The Tracy Ingle SWAT Raid

     A narcotics officer with the North Little Rock (Arkansas) Police Department received information on December 20, 2007 that a woman known only as Kate was selling methamphetamine out of the house at 400 East 21st Street. The confidential informant who said he'd purchased meth there didn't know who owned the dwelling, if other people lived there, how much drug activity was going on at that location or anything about Kate other than she usually carried a gun. A judge, relying entirely on this sketchy report from a confidential informant, issued a nighttime no-knock warrant to search the house.

     At 7:40 PM, 17 days after the judge issued the warrant, Tracy Ingle, a 40-year-old former stonemason with a bad back was asleep in his first floor bedroom in the back of the house at 400 East 21st Street. Mr. Ingle awoke with a start at the sound of a SWAT battering ram breaking down his front door. He instinctively reached for his pistol, the unloaded and broken handgun he kept at his bedside to scare off intruders. This would not be the first time burglars had broken into his home. Suddenly, a flashbang grenade came though the window near his bed, filling the room with blinding light. The SWAT officer who climbed into the bedroom through the broken window yelled, "He's got a gun!" That's when the shooting started. The first bullet, fired from a .223-caliber semiautomatic rifle, tore into Ingle's left leg just above the knee. As he dropped to the floor, SWAT officers outside the window fired 20 more shots, hitting Ingle in the arm, calf, hip and chest. Moments later several officers were in the room. One of the officers kept referring to Ingle as Michael or Mike. Before being rushed to the Baptist Health Hospital Mr. Ingle said, "My name is not Mike."

     The police did not find methamphetamine or any other illegal drug at Tracy Ingle's house. They didn't find Kate, whoever she was, or any incriminating evidence in Ingle's car. They did seize a digital scale and a few baggies, common household items they designated as drug paraphernalia. Ingle's sister, a surgical nurse who made jewelry as a hobby, told the police the scale and baggies belonged to her.

     Because the police had broken into Ingle's house and shot him five times, then failed to find the drugs they had raided the house for, they had to charge him with something. And they did: two counts of aggravated assault for picking up the handgun in self defense, and felony possession of drug paraphernalia. The North Little Rock police, in the botched drug raid had almost killed a citizen who had never been convicted of a felony. Instead of apologizing for their shoddy, reckless work and overaggressive tactics, the authorities wanted to send Tracy Ingle to prison.

     Ten days after the shooting the hospital discharged Tracy Ingle from the intensive care unit. Police officers immediately picked him up and drove him to the police station. For the next six hours detectives grilled Ingle without an attorney present. From the interrogation room they hauled him to the Pulaski County Jail where they booked him, still in his hospital-issued clothing. When they released  Mr. Ingle four days later (he had sold his car to make bail) his wounds had become infected because he had been unable to change his bandages every six hours.

     The internal affairs investigation of the shooting cleared the two SWAT officers who had shot Mr. Ingle of wrongdoing. Seeing the gun in Ingle's hand they had responded appropriately. Responsibility for this drug enforcement fiasco rested on the shoulders of the case detective and the judge who had signed the no-knock search warrant. Ingle, who couldn't afford to hire a lawyer, finally caught a break in May when John Wesley Hall, a well-known Arkansas defense attorney, agreed to represent him.

     In an April 2008 interview conducted by a reporter with the Arkansas Times, North Little Rock Chief of Police Danny Bradley spoke about the department's SWAT team, officer safety and police militarism. Because North Little Rock was a small city of 50,000 the SWAT team was made up of 12 to 15 regular-duty patrolmen and detectives assigned to the squad part time. These officers trained for the position twice a month. The chief said he deployed the unit only in high-risk situations. "If we have any doubts about detectives and uniformed officers being able to execute the warrant safely we're going to use the SWAT team. I would rather spend the extra money that it takes to get the SWAT team together than risk someone getting injured."

     Chief Bradley, regarding nighttime no-knock home invasions such as the one that got Tracy Ingle shot and almost killed, said, "How do you weigh a situation where executing a warrant safely means exploiting the element of surprise, versus the natural reaction of a person when someone is intruding into his house? It's a dangerous business." The chief allowed that he didn't like the phrase "war on drugs" because he didn't want his officers thinking they were soldiers, and drug suspects their enemy. In that regard he had worked to eliminate some of the militaristic trappings of the force. For example, he had switched his regular patrol officers out of their "fatigue-looking" uniforms.

     Tracy Ingle's attorney, on September 8, 2008, filed a motion to suppress the evidence against his client. John Wesley Hall argued that owing to the vagueness of the informant's report the warrant authorizing the raid lacked sufficient probable cause, which rendered the evidence against Ingle inadmissible. Moreover, had there been sufficient probable cause in the first place, it had been severely attenuated by the 17-day delay in the warrant's execution. In other words, the evidence had grown stale. (Under Arkansas law, search warrants must be served within a reasonable time, but not more than 60 days after issue.)

