The Sylvie Cachay Bathtub Murder Case

     Sylvie Cachay grew up as the daughter of a Peruvian-born physician who practiced in Arlington, Virginia. She studied fashion design in New York City and worked for clothing designers Marc Jacobs, Tommy Hilfinger and Victoria's Secret. In 2006 Cachay started her own swimsuit line called Syla. She resided in a So Ho apartment in Manhattan's meatpacking district.

     Early in 2010 the 33-year-old swimwear designer met 24-year-old Nicholas Brooks, a college dropout and unemployed party-boy with a history of patronizing prostitutes, consuming large amounts of alcohol and smoking marijuana. Nicholas Brooks' father Joseph Brooks achieved a bit of fame by writing the 1970s hit song, "You Light Up My Life." The songwriter supported his son's party-boy lifestyle until 2009 when the elder Brooks was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting several women, most of whom were aspiring actresses. (In 2011 Joseph Brooks, facing the chance of a long stretch in prison, committed suicide.)

     Because of Nicholas Brooks' debauched lifestyle funded by Sylvie Cachay's credit cards, the couple had a turbulent relationship. They frequently broke up and then got back together again.

     On the morning of December 8, 2010 Sylvie Cachay sent Nicholas Brooks an email that read: "Nick, for the past six months I have supported you financially and emotionally. I am speaking with my credit card company and the police and I am going to tell them that I never allowed you to use my card. I don't care. Have fun in jail."

     Later on the day of Cachay's angry email the couple made up in her apartment. That night just after midnight they walked to the SoHo House, a luxury hotel not far from Cachay's dwelling. They checked into their room at 12:30 AM.

     Shortly after Cachay and Brooks checked in to the SoHo House a hotel employee heard a man and a woman arguing loudly in their room. Thirty minutes later Nicholas Brooks left the suite and was seen eating a steak in the hotel's dining room. Upon finishing his meal he and a man who had come to the lobby to meet him left the hotel. A short time later they were having drinks at a nightclub called Employees Only.

     At three in the morning of December 9, 2010, about two and a half hours after Cachay and Brooks checked in to the SoHo House, a guest on the floor below complained to the front dest about water leaking through the ceiling. Hotel employees entered Cachay's room and found her dead in the overflowing bathtub. One of the stunned hotel employees called 911.

     New York City homicide detectives, when they arrived at the hotel found the swimsuit designer in the bathtub wearing a sweater and a pair of underwear. The officers didn't notice any signs of physical trauma on the dead woman's body. At five-thirty that morning while the death scene investigators were still in the hotel room Nicholas Brooks returned to the suite. He agreed to be questioned at a nearby NYPD precinct station.

     Brooks admitted to his questioners that he and his dead girlfriend had been arguing in the hotel room before he left to eat his steak. After that he and a friend went out for drinks at a nearby nightclub. He said that when he left the hotel room she was alive.

     Following the autopsy a forensic pathologist with the New York City Medical Examiner's Office ruled that Sylvie Cachay died of asphyxia due to strangulation and drowning. The manner of death in her case was ruled criminal homicide.

     New York City detectives arrested Nicholas Brooks on January 4, 2011 on the charge of first-degree murder. At his arraignment hearing the magistrate denied the murder suspect bail. Brooks entered a plea of not guilty.

     The Cachay-Brooks murder trial got underway in New York City on June 7, 2013. In his opening remarks to the jury the assistant district attorney laid out the prosecution's theory of the case: the unemployed playboy had been using the victim to fund his taste for prostitutes, alcohol, marijuana and expensive nights out on the town. When she threatened to cut him off and report him to the police he strangled or drowned her to death in the hotel bathtub.

     The New York City Medical Examiner's Office forensic pathologist took the stand early in the trial. According to the pathologist, "Bruises on the victim's neck, bleeding in her eyes and abrasions inside her mouth were injuries consistent with [homicidal] asphyxiation."

     Through several prosecution witnesses the assistant district attorney presented the jury with emails in which Sylvie Cachay complained to her friends about Brooks' drinking, drug use and late-night partying. In these emails she referred to the defendant as "the kid I'm dating," as her "man-boy" or as a "stoner" who had quit his job at a cupcake shop.

     The Brooks defense, through a forensic pathologist from Syosset, New York presented evidence that Cachay's death had been accidental. According to Dr. Gerard Catanese the victim drowned in the tub because she had sedatives, anti-depressants and muscle relaxers in her system. "That combination of drugs," Dr. Catanese said, "could account for her falling asleep, losing consciousness and sinking under the water and ultimately dying."

     On July 11, 2013, the jury relying solely on circumstantial evidence found Nicholas Brooks guilty of first-degree murder. As the verdict was read friends of Sylvie Cachay in the courtroom cheered loudly. 

     The judge sentenced Nicholas Brooks to 25 years to life. Five years later an appellate court denied Brooks' appeal.

Shawn Parcells: Forensic Imposter

     The history of forensic science is also the history of pseudoscience, phony experts and bogus courtroom testimony. Fakes and charlatans have flourished in the fields of handwriting identification, DNA analysis, forensic toxicology, firearms identification, latent fingerprint analysis, blood spatter interpretation and forensic pathology.

     These forensic pretenders work in crime labs, police departments and in coroners' and medical examiners' offices. They also practice as private consultants and independent contractors. Within the private sector these experts from hell often charge less than their qualified counterparts and tailor their findings to meet the needs of the people paying their fees.

