Elliot Turner: Can a Rich Kid Get Away With Murder?

     Emily Longley, at age 9, moved with her family from England to Auckland, New Zealand. By the time she turned 15, Emily, a tall, blonde her friends called "Barbie," had a history of underage drinking and drug use which included Ecstasy. In 2009, Emily's parents sent her back to England where she took up residence with her grandmother in Southbourne.

     In the fall of 2010, Emily started taking business classes at Brockenhurst College in Hampshire. She lived in the southwestern town of Bournemouth where she worked part time at a fashion outlet called Top Shop. She had also signed on with a modeling agency.

     Emily began dating 19-year-old Elliot Vince Turner, a rich kid who worked in his father's jewelry store in Bournemouth. Turner lived in his family's home in Queen's Park, an affluent Bournemouth neighborhood. In April 2011, Elliot became jealous when he came across Facebook photographs of Emily flirting with another man at a bar. After that, the couple started having heated arguments. The fights became so intense, Emily began fearing for her life.

     On May 6, Elliot talked Emily into spending the night with him at his parent's house. That evening, they got into an argument, and he called her a whore. At 9:45 the next morning, Elliot's mother Anita called 999. (England's 911)

     Upon arriving at the Bournemouth house, paramedics found Emily's lifeless body in Elliot's bed. Questioned by the police, he said he had gotten up for work around 9:15, and when he touched Emily's arm, it was cold. He then notified his parents that something was wrong.

     The police initially thought Emily had overdosed on drugs, but the autopsy revealed otherwise. The forensic pathologist found physical evidence that Emily had been strangled. She had scratches on her arms, and traces of Elliot's blood and tissue were under her fingernails. Investigators learned that 30 minutes had passed between the time Elliot said he had gotten up for work and the 999 call. Detectives believed that during this period Elliot's parents, Anita and Leigh Turner, had destroyed and removed evidence.

     During the period May 18 to June 14, 2011, through a court sanctioned electronic surveillance of the Turner home, the police listened in on conversations between Elliot and his parents. At one point Elliot said, "I just flipped. I went absolutely nuts...I just lost it. I grabbed her as hard as I could. I pushed her like that." Detectives also seized a computer from the Turner home that revealed Elliot had Googled "death by strangulation," and "how to get out of being charged for murder."

     In July 2011, Elliot and his parents were arrested. Elliot faced a charge of murder, and his parents were charged with perverting the course of justice (obstruction of justice). When taken into custody, Elliot said, "I never meant to harm her, I just defended myself." He and his parents pleaded not guilty.

     The three defendants went on trial at the Winchester Crown Court in Bournemouth on April 10, 2012. Crown Court prosecutor Tim Mousley told the jury of 11 men and one woman that Elliot Turner had strangled Emily Longley in a fit of jealous rage, and that his parents had destroyed evidence to cover up the murder. Friends of the defendant testified that Elliot had joked about killing Emily with a hammer, at one point telling one of the witnesses, "I will go to prison for it, and still be a millionaire when I get out." According to one of these witnesses, the defendant had also practiced his strangulation technique on a friend.

     On April 18, Jasmin Snook, one of Emily's 19-year-old friends, testified that last May Emily had tried to end the relationship with the defendant. He became "obsessive," and couldn't understand why she was making him look like an idiot. According to Snook, the defendant said he was going to smash Emily's face, and didn't care if he had to serve ten years in prison for the assault.

     The following day, an ambulance technician testified that Elliot's mother Amita, when she called 999, said that a young female was "going blue," and had suffered "cardiac arrest." However, based on signs of post-mortem lividity (pooled blood in the body), it appeared that the girl had been dead several hours. (There were also signs of rigor mortis.)

     On May 2, Dr. Huw White, a Home Office forensic pathologist, testified he had found petechiae hemorrhages in Emily's right eye, and in both of her eyelids. These tiny beads of blood suggested strangulation. The doctor also said the alcohol level in the victim's system was well over the drunk driving limit. According to the witness, Emily had a history of brittle bone disease, asthma, bulimia, and episodes of self-harm. However, none of these maladies had contributed to her death.

     A police officer who had spoken to the defendant on the morning of the 999 call testified that Elliot Turner told him that Emily had gotten upset when he asked her about her self-harming. According to the defendant, when she started kicking and hitting him, he "pushed her on the neck to get her off," and said, "I never meant to harm her. I just defended myself."

     The next day, the Crown presented Darryl Manners, a forensic scientist who said he found mascara marks, make-up, and a pink lipstick stain on a pillowcase taken from Elliot Turner's bedroom. Manners testified that this "face mark" matched the victim's face and make-up. The expert witness said he had examined the defendant's shirt and found, on its right sleeve, smears similar to samples of foundation taken from the right side of Emily's face.

     Nicholas Oliver, a Crown DNA analyst, found the victim's mucus on the sleeve of the shirt the defendant had been wearing on the night he spent with the victim.

     Prosecutor Mousley played conversations picked up by the electronic surveillance of the Turner family home. In one of the conversations, Leigh Turner, the defendants's 54-year-old father, says, "He strangled her to shut her up, to stop her screaming, making so much noise and then he realized he'd done something terribly wrong, and he should have phoned the ambulance to save her, but he didn't because he was scared....That's what's going on in his mind. He knows he's killed her, not deliberately."

     On May 9, the defense put on it's case which mostly consisted of Elliot Turner taking the stand on his own behalf. He was asked by his barrister, Anthony Donne, how many times he had told Emily Longley he would kill her. The defendant said 10 to 15 times, but he never really meant it.

     After three days of the defendant's direct testimony, the witness was turned over to prosecutor Mousley for cross-examination. When Mousley asked Turner if he was in any way responsible for Emily Longley's death, he replied, "No, I do not believe so."

     "So the girl you adored died mysteriously?"

     "I don't know. I'm not a psychic."

     "Have you shown any remorse at all for her death? I'm talking about a basic human instinct. What remorse have you shown?"

     "I feel sad," answered the defendant.

     On May 15, the defense put the defendant's father, Leigh Turner, on the stand. In defending his son, Mr. Turner said, "He does not get angry. He's a gentle clown, a stupid clown." According to the witness, as the ambulance was en route to the house, Elliot told him he had packed a suitcase for Spain. Mr. Turner had said, "Don't be silly, you haven't done anything."

     Following the testimony phase of the Turner trial, Timothy Mousely, in summing up the prosecution's case, said, "We submit the defendant is remorseless, controlling, possessive, and vicious, and that he murdered her."

     In his summation to the jury, Anthony Donne described Elliot Turner as a "loudmouth," and "hot air merchant" who was "all talk, no action." The defense attorney also reminded jurors that the Home Office forensic pathologist, Dr. Huw White, had admitted on cross-examination that it was possible that Emily Longley had died a natural death.

     On May 21, the jury found Elliot Turner guilty of murder, and his parents guilty of trying to cover it up. The judge would sentence them at a later date.       

The Naked Flesh Eater: Police Kill Rudy Eugene

     As a nation of drug addicts and alcoholics, are we creating a class of taser-resistant monsters and flesh-eating zombies?

Excited Delirium Syndrome

     According to  Dr. Deborah Mash, the University of Miami neurologist who coined the term Excited Delirium, men who are high on drugs and/or alcohol, and are mentally ill, can  fly off the handle when placed under stress. Their body temperatures soar to 103-5 degrees, and their hearts race. When in this state, these men also possess supernatural strength, and can be resistant to taser shocks. Many of these men, often overweight and black, die of cardiac or respiratory arrest when fighting with the police. Among forensic pathologists in the United States, Canada, and England, Excited Delirium Syndrome is becoming a recognized cause of death.

Cocaine Psychosis and the Flesh-Eating Man

     At two in the afternoon on Saturday, May 26, 2012, Larry Vegas, while riding his bicycle on the MacArthur off-ramp to Biscayne Boulevard in Miami, saw a naked man on top of another nude man on the pedestrian walkway. The area under the causeway, populated by homeless people, was littered with cardboard mats, personal belongings, syringes, and broken bottles. The person on the pavement wasn't moving as the man on top  chewed away at his face. The witness on the bicycle yelled at the attacker to stop. This man, with pieces of bloody flesh hanging out of his mouth, raised his head, looked at Mr. Vegas, and growled.

     Mr. Vegas, now joined by other horrified witnesses, flagged down a Miami Police officer who ordered the attacker to desist. The attacker, paying no attention to the cop, the rubber-necking motorists, and the witnesses gathering at the scene, continued to tear away his victim's face. Obviously stunned and repelled by what he saw, the officer shot the attacker. When the bullet didn't stop the gruesome assault, the officer fired again, three times, killing the flesh eating predator.

     Paramedics rushed the bloody, badly mauled victim to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center. The homeless victim, whose face had been chewed beyond recognition, was in critical condition.

     The man shot to death by the Miami police officer is a 31-year-old black man named Rudy Eugene. Police theorize Mr. Eugene had been under the influence of "Cocaine Psychosis," a condition which causes the body to heat-up. This might explain why the attacker and his victim were nude.

     Forensic pathologists, police officers, emergency room doctors, EMS personnel, and people who treat drug abusers, have been aware of Cocaine Psychosis since 1987. Cocaine causes dopamine levels in the body to rise, causing euphoria. The dropping of the dopamine level when the drug wears off can cause schizophrenic-like symptoms, and/or extremely violent behavior. Cocaine Psychosis is most common in longtime drug abusers.

     A review of Rudy Eugene's medical background and crime history, as well as a toxicological analysis of his remains, will help determine the source of his wild, animalistic violence.

