Jan. 28, 2013

Krystian Bala

A reporter emerges from obscurity by writing exclusive articles about the serial-murder victims he killed; an aspiring crime writer murders for a good plot.

by Ben Johnson

Murder and the media have always gone hand in hand. Some of the greatest and most provocative journalism and greatest books ever written come from the dark and disturbing world of violent crime.

One of the greatest breaks a reporter can wish for in his or her career is stumbling upon an exclusive involving serial murder. It is the kind of topic that can propel a journalist into the limelight. An example of this phenomenon is the aspiring political cartoonist Robert Graysmith who was a member of the San Francisco Chronicle's junior staff before his tenacity in the still unsolved Zodiac murders propelled him to international fame, culminating in book deals and a major Hollywood movie.

The thirst for this kind of fame and recognition can, however, be dangerously addictive to some, resulting in risk-taking and ethically questionable behavior. Perhaps the most notable example of this is Phil Stanford, who corresponded with Keith Hunter Jesperson (the Happy Face Killer) and defied the wishes of local law enforcement by publishing a series of articles which proved that two innocent people were serving time for Jesperson's first murder. Although Stanford took huge risks and could be said to have acted unethically due to publishing his series of articles against the wishes of the police, nobody could argue that his actions were not in the public interest, and therefore in this case, the risk paid off.

We have all heard the theories as to the Jack the Ripper letters being written by a journalist desperate to sell his work, and we all know that often a newspaper will sell itself out by cowering to the demands of a psychopath in order to improve its readership figures, as the famous Zodiac murders showed.

The media, however, almost always seem to know where to draw the line. Sometimes the line is a little too far away for the liking of many people, and sometimes the line is too close to home. In many cases, the line is what separates a reporter from acting unethically, and acting illegally. Very few reporters will ever cross this line although some will approach it a little too closely. An example of the line being approached a little too closely is currently being widely discussed in UK media circles concerning the hacking of the voicemail of a missing girl by two highly respected journalists. This has formed the basis of the Leveson Enquiry, a top-level public enquiry that is currently probing deeply into the actions of the British press.

Unfortunately, there have been examples of media figures themselves crossing that line into the dark and shocking world of violent crime. Two prime examples are worth noting. One a journalist, the other a novelist. Both cases are surprisingly obscure to those outside their respective countries, but they prove that the unthinkable can happen: A respected writer can become a killer.

Reporter Vlado Taneski Scoops the Police

The first case took place in the tiny Baltic state of Macedonia between 2003 and 2008. A place where murder rates are low, and serial murder is virtually nonexistent. This is why the seemingly random murders of three elderly women hit the headlines in a big way, bringing with it fame and stardom for one particular journalist.

Vlado Taneski was, before the spate of murders, an unremarkable reporter for a local newspaper. A family man, the 56 year old would have turned very few heads in the street, and appears (from looking at his previous work) to have been scraping a living writing dull local news stories.

Taneski’s fortunes changed for the better in 2005 when his reporting honed in on the murders of the elderly women. He now seemed to have the knack of finding exclusive information, and even began selling his copy to national newspapers, such was the quality and detail of his work.

Each of the three bodies was discovered wrapped in plastic bags and dumped and discarded around Kicevo, a drab town southwest of Macedonia's capital, Skopje, with a population of fewer than 20,000.

The three women were aged between 56 and 65. Zivana Temelkoska, Ljubica Licoska, and Mitra Simjanoska were each beaten repeatedly and strangled with a phone cable. These violent deaths shocked the local community and the country itself, due to its low murder rate.

It wasn't long before the media furor began to take its toll on the local police, who linked the killing to the disappearance in 2003 of another elderly woman.

By 2008, the people were demanding answers, and as Taneski's articles became more and more informative, it became clear that the police must be incompetent, as the lowly local reporter could often find out information which had so far eluded the police.

Refusing to be drawn into the media storm, the police began to organize themselves into something of a task force, collating all the information they had, and comparing this with the lurid and detailed media reports written by Taneski.

This is when the facts began to speak for themselves. The police could readily see that nobody could have access to that much information without actually having visited the crime scenes, or having very good sources to rely on.

Taneski, however, appeared to have had no sources whatsoever. No one in the police had ever spoken to him regarding the crimes, and none of the families of the victims had ever been approached by Taneski for an interview.

Taneski’s Downfall

His work was simply too good. There were no flaws, no minor errors and no guess work. It was 100 percent fact. This level of factual accuracy would be Taneski's downfall. One detail Taneski provided in his articles – that the women had been strangled with a telephone cord – had never been released by the police. To the police, this single detail meant that only one conclusion could be drawn: Taneski was the killer.

The mild-mannered local reporter was soon arrested at his unremarkable family home and taken to the local police station where he was held until he could be formally questioned.

Taneski obviously didn't want to wait. He drowned himself in the toilet of his cell. The suicide of Taneski has been questioned ever since due to the fact that the police took several years to reveal that there were two other men in his cell at the time of his alleged suicide. This delay formed the basis of several conspiracy theories in Macedonia, with many believing that Taneski was killed to prevent the leaking of more secrets which could be damning to an already widely criticised police department.

One thing, however, cannot be disputed. Taneski was a guilty as a man can be. His DNA was subsequently found all over the crime scenes.

Police spokesman Ivo Kotevski said upon Taneski's arrest and subsequent suicide, “All these women were raped, molested and murdered in the most terrible way and we have very strong evidence that Taneski was responsible for all three.”

“In the end there were many things that pointed to him as a suspect and led us to file charges against him for two of the murders,” he added. “We were close to charging him with a third murder, and hoped he would give us details of a fourth woman who disappeared in 2003 – because we believe he was involved in that case, too.”

The whole community was left in a state of shock. The man they looked to for information during those frightening years had been the cause of the panic all along.

The media community was also shocked to the core. A reporter for the national newspaper Nova Makedonija said, “On May 18, just after the gruesome murder of Zivana Temelkoska, he [Taneski] called and pitched the story to us. He was very quietly spoken but also very persuasive. As a contributor we published his story as the main article on the crime pages the next day – under the headline ‘A serial killer stalks Kicevo.’ To tell the truth, I didn’t believe the story – almost nothing happens in Macedonia.”

Maybe this is what tipped Taneski over the edge – a journalist without a story is worth very little, and a journalist without any chance of a story is worth even less. Perhaps he decided that it was time to write his own headlines.

No one will ever know what drove him to murder, but a chance of wealth and stardom can do strange things to even the most well adjusted people. All it takes is for the greed to overpower the conscience, and the very worst can be brought out in anyone.

The Novelist Krystian Bala

The next example highlights the lengths to which a novelist will go to find a storyline, and the lengths a killer will go to in terms of arrogance and self-celebration. Surprisingly, we find all of these traits in the same man. His name is Krystian Bala.

Bala was a popular writer of crime fiction in his native Poland, but his readers were unaware of one key fact. This was no fiction.

In November 2000, a corpse drifted along the River Oder, bound and bloated, the body was eventually discovered by local fishermen who informed the police of their macabre discovery.

The body showed signs of torture and was bound in a distinctive manner, with the hands tied behind the back and the rope looped around the neck into a makeshift noose.

The victim was Dariusz Janiszewski, the owner of a small business, and resident of the large Polish city of Wroclaw.

The case would remain unsolved for three years, until the killer unwittingly unmasked himself in a manner which would startle an entire nation.

In 2003, the young writer released his first novel, Amok, to critical acclaim. This crime thriller was flying from the shelves. Unfortunately, for Bala, it also eventually flew into the hands of one of the detectives who had worked on the unsolved murder of Dariusz Janiszewski.

The book had been on sale for over four years until it was realised by the police that the “fictional” murder on which the story revolves bore striking similarities to the forensic evidence that was gathered while investigating the Wroclaw man's murder seven years before.

The case had actually been closed for the last five years, as police were making no breakthroughs in discovering the identity of the killer, until one of them read the tale of a group of bored sadists, who commit a murder in the exact manner of the slaying of Dariusz Janiszewski.

The only difference was that, in the novel, the victim was a woman. Apart from this one variance, the hallmarks of the killing were all there. The victim was even described to have been bound in the same way as Janiszewski, with her hands bound behind her back and the rope looped around her neck.

The detective who had read the book was none other than the local police commissar, who had been tipped off by a member of the public that many of the factors within the storyline matched with the unsolved murder.

This wasn't an open and shut case though; it would take two years and three investigations into Bala before justice was eventually served to this literary maniac.

Krystian Bala

Much of the evidence against Bala was deemed to be circumstantial. The fact that Bala often used the moniker “Chris” when travelling incognito, and the narrating killer in the novel using the same name was a fascinating discovery, but was nowhere near conclusive enough to lead to the arrest of a man for murder.

Commissar Jacek Wroblewski was forced to release Bala after three days of interrogation, but made it no secret that he knew he had his man, it was just a matter of outsmarting the bespectacled, bookish psychopath.

Interestingly, while most killers would have taken this as a sign to flee the country and seek anonymity elsewhere, Bala's arrogance would not allow him to take evasive action. He believed that he had committed the perfect murder.

But, as all crime aficionados are aware, there is no such thing as the perfect murder. In these days of CCTV, DNA and online technology, it is unlikely for a killer to remain at large for long.

In today's technologically advanced society, it is improbable that such notorious killers as Jack the  Ripper or Zodiac would have remained at large, so the arrogant efforts of a young novelist to escape justice were always going to fail. It was just a matter of time.

The Breakthrough

A crucial breakthrough was made when police found concrete evidence that the victim and Bala knew each other. Telephone records showed that Bala had called Janiszewski at around the time of his disappearance. This piece of evidence also proved vital in uncovering another. The telephone that had been called by Bala had been sold on the Internet soon after, by someone using Bala's computer and bank account.

Despite this growing case against him, Bala denied all charges, claiming that he had known the deceased, and had been given the phone as a gift from him.

The final piece of the jigsaw fell into place when it was discovered that taunting messages made to a television programme which had aired an episode dedicated to the murder, had been made from places in the Far East, where Bala just happened to be staying at the time while on a scuba diving holiday. This final morsel of evidence proved to be enough for the police to arrest Bala for the murder.

The case gripped the nation as millions of people followed the latest developments. Many were jubilant that such an arrogant killer had been caught and brought to justice, while others looked upon Bala as some kind of anti-hero. The case divided public opinion until it was revealed that Bala had another project in mind.

While searching his home, police found grizzly plans to commit a second murder. This was to tie in with his planned second novel.

Bala was still adamant that he was innocent, claiming that police had just uncovered the plot for his next novel, and that the details of the Janiszewski murder in his first book had been derived from studying media reports of the death.

However, also found in his home were scrawled notes which would finally shine some light onto the motive of the murder: Bala believed that Janiszewski had been having an affair with his ex-wife.

When the case was eventually heard in court, the judge wasn't to be fooled by the slippery and intelligent killer. The evidence was enough to ensure that the next novel written by Bala would be written behind bars.

Although acknowledging that there was no direct evidence linking Bala to the actual killing, there was a huge amount linking him to the planning and orchestrating of the crime. This was decided to be enough to put Bala in prison for the next 25 years.

Judge Lidia Hojenska said, “The evidence gathered gives sufficient basis to say that Krystian Bala committed the crime of leading the killing of Dariusz Janiszewski.”

Described during proceeding as “pathologically jealous” and “inclined to sadism,” Bala immediately instructed his lawyers to appeal the sentence. The appeals have been unsuccessful.

It is apt to consider that even though Bala's novel was based on a murder he committed, there is one thing which differs: In the book, the killer gets away with murder.

Although the Taneski and Bala cases are fascinating examples of writers going over to the dark side, they are also extremely rare. Perhaps what makes them so fascinating is that they show the lengths to which a human being will go to seek fame and recognition.

One of the most striking details of the two cases is that both took place in the last few years. This shows that it is possible to remain at large while publicly flaunting a criminal act, but it is only a matter of time before the puzzle is solved.

Taneski was aided in his exploits by an underfunded and, at times, incompetent police investigation. It is probable that a more technologically advanced and organized police force would have brought him to justice much sooner.

Bala was so arrogant that he almost got away with it. After all, who would commit a murder then write a novel about it?

Unfortunately for this incarcerated author, his success was his downfall. Ironically, had his first novel sold fewer copies, maybe in later life he would have had many more books on the shelves, and the River Oder would have had many more corpses drifting along until their eventual discovery.

Feb. 4, 2013

Lt. William Calley

Mini-My Lai massacres happened nearly every day in Vietnam, and thousands of war crimes were committed there by both sides in the conflict. In 1971, while the war was still raging, dozens of former American soldiers and Marines stepped forward to confess to the crimes they’d witnessed or participated in. Their harrowing testimony was part of the “Winter Soldier Investigation,” a truth commission sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

by David Robb

Lt. William Calley was the only American ever convicted of a war crime in Vietnam. He is infamous for having led the 105 men of Charlie Company on a rampage through the village of My Lai, massacring more than 400 unarmed civilians, many of them women and children. Babies were bayoneted; teenage girls were raped in front of their parents and grandparents and then shot as they begged for mercy. Dozens of people were herded into an irrigation ditch and mowed down with automatic weapons. Many of the dead had been beaten and tortured first, and some of the bodies were found mutilated.

Testimony from his military trial revealed that Calley himself had killed more than 20 unarmed civilians, including a 2-year-old child, who Calley caught trying to escape the carnage. Calley grabbed the little boy by the arm, swung him into a ditch and dispatched him with a single shot. One of his men later testified that while he was standing guard over a group of more than 25 villagers, Lt. Calley approached him and ordered him to shoot them all. When he refused, Calley backed up a few steps and sprayed the wailing people with machinegun fire.

One soldier was so sickened by the slaughter that he shot himself in the foot to avoid taking part. He was the only American casualty that day.

But mini-My Lai massacres happened nearly every day in Vietnam, and thousands of war crimes were committed there by both sides in the conflict. In 1971, while the war was still raging, dozens of former American soldiers and Marines stepped forward to confess to the crimes they’d witnessed or participated in. Their harrowing testimony was part of the “Winter Soldier Investigation,” a truth commission sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, held in Detroit Michigan from Jan. 31 – Feb. 2, 1971.

These are some of their stories:

Chop, Chop

Joe Bangert was a Marine from Philadelphia assigned to the Marine Observation Squadron Six with the First Marine Air Wing in 1968. On his first day in Vietnam, he landed atDa Nang Air Base, and then took a plane to Dong Ha. From there, he hitch-hiked rides with military convoys on Highway 1 to his unit.

“I was picked up by a truckload of grunt Marines,” he testified. “We were about five miles down the road, where there were some Vietnamese children at the gateway of the village and they gave the old finger gesture at us. It was understandable that they picked this up from the GIs there. The trucks slowed down a little bit, and it was just like response, the guys got up, including the lieutenants, and just blew all the kids away. There were about five or six kids blown away and then the truck just continued down the hill. That was my first day in Vietnam.”

Sgt. Jack Smith was a highly decorated Marine sergeant from New Haven, Connecticut. When he first got to Vietnam in 1969, he and the other Marines in the 12^th Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division, were sympathetic to the hungry little children they’d see running alongside their trucks, yelling “Chop, Chop” – meaning, “Give us food and candy” – as they convoyed though villages. The Marines would toss them candy and food – C-ration cans – so that the kids could eat, and to help win the hearts and minds of the innocent civilian population. But after months of bloody combat, that all changed.   

“We began trying to hit them with the cans,” he testified. “We’d toss them into barbed wire and watch the kids go tearing after them, cutting themselves up. Some guys would drop the cans off the back of the truck when we were in a convoy. They’d drop the cans so the kids would have to dart out and grab them and try to get out of the way of the next truck.  One of the kids didn’t get out of the way in time. The convoy just kept going. Every truck ran over that kid.”

James Duffy was a machine gunner on a CH-47 Chinook helicopter with Company A, 228^th Aviation Battalion, 1^st Air Cav. Division, who served in Vietnam from February 1967 to April 1968. He later recalled this incident of giving “food” to Vietnamese women and children.

“We’d throw out the C-ration cans that we didn’t like, and after they thought they were getting a lot of food, we’d hand them cans of 5606, which is helicopter hydraulic fluid, and very poisonous. And I observed one kid, that I handed a can of hydraulic fluid, take a good healthy drink out of it before his mother knocked it over, knocked it right out of his hand, and he was immediately sick right after that happened.”

Bill Hatton was a heavy equipment mechanic who joined the Marines out of high school in 1966. In Vietnam, he was assigned to the Engineer Maintenance Platoon at Dong Ha.

Trioxane heat tab. Note warning: Harmful if swallowed.

“I frequently traveled between Quang Tri and Dong Ha,” he recalled, “and we’d take C-ration crackers and put peanut butter on it and stick a trioxane heat tab (fuel used to heat rations) in the middle and put peanut butter around it and let the kid munch on it. Now they’re always looking for ‘Chop, Chop,’ and the effect more or less of trioxane is to eat the membranes out of your throat, and if swallowed would probably eat holes through your stomach.” He called this a “heat tab sandwich.”

Hatton also told the story of the little Vietnamese boy who used to taunt Marines driving by in convoys, yelling at them, “You Marines, Number 10” – meaning that they were bad men who didn’t give children food and candy. Good soldiers who gave the kids candy were called “Number One GIs!”

“We used to drive by this row of hooches (huts),” he recalled, “and a little 3-year-old kid in a dirty gray shorts used to run out and scream, ‘You, Marines, Number 10,’ and we’d always go back, ‘Oh fuck you, kid,’ and all this stuff. So one night the kid comes out and says, ‘Marines, you Number 10,’ and throws a rock. So we figured we’d get him because this was a way of having fun. The next night before we went out we all stopped by COC (Combat Operations Center), which is right by the ammo dump, picked up the biggest rocks we could get our hands on and piled them in the back of the truck. So when we left the Combat Base we just turned the corner and we saw a little kid, we were waiting for the kid – he ran out of the hooch – and he was going to scream, ‘Marine Number 10,’ and we didn’t even let him get it out of his mouth. We just picked up all the rocks and smeared him. We just wiped him out. In fact, the force of the rocks was enough to knock over his little tin hooch as well. I can’t say that the kid died, but if it would have been me, I would have died easily. The rocks, some of them, were easily as big as his head. It was looked upon as funny. We all laughed about it.”

He also recounted this story: “In March of ‘69, I was serving as security in a convoy, they just gave me a ride at the gate and we got four miles south of the Dong Ha perimeter and there were a group of Vietnamese women and children who were gathered around at this little bridge outposts the ARVNs (South Vietnamese military) had as security on Highway 1 there. The truck was doing considerable speed and it was just sort of spontaneous reaction, they said, ‘Let’s get ‘em. They want Chop, Chop, we’ll give it to ‘em,’ picking up cases of C-rats which weigh up to approximately 30 pounds and threw them off into the women and the kids. You know, just flattened them out and knocked them back quite a few feet. There was no way of determining whether or not they were actually dead but the injuries must have been serious.”

“My commanding officer once fired at a group of kids merely because they came up to our hill to collect C-rations,” recalled John Beitzel, a squad leader with the 11^th Brigade, 4/21 Infantry. “We were also ordered to fire gas grenades at them. There was a big pressure for body count. We had a very low body count in our company and we had a lot of pressure coming down from the battalion commander to the company commander, down on to us. We were given new incentives to get a higher body count such as a six-pack of beer or a case of soda. And sometimes, a three-day pass, you know, for the amount of body count we had.”

Robert McConnachie was 18-year-old high school graduate from Florida when he enlisted in the Army in 1967. He was a sergeant E-5 in Vietnam in 1968 with the 1^st Infantry Division, 2^nd/28^th, Black Lions, when he witnessed several children killed by fellow soldiers playing the C-ration can game.

“When I was out in the field outside of Lai Khe with the infantry,” he recalled, “we were moved north, so some of us had to go by slicks, which are helicopters, and some by trucks, or jeeps, to Quan Loi, to re-supply the people who left before us. On the way up to Quan Loi, we were on Highway 13, you go through villages and you see little kids with their hands out, begging. Well, at first I saw GIs tossing the cans out to them, C-ration cans. Then all of a sudden I saw they were coming pretty fast at the children, and I saw two or three of them killed right there, stoned with C-ration cans. We were stopped by the MPs; he just warned us, so we kept on with our convoy and nothing was said about the kids.”

“It wasn’t like they were humans. We were conditioned to believe that this was for the good of the nation, the good of our country, and anything we did was okay.”

Jamie Henry was 19 when he was drafted into the Army on March 5, 1967. In Vietnam, he served with the 4^th Infantry Division.

“On August 8^th (1968), our company executed a 10-year-old boy,” he testified. “We shot him in the back with a full magazine M-16.

“Approximately August 16^th to August 20^th, I’m not sure of the date,” he continued, “a (Vietnamese) man was taken out of his hooch sleeping, was put into a cave, and he was used for target practice by a lieutenant, the same lieutenant who had ordered the boy killed. Now they used him for target practice with an M-60, an M-16, and a .45. After they had pretty well shot him up with the 60, they backed off aways to see how good a shot they were with a .45 because it’s such a lousy pistol. By this time, he was dead.

“On February 8^th (1969), this was after a fire-fight and we had lost eight men, we found a man in a spider hole. He was of military age. He spoke no English, of course. We did not have an interrogator, which was one of the problems in the fields. He was asked if he were VC and, of course, he kept denying it, ‘No VC, No VC.’ He was held down under an APC (armored personnel carrier) and he was run over twice – the first time didn’t kill him.” (The second time did.)

“About an hour later,” Henry recalled, “we moved into a small hamlet, this was in I Corps, it was in a Marine AO (area of operation), we moved into a small hamlet. Nineteen women and children were rounded up as VCS – Viet Cong Suspects – and the lieutenant that rounded them up called the captain on the radio and he asked what should be done with them.

“The captain simply repeated the order that came down from the colonel that morning, which was to kill anything that moves, which you can take any way you want to take it.  

“When the captain told the lieutenant this, the lieutenant rang off. I got up and I started walking over to the captain thinking that the lieutenant just might do it because I had served in his platoon for a long time. As I started over there, I think the captain panicked, he thought the lieutenant might do it too, and this was a little more atrocious than the other executions that our company had participated in, only because of the numbers. But the captain tried to call him up, tried to get him back on the horn, and he couldn’t get ahold of him. As I was walking over to him, I turned, and I looked in the area. I looked toward where the supposed VCS were, and two men were leading a young girl, approximately 19 years old, very pretty, out of a hooch. She had no clothes on so I assumed she had been raped, which was pretty SOP (standard operating procedure), and she was thrown onto the pile of the 19 women and children – and five men around the circle opened up on full automatic with their M-16s. And that was the end of that.”

Mark Lenix was a 21-year-old lab technician when he was drafted into the Army. He went to officer candidate school and landed in Vietnam in 1968 as a first lieutenant, assigned as a forward observer with the 1^st/11^th Artillery attached to the 2^nd/39^th Infantry Battalion.

“In November ’68,” he recalled, “in an area called the Wagon Wheel just northwest of Saigon, while on a routine search and destroy mission, (helicopter) gunships which were providing security and cover for us in case we had any contact were circling overhead. Well, no contact was made, and the gunships got bored. So they made a gun run on a hooch with mini-guns and rockets. When they left the area, we found one dead baby, which was a young child, very young, in its mother’s arms, and we found a baby girl about 3 years old, also dead.

“Because these people were bored; they were just sick of flying around doing nothing. When it was reported to the battalion, the only reprimand was to put the two bodies on the body count board and just add them up with the rest of the dead people. There was no reprimand; there was nothing. We tried to call the gunship off, but there was nothing you could do. He just made his run, dropped his ordnance, and left.

“And there they were, man. The mother was, of course, hysterical. How would you like it if someone came in and shot your baby? And there was nothing we could do, man, we just watched it. And nothing happened. I have no idea what happened to the helicopter pilot, or to anyone in the gunship. It was gone.”

“We went mad when Pierce got blown away,” recalled Sgt. Michael McCusker, of Portland, Oregon, who served with the First Marine Division in Vietnam from 1966 to 1967.  “A sniper hit him. The shot came from a village we just passed, and I turned around and saw this old priest standing there. Someone shot a gun right behind me and shoved that little priest right into his altar. Then we wiped out that village and another. I mean everything – we shot people, pigs, dogs, geese – we burned every hut. It was just madness.”

(The Vietnam War Memorial lists 50 Americans killed in the war with the last name Pierce.)

Charles Stephens was an Army private first class from Fords, New Jersey, and in 1967 was attached to the 27^th Infantry, 101^st Airborne Division, in Vietnam. His unit had taken numerous casualties in a battle in a place they ironically called Happy Valley, and the next day, they went into a village called Tuyhoa, and started shooting the place up, killing and wounding many civilians.

“The next morning,” he recalled, “we were camped on a hill above the village and the villagers were having a burial ceremony. This sergeant and a Spec/4 started firing machine gun rounds at the burial ceremony. They hit a guy, and people didn’t even look to see if he was dead. They just rolled him over and put him in the hole with the others and covered him up.

“We went down that same day to get some water and there were two little boys playing on a dike and one sergeant just took his M-16 and shot one boy at the dike. The other boy tried to run. He was almost out of sight when this other guy, a Spec. 4, shot this other little boy off the dike. The little boy was like lying on the ground kicking, so he shot him again to make sure he was dead.”

Jon Drolshagen was an Army 1^st lieutenant from Columbus, Ohio, attached to the 9^th Infantry, 25^th Infantry Division, in Vietnam from 1966-67. Torturing suspected Viet Cong, he recalled, was routine.

“We’d attach wires to parts of their bodies,” he recalled. “The wires ran to a 12-volt Jeep battery. They would give off a pretty good scream when we stepped on the gas. If the wire method failed, the major in charge got out his knife. Once he just filleted a man alive, cut strips off him like bacon. We had to kill him after that – you couldn’t take a guy in that condition to a hospital.”

Sgt. Scott Camil, of Gainesville, Florida, was an advance artillery spotter in Vietnam attached to the Eleventh Marine Regiment, First Marine Division. “I could call in artillery whenever I saw fit. All I had to do was report incoming fire and I could get it. What we’d do is, if there was a slow time, we’d just pick out a village and say, “Okay, let’s see how many shots it takes to destroy this house.” And I’d call in artillery until I’d destroyed it. And then the mortar guy would call mortar rounds in until he destroyed one. And whoever used the least amount of rounds would win. The loser would buy the winner beers.”

He also told this story: “If an operation was covered by the press there were certain things we weren’t supposed to do, but if there was no press there, it was okay. I saw one case where a woman was shot by a sniper, one of our snipers. When we got up to her she was asking for water. And the Lieutenant said to kill her. So he ripped off her clothes, they stabbed her in both breasts, they spread-eagled her and shoved an E- tool up her vagina, an entrenching tool, and she was still asking for water. And then they took that out and they used a tree limb and then she was shot.

“It wasn’t like they were humans. We were conditioned to believe that this was for the good of the nation, the good of our country, and anything we did was okay.”

Joe Bangert, the Marine who saw five or six children intentionally murdered on his first day in Vietnam, also tells this story:

“In Quang Tri City I had a friend who was working with USAID (United States Agency for International Development) and he was also with CIA. We used to get drunk together and he used to tell me about his different trips into Laos on Air America Airlines and things. One time he asked me would I like to accompany him to watch. He was an adviser with an ARVN group and Kit Carson Scouts (former Viet Cong working for the U.S.). He asked me if I would like to accompany him into a village that I was familiar with to see how they act. So I went with him and when we got there the ARVNs had control of the situation. They didn’t find any enemy but they found a woman with bandages. So she was questioned by six ARVNs and the way they questioned her, since she had bandages, they shot her. She was hit about 20 times. After she was questioned, and, of course, dead, this guy came over, who was a former major, been in the service for 20 years, and he got hungry again and came back over working with USAID. He went over there, ripped her clothes off and took a knife and cut, from her vagina almost all the way up, just about up to her breasts and pulled her organs out, completely out of her cavity, and threw them out. Then, he stopped and knelt over and commenced to peel every bit of skin off her body and left her there as a sign for something or other.”

Kenneth Ruth was an Army medic in Vietnam who not only witnessed atrocities, but also participated in them. “Each of us could go on all day talking about atrocities that we witnessed,” he said. “Each of us saw many, and many of them we all participated in.”

One war crime he was involved in – the torturing of two villagers suspected of being Viet Cong – took place after the Special Forces unit he was attached to had entered a village and asked the villagers to point out who the Viet Cong were.

“Somebody had to be pointed out,” he recalled, “and the villagers weren’t going to point out themselves.” So two villagers were selected as VC suspects and tortured.

William Calley today lives in Atlanta, Georgia

“We were given two people that we were told were Viet Cong,” he said. “We took these two guys out in the field and we strung one of ‘em up in a tree by his arms, tied his hands behind him, and then hung him in the tree. A Special Forces man was running the whole show, and this is all under their command and everything. Now what we did to this man when we strung him up is that he was stripped of all his clothes, and then they tied a string around his testicles and a man backed up about 10 feet and told him what would happen if he didn’t answer any questions the way they saw fit. So they’d ask the guy a question: ‘Do you know of any enemy units in this area?’ And if he said, ‘No,’ the guy that was holding that string would just yank on it as hard as he could about 10 times, and this guy would be just flying all over the place in pain. And this is what they used. I mean anybody’s just going to say anything in a situation like this.

“Then we took the other guy to the other end of the village, and we didn’t do this, all we did was burn his penis with a cigarette to get answers out of him.

“This is just one of the things I saw. I could just go on all day. All of us could. But it’s not just us. Everybody knows this. It isn’t just Lieutenant Calley. I was involved, I know there are so many other people involved in all this American policy in Vietnam.”

But Lt. William Calley was the only person convicted of war crimes in Vietnam.

On March 29, a military court martial found him guilty of the premeditated murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians, and on March 31 he was sentenced to life in prison and hard labor at Ft. Leavenworth.

The next day, however, President Richard Nixon ordered him transferred from Leavenworth to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he spent the next three-and-a-half years living in comfort under house arrest.

When he was released a free man by a federal judge in 1974, a Georgia congressman accompanied him on his flight home.

Feb. 7, 2013

Over a 10-year-year period, from 1972 to 1982, the Shankill Butchers gang, led by psychopath Lenny Murphy, terrorized Northern Ireland Catholics, becoming the most prolific group of serial killers in British history.

by Robert Walsh

“A lasting monument to blind sectarian bigotry.” – The Shankill Butchers, as described by their trial judge, Lord Justice O’Donnel.

Ireland in general (and Northern Ireland in particular) has long had a troubled, violent and dark history. Invasions, rebellions, famine, revolution, civil war and what are generally described as “The Troubles” have cast a long shadow over the Emerald Isle and its neighbor (and former colonial ruler) Great Britain. In recent years, especially after the peace talks and ceasefire of the early 1990’s, both the British and Irish people have begun to bury their differences and to explore their common history, dark and uncomfortable though it often is. One of the darkest episodes was that of the Shankill Butchers.

 The Shankill Butchers were based in the Shankill district of Belfast (a staunchly pro-British part of the city) and laid a nominal claim to being pro-British paramilitaries. However, leader Lenny Murphy’s motives were far more personal than political. Murphy was the lynchpin around whom the Butchers revolved.

The Troubles – A Short History

In order to understand the Butchers they need placing in context. Northern Ireland itself was born of talks between the British and Irish following the 1916 Easter Rising and subsequent violence. As part of a treaty between the British and the Irish rebel leadership, six of Ireland’s 32 counties were split from the newly-formed Irish Free State (today’s Irish Republic). These six counties (the six Irish counties possessing the largest Protestant majorities) became Northern Ireland or Ulster under what was called “Partition,” remaining under British rule. The issue of a united Ireland has dogged the British and Irish ever since.

Paramilitary groups and their political wings had long existed on both sides and both readily employed violence. Those supporting a united Ireland peacefully became known as Nationalists while their paramilitaries (and their associated political front groups) were collectively labeled Republicans. Those campaigning lawfully to preserve links to Britain (campaigning according to the law as it then stood, often with the unofficial connivance of an often openly biased police service and judiciary) were known as Unionists, while their paramilitary groups (and their own political front groups) were collectively labeled Loyalists.

One of the many murals that decorate the walls in Belfast and it  depicts the Ulster Volunteer Force (Lenny Murphy's paramilitary group)

There was also a religious difference. Republicans or Nationalists were largely Catholic while Unionists and Loyalists were usually fiercely Protestant. There were both Catholics and Protestants who broke that tradition, but they were exceptions to the rule. It’s important to recognize the difference, on both sides, between those who adopted violence and those who didn’t. Simply supporting either side never meant automatic support for paramilitary methods. Violence was freely employed by paramilitaries on both sides, but their motivations and strategies were very different.

Both sides readily made examples of known or suspected informers, but their other targets differed immensely. Republicans tended to attack members of the British armed forces, officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (nowadays the Police Service of Northern Ireland), part-time soldiers (Territorials, similar to the U.S. National Guard) and Loyalist paramilitaries. The Republicans had clear criteria for selecting potential targets. Their targets were visible and selected for political or military status rather than religious or political sectarianism.

Targeting by Loyalists was far less selective and far more likely to be sectarian. The Republicans had adopted guerilla tactics, emphasized tight security among members, used a cell structure to further separate the activities of individual Active Service Units (known as ASU’s) and generally tried to be inconspicuous, making targeting specific Republicans far harder for Loyalists. Plus the politics of Loyalism (as distinct from Unionism) have been described as “the politics of fear.” Many Loyalists tended to fear the idea of Catholics (and, by extension, Republicans) gaining the basics of equality, seeing it as a stepping-stone towards a united Ireland. Loyalist violence often (but not always) placed sectarianism before strategy, reflecting hatred born of fear.

One of the more notorious Loyalist paramilitary groups was the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and it was his links to the UVF that allowed Lenny Murphy to recruit his henchmen, intimidate potential witnesses and informers and for the Butchers in general to kill as openly, brutally and frequently as they did. The UVF’s membership and influence had declined, but had revived from the late-1960’s onward. Violence (and an ever-present, credible threat thereof) was an intrinsic within UVF policy and philosophy. It’s no surprise that Murphy found them attractive.

The “Master Butcher”

Murphy was born into perpetual violence, extremism and sectarianism. He spent his childhood in staunchly Protestant areas and was constantly bullied for having what some considered a Catholic-sounding surname. Where Murphy grew up Catholics were often so loathed that even the wrong surname was considered suspect. He was also taunted over a common belief that he was illegitimate and that his father wasn’t the man who actually raised him. In short, Murphy was a ready-made victim of perpetual abuse and mistreatment.

Lenny Murphy

Murphy grew into a violent bully, usually ready to meet the slightest perceived insult or challenge with instant aggression. Possibly as a direct result of his suffering being (in his mind) related to religious bigotry, he developed a lasting, visceral hatred of Catholics. His venom knew no limits and fuelled his later crimes. Murphy was a classic case of prey turning predator and he may have seen this simply as a means to survive in a dangerous, hostile environment. What separates him from most people with similar backgrounds is his sheer barbarity and his relishing extreme sadism and violence for their own sake.

Murphy was a natural recruit and joined the UVF after leaving school. He was young, fanatical, violent, eager to both learn his chosen trade (paramilitary violence) and fight his perceived enemy (Northern Ireland’s Catholics, Nationalists and Republicans). He was also far from a stereotypical Neanderthal thug and possessed brains as well as brawn. It was through the UVF and other such groups that Murphy combined his unrelenting anti-Catholicism with the technical skills and personal contacts needed to assemble and lead the Shankill Butchers. Murphy furthered his “education” by regularly attending trials as a spectator, becoming a regular feature in the public gallery. Murphy clearly wanted to understand policing and the law in order to frustrate them. Studying the legal system was an excellent opportunity to find its inherent weaknesses and later use them to evade and obstruct law enforcement. If he already intended a campaign of purely sectarian murder, he was actively laying the foundations by this point.

The victims came from an unusually broad variety of backgrounds. Most were Catholics (chosen simply for being Catholics), some were killed in personal feuds with one or more Butchers, a few were other Loyalists killed in factional feuds and others were what the military call “collateral damage” (they happened to be in the wrong places at the wrong times). Such was Murphy’s dominance over his gang that, even after he had been imprisoned on unrelated firearms charges, other Butchers continued to kill on his personal orders as he felt that continued killings would hamper police efforts to see him convicted of serial murder. Murphy was so confident of his absolute command that he sometimes called himself the “Master Butcher.”

One of the things that marks the Butchers as serial killers rather than paramilitaries is their collective desire for power and domination, a desire to act as they pleased regardless of the damage to others and to kill out of hatred and sheer enjoyment rather than furthering any political goals. It would be wrong to say that their paramilitary links were purely incidental to their crimes. Their environment (religious, political, social and criminal) was the breeding ground from which they came together and played a sizeable part in local citizens being terrified to speak out. The “Troubles” weren’t by any means a sideshow, but I’d argue that their crimes were far more about personal gratification than devotion to a cause.

The methods varied as much as the victims. The standard method was for a group of Butchers to cruise the Shankill district in a black taxicab similar to those used in London. All the Butchers knew the Shankill district intimately. They knew which routes Catholics used to pass through the Shankill, the best escape routes, that local residents were terrified to co-operate with the police, fearing both the Butchers themselves or the paramilitaries with whom many Butchers had links. The Shankill was their personal hunting ground and they used it to indulge a combined passion for sadistic murder, confident that those who knew or suspected their identities were highly unlikely to inform. They inspired such extreme fear that local people took a different route if they saw a black cab parked in the Shankill that looked remotely out of place.

“The Cut-Throat Murders”

Once victims were chosen they were overpowered and dragged into the back of the cab. Once inside they were beaten, slashed, choked and then (depending on the Butchers’ whim) probably killed and dumped in public places where they were sure to be found. One victim was deliberately left within a minute’s walk of the local police headquarters. If the Butchers were feeling particularly sadistic their victim was kept alive and taken to one of several locations considered secure and safe (especially the Lawnbrook Social Club, a Loyalist drinking den). Victims were then gratuitously tortured until either they died or the Butchers became bored and silenced them permanently. The level of sadism especially distinguished the Butchers from other criminals in Northern Ireland. Not only did they kill for little or no political or paramilitary gain, they reveled not only in killing for killing’s sake, but also in making their crimes as barbarous as possible. Neither sadism nor recreational killing were common practice, even in a place as troubled and violent as 1970’s Northern Ireland.

Other victims died through poisoning, gunshot wounds, a bomb attack and simply being beaten to death. Unlike the victims of many serial killers, they had few common denominators, there was little to indicate a pattern of the kind a psychological profiler might find useful. All that usually linked the victims was their Catholic religion, the violence of the murders and the fact that they all occurred within the Shankill district, but the Butchers did have one particular trademark that stood out. Many victims were found with their throats cut, several were cut so severely that they were almost decapitated before being dumped in public places where they were always going to be found quickly. The victims’ bodies also usually bore the signs of torture before death and mutilation afterwards. Merely killing wasn’t enough for the Butchers; they had to embellish their crimes as well which indicates a greater interest in killing for pleasure over killing on a professional basis. Torture, throat-cutting and mutilation were their hallmarks, leading to local people and the press referring to their crimes as “the cut-throat murders.” In total, at least 30 individual murders have been attributed to various Butchers between Murphy’s first kill in 1972 and the Butchers’ last known killing in 1982.

The Romper Room

Murphy’s first personal victim was Francis Arthurs in July 1972. Arthurs was a Catholic and had been travelling through the Shankill in a taxi from the predominantly Nationalist Ardoyne district. The taxi was hijacked and Arthurs was taken to the Lawnbrook Social Club, a Loyalist drinking den. Arthurs was dragged into what club members called the “romper room,” a room set aside for what they called “rompering.” Rompering always involved violence and degradation, often torture and sometimes murder. Torture sessions and punishment beatings in the romper room were usually conducted in front of an audience as the torturers felt making spectators into accessories made them keep quiet. Arthurs would never leave the romper room alive. He was held prisoner until non-paramilitary customers had gone home and then the remaining drinkers took turns beating and torturing him. Every thug present took their turn before beating Arthurs as a group. He was then shot and dumped on a Shankill street less than a mile from the crime scene.

One of those involved later admitted that one of the gang, a 20-year old man, was especially violent and sadistic. He made a point of delivering more blows and hitting harder than anyone else as though he had something to prove or a particular level of hatred. The same man also tortured Arthurs with a knife just before the shooting. It was Lenny Murphy, the story of the Shankill Butchers had begun and there was no turning back.

Murphy in The Maze

The killings continued. Three more victims swiftly followed Francis Arthurs. All were sadistic, involved considerable torture before death and were seemingly for no political motive while all were similar enough that police believed they were the work of the same killer. After the UVF-ordered murder of William Pavis (a Protestant suspected of selling firearms to Republicans) Murphy and his accomplice, Mervyn Connor, were arrested and Connor folded. He confessed, implicating Murphy as the actual shooter. Both ended up in Crumlin Road jail awaiting trial.

Unfortunately for the prosecution, Connor then suffered fatal cyanide poisoning, a supposed suicide note detailing his immense guilt at “falsely” implicating Murphy. It later transpired that Murphy had dictated the note for Connor and then forcibly fed him the poison. Connor lingered overnight and died the next morning. Two prison officers specifically assigned to guard Connor were mysteriously distracted into watching television with other inmates. Seemingly in spite of their specific assignment to protect Mervyn Connor night and day they didn’t see Murphy approach Connor’s cell, they didn’t hear him dictating the fake suicide note and false confession and they didn’t hear Murphy holding Connor in a headlock while pouring a phial of cyanide into his mouth. Murphy was promptly transferred to Her Majesty’s Prison, Maze and the case collapsed (with the star prosecution witness dead, the remaining evidence wasn’t nearly enough to take to trial).

Murphy’s time at The Maze was equally eventful. Back among other Loyalist paramilitaries he displayed willful, abrasive and confrontational behavior that caused resentment among other Loyalist inmates. That discontent (and his already fearsome reputation) caused many to view him as a problem but also as too dangerous to confront openly. The UVF’s grip on Murphy began to slip even further, giving him an even freer hand. Violent confrontations with other Loyalists, some of whom were far senior to him in the Loyalist hierarchy, further marked him as dangerously reckless and, on his release, even many extremists kept a wary distance from both Murphy and the tightly-knit clique he gathered after his release in May 1975.

Murphy’s Inner Circle

There were three men who were especially keen to follow his lead, marking them out from other Butchers who tended to participate in some murders but not others. William Moore, Sam McAllister and a fellow Crumlin Road inmate, Robert “The Basher” Bates, formed Murphy’s inner circle. They provided weapons, vehicles and extra muscle once victims had been chosen. McAllister and Bates were mainly there for their violence, while Moore supplied the black taxi used in some of the murders, a set of butcher knives and a meat cleaver stolen from his former workplace and often firearms as well. William Moore was perhaps Murphy’s most obedient follower and ever-present in the Butchers’ career.

Murphy was married while in jail and the couple had a baby daughter. With his domestic affairs settled down (as much as they ever would be) it was time for Murphy to stop killing alone and begin leading the Butchers as a unit. The Butchers’ first collective crime was also one of their most destructive, involving an armed robbery at Casey’s Bottling Plant, a local liquor wholesaler. Paramilitaries on both sides often supplemented their income with crimes such as drug dealing, extortion and robberies and the Butchers were no exception. Casey’s was a lucrative target. It would also be the scene of a quadruple murder committed, not out of necessity, but on sectarian grounds. Once Murphy and his accomplices forced their way into the plant and detained the four staff present, Murphy discovered that they were all Catholics. His response was to simply execute them all.

Marie McGrattan, Frances Donnelly, Gerard Grogan and Thomas Osbourne paid with their lives for the crime of following a different religion. Only weeks later, in late November 1975, Catholic Francis Crossen was found dead, severely beaten and with his throat cut, in a Shankill alleyway. Five days later it was UVF member Noel Shaw, shot dead in an internal UVF feud. In January 1976 Catholic Edward McQuaid was murdered in a drive-by shooting and in February another Catholic, Thomas Quinn, was found stabbed to death in the Shankill. Archibald Hanna and Raymond Carlisle were both Protestants but, the Butchers having mistaken them for Catholics, they were promptly shot dead while they sat in their delivery truck only three days after the discovery of Thomas Quinn. Two weeks after they were killed, Catholic Francis Rice was found stabbed to death in a doorway.

