Professor Rainer Reinscheid's Revenge

     Rainer Klaus Reinscheid was an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. The 48-year-old lived in the Orange County city of 223,000, thirty miles southeast of Los Angeles with his second wife, two stepchildren and his 14-year-old son from his first marriage.

     In March 2012, Reinscheid's son, Klaus Stubbe, a student at Irvine's University High School, got in trouble for stealing something from the student store. As punishment the assistant principal assigned the boy trash pick-up duties during the school's lunch hour. Shortly after this mild disciplinary action a worker at the Mason Park Preserve adjoining the high school campus found the boy hanging from a tree in a wooded area of the park.

     Professor Reinscheid blamed his son's suicide on the assistant principal who disciplined the boy. On April 26, 2012 the distraught father, on his cellphone, emailed his wife details of his intention to take out revenge on his son's death. His plan, in general, included shooting 200 students at University High School, murdering the assistant principal and raping as many high school girls as he could. Once he had accomplished his mission he'd kill himself.

     In one of two emails to his wife that day, the revenge-minded professor wrote: "I need a gun, many guns and then I have the ride of my life. I will give myself a wonderful ending with Klaus very soon. I like this plan, finally a good idea." Two days later, in another email, Reinscheid said that while he was casing out the high school campus, he had fantasized about having sex with every girl he had seen.

     On July 4 and 19, 2012 a series of small fires broke out in Mason Park Preserve. Fire fighters also responded to a fire someone set outside the home of University High School's assistant principal. Following the two fires in the park the Irvine police beefed up patrols at the preserve. At 12:45 in the morning of July 24 police officers patrolling the park caught Professor Reinscheid igniting newspapers soaked in lighter fluid. He was starting the fire not far from where his son committed suicide. The officers arrested him on the spot. The next day, charged with arson, Professor Reinscheid posted his $50,000 bond and was released from custody.

     Police investigators, after linking Reinscheid to three incendiary fires at the high school and the one at the assistant principal's house charged him with four additional counts of arson and a count of attempted murder. By now detectives discovered the emails Reinscheid had sent to his wife detailing his intent to seek revenge for his son's suicide. Although the content of these emails--private musings rather than threats sent to targeted individuals--were not considered chargeable criminal offenses, police re-arrested the professor on the additional arson and attempted murder charges. (Whether or not the professor's very specific revenge emails is a crime poses an interesting legal question. Had the emails suggested a conspiracy and he acted upon that plan by buying a gun, it would have been an offense. Had there been an agreement with a fellow conspirator to carry out the crimes the fires would have been acts in furtherance of that conspiracy.)

     The Orange County prosecutor, using the revenge emails as evidence that Rainer Reinscheid was a danger to society asked that he be held in custody without bail. The judge granted the professor bond.

     On July 27, 2012 the Irvine police re-arrested Professor Reinscheid in his office at the University of California. When they took him into custody he was drafting a document on his computer giving his wife power of attorney over his finances. When searching his car officers found a red folder containing a newly drafted and signed last will and testament.

     Reinscheid pleaded guilty in July 2013 to six counts of arson, three counts of attempted arson and resisting or obstructing an officer. He faced a maximum sentence of 18 years behind bars.The Orange County prosecutor dropped the attempted murder charge. A month later, on the first day of his sentencing hearing, Reinscheid said, "I lost my son, and then I lost myself. Now, I am asking you, your honor, and many other people, to forgive me and show mercy." Reinscheid said he wanted to return to his native Germany where he could find work to support his family. The ex-professor acknowledged that his career in academia was over.

     School superintendent Tracy L. Walker in a statement read aloud at the hearing, wrote: "That tragedy [the boy's suicide] cannot serve as justification for terrorizing a school community and staff members who have dedicated their lives to helping others."

     On the second day of Reinscheid's sentence hearing the judge heard from the University High School assistant principal whose house Reinscheid tried to burn down. The school administrator said that his life will never be the same.

     In an effort to mitigate his client's criminal rampage, defense attorney Joshua Glotzer noted that his client had been "self-medicating" with drugs he ordered online. The professor had also been drinking a lot of wine. The drugs and the alcohol, according to the attorney, led to a "perfect storm" that provoked the arsons.

     On August 22, 2013 the judge sentenced the former professor to 14 years and 4 months in prison.

The Lisa McPherson Scientology Case: A Medical Examiner's Meltdown

      On March 29, 2015, HBO aired a documentary about the Church of Scientology called "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief." The expose was based on Lawrence Wright's book of the same title. At that time The Church of Scientology consisted of 11,000 churches, missions and affiliated groups around the world. In 2019 A&E's documentary series, "Leah Remini: Scientology and The Aftermath," completed its third season.

      For a criminal justice system to work the major law enforcement players--police, prosecutors and forensic scientists--have to be hardworking, competent and honest. In Florida's Pinellas and Pasco Counties between 1997 and 2000 the medical examiner's office was not up to par and the effect on local criminal justice was disastrous. Dr. Joan E. Wood, the head of the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner's Office was the principal source of the problem.

     A graduate of the University of South Florida Medical School, Dr. Wood began her career as a forensic pathologist in 1975 as an associate in the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner's Office. She became the chief medical examiner in 1982 and for six years was the chairperson of Florida's Medical Examiners Commission, the body that regulates the state's forensic pathologists. Her career seemed to be on track until the mid-1990s when she became involved in a high-profile and controversial homicide case. This case, the 1995 death of a 36-year-old Scientologist named Lisa McPherson, marked the beginning of the end of Dr. Wood's career.

     As revealed in court documents and reported in the St. Petersburg Times, the sequence of events began at 5:50 in the evening of November 18, 1995 when paramedics responded to a minor traffic accident in downtown Clearwater involving McPherson's sports utility van. She was not injured but took off her clothes and walked down the middle of the street telling paramedics, "I need help. I need to talk to someone." The distraught woman said she had been doing things that were wrong but didn't know what they were.

