By Joe McKinney

As a kid, I would sometimes sit through an episode of The Brady Bunch, hoping beyond hope to get a glimpse of Marsha in her underwear. Unfortunately, that never happened. However, I do remember one episode that resonated with me. It was called “Bobby’s Hero,” which, for all of you keeping score at home, was episode 90 from season four. In it, Bobby develops a fascination with Jesse James. He writes a paper on the outlaw, and brings home a C+. But, worse than that, Mike and Carol get a concerned call from the principal. The Bradys discover that their youngest is worshipping a common criminal, one who built a reputation on shooting innocents in the back. The episode ends when the dire warnings of an old man prompt Bobby to have a nightmare in which his entire family is ruthlessly murdered by the black-clad Jesse James. Soon after, Bobby sees the error of his ways, and we end on the comfortable reaffirmation of our core family values.

The cynic in me says the reason I enjoyed the episode so much was because it was the only episode in which the entire Brady family gets gunned down. The only thing that would have made it any better would have been a close up of Greg’s brains splattered on the wall. But the quasi-serious academic in me can’t help but think that maybe there was an object lesson in there somewhere. After all, Bobby’s hero worship of Jesse James was hardly unique. Just about every culture and every time period has made a hero of its bygone outlaws. From Robin Hood to Bonnie and Clyde, outlaws turned folk heroes are everywhere. It makes no difference that an outlaw’s crimes fail to jive with their fame; they are heroes nonetheless. They undergo a strange alchemy that changes them from common criminal to champion of the dispossessed. As the poor and downtrodden masses, we identify with the romance the outlaw represents, if not his crimes. We thrill at the romantic adventure, the disguises, the escapes, the thumbing of our collective noses at those who hold power over us.

I’ve been thinking an awful lot about that alchemical process lately, and it occurs to me that the one common denominator across all those different criminals turned folk heroes, is the power of art. A song - specifically, a ballad - can turn the vilest crime into an act of charity. When Robin Hood’s men usurp the spiritual authority of the church, as they do in the ballad “Robin Hood and Allan a Dale,” or murder a police officer, as they do in “Robin Hood and the Widow’s Sons,” the crime itself gets buried in a clever rhyme. What takes center stage is the hypocrisy of the Medieval Church, or the unjust oppression of bad government. We fail to see the horror, the aftermath, the other side of the ballad. Instead, we see a symbol of our own liberation.

Kenedy, Texas: June 12, 1901

Located about 75 miles south of San Antonio, Karnes County is a rugged, beautiful country made up of rolling hills and clear running streams and dense forests of mesquite and oak trees. Its large pastures are thick with Johnson Grass, making it natural ranching country, a life which appealed to the German and Mexican families who settled it in the early 1800s.

By 1901, it was a small, but thriving, community based on corn and cattle. German immigrants grew wealthy, while the Mexican immigrants of the day lived as renters on their ranches. And one of the largest ranches in the area belonged to W. A. Thulemeyer. He rented out a small corner of his property to two young Mexican men, Gregorio and Romaldo Cortez. Both were married. Gregorio had four children; Romaldo and his wife had none. Though Romaldo was the older of the two, Gregorio seems to have been the more mature. It was Gregorio who first made the decision to settle down (the two had for several years worked as itinerant ranch hands throughout South Texas, dragging their families along with them), and it was under Gregorio’s supervision that their corn crops prospered. And it was Gregorio who was fated to become a folk hero of the Texas-Mexico border.

Trouble came to the Cortez brothers on June 12, 1901. A few days before, an unidentified Mexican man had stolen a horse in adjacent Atascosa County. The sheriff in Atascosa had tracked the thief to Karnes County and asked W.T. “Brack” Morris, the sheriff in Karnes County, to pick up the trail. Brack Morris was a former Texas Ranger with a reputation for being quite handy with a pistol. In 1901 he was serving his third term as sheriff and knew nearly everyone in Karnes County. He’d gotten word that Gregorio Cortez had recently acquired a new horse and went out to the Thulemeyer Ranch with a translator to make inquiries.

Morris’ translator was a man named Boone Choate, who seems to have had a higher opinion of his knowledge of Spanish than he perhaps had a right to. They arrived at Gregorio Cortez’s house mid-morning and found a clapboard house set back from the road behind a small, split rail fence. Choate climbed down from the horse-drawn carriage the two men had ridden in on and hollered toward the house while Morris remained in the carriage.

Sensing trouble, Gregorio told Romaldo to go see what the men wanted. Romaldo went out to meet the men. Choate asked if Gregorio was at home. When Romaldo said that he was, Choate told him to get his brother and bring him out.

Romaldo turned to the house and said, “Te quieren,” which in Spanish is the familiar way to say, “Hey, get out here. These guys want to talk to you.”

Unfortunately, when literally translated into English, the phrase means “you are wanted,” which has an entirely different meaning to a police officer. This was the first of three disastrous mistranslations that put Gregorio Cortez on the path to folk hero status.

Gregorio came outside and stood in the yard behind Romaldo. Choate then proceeded to ask Gregorio about the mare he had recently acquired from another Mexican rancher in the area.

Unfortunately, Choate’s Spanish was not up to the task. Instead of using yegua, the Spanish word for mare, he used caballo, which means stallion. Gregorio was understandably confused. He didn’t own a stallion, and he told Choate as much. When Choate’s second translating mistake came back to Morris, it sounded to the ex-Texas Ranger like just another Mexican trying to get away with something. He dropped down from his carriage and ordered Choate to tell the two brothers they were under arrest.

Things get a little murky after that.

Apparently, Gregorio said something that Choate heard and translated as “No white man is going to arrest me.” An obvious threat, if you’re a cop about to the cuffs on somebody.

Later, at his trial, his lawyers said that Gregorio Cortez simply said, “You can’t arrest me for nothing.”

It’s not difficult to picture the scene.

The two brothers, realizing they were about to be arrested, got angry. “Why?” they shouted. “We haven’t done anything.” They were shouting. And Morris, who had no intention of taking any flak from a couple of poor Mexican farmers, went for his gun. Meanwhile, Romaldo advanced on the authorities, hands slicing the air in front of him like a wronged tragedian in a silent movie. Morris shot him in the mouth, wounding, but not killing, him. He then turned to Gregorio, fired, and missed. Gregorio returned fire, and his aim was truer. Morris fell to the ground, hit three times. And Choate doomed himself to villain status by turning and running to a hiding spot in the surrounding chaparral, leaving Morris to bleed to death on the road.

When the smoke cleared, Gregorio picked up the sheriff’s pistol, went inside his house, packed up the wife and kids, and loaded everything into the sheriff’s carriage and rode to Romaldo’s house.

What started out as a misunderstanding based on bad translation was now the murder of a police officer, resisting arrest, and theft of a carriage and two horses.

Gregorio Cortez had greeted the morning as a free man, but now the gallows was looming at his back.

After seeing to his family, Gregorio and Romaldo set out for the nearby town of Kenedy. Romaldo was feverish and fading fast, which left Gregorio with little choice but to deposit him with another branch of their family and set off on his own. He then began a nearly one hundred mile walk to the home of Martin and Refugia Robledo, who rented a home from a wealthy German rancher named Schnabel.

By all rights, Gregorio should have been safe there at the Robledo house. He had evaded several posses on the way, and was relatively sure that no one had tracked him through the rough country.

Unfortunately for him, the sheriff of Gonzales County, Robert M. Glover, was a very good friend of the sheriff Gregorio Cortez had just killed, and Glover was determined to get revenge.

While the other posses were busy wandering the countryside, Glover arrested the women in Gregorio’s family and interrogated them. Using what he learned from them, he organized a posse and headed for Schnabel’s ranch. Though the rumor was never supported with reliable testimony, it appears Glover and his crew picked up a bottle of whiskey on the way to Schnabel’s ranch and had themselves a bit of a wake for the dearly departed Sheriff Brack Morris. They were, in all likelihood, quite drunk when they converged on the Robledo house.

The approaching posse evidently made a great deal of noise as descended on the property, because Gregorio and Martin Robledo were outside, hiding in the brush, waiting for them.

The posse dismounted, with the exception of Glover, and charged the house. Glover rode around to the southeast corner of the property, and there he met up with Cortez. The two men started shooting at one another, and the battle went on until Cortez managed to hit and kill Glover. Cortez then hid, barefoot, in a briar-strewn field until the fight, which grew in legend to become the Battle of Belmont, was over. Then he quietly reentered the house, got his shoes, and fled.

