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Sunday, June 30, 2013

CSI SUNDAY: Trayvon Martin, Odin Lloyd, Skylar Neese

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THEIRS WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?
 
Killing Killers' CSI Sunday series spotlights three not-so-friendly friends making the top crime stories for the week ending June 30th, 2013.
 
Crime Scene Investigation - Do Not Cross
 
Apart from being brutally murdered, Trayvon Martin, Odin Lloyd and Skylar Neese have something else in common, and perhaps in their horrific deaths is a lesson we all could learn from. Albeit a hard one...
 
In retrospect, say the parents of Neese, a pretty 16-year-old who disappeared in July of 2012 only to be discovered some six months later slain by her two best friends, the warning signs were glaring:
 
First, there was the formation of a tight but toxic bond with the very girls who would plot and perpetrate her stabbing death, and who, in advance, had already severed the once-popular A-student from her other classmates.
 
Second, was the emergence of a double but brief life that included deception and deviousness and began with the seemingly harmless teenage ritual of sneaking out a bedroom window.
 
Third, troubles were developing which involved the threesome's numerous late-night joyrides and, invariably, the police.
 
But all Mr. and Mrs. Neese had wanted to do in showing their daughter Skylar such leniency was to give the growing child a sense of freedom, they said.
 
Freedom to come and go -- to be trusted -- is an essential rite of passage into maturity, but, as this now-grieving couple discovered much too late, in excess it can sometimes turn deadly.
 
At age 27, however, Odin Lloyd was an adult and therefore it's safe to assume well past growing pains and angst. So his being shot to death by sports-celebrity friend Aaron Hernandez would appear, on its face, rather unexpected.
 
Except when it becomes clear that Lloyd already knew that the pro-footballer he was so enamored with had longstanding gang ties and a predilection for extreme acts of violence.
 
Indeed, investigators now suspect that Lloyd's gangland-style execution may have been orchestrated by Hernandez and his notorious cronies, Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz, because the victim had knowledge of this trios' role in a previous drive-by shooting.
 
If that's true, then Lloyd didn't need deep insight or a crystal ball to gauge whether his relationship with this criminally bent crew could leave him seriously maimed or dead.
 
On the other hand, Trayvon Martin, gunned down by a rabid neighborhood watchman at the tender age of 17, fared much better at the hands of his friends.
 
At least in life anyway.
 
Now, as the trial against his killer George Zimmerman progresses, some critics are complaining that Martin's star witness and childhood confident is anything but an asset to him when she's sitting on the witness stand.
 
Some beg to differ though, saying the supposedly outlandish impudence of 19-year-old Rachel Jeantel and her mumbling patois which spectators find so incomprehensible and annoying is simply a "cultural thing."
 
That culture clash underscores the crux of the issue subtly being tried, still others are attempting to explain. Because, before justice for a butchered boy can be meted out here, the world evidently needs to know first: Who was the bigger racist, the victim or his "ass-cracking" attacker?
 
Of course, this banal debate, generated by Ms. Jeantel's sudden *eccentricity" when placed in a white-dominated judicial setting, also overshadows the obvious -- the young lady's courage and loyalty.
 
But each of the three cases featured this week on Killing Killers' CSI Sunday wrap-up definitely prove that the old adage about choosing your pals wisely still holds true today.
 
Friendship really matters. Whether you're alive or dead. 
 
 

Friday, June 28, 2013

ARMED AND DANGEROUS: Ernest Wallace wanted for killing Odin Lloyd

UPDATE 2:30 PM 6/28/13: Suspect captured in Florida.
- noontime alert below -
 
Police have issued a bulletin for Ernest Wallace, 41, considered to be armed and dangerous and a fugitive from justice in the murder of Odin Lloyd.
 
Wanted poster of Earnest Wallace
Wallace is being actively sought at this hour as shooter #3 in the execution of Lloyd on June 17, 2013. Done at the behest of former NFL superstar Aaron Hernandez who is himself being held without bond now in a Massachusetts jail.
 
Ernest Wallace, aka 'Bo' and/or 'Fish', is dark skinned with a heavy build. He is believed to have fled in a silver or gray 2012 Chrysler 300 with Rhode Island registration number 451-375.
 
Police are asking the public to be on the lookout for this individual.
 
CAUTION: The suspect has a criminal history, is considered  armed and dangerous, and felony warrants have been issued for his arrest in assisting Aaron Hernandez and Carlos Ortiz in the murder of Odin Lloyd.
 
If anyone has any information regarding Wallace's current whereabouts, or recognizes him and/or the vehicle he was last seen driving, they are asked to immediately call the North Attleborough Police Department at (508) 695-1212.
 