     Most forensic impersonators work in the shadows until they become involved in a celebrated case. Once in the public limelight they are often exposed for who they are. That doesn't mean, however, that they slink, disgraced, into forensic oblivion. When the smoke clears most of them return with revised, phony credentials and continue to screw up the criminal justice system with their bogus work. They get away with this because in the U.S. there is very little oversight in the field of forensic science.

Shawn Parcells

     Shawn Parcells, after graduating in 2003 with a degree in life science from Kansas State University, was accepted into a medical school in the Caribbean. He did not attend the school because he and his wife were expecting a baby. So instead of becoming a physician and acquiring extra training in forensic pathology, Mr. Parcells started a company in Overland Park, Kansas called Regional Forensic Services.

     Mr. Parcells, calling himself a forensic pathologist's assistant, offered his services to police departments, coroners and medical examiners. He was not certified as a forensic pathology assistant because no such field is recognized within the forensic science profession.

     In Kansas and Missouri Parcells testified in homicide trials as an expert witness on issues dealing with forensic cause of death. Even more disturbing, he performed autopsies without the presence or supervision of a real forensic pathologist.

     On his Linkedln page Shawn Parcells claimed to be an adjunct professor at Washburn State University in Topeka, Kansas. He also claimed to have earned a master's degree from New York Chiropractic College. (Like that would qualify him to perform autopsies.)

     A deputy sheriff in Missouri claimed that Mr. Parcells held himself out to be a doctor. If true, this comprised a criminal offense. The laws in Missouri and Kansas were not clear on whether it was legal for a person without a medical degree to perform an autopsy.

     In August 2014, in the wake of the Michael Brown police-involved shooting case in Ferguson, Missouri, Shawn Parcells came out of the shadows when he assisted Dr. Michael Baden perform an autopsy on Mr. Brown at the request of his family. (Dr. Baden was a world renowned forensic pathologist and Fox News contributor.)

     Following the Brown autopsy Mr. Parcells made himself a TV authority on the 18-year-old's death by appearing on CNN, Fox News and several other television networks. In watching those interviews very few people would be under the impression that Dr. Baden's assistant was not a forensic pathologist. He came off as being quite authoritative on the subject of Michael Brown's shooting death.

     Parcells' media exposure ultimately led to an investigation by CNN regarding his credentials as a cause of death expert. On November 24, 2014 he sat for a television interview conducted by a CNN correspondent. He admitted having performed autopsies on his own, and when asked how he had acquired his expertise, said, "by watching pathologists and assisting them at various morgues." In some cases he was paid, other times not, he said.

     Parcells, when asked about his master's degree from the chiropractic school said he couldn't produce the diploma because it had not arrived in the mail. According to the CNN interviewer, when an inquiry was made at Washburn State University regarding his adjunct professorship a spokesperson for the school said he "is not now and has never been a member of the Washburn University faculty." According to the school official Parcells had once spoken to two groups of nursing students about the role of a forensic pathologist's assistant. He was not paid for his presentation.

   Over the next several years Shawn Parcells continued to function and do business as a forensic pathologist, and by 2019 his false claims and deceptive business practices caught up to him. In March 2019 a judge in Shawnee County, Kansas temporarily banned Parcells and his Topeka based company, National Autopsy Services, from conducting autopsies and forensic pathology services. The shutdown would remain in place until a lawsuit against Parcells filed by the state attorney general Derek Schmidt was resolved. The suit alleged violations of the state's consumer protection and false claims act.

     In April 2019 the Kansas Board of Healing Arts filed a suit against Shawn Parcells in connection with his alleged false claims of being a physician, a pathologist and a medical examiner. The board asked a judge to shut down Parcells' operation.

    The above administrative actions were prompted by an investigation conducted by journalists with the Kansas City News Channel, KCTV5. Reporters spoke to families who hired Mr. Parcells to perform private autopsies in disputed cause and manner of death cases. According to Parcells' accusers he took their money in return for autopsy reports that were full of errors and completely useless. Some of his accusers said Parcells didn't even give them a report. All of his victims were under the impression he was a certified forensic pathologist.

     Shawn Parcells, in an email to the KCTV5 investigative team, defended himself by claiming the complainants misunderstood him; that he did not offer "medical reviews" but "scientific reviews." He wrote: "People are missing the point here and it's hurting science. It is only delaying us and because I do work for the defense no one likes me and wants me gone because I actually make the other side do their job." Parcells called his forensic reports "pathophysiological" reports, documents that merely offered his analysis on why a person died. According to Parcells this was not work that required a medical doctor.

     Shawn Parcells must have known the families who hired him needed a valid autopsy for insurance and other legal reasons, something his so-called pathophysiological report didn't accomplish.

     In Wabaunsee County, Kansas Shawn Parcells faced criminal charges of theft and desecration of bodies. Moreover, the state attorney general filed a civil case against him for violating the False Claims and Consumer Protection Acts. The state also shut down Parcells' National Autopsy Services in Topeka.

     In May 2019 reporters with the CBS television affiliate in Kansas City, accompanied by Parcells,  toured his closed Topeka forensic lab. In the facility reporters saw a large quantity of tissue specimens and body parts from autopsies he conducted in Kansas and other states.

     In Illinois, Kane County Coroner Rob Russell, president of the Association of Illinois Coroners and Medical Examiners, told the CBS reporters that in his state, where Shawn Parcells had performed autopsies, it was illegal for a non-physician to do such work. On Parcells' website he listed an office in a Naperville funeral home. While the Naperville funeral director allowed him to conduct autopsies there, Parcells didn't maintain an office at that location. The funeral director told the reporters he had been under the belief that Parcells was a physician.