Meanwhile, the posse had their blood up. They engaged the Robledo family and ultimately captured them, but not before Schnabel was shot in the face. He was killed instantly, and there is still some doubt as to who actually inflicted the fatal wound. Mrs. Robledo was charged with the crime, but convincing evidence was raised during the trial to suggest that the fatal shot actually came from another deputy named Tom Harper. But regardless of the cause of Schnabel’s death, the focus remained on Gregorio Cortez. He was now wanted for the death of two sheriffs, and every lawman in the state was itching to put a noose around his neck.

He fled to another friend’s house, where he was given a horse, saddle, and gun, and from there embarked on a mad dash across the state, bound for Laredo. Along the way, he became the subject of the largest manhunt in Texas history. At one point, a posse of three hundred deputies and conscripts (though contrary to legend, the Texas Rangers were not involved at that point) pursued him.

Cortez managed to elude them at every turn. For ten days he used tricks and courage and just plain luck to stay one step ahead of everybody before finally getting turned in by a friend to the Texas Rangers, who took him into custody without firing a shot.

Cortez was taken to San Antonio, where he was tried and convicted for numerous crimes. Despite multiple trials and attempts to lynch him, his death sentence was ultimately commuted by Texas Governor Oscar Colquitt. He was released from prison in 1913 and died three years later of pneumonia.

The Man and the Legend

It’s not hard to see why Cortez became a folk hero. After all, Mexicans living in South Texas, whether legally or otherwise, have long been treated like dirt by their white neighbors. For the thousands of Mexicans living in poverty, Gregorio Cortez was a shooting star. Here was one of their own making the assembled might of the white establishment look like a bunch of chumps. Like Robin Hood before him, he underwent an apotheosis at the hands of balladeers, who immortalized him in song.

Here is Hally Wood’s beautiful translation of “El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez,” which I found in Americo Paredes’ book With His Pistol in his Hand:

In the county of El Carmen
A great misfortune befell;
The Major Sheriff is dead;
Who killed him no one can tell.

At two in the afternoon,
In half an hour or less,
They knew that the man who killed him
Had been Gregorio Cortez.

They let loose the bloodhound dogs;
They followed him from afar.
But trying to catch Cortez
Was like following a star.

All the rangers of the county
Were flying, they rode so hard;
What they wanted was to get
The thousand-dollar reward.

And in the county of Kiansis
They cornered him after all;
Though they were more than three hundred
He leaped out of their corral.

Then the Major Sheriff said,
As if he was going to cry,
“Cortez, hand over your weapons;
We want to take you alive.”

Then said Gregorio Cortez,
And his voice was like a bell,
“You will never get my weapons
Till you put me in a cell.”

Then said Gregorio Cortez,
With his pistol in his hand,
“Ah, so many mounted Rangers
Just to take one Mexican!”

There are innumerable variants of the story, and each embellishes some element of the manhunt. Gregorio’s flight became a vehicle upon which the Mexican folk ballads of northern Mexico and South Texas, a tradition collectively known as corridos, heaped tale after tale of daring do.

This process seems to have started relatively early. The newspapers of the day show a great deal of divisiveness about Gregorio Cortez and what his punishment should be. In some cases, such as with the San Antonio Express News, articles would run side by side, one calling for the immediate lynching of Gregorio Cortez, the other praising his resourcefulness, his courage, his pluck. Mexicans, and a few Anglos as well, took up the story and made Gregorio Cortez into a local god.

The corrido tradition surrounding Cortez became so elaborate, in fact, that by 1958 Americo Paredes was able to devote an entire book to separating Gregorio Cortez the man from Gregorio Cortez the legend. Paredes’ book, With His Pistol in his Hand, remains the finest treatment of the Gregorio Cortez story. In almost every respect, it is a fair and honest attempt to get at the truth of what happened during those ten days in June, 1901. And it is also a loving tribute to the Mexican musical tradition of the corrido.

But in my mind Paredes’ book does take the logical next step and connect the role of art in making heroes out of criminals. Look at Robin Hood, immortalized in songs, novels and movies. Look at the gangsters, bank robbers and rum runners of the 1930s immortalized by the pulp fiction industry and Hollywood. Bonnie and Clyde are no longer reckless psychopaths; they are Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway enacting a modern fable of true love pitted against the cold, indifferent world. Robert Ford, who shot Jesse James in the back (an act that arguably saved a good many innocent lives), is now reviled as a coward and an assassin, lumped in with the likes of the Sheriff of Nottingham and King John.

It seems, ultimately, that crime can pay...as long as you have a soundtrack.

The Narcocorrido: An Afterward

Somewhere out there somebody is saying, “Yeah, but...Robin Hood, he lived a long time ago. His crimes have been whitewashed by time and circumstance and political irrelevance. Today we know the Medieval church stood in the way of scientific progress and that it committed more sins that it helped to prevent. The Sheriff of Nottingham was a villain, through and through. He deserved to meet up with someone like Robin Hood and his Merry Men. And besides, none of that applies to us. All Robin Hood is these days is a historical abstraction, like King Arthur. Lighten up, man. It’s just a story.

Even Gregorio Cortez, whose biography is fairly well documented, is from another time. The players in his drama have been dead for more than half a century, right? What’s the harm in making up stories about him?

Well, there’s nothing wrong with having heroes, to be sure. People need heroes. And they’re going to look for them among their own. Not only do heroes provide the sense of adventure I craved as a boy, but they validate one’s way of life. For the Mexicans in the smoky cantinas of South Texas, Gregorio Cortez was a literal expression of what could be, of what any of them could be. Robin Hood represented the same thing to the oppressed lower classes in England. So heroes, as a Platonic form, are not bad. Far from it.

But there is a danger here, depending upon your point of view. Art, after all, is not static. Just as communities change, take on new systems of moral value and new economies, so too do the stories those communities tell. And today, a good part of the South Texas border culture is wrapped up in drugs and illegal migration and violence. Yes, there are still good and true people living along the border, but to paraphrase Thoreau, they are living lives of quiet desperation. They are surrounded by drug cartels that openly engage the government, that kill indiscriminately, that piggy back off the migrant worker’s illegal border crossing quest for a better way of life. The reality of life on the border is one of violence and fear.

And the corrido has changed to reflect this new reality. A new form of the folk ballad has emerged called the narcocorrido, or drug ballad. These are polka-based dance tunes that tell the story of drug runners and border criminals. They are extremely popular. Early examples of the form date back to 1930s, but it wasn’t until the 1970s, when the band Los Tigres del Norte took the Mexican music world by storm, that narcocorrido rose to prominence.

Today, nearly forty years later, the narcocorrido is a mainstay of Mexican music. The ballads its practitioners write and perform contain the exploits of real people. They describe real crimes. And they are making heroes of drug dealers in much the same way as earlier corridos made a hero of Gregorio Cortez.

Except that nowadays the bands performing narcocorridos can reach hundreds of millions of people.

Go anywhere south of the Rio Grande with a picture of Los Tigres del Norte or Rosalino “Chalino” Sanchez, and you won’t have to look very hard to find somebody who knows all their songs by heart.

The implications are frightening. Tempers on both sides of the border are short enough as it is. People become rabid when you start discussing immigration. Add to that the very real threat of drugs and organized warfare sponsored by drug cartels, and you might as well drop a lit match into a powder keg. It will take us years, maybe even several generations, to heal the mistrust that has risen up between the United States and Mexico.

The narcocorrido, I think, will help to deepen that mistrust, rather than help to heal it. Looking back on Gregorio Cortez, we can view his story within the context of the racism of his day, a factor that goes a long way toward mitigating his crimes. We can root for him during his adventures because our modern sensibilities tell us that he was treated unjustly, that he was made a criminal just because he was a Mexican living in an Anglo world. But we can’t say that about the hero of a narcocorrido. When he kills a Los Angeles policeman and flees back to a little village south of the border, thumbing his nose at American justice as he runs, we don’t get to couch his crime in terms of human rights and a demand for dignified treatment. All we can see is a worm eating its way through our moral bread basket. And with heroes like that, who needs villains?

Joe McKinney is a horror, crime, and science fiction writer from San Antonio. He is also a homicide detective for the San Antonio Police Department.

