The Lance T. Mason Murder Case

     In 1985, Lance T. Mason graduated from Shaker Heights High School in upscale suburban Cleveland, Ohio. After earning his B.A. from the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, Mr. Mason received a law degree from the University of Michigan. Not long out of law school he became an assistant prosecuting attorney for Cuyahoga County, Ohio. From 2002 to 2006 he served as an elected representative in the Ohio House of Representatives. 

     Lance Mason in 2007 advanced his political career by being elected to Ohio's 25th State Senate District. A year later Ohio governor Ted Strickland appointed him to fill a judicial vacancy on the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. After seven years on the bench, the arc of Judge Mason's career in law took a sudden downward turn.

     On August 2, 2014, police officers took the judge into custody after he punched his wife Aisha Fraser twenty times and bashed her head five times against the dashboard of their vehicle. During the attack he also bit her and threatened to kill her. The couple's children, four and six, witnessed the prolonged assault.

     Aisha Fraser, a sixth grade teacher in the Shaker Heights School District, was so badly injured she had to undergo reconstructive surgery on her face. Following Judge Mason's arrest, detectives searched his home and found an array of handguns, 2,500 rounds of ammunition, a bulletproof vest, smoke grenades, semi-automatic rifles and a sword.

     Two days after the assault Aisha Fraser filed for divorce. (She later sued her ex-husband and won $150,000 in damages.)

     On August 13, 2015, Lance Mason was allowed to plead guilty to attempted felonious assault and domestic violence in return for a sentence of two years. Following his sentencing, Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty told reporters that "I am confident he [Mason] will leave prison rehabilitated and will again be an asset to our community." 

     On September 3, 2015 the Ohio Supreme Court suspended Lance Mason from practicing law. The convicted felon, a couple of weeks later, resigned from his seat on the bench.

      While sentenced lightly for two years, the man who severely beat his wife walked out of prison after serving only nine months behind bars. As a condition of his early release he was ordered to write his ex-wife a letter of apology.

     Shortly following the ex-judge's early--most would say premature--release from prison, Cleveland Mayor Frank Johnson hired the convicted wife beater as a minority business development director.

     On Saturday November 17, 2018, the dispatcher with the Shaker Heights Police Department received a frantic call from Lance Mason's sister who reported that her brother had just stabbed his ex-wife Aisha Fraser to death in his home. The victim had arrived at Mason's house to drop off their children for a visit.

     As police officers rolled up to the murder scene, Mason, in his attempt to avoid custody stole his ex-wife's car and drove into a police vehicle, seriously injuring the officer. Police arrested him after he ran back to his house after crashing into the police car. The injured officer was rushed to the hospital.

     On November 29, 2018 a grand jury sitting in Cleveland indicted Lance Mason on charges of felonious assault, violating a protection order and grand theft of his 45-year-old ex-wife's car. A week later the grand jury indicted the 51-year-old former judge on the charge of aggravated murder. At his arraignment hearing, Lance Mason pleaded not guilty to all charges. He was held in the Cuyahoga County Jail on $5 million bond.

     On September 12, 2019, after pleading guilty to the murder of Alisha Fraser, the judge sentenced the 52-year-old defendant to life in prison with the chance of parole in 30 years. Mr. Mason was sentenced to an additional five years for violating probation, assaulting a police officer and stealing his ex-wife's car. 

Murder on the Crow Indian Reservation

     The Crow Indian Reservation, 3,500 square miles covering parts of Big Horn, Yellowstone and Treasure Counties in southern Montana, is home to 8,000 tribe members. Geographically, it is America's fifth largest Indian enclave. In these jurisdictions serious crimes are federal offenses principally investigated by the FBI. Tribal police handle everything else. In many of these nations within a nation rates of unemployment, alcoholism and crime are significantly higher than the national average.

     Mary Agnes Leider, the mother of a three-year-old girl named Tannielle, lived with her mother in the Big Horn County town of St. Xavier on the Crow Reservation. On December 3, 2012, at four in the morning she and her two brothers, after a night of drinking in Hardin, Montana, were on their way home in a Dodge pickup driven by her brother Wally. Mary Agnes Leider and her brothers had consumed a quart of gin and sixty beers. Mary, with her daughter sitting on her lap sat in the front while her brother Arland rode in the back seat.

     Wally Leider was driving 50 miles-per-hour on Highway 313 south of Hardin when Mary opened the truck door and tossed Tannielle out of the vehicle. Wally jammed on the brakes and ran back to find the child. He found her lying on the highway with blood gushing from the back of her head. Because the little girl didn't seem to be breathing he assumed she was dead.

