly offered the driver just under 1400 British pounds to plan and carry out the “hit”.

“The hijacking would be simulated,” the confession claims. “The agreement was that after the ‘hijacking’ of the vehicle, both Shrien Dewani and I would be ejected from the vehicle unharmed, after which the deceased would be murdered.

“The kidnapping and robbery were part of the plan to make it appear that this was a random criminal act, unconnected to Shrien Dewani.”

Mr. Tongo also insisted that Shrien had sent him a text message saying that the fee was hidden behind a seat.

The problem with all of this, which was to come back and bite the prosecution later, was the fact that de Kock apparently had no evidence to support the allegations other than the signed confession. Not only that, there was no motive.

Evann Gastaldo of Newser reports that the hapless conspirator, Mr. Tongo, was sentenced to 18 years in a South African prison for his role in the kidnapping/murder. The alleged shooter got life in prison and a third accomplice got 25 years.

From the beginning, Shrien’s family called Tongo claims “totally ludicrous,” stating that the prosecutor’s theory of the case was “extremely convenient for South Africa”, with the insinuation being that they wanted a quick solution so as to not have any adverse consequences for the tourist trade

As if this were not enough, Mary Papenfuss of Newser reported a few days later that the South African prosecutor had the audacity to link Shrien to a second murder, claiming that he had boasted to Tongo that “he had once arranged a similar hit”.

(Although I hope no one will hold this against me, I once arranged a failed hit on Clarabelle the Clown, formerly of the Howdy Doody show.)

Evann Gastaldo of Newser wrote in October of this year:

Nearly four years after his wife was killed in an apparent carjacking during their South Africa honeymoon, Shrien Dewani today pleaded not guilty to arranging her murder. Prosecutors say the British millionaire hired hit men to kill his wife, Anni, in Cape Town in November 2010.

Gastaldo went on to say that after returning to the UK, Shrien fought extradition for years, “but he was finally sent back to South Africa in April” of 2014.

BBC News reported Shrien’s not guilty plea proceedings in some detail including plenty of interesting details about Shrien’s freewheeling personal life. In a written statement, Shrien, who by 2014 was 34 years old, told the court that his “whole world came crashing down” when his wife was found killed.

Shrien also revealed to the court that he is bisexual and his defense lawyer, Francois Van Zyl, stated that the wealthy swinger said that he “had sexual interaction with both males and females”.

“My sexual interactions with males were mostly physical experiences or email chats with people I met online or in clubs, including prostitutes,” Shrien’s statement read.

Shrien and Anni had begun dating in the summer of 2009 and when the issue of having children inevitably came up, Shrien explained to Anni that he had “low levels of hormones” (low sperm count?) which rendered “his chances of having children slim.”

The South African court received plenty of information including details about an “angry disagreement” the couple had in May 2010.

The court also heard the text of a love letter from Shrien to Anni written around that time. Who knows whether it was show or whether it was genuine, but while the letter was being read to the Court, Shrien sobbed quietly. Here is a partial text of the letter:

Dear Anni,

I realise we are very different but I have always believed in a relationship you can work through those differences. When we first met I immediately liked you … And no not just because you are pretty … but because you made me laugh.

I have always wanted a girl that I can be friends with. One that understands me – and I know that that is not easy. I know that I am so focussed that some people think I am intense. I am focussed on achieving things in life.

I really do love you, and hence I don’t want you to be unhappy. I want to be with you forever but not if that makes you unhappy … that I could not bear … I really hope we work this out.

I am really sorry that I have made you feel like this. You are so precious to me – I know I don’t always show it. I often find it difficult to show how much you mean to me … But please do not think this is because I don’t love you.

Speak to you later

Love always

Shrien

Prior to his extradition, Shrien’s lawyers argued that he “was not fit to stand trial and that he would be mistreated in a South African prison.”

He also spent time in a British hospital after a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.

