The Alisha Noel-Murray Murder-For-Hire Case

     Omar Murray, a Jamaican-born ironworker resided with his wife Alisha Noel-Murray in a Brooklyn row-house owned by Alisha's mother. The couple, married three years, had moved into the Brownsville neighborhood in early 2012. Omar was thirty-seven. His wife, a home health aide with Visiting Nurse Service of New York was just twenty-five. A religious man, Omar regularly attended the Full Gospel Assembly of God Church in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.

     On Sunday, February 24, 2013 as Omar Murray entered his Lott Avenue house at one in the afternoon he was approached by a man who shot him once in the chest. The victim stumbled into the house and collapsed in the entrance hallway. At the time of the shooting his wife Alisha was in the house recovering from surgery. She locked herself in her bedroom and called 911. Mr. Murray died a few hours after being rushed by ambulance to the Brookdale University Hospital.

     The next day New York City Detectives arrested three local men in connection with the murder. Dameon Lovell told interrogators that the dead man's wife had been his lover. Together they had come up with the idea of having Omar murdered in a staged robbery. The 29-year-old murder-for-hire co-mastermind said that Alisha Noel-Murray wanted to cash in on her husband's two life insurance policies.

     In 2009, shortly after they were married, the couple took out a policy with National Benefit for $530,000. Sometime later Mr. Murray's life was insured for an additional $150,000.

     Kirk Portious, a 25-year-old with a history of violent crime confessed to being the hit-man. The prosecutor charged Portious and Dameon Lovell with first-degree murder. The third man taken into custody, 22-year-old Dion Jack, drove the getaway vehicle. He was charged with hindering prosecution. The judge set his bail at $5,000. Portious and Lovell were held without bond in the jail on Riker's Island.

     Funeral services for the murder victim were held at the Full Gospel Assemble of God Church on Friday night, March 8, 2013. Omar Murray's widow, who had not been charged with a crime sat in the front pew chewing gum. Omar's uncle, in speaking to a New York Daily News reporter outside the Crown Heights church, said, "To see her [Alisha] sitting there with her crocodile tears makes me sick. We know she killed our Omar. Where is the justice?"

     Alisha Noel-Murray, to the same reporter, said, "I'm not hiding from no one....This is ridiculous."

     In June 2016 Alisha Noel-Murray was charged with first-degree murder in connection with Mr. Murray's death. Both life insurance companies refused to pay benefits on the ground local prosecutors had charged her as a murder-for-hire mastermind. She sued the National Benefit Life Insurance company and lost.

     Portious and Lovell awaited their murder trials while incarcerated on Riker's Island.

     In March 2017 Dameon Lovell pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for a 25 year to life prison sentence.

     On June 8, 2017, a jury in Brooklyn, New York found Alisha Noel-Murray guilty of first-degree murder. Dameon Lovell's testimony helped convict her. A week later a separate jury found Kirk Portious, the hit man, guilty of the same offense.

     The judge, in July 2017, sentenced Noel-Murray and her hit man to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The Betty Neumar Black Widow Murder Case

     In November 1950, Betty Johnson, an 18-year-old coal miner's daughter who had grown up in Ironton, a town in southeastern Ohio along the West Virginia border, married Clarence Malone. In 1952, shortly after the birth of their son Gary the couple divorced. At the time they were living outside of Cleveland. A year later Betty married an alcoholic from New York City named James F. Flynn who died suddenly in 1955. In the years following Mr. Flynn's passing Betty told people various stories of his death. She said that he had been killed in a car accident, was murdered on a New York City pier and died in the snow from exposure. The cause and circumstances of his death are to this day unknown.

     In 1964, while working in Jacksonville Florida as a beautician, Betty, now 36, married a 29-year-old Navy man named Richard Sills. In April 1967 police officers found Mr. Sills shot to death in the bedroom of the couple's mobile home in Big Coppitt Key Florida. Betty told investigators, her husband, during an argument they were having, pulled out a .22-caliber pistol and shot himself in the heart. Mr Sill's highly suspicious death, without the benefit of an autopsy was ruled a suicide. (Years later a forensic pathologist determined that Richard Sills had been shot twice.)

     Betty married an Army man named Harold Gentry in January 1968. Two years later Betty's first husband, Clarence Malone, was shot to death outside his automobile repair shop near Cleveland. Police never identified the gunman who in execution style shot Mr. Malone in the back of the head.