     In November 2019, based upon an order from a Shawnee County, Kansas judge, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment took control of Parcells' closed National Autopsy Services in Topeka. The agency was ordered to conduct an inventory of the biological samples and release them to requesting families. The rest would be held in storage. Parcells' attorney Eric Kjorlie did not oppose the takeover because his client was no longer able to maintain the facility.

     At this point in the Shawn Parcells saga, one would assume the forensic pretender's career was over. This, however, given the history of such cases, was not a safe assumption.

     In April 2020, not one to miss an opportunity to make money in a field in which he was not qualified, Shawn Parcells was back at it again. He was caught trying to sell coronavirus tests to people desperate to known if their loved ones had died of COVID-19.

     On grounds Parcells' COVID-19 testing violated the conditions set by the Kansas judge that prohibited him from working with human remains, the Kansas attorney general, on May 6, 2020, filed a restraining order preventing this practice.

     In November 2020 a federal grand jury sitting in Topeka, Kansas indicted Shawn Parcells of wire fraud in connection with his firm National Autopsy Services. According to the indictment he charged clients $3,000 upfront for pathology reports. At least 375 clients paid him more than $1 million in fees between May 2016 and May 2019. He faced up to 20 years in prison and fines of $250,000 on each fraud count. Following his arrest he was released on bail. 

     In December 2020, Mr. Parcells filed notice that he intended to plead guilty to the federal charges. A few months later he was arrested and placed into federal custody for violating the terms of his federal bond.

     In May 2022 Shawn Parcells pleaded guilty in federal court to wire fraud and related offenses. Seven months later the judge sentenced him to five years nine months in prison.

Forensic Pathology and Cause and Manner of Death

     Forensic pathologists are physicians educated and trained to determine the cause and manner of death in cases involving violent, sudden or unexplained fatalities. The cause of death is the medical reason the person died. One cause of death is asphyxia--lack of oxygen to the brain. It occurs as a result of drowning, suffocation, manual strangulation, strangulation by ligature (such as a rope, belt, or length of cloth) crushing or carbon monoxide poisoning. Other causes of death include blunt force trauma, gunshot wound, stabbing, slashing, poisoning, heart attack, stroke, or a sickness such as cancer, pneumonia or heart disease.

     For the forensic pathologist the most difficult task often involves detecting the manner of death--natural, accidental, suicidal or homicidal. This is because the manner of death isn't always revealed by the physical condition of the body. For example, a death resulting from a drug overdose could be the result of homicide, suicide or accident. Knowing exactly how the fatal drug got into the victim's system requires additional information, data that usually comes from a police investigation. A death investigator, for example, will try to find out if the overdose victim had a history of drug abuse or if there were signs of a struggle at the scene of the death. Had this victim attempted suicide in the past? Did the victim leave a suicide note? Did someone have a compelling motive to kill this person? Is there evidence of a love triangle, life insurance fraud, hatred or revenge? These are basic investigative leads that could help a forensic pathologist determine the manner of death.

     When the circumstances of a suspicious death are not ascertained or are sketchy, and the death is not an obvious homicide, the medical examiner might classify the manner of death as "undetermined." Drug overdose cases that are only slightly suspicious and therefore not thoroughly investigated often go into the books as either accidents or suicides. This is true of other forms of slightly suspicious death. Because a body is found dead in the water doesn't necessarily mean this person drowned. This victim could have been murdered and then dumped into the water. Even in a death by drowning, the person could have died after being criminally thrown from a boat or off a pier.

     There are more sudden, violent and unexplained deaths in the United States than the nation's four hundred or so board-certified forensic pathologists can handle. This gruesome workload ideally should require at least a thousand forensic pathologists. As a result of this personnel shortage not every death that calls for an autopsy receives one. Because there is also a shortage of qualified criminal investigators, not every death that requires an investigation gets the attention it deserves. This means we don't know exactly how many people in this country are murdered every year. Of the cases known to be criminal homicides about half go unsolved. This is one of the many failures of our criminal justice system. 

Score One For The Devil: The Arkansas Church Murder Case

     Every once in awhile you hear of a homicide that reminds you that regardless of who you are, where you are or what you are doing, you can be murdered. It's a sobering thought, but it's true. There are people among us, ordinary looking people, folks pushing carts at Walmart, driving around in SUVs, watching their kids play soccer, sitting in movie theaters and eating in restaurants, that for little or no reason, will take your life. As Charles Lindbergh said after the kidnapping and murder of his son in 1932, life is like war.

     On Sunday morning June 6, 2010, Patrick Bourassa, a 34-year-old drifter with a shaved head, an ordinary face and a tattoo on his chest featuring three skulls and a flaming dragon, was driving in eastern Arkansas on Highway 64. Average height, thin and clean-cut, Mr. Bourassa, if placed in a group of men his age wouldn't stand out. Originally from Danielson, Connecticut, he had recently worked in a Dotham, Alabama barbecue restaurant and had tended bar in Phoenix, Arizona and Wichita, Kansas.

     At eight-thirty that Sunday morning as Patrick Bourassa drove west toward the small town of Hamlin, Arkansas, 80-year-old Lillian Wilson was alone inside the Central Methodist Church. She had gone there to pick-up donation baskets used to collect money for victims of a recent storm. As Bourassa approached the town his car broke down. Leaving the vehicle along the highway he walked to the church and forced his way into the building.

     About an  hour after Bourassa broke into the Methodist Church he pulled into a nearby Citgo station driving Lillian Wilson's car. A few miles down the highway from the gas station he used Wilson's credit card to buy food at a Sonic convenience store.