UPDATE

     At two in the morning on the day of the attack, Rudy Eugene, while at his girlfriend's house, rifled through his clothing and hers, then drove off in his purple Chevy sedan. He told a friend he was going to Miami Beach to attend a Memorial Day party. Later in the day, his car broke down, and as he walked across the 3-mile causeway, stated taking off his clothes. Police found his clothing and his driver's license along the road.

     The ongoing investigation of Rudy Eugene has revealed that he may have been under the influence of a LSD-like synthetic drug called "bath salts." His former wife, Jenny Ductant said this to a reporter: "I wouldn't say he had mental problems but he always felt like people were against him."

     The authorities have identified the victim as 65-year-old Ronald Poppo, a man who lived under the causeway, and has been homeless for 30 years. He is a 1964 graduate of New York City's elite Stuyvesant High School. Before hitting the skids, Poppo had worked in the guidance officer at Stuyvesant. He has lived in Florida 40 years, during which time he has been arrested for petty crimes. Before the Miami police officer shot and killed Rudy Eugene, the attacker had been chewing on Poppo's face for 18 minutes. When the ambulance took the victim from the scene, he had lost 80 percent of his face including his nose, cheeks, lips and an eye.

UPDATE

     Eugene's girlfriend reportedly met him in 2007. Since then, they have had an on-again, off-again relationship. The man she portrays, a guy who read from a Bible he carried everywhere with him, does not comport with the man who ate a stranger's face. While the girlfriend admits that Eugene smoked pot, she believes that on the day he was shot by the police, he was unknowingly drugged. She has also floated the possibility that someone put a Voodoo curse on him.

     In 2004, Eugene was arrested for battery after he threatened his mother and smashed furniture. He also threatened the responding police officer who shot him with a taser device.

UPDATE

     Toxicological tests have revealed that Rudy Eugene, when he attacked the homeless man, was not under the influence of bath salts. He was on marijuana.

      

John Mark Karr's Confession in the JonBenet Ramsey Murder

     A 5:52 AM emergency call that a child had been kidnapped brought a pair of Boulder, Colorado police officers to John and Patsy Ramsey's 3-story house on December 26, 1996. Patsy Ramsey said she had found a handwritten ransom note inside on the stairs. Fearing that her 6-year-old daughter, JonBenet, had been kidnapped for ransom, she had called 911. After a cursory sweep of the 15-room dwelling, the patrolmen called for assistance.

     During the next two hours, amid friends and relatives who had come to console the family, police set up wiretap and recording equipment to monitor negotiations with the kidnappers. At one in the afternoon, Boulder detective Linda Arndt asked John Ramsey to look around the house for "anything unusual." Thirty minutes later, he and one of his friends discovered JonBenet's body in a small basement room. Her mouth had been sealed with duct tape, and she had lengths of white rope coiled around her neck and right wrist. The rope around her neck was tied to what looked like the handle of a paintbrush. Breaking all the rules of crime scene investigation, John Ramsey removed the tape, carried his daughter up the basement steps, and laid her body on the living room floor. Detective Arndt picked up the child, placed her body next to the Christmas tree, and covered it with a sweat shirt. Because the police had not conducted a thorough and timely search of the house, there would be no crime scene photographs.

     In the months following the murder, the police, prosecutors, media, and most Americans believed that someone in the family had killed JonBenet Ramsey. But if this were the case, then who had written the two and a half page ransom note? Forensic document examiners eliminated John Ramsey as the ransom note writer, and all but one handwriting expert concluded that Patsy had probably not authored the document. Due to lack of evidence, the Ramseys were not charged or indicted in the case. Also, evidence surfaced that an intruder could have come into the house through a broken window in the basement.

John Mark Karr

      After a 13-year battle with ovarian cancer, Patsy Ramsey died on June 14, 2006. She was 49. The media that had helped police and prosecutors portray the Ramseys as child murderers treated the death as a one-day news event, giving it less attention than the passing of a supporting actor on an old TV sitcom. In April 2006, two months before her death, the Ramseys flew from their home in Michigan back to Boulder where they met with district attorney Mary Keenan (now Lacy), who asked them if they had ever heard of a man named John Mark Karr. They Ramseys said they had not--neither the name nor the description of this man rang a bell. What did he have to do with the case?

     Karr, a 41-year-old itinerate elementary school teacher, an American living in Bangkok, Thailand, since 2002 had been corresponding with Michael Tracey, a journalism professor at the University of Colorado. Karr's interest in the JonBenet murder had drawn him to the Boulder professor who had produced three television documentaries favorable to the the theory the crime had been committed by an intruder. The emails from Karr, sent under the pseudonym Daxis, had recently become quite bizarre, reflecting more than just a morbid interest in the case. After receiving a series of disturbing phone calls from this man, Professor Tracey alerted the district attorney's office. The calls were traced to John Mark Karr in Bangkok.

     After Daxis had confessed to Tracey that he had accidentally killed JonBenet while inducing asphyxia for his sexual gratification, he became a suspect in the murder. Karr had revealed over the phone that when he couldn't revive Jon Benet, he had struck her in the head with a blunt object. He told the professor that he had engaged in oral sex with the victim, but had not performed sexual penetration. Aware that Tracey was writing a book on the Ramsey case, Karr offered the author the inside story from the killer's point of view. In the event the book became a movie, Karr wanted to be played by Johnny Depp.

     Having taken over the Ramsey case investigation from the Boulder Police Department, the district attorney's office began investigating John Mark Karr. District attorney investigators spoke to the authorities in Bangkok, and read hundreds of the emails Karr had sent to the professor. One of the messages suggested that Karr had a general knowledge of forensic science, and had made all of this up: "The DNA might not match, but you can't trust the test."

     As Ramsey case investigators gathered details of Karr's life and background, it became clear that he was not an ordinary man, and that his strangeness was not inconsistent with the profile of a person who might commit a Ramsey-type crime. After Karr's parents divorced when he was 9, he went to live with his grandparents in Hamilton, Alabama. In 1983, one year after graduating from Hamilton High School, Karr, then 20, married a 13-year-old girl. The marriage ended 9 months later in an annulment. In 1989, Karr married 16-year-old Lara Marie Knutson. In 4 years, he and his wife had three sons. While pursuing a teaching degree through an online teacher's college, Karr opened a licensed day-care center in his home. Although he didn't have a teaching degree, he also worked as a substitute teacher at Hamilton High School. He acquired a college degree in 1999, and that year closed his day-care business. A year later, Karr and his family were residing in Petaluma, California where he taught as a substitute in six schools in the Sonoma Valley Unified School District.

     One year after arriving in Petaluma, while teaching at the Pueblo Vista Elementary School, Karr was arrested by investigators from the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office. They had found child pornography on Karr's computer, and arrested him on 5 misdemeanor counts of possessing such material. Karr's bail was reduced after he spent 6 months in the county lockup awaiting trial, and he was released on October 2001. While in custody, Karr had written letter to Richard Allen Davis who had been convicted on kidnapping and murdering Polly Klaas in Petaluma. When Karr failed to show for a court appearance in the pornography case, the judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest, making him a California fugitive from justice.

     During the child pornography investigation, detectives in Sonoma County came across writings and notes Karr had made pertaining to the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. In these musings, Karr had speculated on the killer's thoughts as he committed the crime. Although these were not confessions, the Sonoma detectives took the writings seriously enough to notify the authorities in Boulder. There were follow-up discussions between investigators in California and Colorado, but nothing came of the discovery.

     Karr was now divorced. His children and former wife had moved back to Hamilton, Alabama, and following his release from the Sonoma County Jail, Karr fled the country. He taught in Honduras and Costa Rica, and worked as a children's nanny in Germany, the Netherlands, and South Korea. In December 2005, Karr arrived in Bangkok where he had landed a grade-school teaching position.

The Arrest and Confession

     On August 11, 2006, 4 months after district attorney Mary Lacy learned that the Ramsey email writer and telephone confessor was John Mark Karr, police and immigration authorities in Thailand informed her that Karr was living in a downtown Bangkok apartment. In less than a week, Karr would be starting a new teaching job at the New Sathorn International School in the city. Because the authorities didn't want this man interacting with young girls at this school, the Thai police planned to arrest and deport Karr within the next five days. This development presented Lacy with a dilemma. If she did nothing, a man who had confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey would slip away upon his return to the United States. If she filed charges against Karr, and had him extradited back to Colorado, the probable cause supporting the arrest warrant would be based entirely on his emails and his telephone confessions. Lacy's investigators had not linked Karr to the ransom note through his handwriting, could not place him in Colorado on or about December 26, 1996, and had not matched his DNA to a pair of foreign bloodstains on JonBenet's underwear.

     Operating on the theory that John Mark Karr was not a false confessor, and that his DNA would eventually connect him to the victim, Lacy presented her case to a Boulder judge who issued a warrant for Karr's arrest on charges of first degree murder, kidnapping, and sexual assault. The district attorney also dispatched one of her investigators to Bangkok.

     After surveilling Karr's apartment building for 5 days, police and immigration officials took him into custody on August 16, 2006. In response to a Thai police officer who informed Karr that he had been charged with first degree murder in Boulder, Karr declared that his killing of JonBenet had been accidental, and therefore the charge should more appropriately be second degree murder. He had confessed again.

     After being flown to Los Angeles from Bangkok, Karr arrived in Colorado on August 24 where he was incarcerated in the Boulder County Jail. Four days later, the John Mark Karr phase of the Ramsey case came to an abrupt end when Mary Lacy announced that because Karr's DNA didn't match the crime scene evidence, the charges against him would be dropped. Moreover, he had not written the ransom note. The case quickly fell out of the news, and John Mark Karr slipped back into obscurity. The JonBenet Ramsey murder case remains unsolved. 