     Betty's 33-year-old son Gary Malone, in November 1985, was shot to death in his Cleveland area apartment. As the beneficiary to his life insurance policy Betty received $10,000. The police never identified Gary's killer.

     In July 1986, Betty and Harold Gentry, who was now retired from the Army, were living in Norwood, North Carolina about 50 miles east of Charlotte. That month someone fired six bullets into Mr. Gentry. Betty claimed to have been out of town when her fourth husband was shot to death in his own home. The police never identified the shooter. As a result of her fourth husband's untimely and sudden death Betty enjoyed another life insurance payday.

     In 1991, the 60-year-old serial widow married her fifth and last husband, John Neumar. Nine years later, while living in Augusta Georgia, the couple owed $200,000 on 43 credit cards. They filed for bankruptcy. In October 2007 Mr. Neumar, at age 79, died. While his cause of death was listed as sepsis (a bacterial blood infection) Mr. Neumar's children believed his wife Betty had poisoned him to death with arsenic. Even though they had paid for a burial plot, Betty had her husband's body quickly cremated. Those who suspected her of murdering Mr. Neumar believed she had him cremated to avoid an autopsy and telltale toxicology tests.

     In 2008, following a cold-case homicide investigation in North Carolina, a grand jury indicted Betty Neumar on three counts of solicitation to commit the first-degree murder of her fourth husband, Harold Gentry. According to investigators she had asked three people-- a former cop, a neighbor, and a third man--to kill her husband. None of the potential hitmen carried out the murder, but a fourth person who was not identified did follow through on the suspected contract killing.

     Almost a year after her arrest in the Harold Gentry, case Betty Neumar posted her $300,000 bail. (Where did she get the money for that?) After being released from jail she moved to Louisiana. That year a television documentary about Betty Neumar called "Black Widow Granny" was aired on the BBC in the United Kingdom. Film-maker Norman Hull interviewed Betty and the relatives of her dead husbands who believed she had murdered them for their insurance money. In response to these accusations Betty said, "I cannot control when somebody dies. That's God's work." 

     Betty Neuman died of cancer in June 2011 while being treated a Fork Polk, Louisiana hospital. The so-called Black Widow passed away before the authorities in North Carolina could try her for soliciting Harold Gentry's murder. Under the law, Betty Neuman went to her death presumed innocent. Her former in-laws, however, did not share that presumption. 

The Kristopher Gartrell Murder Case

     On November 25, 2018, when the cleaning lady arrived at the home of 87-year-old Virginia Barbour outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, she found the house in disarray. When the cleaning lady couldn't locate the homeowner she called the police.

     When officers with the Pennsylvania State Police rolled up to the scene they found Virginia Barbour's body wrapped in a sheet and stuffed beneath her bed. The killer responsible for strangling her to death had stolen her 2012 Chevrolet Impala and what was later determined to be $1,200 worth of coins. The killer also tried to burn down the house in an apparent attempt to destroy evidence. The fire did not take and went out by itself.

     The day following the murder, detectives developed 48-year-old Kristopher Gartrell as a suspect in the case. According to Gartrell's girlfriend, he murdered the elderly victim. Mr. Gartrell had allegedly threatened to kill his girlfriend if she went to the police. 

     Police officers took Kristopher Gartrell into custody at the Presidential Inn in Gettysburg. At the time of his arrest he was in possession of the dead woman's car and coin collection.

     When interrogated by detectives Mr. Gartrell confessed to entering the victim's unlocked house for the purpose of robbing her. After he forced Virginia Barbour to show him where she kept the coins he tied her up and raped her twice. Following the sexual attacks he strangled the victim, stuffed her body under the bed then set fire to the room. He left the scene in the victim's car.

     Officers booked Mr. Gartrell into the Adams County Jail on charges of murder, rape, kidnapping, arson and robbery. Given the number and seriousness of the charges the magistrate denied him bond.

     Further investigation revealed that Kristopher Gartrell was registered in South Carolina as a sex offender. In 1997, he was convicted of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. He had also been convicted of kidnapping. A parole board in South Carolina released Gartrell from prion in March 2018. In August of that year the authorities placed him on South Carolina's "19 Most Wanted" list after he failed to report to his probation agent.

     In May 2019 following his guilty pleas to sexual assault and murder, the judge sentenced Kristopher Gartrell to life in prison.