     As Patrick Bourassa drove west through Arkansas, the pastor of the Central Methodist Church discovered Lillian Wilson's body lying on the floor between two pews. She had been bludgeoned to death with a heavy brass cross.

     On Thursday of that week police officers arrested Bourassa in Bremerton, Washington located on Kitsap Peninsula west of Seattle. He still possessed Lillian Wilson's car and admitted to the arresting officers that he murdered the old woman in an Arkansas church.

     On June 16, 2010, after waiving extradition, Mr. Bourassa and his attorney stood before a judge in Wynne, Arkansas. Advised he had been charged with capital murder and several lesser charges, he pleaded not guilty. The murder suspect awaited trial without bail in the Cross County Jail.

     On Monday, April 2, 2012 in Wynne, Arkansas, the jury selection phase of Bourassa's capital murder trial got underway. A week later the prosecutor showed the jury a video-tape of the defendant re-enacting how he had picked the brass cross off the communion table and used it to beat Lillian Wilson to death. In response to why he had killed an old woman he didn't know, Bourassa said it was because he became enraged when she told him that God loved him and would forgive him.

     Bourassa's attorneys did not dispute the fact their client killed Lillian Wilson. It was their mission to convince the jury to find Bourassa guilty of a lesser homicide charge in order to save him from execution. To get that result the defense put two expert witnesses on the stand. A psychologist and a forensic psychiatrist testified that Bourassa was genetically predisposed to violence. These mental health practitioners told the jury the defendant suffered childhood abuse and was bipolar. Moreover, he had a personality disorder. Because these experts were not saying that Bourassa was not guilty by virtue of legal insanity, the relevance of this testimony was not clear. Surely they were not trying to make the jurors feel sorry for this man.

     On April 13, 2012, after four hours of deliberation, the jury found Patrick Bourassa guilty of capital murder. The defendant, at the reading of the verdict showed no emotion. Having found Patrick Bourassa guilty the jury had to either sentence him to life in prison or death. The next day, after deliberating two hours, the jury sentenced Bourassa to life without parole. The jurors spared this killer's life because they didn't think Lillian Wilson, the woman he had murdered, approved of the death sentence. 

The Historic Rick Jackson Fingerprint Misidentification Case

     In 1997 detectives in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, a community outside of Philadelphia, arrested Rick Jackson shortly after Jackson's friend, Alvin Davis, was stabbed to death in Davis' apartment. In the interrogation room detectives showed Mr. Jackson a crime scene photograph of a bloody latent print found near the body. According to a pair of fingerprint examiners with the Upper Darby Police Department, one of whom was also a police superintendent, that latent was left at the scene by Mr. Jackson.

     Rick Jackson didn't deny that he had been in Davis' apartment but he denied killing him and said he was certain the bloody print wasn't his. Jackson was actually relieved when he realized the police were basing their case on a misidentified print. He figured that once they realized their mistake they would look elsewhere for a suspect.

     With Rick Jackson so insistent the bloody print wasn't his, Michael Malloy, his attorney, took the unique step of having it examined by outside experts Vernon McCloud and George Wynn. The retired FBI fingerprint examiners had 75 years of experience between them. Both men were certified by the International Association of Identification (IAI). (Only a handful of the nation's fingerprint examiners have gone through the rigorous IAI certification process.) Wynn and McCloud, to their amazement, found that the bloody crime scene latent was not Rick Jackson's.

     The district attorney, confronted with a defense bolstered by a pair of prominent fingerprint experts who disagreed with the local examiners (who were not IAI certified) pushed forward with the trial anyway. In anticipation of the then unheard-of-situation of fingerprint examiners squaring off against each other in court, the district attorney brought in a fingerprint expert from another state to add quantity if not quality to the prosecution's case.

     In 1998 the Jackson case went to trial and the jury, despite the conflicting fingerprint testimony, found him guilty of first-degree murder. The judge sentenced him to life in prison without parole.

     Vernon McCloud and George Wynn were so concerned about the fingerprint misidentification in the Jackson case they asked the IAI to gather a group of experts to review the evidence. When the IAI panel agreed that the crime scene latent was not the convicted man's, the district attorney began to doubt his own experts and sent a photograph of the bloody print to the FBI Lab for analysis. The examiners in Quantico, Virginia agreed with McCloud and Wynn and the IAI panel. Rick Jackson had been sent to prison on the strength of a misidentified crime scene latent.

     In December 1999, after Rick Jackson spent two years behind bars, his conviction was set aside and he was set free. The out-of-state fingerprint examiner who testified at the trial was fired, but the Upper Darby examiners were not disciplined or prohibited from future fingerprint work. Moreover, they would continue to insist that they had been right and all the experts were wrong. In 200l Rick Jackson filed a civil suit against the examiners and the Upper Darby Police Department. He lost the case.

     The Jackson case is historic because it is one of the first cases in which the identification of a crime scene latent was successfully challenged by the defense. This and later misidentification cases raised serious questions about the scientific backgrounds and qualifications of police department fingerprint examiners. 

The Forsythia Owen Murder Case

     On September 25, 2002 19-year-old Forsythia Owen and her boyfriend of nine months got into an argument in the living room of her Denver Colorado apartment. Before the fight broke out she impaired him by slipping a drug into his drink. In the course of the dispute Forsythia Owen grabbed a knife from the kitchen and stabbed her boyfriend in the chest.

     Paramedics rushed the victim to a nearby hospital where he survived his puncture wound. (I don't know who called 911.) Forsythia Owen greeted police officers at the scene by saying, "I'm the one who stabbed him. Arrest me." And that's what the officers did.