If Falsely Arrested, Take the Settlement Offer

     At 1:45 in the morning of September 26, 2007, a couple returning to their home in Millcreek, a suburban community adjacent to Erie, Pennsylvania, encountered a pair of burglars. When one of the intruders pointed a gun at the home owners, the husband tried to disarm him. In the scuffle, the burglar fired a shot into the ceiling, then ran out of the house with his partner. The burglars sped from the scene in a white minivan.

     Shortly after the incident in Millcreek, a pair of Erie police officers looking for the fleeing burglars, happened upon Maria Jordan parked in front of her house in a white minivan. Maria was about to pick up her husband, the night shift manager at a local Taco Bell.

     The Erie police officers ordered Maria out of the van at gunpoint, told her to hit the ground, then handcuffed the prone woman behind her back. Once they placed Maria into the patrol car (calling her an "idiot," and "retard"), the officers entered the Jordon house where, at gunpoint, they hauled Maria's 10-year-old stepson out of bed, and arrested her father. After handcuffing the boy and Jose Arenas, the officers searched the dwelling. They found nothing incriminating in the house, removed the handcuffs from the people they had arrested, then took leave of the citizens they had traumatized. (Other than being annoyed they had wasted time on these people, I doubt these officers gave these arrests and intrusions a second thought.)

     In 2009, Maria, her father, and her stepson sued the Erie Police Department in federal court for violating their civil rights. According to the complaint, the false arrests and police manhandling had caused the family "worry, humiliation, and anxiety." In defense of their actions, the officers said they should not be sued for doing their jobs. (Since when is making false arrests part of the job?) The city offered to settle the case out of court for $10,000. The plaintiffs turned down the offer, and the suit moved forward.

     On May 11, 2012, following a 4-day trial in the Erie federal court house, the jury found that the two Erie police officers had in fact violated the plaintiffs' civil rights. While finding that the defendants had acted improperly, these jurors didn't believe the false arrests and house search harmed the family in any way. As a result, in what could be interpreted as an insult, the jury awarded Maria Jordon $2, and her stepson and father $1 each.

     If the plaintiffs were angered and insulted by the token damages, they didn't let on. In fact, Maria's husband told a local reporter the family was pleased by the verdict because they had sought justice, not money. (In my view, they got neither.)

     On May 26, the assistant city solicitor, unwilling to leave well enough alone, filed a motion asking the federal judge to order the plaintiffs to pay some of the city's legal costs created by the lawsuit. According to the Erie solicitor, Pennsylvania law "obligates a prevailing plaintiff to pay the defendant's post-offer costs after rejecting an offer more favorable than the judgement." (Huh?) The city is asking the judge to order the Jordons--the wronged parties in the suit--to pay $5,085 of the city's legal expenses.

     The plaintiff's attorney who won the case, filed a motion asking the judge to order the city to pay his clients' counsel fees and costs. As the winners of the suit, these plaintiffs should at least break even.

     Although judges have been known to make stupid rulings, I can't imagine this judge deciding in favor of the city. The people responsible for the suit are the police officers, not their victims. In this case, the defendants were fortunate to have drawn a jury that didn't think being falsely arrested in the middle of the night at gunpoint is a big deal. (I think it's a very big deal.) Talk about pushing your luck.    

Pedro Hernandez's Confession in the Etan Patz Case

The Disappearance

     On May 25, 1979, the parents of 6-year-old Etan Patz allowed the boy to make his first unaccompanied walk to the Manhattan bus stop two blocks from his apartment building. They never saw him again. The missing boy, the first to have his photograph printed on milk cartons, helped fuel the national missing persons recovery movement that took root in the 1980s. Etan Patz was declared dead in 2001. 

     From the beginning, investigators suspected a friend of Etan's babysitter, a man named Jose Antonia Ramos. Ramos was later convicted of child molestation and sent to prison in Pennsylvania. While never prosecuted in the Patz case, the missing boy's family won a $2 million wrongful deal judgment against Ramos in 2004. He is due to be released from prison in November 2012. 

The Cold Case Investigation

     In 2010, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance reopened the Etan Patz investigation. FBI agents and detectives with the NYPD, in April 2012, interviewed a 75-year-old man named Othniel Miller, a former handyman who, in 1979, had worked in a 13 by 62 foot room in the basement of the family apartment building on Prince Street in the SoHo section of manhattan. Etan did chores for Miller, and on the day before he disappeared, Miller had given the boy a dollar. At the time of the abduction, Miller was not a suspect because he had a solid alibi. However, Jose Ramos, the imprisoned child molester, worked for Mr. Miller, and had access to his basement workshop. 

     After questioning Othniel Miller, FBI crime scene investigators placed "scent pads"--material that can absorb and retain odors--in Miller's old basement workshop. A cadaver dog, upon sniffing the pads, indicated the scene of human remains. (This technique, because it is not reliable, and subject to many variables, should not be confused with forensic science.)

     Under the supervision of the FBI and the New York City police, workers dug up the workshop's concrete floor and screened the dirt below for signs of Etan's remains. At one point, crime scene investigators thought they had discovered a suspicious stain on an chunk of cinder block, but further analysis determined it was not blood. After four days of excavating, the authorities shut down the operation, and began cleaning up the mess. 

     The April questioning of Othniel Miller, and the crime scene investigation of Mr. Miller's former basement workshop, brought the Etan Patz case back into the news as a national, headline story. 

The Hernandez Confession

     After receiving a tip from a family member or friend of 51-year-old Pedro Hernandez, New York City detectives went to Maple Grove, New Jersey to question this potential suspect. According to the tipster, Hernandez, as early as 1981, had told family members he had "done a bad thing and killed a child in New York." At the time, the 18-year-old worked at a convenience store in Etan Patz's neighborhood. Now married with a daughter in college, Hernandez has for years been receiving disability payments for a bad back. He has no criminal record, or history of suspected pedophilia. (It has been reported he has HIV.) 

     On May 16, during a videotaped interview, Hernandez confessed to murdering Etan Patz in the Manhattan convenience store. He said he lured the boy into the basement with a soda, choked him to death, then placed his body into a bag he deposited with a pile of trash a block away. Shortly after the murder, Hernandez left the city. 

     New York City police, on May 24, arrested Hernandez for second degree murder. They took him to the mental ward at Bellevue Hospital where he was kept under lock and key and put under a suicide watch. The next day, via a video link from his hospital room, Hernandez, now represented by court appointed attorney Harvey Fishbein, was arraigned. According to Mr Fishbein, his client was bipolar, schizophrenic, and has a "history of hallucinations, both visual and auditory." At the arraignment, Hernandez did not enter a plea. He is being held without bail. The judge overseeing the case has ordered a psychiatric evaluation of the suspect. 

A Question of Credibility

     It is not unusual, in murder cases that generate a lot of publicity, for people to come forward with false confessions. This happened in the wake of the 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping case, in the JFK assassination, and more recently, in the JonBenet Ramsey case. In 2006, John Mark Karr, an elementary school teacher working in Thailand, confessed to killing 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey in the basement of her Boulder, Colorado home. Following the 1996 murder, the girl's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, came under suspicion. Mr. Karr fit the general profile of a pedophile, and was not bipolar or schizophrenic. Moreover, his confession was quite detailed. But in the end, Karr's confession did not comport with the physical evidence in the case. His DNA didn't match crime scene bodily fluids, and forensic document analysis excluded him as the writer of the ransom note found at the Ramsey house. The JonBenet Ramsey case remains unsolved. (In my view, John and Patsy Ramsey, completely innocent, were wrongfully vilified by the police and media.)

     In the Etan Patz case, without a body or a crime scene, there is no physical evidence against which Pedro Hernandez's confession can be tested. There is no way to corroborate or discredit his story. The fact he has a history of serious mental illness increases the chance that his confession is a product of his psychosis. (FBI officials, who still consider Jose Ramos the prime suspect, have serious doubts about Hernandez's confession. Remember, there was enough evidence against Ramos to support a wrongful death suit verdict against him in 2004.) 

Can Pedro Hernandez be found guilty of murder?

     I'm going to stick my neck out here and predict he will not be convicted of murdering Etan Patz. In New York state, by law, a confession without more, is not enough to sustain a conviction. Unless investigators can produce corroborating evidence of this man's guilt, he cannot be prosecuted. In the event detectives can produce circumstantial evidence of his guilt, the case will fall apart if Hernandez recants his confession. 

     Pedro Hernandez's admission of guilt, while providing the New York Police commissioner and the mayor some good public relations, may end up becoming a public relations problem. Now that he has confessed, there is pressure to successfully prosecute him. If the authorities can't do this, they will be criticized, and the case will be stuck in a state of limbo. The confession has also made it virtually impossible to prosecute Jose Ramos who will be getting out of prison in six months.

UPDATE

     James Ramos, the longtime suspect in the Patz murder, after serving 25 years on the child molestation convictions in Pennsylvania, was released from prison on November 7, 2012. So far the investigation of Pedro Hernandez, beyond his confession, has not implicated him in the murder. His attorney claims that he's insane. 

     

     

Natasha Vanwasshenova: The Perils of Prostitution

     Have you heard the one about the hooker, the trick with a bad ticker, and the bungled autopsy? Probably not, because what happened to a prostitute named Natasha Vanwasshenova and her client Jonathan Hood is not that funny.

     On November 23, 2010, Jonathan Hood, a resident of Rochester, Michigan, called a Dearborn escort service and requested a hooker and $80 worth of heroin. The 38-year-old, in the midst of a divorce, was under the influence of alcohol and heroin when 28-year-old Natasha Vanwasshenova arrived at Hood's suburban Detroit home with the requested drug.