When his health improved, a judge ruled he could be extradited and he was flown to Cape Town in April where he was held at the Valkenberg hospital unit awaiting trial.

* * * * *

So after all of this, and four long years of waiting, how do you suppose the Cape Town High Court Judge Jeanette Traverso ruled? (Remember, South Africa does not have a jury system and its judges serve as both judge and jury.

Newser Editors and Wire Services write:

A British man accused of killing his wife while they were on their honeymoon in Cape Town was acquitted of murder today after a South African judge concluded that the prosecution’s case didn’t have sufficient evidence.

Traverso delivered the ruling after deliberating for two weeks after arguments by Dewani’s lawyers stating “that the case should be dismissed due to a lack of evidence, stating that the prosecution’s case did not meet judicial standards requiring reasonable and probable cause to believe that the accused was guilty.”

“In my view, the evidence presented in this case falls far below this threshold,” Traverso said. “The accused is found not guilty on this charge.” The state’s key witness, Zola Tongo, had said Dewani paid him to hire two men to carry out the murder. Traverso, however, said Tongo’s testimony was riddled with contradictions.

* * * * *

There is one key point here that I would ask you to consider. In our American judicial system, our juries often deliver guilty verdicts after deliberating for a mere hour or two. The sad truth is that in this great nation, as many who really understand our system will admit, there is often a presumption on the part of the jurors that a defendant is guilty until proved innocent.

In contrast, Judge Traverso deliberated for a solid two weeks. Thus Shrien, for better or for worse, truly “had his day in court”, which, I believe, is a good thing. If I’m not mistaken, Oscar Pistorius’s judge deliberated for much longer than that.

There’s a lesson to be learned here, I believe, but I’m not sure we will ever learn it.

by BJW Nashe

These days, if you’re going to start robbing banks or convenience stores, you need to put some effort into personal style and fashion. You are certain to be caught on surveillance video at some point during your escapades. Soon your appearance will be on the Internet for all to see–much like celebrities who grace the red carpets of awards shows. So there’s no excuse to neglect the fashion component of your criminal activity.

Lately we have seen criminals exploring a wide variety of styles — from glamorous cross-dressing to casual grunge to silly disguises — with varying degrees of success. No matter what, they have definitely been turning heads at the FBI. Here are some notable examples:

On May 20, a woman robbed a bank in Stuart, Iowa while wearing a striking green gown described as a “mullet dress,” since it’s short in front and long in the back. Surveillance footage shows that the slim, 5’4“ woman had long, dark reddish-brown hair, and carried a handbag slung over her shoulder. Authorities are still trying to figure out if the suspect is an actual woman, or a transvestite. Either way, all agree that as a pure fashion statement, this robbery was a big success.

Leonard Brown Jr., known by police as the “Stretchy Pants Bandit,” was caught on camera robbing a bank in Ceres, California in September 2012. His ensemble included a dark wig and women’s “flashdance-style” aerobics clothing. No one doubts that this was a large black man dressed as a female. And RuPaul doesn’t have anything to worry about, in terms of being upstaged by “Ms. Brown.”

According to the FBI, a woman known as the “Plain Jane Bandit” has robbed seven banks in Southern California since July 2012. She earned her nickname by pulling jobs without any makeup, and usually wearing sweats, with no hairstyle to speak of. Sometimes in the world of crime, “non-style” is a style in itself.

The “AK-47 Bandit” is a traditionalist. In 2012 he hit one bank in North Bend, Washington and then another in Chino, California. This past March, he managed to shoot and wound a police officer while robbing a bank in Vacaville. He tends to wear a black ski-mask, dark earth-toned shirts and trousers, and always carries an AK-47 assault rifle. It is a forceful, functional look that works well in any bank robbery.