     The paramedics transported McPherson to the Morton Plant Hospital for psychiatric evaluation. Following her examination a group of Scientologists from her church came to the emergency room and escorted her away, promising she would be cared for by the church, a decision grounded in their distrust of psychiatric medicine. The disturbed woman was taken to the church-owned Fort Harrison Hotel in downtown Clearwater where troubled Scientologists were taken for rest and relaxation.

     On December 5, 1995 Lisa's caretakers at the hotel rushed her to a hospital in New Port Richey, a 45-minute drive, to see an emergency room physician who was a Scientologist. McPherson had been at the Fort Harrison Hotel 17 days and when she arrived in New Port Richey the five-foot-nine-inch patient weighed 108 pounds and was covered in bruises. McPherson was also unkempt in appearance and pale. She was either dead on arrival at the hospital or pronounced dead shortly thereafter.

     At eleven o'clock the next morning, Dr. Robert Davis, a forensic pathologist in the Pinellas-Pasco County Medical Examiner's Office performed the autopsy with Dr. Joan Wood looking on. According to Dr. Davis, Lisa McPherson's death was caused by an embolism of the left pulmonary artery which partially obstructed the blood flow that carried oxygen from her heart to her left lung. She had therefore died of asphyxia. A thrombus (blood clot) located behind her left knee had traveled from her leg to her heart and into the lung. At the time of her death she was severely dehydrated, a factor that contributed to her demise. In Dr. Davis's opinion her dehydration was so pronounced she would have been unresponsive for more than 24 hours before her death. The forensic pathologist believed the blood clot behind her left leg was caused by a combination of dehydration and bed-ridden immobility. Dr. Wood, instead of ruling McPherson's manner of death natural or accidental, labeled it undetermined, a manner of death that did not preclude a later finding of criminal homicide.

     Because of the condition of Lisa McPherson's body following her 17-day stay at the Fort Harrison Hotel, the Clearwater police quietly began looking into the case. Detectives determined that she had been a Scientologist for 18 years and during the past two years had spent about $70,000 on church-related counseling. Before the traffic accident she spent relaxation time at the Fort Harrison Hotel. McPherson had worked for a Dallas publishing company that mostly employed Scientologists. She moved to Clearwater when the company relocated about a year earlier. McPherson weighed between 140 and 150 pounds when taken to the Fort Harrison Hotel following the traffic accident.

     Curious about just what kind of medical care one received at the Scientologist owned hotel, investigators learned that only a few of Lisa's caretakers had medical training, including one person who had been an anesthesiologist. That caregiver, however, had lost her license because of a drug problem. As far as detectives could determine, no one at the hotel was a licensed physician. The police also discovered that during her stay Lisa was physically restrained. She had been tied to her bed and given injections of muscle relaxants and other chemicals.

     When word got out the authorities were looking into Lisa McPherson's death, church officials accused the Clearwater police of religious harassment. In January 1997 the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office joined the investigation. The following month Lisa McPherson's family filed a wrongful death suit against the church.

     Looking for a second opinion regarding the cause and manner of Lisa McPherson's death, Wayne Andrews of the Clearwater Police Department and Agent A. L. Sroope of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, in November 1997 traveled to Winston-Salem, North Carolina to consult with Dr. George Podgorny, the Forsythe County medical examiner. Dr. Podgorny reviewed medical records from from the Morton Plant and New Port Richey hospitals; pharmacy records of drugs that had been administered to McPherson; and the Pinellas-Pasco autopsy report that chief medical examiner Joan Wood had approved.

     According to police and court documents, after reviewing this material, Dr. Podgorny opined the blood clot that killed Lisa McPherson was caused by her extreme dehydration and immobility. The forensic pathologist told the investigators that if McPherson had received proper medical treatment and had been taken to a hospital when she first became ill she might not have died. What this patient needed and did not get was water, salt, vitamins and extra oxygen. Moreover, her blood-cell count and kidney function should have been closely monitored. When asked if the blood clot in her leg could have been caused by the traffic accident, Dr. Podgorny responded emphatically that such an occurrence would be extremely rare, especially in a 36-year-old woman. He pointed out that people bruise their legs all the time without getting blood clots. In the pathologist's opinion the manner of Lisa McPherson's death boiled down to improper medical care following the traffic accident.

     A Pinellas County grand jury on November 13, 1998 returned a two-count indictment charging the Church of Scientology with practicing medicine without a license and abusing or neglecting an adult. In response to these charges the church asserted that the Lisa McPherson case was being exploited by forces out to destroy the institution. Accustomed to fighting for its survival, the church hit back hard. One of those on the receiving end of the attack was Dr. Joan Wood, the forensic pathologist who opened the door to the grand jury indictment with her ruling of an undetermined manner of death.

     In the months that followed the indictment, defense attorneys representing the church deluged Dr. Wood with subpoenas that demanded all sorts of information. These lawyers wanted her to change the manner of death ruling to "accidental" on the theory the blood clot that killed Lisa McPherson was the result of her traffic mishap. The church also denied practicing medicine at the Fort Harrison Hotel and insisted that Lisa had been properly cared for at the Scientology retreat.

     In February 2000, more than four years after the autopsy in the McPherson case, Dr. Wood, while insisting that she had not broken under pressure from the Church of Scientology, changed the McPherson manner of death to accidental. Her decision outraged the county prosecutor and the police agencies involved in the case. As far as the prosecutor was concerned, Dr. Wood folded under pressure. Some of the journalists following the case speculated that pressure and stress caused the forensic pathologist to come emotionally unglued. Whether she had been bullied into her reversal or not, her new manner of death ruling destroyed her relationship with the local law enforcement community. The prosecutor had no choice but to drop the case against the Church of Scientology. Dr. Wood resigned her position in September 2000.