The Brady Oestrike Double Murder/Suicide Case

     In Grand Rapids, Michigan, 18-year-old Brooke Slocum and her boyfriend Charles Oppenneer, 25, were homeless. She was eight months pregnant. The couple frequently exchanged sex for food and a temporary place to stay. They hooked up with johns through the online service Craigslist. An Internet pay-for-sex arrangement brought them into contact with Brady Oestrike.

     The 31-year-old Oestrike, employed as a lineman for a utility company, resided in a suburb of Grand Rapids called Wyoming. Because he talked about killing people and having bizarre dreams, many of his acquaintances considered him disturbed.

     On Saturday, July 12, 2014, Slocum, Oppenneer and Oestrike engaged in sexual activity at Oestrike's house. At some point that night the utility company lineman stabbed Charles Oppenneer to death and took Slocum prisoner.

     Hikers, on Wednesday July 16, 2014 came upon a headless corpse in nearby Gezon Park. A forensic pathologist identified the remains as Charles Oppenneer.

     The day following the gruesome discovery, Mr. Oestrike strangled the pregnant teen to death. He stuffed her body into the truck of his car for later disposal.

     By now homicide detectives had identified Oestrike as a suspect in the murder and missing person case. At nine-fifteen on the night of July 17, 2014, uniformed police officers and investigators rolled up to Oestrike's house in Wyoming armed with a search warrant. The suspect saw them coming, jumped into his car and drove off.

     Following a brief chase Oestrike crashed his vehicle into a tree. When officers approached the wrecked car they found him dead. He shot himself in the head.

     Inside the dead man's trunk officers found Brooke Slocum's body. Her unborn baby was dead as well.

     A search of Oestrike's house produced several guns, ammunition, swords, knives and items that belonged to the murdered couple. Mr. Oppenneer's head was never found. 

Russell Bucklew: A Painless Death For A Man Who Didn't Deserve To Live

     In 1995, 27-year-old Russell Bucklew, a criminal with a violent past, resided with his girlfriend Stephanie Ray in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri. On Valentine's Day 1996, following months of physical abuse, Ray left Russell Bucklew. During the next several weeks he harassed her, punched her in the face and cut her with a knife. Fearing for her life she moved into a nearby mobile home with Michael Sanders and his 6-year-old son.

     The day after Stephanie Ray moved in with her friend Michael Sanders, Russell Bucklew, thinking that Mr. Sanders was her new boyfriend stole his nephew's car, and in possession of two pistols, a set of handcuffs and duct tape, drove to Sander's home with the intent to kill him. It was there he shot Michael Sanders to death and shot at but missed the victim's son.

     Following the cold-blooded murder, Mr. Bucklew handcuffed Stephanie Ray, dragged her into the stolen car and drove from the murder scene. Shortly thereafter he beat and raped his ex-girlfriend.

     Later on the day of Bucklew's crime spree, a Missouri State Trooper spotted him in the stolen car outside of St. Louis. In the exchange of gunfire both men were wounded. Other police officers took Bucklew into custody, and after being treated and released from the hospital he was booked into jail on charges of kidnapping, rape, assaulting a police officer, attempted murder and murder.

     Shortly after his arrest Russell Bucklew escaped from the Cape Girardeau Jail, and before being re-arrested he attacked Stephanie Ray's mother and the mother's boyfriend with a hammer.

     Convicted in 1997 of first-degree murder and numerous other offenses, the judge sentenced Bucklew to death. The death row inmate would spend the next fifteen years or so in a 6 by 14 foot cell at the maximum security prison in Potosi, Missouri.

     While serving his time in prison, Bucklew developed a medical condition called cavernous hemangioma. He had blood-filled tumors in his head, neck and throat and had to breathe with the help of a tracheostomy tube.

     In May 2014, just before Bucklew was scheduled for execution his death house attorneys won a last-minute reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court. A majority of the justices were concerned that Bucklew might, due to his illness, suffer some pain when given the lethal dose of pentobarbital.

     In 2019, as Bucklew's new execution date approached, his case was once again before the U.S. Supreme Court. Bucklew's anti-capital punishment lawyers once again argued that their client's throat tumor might burst after receiving the lethal injection, causing the poor man to choke and die painfully in violation of the Eighth Amendment's guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.

     On September 30, 2019 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment "does not guarantee a painless death."