     When Mr. Leider returned to the vehicle with Tannielle's unresponsive body in his arms he told his sister and brother to get out of the truck. With his niece lying on the back seat Wally drove toward St. Xavier with Mary and Orland sitting on the side of the road crying.

     Georgina Denny, the siblings' mother, was driving north on Highway 313 in search of her children and granddaughter when she passed Wally going the other direction. After both vehicles came to a stop Georgina saw Tannielle and learned from Wally how she had died.

     A deputy with the Big Horn Sheriff's Office found Mary and Arland still sitting along Highway 313 crying uncontrollably. Mary Leider told the officer that she and Wally had been arguing over how fast he was driving. (He was, in fact, driving under the speed limit.) According to Mary, when Wally stopped the vehicle abruptly she banged her head on the dashboard. When she came to Tannielle was gone. Mary said that's all she could remember. While the deputy spoke to the dead girl's mother, police officers  questioned Wally and Georgina.

     Doctors at the Hardin Memorial Hospital pronounced Tannielle dead on arrival. At the same hospital, a FBI agent arranged to have samples taken of Mary's Leider's blood. (Her blood-alcohol level measured 0.24, three times the Montana threshold for driving under the influence.)

     While being questioned at the hospital Mary Leider alternated between her story that Tannielle had died in some kind of traffic accident and "I killed my baby."

     According to the Montana State Medical Examiner's Office Tannielle had died from severe head injuries. The medical examiner classified her death as homicide.

     The United States Attorney for the state of Montana charged Mary Agnes Leider with second-degree murder, a crime that carried a maximum sentence of life in prison. The federal magistrate denied the suspect's bond and appointed a public defender to represent her.

     On July 24, 2013, in a Billings, Montana courtroom, Mary Leider pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder charge.

     On October 21, 3013 United States District Judge Donald Molloy, before imposing his sentence, said that in his eighteen years on the bench he had never encountered such depravity in a criminal case. The judge said the details of the offense made him nauseous. Because the judge wanted to keep the defendant from doing further harm he sentenced her to twenty-one years in prison. (Leider's attorney had asked for a fifteen-year sentence.) Judge Molloy also said he wanted to send a message about the dangers of alcohol abuse on the Crow Reservation.

     Mary Leider, after receiving her sentence, said, "Words can't explain anything. Nothing can bring her back and I have to live with that."

Natalie Wood's Death: Accident or Murder?

     If you're familiar with the name Natalie Wood you're probably either a film or true crime buff. However, in the 1960s and 70s the film star was a household name married to the actor Robert Wagner. She died suddenly and violently on November 29, 1981, and according to the orthodox version of her death, she died by accidental drowning. At the time Wood's death was news because she was a movie star. Today it's in the news as tabloid true crime reportage.

      There were only a few doubters at the time of her death. Most people accepted the following story of how the 43-year-old actress died: On the evening of her demise she had dinner with her husband and actor Christopher Walken at Doug's Harbour Reef on Catalina Island off the Los Angeles coast. After dinner that included the consumption of alcohol, the three actors returned to Wagner's yacht "Splendour" where they continued to drink. An argument broke out between the two men. As the story goes, Mr. Walken angered Wagner by suggesting that Wood put her acting career ahead of her husband and her children. After Wood took leave of the men the actors calmed down and bid each other goodnight. Wood was not in the stateroom when her husband returned.

     After returning to his room Robert Wagner heard a noise on deck that made him think that Natalie was un-tying a dinghy roped to the yacht. He figured his angry wife was returning to shore in the little boat. Several hours later Wood's body was discovered floating in the ocean. She was wearing a long nightgown, socks and a down jacket. The dinghy was located a mile from the yacht and a mile from where Wood's body was recovered. When officials boarded the yacht to inform Mr. Wagner of the discovery of his wife's corpse he reportedly asked the captain of the boat, Dennis Davern, to identify the body for him.

     Los Angeles County Coroner and Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Thomas Noguchi performed the autopsy. Known as "the coroner to the stars," Dr. Noguchi had autopsied, among other celebrities, Marilyn Monroe, Robert F. Kennedy, Janis Joplin, William Holden, John Belushi and Sharon Tate. Regarding Natalie Wood, Dr. Noguchi ruled she died from accidental drowning. The forensic pathologist considered the bruise on Wood's left cheek and the several other abrasions on her body consistent with accidentally falling off the boat. The forensic pathologist wrote about the autopsy in his 1983 bestseller, Coroner.

     The vast majority of drowning deaths are accidental. A few are suicidal and the rest are homicides. While an autopsy can establish the cause of death in such cases (asphyxia), the manner of death is usually determined by an investigation of the circumstances surrounding the drowning. Did the deceased fall into the water, jump in, or did someone throw the victim into the drink against his or her will? Forensic pathology alone seldom answers these questions.