Murphy Orders Killings from Prison

Then the Butchers took what was, by their standards, a long hiatus. In March of 1976 Murphy attempted the drive-by shooting of a Catholic woman. He was arrested later the same day and jailed to await trial for attempted murder. After many months on remand (and without a killing attributed to the Butchers) he made a plea bargain in October, 1977 and received a 12 year jail sentence. Shortly after his arrest he received visits from two men still identified for legal reasons only as “Mr. A” and “Mr. B.” Through “Mr. A” Murphy ordered that the killings should continue, partly due to his own desire to kill and partly to divert suspicion for the previous murders away from himself. “Mr. A” and “Mr. B” now became Murphy’s representatives, passing his orders to the rest of the gang.  Such was Murphy’s dominance over his followers that only months after his sentencing the killings restarted.

After Francis Rice’s murder it wasn’t until August of 1976 that another victim was found. Cornelius Neeson was discovered lying on a Shankill street corner having been beaten to death with a hatchet. At the end of October, 1976 Catholic Stephen McCann was discovered, stabbed and shot to death, not far from where Thomas Quinn had been found. Only five days before Christmas of 1976 a 22-year old Protestant, Thomas Easton, was found beaten to death near the sites of the Quinn and McCann murders.

The new year began with a short break for the Butchers, followed by another murder. On January 31 Loyalist paramilitary James Moorehead, a member of the rival Ulster Defence Association (UDA), was found lying on a Shankill pavement having been beaten to death. Moorehead’s death was the result of a personal dispute rather than for paramilitary reasons. He had fallen foul of the Butchers and paid the usual price. On February 3 (again within walking distance of where Quinn, McCann and Easton had been murdered) another Catholic, Joseph Morrissey, was found hacked to death with a hatchet. Late in March of 1977, Francis Cassidy (another Catholic) was found stabbed and shot to death lying on a grassy knoll in the Shankill.

Kevin McMenamin was perhaps the most tragic victim of the Butchers and also by far the youngest. He was only 7 years old when a Loyalist bomb planted by one of the Butchers exploded outside a known Republican club during a parade marking the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising. The Butchers hadn’t targeted him directly, but the bomb they planted killed him just the same.

Gerard McLaverty (yet another Catholic) was a true rarity among the Butchers’ victims in that he was their only victim to survive an attack. He was found in an alleyway having been slashed, stabbed and beaten. After emergency medical treatment he survived and was driven round the Shankill district by RUC detectives who’d been working to catch the Butchers for several years, albeit with a conspicuous lack of success. McLaverty was actually able to identify the men who had attacked him, spotting them from the car as armed detectives drove him round the Shankill district. McLaverty was the last known victim of the Shankill Butchers until 1982 by which time many of the Butchers were behind bars.

Many were behind bars, but not all. Murphy served only six years of his 12-year sentence on firearms charges, but his influence was still ever-present around the Shankill. While he was in jail, murders attributed to the Butchers ceased for several years but didn’t end with the failed attack on Gerald McLaverty.

One of Murphy’s reasons for often attending trials as a young man was to know his enemy. By accumulating first-hand knowledge of police procedures, criminal law and the workings of the Northern Ireland court system, Murphy had evolved a number of ways to hamper police investigations. Their known links to paramilitary groups inspired fear of retribution. The culture among many living in Northern Ireland was to avoid informing in general, owing to either a distrust or hatred of the police or out of a simple desire to avoid being maimed or murdered. Fear is a very powerful weapon when used wisely and the Shankill Butchers used it to great effect. It was to further confuse the police and aid his own chances of escaping prosecution that Murphy ordered his followers to restart the killings a few years later. He knew that while he was in jail he was less feared (making the chance of somebody informing the police that little bit greater) and he also wanted to lay the groundwork for denying any involvement because the killings continued even after he had been jailed on unrelated charges. 

The Downfall of the Butchers

The Butchers’ downfall finally began with their failed attack on Gerald McLaverty. Having left McLaverty for dead the remaining Butchers seem to have been perfectly confident in their security, confident enough to strut around the Shankill in broad daylight without seeming overly concerned about being caught. Their arrogant carelessness gave McLaverty the chance to identify his attackers and gave the police (perpetually meeting a wall of silence) the breakthrough they so desperately needed. With McLaverty’s attackers firmly identified, chief investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Jimmy Nesbitt was able to order a series of dawn raids and picked up Sam McAllister, his accomplice in the McLaverty attack (and peripheral gang member named Edwards) and their known associates. With a solid witness who was prepared to talk, Nesbitt knew that there was always a chance that a suspect would either talk to save himself or let slip some vital information accidentally. DCI Nesbitt was proved right.

Chief Inspector Jimmy Nesbit

McAllister slipped up during questioning, originally admitting only his role in the McLaverty attack. Unfortunately for him, McAllister let slip that he knew far more than he should about the type of knife used on McLaverty which was very similar to that used on a number of the Butchers’ other victims. Nesbitt pressed the point, pushed every suspect he questioned and eventually many of the Butchers and their associates finally admitted their respective roles in the gang. The prime mover in all the violence was overwhelmingly named as Lenny Murphy. Many Butchers directly implicated him and his two still-unidentified associates (“Mr. A” and “Mr. B”) in both the “cut-throat murders” and various other paramilitary crimes. However, they later retracted their stories after, it is claimed by some, intimidation from the senior members of the UVF. Lenny Murphy (still serving his firearms sentence), “Mr. A” and “Mr. B” were all questioned several times regarding the Butchers’ inquiry but prosecutors (lacking either corroborative witnesses or forensic evidence against these three suspects in particular) decided that none of them would face charges.

The other Butchers were tried during 1978 and on into early 1979. In February 1979 11 men stood convicted of a total of 19 murders and various related offences (not including the murders attributed to the Butchers, but lacking final confirmation). In addition to being the most prolific group of serial killers in British legal history the Butchers also collected the longest combined prison sentences of any criminal gang in British legal history. Describing their crimes as “A lasting monument to sectarian bigotry” Lord Justice O’Donnel handed down 42 life sentences totaling over 2,000 years among them. He also had no hesitation in stating that, in his opinion, those sentences should carry a “full-life tariff,” meaning life without the possibility of parole.

Even though it was curtains for the gang, it wasn’t over for Lenny Murphy. He’d managed to avoid even being prosecuted after principal witnesses were allegedly intimidated into recanting their evidence, leaving the prosecution with nowhere near enough to take him to trial. This didn’t stop him killing for pleasure as soon as he was released. In July, 1982 it was the turn of a Protestant, 33-year-old Norman Maxwell, who suffered from a learning disability. He was a quiet, inoffensive man wouldn’t have been able to spot the attack coming or defend himself when it came. In the end he did neither. He was found on a patch of waste ground in the Shankill, beaten to death, only one day after Murphy’s release. In early September a Protestant, James Galway, disappeared. The UVF suspected Galway of being a police informer, what Northern Irish people call a “tout.” In Northern Ireland even being suspected of “touting” was enough to make him a marked man. After being abducted and shot dead, Galway’s body was eventually found crudely buried in a shallow grave on a local building site.

The penultimate victim was another UVF member, Brian Smyth, one week after the murder of James Galway. Smyth was another fellow paramilitary who had made the mistake of crossing Murphy by not paying a debt. Smyth did pay the penalty. He was drinking in a Loyalist club when his drink was spiked with a lethal dose of cyanide. Staggering out of the club and presumably realizing he was already in grave danger, Smyth was promptly shot dead by a passenger on a passing motorcycle. Murphy killed Brian Smyth over a fairly small debt that could easily have been resolved without bloodshed.

The Butchers’ final confirmed victim was, true to their particular preference, yet another Catholic. Joseph Donegan was passing through the Shankill when he hailed the wrong black taxi. As soon as he boarded the cab Donegan was attacked and murdered. He was found dead in a doorway like many previous victims, having been viciously beaten to death.

Murphy Gunned Down by the Provisional IRA

What goes around, comes around. Murphy had been born into a climate of violence, had inflicted terrible violence of his own and, some might say appropriately, he died violently as well. It was Tuesday, November 16, 1982. Murphy had been followed into the Glencairn estate (in the heart of the staunchly Loyalist Shankill district). He was standing outside his new girlfriend’s house when a van pulled up and out jumped two masked, armed members of the Provisional IRA. Murphy was hit by over 20 bullets, dying instantly. Speculation over who ordered the killing was rife for several days afterward, until the IRA issued a statement openly claiming responsibility. By contrast with Murphy’s indiscriminate butchery, the IRA statement reiterated its policy of “non-sectarian attacks” that were not based purely on religious prejudice. The fact that Murphy was deeply unpopular with some leading Loyalists, his (Republican) killers did the job in the heart of the Shankill and that his killers seemed to know his movements very well has led to suggestions that the Loyalist leadership colluded with the IRA to arrange his murder. The Republicans sought revenge for Murphy’s anti-Catholic atrocities, many Loyalists wanted a man often regarded as a “mad dog” put to sleep permanently. This might explain why IRA gunmen found it so easy not only to track Murphy’s movements, but to enter the heart of the Shankill, murder a well-known Loyalist heavyweight and still escape unscathed.

A popular suspect for arranging Murphy’s death is senior UDA figure Jim Craig. Craig had clashed with Murphy following Murphy’s release and there was no love lost between them. Supporting this theory (unconfirmed though it still is) is the fact that Craig was himself murdered by UDA members for what they considered “treason,” specifically allegations that Craig arranged for several rival UDA leaders to be murdered by the Provisional IRA.  A simpler theory suggests that Murphy was a man who had made many enemies and that one of them finally caught up with him.

Lenny Murphy was buried with full paramilitary “honors” at Carnmoney Cemetery (ironically, home to several of his victims) in late November, 1982. His gravestone bears the phrase “Here lies a soldier.” That gravestone has since been smashed and had to be replaced.

Feb. 11, 2013

Natalie Wood and Joshua Swalls: Foul play, or splendid accidents?

Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner

by EPONYMOUS ROX

Without a doubt, this glamorous woman’s fatal midnight plummet from the deck of The Splendour into the cool ocean waters off Catalina Island in 1981 has got to be the most high profile “accidental drowning” on record.

In the hours preceding her watery demise, she was overheard loudly quarreling with an enraged and jealous husband. They had been at this all day, in fact. All evening they’d been drinking.

Married, divorced, and remarried for a second try, the two were known to have a volatile relationship, with more than their fair share of public and private disagreements, be they drunk or sober. But this argument was different. The worst one yet.

When she drowned, she had prominent contusions in “no particular pattern” all over the front and back of her body. Some of these were fresh injuries, said to have been obtained as she frantically grappled with a small, wooden dinghy secured to the side of the yacht. Some she’d received just days before plunging to her death.

She had a variety of unexplained abrasions, too: On her flawless face, on her lovely hands, on her shapely thighs and calves.

And, as demonstrated by her casual attire on the morning would-be rescuers fished her bruised body from the ocean—in a flannel nightgown, cotton socks, no lifejacket—she had clearly not entered the water voluntarily.

Yet it still took the loved ones of celebrated actress Natalie Wood over three decades to prove that her saltwater drowning was more than a little suspicious.

A perfect crime, re-evaluated

It was said to have been foretold by a family member that she would someday lose her life “in dark water,” and on November 28, 1981, during an escalating argument with a husband on the rampage, die in dark water she did.

His famous wife had been lost at sea for practically two hours when Robert Wagner finally decided to report that Natalie Wood had gone missing from his boat. By that time she was surely dead, as the emergency personnel who first responded to his SOS call strongly suspected. Consequently, they found Wagner’s delay peculiar and perplexing.

The actor’s answer when questioned about it told them all they needed to know. “I thought she was off on another boat screwing around,” a sweaty, anxious, and inebriated Wagner blurted, “because that’s the kind of woman she is.”

So there were already whispers of abuse and foul play even before Wood’s beaten corpse was retrieved from the ocean a few hours later. Still, the coroner’s office of Los Angeles County, where the deceased was immediately transported for autopsy, didn’t hesitate to pronounce her drowning death an accident. Thereafter, these officials’ final determination, signed, sealed and certified, would remain undisturbed for 31 consecutive years. Until, in the summer of 2012, they changed their minds at last:

AUTOPSY SUPPLEMENTAL #81-15167 ‒ WAGNER, NATALIE / A.K.A. WOOD, NATALIE: “The right forearm showed a 4 inch x 1 inch diffuse bruising on the lateral aspect and few bruises on back of hand. The left wrist showed a slight deformity in the lateral condyle of the ulna and there was also a superficial fresh bruise in this area 1/2 inch in diameter. There were multiple small 1/2 to 1 inch fresh bruises in the left anterior lateral thigh. There was a two inch recent bruise to the left knee. There were recent bruises to the right upper leg in the area and right ankle. The anterior neck showed a small scratch. There was also superficial abrasion in left forehead, left brow and left upper cheek area with an upward direction. There was white froth in the nasal oral area. There were recent bruises to the back of the left thigh. A few day old bruises were on the back of the right thigh and knee, but there were fresh bruises and scratches to the posterior leg…There are conflicting statements as to when the decedent went missing from the boat and whether there were verbal arguments between the decedent and her husband…This Examiner is unable to exclude non-accidental mechanism causing these injuries.” — Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, Chief Medical Examiner and Coroner for the county of Los Angeles, California - 6/15/12

Semi-perfect crimes, reevaluated

Drowning is a fast and efficient way to end a life, but not usually the weapon of choice for murderers. Possibly because they’d have to get wet themselves to do it right.

Nonetheless, there are some people who adamantly believe a gang of serial killers has been roaming the United States and selecting college age males for death by drowning. Luring an unsuspecting victim to the waterfront, preferably one who’s publicly intoxicated, and then drowning them when nobody’s looking is “the perfect crime” such theorists claim. Water washes away all the evidence.

They’ve even dubbed these mysterious marauders of young men "The Smiley Face Killers" since this alleged band of evildoers has also been rumored to leave gloating graffiti at their crime scenes.

Ominous phrases, song lyrics, initials, and of course smiley faces, sometimes with horns drawn on them, these allegedly are the markings Smiley boldly leaves behind on nearby trees and walls and boulders and docks, after they’ve drowned someone…but not always.

To be sure, ever since 1997 when 21-year-old Patrick McNeill vanished from New York City and his badly decomposed corpse was found in the East River several weeks later, there have been hundreds of documented incidences of similar disappearances and drownings in America’s northland. Moreover, just as diehard believers in the Smiley Face murder theory are claiming, there is by now a well established victimology of young men meeting such a tragic end.

Police are never able to solve this vexing syndrome, even if they try, which they usually don’t, so conspiracists think they can.

Every compelling conspiracy theory that goes viral will invariably have its naysayers and critics though, and chief among those who periodically strive to debunk the Smiley Face one is the FBI, the Center for Homicide Research, a handful of expert criminologists and university professors, and swarms of local, outraged law enforcement agencies that feel self-conscious about clusters of young men drowning in their jurisdictions and don’t want a lot of attention drawn to the situation.

It isn’t, after all, an especially appealing feature of any municipality to have youths jumping in droves into icy rivers, lakes, ponds, and streams and perishing, but all of these authorities state, in no uncertain terms, that water recreational deaths really aren’t that rare in the scheme of things.

More males drown while swimming and boating than females do anyway.

Serial killers do not drown their victims, they also add, so therefore these young men are simply drinking too much and, just as poor, drunken Natalie Wood did decades ago, they’re somehow staggering into water and accidentally drowning.

It’s a flimsy argument at best, and since it never fixes the problem opponents always cry foul in response to it. They counter with the obvious: that these guys aren’t going swimming or boating in the wintertime, that most are barely over the legal limit for operating a motor vehicle, that only certain types of men are disappearing and drowning, and that Natalie Wood’s death was hardly an accident.

Totally valid objections, each and every one of those. Except it’s true that intentional drowning does not fit the motif of serial killers, for the very simple reason that it’s much too speedy and bloodless a death to satisfy their perverse yearnings. These are deeply twisted creatures, and they seek power and pleasure exclusively through sexual assault, torture, brutal murder, and dismemberment. None of which is typically evidenced on the bodies of drowned men.

As well, even the most “organized” brand of psychopathic killer is, by virtue of profound mental disorder, incapable of teaming with others, let alone his own ilk, so the notion of a group of them somehow evading capture for more than 15 years, while fleetingly amusing to envision, is also rather specious.

Serial killings versus serial killers

Whether one is a police detective, a medical examiner, a professional private eye or a citizen sleuth, the sharpest tool anyone has for dissection and analysis will always be Occam’s Razor, a tried and true principle which posits that the simplest hypothesis is most likely to be the correct one. Or, as Einstein so eloquently summed up in decades past, “Everything should be kept as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

This is the only sensible approach to investigating because, otherwise, with every assumption that is made about a thing another possibility for error is introduced into the equation, increasing the probability that a theory is wrong…

The theorizing of the public and police concerning missing/drowned men are at extreme odds with each other, producing a stalemate. These two entrenched beliefs will always be irreconcilable because one is constructed on a plethora of odd assumptions and the other is overly simplistic.

Sadly, this has left the reasonable and important question as to why so many young males are now ending up dead in the water unanswered. But, while the drownings are most likely not due to a serial killing gang being at large in the region, their frequency shows they are by no means accidental, either.

In fact, stripped of all rhetoric and assorted red herrings, the evidentiary facts that have thus far accumulated in The Case Of the Drowning Men reveal the vast majority of victims were last seen being accosted by bouncers and/or cops only minutes before vanishing. A sharp razor is hardly necessary then to peel away such a thinly veiled mystery and see that their subsequent deaths are, instead, due to a pattern of excessive force. Inglorious and shameful as that truly is.

It’s no secret that cops and bouncers are valued for their skilled aggressiveness, and that far too often such aggression erupts into acts of brutality. To address this chronic problem, technology for subduing people in “nonlethal” ways was invented, and over the past two decades such handheld devices have become so popular and affordable that even average citizens can purchase them now without too much difficulty or even background checks.

Unfortunately though, just like mercilessly pummeling a young man until he’s rendered unconscious, employing a nonlethal weapon against him, such as a stun-gun or taser, can also lead to sudden death or a deathlike coma, especially if used improperly or to excess. Technically, this could be deemed an accidental consequence, yes, but it’s clearly not one directly caused by inebriation.

When in the process of ejecting a young man from a bar and/or arresting him in this manner he does inadvertently die from being roughed up or repeatedly stunned, it’s only then and there that a nearby river, lake, stream or pond presents itself as the ideal solution to the gruesomely unexpected.

The motive for such devious thinking is obvious: while disposal and cover up is an unpleasant business, it’s better than facing community backlash and legal ramifications that result from a wrongful death.

Wrongful death and devious thinking

As with Natalie Wood's perilous tumble of convenience, pushing the dead or mortally injured over the railing of a ship positioned miles away from land, or else standing at the shoreline and heaving them on the count of three into a body of freshwater, is a crime after the fact. A desperate, kneejerk attempt by the felonious to hide and disguise the original offense.

And, like Wood, somebody fairly intoxicated, who’s only been knocked unconscious or is comatose, could still “naturally” drown once fully submerged, displaying all the usual drowning symptoms when the bodies resurface again: saturated lungs, foam at the mouth, high levels of magnesium and chloride distributed unevenly in the left and right chambers of the heart, volumes of watery fluid in the stomach and diluted blood.

For that matter, anyone who’s ever studied police forensics 101 knows that even a stone-cold cadaver can manage to draw some water into its air passages, if it soaks long enough.

When and if assault victims ditched in this underhanded manner are ever recovered, any telltale contusions and lacerations that may still be visible can easily be explained away as well—many bouncers are actually off-duty cops moonlighting as security for pubs and clubs, and every police department enjoys a cozy relationship with the local coroner’s office.

That means it doesn’t take a pre-planned, sophisticated plot to pull off an accidental drowning whenever one becomes necessary, nor to accomplish the misdeed time and time again without getting caught. A few confidential phone calls is all it would require.

This scheme will make manufactured drowning deaths seem to qualify as perfect crimes per se, but the success of the heartless ruse is dependant entirely on halfhearted investigations.

Fame and infamy

Thanks to Hollywood, the very machine that made Natalie Wood and her embroiled former husband Robert Wagner superstars, serial killers too have become celebrities. As a result, the public today is unabashedly enamored with such malevolent personalities, reimagining them as principled and omnipotent slayers, instead of the out-of-control sadists and psychos that they really are.

The present-day enthrallment with such monsters, promoted by blockbuster films like Silence of Lambs and Hannibal that grossly misrepresent these antisocial predators, has also led to widespread fallacies about them, too. Particularly as it relates to their prevalence.

In reality, serial killers are but a tiny fraction of the criminal population, and tortuous death at the hands of such deranged strangers only accounts for slightly less than one percent of all the murders committed annually. Whereas, in approximately 85 percent of all other homicides committed within this same time span, the victims were acquainted with their attackers. Many even related to them, either by blood or through marriage.

Likewise, despite the idea of a serial drowning gang being a premise worthy of the big screen, most if not all missing-found-drowned males were in fact last observed involved in disputes or physical altercations. So it’s fair to conclude they were already dead or on the brink of dying when their bodies were surreptitiously placed in water. The drowning events, therefore, were not the real cause or manner of their deaths, but rather the violence that preceded them.

Fists, firearms or whatever, these kind of regular run-of-the-mill “crimes of passion,” whether spontaneous or hastily premeditated, in clear view or covered up, are usually isolated acts of extreme aggression, occurring primarily in the victims’ residences and, not infrequently, in public gathering places like bars and discotheques.

Admittedly, the odd serial slaying now and then by a coldblooded psychotic may be more luridly fascinating for some, but the truth is it’s plain old passion, manifested in the form of a sudden blind and murderous rage, that is the source of nearly all homicides worldwide. Almost every single murder takes place in the heat of the moment, during some sort of impromptu confrontation between two or more average citizens which rapidly gets out of hand.

An angry friend or relative, a jilted, cheated lover, a bouncer annoyed with a boisterous patron, a cop on the beat resorting to excessive force or lethal tasering, a husband feeling cuckolded and hell-bent on revenge…forget about serial killers, these are society’s homicidal maniacs. Normal people experiencing heightened emotions that set the stage for runaway violence which can, and often does, result in unintended deaths.

Universally, any indirect murder of this nature is classified as manslaughter, but, regardless that an assault turning deadly may indeed have been unanticipated, if the killing wasn’t done in self-defense it can still carry a pretty hefty prison sentence.
Especially when the perpetrator endeavors to conceal his crime by secretly disposing of the victim…

Accidentally on purpose

Apart from the possibility that someone may have been bribed or even threatened back in 1981, it’s not impossible that it was solely due to the fame of the people present on the night Natalie Wood drowned which served to influence the erroneous ruling that her death was purely an accident.

The testimonies of Wood’s illustrious and equally drunken companions on that evening, Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken, were always in glaring contradiction, so who knows if LA County’s former coroner wasn’t a bit star-struck in deliberately choosing to disregard other qualifying factors, too. Namely, the couple’s protracted squabbling on deck and below, the inordinate delay by Wagner in reporting his spouse missing, the ugly remarks he made about her to first responders, and indications of assault on her body when it was finally recovered a short distance from his yacht.

The hired skipper of The Splendour at the time has since also described a long and vicious argument Wagner had with Wood in their cabin and on deck prior to her falling overboard, as well as an elaborate cover-up of the same by the actor and his representatives in the days, weeks and months following her death.

Considering the actress had multiple, days-old bruising when she disappeared and drowned, the captain’s tale of a final and fatal altercation between the unhappy twosome is therefore a credible story. One that challenges the iconic leading man’s historical version of exactly how his 43-year-old, water-phobic wife entered the Pacific Ocean, and which, in light of the new inquest into the actual circumstances of her drowning and injuries, also explains why Robert Wagner is steadfastly refusing to cooperate with investigators.

Some fans and sympathizers speculate that Wagner, now in his 80s, has clammed up only on the good advice of his lawyers. He’s a major celebrity, a veritable household name, they argue, and his silence is not an admission of guilt but rather to protect his career, his family and his legacy.

True or false motivations, only those conducting the fact-finding mission at this stage in the renewed inquest will be able one day to tell us. However, be he a famous man or just an infamous rogue in hiding, Wagner’s stonewalling should be viewed no differently than any other prime suspect attempting to dodge a worrisome police probe, or, when made to answer under oath, outright lying or taking the Fifth to avoid self-incrimination. Acting belligerent or being uncooperative speaks for itself.

Not known

In his own brief but comparatively ordinary existence, 22-year-old Joshua Aaron Swalls, who somehow disappeared and “accidentally drowned” while visiting Indianapolis in November 2012, had probably never even heard of the late, great Natalie Wood. Nor does it seem very likely that he’d ever watched any of her once-groundbreaking movies either. His was a different era, one which came to an end for him much too soon.

Distanced by decades and thousands of miles, not to mention celebrity status, Joshua Swalls’s accident and Natalie Wood’s are obviously two distinctly unique events that happened to two distinctly unique individuals. Viewing their drowning deaths in terms of basic forensics, these are the other notable differences between them:

1. With a blood/alcohol concentration of 0.14, Natalie Wood was somewhat intoxicated when she drowned, and Joshua Swalls was not.

2. Wood died in saltwater off the coast of California; Swalls in the freshwater of a small, Indiana retention pond.

3. Wood’s body was found within only hours of dying and well before rigormortis had fully set in; Swalls’s decomposing corpse wasn’t discovered until three weeks after he’d vanished.

4. Wood was a middle-aged female of petite stature; Swalls was tall, athletic and svelte, and had only just reached manhood.

Yet these two November drown victims have uncanny similarities in their cases that are impossible to ignore: Both went missing under extremely suspicious circumstances, with key witnesses to their disappearances and drownings issuing contradictory statements to investigators. Both suffered virtually identical injuries prior to dying which were inconsistent with those derived in standard drowning events. Both were clad in the type of clothing that clearly implied they had not planned on going swimming and therefore hadn’t entered the water voluntarily.

And both of their cases were speedily closed by authorities as accidental, with no signs of foul play involved in either of them.

Still waters

“The deep blue sea” is, of course, very deep. But not necessarily peaceful. Still, it’s not the type of body of water where a drown victim, once fully immersed, will be dragged across jagged rocks or other underwater obstacles. An action that commonly occurs in narrower, fast-flowing rivers and creeks and which contributes to most postmortem injuries, particularly to the face and hands.

By contrast, a pond, whether manmade or natural, tends to be quite shallow. But even if spring-fed, its waters are relatively calm as well. Therefore a drown victim, upon death, will, gently sink to the pond’s silty bottom and then, when gases from putrefaction have filled their corpse to maximum capacity, lurch like a helium balloon to the surface once more.

Water and air temperature determines how quickly a cadaver does that, but in the time between these inevitable events—sinking, rotting, and ascending—those in ponds and wide open bodies of seawater will usually sustain no further injuries after death and during decomposition, unless nibbled away at by marine animals.

Bodies sunken in a river or creek naturally sustain more damages because if the currents are swift enough corpses can be tossed against submerged objects and dragged along stones in a riverbed. Once refloat finally occurs, they can then travel on the water’s surface for several miles before they’re sighted by anyone. As they’re carried along like that, they can also collide with docks, barriers and piers, become ensnared by tree limbs or other floating debris, and even get mangled by the propeller blades of a passing craft.

However, any dedicated examiner conducting a thorough evaluation of such wounds can discern the difference between the ones which occurred after a victim had expired and those inflicted while they were still alive.

Decedent Joshua Swalls was delivered to the morgue for autopsy with pronounced “contusions of the right forehead and eyebrow, bridge of nose, and right zygomatic arch in the shape of a reverse C, continuous.”  He also had an “abrasion of tip of nose” and additional “abraded contusions to kneecaps bilateral, and to shins, multiple bilateral, with one underlying a tear in the left pants leg.”

All of these injuries were judged by the medical examiner to have been received before or at the time he died, not after.

Given the way both Wood and Swalls presented at autopsy then, each clothed in non-swimming apparel and plainly beaten, the only nagging question left for authorities to answer was just how these two black-and-blue people had entered the water where they drowned and who it was that had previously assaulted them, since neither an ocean nor a pond could have possibly caused all their injuries.

Ascertaining the true sequence of events which ultimately led to a victim entering a body of water and then drowning in it is part of any complete forensic analysis, and a meticulous inquiry by a coroner is demanded as a matter of law in all premature deaths.

Everyone can agree that, whether perfect people or fundamentally flawed, dying at age 22 or age 43 is much too young to be considered natural. And anytime someone dies in water when not even engaged in any water-recreational activities should additionally raise eyebrows.

In each of these troubling cases police and medical examiners could also tell that the odds of either battered victim diving into that water on their own volition were fairly slim: Joshua Swalls wasn’t drunk, wasn’t on drugs, wasn’t mentally defective, and wasn’t going to take a quick dip in frigid weather; and Natalie Wood, who frankly didn’t know how to swim because of an intense dread of water, had no history of ever being reckless with her life or suicidal.

On the other hand, she was known to be in a dragged-out domestic dispute with a spouse on a drunken tirade only moments before she “accidentally” fell into the Pacific Ocean. A man seeing red that night because he thought Wood and Walken were having an affair, and who’s last words to his doomed wife were purported to have been “get off my f—cking boat.”

It took the people who cared about her more than 30 years to achieve, but at last the dubious ruling on Natalie Wood’s manner of death has been overturned and the long overdue investigation into the likelihood of homicide fully launched. But Joshua Swalls’s drowning is every bit as questionable as hers is, and still it continues to be listed as an accident.

Will his loved ones have to wait three decades for justice, too?

Eponymous Rox is the author of The Case Of The Drowning Men and Hunting Smiley

Feb. 11, 2013

Ted Kuhl

In 1997, Ted Kuhl was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison for murdering his girl friend, Janet Nivinski, in Loves Park, Illinois. Reporter Harriet Ford presents the case for his innocence.

by Harriet Ford

Just after midnight on December 6, 1996, Janet Nivinski, a 28-year-old, blue-eyed blonde, was murdered beside her car in the parking lot of a strip mall in Loves Park, Illinois, a small township located outside Rockford, Illinois in Winnebago County. The bullet that killed her was fired assassination style, six inches from her head.

During the last week of Janet’s life, she had been investigating a discrepancy at Amcore Bank, where she was responsible for transferring large sums of money overseas. She spoke to a male friend about it. She was disturbed and said, “I can’t say what it is right now, but something is not right at the bank.” A bank employee was fired that week. Police interviewed him and dismissed him as a suspect. 

An unknown man also stalked Janet a few weeks before her death. A neighbor woman became suspicious and jotted down the license number of his car, but this number was lost –one of several pieces of possible evidence to be misplaced.

Janet and her best friend Christa Peterson were planning to fly to California together in January. Janet’s boyfriend, 48-year-old Ted Kuhl, surprised the two women with plane tickets, which he had purchased for them, possibly as an early Christmas gift.

Earlier on Janet’s last day, Ted took her shopping for a Christmas tree at a lot owned by his friend, Dan Johnson. The pair spent over an hour picking out just the right tree. Dan said they were having an enjoyable and affectionate time together. Ted purchased the tree for Janet and she took it home to decorate

Ted went to deliver a gift to Janet’s mother, Sandy Ostrander, but she was not home.

Later that evening, Janet met Ted and a group of seven friends including Dan Johnson, Ricky Mueller, and Christa Peterson met at the Backyard Bar and Grill for a late supper. Located in the Loves Park Meadowmart strip mall, the bar stayed open past midnight because, according to the bar tender, everyone was having an enjoyable time, laughing and bantering with him as well as each other.

The only member of the group who seemed a little out of sorts was Christa. She did not like what she considered flirtatious behavior toward her from Ricky Mueller, a married man whose wife was not present. 

At a previous social gathering, Janet also had voiced concern about Mueller, telling a friend, Carol Brannon: “Rick gives me the creeps. I don’t trust him. He told Ted that women are like a raccoon scratching in the garbage can. You shoot ‘em and they just keep coming back. That remark was meant for me.”

The Stalker in the Bomber Jacket

Outside in the strip mall parking lot, a man in a leather bomber jacket and ball cap kept pacing around the perimeter. Two security guards grew suspicious and asked him what he was doing. The unknown man snarled a few curse words. Then he said, “I’m waiting for someone inside.”

The temperature was 28 degrees, yet the man continued to walk the parking lot for more than an hour instead of entering a place of business. He made a call from a payphone to young woman who is the daughter of a gang member. After midnight, the guards went home. The strip mall parking lot lights blipped out. The stalker was veiled in darkness.

Many vehicles were still parked in the area because the Game Place was just closing.  Around 1:18 a.m., Ted and Janet decided to leave the Backyard Bar and Grill. Other people left also. Ted walked out with Janet and Christa. Ricky Mueller, a longtime friend of Ted’s, headed for his car parked near Ted’s pickup at the far north end of the lot and some distance away.

Ted and Janet stopped at Christa’s car and said their goodnights. Christa began scraping ice from her frosted windshields. Walking five or six stalls farther on, Ted kissed Janet goodnight beside her car.

At 1:26 a.m. Ted turned to walk away. He heard Janet scream. He heard four to five shots ring out and zing past his head. He began running in a zigzag pattern as if dodging bullets, according to a shopkeeper who heard a bullet strike his storefront window and looked out.

Ricky panicked, gunned his van, and sped away from the scene. Several blocks away, he used his cell phone to call 911. In a panicky voice, he reported someone had just been gunned down, and he provided a description of a suspect in a leather bomber jacket, baseball cap, and tan pants. This is the same description later furnished by two additional witnesses, the security guards, who saw a man walking in the area just prior to Janet’s murder.

Stopping to grab Christa, who was trying to crawl under her car, Ted rushed her back inside the restaurant and shouted, “Someone just shot my girl!”

Dan Johnson ran outside with Ted. They found Janet lying in a pool of blood, clearly beyond help. The bullet from a .357 Magnum entered her head on the right temple area and exploded in her brain.

Loves Park Police arrived within three minutes. During those three minutes, Ted ran from vehicle to vehicle pounding on windshields and demanding, “Who did this?” Dan remained with him.

Loves Park Chief of Police Darryl Lindberg arrived and said he didn’t like Ted’s angry behavior. He asked an officer to seat Ted in the back of a squad car. He also said, “You’d better check his vehicle for a gun.”

The Bearded, Barefoot Man

An excited witness at the crime scene pointed to a vehicle and said, “There he goes!” For no other reason than he apparently saw a guy jump inside and gun the engine.  An officer made a traffic stop and conducted a “field interview.” He found the bearded driver, barefoot and bare-chested despite the sub-freezing temperature outside. Giving his name as Darrel D. Weichert, the driver was allowed to leave the scene, based solely on his denial of any involvement. Weichert was not asked to step out of the car. The officer did not check for bloody shoes or shirt. He apparently regretted this.

A short time later, the same officer (apparently realizing he had made a serious mistake) knocked at Weichert’s door in Loves Park, and the man appeared without the beard. He did not shave it off, because according to coworkers, he had never worn a beard. His story was that he had been out doing drugs and removed his shoes so he wouldn’t wake his wife. Police evidently believed it. Could he have been the unknown man walking the lot in the bomber jacket? Street gang members were known to wear that style of jacket.

WROK Radio man Fred Speer arrived to photograph the body. He said the area was so dark he had to turn headlights on from five feet away in order to see Janet’s corpse.

Officers drove Ted and Christa to the station to take their statements.

From blocks away, Ricky phoned the Backyard Bar and Grill to ask if Ted had been shot. Then he drove to the police station and gave Ted a consoling hug. Police took his statement also.

Christa and Ted gave short simple statements to Loves Park police and were allowed to go home. Their vehicles were kept overnight inside the yellow crime-scene ribbon.

The next day, Ricky Mueller arrived at Ted’s house and asked Ted to go skeet shooting with him.

Also the next day, police and fire department members scoured the crime scene area, the garbage cans, and the entire roof of the strip mall. No gun was ever found.

Zeroing in on Ted

First believing the murder was a gang-related shooting, police continued to press Ricky, Ted and Christa for more details. They were stymied by the fact there was no apparent motive for the murder.

It is apparent from the chronology of these reports that Ricky began to fear he would be accused. He eventually turned suspicion toward Janet’s boyfriend and lover, Ted.

It is a staple of police investigation to take a hard, close look at the people closest to a murder victim, such as a spouse or lover. Ted fit the bill.

By all accounts, Janet and Ted lived together off and on for two to three years. Janet told Christa that she would set ultimatums: “If you don’t want a child by November (Dec. etc.), I’m moving out.” After it became apparent to her that Ted, the father of a college-age son, did not want more children she moved out a final time. Nonetheless, the couple still enjoyed a close personal relationship. They continued to see each other socially, and on occasion, intimately.  In fact, a pregnancy exam was actually part of the forensics report. Janet was not pregnant.

The second area of potential conflict was Janet's request to Ted to have her name taken off the mortgage on the house they had purchased while living together. There was no indication in any of the statements that this conflict was more than a verbal request by Janet.

The money Janet loaned Ted for the down payment of his house had already been repaid months earlier. Thus, there did not appear to be any friction over money aspects of the house.

There was later a mention by Janet’s mother Sandy Ostrander (only after Ted became a suspect) suggesting that Ted and Christa might possibly be seeing each other.

Christa’s night at Ted’s

Christa was Janet’s close friend since grade school. The 28-year-old single mother was emotionally shattered by Janet’s murder.  She felt surrounded by violence. Just 12 weeks earlier, her ex-boyfriend had been gunned down during a drug-related incident. Now Janet’s bloodied body lay on the tarmac. She reasoned, “What if the killer saw me and might be coming after me too?”

Christa’s children had stayed with their father that weekend. She did not want to go home alone to an empty house. She asked Ted if she could sleep on his sofa until morning.

That innocent request led investigators to conclude that Ted and Christa were having an affair – a manufactured motive for the crime-of-passion theory. They could find no other motive. Both Ted’s and Janet’s close personal acquaintances and family members later stated to me and to investigators that they knew this alleged affair never happened.

A co-worker with Ricky Mueller also knew Ted, Janet, and Christa on a social basis. He spoke to me much later after the trial to say he drove past Ted’s home every night on his way home from work. He never saw Christa’s car there—only Janet’s car.

The Interrogations

Ricky, Ted, and Janet were interrogated on several occasions during the remainder of December.

On December 18, Ricky’s 10^th contact with police, he was taken to Reid and Associates for a polygraph examination. He failed all questions regarding his supposed knowledge that Ted was the shooter.

After failing his polygraph test, Ricky’s nervous state increased, and he changed his story again, eventually 16 times in the records and even more times to friends. Ricky began to claim he had furnished false statements to police in order to protect himself from Ted and indicated he feared Ted would also shoot him.

Once Ricky was willing to say he saw Ted with the gun, Illinois State Police persuaded him to make a pretext call to Johnstone Supply (heating and air conditioning) where Ted worked, to get Ted to implicate himself. They recorded the call and listened in.

In the call, Ricky says in a very nervous voice, “I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I need to know what to do to protect you and me. Why’d you do it Ted?”

Calmly, Ted answers Ricky, “Come on buddy. I was there. If you really believe I shot Janet, where’s the gun?”

Christa’s Consistency

Significantly, Christa Peterson’s and Ricky’s first statements matched before he began to change his story.

Christa saw Ted running from an unknown man firing at him. She tried to crawl under her car and Ted grabbed her and ran with her to the restaurant. At least three additional witnesses, identified by private investigator Joe Lamb, reported seeing a shooter simultaneously while Ted was fleeing.

In an attempt to get additional information, police began to accuse Christa of lying. Still she refused to verify several police scenarios in which they suggested to her that Ted was the gunman.  They said they had photos and evidence to prove that she was lying. They also said Ted had confessed to shooting Janet. Even with that revelation, her story remained consistent. She kept asking what possible motive could Ted have to shoot Janet.

It is apparent from police reports that police hoped to break Christa’s story. They continued to press her concerning Ted's actions, implying that she was not telling the truth and was withholding information. This is documented in several parts of the report as "Christa became defensive."

On January 8, 1997, Christa took a polygraph test and passed it. The examiner said she was truthful in her statements.

Ted

Shocked that his best friend would accuse him, Ted suggested that he and Ricky meet at the Illinois State Police headquarters, where he expected to confront his accuser and go home. He reasoned correctly that they had no evidence against him.

His employers urged him to have a lawyer present, but Ted foolishly believed he did not need an attorney: “I knew I was not guilty. I did not want to appear guilty by asking for a lawyer. I also believed police would do their job. They would find the killer.”

It was Ted’s suggestion to confront Ricky at the police station instead of running and hiding, as a guilty person would do. He showed up after a full day’s work and underwent a brutal 14-hour interrogation throughout the night, during which he was shouted at, accused of lying, given coffee but refused permission to go to the restroom.

State law dictates that in the course of an investigation, a suspect must be informed of his legal rights.

It is clear that by the December 19 interview, police believed Ted was the offender and had begun to focus on him to the exclusion of all other possible offenders.

Theoretically, the rights advisement should have been initiated once incriminating statements were obtained and additional such statements were being sought.

In some jurisdictions, when incriminating statements are obtained from an interviewee, without benefit of a rights advisement, a "cleansing statement" is required prior to continuing the interview.

A cleansing statement essentially is a clear advisement by police, basically stating that even though incriminating statements were made without benefit of rights advisement, the interviewee has no obligation to continue with the interview.

A legal expert needs to evaluate whether Ted's rights were violated at this time.

Interrogators began suggesting differing scenarios of the crime, and as the night progressed, a wearied Ted began to change his story. Eventually, they promised him that he could leave if he signed a statement written by them, in which they claimed Janet “pulled a gun and Ted wrested it away from her. During the struggle, the gun accidentally fired.”

Actually Janet died with a shot glass in one hand and car keys in the other. It is evident that she did not have a gun.

Exhausted and believing the scenario impossible, Ted foolishly signed it.

Ted later said, “I was broken. I was in shock. I was shaking so badly I had to pull over and stop my truck in order to gain some composure. I also knew it was an impossible scenario. From where I stood with my back turned, I would have had to be left-handed and a contortionist to shoot Janet in the right temple, and I believed the police would realize that when they checked the facts. But they stopped checking the facts when they got that document—which was never a confession to premeditated homicide—signed.”

From that point on throughout the remainder of the investigation, police made no effort to corroborate any of the statements made by Ted or Christa.

Satan’s Disciples

Loves Park Police also ignored investigating other possible suspects. Private investigator Joe Lamb examined surveillance video film from that night and traced license plates to members of a violent street gang, the Satan’s Disciples, known for drive-by shootings in Rockford.  Loves Park police had originally believed the crime to be a drive-by shooting. Another car in the lot belonged to a driver who actually had a murder conviction on his record. This information was withheld from the jury.

No Forensic Evidence

From the Crime Lab’s reports covering the forensic examination of the physical evidence, there was no physical or forensic evidence that linked Ted to the shooting.

The bullet fragments recovered from Janet and from the Game Place should have been compared on the Integrated Ballistics Identification System through the state crime lab to determine if the weapon used in this homicide was ever used in another violent crime. If it were used after this incident, then it would be very strong evidence that another person was the actual killer.

Police believed the multiple gunshots reported by Ted, Christa and other witnesses were a result of echoes within the parking lot. However, there was nothing to indicate any efforts were made to verify this fact.

At the time of the investigation into Janet’s murder, I was a newspaper reporter for the Rockford Labor News. I found a bullet hole in a utility pole near Christa’s car, indicating that shots were fired in her direction, but police also ignored this. They claimed it could have been there for some time. The bullet hole indentation strongly supports Ted’s and Christa’s statements that the gunman fired at them after he shot Janet. This refutes the theory of Ted being the shooter. “Why would he run dodging bullets fired by himself?" I asked. I could find no police report of gunfire at Meadowmart Mall in previous months.

Inconsistencies at the Trial

In 1997, Ted Kuhl was sentenced to 40 years without any forensic evidence, no gun ever found, no motive ever substantiated, and a single eyewitness who changed his story 16 times as a matter of court record.

Several inconsistencies worked against Ted at the trial, many of them related only indirectly to the actual homicide investigation.

Age difference

Ted Kuhl was 48 at the time, 20 years older than Janet. The age difference worked against him in the trial. A Rockford attorney later said, “Juries typically do not like cradle-robber boyfriends, such as Ted was portrayed.”