     A local prosecutor charged Forsythia Owen with assault with a deadly weapon causing serious bodily harm. Pursuant to a plea deal the assistant district attorney allowed Owen to plead guilty to the lesser offense of felony assault. The prosecutor dropped charges related to Forsythia Owen's assault of police officers while she was in custody.

     In January 2003 the judge sentenced Forsythia Owen to four years probation.

     Owen, a serious abuser of cocaine, alcohol and methamphetamine, had been diagnosed as having a "mood disorder" and "attention-deficit/hyperactivity." Because of her substance abuse, psychiatrists were unable to determine the degree to which she may have been psychotic as well. 

     Ten months into her probation a drug treatment administrator kicked Forsythia Owen out of the program for "non-compliance" and "minimal progress" for continuing to use cocaine and meth. Rather than send her to prison, probation officials enrolled her in a Denver community corrections program. After refusing to cooperate with the social workers the judge, in December 2004, sent her to prison for three years. If they couldn't fix this woman the authorities could at least get her off the street.

     In 2013 the 30-year-old ex-felon lived in the Denver suburb of Englewood with her 12-year-old daughter. On Sunday morning, September 22, 2013, Englewood police officers responded to a 911 call concerning a badly beaten man lying in an alley. Officers found 42-year-old Denzel Rainey in the alley bleeding from a severe blunt force head wound and other injuries. Paramedics rushed Mr. Rainey to the Swedish Medical Center where he died a short time later.

     Mr. Rainey, a married man with three children struggled with alcohol abuse that led to his homelessness. He was attacked in the alley where he slept at night.

     According to the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, Mr. Rainey had a fractured skull, lacerated liver, broken arms, fractured left hand and six broken ribs. The medical examiner's office listed the cause of death as blunt force trauma. The manner of death: homicide.

     On Monday the day after the attack in the Englewood alley detectives spoke to a man who said that one of his neighbors, a woman named Forsythia Owen, had come to his house on Sunday with a story about a man who had inappropriately touched and abused her daughter. The man she accused was the homeless guy who had just been murdered in the alley.

     Later that day when questioned by detectives, Forsythia Owen admitted beating the man in the alley with a baseball bat. After confronting him about molesting her daughter she started swinging the bat. Advised of her Miranda rights Owen said, "I need a lawyer."

     An Arapahoe County prosecutor charged Forsythia Owen with first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon causing serious bodily harm. A magistrate denied her bond after the police booked her into the Arapahoe County Detention Center.

     Denzel Rainey, other than having driving under the influence convictions and an arrest for marijuana possession, did not have a criminal record. Moreover, there was no information on record regarding accusations of sexual offenses. Mr. Rainey's widow, Lisa, told reporters that "I just don't know what caused her to do that to Denzel. If he did anything to provoke the attack I need to know the answers for closure for me and closure for my kids."

     In speaking to a correspondent with a Denver television affiliate, Lisa Rainey said, "I think Owen is covering for somebody and I want to know: what was the real reason why she did that to my husband. He doesn't deserve to be dead. He would never hurt a child."

     At a March 17, 2014 pre-trial hearing Forsythia Owen's attorney Joe Archembault pleaded her not guilty by reason of insanity. Judge Marilyn Antrim ordered the defendant to undergo psychiatric evaluation at the mental health Institute in Pueblo, Colorado.

     The Arapahoe County prosecutor dropped the first-degree murder charge against Owen to second-degree murder and added first-degree assault and the charge of tampering with evidence.

     The Forsythia Owen murder trial got underway on February 4, 2015. Ten days later the jury, having rejected the insanity defense, found the defendant guilty as charged.

     On May 9, 2015 Judge Marilyn Leonard Antrim sentenced the 32-year-old Owen to 38 years in prison.

James Pepe: The High School Teacher From Hell

     James J. Pepe taught high school history in the Hillsborough County Florida school system. For years he was an erratic, difficult employee who frightened a lot of his follow teachers. In 2001 a faculty member characterized Pepe as "hostile," "aggressive" and "extremely volatile." During this period James Pepe called his principal a "pathological liar" and bragged to people that school administrators were powerless to take action against him. Had this disgruntled, disruptive employee worked in the private sector he would have been fired.

     In dealing with this potentially dangerous and out of control educator the Hillsborough County school superintendent decided against termination. Instead the boss suspended Mr. Pepe with pay, recommended anger management counseling then reassigned him to another school. (In teacher pedophile cases they call this "passing the trash".) Over the next few years, as Mr. Pepe's behavior became more bizarre, paranoid and bellicose he was transferred three more times. At one of the schools this history teacher disrupted, Mr. Pepe accused the principal of assigning him the worst students. He also accused the maintenance staff of turning off the air-conditioning to his classroom. (Given the passive-aggressive nature of public school employee discipline, this might have been true. As they say, even a paranoid can be persecuted. Maybe school administrators were trying to encourage this pain-in-the-neck to quit.)

     In 2012 James Pepe was teaching and causing havoc at Bloomingdale High School near Tampa, his fifth assignment in the Hillsborough County school system. (Mr. Pepe, a seriously troubled unfit teacher was earning $58,000 a year plus benefits.) In recent months he had focused his paranoia on a 59-year-old economics teacher who also taught at Strawberry Crest High School. Mr. Pepe convinced himself that Robert Meredith was the source of all his problems. More specifically the unstable teacher harbored the false notion that Mr. Meredith, his former colleague and friend, was spreading rumors that he was a child molester.