     The day following the Supreme Court decision, at the Missouri State Prison in Bonne Terre, Russell Bucklew, elevated on the death table to minimize complications from the pentobarbital injection, was executed. There were no outward signs suggesting the 51-year-old suffered an undue amount of discomfort, considerations he had not afforded the victims of his murder, assaults and rape.

     Morley Swinge, the Cape Girardeau County prosecutor in charge of Bucklew's prosecution told reporters that Bucklew was "the most pure sociopath I ever prosecuted. He was ruthless in the way he came after his victims."

     Except for a handful of anti-capital punishment sob-sisters protesting outside the Missouri death house, it was good riddance to a horrible person.

The Steven Zelich Murder Case

     On June 5, 2014 a highway worker cutting high grass along a road in Geneva, Wisconsin, a town in Walworth County 50 miles southwest of Milwaukee, exposed a pair of large suitcases. The overpowering odor of rotting flesh caused the highway employee to notify the police.

     Each of the suitcases contained badly decomposed bodies of two women. Through dental records the authorities identified the women as 37-year-old Laura Simonson, and 21-year-old Jenny Gamez. The forensic pathologist, due to the condition of the bodies, could not establish their causes of death. Neither woman, however, had been shot.

     One of Laura Simonson's relatives reported the mother of seven from Farmington, Wisconsin missing on November 22, 2013. While her cause of death was unknown, before she died someone tied a rope around her neck. That person also stuffed a ball attached to a collar into her mouth. The gag collar looked like a device commonly used by sadomasochists in bondage/slave sexual activity. According to family members, Laura Simonson struggled with mental illness.

     No one had been looking for the younger woman, Jenny Gamez. According to her foster parents, she left their home in Cottage Grove, Oregon to start a new life. In 2008, as a fifteen-year-old, she gave birth to a son. The baby's father in 2010 gained full custody of the child. In keeping with the sadomasochistic theme of the case, someone had tied Gamez's hands behind her back.

     On June 27, 2014. police officers arrested 52-year-old Steven M. Zelich at his home in West Allis, Wisconsin. Mr. Zelich had been seen with each woman on separate occasions in Wisconsin and Minnesota. A Wisconsin prosecutor charged him with two counts of hiding a corpse.

     In 1989, the then 27-year-old Zelich started working in West Allis as a police officer. Three years later, following an off-duty altercation with a prostitute, the chief of police forced him to resign. Since 2007 Mr. Zelich had been an employee of a contract security guard company.

     Zelich's sexual tastes, in light of evidence of bondage associated with the bodies in the suitcases, led detectives to suspect he was the last person to see these women alive. On a bondage and sadomasochism website he solicited sexual partners with the following message: "Seeking no limit enslavement, imprisonment, captivity, animalization ideally in a farm/caged situation."

     Following his arrest, Steven  Zelich told detectives he met the 21-year-old Gamez through the sex website. In November of 2013, he spent several nights with her in a Kenosha County Hotel where they had sadomasochistic sex that included bondage. Upon her accidental death in the course of this activity he stuffed her body into a suitcase and took the corpse home.

     After connecting with the 37-year-old Laura Simonson through the sadomasochistic Internet site, she and Zelich engaged in bondage sex at the Microtel Inn & Suites in Rochester, Minnesota. This took place on November 21, 2013. Simonson had checked into the motel under her own name but never checked out. After she died while having sex with him, Zelich placed her body into a suitcase that ended up in his house with the other corpse.

     In late May or early June 2014, Zelich dumped the suitcases along the road in Geneva, Wisconsin. According to Zelich's attorney, the women as willing participants in rough sex died accidentally. By dumping the suitcases along the road Zelich wanted the bodies to be discovered. The attorney did not believe that homicide charges in this case would be appropriate.

     In January 2016, Steven Zelich pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree homicide as well as one count of hiding a corpse. The judge, in March 2016, sentenced him to 35 years in prison.

The Forgotten Inmate

       The Dona Ana County Jail is in Las Cruces, New Mexico in the south central part of the state not far from the Mexican border. In August 2005, a driving while intoxicated and receiving stolen property arrestee named Stephen Slevin was placed into the 846-cot lockup. The 51-year-old, because of his history of mental illness was segregated from the jail population. For reasons that defy understanding, Mr. Slevin remained in solitary confinement until his release in June 2007. After having him in custody for 22 months, the local prosecutor dropped the charges against the so-called "forgotten inmate." (Had he been truly forgotten, the inmate would have starved to death. Since someone fed this isolated prisoner for 22 months, jail personnel knew of his situation. So how did this happen?)