Too Dark to See

Ricky testified he could see Ted from 50-feet away aiming a gun. This is highly unlikely. WROK radio news reporter, Fred Speer, who photographed the crime scene, said it was so dark he had to turn the headlights on to see the body from even five feet away.

I visited the parking lot at 1:26 a.m. (the time of the shooting) on a December night and stood approximately where Ricky said he was. I do not believe Mueller saw what he described unless he was much closer than he claimed to be.

Too Far Away

Fifty feet from the victim is also inconsistent with Forensic Doctor Larry Blum’s autopsy report. Stippling around the wound indicated the gunman fired from as close as six inches. That is consistent with what Christa saw before she dropped to the pavement to hide. She described the gunman standing in front of Janet. Janet screamed and turned her head toward Ted, so the bullet entered her right temple.
Christa also saw Ted begin to run under gunfire.

At least three other witnesses at the scene saw the gunman and Ted simultaneously, but they could not agree on the description so their testimonies were laughed out of court.

The Wrong Color

Ricky Mueller also stated in court that Ted’s ball cap was white. In fact Ted wore a green ball cap that night. His attorney had the cap in the courtroom, but failed to call the discrepancy to the attention of the jury.

The funeral dress

Even though her story remained completely consistent, prosecutors treated Christa as a hostile witness, quickly identifying her as the “other woman.” They pointed out that she spent the night with Ted after Janet’s murder. They also suggested he bought the blue dress for Christa, which she wore to Janet’s funeral. Christa had a Visa receipt to prove she purchased the dress—not Ted—however this was not noted in court.

Not Enough Emotion

Ted’s calm demeanor worked against him at the trial. Janet’s mother, Sandy Ostrander, initially described Ted to me as “charming.” Sandy had been the one to introduce Ted to her daughter at a pizza bar in Loves Park.

Once police began to suspect him, she turned bitterly against Ted because, “He didn’t even cry at her funeral. Is that the way a man acts who is supposed to love Janet with all his heart?” The jury appeared to be suspicious of Ted’s lack of visible emotion.

Ted’s brother Monty Kuhl spoke with me. He said that both he and Ted were never outwardly emotional. They did not openly weep at their own mother’s funeral. Ted’s grief was very private, however Monty saw Ted’s tears during times they were together shortly after Janet’s death.

The Viet Nam Lie

Janet’s mother did not begin to suspect Ted until police began to listen to Ricky’s accusations. That’s when she accused Ted of being a pathological liar and pointed to a lie he admittedly told—that he had served in Viet Nam and saved other soldiers but could not save Janet.

This lie actually damned Ted in court, even though it had absolutely nothing to do with the murder investigation. Assistant State’s Attorney Weber used the Viet Nam lie to persuade the jury. He thundered, “Ted Kuhl lied from the beginning of this investigation and innocent men do not lie!”

Twenty years earlier, Ted had claimed he served in Viet Nam to impress a boss, and later to impress Janet’s pro-military father. Joe Lamb later mused, “Ted had told the Viet Nam lie for 20 years and he never killed anybody. If everyone who ever told a lie is guilty of murder, the prisons couldn’t hold them all.”

Missing From Police Reports

Unfortunately, Loves Park Police did not write in their reports that no gun was found in Ted’s or Christa’s vehicles. This worked against Ted at trial. The glaring omission from the reports prevented defense attorney Albert Altamore from having the grounds to argue that no gun was in the vehicles. Altamore was widely known as a DUI defense attorney at that time.

The omission also allowed Assistant State’s Attorney Glen Weber to create doubt in the minds of the jury: “Ladies and gentlemen, you know the gun had to be there.”

Both Christa’s and Ted’s vehicles were left inside the yellow crime-scene ribbon and driven the next day by an officer, who would have seen a gun if it had been lying on the floorboard or seat. But this was not permitted in court simply because it was not in the police reports.

I also had a statement directly from Loves Park Police Chief Lindberg that the vehicles were searched, but this was not admissible at trial.

Information withheld

Defense attorney Albert Altamore was never informed that Ricky Mueller had recanted a statement in which he claimed to hear Ted say he was planning to kill Janet. In a lost post-conviction relief appeal, defense Attorney Dan Cain asked, “How can anyone flip flop on such a damning statement? How can anyone forget that?”

At the appeal, Cain called the prosecutor to the stand. Attorney Mark Karner admitted withholding this information from the jury. Also present at the appeal, Ricky admitted he did not recall Ted ever threatening to kill Janet. He did not make eye contact with Ted, and kept his head down. 

In spite of this, Chief Judge Michael Morrison denied Ted’s appeal. “The evidence shows that Janet was shot from very close, and by your own admission you had walked only three or four steps,” said Morrison. The judge ignored all the witness statements that a second man stood in front of Janet.

Cain later stated, “Any good trial lawyer knows that he could have turned the verdict on this point alone.”

Did political motivation play a part?

Both Loves Park Chief of Police Darryl Lindberg and the aspiring young assistant state’s attorney, Glenn Weber, were campaigning for career moves—Lindberg for mayor of Loves Park, and Weber for a judgeship. Without implying intentional wrongdoing on their parts, I view both of these two as strongly motivated to bring the murder case to a quick close.

All criminal justice professionals are motivated, and rightly so, to convict the guilty as well as to protect the innocent; however not to the extent that they overlook other strong possibilities in a murder case and bend the facts to fit their theory. Clearly, that is what happened. Investigators left so many other avenues unexplored, once they decided to prosecute Ted Kuhl.

Gang Related?

Defense investigator Joe Lamb believed the killing might have been a case of mistaken identity. Janet had a twin sister involved with a man known to associate closely with the Hell’s Angels gang. Lamb also believed the man in ball cap and bomber jacket, who was seen circling the parking lot, was the real killer. Lamb may have been able to prove it if he had lived just one more day. He had identified a gay male exotic dancer, who had moved to Chicago, as one of the men in the parking lot on the night of Janet’s murder. Lamb had scheduled an interview with the dancer, however Lamb died in his sleep of a heart attack the night before. That dancer’s name was buried with him, to my knowledge.

Significantly, I received correspondence from the leader of the Satan’s Disciples street gang, Johnny White, convicted two years after Janet’s death for the 1998 drive-by shooting death of Rockford woman, Paula Proper. Johnny White strongly implied that Ted is not the killer. His specific words included, “It was a very dark night in the parking lot (the night of Janet’s death). He also drew an outline of a hand on the paper and wrote across it, “The hand of the true killer.”

His letter drew my attention, because Satan’s Disciples were known to be at the crime scene on the night of the murder, documented by Joe Lamb. Loves Park police never questioned these gang members, though it is well known to police that gang members do commit drive-by shootings in order to move up in the gang.

Missing Evidence

Six video surveillance cameras, which actually may have filmed the shooting that night, went missing. Police somehow lost this potentially crucial evidence, and it has never turned up. Post conviction relief Attorney Cain asked, “Doesn’t that raise a red flag in any thinking person’s mind?”

Cain prepared seven significant issues for a second post-conviction relief appeal.These issues were never heard, due to a missed filing deadline by a matter of hours. At least one of these issues included the highly suspicious driver, Darrel D. Weichert, stopped by police, who was not wearing shoes or shirt, and had on a fake beard. It was 28 degrees that night. Why no shirt and no shoes and a fake beard on a freezing night just moments after a fatal shooting?

The barefoot man, Darrel Weichert, has a link to the victim's family. He was living with a Darla Fawcett at the time. Her relationship to Gary Fawcett is uncertain, as the family refuses to speak to me, however Janet's twin sister was living with Gary Fawcett and they had a two-year-old child. If Fawcett was not an actual member of the Hell’s Angels, he did have a key to their club building, according to Dan Johnson. Janet's twin and Gary Fawcett were said to be heavy drug users and Janet had been threatening to remove their child. Was that a motive for murder? People who knew and feared Fawcett said he was certainly capable of violence.

The Gunman

Other people have contacted me at the newspaper office since Ted’s conviction, one of them a woman, returning from a late shift. She said she saw a man running through her yard behind the Meadowmart shopping mall minutes after the shooting. According to her, the man carried a gun.

That gunman was not Ted Kuhl, (as police later suggested to me) because Ted was seated in the Loves Park squad car at the time. He never left the crime scene.

Ted was never alone in the parking lot. Where and when could he have hidden a gun in front of numerous witnesses at the scene?

The answer is, he could not.

Joe Lamb documented the time of gunfire from video surveillance cameras, which show a bullet striking a storefront glass. Ted had only 12 seconds to hide a gun, which nobody ever found. Lamb also conducted his own ballistics test and confirmed to himself that more than one shot was fired from where Janet’s body dropped. These shots were fired toward Ted and Christa.

No history of angry outbursts

I spent hours talking with Ted’s family and friends. All of them, including a next-door neighbor who has known him from childhood, his former wife of 18 years, Diana, and his son Jason, say Ted never had a single incident of violent behavior. In short, he was mild mannered and not given to outbursts of temper.

Ted was a Boy Scout leader, a hard working middle-class citizen and a law-abiding man with no previous criminal history. His employers, Albert and Roseanne Kunze at Johnstone Supply, were adamant that Ted did not kill Janet.

Psychologists say it is highly unlikely that a mentally stable man would suddenly exhibit a violent, murderous psychotic fugue immediately after kissing his girlfriend goodnight. Yet that is what police say happened—that he walked three or four steps, turned, and shot her without provocation or motive.

The Case for Ted Kuhl’s Innocence

Ted’s employers were so shocked at Ted’s arrest that they hired a pair of top-notch private investigators to look for the real killer.

A highly respected forensics scientist, Arthur Chancellor, was employed as an investigative consultant. He examined police reports and witness statements.

In his professional analysis, Arthur Chancellor states: “Minor personal conflicts between Ted and Janet were not violent or long lasting. Such personal problems or conflicts that evolve into motives for a homicide have traditionally come to the attention of family and friends over a period of time. If this were the case, it would be consistent and expected that family and friends would be able to identify specific times and events in the recent past when heated arguments, accusations, or even physical assaults occurred (as in the case of Howard Purcell who was known to attack his wife more than once before he was convicted of murdering her in Rockford's staircase-killer case). No family member or close friend ever identified such conflicts.”

Ted’s college-age son, Jason Kuhl, had in fact, just days before the homicide, spent Thanksgiving with Ted and Janet at Ted’s place. He said the three of them had truly enjoyable time together. He would have known had there been any animosity or friction between them.

In the words of Chancellor: “There is not enough evidence to convict Ted Kuhl of premeditated murder. I find no logical motive. I do not see any evidence of where the gun came from or where it went afterwards.

“I am struck by the dichotomy presented by police of Ted, ‘the intelligent murderer’ who is able to conceal a weapon all evening and then dispose of it in 12 seconds in front of witnesses. But at the same time, Ted stupidly picks a public place when he could easily have lured Janet to a private location and shot her without any witnesses.”

Chancellor also pointed to Ricky’s behavior immediately after the shooting as inconsistent with the behavior of someone in deadly fear of another. “Would Ricky hug Ted at the station and then ask Ted to go skeet shooting the next day if he honestly believed Ted was trying to shoot him or harm his family? Absolutely not.”

“I do not believe this was a crime of sudden passion. There are just too many inconsistencies. Christa, Ricky, and two additional witnesses (names withheld from reporters but furnished to Chancellor) observed the gunman who matched the description of the man in the bomber jacket waiting for someone inside.

“The last official contact available for my review is Christa's grand jury testimony. Transcripts document possible government misconduct, in that while they were waiting to testify, Christa and Ricky were placed in the same waiting room where Rick openly discussed his proposed testimony. Ricky specifically said he was going to testify that he actually saw Ted shoot Janet (something he later denied).

“Ricky’s startling claim coupled with Christa’s prior knowledge of Ted's so-called confession (which the police had told her during interviews) may have been an attempt to induce her to change her testimony or to be uncertain as to what exactly she observed that evening. However she remained steadfast, even though police repeatedly told her she was in denial and that her mind had blocked out painful details.”

After the trial, Christa actually went to a hypnotherapist to find out if she had indeed blocked details from her mind. She told the same consistent story under hypnosis—that she saw Ted run when an unknown gunman fired at Janet.

The Man in the Bomber Jacket

In Chancellor’s analysis of the crime, he states: “I see the time and location of the homicide as very inopportune.

“Waiting until Ted and Janet parted, appearing out of the dark, firing without leaving Janet a chance to defend herself, then shooting other rounds at the potential witnesses while leaving the scene, having a planned escape route and getting away unobserved—these are marks of premeditation. This is all consistent when the unknown man in the bomber jacket walking the lot is substituted as the gunman.

“None of it makes sense when Ted is considered the suspect. The most important aspect of the police interrogation is the fact that neither Ted’s oral admissions nor final written statement make any sense when compared to other evidence documented in this case. There is a legal maxim that roughly states a man cannot be convicted based on his confession alone. Yet in this case, it appears the only real evidence police have is what they were able to obtain through questionable interrogation techniques. That evidence basically consists of Ted’s and Ricky’s statements.”

Joe Lamb’s investigation led him to identify people associated with violent street gangs overlooked by the investigators. He believed one of them killed Janet. Lamb was not certain of the motive, but he believed the street gang certainly had stronger reasons for killing Janet than Ted Kuhl, who had none.

What Now?

Ted Kuhl remains in prison – convicted in 1997. His son, friends, and loyal employers continue to visit him. I made a visit to his prison only once, where I heard his story and was satisfied that he told the truth.

Ted has lost every appeal. He recently asked for a clemency hearing, which also was denied. He writes to me occasionally. He has indicated that he could plead guilty, ask for mercy, and perhaps be released, but that outcome is uncertain. His former employers, Albert and Roseanne Kunze, spent thousands of dollars in the hopes of overturning his conviction. They hired Joe Lamb and Arthur Chancellor at their own expense. Both highly respected investigators arrived at the same conclusion independently, that Ted is not guilty.

Ricky Mueller and his wife were later divorced. Mrs. Mueller absolutely refused to speak with me about the case. Her demeanor and bearing indicated she was terrified.

I have heard rumors from the streets suggesting that Ricky actually was threatened by street gang members and forced to say his best friend pulled the trigger. There is no way to prove this is true, but I would consider it more believable than Ricky’s story of fearing that his best friend would kill him for no reason.

I once interviewed a Loves Park bar bouncer known as Big Tiny, who had information linking a drive-by homicide with the Satan’s Disciples, (the leader of which wrote to me hinting he knew the real killer). Big Tiny has since died.

Janet’s mother, Sandy Ostrander, died of cancer a few years after Ted went to prison.

Ricky Mueller moved out of town and took a job in Freeport, Illinois.  A former co-worker called the news office years after Ted’s conviction to say Ricky once tried to sell him a supposedly “hot” gun during the time of the investigation. This co-worker has since moved to Wisconsin.

Both Joe Lamb and I spent hours talking with Christa Peterson. She remained tormented by Ted’s conviction and the suggestion that she was having an affair with him. Her reasoning was: “Janet was like a sister to me. She slipped Christmas gifts under my tree so my kids would have surprises. We were going to California together. So even if it was true, and Ted had these two women who are still great friends, why would he need to kill one of us?”

Christa eventually moved out of town. I have no information on her whereabouts.

The young assistant state’s attorney and trial prosecutor, Glen Weber, lost his bid for a judgeship. He took a position in Jo Daviess County in northwest Illinois as state’s attorney. He was later dismissed due to allegations of official misconduct. I have a copy of the official document. A Rockford policewoman once said to me that Weber tried to coax her to lie on the stand. That officer has since died of cancer.

Weber was welcomed back to the Rockford court system and later worked for a respected legal firm in Rockford.

Chief of Police Darryl Lindberg was soon elected mayor of Loves Park where he has enjoyed a long career.

Illinois has a history of wrongful convictions. In January of 2003, then-Governor George Ryan commuted the sentences of 167 death row prisoners, calling the system “terribly flawed” after 13 death row inmates were exonerated by DNA evidence. That number grew to 151 nationwide while I was working on the Ted Kuhl case.

Since then, wrongful convictions have continued to be overturned by DNA evidence. Sadly, there was no DNA evidence in the Janet Nivinski homicide. Ted has very few options left. He will serve his 40 years if additional evidence does not exonerate him at some point in the future.

My book, Shadow in the Rain, a fictionalized re-telling of Ted’s story is available on Amazon.com.

Feb. 18, 2013

To avoid race riots and the resulting negative impact on tourism, a succession of Bermudian government administrations has whitewashed the assassinations of Bermuda’s governor and police chief in the early 1970s by a radical black-power group known as the Black Beret Cadre.

by Mel Ayton

During 1972 and 1973 the North Atlantic British colony of Bermuda, which had become a playground for vacationing Americans, was suddenly thrust into a climate of fear when a spate of murders, including political assassinations, occurred. Bermuda became the only British territory ever to have the Queen’s representative murdered in cold blood and the first nation to suffer the violent effects of the importation of 1960s’ American Black Power militancy.

The tragic events of the early 1970s had been viewed by many Bermudian politicians as a stain upon Bermuda’s reputation as a haven for travellers and an island of tranquillity. This attitude prompted them to ignore the Black Power connection to the assassinations lest further investigations stir up trouble between the races and provoke island-wide riots. Political leaders were also afraid that the truth about the murders and the instability of its political system, which the killings exposed, would damage Bermuda’s tourist industry which was its principle source of income.

Additionally, political leaders were embarrassed that a militant Marxist revolutionary organization, the Black Beret Cadre, which had been widely supported by many young Bermudians, was connected to the killings. The Black Berets, usually never attaining a membership of more than 100, modelled themselves on the American Black Panthers. In fact, many of its members had close connections with Black Panthers in the United States. Although two black Bermudians allied with the Berets were tried and executed for the murders, the weak response of the government in establishing a wider conspiracy effectively swept the whole affair under the carpet.

The Assassinations

The first murder was committed on September 9, 1972 and the victim was Bermuda Police Commissioner (Police Chief) George Duckett, a British expatriate officer who had previously served in a number of British colonies around the world. Duckett had been lured to the back porch of his home, Bleak House, North Shore in Devonshire, where he was ambushed by his killer, or killers.

The Bermuda Police, ill-equipped to deal with a major murder enquiry, sought the assistance of Britain’s Scotland Yard which had been involved in prior murder investigations on the island during the previous decade. Scotland Yard flew a team of detectives out to the colony.

A substantial reward was offered by the Bermudian Government, but neither money nor murder squad detectives could raise any clues to the killer’s identity. The new governor of Bermuda, Sir Richard Sharples, a sailing friend of UK Prime Minister Edward Heath, suspected the involvement of the Black Beret Cadre. Although a number of Black Beret members were interviewed, none were charged with the murder.

Following the British detectives’ return to London, and exactly six months to the day since the police chief was killed, Governor Sharples and his aide Captain Hugh Sayers were shot dead in the grounds of the Governor’s Mansion in the capital city of Hamilton. Once again a team of detectives was requested to investigate the murders. With no more evidence than that three or four black men were seen or heard running from the scene of the latest shootings and a conviction that the two murders were linked with that of the police chief, the detectives once more led a massive hunt for the killers but after months of trying to find them they eventually conceded defeat.

The assassins of the police chief and governor were so confident of their ability to elude police they struck again in the capital city Hamilton on April 6, 1973. Two white shopkeepers, Mark Doe and Victor Rego, were found dead on the floor of their store. They had been shot with a .32 pistol although some .22 bullets were left at the scene of the crime. The .22 bullets indicated a link with the murder of Police Chief George Duckett. With what now appeared to be a further embarrassment to the Bermuda Government, Scotland Yard detectives were once more called to investigate. A new and enlarged Scotland Yard police team arrived in Bermuda and in desperation the Bermuda Government offered a reward of $3  million for information leading to the apprehension of the killers.

In September 1973, the Bank of Bermuda was robbed of $28,000 by an armed man, Buck Burrows, and on October 18^th detectives, acting on a tip off, arrested him. After a second man, Larry Tacklyn, was arrested and charged, and with a large reward still outstanding, information began to trickle in confirming the involvement of the two men in the five murders.  For the next two years police gathered evidence against the accused men who were held on remand in Casemates Prison, situated at the western tip of the island. By November 1975 an inquest jury had concluded that both men had been responsible for the governor’s assassination “with other persons unknown.”

In 1976, Burrows and Tacklyn were charged with the murders of Sir Richard Sharples, Captain Hugh Sayers, Victor Rego and Mark Doe. Burrows faced an additional charge of murdering the police chief. Burrows was found guilty of murdering George Duckett, Governor Sharples, Captain Sayers, Mark Doe and Victor Rego.  Tacklyn was found not guilty of murdering the governor but guilty of murdering the two store owners. (In my book, Justice Denied, I provide compelling evidence that it was Tacklyn, not Burrows, who actually shot Sir Richard Sharples.)

Erskine Burrows

It emerged that although the two men were low-level professional criminals, they entertained some sympathy with the Black Power movement and this had established the political motive for the crimes. However, it was never established at their trials that the Berets trained Burrows and Tacklyn in the use of firearms or that the black militant organization had  told Burrows  he was an important figure in the “coming revolution,” giving him the title of Commander-in-Chief of All Anti-Colonialist Forces in Bermuda.  Additionally, jurors were never told the spate of robberies and drug deals were designed to secure funds for the Black Berets. But jurors were privy to a wider conspiracy when Burrows sent a written confession to the prosecutor in which he admitted killing the governor “along with others I shall never name.” 

Both men received the death sentence. On December 2, 1977 Burrows and Tacklyn were hanged in Casemates Prison. The executions provoked revenge racial riots throughout the island causing millions of dollars’ worth of damage to property and the deaths of three people. The riots were incited by the Black Berets and the intemperate remarks of leading radical politicians. Rioters attacked police stations and business premises, especially in the capital city of Hamilton, and a state of emergency was put into effect that included a call-up of the Bermuda Regiment and the despatch of troops from the United Kingdom.

A Whitewash

For the past 30 years the people of Bermuda had been given a whitewashed version of what exactly occurred when the murders were investigated and the two killers brought to trial. However, as many Bermudians had suspected all along, the government had erred in not bringing the assassins’ accomplices to justice.

Ten years ago the British Foreign Office released its files about the murders. Although they added to the sum of knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the murders it was the release of the Scotland Yard Murder files some years later that put the true story of the assassinations in the proper perspective.

In the summer of 2004 I visited Scotland Yard’s Archives branch situated a short distance from London’s St. James’s Park Tube station. Scotland Yard Assistant Departmental Records Officers Andrew Brown and David Capus allowed me access to the Scotland Yard Bermuda Murders Files before they were reviewed and transferred to the National Archives. At the time, they were inaccessible to Bermuda’s newspapers and they had not been seen by any member of the public.

In September of 2004 I received a letter from Sir Richard Sharples’s widow, Baroness Sharples. She knew about others who were involved in the assassination of her husband. Specifically she named a third man who was investigated by police but never charged. Baroness Sharples wrote, “(name redacted) was the third involved, he went to the USA at that time where he was under observance, returned to Bermuda many years later, where I was informed he would not be arrested if he did not step out of line…” In subsequent telephone conversations, Baroness Sharples expressed dismay and disgust that the authorities had not arrested him. She also believed there was sufficient evidence compiled by the police to bring him to trial.

Additionally, further research by this author and a series of interviews with police officers involved in the murder investigations have provided a context that had been missing when two of Bermuda’s leading newspapers ran a series of stories which had been based on the newly released Foreign Office files.During my research I also made contact with a former high ranking Bermuda police officer, ranked within the top six officers on the Bermuda force, who provided me with information about the murders. According to one of his former colleagues in the force, “… he was an honest man and took his job seriously and professionally…he was one of those people who if he told you to do something you did it not only because it would be an order but because you knew it was right and that he would back you up if there was subsequently any problems; you could trust him…..He was privy to a great deal of information and procedures…..He was someone with ‘status’”.  The senior officer said the information I gave him went beyond anything published on the assassinations. He also said I was correct in my conclusions about who was to blame for the assassination of the governor and the police chief and that I was “…accurately centred in the middle of the nest.” Additional interviews with former prison officers revealed that the assassins were in constant communication with Black Beret members during a period of incarceration following their arrests.

An Unholy Alliance

The Scotland Yard Murder files reveal how a group of Bermudians, an “unholy alliance” of underworld criminals and a remaining hard-core of black militant activists within the Black Berets, conspired to commit murder, assassination and robbery. Self-styled “Godfather” Bobby Greene, who owned a restaurant in the Court Street area of Hamilton, led the underworld element.  He was the mastermind behind the spate of robberies in the early 1970s and was a known drug importer/dealer. The governor’s assassins spent most of their free time at the restaurant. In fact, it was known as a meeting place for the militants.

The Scotland Yard files also reveal that the Black Berets had “reconnoitred Government House” on at least four occasions and watched the homes of leading politicians in the years before the actual shootings. The Berets had even planned a series of political assassinations when the time was ripe for their “Marxist revolution.” Investigators discovered the planned attack on Police Chief Duckett was taken straight from an urban guerrilla manual that was amongst literature read by Black Beret members. Additionally, Black Beret leader John Hilton “Dionne” Bassett had been seen firing a .38 revolver, the same type of weapon used to kill the governor. He fled the island after the murder of the police chief and never returned. It is believed he joined the Black Liberation Army in the United States. The BLA was responsible for assassinations of New York City police officers in the 1970s. This information was never revealed during the trials of the governor’s assassins. Bassett died in the 1990s.

The “Third Man”

The Scotland Yard files reveal the police gathered compelling evidence against another Black Beret leader and that he conspired with Burrows and Tacklyn to murder the governor. Until a Royal Commission re-investigates the assassinations his name must be withheld. He is referred to in my book as the “third man” and is still alive and living in a Middle Eastern country.  (Scotland Yard detectives were also convinced a “fourth man” was involved but they were unable to discern his identity.)  

• The “third man” had expressed hatred for the governor on more than one occasion.
• The “third man” was the most violent member of the Berets. He was the leader of the more militant faction of the Black Power organization. He was a strong advocate for the elimination of the island’s political leaders and the institution of a “revolutionary Marxist government.”
• A witness, who senior police sources said had been a police plant in the Berets, testified he had “reconnoitred” the Governor’s Mansion with the “third man” on at least four occasions. The “third man” had also drawn up sketch plans of Government House and Police Headquarters.
• A live 12-bore shotgun shell was found in the apartment of the “third man.” It was linked to the weapons used in the shootings.
• On March 14, 1971 the “third man” had threatened to kill a senior police officer, Detective Inspector John Joseph Sheehy. He was found guilty of the offense and sentenced to a period of corrective training. He also had a criminal record in the United States. On August 7, 1972 at Berlin, Vermont, he was arrested and charged with attempted breaking and entering of a Sports Shop whilst armed with a .22 rifle. He was later allowed bail but returned to Bermuda where he remained.
• The “third man” was observed handling the weapon that was used to assassinate the governor.
• The “third man” had showed a consciousness of guilt by fleeing the island under disguise when police eventually connected him to the assassination. When police officers attempted to arrest him he struck one of them, then made his escape on a flight to the United States disguised as a woman. Police sources reveal his eventual destination was Cuba or Algeria via Canada(The police received information from intelligence sources that the Berets had received funding from the Cuban government). He was aided in his escape by Calvin “Shebazz” Weeks, a leading member of the Berets. In an email to the author, these facts were corroborated by the alleged assassin’s biological daughter who now lives in the United States.
• At one time the “third man” had shared an apartment with convicted assassin Larry Tacklyn and a notorious Bermudian criminal, Dennis Bean. Bean had been convicted of the robbery of a store in Hamilton and had eventually been sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison.
• Scotland Yard detectives discovered that on the night of the governor’s assassination the “third man” went out of his way to be conspicuous and to be observed socializing with non-Berets. Senior police officers believed he had been trying to establish an alibi.
• Investigating police officers discovered that the quick-tempered and violently anti-white “third man” had a controlling influence over the convicted assassins. He exerted a kind of “psychic hold” over Burrows and Tacklyn and persuaded them they were active revolutionaries who could change Bermudian society at a stroke and help institute a revolutionary-type government. Although Burrows said the assassination of the governor was on his “direct orders” and “inspired efforts” the murder was in fact planned and directed by the extreme faction of the Berets with Burrows and Tacklyn playing the secondary role of hit men. Many years later some former members of the Berets would come to believe that Burrows had indeed been indoctrinated by militant members of the group and this small group of Berets were behind the murders.

Following the escape of the “third man” to North America, the authorities decided it was not in the interests of Bermuda to bring him to justice even though there was substantial and compelling evidence to show he had participated in the governor’s assassination. Police in the United States and Canada had been contacted by Bermudian authorities and a request was made for them to “keep an eye” on him but he was never extradited. He returned to the island a few years later but the arrest warrant had mysteriously gone missing. As a former police officer involved in the murder investigations stated, “With regard to arresting (the “third man”) I don’t believe there was much choice - the whole file including warrants… had gone, I believe from the court registry … I have a vague memory of an arrest on arrival prior to them discovering everything missing. I do not know why it was not reinvestigated with fresh information; maybe too much was missing. Maybe a deal was struck?”

The missing arrest warrant, according to the ex-police officer source, indicates there were people in high places who conspired to prevent the arrest of the” third man.” “My opinion is and was,” the former police officer said, “that if they brought (him) back this would create such a political mess with the Bermuda Industrial Union (Author’s Note: The BIU was allied with the opposition Progressive Labour Party)…. The government had enough on its plate. The island was divided 50-50 on the race issue. They had enough trouble dealing with all the black participants (in the murders)….. I guess the feeling was if anything comes to light that can directly involve and get a confession from someone or point to (the “third man”) that they could put before the courts, it’s better to have him at arm’s length and being watched.” Numerous sources for this book also deduced that the reason why the “third man” was not arrested was due to his strong links to powerful individuals on the island. The motive for stealing or destroying the arrest warrant, the sources allege, was a fear that riots would ensue.

Myth Instead of Truth

Justice Denied By Mel Ayton

The Black Berets continue to play an important role in Bermuda’s political life. Using the same tactics as many Marxists in the UK who joined the Labour Party in the 1970s, many Berets infiltrated Bermuda’s established left-wing Progressive Labour Party (PLP) in order to continue their covert radical agenda. They were clearly aware that their previously overt appeals to racism and violence would be rejected by the moderate black majority. However, the PLP has done nothing to correct the historical record with regard to the Berets. For the past 35 years PLP members have romanticized the black militant organization and embraced many of its former members. Additionally, leading Bermudian politicians of both races have not spoken out about the conspiracy because they believe it would not only affect tourism, which is the island’s principle source of income, but also expose the instability of Bermuda’s political system.

The Black Beret Cadre believed it had a God-given right to inflict its pathologies on the rest of Bermudian society and in so doing created great harm to the island and its people, both black and white. The role the Black Cadre played in the assassinations was whitewashed by consecutive Bermudian government administrations in the interest of racial harmony. Over time the history of the assassinations became a myth. And what people believe happened will unfortunately enter into the culture and memories of generations to come.

Feb. 25, 2013

Five months after the author’s grandfather was sentenced to only 10 years for the shooting death of his father in Fall River, Massachusetts, Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. Was Lizzie inspired by the public sympathy and light sentence meted out to her townsman?

by Thomas D. McDougall

When I retired in March of 2011, I finally had the opportunity to complete several projects that I had put aside for many years.  The first and most important to me personally was the completion of a family history that I had started in the 1980’s.  The advancement of genealogy information and its availability on the Internet afforded me an opportunity that I had never been able to utilize in my earlier search for information.

My parents had both been born and raised in Fall River, Massachusetts, a city rich in history that had been a magnet for immigrants from the British Isles and Europe during the mid and late 1800’s. They flocked to the area in search of employment in one of the city’s many mills and supporting industries.  Consequently I was familiar with the city and the story of Lizzie Borden.  What I never knew and was probably never known by family members was our own peripheral connection to the Lizzie Borden case. 

My mother’s family had emigrated from England in 1910 and there was a wealth of information available from personal recollection and subsequent research t hat filled in the gaps.  I began to think that my family history project could be finalized in short order.  As I turned to my father’s side of the family I realized just how little I knew and how wrong I was with respect to my projected finish date.  The other fact that began to emerge from my research was the wealth of surprises and skeletons that come out in the open during an in-depth genealogy project.  In my case, it was the murder of my great–grandfather, James McDougall, by the hand of my grandfather, James McDougall Jr.

At this juncture I should point out that my paternal grandfather was born in 1866 and died in 1947.  My father was the youngest in the family and was raised by his three sisters after the death of his mother in 1925, when he was 4 years old.  I never knew my paternal grandfather, and even my father was not that familiar with his early life other than the fact that he was born in Scotland and became a carriage painter when he came to America.  He and his parents and four siblings came to America in 1873, and settled in Fall River where the elder McDougall worked as a carpenter.  My own research confirmed this information. 

In 1892, James McDougall Jr. had found work as a carriage painter in New York City and was sending money home to help his mother pay the bills. Research revealed that there was some significant family strife that led to the separation of James McDougall Sr. and his wife Catherine.  She subsequently took up separate residence with the children. The younger James’s disappointment with how the separation developed and was being played out led to a major confrontation between him and his father.

On January 29, 1892, James McDougall Jr. returned to Fall River from New York City to effect reconciliation between his parents.  He met his father on the pier of the Fall River Line where they walked and discussed the family’s domestic strife.  At one end of the pier the discussion grew heated and James Jr. drew a five-chambered Swift revolver and shot his father five times. The account from a local newspaper, The Fall River Daily Globe, gave a more graphic description of the shooting:          

At the time of the shooting the men were not eight feet apart.  One of the bullets went through the flesh, under the chin which was bearded. Another went through the left sleeve between  the shoulder and elbow.  The shirt was not torn but the arm was  scarred.  A third bullet went into the father’s left hand entering in the back below the wrist and lodging midway between the palm and back.  A fourth plowed through the overcoat and undercoat just above the middle of the stomach, and the fifth most miraculously of all, tore through the overcoat,  undercoat, jumper and undervest, and stopped only when it had made a small dent in a starched white shirt an inch below the heart.

What could have caused such a desperate act on the part of my grandfather?  Newspapers of the day, including the news article from The Fall River Daily Globe cited below, reported many aspects of the assault and its aftermath.  Two police officers on the pier had observed James Jr. smash a revolver against the wall of the building and learned from him that he had just shot his father.  The officers immediately arrested him and transported him to the marshal’s office where Marshal Hilliard questioned him. 

McDougall told a straightforward and in many ways a pitiful story to the city marshal, and it is not pleasant to say that the circumstances leading up to the shooting necessitates the unraveling of an unhappy yarn of domestic life.

According to the story told by his wife and his eldest son James, he has not lived happily with his wife for 18 years.  He has always held the purse strings in the household  economy and while his family may have been stinted, it is alleged that he has gone to his work with a wad in his pocket.

He has compelled his wife to provide for his family on a basis of $1.85 a head per week she says, and when the expenditures exceeded that amount he has cursed and swore and displayed an ungovernable temper.  Four months ago or thereabouts his wife thought she had reached a point where she should not bear with his peculiarities any longer.

One Saturday night the father went home and found that the wife and daughter had   repaired a kitchen carpet.  The daughter had been kept from work while the bit of    household economy was being accomplished.  When the father learned of this he raved and stormed and ordered the mother to leave the house just as he had frequently done before.

The mother accepted an offer to leave the house and accept $3 a week.  Monday morning she left, taking only a spring bed and the clothes she wore, and went to live in a stone cottage on Pleasant Street.

James McDougall Sr. was first taken to Dr. Leary’s residence where it was determined he was too weak to have an operation to remove the bullet from his hand.  He was then taken to his home at 89 Third Street (bordering the backside of the Borden residence located at 92 Second Street).  He remained in a weakened state not only from the shooting, but from an illness suffered at his work several months earlier.  Newspapers reported that he had wanted to avoid prosecution of his son and was more worried about the disposition of the case than the result of his wounds.  

Meanwhile, the younger James was arraigned in the district court the day after the shooting.  He was charged with assault on his father with a dangerous weapon, to wit, a pistol loaded with powder and shot.  He pled guilty, but, as reported by The Fall River Daily Globe, Marshal Hilliard addressed the court saying:

This was one of the unfortunate occurrences which came to the notice of the police.  It grew out of family difficulties. McDougal, he said, had been employed as a painter in New York and did all he could toward the support of his mother who lived apart from the father.

If this boy’s story to me is true, Your Honor, I can readily see how he could be worked up into a state of mind during which he could shoot his father.  I have great sympathy for him and have drawn this complaint so that this court can take jurisdiction.  The father bears a good reputation at Tripp’s shop where he was employed, but his conduct there could differ very widely from his actions in the family circle.

Dr. Leary also testified and noted that the elder McDougall’s wounds were “peculiar” but not necessarily fatal unless complications arose which were not now apparent.  The court adjudged the younger McDougall as probably guilty and held him on a $1,000 bond for the grand jury.

Shortly after this hearing James McDougall Jr. returned to court and was charged with assault with intent to kill.  He was found guilty and sentenced to six years in the Massachusetts Reformatory where he was received on February 20, 1892.  A report from the Office of the Commissioners on the Reformatory intake record noted: “This assault grew out of a family quarrel.  Parents had separated, father refused to assist the mother and James, who worked in New York, gave her his earnings and she relied on him.  He had threatened to kill James if he helped his mother anymore and James bought a revolver to use in self defense.  His father was one of the meanest men that ever lived and that he caused his family to suffer.  James has the sympathy of nearly all the people in Fall River.”

Meanwhile, efforts to locate the bullet in the senior McDougall’s hand were unsuccessful and he passed away on March 4, 1892.  The official cause of death recorded on his death certificate was “fracture with necrosis of bones of hand and inflammation of tissue of same.” 

On June 20, 1892, the younger McDougall was arraigned in Superior Court and charged with the murder of his father. On October 31, a plea agreement was reached whereby James pled guilty to manslaughter and he was sentenced to 10 years in the Massachusetts State Prison. James McDougall Jr. was released on parole on September 13, 1900, and returned to Fall River, Massachusetts.  He married Marie Elisabeth Durand in 1910, and raised five children.  James died of cardiac failure January 9, 1947, and is buried next to his father in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River.

How does this connect to the Lizzie Borden case?  The first and most obvious similarity is the proximity of the Borden and McDougall residences.  The Borden horse barn exited to Third Street and it very likely that the McDougall family would have had occasion to speak with the residents of the Borden household in spite of the differences in social status.   James McDougall’s occupation as a carriage painter may have also inspired some interest in his part in the Borden family carriages.   The elder McDougall was also known to have been a member of several fraternal or social organizations to which the Borden men also belonged. Some also believe that Lizzie may have been inspired to commit patricide by James McDougall Jr., a theory that could be furthered as the McDougall trial unfolded. Lizzie Borden could have been moved by the sentiment of sympathy for the younger James and the relatively light sentence he received.  As noted earlier the connection to the Borden case is peripheral, but it makes one wonder!

Feb. 27, 2013

Helvetic Airways aircraft at the Brussels international airport (Photo: Associated Press)

In a daring, commado-style operation, eight masked, heavily armed gunmen pulled off a lightening quick heist of more than $50 million worth of diamonds.                           

                                                by J. Patrick O’Connor

For centuries, Antwerp has been the world’s center of diamond trading and remains so today.  According to a spokesperson for the Antwerp World Diamond Centre about $200 million in diamonds enter and leave Antwerp daily, with about 99 percent of that moving through the Brussels Airport in several shipments each week. The spokesperson said that diamonds traded in Antwerp last year had a total value of $51.9 billion, accounting for 80 percent of the world’s rough diamond trade and 50 percent of trade in polished stones. The only other major diamond center is Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

Diamond brokers from around the world store their diamonds and gems – sometimes for as little as a day – in one or more of the 160 safety-deposit boxes located in an underground vault at the Antwerp Diamond Centre. Once a deal is brokered for the sale of the diamonds, shipment is arranged through the Zaventem International Airport in Brussels. The diamonds are placed in small packets and driven by armored Brinks vans to the airport.  On the 25-mile trip to the airport, the Brinks vans are accompanied by armed escorts that peel away once the Brinks vans arrive at the airport’s locked gate.

On the evening of February 18, 2013, eight heavily armed masked men were outfitted in airport security uniforms and drove two black vehicles that had police-style lights on top.  They arrived at Zaventem International Airport in Brussels in darkness intent on pulling off the most audacious heist in airport history. They knew, due to construction near the main security gate, that gate would be unlocked. Using wire cutters, they opened a section of the other 10-foot-high security fence on the perimeter of the airport and then waited eight minutes for the Brinks van to unload some 125 packets of diamonds in the cargo hold of Flight LX789, a Helvetic Airways jet waiting to depart in the next 18 minutes for Zurich, Switzerland.

Minutes after the diamonds had been offloaded from the Brinks van and the doors to the cargo hold locked, a black Audi A8 sedan and a black Mercedes van with blue police lights flashing pulled up next to the airplane at 7:47 p.m.  By 7:52 p.m. the vehicles and 121 packets of the diamonds were gone in a lightening quick and incredibly competent robbery.

With commando efficiency, some of the gunmen stood in front of the jet plane pointing machine guns equipped with red laser sights at the pilots and Brinks crew while others calmly – speaking French – ordered ground workers to open the aircraft’s cargo doors.  Without firing a shot, the robbers unloaded all but four of the diamond packets that contained packages of both polished and uncut diamonds and sped away within five minutes of arriving.

The London Daily Telegraph reported that most of the diamonds were uncut and that 90 percent were bound for the Indian city of Surat, via Zurich. Initial estimates placed the theft at $50 million, but because most of the diamonds were uncut and could possibly be worth far more one expert told The Wall Street Journal that the take could come to more than $300 million, which would make the Brussels heist the largest airport robbery in history by over $200 million. In 2005, an armed gang hijacked a Brinks truck at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam and escaped with an estimated $90 million of diamonds. 

The 29 passengers onboard were unaware of anything amiss until informed after the robbers had made their getaway that their flight had been cancelled. No one inside the airport happen to take notice either.

“There is a gap of only a few minutes” between the loading of the gems and the moment the plane starts to move, said Caroline De Wolf, a spokesperson for the Antwerp World Diamond Centre. “The people who did this knew there was going to be this gap and when.”

Ine Van Wymersch, a Brussels prosecutor, said the police were investigating whether the robbers had inside information. “This is an obvious possibility,” she said.

Quoting airport security insiders, The Wall Street Journal reported that “the precision of the Brussels heist suggests extensive help from airport insiders,” noting that “all airports employ thousands of low-paid workers and face high turnover.”

An aviation-security specialist knowledgeable about the Brussels Airport robbery told the Journal“the thieves appeared to have detailed information about both the cargo and operations at the airport, and likely had help from people at the airport.”

“I am certain this was an inside job,” Doron Levy, an expert in airport security at a French risk management company,” told The New York Times. The theft, he added, was “incredibly audacious and well-organized,” and beyond the means of all but the most experienced and strong nerved criminals. “In jobs like this we are often surprised by the level of preparation and information: they know so much they probably know the employees by name.”

(Photo Mirror UK)

Levy told The Times that “the audacity of the crime recalled in some ways the so-called Pink Panther robberies – a long series of brazen raids on high-end jewelers in Geneva, London and elsewhere attributed to criminal gangs from the Balkans. But he said the military precision of Monday’s diamond robbery and the targeting of an airport suggested a far higher level of organization than the cruder Pink Panther operations.”

The Mercedes Vaneo used in the robbery was a stolen taxi. It was found burned out within 10 miles of the airport shortly after the robbers fled. The Audi, which had French registration plates, has not been recovered.

March 4, 2013

For survivors, cold case investigators and the public, solving old homicide cases offers the perfect win- win situation. Beyond the altruistic benefits, though, cold case squads provide a goldmine of good ink for law enforcement agencies. So what's the ultimate bad ink? Botched investigations. Lawmen will go to great lengths to hide their dirty laundry – such as Harris County Sheriff's Office Case No. 84-137640.

by James R. Melton

When Joe Floyd Collins awoke on October 12, 1984, he was exactly six weeks shy of his 46^th birthday. Life expectancy tables generously offered him another 32 years on earth. On that autumn evening, as the sun sank over the Southeast Texas prairie, the squeeze of a trigger instantly changed the prospect of a long life into the reality of an early grave.