     After leaving the medical examiner's office Dr. Wood disappeared for two years, eventually showing up at a conference of state medical examiners in Gainesville, Florida. A reporter with the St. Petersburg Times asked her if her disappearance had anything to do with the McPherson case and if she planned to get back into forensic science. Dr. Wood denied that her reversal in the McPherson case had anything to do with pressure from the Church of Scientology, but did admit that after 25 years as a forensic pathologist the stress of the job had finally caught up with her. She said she still had panic attacks when she walked into a courtroom.

     Lisa McPherson's estate, in May 2004, settled the wrongful death suit for an undisclosed amount. In July 2005 Dr. Wood voluntarily relinquished her medical license following a state health department declaration that in the McPherson case she had become "an advocate for the Church of Scientology." After that she lived in obscurity, hardly ever leaving her townhouse in Tampa. On July 8, 2011 she had a stroke, and eight days later died in the hospital. At the time of her death the former medical examiner was 67.

Breaking Out of Prison Is the Easy Part

     In August 1993, a 19-year-old armed robber and arsonist named Michael David Elliot and a criminal associate entered a house near Midland, Michigan with their guns drawn. They had come to the Bentley Township home 140 miles northwest of Detroit to rob Michael and Bruce Tufnell and their friends Vickie Currie and Kathy Lane. Elliot and his accomplice needed the money for drugs. When the home invaders didn't find any cash in the house they opened fired on the victims, killing all four of them. Before leaving the murder scene Mr. Elliot set fire to the house.

     Four days after the mass murder police officers arrested Michael David Elliot in Saginaw, Michigan. He still possessed the .38-caliber revolver that fired ten of the fifteen bullets removed from the bodies of the four murder victims.

     At his August 1994 trial Mr. Elliot claimed he purchased the murder weapon the day after the massacre from the real killer. He also asserted that at the time of the murders he was at his aunt's house. The jury found the defendant guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. At his sentencing hearing Elliot told the judge that despite his conviction he was innocent. The judge sentenced him to four life terms to be served at the Ionia Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Ionia, Michigan.

     During the first 14 years of his incarceration Elliot was a problem inmate with 20 acts of misconduct. But after December 2008 he began serving his time as a model prisoner. Perhaps he decided that a low profile would enhance his chances to escape.

     On February 2, 2014--Super Bowl Sunday--while the other inmates were headed for dinner, the five-foot-eight, 165 pound Elliot made his move. Dressed in a white kitchen uniform to blend in with the snow, he pulled back the bottoms of two fences and crawled to freedom. (Is this what passed for maximum security in Michigan?)

     After trudging through fields and woods the escapee walked into the town of Ionia where he used a box cutter to abduct a woman. Elliot and his hostage, in her 2004 red Jeep Liberty, crossed the Michigan border into Indiana. At 9:15 that night, correction officers performing a routine head-count discovered that inmate Elliot was missing.

     Just before midnight, Elliot and his captive stopped for gas at a Marathon station in the town of Middlebury. While he paid for the gas she entered the gas station restroom and locked the door. Using the cellphone she had kept hidden, the kidnapped woman called 911. After calmly reporting the carjacking and describing her captor, Elliot came to the restroom door and told her to hurry-up. "Yeah, in a little bit," she said. "Sorry, it's taking me longer than what I thought." At that point Elliot decided to drive off without her.

     At 5 PM on February 3, 2014 the fugitive pulled into Shipshewan, a town twenty miles east of Elkhart, Indiana. There he abandoned the Jeep Liberty and stole a Chevy Monte Carlo.

     Not long after the prison escapee stole the Monte Carlo, a La Porte County sheriff's deputy spotted the stolen vehicle and tried to pull it over. The high-speed chase that followed ended abruptly when Elliot drove over stop sticks that flattened the Chevy's tires. Officers took him into custody. He had been free less than 48 hours.

     In speaking to a reporter with the Detroit Free Press after his capture, Elliott said, "I just seen an opportunity. It was really simple." Of the five main strategies inmates use to escape low-security facilities--the cut-and-run, the ruse, the tunnel, the outside accomplice and the walk-away--Elliott's methodology combined the ruse and the cut-and-run. None of these escape methods should have worked in a maximum security prison.

     On February 6, 2014 a spokesperson for the prison announced that two corrections employees had been suspended in connection with the escape. One was a corrections officer and the other a shift commander.

     Michael Elliot found a way to escape from a maximum security penitentiary but he wasn't equipped to elude capture once he got outside prison fences. While prison escapes are rare, it's even more unusual for escapees to remain at large for more than a few days. 

Bite Mark Evidence on Trial: The William Richards Murder Case

     In 1993, 44-year-old William Richards and his wife Pamela, while building a house near Hesperia, California in the high desert in San Bernardino County, lived in a motor home. Because there were no power lines near the property a generator in a nearby shed provided the electricity. Mr. Richards worked as a swing shift electrical engineer at a manufacturing plant in the town of Corona. His 40-year-old wife had a job as a waitress. The following account of what happened on August 10, 1993 is based on William Richards' statement to the police.

     That night William Richards clocked out of the plant in Corona at 11:03. When he arrived home shortly after midnight he noticed there were no lights on in the trailer. He re-started the generator in the shed, and as he walked toward his front door, stumbled over his wife's half nude body. Someone had smashed the 5-foot-2, 126 pound woman's head with a heavy object. Mr. Richards called 911.

     Deputies from the San Bernardino Sheriff's office arrived at the scene at twelve-thirty that morning. The officers did nothing to protect the crime scene while they waited for the arrival of the homicide detectives. The investigators didn't show up until 3:15, and when they did, decided to wait until daylight before processing the crime scene. In the meantime officers walked around the site and did nothing to keep several dogs off the property. (When they did begin the crime scene investigation the officers realized dogs had kicked dirt on Pamela Richards' body.)

