Les Jones

Those’ll look lovely in the mugshot

Thursday, October 15th, 2009 | Blogging, True Crime | Permalink | No Comments |

The (Columbia, TN) Daily Herald - Online photos lead to arrests in jewel heist

A third suspect has been arrested for her alleged role in a jewelry heist of more than $60,000.

Christina Richardson of Columbia was arrested Tuesday morning after detectives discovered a photograph of her on a MySpace Web page. In the photo she was modeling an earring that had been reported stolen in March, Maury County Sheriff’s Capt. Jimmy Tennyson said.

Hat tip to Michael Silence.

Tags: myspace, videotaping our crime was our best idea ever

Celebrity rapist Roman Polanski and celebrity murderer Jack Abbott

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 | True Crime | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Much of Hollywood is boo-hooing the extradition of Roman Polanski, who in 1977 plead guilty to raping a 13 year old girl after giving her alcohol and a Quaalude. From Salon:

Roman Polanski raped a child. Let’s just start right there, because that’s the detail that tends to get neglected when we start discussing whether it was fair for the bail-jumping director to be arrested at age 76, after 32 years in “exile” (which in this case means owning multiple homes in Europe, continuing to work as a director, marrying and fathering two children, even winning an Oscar, but never — poor baby — being able to return to the U.S.). Let’s keep in mind that Roman Polanski gave a 13-year-old girl a Quaalude and champagne, then raped her, before we start discussing whether the victim looked older than her 13 years, or that she now says she’d rather not see him prosecuted because she can’t stand the media attention. Before we discuss how awesome his movies are or what the now-deceased judge did wrong at his trial, let’s take a moment to recall that according to the victim’s grand jury testimony, Roman Polanski instructed her to get into a jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she begged to go, began kissing her even though she said no and asked him to stop; performed cunnilingus on her as she said no and asked him to stop; put his penis in her vagina as she said no and asked him to stop; asked if he could penetrate her anally, to which she replied, “No,” then went ahead and did it anyway, until he had an orgasm.

Some of the celebrities coming to the defense of a child rapist include Harrison Ford and Debra Winger, Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, Whoopi Goldberg, Harvey Weinstein, and (take a deep breath) Michael Mann, Wim Wenders, Pedro Almodóvar, Darren Aronofsky, Terry Gilliam, Julian Schnabel, the Dardenne brothers, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Wong Kar-Wai, Walter Salles and Jonathan Demme, Tilda Swinton, Monica Bellucci and Asia Argento.

This isn’t the first time Hollywood has lost its mind over a criminal they considered a fellow traveller. Before Roman Polanski there was Jack Abbott.

Abbott was a Utah inmate imprisoned for forgery, murder, and bank robbery. With the help of writer Norman Mailer he published a book from prison that became a literary sensation. Mailer and other celebrities then helped Abbott secure parole in 1981. Six weeks later outside a New York cafe Abbott murdered 22 year old waiter Richard Adan when Adan wouldn’t let him use the restaurant’s bathroom. From Crime Library:

Attending the trial were many of Abbotts friends and supporters, including Norman Mailer, his wife, Norris Church, writer Jerzy Kosinski, author of Being There, actress Susan Sarandon and actor Christopher Walken. I often go to court to watch peoples emotions, Walken told a reporter from the New York Post. Sarandon especially, became enamored by Abbott. Shortly after the trial, she gave birth to a baby. She and the father, actor Tim Robbins, named him Jack Henry. Abbott had become a celebrity himself, a social curiosity, a point of contention utilized by both sides of the political aisle.

His situation was debated on news programs and in the printed press. Let’s not destroy Abbott! begged Mailer to the New York press. Jack Abbott was described as a literary star, a Marxist revolutionary, a convicted murderer, an author of the highest magnitude. He was many things to many people. But lost in the quagmire of debate and obscured by the endless pleas of mercy for the misunderstood killer, was the forgotten life of Richard Adan. A man who did nothing more but advise a diner that the restaurant had no mens restroom.

The case went to the jury on January 20, after eight days of testimony. Norman Mailer earlier told reporters that he hoped Abbott didnt get a life sentence if he was found guilty. It would destroy him, he said to the press. Mailer also acknowledged some responsibility in getting Abbott out on parole. Its something Abbotts friends are going to have to live with for the rest of their lives, he announced. During a tumultuous press conference outside the courtroom, Mailer told reporters, I am willing to gamble with certain elements in society to save this man’s talent!