For the middle-aged man some knew as Floyd and others called Joe, luck was fast running out. But the robber who shot him had the unexpected good fortune to gain the oddest bedfellow — the Harris County Sheriff's Office.       

Fumbling and stumbling from the outset, Texas's largest sheriff's department all but guaranteed a killer would get a free pass and Joe Floyd Collins's murder would wind up quickly — and quietly —in the cold case bin.        

Even a quarter of a century later, Sgt. Eric Clegg said he had searched all of the Harris County Sheriff's Office’s cold cases from the 1980s. He couldn't find records of the one-of-a-kind robbery-murder at a liquor store in Huffman, a mix of suburbs and farms at the county's far northeast corner. In 2009, Clegg was one of two sergeants assigned to the cold case squad.       

A year later, presented with the victim's name, a date, crime details and the actual Harris County Sheriff's Office case number, 84-137640, the sergeant acknowledged the case's existence and reopened the investigation.

Over time many reasons emerged to explain why Clegg would seek to keep the cold case locked in the deep freezer and out of public sight. And he may have inadvertently revealed in a 2011 news story that most likely he knew the case's status and whereabouts all along.       

Today case files and other official records detailing Joe Floyd Collins's murder remain off limits to this writer's eyes. But a review of the few available documents, along with recent witness recollections, provides ample information to lay bare the string of Harris County Sheriff's Office blunders that torpedoed and sank the investigation into the liquor store owner's death. 

The Murder of Joe Floyd Collins        

On that fateful fall day, it was mere chance that Joe Floyd Collins was working at all. Usually an employee ran his store. But Floyd had recently fired the clerk and could not find a stand-in for that Friday.         

So he worked alone at his County Line Liquor, aptly named because the store occupied a 12-by-24-foot maroon portable metal building beside Farm-to-Market 1960 in far northeast Harris County, just 90 feet from neighboring Liberty County.                       

In the 1960s and 1970s, “Nineteen-sixty” was truly the Promised Land for the Houston area's unbounded opportunity and explosive suburban growth.         

But that explosive growth had never spread east of Lake Houston. So County Line Liquor remained a forlorn outpost on a weeded postage stamp-sized lot squeezed between FM 1960 and the Union Pacific Railroad tracks.        

It shared far more with nearby bucolic Dayton, 12 miles farther east in Liberty County, than bustling urban Houston, 30 miles to the southwest. Although the nearest business was at least a mile away, it still seemed the ideal location for attracting thirsty customers from neighboring Liberty County's dry Precinct 4.         

County Line Liquor's isolated location also made it a perfect target for a predator to strike with little fear of detection. For Collins, the shotgun he kept hidden behind the counter seemed to level the playing field. So he took his chances.       

Despite Floyd's buckshot bravado, an emboldened gunman fired a single bullet into his stomach, grabbed the day's receipts — $30 or so — and abandoned the bleeding victim on the floor of his store.

In Huffman on that Fridayin October, the sun set at 6:53 p.m. In the twilight just after 7 p.m., customers Henry Zarsky and wife Norma from Liberty County's nearby Eastgate Community stopped by County Line Liquor. They were heading home after inspecting one of Henry's soybean fields.        

Henry entered and walked to the cooler, grabbed a six-pack and hoisted it onto the counter. To his surprise, he spied Floyd lying mortally wounded on the floor in a spreading pool of crimson.       

Hurrying to the door, Henry frantically summoned Norma. She called the Harris County Sheriff's Office.        

Then the bleeding liquor store owner asked Norma to call his wife. So Norma dialed again. She passed on the urgent news to the victim's wife at her home in the Tanner Settlement near Hull in far northeast Liberty County. The message touched off a desperate race — a race that would have no winners.        

Patricia Ann Collins, the wounded man's wife, dashed more than 30 miles diagonally across most of Liberty County, driving through three townsand countless traffic signals, to reach the liquor store.        

She arrived to find no ambulance, no emergency medical technicians, no patrol cars, and no lawmen. Just a trio of somber onlookers. And a dead husband.                    

Somehow, when getting the address right meant life or death, the Harris County Sheriff's Office apparently dispatched emergency responders to an area almost 10 mileswest of the liquor store.       

Such a dispatching error would spell disaster for paramedics and investigators alike — and for Joe Floyd Collins who would bleed to death awaiting help.       

All along, that help had been available no more than four minutes away at Houston Fire Department Station 65, just 3.43 miles from County Line Liquor and the dying Joe Floyd Collins.          

If Station 65 had gotten a call to the crime scene, emergency technicians might have been able to stanch the loss of precious blood, infuse vital fluids, minimize the effects of shock and summon a Life Flight helicopter.        

So Floyd mighthave had a chance to live. Those chances can't be independently assessed now because the HCSO, through the Texas Attorney General's Office, blocked release of Collins's autopsy results.         

Deputies were not at the liquor store either. So the crime scene was not secured in a timely manner, possibly allowing onlookers to contaminate the store's interior and exterior areas.        

But a single clue recovered at Floyd's autopsy — the bullet that took his life — should have been a real game-changer. It offered both a path to solving the crime and a second chance for the snake-bitten Harris County Sheriff's Office. This thimble-sized glob of lead promised to be the Holy Grail needed to unravel the mystery of the murder of Joe Floyd Collins.      

Yet the tattletale clue was only half of the puzzle. Solving the riddle required finding the weapon that fired the fatal bullet.

Cracking the Cold Case         

Collins's murder case had lain frozen for 25 years when, in 2009, an informant contacted the Harris County Sheriff's Office cold case squad to offer information about the case. He described the nature and location of the crime and identified a person of interest who had the means, motive and opportunity to commit the robbery-murder. That person had left the area about the time of the crime and made a telephone call to discuss the robbery-homicide.         

And the informant revealed exactly where investigators could find the possible murder weapon, a revolver still available for testing decades after Floyd's murder.         

Would a simple ballistics comparison mate the fatal bullet to the suspect weapon and unmask a killer? Would Joe Floyd Collins's long string of bad luck finally be coming to an end a quarter of a century after his murder?

Bad luck maynot have beenJoe Floyd Collins's best friend, but it was most certainly his lifelong close companion.

A Bad Luck Joe         

In the 1970s and early 1980s, he would learn the fickle alchemy guiding his fortune and misfortune. While bad luck sometimes seemed to turn magically into good, more often than not Floyd's good luck took a dark turn.         

Dorothy “Dottie” McMichael lived through those flip-flopping fortunes with Collins, whom she called Joe. She married Joe in the summer of 1977. Now more than 30 years divorced from Collins, from her Arkansas home Dottie shared information about her ex-husband. After suffering several strokes, Dottie searches carefully to find the right words to convey those memories.          

Hailing from northeast Liberty County, Joe was the son of an abusive alcoholic father. After attending Hardin schools, Joe served in the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam.        

The tempo of Joe Floyd Collins's tango with good and bad luck quickened in California in 1979. Married to Dottie for two years, Joe was involved in a car crash that would cripple him for the rest of his life.         

“Around midnight he was drunk and driving on the interstate to his girl friend's house,” Dottie remembered. “Another drunk driver crossed the median and hit him head on.”        

“Joe was hospitalized for a long time and bedridden for several months at home,” she said. “He ended up with a stiff elbow and a stiff knee that forced him to walk with a limp and a cane. He had little range of motion in his right shoulder. He was no longer capable of hanging drywall.”         

Idled from work and enduring painful injuries, Joe turned increasingly to alcohol for relief. “He took to drinking all the time,” said Dottie, “usually a quart of Jack Daniel's every day.”        

Collins sued the other driver. “While waiting for his lawsuit to come to court,” Dottie said, “Joe decided he wanted to live in Liberty County. We packed up everything and moved to Texas.”         

In June of 1980, Collins won a $250,000 settlement in his lawsuit, minus $50,000 paid to his first wife for back child support.           

According to an online inflation calculator, his share of that settlement would be worth $714,000 in 2012 dollars. Feeling that he had struck it rich, Joe went on a spending spree.       

“He purchased a house in Hardin, a house full of furniture, new vehicles and two boats,” Dottie said.          

Back in his native Liberty County, Joe and wife Dottie befriended entrepreneur Eddie Elliott and wife Phyllis of Dayton. In 1975, Elliott had seen a need and opened a new business in a portable building in Harris County just outside of the Liberty County line. He named it County Line Liquor.         

“In 1981, Joe started working for Eddie at the liquor store,” Dottie recounted. “He was drinking continually and became more and more violent. I finally called it quits in 1982.”          

That's the year Joe Floyd Collins struck his deal with friend Eddie Elliott. “The store was making good money,” recalled Elliott, who owns several real estate parcels and operates a septic tank business in Dayton.  “Joe had been working there a year. He knew there was good money to be made.”         

Collins jumped at the chance to spend some of the remaining money from his accident settlement to purchase Eddie's County Line Liquor. Eddie Elliott kept title to the tiny parcel of land, but Joe Floyd Collins owned the liquor business. Eddie sold the lot in 2012.         

Dottie saw Joe one last time in September of 1984 after he asked her to join him for a drink. Apparently, she said, he just wanted to brag to her that “the bigwigs” wanted to induct him into their clique.          

“Some of the things he said didn't make a lot of sense,” Dottie recalled. “He told me he was being checked out as a prospect to join 'the club.' He was on top of the world.”       

As if on cue, three weeks later, on October 12, 1984, good luck once again changed to bad. Instead of living the additional 32 years cited in lifespan tables, Joe Floyd Collins would take a fatal bullet to his gut and tumble from the “top of the world” into a bottomless death pit.

A simple headline on an inside page of the Houston Chronicle's October 14, 1984 Sunday edition read: “Liquor store owner slain.” Three brief paragraphs followed.         

The story caught my attention because I lived in the country perhaps 10 miles from the little liquor store. I had shopped there a few times for beer and spirits. Over the decades, I forgot many of the story's details. I would not set eyes on the story again for 27 years until I located it at the Houston Public Library in late 2011.         

A former news reporter and editor, I understood the rhythm of crime stories — arrest, charge, indictment, trial and punishment. I expected the saga to unfold and conclude over time. But I never saw any follow-up. Still, I got an unexpected reminder that very day. In mid-afternoon, my telephone rang.

A Person of Interest           

“Hey, Jim,” said the caller. I recognized the voice of a family member, L.R. “Matt” Matthews. “Have you heard anything about someone getting killed in a robbery at the liquor store out on Nineteen-sixty?” Matt asked. Like me, he was obviously familiar with the store.          

“Yes,” I replied. “I just read about it in the newspaper this morning. Isn't that something? You still staying at your mother's?”          

“No,” he said. “I'm back home in Pasadena.”          

After a little more small-talk, werang off. Almost immediately I began to feel a vague uneasiness about the call. Matt, a confirmed 36-year-old alcoholic awaiting trial and sentencing for his first driving-under-the-influence charge, had been staying for perhaps two weeks at his mother's home near Dayton.        

Once again he had been banished from his own home in Pasadena for threatening the lives of his wife and children during a drunken rage. And now he had returned suddenly and unexpectedly to that home close on the heels of the liquor store robbery-murder.                  

Even with little to buttress my suspicions, I realized he could have been the robber who murdered the store owner. Motive-means-opportunity is a starting point but qualifies, at best, as circumstantial evidence and certainly can't prove guilt.         

Matt had the motive — he was usually broke and always craved alcohol. He had the means — a .38-caliber pistol that once belonged to his deceased policeman father. And he had the opportunity — staying just eight miles from County Line Liquor. The closest liquor store to his mother's house, it was likely where he bought his Canadian whiskey.         

And when he drank, he took on an overriding aura of superiority. Was he calling me to gauge whether the murder was getting its due publicattention?         

From that moment, L.R. Matthews became my “person of interest.” My thoughts boiled down to a simple notion: Contact the Harris County Sheriff's Office and lead them to the suspect weapon. A ballistics test would easily determine if the revolver had fired the bullet that killed the liquor store owner.         

If it matched and my suspicions proved correct, the case could be solved. If not, the HCSO could keep searching for the killer. And I would have done my civic duty.         

But, having little more than a vague hunch, I demurred. I still hoped for information about the crime. Years passed, then decades. News about the fatal crime was as dead as the victim. Yet, it dogged my mind. Had it been solved? Had I simply missed the news?

From the mid-1980s and through the 1990s, Matthews continued to amass DUI charges, threaten the lives of family members and get banished from his Pasadena home. He became a regular guest of the Harris County Jail and Texas Department of Criminal Justice prisons.          

When not incarcerated, he bounced from job to job, frequently working for meager commissions at fireworks stands during the Fourth of July and Christmas-New Year’s holidays.          

Finally, in 1999, Matt was arrested in Williamson County near Austin for his eighth DUI. He would soon learn why Williamson County has a reputation for refusing to coddle drunk drivers. He was held in jail until 2000 when the court sentenced him to 35 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.        

Paroled in 2006, he stayed for a time at a half-way house, then moved once again into his mother's house. By the end of the year, she would be dead and Matt would share in her estate.         

In early 2008 when Matt chose to sell his share of his mother's farm, I volunteered to drive him to Liberty County to arrange for a real estate agent's services.      

Knowing our trip would carry us past the liquor store site, I casually recounted my memories of the crime. Of course I didn't remind him of our long-ago telephone conversation or mention my suspicions about him. I timed the story to finish just as we passed the now-empty lot.        

At the instant I finished, without even a one-second pause between my voice and his, Matt said: “Well, I can guarantee you that's one liquor store I've never been in.”    

It was clear that instead of truly listening to my story he had been forming a diversionary answer and sprang it at the earliest opportunity.            

To me, the speed of his response jolted me from the plausible and possible squarely into the probable. Matthews had expressed no sympathy or empathy for the murder victim and survivors. Instead, he seemed bent on tailoring his reply to distance himself from the crime scene— and from the crime.         

But I recalled that he and I had once stopped at the liquor store to buy beer. And I clearly remembered that long-ago telephone call zeroing in on the liquor store robbery-murder. His hasty disclaimer set off alarm bells in my head.       

In that instant, I resolved to carry out my plan to contact the Harris County Sheriff's Office and bare my suspicions. In this unscripted crime saga in which Matt had long ago emerged as the person of interest, I would finally become the informant. 

Elected to his first term, Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia reactivated the department's cold case squad in 2009.Garcia named Sgt. Eric Clegg to the squad. In November of 2012, Harris County voters re-elected Garcia to a second term, and the squad remained active.          

In 2009, fulfilling the pledge to myself, I shared with Sgt. Clegg what I could remember about the murder.

• The crime was a robbery-homicide.
  • It occurred at a liquor store.
  • The location was the Harris-Liberty County line on FM 1960.
  • It happened in the mid-1980s.
  • The victim was the liquor store owner.
  • I supplied the name, address and vital statistics of Matt, my “person of interest.”
  • I also gave the current location of Matt's .38-caliber revolver.       

Here are the facts I didn't recall:

• The victim's name.
• The liquor store's name.
• The store's address.
• The exact date of the crime.       

In a follow-up phone conversation, Sgt. Clegg said:  “I searched all cold case records from the 1980s, and I can't locate this case. Call me if you find additional information.”      

It was as if the sergeant was saying the crime had never occurred. But I knew better. My memory may not have been perfect, but I certainly didn't have a history of inventing or imagining events. His lack of interest perplexed me, and I vowed to ferret out the information he said he couldn't find.         

Over the next year, I spent uncountable hours searching the Internet and Harris County records and talking to Huffman old timers for any mention of the robbery-homicide at the liquor store. The result?  Nothing. It was if Joe Floyd Collins and any memory of him had simply, well, vaporized.        

Finally, in June of 2010, a full year after I first contacted Clegg, I placed this personal want ad in the Liberty Vindicator, a weekly print and online newspaper serving Liberty County: “Seeking info on mid-80s liquor store robbery/murder at Harris-Liberty County line on FM 1960. Need to know victim's name, store name, approximate date of crime, whether solved.”  The ad included a phone number and an email address. I paid for the ad to run an entire month.         

The ad produced near-instant results. On the first day it appeared, on June 10, 2010, a title company manager from Liberty responded to the ad and telephoned me. Although caller Angela DeDear couldn't recall the exact date of the crime, she knew the name of the murdered liquor store owner.         

The victim was her step-father, Joe Floyd Collins. He had owned County Line Liquor at exactly the location I had described to Sgt. Clegg. And Floyd's wife was Angela's mother, Patricia Ann Collins, who had made that futile cross-country dash to her dead husband's side so many years ago. Angela and her mother had always called him Floyd.       

Armed with these revelations, I immediately searched Internet sites to verify the information and find the date of the crime. The RootsWeb site quickly produced the victim's name and the crucial date of his death — October 12, 1984.        

Passed on by phone to Harris County Archivist Sarah Canby Jackson, C.A., the date of death and a name led her quickly to a handwritten entry in the Harris County Medical Examiner's intake log for October 12, 1984. It read: “Joe Floyd Collins. WM/43. GSW of the abdomen. Hom.” Translation: White male, 43 years old. Gunshot wound of the abdomen. Homicide.         

The entry also revealed that a single .38-caliber slug was removed from Collins at autopsy and turned over to HCSO Homicide Detective R.S. “Ronnie” Phillips. Thus began the evidentiary chain of custody, a critical milestone in criminal investigations.       

For me, the medical examiner’s log gave the first revelation that the murder weapon indeed had been a .38-caliber pistol, the same type of pistol available to Matthews, my person of interest, that I had described to Sgt. Clegg a year earlier.         

Ms. Jackson also forwarded a one-page document titled, “Medical Examiner's Investigation.” Although far short of investigators' full case files, it summarized the crime details:          

            According to Detective Phillips, the decedent was the owner and operator of a liquor store at the above location (Identified as the 5000 block of FM 1960 East at the Huffman-Eastgate Road). The decedent was found on floor behind counter still alive with gunshot wound to abdomen at 7:05 p.m., by a customer, Norma Zarsky, who called Harris County Sheriff's Office. The decedent expired in the presence of Ms. Zarsky and two unknown Caucasian males while waiting for ambulance. The cash register was open and all folding money was missing from register.         

Angela DeDear would tell me 25 years later that the killer got perhaps $30 for his efforts.         

The report also contained the Harris County Sheriff's Office case number — 84-137640. I immediately telephoned Sgt. Eric Clegg and relayed the newly uncovered information. I forwarded him copies of the documents Ms. Jackson had unearthed.       

Given these documents detailing the robbery-homicide, Clegg excused his earlier failure to locate the case's records, saying: “I didn't have an address.”

At last, gifted with the case's critical information, Clegg had an address. But it was the wrong address. There is no 5000 FM 1960 East in Huffman.

Re-Opening Cold Case No. 84-137640

So,confronted in June of 2010 with the Harris County Sheriff's Office case number and no longer able to deny the case's existence, Sgt. Clegg agreed to reopen the robbery-homicide case. He assigned Homicide Detective Anthony J. Kelly to the investigation.        

Immediately I felt a tremendous sense of relief. At long last I expected a quick resolution to my suspicions. Either the bullet recovered at Joe's autopsy would match L.R. Matthew's .38 revolver. Or it would not.

The first two monthsof therenewed investigation into Joe Floyd Collins's death passed quietly. Then, in September of 2010, in a phone call, Detective A.J. Kelly dropped a bombshell: The bullet that killed Floyd, removed at autopsy soon after his murder, could not be found.         

In a flash, my optimism changed to despair. The solution I sensed so close at hand suddenly seemed remote, light years away. A black hole had opened and swallowed forever any chance that the Harris County Sheriff's Office had the ability to thaw and solve this frozen murder case.           

Without a doubt the fatal bullet was the Harris County Sheriff's Office’s most important clue in its investigation of Joe Floyd Collins's murder. How could such valuable evidence disappear?  I was stunned.        

Kelly's Harris County Sheriff's Office homicide division didn't have the bullet, but the detective did have a story. In 1984, Kelly said, the Harris County Sheriff's Office — the state's largest sheriff's department and third-largest in the entire nation — didn't possess its own ballistics testing water tank. Instead, he said, the sheriff's office relied on the Houston Police Department's tank.        

Kelly said Harris County Sheriff's Office Detective Ronnie Phillips received the bullet from the Harris County Medical Examiner's office, now the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences. He passed it to the HPD crime lab. And the HPD crime lab, he said, promptly lost the bullet.         

“I'm sure you've heard on TV that the Houston Police Department's crime lab has had a lot of problems in the last few years,” Kelly ventured.          

But the Houston Police Department's Lt. Alan Harris wasn't nearly as anxious to let his office get thrown under the bus for losing the bullet. In 2011,Harris headed the HPD's homicide evidence room.         

And after reviewing his department's records, he offered a far different outcome in the short-lived history of the Harris County Sheriff's Office’s mysterious .38-caliber slug.           

Yes, he said, Detective Phillips delivered the evidence to the HPD not long after Collins's autopsy. Then Phillips picked up the bullet the very next day. Phillips retired at age 73 from the Harris County Sheriff's Office on December 31, 2008 and could not be located for comment.        

Wherever the fault for losing the evidence ultimately lies, one of law enforcement's most basic investigative tools — the chain-of-custody protocol — was violated. Big time.        

This rule requires documenting and cataloging evidence and its movement from the time it is first gathered until it is used in investigations and trials and beyond through the appeals process. This precaution ensures that evidence remains untainted and can fend off legal challenges.         

Lost within days of the crime, the missing bullet meant that, short of an unlikely confession from out of the blue, Joe Floyd Collins's killer likely could never be called to account. This cold case had become frigid.         

And it appears that Sgt. Clegg tried to make sure the Harris County Sheriff's Office would never be called to account either. His claim to me in 2009 that he had searched all Harris County Sheriff's Office’s cold cases from the 1980s without locating the Collins case proves, at best, to be shaky.          

In a Houston Chronicle story in December of 2011, Clegg praised cold case squad clerk Rebecca Sweetman for keeping track of all the squad's 541 cold cases. “She knows those cases,” Clegg told Chronicle reporter Anita Hassan. “She's just a wealth of information.”         

Most likely neither Sgt. Clegg nor Rebecca Sweetman could have overlooked a crime so unique that no similar crime had occurred in the Harris County Sheriff's Office’s jurisdiction in the 1980s.(Houston Chronicle, “Cold case unit clerk an integral part of the team,” Dec. 9, 2011.          

However, the Collins crime closely matches a similar case that occurred in 1986 just one and a half miles from the Pasadena home of Matt, my person of interest. An unknown assailant mortally wounded and robbed liquor store owner Eang Peng Ngov, taking $1,000 just two days before Christmas. That case also remains cold.

Questions about the unsolved case brought an odd response – and little interest – from the Pasadena Police Department's cold case squad Detective R.R. Rogge.  

Two weeks after revealing that the bullet that killed Floyd had been lost, Detective A.J. Kelly sent me an email on October 22, 2010 closing the investigation into Matthew's possible role in Joe Floyd Collins's murder. It read:

            There has been no further development in regards to this investigation. Additional research has not provided any additional information or evidence which links (Matthews) to this homicide. I, along with SERGEANT CLEGG have discussed this case as well as the new information provided by you and concluded that the only way to proceed, if at all, would be to approach (Matthews) cold. Without any additional information or probable cause this may be more detrimental to the investigation than good. The new information has been included in the case file, and if in fact (Matthews) is in anyway involved, hopefully another avenue will present itself to investigators . . .                  

The email made no mention of the missing crucial evidence, the phantom slug that killed Joe Floyd Collins.

Suspect Dies of Overdose – Questions Remain        

In another two weeks, in the early morning of November 5, 2010, at age 62 Matt would be pronounced dead at Montgomery County's Conroe Regional Medical Center. Attending physicians said his death was caused by mixing alcohol and a powerful prescription pain medication. Given his many addictions, his death came as no surprise.        

Many questions remain, but a few cry out for answers. Were there other serious blunders or omissions in the investigation of Joe Floyd Collins's murder? Although records aren't public, other sources offer a glimpse into the case.        

Angela DeDear, Collins's step-daughter who responded to my personal want ad andprovided the initial information that resulted in reopening the murder case, noted a potentially huge lapse.Investigators at the crime scene didn't gather the customer tabs that Floyd kept. The names on those credit slips should have been checked by investigators. Could Matt's name have been on one of those slips?         

Angela also recalled that her mother, Patricia Ann Collins, told her that husband Floyd's shotgun, found with him in the liquor store, had been fired. Supporting that assertion, the last sentence in the Chronicle story of October 14, 1984 reads: “Collins is believed to have shot at his assailants but it was not known whether anyone was hit . . .”(Houston Chronicle, “Liquor store owner slain,"Oct. 14, 1984.)          

Asked about the shotgun, Detective A.J. Kelly pleaded ignorance. Had the shotgun been fired and had the assailant indeed been wounded, providing blood evidence that, properly preserved, could have revealed the killer's DNA decades later? Are the remaining case files still intact?         

Norma Zarsky, the customer who first called the Harris County Sheriff's Office and then phoned Patricia Ann Collins, had remained with husband Henry at the liquor store during the investigation. In an interview from her Eastgate home, she said she saw the shotgun in a patrol car at the scene.         

She also said that Harris County Sheriff's Office homicide investigators never contacted her or husband Henry for follow-up interviews.         

So what are the chances that Joe Floyd Collins's murder, plucked randomly from 540 or so cold cases, could be the only Harris County Sheriff's Office case bungled into oblivion? A handful of cases? Or many? Odds greatly favor the notion that other cases lie hidden from public review deep in the cold case freezer for similar embarrassing reasons.         

Finally, what internal checks and balances exist in the Harris County Sheriff's Office to police and punish its own? Could the department's right to seal records from public scrutiny also conveniently shield the Harris County Sheriff's Office from lapses in the quality of its investigations?            

Whatever the answers, the botched investigation into the robbery-murder of Joe Floyd Collins leads to at least one inescapable conclusion:  In a homicide case so riddled with careless miscues and missteps, the Harris County Sheriff's Office rendered itself totally impotent to uphold its sworn duty. Did Floyd's fickle luck or the Harris County Sheriff's Office’s gross negligence cause this law enforcement debacle?  

Guess how Joe Floyd Collins would answer. If only he could.      

Code of Silence

Robbery-homicides are rare at liquor stores in the greater Houston area. A check of archived stories in the Houston Chronicle turned up a single liquor store robbery-homicide from 1985-1990. (Houston Chronicle, “Murder suspect sought,” Dec. 25, 1986.)         

And it occurred in Pasadena just a mile or so from the home of L.R. Matthews, the person of interest in the Joe Floyd Collins robbery-murder case.         

In 1986, just two days before Christmas, a gunman entered P & H Liquor Store at 7341 Spencer Highway, shot owner Eang Peng Ngov in the head and took about $1,000 from the cash register. A Life Flight helicopter flew Ngov, 36, to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston where he died from his wound.         

Just as in the Joe Floyd Collins case, a customer found Ngov bleeding on the floor behind the counter. The Cambodian native had operated the store for 10 years. Besides his widow, he was survived by a 4-year-old child.         

And, like the Collins case, no follow-up news stories of Ngov's death ever appeared, signaling that the case had gone cold.         

In an attempt to learn if the two similar cases were related, this writer contacted the Pasadena Police Department's Detective R.R. Rogge, who alone made up that agency's cold case squad in 2011.         

The writer explained his interest in the case and related details about Collins's murder to the detective.     

At the beginning, Rogge proved helpful, noting that an initial check failed to turn up evidence in the Ngov case. He promised to look deeper.        

When contacted a few weeks later, however, his attitude had taken a one-eighty. His hostile comments indicated he had talked to an unnamed Harris County Sheriff's Office cold case detective about the Collins case.         

Referring to both the Collins and Ngov cases, he admonished the writer that both cases were very old. Dredging them up, he said, might upset survivors. And Matt, the person of interest, had died and could never be prosecuted anyway. Rogge also said that it might be impossible to locate survivors.          

At the time, the Pasadena Police Department's Web site featured four cold cases, three of which were older than both the Collins and Ngov cases.      

And far from upsetting survivors, a basic premise of cold case squads is to solve old crimes and bring closure to survivors. If cold case squads held back due to concern over upsetting survivors, the squads would probably lose the public's confidence.         

As for closing cold cases only through prosecution, any resolution is preferable to no resolution. And finding the likely address and phone number of Ngov’s widow’s took a 10-minute search of an online directory.         

Ngov's autopsy report revealed he had been shot in the head, the bullet passing “through and through.” So the fatal bullet was not found during the autopsy. Detective Rogge would not reveal if the bullet was recovered at the crime scene or whether it remains in evidence files today. 

Perhaps the Ngov case shares yet another similarity to the Collins murder. Like Collins, Ngov too may have been killed by a disappearing bullet. And, like Collins, he may have been the victim of a botched police investigation.

March 11, 2013

Private First Class Bradley Manning

A whistleblower hero to some, a traitor to others, Private First Class Bradley Manning faces a life sentence for turning over hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and intelligence reports about the United States’ mission in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy Web site operated by Australian Julian Assange. 

by Don Fulsom and Avi McClelland-Cohen

U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is cooling his heels in a military prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, where he awaits a military trial for breaching national security by leaking classified war intelligence. The most serious charges are violating the Espionage Act and aiding the enemy. 

Prosecutors preparing to try Manning say they will also introduce evidence showing that Osama Bin Laden himself requested some of the reports Manning is accused of leaking.

If convicted, the 25-year-old Manning—whose trial is set to begin in June 2013—could be imprisoned for the rest of his life. 

An Army intelligence analyst, Manning was arrested in Iraq in May 2010 and accused of disclosing hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and intelligence reports—as well as one video of a military helicopter attack.  Most of this information was furnished to WikiLeaks, an anti-secrecy Web site operated by Australian computer hacker Julian Assange.

In February 2013, Private Manning pleaded guilty to 10 charges related to the misuse of classified information.  The Washington Post reports Manning is expected to be sentenced to 20 years in prison on those charges.

Manning entered the guilty pleas in a crowded courtroom in Fort Meade, Maryland—where he vehemently defended his decision to divulge sensitive documents.  The private said he hoped his leaks would prompt a national debate about what he called America’s fixation on “killing and capturing people.” 

Yet Manning’s reasons for leaking have been ruled off-limits at his coming court-martial.  A U.S. military judge has ruled that the soldier’s motive is not a valid defense.  The London Telegraph notes, however, that Manning’s motive could well be considered as a mitigating circumstance at sentencing—if the private seeks leniency after a conviction.

Before looking more closely at the Bradley Manning story, a quick note on quotations: much of the information presented in this article comes from chat logs between Bradley Manning and a variety of conversation partners. These quotes will not be edited for spelling, grammar, or punctuation. To avoid burdensome notes, designations of [sic] will not be included.

Just who is Bradley Manning?  He’s a young gay man from a broken home who turned to the Army for a chance to succeed.  He became a private who dared to talk back to his superiors—always questioning authority; a hacker, in the pure sense of the word; a leaker—in fact, the largest leaker in history. A whistleblower hero to some, a traitor to others.

Those facts are far less important than the true questions raised by Manning’s story:  When is it appropriate for the government to keep secrets? At what point should one—or is one compelled to—release secrets to which one is privy, for the good of the people? What means are justified to do so? And what, if any, should the punishment be for such a leaker? The answers are elusive in their subjectivity, but by examining the story of a young Army private who became a legendary whistleblower, one cannot help but ask such questions.

Before continuing, it is important to distinguish between the terms “hacker” and “cracker.” The phrase “hacker” has colloquially come to mean what the term “cracker” actually encompasses: an individual who uses technological means to access secret information for malicious purposes—for example, stealing credit card information or accessing private e-mail correspondence. A “hacker,” however, is not necessarily accessing such information for untoward reasons, and may even have a noble goal: for example, to help correct a flaw in security programming—or to free information.

Small of stature, Manning was not a particularly athletic child, but he was incredibly bright and excelled in academics to the point that some noted he might be too smart for his own good. Politically aware from a relatively young age, Manning’s belief set was decidedly interventionist during his adolescent years, and, like many teenage boys, he felt drawn to the military.

Manning and his dad, Brian, were not particularly close.  The elder Manning was verbally abusive to his family—but the father did introduce his son to the C++ programming language at a very young age, and the two bonded over computers. It was, after all, the 1990s, and the Internet was rapidly emerging as the newest and most intriguing of technologies.

It was not unusual for young Bradley to be overcome with bouts of rage—a trend that would continue through his time in the Army. His home life was far from idyllic, and when Brad was 11 years old his parents divorced. During this tumultuous time, the Internet offered him sanctuary unavailable anywhere else. He learned several more programming languages, and grew quite an affinity for personalizing the programming of the video games he played—his earliest hacks.

In the fall of 2007, after spending years wandering aimlessly (though he finished high school while living in Wales with his mother, he never took the exams necessary to apply to university), Bradley succumbed to his father’s pressure and went to see a military recruiter; he enlisted, seeing the military as his last best chance to get a college education—he wanted to study physics.

From the start, it was far from smooth sailing for Private First Class Bradley Manning. He was chronically tardy, talked back to superiors, and as a result was almost always being berated or ordered to do push-ups. Eventually the Army had enough of Manning, and he was on the brink of being released.  But during his time in the discharge unit, he persisted, insisting that he wanted to continue his training. The Army allowed him to, and in 2009, Brad and his unit deployed to Iraq, where he served as an “all source” intelligence analyst. He would be privy to some of the most top-secret information there was regarding the United States’ war efforts.

Manning, stationed at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Hammer, spent his days working in the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) where he analyzed mountains of information regarding the insurgency. The SCIF was less secure than its name would lead one to believe: soldiers made a habit of watching movies or playing games, and—more seriously—writing data to CDs (all of the above being against regulations); this last bit would allow Manning to later smuggle hundreds of thousands of classified documents out of the SCIF on a disc labeled “Lady Gaga.”

Brad did not take what he learned lightly. In a March 8, 2009 chat log, he expressed to a friend, “I’ve got foreign affairs on my mind constantly now. Mexico’s spiraling violence, Pakistan’s instability, North Korea’s rhetorical posturing… blah blah blah. One of the bad parts of the job, having to think about bad stuff.” He began to realize that there was no bright line defining allies and enemies, and the situation in Iraq was actually painted in shades of gray.

Early in Manning’s time overseas, he was assigned a case in which Iraqi citizens were detained for the crime of distributing “insurgent” literature; it turned out the pamphlets were an academic critique of Prime Minister Malaki. Manning would later cite this incident as an early indicator to him that all was not right in the Iraqi occupation: “i had an interpreter read it for me… and when i found out that it was a benign political critique titled ‘Where did the money go?’ and following the corruption trail within the PM’s cabinet… i immediately took that information and *ran* to the officer to explain what was going on… he didn’t want to hear any of it… he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist in finding *MORE* detainees…” This incident struck a deep chord in Manning: “i had always questioned the [way] things worked, and investigated to find the truth… but that was a point where i was a *part* of something… i was actively involved in something that i was completely against…”

Manning’s superiors believed that he might be buckling under the pressure that comes with a high-level security clearance. Due to his emotional outbursts, on more than one occasion—even prior to his deployment—a superior recommended that his security clearance be revoked. But the Army was strapped for skilled analysts, and Manning was allowed to slip through the cracks.

In the meantime, Manning made up his mind. 

The leak was easy, once Manning tracked down Julian Assange (or at least, a way to interact online), founder and head “hacktivist” at WikiLeaks, one Web site in a movement to free any and all information—“freedom of information activists,” as Manning called them. Said Manning later, “No one suspected a thing… [I] listened and lip-synched to Lady Gaga’s Telephone while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history.”

On April 10, WikiLeaks released perhaps the best known of the three-quarters of a million bits of information it had reaped from Manning’s data mine, the Apache helicopter video titled “Collateral Murder.” The video (which can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0) depicts American soldiers shooting at and killing a dozen Iraqis, wounding others—including two children—in the process, which they carried out as routine.

In May 2010, Manning made contact with Adrian Lamo, a former inmate of the federal government’s correctional facilities (he had a penchant for breaking through cyber security systems to access secret information, though he would typically inform the owner of the system afterward), apparently looking for someone to confide in; Lamo had recently been profiled by Wired magazine, and the troubled private reached out to what he thought was a kindred spirit. Lamo gave Manning every indication that he should be trusted—“I’m a journalist and a minister. You can pick either, and treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection.”

Manning introduced himself as “an army intelligence analyst, deployed to eastern Baghdad, pending discharge for ‘adjustment disorder.’” It didn’t take much prying to get Manning to open up. He told Lamo of a “database of half a million events during the iraq war” and 260,000 diplomatic cables “explaining how the first world exploits the third, in detail, from an internal perspective.”

Little did he know (though perhaps he should have suspected), but with every line Manning typed he was providing the government with more evidence against him—because Lamo turned on Manning, betraying him—despite his assurances—to the FBI. Lamo’s motives and subsequent shunning by the hacker community could be a subject for an entire article in and of themselves, but the chat logs between him and Manning provide valuable insight into the young private’s thoughts.

Manning told Lamo he had given classified files to a “white haired aussie” (Julian Assange), and referred to the leak of a classified diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks.  He even bragged a little: “[Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and finds an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format to the public… everywhere there’s a US post… there’s a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed.”

Lamo asked Manning what his ultimate goal was. Manning responded, “god knows what happens now—hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms—if not, then we’re doomed—as a species—I will officially give up on the society we have if nothing happens—the reaction to the [“Collateral Murder”] video gave me immense hope; CNN’s iReport was overwhelmed; Twitter exploded—people who saw, knew there was something wrong… --I want people to see the truth…regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.”

Despite often discussing his emotional strife with Lamo and others, Manning was clearly not motivated by blind anger or a need to act out, but by a desire to provide vital information on what actions the government was taking ostensibly on the public’s behalf. He pointed out to Lamo that he “could’ve sold to Russia or china, and made bank,” but he didn’t because “it’s public data […] information should be free—it belongs in the public domain—because another state would just take advantage of the information… try and get some edge—if it’s out in the open… it should be a public good.”

On May 29, thanks in large part to Adrian Lamo, Bradley Manning was placed under arrest.

In July, WikiLeaks published the “Afghanistan War Diaries,” a vast series of logs from the information Manning had provided, and three months later the “Iraq War Diaries” followed. For the most part, the compendium confirmed what the public already knew: the wars were being fought through wastefulness, abuse of power, and systematic lack of oversight. As a result, atrocities occurred, such as the attacks portrayed in “Collateral Murder” and other leaked videos.

The diplomatic cables also leaked by Manning via WikiLeaks were, for the U.S. government, mostly just embarrassing. That said, Amnesty International hails the boondoggle as a primary catalyst for the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi that sparked the Tunisian uprising, and thus the Arab Spring (which, it should be noted, the United States government has publicly supported as a push for democracy).

A statement by Amnesty’s secretary general says, “The year 2010 may well be remembered as a watershed year when activists and journalists used new technology to speak truth to power and, in so doing, pushed for greater respect for human rights. It is also the year when repressive governments faced the real possibility that their days were numbered.”

During this time, the press took a detour on a story about Julian Assange’s Swedish arrest for sexual assault, and the leaker responsible for freeing all that information sat in the Quantico Brig under MAX custody and on Prevention of Injury (POI) watch, which allowed guards to keep him in solitary confinement, under constant and immediate surveillance, and to strip him naked, among other regulations to which other prisoners were not subject. He was kept in restraints, and whenever he was moved from his cell the entire complex would lock down.

The government has taken steps to not only investigate but to punish Bradley Manning, such as seizing the computers of Manning’s friends and supporters, keeping Manning on POI status for an undue period of time despite the numerous psychiatric recommendations, and even subpoenaing Twitter for information regarding users associated with WikiLeaks. Partially as a result, there has been a massive outpouring of support for Manning.  Rallies and protests have been held, the Bradley Manning Support Network founded, and funds raised for his defense.  

Manning’s lawyer, David Coombs, reports on his blog that—beginning in May, 2011—conditions have improved for his client: “PFC Manning is now being held in Medium Custody.  He is no longer under Prevention of Injury watch and is no longer subjected to harsh pretrial confinement conditions.”

Far more than what will become of Bradley Manning, a more important question is:  what should become of a whistleblower whose alleged criminal behavior opens eyes and—maybe—even sparks a revolution?

The fate of whistleblowers will inevitably become clearer as the Obama administration continues to vigorously prosecute them at all levels—far more, in fact, than any other president in history. What Bradley Manning had to share may just be the tip of the iceberg.

For the Obama administration to play hardball with Manning is right out of President Nixon’s playbook when it came to dealing with the most famous whistleblower in U.S. history, Daniel Ellsberg—who leaked the “Pentagon Papers” in 1971.

The 7,000 pages of classified material the Pentagon official leaked to The New York Times showed that the government had lied to the Congress and the public about the progress of the unwinnable Vietnam War.  Charged as a spy, Ellsberg went on trial and faced 115 years behind bars.  But the charges were dropped in 1973 because of gross governmental misconduct and illegal evidence gathering. Part of the reason for the dismissal of the charges was based on the break-in at the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist on Sept. 3, 1971, by agents in the employ of the White House.

Ellsberg, who is now one of Manning’s strongest supporters, sees great parallels between his case and the young private’s.  As the elder leaker said of his current leaker-hero: “I was that young man; I was Bradley Manning.”

In an interview with CNN, Ellsberg adds:  "I was willing to go to prison. I never thought, for the rest of my life, I would ever hear anyone willing to do that, to risk their life, so that horrible, awful secrets could be known. Then I read those logs and learned Bradley was willing to go to prison. I can't tell you how much that affected me."

American University Professor Chris Edelson—a constitutional law expert—agrees: “I do think there are similarities – Ellsberg, for one, said that he thought Julian Assange was receiving much of the same criticism he had received.  In terms of Manning, the government's treatment of him seems way over the top. I believe the UN special rapporteur for torture expressed concern over the conditions of Manning's incarceration. I think the case also reflects the Obama administration’s approach to whistleblowers/leakers--i.e., to react harshly.”

Background References

Greenwald, Glenn. "The Strange and Consequential Case of Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo and WikiLeaks." Salon. 18 June 2010. Web.

Hansen, Evan. "Manning-Lamo Chat Logs Revealed." Wired.com. 11 July 2011. Web.

Leigh, David. "How 250,000 US Embassy Cables Were Leaked." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 28 Nov. 2010. Web.

Nicks, Denver. Private: Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks, and the Biggest Exposure of Official Secrets in American History. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review, 2012.

Van Buren, Peter. "Obama's War on Whistleblowers." Mother Jones. 12 June 2012. Web.

March 11, 2013

Cardinal Donald Wuerl (Photo: World Tribune)

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of the Washington, D.C. Diocese, has an undeserved reputation as a “zero-tolerance” prelate when it comes to dealing with pedophile priests.

By Michael Volpe

As cardinals from around the world filed into the Sistine Chapel on Tuesday, March 12, 2013, to elect the successor to Saint Peter, a great deal of pre-conclave speculation focused on the possibility of the election of the first American pope in history. The names of three U.S. cardinals were mentioned in a report on NPR’s “Morning Edition” by political reporter Cokie Roberts: Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. Roberts cited Dolan for his telegenic, charismatic personality, O’Malley, a Capuchin Franciscan friar, for his down-to-earth humility, and Wuerl for his “management” expertise. There is a notion that the Vatican needs to undergo a sea change to regain its role as a moral authority, thus the focus on out-of-the-box thinking that might open the door at St. Peter’s to an American prelate. The odds against that happening are extremely long, but having Cardinal Wuerl in the mix may be a reflection of his “zero-tolerance” for pedophile priests that won him public acclaim during his years as a bishop. 

The new Pope will also have to face the charges of mismanagement at the Vatican bank and somehow find a way to move beyond the devastating revelations about the bitter infighting in the Vatican’s central administration known as the Curia. This embarrassing episode was set off in early 2012 when the Pope’s butler leaked an enormous stash of papal documents to an Italian reporter that provided an unprecedented inside look at the dysfunctional workings of the Vatican. Known as VatiLeaks, the expose was, no doubt, among the factors that led to Pope Benedict’s stunning announcement in February that he would end his eight-year reign and become the first pope to resign in nearly 600 years.

But no matter what else the new Pope does, he must be able to move the Catholic Church beyond the priest sex-abuse scandals that have engulfed the church for the last three decades. Other issues are also important, but cleansing the clergy of pedophiles is the most basic challenge the new Pope must meet.