     From the beginning homicide detectives considered William Richards the prime suspect in the murder. Blood spatter patterns suggested the victim had been partially undressed after the bloody attack in an effort to stage a sexual assault.  Investigators found no signs of forced entry into the dwelling and no physical evidence of an intruder such as foreign shoe impressions and tire tracks. (If there had been such evidence it could have been trampled by the police.) Moreover, nothing had been stolen from the trailer. Investigators believed that Pamela Richards had been bludgeoned by a blood-stained steppingstone. The forensic pathologist would find she had also been strangled.

     As for motive detectives believed the suspect, after he learned his wife planned to leave him for another man, killed her in a fit of rage. The fact that Richards and his wife over their twenty-year marriage openly had affairs and already agreed to separate, cast doubt on this motive to kill her. Without a confession or an eyewitness, the San Bernardino County prosecutor had a weak circumstantial case. The fact the crime scene investigation had been bungled also hurt the prosecution's case. Nevertheless, the prosecutor charged Mr. Richards with first-degree murder. Police arrested him on September 3, 1993.

     In July 1994, after the jury voted six to six on the question of William Richards' guilt, the judge declared a mistrial. Just three days into his second trial in October 1994 the judge, due to improper communications with a juror, declared a second mistrial. In January 1995 the jury deadlocked eleven to one for his guilt. This led to a third mistrial.

     The San Bernardino County prosecutor, on his fourth try in July 1997 bolstered the state's case with the testimony of Dr. Norman Sperber, the renowned forensic odontologist (dentist) from San Diego who testified at Ted Bundy's serial murder trial in Florida. Dr. Sperber testified that in his expert opinion the crescent-shaped impression on Pamela Richards' hand was consistent with having been made with the defendant's front teeth. The odontologist said that only two percent of the U.S. population could have made this crime scene bite mark.

     To counter Dr. Sperber's testimony the defense presented another respected forensic dentist, Dr. Gregory Golden, the Chief Forensic Odontologist of San Bernardino County. Dr. Golden testified that the photograph of the victim's bite mark was such poor quality he couldn't make a conclusive determination in the case. When pressed by the prosecutor on cross-examination Dr. Golden said that he could not eliminate the defendant as the maker of the crime scene bite mark.

     Based on the new bite mark evidence, the jury in Richards' fourth trial found him guilty of first-degree murder. The judge sentenced him to 25 years to life. The convicted man continued to maintain his innocence.

     In 2000 lawyers with the California Innocence Project entered the case on William Richards' behalf. A re-evaluation of the forensic evidence in the murder case led to a petition before a San Bernardino County judge to overturn Richards' murder conviction. The hearing on this motion took place in 2009 before Judge Brian McCarville.

     Since Mr. Richards' fourth trial new technology had made it possible to sharpen the photographic image of the crime scene bite mark. Dr. Norman Sperber took the stand and declared that after analyzing the enhanced photograph it was his expert opinion the questioned bite mark had not been made by Mr. Richards. Two other forensic dentists agreed with this analysis, and a third testified that he could not render a conclusive opinion either way.

     A DNA expert testified that the bloody steppingstone contained DNA evidence that did not come from the defendant. A forensic hair and fiber identification expert testified that a 2-centimeter follicle taken from under one of the victim's fingernails did not match samples taken from her husband.

     Judge McCarville, based on the bite mark, DNA and hair follicle testimony overturned William Richards' murder conviction.

     The San Bernardino County prosecutor appealed Judge McCarville's ruling to the California Supreme Court. On December 3, 2012, in a 4-3 decision, the state's highest court reinstated Richards' murder conviction. According to the majority justices the forensic evidence presented at the 2009 hearing did not prove the convicted man's innocence. (Once convicted, the burden of proving innocence shifts to the defendant.) These justices did not believe the forensic dentists had completely ruled out Richards as the source of the crime scene bite mark.

     The dissenting judges did not agree with this interpretation of the new bite mark testimony. As these three justices saw it, three of the four odontologists, including Dr. Norman Sperber, stated the convicted man was not the source of this crime scene evidence. Since it had been this evidence that finally led to Richards' murder conviction, its absence supported the position that the state had not carried its burden of proving this man's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

     In September 2014 a new law went into effect in California that would make it easier for William Richards' attorneys to have his conviction overturned. Under this legislation, whenever an expert witness changed his or her opinion, as Dr. Sperber did in the Richards case, the initial testimony would be classified, by law, as false evidence. If that evidence played a vital role in the guilty verdict the expert's repudiation was grounds for overturning the conviction.

     Citing the new law Mr. Richards' attorneys asked the California State Supreme Court to reconsider the case and throw out the murder conviction.

     On May 27, 2016 the California Supreme Court overturned William Richard's 1997 first-degree murder conviction. Following this decision the San Bernardino District Attorney decided not to retry the case.

Angels of Death Cases: Serial Murder by Poisoning

Murder by Poison

     Most people who die from poisoning do so accidentally. As a mode of criminal homicide, poisoning, compared to guns, knives, blunt objects and ligatures, is rare. According to FBI statistics, out of the 187,000 criminal homicides committed from 1990 to 2000, only 346 involved poison. During the period 2001 to 2006 the figure rose to 523. But forensic toxicologists, the experts educated and trained to detect and identify substances harmful to the human body, believe that homicidal poisoning is more common than crime statistics suggest. For example, in 2002, 26,435 people died of poisoning. While only 63 of these deaths were ruled as murder, 3,336 were listed under manner of death as "undetermined." In other words, forensic pathologists considered these poisoning deaths suspicious.