The “certain elements in society” presumably included anyone who was not a literary genius. Mailer later came to regret his actions:

“Another episode in my life in which I can find nothing to cheer about or nothing to take pride in,” Mailer said in 1992 according to the Buffalo News. “It was a study in false vanity,” he added.

But I thought crime labs had a “30 minutes or your DNA test is free” guarantee

Monday, July 27th, 2009 | A&E, True Crime | Permalink | No Comments |

10 things about the entertainment industry that piss me off:

8. Weird Science: No we don’t have computer databases of every matchbook from every club in the tri-state area. No we can’t piece a broken bottle together and get a fingerprint that comes back instantly to a known felon (that gets picked up in 20 seconds). NO DNA TESTING IS NOT A “WHILE YOU WAIT” PROCESS!

And from comments:

Dude, CSI pisses me off so bad. I have actually had a person whose mailbox got hit by a car ask if I was going to take DNA samples. “Um, yes lady, I’m sure the car left some bodily fluids behind, and sure, we’ll spend $10,000 on a test to solve the damage to property case regarding your $25 mailbox.”

Hat tip to Tam.

$134.5 billion in bearer bonds seized in Italy were fake

Thursday, June 18th, 2009 | Economics, True Crime | Permalink | No Comments |

Italian authorities recently arrested two men smuggling $134 billion in U.S. bearer bonds into Italy. The U.S. government says the bonds aren’t real:

“They’re clearly fakes,” Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of the Public Debt in Washington, said yesterday. “That’s beyond the fact that the face value is far beyond what’s out there.”

Meyerhardt said Treasury records show an estimated $105.4 million in bearer bonds have yet to be surrendered. Most matured more than five years ago, he said. The Treasury stopped issuing bearer bonds in 1982, Meyerhardt said.

Had the notes been genuine, the pair would have been the U.S. government’s fourth-biggest creditor, ahead of the U.K. with $128 billion of U.S. debt and just behind Russia, which is owed $138 billion.

Via Patrick.net, Seeking Alpha notes some problems with the story.

2. According to a brief Bloomberg article regarding this story, the seized bearer bonds allegedly were dated as of 1934. Since bearer bonds in denominations of $500 million did not exist in 1934, the bonds were deduced as fake, though the Italian police are still waiting for a declaration regarding the bonds’ authenticity from the SEC. There is something truly “off” about this declaration. How can the quality of the forged bearer bonds be so meticulous that they “are indistinguishable from the real ones”, yet the people involved in the alleged forgery so ill-informed as to not date the bearer bonds with a more recent year that would not immediately identify them as fraudulent?

In comments someone linked to a 2004 story about scams involving fake bearer bonds dated 1934:

Moldy bonds and bills that con artists used to try to bilk seniors were on display in downtown San Diego yesterday, the loot from two recent seizures by federal fraud cops. The bonds and bills are dated 1934 and bear incredible denominations – $500,000, $100 million, $500 million – and portraits of former President Ulysses S. Grant and one-time Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase.

Faking forensic evidence in Mississippi

Thursday, February 19th, 2009 | Science, True Crime | Permalink | 3 Comments |

Radley Balko looks at evidence, now including videotape, that doctors Steven Hayne and Michael West faked forensic evidence used to send people to prison, in some cases for life sentences.

I believe the moral foundations for capital punishment in some cases are sound, given a perfect legal system. For instance, in the case of capital murder, in which someone planned malice aforethought in killing a specific invidual in cold blood, it seems to me that only capital punishment or life in prison are acceptable punishments. Anything else values the criminal’s life at less than the victim’s life.

However, given the legal system we actually have and the inevitability of having flawed people running it (and we’re all of us flawed), I can’t condone capital punishment absent stringent standards of evidence. Eyewitness testimony is obviously not reliable enough, and given a case like the above even supposedly scientific evidence may not always clear the hurdle. If a person doesn’t belive in capital punishment because of standards of evidence, what should those standards be?

Revisiting an unsolved Knoxville murder

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 | East Tennessee, True Crime | Permalink | No Comments |

Slaying in Sequoyah Hills: Who killed Rose Busch?. The follow-up is good, too.