     The "forgotten" prisoner entered the Dona Ana County Jail in relatively good health, mentally and physically. He left the place weighting 133 pounds with bed sores and rotten teeth. (During his incarceration he pulled out his own abscessed tooth.) Slevin also walked out of the facility suffering from post-traumatic stress.

     Attorney Matthew Coyte, in December 2008, filed a civil rights suit on Slevin's behalf against Dana Ana County, New Mexico. County authorities fought the suit but at Slevin's civil rights trial in March 2012, the jury awarded the plaintiff $22 million. Fighting the case had been an obvious mistake. The county appealed the award on grounds the damages were excessive.

     In March 2013, the Dona Ana County Board of Commissioners dropped the appeal and settled the case. The county agreed to pay the "forgotten inmate" $15.5 million.

     The settlement resolved the civil side of the case. But what about the criminal aspect of Slevin's 22-month wrongful imprisonment? The bureaucrats responsible for this man's ordeal were clearly guilty of a degree of reckless indifference that was criminal. But holding government employees responsible for malfeasance is extremely difficult. The nature of bureaucracy protects incompetent practitioners by making it almost impossible to pinpoint wrongdoing to any one person.

     Had Stephen Slevin been falsely imprisoned in a private sector facility, corrections personnel would be serving prison sentences.

     If Mr. Slevin, months into his hellish confinement, had committed suicide this would have been a homicide case. The taxpayers of Dona Ana County had to foot the bill for this stunning example of governmental negligence, but no public employee was held criminally culpable for this inexplicable corrections fiasco. 

The Levi Norwood Murder Case

     In 2020, 37-year-old Joshua Norwood lived in a home on Elk Road in Midland, Virginia with his 34-year-old wife Jennifer and their two sons, Wyatt, 6 and and 17-year-old Levi. The family moved to Virginia from Maine in 2010. Mr. Norwood had been a sales representative. His wife Jennifer was a licensed nurses's assistant.

     At six o'clock in the evening of February 14, 2020, Joshua Norwood called 911 and reported that he had just arrived home and found that his wife and his 6-year-old son had been shot to death. Shortly after entering the house someone in the dwelling had shot and wounded Mr. Norwood in the head. Armed with his own gun he fired back. He didn't see the shooter but believed the bullet that struck him had been fired from the doorway leading into his basement. Mr. Norwood ran out of the house.

     The 911 operator dispatched an ambulance and officers with the Fauquier County Sheriff's Office to the scene.

     As Joshua Norwood was transported to a nearby hospital in stable condition, deputies, thinking that the other son, 17-year-old Levi Norwood may have been the shooter and was barricaded in the dwelling, surrounded the house.

     At ten-fifteen that night police officers forcibly entered the Norwood house. Inside they found the bodies of Jennifer and Wyatt Norwood but not Levi. They searched the house and did not find the murder weapon. 

     Officers placed the immediate neighborhood on lockdown and instituted a search for the five-foot-nine, 125 pound suspect with his hair dyed purple. Since the teen did not have access to a vehicle, officers assumed he was on foot. 

     The next day, Saturday, February 15, 2020, a teenager meeting Levi Norwood's description was seen driving a 2007 red Toyota Camry that had been stolen that morning from a home about ten miles from the murder scene.

     At four o'clock that day a security guard at a Target store on Chapel Hill Boulevard in Durham, North Carolina caught a teenage boy with purple hair stealing hair dye, items of clothing and a backpack. The shoplifter was identified as Levi Norwood. The stolen Toyota was parked outside the store.

     Officers with the Durham Police Department ran Levi's name through a national fugitive database and learned that the teen was wanted in connection with a double homicide in Midland, Virginia. Police officers booked Livi Norwood into a local jail where he was held for extradition back to Fauquier County, Virginia.

     On Sunday, February 16, 2020, a television reporter questioned a Norwood family member named Victoria Eaton who said the violence at the Norwood house was not something she thought Levi Norwood was capable of, describing the act as "totally out of his character." She also said, " It doesn't make any sense" and noted that Levi had a difficult home life.