Colton Harris-Moore, known as the “Barefoot Bandit,” led police on a two-year crime spree involving stolen cars, boats, and planes. For obvious reasons, he wasn’t shoplifting any shoes. Perhaps his barefoot antics indicated a willingness to dispense with clothing altogether, and head in the direction of fully nude crimes. We’ll never know, however, since Harris-Moore was eventually captured, and is now reduced to wearing flip-flops in a Washington State prison.

In July 2010 a man was caught on camera robbing a New York City bank while carrying a large bouquet of flowers. The note he reportedly handed over to bank personnel demanded cash, and stated, “Don’t be a hero.” The flowers, by all accounts, smelled lovely, and added an element of mystery and romance to the crime.

In Australia, a woman known as the “Buxom Bandit” was caught on camera with a male companion holding up a gas station with a knife. She earned her nickname for two obvious reasons, which were barely covered by the plunging neckline of her top. If you got it, flaunt it–especially when it comes to armed robbery.

The “Geezer Bandit” looks like an 85 year-old man as he shuffles up to the bank teller and demands cash. His wrinkled face is partially obscured by sunglasses and a baseball cap, though. After his most recent robbery in California, he was seen sprinting across the parking lot. The authorities think the geezer look might be a disguise.

The “Fat Clown Robber” in Redding, California became an Internet sensation in late March when security cameras videotaped his botched attempt to bust into a convenience store in the middle of the night. The huge gut, stocking cap, and colorful pajama bottoms are a sure way to make a spectacle out of yourself during any crime. And if you fall flat on your face when trying to make your getaway, you will no doubt gain some “fans.”

So there you have it. Any wannabe armed robbers out there might want to take this lesson to heart. If you’re going to stick up a bank or a gas station or a convenience store, your “look” matters. The cameras will be rolling. Soon the cops will give you a nickname. Then the fashionistas will start weighing in. It may be your last chance to make a statement, before you end up in a faded prison jumpsuit.

by Mike Roche

Exhibit I: The Killing of John Lennon

In the darkness of a cold December night, the assassin waited for his prey to return home. He watched in silence as the limousine dropped off the celebrity couple in front of their exclusive apartment building. As the couple approached, the killer drew his weapon, and at the opportune moment, he fired five shots. Four of his shots struck his victim who slumped to the ground and succumbed to his mortal wounds. The killer paced about nervously — then extracted a book from his back pocket and read seemingly dissociated from the murder he had just committed.

The murder of John Lennon in front of the Dakota Apartments by obscure killer Mark David Chapman shocked the world. During the years preceding Lennon’s death, Chapman had become obsessed with the book The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Chapman found refuge and affirmation in protagonist Holden Caulfield’s unceasing attacks on the hypocrisy of the world. Chapman was an under-performer and had already racked up a number of failed suicide attempts. He was a wanderer throughout his early years and settled for a time in Hawaii, where he worked as a security guard.

He initially focused on several possible targets including Johnny Carson, Jackie Onassis Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor and George C. Scott, but ultimately focused on John Lennon. It was to some degree a practical decision in that Chapman believed that Lennon would be the easiest of the celebrities to locate and gain access to. Plus, Chapman was enraged by what he saw as Lennon’s hypocrisy, advocating for the poor, while enjoying the privileged lifestyle of the wealthy and famous. Chapman never forgot that early in his career, Lennon had been heavily criticized for making the claim that he and his fellow Beatles were more popular than Jesus. This was more ammunition and Chapman felt Lennon’s life was in conflict with the humble teachings of the Saviour.

Chapman was perhaps conflicted over his own hypocrisy. He had stood in front of the Dakota with the album Double Fantasy in hand and Lennon had been gracious enough to autograph the album and shake hands with his future killer. Who asks for an autograph and shakes hands with their intended target? In a sense, Chapman conducted his own autograph session when he signed the inside cover of his well-thumbed copy of The Catcher in the Rye, “This is my statement.”

