by Darcia Helle

Allow me to tell you a story about a woman born into the most dismal of circumstances. Her mother is a young teen when she marries a violent man. He is soon arrested and convicted of the rape and attempted murder of a 7-year-old girl. By some reports, her father is schizophrenic. Her mother decides parenting is too difficult and soon abandons her.

Life gets no better for this woman. She’s never given a chance to succeed. Under these circumstances, it’s human nature to feel sympathy for this woman right?

Now what if I tell you this woman became a serial killer? Does that change how you feel about her?

This woman’s name is Aileen Carol Wuornos, and she is considered our most famous female serial killer. She was born in Rochester, Michigan on February 29, 1956. She confessed to, and was put to death for, the murders of six men.

Aileen’s history is murky, surrounded by half-truths and suppositions. The truth is bad enough and needs no distortion. Her parents – Diane Wuornos and Leo Dale Pittman – were married in1954. Sources differ on Diane’s age at the time; she was either 14 or 15-years-old. All sources agree that Pittman was a violent man. He had beaten his grandmother repeatedly, and his favorite pastime as an adolescent was to tie the tails of two cats together, sling them over a clothesline, and watch them fight.

Diane gave birth to Aileen’s older brother Keith in 1955. She promptly became pregnant again but, two months before Aileen was born, Leo Dale Pittman vanished from their  lives forever. Here again accounts differ. Most state that Pittman had been arrested and went to prison, though at least one source has him enlisted in the military in order to avoid petty criminal charges. Either way, Diane left him and Aileen never met her father. At some point, Pittman was arrested for and convicted of the rape and attempted murder of a 7-year-old girl. He died in prison in 1969. Most sources say he hung himself, although there are also rumors that he was strangled by another inmate.

While still a young teenager, Diane found herself the single parent of two babies, and the ex-wife of a child rapist. Those early years appear to have been disastrous for all involved. Unable to cope with her responsibilities, Diane handed Aileen and Keith over to her parents, Lauri and Britta Wuornos. Aileen was four-years-old.

Lauri and Britta raised their two grandchildren alongside their other children. Oddly, Keith and Aileen believed Lauri and Britta were their parents. No clear explanation seems to exist as to how or why these two children were able to simply forget the woman they’d call Mommy so completely.

Britta Wuornos was an alcoholic. Some accounts describe her as “strict”, while others call her abusive. Lauri Wuornos had little patience and would often whip Aileen with his belt. The environment was far from ideal for two young and troubled children. In 1962, when Aileen was six, she and her brother Keith used lighter fluid to set fires. Aileen was badly burned on one occasion and left with permanent scarring.

Some sources say Aileen was selling sexual favors at school by the age of nine, though this information is sketchy and probably not reliable.

Aileen Wuornos claimed that both Lauri and Keith sexually abused her from an early age. There is, of course, no firm evidence for this. Neither her grandfather nor her brother ever made any such admissions, and Aileen did not have the kind of family or social support she needed to turn to for help.

At around the age of 12, Aileen discovered that Mom and Dad were actually her grandparents. This information caused even further turmoil in the children’s lives. They acted out, but no rational adult stepped in to help.

When she was just 14-years-old, Aileen became pregnant. She claimed Keith was the father, though, again, there is no proof of this. She was sent away to a home for unwed mothers and, in 1971, gave birth to a boy who was put up for adoption.

In July of 1971, shortly after Aileen gave birth, Britta Wuornos died of apparent liver failure due to alcohol abuse. Lauri wanted nothing to do with raising his grandchildren alone, and insisted Keith and Aileen be made wards of the state. The two were removed from the home, and soon afterward Aileen ran away. With no education, no family or friends to help her, and no reasonable means of supporting herself, Aileen turned to petty crime and prostitution.

In May of 1974, at the age of 18, Aileen was arrested for disorderly conduct, drunk driving, and firing a weapon from a vehicle. And this was only the beginning.

Within the next couple of years, Aileen’s brother Keith died of throat cancer and her grandfather committed suicide. Aileen was 20-years-old and completely alone, so she stuck out her thumb and took to life on the road.

While out hitchhiking, Aileen was picked up by a 69-year-old, wealthy yacht club president named Lewis Fell. He was love-struck and almost immediately proposed, which might have been the only bit of luck Aileen ever experienced. They were married in Georgia, with the wedding announcement even making it into the society pages. But Aileen was unable to settle into married life. She got into bar fights and was soon arrested for assault. Approximately one month after the wedding, Lewis Fell realized his mistake and had their marriage annulled. In his divorce petition, Fell claimed Aileen had beaten him with his cane.

Aileen continued along her path of destruction for the next decade. She drank too much, did drugs, sold her body, committed robbery, and vandalized property. In 1981, she was so distraught over the breakup with her boyfriend that she planned to commit suicide. She bought a gun and got drunk in preparation, but then changed her mind and instead robbed a grocery store while wearing her bikini. She was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison. After serving 18 months, she was released from prison and went to live with one of her male prison pen pals. This relationship didn’t work, and Aileen was once again on her own.

Aileen was lonely and angry at the world when, in 1986, she met 24-year-old Tyria Moore at a biker bar in Florida. Their attraction was instant and mutual. Aileen went home with Tyria that evening, and the two spent the entire weekend in Tyria’s bedroom. From then on, the two were inseparable. Tyria, known as Ty, provided the unconditional love Aileen had been missing all her life. For a time, Aileen seemed to find an anchor in the raging sea of her life.

But her fairytale was not all bliss. The couple led a nomadic lifestyle, sleeping in cheap motels or in the woods. Aileen continued selling her body for money to survive. While Ty later claimed begged Aileen to stop prostituting herself, there is no evidence that she made an effort to help support them in any way, legal or otherwise. In fact, at the start of their relationship, Ty quit her job in order to spend more time with Aileen. While Aileen was out hooking to buy them food, Ty was typically at the bars drinking away what little money they had.

After a few years of this, Aileen was struggling to support them. Money was tight and problems arose. Aileen feared that Ty would abandon her, as everyone else in her life had. She felt desperate and would do anything to hold on to the one person that she’d ever truly loved. This volatile mix of emotions led Aileen straight to the crisis she’d been working toward all her life.

On November 30, 1989, in Tampa, Florida, Aileen was picked up by Richard Mallory. And this is where it all goes horribly wrong. Until shortly before her execution, Aileen maintained that Mallory tried to rape her, and that she shot him in self-defense. Mallory was known to frequently pick up prostitutes along the interstate. He also had a criminal record, having been convicted of rape in the past, but this information was not introduced when Aileen was eventually brought to trial. Regardless of any initial intent, on that day in November, Aileen shot Mallory three, or possibly four times, stole his money and his car, and drove straight back to Ty.

Aileen told Ty about the murder right away, though Ty later claimed she hadn’t believed her. Still, Tyria didn’t appear worried about where the money and car had come from. The two women packed up Mallory’s Cadillac that night and left the motel in a hurry. Once they’d relocated, they wiped their prints from the car and ditched it near Daytona.

After Mallory’s murder, life for Aileen and Tyria returned to their version of normal. Even so, their lack of money was always a point of stress for Aileen. When Tyria’s sister came to stay with them, Aileen was convinced Ty would leave with her sister and go back to Ohio. Jealousy, fear, insecurity, and anger pushed Aileen over the edge. During that three-week period, she robbed, shot, and killed three more men.

On July 4th, 1990, Aileen and Tyria, during a particularly heated argument, crashed the car they were driving in Orange Springs, Florida. They fled the scene on foot, but a witness described both women to the police. The vehicle they’d wrecked belonged to Peter Siems, a missing 65-year-old retired merchant seaman. The interior of the car showed signs of a struggle. Police obtained a number of palm and fingerprints from the car, and the women’s descriptions were circulated throughout Florida.

Eventually, police connected the murders, realizing they had a female serial killer on the loose. By mid-December, 1990, a number of leads led them to Tyria Moore. They also had three other names – Lee Blahovec, Lori Grody and Cammie Marsh Greene – all of which matched the description of the second woman. When Aileen used her Cammie Marsh Greene ID to pawn a camera that had belonged to Richard Mallory, she was required by law to provide fingerprint identification. She later pawned a set of tools matching the description of those missing from David Spears’ truck. Those fingerprints from the pawn shops matched fingerprints taken from the crashed car belonging to Peter Siems. The information was passed on to the National Crime Information Center, where they were able to connect Aileen Wuornos’s name to the three aliases. By January 5, 1991, the police finally had names for their suspected serial killing females and were ready to move in.

By this time, Aileen had lost her struggle to hold on to Tyria. Devastated over the breakup, Aileen was once again on her own.

On January 8, 1991, two undercover cops spotted Aileen at the Port Orange Pub. They bought her a few beers and later offered her a ride, which she declined. She left the pub around 10 p.m., and they followed her to a biker bar called The Last Resort. There the undercover cops sat with her and bought her a few more beers. The cops left at midnight, but kept Aileen under surveillance. She spent her last night as a free woman sleeping on an old car seat at The Last Resort.

The following afternoon, the decision was made to arrest Aileen rather than to risk losing her. The two undercover cops offered to let Aileen use their motel room to clean up. She accepted the offer, but when she walked out of the bar with them she was arrested on what police told her was an outstanding warrant for Lori Grody, one of her aliases. They did not let on that they knew her true identity. No mention was made of the murders, and the media was not told that Aileen was their suspected serial killer. The police were being extra cautious because they had no murder weapon and had yet to find Tyria Moore.

The following day, on January 10, 1991, Tyria was found. She’d been living with her sister in Pittston, Pennsylvania. Tyria was read her rights but not arrested or charged with a crime. In short order, Tyria gave Aileen up as the killer. Despite later interviews where she claimed not to have believed Aileen’s first murder confession, Tyria told the cops she’d known about the murders from the very beginning. “I told her I didn’t want to hear about it,” she told the police. “And then any time she would come home after that and say certain things, telling me about where she got something, I’d say I don’t want to hear it.”

The next day, Tyria Moore went back to Florida along with the police, not as a criminal, but as a witness to help them ensure Aileen Wuornos’s conviction.

Tyria was put in a motel in Daytona and told to contact Aileen at the prison. Her cover story was that her mother had given her money to come back down to Florida in order to pick up the rest of her belongings. Phone conversations were taped, and Tyria was instructed to tell Aileen the police had been questioning her family about her and the Florida murders.

The first call was made on January 14. Aileen had yet to be charged or even questioned about the murders, and remained under the impression that she’d only been arrested for a weapons violation under the alias of Lori Grody. When Tyria voiced her concerns, as scripted by the police, Aileen reassured her, saying, “I’m only here for that concealed weapons charge in ’86 and a traffic ticket, and I tell you what, man, I read the newspaper, and I wasn’t one of those little suspects.” Aware that prison phones were monitored, Aileen did her best to speak in code. She went on to say, “I think somebody at work – where you worked at – said something that it looked like us. And it isn’t us, see? It’s a case of mistaken identity.”

The calls continued for three days and Tyria played Aileen well. Knowing Aileen would do anything to keep her safe, and to keep her love, Tyria used that advantage as she cried and even suggested she should just kill herself. In listening to the conversations, it seems apparent that Aileen knew something wasn’t right. She even asked Tyria if someone was with her during the conversations. Tyria naturally denied any such thing and played up her fear skillfully. She begged Aileen to tell the cops the truth. On the morning of January 16, 1991, Aileen did just that and confessed to killing six men.

Throughout Aileen’s confession to police, she reiterated two points. First, she adamantly declared Tyria Moore innocent, taking full blame and responsibility for the six murders. The men she admitted to killing were: Richard Mallory, David Spears, Charles Carskaddan, Troy Buress, Dick Humphreys, and Walter Gino Antonio. She denied killing Peter Siems, whose murder police believe she’d committed but whose body was never found. The second point Aileen continually made was that none of it was her fault, not the murders and not the circumstances of her life leading up to them. She insisted all the men she’d killed were aggressive and had either assaulted, threatened, or raped her.

Her public defender, Michael O’Neill, continually advised Aileen to stop talking. She ignored him. Exasperated, he finally said to her, “Do you realize these guys are cops?” Her reply was, “I know. And they want to hang me. And that’s cool, because maybe, man, I deserve it. I just want to get this over with.”

Once the media picked up the story, Aileen Wuornos found instant infamy. Book and movie deals were offered to detectives, relatives, Tyria Moore, and Aileen herself. For a while, Aileen was the media darling and everyone wanted a piece of her. For the first time in her life, people were interested in what she had to say. She relished the limelight, and no doubt enjoyed perfecting and embellishing her story as she went along.

Within two weeks of her arrest, Wuornos and her attorney had sold movie rights to her story. Investigators did the same. Aileen Wuornos’s tragic life story resulted in several books, two movies, and even one opera, called Wuornos by Carla Lucero.

Aileen’s newfound fame brought her an unlikely champion for her cause. Arlene Pralle, a 44-year-old Born Again Christian, ran a horse breeding and boarding facility in Ocala, Florida. After seeing Aileen’s photo and story in the newspaper, Arlene wrote Aileen a letter that began, “My name is Arlene Pralle. I’m born-again. You’re going to think I’m crazy, but Jesus told me to write you.”

Arlene provided her phone number and, on January 30, Aileen called her collect. The two formed an instant bond. Arlene became Aileen’s confidant and defender. On Arlene’s advice, Aileen asked for and received new lawyers. The first public defense team, according to Arlene, was attempting to profit from Aileen’s story. She wanted Aileen to have lawyers who’d work hard to protect her, not to make money off her.

Arlene began speaking to media and tabloids. She appeared on talk shows and arranged interviews for Aileen. When asked about their relationship, Arlene said, “We’re like Jonathan and David in the Bible. It’s as though part of me is trapped in jail with her.” To another reporter, Arlene said, “If the world could know the real Aileen Wuornos, there’s not a jury that would convict her.”

On November 22, 1991, Arlene Pralle and her husband Robert legally adopted Aileen Wuornos because, according to Arlene, God told her to.

Through her defense team, Aileen agreed to plead guilty to the murders of six men in exchange for six consecutive life sentences. But the prosecution was determined to get the death penalty and wouldn’t make the deal. They decided to try her for the murder of Richard Mallory first, since that was their strongest case.

Aileen Wuornos’s trial began on January 14, 1992, with Judge Uriel Blount presiding. The combination of evidence and witnesses for the prosecution was damning. Dr. Arthur Botting, the medical examiner who’d autopsied Mallory, testified that Mallory had taken 10-20 minutes to die an excruciating death. Probably most difficult for Aileen was Tyria Moore’s testimony. Tyria told jurors that Aileen had not seemed upset, nervous, or drunk when she’d returned home and confessed to killing Mallory that day. Not once during her testimony did Tyria meet Aileen’s eyes.

Aileen was damned further by a Florida law called ‘Williams Rule’, which allows prosecution to introduce evidence from pending cases providing they demonstrate a criminal pattern. This enabled the prosecution to tell jurors about the other murders Aileen was suspected of committing, vividly painting her as a vicious serial killer.

Against her lawyer’s advice, Aileen insisted on testifying on her own behalf. The story she told the jury about the night she killed Richard Mallory barely resembled the initial story she’d told on her videotaped confession to police. She now claimed Mallory had raped, sodomized, and tortured her. When the inconsistencies of her story were pointed out on cross-examination, she became agitated and visibly angry. She invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination a total of 25 times.

On January 27, 1992, the jury took less than two hours to return with a verdict: guilty of first-degree murder. As the jury filed out of the courtroom, Aileen shouted, “I’m innocent! I was raped! I hope you get raped, scumbags of America!”

The penalty phase of Aileen’s trial began the following day. Expert defense witnesses testified that Aileen was mentally ill, that she suffered from borderline personality disorder, and that her tumultuous childhood had stunted her emotional growth. Jurors, though, were having none of it and unanimously recommended death. On January 31, 1992, Judge Uriel Blount sentenced Aileen Wuornos to death by electrocution.

That would turn out to be Aileen’s one and only trial. On March 31, she pleaded guilty to the murders of Troy Buress, Dick Humphreys, and David Spears. In her statement to the court, she said, “I wanted to confess to you that Richard Mallory did violently rape me, as I’ve told you. But these others did not. [They] only began to start to.” On May 15, Judge Thomas Sawaya gave Aileen three more death sentences.

In June of 1992, Aileen pleaded guilty to the murder of Charles Carskaddon, for which she received her fifth death sentence.

Finally, in February 1993, she pleaded guilty to the murder of Walter Gino Antonio and was sentenced to death for the sixth and final time.

No charges were brought for the murder of Peter Siems, whose body was never found and whom Aileen still maintained she had not killed.

When evidence was brought to light that Richard Mallory, Aileen’s first victim, had served 10 years in prison for rape, Aileen’s attorneys felt jurors would have viewed that case differently had they been told. For a time, there was speculation of a new trial. But that was not to be. Aileen’s conviction was upheld.

Once sentenced to death, Aileen never wavered in her request that her execution be carried out as soon as possible. For that to happen, she needed to convince the Supreme Court that she was sane and understood what she was asking. In her letter to the Florida Supreme Court, she wrote, “I’m one who seriously hates human life and would kill again.” About this time, Aileen also confessed to murdering Peter Siems, stating she’d killed all seven men for the money. She stressed that she was not a thrill killer as most serial killers were, and had only murdered the men in order to eliminate witnesses. She was a thief, not a killer. Despite confessing to this last murder, she never told anyone and didn’t appear to know the location of Siems’s body. During this same interview, she retracted her claim of killing Mallory in self-defense. She handed everything over in a tidy package so that her execution would not be delayed.

The Court reviewed her letter and all the information, and subsequently allowed Aileen to fire her attorneys and stop her appeals. She was also allowed to choose lethal injection over the electric chair as the manner in which she’d die.

Because the case remained in the media spotlight, Governor Jeb Bush issued a stay of execution and ordered a psychological exam. The execution of mentally ill inmates is against international law. After three psychiatrists deemed Aileen Wuornos sane and able to understand her situation, Bush lifted the stay.

The day before her execution, Aileen gave her final media interview to British producer Nick Broomfield, who had put together a documentary on Aileen in 1993. The interview so rattled Broomfield that, outside the prison afterward, he stated, “My conclusion from the interview is, today we are executing someone who is mad. Here is someone who has totally lost her mind.”

Aileen Wuornos refused her last meal. She was ready to die, resigned to her fate, and maybe even looked forward to the release death would bring.

At 9:47 a.m. on October 9, 2002, Aileen Wuornos was put to death at Florida State Prison. Her last words were, “I’d like to say I’m sailing with the Rock and I’ll be back like Independence Day with Jesus, June 6, like the movie, big mothership and all. I’ll be back.”

In the end, Tyria Moore, the woman Aileen would and did do anything for, both betrayed and abandoned her. Arlene Pralle, her adoptive mother, also abandoned her, and didn’t even know Aileen’s execution date. The only person who remained by Aileen’s side until the end was a childhood friend. The two were committed pen pals throughout Aileen’s prison stay, and they spent some of Aileen’s last hours together

Tyria Moore was never charged with any crime. While it is likely Aileen did commit all the murders on her own, Tyria herself admits to knowing about them from the start. Had she immediately notified the police after Richard Mallory’s murder, Aileen would not have been free to keep killing. Had Tyria gotten a job and taken some financial pressure from Aileen, perhaps things would have turned out differently. Instead, Tyria played a passive-aggressive role, happy to live off the money Aileen brought home after robbing and killing her victims.

Tyria Moore was just the last in a steady line of people who failed Aileen, helping to turn her into the killer she became.

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

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

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

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

The Electric Chair Nightmare: An Infamous and Agonizing History

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

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

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

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

Why Should I Believe You? The History of the Polygraph

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

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

The Terror of ISO: A Descent into Madness

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

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

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

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

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

The characters await you.

by Patrick H. Moore

Richard Ramirez, the world-famous Night-Stalker, died of “natural causes,” reportedly Hepatitis C or some other form of liver disease, in June of 2013. He was only 52. Few murderous crime sprees have matched that of Ramirez for sheer ferocity. During a relatively short period of time in 1985, Richard wreaked such havoc that when he was finally captured in East Los Angeles by a group of angry citizens on August 31, 1985, he was charged with thirteen murders, five attempted murders, six rapes, three lewd acts on children, two kidnappings, three acts of forced oral copulation, four counts of sodomy, five robberies and fourteen burglaries. Out of the 55 counts, he was convicted of 41 in a Los Angeles county courtroom on September 20, 1989. Since then, he has been serving time on Death Row in San Quentin.

Ramirez’ distinctive moniker was based on his modus operandi. He typically crawled into homes through open windows in the early morning hours. He was an equal-opportunity slayer who alternated between strangling, throat slashing and shooting. He left spray-painted pentagrams — a distinctive Satanist symbol — on the walls of the some of victims’ homes. The killings so terrorized Los Angeles County that there was a significant increase in the sale of guns, ammunition, locks and window bars.

One of the strange aspects of the Night-Stalker’s case is that he was captured and beaten by angry citizens in East Los Angeles after trying to steal a woman’s car. He made a frantic effort to escape seven Los Angeles Police patrol cars that chased him for 20 minutes, but was subdued by four determined citizens who worked him over with a steel rod. When the police finally arrived, they found him covered in blood, begging for his life in Spanish:

“Dejeme en paz! Dejeme en paz!” — Spanish for “Leave me in peace!

According to writer Jennifer Grise:

Richard was born in 1960 in El Paso Texas, to parents of meager economical means. His father, Julian Ramirez, a Mexican immigrant, and his mother, Mercedes Ramirez, a Mexican American citizen, both worked long hours every day to support their five children. Julian was an abusive parent as his father was before him. If Mercedes or any of the children did anything that Julian considered wrong they were physically beaten.

Richard and his siblings all had medical difficulties during early childhood, in part due to the Government-sponsored nuclear bomb tests in nearby New Mexico. The radioactive fallout from the bombs was wind-borne to El Paso, infecting the landscape, the livestock and the human population. The Ramirez children were born with problems ranging from respiratory difficulty to bone deformation, which permanently disabled Richard’s older brother Reuben.