     After consuming more heroin and booze, Mr. Hood and the prostitute soaked in his hot tub for 30 minutes after which he took a cold shower, then, while having sex with Vanwasshenova, died. She called 911, tried to revive him, and waited for the EMS personnel and the police.

     The forensic pathologist with the Oakland County Medical Examiner's office who performed the autopsy ruled that Jonathan Hood had died of an heroin overdose. The forensic pathologist (who has not been publicly named) noted that Mr. Hood had an enlarged heart, and significant blockage in one of his arteries.

     Since, according to this forensic pathologist, Vanwasshenova's heroin had killed Mr. Hood, a local prosecutor charged her with delivering a drug that caused the user's death. Arrested on this criminal homicide offense, and placed in the Oakland County Jail, Vanwasshenova, if found guilty, faced a maximum sentence of life in prison.

     Sitting in her jail cell, Vanwasshenova must have wondered how having sex with a 38-year-old man had killed him, and why she was being held responsible for his death. Heroin, while not good for you, is not arsenic. Had she known the authorities would charge her for causing this trick's demise, she might not have stuck around for the police.

     Vanwasshenova's court appointed attorney, Charles Toby, when he read the autopsy report, wondered why the forensic pathologist hadn't taken Mr. Hood's enlarged heart and blocked artery into consideration in his cause of death ruling. With that in mind, attorney Toby asked Dr. Kirit Patel, the Chief Cardiologist at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, to review the autopsy. Dr. Patel, after reading the police and autopsy reports, concluded that Jonathan Hood had died of "acute coronary thrombosis," not a heroin overdose. His weak heart had failed under the stress of the drug, booze, hot tub, cold shower, and sex.

     In light of Dr. Kirit's post-mortem analysis, the local prosecutor reduced the charge against Vanwasshenova to delivering a controlled substance. Oakland County medical examiner, Dr. Ljubisa Dragovic, amended Mr. Hood's cause of death to heart attack.

     In May 2012, after spending 14 months in the county jail, Vanwasshenova pleaded guilty to the drug delivery charge. She also apologized to Mr. Hood's relatives who were in the court room. Judge Leo Bowan sentenced her to two years probation, and ordered her released from custody.

     Attorney Charles Toby, noting that his client had been in jail for 14 months on a minor drug crime, objected to the probated sentence. If Vanwasshenova returned to prostitution, she would be violating the terms of her probation, and if caught, could end up serving the rest of her drug delivery sentence behind bars. Perhaps her experience with Mr. Hood would point Vanwasshenova, the mother of four, in another direction, career-wise.

   

     

The Secret Service Scandal: The More We Know, The Worse It Gets

     Dania Londo Suarez, the prostitute who set off the Secret Service scandal in Cartagena, Columbia, in a 90-minute interview broadcast on Columbia radio and TV, said that after spending 5 hours with an agent at the Hotel Caribe, instead of getting $800 for her services, she barely got enough for cab fare. (Had she been paid in stimulus money, the government would have given her the $800, and bought her a car to get home.) According to the hooker, she met the agent in a Cartagena bar where most of the 10 agents with him were drunk. Although the trick (she didn't know his name) who took her back to his room (after making a condom stop) was only moderately intoxicated, the others "...bought alcohol like they were buying water."

     The prostitute told the Columbian interviewer that "If I had wanted to, I could have gone through all his documents, his wallet, his suitcase." She said that had she been so inclined, she could have compromised the security of the President of the United States. She related how the agent had refused to pay up even after she threatened to call the police. Calling these Secret Service Agents "bobos," Spanish for fools and idiots, she said, "Didn't they see the magnitude of the problem?" (No. And they still don't.)

     On May 23, 2012, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan testified before a senate homeland security committee investigating the prostitution/security scandal. In his opening remarks, Sullivan apologized for the embarrassment, but assured the senators that what had happened last month in Columbia "is not representative of the agency's values, or the high ethical standards we demand from our nearly 7,000 employees." Several of the senators, however, were suspicious that this off-duty activity in Cartagena represented a culture within the secret service that tolerated this sort of behavior.

     In questioning the Secret Service director, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, pointed out that the agents didn't bother to disguise their identities, or the identities of the prostitutes. (They registered them, as required, as "house guests.") This suggested to the senator that the Columbian affair was not an isolated event. Senator Collins noted that "two of the participants were supervisors--one with 22 years of service, and the other with 21--and both were married. That surely sends a message to the rank and file that this kind of activity is tolerated on the road."

     In response to Senator Collin's skepticism, Director Sullivan said, "I do not think this is indicative. I just think that between the alcohol and, I don't know, the environment, these individuals did some really dumb things. And I just can't explain why." (That's exactly what we want in presidential protection, agents who do dumb things--bobos in paradise.)

     Director Sullivan, in the course of being grilled by Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, revealed that an internal secret service agency survey found that only 58-60 percent of its employees would report unethical conduct. When asked by the senator why these results were not a matter of grave concern, the director said, "We want to improve that number to 100 percent." (The next time this survey is conducted, secret service employees, pursuant to orders, will give the right answers--they will lie, and not report this unethical conduct.)

     As Director Sullivan struggled to restore the tarnished image of the Secret Service, 4 of the 8 agents fired over the prostitution scandal were fighting to get their jobs back. No kidding. These disgraced agents are not denying they hired hookers in Columbia. They are arguing that because the agency tacitly approved of these road trip antics, they, as scapegoats, have been wrongfully dismissed. This line of reasoning reminds me of cops in the 1960s and 70s fired for taking bribes who didn't understand why, in a department corrupt from the top brass down, they were being selectively sacrificed. To hear them tell it, if they hadn't taken bribes, they would have been drummed out of law enforcement. It was a bogus argument then, and a load of crap now.

     I'm pretty sure these secret service agents will remain fired, and more will follow them into private life, including Director Sullivan.   

The Dr. Steven Hayne Defamation Case

     In 1974, Dr. Steven Hayne graduated from Brown University Medical School. After completing his internship at the Letterman Army Medical Center in San Francisco, he practiced medicine in California, Kentucky, and Alabama. In 1987, Dr. Hayne moved to Mississippi where, as a forensic pathologist (reportedly not board certified), he performed 1,200 to 1,800 forensic autopsies a year. (The National Association of Medical Examiners recommends no more than 250 autopsies a year.) At the height of his activity, Dr. Hayne was conducting 80 to 90 percent of the autopsies in Mississippi.

     During his tenure as Mississippi's most active forensic pathologist, Dr. Hayne testified in several high-profile murder cases resulting in convictions that turned out to be wrongful. Over the years, other forensic pathologists who reviewed Dr. Hayne's work disagreed with his findings that sent murder defendants like Cory Maye, Levon Brooks, Jimmie Duncan, and Tyler Edmonds, to prison. (These defendants were exonerated through DNA analysis.)

     Radley Balko, the libertarian criminal justice journalist with Reason Magazine and the web site "The Agitator," wrote dozens of articles about Dr. Hayne's role in these wrongful convictions. Balko has also written detailed pieces about one of Dr. Hayne's fellow Mississippian forensic scientists, Dr. Michael West. In the Kennedy Brewer case, Dr. Hayne called in Dr. West to analyze a bite mark on the body of a murdered child. Dr. West, who has been essentially thrown out of forensic dentistry by the odontology community, wrongfully identified Kennedy Brewer as the source of the crime scene bite mark. Dr. Hayne's association with the discredited forensic dentist has helped taint his own professional reputation.

     In 2007, The Innocence Project, a nonprofit criminal justice advocacy organization founded by attorneys and DNA experts Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, sent a letter to the Mississippi Department of Public Safety demanding an inquiry into Dr. Hayne's cases.

     In 2008, following an internal investigation by the Department of Public Safety, Dr. Hayne was removed from Mississippi's designated forensic pathologist list. The Innocence Project also filed a complaint against Dr. Hayne with the Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure. The board decided not to lift Dr. Hayne's medical license, or impose any form of discipline on the physician.

     Dr. Hayne's critics have been reluctant to accuse him of incompetence in public out of fear he will sue them for defamation. After losing his right to perform autopsies in Mississippi, Dr. Hayne filed, in federal court, a defamation lawsuit against the New York City based The Innocence Project. In May 2012, the plaintiff and the defendant agreed to an out of court settlement of $100,000. The case was settled because it suited the needs of The Innocence Project's insurance carrier. The settlement, a business rather than a legal decision, was not an admission of defamation.

     Dale Danks, Jr., Dr. Hayne's attorney, characterized the lawsuit settlement as vindication for his client. Peter Neufeld, on the other hand, said he regarded the disposition of this case as nothing more that the cost of getting rid of a frivolous lawsuit.

     Regarding litigation, Dr. Hayne is himself a defendant in lawsuits that have been filed by at least two of the men convicted on the strength of his testimony.

     To date, 300 men wrongfully convicted of murder have been exonerated through the work of The Innocence Project. 

Unreported Campus Crime: The Clery Act

     Over the years, colleges and universities have overcharged students and underreported crime. While useless courses and academic programs are bad enough (see: "Majoring in Stupid: Ridiculous College Courses," March 29, 2012), sweeping serious campus crime under the rug is even worse. The reportage and publication of campus crime, for any institution of higher learning, is bad for business. No parent wants to send their kid to a college to get raped, robbed, or murdered. These things happen in real life, not in the Disneyesque college experience. These beautiful and expensive institutions, if not sites of great learning, should at least be places where students are relatively safe from violent crime. Over the years, particularly in the big schools, crimes committed by male athletes have not only been suppressed, they've been covered-up.