     In 2000, Vanity Fair published an article about the Natalie Wood case that featured an interview of the Wagner yacht captain, Dennis Davern. Mr. Davern was the fourth person on the yacht that night. Although he had not said this to investigators in 1981, Davern claimed that Natalie Wood had been killed by her husband, Robert Wagner. He said he had heard the couple arguing loudly just before she went missing. According to the captain's more recent story, Mr. Wagner coached him on what to say to the police after he had waited four hours before calling the coastguard. Davern's critics accused him of fishing for a lucrative book deal.

     In 2009, Dennis Davern's version of the case appeared in Goodby Natalie, Goodby Splendour, a book he co-authored with his friend Marti Rulli. The captain's shocking accusation gained little attention in the media. True crime books featuring revisionist accounts of old celebrated cases had become common.

    In November 2009, Los Angeles Sheriff's Office Lieutenant John Corina, at a press conference, announced that the agency was looking into Natalie Wood's death. Lieutenant Corina noted that Robert Wagner was not a suspect in her death. Obviously, if the manner of Wood's death was changed to homicide, who else would emerge as the suspect--Christopher Walken? Dennis Davern? "We're going to re-interview some people, talk to some new people, and reevaluate some evidence," Corina said. According to the lieutenant, the intense media coverage led to several tips his officers would be following up. (Tips generated by media exposure almost always consist of useless information from mentally unbalanced, lonely people who often claim psychic powers. Following up on these dead-end leads consumes a lot of investigative time.)

     A witness in November 2009 came forward with new information regarding the circumstances surrounding Natalie Wood's death. Marilyn Wayne told investigators that at eleven o'clock on the night the actress went into the ocean, Wayne and her boyfriend, on a nearby craft, heard a woman scream, "Help me, I'm drowning!" The couple heard these cries for up to fifteen minutes. Wayne told investigators that she and her boyfriend could see nothing in the dark. They called the harbor patrol but no one answered. They called for a helicopter but it didn't arrive. According to this witness, the police never questioned her or her boyfriend. Moreover, she received a threatening note cautioning her to remain silent.

     In February 2018 the CBS television show "48-Hours" reported that according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office, Robert Wagner was a "person of interest" in the investigation of Natalie Wood's death. However, upon conclusion of the cold-case inquiry the manner of death in the Natalie Wood case remained accidental drowning.

     In May 2020 HBO aired "Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind," a documentary about Wood's life and death. The documentary featured Robert Wagner's first on air interview about the case.

The Cheryl Silvonek Murder Case

   Cheryl Silvonek lived with her 14-year-old daughter Jamie in a suburban home outside of Allentown, Pennsylvania. On March 8, 2015, the 54-year-old mother learned that her daughter's boyfriend, Army PFC Caleb Barnes, at 21, was much older than she had been led to believe.

     In an effort to end the relationship between her eighth grade daughter and the Army private, Cheryl Silvonek struck a deal with the boyfriend. Mr. Barnes agreed to end the romance and return to his base at Fort Meade, Maryland in return for the mother's promise to take the couple to a Breaking Benjamin concert in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

     In the early morning hours of March 15, 2015, following the Scranton concert Cheryl Silvonek, with her daughter and Caleb Barnes in her SUV, pulled into the Silvonek house driveway. Before the mother could climb out of her vehicle Barnes started punching her in the head. The assailant tried to choke the victim to death before stabbing her four times. She died in the vehicle shortly after the attack.

     Following the cold-blooded murder, Caleb Barnes and the victim's daughter drove the SUV to a place nearby where they dumped the body into a shallow grave. Once they disposed of the corpse the murderous couple drove to a Walmart store where they purchased a bottle of bleach and other cleaning supplies they used to clean up the victim's blood.

     Not long after the killing, detectives took the couple into custody on suspicion of murder. Investigators linked Jamie Silvonek to the murder through numerous text messages she had sent to Barnes in the days leading up to the crime. Many of these messages, besides being sexually explicit, urged him to murder Mrs. Silvonek. "I want her gone," the daughter wrote.

     Caleb Barnes, when interrogated by detectives, confessed to the murder. He also insisted that Jamie Silvonek had no prior knowledge of the homicide. In an effort to protect his girlfriend, he took full responsibility for the crime.

     Notwithstanding the boyfriend falling on his sword for his young lover, a Lehigh County prosecutor charged Jamie Silvonek with solicitation of murder. The district attorney charged Mr. Barnes with first-degree murder.