Writers often tend to focus on the effects of the crimes they cover on the victims and their families. Which is as it should be. Every now and then, though, I’m reminded of the families of the criminals themselves, which we tend to treat less kindly, as if there’s some sort of guilt by association.

Not too long after IN BROAD DAYLIGHT came out, I received a long letter from one of Ken McElroy’s many, many children. She was objecting to how I portrayed her father, and insisted that he was a kind, loving man who had never abused his children or his wives/girlfriends.

When the man who allegedly shot McElroy as he sat in his pickup on the main street of town died a few months ago, I wrote of him in a blog as a heavy drinker and hot-tempered man. One of his family members wrote in that he was not hot tempered unless provoked by people like me, and he was well-loved by family and friends.

In my latest book, THE PAST IS NEVER DEAD, involving the trial of James Ford Seale (pictured above) in 2007 for the murder of two black youths in 1964, I mentioned the rumors that Seale’s first wife was manic-depressive and had possibly committed suicide. One of her grandsons wrote an angry letter to me insisting that she was a wonderful upbeat woman, and berating me for needlessly ripping on her.

I tend to dismiss these sorts of complaints as coming from the predictably aggrieved. I’ve begun to give them a second look. Many of these people have done nothing wrong, and often to them their father or grandfather or whoever did the crime is a human being they’ve grown up loving. Naturally, they’re going to be defensive; naturally they’re going to be unhappy about how their relative was portrayed. They can’t be objective.

Could you be?

This won’t change the way I write, or what I write about, but I’ve resolved to be a little more understanding of those who may also be innocent—the friends and family members of the killers themselves (assuming, of course, that they have had nothing to do with the crimes themselves, or in creating the perpetrator of the crimes).

It’s important for true crime writers to attend to their own humanity.

Harry N. MacLean is an Edgar Award winning true crime author. You can find out more about Harry and his books by visiting his website at HarryMacLean.com.

By Andy Kahan

For the fourth time since he was sentenced to 45 years in 1992 for the brutal murder of 27 year-old Paul Broussard, Jon Buice is once again eligible for to be released on Parole after serving 17 years.

On July 3rd, 1991 Buice was a member of a gang of 10 young men who drove from The Woodlands which is roughly 30 miles north of Houston to a section in Houston called Montrose to quote several of them "To beat up queers". The gang had previously descended upon the Montrose area to throw "Queer Rocks" at gays who were walking in the neighborhood.

Paul and two friends had just departed a nightclub that evening when the "Woodlands Ten" stopped them for directions. The pack of wolves immediately descended upon Paul and began attacking him with fists, steel toed boots, nail studded 2 X 4's and a knife wielding Jon Buice. Paul suffered abrasions, a broken rib, bruised testicles and three stab wounds. As Paul lay writhing on the ground, his attackers rifled through his clothes looking for money.

Paul died from his wounds eight and half hours later after this brutal, vicious and hate-filled violent act. Paul a graduate of Texas A&M had his whole future taken from him simply because he was gay. Paul was attacked and murdered because he was gay. If the crime occurred today there is no doubt Buice and the others would be prosecuted under the new Federal Hate Crime Statute titled: The Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd Jr. Act. I firmly believe the primary motive for The Woodlands Ten was a Hate Crime against an entire community with designs to intimidate.

Believe it or not there is a ground-swelling of support for the early release of Jon Buice. His paid consultants claim that Jon was young and under the influence of drugs and alcohol. One of his attorney's stated on a local television show that Paul's death was a "Little altercation" and that Jon only had a small pocket knife on him. The attorney further elaborated that the stab wounds did not cause Paul's death and that he died of blood loss due to delay by Houston Paramedics who were afraid of HIV.

A prominent Gay-Rights Activist claimed Paul laid on the ground for over an hour and that emergency personnel would not touch him for fear of contracting Aids. The activist on local television claimed that I was and still am protecting the city from civil liability and that I have steered Paul's mother Nancy away from filing a suit against the city. He further commented that Jon is a "Fine young man". Somehow the fact that Jon showed off the knife and bragged to others he stabbed Paul seemingly is lost to his supporters.

Buice will no doubt once again have a hired gun i.e. a Parole Consultant advocating that he has served more than enough time and it is appropriate to grant him Parole. Strangely enough I received an email from one of Jon's former cell mates who has gone on the record stating that he is not all that rehabilitated. A letter sent to the Parole Board advises members that Jon is a first class manipulator and still prefers to hang out with supremacist offenders. The letter also states that Jon does indeed know how to deal with the prison system like a pro which should explain his exemplary behavior, however if he does not get his way he becomes really angry and mean spirited.

Again, the above was unsolicited and is coming from someone who lived next to him for several years.

Paul's mother Nancy has had to endure not only the painful loss of her son but has spent 17 years immersed in the roller-coaster trials and tribulations of our criminal justice system. Nancy and I have attended so many Parole Hearings on at least seven of the defendants that I literally lost rack of how many times we had to plead to the Board to keep those who elected of their own free will to take Pauls' life.

In 2007, Nancy and I met with the Parole Board and we respectfully requested that if parole is denied to please exercise your professional judgement by granting a five year-set-off. Nancy travels from out-of-state each time and it would be more than humane to cut her some slack by utilizing the maximum set-ff as prescribed by law. We enacted legislation in 2003 to allow Parole Board members to grant five year denials for obvious no brainer cases like this, yet for some reason still to this day we have yet to granted such a break.

On Nov. 17th, Nancy and I will once again meet with the Parole Board and plead our case. And yes, once again we will be asking that if Parole is denied that the Board exercise their professional judgement by giving Nancy the maximum set-off which at the very least will allow her more time to heal and certainly give the Board more time to consider cases more worthy of consideration. A statement from a member of The Texas House of Representatives pretty much sums it all up when she wrote to the Parole Board, "While Ms. Rodriguez should be commended for her dedication to her son and the pursuit of justice in his memory, it should be noted that I do not see why she should have to suffer through this time and time again when there is an available alternative to the Parole Board, i.e. a Five Year Set-Off".

For those who care to weigh in on whether or not Parole should be granted, I would encourage all to exercise your First Amendment Rights by voicing your opinion to The Texas Dept. of Criminal Justices Victim Services by emailing: Victim.svc@tdcj.state.tx.us---please reference Jon Buice,TDCJ# 630496.

from truTV's CrimeLibrary.com

When Mark Essex was in the Navy, he said he wanted to become a dentist. Two years later he gunned down 19 people, including 10 police officers.

Thirty years before a pair of serial snipers terrorized Washington, D.C., Mark Essex prowled the streets of New Orleans with a .44-caliber Magnum rifle. During a weeklong reign of terror, he launched a series of surprise attacks against the city's police department, its citizens, and its visitors.

Essex's rampage ended in the bloodiest shootout in New Orleans history and the deadliest day ever for its police department.

As the events of that day were broadcast live on television, 12-year-old John Allen Williams, who would later change his name to John Allen Muhammad and become one of the beltway snipers, lived less than 70 miles away.

Click this link to read the entire story.

By Carol Anne Davis

The police have said that anti-social behaviour is no longer a police matter in Britain, that it’s a job for local authorities. They made this outlandish statement at the recent inquest of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter Francecca, who burned to death in October 2007.

Fiona lived in Leicester with her two children, a teenage daughter who had a mental age of four and a learning-disabled nine year old son, and was bullied on an almost daily basis by a loosely-formed gang of local youths, ranging from age ten to seventeen. The abuse had been going on in various forms for seven years. Some of them smashed bottles outside her home whilst others screamed insults at her and her children. Her son Antony had stones thrown at him as he rode his bike and was asked to buy cigarettes for younger kids. At night, the menacing gang would hang around outside her house for hours, shouting abuse and keeping her awake.

The vulnerable single parent wrote to her MP, admitting that she didn’t know what to do to keep her children safe. She often phoned police but it could be four days before an officer attended. Sometimes no one turned up.

In fairness to the police, she sometimes over reacted, phoning them to complain that teenagers were smoking outside her home. But even when her claims were valid - she had five of her windows broken by the thugs in the space of a few weeks - nothing was done. In the year leading up to the murder-suicide, she phoned and emailed community support and beat officers on thirteen occasions, admitting that she was often too afraid to go out, that she was becoming a prisoner in her own home.

The authorities knew who the ringleaders were but regarded it as `mere’ anti-social behaviour. But, as many of the taunts circulated around the children’s disabilities, it was actually a hate crime which should have been given a much higher priority. Yet community officers who visited the home had no idea that it included two learning-disabled children who had been terrorised for much of their lives.