     The underreporting of serious crime by college and university administrators led to the passage, in 1990, of the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act. Under this federal statute, named after a 19-year-old Lehigh University freshman who was raped and murdered in her dormitory in 1986, requires, among other things, that schools keep and disclose information about crime on and near their campuses. Covered offenses include criminal homicide, sexual offenses, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, arson, motor vehicle theft, and alcohol and drug crimes. Violation of the Clery Act can result in fines up to $27,500 per violation, and exclusion from the federal student aid program.

     In December 2006, Laura Dickinson, a freshman at Eastern Michigan University, was found in her dorm room naked from the waist down with a pillow over her head. The chief of the university police department reported "no reason to suspect foul play," and told the student's parents she had died of natural causes. Two months passed before this death was investigated as a murder. In the meantime, the killer roamed the campus in search of other victims. The president of Eastern Michigan lost his job, and the U.S. Department of Education fined the school $357,500. The university also ended up paying the victim's family $2.5 million.

     In 2006 and 2010, freshmen women at Dominican College in Orangeburg, New York and at Notre Dame, committed suicide after their complaints of sexual assaults against football players were covered-up. After state and federal investigations, both schools agreed to change their crime reporting policies. (Change their policies from what?) The U.S. Department of Education, under the Clery Act, fined Dominican $20,000 for crime underreporting.

     In Texas, the U.S. Department of Education, in 2009, fined Tarleton State University (part of the Texas A&M University system) $137,000 for not accurately reporting its crime statistics. According to the student newspaper, administrators at Tarleton State "underreported the number of forcible sex offenses, drug-law violations, and burglaries between 2003 and 2005." During that period, 10 sex offenses on campus were not reported to the police. The school only reported 29 of more than 60 burglaries.

       In recent years, the Department of Education has accused administrators at Marquette University of mishandling sexual assault accusations against four athletes. Arizona State, in a case involving the rape of a student by a football player with a history of sexual aggression, has been criticized for sweeping this campus crime under the rug.

     At Penn State, in 2002, when an assistant football coach reported to coach Joe Paterno that he had seen Jerry Sandusky raping a 10-year-old boy in the locker room showers, coach Paterno, instead of reporting the accusation to the police, passed the information on to a university administrator. The Department of Education is currently investigating Penn State to determine if the school violated the Clery Act. (Jerry Sandusky will be tried on 52 counts of sexual molestation next month.) This month, the school hired an administrator to train and monitor university employees on compliance with the crime reporting law. (How comforting.)

     In May 2012, Department of Education auditors were on the campus of Roxbury Community College in Boston looking into allegations that at least 3 sexual assault cases had not been reported to the police. Since 2008, the college has only reported 6 on-campus crimes: one robbery and 5 aggravated assaults that were characterized as "fist-fights." These crime statistics are extremely low for an urban campus. 

Stephen Ivens: The Missing FBI Agent

     Stephen Ivens, a 35-year-old FBI agent assigned to the Los Angeles Field Division, has been missing since he walked away from his Burbank home on the morning of May 11, 2012. Blood hounds traced his scent to the Verdugo Mountains where a search party of FBI agents, local police, and volunteers have been looking for him.

     Ivens, a married father of a toddler, has been an FBI agent a little more than 3 years. Before joining the bureau Ivens had been a Los Angeles police officer. The white, 6 foot, 160 pound bespectacled agent worked on counterterrorism cases. According to an FBI spokesperson, Ivens was not having difficulties on the job, or under any kind of disciplinary action. Because his FBI-issued revolver is also missing, Ivens was presumably armed when he left his house that morning.

     According to news reports, Special Agent Ivens had been depressed and distraught. This has led to speculation that he was suicidal, and is probably dead by his own hand. A suicidal person walking into the wilderness to kill himself is not, without more, a national news story. The Stephen Ivens missing persons case has attracted media attention because he's an FBI agent. The fact he worked on cases related to counterterrorism, while in reality is tedious, unglamorous work, adds a hint of intrigue and the potential of foul play.

     Anything is possible. Stephen Ivens could be found alive in the woods, or somewhere else. He might come home on his own. If found dead, chances are Mr. Ivens was killed by the elements, or by suicide. In cases like this, murder is rare. (Ray Gricar, the prosecutor in Pennsylvania related to the Jerry Sandusky pedophile case, has been missing for several years. While Mr. Gricar had been depressed, and probably killed himself, murder has not been ruled out.)

     People who kill themselves, rarely do it because of their job or profession. Suicide is usually the product of loss related to money, health, or family in combination with mental illness. The suicide rates of law enforcement personnel are probably no higher than that of plumbers, accountants, or school teachers. Since 2008, an average of 142 police officers a year have killed themselves. The vast majority of these suicides involved service weapons, occurred off-duty, and were committed by men between the ages 35 to 40. According to the Badge of Life Organization, 64 percent of these suicides came as a surprise.

     Since 1993, 22 FBI agents have committed suicide. In 2005, veteran Los Angeles FBI agent Wendy Woskoff killed herself. She was 54, and married to an FBI agent. In April 2011, an FBI agent assigned to the Boston division killed himself in Portland, Maine. He was in his early 50s.

     If the Stephen Ivens case turns out to be one of suicide, the story will be one of desperation and mental illness. It will have nothing to do with the FBI. 

Silent Witnesses: James D. Willie's Shell Casings

     At 1:30 in the morning on Tuesday, May 8, police in Panola County, Mississippi found 74-year-old Thomas Schlender dead in his 1999 Ford 150 pickup. Shot several times, he had crashed into a median divider on Interstate 55 in the northwestern part of the state. Mr. Schlender, from Nebraska, had been on his way to Florida to pick up his grandson. The victim's wallet was missing, and near the truck, crime scene investigators recovered 5 shell casings.

     On Friday, May 11, at 2:15 in the morning, police in neighboring Tunica County found the body of 48-year-old Lori Anne Carswell lying near her 1997 Pontiac Grand Am at the intersection of state highway 713 and Interstate 69. She had been on her way home from her place of employment, Fitzgerald's Casino in Hermando, Mississippi. Investigators recovered several shell casings from the scene of Carswell's shooting death.

     The place, time, and physical evidence suggested that these murders had been committed by the same person. Police, suspecting that Carswell and Schlender had been murdered by someone impersonating a highway cop, advised motorists to call 911 if an unmarked car flashing its lights came up behind them. On May 12, a spokesperson with the state crime laboratory announced that the firing pin impressions and the ejector marks on the shell casings from the two murder scenes had been fired from the same semi-automatic handgun. In the event the murders were the work of a serial killer, the local police brought in FBI profilers to study the case.

     Early Tuesday morning, May 14, a woman in Tunica County, following a domestic disturbance, asked 28-year-old James D. Willie to drive her to the sheriff's office. Willie, instead of taking the woman to the police, drove her to a Delta area field where he raped her. After the assault, when the victim tried to run away, Willie fired a shot at her that missed. He forced the victim back into his vehicle, and took her to his girlfriend's apartment. A few hours later, the victim climbed out a window and escaped.

     Later that morning, Tunica County sheriff's deputies arrested James Willie at his girlfriend's place. In his car, deputies found a 9mm Ruger pistol, and from the Delta rape site, they recovered a shell casing.

     On Wednesday, May 15, a spokesperson for the Mississippi State Crime Lab reported that the firing pin and ejector marks on the rape scene shell casing had been made by the pistol that had fired and ejected the casings at the two highway murder scenes. Moreover, they all had been fired from the handgun recovered from Willie's car.

     The Tunica County prosecutor charged James Willie with kidnapping, aggravated assault, rape, and two counts of capital murder. He is being held, without bond, in the Tunica County Jail.

     The unemployed murder suspect has an extensive arrest record, has served prison time for burglary, and is a known drug abuser. When he shot Thomas Schlender and Lori Anne Carswell, Willie was not impersonating a highway patrol officer. He had apparently killed these motorists in cold blood for drug money.

     
    

Kenneth Jamar: A Near Fatal Wrong House Raid

     During the early morning hours of June 27, 2006, a total of 100 federal, state, and local drug enforcement agents and officers raided 23 homes in Decatur, Huntsville, Madison, and Hartsville, Alabama. The raids culminated a two-year investigation of a Mexican-based cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine trafficking operation doing business in the northern part of the state. That morning, officers with the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force arrested 29 people, including Jerome Wallace, a 28-year-old who lived on Honey Way, a dirt road in rural Limestone County. A police Officer arrested Jerome as he stood in his front yard while task force members, in search of him, broke into the wrong house down the road. The wrong house these officers raided belonged to Wallace's uncle, Jerome Jamar.

     Just before daybreak, several vans rolled down Honey Way, and parked across from Kenneth Jamar's house. Agents with the DEA, ATF, FBI, and ICE, and the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, along with Alabama state troopers and SWAT teams from Huntsville and Madison County, alighted from their vehicles. A few seconds after one of the officers yelled, "Open Up! Police!" they broke into the house through the front door. Even if the 51-year-old semi-invalid with severe gout and a pace-maker had heard the officers announce themselves, he could not have made it to the door in time to let them in. Had he tried, Mr. Jamar would have walked into a flashbang grenade explosion.

     Mr. Jamar, in his bedroom when he heard his front door bashed open and the stun grenade go off, picked up his pistol. SWAT team officers, when they kicked open Mr. Jamar's bedroom door, saw him standing next to his bed holding the handgun. Armed with semi-automatic rifles, the officers opened fire. One of the 16 bullets from their rifles hit Mr. Jamar in the hip, another in the groin, and a third in the foot. He went down without firing a shot.

