Do Helena Stoeckley’s Ramblings Convey Reasonable Doubt for Jeffrey MacDonald?

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

Do Helena Stoeckley’s Ramblings Convey Reasonable Doubt for Jeffrey MacDonald?

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 is the host of the true crime podcast “Twisted,” which can be found at www.twistedpodcast.com. It is available through iTunes, Stitcher, and Libysn. He currently resides in Raleigh, North Carolina.

↧

How Jeffrey MacDonald’s Words Betrayed Him

March 2, 2017, 6:47 am

≫ Next: Embracing the Other: You Can Make It If You Really Try

≪ Previous: Do Helena Stoeckley’s Ramblings Convey Reasonable Doubt for Jeffrey MacDonald?

by John W. Taylor

On February 17, 1970, the military police at Fort Bragg, North Carolina found Colette MacDonald and her two young daughters, Kimberly (age 5) and Kristen (age 2), viciously murdered. The sole survivor of an apparent home invasion was their father and husband, Jeffrey MacDonald. He was a captain and doctor in the army, assigned to the prestigious Green Berets. He told an elaborate tale of a near-death fight with multiple assailants, while he listened to his wife and children being killed.

One of the intruders allegedly wrote the word “pig” in blood on the headboard in the master bedroom. MacDonald claimed he heard one of the attackers say “acid is groovy” and “acid and rain.” With the writing in blood, bizarre statements, and complete over-kill of the victims, the crime scene was reminiscent of the murders in Los Angeles, orchestrated by Charles Manson, only months prior. It was hard to imagine the same perpetrators traveled thousands of miles to Fayetteville, North Carolina, but they could have been copycats. Because of the brutality of the crimes coupled with the similarities to the Manson murders, the case garnered significant media attention.

The military formerly charged Jeffrey MacDonald with murder on May 1, 1970; however, the charges were dismissed the following October due to insufficient evidence. With the charges dropped, MacDonald became somewhat of a celebrity. He was an intelligent and handsome doctor, and the murdering of his family failed to dampen his charisma.

There is no acceptable or “normal” manner for one to grieve a tragedy. However, when someone is suspected of murder, their reactions, statements, and demeanor are scrutinized. When their emotions do not conform to what is expected of a grieving person, many believe it is suspicious and possibly even evidence of guilt. MacDonald did not act in a manner most would consider consistent with a grieving husband and father.

A couple of months after the murder charges were dropped, MacDonald appeared on the late-night program The Dick Cavett Show. Though his celebrity came from his family’s brutal murders, he appeared unaffected. He laughed and told jokes. He criticized the army investigators. His jovial affect may not have conveyed sympathy, but it also did not mean he killed his family. Some people respond to horrific events with comedy and light-heartedness, even if they are destroyed within. However, the national television appearance gave MacDonald an opportunity to help catch his family’s killers, but he instead chose to fixate on the disrespect the homicide investigators demonstrated toward him. To most people, he came across as an unemotional narcissist. His statements and actions fit all too well into the mold of how many people think a psychopathic killer would present himself.

During various interviews and proceedings, MacDonald told investigators and prosecutors what transpired on the night of his family’s murders. His story stayed materially the same. However, when closely evaluating MacDonald’s statements, many issues can be detected. Unlike emotions, which tell us little about guilt or innocence, words almost always give a person away. People choose words for a reason, which will often leak the truth. MacDonald began his story of the night his family’s murder:

And I started to sit up, and there was some people–there was some people at the end of the couch the CID [Army Criminal Investigation Division] said was never in my house. I saw people at the end of the couch. I saw three men.

The use of the term started can often indicate deception. When something starts, it should finish unless something stopped the action. Nothing stopped MacDonald from sitting up at this point, since the alleged intruders were at the end of the couch away from him.

MacDonald referred to the assailants who murdered his family and tried to kill him as people. It was a rather non-descript and gentle way to describe them. Was this an appropriate description? How about vicious murders or psychopathic killers? No, he saw three men. This contrasted sharply with his later description of the phone operator who took his emergency call. He referred to her as a “dumb-ass operator” and a “dumb idiot.” Apparently, in MacDonald’s mind, a dispatcher not treating him with respect warranted anger, but not killing his family.

MacDonald continued by stating:

I don’t know if I ever said it–like it was–you know–in remembering it, I–like it was almost like I was thinking–you know—what the hell is going on? Why is my wife screaming? And why is Kimberley screaming? And I don’t know if I said–you know–what the hell are you doing here. But I remember thinking it–thinking–you know–saying to myself, what is going on?

He tried to explain what he heard and thought during the first few seconds after he awoke to find intruders in his house. He conveyed his thoughts and incorporated sound into his memory. This provided additional believability.

Another element of MacDonald’s statement was his pervasive use of you know. It is usually utilized as filler. People say you know in order to give themselves time to think. It can be a verbal habit. The use tends to increase when a person is nervous or talking about something stressful. You know also has a literal use. You are saying to the person, “you know what I mean,” I do not need to actually say it. MacDonald consistently utilized you know throughout his testimony when describing his fight with the intruders and actions after finding his family dead. This would seem to imply a pattern in his speech or indicative of his overall stress and nervousness. However, when MacDonald described finding his murdered wife and young girls, he completely eliminated the use of you know. It should have been the most stressful and emotional part of the night; yet, he demonstrated no hesitation or stress, via filler words, in his retelling of those events.

MacDonald went on:

And this guy started walking down between the coffee table and the couch, and he raised something over his head–I just got a glance of this girl with kind of a light on her face.

MacDonald again utilized the term started, though nothing stopped the individual from moving toward him. He described the intruder as a guy, which again was a rather polite term. Further, the individual walked toward him. Though much of MacDonald’s story seemed to play on the listeners’ ability to visualize the scene, it is hard to imagine someone casually walking toward him as the beginning of a potential murder.

While the man approached him with an object raised above his head, MacDonald looked away and noticed a girl standing further away. Why would he take his attention off an imminent threat to look at something innocuous? MacDonald continued:

And the black male was to my left, and he raised something up and I just had an impression that he had a baseball bat…this little struggle…ensued…

When describing the object the black male possessed, he did not show conviction. This could be attributed to the stress of the situation, lack of lighting, or speed at which the individual moved the object. Regardless, MacDonald referred to it as a baseball bat. He went on to describe what ensued as “this little struggle.” At this point, we do not know what the other two men and one woman were doing, but we know one man was in the process of striking MacDonald with a baseball bat-like object. Who would describe waking up in the middle of night to this scene as a “little struggle”? His description did not fit the scenario. When there is incongruity between words and actions, deception is always a possible reason.

As the intruders attacked MacDonald, he claimed he heard his wife, Colette, and his daughter, Kimberley screaming for help. He painted a complex scenario. With some simple math, we now had a minimum of six intruders because there were four in front of MacDonald and his daughter Kimberly and his wife Colette were being simultaneously attacked in separate rooms. Why would they begin savagely killing a pregnant woman and little girls, but allow a twenty-six-year-old Green Beret to wake up prior to attacking him? He was the only person in the house who could have put up a legitimate fight.

MacDonald continued discussing the fight:

And the guy on my left…he hit me again; but at the same time, you know, I was kind of struggling. And these two men, I thought, were punching me at the same time. And so, I was struggling, and I got hit on the shoulder or the side of the head again.

According to MacDonald, the other two men entered the fight. He was lying on the couch, half sitting up at this point. To his left was a man striking him with a baseball bat or club. The other two men were somehow battling him as well. Were they standing on the couch or leaning over it? Their off-balanced positioning provided minimal leverage to throw powerful punches, and they risked being hit by the man swinging a baseball bat. Regardless, they were allegedly raining strikes upon MacDonald, yet he referred to the scenario as “kind of struggling.” Once again, his words did not match the actions taking place. MacDonald went on to say:

…I felt this pain in my right side, and I thought to myself that–you know–I have a recollection of saying to myself, ‘Jesus, this guy really–really threw a hell of a punch.’

MacDonald provided us with insight into his thinking at this stressful juncture. After utilizing you know again, he used the word really twice to describe the punch. He placed a lot of emphasis on the power of this punch. As stated above, it seemed highly unlikely the other two individuals were in any position to throw an effective punch. According to MacDonald, an intruder struck him on the head with a baseball bat multiple times, but an off-balanced punch to his side was more note-worthy. MacDonald continued:

And I didn’t really notice too much about them. And so I kind of struggled, and I was kind of off balance…

He remembered that he did not remember. MacDonald felt it was note-worthy that he did not remember specific traits about the intruders. In describing what should have been a life and death fight, he twice used the words “kind of” to describe it, which lacked conviction. He appeared to not believe what he was saying. If he did not believe it, why should we? In describing the altercation, MacDonald stated:

So, I was holding onto first what I thought was this guy’s arm, and it was a fatigue jacket with E6 stripes. They were right in front of my eyes.

Later, MacDonald made the following statement, “And it seemed to me that it was E6–you know.” He earlier stated that the E6 stripes were right in front of his face. MacDonald conveyed no ambiguity or confusion. Now, he lacked confidence in his statement. When someone is being deceptive, they often cannot fully commit to a statement. Their conscious mind knows the truth. He ended his statement with you know, which is consistent with the literal usage, “You know this, I already told you this,” but we do not know, unless he tells us. We have to question whether MacDonald actually saw the E6 stripes because his delivery lacked confidence.

During his various statements, MacDonald regularly used transition words and phrases, such as “…the next thing I remember…” Transition words indicate that time has passed without explanation. Though heavy on details at times, his transitions implied that he skipped over things. We do not know what he chose not to tell us, but we know he left things out.

Later, MacDonald woke up on the floor after the assailants knocked him out. He proceeded to check on his family.

So, I walked in the bedroom, and I–I don’t know if I turned the light on or not, but my wife was visible. I could see her–clear as day…She was–she was–she was all covered with blood. There was–there was–a knife in her chest–which I took out and threw away.

Finding his wife murdered should have been one of the most stressful parts of his story, yet MacDonald’s delivery was surprisingly absent of filler words. You know and really no longer showed up in his statements. Finding his wife brutally murdered did not stress him as much as the struggle he allegedly endured. He also developed a new speech habit of repeating the beginning of each statement. Since he failed to do this elsewhere, it may have been an intentional effort to appear stressed.

According to MacDonald’s various statements, after he awoke, he engaged in numerous activities throughout the house. He first entered the master bedroom to check on his wife. He pulled a knife out of her chest, covered her chest with his pajama top, and then proceeded to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He then checked on his two daughters, before returning to the master bedroom to call for help. MacDonald checked on his wife and daughters again. He then entered the bathroom to assess his injuries before calling for help a second time from the kitchen.

When describing checking on his family, MacDonald stated, “seemed to me the back door [in utility room connected to the master bedroom] was open.” Later he confidently asserted that the back door was open. This was allegedly how the intruders entered the house. It was a critical detail, but he slipped it into his story as almost an after-thought. In initially describing it, MacDonald stated, “seemed to me,” which was a passive way of describing what he saw. It lacked conviction and could indicate deception. Interestingly, he never mentioned shutting and locking the door, which would have been obvious actions, if he were concerned about murderers re-entering his house.

In describing his actions after finding his wife and daughters dead, MacDonald stated:

So I went back in the bedroom and I called the police–or I dialed the operator. And I told her something like, ‘This is Dr. MacDonald or Captain MacDonald, and help. And there are people dying. We’ve been stabbed. We need the police.’

Though MacDonald should have been panicked during this call and not thinking clearly, his mind subconsciously organized priorities. First, he identified himself with title. Second, he stated “people are dying,” which was in the present tense. He was the only one still alive; therefore, he referred to himself. Third, “We’ve been stabbed.” Though his family incurred dozens of fatal stab wounds and his “stab wound” did not even require stitches, he lumped his injury in his family’s massacre. Finally, MacDonald asked for the police.

There were significant issues with MacDonald’s call for help. MacDonald should not have known the intruders were gone or not coming back. The police were absolutely needed and they should not have been an afterthought, had he feared for his life. He was a doctor and he knew his family was dead. However, it is possible he experienced some stage of denial (under an innocent scenario). If so, he should have immediately asked for an ambulance along with police, but he failed to do so. MacDonald prioritized himself first, his family second, and the police last.

MacDonald stated that he checked for his wife’s pulse through of her femoral artery. The investigator then asked a follow-up question:

Investigator: When you took this femoral pulse on your wife, did you remove her clothing at all or was it through her pajamas?

MacDonald: I didn’t remove any clothing. It was either through the pajamas or–or, you know, I just pulled them apart–pulled them aside and felt for it. I don’t think it was–I didn’t remove any clothing. I might have just felt through. You can feel it right through. I can feel my own.