     Nobody knows how many people are being murdered by poison because most of these deaths are classified as naturally caused fatalities. In most of these cases there are no outward signs of homicide. There are no bullet holes, stab wounds, cuts, bruises or marks around the neck that signify that these deaths were not natural. In most instances, because these deaths are not outwardly suspicious, no autopsies are conducted. These victims are embalmed, buried or cremated. End of story. Occasionally suspicions may arise when, say, an estranged spouse receives a large life insurance payment and a week later remarries. Money and sex are common motives for murder, but motive is not evidence. The evidence of a homicidal poisoning is the poison. If the toxic substance is not detected and identified in the course of an autopsy the killer will get away with murder. Exhumations are rare.

     Poisons are seldom detected where clinical (rather than criminal) autopsies are performed by regular hospital pathologists. This is because the pathologist is not thinking about the possibility of homicide or looking for poison. Unless a specific poison is suspected the chance of random discovery is unlikely. Arsenic, because it is readily available, tasteless and can be administered in a series of small doses that causes a period of illness before death, is the weapon of choice among those who murder by poison. Within 24 hours of ingestion arsenic moves from the blood into the victim's liver, kidneys, spleen, lungs and GI tract. In two to four weeks traces can be found in the victim's hair, nails and skin. From there traces of the poison settle in the bone. Thirty minutes after ingesting a small dose of arsenic the victim experiences a metallic taste, garlic smelling breath, headaches, muscle cramping, vertigo, vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhea. If the victim doesn't die within a few hours from shock the poisoned person may die a few days later from kidney problems. If the victim survives two to four weeks, in addition to horrible suffering, he or she will lose hair. When death finally comes the likely cause will be identified as renal failure. Other common poisons used in the commission of homicide include strychnine (rat poison), morphine and Demerol. Antifreeze (ethyzene glycol) has become a relatively popular weapon in murder-by-poison cases.

Angel of Death Cases

     Deaths by homicidal poisonings that commonly do not raise suspicion, and are therefore misdiagnosed as natural fatalities, involve hospital patients who are elderly or already ill. The death of an old or gravely ill patient, almost by definition, is a natural death. This is why physicians, nurses and other healthcare workers who kill--so-called "angels of death"--have gotten away will murdering so many people.

     Normally homicide by poison is not an impulsive crime. But in the hospital or home for the elderly, it is a crime of opportunity. The angel of death has easy access to the poison and to the victim. There is no need for extensive preparation and planning. Moreover, there is no apparent or obvious motive for the homicide because these killers do not receive any direct personal gain out of the crime. The homicidal motives associated with angels of death are therefore pathological and hidden. This type of serial killer is difficult to spot because angels of death are not manifestly insane. They possess personality disorders that compel them to murder out of generalized rage, boredom or the impulse to play God.

     As murderers angels of death are cold-blooded, careful and vain. This makes them hard to catch. Quite often in their employment histories they have been terminated from previous healthcare jobs. When too many patients die on a nurse's or orderly's watch, and the employee comes under suspicion, he or she is fired. Healthcare workers suspected of murdering patients often quit and get a similar job somewhere else. The tendency among healthcare administrators is to deny the obvious and pass the problem on to the next employer. Over the years dozens of angels of death have been caught but only after large numbers of patients have been murdered. Given the nature of the crime and the limited role forensic science plays in these cases it is reasonable to assume that the small number of angel of death convictions represents the tip of a rather large homicidal iceberg.

Angel of Death Donald Harvey

     In 1975, after working briefly as a hospital orderly in London, Kentucky, 23-year-old Donald Harvey took a job with the Veteran's Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. As the years passed a pattern emerged. When Mr. Harvey was on duty patients died. Finally, after ten years and the deaths of more than 100 patients on his watch, the orderly was fired. He was terminated because several hospital workers suspected he was poisoning his patients. After Mr. Harvey left the facility the death rate plummeted. Terminating Donald Harvey turned out to be good medicine, at least at the VA hospital.

     Shortly after his firing Donald Harvey was hired across town at Drake Memorial Hospital where the death rate began to soar. As he had done at the VA facility he was murdering patients by either lacing their food with arsenic or injecting cyanide into their gastric tubes. The deaths at Drake, like those at the VA hospital, were ruled as naturally caused fatalities. While suspicions were aroused it was hard to imagine that this friendly, helpful little man who was so charming and popular with members of his victims' families could be a stone-cold serial killer.

     As clever and careful as Donald Harvey was, he made a mistake when he poisoned John Powell, a patient recovering from a motorcycle accident. Under Ohio law victims of fatal traffic accidents must be autopsied. At Powell's autopsy an assistant detected the odor of almonds, the telltale sign of cyanide. This was fortunate because most people are unable to detect this scent. The forensic pathologist ordered toxicological tests that revealed that John Powell had died from a lethal dose of cyanide. Donald Harvey was the last person to see Mr. Powell alive and he would be the last person the orderly would kill.

     The Cincinnati police arrested Harvey and searched his apartment where they found jars filled with arsenic and cyanide and books on poisoning. However, the Hamilton County prosecutor believed that without a confession there might not be enough evidence to convince a jury of Harvey's guilt. The suspect, on the other hand, was worried that if convicted he would be sentenced to death. So Donald Harvey and the prosecutor struck a deal. In return for a life sentence Donald Harvey would confess to all of the murders he could remember. Over a period of several days he confessed to killing, in Kentucky and Ohio, 130 patients. When asked why he had killed all of those helpless victims the best answer Harvey could muster was that he must have a "screw loose." Forensic pathologists familiar with the case speculated that the murders gave Harvey, an otherwise ordinary and insignificant person, a sense of power over the lives of others. He pleaded guilty to several murders and was sentenced to life in prison.

     The old saying that "murder will out" does not always apply when the weapon of choice is poison.  

     Donald Harvey died in March 2017 at the age of 64.     