Patterico digs deeper on a Chuck Philips LA Times story

Monday, November 17th, 2008 | Media Behaving Badly, True Crime | Permalink | No Comments |

Patterico - What the L.A. Times Never Told You About an Inmate Who Was Close to Chuck Philips:

In sworn testimony given at a court hearing, Anderson accused Philips of conspiring with Suge Knight to suborn perjury and threaten him with messages from Knight that Philips allegedly smuggled into prison and delivered to Anderson. Anderson said that Philips had brought in documents relating to the litigation, so that Anderson could learn what people were saying, and tailor a false story to the facts in those documents.

After Anderson’s explosive testimony, Philips declared himself “flabbergasted” by Anderson’s claims, telling the L.A. Times: “This is the ultimate betrayal.”

But it appeared that someone was taking Anderson’s claims seriously: the FBI.

Anderson’s attorney said that the FBI had questioned Anderson about his interaction with Philips. And sources tell me that representatives from the FBI were present at the court hearing where Anderson made these claims.

The L.A. Times now faces something of a Catch-22 as regards the credibility of Anderson, because Anderson has now accused Chuck Philips of some pretty serious wrongdoing — wrongdoing that, if proven, could result in criminal charges. Wrongdoing that is apparently being investigated by the FBI.

This is all fallout from the Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur murders, and the subsequent press coverage, lawsuits, and investigations inside the LAPD. Patterico says that more information is forthcoming. Good stuff.

Previously:
- Go Read Patterico for the Dope on the LA Times/Diddy/Tupac Story
- The LAPD Biggie Smalls Case
- The Unsolved Mystery of the Notorious B.I.G (Rolling Stone)

Rosenberg co-conspirator confesses late in life

Saturday, September 13th, 2008 | True Crime | Permalink | No Comments |

Morton Sobell, now 91, admits he and the Rosenbergs were spying for the Soviet Union.

These sort of late life and deathbed confessions are interesting to me, because they give hope that some mysteries will be revealed in the fullness of time. Three years ago we finally learned the identity of Deep Throat after three decades of wondering.

Along the same lines, Zodiac killer suspect Rick Marshall passed away this week. A few days prior to his death Marshall called police to his bedside and told them something that finally cleared him in the case.

“Police Raid” Cop Sentenced to 102 Years

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 | True Crime | Permalink | No Comments |

AP - Ex-cop sentenced to 102 years for staging raids:

A former Los Angeles police officer who participated in home invasion robberies staged to look like police raids was sentenced Monday to 102 years in prison.

William Ferguson, 35, was convicted of participating in more than 40 phony raids from early 1999 to June 2001 at homes in working-class neighborhoods while he worked at the department’s scandal-ridden Rampart Division.

In January, a federal jury convicted him of conspiracy to deprive people of their civil rights, conspiracy to possess marijuana and cocaine, violating the civil rights of others and using a firearm during a violent crime.

The problem with no-knock warrants is that if someone forces their way into your house and yells “police!” you don’t know if they’re A) the police or B) criminals intent on robbing you. In the LAPD Rampart case the answer was C) all of the above.

Knoxville’s “Black Tape Bandit” Caught

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 | True Crime | Permalink | 2 Comments |

WBIR - “Black tape” bandit suspect in custody:

The man suspected in a string of six recent bank robberies in the Knoxville area has been apprehended. Travis Carver, age 25, is being held in the Knox County Detention Center on federal charges after one attempted and one successful bank robbery, both in West Knoxville Tuesday.

He’s become known as the “black tape” bandit because in each of the robberies, he appeared to have wrapped electrical tape around one or more of his fingers.

New Charges Against Raynella Dossett Leath

Friday, December 7th, 2007 | True Crime | Permalink | No Comments |

From the Knoxville News-Sentinel:

Prosecutors: Former DA Dossett’s death ’suspicious,’ want to exhume body

Widow’s lawyers protest request to exhume Dossett’s body

See also:
- Local Crime News: Raynella Dossett Leath Murder Indictment

And what a strange story of (alleged) multiple husband murder it is. For the bizarre morphine-injected, cattle-stomping, behind-the-barn background, start with that last link first.

Sunday Morning Mystery: New D.B. Cooper Suspect

Sunday, October 28th, 2007 | True Crime | Permalink | 4 Comments |

New York magazine is promoting a new suspect in the 1971 hijacking in which D.B. Cooper parachuted out of a 727 with his ransom. Lyle Christiansen thinks his brother Kenneth was the famed hijacker. He claims to have seen Cooper’s composite sketch on the TV show “Unsolved Mysteries” and noticed the resemblance.