MacDonald was unable to answer this simple question. Other than specifically stating that he did not remove her clothes, his answer demonstrated an explanation of what could have happened rather than what actually occurred. Though MacDonald’s recollections contained precise details, he was completely unable to provide any collaborating details other than what he originally conveyed. It’s as if he described visiting the Empire State Building and gave extreme detail on the windows and architecture, but did not know it was in Mid-town, if asked. His inability to answer any follow-up questions casts significant doubt on his believability.

During one of his interviews, the following exchange took place:

Investigator: At any point during the night, during this checking [trying to help his murdered family] before the military police arrived and the medics got there, did you wear a pair of gloves?

MacDonald: Did I wear a pair of gloves?

There was no indication MacDonald had trouble hearing the question, but he answered the question with a question. This is usually either a stall tactic, or it is an unexpected question in a sensitive area. MacDonald eventually responded “no.” However, there was no blood on one phone and only minimal on the other phone that he used to call for help. He never mentioned washing his hands and based on the condition of the victims, if he rendered first aid, his hands would have been covered in blood.

According to various medical reports, MacDonald had bruises on the left side of his head, his left shoulder, and his upper left arm. He had small cuts on his left hand and fingers. MacDonald received a superficial puncture of his left arm, though some sources referred to the injury as having pierced his entire bicep. He also had superficial lacerations of his upper abdominal wall, and a stab wound to the chest, which caused a partial collapse of his lung. The number, location, and severity of MacDonald’s wounds have been highly debated, ranging from superficial to life-threatening.

Part of MacDonald’s version of events involved him visiting the bathroom to check on his injuries. According to one of his statements, when he initially looked in the mirror, he said, “there wasn’t really even a cut or anything.” During questioning, MacDonald said the following regarding his injuries:

And I stepped in the bathroom, and I remember thinking to myself–you know–that I didn’t see much. There was–like a lump on my head, and there was some blood and there was blood all around my mouth. And I don’t–really don’t remember anything else.

When asked how many times intruders punched him, MacDonald stated:

I have no idea. It seemed like a lot. My later wounds didn’t–you know–didn’t really look like I had just a rain of blows on my head.

MacDonald clearly acknowledged his injuries were not consistent with his story. His nicks and bruises contrasted sharply with what his family endured. The attacker(s) brutalized his wife, Colette. She suffered multiple stab wounds to the face, neck, chest, and head. Her skull was fractured and there was evulsion of the skin on her forehead. She had nine incision wounds in her neck and seven in her chest. Colette also had twenty-one puncture wounds in her chest and three puncture wounds in her left arm. Her body was covered with numerous bruises, scraps, and cuts. Her left arm had multiple simple and compound fractures and her right wrist was also fractured. Both of their daughters incurred similar beatings and stabbings, which resulted in their deaths.

How did Jeffrey MacDonald survive almost unscathed when the rest of his family was killed several times over? Further, the young girls would have put up no fight and Colette was pregnant and supposedly asleep when her attack began. The intruders inflicted unfathomable violence against helpless, innocent children, but MacDonald failed to even receive a fractured arm defending himself.

During questioning, lawyers asked about statements MacDonald made to reporters and on various television shows. In reference to a specific response, he said:

This is not a statement under oath; it’s a statement to a reporter for a news story. And I think it should be viewed as such. There are a lot of things in here that now, if I looked critically at it, aren’t exactly correct. But I don’t see what relevancy that has.

MacDonald admitted that his answers to questions not under oath were not completely honest. He did not specifically indicate that his statements under oath would be honest, but he implied it. MacDonald also admitted to repeatedly lying to his father-in-law. After his family was murdered, MacDonald told his father-in-law that he made four trips to North Carolina and Florida seeking out their killers. MacDonald added colorful details to make his stories to sound more authentic. He told his father-in-law that during one altercation, he broke his hand punching one of the alleged murderers, which he completely fabricated. According to MacDonald, he did try to find the perpetrators, but in an “ineffectual” manner. However, there was no evidence he ever tried to find anyone associated with his family’s murders.

According to MacDonald, while intruders attacked him, he heard screams from his wife and daughter. Colette allegedly said, “Jeff, Jeff, why are they doing this to me?” If Colette awoke to a vicious attack by a stranger(s), why would her concern be toward motive? She would be screaming for help or for them to stop. Her asking why only made sense if Colette was familiar with her attacker. Interestingly, Colette’s words were close to “Jeff, Jeff, why are you doing this to me?”

MacDonald also said he may have heard his daughter Kimberley screaming for her life. How was this unclear to him? Either he heard his daughter pleading for help, or he did not. This would not have been a vague memory. MacDonald later claimed he heard his daughter Kimberley say, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, help.” The word help was an afterthought. Daddy was the focus of what Kimberley said. Was she screaming Daddy because he was in front of her?

During the 60 Minutes interview, MacDonald said:

When I first got to the bedrooms, everyone had been assaulted. I mean, the first time I saw Colette, Kimmie and Kristie, they had been murdered.

MacDonald mistakenly referred to his brutally murdered family as having been assaulted. Did he misspeak or were his wife and daughters only injured the first time he returned to the bedrooms?

According to MacDonald’s version of events, he engaged in a fight with three men in the living room while other intruders viciously killed his wife and two daughters in their bedrooms. Apart from his statements, there was little evidence to suggest a fight occurred. The grand jury indicted MacDonald on January 24, 1975. He was immediately arrested, but he was subsequently freed on bail. After several decisions from appeals courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, MacDonald finally went to trial in 1979.

During the trial, the prosecution put on significant amounts of circumstantial evidence. Police found the coffee table adjacent to the couch lying on its side. However, during free motion tests, the table always landed on its top. Due to the table’s weight distribution, it would not stay on its side. It ended up on its top every time it was flipped. Unless it was stopped by other items in the room, the only way for it to remain on its side was if someone placed in that position. Further, in crime scene photos, the magazines and papers from the coffee table were leaning against the base of the table top, as if they merely slid down, rather than having been thrusted across the room when the intruders violently flipped the table

There was a small table adjacent to the couch. In crime scene photos, nothing on the table appeared to have been disrupted, with the lamp still perfectly positioned. The couch cushions remained in place, pictures remained on the walls and level, and plants atop the stereo speakers were unmoved. In the dining area, an unstable hutch contained undamaged dishes. Valentine cards located on a nearby table remained upright.

Investigators believed all of the murder weapons came from the MacDonald home. Police discovered an ice pick, knife, and wooden club under some bushes near the back door. The knife and ice pick were consistent with similar items found in inside the house, and the club was determined to have been part of the master bedroom bed. Crime technicians failed to find fingerprints on any of the weapons utilized.

The wood piece possessed both Colette’s and Kimberley’s blood. As a result, the same person likely killed both of them, and based on the blood found in the house, they were killed in separate rooms. Yet, according to MacDonald, they were both screaming simultaneously, which meant they were attacked at the same time. This implied at least two different killers, but the blood evidence refuted MacDonald’s assertion.

Many elements of the crime scene do not support MacDonald’s version of events. Crime scene technicians found a surgical glove in a puddle of Colette’s blood in the master bedroom. Later testing determined that the glove was consistent with gloves found in the kitchen. How did the intruders get a glove out of the kitchen without disturbing MacDonald and without leaving any fingerprints? How did they know the gloves were there? It was an implausible scenario.

There were three entrances into the MacDonald house. Two of them (kitchen and living room) would have resulted in the intruders passing by Jeffrey MacDonald in order to reach the bedrooms. The third entrance, through the utility room, led directly into the master bedroom. The intruders had to have come in through this entrance for MacDonald’s story to make any sense. If the assailants entered through the utility room, then they would have encountered Colette and their daughters prior to reaching MacDonald. This would explain MacDonald’s sequence of events, but it would preclude the intruders from having entered the kitchen to obtain the gloves prior to attacking Colette. If they entered through either of the two other entrances, the fight with MacDonald would have occurred prior to the attacks on the girls and Colette.

Investigators found MacDonald’s eye glasses with Kristen’s blood on them in the living room near a wall. This evidence conflicted with MacDonald’s version of events. Investigators also found Kimberley’s blood in the doorway of her room. As a result, they believed she was killed in this location. However, police found Kimberley in her bed. Someone had tucked her into bed and placed her favorite pink security blanket in her arms after she was murdered.

Police found Colette covered by MacDonald’s pajama top. This was consistent with MacDonald’s claims that he placed his pajama top over her after he pulled the knife out of her chest. However, MacDonald’s pajama top had 48 ice pick holes in it. When arranged, the holes matched the 21 puncture wounds in Colette’s chest. She was stabbed after MacDonald placed his pajama top on her.

Though MacDonald allegedly removed his pajama top immediately after reaching Colette and prior to checking on the girls, investigators found his pajama fibers throughout the house. They were under Colette and in the other bedrooms. Bloody fibers from MacDonald’s pajamas were also found under Kimberley’s fingernails. With the totality of evidence presented, on August 29, 1979, Jeffrey MacDonald was convicted of first degree murder of Kristen, and two counts of second degree murder for Colette and Kimberly.

Though a significant amount of forensic evidence supported his conviction, he is still fighting for a new trial. His lawyers have placed tremendous confidence in the disjointed ramblings of a now deceased drug addict, Helena Stoeckley, who claimed to have been present during the murders. However, there is no corroborating evidence to support her assertions and many of her statements contradicted each other.

Lawyers for MacDonald also discovered a hair found under Colette, which does not match any known source. According to MacDonald’s defense team, the hair demonstrates that unknown intruders entered the home on the night of the murders. Yet, an unexplained hair proves little compared to all the forensic and other circumstantial evidence implicating MacDonald.

At no time during any of MacDonald’s numerous statements about the struggle between him and the alleged intruders did he ever mention the thought of saving his family. He provided many details on his thought-processes during these events, but he never once relayed that he was fighting to save his family. As Jeffrey MacDonald’s father-in-law put it, “It couldn’t have happened the way he said it did. Absolutely impossible.”

Works Cited

Masewicz, Christina, “The Jeffrey MacDonald Information Site,” http://www.thejeffreymacdonaldcase.com/html/christinascorner.html.

Masewicz, Christina, “Jeffrey MacDonald His Injuries and Wounds,” True Crime & Justice, http://www.karisable.com/mac3.htm, 2002.

McClish, Mark, “Jeffrey MacDonald,” Statement Analysis, http://www.statementanalysis.com/macdonald/, September 19, 2014.

Interview of Jeffrey R. MacDonald, at CID Office, Fort Bragg, NC, http://www.thejeffreymacdonaldcase.com/html/macdonald_1970apr6.html, April 6, 1970.

Interview of Jeffrey MacDonald, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWrLpng7xsM, The Dick Cavett Show, December 15, 1970.

Jeffrey MacDonald Grand Jury Testimony, http://www.thejeffreymacdonaldcase.com/html/gj-1974-08-12-13-macdonald.html, 1974-1975 Jeffrey MacDonald Case Grand Jury Transcript, August 13, 1974,

“Jeffrey MacDonald: In his own words,” Larry King Live, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55pXxxRt70k, October 24, 2003.

60 Minutes, http://www.thejeffreymacdonaldcase.com/html/1-60_minutes.html, September 18, 1983.

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

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

http://quietfurybooks.com/blog/mondayblogs-embracing-the-other-you-can-make-it-if-you-really-try/

↧

Embracing the Other: You Can Make It If You Really Try

March 6, 2017, 5:02 am

≫ Next: Instafreebie Crime Fiction Group Giveaway

≪ Previous: How Jeffrey MacDonald’s Words Betrayed Him

Patrick H. Moore’s post, “Embracing the Other: You Can Make It If You Really Try”, is now live on Darcia Helle’s blogsite, Quiet Fury Books (http://www.quietfurybooks.com/). Darcia has kindly posted this short memoir as part of her #Monday Blogs series, which is designed to help bring about understanding and acceptance of The Other and to celebrate Diversity in these difficult times. Please give this a read. I suspect that you will not be disappointed (unless you are a truly churlish soul). :-)

Here is the link to: Embracing the Other: You Can Make It If You Really Try

↧

Instafreebie Crime Fiction Group Giveaway

March 17, 2017, 1:43 pm

≫ Next: Hidden in Plain Sight: The Darker Side of Aaron Hernandez

≪ Previous: Embracing the Other: You Can Make It If You Really Try

posted by Patrick H. Moore

Crime Fiction Giveaway Alert

Suzanne Jenkins is a dear friend of mine and an accomplished romance and crime writer. I have read several of her books and strongly recommend The Greeks of Beaubien Street, a fast-paced crime novel which I thoroughly enjoyed. Suzanne has 49 books and/or short stories on Amazon, a remarkable total. In addition to staying up all night writing, Suzanne — out of the kindness of her heart — helps indie writers of all stripes find ways to publicize their books and stories.