     Shortly after being booked into the Lehigh County Jail, Jamie Silvonek's attorneys filed a motion to have her case adjudicated in juvenile court. If found guilty as a juvenile she could not be imprisoned beyond her twenty-first birthday. The district attorney filed an opposing motion requesting that Silvonek be tried in adult court where a guilty verdict would lead to a sentence of up to 25 years to life.

     On October 29, 2005, at a pre-trial hearing before Judge Marie L. Dantos, both sides, on the issue of  whether or not Silvonek should be tried as an adult or a juvenile, put their expert witnesses on the stand.

     Dr. John O'Brien, a psychiatrist testifying for the prosecution portrayed Jamie Silvonek as a developing sociopath who had the knack of presenting herself as a victim. According to Dr. O'Brien, Silvonek's teachers at the Orfield Middle School painted her as "a sociopath who thinks societal values do not apply to her." Teachers described Silvonek as extremely mature and manipulative, a "chameleon" who could change faces depending upon who she was talking to and what she wanted.

     To support his diagnosis of the defendant, the prosecution psychiatrist highlighted, among others, these text messages sent by Silvonek: "Don't be afraid of the sides of you that are dark, terrifying" and "People don't understand how cold and manipulative I can be, I hide it so well no one expects."

     Psychologist Dr. Frank Dattilo took the stand on behalf of the defendant. According to this expert witness, the girl was highly intelligent but extremely immature. When Caleb Barnes began flirting with her, the eighth grader didn't know how to handle his attention. According to Dr. Dattilo, "He [Barnes] pursued her. It's a big deal for a young female to be pursued by someone older. She became enamored of this. She was over the moon about the older guy. It's every young girl's dream. She was swept up by Mr. Barnes."

     On November 20, 2015, Judge Dantos, in a 37-page opinion outlining her rationale, ruled that Jamie Silvonek would be tried for murder solicitation as an adult.

     On February 11, 2016 Jamie Silvonek pleaded guilty to the charge of soliciting the murder of her mother. The judge sentenced her to 25 years to life in prison.

     On September 20, 2016 a jury found Caleb Barnes guilty of first-degree murder. At the trial Jamie Silvonek testified for the prosecution. She said her mother had been murdered because she tried to destroy her relationship with the defendant. The judge sentenced Barnes to life in prison. 

A Raped Woman's Revenge

     Nevin Yildirim lived with her husband and two children, ages two and six, in a village in southwestern Turkey. In January 2012, her husband left home to work at a seasonal job in another town. Shortly after Mr. Yildirim began working at the other place, a 35-year-old member of the village named Nurettin came to Nevin's house and raped her. This married father of two threatened to shoot Nevin's children if she reported the crime.

     By August 2012, after months of being raped on a regular basis by Mr. Nurettin, Nevin Yildirim was five months pregnant with his child. When she visited a clinic regarding an abortion, a health care worker informed her that her pregnancy was too far along for that option. In Turkey abortions were illegal after the first ten weeks of pregnancy.

     On August 28, 2012, when Mr. Nurettin came to Nevin's house to rape her again, she pulled her father-in-law's rifle off a wall rack and shot him. As the wounded Nurettin reached for his handgun to return fire, Nevin shot him again. Hit with the second slug he tired to run but stumbled and fell. As he lay on the ground cursing her she fired a third bullet, this one into his genitals. The rapist went silent and a few seconds later died where he lay in a pool of his own blood.

     The woman who killed the man who for months had raped her laid down her rifle and picked up a kitchen knife that she used to decapitate him. She picked up the detached head by the hair and carried it to the village square. To a group of men sitting around a coffee house, Nevin, still gripping her rapist's head as it continued to drip blood from the base of the severed neck, said, "Here is the head of the man who played with my honor."

     As the coffee house drinkers looked on in horror, Nevin Yildirim tossed her blood trophy. The severed head rolled along the ground and came to rest in the public square. A short time later a local police officer took the blood-splattered woman into custody.

     A few days after the killing, in speaking to her court-appointed lawyer who came to the local jail, Nevin reportedly said, "I thought of reporting [Nurettin] to the military police and to the district attorney, but this was going to make me a scorned woman. Since I was going to get a bad reputation, I decided to clean my honor, and acted on killing him. I thought of suicide a lot, but couldn't do it. Now no one can call my children bastards....Everyone will call them the children of the woman who cleaned her honor."

     On August 30, 2012 at the preliminary hearing on the charge of murder, Nevin Yildirim told the magistrate she didn't want to keep her rapist's baby and that she wished to die. The public prosecutor advised the court that he ordered psychiatric evaluations of the defendant.