Kenneth Christiansen was a paratrooper in WWII, worked as a purser for the airline whose plane was hijacked, and lived in the area of Washington state where the crime happened. The sole surviving airline employee from that flight says Kenneth’s photo is a match for the man she spoke to on the airplane 36 years ago.

The article is here. The nymag.com Web site has some of the most annoying Flash ads you’ll ever see. You may want to disable Flash before following that link.

Despite the breathless tone of the article the case against Christiansen seems thin. Former FBI lead investigator Ralph Himmelsbach notes that the height and weight don’t seem like a good match, and the eye color is wrong. In any famous criminal case there are lots of suspects who seem like good matches, but who ultimately don’t fit. Zodiac killer sleuths call it “Zynchronicity.” Another possible suspect was named a month ago, as seen in this YouTube video.

In other words, he could be D.B. Cooper, but he probably isn’t. None of the serial numbers in the ransom money turned up in circulation (though some were found in the drop area), which suggests Cooper might not have survived the parachute drop in sub-zero weather, or died in the woods. If he did live, he certainly didn’t use the money to pay cash for a house or take friends out to restaurants, as Lyle claimed his brother did. If he had done so with the ransom money the serial numbers would have turned up by now.

It’s worth mentioning that Lyle Christiansen has a financial motivation in implicating his brother. He came forth with his claims in the context of pitching a movie. There’s nothing new under the sun - there are at least two cases where people claimed that their own father killed JFK and tried to land a book or movie deal. As with the new D.B. Cooper suspect the accused were dead when the claim was made. Kenneth Christiansen died in 1994.

Bonus! - The Dog That Solved the JFK Assassination:

Continue reading the rest of this post right here ›››

Oldest Internet Scam in the Book: the Too-big Check

Saturday, July 28th, 2007 | E-commerce, True Crime | Permalink | 2 Comments |

From the Maryville-Alcoa (TN) Daily Times*:

Jessica R. Johnson, Mentor Road, Louisville, reported at 4:17 p.m. Feb. 23 that she was informed of an inheritance. The Nigerian man who informed her requested money to process her inheritance. According to the police report, she told the man she didn’t have the money and he sent her a $5,000 check. She deposited the money and sent $3,600 to the man at a Nigerian address. Her local bank then notified Johnson that the check she deposited was counterfeit.

If anyone ever sends you a check in an amount greater than what they were supposed to pay, tear up the check. The scam is that you deposit the check, send back the excess amount, and then discover the check (or money order, or wire transfer) was bogus.

* AKA The MAD Times and The Daily Crimes.

Wired Interview of Hans Reiser

Thursday, June 28th, 2007 | True Crime | Permalink | 3 Comments |

Wired interviews programmer Hans Reiser in prison, where he’s awaiting trial for his wife’s murder. More details emerge, such as the fact that he was carrying $8,900 in cash and a passport when the police arrested him, and he still can’t or won’t explain what happened to the passenger seat in his car.

He still doesn’t seem quite as weird as his wife’s drug-taking, S&M-practicing lover, who has confessed to eight murders.

Saturday Morning Mystery: Huge News in Nina Reiser Murder

Saturday, May 5th, 2007 | True Crime | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Software developer Hans Reiser, inventor of the ReiserFS filesystem, is getting ready to stand trial for the murder of his missing wife, Nina. The couple had been separated and were going through a divorce. Nina Reiser’s body has not been found, and police can’t be sure she’s even dead, but her empty vehicle was found a few miles from Hans Reiser’s home. She was last seen September 3, 2006. Police found blood drops containing Nina Reiser’s DNA in Hans Reiser’s car and home, and the passenger seat from his car is missing and unaccounted for.

Now a former boyfriend of Nina Reiser’s, Sean Sturgeon, has confessed to murdering eight people. The number may be nine, but Sturgeon says the ninth person was still alive when he left him, and he’s unsure if he survived.

That isn’t the only creepy thing about Sturgeon. Speaking to Wired News, Sturgeon said “I will not take credit for what another has done. Let Hans take a lie-detector test about Nina.” Not blame. “Credit.” Creepy guy. Nina Reiser broke up with Sturgeon in December January, 2006, reportedly due to discomfort with his lifestyle and taste for sadomasochism. Sturgeon was previously Hans Reiser’s financial agent, and was embroiled in a lawsuit with Reiser.