Suzanne is currently running an Instafreebie Crime Fiction Group Giveaway.If you click on the link, you will be transported to to the Giveaway where you’ll be able to browse through 42 different crime novels and/or stories. All you need to do is click on any of the book covers and you’ll once again be transported — this time to the Giveaway itself where you can download free samples from the books and stories.

In addition to a section of The Greeks of Beaubien Street, Suzanne is contributing a short story called The Donut Shop Murder. Patrick H. is contributing a sample chapter of his Nick Crane crime novel, Cicero’s Dead.

↧

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Darker Side of Aaron Hernandez

May 4, 2017, 6:29 am

≫ Next: The Tragic Death of Jason Corbett: Father-Daughter Tag Team, or Self-Defense?

≪ Previous: Instafreebie Crime Fiction Group Giveaway

by John W. Taylor

Aaron Hernandez excelled in high school athletics. He has been portrayed as the best athlete to ever come out of Bristol, Connecticut. Off the field, he appeared physically older than other high schoolers, but socially far younger. In 2006, at the age of 16, his father died, and this may have exacerbated an already angry disposition lingering below the surface.

Hernandez attended the University of Florida where he played football. According to various accounts, Hernandez got into considerable trouble while in college, including allegedly failing multiple drug tests. In 2007, Hernandez was involved in an incident outside a bar where someone fired a gun into a car after an altercation. One of the victims described the shooter as “Hispanic or Hawaiian, with lot of tattoos on his arms,” which matched Hernandez. He refused to cooperate and requested an attorney. Hernandez never gave a statement. No charges were filed and his name failed to show up in any police report. Regardless, the shooting was well-known in Florida. During the same year, Hernandez also supposedly ruptured a man’s eardrum during a fight, but he managed to avoid any direct consequences associated with this incident as well. His tumultuous behavior was an open secret.

On the field, Hernandez continued to outperform those around him. He was the starting tight end on Florida’s 2008 National Championship football team. In 2009, he was named first-team All-American and also received the John Mackey Award, which is awarded to the nation’s top collegiate tight end. Hernandez demonstrated the acumen necessary to warrant a first-round draft in the NFL. Unfortunately, NFL scouts knew about his off-the-field incidents and behaviors. On his pre-draft psychological report, Hernandez received the lowest possible score, one out of 10, in the category of “social maturity.” The report also noted that he enjoyed “living on the edge of acceptable behavior.” As a result, he was not selected until the fourth round of the NFL’s 2010 draft.

The Patriots selected Hernandez as the 113^th pick in the draft. Hernandez was still available because the other NFL teams avoided him. They chose not to take him. The Patriots landed first-round talent in the fourth-round. Hernandez played in the NFL from 2010 through 2012. He compiled 910 yards in 2011 and 18 touchdowns over his three-year career. He was a pro bowl alternate in 2011, and helped the New England Patriots reach the Super Bowl. During Super Bowl XLVI, Hernandez scored a touchdown and led the team in receiving yardage.

Prior to the Patriot’s drafting Hernandez, he wrote them a letter offering to put his rookie salary at risk if he failed any drug tests for marijuana. When the Patriots drafted him, they tied a huge portion of his contract to him being on time, attending meetings, and generally not causing problems. Surprisingly, he avoided trouble. Then he signed a $40 million contract with a $12.5 million signing bonus, and problems ensued. Within months of signing the deal, police arrested him for murder. In response, the Patriot’s owner, Robert Kraft, was quoted as saying the organization was “duped” by Hernandez.

The Patriot’s organization had a reputation for rehabbing athletes with troubled pasts. They believed they could do the same with Aaron Hernandez. Prior to his arrest for murder, Hernandez allegedly used PCP and carried a gun everywhere he went. He missed workouts and was close to getting cut from the team. The Patriots were not fooled; they believed they could manage the risk, but their calculations were wrong. They pled ignorance rather than acknowledge their significant error in judgment.

On July 16, 2012, Aaron Hernandez and friends partied inside Boston’s Cure Lounge. Reportedly, an individual unknown to Hernandez bumped into him causing him to spill his drink. Hernandez felt disrespected. Hours later, multiple shots were fired from a sports utility vehicle into the vehicle where the individual who bumped into Hernandez was riding. Two of the individuals in the car, Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, were killed.

Hernandez’s friend, Alexander Bradley, was allegedly in the car with Hernandez when he killed de Abreu and Furtado. Whether it was to eliminate him as a witness or due to a different dispute, Hernandez supposedly shot Bradley seven months later. According to Bradley, Hernandez shot him in the face and then dumped him in an alley for dead. Bradley lived, but refused to tell police who shot him. Though he refused to cooperate with law enforcement, he filed a civil suit against Hernandez for shooting him. He wanted to be paid.

In the early morning hours of June 17, 2013, Hernandez and two of his friends, Carlos Ortiz, and Ernest Wallace Jr., rented a silver Nissan Altima. They picked up Odin Lloyd, who was dating the sister of Aaron Hernandez’s fiancée. The group drove to a secluded field in North Attleboro, Massachusetts. Lloyd seemed to know he was in trouble, as he texted his sister several times alerting her to his concern. A short time later, Odin Lloyd was dead from multiple gun shots.

A mountain of evidence led the police directly from Odin Lloyd’s murder to Aaron Hernandez. DNA, blood evidence, surveillance tapes, text messages, and eye-witness testimony provided a comprehensive timeline and sequence of events that pointed to Hernandez’s killing of Lloyd. Prosecutors postulated that Lloyd’s murder resulted from his knowledge of previous murders committed by Hernandez. Hernandez had reason to believe that Lloyd had told people about his role in the de Abreu and Furtado murders. Hernandez needed to neutralize this potential threat.

Though Hernandez and his accomplices made dozens of mistakes before, during, and after Lloyd’s murder, Hernandez also overtly attempted to destroy evidence. Before the police could get a warrant to view his home security surveillance tapes, Hernandez destroyed six hours of recordings around the time of Lloyd’s murder. He also handed his cell phone to the police smashed into little pieces. In spite of his attempts, the police collected loads of additional incriminating evidence against Hernandez. On April 15, 2015, the jury found Hernandez guilty of first-degree murder and five weapon’s charges. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

After convicting Hernandez of Lloyd’s murder, prosecutors re-visited the Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado murders. Witnesses saw Hernandez and his friend, Alexander Bradley, leave the club in a silver Toyota 4Runner with Rhode Island license plates, following the vehicle containing de Abreu and Furtado. After multiple shots were fired, witnesses saw the same SUV speeding away. The Toyota 4Runner turned up later in a garage of Hernandez’s uncle.

According to the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office, police found the murder weapon in the trunk of a car belonging to a woman with ties to Hernandez. After prosecutors granted him immunity, Alexander Bradley testified that Aaron Hernandez fired five shots into the vehicle containing de Abreu and Furtado. According to Bradley, after Hernandez fired the shots, he uttered, “I think I got one in the head and one in the chest.” Though the evidence appeared to paint a clear and logical explanation of what happened to de Abreu and Furtado, the jury did not buy it. They found Hernandez not guilty on April 14, 2017. Though no one from the jury commented on the decision, most likely, they failed to believe the prosecution’s star witness, Alexander Bradley. The defense appeared to have successfully weakened Bradley’s credibility by presenting text messages where he mentioned concerns regarding perjuring himself.

Since 2007, Aaron Hernandez has been charged with, or linked to, the shootings of six people in four incidents. Three of the victims were gruesomely murdered. After entering the NFL, Hernandez posted pictures of himself online with a gun and donning gang colors. He threatened to kill a teammate. Hernandez’s girlfriend, Shayanna Jenkins, called the police after he put his fist through a window, but he was not charged with anything. When police finally arrested Hernandez for murder, the people around him and in the Patriot’s organization could only feign shock. His behavior had been building for years. Miraculously, Hernandez’s countless indiscretions and crimes had been mostly shielded from the public, but not from those close to him.

Aaron Hernandez was not someone with simply an anger issue. He did not erupt immediately and impulsively in violence. He was a calculating killer who schemed and trapped his victims before brutally killing them in cold blood. Those around Hernandez claimed he suffered from paranoia, but it is not clear how that affected his violent tendencies. Drugs taken by Hernandez may have contributed to his behavior, and there has been speculation he may have suffered from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (“CTE”), due to repeated football-related head trauma. However, neither possible drug use nor unsubstantiated brain injuries fully explain the barbaric and systematic approach Hernandez took when disposing of his adversaries. Hernandez’s football skills, fame, and money likely delayed him from suffering the consequences of his violent crimes, but the lack of accountability only seemed to exacerbate his violent tendencies. He was a ticking time tomb. And he finally turned his rage inward.

On April 19, 2017, Aaron Hernandez killed himself, just five days after a jury acquitted him of double murder. He allegedly wrote “John 3:16” in red marker on his head and opened his Bible to the same verse. Hernandez gave no indication to those close to him that he was contemplating suicide or even depressed. Only conjecture is left to understand his final act, but it appears his conscience may have gotten the best of him.

Works Cited

Armstrong, Kevin, “The chilling story of convicted murderer Aaron Hernandez, and the trial that put him away for the rest of his life,” New York Daily News, http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/cold-blood-aaron-hernandez-murder-trial-article-1.2189918, April 18, 2015.

Bishop, Greg, “Hernandez Among Many Who Found Trouble at Florida in the Meyer Years,” The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/sports/ncaafootball/hernandez-among-many-arrested-at-florida-in-the-meyer-years.html, July 6, 2013.

Fantz, Ashley, “Aaron Hernandez charged in 2012 double homicide,” CNN, http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/15/justice/aaron-hernandez-indictment/, May 15, 2014.

Germano, Beth, “Testimony in Hernandez Murder Trial Centers on Street Sweeper,” CBS Boston, http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/03/06/aaron-hernandez-double-murder-trial-testimony-continues/, March 6, 2017.

Solotaroff, Paul, “The Gangster in the Huddle,” Rolling Stone, http://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-gangster-in-the-huddle, August 28, 2013.

Wilson, Ryan, “Aaron Hernandez wrote Patriots pre-draft letter about drug allegations,” CBS Sports, http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/aaron-hernandez-wrote-patriots-pre-draft-letter-about-drug-allegations/, July 8, 2013.

Wilson, Ryan, “Former Patriots adviser admits team knew Aaron Hernandez had issues,” CBS Sports, http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/former-patriots-adviser-admits-team-knew-aaron-hernandez-had-issues/, April 17, 2015.

“Aaron Hernandez Criminal Cases Timeline,” Fox Sports, http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/aaron-hernandez-murder-case-timeline-051414, May 14, 2014.

“Aaron Hernandez found with Bible verse written on forehead, reports say,” FoxNews.com, http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/04/20/hernandezs-lawyer-says-family-looking-for-answers-after-death.html, April 20, 2017.

ESPN, NFL statistics, http://www.espn.com/nfl/player/stats/_/id/13230/aaron-hernandez, accessed March 2017.

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

How Jeffrey MacDonald’s Words Betrayed Him

Do Helena Stoeckley’s Ramblings Convey Reasonable Doubt for Jeffrey MacDonald?

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

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

How Jeffrey MacDonald’s Words Betrayed Him

↧

The Tragic Death of Jason Corbett: Father-Daughter Tag Team, or Self-Defense?

September 24, 2017, 8:34 am

≫ Next: Can’t Miss Crime Fiction: “Second Story Man” by Charles Salzberg

≪ Previous: Hidden in Plain Sight: The Darker Side of Aaron Hernandez

by John W. Taylor

After Jason Corbett’s first wife died from an asthma attack in November of 2006, he was forced to raise his two children, Jack and Sarah, alone in their homeland of Ireland. Jason hired an American, Molly Martens, as an au pair for his children. However, their professional relationship quickly turned romantic. They married in 2011 and moved to the United States. The couple and Jason’s two children settled into a four-bedroom house in a golf course community in Davidson County, North Carolina. From the outside, everything appeared idyllic.

On the evening of August 1, 2015, Molly’s parents, Thomas and Sharon, came to visit unexpectedly. Thomas was a retired 30-year veteran of the F.B.I. They arrived late, ate pizza, and retired for the evening to a guest room in the basement. According to Thomas, he awoke in the middle of the night to “loud voices and thumping.” He told his wife to stay in the basement. Thomas picked up a baseball bat and headed upstairs. He entered the couple’s bedroom to find Jason choking Molly. Thomas demanded Jason let her go, but Jason responded by saying that he was going to kill Molly. Thomas stepped forward and struck Jason in the head numerous times with the baseball bat. Upon Jason falling to the floor, Thomas immediately called 9-1-1:

Dispatcher: Davidson County 911, what is the address of the emergency?