The Patrick Dunn Vigilante Murders

     If you check your local sex offender registry you will probably be shocked by the length of the list. (You may also be shocked to find out who's on it.) The shear number of American men who have been convicted of raping women and children is staggering. When considering these depositories of depravity all kinds of questions come to mind, including why there are so many sex offenders in America. And has it always been this way?

     Everyone knows that rapists and pedophiles tend to be repeat offenders and the harm they inflict on their victims is serious and long-lasting. This reality begs the question of why these registered sex offenders are out of prison in the first place. If you follow media crime reporting you regularly come across cases where men with extensive sex conviction histories, after getting out of prison, are arrested for the same kinds of offenses. Are judges and parole board members idiots? For example, under what rationale would a man who has raped a child ever be let out of prison? Why are American judges so lenient in these cases? Other than first degree-murder and aggravated assault, what is worse than rape? Could these judges be so naive as to believe these pathological offenders can be rehabilitated? Or is it simply that our prisons are so full of other criminals there's no room for sex offenders?

     Patrick Dunn and Gary Blanton rented rooms in the same house near Sequim, Washington on the Olympic Peninsula in the northwestern corner of the state. Dunn, 34, had served time for assault and various drug related offenses. Twenty-eight-year-old Gary Blanton, in 2001, had been convicted of raping a 17-year-old girl when he was in high school. In June 2012 Blanton was charged with child abuse. As a result of the rape conviction he was a registered sex offender in a state data bank the public could access.

     In the early morning hours of Saturday, June 2, 2012 Patrick Dunn, armed with a 9 mm pistol, shot and killed Gary Blanton. After shooting the victim several times Mr. Dunn drove his rented car a few miles to the home of 56-year-old Jerry Ray, another registered sex offender. In August 2002 Jerry Ray had been convicted of raping two children, ages seven and four. After shooting Mr. Ray to death Patrick Dunn abandoned his car on a remote road on the Olympic Peninsula.

     After receiving 911 calls regarding a suspicious person on foot near Sequim, deputies with the Clallam County Sheriff's Office came upon Dunn's abandoned rental vehicle. Inside, next to a box of 9 mm rounds officers found a note signed by Dunn in which he took responsibility for killing Blanton and Ray, stating that "it had to be done."

     The following afternoon, after a three-hour manhunt featuring a Customs/Border Patrol helicopter and tracking dogs, police found Mr. Dunn hiding in a woodshed deep in the forest. Later that Sunday he told his interrogators he had murdered Gary Blanton and Jerry Ray because they were sex offenders. The suspect said he also intended to kill a third sex offender who lived in Jefferson County and had planned to kill more registered sex offenders.

     On Monday, June 4, 2012 a judge informed Patrick Dunn he had been charged with two counts of first-degree murder. The magistrate appointed Dunn an attorney and denied him bail. If convicted of the two murders Mr. Dunn would be eligible for the death penalty.

     In August 2012 Patrick Dunn pleaded guilty to both murders to avoid the death penalty. On September 18, 2012 Superior Court Judge S. Brook Taylor sentenced him to two life sentences without the possibility of parole.

     After the sentencing the Clallam County prosecutor, in referring to a cluster of people associated with the dead sex offender's victims who were in the courtroom to show support for Patrick Dunn, said this to reporters: "It is unfortunate there are people who admire what he [Dunn] did. It is despicable and disgusting." One of Dunn's courtroom supporters, a relative of a sexual victim, called Dunn a "hero." Gary Blanton's widow called the Washington state sex registry a "hit list." (The authorities classified Blanton and Ray as "level-two" sex offenders which meant they considered the risks of them re-offending as "moderate." One might argue that if there is any risk of re-offending the state should error in favor of the public.)

     While Patrick Dunn got what he deserved for committing cold-blooded double murder, the fact there are those who consider him a hero reflects the frustration many people have over what they perceive as the criminal justice system's failure to protect women and children from sex offenders.

Criminal Dimwits: The Murder-For-Hire "Mastermind"

     The three main characters in a murder-for-hire scheme are the mastermind, the hitman and the target. Bit players include enablers, advisors and hands-on accomplices. No category of crime features a wider variety, in terms of age, occupation, background and socio-economic class than the murder-for-hire mastermind. One thing they have in common is the stupid belief they will get away with their homicides. They almost always get caught because their idiotic hitmen either leave evidence behind or can't keep their mouths shut.

Dr. Mavoltuv Borkuhova

     Dr. Mavoltuv Borkuhova, a 34-year-old Queens, New York physician, paid her cousin $20,000 to kill her husband, a Forest Hills dentist. On October 28, 2007 the hitman, Mikhail Mallayev, shot Dr. Daniel Malakov to death in broad daylight as he watched his 4-year-old daughter play in a public park near their home. The mastermind and her husband were in the midst of a bitter divorce and fight over custody of the child.

     In 2009 the hitman, whose latent fingerprints were lifted from the murder weapon's makeshift silencer, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life. That year a jury found Borkukhova guilty as well. The doctor is serving a life sentence without parole.

Pastor Tracy "TB" Burleson

     Even for players caught up in a murder-for-hire drama, Tracy "TB" Burleson and his wife Pauletta were an odd couple. They both had criminal records.The 44-year-old Houston area preacher had been convicted of mail fraud in connection with the theft of payroll checks. Pauletta had been charged in 1997, 2005 and 2006 with physically abusing the couple's two adopted sons by beating them with boards and extension cords. Found guilty in two of these cases, the 56-year-old pastor's wife received probated sentences. Mr. Burleson, quite the ladies' man, had a son from a previous relationship named William Darnell Fuller. Rounding out this cast of oddballs was 32-year-old Tyonne Palmer-Pollard, the pastor's mistress. Palmer-Pollard, while having an affair with the preacher, was also having one with his 20-year-old son William Darnell.