See also:
- Saturday Morning Mystery: Who Was S. W. Erdnase?
- Saturday Morning Mystery: Who is Zodiac Suspect Mr. X
- Saturday Morning Mystery: Who is Zodiac Suspect Mr. X, Part 2

The Wrong End of a Gun

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 | Guns, True Crime | Permalink | 5 Comments |

The killing spree at Virginia Tech has prompted discussion about what the students might have done. Some of it is sensible, but some of it is second-guessing, chest-pounding naïveté. Mark Steyn, a columnist I respect and frequently agree with, wrote an awful piece of agenda-injection decrying the VA Tech massacre as an example of what he calls a “culture of passivity.”

Some bloggers and others are describing what it was really like to find themselves being robbed at gunpoint. It’s probably a good idea to read those accounts before forming an opinion about how a person can be expected to react.

Rich Hailey was robbed when he worked as a convenience store night manager.

He waited until the only other customer in the store left, then he approached the counter and pulled a gun. It was a small revolver, and he pointed it at me and demanded that I give him the money in the register. As I started to pull out the money, he changed his mind and told me to hand over the drawer. I did, and as he went to pull the money out, he set his gun down on the counter between us.

Now the adolescent hero boy that lives in all of us immediately speaks up.

“Wow! If I were there, I would have grabbed the gun and got the drop on him. And if he even twitched wrong, BANG! I’d a dropped that sucker in his tracks. Yessirree bubba, that’s what I’da done.”

No you wouldn’t have.

I thought about it. The guy was high on something and moving slowly. I would have had a good chance of grabbing the gun and being a hero, and only a small chance of missing and winding up dead. Well, let me tell you folks something. When you’re looking at a gun, death is there in the room with you, and it’s close, and real, and you have a completely different perspective. I believed that if I went for his gun and missed, he would kill me. End of story. Whether that belief was accurate or not is irrelevant; it’s what I believed at the time. I figured that my best chance of avoiding that big ugly thing called Death was to cooperate and not give this guy any grief.

Nashville Knucklehead recalls being held up when he was bartending at a Nashville O’Charley’s.

I have read things from people questioning the bravery of the victims at VT. Things like, “If three of them had rushed the gunman, maybe they could have save dozens of lives.”

If you think that, you are a total fucking idiot.

I remember it like it was last week. I was laying on the floor in the dining room while the gunman was in the back. I could have gotten up and run out the door and gone next door and called the cops. But I didn’t. Why? Because the motherfucker HAD A GUN. He could have come out as I was leaving and shot me in the back. Or come out after I left and said, “Where’s the dude with all the hair?!?” and started shooting all my friends. What if I had saved my ass at the expense of my co-workers? Would that make me a hero? When someone has a gun, you don’t act like a hero, you do what he says. I’m a big motherfucker. I’m a brave motherfucker. You know what? Little dude HAD A FUCKING GUN!

Rich and Jim didn’t have guns, but Flatiron on the 1911 forums did. He was armed and mentally ready to use a gun, but got caught by surprise at a storage center.

I carry in a load and when I come out a young punk is standing there with a ski mask on, black baggy pants, black baggy coat and it actually takes me a few seconds to realize he has a 9mm black Glock pointed right at my chest.

I put my hands up and say “be cool bro” and at that he says “give it up” and I say “be cool” again at this point he starts getting all excited and cursing and saying stuff like “you think I’m playing %$#@&”

I pull out my wallet and say this is all I have. He snatches it with the gun pointing at my face now.

Now I would like to point out that I am never unarmed and because I was working in my backyard I had sweat pants on and sweatshirt and hooded zip up jacket and I had my Kel-Tec .380 in a pocket holster in my right front pocket.

He is about about 3 feet from me with the gun now pointed at my chest. For one second I contemplated knocking his arm away and rushing him but you know what… when the gun is aimed at you it’s a whole different story.

We can always learn lessons from people’s experiences. Once we know what could happen we can come up with new plans. After 9/11 passengers know better than to assume that a hijacking will end with a safe landing, and can adjust their mental posture. Likewise, we can admire the passengers of Flight 93 who learned what happened to theo ther planes and overpowered their attackers, or professor Liviu Librescu, the 76 year old Holocaust survivor who sacrifice his own his life at VA Tech to give his students time to escape.

