The Andrew McCormack Murder Case

     On September 23, 2017, 31-year-old Andrew McCormack and his 1-year-old daughter entered their home in Revere, Massachusetts. McCormack had returned to the house after finishing a carpentry job at a friend's place. Shortly after arriving home, Mr. McCormack called 911 and reported that someone had entered the dwelling in his absence and murdered his wife. 

     Police officers found 30-year-old Vanessa Nasucci lying face down on the bedroom floor with a half-filled garbage bag over her head. The bag had been taken from the kitchen trash container. When a first responder removed the bag, it became obvious that the Vanessa Nasucci had been brutally beaten. An autopsy revealed she had also been stabbed many times and strangled. 

     The murder bedroom gave off a strong scent of bleach, and there were chemical burns on the victim's body. Investigators believed the killer had used bleach to destroy crime scene evidence. A large kitchen knife was missing from the kitchen butcher's block, and there was no evidence of forced entry into the house. Moreover, the victim had not been sexually attacked, and nothing had been stolen from the dwelling. The fact the killer had taken the time to sanitize the crime scene suggested that Vanessa Nasucci had not been murdered by an intruder. Suspicion immediately fell up the husband, Andrew McCormack.

     Detectives quickly determined that the couple's marriage had been on the rocks. To support his $500-a-day cocaine habit, Andrew McCormack had drained his wife's credit card accounts, forged checks on her bank account, and had even stolen her wedding ring. On the day of the murder, after finishing the carpentry job, McCormack took his 1-year-old daughter with him to East Boston where he purchased cocaine from his drug dealer. 

     Shortly before her murder, Vanessa Nasucci, a second grade teacher at Connery Elementary in Lynn, Massachusetts, told her husband that she planned to sell the house and hire a divorce attorney. 

     A week after the murder, police officers arrested Andrew McCormack on the charge of first-degree murder. He was booked into the Suffolk County Jail. Through his attorney, the suspect pleaded not guilty. The magistrate denied him bail. 

     The Andrew McCormack murder trial got underway in mid-October 2019 in a Suffolk County courtroom. The prosecution, without a murder weapon, an eyewitness, confession, or physical evidence connecting the defendant directly to the murder, had an entirely circumstantial case. What the prosecutor had was a strong case of motive, means, and opportunity, and the argument that, given the facts of the case, it was unreasonable to conclude that anyone other than the defendant had committed this murder.

     The defense relied heavily on reasonable doubt, and the position that investigators never considered the possibility that someone other than Andrew McCormack had murdered his wife.

     On November 16, 2019, following eleven days of testimony, the jury, after deliberating a week, found Andrew McCormack guilty of first-degree murder. At his sentencing hearing on December 2, 2019, the convicted killer said this to the judge: "I did not murder her. There is someone else getting away with murder." 

     The Suffolk County judge sentenced McCormack to life in prison without the possibility of parole.  

Boy Scouts of America: A Once Trusted Organization Brought Down by Pedophiles

        In February 2020, Boy Scouts of America, with hundreds of sex abuse lawsuits pending against the organization, filed for bankruptcy. Future plaintiffs with claims of forced sex, fondling, and/or exposure to pornography, were told to bring their cases against the organization before November 16, 2020. In the weeks leading up to the deadline, 90,000 sexual abuse suits were filed. 

     Although Boy Scouts of America is uniquely chartered by the U.S. Congress, not one member of Congress has publicly mentioned the bankruptcy or the decades of sexual abuse that has scandalized and diminished the organization. 

     Documents show that Boy Scout of America's leaders identified many known abusers within the organization but failed to notify the authorities or the parents of the victims. 

     At its height, the Boy Scouts had more than 4 million members. Now, even though membership has been opened to girls, there are less than 2 million scouts.

The Last Man to be Executed by Guillotine

On September 10, 1977 at Les Baumettes Prison in France, Hamida Djandoubi was the last man in the world executed by guillotine. The Tunisian agricultural worker, while employed in Marseille, France, tortured and murdered his former girlfriend, 22-year-old Elisabeth Bousquet. 

Hybristophiliacs: Women Who Love Serial Killers

Hybristophiliacs are women who are sexually attracted to serial killers. For every serial killer in the news, an average of 100 women write them fan letters. Ted Bundy, during his murder trial, received 200 fan letters a day and married Carole Anne Boone. The wedding ceremony was held in the courtroom. Doreen Lioy, a magazine editor with a college degree in English literature, fell madly in love with Richard Ramirez the moment she saw his picture. Ramirez was the serial killer known as "Night Stalker." Lioy wrote Ramirez dozens of love letters and attended his trial. She also purchased pieces of his clothing. According to psychologists, hybristophiliacs are usually submissive, narcissistic enablers who are attracted to power.

Living and Dying on Death Row

The average death row inmate lives 15 years between his sentence and his execution. Nearly a quarter of death row prisoners die of natural causes during this period.