No issue more crippled the papacy of Benedict XVI than his inability to distance himself from the priest sex-abuse scandal. The problem he had was endemic: No one more so than himself had been at the center of the pedophile-priest maelstrom or should feel more responsibility for all the harm its thousands of victims have suffered. From 1981 until he was elected pope in 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was prefect of the Congregation For the Doctrine of Faith – a role that placed him in charge of the Vatican's dealings with all Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse. Cardinal Ratzinger's failure to deal responsibly with that duty has allowed the priest sex-abuse scandal to become the defining issue of his aborted eight-year papacy and very likely the issue that drove him to resign.

The bunker mentality within the Vatican, championed by Cardinal Ratzinger and allowed to persist by Pope John Paul II, was a contagion that spread to Catholic dioceses throughout the United States, Germany and Ireland. In the United States, Catholic cardinals in the archdioceses of Boston, Philadelphia and Los Angeles dutifully followed suit by reassigning known sex-offender priests to other parishes in an attempt to bury the scandal.

Instead of the Vatican disciplining Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law, he was allowed to resign as archbishop and relocate to Rome where Pope John Paul II appointed him archpriest of the Papal Basilica di Santa Mario Maggiore.

Pope Benedict waited five months to accept the resignation of Philadelphia Archbishop Cardinal Justin Rigali after a Philadelphia Grand Jury report accused the archdiocese there of covering up abuse allegations against 37 priests. Monsignor William Lynn did not fare as well for his role in the cover-up. He was convicted in 2012 on the felony count of child endangerment and sentenced to three to six years in prison.

In Los Angeles, where the archdiocese paid out a record $660 million to settle 506 civil cases of child sexual abuse by clergy in 2007, Archbishop Jose Gomez took the unprecedented step of disciplining his immediate predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony, on February 2, 2013 after a California judge forced the archdiocese to release about 12,000 pages of church documents revealing how it handled allegations of abuse. Archbishop Gomez relieved Cardinal Mahony of his public and administrative duties for his mishandling of the priest pedophile scandal during his tenure as archbishop, 1984 to 2011. The Los Angeles Police Department announced that it was examining the documents to determine if new prosecutions were warranted.

The discipline Archbishop Gomez meted out to Cardinal Mahony, however, will not prevent Cardinal Mahony from participating in the election of the next pope despite the fact that a group called Catholics United collected thousands of signatures asking that he recuse himself from the conclave. Not long after Pope Benedict announced his resignation, Cardinal Mahony was in Rome sending tweets from the Vatican: “Good weather forecast for this week in Rome; no rain. Mid 50s during the day, upper 30s at night. Great Holy Spirit weather!!” Prior to departing for Rome, Cardinal Mahony was blogging about the public criticism he has received, comparing it to the public ridicule Christ underwent.

Bishops in smaller dioceses throughout the United States were far from immune to the cover-up syndrome that afflicted large dioceses presided over by cardinals. In October of 2011, the Bishop of the Kansas City-St. Joseph (Missouri) Diocese, Robert Finn, became the first Catholic bishop indicted for covering up sexual abuse by a diocesan priest. In September of 2012, a Jackson County judge found him guilty of the misdemeanor charge of failure to report suspected child abuse in 2012 and sentenced Bishop Finn to two years of unsupervised probation. As an example of how tone deaf the Vatican under Pope Benedict is to the public's disgust with priest pedophilia, Bishop Finn remains in place.

It wasn't as though U.S. bishops as a whole had agreed to stick their collective heads into the sand. In the mid-2000s, the Catholic Conference of Bishops called for a zero-toleration policy on sexual abuse by priests. The bishops proclaimed they were determined to oust all predator priests from ministry. Bishop Finn, it might be said, didn't get the memo, but he was by 2011 walking the denial plank at great risk to not only the children under his care, but to his own career as well. Some other bishops were making a name for themselves by publicly stating their abhorrence to sexual abuse by clergy. Being out front against pedophilia was all of a sudden – and none too early – a good way to gain advancement for an aspiring bishop.

The “Zero-Tolerance” Mantra

Take the case of the aforementioned Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl, who built a "zero-toleration" reputation while serving as the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) from 1988 until 2006. (In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI installed Wuerl as the archbishop of the Washington, D.C. Catholic Diocese. Four years later, Pope Benedict elevated Archbishop Wuerl to cardinal, making him a prince of the Catholic Church.)

Following a six months investigation, Crime Magazine has concluded that the perception that Wuerl is a “zero tolerance” church leader is unwarranted. Instead, this investigation found that Wuerl has repeatedly stood in the way or looked the other way into investigation of suspected child abuse in parishes within the Pittsburgh Diocese.

While the mainstream media have perceived Wuerl one way, the nation’s largest organization of sexual victims of Catholic priests – a group called the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests – does not share that view. David Clohessey, the organization’s executive director, told Crime Magazine that Cardinal Wuerl’scharming and pleasant demeanor has helped him pull the proverbial wool over many people’s eyes.

“He's apparently a very smart and personable man who gets good legal and public relations advice and follows it. (He's the only bishop in the U.S. that I know of who, during the height of the abuse crisis, bought 30 minutes of prime TV time to run what amounted to an infomercial burnishing his record on handling abuse cases.) In each diocese, he's benefited from archaic, predator-friendly laws that prevent all but a few victims from taking legal action to expose men who commit and conceal child sex crimes.”

Whatever the actual perception, Clohessey was clear that Wuerl should not be perceived as fighting for the victims.

“I think Wuerl, like many of his clerical colleagues, worked hard to keep clergy sex crimes concealed, and is likely doing so even now. It's clear that he had his sights set on climbing in the hierarchy and he succeeded, in part I suspect, because he's adept at posturing as a reformer. But with Wuerl, it's more style than substance, at least with child sex crimes.”

Father Anthony Cippola

The case that made Bishop Wuerl’s reputation as a zero-tolerance prelate involved Father Cippola, a case based almost entirely on the accusations of one individual, Tim Bendig, a former seminarian in the Pittsburgh Diocese. Initially, Bishop Wuerl indicated to the media that he’d looked into the matter and found nothing of it. What follows are the first two paragraphs from a Pittsburgh Press article from November 23, 1988 about Cippola’s case and another similar allegation.

“Two recent allegations of sexual misconduct by priests were ‘both prefaced with requests for money,’ according to Donald W. Wuerl, bishop of the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese.

“In both cases, Wuerl said the diocese refused to pay money, investigated the allegations and could find no corroboration.”

Bishop Wuerl changed his mind about Bendig’s allegations against Father Cippola after he found out that similar allegations had been made 10 years earlier against Cippola while he was a parish priest at St. Francis Xavier in Pittsburgh. The complaint was lodged by Diane Thompson. She claimed that her son was sexually abused by Cippola while taking first Holy Communion lessons from him at the parish church. Thompson, who worked at the parish as well, made the complaint within months of the alleged incident.

With this information before him, Bishop Wuerl took another look at the allegations brought by Tim Bendig.

Bendig first accused Cippola of sexually molesting him in November 1988, the year Wuerl was installed as bishop of the Pittsburgh Diocese. What the newspapers didn’t report was that Bendig first made this accusation shortly after the young man had flunked out of the Pittsburgh Catholic Seminary, located in Crafton, Pennsylvania. Something else that wasn’t reported in the press was that Bendig had motivation to lash out at Cippola: Shortly after news of Bendig’s expulsion from the seminary leaked out, Father Cippola told a group of parishioners not to send money to Bendig for this reason. Not long after this Bendig first accused Cippola of molesting him.

Once Bishop Wuerl decided to pursue the child molestation complaints brought by Diane Thompson and Tim Bendig, he initiated proceedings against Father Cippola, petitioning the Vatican’s Congregation of the Clergy under the rules of Canon Law to have the priest removed from ministry. Father Cippola, in his own defense, fought the petition by counter suing the Congregation of the Clergy. The legal back and forth went on until 1995, when the Vatican ruled that Cippola was to be removed from the clergy – not for being a child molester – but because he was suffering from depression and had suicidal tendencies.

It should be noted that no criminal charges were ever initiated against Father Cippola in connection with the child molestation accusations brought by Diane Thompson or Tim Bendig. Crime Magazine spoke briefly with Father Cippola by phone but he refused to give any statements on the record.

A near six-month investigation by Crime Magazine uncovered a major red flag in Wuerl’s investigation of Cippola: Tim Bendig was not a credible accuser. The former seminarian has a history of not always telling the truth. In a deposition related to other charges of sexual abuse Bendig had made against other clergy and fellow seminarians, Bendig was forced to admit that accusations he later made against nine other priests and 14 seminarians were based entirely on rumors and third-hand stories he claimed to have heard. He admitted he was never molested by any of those others he’d accused in this deposition. Crime Magazine emailed Tim Bendig but that email was left unreturned.

Diane Thompson’s accusation was made in 1978. Crime Magazine could not acquire any documentation related to the accusation and her whereabouts are unknown.

In preparation for this article, a message was left for comment for Cardinal Wuerl by Crime Magazine at his Washington D.C. office prior to his leaving for the Vatican, but that message was not returned.

Wolk, Zuta, and Pucci

In the mid 1990’s, after Father Cippola was removed from ministry by the Vatican, reporter Ann Rodgers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette began writing a series of articles featuring Pittsburgh Bishop Wuerl. These articles were largely favorable toward Wuerl and helped immensely in crafting his positive public image. It was surprising that she wrote so favorably about Bishop Wuerl’s handling of pedophile priest because about seven years prior different reporters from the same newspaper filed a number of stories involving a cover-up of child abuse in the Pittsburgh Diocese and in these stories Wuerl was painted as uncooperative.

As Wuerl was first beginning to take over as bishop in Pittsburgh in 1988, three other priests – Robert Wolk, Richard Zuta, and Francis Pucci – were all being investigated by the Washington County District’s Attorney’s Office on suspicion of child molestation. (Pucci was not prosecuted because the statute of limitations had run out. The other two were prosecuted and convicted.) While Wuerl wasn’t head at Pittsburgh while the molestation occurred, the facts only came to light after he’d taken over. According to newspaper accounts at the time, Bishop Wuerl was then accused of being uncooperative with law enforcement authorities investigating the matter. In fact, that’s exactly what the Washington County District Attorney John Pettit, who was responsible for investigating the three priests, said at the time, telling the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “It was not the spirit of cooperation we’d like to see.” Later in the article Pettit depicted the Pittsburgh Diocese’s cooperation with the investigation of the three priests as “minimal at best.”

Father John Wellinger

From 1987-1996, Father John Wellinger was a priest in the Pittsburgh Diocese. Wuerl was his bishop for the last nine of those years. During those years Father Wellinger systematically abused children without drawing any investigation from the Pittsburgh Diocese.  Eventually, in 2004, a 25-person class action law suit was filed against the Pittsburgh Diocese. The petitioners included multiple victims of Father Wellinger. The Pittsburgh Diocese settled the suit by paying $1.2 million in damages to the victims.

Crime Magazine spoke with one of the victims of the abuse who was part of the lawsuit. His name is Chris Mathews and his story was reported repeatedly whenit was first revealed. Matthews told Crime Magazine that he considers Wuerl,“the most evil person I’ve ever met.”

Mathews said that he remembered going directly to Wuerl in the mid 1990s and describing the abuse perpetrated upon him by Father Wellinger in detail. Mathews said that Wuerl listened quietly, politely assuring Mathews that appropriate steps would be taken, and then proceeded to bury Mathews’s accusation.

The accusations Mathews brought to Bishop Wuerl wouldn’t come to light for more than a decade until they were included in the class-action lawsuit. Matthews has been quoted routinely in Pittsburgh papers alleging he was once the victim of child abuse by Wellinger.  Here’s part of a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story from July 7, 2004.

“To test their argument, attorneys for 25 plaintiffs chose the case of the former Rev. John Wellinger, who is accused of molesting 11-year-old Chris Matthews in 1989.

“The Post-Gazette's policy is to withhold the names of victims of alleged sexual abuse, but Matthews, now 26, has given his permission to publish his name. He says the diocese broke a promise to his parents to ‘defrock’ Wellinger. Diocesan officials say Bishop Donald Wuerl forbade Wellinger ever to dress, act or identify himself as a priest again.”

Curiously enough, John Wellinger was already on leave of absence in 1995, when the allegation was first made, and he remained on leave of absence until he formally withdrew from the ministry in 2003. He didn’t participate in any ministerial duties during that time period.

Father James Torquato

Then, there’s the case of James Torquato, who was Bishop Wuerl’s personal secretary for about three years starting in the summer of 1992.

Torquato allegedly abused a young parishioner and the alleged abuse went on for more than seven years, starting in 1990 and ending in 1997. In January of 1998, this young parishioner, who Crime Magazine will not identify, accused Torquato of sexually molesting him in a letter to then Bishop Donald Wuerl. According to this letter, which Crime Magazine has acquired, here’s how the alleged victim described the confrontation:

“Whatever be the case, everything contained in my letter of complaint concerning Father Jim Torquato is completely true. I do not retract a single statement of that January letter. However, my January narrative of Fr. Jim Torquato’s actions was a condensed and abbreviated version. You see, being that I had a planned sabbatical shortly ahead of me, I at least made sure that you would get enough written material about Fr. Torquato in order to show you he is not safe to keep anywhere within arm’s reach of young men.”

The alleged victim then went on to detail how Torquato ingratiated himself in the victim’s life, then initiated physical contact like massages, and eventually manipulated him into molestation.

Here’s how the alleged victim described Torquato’s escalation in his letter to Wuerl.

“Many times I declined [offered massages]. After two or three minutes of conversation he would pause and ask again, ‘Are you sure I can’t do your back?’ He would use a superior tone of voice that implied that he knew better than I did concerning what was best for me. It was an awkward situation.”

Patrick Pontillo, who has known the alleged victim for more than two decades, acted as an advocate during much of the ordeal. Pontillo is a local entrepreneur and was a parishioner in the same church as the accuser.

In an interview with Crime Magazine, Pontillo described in more detail his connection to Cardinal Wuerl, and specifically the alleged child molestation and cover-up there of the long-time secretary to Wuerl, James Torquato.

“I knew Torquato's accuser-to-be for four and a half years, before I was informed of what was transpiring over a several year period. At the time when Torquato was reported, I and Torquato's accuser-to-be were allied with each other in the quest to start a movement to end America’s cooperation with foreign sweatshop labor profiteering.  

“Torquato didn't want me to have any influence on the young adult at all.  So, almost immediately after Torquato met me, Torquato continuously started to call the home of the young adult male trying to gain influence and subsequently reduce my own influence.  This set off the red flag in the mind of Torquato's soon-to-be accuser.  Shortly afterward,Torquato's accuser let me know what was going on with him.”

Instead, said Pontillo, the alleged victim was retaliated against. This included, said Pontillo, the victim’s uncle losing a number of contracts with the Pittsburgh Diocese. The victim’s uncle had made an agreement for the Pittsburgh Diocese to purchase a number of Amway products. The contracts were worth a few thousand dollars

According to a report filed with Pittsburgh Police Department, the victim’s place of residence was also ransacked by agents who appeared to be acting as agents for a priest. Here’s the pertinent portion.

“(I) heard a noise a like a bunch of people jumping up and down – a lot of screaming. They were yelling things like: ‘Mike, come out and come home. It will be all right; we’ll forgive you. You’re a good boy, Mike. You’re going to heaven.’”

Pontillo said that the accusations against Torquato were never properly investigated and he remains a priest in the Catholic Church to this day. Torquato currently is located in Rankin, Pennsylvania where he is the pastor of St. Basil’s Church.

The Shooting of Adam Ference

Mike Ference’s son, Adam, was shot in the back of the head on December 5, 1989 by Bob Butler. Butler was a 15-year-old sophomore while Adam was a 16-year-old junior in Serra Catholic High School at the time of the attempted murder. According to Mike Ference, the shooter raised the gun to within inches of his son’s head and at point blank range pulled the trigger once. The shooter then turned the gun on himself, fired one shot into his head and probably died instantly.

Both boys were rushed to the emergency room of a nearby hospital. Adam Ference would be air-lifted to a trauma unit at Presbyterian University Hospital in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, now known as University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). He would undergo emergency neuro-surgery for hours before eventually returning home with little more than minor peripheral vision damage to one side of his brain. The trauma, however, would remain with Adam and his family members

Almost immediately after the attempted murder of his son, Mike Ference attempted to find the truth and understand why his son’s shooter did what he did. His investigation would eventually lead him to suspect that the primary reason behind Bob Butler’s unexplainable shooting of his son was a result of Father John Wellinger sexually abusing Butler when he was an altar boy.

It wasn’t easy for Ference to come to this theory. Ference began his search by meeting on a regular basis with then Clairton Public Safety Director William Scully, who played an active role in the shooting investigation, working with McKeesport police to begin to piece things together.

As time went by, Ference said that Scully’s demeanor changed. Ference said that in January, 1990, Scully began to tell him that the entire case was being botched and that the McKeesport police had deliberately quashed the case. In January of 1990, Scully met with Mike Ference and his wife to share notes and his thoughts on why the case had been quashed.

Here’s what Ference said occurred in this meeting. First, Scully alleged that the shooter may have been molested by Father John Wellinger when he was an altar boy at St. Clare of Assisi Parish in Clairton, Pennsylvania in the late 1980s when Wellinger was an assistant priest at the parish. Scully gave the father notes and plenty of information to conduct his own investigation, including the name of a teenage boy from Holy Spirit Church in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania who Scully alleged was provided with drugs and alcohol by Wellinger. Wellinger was then the parish priest at Holy Spirit Church in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania.

Ference also said that Scully also admitted that he was too scared to go to the proper authorities to report his findings for fear he would lose his job.

Since that meeting, Ference said that he has tried without much success to get the whole truth behind his son’s attempted murder. Ference tried everything. He went to the media, the Pennsylvania State Police, FBI, Governor’s Office, U.S. senators, his congressman, state representatives, and even Wuerl himself. Ference contends that the McKeesport Police Department and the Pittsburgh Diocese ignored what he believes is evidence that Wellinger had molested Butler, and that it was this molestation that led to Butler shooting his son.

For the Catholic Church to dig out from under the priest-abuse scandal it will take more than paying hundreds of millions of dollars to the victims. It will take prelates such as Cardinal Donald Wuerl to atone for past lapses in protecting children from predatory priests by actually instituting – not simply mouthing – zero-tolerance policies.

March 18, 2013

"I am the bullet in the chamber.  Just do it".-- Nike sports advertisement featuring Oscar Pistorius

Oscar Pistorius’s rise to world fame was as unlikely as his arrest for the shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

By Binoy Kampmark

It remains to be seen whether this will become a crime of its own singular description, or yet another point of comparison in terms of previous acts of brutality.  Will it be deemed South Africa’s O.J. Simpson trial, with its lashings of bloodlust voyeurism that finds form in evidence, exposures, and innuendo?  The suggestions are that this has already begun, despite the fact that the trial is scheduled to start on June 4. The alleged murder of the model and self-appointed spokeswoman against domestic violence Reeva Steenkamp by the Parlympian Oscar Pistorius is something the analysts and commentators find magnetic. More than bullets were fired the day Steenkamp was killed behind the locked door of the Blade Runner’s bathroom.

Reeva Steenkamp and Oscar Pistorius

What stands out here is that Pistorius betrayed the image he was bestowed with.  Some of this was his doing, others distinctly not.  The evolution of a cult figure involves tweaking and adjustments.  The processes behind that are not always clear.  A series of catalysts are required, and adulation can rapidly turn to loathing.  He, for instance, became the defiant model on the sporting field, and invariably off it.  He was superhuman, yet not human in attempting to deal with his physical limitations.  For the first time in Olympic history a sporting personality competed against full bodied athletes on their own terms after a battle against officialdom.  This was muscle against adversity, physical triumph as a moral value. 

Pistorius, who told arriving police he shot Steenkamp suspecting an intruder, has fed an insatiable appetite for public consumption and media frenzy.  Pistorius is no longer an accused so much as a freak being, a cipher for anxiety, frontier mentalities and sanguinary lust.  He overcame disability, but did so mechanically through the use of “blades.”  He showed a history of previous violence.  He had a liking for military gear and fantasies of confronting intruders.  He has now been deemed capable of anything, and shooting Steenkamp may end up being an all out symbol of national psychoses, an act undertaken as a violent, anti-social impulse in a violent, anti-social community. If that be the song of the land, then sing it.

The Superhero

Oscar Pistorius

Pistorius became a talismanic athlete, a meritocrat of sorts.  Clare Forrester, writing in the Jamaica Observer (February 27, 2013), gives a sense of that levelling, and ultimately transcending power.  “Here was the supreme poster child for courage and determination, whom Grenada’s 400 metres gold medallist at the London 2012 Olympics Kirani James described as “special although he had finished last.”  But in so doing, he did not merely become the man who triumphed on the field but off it. He was the person who challenged the ruling by the International Association of Athletics that he could not run with other athletes on the basis that his Flex-Foot Cheetah prosthetic legs gave him an unfair competitive advantage.  It was a statement against physical segregation in the sport.  It was also a stance that got the scientists chatting.  He became more than the model athlete, but a model person, the odds in the lottery of life overcome with mind numbing determination. 

It was not merely that he was fast, but he was the world’s fastest double amputee, speedy despite that impediment.  Accounts of his early years seem in awe, as if bearing witness to the exploits of a divine: unable to walk as an infant, born without fibulas, legs amputated below the knee when he was a mere 11 months old, and competing at 12 with other boys in rugby (Scientific American, Jul 24, 2012). In a cover story, the New York Times Magazine described him as “The Fastest Man on No Legs.”  The aura of immortality was stretched even further by suggestions by a German team in 2007 that Pistorius used 25 percent less energy than natural runners.  Blame it, it seemed, on Össur, the Icelandic company behind the prosthetic.  Hilmar Janusson, executive vice president of research and development at the company, certainly did his bit to add to the reputation.  “When the user is running, the prosthesis’s J curve is compressed at impact, storing energy and absorbing high levels of stress that would otherwise be absorbed by a runner’s ankle, knee, hip and lower back.”

The debate about the physicality of Pistorius, its potent power, even its dangers, a mixture of machine and man, of prosthetic being and superhuman effort, was well in place before the killing of Steenkamp.  He troubled the scientists, the sports officials, the administrators and he startled his fellow sporting personalities.  A star-studded scientific team investigated this seemingly astonishing physical anomaly.  Peter Weyand, a physiologist at Southern Methodist University, Rodger Kram from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Hugh Heer, himself a double amputee and known biophysicist, “measured Pistorius’s oxygen consumption, his leg movements, the forces he exerted on the ground and his endurance” (Scientific American, July 24, 2012).  The Journal of Applied Physiology published their findings, noting that Pistorius was “physiologically similar but mechanically dissimilar.”  Here was a beautiful monster at work.

The public comments to the article in the Scientific American are also revealing.  Should a sports person, in fact, have an advantage in becoming prosthetic in competition?  What is deemed a disadvantage – amputation – is superseded by mechanical improvements. One blog post wonders whether the Pistorius precedent is an unhealthy one, effectively encouraging athletes to amputate themselves and become “blade runners” where physical exertion was reduced by virtue of technological trickery. “I would not like to be discouraging, but artificial legs would seem to not have a place in the world’s top physical competition” (Post on July 24, 2012).

He was, in effect, of this world, and yet of some other.  He was “Blade Runner,” a creature of scientific, if not pure mythology, a term of reference that was itself suggestive: Was Pistorius himself a reminder of a dystopian robotic tradition, one that was half expecting Rick Deckard to turn up and “retire” him?

Doing no right

Pistorius found himself in the company of dethroned demigods.  Lance Armstrong, who at one point was not only considered invincible but squeaky clean, found his own character diminished after allegations of dope taking prior to his victories at the Tour de France. His stoic front of denial seemed like an affirmation of innocence rather than concealment of guilt, for a time.  But resistance receded, and mortality was admitted.  The condition of deposing the idealized seemed ubiquitous – the voice behind the children’s series “Sesame Street,” Elmo, was accused of sexual misconduct.  Saints were being scratched and found to be sinners.  The Brown Daily Herald (February 25, 2013) put it in a trite fashion.  “When we create these superhuman personas – whether athletes, musicians or the like – we lose sight of the realities of being a person with both strengths and flaws.”  Avoid, advised the news outlet, any form of deification.

From here on in, Pistorius could do no right. He broke an unspoken social contract.  He has become stuck in a nightmarish morality tale, unleashing interpretations like abundant puss from a boil.  The Daily Mail, the UK’s top muck machine after Rupert Murdoch’s unscrupulous The Sun, reported that a herbal remedy in tablet form was found in the bedroom of the accused containing 23 ingredients, among them “pig testicles, pig heart, pig embryo and pig adrenal gland, cortisone, ginseng and other botanicals.”  The QMI Agency ran with the headline, “Substance found in Oscar Pistorius home contained pig testicles.” The resume of Pistorius the demon figure expands.  He is suggestively half-human, ingesting substances that would boost performance, transforming him into a sexually rapacious creature and narcissistic sports star.

A striking parallel to this is O.J., America’s own celebrated satyr, a vicious channelling for primal violence, the mad man who can do no right. He overdosed on cocaine, claimed an article for the National Inquirer, and abused his girlfriend Christie Prody.  He might have been acquitted, but that is a mere technicality.  He has fed a collection of perceptions. 

The cover of Time, almost crude in its suggestiveness, brings about this transformation in full.  From “man to superman to gun man” it suggests, showing a less than human Pistorius, legs absent yet entirely capable on his prosthetic supports, a menacingly strong torso taut at the ready, a monstrosity that may kill, necessarily or otherwise.  The athlete would not be out of place in Greek mythology, a centaur, a Lapinth perhaps chiselled on a metope of the Parthenon and then carted off to the British Museum.  This is the true mythologising of violence, and Time does its best, through the piece by Alex Perry, to draw out the figures of rape and murder in South Africa, a land populated by such beasts of violence. 

Two separate surveys of the rural Eastern Cape are cited by Perry, revealing that 27.6 percent of men surveyed admitted to being rapists, with 46.3 percent of victims being under 16.  For those interested, figures on abuse of other age groups are also documented.  “What really distinguishes South Africa from its peers in this league of violence is not how the violence rises with inequality nor its sexual nature – both typical of place with high crime – but its pervasiveness and persistence.”  This is South Africa as a sick patient, one howling for help, but like Pistorius, a centaur run wild, a society exceptional for its violent proclivities.

The latest news on his state of mind has also fed the idea of the doomed character struck down by the Gods.  Mike Azzie, a friend of the athlete, claimed on the BBC3 documentary Oscar Pistorius: What Really Happened? that the man is “on the verge of suicide.” He is now moving into that other facet of transformation – into the world of the mad. “He has no confidence in his tone of voice and he is just a man that is almost like someone that is walking around in circles and doesn’t know where he is going.”  This does not dent his confidence, if the documentary is credible in any sense.  To a senior officer who explained to Pistorius on being arrested that he “could go to jail for a very long time,” his reply was dismissive.  “I’ll survive. I always win.”

At the end of the article printed in The Australian describing Pistorius’s alleged mental state are a series of numbers for those with “depression” (contact Beyond Blue); those with “emotional difficulties” (contact Lifeline); and those with what can only be presumed to be mixture of them (SANE).  From deification, Pistorius has become a case study in mental ruination, the violently mad. 

Domestic violence

Another suggestion in the Pistorius affair, pitches Jina Moore in The Atlantic (March 1, 2013), is that of domestic violence with its accompanying apologetics.  For Moore, this is less cultural than individual, a context lost in the broader picture of the man and his times.  She implies that grand narratives may not have a place in dealing with Pistorius.  She is not sure, but she suggests it.  It’s the man’s problem, and violence is to be found less in a milieu than it is to be found in Homo sapiens, or at least this male specimen.  Where, she complains, was the domestic violence specialist in Perry’s story for Time?

In this view, Moore pinches a thread that has grown in the literature on domestic violence, taking issue with readings such as those of Michel Foucault of the Pierre Riviere case.  The bone of contention here is whether such violence can be given the collective brush.  In Riviere’s case, a 20-year-old Normandy peasant slaughtered his mother, sister and little brother with a pruning hook in June 1835.  His father was spared, largely because the killings were done to liberate him.  “I have just delivered my father from all his tribulations. I know that they will put me to death, but no matter.”  His death sentence was commuted by the King, largely due to the intervention of Parisian psychiatrists. 

The impressions the killer left about his mother were vicious.  His parents lived apart. The elder Riviere was considered of “mild and peaceable disposition” while his mother was considered oppressive and manipulative.  He feared that French society had fallen into the hands of women since the Revolution. He was plagued by nightmares of incest.  In the events of such killings, suggested Foucault, one could not neglect the sensationalist criminal literature of the time, nor the state of the medical profession in treating the “mentally ill” with their competing “discourses.” 

Fellow participants in the famous seminar Foucault convened on the subject of Riviere’s killings, published in I, Pierre Riviere, Having Slaughtered My Mother, My Sister, and My Brother (1975), had their own take about the violence.  Jean-Pierre Peter and Jeanne Favret praised Riviere as a rebellious figure who revolted against the exigencies of peasant life yet demanding the state kill him justly “and not let him rot.”  This was crime as justified transgression, an act on the part of the socially invisible.  That he should be denied death because of faulty “psychiatry” lay in the false promise of bourgeois humanism.

Not so, claimed subsequent critics, who could detect a more than lurking sexist undertone, a praise of domestic murder.  Could the case have simply been one of standard domestic violence turned murderous?  Julie Marcus scolds Foucault for ignoring gender in the case, discounting the killer’s fears of female incest and female animals.  For Marcus, Riviere was effectively a mother-hating killer.  The Pistorius example may nod at something in that direction, if one is to take Moore’s position.  His past has been dug up; his behavior has been seen in light of other celebrities who have succumbed to gendered brutality.  His copy book is blotted.

Students of women’s studies have certainly found the Pistorius case befuddling.  Rosemarie Garland-Thompson, professor of women’s studies and English at Emory University, saw Pistorius lumped in with other unsavory company, a reverse pantheon of the fallen: Mike Tyson, Charlie Sheen, Kobe Bryant, Mel Gibson, Jovan Belcher “and perhaps most controversially of all, O J Simpson… As our collective image of him shifts from admired athlete to girlfriend killer, something important has been lost” (Al Jazeera, March 14, 2013). 

Garland-Thompson’s legitimate and well spotted fear is that the contagion of violence, the suggestion of angst-driven misogyny, might be linked to the anger, the frustrations, the limitations of one with disability, be it mental or physical. 

What is revealing about Garland-Thompson is that the law does not so much matter less than the issue of “identification.”  Referring back to the O J Simpson trial, she was reminded of the reactions of her own class when raising the case.  Some supported a verdict of guilty against Simpson on the basis of history’s injustices against women.  Others in turn supported a verdict of not guilty on the basis of black injustices in the country.  With such perceptions, facts recede into a dim distance.  One is guilty or innocent less on evidence than on identity.

Frontier themes

Pistorius seen as a collective expression of violence, the internalised fears of a race on the run, has been a popular theme.  The Economist editorialised (October 7, 1995) in sharp fashion on the Simpson trial, using a title that might as well apply to South Africa, albeit with qualification.  “Two nations, divisible,” it suggested. Themes of division for the paper were based on growing polarization.  Was Steenkamp a victim of South Africa’s own polarized communities, the collateral sacrifice in a terrified, gated community?

Pistorius’s justification was one of self-defense, making the home seem a vicious, internalised frontier needing an aggressively vigilant regime of protection.  If the authorities of the day don’t fulfil that role, private citizens will.  “Nothing like getting home to hear the washing machine on and thinking it’s an intruder to go into full combat recon mode into the pantry,” posted Pistorius on Twitter in November.  The Afrikaners find themselves in electrified gated communities conducting a war with the natives in manner both metaphorical and actual. This is a conflict which has never stopped since the Boers settled.

The views of Pistorius’s father, Henke, were a perfect illustration of that sentiment.  Evading matters directly concerning the case of his own son, he preferred to place the blame on the shoulders of the ANC government.  A spotlight was shone on the vast array of arms owned by the Pistorius family.   “Some of the guns are for hunting and some are for protection: the hand guns.  It speaks to the ANC government. Look at white crime levels, why protection is so poor in this country.”  According to the Afrikaans-language newspaper Beeld, Henke, Oscar’s grandfather Hendrik, and his uncles Arnold, Theo and Leo owned an impressive collection of 55 shotguns and handguns between them (Telegraph, March 4, 2013).  ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu retorted accordingly, rejecting “with contempt” the claim that the government was indifferent in protecting the white population.  “Not only is this statement devoid of truth, it is also racist. It is sad that he has chosen to politicize this tragic incident that is still fresh in the minds of those affected and the public.”

Crime rates, it might be argued, were kept artificially low during the era of apartheid, when the white regime patrolled white areas with keen scrutiny.  Segregation may have been formally repudiated under the South African Constitution, but the instinctive reactions of division have not.  Official political statistics show a fall in crime in South Africa by 31.8 percent from 2004-5 to 2011-12, with the murder rate dropping by 27.6 percent (BBC News, March 5, 2013). 

It is ironically fitting then that the killing should happen against one from the same community, notably soon after the victim Steenkamp would tweet that she “woke up in a happy safe home this morning.  Not everyone did.  Speak out against the rape of individuals.”  (This tweet, incidentally, riled Moore, who considered it the myopic twaddle of a confused individual ignorant of sexual assault.) 

In South Africa, discussion around Pistorius’s alleged wrong doing have assumed the form of a parable.  “He will have to live with his conscience,” advanced Steenkamp’s father, Barry.  “But if he is telling the truth, I might perhaps be able to forgive him one day.  However, if it didn’t happen as he tells it, he must suffer.  And he will suffer; only he knows” (Sunday Times, February 24, 2013). But the Pistorius affair reveals that the ingredients for his downfall were already present.  Despite being a double amputee, he was a superhuman creature, a variant of primitive mythology and science fiction.  He was all powerful, yet prone to weakness. He was violent and to be feared. He was courageous but ultimately weakened by misogyny.  And finally, he became a victim, even before the court has judged his innocence, of cultural interpretations.   

March 25, 2013

Roger Caryl aka Tex McCord

Roger Caryl was a tragedy in the making. Bullied in high school, he set off after graduation to become a cowboy in the Wild West. In short order he was broke and on the verge of being fired from the only ranch where he ever worked when he gunned down four people. A massive manhunt pursued him from Montana to Florida.                

by Kim Walker

Let me tell you the story of Tex McCord. He began life as Roger Caryl and early on became a denizen of Mount Zion, Illinois. The welcome sign at the village limits promised “a glowing past and a brighter future,” but not for Roger.

It was the same setting where nearly every day of high school Roger suffered the indignity of his books being jerked, thrown and kicked from his hands. Papers floated down three flights of stairs, sent careening kung-fu style, just like our TV hero, David Carradine.

Roger Caryl’s one yee-haw happy hey-day each year was the annual Fall Festival, where he insisted people call him “Tex” and he became sheriff for a day. He wore a badge and boots and had the power to arrest people and put them in a phony hoosegow. Tex quickly made up for lost time and exacted vendettas worthy of a Louis L’Amour novel. 

The night he graduated high school, Roger Caryl told his parents he was going camping in southern Illinois. Instead, “Tex” followed his life-long dream and moved west.

There he would re-invent himself on a dude ranch in Montana as Tex McCord, after a fabled 19^th-century bandit. Seventeen-year old Caryl told people he was a Vietnam vet and a U.S. Marine. He claimed to be an experienced cowhand from a large ranching family in Texas. 

The Legend

The next time his hometown heard of Tex McCord was when four innocent people wound up dead one Sunday morning on the Whitetail Ranch outside Helena (TEENAGER SOUGHT FOR FOUR KILLINGS-HELMVILLE, Montana. UPI, October 9, 1973). 

According to sources, the bloodbath happened in the ranch house kitchen, where Tex returned home after several days on the range to find someone had “messed with his dog.” So he killed them.  In his home town paper, friends expressed surprise at the Caryl’s violent outburst.  “Roger loved everything.  He loved animals, and he loved trees…”But those accounts were only partly correct.   

The truth was that Roger Caryl was in trouble. He’d wrecked the ranch owner’s truck, and was ordered to dig a grave for the owner’s dog.  Caryl had shot and killed the owner’s dog – not the other way around – only days before he started killing people.  Tex was about to be kicked off the only ranch where he’d ever lived, and he was teetering on the edge. It was the last order John Miller would ever give Roger Caryl.       

When Tex strode into the ranch kitchen that morning he was carrying a shotgun and holding a revolver and had two knives in his belt. Tex’s employer, 23-year-old John Miller, was holding his baby. Miller shoved the baby onto a table and ducked under it. Tex shot Miller on the way down, and again in his hiding place while Miller’s wife, Roberta, watched in horror. When the cook, 62-year-old Ruby Judd, tried to wrestle the weapons from Tex, he shot her dead.  Roberta claimed Tex tried to kill her too, but missed. 

Two men already lay dead outside – Samuel Akins, 42, and his 18-year-old son, Stephen.

And this is where the story intertwines with yours truly. For you see, I was one of the boys who made “sport” of Roger, kicking the books from his hands and teasing him without mercy for wanting to be Tex McCord.

The Manhunt

In January of 1974, mere weeks after the killings, I was running sound on a film location in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The crew went to a local club one night, and on the way to the restroom I was shocked to find hanging an FBI wanted poster for escaped convict, Roger G. Caryl, aka Tex McCord.

The “legend” was growing. An ex-Eagle Scout, McCord had made his way across the Continental Divide with only a Buck knife. Highway checkpoints set every two miles across the rugged Rockies, and 140 volunteer “vigilantes,” were not enough to contain him. The FBI poster warned McCord was sighted in the Ft. Lauderdale area, and should be considered armed and dangerous.   

Back at Mount Zion High, friends of Tex were petitioning the governor of Montana, Thomas L. Judge. There must be some mistake. Roger was a good ole’ boy, and he must be taken alive, etc., etc.  

Roger’s father, James Caryl, said something else again, “If they have to shoot him, they just have to…  I hope they get him before he hurts anyone else...” 

But within days, as the dragnet was thought to be tightening around his boy, Roger’s father changed his mind. His dad now hoped Roger would live long enough to tell “his side” of the story.

Meanwhile, a small group of friends gathered in a dorm room at Watterson Towers on the campus of Illinois State University-Normal. Twenty-eight floors above the Illinois prairie, the towers were the highest dorms in the world, and freshmen who lived there were among the highest on earth – which in 1974 was saying something.

On this evening, an ominous storm cell crept across the western sky like black carpet-bombing of Cambodia. 

The students gathered that night were all graduates of Mount Zion High School. They knew Roger Caryl, and they knew Tex McCord. They knew he had escaped with six weapons ranging from a Derringer to a 7mm-magnum bore rifle with scope. Still, they sat smugly in their college dorm, “talking smart” and watching the storm from the safety of the towers.

Suddenly, heat lightening splashed across Dan Dagen (not his real name) in a dark corner, pulling his head off a horrendous bong hit. His long hair smothered in smoke, Dagen looked like a monk in self-immolation, drinking kerosene and smoking dynamite. 

The overhead lights glitched, and the towers shuddered in the wind, causing Dagen to sneeze, spew, and “oink” the dangerous ditch-weed in one snot-filled blast. 

“Aaarrrgh!” Dagen roared, coming up for air. “That fucker!”

For you see, Dan Dagen was the main tormentor of young Roger Caryl, now Tex McCord. The same crazy cowboy sought for killing four innocent people for much less; still loose after an FBI manhunt spanning several weeks and seven states.

And Dagen knew the score. No amount of marijuana could change that history, those facts, or that Karmic “debt.” Roger Caryl was coming for Dan Dagen – he was convinced.

Back-story

Dagen was my best friend from first grade. We grew up on streets where an actual lynching occurred – not while we lived there, but the vestige remained.

His sister was my babysitter. Dagen was a fan of Dare Devil comics, The Munsters, My Mother the Car, and my favorite, Top Cat.  I signed my papers “T.C.” in first grade and he signed his “Benny,” even though he was neither short nor chubby, naïve or especially cute. 

Dagen’s family was the first to have a color TV.  His dad, “Big Mike” Dagen, was our village’s first constable. Little Dan was not a bad sort—not at all – but he had a thing about Roger Karl that evolved into a blood feud. 

The Dagens lived next to the railroad track. No more than 12 feet from rails dissecting the farming and factory town of Mount Zion. Trains scrambled their picture of “Bonanza,” and made glass rattle in their gun cabinet. 

There’s a lot you might infer about pot-smoking having made Dan Dagen paranoid. I’d say that’s bullshit.

A known killer looking to settle a “score” from high school would scare some, but Dagen wasn’t easily rattled.  Still, it’s not like he could call home and tell his law-and-order pop what he’d done to “Tex” in high-school. There was no 9-1-1, and with a dorm-room full of pot, calling campus police was out of the question.

When they finally squared off in high school, the tension was palpable. In the interest of the historic record, this is from a recent correspondence with Dan Dagen.

Here is what I remember about Tex Carl.  He had done something to (a friend, Danny), can't remember exactly anymore what it was, pushed Danny, teased him about his hair, called him a name, but I had to stick up for him.  Tex was walking down the hall carrying his books and I came up behind him and knocked all of the books out of his hand, sending them flying across the floor.  He turned around and gave me a look that could kill (little did I know, huh?).  We had a mano-a-mano stare down.  Tex backed down, picked up his books and we went on our separate ways.

Across the Great Divide – The Code and the Trail to Crazy Man (sic)

Like many legends, crossing the Rockies with a Buck knife was both exaggerated and understated. 

The reality was worse. Tex was a teenager toting a large bore rifle with telescopic sights built to bring down big game. The 7mm weapon caused one deputy to say Caryl “could blow a man’s head off at 500 yards.” 

Sheriff David J. Collings worked one of the many outposts running north-south between U.S. 12 and Montana 200. He was the source of Caryl entering the kitchen of the dude ranch holding a shotgun on his hip, and a pistol and a couple of knives in his belt.  

Collings explained how Tex first shot the two men he shared a cabin with, then killed the ranch manager and the cook.  But, not till after McCord told his victims, “I have a few hellos for you and here's a hello from Tex McCord,” did he begin blasting away. Official accounts said John Miller either shoved his baby on the table or a chair.  Caryl shot Miller twice with a shotgun at close range, but the gun-blasts somehow missed the baby. The exact sequence of events was “confused,” even to witnesses, but McCord’s legend was already cold-blooded.     http://mt.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19751212_0000213.MT.htm/qx

That night Roger Caryl slept in a nearby ranch house, but not until he’d cut the phone lines.  Deputies didn’t know why. Perhaps he wanted a sound night’s sleep.

Newspapers across the nation bugled that Caryl, an Eagle Scout, had escaped carrying six weapons. He was being chased by airplanes and tracking dogs. Deputies warned that McCord was a skilled outdoorsman and a crack shot. 

Two days later a truck was reported stolen near Helena, 30 miles due west of where Caryl disappeared into the mountains. Hotels in Helena filled to capacity when local ranchers chose to spend the night in town instead of coming face to face with Tex McCord.

Roger Caryl, aka Tex McCord, was finally caught in February of 1974 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  It was less than a month and barely a mile from my sighting of the wanted poster. Police were tipped by a citizen recognizing his poster from the local Post Office.

Roger’s father and friends got their wish. He was taken alive and would live to tell his story. 

The Trial

Roger Caryl pled not guilty by reason of insanity. His defense focused on the claim that he was not responsible for his acts “because of mental disease or defect.” 

Caryl testified that the night before the killings he drank some whiskey and took a "red" (i.e., a nonprescription drug), and got "bombed." He could remember nothing until days later, when he stopped at a motel in southern Montana.

Roger Caryl did not deny the killings. He claimed “a state of mind incapable of forming the specific intent required to constitute the crimes” (from court documents obtained online). 

So, the court was asked to consider testimony concerning Caryl’s sanity. This testimony consisted of “events, attitudes and relationships during his childhood and during his employment at the Whitetail ranch coupled with expert opinion evidence from psychologists, a social worker, and a psychiatrist concerning the presence or absence of mental disease or defect.”

Standard crime procedural. 

Roger G. Caryl was born on September 3, 1955 in Japan where his father was in the Air Force.  From an early age he became obsessed with the "Old West," cowboys and gunfighters. He wore western clothes, cowboy boots, and talked with a drawl. He became fascinated with early Texas history, southerners, and the Confederacy. 