     The judge denied attorney Hall's motion, and in March 2009 a jury found Tracy Ingle guilty of maintaining a drug house and of felony assault. The judge sentenced him to 18 years in prison and fined him $18,000. Tracy Ingle took his case to the Arkansas Court of Appeals which on May 12, 2010 affirmed his conviction.

Jill Hansen: The Hawaiian Road Menace

     Jill Anjuli Hansen, a 30-year-old resident of Honolulu's Maunalani Heights neighborhood aspired to become a professional surfer. Hansen also claimed to be a model and owner of a swimsuit line. But in her community, if Hansen was known for anything it was for being a violence-prone woman who drove like a maniac.

     In 2010 Hanson was convicted twice for speeding. A year later police caught her driving without a license and car insurance. Local officers arrested her three times in 2014 for speeding, including driving 72 in a 35-MPH zone. The Maunalani Heights Neighborhood Watch Group's 500 members were aware of Hansen and her reckless driving habit. A representative of the group reportedly said: "We need everybody to be on the lookout for her, it's that scary. Two people were almost run over by her. One person had a head-on collision with Hansen."

     On April 18, 2014 Honolulu police officers arrested Jill Hansen on a charge of third-degree assault. The judge in that case ordered her to undergo mental evaluation. (According to Hansen's father she had solicited someone to murder him on Facebook. As a result, he obtained a restraining order against her.)

     On Wednesday, May 14, 2014, in the Diamond Head section of Waikiki, 73-year-old Elizabeth Conklin got out of her BMW 328 Wagon in the parking garage of her apartment complex. As Conklin walked away from her vehicle, Jill Hansen, who had followed her into the parking area, slammed her gray Volkswagen Passat into the woman, knocking her twenty feet.

     Following the impact, Jill Hansen climbed out of her VW and walked over to the injured woman who was writhing in pain on the garage floor. Instead of calling 911 Hansen returned to her car, climbed in and was about to take another run at the downed woman when a building employee named Chris Khory grabbed a crow bar and smashed out Hansen's back window.

     Mr. Khory's timely intervention caused Hansen to get out of her Volkswagen and flee the scene on foot. Paramedics rushed the victim to a nearby hospital where doctors treated Conklin for numerous cuts and bruises.

     At the hospital, the victim told police officers that the attack was not the result of an earlier road-rage incident. She believed her attacker followed her home with the intent of stealing her car. "I parked in my normal parking place," she said. "I got out and all of a sudden woke up in an ambulance. She saw my car, it was the car she wanted. She followed me and was going to kill me to get the car."

     An hour or so after running down Elizabeth Conklin in the Waikiki parking garage, Jill Hansen was on her computer updating her Facebook page with a photograph of the victim's BMW. She also informed her Facebook friends and readers that she had just been accepted into the Association of Surfing Professionals. "I am becoming a professional!" she wrote. "I have worked soooo hard to get to where I am today. I am so grateful for the support of surfers and the ASP."

     Police officers arrested Jill Hansen at her apartment seven hours after she intentionally plowed into the 73-year-old victim. Officers booked the suspect into jail on the charge of attempted murder. The judge set her bail at $1 million.

     In August 2014 the authorities charged Hansen while she awaited her attempted murder trial at the Women's Correctional Center in Kailua, with violating the protection order acquired by her father. (I'm not sure how she managed this while in custody.)

     Circuit Judge Richard Perkins, on September 25, 2014, following a series of psychiatric evaluations of Hansen found her mentally unfit to stand trial. The judge ordered her to undergo treatment at a local mental health facility.

    After regaining her connection to reality through anti-psychotic medication, Jill Hansen went on trial in Honolulu on the charge of second-degree attempted murder in the Conklin case. She waived her right to a jury in favor of a so-called bench trial where the judge determines issues of law and fact.

     The principal witnesses during Hansen's 4-day trial on August 23, 2015 involved three mental health experts brought to the stand by the defendant's attorney, Victor Bakke. The psychiatrists, pursuant to Hansen's insanity defense, testified that she had tried to kill the victim while suffering from a psychosis that had rendered her incapable of distinguishing right from wrong. She had therefore been incapable of forming the requisite criminal intent.

     On August 27, 2015 Judge Richard Perkins found Jill Hansen, due to her state of mind at the time of the assault, not criminally responsible. Instead of prison, she was sent to a state hospital where she would remain until her doctors determine she could be safely released back into society.

     Jill Hansen was released from the mental hospital sometime in 2018.

The Frank Crash Murder Case

     Frank R. Crash was the proverbial big fish in a small pond. He owned and operated an auto wrecking company in his hometown of Greenville, a western Pennsylvania town of 6,000 eighty miles north of Pittsburgh. Located on the Shenago River in Mercer County, Greenville was home to Thiel College.

     In the 1960s and 70s Frank Crash, a 1956 graduate of the former Penn High School, raced dirt track sprint cars and snowmobiles. His wife Carol Lee passed away in December 2009. Frank's two daughters, Pam Higbee and Susan Brenneman, also lived in Greenville. Frank resided by himself in a house on Mercer Road in Hempfield Township just south of Greenville across the street from a restaurant and golf course.