The warning signs continued, with Fiona Pilkington admitting to social services that she felt suicidal. They should have referred her to the mental health authorities, but instead took no action. Police also failed to link with other services, and, as a result, no one had the full picture of a family under siege.

Eventually, the depressed and anxious thirty-eight-year-old had had enough. She put her eighteen-year-old daughter Francecca and her pet rabbit in her car and drove to a layby. Parking, she set the vehicle alight with petrol, burning herself and her daughter to death.

The public were shocked by her acts and the circumstances leading up to it, but even more shocked by the attitude of the police, suggesting that this was a local authority issue. The government was equally incensed and attacked their mindset as ludicrous.

The Home Secretary has now issued guidelines to make thuggery a priority target, and thugs who breach their ASBOS will be taken back to court and dealt with accordingly. Local people who have the courage to testify against them will get additional help. It’s too late for Fiona Pilkington and her daughter but perhaps another equally vulnerable family will be saved.

All of the books by Carol Anne Davis are available from amazon.co.uk in Britain and some are on sale at the American amazon.com. For further details please see her website at www.carolannedavis.co.uk

Imagine that just before unleashing his murderous rampage, the killer had shouted, "God is a white man!" 

Would the media and the pundits be working overtime trying to concoct a reason for the murders that did not involve the killer's religious and political beliefs? Would the president have cautioned us not to jump to any conclusions about the killer's motive?

Of course not.

The media would be producing damning profiles of neo-Nazi and skinhead leaders. They would have analysts, professors, and authors explaining the ideology of racial and ethnic hatred and the warped theology of a religion that teaches such things. They would demand that government officials explain why a man who declared such feelings was allowed to remain in the U.S. Army. In essence, the media would skewer those who believed in the inherent superiority of one race over another.

They would be doing their job.

But if we move from the hypothetical to the actual, from the abstract to the concrete, the situation looks quite different. Army Major Nidal Hasan is not a neo-Nazi, nor is he a member of the Christian Identity movement.

Hasan is a Muslim who believes that the United States is an imperialistic power engaged in a war against Islam. According to those who know him, Hasan described himself as "Muslim first and American second."

Six years ago, Hasan reportedly told fellow doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center that non-Muslims should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats, according to Britain's Daily Telegraph. Non-Muslims, Hasan said, are infidels, condemned to hell, and should be set on fire.

A white soldier who advocated beheading black people and pouring boiling oil down their throats would have, at the very least, found himself dishonorably discharged from the Army, and rightly so.

So why did a Muslim soldier who spouted equally insane rhetoric not merit similar treatment?

The reason is that as Americans we are terrified of offending anyone, and we are particularly terrified of offending Muslims. In fact, many of us would rather let our fellow countrymen die rather than risk offending a Muslim.

We have learned that offending the sensibilities of Muslims often results in a torrent of violence--bombings, burnings, and beheadings--so we do everything we can to maintain "peace" with the so-called religion of peace. U.S. publishers have cancelled the release of books because they might be offensive to Muslims, gyms have restricted the hours available to men so Muslim women would not have to exercise with them, at least one public university has installed footbaths so Muslims can wash their feet before prayers, and the government and media have agreed to hide the truth about Islamic-inspired violence in this country, all in the name of political correctness.

Last week, we sacrificed 13 American soldiers on the altar of political correctness.

To be fair to Major Hasan, he provided the Army with ample warning of his intentions. Although he was born in Virginia, Hasan listed his nationality as Palestinian. He told fellow soldiers of his dislike for America. He worshipped at the same mosque as two of the 9/11 hijackers, and at the feet of a radical U.S.-born imam who has since fled to Yemen, where he preaches hatred for America.

Monday, that same imam declared Nidal Hasan a hero, writing "Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done?"

Given that Hasan frequently harangued fellow soldiers with what one Army doctor described as "anti-American rants," why didn't the Army seek to shut him up? Why didn't senior officers kick Hasan out of the Army? Why wasn't Hasan nailed to the cross of intolerance, like our hypothetical neo-Nazi, Christian Identity soldier would have been?

Because Hasan is Muslim.

According to the Telegraph, "One Army doctor who knew (Hasan) said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim soldier had stopped fellow officers from filing formal complaints."

Make no mistake, Major Nidal Hasan is a terrorist. The difference between a crazed lone gunman and a terrorist is that a crazed gunman is fighting against something, whether that something is his family, his employer, or society. A terrorist fights for something--animal rights, political ideology, or a medieval religion that preaches hatred and seeks to dominate the world.

America needs to acknowledge that there is an elephant in the room. And that elephant is Islam.

A study by the Pew Research Institute found that 26 percent of young American Muslims say that suicide bombings are justified in at least some circumstances. The same study found that half of all U.S. Muslims think of themselves as Muslims first and Americans second, and that only 68 percent of American Muslims had an "unfavorable" view of al Qaeda.

(For those of you who have forgotten, al Qaeda is the Islamic terror group headed by Osama bin Laden that attacked the United States on 9/11 and murdered nearly 3,000 innocent Americans.)

Major Nidal Hasan attacked soldiers at Ft. Hood because in his twisted view, the U.S. Army is the enemy of Islam and therefore his enemy. Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" (Allah is Great) as he gunned down dozens of his fellow soldiers, proclaiming his motive in crystal clear terms.

Despite that, the media, the Army, and the White House have been engaged in a campaign since last week to obscure Hasan's motivation for the killings. They've blamed everything but his religious convictions.

They've even come up with a new syndrome--Pre-traumatic Stress Disorder. Following that line of reasoning, Hasan was so upset about being deployed to Afghanistan that he didn't even have to see any of the horrors of war to be traumatized by them. Just thinking about them was enough to damage his psyche.

Soon the blame will fall on the pharmaceutical companies and a lack of adequate mental health counseling, despite the fact that Hasan is a psychiatrist who specialized in counseling soldiers and who worked with other mental health professionals specializing in the same field.

What the media will not blame is Hasan's devotion to a religion that seeks to destroy everything that does not adhere to its theology of hatred and global conquest.

###

Chuck Hustmyre is an award winning crime reporter and the author of the Penguin true crime books Killer with a Badge and An Act of Kindness, and the novel House of the Rising Sun. For more information, visit his Web site www.chuckhustmyre.com.

By Burl Barer

In 1997, the Capitol of Ghanna, Accra, was so chaotic with fear that the army was called in to quell the crowd. The death toll had risen to seven. Victims alleged rampant penis theft. Yes, you read that correctly.

So-called penis snatching reports are not uncommon in West Africa, where purported victims often blame penis shrinkage on handshakes with sorcerers. Residents recall a similar scare in Accra in the early 1980s.

Police and government officials dismiss the stories as the work of thieves, who police say spread rumors to create a crowd and then pick people's pockets. These pick pockets must be reaching pretty deep.

This would all be laughable were it not for the true pain, anguish and death resulting from these widespread delusions. A man steps out of cold swimming pool, changes clothes and notices his penis has “shrunk.” In a world-view where demons, sorcerers and evil spirits abound, the obvious conclusion is that some evil person or entity has shrunken his manhood or, even worse, stolen his penis.

Austin Powers had his Mojo stolen in Goldmember, but that was a joke. This rash of penis thefts was no laughing matter. No, not when people are murdered in retaliation.

People don’t perceive the world as it is, they perceive it as they expect it, anticipate it, and believe it to be. We are steadfast in our allegiance to our image of reality that we created and reinforce.

The most classic example of such tenacity is that of the woman who had the delusion that she was dead. In an attempt to help the woman see the error of her delusion, her doctor asked her, “Do dead people bleed?” She responded, “No, of course not. Dead people don't bleed.” He then pricked her finger, drawing a drop of blood. “I was wrong,” gasped the woman with surprise, “dead people do bleed!” The moral of the story is that the mind will do everything to protect a firmly held belief, especially a deeply entrenched delusion, even in the face of direct evidence.

This is where superstition can be both a blessing and a curse. If your “world” is one where werewolves prowl, and you believe they are real, you will certainly fear them, and see them threatening you.