In school, Caryl graduated with average grades. From time to time he became a “disciplinary problem” resulting in temporary suspensions. Through high school, Caryl spent progressively less time at home and became more isolated from his parents. 

When Roger left home in August of 1973, he headed west with a high school friend. It’s not clear whether they were bound for Texas, but they ended up at the Whitetail Ranch near Ovando, Montana, 75 miles northwest of Helena. He told them his name was Texana Jess McCord, “apparently from a television program,” that he was from Texas where his folks had a ranch; that he was an experienced cowboy; that he had been wounded in Vietnam while serving with the U.S. Marines; and many other “fantasies of the same general tenor.” 

Soon Caryl was considered a braggart and a liar by many of those at the Whitetail ranch. 

In reality, Roger Caryl’s family had a few small ponies on a five-acre plot of land in central Illinois. Testimony at his trial surfaced that Caryl was never paid for his work at the Montana ranch. He was behind in his car payments. He’d damaged his employer's truck when he ran it off the road. Caryl had been given three traffic citations in town, which were unpaid and further action was threatened. And, for reasons never published, he had shot his employer's dog.

Testimony revealed his employer, John Miller, was going to discharge him and have Tex removed from the premises. Everyone knew it, but it never happened. And it was the incident with the dog that hounded him…

Junk Science

According to his trial testimony, Caryl “began worrying” on the Saturday night before the Sunday morning shootings. He went to the bunkhouse and began to drink. The two Akins and a "long haired" friend appeared at the bunkhouse; the "long hair" gave Caryl a "red" which he swallowed. The defendant went outside "bombed" and does not remember anything further until a couple of days after the shootings.

After charges were filed, court records state Roger Caryl was extensively examined and tested over a four-week period at the Warm Springs State Hospital. Caryl was also examined and tested by a psychologist retained by the defense. 

The principal testimony on behalf of the state was given by Dr. M. F. Gracia, a psychiatrist at the Warm Springs State Hospital. His diagnosis of defendant was: “without mental disorder; episodic excessive drinking; passive-aggressive personality; drug dependence, psycho-stimulants (reds); social maladjustment; unsocialized aggressive reaction of adolescence.”

Perhaps Roger Caryl worried because he had much to worry about.  He might be headed to the hoosegow. When most young men wore bell bottoms and talked like Sly Stone, Roger Caryl had a drawl and looked like a cross-eyed Gene Autry. He insisted people call him “Tex.” And now, some shrink had just called him out on his “so-called mental disorder.” 

Dr. Gracia concluded on behalf of the State:

(1) that defendant had the capacity to understand the proceedings against him and to assist in his own defense; (2) at the time of the criminal conduct charged, defendant had the ability to appreciate the criminality of his conduct and to conform to the requirements of law; and (3) that the defendant possessed the capacity to have the particular state of mind which is an element of the offenses charged.

On the other side, the defense called Dr. Lester W. Edens, a psychologist, who gave his report and testimony on the defendant's mental state. On the basis of testing and examination, Dr. Edens concluded:  "…it is the impression of this examiner that this patient is characterized as a personality disorder of a non-psycotic (sic) nature.”

Specifically, the diagnosis would read personality disorder, anti-social personality type, Code No. 301.7 of the A.P.A. diagnostic and statistical manual of disorders. In addition to the primary diagnosis, it is the impression of the writer that there are underlying schizophrenic symtoms (sic) not yet characterized, that is, Mr. Caryl on occasion appears to present contaminated thought processes and inappropriate mannerisms and responses.

Additionally, with a tendency towards periodic disorganization of thought processes, his condition has been and will continue to be disabling, particularly when cornpounded (sic) with the induction of alcohol and/or non-prescriptive drug abuse." (Source: court documents obtained from the Internet unless otherwise indicated—all misspellings from the original). 

(http://mt.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19751212_0000213.MT.htm/qx).

The near daily bullying and abuse from Caryl’s school days was absent from both reports.

The defense pleaded with the judge to consider Caryl’s “personal characteristics, his peculiarities, his habits, his declarations and statements, his actions, conduct and appearance, prior to, at the time of, and after the act charged…and any changes in his physical as well as his mental state, his temper, jealousy, shattered hopes, desires, and troubles of all kinds, together with the opinions of experts." 

In other words, your honor, please regard Roger Caryl as “bat-shit crazy.” And if that’s too nuanced, consider he recently killed four people for no good reason.

It did no good. 

Judgment Day

Caryl was sentenced to two life sentences, to be served consecutively.  Another 10 years was added for the wounding of the ranch owner’s wife from the shotgun blast, but Caryl was (strangely) never charged with the murders of the Akinses. 

Roger Caryl would be eligible for parole in 25 years – in 1999.

Perhaps the judge felt two consecutive life-sentences were enough. One source speculated that it was a strategy by prosecutors in case Caryl was acquitted of the murders of Miller and Judd.  http://helenair.com/news/emotional-hearing/article_6e3c7d3f-d370-51e1-b5ae-43d1a45d301f.html?print=true&cid=print

Caryl’s claim, that he was not responsible for his acts “because of mental disease or defect,” had not worked. The trail to crazy, though well-documented, was not sufficient. Experts could not agree on how to explain Caryl’s behavior, so the established defects, diseases and disorders would not be allowed to excuse it. 

People had died, and someone was going to pay. 

His claims of amnesia were ineffective, because “motivated forgetting” is viewed in the courts as too easy to fake. “My client has no memory of that, your honor…”  

And, because there was no proof of insanity, there would be no referral of Caryl for mental- health treatment. According to the presiding judge, the defense of insanity “must be proved by a preponderance of the evidence. Sections 94-119, 95-503, R.C.M. 1947.” 

Voluntary intoxication is no excuse for crime as long as the offender is capable of conceiving an intelligent design; he will be presumed, if the case is otherwise made out beyond a reasonable doubt, to have intended the natural and probable consequences of his own act.

The verdict was allowed to stand. Guilty act: guilty mind.

The appeal judge ruled that someone as heavily armed as Roger Caryl had a very strong intent to commit the killings. From the appeal, “premeditation and malice aforethought can be inferred from defendant's act of arming himself with deadly weapons, seeking out his victim(s), and shooting his unarmed victim(s) without provocation.” (Plural added).

Shooting unarmed people without reason didn’t sound crazy, or perhaps crazy enough, to a Montana judge. And if it did, it was no reason to avoid punishment.  

Haunted Again

On August 29, 2004, The Helena Independent Record published the story of Steve Foundation, who was 14-years old at the time of the killings, and was hiding upstairs at the Whitetail ranch during the shootings.

“I saw blood everywhere,” he recalled. 

Thirty years later, Steve Foundation still reported having trouble sleeping and waking up with gunfire ringing in his ears.  So, he was incensed to learn Roger Caryl was living in a Butte, Montana pre-release center outside prison walls. 

“When (the judge) says life, it should mean life,” Foundation said.     

But, in the case of Tex McCord, it didn’t. 

Epilogue

In 2006, Roger Caryl was transferred to Muskogee, Oklahoma, where he has lived and worked outside prison walls ever since.

What made a parole board decide Roger Caryl had been punished enough, or was now “well enough,” to walk among us? Perhaps the cost. His probation or parole costs $4.69 per day, compared with $90 per day for an inmate in prison (Montana DOC ISP Website, 4/25/12).

Caryl’s mug shot on the Montana Department of Corrections website shows no clear sign of guilt or remorse. 

The heroic activities of the Western frontier captured the American imagination to the extent it was often impossible to separate fact from fiction. Men settled conflicts with guns. Guns with names like Winchester and Remington became heroes. Zane Grey said if my gun is bigger, or my hands faster, I live and you die. 

Along with violence, Jeremy Agnew wrote that the incidence of alcohol and drug abuse was high in the Old West. Wyatt Earp’s younger brother, Warren, once challenged Johnny Boyett to a gunfight over a woman. Earp was so drunk he forgot he didn’t have his gun with him. Boyett calmly aimed and shot him in the chest.  (Source: Medicine in the Old West:  A History 1850-1900, p. 111.)

In this story of Tex McCord there is no effort to make him villain or victim, simply to state the facts of his life and incarceration. In the present telling there is no nostalgia for the Old West, or for “the simpler time” when a bully could badger, torment, and torture someone with little attention or rebuke. 

This account seeks to be as objective as possible, neither omitting the faults of its characters nor exaggerating their talents. But it is puzzling in many respects.

How high must a killer rank on a scale of depravity to be seen as insane? And, once locked away for three decades, what happens for someone to say they are “healed,” and can now be free? As someone who helped start those wheels in motion, I simply can’t explain it.

Today, Dan Dagen is a successful businessman and loving father, living in St. Louis and approaching retirement. He volunteers in the community and leads a bible study group. 

The author is a quiet, taciturn university professor, who writes obscure stories and maintains few close personal relationships. His most recent documentary is about a former student who stabbed and killed a man fighting over a stripper.     

Roger G. Caryl, aka Tex McCord, lives in Muskogee, Oklahoma, where he is said to receive regular mental-health counseling and random urine tests. He is under electronic monitoring, and can be reached via his records officer: Robert Gunn, Northeast District Office, 3031 N. 32^nd Street, Muskogee, OK 74401, (918) 680-6612.

Perhaps he can explain it.

March 28, 2013

Dr. Donald C. Arthur

Dr. Donald C. Arthur parlayed a number of bogus academic degrees into an extremely successful career in the U.S. Navy, rising all the way to surgeon general of the Navy. He even had the nerve to wear a combat action ribbon as part of his official uniform at his retirement in 2007 despite never having been involved in combat. 

by Michael Volpe

The book Stolen Valor was released with some fanfare in 1998.  It detailed a bevy of individuals who falsely claimed combat action, especially during the Vietnam War. Since then, the Stolen Valor team, led by B. G. Burkett, has gained a reputation for exposing hucksters who falsely claim to have been in combat. Those individuals include Brian Leonard Creekmur, who falsely claimed to be a Navy Seal and sniper. Another individual exposed by the Stolen Valor team was Bill Hillar. Hillar falsely claimed to be a Green Beret and wound up being sentenced to 21 months in prison as a result.

In 2005, the Stolen Valor team began investigating Dr. Donald C. Arthur, then the surgeon general of the U.S. Navy. That’s because Dr. Arthur was seen wearing a combat action ribbon as part of his official uniform at his retirement in 2007 even though there was no record he’d seen combat.

The official record of the U.S. Marine Corp lists no combat experience for Dr. Arthur, and this combat experience was not listed in his official naval transcripts submitted to the House Armed Services Committee, when he submitted his transcripts to qualify for retirement pension pay.

In November 2005, B.G. Burkett asked Navy Admiral Mike Mullen to investigate Dr. Arthur regarding a host of degrees he’d claimed to have earned. Dr. Arthur claimed he had a law degree, a medical degree, and even a Master of Arts Degree. The whole thing seemed suspicious and Burkett urged Mullen to look more closely. When Admiral Mullen’s investigation didn’t seem to bear fruit, Burkett took his concerns to investigative reporter Russell Working of the Chicago Tribune.

Working had made a name for himself investigating so called diploma mills. Diploma mills are universities that either give out wholly bogus degrees for money or require only that the individual take a very light load, not worthy of a degree.

A number of people in the military were being caught using some of these diploma mills to pad their own resumes. On October 1, 2008, the Chicago Tribune published Working’s expose showing that two of the degrees Dr. Arthur claimed to have gotten over a 14-month period in 1992 and 1993 were frauds.

One degree was a Juris Doctorate, or law degree, from LaSalle University in Louisiana. This school was one of a number run by James Kirk, who operated a number of these diploma mills during the 1980s and 1990s.

The other was Ph.D. from American Century University. This university was also found to be a diploma mill.

In an interview with Working, Dr. Arthur said that the degrees were put on his official resume in error but said the errors were innocent.

“In interviews, Arthur acknowledged that in the early 1990s he took ‘some courses from two places that are unaccredited.’ He said LaSalle had given him papers indicating the school had been accredited. ‘I could say I was naive, but I was 40 years old. And I didn't understand completely what was going on.’

“As for the master's, which first appeared in his bio for his 1978 medical school yearbook, Arthur said, ‘I was in a master's program, but I did not graduate. I do not have a master's degree.’”

Arthur made it clear to Working that his career was not advanced as a result of these degrees.

"The only thing I was hired to be surgeon general for was my MD," he said.

Working’s expose led to a follow-up investigation by Josh Goldstein of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Goldstein found that a previous Master’s Degree in genetics was also in Dr. Arthur’s resume fraudulently. This one was from Northeastern University in Boston, a fully accredited university. In this case however, Northeastern showed no records of Dr. Arthur attending when Goldstein contacted them.

Dr. Arthur sat down for a 75-minute interview with Goldstein in conjunction with his piece. Dr. Arthur declined to address his purported combat action and instead said, "I'm an honorable person who has led an honorable life.”

Dr. Arthur was also defended during his interview by Anthony Coletta, president at Mainline Health where Arthur worked at the time of the interview.

“Anthony V. Coletta, Bryn Mawr's medical-staff president, said he was surprised to learn of the questions about Arthur's degrees. Coletta said Arthur has had a positive impact on patient care and had addressed ‘sometimes difficult situations with doctors’ over his 14-month tenure.”

Arthur also defended the two degrees he earned from non-accredited schools.

“Arthur said that he did extensive course work to earn both the law degree and the Ph.D. and at the time believed the schools had ‘appropriate accreditation.’”

Arthur ended his interview with Goldstein by suggesting questions about his past were being made by people attempted to stir the proverbial pot.

Arthur said the controversy was behind him.

“‘The pot-stirrers want to keep bringing things up – calling my friends, calling my family, calling everybody I am acquainted with and making all manner of accusations," he said. "Quite frankly, I'm done.’”

It should be noted that Burkett asked Mullen to first investigate Dr. Arthur in 2005. Dr. Arthur retired from the Navy in 2007.  Both the Tribune and Inquirer investigations concluded after Arthur retired. That’s important because here’s what Mike Mullen said at Dr. Arthur’s retirement in 2007.

“(He’s a) sort of a renaissance man. His résumé says a lot. BA, MA, JD, PhD, and of course, MD – he’s got more degrees than a thermometer.”

More False Claims – Operation Desert Storm

Beyond those investigations, other public records show Dr. Arthur has made several other dubious claims that couldn’t be verified. For instance, he claimed that in 1991 – while deployed to Saudi Arabia to support Operation Desert Storm –he was involved in direct combat, even though he was supposed to be part of a medical unit. Arthur began wearing a Combat Action Ribbon sometime after the first Iraq War, though there are no official records that he was ever actually awarded this ribbon by the Navy.

A near six-month investigation of Dr.Arthur by Crime Magazine found that Dr. Arthur was lying, cheating, and defrauding almost the entire time he was in the military. Crime Magazine obtained evidence that shows that not only was Arthur never in combat but he wasn’t even attending to his own duties while he was stationed in Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Frederick M. “Skip” Burkle is a doctor and a physician. He is currently a senior fellow and scientist at Harvard University. He’s a Vietnam War Navy veteran, and in 1991 he was a Navy reservist, called up to serve in Operation Desert Shield.

Dr. Burkle was assigned to head up the medical base in Saudi Arabia in February, 1991. This base would house all those soldiers who were injured during the ground invasion. Because of the perceived threat of chemical and biological weapons being used by the Iraqi military, Dr. Burkle was told to prepare for significant casualties. What no one knew at the time was that the ground invasion would only last 100 hours and there was no real Iraqi resistance.

Dr. Burkle said he ran into Dr. Arthur on his first night of his assignment. In that exchange, Dr. Burkle remembers that Dr. Arthur made a comment that he (Dr. Arthur) should have been named the senior medical officer, not Dr. Burkle. Despite being of lesser rank than Dr. Burkle, Dr. Arthur claimed that his doctorate and law degrees made him more qualified. Dr. Burkle said he responded by stating that assignments were posted and that he expected Arthur to be in the emergency department the next morning. That would be the last time Dr. Burkle would see Dr. Arthur.

In fact, Dr. Burkle said that to his knowledge no one on the emergency medical team ever saw Arthur perform any medical related functions the entire time they were at the trauma center. Ironically enough, Dr. Burkle said that with all the responsibilities he had and how smoothly and responsible the other medical, nursing and corpsmen staff were he never made an issue of Arthur’s absence.

Dr. Burkle said he remembered everything moving very quickly while in Saudi Arabia because the ground offensive ended so quickly.  He said that during the redeployment process a number of junior officers approached him angry with Arthur’s behavior and absence and asked Dr. Burkle to court martial Arthur. Since Arthur was not in his direct chain of command, Burkle told the officers to pursue the complaint if they still felt very strongly when they returned to the United States.

“I remember thinking that Arthur was a tragic case of an officer who thought more of himself than his duty and would probably not amount to much now that he had tarnished his reputation,” Dr. Burkle said in an interview for this story. He now ponders how Dr. Arthur became the top medical professional in the Navy. Dr. Burkle said no one at the trauma center saw any combat action because that was not their function, as Dr. Arthur claimed he did, and found Arthur’s wearing of the combat action ribbon and claims of combat experience “incredulous and an insult to those at the trauma center and who did see combat action.”

Dr. Burkle said that a number of corpsmen told him that Dr. Arthur was stashed away in a tent with a woman but he didn’t independently verify that rumor.

Motorcycle Rider Extraordinaire

Arthur’s playing with the truth is not limited to his academic degrees or military career. It even extends to his decades-long enthusiasm for motorcycle riding. Arthur claimed to various motorcycle magazines, motorcycle related groups, and other motorcycle riders to have ridden 117,000 miles on his motorcycle in 2002. He made this claim even though in 2002 he was working full time as the deputy surgeon general of the Navy.

In August 2005, Arthur was involved in a motorcycle accident. At the time, he was quoted as saying that his helmet saved him from any brain injury. “Thanks to the helmet, I suffered no brain injury. My injuries are a pelvis fractured in three places, a separated right shoulder, and fracture separations of two ribs at the sternum which caused a pneumothorax.”

In an article that appeared March 5, 2007 on the Army News Service about brain injury treatment, Navy Surgeon General Arthur admitted that he suffered a serious brain injury from the motorcycle accident in 2005. "Arthur said he himself suffered a traumatic brain injury a year and a half ago and was initially embarrassed to talk about the problems he was having as a result." The article quotes Arthur saying, “Many cases of mild traumatic brain injury don't get reported because servicemembers don't recognize the symptoms or are too embarrassed to admit to problems with memory or other mental functions.”In a motorcycle related message board discussion of Arthur’s accident, Ken Markwell, another motorcycle riding enthusiast, said that Arthur was unconscious for 20-30 minutes.

The Case of Wheeler Lipes

Another facet of Crime Magazine’s investigation into Arthur uncovered that he had engaged in a near 10-year campaign to destroy the life and career of a colleague while both worked together in the Navy. In one of his first acts as the surgeon general of the Navy, Arthur used all the bureaucratic power of his office to stall and delay the awarding of the Medal of Honor to Wheeler Lipes, a dying WWII veteran who was reprimanded during the war for performing an unsanctioned appendectomy on a dying man. The appendectomy was unsanctioned because Lipes was only the rank of corpsman, not high enough to perform the procedure. That operation was successful and the man lived. Lipes is universally considered a hero today.

What follows is Lipes’s recollection of the incident as he told it to the Naval Historical Department in 1999. “I had been up on the watch and when I came down to the after battery section of the submarine – the crew's compartment – I found Darrell Rector. It was his 19th birthday. He said to me, ‘Hey Doc, I don't feel very good.’ I told him to get into his bunk and rest a bit and kept him under observation. His temperature was rising. He had the classic symptoms of appendicitis. The abdominal muscles were getting that washboard rigidity. He then began to flex his right leg up on his abdomen to get some relief. He worsened and I went to the CO [Commanding Officer] to report his condition. The skipper went back and talked to Rector explaining that there were no doctors around. Rector then said, ‘Whatever Lipes wants to do is OK with me.’ The CO and I had a long talk and he asked me what I was going to do. ‘Nothing,’ I replied. He lectured me about the fact that we were there to do the best we could. ‘I fire torpedoes every day and some of them miss,’ he reminded me. I told him that I could not fire this torpedo and miss. He asked me if I could do the surgery and I said yes. He then ordered me to do it.

“When I got to the appendix, it wasn't there. I thought. ‘Oh my God! Is this guy reversed?’ There are people like that with organs opposite where they should be. I slipped my finger down under the cecum – the blind gut – and felt it there. Suddenly I understood why it hadn't popped up where I could see it. I turned the cecum over. The appendix, which was five-inches long, was adhered, buried at the distal tip, and looked gangrenous two-thirds of the way. What luck, I thought. My first one couldn't be easy. I detached the appendix, tied it off in two places, and then removed it after which I cauterized the stump with phenol. I then neutralized the phenol with torpedo alcohol. There was no penicillin in those days. When you think of what we have in the armamentarium today to prevent infection, I marvel.”

Jan Herman is a recently retired Navy historian. He spoke exclusively with Crime Magazine about the ordeal behind getting Wheeler Lipes his Medal of Honor and how Arthur did everything in his power to make sure it didn’t happen. Herman was one of the driving forces in helping to finally award Lipes his long overdue medal. The other driving force was Admiral Mike Cowan. Cowan was Arthur’s predecessor as Navy surgeon general.

Herman said that Cowan heard about Lipes’s story from his own father, himself a Navy veteran. “Everyone in the submarine corps knew this story; it was kind of a legend.” Herman continued, “I felt that as the historian of the medical department that this was a great injustice.” Herman was referring to Lipes’s not receiving some sort of medal for his heroism that day in WWII.

In the early part of 2004, Herman said that he discussed this with Cowan, then the surgeon general of the Navy. Cowan told Herman to do the research and draw up a citation for approval. Herman said that after the necessary research the Navy decided to award Lipes the Navy Commendation Medal.

“We made arrangements to have him and his wife come up to Washington for the ceremony. The admiral and the admiral’s father invited Lipes to the admiral’s home for dinner.”

Unfortunately, as arrangements were being made, Lipes developed pancreatic cancer and the ceremony was temporarily delayed. It was only temporarily delayed at Lipes’s insistence, because he insisted it be rescheduled as soon as he got better. In the meantime, Cowan retired as Navy surgeon general.

Once Lipes got better, Herman took a new request to the new Surgeon General of the Navy, Vice Admiral Donald Arthur. Here’s how Herman said he recalled the conversation.

“A corpsman doing surgery,” said Arthur shaking his head in disapproval, “I don’t know if that will send the proper message to today’s corpsman.”

“Sir, I don’t understand. I think it sends a really great message. It says our corpsmen are trained and that they can save anyone’s life if called upon.” Herman said he replied.

“Don’t put it on my schedule, I don’t do that.” Herman said Arthur replied and ended the conversation.

From that point forward, Herman said that Arthur did everything in his power to stop Lipes from receiving the commendation.

“I was very disturbed by the prospect that Lipes would not get his medal in time.”

Herman said he attempted to make arrangements for Lipes to receive his medal despite Dr. Arthur’s opposition. Herman made plans with Camp Lejeune and relayed those plans to Naval Public Affairs Officer Mike Brady.

After conferring with Brady, Herman then went to the now retired Navy Surgeon General Mike Cowan and asked Cowan if he’d attend a ceremony for Lipes at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

About a week later, Herman said he got a phone call from Brady.

“I have some very bad news for you. He [Arthur] forbids you to go to North Carolina and you should have nothing to do with this,” said Brady.

After having a chance to think about it for a bit, Herman said that he realized that both he and Cowan were civilians and neither could be ordered to do anything by Arthur. As such, he made preparations to go to Camp Lejeune to present Lipes with his medal.

Upon hearing this, Arthur finally relented, but upon the condition that the ceremony be a private ceremony, unsanctioned by the Navy.

Vendetta

Another troubling part of Dr. Arthur’s past involves Dr. Eric Gluck, medical doctor and Navy veteran. Dr. Gluck said he first ran into Donald Arthur at the College of Dentistry and Medicine in New Jersey in 1979. Arthur was two years ahead of Dr. Gluck.

The next time he ran into Dr. Arthur was when Dr. Gluck was recruited by the Navy to teach advance laparoscopic surgery at the Navy Hospital Groton Submarine Base New London in 1996. This particular hospital is located in Groton, Connecticut and at the time, Dr. Arthur was in charge. According to Dr. Gluck, he thought he would come on active duty as a commander but Dr. Arthur intervened, and only gave him the rank of ensign. Dr. Arthur said that Dr. Gluck was misinformed about what his rank would be.

In May 2000, Dr. Gluck said he was blamed for a delay in an operation. According to the allegation, Dr. Gluck performed, “improper non-operative management of the perforation and delay in operating after the need for surgery was determined.”

An investigation into Dr. Gluck’s conduct in this case led to a larger review. This initial review led to the review of six cases. This review led to the review of 50 of Dr. Gluck’s cases. In 2000, Dr. Gluck was removed from performing surgeries. This set off a larger investigation of 60-plus cases that Dr. Gluck was involved in.

By this time, Dr. Arthur had reached the position of deputy surgeon general of the Navy, and he was the one in charge of overseeing the investigation.

The peer review was allowed to go on even though there were a number of red flags. First, the peer review was supposed to be in front of five individuals who were all supposed to be surgeons, but only two were surgeons. Second, the peer review was supposed to review Dr. Gluck’s competence but instead reviewed his mental fitness. The peer review found that Dr. Gluck wasn’t mentally fit to be a surgeon in the fall of 2000.

Meanwhile, as part of the peer review process, Dr. Arthur, and a number of his subordinates, attempted to have Dr. Gluck committed to a military psychiatric facility. John Donlon witnessed this evaluation which occurred in June 2000. Donlon, 85, was a 40-year-veteran of the U.S. Navy. He said that in 2000 he accompanied Dr. Gluck to a meeting also attended by Dr. Arthur.

In speaking with Crime Magazine of his recollections of that meeting, Donlon said he was appalled at what transpired because subordinates to Dr. Gluck were making recommendations that he be committed even though by their rank, they were not in a position to make such a recommendation.

That idea was eventually scrapped and Donlon believes today that this was in part because Dr. Gluck brought him in as a witness to the proceedings.

Following the peer review findings in September 2000, Dr. Gluck’s superior officer, Gregory Atkinson, reviewed the findings and issued an evaluation in February of 2001, clearing Dr. Gluck of any wrongdoing and ordered Dr. Gluck back to work.

“I do not concur with the findings of the Administrative Panel. Your [Dr. Gluck’s] clinical privileges are hereby reinstated, without restriction, at Naval Ambulatory Care Center,” read the pertinent portion of Atkinson’s evaluation.

Atkinson was relieved of his command by Arthur shortly after issuing this evaluation. Atkinson was replaced by Captain Francis R. McMahon. McMahon is now deceased.

Dr. Gluck retired from the Navy in December 2002, but not before Dr. Arthur forced him to take a six-month’s supply of vaccinations all at once. Dr. Gluck said that Dr. Arthur threatened to dishonorably discharge Dr. Gluck if he refused to take the vaccination as ordered. Dr. Gluck said he developed multiple sclerosis a few months after taking this vaccination, which he believes was the result of what he took. He’s currently being treated for MS in the VA system.

Dr. Arthur retired from the Navy in 2007. According to Bridget Therriault, a spokesperson for Mainline Health Care, Dr. Arthur worked for Mainline Health Care in Philadelphia until December 2011. Ms. Therriault said that the company would have no further comment beyond that for this story. The U.S. Navy didn’t respond to a call and email for comment.

All those contacted for this article believe it is still not too late for Dr. Arthur to face justice for his many misdeeds during his naval career. They point out that each of his fraudulent degrees helped him achieve ranks he otherwise wouldn’t have received. With that, he also received pay he shouldn’t have received and is now receiving an inflated Navy pension. (According to Goldstein’s Philadelphia Inquirer article, that pension was $137,724 yearly in 2009.) All that would have been done fraudulently, they argue, and he should face punishment for it.

According to public records, Dr. Arthur currently lives in Brewster, Massachusetts. A phone call and FAX to the residence listed were left unreturned. The FAX listed a number of questions pertaining to the various accusations raised against Dr. Arthur in this article, seeking his direct response and input.

April 1, 2013

Customs come and go but people’s fascination with the diabolical and the deadly is a constant throughout history. Greed, pride, and lust are among the most resilient of the Seven Deadly Sins. These perennial human failings help to power the stories of the books under review here, whether they take place in antiquity or in our own time period. Here are five books that are certain to captivate any aficionado of the true crime genre.

by Denise Noe

Whitey: The Life of America’s Most Notorious Mob Boss by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill (Crown Publishers, 2013). This timely, deeply researched, well-written volume completes their trilogy on Whitey Bulger, The Boston Mafia, and the corrupt FBI that allowed Bulger a 20-year-year reign of terror in Boston. Lehr and O’Neill were longtime investigative reporters for the Boston Globe with front row seats to the FBI scandal that enabled Bulger to run his syndicate and murder with impunity. For all things “Whitey,” this is the definitive account, from his teenage years in the 1940s in South Boston, his time in the U.S. Air Force (honorably discharged in 1953), his bank-robbing spree that sent him to the Atlanta Penitentiary in 1956 where he volunteered to participate in a clandestine CIA-financed LSD project, his shipment to Alcatraz, and his parole from the Lewisburg Penitentiary in 1965, a release greatly abetted by U.S. Speaker of the House John McCormack, a friend of Bulger’s younger brother, Bill, a powerful member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Over the next 20 years Bulger thrived in the Boston underworld thanks to the protection he received from FBI Agent John Connolly for being an FBI informant against the Boston Italian Mafia. Bulger’s ties to the FBI rank as one of the most reprehensible alliances the agency ever formed. It was an alliance that time and again saved Bulger from indictment and arrest while he was murdering at will to solidify and expand his multi-million-dollar criminal empire. By the time a federal indictment was issued against Bulger in 1995 he was long gone, tipped off in advance by Connolly. Over the next 16 years Bulger the fugitive rose to the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted List with a $2 million reward offered for his capture. On June 22, 2011 Bulger, then 81, and his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, 58, were arrested at an apartment complex in Santa Monica, California. In June of 2013, Bulger is scheduled to go on trial for 19 murders and other crimes. Greig pled guilty to conspiracy to harbor a fugitive and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

The Dark Side of Sunshine by Paul Guzzo (Aignos Publishing, Inc., 2012) is as cleverly written as it is titled. Paul Guzzo has written a collection of stories about colorful malefactors in Tampa, Florida of both the somewhat distant and very recent past. Guzzo keeps the pace moving briskly as the chapters introduce his readers to a fascinatingly motley crew. He begins with a brief chapter about the founding of Tampa and how the “known history” of the city “dates back to the 1500s when the Spanish explorers arrived and discovered the area.” Among the most deadly characters Guzzo introduces are Robert “The Firebug” Anderson, an arsonist and murderer who terrorized Tampa for “seven long months in 1912.”  An African American, he was outraged at white man-black woman liaisons – and expressed his displeasure through murdering people – ironically, often black people. One of the most colorful characters in this book is Charlie Wall, a gangster prominent in the 1920s and ‘30s who survived until 1955 and claimed he lived longer than most mobsters because the “devil looks after his own.” Guzzo tells a tale that requires a double take when he writes that Carlos Carbonelli “fled the United States for Cuba” in 1960. Like so many well-intentioned people, Carbonelli had hoped that Castro would bring democracy to Cuba. Perhaps the champion oddball in this collection is the modern-day adventurer Gene Holloway “who once owned the eighth most profitable restaurant in the nation – the Sea Wolf – married a former Miss Tampa, collected dozens upon dozens of priceless antiques just to brag about how much money he spent, ran for president and tried to bribe the pope to come to dine at his restaurant.” Holloway also faked his own death only to be arrested for dealing dope in Canada a few months after his supposed demise in Tampa. A slim book, The Dark Side of Sunshine is captivating and quick paced as Guzzo shines a wickedly vibrant light on some nasty, nutty, and nefarious personages.

Wealthy Men Only by Stella Sands (St. Martin’s Press, 2012) reads like a film noir in the contemporary era. As prosecutor Matt Murphy correctly notes, “You can’t find a more interesting group of people for a murder case.” There is wealthy middle-aged divorcé Bill McLaughlin who became rich by inventing a special mechanism to separate plasma from blood. Then there is the lovely and seductive Nanette Johnston who took out an advertisement for a romantic partner that began “Wealthy Men Only.” When she is cohabiting with Bill, she meets up with young, handsome hunk Eric Naposki, who once played professional football in the NFL. More heartbreakingly, there is Bill’s son Kevin, handicapped from being hit by a drunk driver, who found his dead Dad. Suffering a speech impediment, Kevin called 911 to report the shooting of his father. He was hard to understand and it is possible Bill’s life slipped away while the dispatcher struggled to understand Kevin’s slurred speech. It took authorities over 15 years to assemble a case that put both Johnston and Naposki behind bars for life with no possibility of parole. Sands tells this dramatic story in a straightforward way that makes the book hard to put down. She includes enough detail to paint a picture in the reader’s mind but never enough to bore. Wealthy Men Only will be enjoyed by anyone who appreciates a well-told true crime story.

Katherine Howard: A Tudor Conspiracy by Joanna Denny (Portrait, 2005) reads like an especially exciting historical novel but it is in fact a well-written and well-researched history of crimes and punishments that took place in one of the most colorful eras of Early Modern history. Denny brings the reader wholeheartedly into the Tudor period as she recounts the birth of Katherine Howard, the 10^th baby born to Lady Jocasta Howard. Denny writes, “The midwife quickly cleared the baby’s mouth to aid her first breath and rubbed her little red body to encourage her cry. Next, she cut the umbilical cord and bathed her in a mixture of warm milk and wine. A coin was placed on the baby’s buttocks to drive the devil away.” Denny is more sympathetic to Katherine than some historians. Denny notes that knowing Katherine’s age at certain points is crucial to how she is viewed. At the time music teacher Henry Manox was to “handle and touch the secret parts” of Katherine’s body, she was 11 years old. Denny rightly asserts that Katherine was not the over-sexed juvenile delinquent she is often seen as but the victim of child sexual abuse. She was 12 or 13 when initiated into actual sex by Frances Dereham. Denny depicts Katherine as a naïve girl, not yet an adult, when she was dangled before the aging and ill King Henry VIII by ambitious relatives. Unlike some historians such as Retha Warnicke and Elisabeth Wheeler, Denny accepts as true the received wisdom that Katherine was enamored of Thomas Culpepper although she observes that he was a nasty man. Denny writes that in 1539 he “attacked and raped the wife of a park-keeper while three or four of his followers held her down.” A neighbor attempted to intervene and was murdered. King Henry VIII pardoned Culpepper, a man who had “won the King’s favor with his good looks and by his skill at dressing Henry’s ulcer.” Denny’s account of Katherine’s sudden rise, dizzying fall, and heartbreaking end is a captivating story that lingers in the mind long after the book is finished.

The Murder of Cleopatra: History’s Greatest Cold Case by Pat Brown (Prometheus Books, 2013) is an original and incisive exploration of the life and demise of one of history’s most intriguing figures. Brown brings the special skills of a crime analyst to the story of Cleopatra and points out how the story of her suicide, accepted for over 2,000 years, is filled with gaping holes as to its credibility. Almost everyone believes that the conquered queen, fearful of being led through Octavian’s triumph in Rome, smuggled in a poisonous snake to commit suicide. Brown points out that this story is fatal flawed and in vital respects simply implausible. She asks, “How was it that Cleopatra managed to smuggle a cobra into the tomb in a basket of figs? Why would the guards allow this food in and why would they be so careless in examining the item? Why would Octavian, supposedly so adamant about taking Cleopatra to Rome for his triumph, be so lax about her imprisonment? Why would Cleopatra think it easier to hide a writhing snake in a basket of figs rather than slip poison inside one of the many figs?” There are many other unanswered questions about the commonly accepted suicide scene that Brown points to in asserting that it was a cover story for a murder. Brown makes a persuasive case that Octavian was far more likely to murder Cleopatra than take the risk that she might escape before being marched in chains through Rome. She also points out that degrading Egypt’s last Pharaoh in such a way might have outraged the Egyptian people and garnered sympathy for Cleopatra. This book is a powerful and remarkable study that should be read by anyone interested in such dynamic historical personages as Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian. It is certain to stimulate fresh thought in open-minded readers.

April 4, 2013

D.B. Cooper

In November 1971 the only unsolved hijacking in U.S. history occurred when an unidentified suspect commandeered a commercial jetliner and held its occupants for ransom. The case evolved into an American legend almost overnight because, as the authorities maintain, the culprit escaped by skydiving from the tail of the jetliner mid-flight with the ransom money tied around his waist. If that wasn’t machismo enough it was also reported that he had bailed out at 10,000 feet into a nasty winter storm over impassable mountain terrain at night while wearing only a lightweight overcoat, business suit and slip-on loafers; or did he?....

by David Keller

Introduction

On Thanksgiving day back in 1971 America woke up to the telling and retelling of the astonishing exploits of an innovative and daring outlaw that the world would soon come to know as D.B. Cooper. The now infamous extortionist had actually provided the name Dan Cooper as he commenced his dramatic plan to hijack a commercial airliner and hold its passengers and crew for ransom. The debonair initials were errantly submitted by a correspondent under pressure to make deadline and by the time the discrepancy had been discovered the swooning American public had heard it so often that retraction was pointless; besides the court of public opinion had already ruled that D.B. imparts a certain mystique befitting a death defying swindler.

The news broadcasts continually replayed what little information they had; that the previous day an unidentified man who had given the name Cooper to the airline ticket agent had gone on to boldly extort $200,000 in cash from Northwest Orient Airlines. He then evaded capture by leaping from the tail of the jetliner mid-flight with the cash tied around his waist. If that wasn’t machismo enough, it was soon learned that the brazen skyjacker had bailed out at 10,000 feet into a nasty winter storm, over impassable mountain terrain, at night, wearing a lightweight overcoat, a business suit and a pair of slip on loafers. As they sat down to roast turkey, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, Americans across the nation saved room for all the makings of what would soon become a modern day American legend.

The Official Version of Events

According to authorities on the scene and firsthand eye-witness accounts the mild mannered extortionist/hijacker calmly commandeered Northwest Orient Airline’s flight 305 out of Portland, Oregon the day before Thanksgiving, November 24, 1971. The clean shaven, non-descript, overly average looking guy politely requested $200,000 in cash, four parachutes and a lift to Mexico City. He then inexplicably decided to bail (literally) on the ride sometime before they had to stop in Reno for gas. The larger than life events that unfolded on that November day were officially reported as follows:

In the early afternoon hours of November 24, 1971 an unidentified male suspect entered Portland International Airport and approached the ticket counter of Northwest Orient Airlines. After waiting patiently his turn in line the suspect was cordially greeted by Northwest ticketing agent Hal Williams. The apparent business traveler requested a one way ticket on flight 305, scheduled to depart Portland for Seattle at 2:50 PM (PST). The traveler gave Williams the name Dan Cooper and Williams promptly punched up the ticket, added the name Dan Cooper to the flight’s passenger manifest, and handed Cooper the ticket along with a boarding pass for flight 305 adding, “Enjoy your flight,” as the stranger strode away.

Cooper was assigned the aisle seat 18c near the back of the passenger cabin. Shortly after the plane got underway the suspect passed a folded note to flight attendant Florence Schaffner who, thinking he was making a pass at her, tucked the note away unread. On a subsequent pass down the aisle Cooper once again gained her attention to suggest that “she had better read the note, I have a bomb.”

Schaffner proceeded immediately to the galley area near the plane’s mid-section and opened the handwritten note to read; “I HAVE A BOMB. I WILL USE IT IF NECESSARY. I WANT YOU TO SIT NEXT TO ME. YOU ARE BEING HIJACKED.” Stunned, the young and inexperienced flight attendant quickly showed the note to fellow flight attendant Tina Mucklow, who ventured a quick glance down the aisle at the man seated in 18c. Mucklow then urged Schaffner to comply with Cooper’s instructions. She assured Schaffner that she alert senior flight attendant Alice Hancock of the situation adding that, “everything will be okay if we just do what he says.”

Florence took a deep breath and tried to collect her thoughts. She struggled to recall the training from flight school; be professional, stay focused and remain calm. She summoned all the courage she had and returned to row 18 where she reluctantly sat down next to Cooper. The suspect told her to take out her order pad and write down the demands he dictated to her.

He wanted $200,000 in negotiable American currency, four parachutes (two front-packs and two back-packs) and a refueling truck on stand-by in Seattle before he would allow the current flight to land and “no funny business!” he added. He told her that there would be more instructions to come but, that “that is all they need to know for now.” He gestured towards the cockpit. She asked to see the bomb and he opened the briefcase that was on his lap enough to reveal what appeared to be a sizable explosive device.

Ms. Schaffner quickly delivered both notes to Captain William Scott in the cockpit. Scott promptly notified SEA-TAC (Seattle- Tacoma International Airport) air-traffic control of the developing crisis. The flight controllers at the airport immediately involved airport security, which then contacted the Seattle police, who in turn notified the FBI.

The FBI wasted no time in contacting the president of Northwest Orient Airlines, Donald Nyrop, at his home and inquired as to how he wanted them to proceed. Without hesitation Nyrop responded that the company wanted full compliance with the hijacker’s demands and preferred that no attempt to intervene be made.

The authorities scrambled to meet Cooper’s demands as the controllers placed the plane into a holding pattern over the Seattle-Tacoma area. Captain Scott announced to the passengers that an unspecified mechanical problem had developed during their short flight that would delay their arrival in Seattle. He assured them that the problem was not serious, that the delay was merely a precaution and that there was no need for concern. Florence Schaffner returned to the back of the plane to find that the suspect had moved to a window seat in the same row and had donned a pair of dark wrap-around sunglasses.

Shortly before 5:30 p.m. (PST) the controllers at SEA-TAC notified Captain Scott that all of the hijacker’s demands had been met and a brief 10 minutes later at 5:40 p.m. (PST), Northwest Orient Airline’s flight 305 touched down at SEA-TAC International Airport and taxied to a stop on a well lit runway ramp. Almost immediately a tanker truck arrived to refuel the plane, but the ground crew encountered difficulty in getting the jet to take on fuel. Cooper began to grow uneasy, suspicious that a double cross was in the works. A lone Northwest employee cautiously approached the back of the plane and delivered the four parachutes and the ransom money. Flight attendant Tina Mucklow met the employee at the base of the aft air-stair, a narrow staircase that could be deployed from under the tail of the aircraft. As she struggled to tote the money and the parachutes on board, a succession of tanker trucks succeeded in getting the plane refueled.

Back inside the nervous demeanor of the suspect had given way to paranoid suspicion. He cursed that the parachutes that had been delivered were “completely wrong!” Apparently officials at SEA-TAC had reached out to nearby McCord Air Force Base for the parachutes not realizing that standard military  parachutes are opened by static lines that must be attached directly to the aircraft.  They are designed to deploy immediately upon departure from the aircraft; not desirable if one intends to bailout of a commercial jetliner at 10,000 feet.

Cooper angrily insisted that he was being double crossed. He wanted manually deployable parachutes such as those used by skydivers and he wanted them right now or else! The suspect threatened to detonate the bomb. Members of the crew tried to calm the agitated suspect down. They assured him that it was a simple mix-up – completely unintended and added that it could be quickly remedied.

Back in the control room at SEA-TAC agents scrambled to locate a source for the sport parachutes that the suspect demanded. Using a local telephone directory they quickly contacted a skydiving school in the area and made the necessary arrangements with the owner. In a hurry to assist authorities with their unspecified emergency, a staff member at the school inadvertently included an inoperable classroom dummy parachute as one of the reserve parachutes requested. Apparently no one involved, including the hijacker, noticed this potentially fatal oversight.

While everyone waited for the replacement parachutes to be delivered, Cooper dictated his next set of demands to Florence Schaffner.  He told her that he wanted to be flown non-stop to Mexico City and stipulated some odd, but very specific flight parameters including a demand that the aft air-stair remain deployed on take-off. After some objections and negotiations with the flight crew the destination and safety concerns were resolved. It had been agreed that the aft air-stair would be secured for take-off and that they would need to land at least once to refuel the plane as Mexico City was beyond the jetliner’s maximum flight range. It was decided that Reno, Nevada would be the most suitable location to refuel the plane.