     In August 2012 the 55-year-old history teacher reached out to a childhood friend for help. James Pepe came right to the point--would this person murder Robert Meredith for $5,000? The stunned friend, who said he would think about the homicidal proposal, immediately reported the murder solicitation to the Plant City Police Department. There was no doubt in the friend's mind that James Pepe was dead serious in his desire to have Mr. Meredith killed.

     The police asked the teacher's friend to call Mr. Pepe back and say that while he wasn't interested in committing murder he had found a man who would do the job. The "hitman," of course, would be an undercover cop.

     The undercover officer, in mid-September 2012, spoke with James Pepe by phone. During that conversation the teacher said he "had an issue he might need taken care of for $2,000." (While this seems a little cheap for a contract murder, had Pepe been talking to a real hitman, the price would have been about right. In the U.S. most amateur assassins are inexpensive.)

     In the second phone conversation between James Pepe and the "hitman," the undercover officer tried to arrange a meeting. Pepe declined, but said in no uncertain terms that he wanted to have Robert Meredith murdered. This conversation, of course, was recorded.

     While the police in murder solicitation cases prefer to have audio and videotaped meetings (often in a car parked in a Walmart parking lot) in which the mastermind hands over the blood money and provides the cop with helpful information regarding the target, the Plant City police on September 27, 2012 took James Pepe into custody outside Bloomingdale High School.

     Charged with solicitation of first degree-murder, James Pepe was held without bond in the Hillsborough County Jail.

     On March 31, 2014 James Pepe pleaded guilty to solicitation of murder. The judge sentenced the murder-for-hire mastermind to house arrest for one year and 14 years of probation. This was, under the circumstances, an extremely lenient sentence. One would hope, at least, that the conviction ended Mr. Pepe's teaching career. 

The Case of the Unknown Hitman

     In September 2001, when Keisha Lewis of Canton, Ohio informed her former boyfriend, Paul Tarver, that she was three months pregnant with his baby, he was not happy. He made it clear that he did not want to be a father. Tarver told Keisha to get an abortion, and if she didn't, he would not support the child. Keisha said she had no intention of aborting the pregnancy and would have the baby with or without his support.

     Two months later Keisha and Paul were still fighting over whether she should get an abortion. When Tarver realized she was not going to changer her mind, he threatened to kill her if she didn't end the pregnancy. Keisha said she was reporting him to the police but didn't follow through on her threat. Perhaps he was just bluffing. After the arguing and threats Paul Tarver suddenly stopped coming around. Keisha figured he had moved out of her life for good.

     On March 7, 2002, a week before the baby was due, Paul Tarver popped back into Keisha's life and seemed to be a different man. He apologized for the fighting and the threats and offered to make amends. He said he wanted to remain friends--for the baby's sake--and in the spirit of good will he offered to take her out to dinner. Relieved that her baby's father was no longer an enemy she accepted his invitation.

     A few days later Paul and Keisha, in the cab of his Ford Ranger pickup, pulled into the spacious parking lot surrounding Canton's Country Kitchen restaurant. Although Keisha was nine months pregnant and had trouble walking, Paul parked the truck in a remote section of the lot far from the restaurant. Keisha had just opened the passenger's door and was about to alight from the vehicle when a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt and gloves stuck a gun in her face and ordered her to slide across the seat so he could squeeze into the truck.

     The armed kidnapper ordered Tarver to drive to a chicken hatchery a few miles from the restaurant where the gunman ordered him to hand over his ring, watch and wallet. The kidnapper shot Keisha in the abdomen, Tarver in the foot, then jumped out of the truck and ran into the nearby woods. Using his cellphone Paul Tarver called 911.

     Surgeons, although able to save Keisha's life, could not save the fetus. Doctors treated Mr. Tarver's wound which was minor. Keisha suffered major nerve damage that would leave her with a permanent limp.

     Detectives with the Canton Police Department trying to identify the kidnapper didn't have much to go on. Keisha could only provide a general description of the assailant and Paul Tarver wasn't much help either. Investigators did recover the three shell cases from the shooting scene. A forensic firearms identification expert matched the crime scene firing pin impressions to a .380 Carpati pistol recovered from the site of another Canton shooting. In tracing the history of the gun, police learned that one of the owners was a man who had once worked with Paul Tarver. Detectives also questioned a man from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Mr. Tarver called several times just prior to the assault. During the interrogation the Pittsburgh man broke down and cried, then terminated the questioning.

     In October 2002, a Stark County prosecutor at Paul Tarver's murder-for-hire trial presented a weak, circumstantial case against him. The police had still not identified the triggerman. The defendant's attorney did not put his client on the stand in own defense. If he had done so, the jury would have learned about Tarver's long history of drug trafficking and robbery. Perhaps because the defendant did not take the stand to deny that he had paid someone to end his girlfriend's pregnancy, the jury found him guilty.

     The judge sentenced Paul Tarver to 31 years to life. He continued to maintain his innocence and the triggerman was never identified. This was one of a handful of murder-for-hire cases in which the mastermind was convicted without the testimony, or even the identity of the hitman.

The Kleber Cordova Bathtub Murder Case

     On May 9, 2008 at 7:30 in the morning, 29-year-old Kleber Cordova called 911 and reported that his wife accidentally hit her head on their bathtub faucet and slipped, unconscious, under the water. He said he=

 tried but failed to lift his 4 foot 10 inch, 125 pound wife out of the tub.

     First responders to the Morristown, New Jersey home found a nude Eliana Torres submerged on her back with her face directly under the spout. Given cardiopulmonary resuscitation and rushed to the Morristown Memorial Hospital, the 26-year-old woman died five days later without regaining consciousness.