In 1959, while pregnant with Richard, his mother Mercedes “was working at Tony Lamaís boot factory… mixing chemicals such as benzene, xylene and toluene.” During that era, the toxicity of these chemicals was either unknown or ignored. Mercedes gave birth to Richard on February 29th, 1960.

While in the 5th grade, Richard began having grand mal seizures in school and was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy. By this point, he had put his childhood ailments behind him “and was considered to be a healthy although hyper and aggressive child.”

Richard’s home environment was hardly a picture of mental health, but the single most destructive influence in his life was his cousin Michael, a Vietnam veteran just back from the war who had enjoyed killing and raping Vietnamese women. After his arrest, Richard reported that when he was 12 years old, Michael showed him a series of detailed photographs depicting him raping a Vietnamese woman. It is unclear who took the pictures or if they are authentic, but there is little doubt that they had a markedly deleterious effect on Richard. According to Richard, the last picture in the sequence was of the same rape victim’s severed head, “held by Michael in his hand, positioned so that the victim’s mouth was placed around his penis.” The series of photographs was, in effect, a photographic snuff film. Michael also taught Richard how to shoot a gun, and how to effectively maneuver a knife.

After a few months of this diabolical tutelage, a tragedy occurred:

Richard and Michael were at Michael’s house playing billiards. Michael’s wife Jessie was very angry with her husband, a fight ensued and Michael shot her, right in front of a twelve year old Richard. He then casually told Richard to get out of there before the police arrived, and never to tell a soul what he saw. This traumatic event was locked inside Richard’s mind for an extremely long time. Richard admits that he was especially sexually aroused by the photographs of the rape/murder victim that Michael showed him. He knew it was wrong to feel that way, and he couldn’t talk to anyone about it without getting Michael in trouble. So Michael remained his most special confidant and teacher, until he killed himself shortly there after. Richard continued to practice shooting the gun and wielding the knife until he was arrested.

When Richard turned 18, he moved to Los Angeles where he hit the streets and soon became an alcoholic and a cocaine addict. He and his crew hung out at the bus station. Honing his criminal skills, Richard obtained a master set of keys to Toyota and Honda cars. Each night, he stole a car and drove around Los Angeles looking for houses to rob. His all-around crime skills quickly improved:

Within two years he was robbing up to two homes per night. Once he became a master at burglarizing homes, he decided to up the anti. He began raping women and robbing them when he was through. Eventually Richard’s behavior escalated to include torture and murder. His torture, rape and murder spree was underway.

Although Richard claimed to be under the sway of Satanic influence, he had no specific identifying, ritualistic behavior to leave as his mark at each crime scene. He was no “This Is Zodiac Speaking.” He was rather an all-around murder generalist. Stabbing, strangling, shooting, it did not matter. He was no cannibal nor is there evidence he was fascinated with corpses a la Jeffrey Dahmer. Rather, he was a stone-cold killer, and a county of 10 million souls recoiled in fear as he left his swath of destruction in his bloody wake.

by John Taylor

Netflix delivers a must-see documentary with Making a Murderer. Is it biased? Does it leave out evidence? Yes and yes, but comprehensive and neutral are not what make a great and compelling documentary. Making a Murderer highlights material flaws regarding how many police, prosecutors, and others in authority operate within our judicial system. It begs the question, is the system tilted too far in one direction?

On July 29, 1985, Penny Beernsten was jogging on the beach along Lake Michigan. A stranger grabbed her, dragged her to a nearby wooded area, and sexually assaulted her. When she described her assailant to a Manitowoc County [Wisconsin] Sheriff Deputy, he thought the description sounded like Steven Avery, a local man with a criminal record.

A police sketch artist drew a composite sketch of the perpetrator, but he likely drew the sketch from Steven Avery’s previous mug shot rather than from the victim’s description. Penny Beernsten was shown the sketch and then provided a photo array of possible perpetrators. She picked out Steven Avery and again identified Avery as her assailant during a live line-up. Beernsten’s identification was confident and emphatic.

There was no physical evidence tying Steven Avery to the crime scene or the sexual assault. Regardless, the police arrested Avery based on the victim’s eyewitness identification. At trial, Avery presented over 10 alibi witnesses, including a store clerk who stated Avery was at his store shortly after the attack occurred. For Avery to have been the perpetrator, he had to walk a mile to the nearest parking lot, drive home, load his family into their car [his family was also present at the store], and drive 45 minutes to the store in just over an hour’s time. However, the prosecution successfully refuted the alibi witnesses and demonstrated that Avery could have covered that distance in the allotted time. Based almost exclusively on eyewitness testimony, the jury found Steven Avery guilty of rape, and he was sentenced to 32 years in prison.

In 2003, DNA testing of 13 hairs that were recovered from Penny Beernsten’s assault linked the rape to Gregory Allen, thus exonerating Steven Avery. Avery was released from prison in September of 2003. During the time Avery was in prison, the actual perpetrator, Gregory Allen, raped another woman.

After serving 18 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Steven Avery initiated a civil lawsuit against Manitowoc County and several individuals. During the initial investigation, the police had another suspect in mind, but they chose not to show Beernsten his picture. The police worried it might confuse her. The alternative suspect was Gregory Allen, who was known to law enforcement because he had committed another sexual assault on the same strip of beach where the Penny Beernsten attack occurred.

Sergeant Andrew Colborn of the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office received a phone call in 1995 from a police officer in another county. During the call, the officer told Colborn that Gregory Allen confessed to Penny Beernsten’s rape. Sergeant Colborn told Lieutenant James Lenk, also of Manitowoc County, of the call, but no one acted on this information. There was no documentation of the call until September 12, 2003; the day after Steven Avery was released. On that day, Lenk instructed Colborn to write a report on the 1995 phone call. This information was not discovered until Avery’s civil lawsuit.

As initial depositions were taken for Avery’s $36 million wrongful-conviction, civil lawsuit against various Manitowoc County and several sheriff’s deputies, he became the prime suspect in a homicide. Teresa Halbach, a photographer for Auto Trader Magazine, went missing on October 31, 2005. Her last confirmed destination was the sprawling, 40 acre Avery Auto Salvage yard where she met Steven Avery to take a photograph of a vehicle for sale. After they were unable to locate her for several days, Teresa’s family reported her missing. On November 5, 2005, search volunteers found Teresa’s vehicle [Toyota Rav-4] hidden behind debris among thousands of cars in the salvage yard on the Avery property.

With Steven Avery’s pending $36 million civil lawsuit against Manitowoc County and several of its officers, there was a very clear and obvious conflict of interest. As a result, once Halbach’s Rav-4 was found on Avery’s property, Manitowoc County District Attorney, Mark Rohrer, requested that the investigation be turned over to the authorities in neighboring Calumet County. The Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office was not to be involved in Teresa Halbach’s missing person investigation or any derivative thereof.

Based on the discovery of the Rav-4, the police obtained search warrants for the property and various buildings and houses located nearby. On November 6, 2005, Teresa Halbach’s remains were found in a fire pit on the Avery property. The police also found two weapons linked to Steven Avery; and as a result, arrested him on November 9, 2005 for possession of a firearm by a felon.

As the search of the Avery property continued, police collected additional circumstantial evidence against Steven Avery with regard to Teresa Halbach’s murder. Police discovered Steven Avery’s blood inside the Rav-4. While searching Steven Avery’s bedroom, police also found Teresa’s Rav-4 key, later determined to have Avery’s DNA on it. During a later search, police found a bullet casing in a garage on the Avery property with Teresa Halbach’s DNA on it.

It is not clear how assurances that Manitowoc County would not be involved in the Halbach investigation were completely disregarded and ignored. Regardless, Manitowoc County Sheriff’s deputies were present on the day the Rav-4 was found and during all of the searches of the Avery property and buildings. Further, almost every critical and compelling piece of evidence against Steven Avery was found by a Manitowoc County Sheriff’s deputy. The appearance of impropriety emanated from the investigation. Why were individuals who had been deposed as part of Steven Avery’s civil lawsuit collecting evidence against him?

Investigative bodies are supposed to be disinterested in the outcome or direction of a criminal investigation. Even under the best of circumstances, police officers have engaged in dishonest activities that materially affected judicial outcomes. However, Manitowoc County’s blatant disregard for how their involvement would be perceived, significantly and adversely impacted the impartiality and credibility of the evidence collected.

To further muddy the waters, two men who were specifically named in Avery’s civil lawsuit, Sergeant Andrew Colborn and Lieutenant James Lenk, found key pieces of evidence. Both men had significant motivation to incriminate Steven Avery. Avery’s arrest for murder would impair his credibility in the lawsuit. However, Avery’s arrest resulted in a far better outcome: he was forced to settle the lawsuit for a fraction of what he was seeking [$400,000], in order for him to pay his legal defense.

Colborn and Lenk clearly recognized the perception issue and conflict of interest they were engaging in. So it begs the question, why were they searching Steven Avery’s house and property for evidence? Their involvement could have compromised the entire investigation and possibly allowed a killer to go free. Based on their role in preventing Avery from getting out of prison years earlier and their prominence in the civil lawsuit, their actions should be viewed skeptically, as they would benefit materially from Steven Avery’s undoing.

When the police initially searched a garage on the Avery property, eleven .22 shell casings were found. After several other searches and almost six months later, an additional .22 shell casing was located in the same garage containing trace amounts of Teresa Halbach’s DNA. Due to the small amount of DNA recovered, only one sample could be tested. During the testing process, the technician contaminated the sample with her own DNA. Though according to protocol, the technician should have reported the results as “inconclusive,” she ignored standard procedures and concluded the DNA sample matched Teresa Halbach.

Finding Teresa Halbach’s DNA on a bullet casing implied that Steven Avery shot her while in the garage. However, the police did not find a single drop of blood or even a hair follicle from Halbach in the garage. Further, there was no blood anywhere in the garage, including the cracks in the concrete floor, which would have been nearly impossible (certainly improbable) for Avery to clean up.

The Rav-4 key police found in Steven Avery’s bedroom was discovered in plain view. Yet, his small bedroom had been searched six times prior and no one saw the key. The officers present claimed the key fell from behind a desk after one of them shook it.

Police found Steven Avery’s blood in the Rav-4. Suspecting the police may have planted the blood evidence, Avery’s attorneys pulled Steven Avery’s blood evidence (vial) from his 1985 rape case file. When the county clerk presented the box containing the vial, the evidence tape had been cut and replaced with plain tape. No one had signed the evidence form indicating they opened it. An unknown person had opened the box containing Avery’s vial of blood. When the attorneys viewed the vial, they noticed a pin hole in the top of the vial, which the testing agency claimed they would not have done. It was also later determined that Manitowoc County officers had access to the evidence room.

Initially, Steven Avery had a partial alibi in his 16 year-old nephew, Brendan Dassey. The investigators who talked to Dassey, Tom Fassbender and Mark Wiegert, were not Manitowoc County Sheriff’s deputies. Fassbender worked as an investigator for Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation and Wiegert was a sergeant with Calumet County Sheriff’s Department. These two investigators interviewed Dassey several times. Dassy was reported to have a 70 I.Q. and his reading proficiency was well below average. [Steven Avery was also reported to have a 70 I.Q.] From viewing interviews and reading transcripts, it is quite evident that Dassey lacked basic intelligence and social skills, though he mainly came across as shy and lacking in confidence. Regardless, the investigators guided him through numerous confessions involving Teresa Halbach’s murder.

The investigators bullied and lied to Dassy. [It is acceptable for police to lie to witnesses and suspects.] Dassey’s incriminating statements appeared to be nothing more than a regurgitation of information provided by the detectives. Many of Dassey’s statements to police implicate Steven Avery in the murder of Teresa Halbach. However, at one point during the documentary Dassey is seen asking him mom what the word “inconsistent” means and then admitted his answers were guesses at what the police were trying to uncover.

The interviews of Brendan Dassey consisted of two adults in positions of authority leading a young boy with low-intelligence to their desired outcome. He was helpless to their persuasion. At one point during an interview, Dassey described how he and Steven Avery raped and stabbed Teresa Halbach on his uncle’s bed and then killed her in the garage. Yet, there is zero forensic evidence to substantiate these assertions. As one of Avery’s attorneys stated, “It simply could not have happened the way Dassey described it.” Though many of Dassey’s statements are incriminating for both him and Avery, it is hard to place much emphasis on his “confessions.” With the deliberate leading of Dassey by the investigators, his low IQ, and his ever-changing stories, there is little reliable information to be gleaned from his hours of interviews. However, the police perceived these interviews as additional proof of Avery’s guilt, though ultimately the prosecution decided not to use any of Dassey’s statements against Steven Avery.

Based on his incriminating statements, the detectives arrested Dassey on March 3, 2006. At that point, he was assigned a public defender by the name of Len Kachinsky. Prior to even talking to his client, Kachinsky held a press conference where he essentially acknowledged that Dassey was guilty. Kachinsky’s next step was to allow this minor, with below average intelligence, to be interrogated again by police detectives outside of his presence. It is hard to conjure up any justification for allowing this “interview” to take place. As if Kachinsky had not violated enough of his client’s rights, he hired an investigator, Michael O’Kelly, to also interrogate Dassey.

During the interrogation, O’Kelly directed Dassey to confess to killing Teresa Halbach; ordered him to draw pictures of the killing, and then called Kachinsky to boast about the confession. As if his professional judgment (and that of Kachinsky’s) could not diminish any further, O’Kelly video-taped the entire interview session. It has never been made clear why Dassey’s own investigator strong-armed him into a taped murder confession.

Due to the conflicts of interest between Steven Avery and Manitowoc County, Ken Kratz, a special prosecutor, was brought in from Calumet County. After one of Brendan Dassey’s confessions, Kratz held a press conference detailing how Teresa Halbach was tortured, sexually assaulted and raped by Dassey and Avery. Kratz’ statements seemed to rob both Avery and Dassey of the presumption of innocence and potentially corrupted the pool of jurors. Kratz’s statements were inflammatory and prejudicial. Further, none of the information he provided to the public was presented during Steven Avery’s trial.

Steven Avery’s trial was moved to neighboring Calumet County. However, other than the prosecutor who was from Calumet County, everyone else came from Manitowoc County. The presiding judge, Patrick Willis, was a Manitowoc County Circuit Court Judge and the jurors were Manitowoc County residents. On March 18, 2007, Steven Avery was found guilty of murder and illegally possessing a firearm, but not guilty of mutilating a corpse.

After Avery’s conviction, Ken Kratz set his sights on Brendan Dassey. Aside from Dassey’s own words, and depending on which of his statements were believed, there was no forensic evidence linking Brendan Dassey to Teresa Halbach’s murder. This is not to say he is innocent; however, if you remove the forced confessions, there is no evidence pointing towards his guilt. Regardless, Brendan Dassey was found guilty of first-degree murder, mutilation of a corpse, and sexual assault on April 25, 2007.

Recent investigations by various news outlets have uncovered information about the Avery jury. Allegedly, one of the jurors was the father of a Manitowoc County Sheriff’s deputy and another was married to a Manitowoc County clerk. One juror claimed that jurors feared reprisal by the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department if they returned a not guilty verdict. Most troubling about the jury, when one juror was asked why he voted guilty, he cited evidence that was excluded from the trial, but was present in Kratz’s televised press conference.

Manitowoc public officials ignored the obvious appearance of impropriety when they pursued Steven Avery as a murder suspect. When Teresa Halbach’s Rav-4 was found, Lieutenant Lenk of Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department arrived at the Avery property before there was even a sign-in sheet for the crime scene. He had access to the vehicle, which was later found to contain Steven Avery’s blood. Lieutenant Lenk found the Rav-4 key in Steven Avery’s bedroom. Further, Lenk was in the garage when the police found the bullet casing with Halbach’s DNA on it, after numerous other searches failed to uncover the casing.

Lieutenant Lenk had the means, motive, and opportunity to plant evidence incriminating Steven Avery. However, there is no clear or direct evidence indicating he or anyone else from the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department tampered with evidence. Yet, due to their conscious decision to be directly involved in Steven Avery’s investigation, they left themselves justifiably open to the accusation. The cloud of suspicion grows with the coincidental facts that almost all of the compelling forensic evidence collected on the Avery property was discovered by Lieutenant Lenk.

Though there is considerable evidence against Steven Avery, much of the evidence ties to the 40 acre property itself, rather than specifically to Steven Avery. The location where Teresa’s car and remains were found and her DNA on a bullet casing in a garage do not point directly to Steven Avery, but rather someone living or working on the property. Numerous other family members lived on the property and several had reputations and histories that should have warranted closer law enforcement scrutiny. Regardless of the fact that the initial evidence pointed toward a location rather than a specific person, Manitowoc County exhibited tunnel vision with regard to Steven Avery.

By providing compelling evidence that Manitowoc County deputies likely planted evidence, Steven Avery’s attorneys may well have sealed his guilt. Jurors may have realized exactly how far the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department was willing to go in order to administer retribution. They had already helped put Steven Avery in prison for 18 years for a crime he did not commit. With the support of The Innocence Project, considerable favorable media coverage, and two of the best lawyers in Wisconsin, Steven Avery was still facing murder charges. When Manitowoc County’s Sheriff was asked about the accusations of planting evidence, he responded that, “it would have been easier to kill Steven Avery.” Jurors had to be thinking about what would happen to them if they made Manitowoc County look bad again.

Though Steven Avery’s innocence is far from certain, through actions and poor decision-making by individuals in the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Department, there is clearly reasonable doubt. It is reasonable to think Manitowoc County may have done something unprincipled. It is reasonable to believe Manitowoc County may have sought vengeance against Steven Avery, even if only to ensure his guilt.

Brendan Dassey was not a victim of Manitowoc County, but of over-aggressive police tactics. Dassey is not a credible witness, not even against himself. Without corroborating evidence, there is significant doubt regarding his guilt. However, just because there is doubt does not mean he is innocent. It just does not meet the legal standard. The detectives who interviewed him twisted and turned his mind so much that he probably does not know or remember what he actually did on the night Teresa Halbach went missing.

The real injustice falls upon Teresa Halbach’s family and friends. They must cling to the belief that the persons responsible for Teresa’s murder were held accountable, but they too must have doubts, due to the highly questionable decisions and actions by the authorities in this case. Judgments regarding Avery and Dassey’s guilt or innocence are far from a certainty, but the means which law enforcement utilized to achieve their convictions can and should be judged negatively and suggest a disturbing degree of impropriety that cannot be justified.
Works Cited:

Abad-Santos, Alex, and Lopez, German, “Netflix’s ‘Making a Murderer:’ the case of Steven Avery, explained,” Vox, http://www.vox.com/2016/1/8/10734268/netflix-making-a-murderer-avery, January 23, 2016.

Beernsten, Penny, The Forgiveness Project, http://theforgivenessproject.com/stories/penny-beernsten-usa/, March 29, 2010.

Cleasby, Sam, “The 12 WTF moments in ‘Making a Murderer,’” Metro, http://metro.co.uk/2016/01/05/the-12-most-wtf-moments-in-making-a-murderer-5600879/, January 5, 2016.

Grubbs, Jefferson, “This ‘Making a Murderer’ Timeline Shows Steven Avery’s Long History With Law Enforcement,” Bustle, http://www.bustle.com/articles/133321-this-making-a-murderer-timeline-shows-steven-averys-long-history-with-law-enforcement-infographic, January 21, 2016.

Kertscher, Tom, “’Making a Murder’ compelling, but is it a game-changer for Steven Avery?” Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/making-a-murderer-compelling-but-is-it-a-game-changer-in-steven-avery-case-b99647809z1-364794271.html, January 10, 2016.

Nededog, Jethro, “’Making a Murderer’ Prosecutor Admits 2 Crucial Mistakes in the Case Against Steven Avery,” Business Insider, http://www.businessinsider.com/making-a-murderer-prosecutor-mistakes-2016-1, January 5, 2016.

Thomas, Michael, “Looking at the ‘Evidence’ in the Steven Avery case,” Exposing the Truth, http://www.exposingtruth.com/looking-at-the-evidence-in-the-steven-avery-case/, December 29, 2015.

Thompson, Christie, “Penny Beerntsen, the Rape Victim in ‘Making a Murderer,’ Speaks Out,” The Marshall Project, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/01/05/penny-beernsten-the-rape-victim-in-making-a-murderer-speaks-out#.7ENv3kVHF, January 5, 2016.

Innocence Project, Steven Avery, http://www.innocenceproject.org/cases-false-imprisonment/steven-avery.

Making a Murderer, Netflix, December 18, 2015, https://www.netflix.com/title/80000770.

Reddit Inc., https://www.reddit.com/r/MakingaMurderer/comments/41rre7/steven_avery_jury_trial_transcripts_are_now/accessed January 2016.

WSAW Staff, “Steven Avery case: What did the court documents say?” WSAW, http://www.wsaw.com/content/news/Steven-Avery-case-What-did-the-court-document-say-364171451.html, January 5, 2016.

Click below to view John W. Taylor’s previous intriguing posts:

The Deep Sleeper – Darlie Routier’s Plight for Innocence

Drew Peterson – A Legend in His Own Mind

Not How It Was Supposed To Go: Joanna Madonna and the Murder of Jose Perez

John W. Taylor writes in the true crime genre at www.truecrimewriting.com. He has written short pieces and articles on the death of Marilyn Monroe, JFK, and Martin Luther King, Jr., among others.  John wrote and published Umbrella of Suspicion: Investigating the Death of JonBénet Ramsey and Isolated Incident: Investigating the Death of Nancy Cooper in 2012 and 2014, respectively. 

John’s interest in the darker side of human nature has compelled him to conduct numerous research and writing projects on various unsolved crimes.  He currently resides in Raleigh, North Carolina. 

 by Amy Lane, January 29, 2016

This Infographic, which Amy Lane of Instant Checkmate has very kindly invited All Things Crime Blog to share,  reveals the True Timeline behind The People Vs. OJ Simpson!