Thomas Martens: My name is Tom Martens. I’m at 160 Panther Creek Court and we need help.

Thomas unnecessarily identified himself to the dispatcher. It was not clear why he provided this information. After providing the address, Thomas conveyed a generic plea for help without specifying whether he needed the police, fire department, or an ambulance. His opening statement failed to convey a sense of urgency.

Dispatcher: Okay, what’s going on there?

Thomas: My daughter’s husband, my son-in-law, got in a fight with my daughter. I intervened and I think – he’s in bad shape. We need help.

Thomas responded by identifying his relationship to the person who needed assistance. He provided this information twice. Repetition can often indicate stress. Plus, the information he provided was immaterial to the dispatcher. Thomas wasted time identifying himself and the victim. He continued by providing context (a fight) to the call without, again, providing anything pertaining to the actual emergency.

Thomas fought with Jason, but he described his actions as “intervening.” He continued by saying, “I think – he’s in bad shape.” Thomas, and it was later determined Molly, hit Jason multiple times with blunt instruments, including an aluminum baseball bat. Many of the blows struck Jason’s skull. For Thomas to state that he thought Jason was in bad shape, significantly downplayed the urgency of the situation. He ended his response with another vague plea, “We need help.”

Dispatcher: Okay, what do you mean he’s in bad shape, he’s hurt?

Thomas: He’s bleeding all over and I may have killed him.

Based on the information Thomas initially provided, the dispatcher did not even know if Jason was injured. Thomas ended his response with, “…I may have killed him.” This statement contrasted sharply with his previous statements. Inconsistencies in message can often indicate deception as the individual attempts to manage the information conveyed.

After the dispatcher confirmed the location, she instructed Thomas and Molly on how to provide chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The dispatcher counted as Thomas and Molly administered C.P.R. on Jason. When emergency personnel arrived they quickly determined Jason was beyond help.

Jason’s death sparked a custody battle for his two children. Molly pursued custody, even though Jason’s Last Will and Testament provided for his sister, Tracey Lynch, to raise his children. The custody hearings were quite contentious with Tracey claiming Molly physically and emotionally abused the children. Over Molly’s objection, the judge granted custody of Jason’s children to Tracey Lynch.

Though the police initially treated Jason’s death as a self-defense scenario, it evolved into investigators believing Thomas and Molly murdered Jason. On January 6, 2016, police arrested Thomas and Molly for murder. A different story unfolded after the arrests. Molly claimed she was in an abusive relationship with Jason. According to Molly, he had a horrible temper, which he concealed from friends and family. Jason allegedly strangled and choked her numerous times during arguments. During his police interview, Thomas claimed that the father of Jason’s first wife told him he believed Jason killed his daughter, though this assertion could not be substantiated.

Social workers interviewed Jason’s children to determine if they witnessed any abuse in the home. During one of the interviews, six-year-old Jack said, “He [my dad] would physically and verbally hurt my mom.” Though potentially damaging, it certainly did not sound like a sentence a six-year-old would use. It sounded rehearsed. When prosecutors spoke with Jack, he stated that his dad never hurt his stepmom. In the end, it was only Molly’s word regarding the abuse she purportedly endured over the years. There were no police reports, injuries, or witnesses to corroborate her assertions.

To Molly, the night Jason died was a culmination of years of abuse and an almost inevitable event. She alleged that Jason became angry with her after she helped his daughter get back to sleep after a nightmare. Jason felt Molly coddled the children. According to Molly, as the fight escalated, Jason covered her mouth and then started choking her. When he stopped choking her, she screamed. Molly did not indicate why he stopped choking her. She went on to say, “The next thing I remember is my dad standing in the doorway.” Molly utilized the present tense verb is to describe past events, which can often indicate deception as the person creates the information in the present rather than remembering it. Further, Molly used the phrase “the next thing,” which conveyed the passage of time. It means she skipped details. What happened between the time she screamed and the time her father arrived in the bedroom? We do not know because she failed to explain this portion of the story.

When asked what he saw when he looked in the bedroom, Thomas responded, “It’s awful,” which was also in the present tense. According to Thomas, as he was standing in the doorway holding a baseball bat, Jason moved behind Molly and put her in a chokehold. Thomas continued, “Then he starts to edge toward the master bathroom.” Again, Thomas described the scenario in the present tense. He also utilized the word “starts” to describe the action. If an action starts then it means something stopped the action. However, Thomas failed to identify what stopped Jason’s action, which can indicate deception. Thomas then claimed that he hit Jason in the back of the head twice with the baseball bat; yet, the strikes purportedly did nothing to stop Jason from choking Molly. According to Thomas, as he swung the bat a third time, Jason caught it with his hand while choking Molly with the other. Jason pushed back on the bat and sent Thomas flying across the room. Molly also described this portion of the fight:

Jason just grabbed the bat away. It was like it was nothing. He could choke me with one hand – with one arm – and grab the bat with the other. He was just so much stronger.

Evidence in the murder trial of Jason Corbett

At this point, Jason’s strength and fighting abilities seemed indestructible. Further, with Jason holding the baseball bat and Thomas on the floor, Jason possessed significant tactical advantage. Though the tide of the fight shifted strongly in Jason’s favor, this is when Thomas supposedly achieved the upper hand. According to Thomas, Jason was standing over him with a baseball bat, but Jason failed to strike him or Molly with the bat. Why not? Jason was allegedly filled with rage, but he chose not to strike them when he had the opportunity.

Thomas then purportedly grabbed the bat while lying on the floor. He and Jason struggled. While fighting for control of the bat, Thomas allegedly struck Jason with an elbow and then with his fist. Thomas stated, “And he goes down, and I’ve got the bat… and I back off.” Apparently, Thomas’ repeated blows to Jason’s head with a baseball bat had little impact, but his off-balanced punch dropped Jason to the floor, ended the fight, and killed him.

During her police interview, Molly admitted to hitting Jason in the head with a paving stone, which was located on her nightstand. Molly explained the presence of the brick-like object in the bedroom to police by saying the children planned to paint it. Thomas’ version of events did not account for Molly striking Jason in the head with the paving stone. When did this happen? Did it also have little effect on Jason? When pressed for details, Molly and Thomas’ stories exhibited inconsistencies.

During the summer of 2017, Thomas and Molly went to trial. The prosecution painted a different picture of what transpired within the couple’s bedroom. When paramedics arrived at the house, they found Jason nude on the floor. He had flaky dried blood on his face and chest and his body was cold. The condition of his body led the paramedics to believe Jason had been dead for quite some time, likely hours. While on the 9-1-1 call, Thomas and Molly supposedly performed at least two rounds of C.P.R. on Jason, but neither had blood on their hands even though Jason’s chest was covered in blood.

According to the autopsy, Jason Corbett died from “blunt-force trauma to the head.” The medical examiner, Dr. Craig Nelson, testified that Jason was struck on the head at least 12 times. His skull contained extensive fractures and appeared crushed. Jason had additional blunt-force trauma to his body, to include his hands, knees, and torso. He was severely beaten and some of the injuries were likely inflicted post mortem.

Sixty-seven-year-old Thomas Martens had no visible injuries, though he claimed to have been in a life-and-death struggle with a much younger man who was six feet tall and over 260 pounds. He emerged from the fight unscathed. Molly, who Jason supposedly tried to strangle to death, also had no visible injuries. There were some red marks on her neck, but when the crime scene photographer took her picture he had to repeatedly tell her to stop rubbing her neck. Jason had smeared blood on his hands and blood underneath his fingernails. Since Jason was the only person with injuries, the blood likely transferred to his hands from him touching and covering his wounds in self-defense. The injuries depicted a completely one-sided fight.

Blood covered the walls in the couple’s bedroom and bathroom. There were pools of blood on the floor. Both the baseball bat and the concrete paving brick were covered with Jason’s blood. According to blood-stain pattern expert Stuart James, many of the strikes inflicted on Jason occurred while his head was close to the floor. He based his conclusions on the fact that most of the blood spatter was low on the walls. Further, stains on the underside of Thomas’ boxer shorts and on Molly’s pajama pants indicated that the two of them were above and over Jason as they struck him.

The defense team tried to support their claim of self-defense by pointing toward a poorly processed crime scene. The defense argued that investigators never tested underneath Jason’s fingernails. However, since neither Molly nor Thomas had any injuries, investigators believed it was unnecessary. The defense’s argument only shed more light on the lack of injuries to the two defendants who claimed to be victims.

The prosecution presented several connected theories regarding motive. Molly wanted to adopt Jason’s children, but he would not allow it. She also stood to receive $600,000 from Jason’s life insurance policy. Molly, the State theorized, would collect the insurance money, and use it to raise the children. Prosecutors contended that Thomas had a deep-seated hatred of Jason, and this hostility coupled with Molly’s desire to be free, combined to create a deadly, grisly scene, which resulted in Jason’s demise.

When the jury went into deliberations, on the first vote, they voted 12-0 in favor of convicting Thomas. As one juror later said, “There was no doubt in my mind [regarding Thomas’ guilt].” However, the jury initially voted 10-2 to convict Molly, but after reviewing the evidence more closely, the jury ultimately determined she had a prominent role in Jason’s murder, with one of the jurors later speculating that Molly may have killed Jason, and Thomas merely helped cover it up. After a month-long trial, it took the jury less than two hours of deliberation to convict Thomas and Molly of second degree murder. Both were sentenced to 20 to 25 years in prison.

Thomas was quoted as saying, “I didn’t murder my son-in-law. And I would challenge any reasonable man, much less a reasonable father, to say that this was unnecessary force.” Yet, the forensic evidence from the scene depicted two people savagely beating to death an unarmed and naked man with a baseball bat and paving stone. Twelve people found this scenario far from reasonable or necessary.

Works Cited

Finn, Jessica & Fegan, Catherine, “Inside the blood-spattered bedroom where former model and her ex-FBI agent father ‘slaughtered’ her Irish husband with a ‘baseball bat and landscaping stone,’” The Irish Daily Mail, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4781486/Inside-blood-spattered-bedroom-man-murdered.html, August 11, 2017.

Hewlett, Michael, “No fingerprints on baseball bat used to hit Jason Corbett,” Winston-Salem Journal, http://www.journalnow.com/news/crime/no-fingerprints-on-baseball-bat-used-to-hit-jason-corbett/article_361c2e42-183a-57ca-aed5-2738bf94129c.html, August 1, 2017.

Hewlett, Michael, “Closing arguments begin in murder trial of Thomas Martens, Molly Corbett,” Winston-Salem Journal, http://www.greensboro.com/news/crime/closing-arguments-begin-in-murder-trial-of-thomas-martens-molly/article_2eb91501-5fed-5911-a6da-d45799696202.html, August 8, 2017.

Leogue, Joe, “Why was Limerick man Jason Corbett killed?” Irish Examiner, http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/why-was-limerick-man-jason-corbett-killed-413544.html, August 2, 2016.

Pandav, Jillian, “Episode 33: Jason Corbett – Murder or Self-Defense?” Court Junkie Podcast, http://courtjunkie.com/ep-33-jason-corbett-murder-self-defense/, August 22, 2017.

Riegel, Ralph, “Listen: ‘He’s bleeding all over and I may have killed him’ – Full transcript of Martens’ 911 call,” Independent.ie, http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/listen-hes-bleeding-all-over-and-i-may-have-killed-him-full-transcript-of-martens-911-call-36013283.html, August 9, 2017.

Rose, Alex, & Black, Susanna, “Molly Corbett, Thomas Martens each sentenced to 20-25 years in prison,” Fox 8, http://myfox8.com/2017/08/09/molly-corbett-thomas-martens-each-sentenced-to-20-25-years-in-prison/, August 9, 2017.

Sheridan, Anne, “Prosecutors seek to dismiss Martens’ retrial bid in Jason Corbett murder,” Limerick Leader, http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/home/267242/prosecutors-seek-to-dismiss-martens-retrial-bid-in-jason-corbett-murder.html, August 27, 2017.

North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Autopsy, #B201502636, Jason Paul Corbett, performed by Craig Nelson M.D., August 3, 2015, report dated: August 26, 2015.

“The Last Ones Standing,” 20/20, http://abc.go.com/shows/2020/episode-guide/2017-08/11-081217-the-last-ones-standing, August 12, 2017.

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

Do Helena Stoeckley’s Ramblings Convey Reasonable Doubt for Jeffrey MacDonald?