Chapman told his parole board in 2010 that his initial target list was selected because, “They are famous; that was it,” and he thought that by killing them he would achieve “instant notoriety, fame.” “It wasn’t about them, necessarily,” Chapman said. “It was just about me; it was all about me at that time.” This reiterates the mindset of many mass murderers, whose primary motivation is achieving personal fame. Chapman stated, “I’m sure the big part of me is Holden Caulfield, who is the main person in the book. The small part of me must be the Devil.”

The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951. It describes the adventures of Holden Caulfield, a 16-year-old anti-hero who has been expelled from yet another elite preparatory school. Caulfield railed endlessly against the “phonies” of the world. The reclusive author, J.D. Salinger, provided a rare interview to Shirlie Blaney of Windsor High School in Cornish, NH, in which he told Blaney that the novel had an autobiographical aspect. Salinger stated, “My boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book. It was a great relief telling people about it.” The catharsis that Salinger experienced from writing the novel resonated and continues to resonate with many of the disaffected and abandoned in society.

Exhibit II: The Killing of Actress Rebecca Schaeffer

Actress Rebecca Schaeffer made a name for herself appearing in the television series, My Sister Sam, which premiered in 1986. In 1989, she was stalked and killed by Robert Bardo, an obsessed fan. Bardo, like many others, was infatuated with her beauty and eagerly mailed her a fan letter. He received back a glossy 8”x10” stock studio photo, which he perceived to be an affirmation of his love. A simple gesture like this photo caused him to completely misinterpret the reality of the situation and set him off on flights of fancy. Bardo traveled to Hollywood on at least three occasions and visited the studio, where he was rebuffed by security.

Temporarily deterred by his inability to get close to Schaeffer, he began to focus his attention on other female celebrities including Tiffany and Madonna. Prior to that, he had focused his attention on Samantha Smith, who had garnered worldwide celebrity status based on her letter writing campaign with Russian Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. Smith was killed in a plane crash in 1985 and Rebecca Schaeffer filled the void when My Sister Sam came on the air in 1986.

Robert Bardo was one of seven children who was raised in what is best described as a dysfunctional environment. He struggled with mental illness and was seen by a psychiatrist, but discontinued treatment. His neighbors viewed him as emotionally unstable; he would often become enraged, and he was described by one neighbor as a “psycho.” It is reported that Bardo threatened to get his .357 magnum and shoot another neighbor.

From all accounts, Bardo worshipped Schaeffer’s innocence. In one letter, he told Schaeffer that he identified with her character’s yearning to be famous. His path to fame, however, veered off onto the road to infamy.

Bardo became upset and disillusioned when Rebecca Schaeffer seemingly changed right before his eyes. She began to take on more risqué roles after My Sister Sam was cancelled, which Bardo could not abide. He asked his brother to purchase a .357 revolver for him and his brother foolishly complied. In one letter to the actress, he included lyrics from a John Lennon song and a self-authored song. He wrote to his sister, “I have an obsession with the unattainable and I have to eliminate (something) that I cannot attain.” He was not specific about his intentions.

Finally, Bardo went to Schaeffer’s apartment and rang her doorbell. Her intercom was not working and she answered her door in her bathrobe. She was polite but told Bardo to leave. He complied, went down the street, and called his sister, confiding to her that he was about to complete his mission.

He returned to her apartment and again rang the doorbell. Schaeffer answered, now out of patience, and told him to leave. Upset by this rejection, Bardo pulled out his gun and shot Schaeffer in the abdomen, fatally wounding her.

Bardo claimed that his inspiration to shoot Schaeffer came from the song Exit, by the rock group U-2. Bardo believed that some of the lyrics were references to Schaeffer and himself. Reviewing the lyrics of the song provides some insight into his mindset. “He wanted to believe in the hands of love.” The song describes the mixed emotions of love ranging from black to white with the singer, at least metaphorically, “fingering the steel” of a pistol in his pocket.