Those of us in so-called civilized countries don’t get too worked up about werewolves anymore. In France, between 1520 and 1630 some thirty thousand people were condemned as werewolves; many of them underwent traumatic interrogation and torture. Confessed or not, most of them suffered vile death at the stake.
The Puritans in early America believed in the existence of an invisible world inhabited by God and the angels including the Devil and his fellow demons. To Puritans, this invisible world was as real as the visible one around them. The idea that someone could make a deal with the devil was one they could believe. When some local youngsters started acting delusional and weird, they were accused of being witches. Soon, may others were accused as well.

In accordance with Puritan beliefs, the majority of accused 'witches' were unmarried or recently widowed land-owning women; according to the law of the time, upon the owner's death, title to the land would revert to the previous owner, or to the Church. There were motives of greed behind many accusations. More than one hundred women and children were tortured and killed for being witches in that one area of the United States.

There were no witches. Everyone was innocent. The world view of the superstitious resulted in death.

There is so much influence over how you view yourself, and your body, that cultural superstitions – although devoid of fact – can actually manifest themselves in delusional beliefs. Create enough fear, and give that fear a trigger, and many people can be manipulate into believing all manner of things

It would not be farfetched to say that there are conspiracies whose purpose is to create the illusion of conspiracies. If that concept doesn’t make you crazy, I’m sure I can come up with one that will – and here it is: Victims Rights advocates are being manipulated by enemies of American Justice.

“Proponents of the victims’ rights movement have claimed that over the course of our nation’s history,” says Mary Margaret Giannini, Visiting Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis, 2006-2008. “The scales of justice lost their balance, tipping out of proportion in favor of defendants and to the detriment of victims. The fair treatment of defendants throughout the legal process was viewed as paramount, while victims became “faceless strangers” and were expected to “behave like good Victorian children – seen and not heard.” The victim, as an individual with a substantial personal interest in the trial proceedings, second only perhaps to the defendant, was sidelined and excluded.”

Over the last thirty years, the victims’ rights movement has made great strides. The criminal justice system is far more accepting of the presence of victims in criminal proceedings and in responding to their needs and interests. One area where this is particularly evident is in victims’ increased participation at sentencing. Congress’ most recent piece of federal victims’ rights legislation, the Crime Victims’ Rights Act highlights the victim’s expanded role at sentencing in that it grants to victims the express and enforceable right to be present and “reasonably heard.”

“Every victim must be allowed to speak at the time of sentencing. The victim, o less than the defendant, comes to the court to seek justice. When the court hears, as it may, from the defendant, his lawyer, his family and friends, his minister, and others, simple fairness dictates that the person who has borne the brunt of the defendant’s crime be allowed to speak.”

Those who favor victim impact statements believe they reveal information about the harm of a crime, and that's relevant to a purpose of sentencing: making sure that the punishment fits the crime. Proper punishment, advocates believe, cannot be meted out unless judges and juries know, in full, the harm caused by the crime. Victim impact statements educate judges and juries about these important facts so that an appropriate sentence can be imposed.

Critics have taken the position that victim impact statements are such powerful evidence at sentencing that they overwhelm judges and juries. Some have even gone so far as to refer to the idea of victim impact as the “pollution” of sentencing with emotion.

Professor Susan Bandes, who may be the nation’s leading scholar on emotion and the law, has put the claim this way: “Studies suggest that victim impact evidence, particularly when it conveys intense emotional pain, evokes sympathy and anger in jurors. Jurors perceive greater suffering after hearing such statements, and hear the emotional intensity of the statements as “a cry for help or relief.”

There is evidence that the anger they feel upon hearing victim impact statements translates into feelings of punitiveness. There is also evidence, more generally, that anger tends to interfere with the sound judgment—it inhibits detailed information processing, increases tendencies to blame, including misattributions of blame, and exacerbates the urge to punish.

The legitimacy of victim impact statements is open to serious question. After all, how much influence should an individual's emotions have over the outcome of a case?

The idea of fairness is popular but frequently disconnected from reality. There is even a more troubling concern, seldom expressed, that a call for equality between victims and defendants is actually a false front hiding the real objective: an abandonment of the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution of the United States of America.

There are many folks who, when you get right down to it, don't like what our country stands for, and have a real disdain for the rights and protections found in our Constitution, and they seek to undermine those rights.”

Victims’ Rights advocates often seek to portray the unrealistic dichotomy of the “good victim” and the “bad defendant.” Real life isn't that simple, nor as simplistic. A mobster who gets shot by another mobster is just as much a victim as any other victim. The man who stabs his mother with a sword, and then is shot by his brother, might be the victim, or he might be the defendant, depending on what happened to whom, when and how.

I have been the victim of violent crime, and I sympathize with other victims. I also sympathize with Mr. Willis Wilson, who was identified by a traumatized woman as the man who kidnapped her and forced her at knife point to perform sexual acts.

In addition to charges of kidnapping and sexual assault, prosecutors wanted to link Wilson to six homicides. Talking heads, unfamiliar with the facts of the case, clamored for Wilson’s blood. They demonized him as usual, and called out for “justice for the victims.”

American justice is about justice for the accused. This is what makes America the land of the free and home of the brave. You are presumed innocent, but the plethora of crime pundits had Wilson dangling at the end of a rope before the trial even began.

The victim, commentators stressed, had no trouble picking Wilson out of a line up. She positively identified him as the man who kidnapped her. The man was in his mid thirties, had a beard and false teeth. Every man in the lineup was clean shaven, had his own teeth, and was between 19 and 22 except for Mr. Wilson. In truth, Wilson had never seen the victim before in his life. He was an innocent man.

Yes, he was seen at the office building from which the victim was abducted. In fact, he seemed to be looking for someone. He sure was – his girlfriend whom he promised to take to lunch. He went to the wrong floor before finding her, and was noticed wandering around “suspiciously.”

“I took my girlfriend out for lunch,” recalls Wilson, “and then took her back to work. The next day I was arrested for kidnapping a woman I’ve never heard of in my life.”

Justice for the victim doesn’t mean convicting an innocent man. Despite prosecutors pressuring Wilson to take a plea bargain, he refused and the case went to trial. When the case went to the jury, they rendered their verdict within forty-five minutes: Not Guilty.

It was following the jury’s verdict that the judge took decisive action of his own. He escorted Wilson across the street and treated him to a bowl of ice cream. Others falsely accused are not so fortunate. Accusation is not conviction, and portraying the accused as “guilty” before a trial has taken place is not justice for anyone. Justice is fairness, not mindless angry retribution against a potential target of your rage.

If you are a victim, you have rights, but not the right to demand conviction of the innocent, or pervert the process of justice that deems the defendant innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, even if you believe with all your heart that he stole your penis.

Willis Wilson recounted his ordeal, and his accidental encounter with the real kidnapper, in a special interview with attorney Don Woldman and me on our TRUE CRIMES radio show. To listen, simply  click this link.

By Denny Griffin

Continued from: The Spilotro Era in Vegas - Part V

Starting in the late 1960s, the word within federal law enforcement circles was that agents working out of the FBI’s Las Vegas office were “freeloading” all over town. They were reportedly receiving free meals and drinks from the very individuals and casinos they were supposed to be investigating or keeping an eye on.

By Anthony Flacco


My new book “The Road Out Of Hell” is based upon the same serial killer case that spawned the move “Changeling” and exposed one of the darker instances of police corruption in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department in the late 1920’s.

Even so, I am already on the record as a supporter of the L.A.P.D. and while I have no connection to the department, my understanding has been formed by twenty-five years of living and working in the area. In the course of my true-crime writing I’ve spent ride-along shifts with uniformed officers in the troubled south-central district. I also conducted a long list of interviews with detectives, assistant district attorneys, and officers of the civil and criminal courts.

The sum total has given me a broad view of the work presented to officers on the streets. The thin blue line is much more than the title of Joseph Wambaugh’s seminal book. It represents the essential will of society in the form of heavily controlled and coded behavior on each officer’s part that outlines the manner in which the ruling population prefers to inflict its will upon itself.

We know that the inhibitions we place upon an officer in conflict situations are necessary because they control the human impulse to bully and harm, found in every human endeavor. But here’s the rub: they also carry the built-in problem of inhibiting the officer’s range of choices in confrontations with a suspect, when the suspect has the freedom to choose from the full load of violent criminal responses. It is the distance between the officer’s permitted responses and the blunt reality of an adrenalin or drug-hyped offender, possibly armed, potentially crazy, that represents the span of distance which can be crossed only by personal strength of will and determination.