Here is the link in case you wish to be magically transported to their website: https://www.instantcheckmate.com/crimewire/oj-simpson-timeline-infographic/

by Pamela Stewart

“It’s difficult to accept that Tim was just a guy, a regular average guy who loved his family and his friends, who worked hard. It is difficult to accept that this regular average guy did a regular average thing, which so many do on a daily basis, and it tragically cost him his life. ”

Tim Bosma’s wife, Sharlene felt compelled to give this explanation at her husband’s memorial service because people had been speculating that Tim must have done something or known something that got him killed. As Sharlene said at the service, this type of thing doesn’t happen in Canada and it doesn’t happen to regular people like Tim.

What Tim Bosma did, was post his 2007 black Dodge Ram 3500 pickup truck for sale on the online classified websites, Kijiji and Autotrader.

On May 6, 2013, at approximately 9:20pm, the 32-year-old Ancaster, Ontario man left his wife and two-year-old daughter at home to take two men on a test drive. He never came back.

Four days later, Hamilton Police Services found his cellphone in the town of Brantford, approximately 16 miles (26kms) from the Hamilton suburb where Tim resided. Police were able to track the cellphone of the individual who had made the call about the vehicle. They also contacted another man who was selling his truck and had taken the two men for a test drive a day before Tim went missing. He provided a description of the men. One of them had a tattoo on his wrist of the word “ambition” framed in a box.

That same day, police arrested a Toronto man with this same tattoo. Dellen Millard, 27, was charged with forcible confinement and theft over $5,000.

Millard had no previous criminal record.  He came from a well-known aviation family.  In 1963, Millard’s grandfather, Carl founded chartered airline Millardair Ltd. When Carl died, his son Wayne, a former Air Canada pilot took over and transitioned the business to aircraft maintenance and servicing, now known as Millard Air Incorporated.

Wayne died in December, 2012. His death was ruled a suicide.  Dellen wrote his father’s obituary. It’s a compelling tribute if you don’t read between the lines, or you haven’t heard the latest news in the tragic Millard saga.

Dellen Millard seemed like the perfect choice to revive the family business after his father’s death. The younger Millard made news when he was 14-years-old by becoming the youngest Canadian to fly both an airplane and helicopter solo on the same day.

Millard lived in a wealthy Toronto suburb in the family home that sold for $1.2 million last July. He owned a number of other properties, including a downtown Toronto condo, a six-unit apartment building and a farm property in Ayr, near Kitchener-Waterloo. Millard had fast cars, and he could afford to buy a new Dodge Ram pickup truck, but this wasn’t about a truck.

On May 12, Tim’s vehicle was located inside a trailer parked outside the home of Dellen Millard’s mother, Madeleine Millard, in Kleinburg. The trailer was registered to Dellen Millard’s business.

It was on Millard’s farm that Tim’s burnt body was found on May 14. Millard was charged with first-degree murder. An incinerator was found on the farm property and seized by police.

Millard’s accomplice, Mark Smich, 25, was charged with first-degree murder on May 15.  Smich had previous convictions for drug possession, impaired driving and a charge for mischief related to some graffiti.

The police believed that there was a third suspect who had followed them as they rode in Bosma’s vehicle, but there were no further arrests.

Shortly after the arrests, police took another look into Wayne Millard’s death. They also reopened an investigation into the disappearance of Laura Babcock. Laura had been a former girlfriend of Dellen’s. She was last seen in Toronto’s west end on June 26, 2012 by her ex-boyfriend, Shawn Lerner.

Babcock was reported missing on July 14, but police have reason to believe she was murdered around July 3, 2012. Police aren’t saying what evidence they have, or if they found her remains.

On April 10, 2014, Toronto and Hamilton Police Services announced that they were laying new charges in the death of Laura Babcock. Millard and Smich have been charged with first-degree murder. Millard has been charged with the first-degree murder of his father, Wayne. Millard’s current girlfriend, Christina Noudga has been charged with being an accessory after the fact in Tim Bosma’s murder. The investigation, called Project Capella is ongoing. Police refused to take questions at the press conference.

Millard’s crimes came to light because of a family man’s attempt to sell his truck online.  Tim’s widow, Sharlene is left mourning her husband and she doesn’t understand the motivation behind his death. No one knows why someone with such potential would allegedly kill for thrills or to get rid of people he didn’t want around anymore.

Last month, some of Millard’s possessions started showing up on Kijiji. The contact listed on the ads is Shane Schlatman, who had appeared in some of Millard’s Facebook photos. There was a 1975 Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight Royale Convertible, a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible, a Jeep Dana 35 rear axle and a 1997 Tigershark Monte Carlo.  Those look like some sweet rides, but Millard is going to spend the rest of his life looking in the rear view mirror.

Click here for Pamela Stewart’s previous post exposing Toronto Mayor Rob Ford:

Calling Rob Ford: Where’s the Humor in Mayoral Malfeasance?

Pamela Stewart is a freelance writer and former private investigator. She lives north of Toronto in Jackson’s Point. This lakeside town is the kind of place where people don’t lock their doors. It’s a safe space for Pamela to explore the dark side of life in her fiction and nonfiction. She also writes about more pleasant things when the sun is shining.

compiled by Patrick H. Moore

On February 6, 1943, the famed film actor Errol Flynn, after a month-long trial, was acquitted of the rapes and statutory rapes of Peggy Satterlee and Betty Hansen. The jury deliberated for 13 hours before returning with their unanimous not guilty verdict. According to Trove, Flynn, who had been uncharacteristically subdued throughout the lengthy ordeal, shouted gleefully upon hearing the good news:

Gosh! I feel like whooping!

We’re not sure if “whooping” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse but it certainly sounds like one.  What is known is that while the trial was going on, Mr. Flynn was pursuing and romancing 18-year old Nora Eddington, a teenage redhead who was the lobby cigarette girl at the courthouse. Flynn, who was never shy about expressing himself, explained:

I carefully checked her age. She was eighteen, safe ground. Her name, it turned out, was Nora Eddington.  What I didn’t know was that her father was Captain Jack Eddington of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office.

Flynn later married Nora Eddington, but like his other marriages, it was doomed to fail.

The  jury forewoman, a Mrs. Anderson, explained that during the 13 hours the jury was out, there were seven votes of 10 to 2 in favor of an acquittal. Finally, however, the two “hold- outs” capitulated. While all this was going on, Flynn literally could not  sit still and “lit one cigarette after another while rising from his chair and sitting down again.”

Naturally, the courtroom went wild when the verdict was finally read.  In addition to shouting about the joys of “whooping,” Flynn“jumped from his chair and rushed across the court-room to the jury and shook hands enthusiastically with the forewoman and others. Spectators cheered and crowded around Flynn and thumped his back.”

The Judge stated that he believed that the evidence was evenly divided but that  he felt the verdict was correct.

Flynn, who has been accused of many things including having Nazi leanings, commented in an interview:

It’s wonderful news. I did not become an American citizen for nothing. The fair play I received at this trial proves that. My confidence in American justice kept me hoping for such a verdict.

Peggy Satterlee said: “I knew those women would acquit him. They just sat and looked adoringly at him as if he was their son or something. The trial was an awful strain and the verdict horrible. I wish they had taken Betty Hansen and left me out. I was working and minding my own business.”

Given Errol Flynn’s “skin of his teeth” escape, not unlike his many magnificent escapes in his swashbuckling films, one can’t help but wonder who his adversaries were. Who were Peggy Satterlee and Betty Hansen?

Sir! A Magazine for Males, October, 1954, brings us this on Flynn and the two young ladies:

It seems that Flynn got entangled with two lovely young things at two different times in the space of a year. One was a Miss Betty Hansen, aged 17; the other a Peggy Satterlee of even more tender years.

The girls were irked with Flynn and their parents were irked with him. The State of California, having been duly applied to, decided to try him for both charges at one and the same time.  The public, to say the least, never had it better.

Flynn claimed that the whole thing was ridiculous; although he knew the girls, he had no knowledge that they were under 18. Flynn had a point. Both young women appeared to be of the age of legal consent:

Miss Satterlee danced at N.T.O’s Florentine Gardens, clad mostly in a plunge neckline, and Miss Hansen had come to the coast with movie ambitions.  When dressed for the kill, they could, both of them, have been an attractive pair of youngish grandmothers, what with their warpaint and mascara.

Satterlee and Hansen, however, hardly looked like “youngish grandmothers” in the courtroom. No doubt their attorneys had advised them on the need for innocent presentation:

Miss Satterlee appeared without even powder, clad in a little girl’s billowy dress and flat wedgies, and she had her hair artfully rigged in two long braids down her back caught with fetching bows.

She could have been ten. And Miss Hansen, also eschewing cosmetics, wore flat heeled shoes and a plain drab smock.

Miss Hansen was the first to take the stand. She claimed to have gone to dinner at the home of Flynn’s friend, McEvoy, where she had been given an “evil green drink” which had made her very sick. Always the gentleman, Flynn had taken her upstairs to take a “nap.” He had also helped her undress. On cross-examination, Flynn’s lawyer, the famed Jerry Geisler, inquired of Miss Hansen:

“But when you found you were not going to sleep, didn’t you try and push him away?”

Miss Hansen admitted she had not pushed him, kicked him or scratched him.

Miss Satterlee’s testimony was similar in nature except, in this case, Flynn’s unwanted advances had taken place on his yacht, the Sirocco. She stated that she had not screamed for help even though there were people nearby. She stated quaintly that she had not thought it worthwhile because: “the refrigerator was running.” With logic like that, it’s not surprising that Flynn was acquitted on both charges. Newsweek (yes they had Newsweek way back then) stated:

It happened in the best Hollywood tradition. The defendant leaped joyfully to his feet.  Spectators cheered. Flashbulbs popped…”

Flynn  was innocent. Not one seemed to be particularly put out over the not guilty verdict, not even Betsy Hansen’s mother who issued a statement from her home in Lincoln, Nebraska:

Oh well, nobody got hurt. I have no hard feeling toward Mr. Flynn. Betty is the cutest little thing you ever saw…a clean little Christian girl!

MORE ON THE TRIAL

Jurors are prone to speaking out following verdicts and the Flynn jurors were no exception. Motion Picture in conjunction  with Hollywood Magazine brings us the following:

What really convinced the jury that he was innocent?

With MOTION PICTURE-HOLLYWOOD’S policy of bringing you the inside story behind all front-page Hollywood news, we went to the individual jurors and asked them. Nine women and three men—all mature, intelligent and conscientious—sat in on the fate of Flynn, but because they are respectable citizens with families and want to avoid the spotlight, we have respected their desire for privacy by not quoting any member by name.

One of the jurors told me significantly, “It was not so much Flynn’s testimony that helped him as it was the testimony of both the girls who brought charges against him.”

“Their testimony proved to us that they were not always telling the truth. For instance, Betty Hansen first said that she undressed herself, and then said that Flynn had undressed her. During the preliminary hearing she said that the alleged act took place on a large bed in a large room, but on the stand she said it was a small bed in an alcove.”

The appearance of the girls did their cases no good either, according to the jurors. “There were no tears, no grief in recalling the alleged acts. We felt that a girl whose virtue had been molested would be unable to control her emotions on recalling the incident, but Betty Hansen and Peggy Satterlee were belligerent and displayed no regret.

“Besides, Mrs. Satterlee knew that her daughter was living in the apartment of a married man and was accepting money and gifts from him.”

“I felt sure,” a pleasant-faced, motherly juror told me, “that Betty Hansen first brought charges against Flynn out of hurt feelings and a sudden desire for revenge, and that when her case was weak, Peggy Satterlee was brought in.”

“Betty, on the other hand, was furious at Errol Flynn because he had paid no attention to her at Fred McEvoy’s party which she had crashed. She had come uninvited to that party with the express purpose of playing up to Mr. Flynn to obtain his help in getting into pictures…”

The jury was alert, not only in weighing every word uttered in court, but in making their sage analysis of the evidence displayed. The snapshots of Peggy Satterlee in a bathing suit taken on Sunday a few hours after she said she was attacked, told them plenty. “She looked happy and carefree, not at all like a girl who had suffered a harrowing physical experience as she had claimed.”

Not a thing missed their keen scrutiny. When Peggy told how she and Cathcart-Jones had played tag one night in a mortuary and how she had placed her face next to that of a dead man, they were revolted and arrived at the conclusion that a girl who could do that must be too calloused to be as deeply hurt as she said she was.

The Judge himself admonished the jurors that a birth certificate need not be viewed as conclusive evidence.

“We never felt that the girls were as young as they claimed,” several jurors explained. “Betty told us that she had been graduated from high school and then had gone to Teachers’ Training for two years before she came to Hollywood. Even a very bright girl—which Betty obviously was not—couldn’t have accomplished so much under the age of 17. Peggy looked and acted worldly; and on many occasions had sworn that she was older. For instance, she and her mother insisted that she was 18 when she applied for a driver’s license, and she said she was 21 when she applied for a job at a night club. Apparently she thought nothing of adjusting her age to suit the circumstances.”

One of the jurors stated that Errol Flynn’s reputation as a glamorous Hollywood star had no influence in her decision to vote for acquittal:

“Believe me,” one of the women told me, “I have seen him on the screen only once. I looked upon him as a man seeking justice, not as a dashing film star with a handsome profile…”

How can one argue with such eloquence?

THE week after Errol Flynn’s trial was over, the boys and girls who attended it and wrote it up gave him a party where the whole cast was re-enacted, amidst much merriment. The party was in payment for one Errol threw for them on the ninth floor of the Hall of Justice, while the jury was out cogitating as to his guilt or innocence. Errol had his butler bring down two cases of liquor and lots of sandwiches, and a merry time was had by all except the judge and jury. Errol also wanted time on the radio to thank the Great American Public for giving him such a fair trial. Networks wouldn’t go for it.

FLYNN’S AFTERMATH

Naturally, we can’t help wondering what happened to Fynn after the trial. It is noted that the well-known expression: “In Like Flynn” stems from his acquittal. The website For Shame! brings us the following:

Errol’s career didn’t really suffer from the trial, but rather from negative public opinion when he didn’t enlist during WWII (sidenote: not his fault, he wanted to, didn’t pass the physical, remarkable considering sword choreography prowess which you’d think the Army could use somehow). By the early 50s he’d really embraced a late-Kerouacian diet of cake and whiskey, resulting in alcoholism and weight gain.

But Errol, the scalawag, the rapscallion, had to go out with an inappropriately younger bang: at the age of 50, he met and fell in love with a FIFTEEN YEAR OLD whom he planned TO MARRY and with whom he planned to move to Jamaica. Very, very unfortunately, Errol died of a heart attack in 1959 before he could really love or marry his little island childbride. Sad.

Although the moralists among us may despise Errol Flynn for his caddish, inappropriate and downright sexist behavior (not to mention his alleged Nazi leanings), he never seemed to express any regrets for his many flaws. But what can you expect from a man who stated in his typically flippant manner:

“I like my scotch old and my woman young.”

by Darcia Helle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Electric Chair Nightmare: An Infamous and Agonizing History

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

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

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

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

Why Should I Believe You? The History of the Polygraph

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

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

The Terror of ISO: A Descent into Madness

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

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

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

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

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

compiled by Patrick H. Moore

Beth Thomas was the angry little girl featured on the remarkable, albeit disturbing, HBO documentary, Child of Rage, which was released around 1990. She suffered from severe Reactive Attachment Disorder.

In an excellent blog post by marilyn4ever, posted on October 30, 2010, Marilyn details Beth Thomas’s story with empathy and apparent clarity. I strongly suggest you read Beth’s post and a second post critiquing a controversial treatment program for RAD called Attachment Therapy, as well as Marilyn’s follow-up post on Attachment Therapy called Beth Thomas, Candace Newmaker and Attachment Therapy Controversy.

(Disclaimer: This information is entirely new to me and I have no informed opinion as to Beth Thomas’s mental health (or lack thereof today) or the pros and cons of Attachment Therapy. I do think the Beth Thomas story and this general topic is quite fascinating and strongly recommend that anyone interested click on the provided links to learn more.)

Part One:

Here is a quick sketch of Ms. Thomas’s early childhood and alleged recovery:

Beth’s mother died when she was one year old. She and her infant brother Jonathan were left in the care of their sadistic father, who sexually abused her to an appalling degree. Beth and Jonathan were rescued by Child Services when she was 19 months old. By this point, she was horribly scarred. Beth and Jonathan were adopted by Tim and Julie, sincere church people, who had no biological children. Shockingly, Tim and Julie were told nothing about the children’s abusive background.

It wasn’t long until Tim and Julie discovered the horrible truth about Beth and Jonathan’s upbringing. Beth had recurring nightmares about a  “man who was falling on her and hurting her with a part of himself.” Beth masturbated several times a day until she bled and had to be hospitalized. She also poked pins into her brother. After some time had passed,  she smashed her brother’s head into the cement floor which required stitches. As Beth admits in Child of Rage in her soft, rather affect-less voice, her desire is to kill her brother. She also wants to kill her adoptive parents. Although Beth is perfectly intelligent and is well aware that her actions are wrong, she experiences no remorse. Based on the mounting danger that Beth is going to kill Jonathan, in early 1989, her parents took her to a therapist named Connell Watkins, who diagnosed Beth with a severe case of Reactive Attachment Disorder and began a course of intensive behaviour modification.

Based on the treatment plan, at first, all of her freedom was radically restricted. She was locked in her bedroom at night so she couldn’t escape or hurt anyone. Beth began to improve and the restrictions were slowly removed. Within one year, she was so much better that she was permitted to share a bedroom with the therapist’s own daughter. Measured by any yardstick, it was remarkable. She learned empathy and remorse and regretted her own cruelties and would weep openly when describing some of the bad things she had done, especially to her brother Jonathan.

Marilyn reports (and I believe many would agree) that Beth Thomas grew into a mentally healthy woman. She studied nursing, earned a degree, and has authored a book entitled “More Than a Thread of Hope.” She and her second adoptive mother, Nancy Thomas, established a clinic for children with severe behaviour disturbances. Nancy Thomas has written a book entitled Dandelion on my Pillow, Butcher Knife Beneath (Coping with Personal Problems). Their website is www.attachment.org.

Part Two:

Connell Watkins and the Death of Candace Newmaker

Although Connell Watkins arguably has done an amazing job of helping Beth Thomas recover from her intense abuse through a regimen consisting largely of strict rules and the gradual earning of privileges, by the time Candace Newmaker’s adoptive parents brought their troubled child to Ms. Watkins for therapy, Watkins had begun using far more controversial techniques including something called “rebirthing”.

The script for that fateful day called for Candace to be “wrapped in a flannel sheet to simulate a womb”. She was then told to extricate herself from the womb, the expectation being that the process “would help her “attach” to her adoptive mother.” What was peculiar about this was the fact that as Candace sought to “extricate herself”, four adults including Connell Watkins “used their hands, feet, and large pillows to resist her attempts to free herself”. It was all videotaped and the evidence shown at trial shows Candace screaming for help and air. Candace repeatedly stated “she was dying, to which Waktins co-therapist Julie Ponder responded, “You want to die? OK, then die. Go ahead, die right now”. At some point, Candace vomited and fouled herself inside the sheet. Her “therapists” still would not let her go.

Some 40 minutes into the session, Candace’s adoptive mother, Jeane Newmaker, asked her: “Baby, do you want to be born?” Candace faintly said “no”. This was the last word she ever uttered.

Julie Ponder responded in frustration, “Quitter, quitter, quitter, quitter! Quit, quit, quit, quit. She’s a quitter!”

Adoptive mother,Jeane Newmaker, felt rejected by Candace’s inability to be reborn and was asked “to leave the room, in order that Candace would not “pick up on (Jeane’s) sorrow”. Ultimately, only Watkins and Ponder were left in the room with Candace. When they finally unwrapped her from the sheet, “she was motionless, blue on the fingertips and lips, and not breathing.” Paramedics were called and were able to restore the girl’s pulse. She was helicoptered to a Denver hospital and declared brain-dead the next day, as a result of asphixia.

At trial, Watkins and Ponder were convicted of reckless child abuse resulting in death. They were each sentenced to 16 years in prison. Jeanne Newmaker pleaded guilty to neglect and abuse charges and got a four-year suspended sentence. Her charges were later expunged from her record. Watkins was paroled in June 2008 after serving 7 years, and placed under “intense supervision” with restrictions on contact with children or counseling work.

*     *     *     *     *

Although I stated at the beginning of this post, that I would not state an opinion on the pros and cons of attachment therapy, after reading about Candace Newmaker’s tragic demise, it’s hard not to. Please keep in mind that Nancy Thomas is Beth Thomas’s second adoptive mother, having replaced the church people, Tim and Julie, sometime after Beth’s recovery.

Marilyn writes in her blogpost, Beth Thomas, Candace Newmaker and Attachment Therapy Controversy:

It is Nancy Thomas’s association with Watkins and Ponder that I find worrisome in her work with Beth (Thomas). Nancy worked with Watkins and Ponder during the Newmaker murder. (It’s not clear what Nancy Thomas did during the death of Candace Newmaker. I see no evidence she was in the room at that time and she certainly was not charged with anything.)

Marilyn points out that Thomas owns two clinics “Families by Design” and “Stop America’s Violent Youth“. As an advocate and practitioner of Attachment Therapy (AT), she allegedly engages in techniques that include “screaming in the child’s face, shaking the child’s head violently, forcing the child to perform-type military exercise, isolation, food deprivation, taunting, rebirthing, and humiliation.”

This is some scary stuff, particularly considering what happened to Candace Newmaker. The fact that Beth Thomas works with Nancy Thomas is also worrisome and perhaps suggests that Beth has never truly moved beyond her own intense childhood trauma and re-visits it — in  a sense — each time she and Nancy Thomas engage in questionable therapeutic techniques with a client. But keep in mind, I am only speculating and I invite you to do the same.

by John W. Taylor

At 3:30 a.m. on February 10, 2009, a 9-1-1 call came into a Putnam County, Florida emergency call center. Seventeen year-old Misty Croslin reported five year-old Haleigh Cummings missing. Misty was the girlfriend of Haleigh’s father, Ronald Cummings. At the time, she was babysitting Haleigh and her four year-old brother, Ronald Junior, while their father worked the night shift.