At that point Cooper agreed to release the 36 passengers along with two of the three flight attendants. The freed passengers and flight attendants exited through the regular forward port side exit and descended down a truck mounted mobile stairway and out onto the paved runway ramp. After the replacement parachutes had arrived around 7:30 p.m. (PST) the Boeing 727 was cleared for takeoff and the jetliner raced down the runway in Seattle and was back in the air and headed south. The plane reached the stipulated altitude of 10,000 feet and leveled off. Cooper gave Tina Mucklow, the remaining flight attendant one last directive; draw the curtain that separated first-class from coach on her way to the cockpit, which is where Cooper had ordered all of them to stay, and “don’t come out!” She reported to authorities afterwards that the last time she saw the suspect he was near the back of the plane and appeared to be tying something around his waist. She drew the curtain across the aisle as he had instructed and continued on into the cockpit.

Around 8 p.m. the four captives felt the air pressure inside the cabin suddenly drop. A red light on the control panel in front of the captain flashed on indicating that the aft exit had been opened; a moment later a second light came on showing that the air-stair under the tail of the plane had been deployed, and a few minutes following that the tail of the aircraft lurched discernibly upward. The air-stair indicator light went out briefly and then came back on and remained on.

The four crew members stayed in the confined space of the cockpit as ordered for the remainder of the flight. The jetliner finally touched down in Reno, Nevada at 10:15 p.m. trailing a spectacular cascade of sparks down the length of the runway. The aft air-stair was indeed fully extended as the aircraft touched down.

Authorities on the ground immediately surrounded the plane with their guns drawn. Captain Scott made several attempts to raise the suspect over the cabin intercom but there was no response. After several heart-pounding minutes the four wary crew members crept cautiously out of the cramped cockpit to discover that Cooper was nowhere to be found. When they saw that only two of the four parachutes remained and that the aft air-stair had been deployed they assumed that he had jumped from the plane during the flight. The indicator lights on the cockpit control panel are monitored by the in-flight data recorder so investigators were able to establish that the suspect likely exited the aircraft at 8:13 p.m. when the air-stair indicator light had flashed off and then come back on. Presumably this had been caused by the hinged stairway as it rebounded like a diving board when Cooper had leapt from it.

A subsequent search of the aircraft by the authorities found the two remaining parachutes, one of which had been opened for reasons unknown, and the suspect’s narrow black clip-on tie with a mother-of-pearl tie-tack attached to it. Beyond the minor damage done to the air-stair upon landing there was nothing on or about the aircraft that would indicate the dramatic course of events that had unfolded on-board that day.

All eye-witnesses that had had any contact with Cooper in Portland, in Seattle and now in Reno, were interviewed immediately by investigators. Police artists were summoned and multiple sketches of the suspect were compiled. Several exhaustive ground searches were conducted over the following weeks and months, in and around the approximated bailout zone, but no trace of the suspect or the ransom money was found. The FBI announced a short time after Cooper disappeared that all 20,000 individual bills that had been included in the ransom had been photo-copied and the serial numbers documented. The Bureau also made it known that this list of the serial numbers had been distributed to authorities, banks and high cash volume businesses across the nation.

To-date, the only bills from the ransom money that have ever been recovered were found nine years after the fact, on the banks of the Columbia River, by an eight year-old boy on a camping holiday with his parents. The found money, three out of the original 100 bundles of $20 bills, was severely deteriorated from exposure to the elements. The FBI forensics lab would ultimately determine that the recovered currency, still in its original sequence, accounted for $5,800 of the missing money. Authorities maintain their belief that Cooper, whoever he was, did not survive his suicidal escape attempt. However, they have not recovered any direct evidence of his demise.

Additional Observations

The suspect reportedly had no visible identifying marks, tattoos, scars, moles etc. He was clean shaven and tidy in appearance. He spoke coherently without hesitation or any discernible accent, in American English. He gave indications of a detailed knowledge of the Tacoma-Seattle area such that he could identify landmarks from the air and he also commented accurately on the approximate drive-time from nearby McChord Air Force Base to SEA-TAC, which may suggest that he could have a U.S. Air Force military service record.

The suspect ordered and consumed two bourbon and soda cocktails while on board and smoked Raleigh filter tipped cigarettes. He seemed to have more than a casual knowledge of the operational capabilities of the aircraft; specifically that the aft air-stair could be safely deployed while in flight and the minimum safe air speed and the wing flap configuration needed to maintain that speed while maintaining the sub-cruising altitude of 10,000 feet.

Beyond what has been described above no further information related to the suspect or his actions on that day can be positively confirmed. Authorities still maintain their belief that the suspect did in fact exit the aircraft at approximately 8:13 p.m. on November 24, 1971 with the ransom money somehow attached to his person. His demise is presumed largely on the basis of the prevailing weather conditions outside the aircraft at the time of his alleged departure; the virtually impassable terrain along the flight path; and the suspect’s apparent lack of any practical knowledge related to skydiving. The absence of any hard evidence to support this conclusion has not deterred the authorities in their position and these facts as reported remain the official version of events.

The Alternate Version of Events

The hypothesis that Dan Cooper may have never really existed at all and that this crime was in fact a carefully orchestrated inside job planned and executed by members of the crew has been widely circulated in the past; but such conjecture is problematic if it were indeed the case. The non-existence of Cooper would have created a discrepancy in the passenger count. Meaning that the number of passengers released, plus one (Cooper), would not correlate properly with the number of names listed on the flight manifest, or with the number of boarding passes and tickets collected at the gate.

The airline industry employed and monitored these controls as an effective means to avert stowaway travel in an era of minimal airline security. If members of the crew had been involved in the crime, the individual identified as Dan Cooper would still have likely had to exist in person at some point. Conversely, his existence does not establish that he acted entirely alone in the commission of this epic crime.

This particular act of hijacking and extortion holds the unique distinction of being the only hijacking ever committed on U.S. soil to remain unsolved. Cooper’s true identity has remained a mystery as well, and $194,200 in ransom money is still unaccounted for. These outstanding details provide sufficient fodder that the speculation, supposition and spurious claims underground has launched a standalone cottage industry that continues to this very day. The bigger than life persona of the mysterious, misidentified and still at-large outlaw has evolved over several decades into an icon of the American culture. The legend of D.B. Cooper and his audacious exploits are revered as fact around the world, not because they represent reality, but because we desperately want them to represent reality. Americana will not be denied this epic tale of ingenious criminal daring or its eternal enshrinement in the self aggrandizing genre of outlaw folklore.

After a meticulous review of the verified facts in the case it can be concluded that a very small window of probability does in fact exist for the alternate case scenario of flight crew involvement in the crime. If the material facts in this case are ever found to differ substantially from the official version of the events; it is probable that the following alternate case scenario describes the next most likely sequence of events related to the hijacking of Northwest Orient Airline’s flight 305 on November 24, 1971. It has been accepted here that the suspect, Dan Cooper (alias), most likely did exist in person and was not completely fabricated by members of the crew in an effort to divert the investigative attention of the authorities. This conclusion is based on two separate but equally compelling aspects of the case that would have been more difficult to affect had Cooper not existed in person.

First, the authorities obtained multiple physical descriptions from three separate sources; (ticketing agent Hal Williams [in Portland], flight attendant Florence Schaffner [in Seattle] and flight attendant Tina Mucklow [in Reno]), during and immediately following the commission of the crime.  Each of these three eye-witnesses provided a detailed description that very closely matched the other two. If Cooper had not existed in the flesh, the three independent descriptions would have had to have been rehearsed and subsequently reported to authorities without the appearance of having been rehearsed; a feat that is difficult to accomplish between two collaborators and virtually impossible amongst three.

Second, the number of boarding passes and tickets required, as well as the number of passengers named on the flight manifest, would all have to correlate with the number of passengers released in Seattle plus one (37). If Dan Cooper did not exist and his role in the crime had been completely fictional, the list of names on the passenger flight manifest would have been one short at 36. Consequently, only 36 boarding passes and tickets would have been taken up at the gate. Thus, when the 36 passengers deplaned in Seattle the authorities would have been tipped off to the hoax. These controls would have to have been manipulated in order for Cooper’s presence to have been completely made up by the crew. Ironically these factors were very likely manipulated, but in all probability they were manipulated by Cooper himself.

Given the non-existent nature of airline security that was in effect at the time the individual that gave the alias Dan Cooper could have simply purchased a ticket for flight 305 at an earlier point in time. He may have purchased the first ticket disguised and under a different assumed name. He then checked-in under that name at the gate. He subsequently returned to the ticket counter without the disguise and purchased the second ticket and provided the name Dan Cooper. Once the he had checked in at the gate for a second time he would have been entered twice, under two different aliases, on flight 305’s passenger manifest and also in possession of two boarding passes for that same flight. A mere $20 in additional expense would have accomplished both of the necessary adjustments in the passenger count; a cost far less than that of involving additional people in the plot. The on-board head count would be easily obscured by a participating member of the crew.

The alternate version of events would have likely proceeded from that point as follows:

As the plane was being boarded Cooper handed one boarding pass to the attending gate agent and then stooped down and pretended to pick the second boarding pass up off of the floor. He politely handed it to the gate agent and suggested that he or she must have “dropped one.” The agent, not realizing that anything was amiss, thanked him and added it to the stack of boarding passes for flight 305.This would have been the most efficient method of artificially inflating the passenger count without involving additional personnel in the conspiracy and would have been far less conspicuous than attempting to falsify the flight manifest directly while independently adding both a ticket and a boarding pass at the gate.

Once on board Cooper took his designated seat 18c, an aisle seat four rows from the back of the plane. Senior flight attendant Alice Hancock covered in-flight service for passengers seated up front in first-class and for the first few rows of coach (see plane diagram). The two junior flight attendants, each with less than two years of in-flight experience, split the passengers seated in the rest of coach.

Tina Mucklow, an attractive 22 year-old flight attendant, was assigned the mid-section of passenger seats that covered most of the forward half of coach. Her coworker Florence Schaffner, an equally attractive 23 year-old flight attendant, provided in-flight service for the last six rows of coach.

Cooper’s designated seat was in Florence Schaffner’s assigned service area and she was the first person on-board to interact with Cooper. She had noticed him as soon as he had come on board. He had watched her closely as she went through her pre-flight routine, so she was not shocked when the suspect passed her the folded up slip of paper. She assumed it to be an intimate proposition from a lonely business man so she simply smiled politely and tucked it away unread and resumed her duties. When the suspect failed to get the response that he had anticipated he flagged her down again and insisted that she read the note “because I have a bomb.” Ms. Schaffner proceeded immediately to the galley area where she unfolded the note to read: “I HAVE A BOMB. I WILL USE IT IF NECESSARY. I WANT YOU TO SIT NEXT TO ME. YOU ARE BEING HIJACKED”.

Stunned, Ms. Schaffner showed the handwritten note to fellow flight attendant Tina Mucklow who urged her to comply. Ms. Schaffner agreed and returned to row 18 and sat cautiously down next to the suspect. Cooper instructed her to take out her order pad and write down the demands that he dictated to her.

First, he wanted $200,000 in cash, four parachutes (two backpacks [primary chutes] and two front [reserve chutes]) and a refueling truck on stand-by in Seattle before he would permit the current flight to land. Ms. Schaffner asked to see the bomb and the suspect opened his briefcase enough for her to see what appeared to be a sizable explosive device. She promptly delivered both notes to Captain William Scott in the cockpit. Scott, a veteran pilot with 20 years service with Northwest Orient Airlines immediately contacted air-traffic control at Sea-Tac and notified them of the developing crisis. The events then proceeded as previously described up to the point where the plane was on the ground in Seattle and the money and the first set of parachutes had been delivered. Here the events once again diverge from the official version.

Tina Mucklow had retrieved the money and the parachutes via the aft air-stair and placed them on the unoccupied seats next to Cooper. Cooper then instructed Ms. Schaffner to take down his next set of demands which included specific instructions to the flight crew. Cooper said that he wanted to be flown directly to Mexico City and stipulated some odd, but very specific flight parameters that included air speed, altitude, flap settings and in particular that he wanted the aft air-stair under the tail of the plane to remain deployed on take-off. Ms. Schaffner diligently delivered the new instructions to the captain.

Captain Scott instantly rejected the destination, pointing out that it was beyond the jet’s maximum range and couldn’t be reached without landing to refuel – something the hijacker had already indicated that he would not allow. Presumably the suspect was aware that he was most vulnerable while the plane was on the ground. Ms. Schaffner nervously asked the captain what she should tell the lunatic in the back with the bomb. First officer Bill Rataczak volunteered to intercede on her behalf. He would go and explain the flight range limitations of the aircraft to the bomb toting lunatic in the back. As he climbed out of the co-pilot’s seat Rataczak said, “I’ll see if he wants to refuel it or pick a new destination, but he’s not going to Mexico in one hop, not on this bird.” The very much relieved Schaffner followed closely on the first officer’s heels as he made his way down the aisle toward the back of the plane.

Meanwhile Captain Scott announced over the intercom that the mechanical problem that had delayed their landing was currently in the process of being corrected but, for safety reasons it would be necessary to wait just a little longer before they could begin unloading. He thanked the exasperated group for their patience and of course for their patronage of Northwest Orient Airlines.

As the two approached Cooper’s seat Rataczak and Schaffner were confronted with a visibly agitated hijacker who now rather tersely informed them that the parachutes that had just been delivered were “completely wrong!” He demanded that they be replaced with manually deployable parachutes “right now!” or he threatened to detonate the bomb. Rataczak tried to calm the suspect down. He assured Cooper that the mix-up had been completely unintentional and that the situation would be easily corrected if he would just give them a little time to make it right.

Florence Schaffner felt her face go flush and she could feel her heartbeat as it pounded away at the base of her throat. Rataczak turned to her and asked that she take down exactly what type of parachute it was that Cooper wanted and then instructed her to deliver that message to Captain Scott immediately. To show Cooper that he was acting in good faith Rataczak insisted she wait in the cockpit with the captain until it could determine exactly how long the replacement parachutes would take to be delivered.

Rataczak’s reassurance directive was a false ploy. The directive’s true intent was to keep Ms. Schaffner occupied in the cockpit and away from row 18. Schaffner obeyed and swiftly returned to the cockpit; half running as she scooted up the aisle.

As she burst into the cockpit she interrupted the captain, who had by now reviewed the entirety of Cooper’s flight instructions and pointed emphatically to the last note. He started to say, “Does that damn fool think I….”

“Wait, wait…” she cut him off, “the chutes, the ….parachutes…..” The young woman gasped for air in between her words, “The parachutes, they’re wrong, he’s pissed, he is going to blow-up the plane!” She held out the note she had just taken down.

Captain Scott snatched the paper out of her shaking hand and held it out at arm’s length, “Sh**! I should’ve...” the Captain left the words hanging. Schaffner was confused by the response; she looked over to the flight engineer Harold Anderson. Anderson obviously puzzled himself just shrugged and they both turned their attention back to their captain. “Military parachutes,” he finally continued, “they delivered military chutes, right?” He looked to the young flight attendant for her response.

“Yes”, she nodded, “I think that is what they brought. Yes, yes, military parachutes that’s what he’s so mad about.”

The captain looked over to Anderson, “Static line”, he said, gesturing an upward thrust with his closed fist. The flight engineer nodded instant recognition of the gesture.

“What?” Florence Schaffner was still confused, “I don’t understand?”

“Military parachutes have static line release,” Scott explained, “they have to be attached to the aircraft in order to work and I’m pretty sure that this plane wasn’t designed for that particular stunt. Besides a static line chute would pop open right out the door; the jet wash alone would cut him half, not that I care, but I think he might.” The captain picked-up the mic and radioed the tower. In as few words as possible the captain related the situation to whoever was listening in the control room. A voice acknowledged the captain’s instructions and asked him to hold on for a time estimate.

As he waited he turned his attention back to Ms. Schaffner, “I don’t know who this idiot thinks he is but if he’s going to jump out of this plane you make damn sure he takes the bomb with him! Oh and one more thing,” the captain resumed where Schaffner had interrupted him, “Does that damn fool really think I’m going to try and take off with a staircase hanging out of my ass?!!” The captain was incredulous in his tone and turning red in the face as he jammed his finger pointedly into the instructions she had delivered previously.

Ms. Schaffner, with tears now welling up in her eyes, confirmed that that was what he had said he wanted. Captain Scott softened his demeanor but wasted no time in making it abundantly clear that there was no way in hell he was going to attempt that kind of stunt, bomb or no bomb. “You tell that little sh** that I don’t give a damn if he gets himself killed; he had better leave the rest of us out of it. If he wants to fly this bird that’s fine, but as long as I’m driving all the doors and windows will be secured on take-off, you got that!!” The dam finally broke and the tears the young woman was desperately trying to hold back now streamed down her young face.

The emotionally overwhelmed 23 year-old flight attendant again found herself in the unenviable position of rejecting another demand from the madman in the back. This time Harold Anderson, the flight engineer, came to her aid and volunteered to explain just how dangerous and probably impossible the crazy idea was to even try. This freed the much relieved Ms. Schaffner to remain sequestered in the cockpit with Captain Scott for word on the replacement parachutes just as first officer Rataczak had instructed her to do.

Meanwhile, at the back of the plane, the plan shifted into high gear the moment Schaffner had re-entered the cockpit with orders to wait there. Cooper immediately got up from his seat with the briefcase and the small paper sack (see FBI Wanted Poster) and slipped into the nearby aft lavatory. Inside he quickly removed the dark sun-glasses and shed the business suit, the clip-on tie and the pressed white shirt. Underneath his business attire he had on a long sleeved T-shirt and a faded pair of blue jeans. He quickly removed the elements of his earlier disguise (possibly heavy rimmed eye-glasses, a false mustache and/or beard, baseball cap, etc., etc.) from the paper sack and reapplied them. He folded up the suit trousers and the pressed white shirt and placed them inside the paper sack. When he exited the lavatory he left behind the suit jacket, the clip-on tie, sun-glasses, briefcase and the small paper sack. He squeezed past Rataczak and headed up the aisle.

While Cooper altered his appearance Tina Mucklow retrieved an empty carry-on satchel from the baggage storage closet located near the midsection of the plane across from the galley and delivered it to row 18. After Cooper, now in disguise, squeezed by Rataczak standing in the aisle the first officer ducked into the now vacant lavatory. He quickly removed his flight uniform jacket and airline cap and put on Cooper’s suit jacket along with the dark wrap-around sun-glasses; he grabbed the briefcase and the paper sack and returned to Cooper’s seat in row 18 just as Tina Mucklow delivered the carry-on satchel.

Rataczak, now posing as Cooper, opened the satchel and removed the stiff vinyl covered board that lined the bottom of the bag. From the canvas bank bag that contained the ransom money he removed ten of the $2,000 bundles and placed them on the seat next to him. He then transferred the rest of the cash to the empty satchel and replaced the liner bottom as Mucklow stood watch. He removed the trousers and shirt from the paper sack and placed the sack into the satchel first followed by the folded up shirt and the trousers. He zipped the satchel closed and handed it back to Tina Mucklow who then casually returned it to the mid-cabin storage closet.

When Harold Anderson got up to go explain the captain’s objections to Cooper, Captain Scott prompted him, “ask that joker about unloading the passengers,” adding, “I don’t think I can stall much longer without the serious possibility of a mutiny on board.” Anderson nodded his acknowledgement as he exited the cockpit. As the flight engineer worked his way down the aisle towards the back of the plane he found his path momentarily blocked by one of the passengers (the now disguised suspect) returning from the aft lavatory. To make way for the flight engineer, Cooper nonchalantly sat down in an unassigned seat that was further up and across the aisle from his previous seat. He remained in this seat, with his face buried in an airline magazine, until the captain announced that the passengers could depart. Anderson continued down the aisle to row 18 where he then stood watch over the contraband that was piled in the seats of row 18 and prevented any stray passengers from accessing the aft lavatories. He maintained this post until first officer Rataczak had returned from the lavatory masquerading as Cooper.

Once Rataczak had assumed Cooper’s place, the flight engineer returned to the cockpit and informed the captain that the air-stair issue had been resolved and that he could now go ahead and offload the passengers and, “Oh, two of the girls,” referring to the flight attendants. This was the signal that everything back in the cabin was in order and on plan. The captain announced over the intercom that the passengers could start their departure. He then directed Ms. Schaffner to go find Alice Hancock and help her unload the passengers. The captain’s brief announcement ensured that the aisle would jam up with passengers eager to disembark and thus prevent Ms. Schaffner from returning to the back of the plane where she might discover the switch that had been made.

Florence Schaffner could see Tina Mucklow at the back of the plane dutifully helping the departing passengers retrieve their carry-on items. She could also make out Cooper intermittently. He sat upright and motionless against the window; seemingly disinterested in the flurry of activity going on elsewhere in the cabin. The dark wrap-around sun-glasses at a distance made him look like some kind of mutant humanoid insect with giant black unblinking eyes. She could feel his hidden gaze following her around the cabin and a cold chill ran down her spine as she finally had to look away.

Tina Mucklow worked her way up to the mid-cabin storage closet and popped the door open. She removed the carry-on satchel containing the hidden cash and handed it over to Cooper, who now assumed the role of departing passenger. Tina suddenly caught Florence Schaffner’s probing eyes searching from the front of the plane and the two friends momentarily exchanged mutually puzzled “What’s next?” looks, as they both shrugged.

Once the forward port side door had finally been opened Alice Hancock confirmed that the truck mounted stairway was in place and secured. She then quickly assumed her familiar post outside the cockpit door; offering each departing passenger the standard farewell salutation.

Florence Schaffner took the opportunity to duck briefly back into the cockpit. The harried young woman quickly queried her captain, “What about Tina?”

Captain Scott paused, and then looked lamentingly over to flight engineer Anderson who responded right on cue, “You’d better just go ahead and get the hell out of here while you can.”

Schaffner felt instantly relieved and then was sickened by the thought. She had realized that she was free to go but that her friend and coworker Tina Mucklow was to be left behind. Initially she was reluctant to leave with Tina still in the hands of the lunatic, but she quickly realized that there was nothing more she could do and returned to the passenger cabin just as the last passengers departed.

Florence stared down the long open expanse of the now virtually empty plane. Her friend and coworker Tina Mucklow was focused intently on the suspect. The distorted half human figure appeared to be dictating even more demands and Tina struggled to transcribe them, just as she herself had done earlier in the nightmare. “I hate that freak,” Schaffner thought to herself. “What more could he possibly want from us?!” Her hatred of him began to burn as she watched the smug little coward with the big bug-like eyes task her terrified friend.

Suddenly Tina looked up and caught her friend’s plaintive gaze. Tina’s young fresh face flashed instant recognition of her circumstances as she acknowledged her friend at the front of the plane. With remarkable composure the young woman accepted her predicament completely and without hesitation she eyed the port side exit and motioned for Florence to follow the others to safety. Florence Schaffner had the same heartbreaking thought that all have at that moment, “Will I ever see her again, alive?” She forced the unspeakable thought from her mind as she turned and walked off the plane.

Shortly thereafter the replacement parachutes arrived and Mucklow carried out the exchange via the aft air-stair. The plane taxied toward the runway as Captain Scott informed the tower that they would be flying low and slow on Victor 23, without the auto-pilot and putting down in Reno to refuel. He requested that controllers make the necessary arrangements and that FAA flight control be alerted to clear the air-space along the flight plan as they would be flying dark (without lights). The tower confirmed the instructions and cleared them for take-off and the big jet roared down the runway and lifted into the night sky headed south.

Back in the now empty passenger cabin Tina Mucklow and Bill Rataczak scrambled to gather up all remaining evidence of Cooper’s presence. Rataczak took off the suit jacket and the dark sun-glasses and retrieved his airline cap and flight uniform jacket from the lavatory. In his haste he overlooked the thin black clip-on tie that Cooper had left behind. They proceeded to complete the plan at a frenzied pace. Rataczak popped open one of the reserve parachutes and cut two lengths of suspension cord from the canopy. The pair quickly piled up the overcoat, the suit jacket, the sunglasses, the bomb laden briefcase, one of the main parachutes, the unopened reserve parachute (ironically the inoperable classroom prop) and the $20,000 in cash that Rataczak had separated from the ransom money and stacked it all in the last row of seats.

At around 8 p.m. they opened the aft exit door and deployed the air-stair. Rataczak twisted the canopy lines together and tied one end securely to the steel frame that held the last row of seats in place and wrapped the other end loosely around his forearm. He then worked his way down the narrow staircase letting out the cord as he descended. The twisted parachute lines acted as his safety-line against the torrent of jet wash that blasted past the protruding staircase. Tina stood atop the air-stair and passed the assorted items to the first officer one by one. Rataczak in turn tossed each of them out into the roaring, black, wintery abyss. With the final task of the plan complete, Rataczak climbed back up the narrow air-stair, untied his makeshift safety line and tossed it out the open stairwell. He turned to find Tina Mucklow nearly collapsed against one of the aisle seats. The young woman was completely drained, emotionally and physically spent. “Come on sweetheart we’re almost there,” he whispered tenderly into the young woman’s ear as he turned her by the shoulders and nudged her gently along the aisle towards the cockpit.

Once inside Rataczak slipped back into the copilot’s seat and the four co-conspirators exchanged sheepish grins of stealthy accomplishment, but they did not utter a word; in observance of their pact to never speak of the events of that day, ever, regardless of how the scheme played out. The flight continued on to land in Reno as previously described.

The Plan

This alternate version of the events, if they had in fact occurred, would put into place the one odd little piece of the puzzle that remained out of place in the official version of events. The 4”x 12”x 14” paper sack described at the bottom of the FBI’s wanted poster served no discernible purpose. Why carry something with you during the commission of a crime that you would have to either toss out or leave behind. It had to contain something essential to the plot or it would not have been there. Witnesses on board the plane never mention the sack in their statements, at least none that were made public. Suppose that you were planning to hijack a commercial jetliner during a brief, 30-minute flight. Would you pack a lunch? Maybe it contained something special for his wife. A token gesture for the little woman waiting patiently at home for her dedicated hubby to return home from a hard day of extortion and hijacking!! I’m thinking probably not so much. The small paper sack in the official version of events is definitely odd and certainly out of place.

Was it a coincidence that first officer Bill Rataczak’s face and build bore an uncanny resemblance to the eye-witness descriptions of Cooper; particularly when he was seated? The recovered clip-on tie that Cooper had worn was nearly indistinguishable from the tie with tie-tack that Bill Rataczak had chosen to wear that day.

The final four crew members that had remained aboard throughout the entire ordeal would afterwards avoid any discussion of the hijacking for an extended period of time. Maybe the trauma of being hijacked was simply too harrowing to relive. But that leaves released flight attendant Florence Schaffner’s behavior a bit puzzling. She did not appear to have experienced the same degree of trauma in spite of having been the only crew member to have actually seen the bomb. On the contrary, she would go on to give multiple public interviews over the ensuing years.

If these four crew members did conspire with the unidentified “Cooper” to carry out this well choreographed plan, the scheme was brilliant and its execution nearly flawless. This alternate case scenario would have permitted Cooper to walk off the plane in Seattle with most of the ransom money slung over his shoulder. It would have also accurately accounted for every passenger on board including the nut job who supposedly jumped out the back of a commercial jetliner with only one functional parachute. Surely authorities questioned each of the released passengers, at least briefly anyway, for any possible detail that they might recall about the non-descript, overly average looking businessman that sat way in the back, chain smoked and drank bourbon and seven.

More importantly investigators zeroed in on what Florence Schaffner had to say; they immediately focused their attention on the details that she alone could provide. After all, she had had the most contact and interaction with the suspect. The conspirators had set her up for the role that she would now unwittingly fulfill well beyond their wildest expectations. Schaffner it seems had been perfectly cast as the completely innocent and convincingly honest airline worker who was also absolutely dead certain that Cooper was still on board that plane when she left it; and she had been the very last person to get off the plane in Seattle.

Most of the other passengers claimed that they had been completely unaware that anything was wrong beyond the supposed mechanical problem that had delayed their arrival. All Cooper had to do was play along. He surely claimed ignorance of the whole onboard drama. He simply provided investigators with the name he used when he purchased the first ticket since it too would appear on the passenger manifest

The investigators had everything they could want in Florence Schaffner; a detailed description of Cooper; a blow by blow account of the events thus far; and with absolute certainty the last known whereabouts of their suspect. The other people that had been on board the plane could add little to nothing compared to what Florence Schaffner had provided and consequently they were not detained for any substantial period of time. So convincingly honest was Florence Schaffner’s recollection that authorities never bothered to cross check for a possible second alias listed among the passenger names on the flight manifest – which would have certainly cast suspicion in the direction of the crew had it been found there.

For his part Cooper could have casually volunteered that he had enjoyed a couple of cocktails and then simply slept through the remainder of the protracted delay. He might have even feigned impatient angst; reminding the junior investigator that he was already three hours late getting home to his overtly suspicious wife. Adding that he urgently needed to find a phone and call her. After the subordinate field agent handed over his FBI calling card and prompted the suspect to call if he remembered anything, he was summarily dismissed to go about his business. Absent any sense of urgency he picked up his carry-on satchel and slung it casually over his shoulder and strode carefree into the bustling swarm of holiday travelers, never to be seen or heard from again.

The pivotal player over the entire course of events was the remarkably convincing and completely innocent Florence Schaffner.  Her prominent role put her in a position to interact with the suspect up close and later to cement the audacious escape that Cooper had to have made since there was simply no other way for him to have gotten off that plane after she had seen him talking to Tina Mucklow. By permitting Schaffner to glimpse Rataczak posing as Cooper at the back of the plane seconds before she departed, the conspirators had assured Cooper’s place among the greatest of all legendary outlaws. Schaffner’s incredibly detailed recounting of the hijacking captured the imagination of all who listened; the authorities, the news media and the awed American public. Everyone involved was completely convinced that a sociopathic madman had commandeered one of the company’s planes, abducted four of her coworkers and was now headed for Mexico City with a bag full of loot and a big ass bomb.

The evidence that Rataczak and Mucklow had hurriedly gathered up and tossed from the plane would have surely convinced any remaining skeptics that Cooper had actually been foolhardy enough to leap from a commercial jetliner into a winter storm, at night, at 10,000 feet over mountainous terrain, wearing only a lightweight overcoat, a business suit and slip on loafers; that is had any of it been found!!

The Missteps

Clearly the biggest miscalculation by either the group of conspirators or the lone air-pirate was the flawed assumption that the Feds couldn’t possibly document the serial numbers of all 20,000 randomly selected $20 bills on such short notice but, somehow they had. It has been speculated that certain large banks keep a quantity of previously circulated, random and yet already photocopied and recorded currency on hand to thwart such would be extortionists. This rumor however, remains unconfirmed at this time. A brilliant counter measure if it were indeed available; unfortunately in this case the Feds stepped up with their own serious misjudgment. When they revealed the existence of the list that documented the serial numbers so soon after the heist, they tipped off the culprit(s) before he/they had gotten the chance to spend any of his/their ill gotten gain.

The clip-on tie with the mother-of-pearl tie-tack was clearly a sloppy oversight made by either an otherwise consummately meticulous individual or the normally very detail oriented conspirators. There are several counter intuitive actions committed by this individual, if it was in fact a lone extortionist on board. For instance; imagine having the insight to request two sets of parachutes knowing that the authorities would assume that you intend to force one of the hostages out the door ahead of you and thus averting any temptation to sabotage the parachutes. But then you realize that you lack the foresight to request helmets or goggles which are standard skydiving equipment, on a good day. Or take a moment and imagine that your cool, calculating presence of mind allows you to reclaim the one and only original hand written note before the flight attendant that had it got off the plane in Seattle; only to discover later that you are so absent minded as to leave a cheap clip-on tie with your favorite fancy tie-tack embedded in it behind! Extraordinary attention to detail coupled with unbelievably absent minded mistakes seems incongruent in the official version of events.

The presumption that a massive search effort would be mounted almost immediately over the projected drop zone was sound planning. That the search would turn up the discharged debris and lend irrefutable proof to an otherwise highly implausible story looked great on paper. However, the weather, altitude, terrain and the uncertainty of the exact location erased any chance that the intended counter measures would be recovered in a timely fashion. Too little debris scattered over too large and desolate an area of mostly impassable, frozen mountain terrain meant that little if anything would ever be recovered. Consequently any dispersal of the remaining ransom money could easily lead authorities back to one of the five conspirators. That possibility was a chance the conspirators felt was too great a risk to take. That left them with only one remaining option and that was to simply keep quiet, lay low and go on about their lives as though nothing had ever happened, and that is exactly what they did.

It has been suggested that all of the ransom money may have been jettisoned along with the debris in a daring charade intended to draw attention to the lax airline security maintained by the airline industry at the time; a level of security that placed passenger convenience and public perception above the lives and safety of airline employees. Northwest Orient Airlines was one of many airlines that had been involved in protracted labor disputes in their recent history, and according to some, flight security and hijack prevention had both appeared on the agenda as issues in some of those disputes. So, in theory, it could be considered a possible motive, but a rather unlikely one. It has been established that real life Robin Hoods are exceptionally rare and are far more likely to be found in the frames of a Hollywood film than they are in everyday life.

The four crew members that remained aboard flight 305 all the way to Reno that night provided their firsthand accounts to investigators immediately following the crime and to a hastily called news conference at the Reno Airport that night or early the following morning. After that the four remained remarkably silent on the subject, declining to discuss the hijacking at length with anyone for many years to come. Tina Mucklow would continue on as a flight attendant for a decade and then abruptly quit her job and enter a convent. She remained cloistered for yet another decade. When she did emerge from the convent she changed her name and continued to refuse any inquiry regarding the hijacking of flight 305. Is this odd behavior? Maybe, maybe not. Is it evidence of guilt? No, not really. The decisions that people make or what they do or do not do in their private lives is none of our business, no matter how strange we may find it or what we may “think” it to mean.

There are two more minor details, beyond that of the curious little paper sack, that that are often passed over in this case that any interested party should take note of; these points of interest are as follows:

1. The suspect seemed to have an intimate working knowledge of that specific model of commercial airliner; precisely what the minimum safe airspeed at low altitudes was and that the aft air-stair could be safely deployed while in-flight (the Boeing 727 is the only commercial jet airliner ever produced with that feature). This may suggest that the suspect was a former airman, since civilian aviation crew members would not have had reason or the opportunity to gain that knowledge as part of their civilian training.
2. The CIA reportedly used Boeing 727’s over Vietnam to drop personnel and supplies behind enemy lines. They allegedly chose the 727 for its ability to drop the air-stair while in-flight. The Boeing Corporation manufactured only four of the military version of the 727; three of which were ultimately assigned to the 201^st Airlift Squadron, Air National Guard, District of Columbia based in Washington D.C. Coincidently; Northwest Orient Airline’s flight 305 originated that morning of November 24, 1971 out of Washington D.C. Also curious to note is that the Washington (State) Air National Guard is based out of Camp Murray in Tacoma, Washington and that the suspect reportedly recognized the city of Tacoma and other area landmarks from the air as they were circling in the holding pattern prior to landing in Seattle.

I would like to stress to the reader that the fantastic conspiracy described above very likely never occurred at all, in any form or fashion. The discussion presented here serves only to make the observation that it was physically possible to do so at the time and not to suggest that it was probable in the least. The four crew members implicated as co-conspirators in this version of events were thoroughly interviewed by investigators and have since continued to cooperate fully with the authorities in charge of the case. They have not at any juncture been considered viable suspects in any capacity. I trust that the authorities in this case had and continue to have sound reasoning for excluding these four individuals from consideration as suspects, and I suggest to the reader that we all must accept this as fact and let it go at that.

April 5, 2013

From George Washington through Ulysses S. Grant, U.S. presidents followed a relentless policy of exterminating Native Americans. President Andrew Jackson codified ethnic cleansing into law when he signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830.

by David Robb

In 1830, it was called “The Indian Removal Act.” Today it’s called “ethnic cleansing,” which is considered a crime against humanity by the International Criminal Court. But for nearly 100 years it was the stated policy of every U.S. presidents from Washington to Grant – including Lincoln.

Ethnic cleansing was codified into U.S. law in 1830 when President Andrew Jackson asked Congress to pass the Indian Removal Act. This allowed him to legally relocate all Native Americans who were then living east of the Mississippi to the west side of the river. The result: The Trail of Tears, in which as many as 10,000 Indians died during the forced march westward.

To this day, many Native Americans will not carry $20 bills.

But Jackson was not alone in his mistreatment of Native Americans. Nearly every president of the 18^th and 19^th centuries – including Jackson – claimed that they wanted to help the Indians; to civilize the Indians; to Christianize the Indians. But what they really wanted was their land.

America was a growing nation, and it needed living space for white settlers and their slaves.

They had something similar in Nazi Germany – it was called Lebensraum– living space.

Thomas Jefferson

The third President of the United States, the acclaimed proponent of freedom and democracy, and the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson once wrote that American Indians are “merciless savages.”

That Thomas Jefferson wrote this may not be surprising; what is surprising is where he wrote it: It’s in the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence is, in part, an indictment against King George III, the English tyrant against whom the 13 Colonies were then in revolt. At the very end of the list of crimes King George had committed against the Colonies, Jefferson wrote: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

Today, the Declaration of Independence is enshrined and on permanent display, along with the Constitution and Bill of Rights, in the Rotunda of the National Archives.

As the nation’s third President, Jefferson’s Indian policy was to deceive Native Americans into giving up their land, “which they have to spare,” he said, “and we want.”

In 1803, the year of the Louisiana Purchase, President Jefferson wrote a letter to William Henry Harrison, a future U.S. President who was then governor of the Indiana Territory, explaining what should be done with the Native Americans inhabiting the wild frontier.

“Our system,” Jefferson wrote, “is to live in perpetual peace with the Indians, to cultivate an affectionate attachment from them, by everything just and liberal which we can do for them within the bounds of reason, and by giving them effectual protection against wrongs from our own people. The decrease of game rendering their subsistence by hunting insufficient, we wish to draw them to agriculture, to spinning and weaving.”

Those were noble sentiments, but there was an ignoble purpose behind them. In his letter to Harrison, Jefferson went on to explain: “When they (the Indians) withdraw themselves to the culture of a small piece of land, they will perceive how useless to them are their extensive forests, and will be willing to pare them off from time to time in exchange for necessaries for their farms and families. To promote this disposition to exchange lands, which they have to spare and we want, for necessaries, which we have to spare and they want, we shall push our trading uses, and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a cession of lands.”

And if any Indians make trouble, Jefferson wrote, they would be driven out of their lands.

“Should any tribe be foolhardy enough to take up the hatchet at any time,” he told Harrison, “the seizing the whole country of that tribe, and driving them across the Mississippi, as the only condition of peace, would be an example to others, and a furtherance of our final consolidation.” 

This was the final solution for the Indians – a policy that would result in their being driven from their ancestral lands and shunted onto barren reservations.

Jefferson made this clear four years later when he wrote that if the Indians did not cooperate, the policy of the United States would be “to pursue Indians to extermination, or to drive them to new seats beyond our reach.”

George Washington

George Washington was “the Father of His Country” and the hero of the Revolution. But he was no hero to Native Americans, who Washington described as “wolves and beasts who deserve nothing from the whites but total ruin.”

In 1779, in the middle of the Revolutionary War, General Washington ordered two of his top generals and more than 6,200 men – roughly one-quarter of his entire army – to “destroy” the Iroquois Six Nation Confederacy, which had sided with the British.

These troublesome Indians, Washington told his generals, should “not merely be overrun, but destroyed.”

The language that he used in conveying these orders were eerily similar to the words Jefferson had written three years earlier in the Declaration of Independence, in which Jefferson described the Indians’ “known rule of warfare” as “an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

But now it was General Washington who was calling for the destruction of the troublesome Indians – women and children alike.

In his orders to General John Sullivan, dated May 31, 1779, Washington wrote: “The Expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the Six Nations of Indians, with their associates and adherents. The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more. I would recommend, that some post in the center of the Indian Country, should be occupied with all expedition, with a sufficient quantity of provisions whence parties should be detached to lay waste all the settlements around, with instructions to do it in the most effectual manner, that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed.”

On these orders, thousands of Indians died in this brutal campaign of annihilation and its aftermath. Some 50 villages were destroyed, 1,200 dwellings burned and nearly 1 million bushels of corn burned in the fields – all on the eve of one of the worst winters in recorded history.

James Madison

In his 1813 State of the Union Address, President Madison referred to Native Americans as “savages” no less than eight times.

In the fall of that same year, he sent General Andrew Jackson to Alabama to put down the Creek Uprising. On March 27, 1814, Jackson wiped out the Indian forces at the Horseshoe Bend of the Tallapoosa River in eastern Alabama, killing 900 warriors, and  taking some 500 women and children as prisoners.

Today, Madison’s portrait adorns the $5,000 bill.

The following are direct quotes from State of the Union Addresses by nine U.S. Presidents. They show a consistent policy, from one administration to the next, to remove Native Americans from their ancestral lands.

James Monroe

First State of the Union Address

December 12, 1817

“The earth was given to mankind to support the greatest number of which it is capable, and no tribe or people have a right to withhold from the wants of others more than is necessary for their own support and comfort.”

“In terminating Indian hostilities, as must soon be done…the emigration, which has heretofore been great, will probably increase, and the demand for land and the augmentation in its value be in like proportion.”

Sixth State of the Union Address

Dec. 3, 1822

“It is essential to the growth and prosperity of the (Florida) Territory, as well as to the interests of the Union, that those Indians should be removed, by special compact with them, to some other position or concentration within narrower limits.”

Eighth State of the Union Address

Dec. 7, 1824

One of the goals of the federal government, he said, was “the extinguishment of the Indian title to large tracts of fertile territory.”

John Quincy Adams

Fourth State of the Union Address

Dec. 2, 1828

“They were, moreover, considered as savages, whom it was our policy and our duty to use our influence in converting to Christianity and in bringing within the pale of civilization.”

Andrew Jackson

Second State of the Union Address

Dec. 6, 1830

“It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly 30 years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation.”

Eighth State of the Union Address

Dec. 5, 1836

 “The national policy, founded alike in interest and in humanity, so long and so steadily pursued by this Government for the removal of the Indian tribes originally settled on this side of the Mississippi to the west of that river, may be said to have been consummated by the conclusion of the late treaty with the Cherokees.”

Martin Van Buren

First State of the Union Address

Dec. 5, 1837

“The system of removing the Indians west of the Mississippi, commenced by Mr. Jefferson in 1804, has been steadily persevered in by every succeeding President, and may be considered the settled policy of the country.”

Second State of the Union Address

Dec. 3, 1838

 “It affords me sincere pleasure to be able to apprise you of the entire removal of the Cherokee Nation of Indians to their new homes west of the Mississippi.”

Fourth State of the Union Address (Dec. 5, 1840

“The removal of the Indians from within our settled borders is nearly completed.”

“Since the spring of 1837 more than 40,000 Indians have been removed to their new homes west of the Mississippi…”

Millard Fillmore

Third State of the Union Address

Dec. 6, 1852

“The removal of the remnant of the tribe of Seminole Indians from Florida has long been a cherished object of the Government, and it is one to which my attention has been steadily directed.”

James K. Polk

First State of the Union Address

Dec. 2, 1845

“Our relations with the Indian tribes are of a favorable character. The policy of removing them to a country designed for their permanent residence west of the Mississippi, and without the limits of the organized States and Territories, is better appreciated by them than it was a few years ago.”

Fourth State of the Union Address

Dec. 5, 1848

“The title to all the Indian lands within the several States of our Union, with the exception of a few small reservations, is now extinguished, and a vast region opened for settlement and cultivation.”

“Within the last four years eight important treaties have been negotiated with different Indian tribes, and at a cost of $1,842,000; Indian lands to the amount of more than 18,500,000 acres have been ceded to the United States, and provision has been made for settling in the country west of the Mississippi the tribes which occupied this large extent of the public domain.”

(The payment amounted to 10¢ an acre.)

“The immediate and only cause of the existing hostility of the Indians of Oregon is represented to have been the long delay of the United States in making to them some trifling compensation, in such articles as they wanted, for the country now occupied by our emigrants, which the Indians claimed and over which they formerly roamed.”