A Hilariously Bad Opening Sentence

"On their first date he'd asked her how much she thought Edgar Allan Poe's toe nails would sell on eBay, and on their second he paid for subway fare with nickels he fished out of a fountain, but he was otherwise charming and she thought that they could have a perfectly tolerable life together."

Jessica Sasishara's entry in the annual Bulwer-Lytton opening bad sentence contest, 2012

Law: A Literary Profession

The law is a literary profession, and lawyers are professional writers. The legal profession lives and breathes through the written word: letters, briefs, opinions, contracts, memoranda, and other products.

James E. Moliterno and Frederick L. Lederer, An Introduction to Law, Law Study, and the Lawyer's Role, 1991 

A Criminal Atrocity in China

     On August 24, 2013, outside the Shanxi Province town of Linfen in rural northeast China, a woman grabbed 6-year-old Guo Bin as he walked along a path not far from his home. This woman lured the boy into a field where, in a shocking act of brutality, she used a sharp instrument to gouge out his eyes. Several hours later, a member of Guo Bin's family found the boy, his face covered in blood, wandering in a field on the family farm.

     In China, due to a donor shortage, corneas were worth thousands of dollars on the black market. As a result, investigators considered the possibility that the boy had been victimized by an organ trafficker. The authorities abandoned this theory when at the site of the attack, crime scene investigators recovered the boy's eyeballs with the corneas in tact. Police officers also recovered a bloody purple shirt presumably worn by the assailant.

     A witness reported seeing the boy that afternoon with an unidentified woman wearing a purple shirt. According to Guo Bin, the woman who attacked him spoke with an accent from outside the region. She also had dyed blond hair. The victim told investigators that this woman had used a sharp stick to cut out his eyeballs. Based on the nature of the boy's wounds however, doctors believed he had been attacked with a knife.

     According to physicians, Guo Bin, with a visual prosthesis, might someday regain partial vision. Following the attack, the boy's family received $160,000 in donations from members of the public.

     Six days after the gruesome assault, 41-year-old Zhang Huiyang, the victim's aunt, killed herself by jumping into a well. While Guo Bin did not identify his aunt as the assailant, and she did not match his description of the attacker, the authorities, through DNA, linked her to the purple shirt found at the crime scene.

     The boy's mother, in speaking to an Associated Press reporter, pointed out that in the days and weeks following the assault, her traumatized son had been disoriented. "It is easy to understand why he wasn't clear about the situation," she said.

     Since there was no rational motive behind such a senseless assault, the Chinese authorities assumed the boy's aunt was mentally ill.

Behind the Wheel: Drunk and Narcissistic

     On October 13, 2015, 23-year-old Whitney Beall, while driving from one bar to another in her 2015 Toyota Corolla in Lakeland, Florida, recorded her alcohol intoxication by video on the social media app Periscope. "Let's have fun! Let's have fun!" she repeatedly exclaimed into the little camera. Also: "Hi everybody in different countries. I really hope you don't mind that I drive, because in the USA it is really important."

     Beall declared herself unfit to drive when she said, " I'm driving drunk and this is not cool. I haven't been arrested yet, and I really don't hope so." A few minutes later she announced this into the video camera: "I'm driving home drunk, let's see if I get a DUI."

     Several people watching the live-steamed video called 911 to report the drunken driver who was exhibiting her condition to the world.

     Lakeland patrol officer Mike Kellner spotted a 2015 Toyota Corolla being driven on the wrong side of the road. He pulled the car over and encountered the social media sensation, Whitney Beall.

     Beall and her car reeked of alcohol, and her eyes were bloodshot and glassy. In addressing the officer, Beall made a series of slurred, rambling statements that included the claim she was lost and driving on a flat tire.

     After failing the field sobriety test, Officer Kellner took the suspect into custody. After refusing to take a breathalyzer test, officers booked Beall into the Polk County Jail on the charge of driving under the influence. It was her first DUI arrest.

     The day following her DUI charge, Beall made bond and was released from custody. To a reporter she said, "It was a big mistake and I'm learning my lesson." Fortunately, her "big mistake" and learning experience didn't kill someone.

     In February 2016, Beall pleaded no contest to driving under the influence. The judge sentenced her to a six month license suspension, ten days of vehicle impoundment, and a year of probation.

Origins of the Serial Killer Culture

In the 1990s there were all sorts of secondary stories related to serial killing. First was the movie Silence of the Lambs, which introduced into mass consciousness the idea of FBI profilers and the character of serial killer Hannibal Lecter. The controversies of Bred Easton Ellis's book American Psycho, the marketing of serial killer trading cards, AOL's closing of Sondra London's serial killer web site, the market for artworks created by serial killers, and online auctions of their artifacts all contributed to a prevailing serial killer culture.

Peter Vronsky, Serial Killers: the Method and Madness of Monsters, 2004