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.

By Daun Richert-Slagle

One night, I found a letter published online. You may have already read it here, on In Cold Blog. It was a letter written by a killer himself, which revealed for the first time the true identity of his victim in a public forum; my identity. He had finally spoken my name to someone else and it was no longer just my story anymore, it was our story.

The stories differed in their content and presentation regarding the horrific events that occurred the night of Thursday April 12, 1990, but the foundation of the story was the same. Yes there was an attack in Mt Shasta California by a serial killer. His name was Keith Hunter Jesperson, The Happy Face Killer. And, yes, it was a physical attack on a young mother named “Dawn” and her four month old infant.

Almost one year ago, I stumbled upon some answers that I had been searching for throughout the years. I knew that my memory had served me well, though my mind tried protecting me from those unthinkable moments that I endured so long ago. Over the last 20 years I had searched off and on to find just the right piece of evidence to evoke the fight within me, the piece of evidence that publicly linked me to the crime scene and to the killer.

I had stories that I rarely shared; I remembered the odd looks I would always receive once I began telling them. No one believed me. They seemed to others to be far fetched stories, and with the way tragedy seemed to unfold concurrently in my life, I can understand that it would be hard for anyone to accept it all as the truth. I had endured so much pain and tragedy in my short life at that time, a ton more than most people do in an entire lifetime.

We all come to these places for different reasons. Some of us who write these stories are surviving our own sordid pasts, sorting through the shrapnel. Some of us are in search of the hard cold truth, trying to make sense of a world where vicious and vile acts occur in all areas of the spectrum, even stealing the lives away from our family members, our friends and yes even away from our children. We come to this place for the answers our minds can not find in our own rational thoughts. Because these acts are not natural to us, we can not fathom their existence. So we search for the truth, trying to find resolution or understanding of the events that can never be justified.

Unfortunately some people look at personal tales of pain, trauma, and yes, even death, in order to find a means of entertainment. Taking a trip into the dark places and using the gripping pain others are forced to endure, as a means of pleasure seeking. They view these stories much like a campfire tale or a nightmare with no actual reality for their basis of being told. While those of use called survivors and victims bare our souls to bring the truth of our demise alive on the pages you read. Remember this is our own personal Hell, our real experiences. Suffering is not a myth but a very real demon that some of us spend each day performing our own exorcisms against.

I have taken myself and dredged through my experience a million times, much like placing egg on a piece of French Toast. I have covered it up with a thick coating, completely hiding it from view. I have changed it from its unnatural state and made it into something completely different, something palatable. I have sugar coated it with fine confections and smothered it in sweet maple molasses so that it is tasty and digestible to others, so that they would be willing to indulge in it… but not today. No, for the first time I am scrapping the layers of sweet digestible coating from it, and uncovering it as the foul bitter bread that it is. When I place this on the plate in front of you with out its sugared coating will you still be willing to excitedly gobble it up like before? Will the truth make it too ugly for you to accept it for what it really is, instead of the luscious lies that are so much easier to swallow?

I wonder, will you continue reading my story once the truth becomes uncomfortable and vile? Will you be willing to hear the truth about the ugliness that many prefer I hide away from plain sight, or will you turn away from me in disgust because the flavor of what it truly takes to survive having your life shattered is just a little too bitter for your tongue?

In Cold Blog founder Corey Mitchell (pictured left) recently cycled 75 miles to help fight Multiple Sclerosis (MS) at this year's MS 150 Ride to the River from San Antonio to New Braunfels. Unfortunately, a torrential downpour cut the first day's ride short and completely cancelled the second day. (The picture of me is from the Wildflower ride held in April 2009).

That disappointment aside, the true goal of the ride is to raise money to help find a cure for MS. If you would like to donate money to help fight MS you can sponsor Corey as a rider at his personal MS 150 website. All donations go to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

By Stephen Singular

The first time I really thought about Barack Obama becoming President of the United States was in January 2007, when I saw him and his wife, Michelle, on “60 Minutes.” She was asked about her fear of her husband getting assassinated -- if he ran for the White House and got elected. Her concerns around this subject were tangible, in her body language and her words. She was clearly afraid that something tragic could happen to him and their family, not to mention the rest of the country. Watching this program, I could only imagine what conversations the two of them must have had around this issue, and how intense the pressure could have been on him not to run. Obama himself seemed much cooler on this topic than his wife, as if he’d seriously considered his demise in the past and then put it out of his mind. He couldn’t do what he wanted to do for himself or America if were too consumed by the possibly of a tragic scenario. He hadn’t come this far by limiting himself and his dreams. This interview has stayed with me become more relevant in recent months, when some right-wing extremists have openly called for his murder and others in the mainstream have been just about as irresponsible.