This story is developing - bookmark page for all updates
 

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Odin Lloyd not the only murder victim of Aaron Hernandez

According to police, Odin Lloyd isn't the only person Aaron Hernandez has gunned down during one of his lethal rages:
 
In what appears to be a gangland-style of premeditated killings, the ex-pro footballer has murdered at least two other men in cold blood, investigators now believe. Seriously injuring just as many, or more, in various drive-by shooting events.
 
In Boston, for example, it's suspected that he and a homey killed two people and wounded a third in 2012. All of whom, according to eyewitnesses, Hernandez had been in a barroom altercation with earlier that same evening.
 
With these new but not-so-surprising revelations, a troubling picture has emerged. That of a violent young man with an exceptionally short fuse who squabbles with people, usually when out partying, and then hours or even days later starts gunning for them.
 
Mass murderer Hernandez rats out accomplice
 
One night in the slammer is apparently all it took to get tattooed tough guy Aaron Hernandez to sing on his cohorts:
 
Arrested today is fellow homicidal hood Carlos Ortiz, one of two hitmen Hernandez summoned to help coerce Odin Lloyd into a vehicle on June 17, 2013, so to transport him to the designated industrial park for a preplanned execution.
 
Stupidly enough, that secluded location was virtually in the former star athlete's own backyard. And, like the three hapless victims in Boston who ate lead in his vengeful spray of bullets, Hernandez had been observed verbally accosting Lloyd in public too.
 
The ex-Patriots' tight end was miffed that his jocular buddy from the lowly semipros had the audacity to chat with some as-yet-unnamed patrons of a Rhode Island pub who Hernandez reportedly "had problems with" in the past.
 
So he seethed over the perceived slight for several days in a row before finally deciding to kill his friend.
 
Clearly a perp as demented as that is some kind of a rabid animal, not a human being at all, and his new home in a Massachusetts jail cell is where he's always belonged.
 
Regrettably, though, in that state Hernandez can't be euthanized.
 

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

BREAKING NEWS: Aaron Hernandez arrested in murder of Odin Lloyd

BREAKING NEWS: Aaron Hernandez arrested and charged with the premeditated murder of Odin Lloyd, plus a handful of related criminal offenses, not counting obstruction of justice in destroying his home video-surveillance system and his cell phone. The accused ex-Patriots' tight end is currently being held without bail:
 
Boston Globe / Getty Images

Lloyd is the 27-year-old semi-pro football player and longtime friend of Hernandez who was found murdered in gangland style near the star athlete's mansion in Attleboro Massachusetts last week.
 
Authorities say his body was found dumped at an industrial site. He'd been shot in the back of the head.
 
All week investigators have been probing the exact circumstances of Lloyd's slaying, serving search warrant after search warrant upon Aaron Hernandez and, with his high-powered attorneys looking on, questioning him at length.
 
Anonymous sources close to the investigation but not authorized to speak publicly have repeatedly stated that an arrest -- at least for obstruction of justice for destroying crucial evidence -- was imminent, and finally the footballer is in custody.

He faces murder charges as well as a half-dozen related criminal counts including ones associated with actively hindering prosecution, to which he entered a not-guilty plea today.
 
Images of a handcuffed Hernandez being placed in a police cruiser are streaming across the web right now, a predictable outcome for a troubled player with a history of violence and some questionable ties to criminal elements.
 
Although the actual events leading to the murder of Odin Lloyd are yet to be revealed, it's likely, now that one key player is apprehended, the story will soon unravel.

One thing is known for sure though: The New England Patriots wasted no time in dealing with their embattled tight end; upon news of Aaron Hernandez arrested, they fired him.

That status places the issue of the newly-released pro-football player's multi-million-dollar contract up in the air, as it's not entirely clear if he is now in forfeiture at this point, or whether he will be when or if convicted.

Either which way, it won't take the high-profile accused murderer's team of pricey attorneys very long to eat up those earnings and benefits.
 
UPDATED to include arrest image, arraignment status, murder charges, and crime details - Bookmark this post for more updates, and add your own updates or related remarks in the comment section.
 
 
 

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

George Zimmerman versus Trayvon Martin

A bloated George Zimmerman, on trial at last for the killing of Trayvon Martin, placidly observed opening proceedings this week, at one point even appearing to doze off in the middle of them.
 
His astonishing weight gain and copacetic composure aside, Zimmerman still looked as belligerent as ever. Not flinching in the slightest when his lawyer ludicrously argued that he'd shot the defenseless teenager because the boy had suddenly armed himself with a deadly weapon: the sidewalk.
 
That pathetic premise, coupled with lame knock-knock jokes and a startling string of obscenities presented in both the defense and prosecution's opening arguments respectively, is already making this one of the most bizarre legal contests of the year -- at least.
 
The former neighborhood watchman slash vigilante has been charged with second-degree homicide for menacing and then slaying Martin as the teen was innocently walking home from a convenient store where he'd just purchased a soft drink and candy.
 