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

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

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Darker Side of Aaron Hernandez

↧

Can’t Miss Crime Fiction: “Second Story Man” by Charles Salzberg

March 29, 2018, 9:28 am

≫ Next: “American Justice on Trial: People v. Newton”– the untold story by Lise Pearlman

≪ Previous: The Tragic Death of Jason Corbett: Father-Daughter Tag Team, or Self-Defense?

review by Patrick H. Moore

Charles Salzberg has always been an interesting crime novelist. He came late to writing fiction, but since publishing Devil in the Hole in 2013, his brilliant psychological study of John Hartman, a desperate Everyman who murdered his entire family and then skipped town, he has been quite prolific. Charles has not only written the entire Henry Swann series (5 volumes) starring his curmudgeonly PI protagonist; he now brings us a new novel Second Story Man, an intriguing in-depth look at Francis Hoyt, America’s most skillful high-end silver thief, and the two detectives — grumpy prematurely retired Charlie Floyd and the ebullient Manny Perez — who are determined to bring him to justice. The story takes the form of a police procedural narrated by three separate first person voices.

Second Story Man was published by Down and Out Books on March 26th.

I have always found Charles Salzberg to be that rarest of crime writers, an author who insists that his books be realistic. This means that in his stories heads do not typically explode “in a savage red rain”, and the fate of the world does not constantly hang in the balance. Rather, Mr. Salzberg presents us with utterly convincing characters who do real things. In Second Story Man, each of his three main characters — not to mention the supporting cast of Francis Hoyt’s girlfriends, as well as two memorably unsavory professional “fences”– ring true.

Along with his penchant for realism, Mr. Salzberg insists on maintaining “freshness” within the genre in which he chooses to work. This, of course, is no easy task. In Second Story Man, he achieves this by presenting the reader with three separate protagonists, each of whom speaks in his own distinctive first person voice.

The bad guy in this story is Francis Hoyt, high-end silver thief par excellence. He is like the mean little guy in middle school who picked fights with innocent children just for the fun of it. Francis had an abusive father who made his childhood hell, which helped him develop what a psychologist would likely term “borderline personality disorder”. In layman’s terms this means “having a very short fuse” and being prone to fits of irrational anger. Francis starts adult life as a second story man. He only gets caught once but that is enough. After that he swears off ladders and concentrates on the bling (only the best bling, you understand) that the kitchens of the elite have to offer.

As part of his overall odious make-up, Francis treats his girlfriends as disposable commodities.

Although Francis is undeniably obnoxious, not to mention cruel and even murderous, readers may gradually find themselves rooting for the little guy as he engages in his cat-and-mouse game with the two obsessed detectives who are doing their best to “breathe down his neck”. Mr. Salzberg cleverly depicts Francis Hoyt as both “underdog” and “untouchable”. In his mind, the detectives have no chance in hell of ever capturing him, and he likes nothing better than leading them on a wild goose chase in which apparent good “leads” vanish like the proverbial will-of-the wisp.

The two detectives who set out in pursuit of him — retired Connecticut homicide detective Charlie Floyd and suspended Miami PD detective Manny Perez — have distinctly different personalities and styles of speech: Floyd is hard-bitten and taciturn and not the kind of guy you want to be cross-examined by. Perez is bubbly and buttoned-down. Proud of his hard won American citizenship, he loves the U.S. and wants to protect it with every ounce of his fiber.

Floyd and Perez are both highly believable characters. Their pursuit of Francis Hoyt is done with verve, patience and creativity. Yet, as a reader, I was never certain whose side I was on: Francis Hoyt’s or that of the stalwart detectives.

The old saying, “there are many slips ‘twixt the cup and the lip” justly describes the detectives’ earnest but perhaps not entirely successful pursuit of Hoyt.

Any reader of crime fiction who enjoys a fresh, realistic psychological crime thriller cum police procedural full of twists and turns but sans gratuitous violence will want to purchase a copy of Second Story Man. This is a book that is likely to fare well in this year’s book award contests.

Charles Salzberg is a former magazine journalist who has now turned to a life of crime. His first novel, Swann’s Last Song, was nominated for a Shamus Award, and there are three others in the series: Swann Dives In, Swann’s Lake of Despair, which was nominated for two Silver Falchions, and was a Finalist for the Beverly Hills Book Award and the Indie Excellence Award, and Swann’s Way Out. His novel, Devil in the Hole, was named one of the best crime novels of 2013 by Suspense Magazine, and his novella, “Twist of Fate,” was included in Triple Shot, a collection of three noir crime novellas. He is the author of more than twenty non-fiction books, including From Set Shot to Slam Dunk, an oral history of the NBA, and Soupy Sez: My Zany Life and Times, with Soupy Sales. He has taught magazine journalist at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and he teaches writing at the New York Writers Workshop, where he is a Founding Member.

↧

“American Justice on Trial: People v. Newton”– the untold story by Lise Pearlman

May 23, 2018, 6:23 am

≫ Next: Why Revisit the Newton Death Penalty Story Today? — Blog #2 in Our 10-Part Series

≪ Previous: Can’t Miss Crime Fiction: “Second Story Man” by Charles Salzberg

Lise Pearlman is a retired California judge and award-winning author who appeared in Stanley Nelson’s 2015 film, “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” as the country’s leading expert on the 1968 Huey Newton death penalty trial. You can find a description of her four critically-acclaimed history books and bio at www.lisepearlman.com. She is currently producing a nonprofit film project, “American Justice on Trial: People v. Newton.” It is a companion work to the prize-winning book All Things Crime Blog has asked her to write about in an exclusive series of blogs. © Lise Pearlman

American Justice on Trial: People v. Newton – the untold story by Lise Pearlman

This year marks the 50^th anniversary of People v. Newton, the internationally-followed death penalty trial of Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party. 1968 was one of the most turbulent years in that century. Those of us college-aged at that time would agree with TIME magazine’s assertion — 1968 was “the year that shaped a generation.” Before the shocking assassinations of Martin Luther King and Senator Bobby Kennedy, there was already substantial unrest over both the Vietnam War and the nation’s history of race bias.

It was in the context of abusive police practices stretching back two decades that the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was formed in October 1966. By 1968, it spawned branches across the country — using the international attention drawn to the Newton death penalty trial as the Party’s launching pad. Even to this day the influence of the Panthers is felt, as reflected in the extraordinary popularity of Stanley Nelson’s 2015 film, “The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” and the sell-out crowds who flocked to the extended run of the 2016-17 golden anniversary retrospective on the Black Panther Party at the Oakland Museum of California. The Panthers were the spiritual –and sometimes literal — grandparents of the current Black Lives Matter Movement.

Newton seated on a wicker throne with a spear in one hand and rifle in the other has become a lasting icon symbolizing black militancy. (The photo is of a painting hanging in Oakland’s Merritt College Student Lounge dedicated to former students Huey Newton and Bobby Seale). Newton undoubtedly inspired the Oakland-based character Erik Killmonger in the 2018 blockbuster Marvel comic feature film “Black Panther” directed by Oaklander Ryan Coogler.

But my book focuses on the untold story of the Newton trial – its lasting impact on the system of justice, primarily in their demand for a true “jury of one’s peers” in criminal cases, and what it suggests regarding the critical role of diversity in further needed reforms to our justice system today.

The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution promised criminal defendants a “jury of one’s peers” but never effectively delivered on that promise from the eighteenth century to 1968. Instead, until the Newton trial it had been customary, particularly in death penalty cases, to seat white men exclusively, or with token participation by women and minorities. Nor were jurors questioned strongly about race bias. Newton and his lawyers changed all that. That one widely-watched trial would wind up revolutionizing the approach of defense counsel in seating criminal juries nationwide. It is a key reason — but not the only reason — I have argued that it should be recognized as “THE TRIAL OF THE 20^th CENTURY.” All the ground-breaking aspects of the 1968 Newton trial are included in my two books on the subject: The Sky’s the Limit: People v. Newton, The REAL Trial of the 20^th Century? [Regent Press 2012] and American Justice on Trial: People v. Newton, [Regent Press 2016].

The 1968 murder trial of Huey Newton is now recognized as “a world-changing true story.” I am pleased to share that my book American Justice on Trial won a 2017 award for best book on Law and was named a finalist in Multiculturalism and U.S. History. Just this month, it was also named a finalist for the 2018 Next Generation Indie Book Awards in the category of “Current Events/Social Change.” So I want to share with you why this is such an important story to revisit now.

Let’s begin my weekly blog entries with the “Author’s Note” to the book when it was released in the fall of 2016. I believe my observations then remain acutely relevant today:

As I write this, the nation is still reeling from multiple shocks in July 2016. First, as the month began, came yet two more videotaped incidents of police shooting to death black arrestees after many other such widely-publicized incidents over the previous several years. The day after the Fourth of July holiday, disturbing footage went viral of Baton Rouge police outside a convenience store firing repeatedly at 37-year-old Alton Sterling while two white policemen already had Sterling pinned face down on the ground. A day later, a thousand miles away in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota, the quick-thinking girl friend of Philando Castile used her cell phone to capture a local policeman still waving his gun outside Castile’s car window as Castile lay bleeding to death seated beside her following a traffic stop. This graphic image was followed within days by breaking news of a horrific sniper attack on Dallas policemen who were monitoring one of many Black Lives Matter protest rallies prompted by the deaths of Sterling and Castile. Then, on July 17, 2016 came another attack, this time on Baton Rouge police.

The carnage and proliferation of demonstrations and hostile reactions in the aftermath have drawn renewed national focus to fractured police-community relations in cities across country, the very issue that gave rise to the Black Panther Party a half century ago. Indeed, the day after video footage went viral of Castile dying from gunshot wounds following a traffic stop, AlterNet reporter Alexandra Rosenmann drew a direct comparison to the sensationalized 1968 murder trial of Panther Party co-founder Huey Newton. Rosenmann titled her web article, “Gun Rights, Police Brutality and the Case of the Century: Philando Castile’s tragic case of police brutality pulls one of the most famous cases back into focus.” (Alexandra Rosenmann, “Gun Rights, Police Brutality and the Case of the Century,” Alternet, July 7, https://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/gun-rights-police-brutality-and-case-century-video.)

The two incidents did start out in similar ways. In the early morning of October 28, 1967, Oakland policeman John Frey stopped the car Newton was driving to write a ticket for an unpaid traffic fine. A shootout ensued that left Officer Frey dead and Newton and a back-up officer seriously wounded. Newton claimed to have been unarmed and the victim of an abusive arrest; no gun belonging to Newton was found. His death penalty trial the following summer drew international attention to whether any black man could get a fair trial in America.

Before the deadly July 2016 incidents occurred, interviewees for this book had already noted the remarkable relevance of the 1968 Newton case to current events. Among them is William “Bill” Patterson, a former President of the Oakland NAACP and the first black foreman of the Alameda County Grand Jury: “It does resonate today. A young man [Oscar Grant III] being killed in the BART station by BART police and how that played out. The Florida case . . . again another young man [Trayvon Martin] shot to death. These situations continue to emerge and if we are not careful, we will find history repeating itself.”

In the past several months, both champions and critics of the Black Lives Matter movement have drawn parallels to the split among Americans in the turbulent 1960s. The comparisons reached a point where President Obama felt compelled to reassure the world, on July 9, 2016, that most Americans are not as divided as we were fifty years ago: “When we start suggesting that somehow, there’s this enormous polarization and we’re back to the situation in the ’60s, that’s just not true. You’re not seeing riots, and you’re not seeing police going after people who are protesting peacefully. . . . We’ve got a foundation to build on . . .” (Kathleen Hennessey, “Obama asks Americans not to fear a return to a dark past,” Associated Press, July 10, 2016) [http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ad7321415b1d4e6a91d2f98e2f9ba81d/obama-take-questionsdallas-attack-race-relations.]

President Obama himself symbolizes the profound change in the fabric of our nation over the past half century. So, too, do black police chiefs like Dallas Police Chief David Brown. Chief Brown’s reaction to a black gunman ambushing randomly chosen white officers on the evening of July 7, 2016, captured the sentiments of most Americans: “We are heartbroken. There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred in our city. All I know is this must stop: this divisiveness between our police and our citizens.” (Greg Hanlon, “Police Chief David Brown on Dallas Ambush of Officers: ‘All I Know Is This Must Stop,’” People: True Crime, (quoting Dallas Police Chief David Brown. July 7, 2016). [people.com/crime/dallas-ambush-police-chief-david-brown-says-all-i-know-is-that-this-must-stop/]

This book scrutinizes the 1968 Newton trial and its context and poses the same questions President Obama and others have recently addressed: what has changed in this country in the last half century and what has not? How do we best move forward?