Misty put the children to bed around 8:00 p.m. She cleaned and did laundry prior to retiring to bed at 10:00 p.m. In the master bedroom of their trailer, Haleigh slept on a small bed about four feet from where Misty slept, while Ronald Junior slept in the bed with Misty. Shortly after 3:00 a.m., Misty awoke to use the bathroom. After noticing the kitchen light was on and seeing the back door propped open, she returned to the bedroom and noticed Haleigh was not in her bed. Misty immediately searched the trailer, but could not locate Haleigh. She called Ronald several times on his cell phone, but he did not answer. Ronald pulled into the driveway about five minutes later and instructed her to call 9-1-1.

Shortly thereafter, the police responded to Misty’s call. They found no signs of forced entry, foul play, or any forensic evidence regarding Haleigh’s disappearance. Further, Ronald locked and secured the back door prior to leaving for work. Haleigh was unable to open the door on her own. She was simply gone.

Several years prior, Ronald Cummings and Crystal Sheffield, Haleigh and Ronald Junior’s mother, stopped dating. Ronald was awarded custody because he had a job with health insurance. A few months before Haleigh’s disappearance, Ronald started dating Misty Croslin. Misty had quit school in the sixth grade and left home by the age of 15. Both Ronald and Misty were allegedly using illicit drugs and fraternizing with individuals who used and supplied drugs. Ronald had been previously arrested on drug charges and was known to have a temper. Child Protective Services had interviewed Ronald Cummings on several occasions.

Several co-workers confirmed Ronald remained at work during his entire shift and his cell phone only pinged off of the cell tower near his job site. With a solid alibi, the police appeared to eliminate him as a potential suspect. However, Misty continued to be a person of interest. Misty was not a good witness. She was young, uneducated, not overly intelligent, and apparently on drugs. The combination likely resulted in confusing and illogical statements and her inability to remember things she should have. These factors may completely explain her inconsistent statements and at times, odd behavior, or they could merely be a complicating factor in trying to fathom what she actually knew.

Misty initially indicated that Haleigh was sleeping in the bed with her, but later stated that Haleigh slept in a bed near her in the same room. She also claimed she tried to call Ronald prior to looking for Haleigh and at other times she indicated that she tried to call him after she searched for Haleigh. The police alluded to other inconsistencies, but this information has not been released. Misty appeared to be withholding critical information.A careful analysis of the 9-1-1 call, suggests Misty made many unusual statements and further demonstrated signs of deception.

The call opened as follows:

911 Operator : 911. What`s your emergency?

Misty Croslin: I just woke up and our back door was all open, and I can`t find our daughter.

Misty stated that “our back door” rather than the back door “was open.” It was an unnatural way to speak. Why did she feel the need to identify possession of the door? No one says, “I let the dog out our back door.” Though Misty is uneducated and typically fails to use proper English, it was not a grammatical error. Misty was not speaking naturally, which can be a sign of deception.

Misty finished her opening statement by saying, “…and I can’t find our daughter.” The use of the “I” likely meant that Ronald had not looked for Haleigh. Though one would have expected Ronald to search the house for his daughter, his first instinct was to elicit help. However, Misty referred to Haleigh as “our” daughter, though this was incorrect. Haleigh was not her daughter. Misty had only known Haleigh for a few months. And Misty and Ronald were only dating at this time.

Next, the following exchange took place:

911 Operator: OK. When did you last see her?

Misty Croslin: We just, like — you know, it was about 10:00 o`clock. We were — she was sleeping. I did cleaning.

Though Misty does not possess a strong intellect and that should be considered when evaluating her responses, this question clearly troubled her. She stopped and started her response and then utilized two stalling responses, “like” followed by “you know.” She then answered the question asked, “It was about 10:00 o’clock.” Again, Misty started and stopped her statement with, “We were…” We do not know whether the “we” referred to Misty and Haleigh [and her younger brother] or if it referred to Misty and someone else. She ended her response by stating, “I did cleaning,” which was unnecessary information. However, Misty felt it was necessary and important. She provided a quasi-alibi, which may indicate Misty felt the need to account for her time.

911 Operator: Ok, what was she last seen wearing?

Misty Croslin: She was in her pajamas. We were sleeping.

Once again, Misty conveyed unnecessary information. She stated what she was doing [sleeping] though the operator did not ask. Misty wanted the police to know she was asleep when Haleigh went missing.

Ronald Cummings was in the background when Misty called 9-1-1. At one point during the call, the operator asked to speak to Ronald and he responded, “I just got home from work, my five-year-old daughter is gone- I need someone here now.” Ronald conveyed to the operator only relevant information and in the order it happened. He walked in the door and found out his daughter was missing. Further, he asked for help. Though he conveyed anger and hostility, he did not exhibit any signs of deception.

Law enforcement primarily focused on Misty, her activities, and the people she most closely associated with. Around the time of Haleigh’s abduction, Misty spent time with her brother, Tommy Croslin, and their cousin, Joe Overstreet. Authorities interviewed both Tommy and Joe based on their proximity to Misty and Haleigh. The police seemed to be less than fully comfortable with what Tommy and Joe told them.

With a five year-old missing and her life possibly at stake, the police had no tolerance for the apparent deception by the participants in this case. The police believed many people knew more than they were saying. Though the police stated that Misty Croslin was the key to solving this case, they also believed Misty’s brother, Tommy Croslin, was withholding vital information.

In 2010, both Misty and Tommy, along with Ronald, were arrested for drug-related offenses. Though not always imposed, many drug-related crimes have the potential for extremely long prison sentences. The police used the threat of significant incarceration as leverage. If Ronald, Misty, or Tommy provided information on Haleigh then they would receive lighter sentences, but if not, they would face maximum terms in prison.

Ronald provided no new information, but he agreed to help in any manner regarding Haleigh’s disappearance. Notwithstanding their previous statements, Misty and Tommy implicated their cousin, Joe Overstreet, in the disappearance and murder of Haleigh. Through her attorney, Robert Fields, Misty claimed that her cousin Joe Overstreet abducted Haleigh while she hid under the covers with Ronald Junior.

A couple of months later, Tommy Croslin provided similar details on Haleigh’s disappearance through his attorney James Werter. Tommy claimed that he and Overstreet went to Ronald’s trailer to get a machine gun. When it was not there, Overstreet became angry and took Haleigh. Tommy claimed Haleigh was already dead when he left the mobile home with Overstreet. He stated, via Werter, that Overstreet forced him to go along as he dumped Haleigh’s body into the St. Johns River.

Conveniently, both Misty and Tommy provided information through their attorneys, which prevented the police from thoroughly vetting their stories. Both conveyed a fairly simple storyline lacking much concrete detail. The simplicity limited the possibility of contradictions in their statements. As a result, little credibility can be placed on their stories. Misty and Tommy managed to avoid any direct responsibility in Haleigh’s murder. They both also claimed an extreme fear of Overstreet was the reason they had never previously told anyone about his actions.

Though it is difficult to conceive of any reasonable explanation for the senseless kidnapping and murder of a five year-old girl, Misty and Tommy’s story defied logic. What does a five year-old girl have to do with picking up a machine gun? Why would someone who was mad at an individual who was not there, intentionally kill the man’s little daughter as retribution? There was absolutely no link between the gun and Haleigh. Further, there was no evidence to support Misty and Tommy’s story.

Joe Overstreet completely denied all accusations against him. He did not try to blame Haleigh’s death on Tommy or Misty, which would have been expected if the three of them were present when Haleigh was killed. He simply denied their accusations.

The Overstreet story arose when the police threatened Tommy and Misty with significant prison time. This was not a coincidence. Law enforcement’s strong-arm tactics inadvertently placed Misty and Tommy into situations where lying was in their best interest. Though their intentions were well-placed and understandable, the police tactics did more to complicate Haleigh’s disappearance than clarify it.

Though young children do get kidnapped, it is a rare occurrence. It is even rarer for a child to be taken from her home in the middle of the night. Haleigh could not have propped the back door open herself; therefore, she was taken by force. There are several possible scenarios that would explain why a young child would disappear in the middle of the night: 1) For ransom, 2) To conceal homicidal violence against the child, 3) To cover up a fatal or near-fatal accident, 4) To conceal abuse or molestation, or 5) She was taken by a loved one.

Nothing about Ronald Cummings demonstrated that he was in a financial position to pay ransom. Further, there was no evidence of anyone attempting to extract or extort anything from Ronald in return for Haleigh. Misty’s version of the story required a stranger to take Haleigh out of her bed while she slept within four feet of an adult. Haleigh was afraid of strangers and the dark. A stranger abduction would have likely awoken Misty. It is unlikely this occurred without Misty’s cooperation.

On the night of her disappearance, someone could have become frustrated with Haleigh and injured or killed her in a fit of rage. Essentially, Misty and Tommy claimed this happened when they attempted to receive lighter sentences by placing the blame on their cousin, Joe Overstreet. However, their stories lacked credibility and supporting evidence.

Though there was no evidence of an accident or that Haleigh was molested, something horrible could have happened to her. One or more persons close to her could have removed Haleigh from the trailer to conceal the initial incident(s). However, it would have required a cover-up.

Though many theories link Misty and one or more of her relatives to Haleigh’s disappearance, it required a cover story. Any cover-up would have required Misty to be the front person. She would have been responsible for explaining (and convincing) to the police what supposedly happened. Misty did not exhibit a strong intellect or confident demeanor. She was only seventeen and lacked the maturity and knowledge of even a typical teenager. She was uneducated and very possibly under the influence of one or more illicit substances on the night of Haleigh’s disappearance.

Misty would have been unable to convey a convincing cover story. There would have been gaping holes in her story. She would have constantly contradicted herself. Her version of events would have immediately crumbled. However, this did not happen; there were only minor inconsistencies in her statements. In multiple television interviews, Misty’s story stayed materially the same. If she made up the story, there likely would have been obvious changes as she forgot what she said during previous interviews and statements.

The police believed Misty was lying to them and withholding information. This may have been true, but Misty’s weak intellect, drug use, or other factors affecting her mental acuity could have come across as deception. Things that almost anyone in her situation would have known, she did not know. When asked why she had inconsistencies in her statements, Misty simply responded, “I don’t know.” If Misty intentionally lied and concealed the murder of a young child, she would probably have had an answer to this question. There were many reasonable explanations, but she could not come up with a single one.

Why did Misty feel the need to provide alibi information during the 9-1-1 call? She likely knew on some level that the police would want to know what she was doing during the evening and night. How did she let this happen? She may have been asking herself the same question.

The vast majority of child abductions involve a parent. Since Ronald had an alibi and already had custody of Haleigh, he should have been excluded early on. However, Haleigh and Ronald Junior’s mother, Crystal Sheffield, lost custody of her children. Haleigh’s mother or another close relative could likely have pulled Haleigh from bed, without her resisting. With the back door of the trailer propped open, the person who took Haleigh may have intended to return for Ronald Junior, but something could have prevented her from re-entering the trailer.

There is no evidence however, that Crystal Sheffield or any other family member abducted, murdered, or currently has custody of Haleigh. Although the police immediately zeroed in on Misty and her family, did they adequately vet Crystal and her close friends and relatives? Could they still be hiding her out of fear that if found, she would be returned to her father?

Haleigh is currently still missing, but the police consider this case a homicide. They continue to focus on Misty Croslin and the discrepancies in her story.

Ronald Cummings is currently serving 15 years on drug charges. He received a reduced sentence because he agreed to testify in future cases related to drugs or Haleigh’s disappearance. Tommy Croslin is also serving a 15 year sentence on drug charges and Misty Croslin is serving 25 years for a single count of trafficking Oxycodone. As for Joe Overstreet, the police still consider him a person of interest in Haleigh’s disappearance.

Haleigh Cummings disappearance came on the heels of the disappearance and death of Caylee Anthony. As in the case of little Caylee, Haleigh’s disappearance has captivated American true crime followers, including Nancy Grace, who interviewed Ronald Cummings and even, according to some, developed a friendship with him. Sadly, given the present state of what is essentially a stalled investigation, we will probably never know what really happened to Haleigh Cummings.

Works Cited:

Friedman, Emily, “Police Say 5-Year-Old Haleigh Cummings is Dead, Identify Persons of Interest in Case, ABC News, http://abcnews.go.com/US/investigators-missing-girl-haleigh-cummings-dead/story?id=10393476, April 16, 2010.

LaSalle, Lisa, “Haleigh Cummings Was Once Lost but Now She Is Found,” The Trouble with Justice, http://www.thetroublewithjustice.com/haleigh-cummings-was-once-lost-but-now-she-is-found-2/, July 5, 2014.

Treen, Dana, “Misty Croslin attorney: She told who took Haleigh Cummings,” The Mayport Mirror, http://mayportmirror.jacksonville.com/news/crime/2010-08-17/story/misty-croslin-attorney-she-told-who-took-haleigh-cummings, August 10, 2012.

Treen, Dana, “New, chilling details in the case of Haleigh Cummings,” The Florida Times-Union, http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-08-19/story/new-chilling-details-case-missing-girl-haleigh-cummings, August 19, 2010.

Treen, Dana, “A year since Haleigh vanished, Ronald and Misty lost their way long ago,” The Florida Times Union, http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-02-07/story/a_year_since_haleigh_vanished_ronald_and_misty_lost_their_way_long_ago_1#, February 7, 2010.

Staff Report, “Timeline of events in Haleigh Cummings case,” The Gainesville Sun, http://www.gainesville.com/article/20100413/ARTICLES/100419756?p=1&tc=pg, April 13, 2010.

Transcript, CNN, Nancy Grace, http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1209/21/ng.01.html, aired September 21, 2012.

Victim’s Heartland, Crime and Current Events Forum, http://victimsheartland.forumotion.com/t1758-transcript-of-911-call-to-report-haleigh-cummings-missing

Unknown Author, “Attorney: Croslin’s Cousin Killed Haleigh,” News 4 Jax, http://www.news4jax.com/news/attorney-croslins-cousin-killed-haleigh, August 20, 2010.

Misty Croslin prison interview, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8glLJjVQLHY, published March 17, 2012.

Click below to view John W. Taylor’s previous intriguing posts:

“Making a Murderer” Sparks Public Outrage (as well it should)

The Deep Sleeper – Darlie Routier’s Plight for Innocence

Drew Peterson – A Legend in His Own Mind

Not How It Was Supposed To Go: Joanna Madonna and the Murder of Jose Perez

John W. Taylor writes in the true crime genre at www.truecrimewriting.com. He has written short pieces and articles on the death of Marilyn Monroe, JFK, and Martin Luther King, Jr., among others.  John wrote and published Umbrella of Suspicion: Investigating the Death of JonBénet Ramsey and Isolated Incident: Investigating the Death of Nancy Cooper in 2012 and 2014, respectively. 

John’s interest in the darker side of human nature has compelled him to conduct numerous research and writing projects on various unsolved crimes.  He currently resides in Raleigh, North Carolina. 

by Bob Couttie

Murders at sea may be the stuff of seafarers tales but they do happen. When three mysterious deaths occur in just a few weeks aboard a ship under the command of a self-confessed gun-runner and allegedly physically abusive master intent on preventing complaints by his crew from reaching the authorities, it is inevitable that the possibility of murder will be taken seriously.

Like any other random event, accidents can and do happen in clusters that suggest a pattern, even when there is no common link between them. Such may be so in the case of the fatalities aboard Sage Sagittarius, a Panama-flagged bulker of 73,430 gross tonnes built in 2001. It will be up to a New South Wales Coroners Court to determine whether the deaths need further investigation by police authorities.

Master Venancio Salas

Prior to the deaths, the vessel’s master, Venancio Salas, ran a sideline selling guns to the crew, which they would be expected to buy from brochures for more than $600. Weapons would be delivered to crew members’ homes in the Philippines when their contracts ended.

For one man, Jessie Martinez, who worked in the mess under chief cook Cesar Llanto, it was not a happy ship. He was being bullied because he was gay and Captain Salas was among his tormentors. Martinez also claimed that he was forced to work overtime for free. It was his first contract at sea.

Jessie Martinez

Martinez sought Llanto’s support, who promised to speak to the master about the bullying. Egged on by an oiler, Raul Vercede, Martinez decided to write a letter of complaint to the Australian authorities and the ITF. Llanto was not in support of the complaint.

On 30 August 2012 as Sage Sagittarius approached the Australian coast and the opportunity to send the complaint got closer, Martinez changed his mind, but he was worried that Vercede would inform the authorities of the complaint and went to the ship’s bridge to inform the master and chief officer. Llanto also spoke to the master on the bridge.

Harassment at Sea

An audio of that recording should have been stored on the ship’s voyage data recorder, VDR. Master Salas told the inquest that he could not remember doing anything to the VDR.

That day Llanto disappeared and is assumed to have gone overboard. His body has never been found despite search and rescue efforts.

Executives for NYK expressed concern: “NYK Tokyo has organised crisis management to fix this incident because there is a few possibility of murder,” wrote one in an email. NYK dispatched Kosaku Monji, a safety superintendent, to board the ship, make inquiries and to try and settle a rattled crew.

Salas told the crew to throw away any gun brochures they had.

A maritime accident investigator from Australia’s Transport Safety Bureau became suspicious and alerted law enforcement agencies.

Australian Federal Police, AFP, boarded the vessel at Port Kembla, New South Wales. It was assumed that the ‘murder’ email was an error in translation.

Martinez and Vercede, together with three other crew members, departed the ship at Port Kembla and were flown out of Australia.

Hector Collado

Chief engineer Hector Collado was scheduled to leave the vessel at Newcastle and he was worried. He told his wife that he was being targeted and followed. In his final conversations, he said he was fearful and afraid and asked to be picked up at Manila airport with a different car than usual. He had been helping the deceased Llanto with a problem, he told them.

The AFP had just a few hours to interview the crew and collect forensics samples before the ship departed for Newcastle where they would continue the investigation. One man they thought knew more than he had already told them was Hector Collado.

They did not get that opportunity to further interview Mr. Collado.

As the vessel busied itself taking on pilots and organising for the arrival in Newcastle, the engine room crew heard a bang and found Collado on the engine room floor having fallen 11 metres.

Again the AFP, and this time the New South Wales Police, had limited time to do their work.

Forensics personnel found a trail of blood leading to the rail over which Collado had fallen. An autopsy confirmed that Collado had a cut to the back of his head, sustained before he fell.

There was a new crew waiting at Newcastle and most of Sage Sagittarius‘s officers and crew were flown to the Philippines, leaving a largely new group to take the vessel to Japan. The vessel left for Japan with a cargo of coal and superintendent Kosaku Monji still aboard.

On the morning of 6 October while the vessel was discharging cargo, Monji was found dead. He had apparently tried to fix noisy feeder conveyor rollers and had been caught and dragged into the equipment. An investigation published in 2013  concluded:

Master Venancio Salas leaving Court

“It is probable that the accident occurred because (Monji) was trapped in the roller while lubricating the Roller in the feeder conveyor passage after being informed that the roller were making an abnormal noise again, as the Roller were to be lubricated every three hours after SI managed to stop the previous abnormal noise in the feeder conveyor by lubricating the Roller without stopping the operation of No.1 while the vessel was unloading coals from the cargo holds by operating No.1 at Kudamatsu Coal Transshipment Terminal i n Tokuyama – Kudamatsu Port.”

Monji’s death was not in the jurisdiction of the New South Wales Coroners Court.

The court completed hearings on 19 February and its findings are awaited.  It may decide the deaths were accident or misadventure, unlawful killing, suicide or an open verdict.

The story of the Sage Sagittarius is far from over.

(Reproduced by permission from Maritime Accident Casebook)

by Thomas Davidson

Literary genius supports aggrieved gorilla?

“Many years later, as he faced a firing squad of military biplanes, King Kong was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover the unpolluted beaches of Skull Island.”

— Gabriel Garcia Marquez, New York Times, 1933 (Op/Ed letter from Marquez, a five-year-old Columbian boy)

Tomb of the Unknown Mojo

Across the street from Arlington National Cemetery is a plot of land roughly the size of a parking spot at a supermarket lot. Here, weeds surround a small, stone obelisk. This may be the least-visited national monument in America. This is the Tomb of the Unknown Mojo. These words are chiseled onto its plaque: What were you thinking? The inscription refers to any entitled, aggrieved sphincter whose inner mojo is so batshit, it defies human comprehension, except in court. Even God doesn’t know what makes these people tick.

Here’s a recent showcase of Unknown Mojo mayhem, compliments of The Huffington Post:

15 Shocking Florida Stand Your Ground Cases

Cases include: “Man Retreating From Fight Shot In Back Of Head, 2007; Man Kills Robber Who Stole Car Radios, Then Sells Radios, 2012; Neighbor Shoots Man In Stomach Over Trash Bags, 2006; Neighbor Kills Man In Front Of His Children In Dog Dispute, 2009; Man Fires At Utility Workers Collecting Unpaid Bills, 2009.”

Here’s a sample.

Man Kills Lover Having Sex With Wife, 2012

“In Brandon, 70-year-old Ralph Wald walked in on former neighbor Walter Conley having sex with Wald’s wife. After fatally shooting Conley, Wald claimed that although Conley had lived nearby, he did not recognize him and thought a stranger was raping his wife. Wald was acquitted after a two-hour deliberation.”