Zimmerman deliberately chose to stalk Martin on that day despite a 911 operator instructing him not to. He then physically confronted the unarmed teenager with a firearm, mortally wounding him in the inevitable tussle that ensued.
 
From the start, longtime wannabe-enforcer Zimmerman has sought to hide behind stand your ground protections for the crime, a controversial state statute which allows people to resort to lethal force whenever they believe their lives are threatened by an attacker.
 
But that bogus self defense claim only further enraged victim advocates and Martin supporters, since it's more than clear that the only individual who posed a serious threat the day Trayvon Martin lost his life was defiant George Zimmerman himself.
 
Zimmerman's penchant for half truths and outright lying was exposed in the earliest stages of his arrest and arraignment. In fact, the defendant even had bail revoked and was returned to jail for *fibbing* in sworn affidavits about his finances.
 
Although his trial is now finally underway, it's still too soon to say whether this remorseless murderer will ultimately prevail.
 
But somehow I think not.
 
 

Monday, June 24, 2013

Whitey Bulger hitman: 'We were up to our necks in murder'

Whitey Bulger hitman John 'The Executioner' Martorano is unloading his conscience this week, providing damning tell-all testimony against his former crime boss in a gangster trial to beat all gangster trials ... but you ain't seen nothing yet.
 
MUGSHOT: Whitey BulgerBulger, long known to have been an FBI informant, was fondly dubbed 'Robin Hood' on his old turf of Boston Mass. A nickname he earned for his generosity toward the poor and an adamant refusal to do business with drug dealers.
 
But the robbing hood of yesteryear had also developed quite an insatiable taste for blood, his disgruntled Winter Hill Gang ex-member is alleging from the safety of the witness stand.
 
"We were up to our necks in murder," the retired assassin said, unabashedly describing his and Whitey's killing spree and decades' long reign of terror. 
 
Martorano was also paid 20-grand, awarded a get-out-of-jail-free card, and granted total immunity in exchange for being the prosecution's star witness.
 
It was, as they say, an offer the homicidal stool pidgeon couldn't refuse, which compels him to expound upon the dozens of murders he now asserts he'd committed for 'no charge' and on the direct orders of Whitey Bulger and his syndicate.
 
Bulger, presently imprisoned and in his early eighties, long ago fell out of favor with the likes of his unhappy hitman when it was discovered he'd been finking on associates and rivals who he wanted out of the picture.
 
Of course, snitching instead of slaying doesn't quite jive with the *honorable* hatchet man's blood-soaked version of things. Still, learning that Bulger was a scheming double-cross secretly in cahoots with the Bureau "broke [his] heart," the otherwise heartless Executioner told the court.
 
And that's why he's decided to come clean now:
 
“One’s got the courage to stand on the stand, the other one’s doing it behind your back and dropping dimes,” John Martorano explained. “How can I be ratting on a guy who’s been the rat for 30 years? I’m trying to stop him from ratting anymore.”
 
But defendant Bulger also claims to have the goods on everybody -- including dozens of dirty cops and a gaggle of government agents --  so if things don't go his way, he'll soon be spilling the beans too, he warns.
 
Whitey's revelations though would extend well beyond just the misdeeds of his pals in crime to include those of former city officials, police chiefs, law enforcement officers, and even the FBI itself.
 
Plainly the stakes in this famous mobster's mass murder trial just keep getting higher and higher, so go grab some popcorn now, and don't touch that dial.
 
UPDATED from June 19th 2013 by Eponymous Rox for KILLING KILLERS
 

CAREER KILLERS: Aaron Hernandez and Paula Deen

UPDATE June 24, 2013: As Paula Deen graciously accepts the Food Network's axe, Aaron Hernandez elusively allows his home to be searched again. This time with a team of K-9s.

That search now includes the waters of a nearby pond, although precisely what the divers are looking for in there, investigators haven't said.

The embroiled chef and footballer are still garnering major media attention this week as everybody wonders what stunts the pair of self-saboteurs will pull next.

For Deen, there was nothing else to do in the aftermath of her career meltdown but publicly and humbly bow out from the TV gig she's held for most of decade. Except, perhaps, to pry her foot out of her mouth when nobody's looking.

She's rescheduled last week's abruptly canceled interview with Matt Lauer on the Today show for this Wednesday ... we'll see then how she's progressed.

Hernandez on the other hand is a total wildcard still, and the investigation into the execution-style murder of his pal Odin Lloyd -- once the New England Patriots' most diehard fan -- enters a full week now without the threatened arrest being realized.

Police acknowledged days ago that they've issued a 'paper warrant' to bring the star athlete into custody for at least obstructing justice, although it's clear he had some role in the killing itself, too. But they haven't done even this much yet.

Of course, any average Joe would be in handcuffs by now, sitting his felonious butt in jail. And that's something which would've happened in only a matter of hours, as everybody also knows.