But that raises the question of motive. What drives the by-the-book officer to perform within those heavy constraints in the face of lethal danger? Something is there that such people value strongly enough to risk great injury or loss of life. A steady paycheck isn’t enough.

The prospect of corrupt profits may inspire the worst among them, but that is of no help in answering the question of overall motive. The fact that corruption and perhaps psycopathy will be found within the ranks of any group of uniformed officers is most regrettable, but says nothing about those who play it straight even when nobody is looking. They are the ones who should compel our point of view on the group. After all, any large group of people will have its share of deeply spoiled apples. Their presence is depressing, but we also have mechanisms in place to suppress them. Which returns us to the question of motive with those who don’t need to be suppressed.

What drives them?

There is only one angle of view that reveals their shared sense of purpose: helping to keep society running and doing their best to keep its denizens safe. Such people feel no shame in the fact that they harbor a clear sense of right and wrong. Moral relativism is for political philosophers. Theirs is the realm of permitted vs. not-permitted, a necessary evil of black and white that represents our general social determination to live in a certain way, with its extreme opposite represented by prowling serial rapists or rioting urban looters.

You can point directly to crooked cops who take bribes and harm innocent citizens, and although I certainly root for them to get busted and to do hard time, I have no interest in their story. It’s old and it’s tired and greed is the most banal of personal drives, an outrage of human character that no one knows how to eliminate. So what? It is never the bad apples that define the crop. You seek them out, eliminate them as best you can, and get on with things.

Compare those failures of humanity to the ones running into the fire-fight, coming through a bolted door and into a darkened space to respond to cries of desperation. Consider the ones standing their ground, out-gunned by maniacs, preventing them from escaping out into the general population. And never forget the ones who must step into the chaotic noise and violence of a domestic assault, knowing that one of the mysteries of the human heart is that the very person whom they are trying to save will sometimes turn against them with lethal force.

Those officers are what is extraordinary about the police department and the about work that we depend upon them to do. If they don’t pull the reckless drivers off of the roads, those reckless drivers will kill the innocent by the carload, perhaps us, perhaps our loved ones. Yet the cops approach every single traffic stop knowing that sometimes a driver will turn lunatic and give a violent response to the prospect of a traffic ticket, or that the normal-looking occupant of the car they have just stopped is about to panic over getting caught for something else.

That is why I say that the only single word that can fairly be pinned onto the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department is the word “heroes.” I don’t use it to cover up the need for a never-ending process of culling the force for rogue behavior. Rather, it reminds us all of those who never went rogue in the first place. The real ones. The ones who will risk themselves at any given moment for the essential human concept of right and wrong. When we fail to honor such people, we fail to honor the best within ourselves. Next time you pass one on the job, if you’re not doing anything wrong, dare to smile and wave. You may be sending a moment of respect to someone who, an hour later, will be staring down monsters from your worst nightmare, fighting to keep them away from you.


Anthony Flacco is the author of the new historical true crime book, The Road Out Of Hell, which has just been released by Union Square Press at Sterling Publishing. It tells the true story behind the murders that formed the basis for the movie “Changeling,” but focuses on young Sanford Clark, the thirteen year-old who was held for two years at the Wineville murder ranch and forced to participate in the most gruesome of crimes. He is also the author of the nonfiction book ”Tiny Dancer” from St. Martin’s Press, which earned high praise from the NYT Book Review, and the true-crime book, “A Checklist For Murder” from Dell Books, which sold to NBC Studios as a TV movie. He has two historical crime novels from Ballantine books, “The Last Nightingale,” nominated by the International Thriller Writers Assn. as Best Paperback Original for 2007, and also the novel, “The Hidden Man,” in 2008, which continued the San Francisco murder mystery series.

By Michelle McKee

“The truth, however, is not changeable”

- Pat Brown, self-titled criminal profiler, TV taking head regularly seen on Nancy Grace, the Today Show and others. Self-appointed international expert on criminal psychology, behavior profiling, investigational procedure, evidence collection, interview techniques, crime scene analysis, suspect profiling, victim psychology. Frequently witnessed playing the blame game; tends to blame victims for being victims.

The Innocent

“I am writing on behalf of victims of rape […].”

“I began to wonder if Lisa had really been a victim of rape of [sic] this was merely a publicity ruse to sell books and get on the good side of victim’s organizations.
 

- Pat Brown, self-titled criminal profiler

She was walking home from school when she was snatched from a San Antonio, Texas street by two paint sniffing high school dropouts looking for a good time, at someone else’s expense.  Abducted and taken to Corpus Christi, she was held for three days and repeatedly raped by her captors. She was seventeen and this was her first sexual experience.

They had taken her to a beach and while there she managed to escape and run screaming away from them. However, several beachgoers ignored her cries and pleas for help, mistaking her for just another drunken college girl. Her rapists woke up, chased her down and proceeded to tell onlookers that all was well, she was with them. They reclaimed their victim and continued with their assault, again repeatedly raping her.

She was eventually released, but not before a demand for ransom was made. The F.B.I was called in and her father, with several thousands of dollars contained within a briefcase, was flown via helicopter from King Ranch to the beach where his daughter was being held by her kidnappers. Instructions had been given to leave the briefcase in a phone booth, the drop was made and a high-speed chase ensued. Both individuals were caught, charged, went to trial, were convicted and sentenced.

She moved on with her life and for more than 10-years never spoke of what had happened during those three days to anyone. Not until she met a man who would later become her husband. Although she was able to open up to him, she still rarely spoke of it to anyone else, until he began working on a project that struck a cord with her. He was writing a book about a man who had been convicted of raping two women and was inexplicably released from prison ten years early. She decided then that if she spoke out about her rape perhaps it would help other women who had suffered through the similar experience.

She and her husband had been together for ten yeas but were married for less than two.  It was April 2002 and they would be celebrating their second wedding anniversary soon.  They were living in Los Angeles but preparing to move back to Texas. That previous December her husband had suffered an arterial fibrillation and was now also struggling with panic attacks. He wanted to move back home to San Antonio.

On Friday, April 26th; he took her to the airport and, expecting that they’d see each other again in just a few days, kissed her good-bye.  She was going to San Antonio in order to participate in six job interviews. The hope was that she’d be able to find something quickly so that she and her husband could move back home to Texas. She was a business manager / tax attorney / CPA for Ernst & Young and worked as a business manager for several of the top Hollywood celebrities including Russell Crowe, Kim Basinger, Ellen Degeneres, Anne Heche, Dyan Cannon, Charlie Sheen, Paul Reiser, and more. But she willingly gave it all up. Gave up the six-figure income, the high profile career, all so that she could take care of her husband, and because they had decided that hey wanted to try and have babies.

By Saturday night she had two job offers. She would be making the same amount of money that she had been making in LA and would be working 20-hours less for it. However, she never made the return flight back to celebrate her good news with her husband.

At 7pm Sunday night, April 28th, at the age of 38, Lisa Mitchell died at her parent’s home of Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome. She had just returned from an interview and was sitting in bed getting ready to have dinner with her parents.  There was no negative heart history in her family so it came as a complete and utter shock. Her medical examiner, Jan C. Garavaglia (AKA "Dr. G. - Medical Examiner"), was stumped and needed three other M.E.s to confer with her as to what caused her death. Needless to say, everyone was crushed.

“Corey may well have adored Lisa and been an excellent husband. I am just trying to determine if there is any truth that she was a rape victim. ” 

– Remark from Pat Brown, self-titled criminal profiler, in an email to a long time friend of Lisa and Corey Mitchell. The email address for this individual was obtained by Pat Brown through Lisa Mitchell’s virtual funeral site. Under her own admission, Pat Brown culled the guestbook signed by Lisa Mitchell’s mourners.

The Blog

A few weeks after In Cold Blog was launched Corey extended an invitation to me to join as a writer. He said it was only a small spot, just for months that had a 31st day. I was honored to be invited. I still feel that way.  After all, Andy Kahan writes here and Andy is my hero.

I thought Corey was taking a chance by bringing me to In Cold Blog as a writer. He didn’t know me. We had just met and that was only by way of true crime and the Internet.  He had no idea if I could actually write anything beyond a vitriolic email or blog comment. However, for whatever reason, he trusted that I could, and I am grateful for that. Corey was so trusting of me that it wasn’t until after he formerly invited me to ICB and I accepted that he thought to talk to one of his colleagues, someone whom we both knew, and see if they’d be willing to vouch for me. Corey also didn’t have a problem with my assertive and sometimes aggressive, sometimes scathing do not screw with me attitude. Nor did he seem to care that I had a vocabulary of expletives that far outdid George Carlin’s seven dirty words. As opposed to others with a more delicate constitution, Corey didn’t find it made me less of a human being or feel the need to scold me while wagging a finger in my face as though I were a child.