     Levi Norwood was a junior at Liberty High School in Bealton, Virginia. Local reporters spoke to several of his classmates who identified Levi's parents as racists who didn't like black people. Moreover, his father had been extremely upset over the fact Levi had been dating a black girl.

     In August 2022, Levi Norwood pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder of his mother and second-degree murder of his brother, Wyatt. The judge in January 2023 sentenced him to life in prison plus 40 years, but under Virginia law, because he was 17 at the time of the murders he would be eligible for parole in 20 years. 

Team Stomping and Kicking

     California University of Pennsylvania sits on 290 acres in California Borough 35 miles south of downtown Pittsburgh. A good number of its students came from southwestern Pennsylvania. (California University is now part of the three-campus Penn West University made up of Edinboro and Clarion Universities.)

     Shortly after midnight on Thursday October 30, 2014, California University student Shareese Asparagus, a 22-year-old from West Chester, Pennsylvania, walked out of a restaurant on Wood Street in the college town. She was with her 30-year-old boyfriend, Lewis Campbell, also from West Chester. He did not attend the university.

     The trouble started outside the restaurant when a California University football player, accompanied by four of his teammates, said something to the young woman that offended her. This led to an exchange of angry words that prompted Lewis Campbell to step in to defend his girlfriend.

     The football players reacted to the situation by punching and kicking Mr. Campbell to the pavement. As he lay injured on the ground, the assailants kicked and stomped him into unconsciousness. As the teammates strolled away from their battered victim, they chanted, "football strong!"

     As paramedics loaded Mr. Campbell into a medical helicopter they noticed a shoe print on his face. Emergency personnel flew the unconscious man to Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh where physicians determined that the lower part of Mr. Campbell's brain had shifted 80 degrees. The beating had caused the victim serious brain damage.

     Later on the day of the gang assault in front of the off-campus restaurant, as Mr. Campbell lay in the intensive care unit, police officers showed up at football practice armed with arrest warrants for four California University players. Taken into custody that afternoon were: James Williamson, 20, from Parkville, Maryland; Corey Ford, 22, from Harrisburg, Rodney Gillin, 20, from West Lawn, Pennsylvania; and D'Andre Dunkley, 19, from Philadelphia.

     Police officers booked the four college football players into the Washington County Correctional Facility on charges of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, harassment and conspiracy. The judge set each man's bail at $500,000.

     On Friday October 31, 2014, interim California University President Geraldine M. Jones issued the following statement: "California University does not tolerate violent behavior, and the four student-athletes charged in connection with this incident [incident?] will face university sanctions, along with any penalties imposed by law. The police investigation is continuing and the rights of these accused will be upheld. But in light of these allegations, I asked Coach Keller to cancel Saturday's game [with Gannon University]. Behavior has consequences, and all Cal U students, including student-athletes, must abide by our Student Code of Conduct if they wish to remain a part of our campus community. [Aggravated assault hardly falls into the category of a college code of conduct violation.] At the same time, it must be clearly understood that the actions [crimes] of a small group of individuals are not representative of our entire student body, nor of all Cal U student-athletes. [Then what do these "actions" represent?] I ask our entire campus community to recommit to our university's core values, and to demonstrate through their words and their actions the best that our university can be."

      This was a mealy-mouthed public relations department response to a vicious attack worthy of a violent street gang. Where was the outrage in this statement?

     The charges against James Williamson were dropped after surveillance footage revealed that he had not participated in the beating. In response, Williamson filed a lawsuit against the district attorney, the police and the borough. The lawsuit was later dismissed.

     After doctors placed Lewis Campbell into an induced coma, he was discharged several days later with serious brain injuries. 

     Corey Ford, on June 7, 2016, pleaded no contest to assault. He received, in return, a sentence of one to two years in prison. (Ford had earlier pleaded guilty to a hit-and-run that killed a bicyclist in Washington, D.C. In that case the judge had sentenced him to 36 months in federal prison.)

     In July 2016, Rodney Gillin and D'Andre Dunkley, in return for their guilty pleas, received sentences of probation.  

Amish-Mennonite Pastor Kenneth Miller's Underground Railroad

     Lisa Miller, as a teenager and young woman in Virginia, struggled with an addiction to pills and alcohol. She also participated in self-mutilation. After a failed marriage and a suicide attempt, Lisa began dating women.