But fame has many hidden perks, obviously. Together with a price.

[find these 2 original breaking stories for June 22, 2013 below]

Top awards for killing one's lucrative career go to Aaron Hernandez and Paula Deen this week. Two celebrities who've made the headlines by demonstrating they're not only their own worst enemies, but unworthy of endorsements too:
 
illustration by Eponymous Rox for Killing Killers
 
For the talented but troubled Hernandez, the Patriots' famed tight end who's now hopelessly mired himself in murder, Mayhem has evidently been his middle name, both on and off the field, ever since boyhood.
 
But like many other jocks with similar tendencies he's always managed to wriggle out of past offenses, mainly because of his knack with a football.
 
This time, however, the 23-year-old has gone too far and Massachusetts police have confirmed they've issued Aaron Hernandez  a 'paper' warrant for his arrest, in an effort to get him to cooperate with them.
 
Detectives have been trying to question the stonewalling star athlete all week in connection with the homicide of his drinking buddy Odin Lloyd, 27, who was found shot to death execution style in a park less than a mile from Hernandez's North Attleborough mansion.
 
The two men had been partying throughout the weekend and were close friends, so it's not clear exactly what went wrong between them, although Hernandez has long been known for a short fuse, rash behavior, and a gun fetish.
 
Making matters even murkier are the criminal acts  he's said to have engaged in immediately following the killing -- destruction of a home security video system and a smashed cell phone -- for which he'll now have to answer to obstruction of justice charges.
 
Police issuing an arrest warrant on those preliminary counts say Hernandez also hired a cleaning crew to do a major scrub down of his lavish residence shortly after Lloyd's dumped body was found by a jogger.
 
Hernandez's suspicious conduct has placed in jeopardy a multi-million-dollar contract he just signed with the Patriots team, and at least one corporate sponsor has backed out of their lucrative arrangement with him as well...
 
Paula Deen and Southern discomfort
 
It's not a crime to use the N word, unfortunately, but, as the hospitality hostess with the mostest has just learned, it's not very prudent either.
 
And in Deen's case her much too frequent use of the racial slur is nothing she can easily refute, since the source of these career-careening revelations is none other than her own sworn deposition.
 
That's just cost the world-renown meals maven, famous for her down-home cooking and distinctive Southern drawl, a cushy job with the Food Network.
 
To Deen's credit, however, she did profusely apologize and beg forgiveness, both on television and via social network accounts. Still, for her aghast employer and many millions of disgusted fans worldwide that PR move proved too little too late.
 
It's not known what motivated these damaging disclosures about Deen's less than appetizing prejudices, but usually 'outing' someone in this manner is retaliatory -- the ex-TV chef and cookbook author is currently entangled in a discrimination suit brought by a former employee, and that litigation is where the damning documents originate...
 
Fame can be fleeting, many in the limelight have sadly discovered. But for a few, like Hernandez and Deen, when that status is justifiably yanked away, infamy takes its place.
 
 
 

Friday, June 21, 2013

Body of David Rodgers found in Wisconsin river

MURDER OR A MISSTEP?

After many fruitless searches the corpse of David Rodgers, 20, has finally been located this week, badly decomposed and snagged on debris in Wisconsin's Chippewa River. 

The University of Wisconsin sophomore inexplicably fell from a campus footbridge into the rushing waters below in mid April 2013 -- just one day before his former classmate Becky Kasper was bound and brutally bludgeoned to death by a psychotic boyfriend in Arizona.
 
Kasper and Rodgers were both 2011 graduates from Northfield High School in Northfield Minnesota, and are in fact shown together in a yearbook photo of the Varsity football team.
 
He as a player; her as a cheerleader. 

Murder most foul
 
In April 2013 Arizona State University student Becky Kasper was endeavoring to terminate her stormy relationship with Luis Soltero, age 22.
 
The two had lived together near ASU and neighbors describe their life together as one big argument. Indeed, Kasper's coworkers and employer said she often came to work covered with bruises.
 
After April 20th, however, she neither showed for work again nor attended any of her college courses, and a few days later her family, friends and neighbors learned the reason why: A deranged sounding Soltero turned himself into the police, telling them where they could find his murdered lover's remains.
 
The demented young man had handcuffed and tortured Casper before beating her face and head into a bloody pulp with an exercising dumbbell.
 
Police found Kasper's body in the couple's bathtub hidden beneath blankets and a yoga mat.
 
Soltero had also tied a plastic bag around his victim's mangled head and left a written confession before fleeing the crime scene to who knows where:
"I did not treat her right. She deserved better but never accepted it. So I had to make the choice for her. She died on 4/20 not because of drugs, but because a sociopath talked and treated her nice … I don’t know where to go from here. Do I kill again, end it with myself or become invisible."
 