What also struck me watching the “60 Minutes” episode was that Obama and I had some things in common, even though I was white and he was half-white and half-black. I was raised by rural white people from Kansas and basically so was he, even though he didn’t grow up there. We were both exposed to elements of racism inside our own extended families, and he’d honestly and eloquently talked about this in his national speech on race in the winter of 2008. What had been driven into me as a child, for better or worse, was that I was supposed to be polite to other people and try to understand their point of view, even when they seemed foolish, stupid or offensive. I was not to make scenes in public, regardless of what I was feeling, but to lock all that inside and swallow hard. My job was to be a bridge-builder between those who didn’t get along with each other, instead of taking sides. Most people, I was taught, were reasonable and I should extend the others the benefit of the doubt.

In the first eight months of Obama’s presidency, I’ve sensed him struggling with all these dynamics -- after being compared to Hitler in the national media, blamed for wanting to build concentration camps for those who disagree with him, and charged with trying to destroy the United States, while he’s attempted to dig the country out of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression and tried to reform health care. I can’t help wondering what Michelle says behind closed doors about the viciousness of his opponents, and I wonder how he manages not to lash out at anyone. Maybe it’s because of that Midwestern influence. Mostly lost in all the talk about him being the first African-American president is that he’s also half white, and that half is not urban-based. Like me, he has small-town, rural roots, and was probably taught as a youngster that you’re supposed to get along with others, even if they seem crazy.

I have mixed emotions about how he deals with those who stick outrageous labels on him. Sometimes, I want him to drop his politeness and fight back publicly, but other times I sense that this wouldn’t play well across much of America, especially in the heartland, and he’d be doing just what his enemies want him to do. We can only hope that Michelle’s fears are never realized and he remains unharmed. But assuming that all his critics are rational or reasonable is a mistake. One wonders if Obama’s winning the Nobel Peace Prize this month has made him even more of a target. Pray for his safety.

Stephen Singular is the author of nineteen books which range in topics from high-profile crimes and social criticisms, to business and sports biographies. He currently resides in Denver, Colorado. You can find out more about this author by visiting his website at stephensingular.com

Throughout my years of writing true-crime, I’ve always drifted away from the more gruesome cases. Granted, every murder is an act of evil; every untimely death a tragedy. But I have not waded in terribly bloody waters, if you will excuse my frankness. I have generally written about those murders we tend not to cringe at—those deaths which have been quick and (God willing for the victims) painless.

That being said, as I began work on CRUEL DEATH, I knew it would involve a certain amount of horror I had not yet covered: the brutal dismemberment of two human beings. What I didn’t know was that this act of savagery by the killers was only the beginning. What I uncovered while researching and writing this book—some of which has not been yet reported—affected me in ways I had never experienced, in all of my years reporting on murder. There were times when I had to leave the book alone for a day or two to catch my breath and think about things. Now and then, as you write these books day in and day out, you can get caught up to a point where some of what you’re doing doesn’t seem real. Yes, I used dozens of interviews, thousands of pages of court records, trial transcripts, photographs, police reports, military reports, depositions, interviews with the perpetrators, and scores of other documents to write this book, a process of which becomes, at times, like putting together the pieces of a puzzle. But here, within the pathos of this case, the way the victims were treated before, during and (especially) after death was so profoundly evil and cruel—there are not enough adjectives in the English language to describe the treatment these victims endured—that as I wrote about it, a part of me began to drift into a despair I had never experienced while writing true-crime. It made for an incredibly bumpy road—emotionally. There were days when I had to put this project aside, due to the graphic nature of what I had uncovered, and work on something else. There were also days when I thought I could not go back to it.