At the same time, I think a wise person should be reluctant to second-guess the split-second decisions ordinary people make in life or death situations. That’s particularly true when those ordinary people are facing the long odds of being empty-handed on the wrong end of a gun.

Johnia Berry News/Christian and Newsom Murders

Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 | Johnia Berry, True Crime | Permalink | 8 Comments |

Knoxville News-Sentinel: Johnia Berry walk kicks off ‘07 National Crime Victims’ Rights Week.

Metro Pulse: The House on Chipman Street - Has some information about the Johnia Berry case and interviews Remonda Swafford. I met Remonda at the Cokesbury Johnia Berry meeting a few months ago. She’s been an outspoken, effective voice for the crime problem in the West Knoxville neighborhood where Johnia was killed.

Beyond that, I found parts of that Metro Pulse article incredibly offensive. The reporter, Leslie Wylie, goes out of her way to minimize and conceal the horrific crime that was at the center of the story.

The opening sentence is “You don’t need another rehashing of the grisly details.” But perhaps you do, since she omits them. The defendants have been charged with the double carjacking, kidnapping, rape and murder of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. It’s believed Newsom was raped and killed early on, then his body burned. Christian was gang-raped for several days before being murdered. One of the defendants, Vanessa Coleman, who was in the house during that time has stated that while Christian was alive her mouth was rinsed out with cleaning chemicals, presumably to hide DNA evidence.

Wylie implies that interest in the case is largely due to race (Christian and Newsom were white, their accused murderers were black) and includes this quote without disapproval:

“It’s a tough question,” says Kelly Johnson, a local criminal defense attorney, “because the media is in a position where they have to report those things, and what they have is two young, white people allegedly killed by three African-American gentlemen and an African-American woman. Does the media take more interest in a case when there are white victims? I don’t know. Maybe.”

I’m not sure that people who have been charged with robbery, kidnapping, rape and murder need to be described as “gentleman” without protest from the reporter. Particularly when the fingerprints of one of the defendants, Lemaricus Davidson, were found on materials in the carjacked vehicle, according to news reports. That clue lead police to 2316 Chipman Street, where Christian’s burned body was found in a kitchen trash can.

Wylie goes out of her way to make the issue race, as opposed to sticking to the simple facts of the nightmarish crimes that occurred. Googling for information about the Christian-Newsom murder I did find racist sites that are making hay of the case, but do Wylie and her editors seriously believe that an average person wouldn’t be offended and frightened if the victims and accused were of the same race? You have a pair of innocent young UT students going about their lives and being carjacked, raped, murdered, and mutilated by a gang of drug-induced criminals. If that doesn’t offend someone then it seems to me that that person’s moral compass is broken beyond all repair.

The same article has counterevidence that interest in the Christian-Newsom murders is racially motivated. Johnia Berry was white. We know that her murderer was also white, based on the eyewitness account of her roommate who survived the attack, as well as the DNA obtained from the killer’s blood left at the crimes cene. Yet despite Berry’s murder being a white-on-white crime there has been tremendous interest in the case. Wylie would have done well to stick to the facts, as Ellen Mellarnee did for her incredible Metro Pulse feature about Berry’s murder.

Instead, Wylie and her editors hide the facts from the reader, assuming that either the reader is a racist or that someone will use the facts to racial advantage. I don’t have any use for a newspaper that keeps the facts from its readers for fear that some people are too stupid and racist to handle those facts.

- WVLT Special Coverage of Christian-Newsom Murders
- Wikipedia entry for Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom Murder

Duke Non-Rape Case Finale

Saturday, April 14th, 2007 | True Crime | Permalink | 3 Comments |

Ace of Spades has an excellent rebuttal to ABC’s Terry Moran’s pathetic attempt to wrestle a moral conviction against the Duke lacrosse players, who were exonerated this week. Ace says everything I wanted to say, except for one thing. From Moran’s article:

The young men were able to retain a battery of top-flight attorneys, investigators and media strategists.

As students of Duke University or other elite institutions, these young men will get on with their privileged lives.

The implication is that this was “rich man’s justice.” There really is such a thing. It’s when you’re guilty but you can afford legal counsel of a high enough quality and with a large enough retainer that you can stand down a district attorney or hornswaggle a jury.