Clinging for his life
 
On the evening of April 19, 2013, Wisconsin University freshman Jesse Kreger and friends were crossing a pedestrian bridge spanning the Chippewa River in Eau Claire when they spied David Rodgers desperately clinging to the guardrail.
 
"We pretty much were walking across the bridge and I saw this guy straddling the railing and I was like, this better not be what I think it is," Kreger said.
 
A spring thaw had brought the Chippewa to just a few feet below flood level and its waters were rushing and dangerous. When Rodgers fell into the deluge he disappeared with the current and hadn't been seen or heard from since.
 
It is still a mystery as to how or why the youth became so precariously poised on the footbridge to begin with...
 

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

MISSING PERSON ALERT: Austin Hudson-LaPore

UPDATE 6/19/13: The body of missing university student Austin Hudson-LaPore has been recovered from Lake Michigan today. It was spotted by a fisherman and police say it appears the deceased had been in the water for 'some time.' The cause and manner of Hudson-Lapore's death are still pending. (Original story and case details below and in the comment section.)

MISSING PERSON ALERT FOR CHICAGO ILLINOIS
 
Chicago University student Austin Hudson-LaPore, 20, has been missing since June 12, 2013 after stepping outside of his college residence that evening, presumably to observe the passing storms.
 
A severe-weather buff, the third year biochemistry major is believed to have walked a route that would take him to the nearby lake sometime between 8:30 and 10 PM.
 
He took his keys but no cellphone or wallet, and has not been seen or heard from since.
 
Concern for his welfare is mounting because, while the campus area where the youth resides in is generally considered a "very safe" neighborhood, it's also a veritable oasis surrounded by high crime districts.
 
Accordingly, foul play has not been ruled out yet in this missing person case.
 
Austin Hudson-LaPore is described as a Caucasian male, approximately 5' 7" tall and 120 pounds, with blue eyes and blond hair.
 
Anyone who saw the young man that night or knows of his current whereabouts is urged to call Chicago police detectives at (312) 747-8380.
 
You can also touch base with and lend support to his loved ones at the newly launched Find Austin facebook page. (Share this missing person alert below, and use the comment section for breaking news and case updates.)
 

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Jimmy Hoffa Remains MISSING

An aged thug, possibly purging his soul, claims Hoffa remains can now be found on the outskirts of the city of Detroit ... so that's where officials are digging this time.
 
MISSING: Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhart
 
BUT DON'T GET YOUR HOPES UP: Today's massive Hoffa search resembles numerous other wild goose chases investigators have been sent on in their efforts to bring closure to the most famous missing person case since Amelia Earhart vanished in 1937.
 
Unlike the much loved American aviatrix, however, shady Teamster prez Jimmy Hoffa was up to his elbows in wrongdoing and rubbing elbows with organized crime on a regular basis. 
 
Not surprisingly then, more than one criminal cohort has claimed responsibility for killing him and unceremoniously disposing of his carcass.
 
According to these same *reliable* felons, the shot or stabbed or bludgeoned or dismembered corpse of Hoffa remains buried in secrecy somewhere, and that unmarked burial plot is either a swamp or a stadium parking lot or the backside of his once-favorite restaurant or, now, an overgrown field in Michigan.
 
Boy, for a dead guy he sure gets around, doesn't he?
 
 

Sunday, June 16, 2013

CSI SUNDAY on Killing Killers: Top Crime Story for June 16, 2013

CSI SUNDAY is a new weekend feature on Killing Killers, presenting the top crime story in the past seven days. Today's spotlight is inspired by the NSA spy scandal:
 
 
The crime scene in Nazi Germany has long ago been cleansed, but because it was so vast and so bloody major forensic evidence and felons still continue to crop up every once in awhile.
 
In fact, two significant Third Reich finds made the news recently.
 
The first concerned a Nazi diary from one of Adolph Hitler's right-hand men. The second was the discovery of one of the most vile, violent, and reviled of Nazi collaborators and SS commanders, living in, of all places, the state of Minnesota.
 
Secret Nazi Diary found in New York
 
Nazi head honcho, Alfred Rosenberg, was Adolph Hitler's respected aid and advisor, and, as such, intricately involved in some of the world's worse atrocities, including the planning and execution of tens of millions of Jews, gypsies, Europeans, POWs, and resistance fighters.
 
He also kept a fairly detailed diary of the day-to-day operations of the Third Reich which for decades historians have known about, but was somehow hidden away.
 
This week the private pennings of hanged Nazi propagandist and foreign affairs minister Rosenberg finally resurfaced -- in excellent condition -- and were handed over to federal authorities in New York City who verified their authenticity. 
 
Thereafter the papers will be delivered to their rightful owner again: The United States Holocaust Museum.
 