     At 10:30 PM on Wednesday, July 24, 2013, Mr. Crash left the Hickory Grill in nearby Hermitage. At nine-thirty the next morning, when the 76-year-old didn't show up for work, his daughter Pam went to his house to check on him. She found her father lying dead in a pool of blood in the kitchen. It appeared that Mr. Crash had been stabbed to death.

     Death scene investigators found blood trails and blood spatter patterns throughout the dwelling. The telephone had been ripped from the wall. Next to the corpse lay a smashed cellphone. The intruder, who had entered the house forcefully through the back sliding glass door had stolen an undisclosed amount of cash and a 4-carat solitaire diamond ring.

     In nearby Erie, Pennsylvania forensic pathologist Eric Vey, on Friday July 27, 2013, published the results of his autopsy. Frank Crash had been stabbed 76 times by a knife or pair of scissors. The victim's heart and lungs had been punctured many times in what Dr. Vey labeled a criminal homicide.

     Mercer County District Attorney Robert C. Kochems, on July 31, 2013 issued a press release on the status of the Crash homicide investigation. According to the prosecutor the authorities did not have a suspect.

     On November 6, 2014 District Attorney Kochems announced that 33-year-old Tracey Lin Hassel from nearby Hermitage, Pennsylvania had been charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, robbery and burglary in the Crash murder case. (Second-degree murder--in Pennsylvania the felony-murder doctrine--carried a sentence of life in prison.) Burglary and robbery were felonies that brought up to 20 years in prison. The penalty for third-degree murder in Pennsylvania was 20 to 40 years behind bars.

     According to the Mercer County prosecutor, Yracy Lin Hassel, who knew the victim, broke into his home to steal money so she could bail her boyfriend out of jail. After stabbing Mr. Crash 76 times the suspect stole the diamond ring off his finger and cash from his pockets.

     Hassel, with a criminal record, was serving time at the state prison in Muncy, Pennsylvania. She had been convicted in February 2015 of several counts of burglary and robbery.

     On September 13, 2016, on the day the Crash murder trial was set to begin, Tracey Hassel pleaded guilty to third-degree murder. As part of the plea deal she would serve her murder sentence along with the 7 to 21 year sentence she was serving for her previous burglaries and robberies. Regarding the Crash murder case, the judge denied her credit for the two years she had served awaiting trial.

Abortion Doctor Ulrich George Klopfer And His Dead Fetuses

     Ulrich Klopfer was born in 1940 in Dresden, Germany. He came to the United States in 1952 with his family. Klopfer attended high school in Bloomfield, Michigan and upon graduation became a naturalized U.S. citizen. 

     In 1963, Ulrich Klopfer, now going by his middle name George, graduated from Wayne State College in Detroit with a degree in organic chemistry. He graduated from the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1971.

     In 1974 Dr. Klopfer opened an abortion clinic in South Bend, Indiana. In June 2014, a prosecutor in St. Joseph County, Indiana charged him with the misdemeanor offense of failing to file a timely report with the state regarding an abortion he had performed on a 13-year-old girl in South Bend. (Indiana state law required doctors to report every abortion within six months of the procedure.) After Dr. Klopfer agreed to complete a re-education program the prosecution dropped the charge.

     Also in 2014 Dr. Klopfer performed an abortion on a 10-year-old girl who had been raped by her uncle. After the procedure she went home with her parents who obviously knew she had been sexually assaulted. Neither Dr. Klopfer nor the girl's parents reported the rape to the police.

     The Indiana State Department of Health, in 2015, revoked the abortion clinic's license for violating the state's regulation regarding the registry of patients, and for failing to provide documentation that the clinic provided patients with state-mandated patient counseling at least 18 hours before an abortion.

     In November 2016 the Indiana Medical Licensing Board revoked Dr. Klopfer's medical license for failing to ensure that qualified staff was present when patients received or recovered from medications given before and during abortion procedures. By then Dr. Klopfer was no longer practicing. He informed the medical licensing panel that during his 43 years of performing abortions he had terminated 30,000 pregnancies without losing a patient.

     On September 3, 2019 Dr. Ulrich Klopfer died at the age of 75. Members of his family, on September 12, called the local authorities after finding, in his Crete Township, Illinois garage, 2,246 medically preserved fetal remains. The dead fetuses were turned over to the Will County, Illinois Coroner's Office for proper handling.  There was no evidence that Dr. Klopfer had performed abortions at his home.

     In May 2016, Indiana enacted a law that required the burial or cremation of fetal remains produced by abortions. Prior to that law abortion clinics in Indiana turned the dead fetuses over to processors who disposed of human tissues and other medical byproducts.

     The Will County Sheriff's Office, on September 14, 2019, opened an investigation into Dr. Klopfer's possession of the fetal remains. 

     In December 2020 investigators reported that they had no clue as to why Dr. Klopfer's kept all those remains in his garage. The bodies were kept in moldy boxes and Styrofoam coolers and were preserved with formalin, a derivative of formaldehyde. According to the investigation, Dr. Klopfer had acted alone.