     Paramedics rushed Mr. Jamar, in critical condition, to a hospital in Huntsville where he spent two weeks in the intensive care unit. After searching his house, the police confiscated Mr. Jamar's gun collection. Perhaps because the SWAT team had broken into the wrong house, the Limestone County prosecutor chose not to charge Mr. Jamar with attempted assault.

     In the days and weeks following this police involved shooting, newspaper accounts of the raid were sketchy because Mike Blakely, the sheriff of Limestone County, the official heading up the internal investigation of the incident, did not release much information to the media. According to Sheriff Blakely, the officers had to "neutralize" a man who was "aggressively resisting." When a reporter asked the sheriff to comment on the wrong house aspect of the raid, he said, "I guess you could call it a clerical error over the address, but I don't think Jamar's dwelling even has a street address." This begs the question: if Mr Jamar's house didn't have a street address, how could there have been "a clerical error over the address?" (Either the sheriff is an idiot, or he thinks the residents of Limestone County are idiots.)

     Because the SWAT officers who shot Kenneth Jamar were not personally responsible for the wrong house raid, and had fired their weapons in self defense, they were cleared of criminal wrongdoing. Kenneth Jamar, in June 2008, filed a $7.5 million lawsuit in federal court claiming that the city of Huntsville, and other entities, had violated his civil rights. In April 2011, the Huntsville city council voted to settle Kenneth Jamar's suit for $500,000.

     For the general public, militaristic law enforcement is not only dangerous, it's expensive. 

The Tania Coleman Conviction: A Matter of Intent

     Firefighters in Erie, Pennsylvania, on May 24, 2011, while on a call on east Eighth Street, detected the odor of death coming from a discarded suitcase. When they opened the suitcase, the firefighters found the badly decomposed remains of 14-month-old Alayja Coleman.

     The next day, at the Erie Police Department, detectives questioned the child's mother, 20-year-old Tania Coleman. The pregnant mother of two lived in a house near the discovery of the suitcase. The dead girl's father, Rahsean Murphy, had been in prison most of Alaja's life. Murphy had last seen his daughter in late March 2011. Xavier Hollamon, Tania Coleman's 20-year-old boyfriend, was the father of her other two children as well as the expectant baby.

     During the low-key, videotaped interrogation that lasted 45 minutes, Tania said that two months earlier she had discovered Alayja dead in her playpen. Panicked, she called Hollamon who rushed to the house. A high school dropout, Hollamon had just completed his Army basic training, and feared this situation would land him in military prison.

     Rather than report Alayja's death to the authorities, Coleman and her boyfriend put her body into the suitcase and hid it in the house. Before long, the odor became too much. On April 25, (this was later determined through investigation), Tania and Xavier, at the cost of $73, purchased a fancy plastic trash bin from Walmart. They placed the suitcase containing Alayja's body into the trash container and set it outside until they figured out how to permanently dispose of the body. (Someone, in stealing the trash bin, removed the suitcase.)

     Forensic pathologist Dr. Eric Vey performed the autopsy, and determined the cause of Alayja's death to be starvation. (Her body had been consuming her muscles and organs.) The Erie County Coroner ruled her manner of death as homicide. Due to the condition of the corpse, Dr. Vey could not pinpoint the victim's time of death.

     Dr. Vey's review of Alayja's pediatric records revealed that when she was 11 months old, she weighed less than she had at the age of 4 months. When examined by a pediatrician 6 months after her birth, the doctor declared Alayja's weight in the "danger zone," and recommended that Tania feed her a lot of fruits and vegetables. The little girl missed her 9 and 12 month check-ups.

     Erie County District Attorney Jack Daneri charged Xavier Hollamon with abuse of corpse and tampering with evidence, a pair of misdemeanors that together carried a maximum sentence of 4 years in prison. He charged Tania Coleman with these crimes plus first degree murder. In Pennsylvania, first degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the chance of parole. To make his case, the district attorney had to prove the defendant deliberately starved her daughter to death.

     In early March 2012, Xavier Hollamon pleaded guilty to the abuse of corpse and tampering with evidence misdemeanors in return for 2 years probation and 250 hours of community service. He had been incarcerated in the Erie County Jail for almost a year. Hollamon, as part of the plea bargain, agreed to testify against his former girlfriend and the mother of two children and the unborn child. (I presume the Army issued Hollamon a dishonorable discharge.)

     Tania Coleman's first degree murder trial got underway in mid-March before Judge Shad Connelly in the Erie County Court House. District Attorney Jack Daneri, on the theory that the defendant had killed her daughter because she had not been fathered by her boyfriend, and didn't fit into the family, put on his circumstantial case of intentional murder.

     Jamie Mead, Coleman's court-appointed attorney, presented the defendant as an overwhelmed single parent who had neglected a child who died despite efforts to feed her. Attorney Mead argued that if Coleman had intentionally murdered Alayja, she would have come up with a better plan to dispose of her body. The defendant did not take the stand on her own behalf. In her closing statement to the jury, Mead accused the prosecution of manufacturing a motive to support their theory of an intentional murder.

     On March 22, the jury found Tania Coleman guilty of first degree murder. Attorney Mead immediately filed motions to either replace the first degree murder conviction with a lesser homicide, or for a new trial. The defense attorney argued that the jury, in finding her client guilty of intentional murder, had relied more on emotion than evidence, citing witnesses who had testified that Tania had expressed concern about Alayja's refusal to eat.

     Judge Shad Connelly, on May 17, 2012, sentenced Tania Coleman to life in prison without chance of parole. 

Steven Powell: The Voyeur Next Door

     On December 6, 2009, Josh Powell reported his 28-year-old wife, Susan Cox Powell, missing. He said she had disappeared while he and his two sons were on a camping trip. The family lived in West Valley, a suburb of Salt Lake City. The story didn't make any sense, and the police didn't believe him. As time passed, and Susan Cox remained missing, the authorities suspected that Josh Powell had murdered his wife for her life insurance. But without the body, the case stalled.

     In January 2010, after losing his job, Josh Powell and his boys moved into his father's house in South Hill, an unincorporated community in the Puyallup, Washington area. Investigators, in August 2011, pursuant to the ongoing investigation of Susan Powell's disappearance and presumed murder, searched Steven Powell's house, and were shocked by what they found.

     On videotapes, computer discs, and in Steven Powell's diaries, detectives found evidence that Josh's father had been sexually obsessed with Susan, and had secretly videotaped and photographed, in 2006 and 2007, two girls who lived in the house next door. The girls were age 8 and 10.

     In 7 entries in his dairies, Steven Powell had documented his bizarre fixation on his daughter-in-law. He wrote: "Susan likes to be admired, and I'm a voyeur...I'm a voyeur and Susan is an exhibitionist." In a series of videos of himself ruminating about his daughter-in-law, the senior Powell said he "...would give anything to be with her." In various self-videoed scenes, Steven Powell is kissing a pair of her underwear, standing nude with a photograph of her, and recalling how giving her a foot rub was "...the most erotic experience of my life." Detectives also found clandestinely taken photographs of Susan in various stages of undress.

     Even more disturbing, were the thousands of photographs Powell had secretly taken of the girls next door. The pictures, taken 40 feet away through a window and an open bathroom door, depicted the youngsters getting dressed and undressed, taking baths, washing and drying their hair, and other thing people do in the privacy of their homes. On his computer, Steven Powell had hundreds of photographs he had covertly taken of other girls who had passed in front of his house. Searchers also found hundreds of photographs, taken by other people, of naked women and girls.

     In his diary entries, Powell discussed his voyeurism generally, noting that he enjoyed taking video shots of pretty girls in shorts and skirts. In 2010, he recorded himself saying,  "I've been going nuts and nearly out of control sexually my entire life."

     Charged by the Pierce County prosecutor with 24 counts of voyeurism, and one count of possession of materials of minors engaged in explicit conduct, police arrested Steven Powell on September 12, 2011. Each count carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.

     About a month after his father's arrest, Josh Powell lost custody of his two boys and moved into a rented house in Graham, Washington. On February 6, 2012, during his sons' supervised visit to his home, Powell locked the social worker out of the dwelling, then murdered the boys with a hatchet. He poured several gallons of gasoline around the house, then set it on fire. He died in the blaze.

     Steven Powell, with his daughter-in-law missing and presumed dead, two of his grandsons murdered, and his son, the killer of all three, dead by his own hand, went on trial May 7, 2012 in Tacoma, Washington. In a series of pre-trial hearings, Pierce County Judge Ronald Culpepper had ruled that the prosecution could not introduce any of the evidence pertaining to Powell's obsession with Susan Powell. Moreover, the government could only present 20 of the photographs the defendant had allegedly taken of the girls next door.

     On May 9, the girls Powell had allegedly photographed and videotaped in 2006 and 2007, now 13 and 15, took the stand for the prosecution. When asked why they had not kept the bathroom door closed, one of the witnesses said she felt safer with the door open, and had no idea anyone outside the house could see her. In the summer, because the home didn't have air conditioning, it got hot on the second floor. That's why all of the upstairs windows were open during the night. The family had moved to Puyalllup in 2006 from Arizona, and in 2008, left the neighborhood. The girls and their mother had no memory of Steven Powell, and were unable to identify him in the court room.

     Defense attorney Mark Quigley did not put any witnesses on the stand. His defense, which revealed itself through his cross-examination of prosecution witnesses, consisted of suggesting that someone else in the Powell house had spied on the girls. At the time, Steven Powell's two sons, and one of his daughters, lived with him.

     Attorney Quigley, in his closing argument to the jury, pointed out that the state, with no direct proof the defendant had photographed and videotaped the neighbor girls, had not carried its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

     Prosecutor Grand Blinn, characterized the state's case as one involving "overwhelming circumstantial evidence." Blinn told the jury of 6 men and 6 women that the defendant had essentially confessed to being a voyeur. "It's difficult to imagine," he said, "anything more disturbing to teenage girls to know that a middle age man next door was taking pictures of them."