Experts there say Rosenberg's diary is a remarkable and unprecedented literary find that sheds new light on the inside workings and personalities of the highest ranking Nazis of all time, and the madman who led them.
 
Nazi SS officer living in retirement in Minneapolis
 
Michael Karkoc, a 94-year-old Ukranian immigrant and naturalized American citizen living in Minnesota since 1949, has a very infamous past, prosecutors from America, Poland and Germany claim.
 
He's the former Nazi commander who served in two units that were on the U.S. blacklist -- the Ukranian Self-Defense Legion, accused of burning whole villages of women and children, and the notorious Galician Division of the Nazi SS.

Hunted by those seeking to arrest him for the sins of war and crimes against humanity, Karkoc clandestinely emigrated to the United States in the late 1940s, mainly by lying about his military service.
 
He then became a naturalized citizen in 1959. But that legal standing and the protections that come with it can easily be stripped away now, authorities say, since committing fraud when filing an application for citizenry is grounds for deportation.
 
Minnesota Nazi, Michael Karkoc, made the case against himself even stronger when, in the 1990s, he published memoirs claiming to be a founding member of the Ukranian Self-Defense Legion.
 
Nevertheless, family members vehemently deny that Karkoc was one of Hitler's main and most malevolent henchmen. And legal experts are warning that, even if he is, it'll be a long drawn out process to prosecute him for his numerous offenses. 
 
By which time the already ancient Karkoc will likely be dead.
 
 

Friday, June 14, 2013

Missing in Michigan: Finnerty, Heeringa, Woodruff ...

MISSING IN MICHIGAN:

Browse the missing person databanks for Michigan and you'll find hundreds of vanishing people listed for that state.
 
 

Most, in accordance with national statistics, are likely gone on their own volition. Runaway males and females of all ages and races who someday will return to their puzzled yet relieved loved ones when they're good and ready ... or not.
 
But sometimes, as in the recent case of star college-quarterback Cullen Finnerty, 30, who disappeared under suspicious circumstances during a weekend fishing trip, or Jessica Heeringa, 25, abducted one night at her place of employment, or Jeffrey Woodruff, 25, missing and found drowned behind the pub he'd visited after work, foul play is clearly indicated.
 
For Finnerty, discovered face down and dead in the woods near remote Baldwin Lake with no signs of trauma, and whose cause and manner of death is therefore still pending, the matter remains a giant question mark.
 
For Woodruff, retrieved by divers from the filthy Kalamazoo River in the quaint and touristy town of Saugatuck, three days after he mysteriously disappeared, his case too hangs unresolved. Because, without so much as a BAC test to ponder over yet, it's impossible to even know how intoxicated he was.
 
Is Jordan Buskirk Jessica Heeringa's abductor?

And as to the pretty and petite blonde Heeringa, abruptly gone without a trace since April 26th, leaving behind all her valuables, a toddler son, and one tiny droplet of blood, the anguish for her family, friends, coworkers and neighbors goes on and on and on.
 
Such is the plight of those connected to people like Heeringa who go missing and are never actually found. They will live suspended in a kind of anxious wait, and somehow or another search for their undead and eternally young forever.
 
Nationwide, including the folks missing in Michigan, nearly a million people annually drop off the radar, and usually they are indeed fairly young. Entire communities are turned upside down whenever that happens and, as is understandable, citizens immediately look to police to solve the mystery.
 
But most often they don't, or can't.
 
Law enforcement officers resent the fact that when they do fail to swiftly act or, worse, bungle an investigation completely, savvy searchers will now resort to social media to get the word out about their absent loved one, enlisting the aid of the worldwide Web's amateur sleuthing communities, occasionally with great success.
 
In fact, crowdsourcing the hunt for an AWOL individual is a fast growing trend these days. So, whether police like it or not, and whether they're conducting an able inquiry or being totally apathetic, they'll probably just have to learn to work with it.
 
Launching a Facebook campaign after filing a missing-person report, and then networking with specialized sites like Websleuths, Reddit and Killing Killers, has become the first order of business in effectively locating the lost these days.
 
Regardless if they're alive or dead.   
 

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Top 7 FAQs about the NSA spying on you

No doubt about it, Americans and their representatives are mad as hell about the NSA spying and PRISM schemes, the scope of which was revealed for the very first time by former CIA and National Security employee Edward Snowden in early June 2013. 
 
In fact more than 70,000 irate citizens have already signed the newly posted White House petition requesting the young man, now living in exile for fear of retaliation, be fully pardoned for his patriotism.

Only 48,000 signatures were actually needed to force the president to have to officially consider the public's demand. 
 
Americans and congressional leaders are also asking Big Brother Obama and his 1984 Orwellian-styled goonsquad snoops other hard questions too.

All in hopes of extracting from these notoriously 'evasive' players the truth about how extensive their secret and unlawful sweep of citizens' phone records, e-mails, and internet use really is.
 