The Pyle Mansion Fire

     Donald Pyle and his wife Sandra lived on Childs Point Road in Annapolis, Maryland in a 16,000 square-foot waterfront mansion. The massive house, built on an eight-acre tract of land, featured seven bedrooms and as many bathrooms. Mr. Pyle, the chief operating officer of ScienceLogic, an information technology company located in Reston, Virginia, had grown up in Baltimore County north of the city. The 55-year-old had attended Delaney High School and graduated from the University of Delaware. Prior to accepting the position at ScienceLogic Donald Pyle had been the chief executive of IT companies in Pittsburgh and Annapolis.

     At three-thirty in the morning of Monday January 19, 2015 firefighters responded to what turned out to be a four-alarm fire at the Pyle mansion, a massive house referred to by neighbors as "The Castle." By the time 85 firefighters brought the blaze under control at seven that morning, the $6 million dwelling had been reduced to rubble in what had been an extremely hot fast-moving fire.

     Although rescue personnel were unable to immediately sort through the debris due to heat and unstable structural conditions, investigators believed Mr. and Mrs. Pyle and their four visiting grandchildren, all uncounted for, had died in the fire.

     The search for bodies and evidence of the fire's cause and origin--traces of accelerants, multiple points of origin and abnormal burn patterns--was conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and investigators with the Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office. Bomb and arson dogs as well as cadaver canines augmented the fire scene inquiry.

     Construction of the mansion had been completed in 2005 before the state mandated home sprinkler systems. Had it been otherwise the fire damage might have been minimal.

     On Wednesday evening January 21, 2015, fire investigators accompanied by a cadaver dog located the bodies of two people. Preliminary reports indicated the remains belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Pyle. The charred bodies were sent to the Maryland State Medical Examiner's Office for identification and autopsy. Fire investigators wanted to know, among other things, if the couple had been alive at the time of the fire.

     According to media reports there had been no police activity at the residence prior to the fire. Moreover, there was no record of lawsuits, financial trouble or marital discord associated with the family.

     The four missing children, Wes 6, Charlotte 8, Katie 7, and Lexi 8, were the offspring of Mrs. Pyle's two sons from a previous marriage. On Thursday January 22, searchers found two more bodies. The next day the authorities recovered the remains of another child. Searchers located the sixth and final body on Monday, January 26, 2015.

     The exterior of the Pyle mansion was built of stone in the tradition of a castle. Stone was used in the construction of the dwelling's interior as well. The fast development of the inferno, the extreme heat and the total destruction of the structure required an answer to how, in the context of an accident, the fire had started.

     Following an extensive fire scene investigation the authorities, months after the tragedy, determined that the source of the fire involved a corroded electrical outlet near the Christmas tree. The heat from the electrical short ignited the skirt beneath the tree. Flames shot up the 15-foot Frazer fir and spread quickly along the ceiling. Investigation revealed that while Mr. Pyle tried to extinguish the blaze his wife tried in vain to save the grandchildren. 

The Lois Riess Double Murder Case

     On March 23, 2018 in Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, Dodge County sheriff deputies went to the home of 59-year-old David Riess after his business partner reported that he hadn't seen him for two weeks. Riess's wife Lois had texted friends that Mr. Riess was not well and should not be bothered at home. At the Riess house police officers discovered David Riess's body. He had been shot to death with a .22-caliber gun that was not at the murder scene. Lois Riess was not in the house and no one knew where she was.

     A few days after the discovery of Mr. Riess' body Lois Riess began forging checks drawn on his bank account. The checks were cashed in south Florida.

     A few days after the discovery of Mr. Riess's body Dodge County, Minnesota prosecutor charged Mrs. Riess with the murder of her husband. At this point the missing 56-year-old murder suspect became known in the local media as "The Grandma Fugitive."

     While hiding in Fort Myers, Florida Lois Riess met Pamela Hutchinson, a woman who looked a lot like her. The 54-year-old Hutchinson lived in Bradenton, Florida but was staying in a hotel in Fort Myers where she had traveled to visit a friend.

     On April 5, 2018 Lois Riess shot Pamela Hutchinson to death in the victim's hotel room. Her body was discovered four days after the murder. Police officers recovered from the crime scene the murder weapon, a .22-caliber handgun. This weapon was determined to be the gun used to kill David Riess in Minnesota. Lois Riess had killed Mrs. Hutchinson, her lookalike, in order to use her identification. From Florida Riess drove to Texas in the murder victim's car.

     On April 10, 2018 a Lee County, Florida prosecutor charged Lois Riess with the first-degree murder of Pamela Hutchinson.

     On April 19, 2018 U.S. Marshals took "The Fugitive Grandma" into custody in South Padre Island, Texas. Riess was having a cocktail at a waterfront restaurant.

     Lois Riess, in December 2019, pleaded guilty to murdering Pamela Hutchinson in Fort Myers, Florida. The Lee County judge sentenced her to life in prison.

     Following Riess' guilty plea, the Dodge County authorities in Minnesota began the process of extraditing her back to that state to stand trial for the March 2018 murder of her husband.