    Nevin Yildirim gave birth to her rapist's child on November 17, 2012.

     On March 25, 2013, the district judge found Yildirim guilty of murder. Before he handed down the sentence the judge ordered police officers to remove feminist protesters from the courtroom.

     After clearing the courtroom of protesters the Turkish judge imposed the maximum punishment of life in prison. Among women in Turkey and others around the world the verdict and sentence created an uproar. Had Nevin Yildirim committed the exact crime in the United States she would have been charged with second or third-degree murder. Her attorney would have had the option of putting on either an insanity or battered woman defense. If found guilty her punishment would not have been anything close to life behind bars. In the U.S. a case like this would likely be resolved through the plea bargaining process that would lead to much lighter sentence.

The Yoselyn Ortega Murder Case

      Kevin Krim grew up in Thousand Oaks, California where he was a high school football star. The Harvard graduate met his future wife Marina at an Italian restaurant in Venice Beach. They were married in 2003. Marina had grown up in Manhattan Beach. Kevin worked in Los Angeles then took a job with Yahoo in San Francisco. The couple moved to New York City in 2009.

     In October 2012 the Krims, with three children--Lucia, age 6, Nessie, 3, and 2-year-old Leo, lived on Manhattan's upper west side in a second-floor, 3-bedroom apartment in the LaRochelle Building on West 75th Street. The $10,000 a month apartment was a block from Central Park and not far from the Museum of Natural History and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Marina, a stay-at-home mother, kept a daily online journal of her children's daily lives.

     In October 2010, the Krims hired 48-year-old Yoselyn Ortega, a nanny who was referred to them by Ortega's older sister Celia who, as a nanny herself, met Marina and Lucia at a ballet lesson. A naturalized U.S. citizen from the Dominican Republic, Yoselyn lived in Manhattan's Hamilton Heights neighborhood then moved to an apartment on Riverside Drive in Harlem a few miles from the Krims. She lived with her son, sister and niece.

     The Krims became very close to Ortega (they called her "Yosi") and in February 2012 accompanied her to the Dominican Republic where they visited her family. Whenever the Krims left town for an extended period with their children they bought Ortega a flight back to her native country. According to the nanny's relatives she had been seeing a psychologist and had financial problems. For extra money she had been selling cheap cosmetics and jewelry to residents of her tenement building.

     On Thursday afternoon on October 25, 2012, Marina Krim took 3-year-old Nessie to a swimming lesson. She left Leo and Lucia in the apartment with the nanny. At 5:25 that evening, when Marina and Nessie returned to the apartment they found the place dark. Marina assumed that Yoselyn Ortega had taken the two children out for a walk.

     Marina Krim and her daughter Nessie returned to the lobby, and from the doorman learned that Yoselyn Ortega and the children had not left the building. Marina re-entered the apartment and when she walked into the bathroom saw Leo and Lucia lying in the bathtub covered in blood. The children had been slashed and stabbed to death with the bloody kitchen knife lying on the floor next to the nanny who was bleeding from a wound in her neck. Yoselyn Ortega had also slashed her wrists.

     Several neighbors heard Marina scream, "You slit her throat!" Later the distraught mother was heard saying, "What am I going to do with the rest of my life? I have no children."

     Paramedics rushed the unconscious nanny to the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Medical Center where she underwent emergency surgery. Marina Krim was taken to St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital for sedation. Kevin Krim, returning from a business trip to San Francisco, was met at the airport with the news of his children's deaths. He was also taken to the hospital where they sedated him.

     On Friday, October 26, 2012 detectives were unable to question Ortega who was on a respirator. According to the doctors, the nanny was expected to survive her wounds. Investigators believed Ortega murdered the children, then stabbed herself in the neck about the time the victims' mother entered the apartment.

     Yoselyn Ortega was the youngest of six siblings who grew up in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic. Her sister Celia emigrated to the United States in the early 1980s after graduating from accounting studies at Santa Ana College in Santiago. Yoselyn later joined her older sister in America. She worked as the manager of a print shop in Manhattan, then after separating from the father of her son, returned to the Dominican Republic. After awhile, she returned to New York City. According to family members she loved the Krim children. Before the murders she had been acting strangely from some kind of emotional stress.

     Prior to her hospital bed arraignment on November 28, 2012, Yoselyn Ortega's attorney asked the judge to bar the press from the hearing on the grounds his client was too "pathetic" to be seen. Judge Lewis Stone denied the request.