Lise Pearlman
Oakland, California
September 2016

Update May 2018: We can add several lethal police shooting incidents in the last twenty months to those I cited in 2016 and more violent protests and counter-protests. We are exhibiting far greater polarization as a nation than President Obama observed in 2016 and than I, or probably most of us, imagined could take hold just two years ago. The about-face in Washington by President Trump and Attorney General Sessions on Obama-era criminal justice policies and priorities clearly played a large role in ramping up the intensity of racial divides. Yet the two questions I asked then are equally relevant now. What has changed in this country in the last half century and what has not? How do we best move forward?

Click on the links below to select books by Lise Pearlman:

With Justice for Some: Politically Charged Criminal Trials in the Early 20th Century That Helped Shape Today’s America

The Sky’s the Limit People V. Newton, the Real Trial of the 20th Century?

CALL ME PHAEDRA: The Life and Times of Movement Lawyer Fay Stender

“American Justice on Trial: People v. Newton” – the untold story by Lise Pearlman

↧

Why Revisit the Newton Death Penalty Story Today? — Blog #2 in Our 10-Part Series

May 30, 2018, 6:57 am

≫ Next: OAKLAND: THE MAKINGS OF A RACIAL TINDERBOX: Blog #3 of our 10-Part Series

≪ Previous: “American Justice on Trial: People v. Newton”– the untold story by Lise Pearlman

Last week I quoted from the author’s note to my 2016 book. This week I share some then-and-now observations in the book’s Introduction. As we go along, I will be highlighting key passages throughout the book, but not, I hope, provide too many spoilers:

American Justice on Trial revisits in light of current events People of California v. Huey P. Newton — the internationally watched 1968 murder case that put a black militant on trial for his life for the death of a white policeman accused of abuse. The trial put our nation’s justice system to the test and created the model for diversifying juries “of one’s peers” that many of us now take for granted as a constitutional guarantee. In the process, protesters orchestrated by the defense generated a media frenzy that launched the Black Panther Party as an international phenomenon. Using this trial as their platform, the Panthers took aim at entrenched racism in a democracy founded on the principle of equality. They put their sights on toppling white male monopoly power, and they convinced many followers to pay it forward. They also prompted an extraordinary backlash from those in power. The ramifications of this decades-old conflict continue to unfold today.

The year 2016 marks a half century since Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded, in Oakland, California, a small militant group that they named the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Like Black Lives Matter, Black Youth Project and other civil rights activist groups today, Panther members were predominantly in their late teens or early 20s when they took to the streets, challenging the nation’s criminal justice system and making bold accusations of abusive policing. Today almost everyone recognizes the image of Black Panthers in iconic black leather jackets and berets, their fists raised in defiant salutes. In 1967, that fledgling organization would likely have disappeared quickly if not for one riveting murder trial. Now — a half century later — is an especially good time to take a fresh look back, to reexamine what may very well be the most pivotal criminal trial of the 20th century and ponder what it tells us about the importance of diversity, if we want to improve some of the most glaring shortcomings in our beleaguered American justice system.

* * * * *

Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Southeast Oregon

In the Introduction, I describe several widely publicized, racially-charged incidents in the past few years. One key incident began in January 2016 — the armed takeover of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon by militant white ranchers who vowed to instigate a broader revolt against the United States government. The FBI’s cautiously measured response clearly reflected the race of the perpetrators. Notably, then presidential candidate Donald Trump refrained from calling the ongoing siege of federal land an act of terrorism while he repeatedly vowed to take harsh measures against any and all Islamic terrorists. What repercussions would there have been if the Oregon takeover of public lands had instead been perpetrated by a small band of Arab jihadists or by black militants? I was far from the only one who wondered about that.

Journalists immediately speculated that racism played a major role in political reaction to the Oregon standoff. (Dean Obeidallah, “Trump — ‘Call Oregon Siege Terrorism’” CNN, January 5, 2016; and Richard Prince, “What if the “Militants” Were Not White”, Jan. 27, 2016 , Maynard Institute).

Many Americans would never have expected, or tolerated, a similar restrained FBI response if the militants were not white. Reaching back half a century to compare the illegal armed seizure of public lands in Oregon to an infamous Black Panther protest in Sacramento in 1967, one commentator wrote: [Unlike] what’s happening in Oregon right now, [the Black Panthers] entered the state Capitol lawfully, lodged their complaints against a piece of racially motivated legislation and then left without incident. But for those who see racial double standards at play in Oregon, the scope and severity of the 1967 response — the way the Panthers’ demonstration brought about panicked headlines, a prolonged FBI sabotage effort and support for gun control from the NRA, of all groups — will serve as confirmation that race shapes the way the country reacts to protest. (Nick Wing, “Here’s How the Nation Responded When A Black Militia Group Occupied a Government Building” The Huffington Post, January 6, 2016 (updated Jan. 9, 2016)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olympics_Black_Power_salute

What has changed in race relations since that tumultuous era? What hasn’t? Consider the radically differing reactions to the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show. In October 1968 African-American Olympic track medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos shocked observers around the globe with an emphatic civil rights gesture during their awards ceremony — each raising a black gloved fist in a classic “Power to the People” salute. They were promptly banned from the Olympics for life.

In 2016, during halftime at Super Bowl 50, more than 110 million viewers witnessed megastar Beyoncé’s dance troupe perform a similar raised-fist tribute to the Black Panthers, whose own fiftieth anniversary year coincided with that of the Super Bowl. Just a day earlier Beyoncé released a new video, “Formation,” which paid homage to the Black Lives Matter Movement. Beyoncé’s polarizing halftime message triggered a barrage of negative tweets and blogs as well as calls from conservative politicians, talk show hosts and police to boycott her performances, all of them unlikely to diminish the entertainer’s enormous fan base.

The Super Bowl incident is just one illustration of hot-button race issues that have recently dominated the airwaves. In the last few years — unlike prior eras in American history — deaths of unarmed blacks at the hands of police have garnered as much news coverage as killings of officers. Technology advances are the primary reason race issues today take place in a particularly volatile context: the near-constant presence of smart phone cameras has turned millions of Americans into potential on-the-spot documentarians.

* * * * *

How will this play out? Chance footage filmed by passersby feeds suspicion that widespread mistreatment of minority suspects would be revealed if only there were more transparency. Unlike officers’ deaths, fatalities caused by the police have not systematically been tracked over the years. Going forward, that is already beginning to change. As we consider proposed solutions to the current divide between police and minority communities, what can we learn from how media-savvy activists drew an international audience to a murder trial that turned the tables and put the American justice system itself on trial nearly a half century ago? And how did it all start?

The timing of this blog could not be better. In mid-May, the Berkeley Film Foundation underscored the relevance of the 1968 Newton death penalty trial to America today at an event that featured the book’s companion documentary film project — the 2017 winner of the prestigious Al Bendich award for projects promoting civil rights. BFF was celebrating all the winners of its 2017 awards at the Zaentz Media Center in Berkeley (also the home of Fantasy Studios). It was doubly rewarding to hear BFF President Abby Ginzberg (pictured with me in photo above right) announce that my book had just been named a finalist for the Next Generation Book Awards for books on social change. (That awards event will take place in late June in New Orleans.)

Tune in next week for Blog #3

Click below to read Lise Pearlman’s previous Blog post:

www.lisepearlman.com www.Facebook.com/LPAuthorandSpeaker/

Producer, American Justice on Trial www.americanjusticeontrial.com

Click on the links below to select books by Lise Pearlman:

With Justice for Some: Politically Charged Criminal Trials in the Early 20th Century That Helped Shape Today’s America

The Sky’s the Limit People V. Newton, the Real Trial of the 20th Century?

CALL ME PHAEDRA: The Life and Times of Movement Lawyer Fay Stender

“American Justice on Trial: People v. Newton” – the untold story by Lise Pearlman

↧

OAKLAND: THE MAKINGS OF A RACIAL TINDERBOX: Blog #3 of our 10-Part Series

June 6, 2018, 8:15 am

≫ Next: The Unsolved Murder of Missy Bevers

≪ Previous: Why Revisit the Newton Death Penalty Story Today? — Blog #2 in Our 10-Part Series

West Oakland was a tinderbox long before the Black Panther Party came into being — a ghetto suffering from two decades of high unemployment, overcrowded housing and heavy-handed policing. The black community considered patrolmen an occupying army. The situation was far from unique in urban America. In August 1965 devastating race riots had raged for days in the Watts area of Los Angeles. In their aftermath, President Johnson sent experts from Washington to tour ghettos across the country. They concluded that Oakland was likely “the next Watts.” Why?

Lawyer Amory Bradford was a key member of the team of experts sent to Oakland by the Economic Development Agency. In his book Oakland’s Not for Burning, he noted that national media had already zeroed in on Oakland as “a failed city plagued by racialized poverty and unemployment” (page 36). A good friend of mine, Oakland native Morrie Turner (1923-2014) helped explain the city’s history of race relations for our film project and my book. The son of a Pullman porter, Morrie grew up before World War II in a harmonious mixed-race, working-class neighborhood on which he later based the first integrated comic strip, “Wee Pals.”

As Bay Area industries geared up for the war effort in 1941, traditionally stable black-white relations began to change for the worse in a hurry. Roosevelt avoided a major civil rights protest by issuing Executive Order 8802 in 1941, forbidding discrimination on grounds of race, color or national origin in hiring workers for the national defense program. Kaiser Shipyards then recruited heavily in the South, encouraging a mass migration of blacks. Many poured into neglected neighborhoods in West Oakland. By 1945, four times as many blacks were counted in the official Oakland census as in 1940.

source: photo by Ariel Glenn, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oakland_tribune_tower_detail.jpg

In the 1960s, Morrie Turner worked as a rare black clerk in the Oakland police force. He described most of the officers he worked with as “bigoted”. Once he took a phone message meant for a white co-worker: “The niggers are taking over Oakland.” Historically, a Republican political machine held enormous sway in Oakland and white monopoly power was threatened. Joseph Knowland, the publisher of the city’s long-time newspaper, The Oakland Tribune, was known as “The Power in the Oakland Tribune Tower.” His son, Senator Bill Knowland, took over the reins of the Tribune in 1961. For fifty years, the Knowlands hand-picked most members of the city council and controlled who became mayor. (The paper merged in 2016 into the East Bay Times.)

During World War II the government constructed temporary housing for black shipyard workers and their families near the Navy Yard in Alameda, a nearly all-white town separated from Oakland by the Oakland Estuary. Shortly after the war ended, that government housing was bulldozed, forcing newly unemployed blacks to relocate to West Oakland, which was already overcrowded. The situation only got worse in the 1950s when ground broke for the double-decker Cypress Freeway. It bisected West Oakland and separated it from the city center. East Bay resident Bill Patterson (my former colleague on the Oakland Public Ethics Commission) rose to head Oakland’s Park and Recreations Department (pictured here in the early 1960s). He vividly recalled in his filmed interview what the segregated city was like back in the ‘50s and ‘60s: “The police department . . . if you traveled outside of your sector, you got stopped. Today they have a new name for that — they call it profiling — but it happened back then as a regular thing, because in neighborhoods that were all white, there was fear, you know, of black people. . ..”

On a daily basis Morrie Turner typed up reports for white officers who often claimed that black men “resisted arrest.” He concluded that was a cover story to justify bruises and injuries to arrestees or, occasionally, to explain away their deaths. By 1966, Oakland’s population was over one-fourth black and thirty percent minorites. The divide between police and minority communities was exacerbated by police patrolling in cars rather than walking beats on foot as they had once done. For Mexican-Americans the situation in East Oakland’s flatlands was similar. Future Alameda County Judge Leo Dorado recalls policemen stopping him as a teen riding his bicycle across the bridge to a public beach in Alameda: “I was clearly stopped because I was a brown face from Oakland. . . It was the way it was.”