     In April 2020 Lois Riess pleaded guilty to murdering David Riess. The judge sentenced her to life in prison without parole. She later pled guilty to murdering Pamela Hutchinson. She is currently serving her life sentence at the Minnesota Women's Correctional Facility in Shakopee. She has yet to be tried for the murder in Florida of Pamela Hutchinson.

The Diana Costarakis Murder-For-Hire Case: The Mother-in-Law From Hell

     Diana Reaves Costarakis lived on Buggy Whip Drive in Middleburg, an unincorporated community in northern Florida thirty miles southwest of downtown Jacksonville. The 70-year-old grandmother, in September 2013, asked an unidentified intermediary for advice on how to find a hit man to murder her daughter-in-law, Angela Costarakis. The person the elderly murder-for-hire mastermind reached out to took the request seriously enough to report Costarakis to the Duval County Sheriff's Office in Jacksonville.

     As the standard investigative protocol in murder solicitation cases, murder mastermind Costarakis received a call from an undercover officer who offered to do the job. But first they would have to meet in person in order for the first installment of the hit money to exchange hands. If the suspect agreed to a face-to-face meeting with the phony contract killer, a videotaped event that normally took place in a box store parking lot, the case would proceed.

     Diana Costarakis told the man on the phone that she would like to meet with him. She agreed to bring $500 in cash, the first downpayment for the hit. (It's amazing that almost every murder-for-hire mastermind falls for this trap. These people are so desperate to have someone killed they lose the ability to think straight.)

     Diana Costarakis, on Wednesday, October 9, 2013, met with the undercover cop in the parking lot of a Home Depot store in Jacksonville. With this meeting she believed she was moving forward in her scheme to have Angela Costarakis murdered. She handed the phony hit man $500 in cash and promised a second downpayment of $1,000 the next time they met. Upon completion of the job Diana Costarakis said she would come up with an additional $3,500. Having someone killed, while a fairly simple straightforward task, didn't come cheap.

     As a further incentive for the contract killer, the mastermind informed him that the murder target usually wore expensive jewelry, untraceable diamonds that could be fenced without risk. To facilitate the successful completion of the hit man's assignment she provided the undercover cop with a photograph of her daughter-in-law, a description of her car and her home address.

     The next day in the same Home Depot parking lot, the homicidal grandmother handed the undercover cop $1,000 in cash. In response to the question of why she wanted Angela Costarakis taken out the mastermind described her daughter-in-law as a drunk who drove around intoxicated with her 6-year-old daughter in the car. Not only that, the murder-for-hire target, who was in the process of divorcing the mastermind's son, was moving to Denver with her boyfriend. According to the suspect the couple planned to take the little girl with them. (Real hit men don't care why the mastermind wants the target murdered.)

     When asked if she was sure she wanted to go ahead with the murder plot Costarakis replied, "If you don't kill her, I will."

     Having acquired all the evidence he needed, the undercover cop flashed his badge and arrested the suspect on the spot. After reading Costarakis her Miranda rights she asked to consult with an attorney before speaking to the police. As a result there was no interrogation and forthcoming confession.

     Charged with criminal solicitation and criminal conspiracy, Diana Costarakis was placed in the Duval County jail where she was incarcerated without bond. She was arraigned on October 31, 2013.

     The day following the murder-for-hire arrest, Angela Costarakis, the target of her mother-in-law's wrath, told a local television reporter that "I am beyond sad and it breaks my heart because it messes up the family. I have compassion. I don't want to see anyone spend the rest of their life in jail. However, I am still just not dealing with it. I just found out. I have not wrapped my head around it." The murder target said she did not have plans to move to Denver with her daughter.

     On August 27, 2014, Diana Costarakis pleaded guilty to solicitation to commit a capital felony. 

     In October 2014 the judge sentenced the 71-year-old murder-for-hire mastermind to seven years in prison.

The Jack McCullough Murder Case

     On December 3, 1957, 7-year-old Maria Ridulph and her playmate, Kathy Chapman, were playing on a street corner in Sycamore, Illinois, a DeKalb County town west of Chicago. A teenage boy who approached the girls and introduced himself as Johnny began giving Maria piggyback rides. Kathy left her friend to go home for mittens, and when she returned, Johnny and Maria were gone.

     After friends and relatives searched the neighborhood without finding Maria the FBI, on the assumption the disappearance was a ransom kidnapping, entered the case. Over the next few weeks agents and police officers questioned more than a hundred potential suspects, including a 17-year-old boy named John Tassier who said he had seen the missing girl around the neighborhood. Tassier described little Maria as being as pretty as a Barbie Doll. When asked his whereabouts at the time of the abduction Mr. Tassier said he had been on his way to Chicago to take a medical exam before entering the Air Force. When Tassier's stepfather backed up the alibi investigators moved on to other possibilities. Not long after Maria's disappearance John Tassier entered military service.

     In the spring of 1958, in a forest 120 miles from Sycamore, hikers came upon Maria Ridulph's badly decomposed body. The autopsy disclosed she had been stabbed in the throat and chest. Because five months had passed since her death the forensic pathologist was unable to determine if she had been sexually assaulted.