     On May 16, the jury, following just 3 hours of deliberation, found Steven Powell guilty of all 14 counts of voyeurism. The acquitted him of the possession of child pornography charge. His sentencing will come later.
       

George Zimmerman's Injuries: An Inconvenient Truth in the Trayvon Martin Case

     When politics, race-baiting, and biased journalism influence the administration of justice, there is no justice. In the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case, the narrative, driven by political hacks, civil rights activists, black radicals, and their media accomplices, is this: a white, racist vigilante stalked an unarmed black kid in a hoodie and shot him to death in cold blood. Trayvon Martin's story is presented as a cautionary tale of racism still rampant in America. Young black men in hoodies are, according to these hate-mongers and hacks, an oppressed group. This story, figuratively and literally, is being cast in black and white notwithstanding the fact George Zimmerman is Hispanic.

     On the night of February 26, 2012, after Zimmerman shot the 17-year-old to death in the Sanford, Florida gated community, he claimed self-defense. As time passed, and it appeared that the Seminole County state attorney's office was not going to charge the neighborhood watch volunteer with criminal homicide, all hell broke loose.

     On March 13, a spokesperson for the New Black Liberation Militia said that members of the group were going to Florida to arrest Zimmerman. (Talk about vigilantism.) Feeling pressure from the national media, the U. S. Department of Justice announced it would open a  hate crime investigation against Mr. Zimmerman. The Seminole County prosecutor raised the possibility of convening a grand jury to hear the case.

     A day after the Sanford City Council voted "no confidence" in police chief Bill Lee, Jr., he resigned "temporarily." (Whatever that means.) It was now March 23, and across the country, rallies calling for Zimmerman's arrest led by Al Sharpton (of Tawana Brawley fame) and NAACP president Ben Jealous, were held. Hundreds of protesters were wearing T-shirts that read, "I am Trayvon Martin." In New York City, a few hundred Trayvon Martin supporters attended a "Million Hoodie March."

     In Washington, D.C., a black congressman appeared on the floor of the House of Representatives wearing a hoodie. President Obama, with nothing better to do, stirred the pot by announcing to the world that the Trayvon Martin case should be investigated. (It was being investigated, and as a former law professor, he should have known that.) The president didn't stop there. "If I had a son," he said, "he'd look like Trayvon." (Oh boy. George Zimmerman had shot a kid who looked like the son the president would have had had he not had girls. Maybe we should make shooting a young man who resembles the president of the United States a federal crime?)

     Amid all of this hate-talk and race-baiting, George Zimmerman, fearing for his life, had been in hiding since shortly after the shooting. In April, Seminole County Special Prosecutor Angela Corey, perhaps worried that a grand jury would refuse to indict Zimmerman, charged him with second degree murder. He was taken into custody and held on $150,000 bond. Several days later he posted his bail and went back into hiding. At this time, pandering politicians, the media, and millions of Americans, presumed Zimmerman's guilt.

     On May 15, the medical records pertaining to George Zimmerman's examination by his family physician on the day after the shooting were made public. According to the doctor's report, he had treated the patient for a "closed fracture of his nose, black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head, and a minor back injury." The doctor also noted bruising on Zimmerman's upper lip and cheek.

     While Zimmerman's injuries alone do not exonerate him, they contradict the narrative of the case pushed by most of the media and Trayvon Martin's supporters. Moreover, this evidence will make it more difficult for the Zimmerman prosecution to carry its burden of proof.

     More information on the case came out on May 16 when a TV station in Orlando reported that according to Martin's autopsy report, his knuckles were banged up in a way consistent with injuries cases by punching someone.

     Biased journalism in service to Al Sharpton-style race-baiting has put enormous pressure on Special Prosecutor Angela Corey to acquire Zimmerman's conviction. An acquittal, given all the agitating, could cause civil unrest. In all probability, Corey will be pressing Zimmerman for a negotiated guilty plea. Because the case has produced so much negative publicity for this suspect, there is absolutely no way he can get a fair trial anywhere in the country. The well has been poisoned, and poisoned for good. This is not how our criminal justice system is supposed to work. (See: "George Zimmerman: Watchman or Vigilante?" April 4, 2012)

Marissa Alexander: Another Standing Your Ground Case

     Marissa Alexander, when she married Rico Gray in June 2010, was six months pregnant with their child. She had two children from a previous marriage, and Gray had five with five other women. One of his sons, and two of Marissa's children, lived with them in their rented Jacksonville, Florida home. She was 30 and he was 35.

     Rico Gray had physically abused his former partners, and was beating up Marissa. In July 2010, he had thrown his pregnant wife across the room, then given her a black eye with a head butt. Marissa and her children moved out of the house and into her mother's place. She also filed for an order of protection against her husband.

     At the domestic violence injunction hearing, Rico Gray reportedly said this to the judge: "I got five baby mamas and I put my hand on every last one of them except one. The way I was with women, they was like they had to walk on eggshells around me. You know, they never knew what I was thinking...or what I might do...hit them, push them." The judge granted the order of protection.

     Marissa had the baby on July 23, 2010, and on August 1, returned to the rented house to gather up more of her clothes. While there, she showed Gray a cellphone photograph of their baby. After she entered the bathroom, Gray, looked through her cellphone and came across text messages she had sent to her former husband that suggested she planned to leave him permanently and get back with ex-spouse. Enraged, Gray stormed into the bathroom and allegedly said, "If I can't have you, no one can." He put his hands on her throat, threw her against the door, and threatened to kill her.

     Breaking free, Marissa ran into the attached garage, and from her car, grabbed her handgun. (It was licensed.) She returned to the house (She claims she couldn't exit the dwelling through the garage because the automatic door opener didn't work.) and encountered Gray standing in the kitchen next to his two sons. Fearing for her life, she (according to her account) fired a warning shot into the air. (Ballistics analysis, however, suggested that the bullet hit a wall and ricocheted up into the ceiling.)

     Rico Gray called 911, and in reporting the shooting to the dispatcher, sounded more angry than frightened. A short time later, the house was surrounded by a SWAT team. Marissa was arrested and charged with three counts of aggravated assault. (Three counts because she had allegedly endangered three people.) Under Florida's so-called 10-20-life law, any person convicted of aggravated assault involving the discharge of a gun is subject to a mandatory 20 year sentence.

     A few days after her arrest, Marissa was released on bail under orders from the judge to stay clear of her husband. But four months later, Marissa, in violation of the judges's order, went back to the house and punched Gray in the face. (She would later plead no contest to domestic battery.)

     With the approach of Marissa's aggravated assault by handgun trial, prosecutor Angela Corey, explained to the defendant that if convicted she would be sentenced to 20 years. The prosecutor offered her a deal: if she pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, the judge would sentence her to three years in prison. Marissa rejected the plea bargain offer.

     In defending Marissa Alexander, her attorney planned to rely on Florida's "stand your ground" law made famous by the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case. Angela Corey, the state's attorney in Marissa's case was the leading prosecutor in the infamous Sanford, Florida shooting. Under this self-defense doctrine, a person who is threatened with death or serious bodily injury in a place where he has a right to be, has no duty under the law to retreat, and can meet force with force.

     In a pre-trial hearing on the stand your ground issue, Judge James Daniel  ruled that the law didn't apply to Marissa Alexander because she had no reason to fear for her life in that confrontation with her husband. She could therefore not rely on self-defense, and the stand your ground doctrine. On March 16, 2012, a jury found her guilty of the three aggravated assault counts, and the judge, bound by Florida's 10-20-life law, sentenced her to 20 years in prison.

     Critics of mandatory sentencing laws, along with anti-domestic violence advocates, have expressed outrage over the outcome of the Marissa Alexander case. Other than winning an appeal, Marissa Alexander's only other legal remedy involves a grant of clemency by Florida Governor Rick Scott. For that to happen, a member of the state clemency board will have to initiate the action. Marissa can only make application herself after she has served half of her sentence.      

Officer Jerad Wheeler: Kicking Stomach in Dekalb County

     In response to a child custody dispute, Dekalb County police officer Jerad Wheeler, at 6:30 PM on December 12, 2011, pulled up to Darrius Usher's house in Tucker, Georgia. Kiera Wade and Usher were fighting over their son, Jamal. The mother had come to the house to take the boy home, but Usher wasn't cooperating. The cursing and shouting father, instead of calming down and speaking to officer Wheeler, walked away from him toward the back of the dwelling. As a second police officer rolled up to the scene, the father's aunt entered the house, fetched the boy, and carried him to his mother's car. This infuriated Usher who stormed out of the house onto the front porch. He was carrying, in his right hand, a length of metal pipe. "You're gonna have to take me to jail," he shouted.

     Reaching for his sidearm, officer Wheeler instructed Usher to drop the weapon. The angry father released the pipe, then charged toward the car occupied by Kiera and his son. Wheeler fired two taser prongs into Usher's back, causing him to collapse before reaching the vehicle.

     The subduing of the out-of-control father should have ended this disturbance. But as is often the case in situations like this, a family member couldn't leave well enough alone. As the second officer placed Mr. Usher into handcuffs, the arrestee's sister, Raven Dozier, got into the act by screaming at officer Wheeler. As the big woman moved toward him, the young officer, on three occasions, told her to "get back." She ignored his commands, and when Dozier got within three feet of him, he employed a so-called front push kick to her stomach.

     In Wheeler's incident report, he wrote: "The kick was a front push kick to the abdomen as I was taught to do in the [police] academy. After this, she stayed back." Dozier returned to the house.