     In a June 2013 Rikers Island jail interview of Ortega by a reporter with the New York Daily News, the murder suspect denied killing the children. "I didn't do that," she said. "Those are all lies." The brief interview ended abruptly when Ortega said, "My lawyer told me not to talk. I'm not supposed to say anything."  Later that month a Manhattan judge at Ortega's competency hearing ruled that she was mentally fit for trial. Ortega's attorney, Valerie Van Leer-Greenberg, appealed that decision.

     In August 2013, before the same Manhattan judge, prosecution witness Dr. Ankur Saraiya took the stand and testified that while Ortega "had suffered some brain damage when she slit her throat, the injury was not enough to interfere with her fitness." The judge reaffirmed his initial finding that this defendant was mentally competent to stand trial.

     In April 2018, after several delays a jury sitting in New York City rejected Ortega's insanity defense and found her guilty of double murder. The judge sentenced her to life in prison.

The Laurel Schlemmer Murder Case

     Laurel Michelle Ludwig married Mark Schlemmer in July 2005. In May 2006 the couple purchased a house in McCandless, Pennsylvania, a suburban community north of Pittsburgh.

     By September 2009 the couple had two sons. The youngest was 18-months-old. His brother was three. Mark Schlemmer was 39 and working as an insurance actuary. Laurel, a former teacher, stayed at home to raise the boys. On September 5, 2009 a patron at the nearby Ross Park Mall noticed a parked Honda Odyssey with an unaccompanied toddler inside. Although the van's windows were cracked the temperature inside the vehicle had risen to 112 degrees. The passerby called 911.

     When Laurel Schlemmer returned to her van she was met by Ross Township police and EMT personnel who managed to unlock a door and remove the three-year-old boy. Due to the fact the mother was gone from the car twenty minutes the boy did not require medical treatment.

     An Allegheny County prosecutor charged the 36-year-old mother with the summary offense of leaving a child unattended in a vehicle. Laurel Schlemmer pleaded guilty to the crime and paid a fine. No one read anything into this incident other than a mother's lapse of due care.

     By 2013 Laurel Schlemmer and her husband had their third son. On April 16 of that year, Laurel, when backing her van out of her parents' driveway in Marshall, Pennsylvania, ran over her two and five-year-old boys. One of the children suffered internal injuries while his brother ended up with broken bones. Both boys survived.

     An investigator with the Northern Regional Police Department conducted an inquiry into the driveway incident and concluded it had been an accident. Personnel with the Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth, and Families conducted an assessment of the Schlemmer family and found no evidence or history of child abuse.

     The pastor of the North Park Church, Reverend Dan Hendley, counseled Laurel in an effort to help her cope with what everybody assumed had been a nearly tragic mishap. Members of the church were supportive of their fellow parishioner.

     At 8:40 on the morning of Tuesday, April 1, 2014, Laurel Schlemmer put her seven-year-old boy on the school bus and waved him goodbye. She returned to her house and told her three and six-year-old boys to take off their pajamas as she filled the bath tub. The fully dressed mother, once the boys were in the tub, held them under water then climbed into the tub and sat on them.

     Laurel pulled the limp bodies out of the water and laid them out on the bathroom floor. She replaced her wet clothes with dry garments. In an effort to hide the wet pieces of clothing she bagged them up with two soaked towels and placed the container in the garage.

     At 9:40 that morning Laurel called 911 and reported that her two sons had drowned in the bath tub. Emergency personnel rushed the Schlemmer children to the UPMC Passavant Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. An hour later three-year-old Luke Schlemmer died. His six-year-old brother remained in critical condition.

     Questioned by detectives, Laurel said she figured she would become a better mother to her oldest son if his younger siblings weren't around. "Crazy voices" told her the younger ones would be better off in heaven.

     Later that day detectives booked the mother into the Allegheny County Jail in downtown Pittsburgh. Mrs. Schlemmer faced charges of homicide, attempted homicide, aggravated assault and tampering with evidence. The judge denied her bond.

     On April 5, 2014, a spokesperson for the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office announced that six-year-old Daniel Schlemmer died. The boy had been on life support at UPMC's Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

     At a mental competency hearing on April 7, 2014, Dr. Christine Martone, an Allegheny County psychiatrist, testified that Mrs. Schlemmer was psychotic, suicidal and suffered from depressive disorder. Judge Jeffrey Manning, based upon this testimony, ruled the defendant mentally incompetent to stand trial.

     Judge Manning ordered the defendant committed to the Torrance State Hospital in Derry Township, a mental health facility 45 miles east of Pittsburgh.

     In Pennsylvania, defendants are considered mentally incompetent to stand trial if due to mental illness they are unable to distinguish right from wrong or cannot assist their attorneys in their defense.

     In January 2015, Judge Manning postponed the murder trial indefinitely. He also imposed a gag order that prohibited the prosecutor and defense attorney from discussing the case publicly.

