The Unraveling of Dr. Timothy Jorden

     Dr. Timothy Jorden, a 49-year-old trauma surgeon at the Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo, New York, lived in a suburban luxury home overlooking Lake Erie. After high school, a stint in the U.S. Army, and college, the clean-cut ex-military weapons specialist graduated from the University of Buffalo Medical School. In 2004, he was certified by the American Board of Surgery. His colleagues at the Erie County Medical Center considered Dr. Jorden a gifted surgeon who had saved several lives. Dr. Jorden epitomized achievement and success.

     Dr. Jorden's grip on reality and the good life began slipping away after his live-in girlfriend, 33-year-old Jacqueline Wisnieski, an administrative assistant at the hospital, moved out of his house in Lake View, New York. Believing that Dr. Jorden was having affairs with other women, Wisnieski broke off the relationship. The doctor refused to accept this new reality.

     Dr. Jorden, following the break-up, began stalking Wisnieski, and at one point, held her hostage at knife point in her home for a day and a half. (She apparently didn't report this assault and kidnapping to the police.) The obsessed and disturbed physician attached a GPS tracking device to Wisnieski's car to keep tabs on her. At this point, Wisnieski confided to another doctor that she feared for her life. (This was probably the reason she didn't notify the authorities. Who would believe this woman over the word of a successful surgeon?)

     By June 2012, Dr. Jorden, uncharacteristically unkempt, sporting a shaggy beard, and 75 pounds lighter, was showing physical signs that he was slipping into some kind of dementia. To his friends and fellow employees, he seemed depressed, preoccupied, and distracted. On Wednesday, June 13, 2012, the doctor arrived at work carrying a shotgun and a .357-Magnum revolver. He somehow lured Wisnieski into the hospital basement where, in the stairwell, he shot her five times at close range.

     After killing his ex-girlfriend, the deranged physician drove home, arriving at the Lake View house 30 minutes after the murder. Four minutes later, he came out of his house and entered a path that led into the woods behind the dwelling. (This was caught on his home video surveillance system.) It was here, in a patch of thick brush, that the surgeon put his .357-Magnum to his head and pulled the trigger.

     Back at the hospital, police combed the complex for the doctor, unaware that he lay dead in the woods overlooking Lake Erie. The next day, a SWAT team and a canine unit searched the doctor's property without finding his body. On Friday morning, June 15, 2012, police officers, acting on a tip from one of Dr. Jorden's neighbors who said he had heard a gun go off Wednesday morning behind the doctor's house, found his body. Dr. Jorden did not leave a suicide note.

     Dr. Jorden's acquaintances recalled how in the days preceding the murder, he had given away personal belongings to friends and family. On the day before he killed Jacqueline Wisnieski, Dr. Jorden withdrew $30,000 from his bank account.

     In cases where prominent, respected people shock the community by committing murder, the media focuses almost entirely on the killer. The reportage is usually laden with quotes from friends and colleagues who can't believe this person was capable of such an act. While the victim's friends and family were also wondering how this had happened, most of the media angst was about the loss of this special person to the community. The victim's story, as is often the case, is left untold. 

Officer Shoots Arrestee Who Grabbed His Taser

     Late on the night of November 16, 2014, in Inverness, Florida, Citrus County Deputy Sheriff Jacob Chenoweth responded to a disturbance call in a trailer park involving a woman trying to set fire to a neighbor's truck. When Deputy Chenoweth arrived at the scene, the officer, with four years on the force, encountered 46-year-old Dawn Renee Cameron.

     Citrus County deputies had arrested Cameron five months earlier for violating her parole on a grand theft conviction. Cameron's arrest record also included charges of domestic violence, drug possession, and burglary.

     When officer Chenoweth informed Cameron that she was under arrest, she took a swing at him and missed. With the arrestee's arm wrapped around the deputy's neck, the officer used a leg sweep that dropped them both to the ground where they continued to struggle with Cameron reaching for the officer's firearm and taser.

     Before officer Chenoweth was able to place the resisting woman into handcuffs, she jumped to her feet, stood over him and yelled, "You done it now motherfucker! You're going to get it!" The threatened officer reached for his Taser and realized it wasn't in his possession. The arrestee had taken his stun gun and was pointed it at him. Officer Chenoweth responded by shooting Dawn Cameron three times. She was rushed to a local hospital where a few hours later, she died from her wounds.