     John Tassier, sometime in the 1960s, changed his name to Jack McCullough. At the time he was employed in the state of Washington as a police officer. In the 1980s, after being accused of sexually molesting a teenage runaway girl he and his girlfriend had taken in, Mr. McCullough lost his police job. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor sexual offense and in return received a probated sentence.

     Jack McCullough's half-sister, in 2008, told DeKalb County authorities that on their mother's deathbed in 1994 the dying woman indicated that Jack had been responsible for Maria Riduph's disappearance and death. About two years later a woman who said she dated McCullough in the 1950s told the police that Jack's stepfather lied about the boy's 1957 alibi. In 2010 the DeKalb County prosecutor re-opened the 53-year-old murder case.

     Cold case detectives contacted Kathy Chapman, the playmate who had been with Maria Ridulph when the teenager who called himself Johnny gave the 7-year-old piggyback rides on December 3, 1957. After viewing a collection of photographs Chapman picked Jack McCullough out of the photo-lineup as Johnny. (I'm assuming the photograph Chapman selected depicted McCullough as a 17-year-old. I'm also assuming that the physical description of the suspect she gave to the police in 1957 matched the then John Tassier.)

     Detectives in Seattle where McCullough resided questioned him about the Ridulph kidnap-murder case. While raising eyebrows with the comment that he remembered Maria as a "stunningly beautiful" neighborhood girl, McCullough denied any role in her death.

     When homicide investigators questioned one of McCullough's younger sisters she claimed that in 1962 when she was fourteen he and two other men had sexually molested her. (The crime, which according to the sister took place in Sycamore, led to charges against McCullough. In April 2011 a judge in a bench trial acquitted him of that crime.)

     When the Ridulph case investigators spoke to members of the suspect's family they gave statements to the effect that McCullough's mother, on her cancer deathbed in 1994, uttered comments they interpreted as implicating the suspect in the neighborhood girl's murder.

     On July 1, 2011 detectives arrested 72-year-old Jack McCullough at his Seattle retirement home. The prosecutor in DeKalb County charged him with the kidnapping and murder of Maria Ridulph. According to the prosecution's theory of the case, when Kathy Chapman went home to get her mittens, McCullough dragged Maria into an alley where he choked her with a wire and stabbed her in the throat and chest. According to the prosecutor the defendant had been sexually attracted to the victim.

     McCullough's trial, the oldest unsolved crime in United States history to make it into a courtroom, got underway on September 10, 2012. The defendant waived his right to a jury and requested a bench trial in which the judge determined the defendant's guilt or innocence. 

     The prosecution's star witness, Kathy Chapman, after recounting the events of that day 54 years ago when she was seven, made an in-court identification of the defendant as the man she had last seen with Maria Ridulph. Chapman was followed to the stand by three jailhouse snitches who had been in the DeKalb County lockup with McCullough during the months leading up to his trial. One of the informants, a man named Kirk Swaggerty who was facing a 33-year prison term for a home invasion robbery that had led to a person's death, said the defendant confessed to him. According to this witness, McCullough told him..."he was giving her [Maria] a piggyback ride on his shoulders, and when she fell she wouldn't stop screaming and when she wouldn't keep quiet, he suffocated her."

     On cross-examination by McCullough's attorney, Mr. Swaggerty admitted that following his cooperation with the police his attorney filed a motion for a reduced sentence. Because jailhouse snitches have been known to commit perjury to help their own causes, many jurors do not find them credible. To some members of a jury this point made by the defense attorney would hit home. But because this case was being tried before a judge who had allowed the jailhouse snitch to take the stand in the first place, the implication that he had lied to reduce his sentence had little impact.  

     Two more jailhouse informants followed Mr. Swaggerty to the stand. If these witnesses were to be believed, Jack McCullough, after keeping his mouth shut for 54 years had confessed to three men he didn't know during a period of a few months.

     McCullough's defense, which could have been substantial, consisted of a handful of witnesses and just two hours of court time. The defense attorney put the physician on the stand who had treated McCullough's mother for cancer. According to the doctor, when the woman died in 1994 she was so mentally confused any deathbed utterances she made would have been meaningless. Jack McCullough did not take the stand on his own behalf. Perhaps he chose to remain silent because there were no jurors to impress. Moreover, the defense attorney, based on the weakness of the prosecution's case probably expected an acquittal.

     Just how weak was the case against Jack McCullough? The prosecution, without a confession, a cooperating accomplice, a proven motive, a murder weapon, a time of death or any physical evidence linking the defendant to the victim, had no choice but to present a 54-year-old eyewitness identification by a then 7-year-old girl, vague deathbed utterances and three jailhouse snitches. By any standard this bottom-of-the-barrel evidence barely supported enough probable cause for McCullough's arrest.

     On September 14, 2012 the McCullough trial judge found the defendant guilty of kidnapping and murder. Had the defendant been tried before a jury he probably would have been acquitted. This was not how our criminal justice system was supposed to work.