     On May 5, 2016 Allegheny County Judge Jeffrey Manning, after the prosecution and the defense could not agree on a plea arrangement, set the Schlemmer murder trial for June 21, 2016. According to the defendant's attorney, Laurel Schlemmer was pursuing a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity.

     Judge Manning, on June 21, 2016, heard testimony from psychiatrist Dr. Christine Martone who opined that the defendant was still too mentally disturbed to be tried. The judge ordered the defendant to be forcibly medicated until she became mentally competent to stand trial for the murder of her sons.

     On March 16, 2017, following a bench trial (no jury) featuring psychiatric testimony on both sides, Allegheny County Judge Manning found Laurel Schlemmer guilty of two counts of third-degree murder but mentally ill. The prosecution argued for first-degree murder but the judge, due to the defendant's mental condition, found she acted in "diminished capacity." In Pennsylvania, a guilty but mentally ill sentence simply meant the convicted person would be given the appropriate mental health medication in prison instead of a mental institution. In Schlemmer's case she was sentenced to ten to twenty years behind bars.

Emily Creno's Self-Serving Hoax

     On the surface there was nothing exceptional about Emily J. Creno. In 2012, the mother of an 8-year-old girl and a boy who was four, lived in Utica, a central Ohio town not far from Columbus. After the 31-year-old's marriage had gone sour her husband John moved out of the house.

     In December 2012, Emily Creno took her son J. J. to a hospital emergency room in Columbus. She told medical personnel he had suffered a series of seizures. Following blood tests, X-rays and EEG monitoring, the physician informed the mother that her son was in good health.

     Notwithstanding her son's clean bill of health, confirmed by subsequent hospital visits and various screening tests, Emily Creno told friends and family that J. J. had been diagnosed with cancer. She said J. J.  didn't have long to live. The child, thinking that he was terminally ill, basically shut down. When John Creno visited his son the boy couldn't speak or get off the couch. (Emily regularly shaved J. J.'s head to give him the appearance of someone being treated with chemotherapy.) Her estranged husband had no idea his son's illness was a hoax orchestrated by his wife. (The couple later divorced.)

     One of Emily's sympathetic friends created a Facebook page for the purpose of soliciting donations for the distraught mother and her dying son. About twenty people sent the family clothes, toys and money. One Facebook reader drove 500 miles to console Emily and the stricken boy.

     In May 2013, a Columbus woman with a daughter suffering from leukemia visited the Creno Facebook page where she read postings about J. J.'s illness and symptoms that didn't make sense. Thinking that Emily Creno was possibly soliciting money and goods on a false pretense, this woman reported her suspicion to an officer with the Utica Police Department.

     Utica detective Damian Smith, in response to the tipster's call, got in touch with the Columbus oncologist who was supposedly treating the Creno boy. The physician said he did not know Emily or her son. Further investigation, which presumably included Creno's interrogation and perhaps a polygraph test, established the fact that her son's terminal illness was nothing more that a product of her imagination and deception.

     Licking County prosecutor Tracy Van Winkle in September 2013 charged Emily Creno with one count of third-degree child endangerment. Shortly thereafter police officers took the suspect into custody on the felony charge. A local magistrate set her bail at $50,000. The prosecutor told reporters she would present the case to a grand jury which could result in additional charges related to fraud and theft by deception.    

     On May 7, 2014, Emily Creno after pleading no contest to charges of theft and endangering a child, was sentenced to 18 months in prison by Judge Thomas Marcelain. The judge also ordered her to pay back the money donated to her phony cause. At the sentence hearing Judge Marcelain said Creno's ploy had been intended to get her husband back, a scheme that got out of hand.

     In terms of motive this could have been a Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP) case. Mothers with this disorder make their children ill to gain sympathy and attention from friends, family and hospital personnel. Quite often the MSBP subject is trying to attract the attention of an indifferent or estranged spouse. Even if Emily Creno didn't poison her son to make him ill, her cancer hoax could be explained in the context of this disorder. In other words, the motive behind this dreadful case may have been pathological rather than theft by deception. It should be noted, however, that Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy does not constitute a recognized legal defense. It is not the same as legal insanity because MSBP mothers are fully aware of what they are doing and that what they are doing is wrong. 

Kenneth Markman: The Fall Of A Drug Dealing Defense Attorney

     Kenneth Markman, after graduating from UCLA and Loyola Law School, began practicing criminal defense law in 1991. Between 2000 and 2010 the State Bar Association of California suspended him twice for not paying his membership dues. It was during this period the attorney went from representing drug addicts and dealers to becoming one.