     Pursuant to standard protocol, officer Jacob Chenoweth was placed on administrative leave pending the investigation of the fatal shooting by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

     Following the investigation of this police-involved shooting, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced that officer Chenoweth had not only been in danger of serious bodily injury from the Taser, the arrestee could have disabled him and gained possession of his firearm. As a result, the investigating agency concluded that officer Chenoweth's use of deadly force was justified.

     The Citrus County District Attorney, based upon the Florida Department of Law Enforcement report, decided not to press criminal charges against the officer.

     As it often happens in police-involved shooting cases, Dawn Cameron's family filed a wrongful death suit against officer Chenoweth in federal court. In June 2018, the district judge for the Middle District of Florida issued a summary judgment in favor of the defendant officer. The federal judge found the shooting, on its face, an "objectively reasonable" use of deadly force. 

Murder Cities

 Since 1957, 40,000 people have been the victims of criminal homicide in the city of Chicago. This figure does not include criminal homicides that were never reported. In the past few years the annual number of criminal homicides in Chicago dropped. Recently, however, violent death in Chicago has been on the increase. As long as big city politicians continue to not support their own police departments, violent crime in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Atlanta, Seattle, and St. Louis will continue to increase, and significantly. Cities will not be safe places to live.

Criminal Gangs

According to the FBI, there are 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs active in the United States. No wonder we have so much crime in this country.

The Editorial We

Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial "we."

Mark Twain

Talented Neurotics

The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis.

William Styron

Serial Rape, Cover-Ups, And Passing The Trash

     On August 14, 2018, authorities released a historic 900-page grand jury report involving 70 years of child molestation by 300 priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses. According to the grand jury investigation, the case involves more than 1,000 victims. (A vast majority of these church pedophiles cannot be prosecuted because the cases are old and the suspects are protected by the statute of limitations.) The cases exposed by this grand jury report reflect the tip of the Catholic Church child molestation problem.

     An excerpt from the report: "Yet another priest finally decided to quit after years of child abuse complaints, but asked for, and received, a letter of reference for his next job--at Walt Disney World." 

What Happened to Lauren Spierer?

     In 2011, Lauren Spierer, a 20-year-old fashion merchandising major from Edgemont, New York, attended Indiana University at Bloomington. She resided in the Smallwood Apartment complex located in downtown Bloomington.

     Just before midnight on June 2, 2011, Spierer and a friend showed up at a party hosted by an Indiana student named Jay Rosenbaum. At 1:46 in the morning, Spierer left Rosenbaum's apartment with another student, Corey Rossman. A short time later, Rossman and Spierer were seen entering Kilroy's Sports Bar in downtown Bloomington. A surveillance camera, at 2:27 AM, caught Rossman and Spierer leaving the bar together.  She was visibly inebriated to the point of being severely incapacitated. (There is the possibility that Spierer, who suffered from an irregular heartbeat condition called Q T Syndrome, had been given Xanax or cocaine at Rosenbaum's party, or at the bar.)

     Shortly after entering the Smallwood Apartment complex with Rossman, the two students ran into Zachary Oakes, also a student at Indiana University. Oakes didn't like what he saw, and following an angry exchange of words between the two men, Oakes punched Rossman to the floor. Following the altercation, Rossman was seen carrying the incapacitated Spierer to his apartment building. (Rossman, when questioned by detectives, claimed he had no memory whatsoever of the night in question. He said he didn't recall his fight with Oakes.)

     Corey Rossman's roommate, Mike Beth, later told detectives that after Rossman arrived at the apartment with the girl that night, Beth helped Rossman to his bed. According to Beth, he next walked Spierer down the hall to Jay Rosenbaum's apartment, the site of that night's party.

     When questioned by investigators, Rosenbaum said he had non-student guests staying with him that weekend. He claimed to have offered to put Spierer up for the night on his couch. According to Rosenbaum, the girl refused his hospitality. At 4:30 AM, Rosenbaum said he stood on his balcony and watched Spierer begin the six-minute walk to her apartment at the Smallwood complex.