What other influences may have held sway with Bardo? When he was fleeing the scene of the shooting, he tossed away a copy of The Catcher in the Rye. He had previously written letters to Mark David Chapman after the assassination of John Lennon. After leaving the crime scene, Bardo was subsequently arrested the following day while running through traffic in Tucson, Arizona.

Exhibit III: John Hinckley, Jr., J.D. Salinger and Taxi Driver

A new PBS documentary on J.D. Salinger will discuss The Catcher in the Rye and will presumably analyze the fact that many killers have identified with the loneliness and isolation experienced by the book’s protagonist, Holden Caulfield. Although The Catcher in the Rye should not be seen as a contributing factor to their lethal violence, troubled readers undoubtedly identify with Holden’s loneliness and frustration and view his dilemma as support and affirmation for the similar emotions that they are experiencing.

John Hinckley, Jr. who attempted to kill President Reagan, and wounded four others, was also enamored with The Catcher in the Rye. Hinckley was also motivated by and obsessed with the movie Taxi Driver in which the main character, Travis Bickle, was played by Robert DeNiro. The character of Travis Bickle was loosely based on Arthur Bremer, the shooter of Alabama Governor and presidential candidate, George Wallace. In the movie, Bickel becomes enamored with an aide to a political candidate and when she rebuffs him, he targets the political candidate for assassination. Hinckley reportedly had seen Taxi Driver in excess of fifteen times and he became obsessed with the character of the 15-year-old prostitute portrayed by Jodie Foster. The movie poster for Taxi Driver read, “On every street in every city, there’s a nobody who dreams of being a somebody.” Besides being voted one of the best movie taglines of all time, it also epitomizes the deranged thoughts and spirit of many a mass killer.

From jail, Mark Chapman sent a letter to J.D. Salinger apologizing for being inspired by the book. The cloistered author never responded. Catcher is not in itself particularly violent but it does provide comfort to those who have lost their way and are looking for some confirmation of their discontent and disillusionment. They have been sucked into the negative emotional vortex of an all-engulfing hopelessness.

While browsing at your favorite bookstore, the next time you spy someone reading The Catcher in the Rye, you might start looking for the nearest exit. If you look on my bookshelf, you will certainly find a copy. What does that say about me?

Please click here to view Mike Roche’s previous posts:

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

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

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

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

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

The Boston Bombers: A Tale of Two Troubled Brothers

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

Killers and the Catcher in the Rye

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Darcia Helle

Throughout world history, criminals have been executed as punishment for their crimes. Early methods were brutal and torturous. Held as public events, entire towns gathered to watch the accused be drawn and quartered, hanged, beheaded, or burned at the stake.

Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin came into this unforgiving world on May 28, 1738 in Manchester, England. Some say his mother went into premature labor after witnessing a criminal being broken on the wheel of the public scaffold at Saintes. The victim’s screams were too much for her. Guillotin initially obtained a Master of Arts degree from the University of Bordeaux. The essay he wrote for his degree so impressed the Jesuits that they persuaded him to join their order. Guillotin then took the position of professor of literature at the Irish College at Bordeaux.

Within a few years, Guillotin left the college and travelled to Paris to study medicine. In 1768, he earned his diploma from the faculty at Rheims.

Oddly enough, Guillotin opposed the death penalty. Elected to the National Assembly in Paris on May 2, 1789, he directed most of his attention toward medical reform. On October 10, 1789, during a debate on capital punishment, Guillotin stated that “… the criminal shall be decapitated; this will be done solely by means of a simple mechanism.” This mechanism was defined as “… a machine that beheads painlessly”.

Beheading had become a common, if imprecise practice in France during the 1700s. Most often, several strikes of the sword or axe were needed before a victim died. The executioner would miss. The process could be grisly. Furthermore, considered a noble death, beheadings were reserved for the privileged class. Commoners of that time were typically hanged. Dr. Guillotin believed that the public would be more appreciative of their rights if all capital punishment was done by mechanical decapitation, regardless of class.