Visitors at the Tomb of the Unknown Mojo wonder if Walter would still be with us if, say, Mrs. Ralph Wald looked up from the pillow and said to her husband, “Ralphie, look who’s here.” If you’re in the neighborhood and don’t have time to stop at the Tomb, feel free to drive by and toot your horn. A quick beep is your way of saying, “Ralphie, get some glasses.” Or, “A neighbor who shoots a man in the stomach over trash bags has gone totally apeshit.” Speaking of apes…

On a summer night in 1933, Mr. Kong stood on the sidewalk on Fifth Avenue, staring, eye-level, through a set of windows on the tenth floor of the Empire State Building. He hugged the skyscraper. Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) was in his hand. Her throat was sore from screaming. What followed should have sent a shock wave through American jurisprudence, and set a sane precedent for Stand Your Ground. But it was ignored. And now, eight decades later, the Huffington Post reports: Man Fires At Utility Workers Collecting Unpaid Bills.

We have gone from noble victim, King Kong, to…

“Miami’s Ernesto Che Vino fired at two Florida Power & Light workers who had entered his yard to cut power due to unpaid bills. A judge tossed out two counts of armed assault and one count of improper exhibition of a firearm, saying that under Stand Your Ground, Vino had a reasonable fear for his life.”

Ask yourself: Would Mr. Kong lose it over an unpaid bill and cap a utility worker? Unlikely.

How small we’ve become. Is the universe shrinking? In his paper: A Universe Without Expansion, Christof Wetterich, a theoretical physicist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, discusses a cosmological model “where the universe shrinks rather than expands during the radiation and matter dominated periods.”

Imagine Wetterich, hired as an expert witness for the defense, testifying in court: “In a collapsing universe, mass increases, thus trash bags increase in value exponentially, and must be defended at gunpoint. Without trash bags, uncontained trash swells. America will be on the brink of a trashapocalypse. Trashageddon awaits. Should rubbish get into the wrong hands …”

Meanwhile, back in Midtown Manhattan, Kong put Ann Darrow on his shoulder, and began scaling the skyscraper. Floor by floor. A growing crowd gathered below. Shouts and sirens filled the air. Someone with a bullhorn said, “You’re under arrest, Kong. Stop right there. Let go of the building, and put your hands behind your head. Set your chin on a window sill to keep from falling. And spread your legs, don’t ask me how. I repeat—put your hands behind your head.”

Screw that, Kong kept going. Who wouldn’t? Kong had been gas bombed and abducted from Skull Island, shipped to New York, and shackled on a Vaudeville stage with no cut of the action. Who wouldn’t pop chains, haul ass, and shimmy up a skyscraper?

The decline of labor unions at the worksite leads to this.

 On 12/18/12, the Huffington Post reported:

Man Shot After Complaining About Little Caesars Pizza Service, 2012

“Randall White ordered a thin-crust veggie pie at a Little Caesars restaurant in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Sunday and complained about the slow service. He didn’t get his pizza faster, but he did get two bullets in the gut, the Tampa Bay Times reports.

According to the paper, Michael Jock, another customer, told White to pipe down. That led to shoving, and when White, 49, raised his fist, Jock, 52, allegedly pulled out a legally concealed .38 revolver and shot White in the stomach. The two men wrestled and Jock allegedly shot White again. According to the Sun-Sentinel, Jock told police the shooting was justified under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, but he was arrested for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.”

Kong kept climbing. Ann Darrow kept screaming. On the 41st floor, a man with a brown bottle stuck his head out an open window and said the magic words, “Pipe down!” He staggered back when he saw the mountaineer.

Floyd spots a really big voyeur

 Kong paused. Through the window, he saw a man dressed in a double-breasted suit coat and no pants. Urine ran down his pink legs. A woman behind him said, “Holy crap, my husband knows. He sent a gorilla to check up on us. Don’t just stand there, Floyd, do something. Stand your ground!”

Floyd grabbed her arm, twirled, and launched her toward the window, creating a distraction. Then he ran for the elevator. The authorities needed to be alerted.

Floyd alerts the authorities

Kong continued his ascent. Far below, the mob in the Midtown streets looked like the trashapocalypse. Meanwhile, 23-year-old Eve McHale attempted to leap to her death from the 86th floor observation deck. She fell through the air, heading for a limousine parked at the curb.

A second chance awaits

Kong’s furry shoulder got in the way, saving her life. Her suicide note fell from her pocket and drifted downward toward the upraised faces in the horde. Kong reached for McHale and dropped her through an open window on the 45th floor. In a show of support, Ann Darrow flashed a fist pump by the window. Then the beauty and the beast ascended out of sight.

Everyone knows what happened next. Kong put Ann Darrow on a lower ledge, then STOOD HIS GROUND atop the Empire State Building. A squadron of military biplanes swooped on Kong. He swatted one plane out of the sky, but the others raked him with machine gun fire. Wounded, Kong fell through the air, 103 stories. In the final scene, a policeman said the airplanes got him. “It wasn’t the airplanes,” the movie’s filmmaker famously replied. “It was Beauty killed the Beast.”

Or Kong died because his inner mojo wasn’t totally messed up. Cause of death: incurable level-headedness.

Let’s end the story where we began—with the words of little Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his letter to the New York Times: “The skyscraper has over 100 floors. Each story has people. Some are alone, peeved, super-antsy. The Empire State Building is like, well, 100 floors of solitude. As King Kong fell, seeing each floor flashing by, I wonder if some putz stuck his head out a window and yelled, ‘Pipe down—or else!’ I wonder if those were the last words Kong heard as he zoomed toward history. Who knows? Rest in peace, King Kong.”

WARNING

Thomas Davidson is the author of two quirky thrillers, THE MUSEUM OF SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCES and PAST IS PRESENT, and a collection of humor, BOTCH CASSIDY & THE SUNDUNCE KID. He’s never used a plastic fork to attack customers inside a pizzeria, even when they’re loud and try to hog all the paper napkins from the napkin dispenser.

Click below for his recent posts for ALL THINGS CRIME BLOG.

Bermuda Triangle Spawns the George Washington Bridge Scandal?

The Mega Mack-Daddy of Illegitimate Daddies

The Art of Telephone Ju-Jitsu

Up – astral crime fiction

Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army Meet Paul McCartney — The Secret Link?

Botch Cassidy & the SunDunce Kid Hit the Home Depot

How the Little Drummer Boy Saved Christmas

website — www.thomas-davidson.com

blog — www.jurassicjim.blogspot.com

twitter litter — @TomDavidson99

Noted crime fiction writer and blogger, Suzanne Jenkins (author of the Pam of Babylon series and the Greektown Trilogy), asked me to write a post concerning the Making and Selling of Cicero’s Dead. It was posted today, along with a tremendous introduction by Suzanne, on her Blog.  http://suzannejenkins.net/patrick-h-moore-making-selling-ciceros-dead/

It’s once again time for Cicero’s Dead, Patrick H. Moore’s award-winning crime novel to be given away free (for 3 days — March 21 to March 23) to the deserving American (and international) readership. Enjoy!

Many thanks to my courageous publisher and editor, Max Myers, and my spiritual advisor, Chaplain Michael D. Sellers (try getting a cliche past this guy :-).

And a special thanks to everyone else who has helped with All Things Crime Blog and Cicero’s Dead including (but not limited to) Darcia Helle, Peter Prasad, John Nardizzi, Max Myers and my latest discovery, Suzanne Jenkins (great fiction writers I’ve been privileged to read); Lise LaSalle, BJW Nashe, Darcia Helle and the late Starks Shrink (fantastic past contributors to ATCB), and John W. Taylor, Bob Couttie and Jared Keever (esteemed past and current contributors).

I also want to thank everyone who has posted a review of Cicero’s Dead on either Amazon or Goodreads. The modicum of success we’ve enjoyed would not have been possible without your reviews.

by John W. Taylor

Lester and Ruth Rupard lived in the small, rural town of Banner Elk, located in the western mountains of North Carolina. Their adult son, Dennis, died in a car accident in 1961. When Dennis’ son, James Rupard, was born two months later, Lester and Ruth adopted and raised him.

There were no outward indications of trouble in the Rupard home. However, on September 25, 1978, at 10:00 a.m., several nearby construction workers spotted two men running out of the Rupard home. The first one wore a robe and the second carried a rifle. As the first individual stopped and turned toward his pursuer, the second individual fired two shots into him.

Shortly thereafter, James Rupard, who was 17 at the time, ran to a neighbor’s house claiming somebody shot at his grandparents. The neighbors summoned the local Sheriff’s Department. When the police arrived, they discovered Lester Rupard dead in the yard and Ruth Rupard dead in a bedroom.

When the police entered the neighbor’s house, they found James Rupard lying on a couch. During initial questioning, a police officer asked Rupard why he shot his grandparents. He responded that they were too strict. They were making him go back to school, and he hated school. Rupard told an officer that he threw the gun into a pond. Based on Rupard’s statements, the police searched a nearby pond. They discovered a 30-30 rifle and a .22 caliber pistol. It was later determined through testing that Lester was shot twice with the 30-30 rifle and Ruth had been shot five times with the .22 caliber pistol.

During trial, Rupard changed his story. He denied having anything to do with his grandparents’ murders. He indicated that he had been sick for about a week. Rupard described himself as having an amnesia-like event regarding his grandparents’ murder. His most contemporaneous memory was of him running across the lawn with a gun in his hand. He also remembered hiding his bloody clothes under a rock, but he had no recollection of shooting his grandparents.

The jury did not believe Rupard’s new version of events. After only three hours of deliberation, they found him guilty. He was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences. However, on appeal, his sentence was reduced due to his juvenile status. He ended up serving 15 years in prison and was released in 1994.

The following year Rupard relocated to Scotland County, which was about two hundred miles to the southeast, but still in North Carolina. Though significantly more populated than where he was raised, Scotland County still exudes a rural, country feel. By moving to a new area, Rupard was able to start over with no one knowing about his violent past.

Prison appeared to cultivate James Rupard’s altruistic side. Shifting his focus toward helping others, he became a minister and served as a pastor for Sandhills Community Church. Rupard volunteered at a nearby fire department. He also volunteered at a firefighters’ association and the American Red Cross. Many Scotland County residents described Rupard as one of the nicest people you would ever meet.

As Rupard immersed himself into the community, he began taking on additional roles of trust. He received his insurance license and sold annuities, as his murder conviction went undetected. He also oversaw funds for various firefighter organizations and fulfilled various fiduciary roles. Rupard became a respected member of the community.

In 2008, Rupard requested a reimbursement check of $26,121 from the fire department’s treasurer. Rupard claimed to have paid for department equipment with money from his own business. The treasurer viewed this as a questionable business practice. As a result, he investigated all of Rupard’s activities within the fire department. The probe netted the unthinkable to those who knew Rupard. The treasurer uncovered many irregularities and some potentially fraudulent acts.

Rupard initially denied the allegations, stating, “I am not aware of any intentional wrongdoing, either by myself or anyone else. I will be glad to answer any questions asked, and will cooperate fully, if contacted.” With Rupard’s many positions of responsibility in the community and his charming manner, most people were initially skeptical of the accusations. However, as more information from the investigation became public, it became apparent that it was not a single lapse in judgment, but numerous, sophisticated fraudulent schemes against various organizations and individuals.

Rupard began his fraudulent activities within a local volunteer fire department in 2001. When he set up a bank account, he forged the signatures of the department’s treasurer and secretary. He moved money in and out of the account with impunity. He wrote many checks to himself and to his personal firm without justifiable business purposes. Prior to relinquishing his position, he closed the account and opened a new account, thus preventing his replacement from having access to previous bank statements or account activities. Rupard also sold annuities, without actually creating the annuities. To further conceal his illegal activities, Rupard generated fake statements depicting monetary gains made by the annuities. In actuality, he pocketed the money; there were no underlying investments. When he was eventually stopped, Rupard had already stolen over $100,000.

In early 2015, Rupard pled guilty to multiple counts of: embezzlement, malfeasance of a corporation, and obtaining property by false pretense. Rupard is currently in prison for his crimes, but he is expected to be released from prison in May of 2016. At that time, he will be on extended probation until he makes full restitution to his victims.

After entering his guilty plea, Rupard made the following statement:

“From a biblical standpoint, my actions were absolutely sins. From a legal viewpoint, they were criminal. I lived with a false sense of comfort that, because I had no intention of stealing anything permanently, only using it and replacing it, that I was not sinning, that I was not breaking any laws or rules.”

Rupard acknowledged that his actions were wrong, but claimed his intentions were misguided rather than willfully destructive. Was James Rupard merely moving funds in an attempt to cover personal financial deficiencies? Did he simply take advantage of his fiduciary position? Rupard described his scheme as, “[a] constant state of juggling.” Many of Rupard’s deceptive activities involved the shuffling of funds between accounts. However, Rupard took significantly more money than he replaced.

When he left prison in 1994, Rupard had spent nearly half of his life, and all of his adult life, incarcerated. Upon leaving prison he sought out roles where he could help others. There was a seven year period before Rupard began his fraud. Rupard initially appeared to exit prison completely rehabilitated.

Most criminals begin with lesser crimes and slowly progress toward more serious offenses.  Usually the progression includes increased frequency of criminal acts and greater violence as the perpetrator becomes more confident. However, Rupard transitioned from two violent murders to “white collar” crimes, where he used his cunning and charm to manipulate rather than taking by sheer force.

Initially, Rupard’s explanation for his abuse of his corporate positions seemed genuine. He was caught in a downward financial spiral with limited options of escape. However, his justification for his actions does not hold up under scrutiny. Had his fraud schemes not been uncovered, there was no indication that he would have stopped on his own. Further, not only did he defraud organizations, he also took advantage of individuals, some of whom he knew personally. Rupard manipulated an elderly woman into signing over her savings and then went back a second time when he realized she had more money. Rupard exhibited the behavior of a financial predator, not a calculating schemer. He identified weakness and then exploited it.

When the media reported on Rupard’s various fraudulent activities, the people of Scotland County turned on him. He was no longer a cherished member of society, but one engulfed by public rage. People who initially embraced Rupard’s sincerity, ultimately, were deceived. After his arrest, Rupard’s friend, Randy Blackburn, bonded him out of jail. He was willing to look past Rupard’s indiscretions and help someone he considered a friend. Blackburn supported him and allowed Rupard to live with him. He was Rupard’s only ally. However, Rupard could not avoid temptation. He stole one of Blackburn’s checks, issued it to himself, and then forged Blackburn’s signature. It ended their friendship.

It is unlikely James Rupard moved to Scotland County with the intention of defrauding its citizens seven years later, as much of his behavior appeared to be pure impulse rather than intricately plotted. To the citizens of Scotland County, Rupard’s life seemed normal and carefree, but once again something snapped inside him. Fortunately, for this small, close-knit community, his latest frenzy was one of theft, not murder. Upon Rupard’s upcoming departure from prison, how long will it be before he exploits others, and if he does, will it be through deception or violence?

Works Cited:

Brown, Tonya, “Man Accused of Stealing Cash from Firefighter Association,” ABC15News, http://wpde.com/news/local/man-accused-of-stealing-cash-from-firefighter-association?id=353636, September 22, 2009.

Hensley, Matthew, “North Carolina: Pastor’s 30 Year Old Double-Murder Conviction Shocks Many,” Clergygonewild, Laurinburg Exchange, http://clergygonewild.com/violence/43-murder/278-north-carolina-pastors-30-year-old-double-murder-conviction-shocks-many September 17, 2009.

Murphy, Mary Katherine, “Ex-firefighter Pleads Guilty to Embezzlement,” Richmond County Daily Journal, http://yourdailyjournal.com/archive/7120/news-news-152470852-ex-firefighter-pleads-guilty-to-embezzlement, July 29, 2015.

State v Rupard, Supreme Court of North Carolina, 299 N.C. 515 (N.C. 1980), Casetext, https://casetext.com/case/state-v-rupard, 2016.

Click below to view John W. Taylor’s previous intriguing posts:

“Making a Murderer” Sparks Public Outrage (as well it should)

The Deep Sleeper – Darlie Routier’s Plight for Innocence

Drew Peterson – A Legend in His Own Mind

Not How It Was Supposed To Go: Joanna Madonna and the Murder of Jose Perez

John W. Taylor writes in the true crime genre at www.truecrimewriting.com. He has written short pieces and articles on the death of Marilyn Monroe, JFK, and Martin Luther King, Jr., among others.  John wrote and published Umbrella of Suspicion: Investigating the Death of JonBénet Ramsey and Isolated Incident: Investigating the Death of Nancy Cooper in 2012 and 2014, respectively. 

John’s interest in the darker side of human nature has compelled him to conduct numerous research and writing projects on various unsolved crimes.  He currently resides in Raleigh, North Carolina. 

by Frankie Rendón

Public consciousness is collectively enthralled by the media circus, elusive events, bizarre behavior and often gruesome details that surround highly publicized crimes. Most mesmerizing, however, are the perpetrators responsible for committing these dastardly deeds.

With our eyes glued to TV screens watching the criminal proceedings unfold, we wonder: “What might prompt someone to act so irrationally? What circumstances drove them toward that brink?” Then, there’s the classic “nature versus nurture” debate. Were they psychologically predisposed to violence, or are environmental factors to blame?

Regardless of the catalyst, these infamous individuals share one commonality: they can all trace their felonious roots to the Pacific Northwest — a stage set for newsworthy yet horrifying scenarios.

Ted Bundy

Among the most notorious serial killers in American history, Ted Bundy has been linked to 36 murders on-record. Some sources have even alleged that he committed over 100 murders before his 1989 execution at a Florida state prison.

Bundy was born in Vermont then later relocated, along with his mother, to the Pacific Northwest, where he would eventually earn a Psychology degree from Seattle’s University of Washington. Throughout his adolescence, Bundy began exhibiting sociopathic tendencies, marked by a perceived ineptitude when communicating with others. Witnesses have also indicated that, from a young age, he became fascinated by knives and violence.

Reportedly, Bundy’s killing spree was instigated when a college sweetheart ended their relationship. In fact, several of his victims strongly resembled this ex-girlfriend. In 1974, Bundy murdered nine women in Washington and Oregon, while simultaneously attending UW, volunteering with a political campaign and planning to enroll in law school.

Known for his disarming physical features and charismatic pretense, Bundy lured numerous unsuspecting female students to their deaths during his five-year rampage. His criminal activities have even been traced to incidents in Utah, Colorado, Idaho and Florida.

Gary Ridgway

Dubbed the “Green River Killer,” based on his pattern of dumping corpses along the Green River, Gary Ridgway ultimately confessed to 71 murders. He was active throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, managing to elude capture until 2001.

Ridgway embarked on his killing spree in 1982, during which time, he preyed on female prostitutes and runaways. Also demonstrating necrophiliac behaviors, Ridgway often visited his victims’ burial sites to have intercourse with their bodies. Following a conviction on 48 counts of aggravated first-degree murder, this assassin received a life imprisonment sentence.

In order to escape execution, Ridgway cooperated with detectives in locating the unaccounted for victim remains. He is currently isolated at USP Florence Supermax prison, but will soon transfer to Washington where he can be more “accessible” for open murder investigations.

D.B. Cooper

Given the pseudonym “D.B. Cooper” by media outlets, an unidentified man infamously hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft on November 24, 1971. After extorting $200,00 in ransom from the passengers, he parachuted away and vanished into the Northwestern wilderness.

Nine years after this hijacking, a young boy uncovered three cash bundles along the Columbia River, north of Portland. Totaling $5,800, with serial numbers matching Cooper’s stolen loot, federal investigators determined this was most likely ransom money.

D.B. Cooper himself remains at-large, however. Although he presumably did not survive his skydive escape, FBI authorities still cannot trace this individual’s whereabouts. In fact, over 40 years later, his true identity continues to be shrouded in mystery.

Mary Kay Letourneau

Convicted of child rape in 1996, former schoolteacher Mary Kay Letourneau served over seven years in prison for sexual relations with a 13-year-old student named Vili Fualaau. Throughout their illicit affair, she became pregnant twice.

At this time, Letourneau had a husband and four children, but the marriage was reportedly in shambles. Following her sentence completion, Letourneau and Fualaau said “I do,” and have since been married for 10 years. Currently, the couple is petitioning to remove her name from Washington’s sex offender registry.

These criminals have undeniably earned reputations for wreaking havoc on numerous lives, leaving  harmful consequences in their wake, and capturing public attention in the process.

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Can you think of any other notorious Northwestern convicts we forgot to mention? Tell us in the comments section below.

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Ron Goldenberg is the manager of Seattle Lockmaster, a 24 hour locksmith service company that offers residential, automotive, and commercial services throughout the greater Seattle area.

This post was originally published on acclaimed indie novelist Suzanne Jenkins’ author website ( http://suzannejenkins.net/ ) on March 16, 2016. Suzanne has very kindly permitted us to re-post it here on All Things Crime Blog.

  Cicero’s Dead

Note from Suzanne: My reading time is limited because of my own writing schedule, but I know I must continue to read! It’s paramount as a writer to keep words dangling in front of my eyes at all times. If a book doesn’t catch me right away, I hate to admit, I’m one of those who won’t continue reading. But I continue buying. My TBR pile is about a year behind.

I waited for Cicero’s Dead to be published last year and grabbed it as soon as it came out, putting it in line to read. Finally, last weekend I earmarked hours to sit with it, savoring every word. I couldn’t put it down. I did my own work quickly, looking forward to digging in with Nick and his cartel of interesting characters. You can read my review here. The main thing that appealed to me about this work is it’s ability to transport me. I was there with Nick.

Did you watch Southland? It was probably the best cops series and it hooked me. There was something about the light, maybe because they filmed in the late afternoon with low sun illuminating, the Spanish architecture and the palm trees in the worst neighborhood…making it just beautiful. That’s they way this book made me feel.

Meet Patrick Moore, author of Cicero’s Dead.

A few words about myself and then we’ll delve into the making and selling of my first novel, Cicero’s Dead. First, although I’ve lived in California (currently L.A.) for more decades than I care to remember, I’m originally from the Heartland. I came of age in the tumultuous sixties, barely survived the hedonistic seventies; worked like a dog and got a damned good education in the eighties (I hold an M.A. in English and America Literature); taught school and worked in Silicon Valley in the nineties; and trumpets fanfare moved to L.A. in 2003 and went to work as a P.I. for the legendary Jack Snow, a private eye and Federal sentencing consultant.