     Jesse Wolff, Lauren Spierer's boyfriend, told detectives that sometime that morning, he sent Spierer a text message. The reply to his message came from an employee of Kilroy's who said the girl had hours earlier left the bar without her cellphone. Wolff called 911 and reported her missing.

     Two years after the mysterious and suspicious disappearance of the University of Indiana student, detectives with the Bloomington Police Department were still investigating the case as a missing persons matter rather than a homicide. Rob and Charlene Spierer, the missing girl's parents, wanted the authorities to keep pressuring Jay Rosenbaum, Mike Beth, Corey Rossman, and Jesse Wolff--so-called persons of interest in the case--for more details regarding their activities that night. The parents also wanted the four students to stop "hiding behind their attorneys" and submit to polygraph tests.

     In speaking to a reporter with the Westchester, New York Journal-News, Rob Spierer said, "I feel if she [his daughter] never met Corey Rossman, she'd be alive today." (From this it is obvious that the missing girl's father thought she had been murdered and her body disposed of.) Later, Mr. Spierer said this to a reporter: "We still believe that [Lauren] may not have left Corey [Rossman's] and Mike [Beth's] or Jay [Rosenbaum's] apartment."

     In May 2013, Robert and Charlene Spierer filed a civil suit against Corey Rossman, Mike Beth, and Jay Rosenbaum. The plaintiffs, through Indianapolis attorney Larry A. Mackey, a former federal prosecutor who has been involved in several high-profile cases, alleged that their daughter's status was the result of the defendants' negligence which included having supplied the underage Lauren with drugs and alcohol. By forcing the defendants to testify in a civil trial, the parents hoped to learn more about what happened to Lauren that night.

     In July 2013, attorneys representing Beth, Rosenbaum, and Rossman asked a federal judge in Indianapolis to dismiss the wrongful death suit against their clients. According to these lawyers, Lauren Spierer's two-year disappearance wasn't enough evidence to legally presume she was dead. Under Indiana law, for a missing person to be declared legally deceased, this person must have been "inexplicably absent for a continuous period of seven years."

     The missing woman's mother, Charlene Spierer, in September 2013, in an effort to keep interest in her daughter's case alive, posted a newsletter on Facebook. In the letter, the distraught and frustrated parent discussed the family's struggle and urged anyone with information to come forward.

     Charlene Spierer, in addressing the people she believed were responsible for Lauren's disappearance and presumed death, wrote: "You know the answers to our questions. You are responsible for the tragedy surrounding Lauren's disappearance. What can be said that hasn't already been said? At times I think if I could make you feel some compassion, maybe, just maybe, you would send Lauren's location to the P. O. Box."

     "We have tried and tried to get answers. There have been awareness events, concerts, and interviews [the Spierers appeared on the TV show "Katie" and were interviewed for People Magazine]. We have handed out fliers, distributed thousands of bracelets, searched and searched with the help of hundreds of volunteers, throughout Bloomington and surrounding areas, without success. We have received and followed countless leads all of which have led disappointingly nowhere. What did you do as we waited, only to receive the crushing news that a lead had come up short? Has it given you pleasure or have you been relieved? Have we come close or are we still far from the truth?"

     In late October, 2013, Charlene Spierer learned that city officials had decided to take down the faded, outdoor missing person signs that had been posted around Bloomington since June 2011. According to a statement released by the city communications director, "For the many people who have felt the signs should have been taken down long ago, it's long overdue. For those who believe they should remain in place, no time was the right time to remove them. Posters about the case remain up throughout the campus and community, including in city government buildings, and police agencies continue to actively investigate."

     In December 2013, federal judge Tanya Walton Pratt, ruling on procedural issues, allowed Robert and Charlene Spierer's civil lawsuit against Jason Rosenbaum and Corey Rossman to go forward.The plaintiffs alleged that Rosenbaum and Rossman negligently provided Lauren with alcohol. Earlier in the month the judge dropped the suit against Michael Beth who was not seen with Lauren the night she disappeared.