     Burleson's wife Pauletta knew her husband had a mistress, but had no idea he was plotting her murder so he could marry Tyonne. She also didn't know the pastor had promised William Darnell a piece of her $60,000 life insurance payout if he knocked her off.

     On May 18, 2010, at ten-fifteen at night, William Darnell Fuller, a Texas Southern University pre-nursing student, walked up behind his stepmother in the driveway of her northwest Harris County house and shot her in the back of the head, killing her on the spot. After the execution style murder the hitman entered the woods across from the house and came onto another street where Tyonne Palmer-Pollard picked him up and drove him to a place where he cleaned himself up. Later that night they disposed of the murder weapon. (Fuller later directed detectives to the gun.)

     For the pastor-mastermind, his son the hitman and their mistress accomplice the case unraveled quickly and two of them were indicted, arrested and tried. The pastor was convicted of capital murder in September 2010 and sentenced to life without parole. Tyonne Palmer-Pollard went on trial in October 2011, and while convicted as an accomplice in the murder-for-hire case, received a light sentence of seven years. The defense attorney successfully portrayed Tyonne as a hard-working nursing assistant who cared for her three children as well as a chronically ill friend. She had, according to her defense attorney, fallen in with some bad people. While obviously true, what kind of people fall in with bad people? The jury also found the accomplice guilty of tampering with evidence.

     William Darnell Fuller, the hitman who confessed and testified against his father and their mistress pleaded guilty in November 2011 for a sentence of 20 years. As is often the case in murder-for-hire sentencing, masterminds are treated more harshly than their cold-blooded triggermen. This is because the triggermen are usually the first to confess and make a deal. 

Julio Perez

     In October 2011 a hitman and his accomplice pleaded guilty in San Benito, Texas to the murder of 39-year-old Sonia Perez. The accomplice in the March 31, 2010 murder, 21-year-old Daniel Castaneda, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for his role in the case. (Compared to Tyonne Palmer-Pollard, a stiff sentence.) The hitman, 37-year-old Daniel Lopez, received life without parole.

     According to the confessions of Castaneda and Lopez, the victim's husband, Pentecostal preacher Julio Perez, wanted Sonia Perez murdered for her $120,000 life insurance benefit. The accomplice supplied the handgun and Daniel Lopez, the hitman, hid in the back of the third grade teacher's minivan. Lopez forced the victim to pull off a deserted road along a sugar cane field outside of Rio Hondo, Texas. It was there he shot her twice in the back of the head. Lopez committed this cold-blood murder on the promise of $25,000 from the life insurance payout.

      After pleading guilty to murder, the judge sentenced Julio Perez to 45 years in prison.
     

A Cold-Blooded Poisoner

     In May 2018 Terese Kozlowski, after being married to Brian Kozlowski for 29 years, filed for divorce. She did not, however, move out of their home in Macomb County, Michigan.

     During the month of July, 2018 after consuming her morning coffee prepared by Mr. Kozlowski, Terese felt tired, nauseous and extremely drowsy. After almost falling asleep at the wheel on a busy highway, Terese, suspecting that her estranged husband had been spiking her coffee, set up a hidden surveillance camera above the counter where Mr. Kozlowski prepared her morning drink.

     When the surveillance footage revealed that Mr. Kozlowski was pouring something into her coffee, a substance he was not adding to his cup, Terese Kozlowski went to the police with the evidence. To save her life she moved out of the house.

     A toxicological analysis of the suspected substance revealed that Mr. Kozlowski had been adding diphenhydramine, an ingredient found in Benadryl, to his estranged wife's coffee. Each morning's dose of the drug equaled about eight sleeping pills.

     After detectives took Brian Kozlowski into custody a Macomb County prosecutor charged him with poisoning. The defendant in June 2019 pleaded no contest to the charge.

     Prior to Kozlowski's sentencing, a pre-sentencing investigator recommended that the defendant serve between three and fifteen years behind bars. As a criminal act, to intentionally and with malice poison someone's food or drink is as cruel as it is cold-blooded. Moreover, it is not a crime motivated by insanity but by hate, greed or both. Teresa Kozlowski, under the influence of her husband's poisoning, could have easily killed herself or a fellow motorist.

     In August 2019 at the sentencing hearing, the 46-year-old defendant told Visiting Judge Antonio Vivano that he was in a state of "profound remorse" for what he had done to his wife. He said he had been in a "deep state of depression" over the pending divorce. The defendant also pointed out that he was receiving psychological counseling.

     Judge Vivano responded to Kozlowski's pre-sentencing statement by remarking that he found it "moving."

     In a ruling that shocked everyone connected to the case, judge Vivano sentenced Brian Kozlowski to spend 60 weekends in the Macomb County Jail followed by five years probation. Apparently the judge didn't want Mr. Kozlowski to lose his job just because he had tried to kill his wife.

     Assistant prosecutor Darra Slanec called the sentence "a slap in the victim's face."

The Execution of Clayton Lockett

     On June 3, 1999 in Perry, Oklahoma, 23-year-old Clayton Lockett, a violent criminal accompanied by a pair of crime associates invaded a home and severely beat the occupant. While Lockett was assaulting 23-year-old Bobby Lee Bornt over a debt, a girl just out of high school knocked on Bornt's front door. Lockett appeared in the doorway and pulled the girl into the house.

     After hitting the stunned visitor in the face with a shotgun, Mr. Lockett put the gun to her head and ordered her to invite her 18-year-old friend Stephanie Neiman into the duplex. Neiman had graduated from Perry High School less than a month earlier. She had been a good student and played in the band.

     The nightmare for these girls began with Lockett and his accomplices raping Nieman's friend and beating her with the shotgun. After the rape and beatings Clayton Lockett bound the girls with duct tape and drove them and Bornt in Neiman's pickup truck to a remote area a few miles away. En route he informed his captives that he planned to kill them and bury their bodies in the woods. The terrified girls begged for their lives.