Here are the most frequently asked questions, and what we know so far:
 
1. When did the NSA spying begin? It was implemented by George W. Bush supposedly in response to the attack on the World Trade Centers, which so far no terrorist group has technically claimed responsibility for. However, it's become a cross party operation that both Democrats and Republicans have endorsed since its inception. 
 
2. I'm not a criminal or terrorist so are my e-mails, telephone calls and IP address being monitored by the government as well? Yes, regardless if you're a law abiding citizen or even who you voted for in the last election, all your data is being mined by NSA and PRISM daily, including your digital photos, medical records and love letters. Tech companies like Verizon have cooperated in the massive spy conspiracy and other firms their size have been named as well.
 
3. This doesn't seem legal -- is it? No, the Constitution of the United States expressly forbids the government from warrantless searches of any citizen or their habitats and personal effects, even if suspected or convicted of unlawful activities. These special privacy protections, in existence since the 1780s, are why NSA's shadowy spy program was kept so secret, even from a majority of congressional leaders.
 
4. I don't want to be watched, recorded or filmed without my knowledge -- is anything being done to bring the culprits behind these violations to justice and to halt the illegal spying? Yes, the ACLU has recently filed a lawsuit and there are now some class action suits initiated against Obama and various members of his administration too. Additionally, prior unsuccessful lawsuits by private citizens and businesses who sought redress for NSA illegally targeting them, but who lost because the defendant/s perjured themselves in court proceedings, are also being resuscitated.
 
5. Has a president ever engaged in this level of wrongdoing before and, if so, what was done to him?  In the 1970s, president Richard M. Nixon was found guilty of wiretapping many of his *enemies*, stealing documents, and other related criminality which earned him the nickname 'Tricky Dick'. As a result of whistleblowers, Nixon was ultimately forced to resign office in disgrace following a successful vote to impeach him. Several high ranking members of Tricky Dick's administration also served time in jail for acting as his accomplices, lying in judicial proceeding and inquests, and engaging in a massive cover up that included destruction of evidence.
 
6. I'm all for being protected from terrorists but has all this snooping really made me any safer? No, the accused Boston Bomber brothers, for example, are said to not have been spied on at all. That means they're either completely innocent of the charges and/or that the spy programs in question are directed solely at natural born citizens.
 
7. What really are the odds of my becoming a victim of terrorism on American soil anyway? Statistically, the chances are quite slim. Data collected and analyzed since well before 9/11 to the present clearly shows that you are just as likely to die from a television landing on your head as at the hands of a terrorist. And, just to put it in perspective, deaths caused by falling TV sets are such uncommon occurrences that they're classified 'freak accidents'. 

 
 
CAST YOUR  VOTE - SCROLL TO THE POLL ON RIGHT SIDE PANEL:
"IS IT OKAY THAT OBAMA AND THE NSA ARE SPYING ON YOU?"

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TOP 5 REASONS WHY IT'S TOTALLY COOL TO BE SPIED ON BY NSA

 

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Weird Case of N.C. Motel Deaths Solved

The worrisome case of three N.C. motel deaths in as many months, all in the same room, has at last been solved, although officials investigating the odd string of fatalities had already advised the public they had "nothing to fear."
 
On June 8th 2013, 11-year-old Jeffrey Lee Williams was discovered dead inside a motel room at the Best Western in Boone, North Carolina. Police arriving on the scene found his mother sprawled close by, still alive but unresponsive.
 
The boy died in the same fashion as an elderly couple in April -- from carbon monoxide poisoning.
 
Seems that particular room is situated right over the pump room for the adjacent pool, so this possibly faulty equipment is being tested as the likely source of the deadly but odorless fumes responsible for the otherwise mysterious N.C. motel deaths.
 
The deceased boy's 49-year-old mother, Jeannie Williams, is currently still in hospital. It's not clear if she's been informed yet that her son is dead.

 

Obama's Internet Spying High Crimes and Misdemeanors

Who should go to prison for Prism,
Edward Snowden or Barack Obama? 
 
 
UPDATE JUNE 12th: In what is certainly the most epic presidential fail in history, the scandal of Obama et al's illegal spying on the American people has bloated overnight to include swarms of litigants, including the ACLU, parents of an assassinated Navy SEAL and the founder of Freedom Watch.
 
All of these aggrieved parties are suing to end and be compensated for the widesweeping illegalities posed in the ongoing NSA and Prism surveillance of every citizen in the United States.
 
Overseas as well, nations await an explanation from 'Big Brother' Obama himself as to the extent of his unlawful intrusions on their own citizens' privacy rights, while, domestically, major tech firms that falsely lured customers with promises of confidentiality vainly attempt to distance and defend themselves for handing over millions of people's personal info stored in their databanks.
 