Guillotin also took issue with the fact that a criminal’s family suffered monetary punishment for the criminal’s misdeeds. Property was confiscated and family members were not allowed to inherit anything of worth. Guillotin opposed this practice, believing that the criminal alone should be held responsible for the crimes and that his or her family should not suffer because of those actions.

A civil rights activist of his time, Guillotin believed that adopting a more humane method of execution was the first step toward total abolition of the death penalty. Opposed to the public spectacle these events had become, Guillotin also worked toward making the execution more private. He wanted to spare people the trauma of witnessing these executions.

In 1789, Guillotin helped pass a law requiring beheading be done by machines, rather than swords or axes. Guillotin stated that “… the privilege of decapitation would no longer be confined to nobles, and the process of execution would be as painless as possible.”

At a follow-up meeting, Guillotin spoke of his ideal machine. In his exuberance, he said, with a flourish, “Now, with my machine, I cut off your head in the twinkling of an eye, and you never feel it!” His statement elicited laughter and quickly became a popular joke. Within days, a comic song about Guillotin and “his” machine forever linked the two together.

Primitive machines for beheading had been in use for approximately 500 years. By the 1700s, beheadings of the elite by machine were routine in Italy, Germany, Scotland, and Persia. The most popular machine of the time, the Italian Mannaia, made its first appearance in France in 1631. The device held an axe that descended between two perpendicular slipboards. Other beheading machines of the time included the Scottish Maiden and the Halifax Gibbet. None of these machines held the body still, which allowed for slips and misses.

The design of this new killing machine fell to the king’s physician, Dr. Antoine Louis. He sought expert advice from Charles-Henri Sanson, the official executioner. Sanson believes that the problem with current beheadings was that the accused often lacked the “firmness which was absolutely necessary for such executions”. Criminals who were made to kneel for their beheading often fainted. He or she would fall sideways, blunting the effect of the first swing of the sword or axe. Sanson’s solution was to confine the criminal’s body to a horizontal position.

Sanson then conferred with Tobias Schmidt, a German instrument maker. Schmidt sketched the design of what would later become the guillotine.

Dr. Louis approved the design, though he questioned the crescent-shaped blade. Sanson and Schmidt agreed that a diagonal blade might be better. Both were put to the test.

On March 20, 1792, a carpenter by the name of Guidon was paid 5,500 francs to make the first prototype. Upon completion, Sanson tried it out on three corpses in the courtyard of a prison at Bicetre. The first two strikes with the diagonal blade were successful. The third try, using the crescent-shaped blade, was not. The diagonal blade then became a permanent part of the design.

This new killing machine initially took the name Louison or Louisette, after the king’s physician, Dr. Louis. Some time later, the French began calling it the guillotine, after Dr. Guillontin, the perceived inventor. An English poet added the extra ‘e’ for easier rhyming.

On April 25, 1792, at the Place de Greve on the Right Bank, the guillotine made its first public appearance. The victim was Nicolas Jacques Pelletin, a common criminal. Upon facing his death sentence, Pelletin fell into a dead faint. This would have made beheading by sword or axe impossible. The guillotine was an instant success.

For the first seven months, the guillotine primarily took the heads of common thieves and forgers. However, France’s political situation quickly grew more volatile and the machine soon found uses in political executions. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were among the guillotine’s most famous victims.

Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin died in 1814 of natural causes and is now buried in the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. The association of their name with this killing machine so embarrassed Dr. Guillotin’s family that they petitioned the French government to rename it. When the request was denied, the Guillotin family changed their last name.

In 1870, assistant executioner and carpenter Leon Berger made improvements to the guillotine. Berger added a spring system, stopping the mouton at the bottom of the grooves. He also added a lock/blocking device, as well as a new release mechanism for the blade. All guillotines built after 1870 incorporated these improvements.

The murderer Hamida Djandoubi holds the dubious honor of being the last victim of the guillotine. The execution took place on September 10, 1977 in Marseilles, France.