     On December 10, 2012 the judge sentenced Jack McCullough to life in prison. He continued to maintain his innocence.

     On April 15, 2016 Judge William P. Brady of the Illinois Circuit Appeals Court vacated Jack McCullough's 2012 conviction and ordered a new trial. A week later, perhaps anticipating that prosecutors would try McCullough again, the judge dismissed the charges against him.

    A year later judges with the DeKalb County Circuit Court issued Mr. McCullough a certificate of innocence.

Archaeological Protection Gone Wild: The Lynch Case

     In 1979 Congress passed the Archaeological Resource Protection Act (ARPA) which made it a federal crime to excavate, remove, damage, alter, and/or deface (without a government permit) archaeological resources from federal and Indian lands. Under ARPA, an "archaeological resource" was an item of past human existence or archaeological interest more than a hundred years old. First time ARPA offenders, in cases where the value of the artifacts and the cost of restoration and repair of the damaged archaeological site was less than $500, could be fined no more than $10,000 or imprisoned for more than one year. However, if the value or restoration costs exceeded $500 the offender faced fines up to $20,000 and imprisoned for two years on each count. Under ARPA, federal authorities could pursue violators civilly or in criminal court, imposing fines and confiscating vehicles and equipment used in the commission of the prohibited activity.

The Ian Martin Lynch Case

     Although he didn't know it at the time, 23-year-old Ian Martin Lynch made the mistake of his life when he picked up a human skull lying among hillside rocks on an uninhabited island off the shores of southeastern Alaska. In July 1997 Mr. Lynch and two of his friends were deer hunting on public land in an area called the Warm Chuck Village and Burial Site. They had no knowledge of this place, were unaware it had once been the home of Native Americans and were not looking for prehistoric artifacts. There were no indications, other than the skull the men had stumbled upon, that the site was an ancient grave site.

      While exploring the area while his friends were breaking camp, Ian Lynch scraped the dirt away from the back of the skull then picked it up for a closer look. He guessed the skull, and the bones scattered around it, had been there for some time because of the absence of clothing. He had no way, however, of knowing that the remains he had found were archaeological resources.

     Shortly after taking the skull home Mr. Lynch decided to turn it over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service Office in Anchorage. He described how he had come in possession of it to a government employee and revealed the circumstances surrounding his discovery. A short time later an agent with the Forest Service asked him to come to the federal building for an interview.

     When the Forest Service agent asked Lynch if he knew the skull was old, the interviewee said, "So, I mean, it's definitely been there for awhile. Oh, man, it's definitely old. There's not a stitch of clothing or nothing with it." (To make a federal case against Mr. Lynch the Forest Service agents had to establish he knew, or should have known, that he was taking away a skull more than a hundred years old.)

     The Forest Service archaeologist for the region examined the evidence but was unable to  determine the age of the skull. That prompted the Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) to call in a physical anthropologist to determine, through visual analysis, the age of the head. This expert also declined to scientifically declare the skull an archaeological resource. The AUSA, determined to establish a crime under ARPA, sent the skull out for carbon dating. This analysis revealed that it was at least 1,400 years old. This opened the door for a federal prosecution.

     In 1998 a federal grand jury sitting in Anchorage returned an indictment charging Ian Martin Lynch with a felony ARPA offense. If convicted he faced up to a year in prison and a $10,000 fine. Lynch's attorney filed a motion to dismiss the indictment on the ground the government had not met its burden of proving that Mr. Lynch, in taking the skull, had sufficient knowledge to establish the requisite criminal intent to violate this law. Specifically, the prosecution had not proven that Lynch knew the skull was an archaeological resource.

     The U.S. District Judge, reasoning that Lynch's picking up the skull was "a wrong in itself," ruled that the prosecution did not have to prove that Lynch had specifically intended to commit the crime. Based on this legal rationale the judge denied the defense's motion to dismiss the indictment. In response to this ruling, Ian Lynch pleaded guilty to the single ARPA count while retaining his right to appeal the judge's decision. In 1999 the judge sentenced Lynch to six months in prison and fined him $7,000 to cover the costs of the burial site restoration. (Lynch had picked up one bone, what restoration?) At his sentencing the defendant told the judge he had not intended to offend Native Americans. He remained free on bail pending the results of his appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

     In 2000 the federal court of appeals overturned the ARPA conviction. Judge Alfred T. Goodwin, one of the three jurists on the panel, wrote: "The Government must prove that a defendant knows or had reason to know he was removing an 'archaeological resource' before that defendant can be found guilty of an ARPA offense."

     The reversal of Lynch's conviction made sense, but what didn't make sense was why the U.S. Forest Service and the federal prosecutor in Alaska went after Mr. Lynch in the first place. Congress, in passing ARPA, intended to punish and deter the for-profit looting of archaeological sites. Mr. Lynch was not even an artifact collector. It's hard to believe that federal law enforcement officers would waste taxpayers' money by pursing such a questionable case. And finally, what kind of judge would sentence a harmless defendant like Mr. Lynch to six months in prison?