Before moving to L.A., I felt like I’d already spent half my life on the streets, but once I was in harness with Crazy Jack, the streets were right back at me. L.A. produces every conceivable type of criminal (they come in all shapes, sizes, races, ethnicities, genders, personalities, degrees of underhandedness, degrees of righteousness, etc.) and over the last 13 years, I’ve defended hundreds of them.

The U.S. is a nation of cops. We have cops at every level: local cops, county sheriffs, D.A.s, federal prosecutors (known as AUSAs); FBI, DEA, Secret Service, IRS, ICE, etc. Cops commit crimes at more or less the same rate as the rest of the criminal population which means I’ve had the opportunity to defend plenty of cops who were fighting for their freedom (if a cop, or anyone else in this dark and bloody land, can ever truly be free).

What I’ve learned is that not only do cops and regular criminals commit enough crimes to keep those such as I employed; they also tell lies at about the same rate. By “lies” I mean untruths, half-truths, fibs, prevarications and outright whopper. Therefore, as the man in the middle, my job is to, sift through this writhing tissue of subterfuge and figure out how to get my clients shorter sentences. Because, make no mistake, most of these dudes and ladies, do end up in the slammer. The question is for how long?

Working in this milieu, part of my job was to write high-quality legal briefs. I became, in effect, a professional investigator and true crime writer, writing persuasive legal documents in the King’s (Queen’s?) English. From there, it was a natural progression to delve into crime writing. I read a couple of successful crime writers, Dennis Lehane and James Lee Burke, and went to works. Six years later, after countless edits, re-writes, permutations, commutations and resuscitations Cicero’s Dead was published by my courageous publisher and editor Max Myers of U.S. Indie Books. Max has been selling screenplays to Hollywood for many years and is the award winning author of Boysie Blake: Problem Solver, a suspense thriller set in Los Angeles.

Just to give you a flavor of Cicero’s Dead, here a couple of review snippets:

“Cicero’s dead under mysterious circumstances, and his wife has supposedly committed suicide. Their son Richard is missing and their distraught daughter Jade hires private detective Nick Crane to find her brother and unravel the troubling series of deaths. So Nick Crane goes to work. The pages turn quickly as he clashes with drug dealers, biker gangs, high powered lawyers and a psychotic murderer. At the same time, he must confront maybe his toughest adversary of all, temptation. There are so many twists and turns, and never a dull moment or a wasted page. Crane is brilliant as he uncovers the truth.” – Sanford Perliss, criminal defense lawyer.

“Jade wants to find her brother. Her dad, Cicero Lamont, has died mysteriously. She needs help. She calls LA’s newest hardboiled detective Nick Crane. Crane uncovers motive and opportunity like a surgeon wielding a Glock. His colorful sidekicks add accuracy and flavor to this hard-edge thriller. Prepare for lean, direct storytelling about tough, cynical characters that dance from LA to San Francisco. Author Patrick H. Moore, a seasoned private investigator and crime writer, crafts an elegant first novel, soon to be followed by another Nick Crane thriller. Five stars. It pays homage to the classics and turns up the heat on what you expect from a hardboiled who-done-it.” – Peter Prasad, author, Gut-Check Green.

Before publishing Cicero’s Dead in 2014, for two years I ran All Things Crime Blog, a true crime and crime fiction blog. I was blessed to have numerous talented writers writing for the Blog and I wrote a daily post. I built a Facebook following and a twitter following. In this process, I was instructed by Michael Sellers, an experienced blogger, chaplain and the author of John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood. I’ll never forget his words of advice. “You have to build your following brick by brick.”

I followed Chaplain Sellers’ advice to the “T” and in time the Blog became quite popular. It was a lot of work and a very tumultuous time because unlike crime fiction fans, who are largely a congenial lot, true crime fans love to get down and dirty at the drop of a hat. My ears are still burning from some of the cyber-attacks.

The purpose of the Blog was to use it a stepping-stone to selling books when I published Cicero’s Dead. You know what they say about “the best-laid plans” and I was to discover that it would generate, at most, meager book sales. It was incredibly helpful nonetheless because I met a lot of great people, many of whom were crime fiction writers. Thus, old Patrick H., a loner by inclination, found himself interacting in a group of readers and writers for the first time since he’d graduated from college 25 years ago.

Cicero’s Dead was published in November of 2014 and everything was hunky-dory, or was it? Yeah, it looked like we had a pretty decent book, but we still faced a major roadblock—how in the name of everything holy were we going to sell this rather unholy book?

Sixteen months later we have sold a lot of downloads. I don’t want to say how many but it’s a very respectable number. Close to half a million NORM pages of CICERO have been read by Amazon Premium customers. On good days, 5 or 10 Amazon premium readers read the whole damned thing on their kindles. So the book has done all right for a first indie novel.

The vast majority of the reader/reviewers are American women of all ages. Many of these highly literate ladies are voracious readers. For the most part, these women approve of CICERO and give it high rankings. But there are that thorny and persistent group of reviewers (male and female) who hate it and blast it with a “1” or a “2”.

In closing, what I want to share here are the simple steps that led to the book doing tolerably well. Please keep in mind that there is undoubtedly a strong element of luck in any book’s success. We authors are legion but some of us are luckier than others (as far as sales). I strongly believe that luck plays a key role in any book’s success.

But you will not get lucky unless you take certain steps. Here’s what we did:

My publisher, Max Myers of usIndieBooks entered CICERO in three or four contests. This costs money. CICERO was a top three Finalist in its category in the 2015 Beverly Hills Books Awards and a Finalist in the 2015 Readers Favorite Book Awards. A good showing in these contests probably does not generate many sales directly but is undoubtedly helpful in the long run. That sticker affixed to your book cover certainly can’t hurt.

Max Myers arranged for editorial reviews. This also cost money. God help you if your editorial reviews are not good. Fortunately, CICERO did fine on this account. I think having a few editorial reviews is a good idea. It looks good on your Amazon page or wherever you are promoting your book.

Reader Reviews: There’s little doubt that strong Reader Reviews are of utmost importance. Here I was lucky because (that little five letter word again) I have a big extended family, many of whom are readers, and I know numerous lawyers and criminal defense people who will gladly read a noir crime novel, especially if it takes place in and around L.A. Getting your first 20 Reader Reviews is like getting hired at that job you’d long coveted or seducing that delightful subject of your desire. Without those 20 strong Reviews, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for a first time author to sell books. Authors should definitely plan ahead in determining how they’re going to obtain those first precious reviews.

Once Cicero’s Dead had 20 Reader Reviews, at the advice of my friend and fellow crime novelist John Nardizzi, a Boston PI and the author of the well-received San Francisco crime novel, Telegraph Hill, I did an inexpensive promotion on Ereader News Today. They are one of the older sites that do this. Not a giant like BookBub, they are nevertheless an effective promotional tool and offer a one-day promotion to their loyal subscribers for less than $50.

Bingo! Cicero’s Dead sold 156 electronic downloads on the day of the promotion. After that, there were steady sales for a few weeks but then things started to slow down and it was time for:

The Amazon KDP Select Giveaway. As a first-time author I opted for KDP Select. Michael Sellers had told me that 80 per cent of all indie book sales stem from Amazon, and that the advantage of going with them exclusively is you can take advantage of the Giveaway. By all reports, it’s not as useful as it once was, but it’s FREE and available. Cicero’s Dead was free on KDP Select for three days in June of 2015. We gave away about 3,700 downloads, a modest figure but in this case enough to trigger steady sales in the aftermath of the Giveaway. For seven months, from June through December of last year, it sold steadily.

Truthfully, I could hardly believe it. For whatever reason, Lady Luck graciously decided to ride in my car for a while. I won’t resort to the cliché of saying I feel humbled, but I do feel extremely grateful. We ran a second KDP Select Giveaway in March of this year.

The reason that, among other things, I’ve focused on the process by which an indie novelist may be lucky enough to sell books is because I want to provide my thimbleful of wisdom in the hope that it might help other worthy authors succeed in this challenging and at times demoralizing arena. I feel very grateful for the modicum of success I’ve enjoyed.

I want to thank Suzanne Jenkins for graciously asking me to write something for her Blog and I hope that readers of this overly long post will not want to tar and feather me, and that a few may even wish to turn the pages, electronically or otherwise, of Cicero’s Dead.

by John W. Taylor

On November 3, 2006, in an upscale neighborhood in Raleigh, North Carolina, Meredith Fisher discovered her 28 year-old sister, Michelle Young, beaten to death. Michelle had married Jason Young a few years prior, and at the time of her death their relationship was already in a perilous state. The Young’s openly fought in public and in front of family and friends. Jason engaged in several extra-marital affairs, and at least one of them was ongoing at the time of his wife’s murder. To complicate matters, the couple had a two year-old daughter, Cassidy, and Michelle was also five months pregnant with their second child.

Around 6:30 p.m. the previous evening, Michelle’s friend, Shelly Schadd, arrived at the Young’s residence. About an hour later, Jason left on a business trip. During the evening, Shelly experienced an “eerie feeling” as if they were being watched. When she left around 10:30 p.m., she had Michelle escort her to her car.

After leaving home, Jason purchased gas and then drove an hour to Greensboro, North Carolina, where he had dinner, finishing at 9:25 p.m. From there, he drove another 90 minutes to his hotel in southern Virginia. He checked into his hotel at 10:54 p.m., and accessed his room two minutes later via his key card. Jason did not use his key card to enter his hotel room again for the remainder of his stay. However, he was seen on a hotel surveillance camera about an hour later getting a newspaper from the front desk. According to Jason, when he left his room he propped the door open; therefore, he re-entered without using his key card. Upon leaving the hotel the following morning, Jason did not talk to anyone or use the front desk to check out, but the police found his hotel receipt during a later search of his vehicle. Since a hotel employee slid the receipt under his door during the night, if Jason did leave his hotel during the night, he returned at some point to collect the receipt.

Based on cell tower records, at 7:40 a.m. the following morning Jason called his mother from the Wytheville, Virginia area, which was about 30 minutes from his hotel and on the way to his business meeting. He arrived at his business meeting in Clintwood, Virginia at 10:30 a.m., 30 minutes late. According to Jason, he got lost during the drive.

After his appointment, Jason purchased gas in Duffield, Virginia at 12:06 p.m., and then left Michelle’s sister, Meredith, a voicemail, asking her to visit his residence. He called her a second time and then had his mother call her with a similar message. Jason inadvertently left papers on the home printer, which would have provided his wife details on his belated anniversary gift for her. Jason wanted Meredith to retrieve the papers before Michelle saw them.

After receiving the voicemails from Jason and his mother, Meredith headed to the Young’s residence shortly after 1:00 p.m. Upon entering the home, Meredith saw what appeared to be red hair dye at the top of the staircase. Turning a corner, she found her sister bloodied and beaten, lying face-down in the master bedroom. She immediately called 9-1-1. As she initiated the call, she saw her two year-old niece, Cassidy, peak out from the covers on the bed.

Meredith described Cassidy as “shockingly clean.” Other than some dried blood on her toenails and on the bottom of her pajama pants, the two year-old was pristine. She was not wet, nor had she soiled her bed. The police saw this as an indication the killer was someone who cared about Cassidy, since she was left unharmed. However, many killers would not harm or kill a child. Even one of the most dangerous men in modern times, Charles Manson, decided against invading a home because children were present.

According to the autopsy report, Michelle Young died as a result of “blunt force trauma to the head and body.” The medical examiner testified that Michelle was struck at least 30 times resulting in a broken jaw, dislodged teeth, a fractured skull, and numerous abrasions and lacerations. The repeated blows also caused Michelle’s pregnancy to terminate. According to the medical examiner, the assailant initially tried to strangle her prior to beating her to death. Investigators estimated the time of death between midnight and 6 a.m. on November 3, 2006.

The police gathered little useful evidence through their investigation. There was no sign of forced entry. The police failed to recover a murder weapon. Whoever killed Michelle, left Cassidy and the family dog unharmed. As a result, the policed focused on the husband. Though their relationship was far from idyllic, there was no evidence directly linking Jason to the murder. The police speculated that Jason planned to obtain Michelle’s four million dollar life insurance policy and pursue a single life-style. However, other than motive, the police lacked evidence. The police did not find blood in Jason’s vehicle, on his clothes, or in his hotel room. Crime scene technicians were unable to find any fibers from Jason’s hotel room in the Young residence. Regardless of the limited evidence against Jason, he lost custody of his daughter to Michelle’s sister, Meredith. He also lost a wrongful death civil lawsuit to Michelle’s family, as Jason never responded to the claim or tried to defend himself.

Over three years after Michelle Young’s murder, on December 14, 2009, a Wake County Grand Jury indicted Jason Young of first degree murder. He went to trial in May of 2011 with the same judge who ruled against him in the wrongful death civil case. After an almost month-long trial, the judge declared a mistrial after the jury deadlocked at eight to acquit, four to convict. Early the following year, the State tried him again, but this time, the jury came to a unanimous decision in just eight hours. Jason Young was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

During the second trial, the State entered evidence that Jason lost, via a default judgment, a civil wrongful death action regarding Michelle’s death. On appeal, the State argued it entered the civil suit as evidence in order to cast doubt on Jason’s testimony from his first trial, which the State chose to introduce (Jason testified during his first trial, but not his second). However, the State’s argument resulted in it impeaching its own evidence. The State also disclosed to the jury that it was the current presiding judge, the Honorable Donald Stephens, who ruled against Jason Young in the civil suit. The Court of Appeals found that the prejudicial impact of admitting this evidence outweighed the probative value. As a result, the North Carolina Court of Appeals unanimously vacated the judgment, thus delivering Jason to his third trial.

In a rare occurrence, the state’s Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal’s unanimous decision, finding that the defendant did not properly preserve his challenge to the admission of evidence. [To preserve an issue for appellate review, a party must present the trial court a request, objection, or motion for the specific grounds.] Thus, it turned out that Jason Young would not obtain a new trial.

Though a jury of his peers convicted Jason, the evidence proving his guilt was somewhat nebulous based on hotel surveillance video and cell tower records, Jason had unaccounted time from approximately midnight until 7:00 a.m. on the morning of November 3, 2006. During this time, the State contended that he drove 160 miles from his hotel to his home, killed his wife, and then drove another 160 miles back to his hotel in southern Virginia. Based on an estimated two hours and 25 minute drive time between the two points, Jason still had two hours to conduct nefarious activities. It was possible.

According to Jason, while staying at the hotel, he left twice without his key card. Both times, he propped open the outer door with a stick to prevent it from locking upon his return. The first time he retrieved a computer charging cable from his car. The second time, after obtaining a newspaper from the hotel’s front desk around midnight, he went outside to smoke a cigar and read a newspaper. Jason then allegedly returned to his room and went to sleep.

In the early morning of November 3, 2006, a hotel employee noticed that an emergency door was propped open with a small rock. Yet, according to Jason’s recollection of events, he returned to his room through this door after smoking his cigar. As a result, the rock should have fallen out of the door-jam when he entered. If not, someone else independently propped open the door after him.

After returning to the front desk, the hotel employee reviewed the surveillance camera near the emergency exit door. It was malfunctioning. A maintenance employee later determined that the camera was unplugged, and the camera’s last image was from 11:19 p.m. the previous evening. He plugged the camera back in at 5:50 a.m. Forty-five minutes later another employee found the same camera pointing toward the ceiling. According to hotel staff, the camera had never been previously unplugged and had only been tampered with one other time.

Around 5:30 a.m., a man in a white sports utility vehicle pulled up to the outer gas pumps at Four Brothers BP in King, North Carolina. The man entered the store to prepay for the gas. According to the store attendant, the man cursed at her because the pumps were not on, and he threw twenty dollars at her. He pumped fifteen dollars’ worth of gas and drove off without collecting his change. She identified Jason Young’s white Ford Explorer as the vehicle in question and Jason Young as the man who yelled at her. Somewhat countering her positive identification, during a deposition, she described the man as “a little taller than her,” though she is five feet tall and Jason is six-foot-one. Further, the witness acknowledged a childhood brain injury that affected her memory.

The King, North Carolina gas station was located approximately 50 minutes from Jason’s hotel and on the direct route between his home and hotel. If he was at the gas station at that time, he would have likely arrived back at his hotel about 10 minutes prior to when the hotel camera was tampered with the second time. However, Jason’s fingerprints were not on the security camera.

The police discovered two distinct sets of bloody footprints near Michelle’s body. One print was made by a size 12 shoe, which matched Jason. Investigators determined that the imprint was made by one of three shoe types; Hush Puppy Orbitals were one of the possibilities. Jason owned a pair of Hush Puppy Orbitals at one time. However, the State never produced Jason’s shoes for comparison. Crime scene investigators also identified a size 10 Air Fit or Franklin athletic shoe imprint. This imprint did not match any of Jason’s shoes nor did it match other shoes tested.

A jewelry box from the master bedroom had two missing drawers and Michelle’s wedding and engagement rings were never recovered, pointing to theft as a potential motive. Partial DNA found on her jewelry box did not match Michelle or Jason. Police found several unidentified fingerprints in the house, though nothing definitively linked them to the murder.

A newspaper delivery person testified that she saw a light-colored sports utility vehicle parked on the street in front of the Young’s residence between 3:30 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. on November 3, 2006. Another woman claimed that she saw a light-colored “soccer mom car” with a white male in the driver’s seat and another person in the passenger seat parked at the edge of the Young’s driveway around 5:30 a.m. on the same date. A third woman, a neighbor, claimed that she saw an empty sports utility vehicle at the edge of the driveway sometime between 6:00 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. There was no indication as to whether these women saw the same vehicle, separate vehicles, or one or more was mistaken in her recollection.

Meredith discovered Michelle wearing sweatpants and a zip-up sweatshirt. According to both Meredith and Jason, Michelle would not have worn an outfit with a zipper to bed, due to the associated discomfort. Investigators placed the time of death at between midnight and 6:00 a.m. If Michelle was not asleep during the attack, it likely occurred either at the beginning or end of the estimated time frame. Yet, with Jason’s established alibi, if he killed his wife then she had to have died in the middle of the estimated time of death. Too early and the hotel’s camera surveillance excluded him. Too late in the morning and he was excluded based on the cell tower data locating him in Virginia.

Jason drove a 2004 Ford Explorer at the time of Michelle’s murder. It had a 22.5 gallon tank and was rated at 16 miles per gallon in the city and 21 miles per gallon on the highway. Upon leaving his home on the evening of November 2, 2006, Jason purchased gas at a location in Raleigh. According to Jason, he then drove from Raleigh to his hotel (stopping for dinner) and from his hotel to his business meeting in Clintwood, Virginia the following day. After leaving his appointment, he purchased gas in Duffield, Virginia. The police found receipts verifying both of these purchases. Driving from Raleigh to Duffield is approximately 350 miles, plus Jason claimed he got lost prior to his business meeting. Based on the Ford Explorer’s gas tank capacity and average miles per gallon, Jason’s travels would have consumed almost all of his gas from the fill-up the previous evening.

The State presented an eyewitness who claimed she saw Jason Young put gas into his vehicle around 5:30 a.m. on the third of November; however, based on the average gas price at that time of $2.23/gallon, fifteen dollars equated to less than seven gallons of gas. With the only other verified gas purchase having been in Raleigh the previous evening, Jason would not have made it to Duffield without requiring an additional stop for gas. For Jason to have driven from his hotel to Raleigh and back in the middle of the night, he would have covered an additional 320 miles. Therefore, if he made this trip, he must have stopped for gas at some point, unbeknown to the police. There were no witnesses or documentation to support this purchase. Without an additional stop for gas, Jason could not have been the killer.

If Jason is innocent, he certainly encountered a lot of unfortunate coincidences. Someone tampered with the camera covering the exit closest to his hotel room not once, but twice. Someone also propped open the emergency exit door next his room. Another man who looked like Jason and drove a similar vehicle, stopped for gas at a location and time consistent with a scenario of Jason having driven to Raleigh to kill his wife.

When police began investigating Michelle’s murder, several of Jason’s friends recommended that he retain a lawyer prior to speaking with the police. He took their advice. After retaining legal counsel, he still refused to speak with police. Unless Jason was legally required to provide something, such as fingerprints or DNA, he flatly refused to cooperate with the police investigating his wife’s murder.

On the advice of legal counsel, Jason also chose not to speak to friends or family about Michelle’s murder. He never spoke to anyone about her murder. With numerous publicized accounts highlighting issues with police interrogation tactics, many would agree with Jason’s cautious stance. Detectives could have coerced or manipulated his statements. The police could have misinterpreted his answers. Further, any information Jason provided the police could have been used against him.

Notwithstanding the risks, Jason could have taken many actions to help the investigators find his wife’s killer(s). He could have agreed to be interviewed by police in the presence of his attorney. When JonBenét Ramsey was killed in Boulder, Colorado, the police almost immediately suspected her parents of involvement. Regardless, John and Patsy Ramsey allowed investigators to interview them. Though they knew the associated risks in agreeing to interviews, they chose to assist the police in finding their daughter’s killer.

Jason Young possessed the most information about his wife’s activities, behaviors, routines, and acquaintances. He could have provided the police with a written statement, reviewed by his attorney, but instead he opted to remain silent. Whatever information he had, he chose to withhold it from the police.  He never even called the police to check on the investigation or even asked his family or friends to contact them on his behalf.

The prosecutor stated regarding Jason Young’s failure to cooperate with the police: “He answered questions (while testifying at his first trial) 1,693 days after his wife’s murder. When he answered questions, he said that he did not kill his wife and that when he went outside the hotel, it was for the purpose of smoking a cigar. How in any way would that have been incriminating?” Only when he faced life in prison did Jason feel compelled to speak regarding the brutal and vicious murders of his wife and unborn child. He spoke, not in an effort to help find the killer(s), but with the sole intent of protecting himself. Based on the limited evidence and off-setting exculpatory evidence, Jason Young may be not guilty. However, based on his selfish actions, he certainly is not innocent.