I have never written—or read—true-crime for its shock value. To me, the process has always been about exploring the lives of people, telling the victim’s side of the story, and getting to the core of what makes murderers do the incredibly evil things they do. My goal is always to tell the most complete, unreported story I can find. In addition, I search for those stories I believe need to be told. With that being said, part of my hope in publishing CRUEL DEATH is that readers get the metaphor I feel is entirely implicit throughout the book: that the people we meet throughout an average day—passersby, smiling strangers, the man and woman sitting next to us on the beach, the couples we might “hook up” with at a club, etc.—may not be who they claim to be.

BJ Sifrit was honor man in a class of seventeen Navy SEALs; a quiet, clean-cut, wholesome looking twenty-something from Texas. Erika was from a loving, caring, wealthy family; a business owner; an all-American high school basketball player.

It was easy to trust these people. Why wouldn’t you?

This story proves, however, that anyone can fall victim to the face of evil. The victims in this case—Martha “Geney” Crutchley and Joshua Ford—were smart, hardworking, middleclass people on holiday in Ocean City, Maryland, when they crossed paths with Erika and BJ. Meeting, they were four adults having a “good time” while on vacation. It all seemed so harmless.

What remains clear to me is that the horror Erika and BJ perpetrated against two wonderful, kind, and loving human beings in Ocean City on that Saturday night before Memorial Day in 2002 is, at its core, a depravity of such gargantuan proportions that the true nature behind these crimes can never be fully explained, understood, or accessed emotionally. It’s hard to really wrap our minds around what happened in that bathroom and the subsequent days when Erika and BJ were running around Ocean City seemingly celebrating their crimes. As summer bears down on us here in America, keep in mind that the world is not what it was twenty or even ten years ago—and the people you will meet this summer may not be who they claim to be.

To read an excerpt from CRUEL DEATH, click on either of the photos!


M. William Phelps is the author of several books,including: Perfect Poison, Lethal Guardian, Every Move You Make, Sleep In Heavenly Peace, Murder in the Heartland, Because You Loved Me, If Looks Could Kill, I’ll Be Watching You, Cruel Death (2009), Deadly Secrets (2009), Nathan Hale, and Failures of the Presidents

This post originally appeared on In Cold Blog June 25, 2009 

By Simon Read

Harry Jackson — a small-time burglar — became the first person jailed for a crime based on fingerprint evidence. A jury heard the case at the Old Bailey — London’s Central Criminal Court — on Sept. 13, 1902, after Jackson pleaded not guilty to stealing billiard balls from a home in South London. At the crime scene, Jackson left an imprint of his left thumb on a newly painted windowsill. The print had been discovered and photographed by one Detective Sgt. Collins, who searched Scotland Yard’s then-small collection of fingerprints taken from known criminals. A match surfaced based on a visual comparison of the print’s looping pattern to those prints in the index. Police quickly nabbed Jackson — a 41-year-old laborer — who, upon conviction, received a seven-year prison sentence.

Three years later, on March 27, 1905, Mr. and Mrs. Farrow were attacked and killed in their shop on Deptford High Street in a crime dubbed “The Mask Murders,” so named because the killers left masks made of black stockings behind at the scene. Investigators who searched the shop found an empty cashbox with a thumbprint inside. Detectives with Scotland Yard’s Fingerprint Department inspected the box. They photographed the print and set about the laborious task of going through the Yard’s ever-increasing print index, which now boasted 80,000 sets of finger impressions. Their search, however, proved futile — but a break in the case soon evolved when police, acting on statements from witnesses, arrested two brothers named Albert and Alfred Stratton. Once in custody, their prints were taken and compared to the one found on the cashbox. It was a match with Alfred’s right thumb. The brothers’ fates were decided. After being convicted of murder at the Old Bailey, the two were sent to the gallows.

Fingerprinting, of course, was another leap forward in the evolution of crime-fighting technology. I’m a fan of historic true crime — that is, after all, what I write about! The books I’ve written thus far focus on crimes from the 1930s and 1940s. Each month, here on IN COLD BLOG, we’ll travel back through time and look at some of the more infamous murders that have stained the annals of criminal history. It should be a fun — and dark — journey. To whet the appetite, let’s take a look at one particularly gruesome killing right now.