The Russell and Shirley Dermond Murder Case

     In 2014, 88-year-old Russell Dermond and his 87-year-old wife Shirley resided in a $1 million, 3,300-square-foot home on the shores of Lake Oconee in Reynolds Plantation, Georgia, a retirement/resort community 75 miles east of Atlanta. Before retiring Mr. Dermond owned franchises in Wendy's and Chick-fil-A fast-food restaurants. Mr. Dermond, a U.S. Navy veteran, grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey. He played golf, liked to read and enjoyed spending time with family and friends. The couple regularly attended the Lake Oconee Community Church.

     Married 68 years, the couple in 1994 purchased the house on the cul-de-sac in the neighborhood of Lakeside Great Waters. The gated community that featured a Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course was considered safe from crime.

     In 2000 one of the couple's three adult children, Mark Dermond, was shot to death after a drug deal went bad in Atlanta. The Dermond's oldest son had been struggling with drug addiction for years.

     On Monday, May 6, 2014, after not hearing from Russell or Shirley Dermond for several days, neighbors went to their house to check on them. They found Mr. Dermond's body in the garage. He had been decapitated and his head was not at the scene. Mrs. Dermond was not in garage or the house. Both of their vehicles were parked in the driveway and the interior of the dwelling seemed undisturbed. There were no signs of forced entry and nothing had been stolen, including Mrs. Dermond's purse that was still in the house.

     Investigators with the Putnam County Sheriff's Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), based upon the blood spatter pattern in the garage, theorized that Mr. Dermond's head had been cut off after his death. Moreover, he had not been stabbed or shot. Detectives believed he had been bludgeoned to death sometime between Friday, May 2 and Sunday, May 5, 2014.

     Following Mr. Dermond's murder there was no activity on the couple's bank accounts. Since no ransom demands had been made detectives didn't think Mrs. Dermond had been kidnapped for money.

     To help the local authorities locate Shirley Dermond the FBI put up 100 billboard posters and offered a $20,000 reward. Scuba divers searched the lake in the vicinity of the house and officers used cadaver dogs to look for the missing woman in the surrounding woods. Police officers and FBI agents also questioned dozens of residents of the gated community.

     On May 7, 2014 Bradley Dermond, the couple's son, told a local television reporter that the murder of his father and the disappearance of his mother,"makes no sense at all. We're still hoping that our mother is OK." Two days later Putnam County Coroner Gary McEhenney announced the presumed cause of Mr. Dermond's death to be "cerebral trauma."

     On Friday afternoon May 16, 2014 after two fishermen spotted a body, an emergency crew pulled Shirley Dermond's corpse out of Lake Oconee five miles from her house. According to the Putnam County coroner, she had been murdered by blunt force trauma to the head then dumped into the water.

     Investigators believed the intruder or intruders who murdered the couple may have used a boat in the commission of the crime. No suspects, however, were developed in the case. Moreover, the motive behind the double murder remained a mystery. The authorities had not located Mr. Dermond's head and the reason behind his decapitation remained unknown. Some believed the murders could have been a mob hit, but who would want these elderly people rubbed out?

     Residents of this community, following the gruesome double-murder, had their illusion of security shattered.

     In November 2014, six months after the still unsolved murders, Putnam County sheriff Howard Sills, in an interview with a local television news reporter, said, "I go to sleep every night thinking about this case and wake up every morning thinking about it. And I'm not exaggerating." According to the sheriff every potential suspect questioned in the investigation had been cleared. The sheriff said he believed the murders had been pre-meditated and planned. "You can't make me believe there was any kind of randomness to this crime. It bothers me a great deal that someone has committed such a heinous crime and they're still out there."

     On December 9, 2014 Sheriff Sills told another television reporter that his office had received thousands of pages of phone records going back six months prior to the Dermond murders. The Gwinnett County district attorney's office used special software to help investigators analyze the phone data in search for suspects.

     The reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer or killers, raised to $55,000, did not produce any leads in the case.

     In February 2015 Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills revealed to a local TV reporter that Shirley Dermond's body had been held to the bottom of Lake Oconee by two cement blocks. The killer or killers had not accounted for decomposing gases that causes a weighted down body in water to become buoyant. While there was no effort to hide Mr. Dermond's body, the killer or killers did not want his wife's corpse to be found.

     In April 2016, in speaking to a local newspaper reporter, the murder victims' 57-year-old son Keith said, "It's bad enough to lose both of your parents at the same time, but in the way it happened. We would have been devastated if they'd just had a car accident. But to have it all happen this way, and then just compounding with the details and then the fact they haven't caught anybody. They don't even have a clue. We don't even know why."

     On May 6, 2017 Sheriff Sills, on the third anniversary of the Russell and Shirley Dermond's murders, discussed the still unsolved case with a local reporter. The sheriff said that he believed the Dermonds had been targeted victims and that, "Somebody knows who did this." The sheriff admitted that not solving such an important murder case was "somewhat embarrassing" and that his investigators did not have any promising leads.

     As of March 2024 the 10-year-old Russel and Dermond Murder case remained unsolved.