     On October 21, 2011 Mr. Markman was in the attorney's room on the 11th floor of the Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles. He had scheduled a meeting with his client, Jorge Zaragoza. Zaragoza, a drug-dealing gang member with a history of violent crime, had been convicted of attempted carjacking. In a few days a judge would be handing down Zaragoza's sentence.

     Detectives with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Office suspected that Mr. Markman was smuggling narcotics to his clients who were incarcerated in the Los Angeles County Jail. As the attorney waited for his opportunity to speak with Zaragoza, a sheriff's deputy accompanied by a drug-sniffing dog entered the room. The dog immediately "alerted" to the presence of drugs on attorney Markman's  person and in his briefcase.

     From the inside pocket of the attorney's suit jacket the deputy removed a package wrapped tightly with electrical tape. The bundle contained twenty-six balloons of heroin and methamphetamine. Markman's briefcase contained a quantity of marijuana and three mini-hypodermic syringes. 

     Charged with seven drug-related felony counts, the attorney was booked into the county Inmate Reception Center. The judge set his bail at $145,000. If convicted of trying to smuggle $30,000 worth of narcotics into the Los Angeles County Jail, Mr. Markman faced up to four years in prison.

     The accused attorney posted his bond and was released from custody. On November 8, 2011 a security officer screening visitors to the Antelope Valley Court House noticed something suspicious as Markman's briefcase passed through the X-ray machine. After the attorney grabbed his wallet out of the tray and tried to flee, a Los Angeles Sheriff's deputy caught up to him before he left the building. In his wallet the officer found two bundles of rock cocaine. The attorney's briefcase contained several pieces of drug paraphernalia.

     After being booked again for trying to smuggle drugs to an incarcerated clien, Kenneth Markman made his $25,000 bail.

     In February 2013, Kenneth Markman pleaded no contest to the October 2011 drug smuggling charges. Pursuant to a plea deal the judge, a month later, sentenced the suspended attorney to a year in the Los Angeles County Jail. That sentence included three years of probation which involved one year of drug treatment.

     The State Bar Association of California, following a hearing in August 2013, disbarred Mr. Markman. 

The Daniel DeJarnette Murder Case

     In 2003, 50-year-old homicide detective Daniel DeJarnette, after 21 years on the force, retired. He and his wife Yu Kue moved to the town of Ka'u on the southern tip of Hawaii's Big Island. During his last ten years on the force Detective DeJarnette was a member of the Van Nuys Division's robbery-homicide unit's rape section. During that period he investigated a series of high-profile homicide cases involving sexual attacks.

     By 2006 the retired detective's marriage had fallen apart. His wife Yu Kue told her co-workers at a grocery store in the town of Kona that she wanted to leave him but he wouldn't let her go. They fought all the time and he was physically abusive.

     On November 12, 2006, officers with the Hawaii County Police responded to the DeJarnette home after Daniel called 911 to report that his wife had fallen off a lava embankment while hanging out laundry to dry. The officers found the 56-year-old wife lying dead twenty feet from the house with two gaping head wounds. The officers arrested DeJarnette on suspicion of homicide.

     According to the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, Yu Kue DeJarnette died from blunt force trauma to the head. Notwithstanding the presence of paint chips in her hair from the suspected murder weapon--a car jack stand--and scrapes on her body suggesting that she had been dragged over the lava to where the police had found her body, the forensic pathologist ruled her manner of death as "undetermined." As a result of this postmortem finding Daniel DeJarnette was released from custody due to lack of evidence.

     In January 2012, more than five years after Yu Kue's suspicious death, Hawaii County Deputy Prosecutor Linda Walton re-opened the case. Employing modernized forensic science a DNA analyst identified traces of the victims's blood on the jack stand. Another crime lab expert connected the paint chips in the victim's head hair to the murder weapon. Forensic scientists also determined that someone had used a bleaching agent in an effort to clean up Yu Kue's blood in the couple's bathroom and other parts of the DeJarnette house.

     On May 14, 2012 a grand jury indicted Daniel DeJarnette of second-degree murder. Police officers arrested the 59-year-old at his Big Island home. If convicted as charged the former LAPD detective faced a maximum sentence of life in prison. A judge set his bail at $300,000.

     Ten months after his arrest DeJarnette confessed to killing his wife. They had been fighting, she slapped him and he struck her in the head with the jack stand. He dragged her body from the bathroom across the lava field to the embankment where the police found her. Just before he killed Yu Kue Daniel purchased a $300,000 insurance policy on her life.

     On March 26, 2013 Daniel DeJarnette pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter while under extreme emotional stress. Two months later a judge imposed the maximum sentence of twenty years in prison.