Revelation Number 81: Aaron Hernandez is a Paranoid Junkie

Those still wondering why Patriot's star tight end Aaron Hernandez and his number 81 jersey were dropped by his NFL team the minute he was suspected of killing buddy Odin Lloyd, need not wonder anymore:

Well before his murder arrest, team heads had already given the out-of-control pro footballer a final warning that he'd be fired soon or traded if he didn't clean up his act.

The many infractions which had the Patriots so disgusted that they were willing to part with an almost unbeatable player worth a 40-million-dollar contract not only involved his failure to show up for practices, but the down and out, bottom-feeding thugs he constantly insisted on associating with.

Thugs who all but spoon fed Aaron Hernandez the type of drug long known to lead to episodic violence in habitual users and intense bouts of psychosis: Angel Dust.

Former friends who the now-jailed athlete alienated during his years' long binge with Dust revealed to Rolling Stone Magazine this week that they weren't surprised by Hernandez's ugly downfall because, "He’s been twisted on Dust now for more than a year, which is when all of this crazy shit started."

"Aaron's out of his mind."

Revelations like those might otherwise seem incredible, but they're more than supported by the Patriot's own tally of their once-celebrated tight end's nonstop offending, and in fact strongly hinted at even before they signed him on.

It's not clear if Angel Dust is a substance pro sports teams test for, but it first made its violent debut in the 1970s and is reportedly on the resurgence this decade. Particularly in Bristol Connecticut where Hernandez and most of his lowlife gangster pals hail from or hide out. 

Dust is infamous for causing extremely paranoid thinking in addicts as well as Sudden Rage Syndrome, two elements which played a prominent role in the bizarre and shockingly stupid murder of Hernandez's close friend Odin Lloyd in June this year.

Dumber still, was leaving Lloyd's bullet-riddled body and cellphone in an industrial park situated less than a mile from the 23-year-old ex-Patriot's mansion; both drug-induced blunders serving to lead investigators on a veritable breadcrumb-trail to psychokiller Hernandez and his cohorts.

In recent years, the Dust-addled athlete is believed to have orchestrated more than a half-dozen similar episodes in which, through mounting paranoia and rage, he targeted his friends and others he quarreled with for death. 

And, indeed, many of those spontaneous shootings did result in murder.

DYING TO BE WILD: Johnathan Croom and Chris McCandless

Young Johnathan Croom was obsessed with Chris McCandless and the Sean Penn movie Into the Wild which dramatizes the Alaskan misadventure that left the famed survivalist dead at 24.

 

So much so that, when 18-year-old Croom disappeared mid August after apparently ditching his vehicle roadside near a remote Oregon town called Riddle, his loved ones immediately feared he'd taken off for the wilderness himself.

 

But the reality is, the situation was even worse than expected -- Johnathan Croom was found dead yesterday, less than a 1000 feet from his car.

 

His camping gear, hiking guide and a wallet with $200 cash was still inside, undisturbed.

 

 

Oddly, that secluded area had already been combed by volunteers helping Croom's father hunt for his missing son, so it isn't clear why the boy's body wasn't found before this.

Police, however, say they are investigating the Croom death "as a suicide" based in part from recent statements made by relatives of the deceased which portrayed the teenage wilderness buff as being "heartbroken."

 

Posthumously, Croom's dead idol Chris McCandless has inspired thousands of other would be adventurers to follow his Spartan ways, too. Despite his own demise, creating a cult of believers willing to discard all their worldly possessions for roughing it in the wilderness, just as he had done years before he met a tragic end.

 

Into the Wild

 

McCandless, an experienced outdoorsman, encountered disaster in 1992 while braving the wilds of Alaska. There, he'd taken up residence in an abandoned old bus, hunting game and feeding on berries or wild legumes to survive.

 

His emaciated corpse was eventually discovered by locals who'd grown concerned about his welfare. An autopsy determined he weighed only 65 pounds when he died.

 

For years it was presumed that Chris McCandless had simply underestimated the harsh Alaskan frontier and starved to death. A theory seemingly supported by his final diary entries and the fact that he had embarked on the grueling quest without so much as a compass.

 

As well, lab analysis conducted on McCandless' meager food stores, which in his final weakened days was mainly grasspea vegetation, debunked the belief held by admirers that he'd slowly perished from inadvertently ingesting plant mold or other natural alkaloid poisons.

No such toxins were found in any of the food samples tested.

 

But then a decade later, Ronald Hamilton at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, whose curiosity was piqued by McCandless' notes detailing what his diet consisted of and a subsequent inability to stand, walk or forage anymore, began suspecting a different type of toxin may have been the real culprit.

 

A deadly one with a sordid past that stretched all the way back to Nazi Germany, and which, because it was a protein instead of an alkaloid, hadn't been detected.