    On September 30, 2014, the judge dismissed Robert and Charlene Spierer's suit against Rossman and Rosenbaum. The Spierer family attorney, Jason Barclay, told reporters he would appeal that ruling.  "I am heartbroken," he said, "that Rossman and Rosenbaum and their team of defense lawyers will not allow the Spierers to get a simple question answered: What happened to their daughter that night?"

     The Spierers won their appeal. In January 2015, federal judge Tanya Walton Pratt scheduled the civil trial for May 5, 2015.  Defendants Rosenbaum and Rossman stood accused of giving Lauren Spierer alcohol despite knowing she was intoxicated in violation of their "duty of care" to protect her.

     Attorneys for the defendants denied the "negligence per se" and "dram act" allegations. They pointed blame at the still missing college student and Killroy's Sports Bar in Bloomington. (The trial date for the civil trial was postponed and the case remains as of this writing, unresolved.)

     On March 18, 2015, Charlene Spierer took to Twitter to ask for information regarding the whereabouts of her daughter. It had been almost four years since she disappeared. The distraught mother wrote: "There are things I wish I could say but for the time being am prohibited from saying. Someday, all will be revealed. Some day the truth will be known and the guilty will be held accountable. I dream of the day I can say what I want to say to those responsible for the horrible, unconscionable tragedy that befell Lauren and changed our lives forever. Keep any eye out, eventually the bad guys DO get caught."

     In April 2015, a spokesperson for the Bloomington Police Department announced that a 49-year-old Bloomington man named Daniel Messel had been arrested for the recent murder of Indiana University senior Hannah Wilson. Wilson was last seen leaving Kilroy's, the same bar that Lauren Spierer had visited the night she disappeared. Wilson's body was found in a remote spot outside the city. She had been killed by blunt force trauma to the head. Daniel Messel's cell phone was found near the victim's body.

     In June 2015, a private investigative firm based in New York City, Beau Dietl & Associates, looked into the Wilson murder case on behalf of the Spierer family to determine if Messel could have also murdered Lauren Spierer.

     In January 2016, Beau Dietl announced that his investigators did not believe that the Wilson and the Spierer cases were connected.
   
     On June 3, 2016, the fifth year anniversary of the Spierer missing person case, a spokesperson for the Bloomington Police Department told reporters that detectives, over the years, had investigated more than 4,000 tips. The private investigative firm working for the Spierer family issued a statement revealing confidence that the family would someday get the closure they deserved.

     Daniel Messel, in July 2016, was found guilty of murdering Hannah Wilson. The judge sentenced Messel to 80 years in prison.

     In November 2017, Brown County prosecutor Ted Adams told reporters that he believed Daniel Messel may have been involved in Lauren Spierer's disappearance. (As of this writing, Messel has not been charged in connection with the Spierer case.)

     On June 3, 2020, nine years to the day after her disappearance, a family member, on the official Lauren Spierer Facebook page, wrote: "Do I think her disappearance was random? No, I do not. Do I think we will ever get the truth or find Lauren's remains? I don't know. Will we ever stop searching? No, we will not. Will Lauren ever be less a part of our family? No, she will not. We are all so fragile, this inner circle who knew and loved Lauren. No cure for the emptiness Lauren's disappearance has left in our hearts. So, for those responsible, how lucky you have been. Nine years of dead ends for our family. Nine years of freedom for you. It will always be that way. I hope that someday, someone will have a crisis of conscience and speak the truth. If not, well, you got away with it. Or did you?"

COVID-19 Advice For College Students

This fall, if you want to distance yourself from your fellow students, go to the library.

The Illustrated Book

     Before children learn to read, they learn to decipher pictures: smiling faces, furry animals, snowflakes. Even as they become fluid readers, using their imaginations to conjure images that the words leave out, that hunger for satisfying visuals never fades. Seductive color palettes, clever interplay of words and images, thoughtful paper craft--these are the factors that make illustrated books such desirable objects to read, touch and admire.

     Now more than ever, authors and illustrators are creating books that push readers' expectations. Sometimes it's unusual physical dimensions--luxuriously tall and broad, or satisfyingly chunky. Sometimes it's especially lavish illustrations. Sometimes it's whiz-bang pop-up art (or, as it's called now, "engineered paper").

Catherine Long, The New York Times Book Review, December 8, 2019