     In 1997, Lisa Miller met Janet Jenkins at an alcoholics anonymous meeting in Falls Church, Virginia. They became a couple, and in 2000 traveled to Vermont, the first state to offer homosexuals civil unions, to get married. The pair, after being civilly united by a judge, adopted the surname Miller-Jenkins and in 2002 bought a two-story house in a small southern Vermont town called Fair Haven.

     On April 16, 2002, after becoming pregnant through in vitro fertilization, Lisa, at age 34, gave birth to Isabella. But in September 2003 when Isabella was 17-months-old, Lisa and Janet split-up. After the break in the relationship a family court judge in Vermont granted Janet regular child visitation rights.

     In 2008, after trying but failing to terminate her former partner's visitation rights, Lisa Miller moved to Lynchburg, Virginia where a Christian anti-gay marriage activist named Janet Stasulli befriended her. Lisa, under Stasulli's guidance and influence, became a born-again Christian, and pursuant to her new religious beliefs denounced homosexuality as a sin. In October 2009, the family court judge in Vermont granted Janet Jenkins primary custody of Isabella.

     Kenneth Miller (no relation to Lisa), a 43-year-old Beachy Amish-Mennonite pastor from Stuarts Draft, Virginia, a town of 9,000 30 miles north of Lynchburg, conceived of a plan to get Lisa and Isabella out of the country to keep the 7-year-old out of the custody of a lesbian parent. On September 21, 2009, Philip Zodhiates, an evangelical leader and owner of a Lynchburg Christian direct-mail company drove Lisa and her daughter to Buffalo, New York. Shortly after midnight the mother and daughter crossed the boarder into Canada in a taxi. They were met on the other side by a Canadian evangelical pastor named Ervin Horst who drove Lisa and Isabella, disguised in long skirts and head scarves of the type worn by the Amish-Mennonites, to the Toronto airport. Later that day the fleeing mother and daughter flew to Managua, Nicaragua. 

     Pastor Kenneth Miller, indicted by a federal grand jury sitting in Burlington, Vermont for the offense of abetting an international parental kidnapping, went on trial on August 8, 2012. If convicted the Amish-Mennonite leader faced up to three years in prison.

     Fifty Amish-Mennonite supporters looked on as the Assistant United States Attorney, Eugenia Cowles and defense attorney Joshua M. Autry made their opening remarks to the jury. According to the defense version of the case, Pastor Miller did not know that by leaving the country Lisa Miller was violating a lawful child visitation order. Defense attorney Autry argued that his client, therefore, did not possess the requisite criminal intent to obstruct the court-order giving Janet Jenkins primary custody of the child.

     Federal prosecutor Cowles told the jurors that Pastor Miller selected Nicaragua as the point of destination because that country and the United States did not have an extradition treaty. Moreover, the preacher made sure to book a flight from Canada to Mexico that didn't touch down in America.

     Philip Zodhiates, Janet Stasulli and Ervin Horst, the evangelists the defendant called upon to carry out his anti-homosexual underground escape, took the stand as reluctant prosecution witnesses. Isabella's custody parent, Janet Jenkins, testified she hadn't seen the girl since January 2009, eight months before the evangelists snuck her out of the country. The government rested its case on August 12. 2012.

     Defense attorney Joshua Autry put on a pair of character witnesses then rested his case without bringing Pastor Miller to the stand to testify on his own behalf. On August 14, 2012, the jury, after deliberating four hours, found the defendant guilty of abetting international parental kidnapping. Outside the federal building a group of 100 Amish-Mennonite supporters stood around singing gospel hymns. Pastor Miller remained free on bail until his sentencing.

     Just hours after the verdict. Janet Jenkins filed a civil lawsuit against Philip Zodhiates, Ervin Horst and Janet Stasulli, the people who helped Pastor Miller kidnap her custody child.

     On March 14, 2013, the federal district judge sentenced Pastor Miller to 27 months in prison. The Paster would not, however, begin his sentence until a federal appeals court reviewed and ruled on the case.

     On October 8, 2014, federal prosecutors charged Philip Zodhiates with conspiracy and international parental kidnapping for his role in the abduction. Zodhiates pleaded not guilty to the charges.

     In March 2017, after being convicted as charged, the federal judge sentenced Mr. Zodhiates to 36 months in prison.

     Pastor Kenneth Miller lost his appeal in February 2016 and a month later was sentenced to 27 months in prison. In April 2018, after serving just under two years in federal custody, Pastor Miller was released from custody.