A gruesome Nazi experiment solves a modern day mystery

 

During WWII, at a concentration camp in German-Romanian occupied Transnistria in the Ukraine, a few sadistic scientists decided to conduct an awful experiment on their Jewish inmates, the results of which they already knew in advance.

 

They cruelly substituted horse feed made from the Lathyrus Sativus grasspea as the main staple of the unwitting prisoners' diet, a legume known for its drought resistant qualities as well as possessing a botanical toxin that, when consumed in excess by humans, can cripple and even kill them.

That neurotoxin is called beta-N-oxalyl-L-alpha-beta-diaminoproprionic acid, or simply ODAP, and the devastating condition it brings on is called "Lathyrism". 

Especially vulnerable to the dire effects of prolonged consumption of grasspea and its notoriously toxic protein ODAP: Young males with a physically taxing lifestyle who are already malnourished. 

 

As expected, within days and weeks of eating only meals prepared from pea fodder, hundreds of young men at the camp developed pronounced limps and weakness in their lower extremities. 

 

Some victims fashioned crutches to remain semi-ambulatory; some became bedridden as irreversible paralysis set in; some went on to develop quadriplegia; some just died, unable to lift their heads to eat or breathe.

Out of the wilderness

 

Aware of this obscure Nazi-era medical atrocity and seeing in Chris McCandless' case identical circumstances and symptoms as well as a common food source, Ronald Hamilton retested the hedysarum alpinum and mackenziei varieties of grasspea McCandless was eating the year that he died.

And, lo and behold, these allegedly "harmless" cousins of Lathryus Sativus were chock full of the very same toxin, with astoundingly high concentrations of ODAP found in their seeds. 

 

Berry and seed-eater McCandless had not "starved out of stupidity" or "arrogance" after all, Hamilton realized. Instead, the otherwise savvy survivalist had unfortunately presented as the ideal candidate for severe grasspea poisoning: He was a young man, living an extremely rigorous existence and grossly underweight, when he began depending solely on the toxic plant for his sustenance.

 

Moreover, there was no way that McCandless could've known about the risk of contracting Lathyrism from it -- even a team of forensic pathologists and chemists had been unable to pinpoint that Alaska's grasspea legume, and specifically its miniscule fruit, was potentially poisonous. 

Nor did any of them grasp that, under Chris McCandless' special set of circumstances, eating it exclusively and on a daily basis would turn out to be fatal for him.

 

The official cause of death for his diehard teen-disciple, Johnathan Croom, who also perished in the wilderness this week, has not been disclosed yet. 

 

 EPONYMOUS ROX

 

NEXT: August Reiger and Jenny Pope - is there a connection?

Perhaps fearing the August Reiger case is another Jenny Pope scenario, Ecuadoran officials claim there's been "credible sightings" this month of the missing Oklahoma teen.

Reiger, a recent Classen School honors grad, disappeared from the resort town of Baños this past June while hiking with his family on a scenic jungle trail overlooking the touristy hotspot.

Authorities in charge of the Ecuador hunt for him continue to assert that the youth didn't accidentally die or get murdered, but, rather, was "kidnapped" by thus far unknown individuals aiming to extract a ransom in exchange for his safe return.

 

However, it's been over 70 days since August Reiger mysteriously vanished and still no demands for money -- either by phone or in writing -- have been made.

 

What's more, the area he disappeared from isn't known for such abductions and Reiger himself doesn't fit the typical profile kidnappers are usually targeting...

 

To glean what's true from potentially good PR spin, I analyzed what is known about this vexing equatorial riddle and compared it with yet another famous missing person case from that very same locale: That of British backpacker Jenny Pope.

 

The 50-year-old athletic Pope went missing abroad under eerily similar circumstances in 2006 and is now presumed to have been brutally robbed and murdered by a phony Baños tour guide.  Her remains have not been found yet.

 

NEXT on Killing Killers, in both English and Spanish translations.

 

Missing in the high Sierras: Matthew Greene

Matthew Greene, 39 and a math teacher from Bethlehem Pennsylvania, has literally vanished in thin air -- he was last seen on a mountain trek of the high Sierras in California.

 

Officially Greene was declared missing on July 29, 2013, following a somewhat convoluted and puzzling saga involving his broken down car: Because the vehicle's blown head-gasket wasn't repaired in time for him to leave with friends who'd accompanied him on the journey they all parted ways around July 16th ... and Greene hasn't been seen nor heard from since.

 

Greene's fellow hikers informed his brother-in-law Ron Minto that he had told them all that day to "go on without me, I'll catch up with you. My car will be ready in a week."

 

So his friends left him at the Shady Rest Campsite in the Sierra Mountains, the last place Greene allegedly texted from, Minto reports. Thereafter, when they didn't hear from him again, "they started to get concerned."