     Wheeler placed Mr. Usher into his patrol car, and accompanied by his partner, walked into the dwelling to arrest Raven Dozier. At this point, another member of the family told Wheeler that he had kicked the stomach of a woman who was more than 8 months pregnant. According to Wheeler's report: "At the time of the alteration it was very dark and Ms. Dozier had a large shirt on. I could not tell by the sight of her at the time that she was pregnant."

     Complaining of stomach pains, Dozier asked to see a doctor. Officer Wheeler called for an ambulance, and followed the emergency vehicle to the hospital where a physician noted a contusion and some spotting on her abdomen. From the hospital, Wheeler transported Dozier to the Dekalb County Jail. When personnel at the lockup refused to take this prisoner into custody due to medical concerns, Wheeler informed Dozier that she would be charged with obstruction and disorderly conduct. She could expect to receive her court date in the mail. In the meantime, her brother had been booked into the Dekalb County Jail on the charge of disorderly conduct.

     Shortly after the domestic disturbance, Raven Dozier filed a complaint with the police department's internal affairs office. Four of officer Wheeler's supervisors, and an internal affairs detective, reviewed the case, and concluded that Wheeler's front push kick fell within the agency's use of force policy.

     Two weeks after being kicked in the stomach, Dozier, following an emergency c-section, gave birth to a healthy baby. The criminal charges against Dozier have been dropped.

     In May 2012, Raven Dozier's attorney, Marr Bullman, filed a civil suit against Jared Wheeler and the Dekalb County Police Department. In speaking to a reporter, attorney Bullman said, "This officer is just another loose cannon. And I don't know how a 180-pound pregnant woman comes at you 'aggressively.'" (A description Wheeler used in his incident report.) Bullman claimed that Wheeler had arrested his client out of a need to establish justification for the stomach kick in the event something happened to the baby.

     If Raven Dozier's lawsuit ever goes to trial, Wheeler's short history as a police officer might become an issue. Reportedly, in September 2011, a 53-year-old woman complained that Wheeler had twisted her arm while shoving her into a patrol car. A few months later, pursuant to a 911 call, Wheeler allegedly went to the wrong address where he shot a leashed dog.

     While a 9 month pregnant woman has no business confronting a police officer in a domestic dispute involving someone else, officer Wheeler should not have kicked a woman, pregnant or not, in the stomach. I'm guessing that the law suit will be settled for a relatively small amount, and that Wheeler will be fired. All the characters in this story are either villains or fools. 

Donte Johnson: Playing the Stupid Card

     At one in the morning, after watching a movie at a friend's house, 20-year-old Sabina Rose O'Donnell borrowed a bicycle to ride to her north Philadelphia apartment a few blocks away. She never made it home. Later that day, June 2, 2010, police discovered her body in a trash-littered lot behind her apartment building. At the scene, investigators found jewelry, a camera, and an uncashed paycheck made payable to the victim. With her bra wrapped tightly around her neck, the victim had been raped, beaten, and strangled to death. He killer had left his bloody undershirt near her body.

     According to video-tapes from neighborhood surveillance cameras, police were able to place 18-year-old Donte Johnson in the area at the time of the murder. After two Philadelphia officers arrested Johnson on June 10, 2010, he admitted biking around the neighborhood that night, but denied any knowledge of the murder. His interrogators explained to him how DNA analysis of his sperm could link him the the dead woman's body. Upon hearing this, Johnson said he and the victim had consensual sex two days before her death. When the detectives questioned that story, Johnson tried another way of neutralizing the DNA evidence: he said that after stumbling across her body, he had masturbated over the corpse. The interrogators explained that this didn't explain away the bloody undershirt. At this point, Johnson confessed to the rape and murder.

     Assistant district attorney Richard Sax charged Donte Johnson with first degree murder, rape, and robbery. Soon after Johnson's court-appointed defense attorneys entered the case, the suspect took back his confession, and turned down a negotiated guilty plea. The defense challenged the reliability of the DNA evidence linking Johnson to the body and the murder site, and made the argument that the prosecution couldn't use his recanted confession. Johnson was now claiming that at the time of Sabina Rose O'Donnell's rape and murder, he was at home with his family.

     At a pre-trial hearing on April 30, 2012 to determine if the prosecution could introduce Johnson's confession, defense attorney Gary Server put a private forensic neuropsychologist on the stand. Dr. Gerald Cooke testified that Johnson, with a damaged brain and an IQ of 73, had the mental capacity of an 11-year-old. Because the suspect was almost retarded, his interrogators could have easily manipulated him into confessing to a crime he didn't commit. (So what's the solution to this? Using stupid interrogators to make things fair?)

     In arguing for the exclusion of Johnson's confession, attorney Server said, "The detective speaks to Mr. Johnson and he thinks he's talking to an adult, when in reality he's speaking to a child." The defense attorney also noted that when questioned by the police, his client had been drunk and high on drugs.

    The police officers who had arrested Johnson took the stand and testified that the suspect, sober and coherent, knew exactly what was going on when they took him into custody. According to the police officers, Johnson did not act or speak like an 11-year-old child. The judge, after hearing both sides of the argument, ruled that the prosecutor could introduce Johnson's confession at his trial. The defense attorneys could make the false confession claim to the jury.

     On May 1, after opening statements to the jury from both sides, the prosecutor presented the state's case. Surveillance cameras placed the defendant in the vicinity that night, Johnson had confessed to the rape and murder, and DNA linked him to the bloody shirt and the victim's body. From a prosecutor's point of view, as murder cases go, this was about as good as it gets.

     By comparison, Johnson's defense--that DNA analysts make mistakes, the confession is false, and his family says he was at  home with them that night--was weak.

     To convince the jury that police interrogators had taken advantage of Johnson's feeble mind to wrangle a false confession out of  him, the defense showed the video-taped testimony of the neuropsychologist, Dr. Gerald Cooke. According to Dr. Cooke--who earned $9,300 for his intelligence testing and testimony--Donte Johnson has trouble solving problems, reasoning, and thinking quickly. His mother had given birth to Donte when she was 16; early in his youth he had suffered some kind of brain damage; and since turning 14, he has been using drugs and binge drinking. According to the psychologist, this simpleton has never held a job, and has had sex with scores of women. (Great.)

     Donte Johnson's attorneys chose not to put their client on the stand. Perhaps they didn't want to risk a witness box confession like in one of those old Perry Mason TV episodes. Moreover, having tried to make the jurors feel sorry for the defendant, the attorneys wanted to keep him under wraps. Following the closing arguments, and the judge's instructions, the case went to the jury.

     Jurors, after deliberating 4 hours, found Donte Johnson guilty of first degree murder and rape. The judge sentenced him to life plus 40 to 80 years. In speaking to the judge after receiving his sentence, Johnson said, "How can you clearly say I did anything? If I did something I would take responsibility."

     If feeblemindedness ever becomes a successful defense, our prisons will be half empty.

   

       

Easy Money: Cop Kickbacks in Baltimore

     The Baltimore Police Department, with 3,100 sworn officers, is the nation's eighth largest city police force. Like all big city police departments, Baltimore has had its history of scandals, embarrassments, and graft. (Last year, dozens of officers with the New York City Police Department, involved in a massive ticket-fixing racket, were convicted of public corruption offenses.) This year, in Baltimore, 17 officers have been arrested by the FBI on charges of extortion.

     In Baltimore, and other cities, the towing and repair of vehicles involved in traffic accidents is a big business. To regulate this enterprise, the city of Baltimore authorizes a number of so-called medallion tow trucks. (This is probably a racket as well.) Police officers at accident sites are not allowed to call in unauthorized towing vehicles. So, in  Baltimore, if you are in the towing and auto repair business, and don't have the approval of the city, if you are not a medallion company, you're frozen out of a lucrative source of income. 

     In 2009, an employee of a medallion towing firm who was also vice president of the association representing medallion tow operators, filed a complaint with the Baltimore Police Department. According to the complainant, certain Baltimore police officers were calling unauthorized tow trucks to the scenes of accidents. The tow trucks were operated by Hernan Mejia and his brother Edwin, owners of the Majestic Body Shop. In return for this unauthorized business, the brothers were paying kickbacks to traffic site cops who summoned their trucks. (Once the damaged vehicles were brought to the shop, employees allegedly banged them up some more to rip off insurance companies. Who knows how common a practice this is around the country.) Authorities with the Baltimore Police Department turned the Majestic Body Shop complaint over to the FBI. 

     After a series of phone taps, FBI agents identified 17 city officers who had received Majestic Body Shop bribes totaling $1 million. In 2011, the kickback suspects were lured to the Baltimore police academy where they were confronted by police brass and FBI agents. Stripped of their guns and badges, the suspects were arrested, and hauled off to jail. By May 2012, 14 Baltimore officers had pleaded guilty to federal charges of extortion. Ten cops have been convicted and sentenced to prison. The owners of the Majestic Body Shop have also pleaded guilty to the federal racketeering offenses. 

     In the 1960s and 70s, America's big city police departments were thoroughly corrupt. Graft was the rule, not the exception. Cops on the take justified this behavior by telling each other they risked their lives every day for low pay and lousy benefits. Today, big city police officers are well-paid, and enjoy benefits envied by most private sector employees. And with lower violent crime rates, and more militarized policing, the job is a lot safer. 

     Police corruption, then and now, is simply a matter of dishonesty and greed. Some cops simply can't resist the opportunity to pocket easy money. If we paid these crooks more, and let them retire at 40 instead of 55, they would still be corrupt. The good news in the Majestic Body Shop case involves the fact the Baltimore Police Department, instead of covering up this graft, called in the FBI.