Works Cited

Average Jane, “Meredith’s 911 Call,” Friction Powered, http://frictionpowered.blogspot.com/2007/02/merediths-911-call.html, February 15, 2007.

Fisher, Jim, “The Jason Young Murder Trials,” Jim Fisher True Crime, http://jimfishertruecrime.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-jason-young-murder-case-going-to.html, December 1, 2015.

Gardner, Kelly, “Jason Young’s Daughter Spoke of Him During 911 Call,” WRAL.com, http://www.wral.com/specialreports/michelleyoung/story/10702549, February 8, 2012.

Gardner, Kelly, “Michelle Young’s Life Was Insured for $4M,” WRAL.com, http://www.wral.com/specialreports/michelleyoung/story/10771883/, February 23, 2012.

Justice for Jason Young, Analysis of the investigation and trial, https://justiceforjasonyoung.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/summary-and-key-facts-of-the-case/, accessed April-May, 2016.

Michelle Young Murder, http://youngtragedy.blogspot.com/2007/02/autopsy.html, accessed April-May, 2016.

North Carolina Court of Appeals No. COA13-586, State of North Carolina v. Wake County No. 09 CRS 19207, Jason Lynn Young, Filed: 1 April 2014.

Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, Report of Autopsy Examination. Autopsy Number: B06-3327, Decedent: Michelle Marie Fisher Young, Date of Examination: November 4, 2006, Dr. Kevin Green, http://www.wral.com/asset/news/local/2007/01/22/1175523/1307321296-scan0001.pdf.

The Supreme Court of North Carolina No. 124PA14, State of North Carolina v. Jason Lynn Young, Filed 21 August, 2015.

WRAL.com, Jason Young Murder Trial Video, June 2011, http://www.wral.com/specialreports/michelleyoung/asset_gallery/10684977/, accessed April – May, 2016.

Click below to view John W. Taylor’s previous intriguing posts:

Murderer, Manipulator, or Do-Gooder? The Many Sides of James Rupard

“Making a Murderer” Sparks Public Outrage (as well it should)

The Deep Sleeper – Darlie Routier’s Plight for Innocence

Drew Peterson – A Legend in His Own Mind

Not How It Was Supposed To Go: Joanna Madonna and the Murder of Jose Perez

John W. Taylor writes in the true crime genre at www.truecrimewriting.com. He has written short pieces and articles on the death of Marilyn Monroe, JFK, and Martin Luther King, Jr., among others.  John wrote and published Umbrella of Suspicion: Investigating the Death of JonBénet Ramsey and Isolated Incident: Investigating the Death of Nancy Cooper in 2012 and 2014, respectively. 

John’s interest in the darker side of human nature has compelled him to conduct numerous research and writing projects on various unsolved crimes.  He currently resides in Raleigh, North Carolina. 

by John W. Taylor

Jeremy Banks and Michelle O’Connell started dating in 2009, after Michelle’s brother, Scott, introduced them. Jeremy worked with Scott as a deputy with the St. Johns Sheriff’s Office in Florida, just south of Jacksonville. Michelle held various odd jobs and had a young daughter from a previous relationship. They were both in their early twenties. Initially, they appeared content with their relationship, but many of Michelle’s friends and family immediately disliked Jeremy. They thought he was controlling and verbally abusive toward Michelle. Though their relationship experienced problems early on, they moved in together about six months later.

On September 2, 2010, Jeremy and Michelle went to a concert with her brother and several friends. Although Michelle planned to end her relationship with Jeremy that night, she still accompanied him to the concert. In a picture taken at the event, Michelle smiles, while Jeremy exhibits an emotion somewhere between disgust and anger. The contrast was unmistakable.

After the concert, two friends came over to Michelle and Jeremy’s home around 10:40 p.m. According to their statements, they remained there for approximately thirty to forty-five minutes. Though the timing is still being debated, shortly after they left, there was a loud “pop.” Fifteen seconds passed and then there was another loud “pop.” Jeremy claimed to be in the garage when he heard the first shot and right outside a locked bedroom door when he heard the second. After kicking the door open, Jeremy called 9-1-1 at 11:20 p.m. The call was routed to the Operations Center for St. Johns County where he was a deputy.

Dispatcher: 911.

Jeremy Banks: Hey. Please get someone to my house! It’s 4700 Sherlock Place. Please!

Jeremy sounded panicked. His emotions exhibited urgency, but his words did not. Though some people will start with a pleasantry, even in an emergency situation, his use of the word “please” was unnecessary. It was a slower and less efficient manner of conveying critical information.

Dispatcher: What’s going on?

Jeremy Banks: Please. Send─ my girlfriend, I think she just shot herself. There’s blood everywhere!

Jeremy again utilized “please.” He followed by saying that he “thinks” his girlfriend shot herself, which meant he did not know what happened. He was speculating or making an assumption. Jeremy ended his response by saying, “there is blood everywhere.” This was a passive statement as he did not identify whose blood it was or where it was coming from.

The dispatcher asked for clarification:

Dispatcher: She what?

Jeremy Banks: She shot herself! Please. [un-intelligible] Get someone here please.

Though Jeremy initially stated that he thought his girlfriend shot herself, he now stated that she shot herself, removing “thinks.” This was a significant change. When prompted a second time, he likely slipped and dropped the unnecessary word, “thinks.” The truth leaked out. He knew what happened to Michelle.

Jeremy utilized please two more times. The excessive use of please seemed to indicate Jeremy did not feel the dispatcher believed him or realized the severity of the situation. Why? People who are deceptive can be overly concerned with ensuring themselves that their audience believes what they are saying. The call continued.

Dispatcher: Ma’am? Ma’am, I need you to calm down.

Jeremy Banks: It’s mister! It’s sir!

Due to the caller’s demeanor, the dispatcher likely thought she was talking to a woman. Regardless, Jeremy reacted quite harshly and unexpectedly. Though there should have been a significant sense of urgency on this call, he took the time to correct the dispatcher. He demanded the dispatcher call him either mister or sir. Addressing a slight to his ego was more important to Jeremy than the ostensible emergency situation.

During the initial portion of the call, Jeremy was crying and hysterical. However, when the dispatcher referred to him as ma’am his tone completely changed. Seconds earlier, he was a grieving and distraught boyfriend, but once his manhood was challenged he became angry. He was highly offended and demanded to be spoken to with respect.

Dispatcher: Ma’am, listen to me─

Jeremy Banks: It’s sir! It’s sir. Listen─ hang on, let me tell you the truth. I’m Deputy Banks with the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office. I work with y’all. Get someone here now!

Jeremy demanded he be called sir. Twice. Though a life-threatening situation prompted the call, he could not help responding heatedly to what he perceived as the dispatcher’s disrespect.

Listen is a word used at the beginning of a statement in order to get the person’s attention. Why would Jeremy not think he had the dispatcher’s full attention? He called 9-1-1. He followed with more unnecessary words, “hang on” and “let me tell you the truth.” He went on to identify himself as “Deputy Banks.” He wanted her to address him as Deputy Banks, not Jeremy. He wanted her to show respect.

During his two responses after he felt he was attacked, he dropped the use of please. It returned, along with his emotions, as he continued answering questions.

Dispatcher: Sir, we’re doing that while talking to you. Is she still breathing?

Jeremy Banks: No, there is blood coming out of everywhere. Please. Please.

He answered the dispatcher’s question with no qualifiers. It was an emphatic no. He did not elaborate on how he knew she was not breathing. He also did not state whether or not he had attempted C.P.R. or any other life-saving measures.

Dispatcher: Jeremy, we’re coming as fast as we can, ok? Calm down for me, ok.

Jeremy Banks: Please, you don’t understand, she just shot herself. Please get them here.

Again, Jeremy did not think the dispatcher understood the situation. Did he realize he had only provided minimal information, or was he overly sensitive because he was not being completely forthright?

When deputies from the St. Johns Sheriff’s Office (“SJSO”) arrived at 11:25 p.m., they found Michelle O’Connell with a gunshot wound through her mouth continuing out the back of her throat. There was another bullet burrowed into the carpeting. Twenty-three minutes later, paramedics pronounced Michelle dead. Deputy Jeremy Banks’ service weapon lay next to her left hand. Based on the circumstances, there were only two options, either Michelle committed suicide or Jeremy killed her. Even though the situation involved a St. Johns’ deputy, his duty weapon, and a possible homicide, the decision was made for SJSO to handle the investigation internally.

Though many of the police officers initially on scene appeared to immediately conclude Michelle killed herself, the possibility of homicide existed. Those in authority within SJSO chose to disregard the clear conflict of interest in this case. The detectives on this case were under tremendous internal pressure to conclude suicide. This was the initial assessment by SJSO deputies on scene. Further, they were investigating one of their own. The investigators were not disinterested parties, as law enforcement is supposed to be; they had clear motivation to resolve this case favorably to the department.

As many officials in the department should have known, suicides are rarely accepted by the family. By handling the investigation internally, SJSO nearly guaranteed it would be scrutinized and second-guessed by the victim’s family and friends. Apparently, this was acceptable to SJSO; however, they did not anticipate a wave of criticism from the media and general public that followed.

During the investigation, SJSO investigators failed to: interview the O’Connell and Banks families; canvass the neighborhood for potential witnesses; collect all the evidence; test the evidence; file reports properly; download Jeremy’s cellphone; or reconstruct the crime scene. The extent of SJSO’s investigation appeared to only include securing the crime scene, taking a few photos, and casually interviewing Jeremy in the back of a police car. SJSO concluded suicide as the cause of death within hours, if not minutes, after deputies arrived on scene. One must ponder, does SJSO handle all investigations in this manner, or did they omit basic, fundamental investigative practices because it involved one of their deputies?

Dr. Frederick Hobin conducted the official autopsy. Michelle’s blood alcohol content was .086, slightly above the state’s legal limit for intoxication, but no other drugs were found in her system. Dr. Hobin found no injuries indicative of defensive wounds. He identified a cut above Michelle’s right eye, which he postulated was a result of an ejected shell casing striking her, though anyone who has fired a semi-automatic pistol has likely been hit by an ejected shell casing without a corresponding injury. Based on his medical analysis and the crime scene information provided by SJSO, Dr. Hobin determined two days after the incident that her manner of death was suicide.

With the autopsy completed, the matter of Michelle O’Connell’s death was considered complete, or so SJSO hoped. Michelle’s family and friends, however, believed she was killed. There were too many unanswered questions and no one close to Michelle thought she was suicidal. The O’Connel’s met with SJSO Sheriff David Shoar to discuss Michelle’s death and request a second, independent investigation. Sheriff Shoar flatly refused their request. Months later, after considerable media attention and numerous website postings criticizing SJSO’s handling of the case, Sheriff Shoar reluctantly authorized an independent investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (“FDLE”). Prior to the investigation, Sheriff Shoar assured his employees that FDLE “won’t find anything” that could lead a homicide indictment in Michelle’s death.

FDLE assigned Agent Rusty Rodgers, a thirty year law enforcement veteran, to the case. Although Sheriff Shoar unenthusiastically allowed the independent investigation, Agent Rodgers aggressively pursued all possible avenues in the case. Within weeks, he discovered witnesses, Stacey Boswell and Heather Ladley, who claimed to hear two shots fired on the night of September 2, 2010 around 11:00 p.m. They were standing outside smoking, a few blocks from the Banks’ residence. Not only did they hear the gunshots, but they claimed to have heard arguing and a woman cry for help in between the first and second shot. According to the witnesses, emergency vehicles arrived about ten to fifteen minutes after the last gunshot. Both witnesses later passed polygraphs pertaining to what they heard on the evening in question.

Based on the witness statements, Dr. Hobin changed his autopsy conclusion from suicide to homicide. He later changed his conclusion back to suicide. Dr. Hobin regularly changed his opinion in this case, but he failed to select the most obvious conclusion when faced with conflicting information: undetermined.

Dr. Predag Bulic was the next to review the medical evidence. He initially considered an exhumation, but then stated it would not produce any further forensic evidence. Dr. Bulic backed the original determination of suicide. Dr. Bulic opined that Michelle held the gun upside down in her mouth, and the gun recoiled forward causing a small flashlight attached to the gun to injure her right eye. Unfortunately for Dr. Bulic, testing of this scenario failed to produce a single instance of the gun recoiling forward. Also, the distance from Michelle’s mouth to her eye injury was three inches, but the distance from the gun to the outer edge of the attached light was only two and 3/16 inches. The light could not have caused the injury. It appeared Dr. Bulic massaged the evidence to fit his theory rather than letting the evidence drive his conclusions.

Based on the testimony of the two witnesses, Agent Rodgers and the FDLE investigators believed a homicide may have occurred. FDLE brought in forensic experts to recreate the crime scene. Most of the evidence and information they collected validated their hypothesis of homicide. Notwithstanding the circumstantial evidence collected, on March 12, 2012, Special Prosecutor Brad King released a statement indicating there was not enough evidence to support a homicide indictment. Jeremy Banks would not be charged.

Within a month, Agent Rodgers came under fire for his actions during the O’Connell death investigation. Sheriff Shoar led the charge to pursue Agent Rodgers and discredit his findings. Several complaints were lodged, though Agent Rodgers was eventually cleared of any criminal wrong-doing.

On March 26, 2013, Sheriff Shoar released a 153 page report called a “Review of Michelle O’Connell’s Death Investigation.” The title was quite misleading as a vast majority of the report critiqued Agent Rodgers’ handling of the case and justified SJSO’s conclusion of suicide. Of the 153 pages, only two pages were dedicated to analyzing SJSO’s actions, decisions, and deficiencies during their investigation.

According to the report, Jeremy Banks remained professional and respectful during the investigation. Yet, it failed to mention that Jeremy violently pounded a police vehicle on the night of the incident and admitted to reading his SJSO investigative file prior to an interview. The report provided minimal objective information on Michelle’s death and only helped to draw battle lines between SJSO and anyone who disagreed with their conclusions in this case.

During an interview, Sheriff David Shoar called allegations of SJSO covering up a murder “insane.” No evidence has been uncovered to indicate SJSO intentionally and actively coordinated an effort to conceal the truth from coming out in this case. However, many of the activities SJSO engaged in regarding Michelle’s death investigation were designed to facilitate a conclusion of suicide. Further, SJSO conducted an inept investigation, and it is not clear whether it was deliberate or simply due to incompetence.

SJSO’s posture in this case has been more about maintaining Sheriff Shoar’s reputation than protecting Jeremy Banks. Sheriff Shoar allowed the initial investigation to be handled internally. He is ultimately responsible for the numerous mistakes made by his deputies and detectives. If they happened to come to the right conclusion, then his errors in leadership appear less alarming. However, if Michelle’s death turns out to be a homicide, Sheriff Shoar will lose even more of the public’s trust and further undermine his authority.

Sheriff Shoar fired Michelle’s brother, Scott O’Connell, for threatening to “blow up the police department” when he was angered over the prosecutor’s decision to not charge Jeremy Banks. Interestingly, about the time Michelle’s brother changed his mind, and concluded Michelle killed herself, he got his job back.

The two witnesses who heard gunshots and a woman cry for help on the night of September 2, 2010 in the vicinity of Jeremy’ home stated that they did not come forward earlier because they were concerned about making statements against an SJSO deputy. Their concerns seemed to be well-founded. Sheriff Shoar has created an environment where a citizen would only report nefarious activities by SJSO deputies at their own peril.

This case hinged on whether or not Michelle killed herself. According to some reports, Michelle may have suffered from depression and low self-esteem as a teenager. Michelle also allegedly expressed suicidal thoughts as a child, but never acted on them. In the months prior to her death, a co-worker noticed that Michelle had recently been crying and seemed stressed. Otherwise, there were no indications she was suicidal.

When asked during an interview if Michelle ever expressed suicidal thoughts, Jeremy told a story regarding an argument. According to Jeremy, during a “domestic altercation,” Michelle stated, ‘Jeremy, you just make me wanna [sic] kill myself sometimes.’ This statement made no sense. If Michelle and Jeremy were in the midst of an argument, why would Michelle direct her anger at herself and rather than Jeremy? And only on television and in written dialogue do people use the other person’s name when they are in the middle of a conversation. Jeremy’s story sounded contrived.

SJSO placed a lot of emphasis on the importance of Michelle’s text messages in the hours leading up to her death. According to SJSO, it provided a window into her state of mind. The texts illustrated a “despondent” woman on the verge of suicide. Michelle sent several texts to her sister Christine. One stated, “Promise me one thing… Alexis [her daughter] will be happy and always have a good life.” In another text, Michelle stated, “That no matter what, Alexis will always be safe and loved.” These texts conveyed an ominous tone. The texts could have been indicative of her contemplating taking her own life, but her family believed her texts expressed a fear of Jeremy, not a preamble to suicide.

Michelle had not attempted suicide previously, and she did not leave a note. She had recently received a promotion at work. There was nothing going on in her life that would lead one to believe she would kill herself. Michelle had a four-year old daughter. One person close to Michelle, stated, “This was a woman whose life was dedicated to her daughter.”

Hours before her death, Michelle broke up with Jeremy. She told him that after she moved out her brother would pick up her things. At the time she allegedly killed herself, she was packing her bags to leave. Michelle had finally acted; she was leaving a bad relationship. It was her decision to break up with Jeremy. It was what she wanted. Why would she take her own life after following-through on what she wanted to have happen?

On the day she died, Michelle left her mother a voicemail referencing them getting together soon, and she texted her sister at 9:55 p.m., stating “I’ll be there soon.” These actions do not illustrate a woman who was about to take her own life. Suicide, though not always logical, is an act of desperation. One’s situation is perceived to be so dire that her only choice is to end it all. Nothing indicated this type of situation for Michelle. To the contrary, things were improving.

During his initial interview with SJSO, Jeremy described the events leading up to Michelle’s death. He said, “We argued a little bit, but nothing terrible.” Jeremy also allegedly told Michelle that they were not best friends anymore and she agreed. He said they argued in the car, “…but [when] we got to the house, we were fine.” He described their break-up as almost blissful. Though Jeremy was undoubtedly trying to mitigate the appearance of significant conflict between the two of them, he also downplayed the likelihood of suicide.

Police found the gun next to Michelle’s left-hand. Later testing found considerable gunshot residue on her left hand, but not on her right. Based on the crime scene evidence, Michelle shot herself with her left hand, even though she was right-handed.

Even with considerable non-dominant hand coordination, it feels unnatural to pull a trigger with one’s off-hand. Shooting with one’s off-hand is awkward, even for individuals who have fired a pistol with their non-dominant hand numerous times. Most people would likely never use their non-dominant hand to fire a gun if their dominant hand was available. Some police agencies do not have their officers practice shooting with their non-dominant hand because there have been many instances where police officers still pulled the trigger with their dominant hand, even when it was seriously injured. They found a way to fire the gun. Therefore, why did a woman with minimal firearm experience and no injuries to her dominant hand choose to shoot herself with her non-dominant hand?

Moments after Michelle allegedly shot herself, Jeremy broke into the bedroom and stayed by her side until the police and paramedics arrived. Yet, Jeremy had no blood on him, except for two small dots on his shirt. On the 9-1-1 call, Jeremy stated “there is blood everywhere.” Jeremy also indicated during the emergency call that Michelle was not breathing, which means he must have touched her or engaged her in some manner. According to an SJSO deputy on scene, Jeremy smelled like he just took a shower, but in interviews, Jeremy denied washing his hand or taking a shower prior to the police arriving.

There was also an absence of high impact blood stains on Michelle’s left arm and sleeve, which was inconsistent with her having used her left hand to fire the weapon. Based on the lack of blood spatter on her left arm, either all the forensic evidence indicating Michelle fired the gun with her left hand was wrong, or, alternatively, someone else fired the fatal shot. There was only one candidate for an alternative shooter.

Though not tested initially by SJSO, the gun used to kill Michelle did not have any blood on it. The gun did not have Jeremy’s DNA on it, even though he carried it when he worked. The gun only had trace amounts of Michelle’s DNA on it; however, it was inside Michelle’s mouth when it was fired. It is hard to explain the forensic testing results, unless the gun was cleaned.

When Agent Rodgers canvassed Jeremy’s neighborhood, he approached Jeremy at his home. Jeremy stated, “I just stopped by to get rid of some of her shit from the house.” He then corrected himself by stating, “…I mean, pack up some of her stuff.” Which statement conveyed Jeremy’s true emotions and which one attempted to conceal his feelings?

According to Jeremy, after he heard the first shot he stood outside the bedroom door, knocking, and yelling to Michelle. Yet, she never said anything to him. She was supposedly in the midst of killing herself because of her losing him, but she did not speak to him. No, ‘I love you. I can’t live without you.’ She did not say anything, which seems quite implausible. Second, a gun was fired, his gun, and he did not feel the need to kick in an interior door. Why did the second shot cause him to kick in the door, but not the first one?

If Jeremy was standing outside the bedroom when Michelle shot herself, he would not have told the 9-1-1 operator that he “thinks” his girlfriend shot herself. He would have known for certain what happened.

Those close to Michelle considered her a fighter, yet she had no defensive wounds. Jeremy was almost a foot taller than Michelle and he outweighed her by over a hundred pounds. Plus, under a homicide scenario he would have been pointing a gun at her, which would have significantlyreduced her ability to fight back. She was at his mercy.

SJSO hypothesized that the first shot into the floor was an accidental discharge by a woman inexperienced with firearms. If a suicide occurred, it was a reasonable explanation. If it was a homicide, it could have been fired postmortem. Jeremy could have placed the gun into Michelle’s hand and fired it into the floor. This would have transferred gunshot residue to her hand and her DNA to the gun, but at this time, there is no clear explanation for why two shots were fired.