In August 1842, Scotland Yard established its Detective Branch. In those early days of homicide investigation, detectives responding a scene were forced to handle evidence with their bare hands. Clues found near a body — whether it be a bloody knife, a torn piece of clothing or human hair — were collected by finger and wrapped in a piece of paper or deposited in an envelope for safe keeping. Forensic science being what it was back in those days, there was no way of knowing how the handling of such evidence compromised its quality. Such methods continued until 1924, when the Yard introduced its “Murder Bag” in the wake of a particularly bloody murder.

The crime scene was a seaside bungalow in Eastbourne. What detectives found in the four-bedroom home following a phoned-in tip was horrific even by the most brutal standards. Before detectives even entered the house, they could smell something foul drifting from it on the breeze. Aside from the bedrooms, there was a sitting room, a kitchen and a scullery. The violence that had occurred within the house left no room untouched. A thick trail of blood ran from the sitting room. It crossed the hallway and passed through a bedroom into the scullery, where boiled human remains were found in a saucepan and a tub. Detectives discovered a blood-smeared saw in one bedroom, while fragments of torched bone littered the fireplaces in the sitting and dining rooms. Blood on the lid of a biscuit tin found in the kitchen drew the attention of one detective. Opening it revealed a heart and other internal organs crammed inside. In another room, investigators came across a large trunk from which the awful stench that permeated the place seemed to originate. Prying open the lid, detectives found a woman’s dismembered body.

Famed pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury responded to the scene to help search for missing body parts. When the pathologist entered the bungalow, he was horrified to find one detective using his bare hands to scoop up mounds of rotting flesh and deposit them in a bucket. Spilsbury gave the detective a quick dissertation on the health hazards associated with such an activity and asked the policeman why he wasn’t wearing rubber gloves. The detective gave Spilsbury a puzzled look and told him he never wore rubber gloves. Since the Murder Squad’s creation seventeen years prior, this was how things had been done. Spilsbury made a note to bring this up with the proper authorities back at the Yard. He then began his own crime-scene examination. Over the course of the day, Spilsbury and detectives retrieved more than 1,000 pieces of bone fragments in the bungalow’s fireplaces. The stench of decomposing flesh in the residence was so strong that Spilsbury set his workstation up outside. The woman’s body had to be pieced back together like a jigsaw puzzle. An autopsy eventually revealed that the victim — later identified as 34-year-old Emily Kaye — was three months pregnant when she was hacked to death. Spilsbury would later admit that the barbarity of the crime and the condition of the victim made the Kaye murder one his most disturbing cases.

Kaye’s killer — Patrick Mahon, a married man who had an affair with Kaye and panicked when he learned she was pregnant — rendezvoused with the hangman for his deeds. In the wake of the case, Spilsbury met with Detective Superintendent William Brown — chief of the Murder Squad — and shared with him his concerns regarding detectives handling human remains with their naked hands. Brown and Spilsbury’s consultation resulted in the Murder Bag, a kit that was to be carried by all detectives responding to a homicide. In the bag were rubber gloves, tweezers, containers for evidence, a magnifying glass, swabs and other items useful for the collection of evidence. Over the years, the Murder Bag’s contents would evolve with the advancement of investigative techniques and forensic methods.

Until next time, feel free to visit me at http://www.simon-read.com/.

First posted at In Cold Blog on June 25, 2007

By Caitlin Rother

Caitlin Rother, a Pulitzer-nominee who worked as a investigative newspaper reporter for nearly 20 years, is the author of four books, Body Parts, Twisted Triangle, Naked Addiction, and Poisoned Love, and is the co-author of Where Hope Begins.

This post originally appeared on In Cold Blog April 16, 2008

The Supreme Court can't seem to make up its mind on whether to hear the appeal of James Ford Seale who was convicted in 2007 for conspiracy and kidnapping in the murder of two black youths in southwest Mississippi in 1964. ("The Past Is Never Dead, the Trial of James Ford Seale and Mississppi's Struggle for Redemption"). The conviction was overturned and then reinstated by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, on a 9-9 vote. The 5th Circuit then asked the Supreme Court to review its decision--itself a rather strange request--and the Court was supposed to decide on October 5th, the "First Monday in October." The case slipped, along with another case, to the 12th, and now the 19th has come and gone.