It is an unprecedented political meltdown that, without much doubt now, is bound to result in a Nixon-style exodus of a president and administration up to their necks in high crimes and misdemeanors. It's just a question of time.
 
ORIGINAL 6/10/13 STORY BELOW - NO SIGN IN REQUIRED TO COMMENT 
 
This week White House officials are trying desperately to convince everyone that snooping 24/7 under the guise of "national security" is really no big deal. That it is, in fact, totally "necessary" in this dark age of nonstop "terrorism."
 
But the truth is they know they've stepped way out of bounds this time -- internet spying on hundreds of millions of Americans via computer records, e-mail exchanges, and even telephone and banking data, without cause or a warrant, is criminal.
 
The disclosure by ex-CIA and NSA employee, Edward Snowden, that these illegal acts reach all the way to the Oval Office, is not just a little alarming, either. It speaks of unprecedented wrongdoing, and the leak concerning it surpasses even that of the unauthorized release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 by former U.S. military analyst Daniel Ellsberg.
 
These revelations exposing the United States government's clandestine and completely unlawful internet spying on its own people not only place a courageous young American's future in jeopardy today, but also that of an already ailing presidency.
 
For, without a doubt, conspiring and engaging in a scheme to circumvent the Constitution, the very document which one has publicly sworn to always uphold, is definitely an impeachable offense:
"In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material, and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. Snowden's whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an 'executive coup' against the U.S. constitution." - Daniel Ellsberg
Little wonder then that Obama and his shadowy cabal are scrambling to find and put away whistleblowing Snowden. Yet in this illicit ambition too they demonstrate their deep contempt for democracy, because citizens can't be imprisoned for simply reporting a crime.
 
Not in America anyway.
 
 

Friday, June 7, 2013

SMILEY RAGES ON: The Jeffrey Woodruff Killing

Missing Found Drowned: Jeffrey Woodruff
JEFFREY WOODRUFF: Was his drowning just another "tragic accident" or a coldblooded murder?
Sometime around midnight of April 27th 2013, police in Saugatuck Michigan responded to a report of an unidentified male passed out in a lot near Wally's Bar and Grill.

When officers arrived to investigate the incident, however, the man "was gone," they claim. 

The following day the family of Jeffrey Woodruff, 25, realized he'd inexplicably gone missing overnight from the exact same town, so they began organizing a posse straightaway in order to effectively hunt for him.

They also called the local police department, of course, urging them to join in the search effort, but, to their puzzlement and dismay, the cops declined that invitation.

Officials also refused to list the uncharacteristically absent Woodruff as a missing person, despite learning his abandoned cellphone was recovered in a spot close to where the reportedly unconscious man had been sighted, the same night that Woodruff disappeared.

About Jeffrey Woodruff

The athletic Michigan native had only recently relocated to the riverside community of Saugatuck and was last seen on the night of April 27th socializing at Wally's popular pub.

Although new to the area, Woodruff was at ease going to a boisterous place like Wally's by himself because the bar owner is great pals with his boss over at the antique shop just down the road.

Amsterdam Antiques is in fact slightly more than a mile from Wally's watering hole, but the evening was fairly mild so, after closing up shop for his vacationing employer, Woodruff walked to the bar alone.
 
A number of other patrons who recalled chatting with him during the night found the newcomer friendly and outgoing, they said, adding that, while they'd observed him down a few beers, he was by no means slurring his speech or staggering.

Yet the nimble Woodruff still ended up dead in the Kalamazoo River hours later -- to be retrieved from those chilly waters by divers on April 30th, the supposed casualty of too much alcohol and an "accidental drowning."

Exactly how he went so quickly from a barstool to the bottom of a river, we may never know, since Wally's owner claims to have had a bit of a slip up too: He says he mistakenly erased all the film from his surveillance cameras.

The dead man was sporting a fresh gash across his knuckles, and an injured ear.

The Case of the Drowning Men

"They drink, they fall down, they drown," police and medical examiners always simplistically explain.

Not just a few though, not just a dozen, but hundreds and hundreds of young males between 17 and 30 -- from all walks of life, every race, every creed, every religion -- are drowning fully clothed in cold weather, for the past 16 years.
Smiley Face Serial Killers, or something more nefarious?But before they all die in that bizarre manner, these victims first mysteriously disappear.

Sometimes they're gone for days, like Woodruff in Michigan. Sometimes for weeks, like Ward in Indiana. Sometimes for months, like Wilcox in Wisconsin. Sometimes for a decade, like Jansson in Illinois.

And sometimes, like Gillis in New York, they're never seen again...

Killing Killers will be featuring an exclusive interview with Becky Woodruff, in hopes of unraveling the tangled story of her own son's similar disappearance and untimely death in late April 2013.  Look for it soon in the VOICES FOR THE DEAD section. And read more about this case on CRIME MAGAZINE today.