With officials doing little, in early 2016, the O’Connell family arranged for an exhumation of Michelle’s body in conjunction with a second autopsy to be performed by Dr. Bill Anderson. According to Dr. Anderson, when the gun was fired, Michelle’s tongue positioning would have almost gagged or suffocated her. This was consistent with someone else forcing a gun into her mouth rather than her placing it there. Dr. Anderson also found a fracture in Michelle’s jaw. Coupled with lacerations on her lip and eye, he postulated that Michelle was struck multiple times prior to being shot. As a result, he determined her manner of death was homicide.

With significant confidence and no humility, Sheriff Shoar stated, “We know it’s a suicide.” However, the evidence is far from definitive. The FDLE investigation concluded it was more likely a homicide than a suicide. Prosecutors who reviewed the case have concluded ‘not enough evidence to prosecute.’ The debate rages on.

Through interviews, his comprehensive report, and the facilitation of a poorly run investigation, Sheriff Shoar has provided a considerable amount of exculpatory evidence with regard to a future homicide prosecution of Jeremy Banks. It is not clear whether Sheriff Shoar believes Jeremy or not, but regardless, he has way too much to lose personally to allow a successful prosecution of his deputy.

Works Cited:

Bogdanich, Walt, “Florida Gov. Opens New Investigation into O’Connell Death,” Frontline, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/florida-gov-opens-new-investigation-into-oconnell-death/, October 3 2014.

Bogdanich, Walt, Glen Silber, “Two Gunshots on a Summer Night,” The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/two-gunshots/, November 23 2013.

Doran, Matt, “Who Fired the Gun That Killed Michelle O’Connell?” Crime Watch Daily, http://crimewatchdaily.com/2016/05/23/who-fired-the-gun-that-killed-michelle-oconnell/, May 23, 2016.

Doran, Matt, “Murder or Suicide? The Exhumation of Michelle O’Connell,” The Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-doran/murder-or-suicide-the_b_10110682.html, May 24, 2016.

Eastman, Susan Cooper, “Murder, He Wrote: A Man Named Clu Investigates the Death of Michelle O’Connell,” Folio Weekly, http://folioweekly.com/MURDER-HE-WROTE-A-MAN-NAMED-CLU-INVESTIGATES-THE-DEATH-OF-MICHELLE-O-CONNELL,11570?page=1&, November 20, 2014.

McClish, Mark, “Deputy Jeremy Banks 911 Call Death of Michelle O’Connell,” Statement Analysis, http://statement-analysis.blogspot.com/2016/05/deputy-jeremy-banks-911-call-death-of.html, May 23, 2016.

Piggott, Jim, “Sister: ‘So many mistruths’ in Michelle O’Connell case,” News4Jax, http://www.news4jax.com/news/local/sister-so-many-mistruths-in-michelle-oconnell-case, November 19, 2015.

Purdy, Joy, “New autopsy finds Michelle O’Connell’s death a homicide,” News4JAX, http://www.news4jax.com/news/florida/st-johns-county/new-autopsy-finds-michelle-oconnells-death-a-homicide, May 22, 2016.

Robinson, Julian, “Florida cop will not face murder charges after investigation into the death of his girlfriend who was shot with his own gun at his home,” DailyMail.com, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3203695/Florida-cop-not-face-murder-charges-investigation-death-girlfriend-shot-gun-home.html, August 19, 2015.

“Jeremy Banks is Questioned,” NBC News, http://www.nbcnews.com/watch/dateline/jeremy-banks-is-questioned-230747715932.

“Two Shots Fired, Parts 1-6,” Dateline, NBC News, http://www.nbcnews.com/video/dateline/54987380#54987380, April 19, 2014.

“Review of Michelle O’Connell’s Death Investigation,” St Johns County Sheriff’s Office, March 26, 2013.

Click below to view John W. Taylor’s previous intriguing posts:

Jason Young: Stone Cold Killer or Victim of Unfortunate Coincidences?

Murderer, Manipulator, or Do-Gooder? The Many Sides of James Rupard

“Making a Murderer” Sparks Public Outrage (as well it should)

The Deep Sleeper – Darlie Routier’s Plight for Innocence

Drew Peterson – A Legend in His Own Mind

Not How It Was Supposed To Go: Joanna Madonna and the Murder of Jose Perez

John W. Taylor writes in the true crime genre at www.truecrimewriting.com. He has written short pieces and articles on the death of Marilyn Monroe, JFK, and Martin Luther King, Jr., among others.  John wrote and published Umbrella of Suspicion: Investigating the Death of JonBénet Ramsey and Isolated Incident: Investigating the Death of Nancy Cooper in 2012 and 2014, respectively. 

John’s interest in the darker side of human nature has compelled him to conduct numerous research and writing projects on various unsolved crimes.  He currently resides in Raleigh, North Carolina. 

by Blackwater Law

Getting accused of something you know you didn’t do can be annoying at the best of times, but imagine actually being sent to prison as a result. Unfortunately, the criminal justice system still has its flaws and mistakes are often made. These mistakes aren’t just a case of “oh, whoops…sorry about that.”… They ruin people’s lives.

It seems incredible that despite the technology and forensic intelligence we have nowadays that innocent people can still be wrongly convicted for crimes they simply didn’t commit, but it does happen! It’s pretty interesting in all honesty, which is why we’ve put together a list of the UK’s top 7 famous miscarriages of justice cases. Some of these are honestly shocking!

7. Michael Shirley

Date convicted: 1986

Sentence: Life

Released: 2003 (16 years)

Michael Shirley was sentenced to life imprisonment after he was wrongly convicted for the rape and murder of 24-year old barmaid, Linda Cook. The victim was found with a broken spine, jaw and larynx – all caused by the heel of the murderer’s shoe. The logo of the branded shoe was left imprinted on Linda Cook’s body and annoyingly for Shirley; he was one of the 250 people in Portsmouth that owned a pair.

On the night of the incident, Shirley was enjoying a night out with a female accomplice at a nightclub not too far from the murder scene.  Supposedly, the 18-year-old male was given the “pie” and forced to pay for the taxi back home…alone. With no evidence to suggest otherwise, a case was built against Shirley that he allegedly took his frustration out on Linda Cook in a drunken rage.

After serving 15 years of his sentence, Shirley maintained his innocence even though it meant he couldn’t be released on parole. Fresh DNA evidence discovered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 2002 concluded that Mr Shirley was in fact, innocent.

6. Sally Clark

Date convicted: 1996

Sentence: Life (twice)

Released: 2003

Sally Clark, from Wimslow, Cheshire, was convicted of murdering her two baby sons Christopher and Harry and was given two life sentences as a result. Clark spent a three years in jail after she was finally released on appeal in 2003. She always maintained that her children had died of cot death syndrome, which was later found out to be true after the court of appeal reviewed the case.

As it turns out, the convictions were based on evidence provided by Home Office Pathologist Alan Williams, who actually failed to disclose important information about the two deaths – including clear signs of a staphylococcus aureus infection that had spread to Harry’s cerebral spinal fluid. At the time, ‘expert’ paediatricians told the jury that the likelihood of two children in an affluence family both suffering cot death was “one in 73 million”. Experts now claim that this could occur in as little as one in 100 cases.

Understandably, Sally Clark never mentally recovered from the trauma caused by the ordeal and in 2007 she was found dead at her own home – the cause of death was believed to be alcohol poisoning. Truly tragic.

5. Sam Hallam

Date convicted: 2005

Sentence: Life

Released: 2012

At the tender age of 18, Sam Hallam was given life for the alleged murder of a trainee chef Essayas Kassahun in North London, 2005. He served a total of 7 years in prison before his conviction was reviewed and quashed in 2012. The murder was said to be a classic case of gang violence; that Hallam was apparently involved in.

After the police interviewed 37 witnesses, nobody placed Hallam at the crowded murder scene – except for a main witness, who later stated that she was just looking for “someone to blame on the spot”. Well done, miss, you successfully ruined the life of an innocent 18-year-old boy.

Weirdly enough, the compiling evidence that was in fact used to confirm Hallam’s innocence was on his mobile phone. The shear naivety of the police to not use his phone in the investigation essentially cost this boy a huge chunk of his life. It turns out there were photos that placed him in a pub with his dad at the time of the murder. Tragically, Hallam’s father committed suicide shortly after his son was wrongly sent to prison – one of the most serious cases of miscarriage of justice, for sure.

4. Barry George

Date convicted: 2001

Sentence: Life

Released: 2008 (8 years)

48-year-old Barry George, from Fulham, was prosecuted for the murder of BBC television presenter Jill Dando in 2000. George has a history of mental illness and disability and was described as the “local nutter.” When he was accused of allegedly shooting Jill Dando on her doorstep in West London, no one batted an eyelid.

George also supposedly stalked and collected photographs of females (including presenters) and had an obsession with guns – that was enough for the police, the jury and the judge. Furthermore, despite being found with bits of gunpowder in his pockets, the retrial concluded that there wasn’t enough “conclusive circumstantial evidence” to rightfully convict George.

Judges claimed George did not possess a high enough IQ (being in the lowest 1% of the population) to be able to orchestrate and perform such a tactical murder. He endured two trials and two appeals before he was eventually freed and the mystery murder is still yet to be found.

3. The Birmingham Six

Date convicted: 1975

Sentence: Life (All)

Released: 1991 (17 years)

In November 1975, six men were sentenced to life after being adjudged responsible for the infamous Birmingham pub bombings. The bombing, caused by detonated explosive devices placed in two popular Birmingham pubs, killed 21 people and injured 182. Aside from the London 7/7 bombings in 2005, this was the worst ever UK terrorist attack.

In this case, the six men were simply revealed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Joseph Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker were all seen leaving Birmingham just after the time of the explosion – on a train to go to a funeral of a former IRA member in Belfast. The men were arrested at Belfast and failed reveal their reasons for their journey. Following this they were apparently brutally interrogated and subjected to mock executions and threats with dogs and guns in order to force confessions. The investigators succeeded and four of the men confessed.

They were all later charged with murder and the conspiracy to cause explosions. A public outcry followed this, and campaigns, lead by Labour MP Chris Mullin, to release the men were met with an eventual appeal and retrial. In 2001, they were released due to the fabrication and suppression of evidence and the unreliability of forensic evidence.

It is believed that the IRA were responsible for the attack, but no suspects have been identified since. The Birmingham six received several millions of pounds in compensation. Worth the 17 years in jail? I’m not so sure.

2. Stefan Kiszko

Date convicted: 1976

Sentence: Life

Released: 1992 (16 years)

In 1976, Stefan Kiszko was wrongly convicted for the rape and murder of 11-year-old child Lesley Molseed. Stefan’s case has been described as “the worst miscarriage of al time” – and based on the facts, it’s not hard to see why.

During his interrogation, Kiszko falsely confessed to the murder as he was told it would lead to his freedom. Side note, Kiszko had a history of mental illness and relied heavily on his mother. The compiling evidence came from a group of teenage girls who claimed the 23-year-old tax clerk had indecently exposed himself to them on the day the murder took place. It was later found that the girls made the claim up for a joke. Additional evidence that was used against Kiszko included sweets and ‘girlie’ magazines found his car – things that could have been used to attract his victim.

Due to his mental condition, Kiszko was given injections of testosterone, which the police later interpreted to be a reason for his sexual assault. Upon the referral, it was discovered that Kiszko’s sperm sample (which had a count of zero) would have proved his innocence buy confirming his medical inability to carry out the sexual act and produce the sperm that had been found on Lesley’s clothes.

The persistent mother of the wrongly accused man fought hard to earn a retrial and after 16 of prison torment, her son was eventually freed. Kiszko died of a heart attack a year later. All because of a crime he didn’t commit.

1. Stephen Downing

Date convicted: 1982

Sentence: Life

Released: (27 years)

“The Bakewell tart murder” – Stephen Downing, 17, was sentenced to life for the murder of 32-year-old Wendy Sewell in Bakewell, 1973. The attack took place in a church graveyard, where Downing coincidentally worked as a gardener. After he, himself, found the victim beaten (by the handle of a pickaxe), and covered in blood, Downing was taken immediately taken in for questioning by the police, where he was interrogated for nine hours before he was made to sign a confession to the crime.

Downing had severe learning difficulties and had a reading age of just 11 – reports suggest the 17 year old didn’t know he was confessing to the murder and literally signing his life away. Essentially, Downing couldn’t read the statement.

The case was appealed twice. The first appeal was denied after eyewitness evidence that claimed they saw Downing leave the graveyard at the same time they saw Wendy Sewell alive, was apparently not enough. The second time around, it was concluded that the original confession was unsafe – unfair police questioning and the fact Downing wasn’t given a solicitor helped his defence.

Forensic evidence found there was a bloody palm print on the pickaxe handle, which didn’t match Downing’s. Downing was also wearing gloves at the time, which had no blood on them. Despite also confessing to hitting the victim over the head twice, it was later found that she had been hit eight times, by a right handed man – Downing was a lefty. The innocent 17-year-old continued to deny the murder throughout his stint in prison and was therefore illegible for parole. He eventually cleared his name after a gruelling 27 years in the slammer. This is considered to be the worst case of miscarriages of justice in English legal history.

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by John W. Taylor

In 1985, Gary and Kathryn Eastburn lived in Fayetteville, North Carolina with their three daughters, Cara, 5, Erin, 3, and Janna, 22-months. Gary was a captain in the Air Force. He had orders to relocate to out of the country. Because their family dog could not accompany them, they placed an advertisement in the newspaper to sell it. Tim Hennis, a G.I. based at nearby Fort Bragg, responded to the ad.

Four days later, a neighbor contacted the police because he had not seen anyone enter or leave the Eastburn residence in days. When the police entered the home, they found Kathryn and her two oldest daughters stabbed to death. The 22-month-old baby was still alive. At the time of the murders, Gary Eastburn was on a training assignment in Alabama. The victims were found on May 12, 1985, but the authorities believed they were killed on the night of May 9 or in the early morning hours of May 10.

After seeing a television news story indicating that the police were looking for a man who responded to the Eastburn’s newspaper ad, Tim Hennis voluntarily drove to the police station with his wife Angela and their baby girl. He fully cooperated with law enforcement and answered all of their questions. According to Hennis, he never entered the Eastburn residence and only spoke to Kathryn from the porch.

Police discovered an eyewitness named Patrick Cone, who placed Hennis near the scene of the crime in the early morning hours of May 10. As a result, the police arrested Hennis. At trial, the prosecution laid out a strong case against Hennis. On the night of the murders, Cone claimed that he saw a tall white male wearing a Members Only jacket, a knit cap, and jeans near the Eastburn home. He described the individual as 6’4” with blonde hair, same as Hennis. Cone later picked Hennis out of a police line-up as the man he saw that evening.

Two neighbors, Chuck and Cheri Radtke, claimed they also saw a man matching the same description, walking down the Eastburn’s street around the time of the murders.

After the murders, Gary Eastburn identified several missing items from the family home, including an ATM card. The police discovered two $150 withdrawals tied to the missing ATM card. Witness Lucille Cook said she saw a man matching Hennis’s description use the same ATM around the time the Eastburn’s card was used. Cook also identified Hennis from a photo line-up.

Throughout the trial, prosecutors showed jurors numerous crime scene photos. The prosecutors utilized the horrific photos of the victims to convey the theme of someone must pay for this atrocity.

On the night of the murders, Hennis’s wife walked out on him after a fight. She called him a poor provider and told him she was bored. According to various accounts, Hennis then drove to his ex-girlfriend’s house, but she turned down his sexual advances. Hennis claimed he proceeded home, watched television, and fell asleep. However, the prosecution asserted that Hennis drove to the Eastburn house with the motive of sex. When he was rebuffed a second time, Hennis flew into a murderous rage. In July of 1986, the jury agreed with the prosecution’s version of events and found Hennis guilty of rape and three counts of first degree murder. He was sentenced to death.

Hennis appealed his conviction on the grounds that the prosecution’s repeated showing of graphic crime scene photos of the victims improperly prejudiced the jury. The North Carolina Supreme Court concurred and granted him a new trial, which began in 1989. The defense team was much more aggressive the second time around.

Lucille Cook, who placed Hennis at the ATM machine around the time the Eastburn’s ATM card was used, backed away from her claims. She thought her memory may have been influenced by the pictures of Hennis she saw in the newspaper. Further, it was learned that the first two times she spoke to police she claimed that she did not see anyone at the AMT, but during a third conversation, she identified Hennis. The defense also refuted her testimony with ATM time stamp records, which contradicted her version of events.

The defense team highlighted the fact that none of the fingerprints or hair fibers collected from the scene matched Hennis. Police captured a size nine shoe print, which was much smaller than Hennis’ size 13 feet. Where was the evidence placing him inside the Eastburn home?

Patrick Cone was the State’s star witness in the first trial; however, he was much less effective the second time around. The defense team pointed out minor discrepancies in Cone’s testimony. The defense also produced a new witness, John Raupaugh, who claimed he was out walking on the night of the murders in the same neighborhood. Raupaugh stated that he often wore a knit cap and had a black Members Only jacket. He was also 6’4” and bore a striking resemblance to Hennis. With the appearance of Raupaugh in the courtroom, the jurors had reasonable doubt. Tim Hennis was acquitted on all counts. After the trial, he re-enlisted in the Army and then retired in 2004.

In 2006, advances in DNA testing allowed the authorities to analyze Kathryn Eastburn’s rape kit. Semen found during analysis conclusively matched Tim Hennis. Though many DNA statistics are grossly overstated because they do not account for human error, the match to Hennis was reported as 12 billion to one. Law enforcement believed that whoever raped Kathryn also killed her and her two children. Unfortunately, Tim Hennis had already been tried and acquitted for the murders; therefore, double jeopardy prevented prosecutors from trying him again.

The authorities devised a way around double jeopardy. The Army forced Hennis to reactivate and then charged him with the murders in military court. Double jeopardy prevents an accused person from being tried again for the same or similar charges, following an acquittal or conviction. However, the federal government (“Army”) is considered a sovereign and separate authority from the states.  If there are overlapping criminal laws, such was the case here, a person can be re-tried for the same crime. This loophole allowed the Eastburns to seek justice, but the maneuver sidestepped many questionable legal and ethical boundaries.

Though DNA found under Kathryn Eastburn’s fingernails was unidentified and a hair found in her bed did not match Hennis or any other known person, the rape kit DNA results were too compelling. In April of 2010, the jury found Hennis guilty of three counts of premeditated murder and sentenced him to death, again.

Hennis’s lawyer alluded to the idea that Hennis had consensual sex with Kathryn Eastburn on the night of the murder. His lawyer also highlighted integrity issues with the DNA evidence. When investigators re-examined the rape kit, portions of the evidence container had been opened and torn. Though Hennis may have a legal basis for these assertions, they contradict each other. If he had consensual sex with the victim, then the DNA was most likely his. However, if the DNA results were in error, how does that fit with a consensual sex scenario? Hennis never mentioned engaging in consensual sex with Kathryn Eastburn prior to the DNA results implicating him. He failed to mention it during police interviews, his first two trials, or after he was acquitted. Hennis’ explanation for why investigators found his semen in the rape kit appeared to be out of desperation rather than stemming from the truth.

Tim Hennis currently resides on death row in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He cannot be executed without presidential approval. Hennis has filed numerous unsuccessful appeals and many more are likely based on the unusual and legally questionable work-around of double jeopardy.

Works Cited

Brooks, Drew, “Timothy Hennis Case: Federal Judge Dismisses Latest Appeal,” The Fayetteville Observer Online, http://www.fayobserver.com/military/timothy-hennis-case-federal-judge-dismisses-latest-appeal/article_133f50b2-c6d8-5978-bdaf-6ff0949799f0.html, October 1, 2015.

Bryan, Kim, “The Eastburn Family Murders and the Three Trials of Staff Sergeant Tim Hennis,” Owlcation, https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/staff-sergeant-tim-hennis-murder, June 13, 2016.

Coletta, Sue, “Eastburn Murders Expose a Loophole in the Law,” Inside the Mind of a Crime Writer, http://www.suecoletta.com/eastburn-murders-expose-a-loophole-in-the-law/, February 9, 2016.

Dolan, Maura, “Expert links soldier to 1985 killings,” Los Angeles Times, http://articles.latimes.com/2007/may/18/nation/na-hennis18, May 18, 2007.

Patterson, Thom, “Triple Murder Suspect Goes From Guilty to Innocent and Back to Guilty,” CNN, http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/18/us/death-row-stories-hennis/, July 18, 2014.

Whisnant, Scott, “Triple murder retrial to start,” Star-News, https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=01JIAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ZxQEAAAAIBAJ&dq=eastburn+murder&pg=2825,3871705&hl=en, February 27, 1989

Whisnant, Scott, “Witness shaky on identifying Hennis,” Star-News, https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=AU5OAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SRQEAAAAIBAJ&dq=eastburn+murder&pg=4667,2693974&hl=en, March 23, 1989.

“Jury in Hennis trial visits area where murder victims lived,” The Robesonian, https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yrFVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Z0ANAAAAIBAJ&dq=eastburn+murder&pg=3724,4335645&hl=en, June 20, 1986.

Click below to view John W. Taylor’s previous intriguing posts:

Jason Young: Stone Cold Killer or Victim of Unfortunate Coincidences?

Murderer, Manipulator, or Do-Gooder? The Many Sides of James Rupard

“Making a Murderer” Sparks Public Outrage (as well it should)

The Deep Sleeper – Darlie Routier’s Plight for Innocence

Drew Peterson – A Legend in His Own Mind

Not How It Was Supposed To Go: Joanna Madonna and the Murder of Jose Perez

John W. Taylor writes in the true crime genre at www.truecrimewriting.com. He has written short pieces and articles on the death of Marilyn Monroe, JFK, and Martin Luther King, Jr., among others.  John wrote and published Umbrella of Suspicion: Investigating the Death of JonBénet Ramsey and Isolated Incident: Investigating the Death of Nancy Cooper in 2012 and 2014, respectively. 

John’s interest in the darker side of human nature has compelled him to conduct numerous research and writing projects on various unsolved crimes.  He currently resides in Raleigh, North Carolina.