     Kleber Cordova and Eliana Torres had a one-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter. The girl attended second grade at the Normandy Elementary School. Cordova, his wife and their eight-year-old daughter had been born in Ecuador and were in the United States illegally. The victim's mother, Rita Valverde, on the day of the bathtub "accident," rushed to the Morristown hospital from her home in Danbury, Connecticut.

     Cordova, when questioned by the police at the hospital a few hours after his 911 call said he arrived home from his night job to find his wife lying face-up in the bathtub with water from the spout pouring directly into her mouth. After failing to remove her from the tub Mr. Cordova called for help. The next day, aware that his wife was still alive and could possibly regain consciousness, Cordova asked to speak with detectives.

     In a video-taped statement given in Spanish through an interpreter, Kleber Cordova changed his story. During the week prior to the bathtub incident he and Eliana had been arguing. She informed him that she had a boyfriend and planned to leave him. That morning, after she asked for a divorce, he want "crazy" and held his wife's head under the water for about three minutes. To make the drowning look like an accident he removed her wet clothing and hid the garments in his car. 

      The interrogators did not warn Cordova of his Miranda rights prior to his confession, but since he had initiated contact with them, the judge in the preliminary hearing ruled the confession admissible. The confession was later ruled inadmissible. With his confession thrown out, the defendant decided to plead not guilty.

     Charged with the murder of his wife, Kleber Cordova was placed in the Morris County Jail in lieu of $1 million bond.

     On March 23, 2009, Morris County prosecutor John McNamera offered Mr. Cordova a deal. If he pleaded guilty to murder the judge would sentence him to 30 years in prison. If tried and found guilty he could receive up to 75 years behind bars. Cordova rejected the offer. He would take his chances with a jury.

     The Cordova murder trial began in early March 2012 at the Morris County Superior Court in Morristown, New Jersey. Assistant prosecutor Brian DiGiamaco did not show the jury Cordova's video-taped confession because this evidence had been ruled inadmissible. The prosecutor put the defendant's daughter, now twelve years old, on the stand. On the morning in question the eight-year-old girl awoke to the sound of her mother's cries for help. From the bathroom Eliana had screamed, "God help me!" in Spanish. The young witness said she walked into the bathroom where she saw water splashing out of the bathtub. Her father was leaning over her mother who was clawing at his face. (When the police spoke to Cordova at the hospital they noticed fresh scratches on his face.) Cordova, when he realized that his daughter was standing nearby, said, "Everything is all right, go to your room." Fearing that her father would get angry if she disobeyed, the girl returned to her bedroom, closed the door and sat on her bed.

     From her room the witness heard someone turn off the bathtub water. Her father then walked out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. She heard his wet sneakers on the kitchen floor. The witness said she took this opportunity to re-enter the bathroom and check on her mother. That's when she saw "the thigh part of her body" in the tub and a lot of water on the floor. Frightened, the victim's daughter ran back to her bedroom.

     Later that morning, in the hospital waiting room, the defendant told his daughter not to say anything about what she had seen. The victim's mother, Rita Valverde, was sitting nearby and overheard Cordova say this to his daughter.

     On cross-examination by Cordova's attorney, public defender Jessica Moses, the defendant's daughter acknowledged that the first time she accused her father of killing her mother was in December 2008, several months after the incident. The defense attorney in this line of questioning hoped to convince the jurors that detectives had wrangled this story out of the eight-year-old. (Since the incident the witness had been living with her grandmother, Rita Valverde, who had moved from Connecticut to Florida.)

     On March 28, 2012 the victim's sister, Zaida Solis, took the stand and testified that three days after Cordova's arrest he said this to her: "How could I do that to the love of my life?" The defendant also told his sister-in-law that the drowning had "happened fast," and that he was sorry about it. According to Cordova, on the night before the bathtub attack, Eliana had phoned her boyfriend in front of her husband. The next morning she demanded a divorce.

     After the state rested its case, Jessica Moses asked Judge David Ironson for a judgment of acquittal on the grounds the prosecution had not made a prima facie case against her client. If she did not prevail on that request, the public defender asked for a reduction of the charge from murder to passion/provocation manslaughter. "There is no evidence to support a murder conviction," she argued.

     In opposition to the public defender's reduced charge motion, assistant prosecutor Maggie Calderwood asserted that the defendant had killed his wife "knowingly" and "on purpose." Judge Ironson denied the public defender's motions. The murder charge would stand.

     Jessica Moses didn't have much of a defense beyond a character witness who said Mr. Cordova worked hard as an overnight cleaner at a Morristown restaurant and as a hospital security officer. According to this witness, the defendant had fainted after visiting his unconscious wife in the hospital. Cordova did not take the stand on his own behalf.

     In her closing argument to the jury the public defender said the defendant's daughter changed her story when questioned by the police months after her father called 911. The defense attorney, in explaining why Cordova had taken off his wife's clothing and hid them in his car, said he "panicked" after the 911 dispatcher asked him a series of questions regarding what had happened in the bathroom. He staged the scene as an accidental drowning because he was sure the authorities would accuse him of murder. As evidence that the killing was not premeditated, the public defender pointed out that two days before the struggle in the bathtub Mr. Cordova bought his wife a new computer and paid an extra $99 for a one-year warranty.

     On April 5, 2012, after deliberating two hours, the jury found Kleber Cordova guilty of murdering his wife. The defendant showed no emotion as the foreman read the verdict.

     The judge on July 24, 2012 sentenced Kleber Cordova to fifty years in prison. 