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

Modern Day Executioners Despise the Death Penalty

‘Trial by Media’ Is Not a New Phenomenon: The Kangaroo Hanging of Alvin Edwin Batson

“Met Her on the Mountain”: Cold Case Social Worker Hog-Tied, Raped and Killed in Appalachia

Jovial Private Bartender Snaps; Assaults and Drags Obnoxious 84-Year-Old Club Patron

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Great Gasoline Mass Murder

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.

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

The characters await you.

commentary by Patrick H. Moore

A new case out of Panola County in northern Mississippi is like something out of a nightmare so horrific that the dreamer would never want to go to sleep again.

On Saturday night, Jessica Chambers, a normal 19-year-old resident of the tiny town of Courtland was apparently assaulted in her car on Saturday night on a desolate country road and killed in almost unfathomably excruciating fashion. According to police, “the attacker likely bashed Chambers in the head before pouring fuel down her nose and throat and lighting her on fire.”

Her car also went up in flames. The Clarion-Ledger reports that someone called in the fire and when Panola County deputies responded to the call, they found poor Jessica on the brink of death wandering down the road still on fire.

Although the story varies slightly depending who is telling it, one school of thought believes that Ms. Chambers was able to tell the authorities her first name and the first name of her assailant – which would mean she knew him — before she died at a hospital in Memphis, Tenn., some 50 miles to the north.

Sasha Goldstein writes for the New York Daily News:

Family members said Chambers did not have a boyfriend or someone they could ever imagine would want to hurt the well-loved girl. Authorities say they believe the killer was inside Chambers’ car when he or she began the brutal attack.

WMC-TV reports that Ms. Chambers “told her mother she was off to clean her car and grab something to eat.” Her car was destroyed by the fire, though investigators discovered her cellphone in the wreckage and are going through its contents.

There is also a video from a Courtland gas station where Ms. Chamber is believed to have been seen a few hours before she was attacked. According to District Attorney John Champion, county authorities are reviewing the video carefully to see which locals entered and left the store during the period in question.

According to the AP, DA Champion also said that “investigators are looking into reports that Chambers had attended a party before her death.” They have also interviewed several witnesses but, notwithstanding whatever name Ms. Chambers uttered as she was dying, they have not identified a clear suspect. DA Champion told the Clarion-Ledger:

“We’ve talked to a lot of people and some of those people could end up being a suspect, but as of right now we have not questioned anybody who we believe to be a suspect.”

An autopsy is being performed and the “County Coroner Gracie Gulledge says the cause of death was thermal injuries.”

Chief Cole Haley told WMC that they “were expecting it to be a normal car fire. Put it out, extinguish it, be done with it.

“I realized who the victim was and it was just shocking.”

Lizzie Dearden of The Independent writes that Ms. Chambers father, Ben Chambers, told WDBD-TV that his daughter “had a big gash on top of her head” and that the “only part of her body that wasn’t burned was the bottom of her feet.”

Although the police have reportedly been careful not to confirm the claim, Mr. Chambers, a mechanic with the Panola County Sheriff’s Department, says the authorities told him that Jessica “used her last breaths to try and tell paramedics who attacked her.”

“She told them, she told them, told him who done it,” Mr. Chambers said.

According to Sasha Goldstein of the New York Daily News, Mr. Chambers said that he’s “so sorry Daddy wasn’t there for her” and that he’d “trade places with her in a minute if (he) could.”

David Lohr of the Huffington Post adds that Mr. Chambers said Jessica “had no known enemies”.

“She was just a typical 19-year-old girl getting ready to go to college. She went to church. She was the sweetest girl you could ask for. She didn’t smoke and she didn’t drink.”