John Tyler

First State of the Union Address

Dec. 7, 1841

“The war with the Indian tribes on the peninsula of Florida has during the last summer and fall been prosecuted with untiring activity and zeal…Numbers have been captured, and still greater numbers have surrendered and have been transported to join their brethren on the lands elsewhere allotted to them by the Government.”

Fourth State of the Union Address

Dec. 3, 1844

“The Executive has abated no effort in carrying into effect the well-established policy of the Government which contemplates a removal of all the tribes residing within the limits of the several States beyond those limits, and it is now enabled to congratulate the country at the prospect of an early consummation of this object.”

Abraham Lincoln

Third State of the Union Address

Dec. 8, 1863

“The measures provided at your last session for the removal of certain Indian tribes have been carried into effect. Sundry treaties have been negotiated, which will in due time be submitted for the constitutional action of the Senate. They contain stipulations for extinguishing the possessory rights of the Indians to large and valuable tracts of lands.”

Ulysses S. Grant

Second State of the Union Address

 Dec. 5, 1870

“I entertain the confident hope that the policy now pursued will in a few years bring all the Indians upon reservations…”

Third State of the Union Address

Dec. 4, 1871

“…by the law of April 10, 1869, many tribes of Indians have been induced to settle upon reservations.”

“Such a course might in time be the means of collecting most of the Indians now between the Missouri and the Pacific and south of the British possessions into one Territory or one State.

Fifth State of the Union Address

Dec.1, 1873

“The Indian Territory south of Kansas and west of Arkansas is sufficient in area and agricultural resources to support all the Indians east of the Rocky Mountains. In time, no doubt, all of them, except a few who may elect to make their homes among white people, will be collected there.”

April 8, 2013

Since the “War on Drugs” was launched in the mid-1980s, accompanied by mandatory-minimum sentences for drug offenders, the U.S. prison population has exploded from under 900,000 to 2.3 million prisoners. With correction budgets consumed by building new prisons and staffing them, rehabilitation programs were slashed. Prisons all over the nation turned – with disastrous results – to the use of solitary confinement as its primary means of control. More than 80,000 inmates are being subjected to long-term solitary confinement in the United States. Not one of them will leave prison undamaged by the experience.

                                                      by Shawn R. Griffith

I was 18 years old, sitting in a solitary confinement cell. My confinement was not a result of assaultive behavior, but instead a form of retaliation for refusing to jog. I was in one of the “Boot Camp” prisons so popular in the 1990s. This was a shock-jock program modeled after the Marines’ real boot camps, like the one at Camp Lejeune. Ostensibly, it was designed by corrections officials to make the initial incarceration of youthful offenders so brutal that it would change their ways and divert them from future crime and the institutional lifestyle.

Unfortunately, for political reasons, it was also calculated to advance only the least offensive youths for early release. The others, like me with an armed-burglary charge, were pawns to make the program appear as if it were functioning as it was intended. The most sadistic guards from the State of Florida were brought in, and they pushed the young men who they did not want to complete the program to the brink of death. When I finally refused to jog anymore, actually collapsing of heat stroke, I was taken to medical where they registered a fever of 102.5. I was given ice for my forehead and sent to the dreaded confinement for refusing orders.

I remained inside the cell for a few weeks, my only respite a five-minute shower every other day. At night, in the darkness, I could hardly see the black roaches crawling on the concrete wall, but they were there. There were no windows to see the sun. I had no watch, no pillow, no books, no radio, nothing. I knew it was late, only because it had been numerous hours since the tasteless dinner chow had been shoved into my cell. Within an hour or two it would be January 5^th, my birthday. I began to cry. I couldn’t stand the idea of turning 19 in such a heartless place. I didn’t cry often. In prison, even teenagers had to be tough. But the loneliness, the boredom, just knowing that nobody cared or even knew where I was on my birthday sent me into a deep depression.

I tried to cut my wrists, but the piece of metal from an old battery wasn’t sharp enough. Then I got angry. I thought to myself, “This is inhumane. This confinement is what they call rehabilitation! This doesn’t make me want to become a part of society, a society of which my abusive father was so proud to be a part. No, they act just like my dad, and this makes me hate them even more,” and that was my final thought before I drifted off to sleep on a urine-stained mattress.

As an ex-convict who spent over seven years of my 22-years in prison in the “hole,” or what free people call solitary confinement, I can testify that it has terribly debilitating effects that defeat the intended purpose. According to the Vera Institute of Justice, more than 81,000 inmates languish inside these solitary cells every day in the United States.

Another widely accepted study, conducted by the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, noted that over 25,000 of these prisoners are housed inside supermax prisons around the nation.

Considering the enormity of these numbers, the time is overdue for a reevaluation of solitary confinement in the United States. It is not humane; it is not compliant with world organizations on human rights; and there are alternatives that make more sense to the cause of rehabilitation.

Confinement units in the United States have a long, sordid history reaching back to the late 17^th century. Back then the use of solitary was inspired by the austere Quakers who believed that prisoners could be healed and brought to the light of God by long-term seclusion from other inmates. The first known prison dedicated solely to solitary confinement was the Eastern State Penitentiary, designed by John Haviland. It opened in Philadelphia on October 25, 1829. It is considered to be the world's first true penitentiary. To prevent communication between prisoners, guards placed hoods over the heads of inmates and believed that this isolation would cleanse the prisoners of evil influences. Of course, instead it led to psychosis in the people subjected to it, as supermax facilities do today.

Solitary Confinement – “Slow-Motion Torture”

Considering how much research was done on the debilitating effects of long-term seclusion in early America, it is shocking how easily the public was convinced that such practices should be implemented again in the 1970s. Indeed, like many misleading initiatives inside the prison industrial complex, authorities initially foisted supermax facilities and other long-term confinement units on the public as necessary for institutional security. Officials like Greg Lewis, warden of Pelican Bay Supermax in Northern California, have been quick to say that these units are necessary to separate violent gang members within the prisons. In an article entitled, “Slow-Motion Torture,” by Jeff Tietz in the December 6, 2012 issue of Rolling Stone, Warden Lewis was quoted saying that his prison almost exclusively housed gang members for this reason. Within the same article, Jeanne Woodford, former director of the California Department of Corrections, stated that there were “just so many of them,” referring to the number of gangs in the prisons. This was the case in the 1970s, when overcrowding and limited budgets allowed gangs to get a strong foothold. And in the 1970s, when riots and overall violence was endemic throughout the federal and state systems, authorities resorted to these units. In some ways, they had a credible need for a limited use of them.

However, since then, these supermax-type facilities have sprung up in the thousands, completely disproportionate to the number of gang members inside U.S. prisons. In the 1990s, just in Florida alone, the Department of Corrections built over 50 supermax confinements called Controlled Management Units, capable of holding a total of thousands of prisoners. As reported by the Houston Chronicle, based on figures provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in 2011, there were more than 9,000 prisoners serving terms in solitary confinement. At the end of 2011, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, there were 2,406 inmates in the state’s restricted housing units. In Virginia, according to a 2012 article in the Washington Post, the number of inmates housed in long-term solitary confinement exceeded 1,800, including 500 who were confined for more than six months inside their supermax cells at Red Onion State Prison.

For those who have never experienced prison or jail, a brief explanation of the different varieties of solitary confinement is in order. There are a number of them. There is regular administrative confinement, disciplinary confinement, and controlled management units or supermax cells, SHU’s, and Intensive Management Units (IMU’s), among others.

Administrative Confinement

Administrative confinement (AC) is the least debilitating form of solitary confinement. Inmates usually get to retain their reading materials, headphones, a few commissary items, religious stuff, and stationary with postage for writing letters. In most cases, AC is used to separate rival gang members, to provide protection for inmates who fear for their lives, and to seclude someone who is suspected of wrongdoing, but has yet to be charged with any infraction.

For those inmates placed in AC suspected of a rule or law violation, officials have more investigating to do before they can charge the inmate with a disciplinary violation. If almost no information is found to validate suspicions against the inmate under investigation, the person is usually released to the general population of inmates within 30 to 90 days. If the inmate is indeed charged with an infraction, after the investigation is conducted, the person is issued a disciplinary report (DR) and taken to DR court to be found guilty. Approximately 97 percent of inmates are found guilty by DR hearing teams. This doesn’t mean they are all guilty of rule infractions. It simply means they were either guilty, or they made someone in power angry. That is just one of the injustices of solitary confinement. It is frequently used to retaliate, to lock up an inmate for challenging abusive prison conditions. In cases of retaliation by staff, however, a disciplinary report usually follows the stay in administrative confinement. This covers any retaliatory use of solitary under the guise of simple discipline, a guise most people in the public presume to be true.

Once the person is charged with an infraction, the inmate’s personal property items are taken and stored and the prisoner is locked behind a steel door for a minimum of 23 hours daily. The hour outside of solitary is usually spent showering, three times per week. The other four days of the week typically mean 24-hour days in confinement.

After 30 to 60 days of good behavior, inmates are allowed one hour of recreation per week. In Florida, Arizona, and Texas, recreation means standing in a small, chain-link cage, commonly under extreme inclement conditions. For instance, on May 19, 2009, an Arizona prisoner named Marcia Powell visited a prison psychologist. She was serving a 27-month sentence for prostitution and had previously been diagnosed with mental retardation and schizophrenia. During her visit to the psychologist she was deemed suicidal and given antipsychotic medications, which might have made her more sensitive to high temperatures. She was then placed in one of these “recreation” cages to await transfer to another cell for better observation.

Prisoners are not supposed to remain in these cages for more than an hour or two, especially not on 106-degree afternoons. As Prison Legal News reported, Powell, at 48 years of age, sat in the cage, under the scorching May sun for four hours. The officers who were appointed to watch her from approximately 15 yards away supposedly mocked her mental illness and her requests for help. Other prisoners reported that the guards just ignored her as she made numerous pleas for water and toilet facilities. As hard as it might be to believe, they ignored this helpless woman until she eventually baked to death. This type of abuse is not an anomaly inside America’s prisons. It is rampant, particularly inside solitary confinement units. (See Facing the U.S. Prison Problem 2.3 Million Strong, by Shawn R. Griffith, at www.speakoutpublishing.com)

Disciplinary Confinement

Unlike administrative confinement, in disciplinary confinement (DC), inmates are not allowed to have books, radios or headphones to listen to in their cells. There is nothing provided or allowed in most states’ disciplinary cells…except misery and boredom. The amount of time spent in DC depends on the number of DR’s someone has received, or the degree of threat a prison administrator feels the inmate poses to the regime through illegal violence or legal activism.

Ordinarily, stays in DC average about 60 days, not including the time spent inside AC. Nonetheless, I know of some prisoners who have gone into DC and have never come out. This occurs because they receive so many DR’s for disorderly conduct while in confinement (valid or retaliatory charges) that they are not released until they are paroled or released.  Sometimes the inmate’s behavior is so violent that for his or someone else’s safety, the inmate is required to remain inside a cell for years or even decades with no physical interaction with other people. However, as mentioned above, prisoners are also commonly locked up for these long durations for political activism, petty contraband charges, or other minor offenses. Indeed, whole units of confinement buildings have been built around the country’s state and federal prison systems to enable administrators to confine people for years at a time. In 2012, every major prison in the nation had some form of solitary confinement units, and there were 44 states with supermax facilities.

Supermax Cells

These supermax cells, also known as Controlled Management Units (CM), Secure Housing Units (SHU), Administrative Maximum Units (ADX), and simply supermax, are usually no different than regular AC cells. Solitary confinement cells usually measure from 6 x 9 to 8 x 10 feet. Some have bars; some have solid metal doors. Meals generally come through “bean flaps” or small doors built within the solid or barred doors, as do any communications with prison staff. Within these cells, inmates experience lives of enforced idleness and are denied the opportunity to work or attend prison programming. The only difference from regular AC or DC cells is that prisoners will remain inside these cells for a minimum period of six months to five years, and in some instances for as long as they live in prison. That includes life, which means they will die inside their confinement cells.

 In fact, there are some statistics related to how long prisoners have been staying in these units. According to the American Friends Service Committee, the average time served in these units in the Arizona prison system is five years. In Texas, the average inmate in administrative segregation spends over four years in solitary, with the longest being isolated for 24 years. In Virginia, at the Red Onion State Prison, a recent memo states that inmates are on average isolated for 2.7 years, with the range of stays being two weeks to seven years. In Florida State Prison, I personally knew of one inmate, named Joseph Spaziano, who spent 20 years in the same death row cell, until the courts overturned his death sentence. Most of these men have already gone insane. The ones who haven’t are aware that they will live like animals in a cage for years and are aware of this reality each and every day that they stare at the concrete walls. Indeed, many people who were not already mentally ill upon intake into solitary will eventually become mentally unstable.

Solitary Unleashes a Pandora’s Box of Evils

For example, an independent investigation from 2006 found that as many as 64 percent of prisoners in SHU’s were mentally ill. This was a much higher percentage than originally believed and much higher than the general population of inmates in those same institutions.

As reported by Solitary Watch (www.solitarywatch.com), following extensive interviews with Pelican Bay SHU inmates in 1993, Dr. Stuart Grassian found that solitary confinement induces a psychiatric disorder characterized by hypersensitivity to external stimuli, hallucinations, panic attacks, cognitive deficits, obsessive thinking, paranoia, and a litany of other physical and psychological problems. Psychological assessments of Pelican Bay’s solitary confined prisoners indicated high rates of anxiety, nervousness, obsessive ruminations, anger, violent fantasies, nightmares, trouble sleeping, as well as dizziness, perspiring hands, and heart palpitations.

Solitary Watch also reported that rates of suicide in the California lockup units are by far the highest in any prison housing units anywhere in the country. Many SHU inmates become deeply anxious around and afraid of people. Some begin to lose their grasp on their sanity and badly decompensate. In New York, California, and Texas, it was found (and certainly when I was incarcerated in Florida, I witnessed) that suicide rates are significantly higher among inmates in solitary confinement than in general population.

One of the causes of the psychological toll, at least from my personal experiences in Florida’s prisons, was the overall inhumane conditions of solitary confinement—without respite. Contrary to popular belief, most prisons do not have air conditioning. In Southern prisons, for instance, the temperatures commonly go above 100 degrees during the late spring and summer months. Although officials who operate confinement units are supposed to ensure a minimum amount of ventilation for prisoners to breathe, in addition to a window for seeing outside the cell, rarely are these standards maintained. If a window exists at all, the authorities frequently paint over it or frost it with a coating to increase the sensory deprivation of inmates in solitary confinement. They do this knowing all too well how this affects people psychologically.

In the Rolling Stone article by Tietz, the author writes that no one escapes solitary confinement unscathed. He quotes psychiatrist Terry Kupers saying, “Everybody who is in a supermax has some kind of psychological damage as a result.” Kupers has interviewed almost 1,000 inmates in supermax segregation and said he’s never found anyone who was not damaged by the experience. Tietz also reported that a group of researchers who recently reviewed a large amount of medical literature on the effects of isolation cells found that no study on long-term solitary – three months or more – had ever failed to reveal “serious psychiatric symptoms” in inmates.

This brings to mind a cell that I was confined in at Gulf Correctional Institution in 2004. I was placed in this cell in direct retaliation for helping illiterate inmates file grievances about inhumane work conditions. After filing complaints about the circumstances and helping others do the same, my hands were cuffed behind me, and I was placed into the sweat box from hell. This confinement, like many in state prisons, was designed to confine two occupants. As I entered, I nodded to the complete stranger who would become my cellmate for at least two weeks and possibly as long as six months. I learned that my cellmate’s name was Silver, a Jewish guy who was also suffering retaliation. In his case it was for being Jewish and wanting the kosher dietary allowance that was required by his religious beliefs, and supposedly “protected” by the courts at that time. Prisons are the one place where the good-ole-boy tolerance for racism and religious discrimination, as long as it’s against convicts, is still alive and well.

Solitary confinement is one of the primary weapons used by racist guards against minorities and political activists. The courts know of this, but repeatedly overlook it in the name of penal security, even when they get direct evidence of its occurrence under brutal conditions.

This confinement was particularly brutal. The cell had no ventilation. To increase the inmate’s suffering, the prison had the doors to the cells constructed so that there was less than a half inch of space between the solid steel door and the concrete floor. The ventilation fan in the back wall of the cell was only used during inspections. This would fool anyone from outside of the institution into believing that mandatory requirements were being met. This pillbox had no windows. The temperature inside the cell was at least 90 degrees, without any air circulation. Silver and I were sweating so much that the indent of our bodies in the plastic-covered mattress was a pool of water. We didn’t even bother to dump the sweat. It was cooler that way. Eventually, both of us got a skin fungus.

I don’t know what ever happened to Silver. By luck of the draw, I was scheduled to have a tooth pulled at a medical prison, and I got transferred out of there before the guards got a chance to do what they had promised to do to me for challenging their prison conditions.

Northern prisoners also have similar challenges of abusive uses and conditions of confinement to face; only when it comes to temperature, they have the exact opposite concerns. Oftentimes, the old Northern prisons do have a window that is either broken or not properly sealed. In one case of which I am personally aware, a friend of mine named James Quigley was in Vermont in one of these cells that had a broken window. He had been transferred out of Florida’s prison system because he had been very effective through the courts in challenging abuses by the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC). The FDOC allowed him to transfer to the Vermont Department of Corrections (VDOC), basically to get rid of him.

Shortly after James arrived at the Vermont prison, he discovered that the superintendent of the prison was using the collect-call system to scam prisoners’ families. After he filed complaints, he was placed inside the cell with the broken window. He had complained to his friends and family that he was being tortured with sub-freezing temperatures in his cell, with inadequate clothing, and no way to get warm. James was a fighter, not easily cowed, and certainly not unfamiliar with correctional abuses. He was not the type to give up easily. Sadly, he must have reached his tolerance level, because after weeks of being tortured with the perennial cold, he was found inside the same cell hanging from the ceiling—dead.

Suicides in Solitary

Although only 8 percent (over 184,000) of prisoners are housed in long-term solitary confinement in the United States, 50 percent of all suicides occur in there.

The main reason is that these types of conditions amount to torture, psychological and physical. And ex-cons like me are not the only ones to agree with this premise. For example, The Committee Against Torture, which is the governing body of the U.N. Convention Against Torture, has recommended that the practice of long-term solitary confinement be eradicated. Bolstering this recommendation, in August 2011, Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, concluded that even 15 days in solitary confinement constitutes cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. His findings also showed that 15 days is the limit after which irreversible harmful psychological effects can occur.

This finding was not in direct relation to the types of confinements I have described, in which men literally lie in their own pools of sweat for months at a time. Instead, this finding showed that even the solitary confinement units that are used as they are designed to be used are abhorrent. What is so hard to understand is how the mainstream media ignores such treatment of U.S. citizens, yet cries foul when foreign detainees are abused half as badly. Moreover, even if everyone thought that U.S. prisoners should be treated like that, it would certainly make less sense if the public knew that 95 percent of all prisoners nationally will end up back in society.

Research has repeatedly shown that a stronger focus on rehabilitation and positive behavioral incentives reduces recidivism and tendencies toward violence. In fact, experts on the effects of solitary confinement have documented these to include PTSD, increased risk of suicide, insomnia, paranoia, uncontrollable feelings of rage, and visual and auditory hallucinations. Literally thousands of prisoners are released directly into U.S. society from these confinement cells every day. Instead of being exposed to rehabilitative programs while in prison, they’ve been subjected to the cruelty of solitary confinement and turned into walking time bombs.

Alternatives to Solitary Confinement

Maybe the practice of using solitary confinement would be more tolerable if there were no alternatives. To the contrary, there are a number of positive, rehabilitative incentives that could be used to replace most of our dependency on solitary to control behavior. For instance, music programs, drug rehab, hobby-craft, and incentivized jobs could all be used to reduce violence and misbehavior. From 1990 to 2010, these programs were slashed, as the push for longer, mandatory-minimum sentences became commonplace. With longer sentences came the need to build more and more prisons. This in turn created incentive to shift money away from rehabilitative programs, which then created the demand for solitary confinement units. Without ordinary rehabilitative incentives at their disposal, prison administrators had little else to use to control prisoners’ behavior other than the threat of solitary confinement. The policy became one of suppression and debilitation at any cost…and the cost has been incalculable.

Indeed, the initial economic pressures that started this trend have largely been forgotten, and now the dependency on solitary is actually defeating the original cost savings that policy leaders thought they would achieve. Not only is solitary confinement terribly counterproductive, it is also far more expensive than the cost of housing inmates in general population. According to an article published by the Seattle Times, “Solitary confinement costs about three times as much as keeping a prisoner in general custody.” Solitary Watch also reported that solitary confinement units cost more to build than ordinary prisons housing general population prisoners. Nationally, it has been estimated that confining inmates in solitary units costs $75,000 per year, much higher than the cost for general population – those costs run anywhere from $18,000 to $35,000 per year. In Ohio, for instance, housing a general population inmate costs $101 per day. An inmate in a level 5 supermax facility at Ohio State Penitentiary costs $149. Therefore, the public should be aware of this when policy makers bemoan the costs of rehabilitative programs.

What has happened over the past two decades is that political leaders have used prisoners as pawns during their political campaigns. They know that prisoners are helpless to speak out about their needs and conditions, and that most people could care less about these issues. The problem with this lack of concern is that law-abiding citizens are the ones who suffer in the long run, not politicians. For each prisoner who was made worse by solitary confinement conditions and a failure to get true rehabilitation when incarcerated, there is one citizen who will likely be victimized by that recidivist ex-convict.

We can’t lock up everyone. We already have 2.3 million inmates filling our prisons. It is time to understand that not all, but a large percentage of the prison population can be helped, and one of the first policies that should be changed is our correctional system’s dependency on solitary confinement units. It’s time to have a serious discussion about this in the United States. After all, if we want to remain the leader in the battle against civil rights abuses, it’s probably time for us to realize that Europe and every other industrialized nation has already left us far behind when it comes to the issue of solitary confinement in our prisons and jails.

April 10, 2013

Yaseen Ege

The murder of 7-year-old Muslim child in Cardiff, Wales in 2010 brought his mother and father to trial. Did the jury convict the wrong parent?                

by Marie Kusters-McCarthy

Arranged marriages are an integral part of Indian Hindu and Muslim culture. Parents, and family members, become involved in the search for a prospective bride or groom through acquaintances, advertisements or marriage brokers. In modern India there has been a move towards flexibility. However, there are still marriages where the bride and groom see each other for the first time at the wedding ceremony. The family will consider several factors such as background, wealth, social status, caste and education. More and more young women in India are university educated and the families are taking that into consideration when choosing a suitable partner.

The custom of arranged marriages in India can be traced back to the 4th century. It began as a means to unite, and maintain, the upper caste system. Eventually it spread to the lower caste as a way of staying within their social status and preventing unsuitable “love” matches. Even today 95 percent of Indian marriages are arranged.

In the Muslim faith it is the responsibility of the parents to provide for the upbringing, education and marriage of their children. Parents have the responsibility to arrange suitable, hopefully happy, marriages for their daughters. Female offspring are considered to be made for someone else’s house.  Parents of sons have the responsibility to seek out eligible, suitable females for marriage. When a possible bride has been identified it is the father of the groom who meets with the bride’s father to reach an agreement as to the suitability of the couple. A dowry will be discussed, presents exchanged and the ceremony date agreed.

The marriage ceremony can often be the first time bride and groom see each other and will not even speak until after the ceremony. During the ceremony both are asked if they are in agreement to the marriage. When they acknowledge their agreement, the Koran is read and a pre-arranged dowry is confirmed. The paying of a dowry is culturally optional, and now legally unlawful, but is still practiced and can be a very important part of the marriage agreement. Once the marriage contract is signed the bride immediately goes to live in her husband’s family home.

It is considered a shame on an Indian family if a daughter remains unmarried over the age of 24.                                                            

All cultures have practiced arranged marriages, be they for dynastic, financial or political reasons. In fact the modern day “on line dating” websites are just marriage brokers but don’t call themselves that. The hope of finding a suitable partner is the reason that people, in Western society, sign up and pay for introductions.

With a lot of young Indian men living in the West, especially England, there is a shortage of eligible marriage partners. That has created a growing need for marriage brokers. 

Sara

Sara Ege

Sara, daughter of Nafees Ahmed and Mohamed Ali Khan, was part of a large extended family and had a happy home life with her antique dealer father, mother and two brothers in the city of Hyderabad, India. She was educated at a Catholic school prior to university where she gained a first-class honors degree in mathematics and statistics.

In 2000 Sara’s parents felt the time had come for her to marry, she was 20 years of age. They registered with a marriage bureau, which is on a par with dating agencies in Europe and the United States.

The bureau presented Yousuf Ali Ege to Sara’s parents for consideration. They were told he was a 26-year-old, educated man with a BA and a Masters degree, had a good job as the manager at a branch of The Royal Mail in Cardiff, Wales. Cardiff is the capital city of Wales which like Scotland and Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. Yousuf’s parents had registered their son with the same bureau as distance and time had made the selection of a bride difficult. Neither family had met prior to the introduction by the bureau.

Within a week of Sara’s registration with the agency, her parents accepted Yousuf Ali Ege as a suitable husband for their daughter.  A visit by the future groom’s family took place on the following Wednesday and the wedding ceremony performed on the Friday. Because of Yousuf’s urgency to return to his job in Cardiff the usual weeks, or even years, of wedding preparation was outweighed. There was no conversation between the couple prior to the marriage.

Sara grew up in the knowledge that her parents loved her and would only want the best for her. She accepted and trusted them to find her a suitable, equally well educated life partner. Within days of her marriage she found herself thousands of miles away from family and friends in a strange country. She soon became aware that she was married to a man with a limited, O’ Level education, (barely high school), was a mail delivery man and part-time taxi driver. The marriage was unhappy from the start. After several miscarriages and three years of marriage, Sara gave birth, through IVF treatment, to a son, Yaseen.

Even though she was very unhappy in her marriage, in Sara’s culture it was unthinkable for her to return home to her parents. It would be considered a shame on the whole family and she would be looked upon as an “unwanted” married woman and a burden.

The Murder of 7-Year-Old Yaseen

On July 12, 2010, fire fighters rushed to a fire at a residential home in Cardiff after receiving a call from a hysterical woman who said her 7-year-old son, Yaseen, was still inside the burning house. The fire was quickly extinguished and firefighters found the boy’s badly burnt body and immediately applied CPR. Firefighter Richard Higson felt something wasn’t right as the body was rigid and hot. The face was not swollen and there was no soot in the mouth. An ambulance rushed Yaseen to the nearest hospital but he was declared dead en route. His mother, Sara Ege, was suffering from smoke inhalation and, accompanied by her husband, was taken in a separate ambulance to the hospital.                                                                                                       

Yaseen’s father told police that his son had not gone to school that day as there was going to be a “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” and the boy did not have a teddy bear. Family, friends and neighbors were traumatised by this tragic accident. Flowers and teddy bears were placed by saddened neighbors, school children and friends outside the home.                                                          

However, within days a post mortem revealed the shocking truth. Prior to his death, Yaseen had suffered a catalogue of systematic physical abuse. His body had multiple injuries to his abdomen, broken ribs, a fractured arm and finger and the little boy was dead prior to the fire.

Both parents were questioned by the police. Within a few days, in a taped confession, Sara told police that she had killed her son for his failure to learn and recite parts of the Koran. Several weeks later she retracted this confession.  Her husband, Yousuf, denied all knowledge of any abuse or beatings his son may have received. Sara was charged with the murder of Yaseen. Yousuf Ali Ege was charged with causing or allowing the death of his son by failing to act.

The Trial of Sara and Yousuf Ali Ege

The trial opened in May 2012 at Cardiff Crown Court. Prosecutor Ian Murphy informed the jury that Sara, in her taped confession, had told police how she had beaten Yaseen regularly with a stick. On the day of the boy’s death she had beaten him until he had collapsed, still murmuring extracts from the Koran. She left her son lying on the floor and upon returning, some 10 minutes later, found him shivering and shaking and within minutes she realised he was dead. She then poured barbecue lighter fluid over the body to cover up the recent and old injuries she had inflicted.

At trial, her defense counsel, Peter Murphy, (not to be confused with Prosecutor Ian Murphy), said Sara had been a victim of verbal and physical abuse at the hands of her husband just days into the marriage.

Testifying in her own defense, Sara told the court she did not cause her son’s death and that it was her husband who was responsible for Yaseen’s death. She said her husband had beaten his son causing the abdominal and other injuries which led to his death. She also said her confession to the police had been given in fear for her life as she had been threatened by Yousuf and his family. She said she had loved her little boy very much and would never have done anything to hurt him.

When the prosecution showed Sara’s taped confession to the jury, an emotional Sara was allowed to leave the court. The harrowing confession gave details of how she had beaten Yaseen “like a dog” regularly as she had become increasingly frustrated by his inability to master the Koran to the level of the older boys at their mosque.                                                                                                                

Sections of unrecorded interviews were also read out to the court in which the defendant said she was out of control, had beaten her son regularly for no reason, had tried to stop but was unable to. “He was so good, he never complained about anything. I just blame my anger, I lost control. I cannot put all this together. There was no intention in me to harm my son.”                                                           

The court heard evidence from a class teacher at Yaseen’s school who, as far back as 2007, had noticed an injury on the boy’s hand. When questioned as to how the injury had occurred Yaseen told him that his mother had hit him with a ruler. The teacher brought this matter to the attention of the head teacher who asked to speak with whichever parent came to collect Yaseen. That afternoon it was his mother who came for him.

There was some confusion as the head teacher, whose name was withheld by a court order, had initially denied ever having spoken with Mrs. Ege regarding her son’s injury, but recalled it later. He said he had no concerns about inviting Sara Ege, whose educational background had impressed him, to be a volunteer classroom assistant with other pupils at the school.

The head teacher asked Sara about the injury and she said that Yaseen had been naughty at home and she had hit him. The head teacher told her “We all lose our tempers but we are not allowed to do that.” She then asked was he naughty at school? The answer was “no.”

Peter Birkitt, the defence attorney for Yousuf Ali Ege, then addressed the court. He said there was no evidence that the father was aware of the suffering and injuries inflicted by his wife on Yaseen. As far as he was aware, Sara was a concerned, caring and devoted mother and he had never received a complaint from his young son. He went on to say that Yousuf had two jobs which meant he was seldom in the home. He did not have the advantage of teachers who were with Yaseen six hours a day to see his pain. The school had discussed their concerns only with the mother and had not brought it to the attention of the father.

Questions were raised as to the behaviour of Yousuf Ali Ege on the day of the fire. To some of those at the scene it appeared he was already aware of his son’s death upon his arrival to the home.

Prosecutor Ian Murphy, in closing, said Sara had promised Yaseen a bicycle if he had been perfect in the first two chapters of the Koran by July 19, 2010. When the boy did not meet these expectations there was an explosion of anger which resulted in Yaseen’s death.

Judge Royce summed up the six-week trial by telling the eight female and four male jurors to put all emotion aside in making a decision as to who was, and who was not, telling the truth. He said “You must approach your task dispassionately, calmly and fairly.”                                                                                                                           

He went on to say, in order to convict Sara Ege they had to be sure she caused the injuries which led to Yaseen’s death, that she failed to get medical attention and that she set him on fire. If they were to find she did kill her son, but was suffering from an abnormality of mind at the time, then they should find her guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.                                                                

To convict Yousuf Ali Ege, Judge Royce told the jury that they would have to be sure that he knew, or should have known, his son could be at risk and failed to take steps to protect him.

After three days of deliberation, the jurors returned to the court saying they were unable to reach a verdict on either of the accused. They also said that even with more time they would be unable to do so. Judge Royce then discharged the jury and the case was listed for retrial. 

Retrial

On October 31, 2012, the retrial of Sara and Yousuf Ali Ege opened in Cardiff Crown Court. As in the first trial, Sara Ege was charged with the murder of her son andYousuf Ali Ege with causing, or allowing, the death of his son by failing to act. Both the accused denied the charges. This time a jury of 10 men and two women were empanelled.

In his opening statement to the jury, Prosecutor Ian Murphy stated that Sara Ege had inflicted the violence on her son with the intention to kill or cause serious harm. She then set fire to his body in an attempt to hide the many injuries he had suffered prior to and on the day of his death. He said medical evidence would be presented describing the injuries which Yousuf must have seen as he had shared a bed with his son.

During the trial, the jury was shown the harrowing taped confession that Sara had made to the police just days after Yaseen’s death. In this tape, Sara described how she had beaten her son after she got angry with him because he was having difficulty reciting verses of the Koran to her required standard. When he collapsed, she dragged him to the kitchen to give him some milk, he sipped the drink and was then brought to a bedroom to change his clothes. She left him for about 10 minutes believing he had fallen asleep. When she returned she found him shaking, shivering and gulped a final breath before dying. She said she panicked and decided to burn his body with barbecue lighter to hide his injuries.

In the tape, Sara said she was out of control and beat her son for almost no reason. She also told police that on one occasion Yaseen had gone to school unable to sit due to a beating. He was sent home by the school. Sara switched him to another school, informing the principal that her son had a leg injury that prevented him from sitting.                                                             

Firefighter Richard Higson reprised his testimony from the first trial, telling the jury that on his arrival to the Ege home that he noticed the badly burnt body of 7-year-old Yaseen was unusually rigid and hot. He said the whole situation “didn’t seem to add up, things were not usual.” He said when the father arrived home Sara said, “He’s burnt, he’s burnt, and he’s actually burnt” and Yousuf, in a very calm manner, asked “but is he alive?” Higson said he felt that the boy was dead but did not tell this to the parents as he was trying to be “very discreet.” However, he had the impression that Sara already knew her son was dead. He also told the court that the father had appeared unusually calm under such circumstances.                                                 

Peter Birkitt for the defense of Yousuf Ali Ege called Dr. Robert Reeves, a consultant forensic psychiatrist, to the stand. Dr. Reeves agreed that Sara had given four, starkly contrasting stories about the events leading up to the death of Yaseen. Dr. Reeves told the court that there were signs of Mrs. Ege having a depressive illness and psychosis before and at the time of her son’s death. He admitted that he found it difficult to accept Mrs. Ege’s claim that she heard voices telling her to beat her son.

Sara Ege followed Dr. Reeves into the witness box. She began her testimony by describing her upbringing in India, her education and her arranged marriage to Yousuf Ali Ege. She stated that she had not hurt Yaseen; it was her husband who was responsible. She said a couple of years prior to the boy’s death staff at two primary schools had drawn her attention to her son being in pain and was advised to take him to a doctor. She had not done this as Yousuf had told her Yaseen would be taken away from her by Social Services.

Sara continued her testimony by saying that the large wooden stick, referred to in her taped confession, was used by her husband to beat both Yaseen and herself. She claimed her confession to the police had been because she feared for her life after threats from her husband and his family. Describing the day of Yaseen’s death she said “Me and Yousuf were arguing in the playroom and he punched me and kicked me to my stomach on the floor. I was screaming and Yaseen came into the playroom and tried to help me saying ‘Don’t hurt mummy.’ Yousuf then beat Yaseen and kicked him twice.”

She had wanted to take her son to the hospital but her husband would not allow her to. The court was told that her husband had beaten her regularly throughout their marriage and had also beaten Yaseen.

The court then heard from Sara’s mother, Mrs. Nafees Ahmed, who said that in 2007 she and her husband were made aware that Yousuf had been arrested for hitting their daughter. They were visited at their home in India by Yousuf’s family who threatened to kill them and their family if anything happened to their son. Mrs.Ahmed told the court that her daughter loved her son and was a good mother. She also said that Sara had never told her she had beaten Yaseen. 

Even though they knew that Sara was unhappy in her marriage they had told her “you are married now and you have to make it work, it is a matter of honor and respect.”                                                                      

Medical evidence was given detailing injuries suffered, at various times, by Mrs. Ege, allegedly caused by her husband. The court was told that Sara had visited the Accident and Emergency unit of a local hospital at least half a dozen times with suspicious injuries. In one incident in 2007, Yousuf had called for an ambulance after an alleged assault on his wife. Paramedics left the scene when he became aggressive towards them and notified the police. When the police arrived at the home, Yousuf dismissed claims he had punched his wife and said she had suffered a “nick” on her lip from his arm and a punch to her chest, unwittingly, when she had “lunged at him during an argument.” Yousuf was arrested but later released as Sara refused to press charges.

Sara’s defense attorney, Peter Murphy, questioned Yousuf Ali Ege about alleged hostility towards his wife from his family because she had suffered several miscarriages and might not be able to have children. Yousuf said, “That is nonsense.” He said his wife had invented all the allegations against him.

When questioned by his own barrister, Peter Birkitt, Yousuf said he had never seen Sara punish Yaseen and she had only ever raised her voice to him in anger. He again stressed that he was totally unaware that Yaseen had suffered any physical violence at all. He said when the post mortem results were told to him he was very shocked.

In her testimony, Sara told the court that her husband had enrolled Yaseen in advanced classes at their local Mosque as they wanted him to become “Hafiz” – an Islamic term for someone who memorizes the Koran. She admitted to becoming frustrated and angry when her son was not reaching the expected level by the deadline.

Guilty!

The case went to the jury on December 5, 2012. After eight hours of deliberation, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty in the case of Sara Ege for the murder of her son. The jury also found her guilty of perverting the course of justice by burning his body. Upon hearing the verdict Sara Ege broke down sobbing.

Judge Wyn Williams told her she faced a term of life imprisonment.

Yousuf Ali Ege was found not guilty in causing or allowing the death of his son by failing to protect him. He left the court without showing any emotion.

The judge told the court that he would determine a minimum sentence for Sara Ege in the New Year after a medical report had been completed.                                               

After the verdict was announced, District Crown Prosecutor Deborah Rogers, who formed the team for the prosecution and had not appeared in court, made a public statement on behalf of the DCP.  She said “the deeply tragic nature of this case is all too apparent. We should not forget that at the heart of the case is the loss of a bright and friendly young boy who had his whole life ahead of him. It is therefore right that the circumstances of Yaseen’s death were fully examined in a criminal court.”

The verdict caused an outcry of disbelief in Cardiff and beyond. There was a history of physical and mental abuse by Yousuf to his wife and by implication also to his son, Yaseen.  Women’s groups, and others, have taken up the case for Sara to have her verdict overturned and are calling for a further investigation into the actions of Yousouf during their married life.  Questions have also been raised as to whether the female to male ratio on the respective juries in both trials played a part in the final verdict.

Sentence

On December 8, 2012, Judge Wyn Williams passed a sentence of life and ordered that Sara serve a minimum of 17 years before she can be considered for parole. On hearing the sentence, Sara collapsed and had to be helped from the court room. 

Her defense has submitted an application for appeal. 

April 15, 2013

Winton Cooper

Popular BBC reporter Winton Cooper was brutally murdered by his own son.

by Ben Johnson

Staff at the BBC, one of the most high-profile broadcasting companies in the world, was left in shock after the January 2013 trial of a violent murderer who bludgeoned a former reporter and broadcaster to death with a hammer.  Not least because the perpetrator of this sickening crime was the victim's own son.

Winton Cooper was a well respected local journalist, spending many years as a popular reporter working for BBC Radio Sheffield. Since retiring, Cooper, 64, had moved to the picturesque village of Marnhull, a quiet and respectable area on the Dorset coast, known for its natural beauty and quaint architecture.

This peaceful lifestyle was eventually to be shattered by the arrival of Joseph Cooper, then aged 24, in 2009. Winton and Joseph were virtually estranged after an acrimonious divorce between Winton Cooper and his former wife, Joseph's mother, in the mid 90's. This came during the height of Winton's media career, and left his young son devastated at the falling apart of his family.

Joseph had always been a problem child. The middle son of three, he often found himself in trouble with the police and his parents. The breakdown of his family environment escalated these problems until the newly divorced couple found themselves in an unusual situation. They fought over who wasn't going to take custody of the boy.

His father decided that the boy should stay with his mother, citing work commitments as the reason he felt unable to give his son the upbringing he so desperately needed. His mother simply could not cope with the antisocial behavior displayed by her son. Due to this post-nuptial deadlock, Joseph found himself taken into care.

This reluctance to give their son the care and attention he obviously needed (which was kept under tight secrecy due to Winton Cooper's prominent media position) was enough to cause irreparable damage to young Joseph. His mid to late teens were spent committing ever-worsening crimes, until he reached the age of 20, when he finally sought a reconciliation with his father, who was now living in Dorset, caring for his own elderly father.

The trio were reported to have at first lived a “peaceable existence” according to reports from Winchester Crown Court, in which a defense barrister, Stewart Jones, describes their lifestyle as “revolving around the local pub, the shops and their home.”

The First Attack

This idyllic and peaceful lifestyle began to show cracks in 2009, when Joseph is reported to have attacked his father with a metal bar. The older man was forced to barricade himself in his bedroom until his son's temper subsided. Describing the attack to friends, Winton claims that Joseph had “just lost it.”

Psychologists who were called to give evidence at Joseph's eventual murder trial believe that the young man had been suffering from mental health problems since childhood, and the subsequent strain of the acrimonious divorce and sense of abandonment had considerably worsened these violent outbursts.

After the first attack, the relationship in the house became more tense, with Winton often remarking to friends and family that Joseph was acting strangely, or that he was in fear of a further attack.

His prediction was, sadly, to become true just three years later.

During the trial, which took place on January 4, 2013, it was revealed that Joseph had made phone calls to his mother and two brothers, claiming to have killed his father. The trio initially refused to believe this, as Joseph's mental issues were common knowledge among the other members of his family. However, he was eventually able to convince them enough that Mrs .Cooper made a sceptical and apologetic call to police, repeating her son's grisly confession, but warning that this also may be a cruel hoax.

A Gruesome Crime Scene

Local police, who already had experience of the strange behavior of Joseph Cooper, took a much more serious view of this confession, and immediately dispatched three officers to the house.

On arrival, the three policemen are described by Stewart Jones as being confronted by a “shocking and gruesome scene.”

The naked body of Winton Cooper was found in the hallway of his home; he had been attacked with a hammer, three knives and a pair of pruning shears. The attack had been so frenzied that all three knives were bent from the force of the thrusts and the handle of the hammer had broken.

Forensic experts believe that the cause of death were a number of terrible head wounds, caused by repeated hammer blows. The knives and pruning shears are believed to have been used to inflict post-mortem injuries.

“The only way to describe Winton Cooper's head, was that it had been beaten in” said the barrister during his description of the horrific crime scene.

The three officers retreated from the house and called for armed back-up, who arrived quickly on the scene and found Joseph nearby. Joseph was immediately arrested, yet claimed that he had acted in self defense after his father had attacked him with knives. Forensic evidence was soon to disprove this claim and Cooper Jr. pleaded guilty when appearing in court for preliminary hearings.

The Trial

The full trial, held at Winchester Crown Court, was adjourned in August 2012 when Judge Guy Boney halted proceedings in order for Joseph Cooper to undergo extensive psychiatric tests.

It was also at this preliminary stage that details of the defendant's childhood came to light, with close friends of the Cooper family testifying that Mrs. Cooper had been battling a drink problem since the children were at a very young age, and that Winton Cooper was known to have a short temper and could be violent and abusive in certain circumstances.

Judge Boney believed that Joseph's emotional problems were serious enough to have caused this violent attack, and suspended the hearing until January 2013, placing Joseph into the care of a high- security mental hospital.

When the trial finally restarted, two psychiatrists were called to report their findings. Both agreed that this troubled young man was suffering from “such an abnormality of the mind, that it had impaired his responsibility for his actions.”

The Verdict

Summing up, Judge Boney stated that this was an especially “shocking and gruesome” attack, but agreed with the psychiatrists that Joseph Cooper could not be found guilty of murder, but was guilty of manslaughter by diminished responsibility.

In a rare occurrence in any courtroom, the judge, prosecution and defense all agreed on the eventual outcome, that Joseph Cooper would be held indefinitely in a secure hospital until he could be safely released into society.

The press reaction in the UK to this case was one of sadness, rather than the usual lurid outrage. This was a case of a child who could not settle into a normal family lifestyle, and a father who would eventually pay the ultimate price for a lack of affection and moral guidance towards his wayward son.

Winton Cooper will be remembered as a popular and professional journalist, but will also remembered for his untimely and violent death. In life, he witnessed violent death first-hand, as he was one of the correspondents at the Hillsborough disaster, a tragic event which took place at a soccer game in 1989, and resulted in 96 people losing their lives. Twenty-two years to the day from that disaster, Winton Cooper was slain by his own son.