The Eric Koula Double Murder Case

     Eric Koula, a 41-year-old day trader who lived in West Salem, Wisconsin with his wife and teenage son, called 911 on May 24, 2010 from his parent's house in nearby Barre to report that someone had shot and killed Dennis and Merna Koula. Homicide detectives who worked on the case soon determined that Koula's parents had been murdered three days earlier with a .22-caliber rifle. (The murder weapon was never identified.)

     After the LaCrosse County prosecutor Tim Gruenke charged Eric Koula on July 29, 2010 with two counts of first-degree murder, police officers took him into custody. According to the prosecutor, Mr. Koula, in financial trouble, murdered his parents in order to inherit their estate. While the prosecutor had motive, means and opportunity supporting his theory, it was what the state didn't have that made acquiring a conviction unlikely. What the prosecutor didn't have included a confession, an eyewitness, physical evidence pointing to Koula's guilt or the murder weapon.

     Eric Koula, represented by attorneys Jim Kolby and Keith Belzer, went on trial on June 6, 2012. In his opening remarks to the jury of five men and seven women, prosecutor Gruenke stated the defendant executed his mother as she sat at her office computer, then shot his father when he walked into the room. Eric Koula's attorneys assured the jury that their client had an airtight alibi and pointed out the obvious weakness of the prosecution's case. According to the defense theory of the murders, the victims had been killed by professional hitmen who entered the wrong house. (That doesn't sound too "professional.") The defense didn't elaborate on who had masterminded the contract killing, or why.   

     According to a forensic accountant who testified on behalf of the state, the defendant had only $3,000 in the bank and owed the IRS and several credit card companies $150,000. Shortly after his parent's violent deaths Koula deposited into his bank a $50,000 check drawn on his father's account. 

     Investigators took the stand and testified that the defendant planted evidence to make himself look innocent. He had written "fixed you" on a piece of paper and put it into his mailbox. The defendant hoped the note would make it look as though the killer was trying to frame him for the murders. The defendant later confessed to fabricating that evidence.

     After the state rested its case on June 14, 2012, the defense put their own forensic accountant on the stand who testified that Koula's assets exceeded his liabilities. 

     On June 16, 2010 Eric Koula took the stand on his own behalf. Questioned on direct examination by his attorney Keith Belzer, the defendant said that in 1994 he, his cousin and his father purchased a Ford dealership. Eric became president of the company but in 2006 his father sold the business. Although his father owed him $1million from the sale of the car dealership the defendant only received $500,000. After the sale of the company Eric Koula began his stock trading enterprise. In 2007 he made $300,000 in profits but the following year he lost $661,000.

     In 2009 Eric's Koula's father gave him $100,000 and in May 2010 his parents promised him another $50,000. On May 20, 2010 the defendant went to his parent's home to pick up the $50,000 check. His father handed him a blank check and told him to fill it in himself. That's why he signed his father's name on the check and tried to make the signature look like his father's handwriting. According to the defendant this was the last time he saw his parent's alive. 

     On Friday, May 21, 2010, the day Dennis and Merna Koula were gunned down, the defendant detailed his activities in a way that established an airtight alibi. The next day he deposited the $50,000 check bearing his father's fake signature. 

     On Monday, May 24, 2010, someone at the school where Mrs. Koula taught called Eric to inform him his mother had not shown up for work and that no one at her house was picking up the phone. Eric drove to Barre to check on his parents. He became alarmed when he saw their cars parked in the garage. Inside the house he found his father lying dead on the home office floor and his mother at her desk slumped over the computer. After calling 911 he phoned his wife and his pastor, both of whom rushed to the scene to give him support. 

     LaCrosse County deputies took the defendant to the sheriff's office for questioning. In his statement he forgot to mention the $50,000 check he had deposited containing his father's phony signature. A week later investigators came to his house to speak to him about the whereabouts of his son Dexter on the day of the murders. The detectives also wanted to know if the boy had access to a .22-caliber rifle. Worried that the police were going to arrest his son for the murder of his grandparents, the defendant wrote the "fixed you" note and placed it in his mailbox. He testified that he had fabricated this evidence to protect his son. 

     The defendant admitted that on July 29, 2010, when he met with detectives for the third and last time, he denied signing the $50,000 check and didn't reveal that he had written the "fixed you" note. 

     On cross-examination, prosecutor Gary Freyburg pressed the defendant regarding his financial troubles. The prosecutor reminded him about the forged $50,000 check and the planted evidence. The cross-examiner pointed out that in Koula's 911 call the defendant started out by explaining why he was at his parent's house. Once he justified his presence at the murder scene he reported his emergency. 

     The testimony phase of the trial came to a close on June 26, 2012. The outcome of the case depended entirely on whether the jurors believed the defendant's testimony. After deliberating less than a day the jury returned a verdict of guilty. Pursuant to Wisconsin law the judge had to impose a sentence of life. The judge could, however, decide to make Koula eligible for parole after serving 40 years behind bars. So the best Koula could hope for was to walk free at age 83.

     On August 12, 2012, Judge Scott Home, at the sentence hearing, said this to the convicted killer: "You took the life of the two people who gave you life and you'll spend the rest of your life incarcerated." The judge sentenced Koula to two consecutive life sentences without the chance of parole.

     On August 9, 2019, Eric Koula, acting at his own attorney in his second appeal for a new trial argued that his trial attorneys should have presented fingerprint and other evidence that supported his hit men theory of his parents' murder. A panel of judges with the Wisconsin District IV Court of Appeals denied the 59-year-old's request.