Jessica was one of six siblings. One of her sisters, Amanda Prince, a resident of Fort Bliss, Texas has set up a Facebook page called “Justice For Jessica”. Friends and family as well as people from around the world have posted message and as of 9 a.m. Mississippi time the site has about 90,000 “likes” and is sure to have more as the days pass. Amanda hopes that by networking at the site, the participants will be able to turn up leads to help the investigators.

In a very human moment, Amanda told KTSM in El Paso, Texas that “her relationship with her little sister was a typical one.”

“We had our bad days, we had our good days; we were sisters. Nobody deserves what she went through.”

Once Amanda’s husband returns from overseas, they will travel to Mississippi to be with the family.

According to Amanda, Jessica graduated from South Panola High School and had recently begun working at a nearby department store.

“Jessica was a well known person, loved by a lot of people. She was full of life, she was bright, she was a comedian. She was always cracking jokes and making funny faces, and she kept you laughing.”

Jessica with her older brother

In what can only be viewed as nearly unbelievable tragedy, Jessica is the second of Ben Chambers’ children to die in the last 30 months. Her oldest brother, Allen Chambers, died in a car crash in May 2012.

Funeral services for Jessica will be held Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Wells Funeral Home in Batesville.

* * * * *

Anyone who knows me or has read All Things Crime Blog may notice that in this post, there is not even a whisper of my usual dark humor. This is entirely too awful to even consider trying to diffuse matters with any kind of wit or humor.

I do, however, have one extremely important point to make. It is very important that the authorities not jump the gun and arrest the wrong person just for the sake of arresting someone. At the “Justice for Jessica” site, at least one individual is insisting that the authorities should release the name of the possible suspect that Jessica reportedly revealed while she was on the brink of death so that the citizens can go out and find him or her.

I personally don’t know what actual information the police have concerning possible suspects, and a first name, by itself, is far from being any kind of definitive identification. Fortunately, the police seem to be proceeding with real care which is exactly what they should be doing in this emotion-charged atmosphere. Furthermore, the investigation is complicated by the fact the murder took place on a desolate road.

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

Best Crime Fiction: Twelve Remarkable Crime Novels

14 Pound 9-Year-Old Handicapped Houston Girl Found in Crisper Drawer of Refrigerator Six Months after Dying of Neglect

In Case You Didn’t Understand Why Blacks Are Protesting the Police in 32 Different States

In Case You Didn’t Understand Why Blacks Are Protesting the Police in 32 Different States

Famed ‘Illuminatus!’ Author Robert Anton Wilson Writes His Daughter’s Tragic Death

22-Year-Old Heroine Killed with Baseball Bat after Saving Two Teens from Sexual Assault

Female Texas Troopers Perform Body Cavity Searches on Routine Traffic Stops

“Sid and Nancy” Were Destined to Die Young: But Who Really Killed the First Lady of Punk?

Helpless Maryland Kids Forced Out onto the Street Because They Can’t Find Caregiver’s Remote Control Unit

95-Year-Old Chicago War Veteran Dies after Being Tasered and Bean-Bagged by Law Enforcement: Shooter’s Trial Still Pending

Ten Fatal Facts about Ted Bundy’s Formative Years

Pennsylvania Man Murders His Lovely Step-Daughter Jessica Padgett as Prelim to Sexual Abuse

Mentally Ill Man Who Murdered Mother and Four Young Children in Brooklyn with Machete Found Unfit to Stand Trial

The Kidnapping of Mollie Digby: Was the Fair-Haired Stranger Actually Mollie?

Wealthy Bisexual Businessman Acquitted of Honeymoon Murder of Beautiful Wife after Four Long Years

Deep Cover? Bank Robbers’ Ingenious Disguises

Killers and “The Catcher in the Rye”

“Don’t Behead Me, Dude!”: The Rise and Fall of the Guillotine

Ultimate Horror: 19-Year-Old Mississippi Girl Jessica Chambers Burned to Death by Assailant on Desolate Country Road

The Lonesome (and Thoroughly Dramatic) Death of Ted Bundy, Serial Killer