It’s only rich man’s justice if you don’t get convicted when you’re guilty. If you don’t get convicted when you’re innocent - as the new DA has said the three Duke lacrosse players unequivocally are - it’s simply justice. Anyone who thinks otherwise is prejudiced because of the accused’s gender, skin color, or wealth.

Saturday Morning Mystery: Who Was S. W. Erdnase?

Saturday, February 3rd, 2007 | True Crime | Permalink | No Comments |

Published in 1902, The Expert at the Card Table is apparently the classic text on card manipulation, also known as cheating. The author wrote under the pseudonym of S.W. Erdnase. A hundred years later people are still searching for his true identity.

Erdnase is such as awkward false name that it seems reasonable to guess that it’s a reversal or some other anagram of the author’s true name. The Wikipedia entry names Franklin Andrews and Wilbur Edgerton Sanders as candidates for being Erdnase, and ends with this teaser:

Research for an upcoming documentary has uncovered correspondence between noted physicists and authors Stanley Wesley Stratton and Robert Andrews Millikan on the subject of conjuring and crooked gambling. In 1896 Stratton suggested a textbook on the subject. Further evidence suggests that Millikan and Stratton hired Professor Hoffman to write the book based (partly) on notes they provided.

An August 16, 2000 Wall Street Journal article by Rachel Emma Silverman, “Into Thin Air: Writer Reveals Magic Tricks, Then He Disappears” gave popular coverage to Erdnase. I don’t have access to the article, but summaries say it mentions Erdnase candidate Wilbur Edgerton Sanders, as well as a James Andrews and an Edwin Sumner Andrews.

Todd Karr has much more information about what is known and what is supposed about Erdnase. He offers his own best guess as to the author’s true identity:

On November 23, 1901, shortly before the publication of The Expert at the Card Table, the Fort Wayne News reported on a scam perpetrated in Kokomo by “A stranger giving his name as E. S. Andrews of the Brandon Commercial Company, Chicago.” The news report stated that the con man had a clever collections-agency scheme that succeeded in bilking forty local merchants and physicians.

Andrews had come to Kokomo three weeks prior and convinced the businessmen and doctors to hire him to collect their debts. Each participant paid Andrews a “membership fee” of $15 (or about $900 total). The newspaper reported that “Before leaving, Andrews collected several accounts from debtors, all of which he took with him, the merchants or physicians receiving nothing.”

We thus have a candidate whose name is a precise reversal of the pseudonym S. W. Erdnase, a con man based in Chicago who was clever enough to swindle businessmen and doctors, and someone who appears to have had over $900 in his pocket just before The Expert at the Card Table was published.

Another article lists several candidates, and claims that “erdnase” would translate to “earth nose” in German. That could be a clue pointing towards mining engineer Wilbur Edgerton Sanders, though it seems like a bit of a stretch.

Forensic Examiner in Corey Maye Trial Wasn’t Board Certified

Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 | True Crime | Permalink | 3 Comments |

From Hit and Run:

Hayne testified at Maye’s trial that he is “board certified” in forensic pathology, but he isn’t certified by the American Board of Pathology, the only organization recognized by the National Association of Medical Examiners and the American Board of Medical Specialties as capable of certifying forensic pathologists. According to depositions from other cases, Hayne failed the American Board of Pathology exams when he left halfway through, deeming the questions “absurd.” Instead, his C.V. indicates that he’s certified by two organizations, one of which (the American Board of Forensic Pathology) isn’t recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties. The other (the American Academy of Forensic Examiners) doesn’t seem to exist. Judging from his testimony in other depositions, it’s likely Hayne meant to list the American College of Forensic Examiners. According to Hayne, the group certified him through the mail based on “life experience,” with no examination at all. Several forensics experts described the American College of Forensic Examiners to me as a “pay your money, get your certification” organization. A February 2000 article in the American Bar Association Journal makes similar allegations, with one psychologist who was certified through the group saying, “Everything was negotiable—for a fee.”

Reason has a summary of Maye’s case. Police mistakenly knocked down Maye’s door in a bungled search for a drug dealer who lived in am adjacent part of the duplex. Maye, not realizing it was police knocking down his door, shot and killed one of the officers. He was subsequently convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death, though his latest appeal removed him from death row.

It was a police foulup that put them in Maye’s house that night, and as people have noted, if officers had accidentally killed Maye it’s unlikely any of them would have gone to prison, much less death row. Wikipedia has more.