In the spring of 1966 minorities in both East and West Oakland had a somewhat sympathetic new mayor who promised to listen to their concerns. John Reading’s fellow council members elected him in February of 1966 when the incumbent John Houlihan — a lawyer for The Oakland Tribune — abruptly resigned after being caught embezzling from a law firm client. Mayor Reading promised dubious West Oakland leaders a new “open door” era at City Hall. He candidly acknowledged fears Oakland might otherwise “blow.” (pages 122,130). While Oakland remained free of any major incidents in the summer of 1966, riots broke out in San Francisco, Chicago, Brooklyn, Cleveland and Louisville. Widespread riots followed across the country during the “long, hot summer” of 1967 prompting President Johnson to order a blue-ribbon panel to study its root causes. Chaired by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, the commission issued a best-selling book. Nicknamed “The Kerner Report,” it zeroed in on the lack of diversity in police forces across the country as a major problem. The panel placed most of the blame for urban unrest on “[w]hite racism . . . for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II.” The panel also criticized the press for reporting the news through “white men’s eyes.” It warned that the nation was “moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal” and proposed more major investments in the nation’s inner cities like the pilot jobs program in Oakland.

https://localwiki.org/oakland/Stop_the_Draft_Week

Civil unrest was only one national crisis in the fall of 1967. The other was escalating opposition to the war in Vietnam. Leaders in Washington worried about the convergence of mostly white war protesters and mixed-race civil rights demonstrators. Starting in the fall of 1964 when protesters on the Berkeley campus launched the Free Speech Movement (“FSM”), students staged numerous sit-ins, marches and teach-ins. They also plotted to disrupt the arrival of troop trains at the Oakland Army Terminal. During the third week of October 1967, a coalition of Bay Area activists launched “Stop the Draft Week” — several days of massive demonstrations designed to shut down the Oakland Induction Center, one of the largest such facilities on the Pacific Coast. On the first day, some 3,000 protesters blocked the center’s entrance, leading to more than 100 arrests. The following day twice as many demonstrators blocked the doorway and the surrounding streets. An estimated 250 Oakland police, sheriff’s deputies and highway patrolmen dispersed the crowd, spraying mace and swinging batons. Pioneering black TV reporter Belva Davis covered the melee. She knew she was witnessing history: “The Bay Area felt like ground zero in a generational battle for the soul of the country.” (Belva Davis with Vicky Haddock, Never in My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman’s Life in Journalism, Kindle location 1848).

Alameda County’s District Attorney brought conspiracy charges against key planners of the anti-war protest; the county’s top prosecutor D. Lowell Jensen would eventually try them together as “The Oakland Seven.” [Movement on Trial: The Oakland Seven]. A team of three defense lawyers, headed by Lawyers Guild veteran Charles Garry, quickly assembled. The defense team planned to invoke the Nuremberg Principles in their clients’ defense — putting the Vietnam War itself on trial as a crime against humanity.

It was hard to imagine at the time that another Oakland arrest would generate enough coverage and controversy to drown out the noise surrounding the “Oakland Seven,” while pitting the same lead counsel against one another — with the police and establishment on one side, and anti-war activists joined with civil rights protesters on the other. Just two weeks after “Stop the Draft Week” came the spark FBI head J. Edgar Hoover dreaded. The synergy of anti-war and civil rights activists got a powerful boost from a single bloody confrontation in the very same city where the Oakland Seven would be tried – an early morning shootout involving two Oakland policemen and Huey Newton, the co-founder of the fledgling Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. In the summer of 1968, Amory Bradford published his book not in triumph that the federal government’s intervention had averted another Watts, but in guarded hope that Oakland truly was not for burning.

Next week – The Roots of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense

Click below to read Lise Pearlman’s previous Blog post:

www.lisepearlman.com www.Facebook.com/LPAuthorandSpeaker/

Producer, American Justice on Trial www.americanjusticeontrial.com

Click on the links below to select books by Lise Pearlman:

With Justice for Some: Politically Charged Criminal Trials in the Early 20th Century That Helped Shape Today’s America

The Sky’s the Limit People V. Newton, the Real Trial of the 20th Century?

CALL ME PHAEDRA: The Life and Times of Movement Lawyer Fay Stender

Lise Pearlman’s latest book just won the American Bookfest 2018 International Book Award for biographies and was named a finalist for both U.S. History and Multicultural Nonfiction! See review in Counterpunch by Jonah Raskin

↧

The Unsolved Murder of Missy Bevers

June 11, 2018, 7:01 am

≫ Next: THE ROOTS OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY FOR SELF-DEFENSE: BLOG #4 OF OUR 10-PART SERIES

≪ Previous: OAKLAND: THE MAKINGS OF A RACIAL TINDERBOX: Blog #3 of our 10-Part Series

by John W. Taylor

On April 18, 2016, surveillance video from the Creekside Church of Christ in Midlothian, Texas captured an individual breaking into the church. It was 3:50 a.m. For the next 25 to 30 minutes the perpetrator roamed around the church in what appeared to be a tactical, police-like uniform, including a helmet. At 4:16 a.m., 45-year-old Terry “Missy” Bevers pulled into the church’s parking lot for her 5:00 a.m. fitness class. The first student arrived at 4:35 a.m. but waited until 5:00 a.m. to enter the church. A few minutes later, students called 9-1-1 after finding Missy bludgeoned to death inside the church’s main entrance.

Missy was a wife and mother of three. She was also an instructor for “Camp Gladiator,” an intense four-week training course that pushes participants outside their physical comfort zone. Missy provided support and encouragement to those willing to wake-up hours before an acceptable time. She also walked the walk. Missy was not only fit, but incredibly strong. Showing her commitment to her psychical regimen, on Sunday, April 17, 2016 at 7:55 p.m., the day before her murder, Missy posted on Facebook: “If it’s raining, we’re still training…No Excuses…You are Gladiators!” referencing the training session the next morning. She also posted the exact time and location of the training session on Facebook: 5:00 a.m., Creekside Church of Christ.

The church’s video security system captured the perpetrator eerily lurking throughout the building. The individual was dressed in dark police tactical clothing, including a helmet that obscured the individual’s face. As a result, it is difficult to discern much about the individual’s appearance, including even identifying the person’s gender (For simplicity, the perpetrator will be referred to as male). The perpetrator appeared to be carrying either a claw hammer or mallet. While inside the church, he opened doors, broke windows, and appeared to be searching for something. According to police estimates, the individual is between 5’2” and 5’7” tall.

In the security footage, the individual seemed to be giving the appearance of looking for something rather than actually looking for items. The perpetrator walked into a room and then back out seconds later, which kept the assailant from adequately searching the room. Many of his actions appeared random and without purpose, as if he wanted to give the appearance to police and church staff that someone burglarized or vandalized the building rather than actually engaging in those activities. The perpetrator took nothing of value nor made any real attempt to find anything of value.

With Missy’s murder occurring minutes after the perpetrator’s arrival, the intruder most likely wanted the authorities to think Missy’s murder was random. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Since nothing was taken, we must assume robbery was not the objective. If the intruder planned the murder and associated cover-up, then he likely methodically orchestrated these actions ahead of time. When a perpetrator engages in deceptive activities, it takes time and focus away from the actual crime. It is also deliberate. A stranger or random criminal would have no need to deceive law enforcement. Only a person who law enforcement would likely suspect would have the motivation to divert police in an alternate direction.

The fact the perpetrator concealed his identity while inside the church likely means he knew there were cameras in the church. If he was unaware of the cameras, he would not have needed to put his helmet on until close to the time Missy arrived. Further, he likely knew Missy would be alone and he planned to kill her; therefore, it was rather immaterial if she saw him or not. The helmet prevented the security cameras from displaying his face or even hair. With a planned murderous act, dark clothes would be expected, but not clothes that impersonated a police officer. Like the helmet, the police outfit was most likely part of a cover. The uniform served no purpose within the church. However, the perpetrator’s vehicle was never (officially) identified by police, per news reports. If the intruder drove a car (or was driven) into the church’s parking lot, it would have been detected by the exterior surveillance cameras. One possibility is that the perpetrator rode a motorcycle to the church. Though the outfit appeared to be that of a tactical police uniform, it also looked like an outfit one would wear when riding a motorcycle, sans the “police” insignia. The perpetrator could have worn that outfit to and from the crime scene without drawing attention to himself. The police insignia on his back could have been used to possibly mitigate the likelihood a police officer would pull him over. The perpetrator may have believed if a police officer pulled up behind him, he would have assumed the motorcyclist was law enforcement on his way to or from a shift.

On the video, the perpetrator drug his right foot and walked with his feet pointing outward. He demonstrated a distinctive gait. He appeared to be overweight, though the tactical disguise could have been padded to give the appearance of a heavier person. The individual moved in a slow and deliberate fashion similar to that of an older person or someone suffering from an injury or chronic condition. The perpetrator may have tried to fake a limp or some other mannerism as further concealment, but if he had, there would have been times on the surveillance tape where his true gait materialized. The intruder’s movements appeared consistent, which indicates he was most likely not attempting to conceal his gait.

The perpetrator did not shoot Missy, which would have been the most effective and efficient means of killing her. The church is not located in a heavily populated area; therefore, a gunshot would have most likely gone unheard. The killer chose to murder Missy in a brutal and painful fashion. The manner in which this crime was carried out seems to indicate the killer knew Missy well and wanted her to suffer. He wanted to inflict serious bodily harm to her, rather than just systematically terminate her existence.

The killer chose to attack Missy from inside the church. This was also a deliberate decision. There was no effective place to hide or conceal one’s presence in close proximity to the main entrance. Missy most likely would have seen the perpetrator coming toward her outside the church. This would have prevented the assailant from having the advantage of surprise. Missy also would have been a formidable opponent and catching her off-guard would have significantly increased the chances of success. With Missy’s stellar physical conditioning, in open space, she could have easily escaped by running. By attacking her inside the church, the perpetrator provided himself with the tactical advantage of surprise, and it prevented Missy from being able to easily escape.

The perpetrator’s outfit may have been designed in a manner to distort his physical dimensions, but most likely, the outfit was designed to enhance his ability to successfully brutalize and kill Missy. He needed to avoid placing too many layers of clothing or other items on his person, which could have impeded his ability to attack Missy. He likely wore the helmet and protective wear about his body to protect himself from a potential counterattack from Missy.

Exterior cameras at a nearby SWFA Outdoors hunting and fishing store captured a car in their parking lot for approximately six minutes around 2:00 a.m. on the morning of April 18, 2016. It is believed to be a white or silver 2010 to 2012 Nissan Ultima with an oval sticker on the back bumper. At times, the car’s lights were off. Police indicated that they do not believe the car is connected to Missy’s murder, but they want to talk to the driver as he/she may have seen something or someone. The timing of the Nissan in the parking lot does not line-up with the times the perpetrator entered or likely exited the Creekside Church. However, SWFA is only a half mile from the church. Further, a car sitting in the parking lot of a closed store in the middle of the night is unusual. With the publicity surrounding Missy’s murder, the fact the driver has not come forward is note-worthy. It is possible the person is unaware the police are looking for him, but it’s also possible the individual was either involved in some unrelated nefarious activity or is connected to Missy’s murder. Either way, the car’s proximity and timing is close enough for it to warrant serious law enforcement attention.

According to police-provided information, Missy and her husband, Brandon Bevers, had marital problems and financial issues. In the context of a murder, any issue within a marriage can be amplified and appear to be motive. Unfortunately, all relationships undergo problems, but a vast majority of them do not end in murder. During an interview, Brandon acknowledged that he and Missy experienced problems, but he indicated that they were dealing with their problems. Law enforcement should always look closely at the spouse, but realize that since most marriages experience problems, it should not be the deciding factor.

According to reports, Brandon Bevers has a solid alibi. He was fishing in Mississippi at the time of the murder, which police independently verified. There is nothing to indicate her husband had any reason to harm Missy. Many internet sleuths identified a similar walk and posture between Brandon’s father, Randy, and the person in the church’s surveillance tape. However, Randy was in California at the time of the murder, though there are many physical similarities between Randy and the perpetrator. Police have indicated that no one in Missy’s family, nor her friends, or co-workers is a suspect. Regardless, with a planned murder, the perpetrator almost undoubtedly knew Missy.

According to Missy’s friends, she received a “creepy” message on LinkedIn from an unknown male, three days prior to her murder. Police uncovered “familiar and intimate” communications between Missy and male individuals who were not her husband. Friends described Missy as being more concerned and acting as if someone was following her or after her in the days prior to her murder. This may have been more obvious or suspicious in hindsight rather than in real-time, but any of these clues could lead to the killer. This was a deliberate and planned act. Missy’s murder was also quite heinous, which leans more toward someone with significant anger toward her. The individual responsible for Missy’s murder likely had a close relationship or perceived close relationship with her. Though a more remote scenario, the perpetrator could have been a for-hire killer, even though the surveillance activities conveyed an individual far from professional or experienced in the criminal realm.

By definition, a “gladiator is an armed combatant who entertained audiences by engaging in violent confrontations.” Missy’s fitness training regiment involved emulating exercises and activities similar to what would assist a gladiator in skill enhancement and conditioning. Though Missy’s workouts were designed to improve her overall health, her perpetrator engaged in a real-life reenactment of these barbaric events, but likely only for his own morbid entertainment. Though premeditation can be only seconds, Missy’s murder was planned for days, if not weeks, in advance. This is a dangerous individual. Missy’s marked change in demeanor in the days prior to her death likely indicate she was becoming aware of the dangerousness of the individual who entered her life. The perpetrator contacted her in some manner – email, text, social media, or in person. Her communications are the key to linking the killer to Missy. This individual is likely closely following media reports of this case and his obsession with Missy has probably only slightly dissipated as a result of her death.