     At the designated spot Lockett made the rape victim dig a hole. When it was big enough he told Neiman to get into the grave. He pointed his shotgun at her and pulled the trigger. The weapon jammed. Lockett walked away, cleared the gun, and returned to the site where he shot and wounded her. He forced the other girl to bury Stephanie Neiman alive. 

     Lockett and his accomplices drove the rape victim and Bornt back to the duplex. Before he and the others drove off he threatened to kill the traumatized survivors if they went to the police.

     One of Lockett's accomplices notified the authorities in the hopes of saving his own neck. A local prosecutor charged Clayton Lockett with first-degree murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, assault and burglary. Upon his arrest the cold-blooded rapist and sadistic killer confessed to shooting Stephanie Neiman and having her friend, the girl he had raped, bury her alive.

     In 2000 a jury found Lockett guilty as charged and sentenced him to death. He ended up on death row at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.

     After fourteen years of legal appeals and a last minute stay, Governor Mary Fallin ordered Lockett's execution to take place on April 29, 2014. That evening, an hour before his scheduled death, Lockett fought with prison officers and had to be tasered before being strapped onto the gurney. The executioner, after struggling to find a vein, administered the three-drug cocktail made up of midazalam to render Lockett unconscious, vecuronium to stop his breathing and potassium chloride to stop his heart.

     Seven minutes after the drugs were put into Lockett's body he was still conscious. Ten minutes later, after being declared dead, the condemned man moved his head and tried to climb off the gurney. He was also heard muttering the word, "man." At this point, a corrections official lowered the blind to spare witnesses the sight of a slower than planned execution.

     Forty-three minutes after the executioner injected Lockett with the three drugs he died of a heart attack. The potassium chloride had done its job, albeit a bit slowly.

     As could be expected, death house lawyers, anti-capital punishment activists and hand-wringing media types agonized over Lockett's imperfect execution. The death row sob-sisters characterized his death as torture, an ordeal and a nightmare and called for the abolishment of the death penalty.

     The outrage mongers were nowhere in sight when Lockett shot Stephanie Neiman and buried her alive? Who in their right mind would shed a tear for this cruel, cold-blooded killer. So what if Mr. Lockett didn't pass gently and quickly into the night. A lot of people die slow, agonizing deaths, citizens who never committed rape or murder. Clayton Lockett was gone and the world was a better place without him. 

     Over the years state corrections officials have done their best to find more humane ways to put condemned criminals to death. In the 19th and 20th centuries death row inmates were hanged, electrocuted, suffocated in gas chambers and shot. Hanging is still an option in New Hampshire and Washington. In Arizona, Missouri, and Wyoming the gas chamber remains a death penalty choice.

     Many correction experts believe the firing squad is the quickest and least painful way to execute a convict. In 1977 Gary Gilmore, at his request, was executed by firing squad in Utah. 

Club Kid Michael Alig: A Life of Drugs and Murder

     In 1988 22-year-old Michael Alig appeared on the cover of New York magazine under the headline, "Club Kids." Alig, a high-profile figure in the city's party scene formed a group of fellow partygoers called Club Kids. Members of the group wore outlandish outfits, used heroin and danced and drank all night in Manhattan's nightclubs. In 1993 Alig appeared as a guest on Phil Donahue's daytime TV talk show. 

     On March 17, 1996 in Michael Alig's upper Manhattan apartment the party ended. The Club Kid and his friend Robert "Freeze" Riggs were negotiating the purchase of heroin from a dealer named Andre "Angel" Melendez. At some point during the transaction a dispute erupted over money. Robert Riggs resolved the argument by picking up a hammer and striking Melendez on the head. Michael Alig finished the stunned drug dealer off by smothering him to death with a sweatshirt. 

     After killing their heroin supplier Alig and Riggs had a problem. What were they going to do with Melendez's body? Until they could come up with a disposal plan they stored the corpse in Alig's bathtub. In an effort to slow down decomposition they poured bags of ice over the body. For the smell the club kids doused the corpse with liquid Drano. 

     Before Alig and Riggs could inconspicuously transport the body out of the apartment they would have to make it smaller, more compact. To accomplish that they sawed off Melendez's legs. After keeping the body in the bathtub for six days the club kids, in preparation for its removal, wrapped Melendez in a bedsheet, placed that into a large garbage bag then stuffed the dismembered body into a cardboard box. 

     During the early morning hours, Alig and Riggs carried the box to the street, hailed a cab and instructed the driver to drive them and their package south on the Westside Highway that runs parallel to the Hudson River. At about 25th street the taxi pulled over. As the cab drove off Alig and Riggs carried the cardboard box to the bridge rail and dropped the dead drug dealer into the river. 

     A few days after Alig and Riggs dropped corpse into the Hudson River, children playing in the water along Statin Island came across the cardboard box containing the dismembered remains.

     The Club Boys were arrested in the spring of 1996 on the charge of murder. In October 1997 both men pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The judge sentenced each defendant to ten to twenty years in prison. 

     In 2003 a memoir by James St. James, another celebrity Club Kid, was made into the feature film called "Party Monster" starring Macaulay Culkin. Michael Alig was portrayed in the film. 

     Robert Riggs was released from prison in 2010 after serving 13 years. In 2014, after 17 years behind bars, Michael Alig walked free. During his time in prison he continued using drugs.

     In 2017, police arrested Alig in a Bronx park in possession of crystal methamphetamine. A judge placed him on probation. 

     At three o'clock on Christmas Morning, 2020, Michael Alig's boyfriend called 911 from Alig's 159th Street apartment and reported that his partner had overdosed on heroin. New York City police officers found Michael Alig unresponsive. EMS responders arrived at the scene a few minutes later and pronounced the former Club Kid dead. Alig was 54.