When I initially met Corey I had no idea he had been married before. But then why would I?  There was no reason for me to know and I don’t tend to ask personal questions of others, especially when I first meet them. Not even about their families. So, it wasn’t until I requested Corey as a friend on MySpace and then read a note he had posted to Lisa that I realized he was a widower. While I thought that it was sad he had lost his wife while they were both so young, I never asked him what had happened. It wasn’t my business and if eventually he wanted me to know, he would tell me.

I was dealing with a lot of issues both personal and professional. There were plenty of days I wasn’t able to post. Corey was never anything other than understanding. Even though it seemed that I was never able to fulfill by obligation to him by posting, he was never anything other than kind. Never once did he take me to task or pressure me to put something on the blog. Eight months after inviting me to join ICB, Corey asked me if I would be interested in running the blog for him while he finished his book. That was in March of 2008 and he has never lost faith in my management of his site, nor have the individuals who write here; despite having received emails from author Kathryn Casey stating that being linked to In Cold Blog while I run it is a career killer.

One of the things that I didn’t expect to find when I came to ICB was that authors have their own drama.  The extent that some of these “professionals” will go in order to try and ruin a colleague’s day, or reputation, can be staggering at times. Most of the writers I know avoid being sucked into the drama cesspool.  They find paying attention to any of it to be distracting and counter productive. It takes away from the business at hand, which is writing a story about someone else’s drama.

Becoming involved can also lead to burning ones bridges. When trying to promote one’s book it’s important to network with those who might be able to help you spread the word. Cutting off ones nose to spite their face is not a good idea when you’re an author, even if you believe your colleague is a blood sucking, ambulance chasing opportunist who is draining the life out of the genre. Better to smile and say, “I respect your work,” which literally translated means “I think you’re an untalented pain in the ass.  Having to share shelf space with you makes me want to hurl and the only reason that I’m even acknowledging you is because it’s in MY best interest to do so.”

So, while the wiser writers refuse to take part in any such nonsense, like with everything there’s always two or three people who stand out as exceptions and rather than avoid drama they set about to create it.

The Vilification

“I did not hijack the email. It was on a memorial site on the net.”

“I am not claiming Lisa was not a rape victim. I am just researching the matter to be sure that my concerns are justified in this matter. Corey himself researches the truth behind certain issues and I am sure some family members and friends of those he has contacted also may have been equally upset at such research.”

By Dr. Katherine Ramsland

About three miles from Locust Grove in northeastern Oklahoma is a piece of wooded acreage formerly known as Camp Scott. Some say it’s haunted, while Native Americans call it desecrated ground. Justice has seemed elusive for this shocking triple homicide, but Cherokee wisdom suggests that the debt might be paid. This is a tale of murder, shapeshifting, and forces beyond.

More than 140 girls had arrived at Camp Scott on that hot June day in 1977, where each was assigned to one of ten groups for her two-week stay. They’d be in these groups for games, lessons, hikes in the woods, and sleeping arrangements. Each section was named for a Native American tribe – Oklahoma has 37 recognized tribes – and on the night of June 12, the girls went to bed down.

Like most girls camping out, they probably thought up ways to scare each other. In fact, just a few weeks earlier, a hanging stick figure was discovered in the woods nearby. A few who knew each other played hide-and-seek, shrieking with laughter until a thunderstorm broke and pelting rain drove them into their tents. That’s what the watcher was waiting for.

He moved quietly through a counselors’ tent, taking personal items. It was easy to pull up the anchoring stakes and slip underneath a flap, or to silently cut a hole. He looked into another tent, startling some girls, before he headed for the most isolated area – the Kiowa section, where the youngest girls were. A little girl on her way to the shared central bathroom in the dark bumped him and he grabbed her but let her go. Another girl dropped a flashlight near him, screaming when she saw his legs. He fled to the edge of the camp. To his amusement, a counselor assured the girl there was no man in the woods.

Eventually, things quieted down and the rain stopped. He stared at tent #8, so vigilant and woods-savvy he could hear the slight intake of breath as the little girls slept. He timed his breath to theirs. Lori Lee Farmer, 8, Michelle Guse, 9, and Denise Milner, 10, were inside. The empty bunk was for a girl who’d been mistakenly assigned to the Seminole unit. A counselor had told her to stay where she was for the night. Denise Milner had been homesick for hours, but she’d put on a brave face as she rolled out her bag on the north-side cot. The empty one was next to hers. She’d asked the counselor if she could call her mother but was told to wait until morning, so before she’d slipped into the sack she’d written a letter home. She hoped that sleep would blot out the ache as she watched the empty cot.

She didn’t know that a man had just looked into tent #7 and moved on. He was coming for her. She was too young to have learned that the camp director had received and dismissed a threatening note that claimed, “We are on a mission to kill four girls in tent 1.” As she drifted to sleep, he entered and hit her over the head. Denise went unconscious.

Early the next morning, around 6 AM, a counselor walked toward the shower. Under a tree where the trail crossed the road, she spotted a child’s yellow sleeping bag. Nearby was another one, closer to camp. Why were these girls sleeping away from their tent, she wondered, and went closer. She saw Denise on the ground, naked from the waist down, gagged across her bruised face with electrical tape, and obviously dead. She lay face up, with her hands behind her and her legs spread apart. Horrified, the counselor ran for help.

The other girls were woken up, herded in to a quick breakfast, and out for a hike, to get them away from the camp. The girl who expected to join her Kiowa group grew confused as a counselor hustled her away. She did not know that the error that had sent her to the wrong tent the night before had saved her life. Other kids caught a glimpse of the sleeping bags still lying in the woods. Most had no idea what was happening, but when they returned from the hike, they were told to retrieve their gear and return to the bus. When their parents met them it was clear that something was terribly wrong. No one returned to Camp Scott that day…or ever again. Some of these girls, now grown up, describe on cold case chats how the incident is burned into their memory.

Investigators swarmed in, but it was mid-morning before a doctor finally opened the sleeping bags to examine the other two girls from tent #8. The blood on their heads testified to the beating they’d received before being zipped inside their bags and carried from the tent. One had been bound. All three had lengths of cord wrapped around their necks and there were signs that each had been sexually assaulted. An autopsy later would confirm it.

Piecing together a reconstruction based on pools of blood in the isolated tent, detectives theorized that the killer had entered through the back. He’d hit each girl with a blunt implement to keep them from waking and crying out. He’d raped the two youngest girls in the tent, strangling them with a cord before putting their bodies back into their bags. He’d had to carry them past seven other tents to leave them where they were found--150 feet from their beds. So he was bold. Denise may have revived upon his return, and from her footprints in the mud it appeared that he’d forced her to walk to the trail before he’d raped and strangled her. She’d probably been gagged in the tent. A pair of women’s glasses and a flashlight with a cover over the lens were found nearby. There was also a bloody footprint from the waffle-sole of a boot not far from the children’s blood-soaked clothing.

The bodies were removed and a massive manhunt began for the killer. The police soon focused on a local sports hero, Gene Leroy Hart, who’d been in considerable trouble. In 1966, Hart had abducted two pregnant women from a Tulsa club and raped them. He’d pled guilty and was sentenced to three 10-year terms, but got out in less than three. Shortly thereafter, he was convicted of four counts of first-degree burglary and sentenced to 305 years. This, too, was a short stint, as he’d escaped in 1973, managing to survive in a series of local caves where many outlaws had successfully dodged the law. In addition, it was rumored that medicine men had given Hart ancient magic to enhance his ability to hide. The Cherokee believed in such transformations, or at least in the skill of deflecting people from seeing who you really were. In a way, they understood the chameleonic nature of a psychopath.

Investigative teams, dog handlers, psychics, heat-seeking devices, and helicopter surveillance all failed to locate the elusive Cherokee. When a cave yielded photographs that Hart had developed on a job, his presence was affirmed. Inside another cave, from which someone resembling Hart had fled, a phrase was written on the wall, “The killer was here. Bye Bye fools. 77-6-17.” On June 23, Hart was charged in absentia with three counts of first-degree murder, among other things. However, he remained free. Many locals believed he was falsely accused.