Works Cited:

Duke, Alan, “Odd Silence Falls Over Missy Bevers Murder Probe as ‘Person of Interest, and ‘Vehicle of Interest’ Emerge,” Crime Online, http://www.crimeonline.com/2017/01/10/odd-silence-falls-over-missy-bevers-murder-probe-as-person-of-interest-and-vehicle-of-interest-emerge/, January 10, 2017.

Haaf, Landon, “Midlothian PD: No Family, Friends or Coworkers are Suspects in Bevers Murder,” WFAA 8 ABC, http://www.wfaa.com/article/news/crime/midlothian-pd-no-family-friends-or-coworkers-are-suspects-in-bevers-murder/206847689, May 20, 2016.

McPhate, Christian, “Missy Bevers’ Murder, Still Unsolved Nearly Two Years Later, Gets a New Detective,” Dallas Observer, http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/glenn-beck-puts-private-jet-up-for-sale-10595879, February 13, 2018.

Pandav, Jillian, “The Missy Bevers Case: What We Know,” Court Junkie Blog, http://courtjunkie.com/blog/page/6/, May 24, 2016.

Salinger, Tobias, “Fitness Instructor Murdered Before Early-Morning Workout Session at Texas Church,” New York Daily News, http://beta.nydailynews.com/news/crime/fitness-instructor-murdered-texas-church-article-1.2606128, April 18, 2016.

Spillyards, Allie, “2 Years Later: Hunt for Missy Bevers’ Killer Continues,” NBCDFW.com, https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/2-Years-Later-Hunt-for-Missy-Bevers-Killer-Continues–480155303.html, April 18, 2018.

Crimesider Staff, “New Video, Timeline Released in Woman’s Death at Texas Church,” Crimesider, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-video-timeline-released-in-terri-bevers-death-at-texas-church/, April 22, 2016

Unknown Author, “Murder in a Church: The Brutal Killing of Missy Bevers,” True Noir Blog, https://truenoirstories.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/missy-bevers/, March 28, 2017.

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

The Tragic Death of Jason Corbett: Father-Daughter Tag Team, or Self-Defense?

How Jeffrey MacDonald’s Words Betrayed Him

Do Helena Stoeckley’s Ramblings Convey Reasonable Doubt for Jeffrey MacDonald?

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

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

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Darker Side of Aaron Hernandez

↧

THE ROOTS OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY FOR SELF-DEFENSE: BLOG #4 OF OUR 10-PART SERIES

June 13, 2018, 6:11 am

≫ Next: The Many Trials of Tim Hennis

≪ Previous: The Unsolved Murder of Missy Bevers

How did Panther Party founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale become revolutionaries?

The Seale family arrived in the Bay Area from Texas the year before the worst disaster of World War II on continental United States soil. Munitions improperly loaded onto cargo ships in Port Chicago suddenly ignited on July 17, 1944 — less than 25 miles from where the family now lived. The explosion rattled windows 50 miles in every direction. The devastating accident accounted for 15% of all African-American casualties suffered on naval duty during the war. It prompted the Navy to begin desegregating its units in 1946 when Bobby Seale was ten.

Devastating explosion at Port Chicago

Seale inherited his mother’s athleticism and blamed racism for spoiling his chances to excel in high school sports. He dropped out of Berkeley High and joined the Air Force in 1955 where he learned to be a sheet metal mechanic. In 1958, he received a dishonorable discharge due to an angry outburst at his commanding officer. Seale then worked at several different aircraft companies. Each fired him after learning of his bad conduct discharge — until his last job at Kaiser Aerospace where his boss considered Seale’s expertise on a missile project too hard to replace.

Robert Williams, exiled American author of Negroes with Guns (1962): “I advocated violent self-defense because I don’t really think you can have a defense against violent racists and against terrorists unless you are prepared to meet violence with violence.”

In 1960, Seale started taking classes at Oakland City College (later renamed Merritt College). He began focusing on his heritage, grew his hair into an Afro and wore a moustache. Increasingly political, he quit his job at Kaiser Aerospace to stop helping the war effort. A natural extrovert, Seale had some success as a stand-up comic. He also worked as a mechanical draftsman. When he met Huey Newton in September 1962, Seale had just joined a new West Coast chapter of the Revolutionary Action Movement (“RAM”), a secretive East Coast organization that advocated guerrilla warfare. RAM found inspiration in a new book, Negroes with Guns, by former NAACP leader Robert Williams who had fled the United States for Cuba. [http://pbs.org/independentlens/negroeswithguns/rob.html]

Alameda Naval Air Station in the 1940s

Like the Seale family, the Newtons were World War II transplants from the South. Huey Percy Newton, born February 17, 1942, was the youngest of Walter and Armelia Newton’s seven children. Walter left Monroe, Louisiana in 1944 for work in the Alameda Naval Air Station. His family joined him the following year, when Huey was three. By the time the Newtons moved to West Oakland, their oldest children were adults. The family relocated several times and ultimately settled in a racially mixed, working-class neighborhood in North Oakland.

Melvin was the next youngest boy, four years older than Huey (pictured with Huey in the early 1970s). While Melvin focused on academics, Huey favored the streets like his older brothers Leander “Lee” Edward and Walter, Jr., “Sonny Man.” But Huey was also a quick study with a phenomenal memory. He displayed talent for playing the piano and had three years of classical training. Yet, to his parents’ dismay, Huey was often truant in high school, preferring to spend time in pool halls like his brother Lee, who had already served a jail sentence. Huey also hung out with Sonny Man, a Korean War veteran employed at the Naval Air Station, who liked to frequent the race track. A violent incident at Berkeley High got Huey suspended and referred to juvenile court. He graduated from Oakland Tech and escaped the draft with a 1-Y psychiatric exemption. Huey enrolled at Oakland City College focusing on courses in philosophy and militant politics, particularly the recent Cuban revolution and guerrilla leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara.

Recently retired, former Chief Judge Thelton Henderson of the Northern District of California was in an Afro-American Association study group with Huey Newton back in the early 1960s that Judge Henderson believed gave Newton many of the ideas for the philosophy of the Black Panther Party.

By 1962, 20-year-old Newton was well-known on the Oakland City College campus. He joined the Afro-American Association, an informal study group that met at the home of local lawyer and scholar Donald Warden (later known as Khalid Abdullah Tariq al Mansour) who hosted a radio program of the same name. [https://blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-dialogue-on-afro-american-association.html]. Among the association’s members were Ron Dellums, future Congressman and Oakland mayor, and future federal judge Thelton Henderson. When interviewed for our film project, Judge Henderson remembered Newton well: “A very bright young man . . . a quick learner. He contributed a lot, and I’ve always imagined that many of the ideas he got for the Panthers’ philosophy and some of the interest areas that they had, came from those meetings at the Afro-American Association. . . The premise of [which] was that blacks should not accept the white historical version of a Negro . . .”

Soon, Newton grew restless. Since the fall of 1962, he had often spoken at a forum by the Oakland City College campus known as the Grove Street orators. His favorite topics caught Seale’s attention — the Cuban revolution and the history of American colonial power. Seale impressed Newton, too, with his skills as an expert marksman, trained in the military to take apart and reassemble an M1 carbine blindfolded. Seale suggested Newton for membership in RAM, but RAM turned Newton down because he resided with his parents in a “bourgeois” neighborhood. (Ironically, RAM had accepted undercover policemen as charter members).

Between 1962 and 1965, Newton and Seale saw each other infrequently. Newton took seasonal jobs at the nearby Del Monte cannery, which employed two of his sisters. From time to time, he hired on as a construction worker or longshoreman or city street cleaner. He supplemented his income with car burglaries and parking lot robberies, selling stolen property and, for several months, pimping. His first serious brush with the law came in 1964 after an argument with an aggressive stranger at a dinner party whom Huey stabbed with a steak knife. Huey was convicted of felony assault and served six months before his release on three years’ probation. En route to Santa Rita, the 22-year-old spent one month in an Alameda County jail cell known as “the soul breaker.” At Santa Rita, Newton also spent time in isolation, but he was outside in the prison yard in early December 1964 when busloads of arrested Cal Free Speech Movement demonstrators arrived. Their political commitment impressed him greatly. Upon his release, Huey returned to Oakland City College. He signed up for California criminal law taught by Alameda County Assistant District Attorney Ed Meese. Huey was a top student, eagerly memorizing the constitutional rights of suspects and the do’s and don’ts of California’s open-carry gun laws.

In 1965, Newton and Seale joined blacks on campus who founded the Soul Students Advisory Council. One of its leaders was Ken Freeman, a self-taught expert on African history and editor-in-chief of the new radical political and literary magazine Soulbook. The Council increased awareness among blacks of their heritage, lobbied for courses in black history and pushed for the hiring of African-American faculty. Soulbook writer Louis Armmond introduced Seale to the works of the late revolutionary Dr. Frantz Fanon (pictured), who had participated in the recent Algerian overthrow of French colonial rule. The Soul Students Advisory Council studied The Wretched of the Earth [the 1963 translation of Dr. Fanon’s 1961 book, les damnés de la terre] as a blueprint for how a liberation movement could be started for American blacks. Seale then recommended The Wretched of the Earth to Huey Newton.

In June 1966, SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael made a powerful speech rejecting the pacifism of Martin Luther King in favor of black power. A SNCC voting rights group in Lowndes County, Alabama had a black panther logo. Carmichael inspired the formation of Black Panther organizations elsewhere, including San Francisco. In October 1966, Newton and Seale launched their own Black Panther Party for Self-Defense while both were employed in the new Oakland federal jobs program headed by future Oakland Mayor Lionel Wilson. Seale and Newton secretly used the office mimeograph machine at night to print out copies of their new 10-point program (modeled on The Nation of Islam’s “What We Believe”). Wilson discovered that the two of them brought guns to work and fired them. Seale and Newton then opened their first recruitment office in January, 1967 with final paychecks from the anti-poverty program. But Seale later pointed to the moment in 1965 when the two focused on the impact of Dr. Fanon’s writings as the true genesis of the Panther Party.

Next week Blog #5: Launching the First Movement Trial

Click below to read Lise Pearlman’s previous Blog post:

“American Justice on Trial: People v. Newton” – the untold story by Lise Pearlman

www.lisepearlman.com www.Facebook.com/LPAuthorandSpeaker/

Producer, American Justice on Trial www.americanjusticeontrial.com

Click on the links below to select books by Lise Pearlman:

With Justice for Some: Politically Charged Criminal Trials in the Early 20th Century That Helped Shape Today’s America

The Sky’s the Limit People V. Newton, the Real Trial of the 20th Century?

CALL ME PHAEDRA: The Life and Times of Movement Lawyer Fay Stender

[Edit Post]

↧

The Many Trials of Tim Hennis

January 12, 2017, 6:10 am

≫ Next: Do Helena Stoeckley’s Ramblings Convey Reasonable Doubt for Jeffrey MacDonald?

≪ Previous: THE ROOTS OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY FOR SELF-DEFENSE: BLOG #4 OF OUR 10-PART SERIES

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

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

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.

↧

Do Helena Stoeckley’s Ramblings Convey Reasonable Doubt for Jeffrey MacDonald?

January 30, 2017, 7:10 am

≫ Next: How Jeffrey MacDonald’s Words Betrayed Him

≪ Previous: The Many Trials of Tim Hennis

by John W. Taylor

Works Cited

Masewicz, Christina, The Jeffrey MacDonald Case, http://www.thejeffreyMacDonaldcase.com/, website, 2004-2013.

Newcomb, Alyssa, & Christi Hartman, “Jeffrey MacDonald’s Wife Says He Is ‘At Peace’ As Judge Considers New Evidence,” www.abcnews.go/com, September 18, 2012.

Woolverton, Paul, “Lawyer says Helena Stoeckley said she was present at MacDonald family murders,” Fayetteville Observer, September 25, 2012.

Affidavit of Helen Stoeckley, The MacDonald Case Website, http://theMacDonaldcase.org/Images/Helen_Stoeckley_Affidavit.pdf, date unknown.

Unknown Author, “Just the Facts on the Jeffrey MacDonald Case,” http://www.MacDonaldcasefacts.com/html/suspects.html.

“Jeffrey MacDonald Case Trial Transcript,” Testimony of Helena Stoeckley, http://www.thejeffreyMacDonaldcase.com/html/tt_1979-08-17_stoeckley.html, August 17, 1979.

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

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