Ethics Charges Filed Against Raleigh DA Mike Nifong

Friday, December 29th, 2006 | True Crime | Permalink | No Comments |

Good. From the AP:

In a statement, the bar said it opened a case against Nifong on March 30, a little more than two weeks after a 28-year-old woman hired to perform as a stripper at a lacrosse team party said she was gang-raped.

The ethics charges will be heard by an independent body called the Disciplinary Hearing Commission, made up of both lawyers and non-lawyers. A date for the hearing has not been set.

…

The weaknesses in the case include the lack of DNA evidence; the accuser’s ever-shifting story; one player’s claim to have an alibi supported by receipts and time-stamped photos; and the defense’s insistence that the photo lineup that was used to identify the defendants violated police procedures and was skewed against the men.

Before the ethics charges were filed, Bob Brown, an attorney in private practice who once worked with Nifong in the prosecutor’s office, predicted the case would be a “bloodbath” for the prosecution if it went to trial.

Among other questions raised in recent weeks: Why did it take months for anyone from Nifong’s office to interview the accuser? And why did Nifong initially withhold from the defense DNA test results that found genetic material from several men - none of them Duke lacrosse players - on the accuser’s underwear and body?

Bonus justice - Murder and attempted charges filed against four NOLA police.

Local Crime News: Raynella Dossett Leath Murder Indictment

Thursday, November 30th, 2006 | True Crime | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Betty Bean has the odd story:

For newbies, Raynella Dossett Leath was once the wife of Ed Dossett, Randy Nichols’ predecessor as attorney general. Ed, who was dying of cancer, met a very strange end when it was reported that he died after being stomped to death by milk cows. The story, IIRC, was that he’d asked to be wheeled out to the barn to see his cows and somehow ended up beneath their hooves. The whole thing always sounded more than a little strange to me, but it was accepted by tptb. The medical examiner — Randy Pedigo — ruled it an accidental death and word was that the widow collected triple indemnity.

Next thing we heard about Raynella, some guy who (and this is sketchy) had to do with the legally recognized father of a baby that Raynella thought was fathered by her late husband. Raynella wanted that baby, and called the guy to come down to her farm to discuss the issue. The guy said she took him down to the barn (hereafter to be known as the Barn of Doom), pulled out a gun and a legal document and ordered him to sign the kid over to her or get shot. He claimed that she took a shot at him; she denied it. She wasn’t charged with anything.

And then there’s the guy she’s actually charged with murdering. Read the whole thing.

Ted “Unabomber” Kaczynski’s Homemade Gun

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 | Guns, True Crime | Permalink | 3 Comments |

From CBS5 via The High Road.

New Twist in Lambert Incident: Suspect Facing Murder Charge

Monday, November 20th, 2006 | True Crime | Permalink | 2 Comments |

The guy who drew a gun on Greg “Lumpy” Lambert may soon be facing murder charges. Lambert outdrew Kane Stackhouse when he tried to steal a car. Stackhouse left, and the Sheriff tracked him down based on his driver’s license, which Lumpy had.

Now the sheriff has announced a grand jury is preparing to hear an indictment against Stackhouse for the murder of David Lindsay behind a Walgreen’s 10 hours prior to the incident with Lumpy.

As #9 noted, this makes last week’s Metro Pulse editorial even more stupid and embarassing.

First he put himself at risk by drawing his weapon when he says he saw a gun come out of the young man’s pocket. …

The whole scenario is somehow suspect, especially since the Sheriff’s Department is notably uncooperative in providing details to the news media.

It will be up to the young man and his lawyer to plead his case, but the entire incident would be better digested and put behind us if it were taken before a Knox County Grand Jury for review. The grand jury could put Lambert under oath to get his story straight and decide whether and what crimes may have been committed.

Advice to Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale and members of his administration, toward whom Lambert has shown animosity: Steer clear of Lumpy Lambert unless you have armed security handy and have plenty of witnesses around.

Now it looks like Lambert not only stopped a car thief, he stopped what could have turned into another murder, and helped bring a murderer to justice in the process. Metro Pulse needs to start preparing an apology.

Bad News on Election Night

Tuesday, November 7th, 2006 | True Crime | Permalink | No Comments |

Durham DA Mike Nifong - he of the bogus Duke rape case - has been re-elected.