Hart was spotted from time to time, and a book on this case, Someone Cry for the Children, discusses an intriguing conversation about his ability to elude the police. One investigator with a touch of Cherokee visited a medicine man named Crying Wolf. He learned that the tribe believed that if Hart had indeed raped and killed the girls, he’d be struck down. No matter where he was, in prison or out, he’d have to pay for such evil with his life. No one had to send him to prison; it would just happen. Crying Wolf offered medicine to facilitate the investigation, and Hart was soon under arrest.

His trial began a year later, focused on two aspects of physical evidence: sperm from the bodies was similar to Hart’s (despite a vasectomy), and Hart’s hair proved microscopically consistent with hair found on the bodies. (This supposed science is now under scrutiny.) In addition, items found in the caves where the photos were discovered had been claimed by camp counselors, and a roll of duct tape there was similar to that used to bind the girls. Women’s glasses had been found near the bodies, and Hart was wearing women’s glasses when arrested. Circumstantially, it made sense to link Hart to the murders, but it was far from a definitive case.

The defense attorney poked holes in the theory and accused the sheriff of planting evidence. In addition, a thumbprint on the flashlight believed to belong to the offender did not match Hart. However, one theory said he’d had an accomplice, so this fact failed to get him off the hook. The town was divided between Hart supporters and those who believed he was guilty.

After 10 days of testimony and different medicine men using their magic, it took the jury only six hours to acquit Hart. However, since he’d escaped before finishing his time on the burglary charges, he was returned to the state penitentiary. About two and a half months later, this wilderness survivor and athletic young man died from a heart attack while jogging. It came as a complete surprise, except to those who believed in higher forces.

In 1989, with the girl scout murders still unsolved, the FBI performed blood and semen tests, but the results were inconclusive. DNA testing, announced in 2008, was similarly disappointing, due to the poor quality of the samples. One girl had told authorities that she’d seen a man in camp that night much taller and heavier than Hart, and like many other who still follow this case, she believes he had an accomplice who got away with murder. That is, of course, unless the “medicine” has tracked him down.

Top left: Denise Milner
Middle right: Michelle Guse
Bottom left: Lori Farmer

Dr. Katherine Ramsland has a MA in forensic psychology from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a master's degree in clinical psychology, and a Ph.D. in philosophy. She has published thirty-five books, including True Stories of CSI, Inside the Minds of Serial Killers, Inside the Minds of Healthcare Serial Killers, Inside the Minds of Mass Murderers, The Human Predator: A Historical Chronology of Serial Murder and Forensic Investigation, The Criminal Mind: A Writers' Guide to Forensic Psychology, and The Forensic Science of CSI. With former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary, she co-authored The Unknown Darkness: Profiling the Predators among Us, with Professor James E. Starrs, A Voice for the Dead, a collection of his cases of historical exhumations, and with Henry C. Lee, The Real World of the Forensic Scientist. She has been translated into ten languages and has published over 900 articles on serial killers, criminology, forensic science, and criminal investigation. She writes a regular feature on historical forensics for The Forensic Examiner (based on her history of Forensic science, Beating the Devil’s Game) and teaches forensic psychology and criminal justice at DeSales University in Pennsylvania. Her most recent book is The Devil’s Dozen: How Cutting Edge Forensics Took Down Twelve Notorious Serial Killers. In addition, she has published biographies of Anne Rice and Dean Koontz and penned three books about penetrating the world of “vampires” (Piercing the Darkness), ghost hunters (Ghost), and the funeral industry (Cemetery Stories).

Thirty-five years have passed and the eerie eye-like windows are gone (in an attempt to fool the curious, I’ve been told, or deter the more brazen onlookers, a number of whom over the years have pried off shingles from the house or dug up patches of the lawn as souvenirs.) At some point there was also a desire to change the address (by the town or perhaps the latest owners). But let’s face it, anyone who knows the Amityville Horror house on Ocean Avenue can’t be fooled that easily. They know where it is. I know where it is. And I knew the people in it.

Well, to be accurate, I knew Dawn Defeo. Dawn was a year ahead of me in our grammar school, St. Martin of Tours, and she was my recess leader in 1970. Her nickname was “Pudgy” but it was an affectionate one that she embraced. She wrote poetry and stories and encouraged me to write as well. Sometimes she made daisies instead of dots over her I’s when she wrote. I even went to a party at her house that year. It was held in the backyard by the boathouse on the canal that leads into the Great South Bay. I can’t remember now if it was a birthday or graduation party. Time has a way of blurring memory and sometimes turning memories into myth. Some things seem unimportant when they happen, while other events seem to naturally lend themselves to myth. And people, sometimes, allow themselves to be fooled.

I do, however, have a very clear memory of the days and weeks after November 13th, 1974, when Dawn, then 18, along with her parents, her younger sister Allison (13), and two younger brothers, Marc (12) and John (9), were shot dead in their beds in the house on Ocean Avenue. I remember going to the funeral mass and watching from the balcony, where former classmates were allowed to sit, as six coffins were carried into the church down the long aisle to the altar railing, then out again into the waiting hearses. None of us had ever seen anything like it before. There were all kinds of rumors and fearful whispers. Everyone wondered how such a massacre could occur to such a nice normal family. This, we all agreed, was a horror.

And we all agreed that Ronald “Butch” DeFeo, the twisted, sinister, drug-addled oldest brother, had to be the one who had done it. We believed at the time that he had drugged them somehow, maybe with sleeping pills, and went to the local bar, Henry’s, a few blocks away, to wait. Then he went home and killed them all as they slept and ran back to the bar, yelling that he thought his mother and father had been shot.

Once police arrived, they discovered the bodies and saw that the parents had been shot twice, Dawn and her siblings only once.  At the scene of the crime, Ronald began to suggest to police that the murders might have been “Mafia related.” But those who knew the family knew better, and a day later, the only DeFeo family member left alive confessed that he was responsible for the massacre. He told detectives: "Once I started, I just couldn’t stop. It went so fast.” As the weeks and months passed, people guessed at a motive. Some said Ronald believed there was a great deal of money buried somewhere on the property; he claimed at one point that he had tired of his father’s abuse. But this did not explain the killing of the others.

DeFeo's trial began on October 14, 1975. A month later, on November 21, 1975, just before Thanksgiving, he was found guilty on six counts of second-degree murder. On December 4, 1975, Judge Thomas Stark sentenced Ronald DeFeo, Jr. to six consecutive sentences of 25 years to life. He has been in the Green Haven Correctional Facility in Beekman, New York, ever since.

Of course, that was only the beginning of the story. Police officers and the county medical examiner on the scene at the time were initially mystified by the quickness and number of the killings, and considered the possibility that more than one person had been responsible for the crime. The fact that neighbors claimed to have heard no shots even though eight had been fired (and it was determined that a silencer had not been not used) only added to the puzzle. But no one else was ever charged. Throughout his time in jail, Ronald DeFeo Jr. has given several accounts as to how the killings were carried out, and all of them have been wildly inconsistent, just as all of his appeals to the parole board to date have been turned down.

The events that followed the DeFeo murders were equally mystifying as fact turned into so-called non-fiction and then the film The Amityville Horror -- wherein the hapless Lutz family claimed ghostly apparitions, flying pigs, and bleeding walls haunted their days and nights (desecrated Indian burial grounds and demonic dogs notwithstanding.) Several sequels and one remake later, the Lutz’s story has been widely disproved as a cruel hoax or clever marketing.

The mythologizing, of course, continues, and for nearly forty years, what happened in the house on Ocean Avenue still fascinates those who want to know the truth as well as those who simply want to be fooled. But the horror lingers.

Paula Uruburu is an Associate Professor and former Chair of the English Department at Hofstra University on Long Island. A specialist in American Literature, women’s studies, film history, and 19th and 20th Century American popular culture, she is the acknowledged expert on Evelyn Nesbit. Paula has acted as a consultant to A&E, PBS, and the History Channel.

Robert Springsteen IV and Michael Scott, featured in my 2005 book, MURDERED INNOCENTS, were released as Travis County prosecutors moved to dismiss charges against the two men for the murders of Amy Ayers, Eliza Thomas, and Sarah and Jennifer Harbison.

According to the Austin American Statesman, Judge Mike Lynch "has ordered that a continuance in the case to conduct further DNA testing... not be considered." In essence, the prosecutors decision allows the door to remain open for any future potential trial against the two men.