 

Whether the experienced climber disappeared from the high Sierras or somewhere in the nearby town of Mammoth Lakes where his Subaru is presently parked is still not known.

 

Adding to this baffling mystery are rumors that he may have hitchhiked a ride from that community and, because some of his gear was discovered missing, foul play is also now feared.

 

Greene's long absence and lack of telephone contact is said to be out of the ordinary for him, so anxious family members and friends have set up a Facebook page and launched their own limited ground searches, whilst California authorities continue to insist they don't know where to begin looking yet.

 

The treacherous terrain of the Sierra Mountains is also hindering the hunt, but recently a hiker discovered a pair of glasses that might belong to the missing man.

 

Greene has a unique eyeglass prescription his loved ones say, and they're waiting on tests to confirm whether or not these are his. If so, then they will finally have a location from which police can begin investigating.

 

Admittedly, it's not very much to go one, and a month without word is a long time for someone to be lost in the wilderness -- or worse.

 

But, "we're still holding out hope. Miracles do happen," Greene's mother Patricia told reporters this week. "Whatever the outcome, we just want him found and brought home." 

 

Matthew Greene is a youthful and athletic 39-year-old Caucasian male, approximately 6-feet tall and 160 pounds, with light brown hair and blue eyes. Anyone with information concerning his disappearance and/or his present whereabouts should call the Mammoth Lakes Police Department or Mono County Sheriff's Office.

 

EPONYMOUS ROX

 

MISSING FOUND DROWNED: Robert Seth Walter

The body of missing 20-year-old Robert Seth Walter has been found drowned -- submerged with his car in a Clay County pond. While a formal ID is still pending at this time, the automobile has already been confirmed as belonging to his family and they have publicly acknowledged he is in fact the deceased. Read original story and missing person report below. Your comments as always are welcome.

Killing Killers is broadcasting a missing person alert *today for Robert Walter, 20, who disappeared from downtown Kansas City Missouri on the evening of August 3rd, 2013 at around 10 PM.

 

Walter is a resident of that city and was last seen clad in dark summer clothing and matching high top sneakers near 17th Street and Madison Avenue.

 

Both he and his car have vanished without a trace.

 

Robert Seth Walter is a Caucasian male, over six-feet tall and 170 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes. 

 

He drives a maroon 2012 Nissan Altima (with Missouri plates MK8-E8X) which is said to have minor front end damage.

 

Click to enlarge, download and share the poster on the left furnished by the missing man's family and friends via their 'Bring Robert Home' Facebook page.

 

Walter's mother is also offering a $20,000 reward for "valid information that leads directly to [her] son and persons involved with his disappearance."

Anyone with any information whatsoever about what happened to him or his current whereabouts is urged to call the Kansas City Police Department's missing person homicide unit at 816-234-5136.

 

EPONYMOUS ROX

*UPDATED from 8/17/13 to include reward info and terms
*UPDATED from 8/20/13 to include found drowned and correct misspelling/s
 

CSI SUNDAY: 40,000 Teachers Join Oldest Profession

In reality teaching is probably the 'oldest profession' in the world, considering the timeless and universal need to master the fundamentals of walking, talking, reading, writing, and arithmetic.  Although, historically, the pay not so great when compared to prostitution.

That wage disparity is what's now motivating some 40,000 teachers in the U.S. to turning tricks when school's out, according to a leading sugar-daddy *brokerage* which boasts being the "number one online website for sugar-babies and generous men."

The CEO of SeekingArrangement[dot]com (one of Anthony Weiner's favorite hangouts) suggests steep budget cuts are most likely to blame for the tens of thousands of educators secretly subscribing to his service lately in hopes of closing their fiscal shortfalls through paid sex.

 

In general, moonlighting in the world's oldest profession has quietly become a popular part-time job for the nation's woefully underpaid young laborers anyway, sites like his are boldly claiming.

 

That's especially true these days for 40,000 teachers -- both women and men ages 28 to 33 -- if SeekingArrangement's informal polling of its nearly two-million members can be relied upon.

 

The top five school districts where this extracurricular criminal activity is purportedly thriving? Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Miami-Dade, Las Vegas, and New York City.

 

Class dismissed.

 

EPONYMOUS ROX
 

Alaska serial killer Israel Keyes update

Feds hike body-count of Alaska serial killer Israel Keyes
NEW JERSEY VICTIM UPDATE PUBLISHED HERE
DID HE MURDER THE MCSTAY FAMILY TOO? 

The death toll has risen to nearly a dozen confirmed slayings now, but the investigation into the deceased serial murderer's trail of blood is hardly closed, FBI spokesmen announced today.

The Bureau has also provided a revised travel timeline for the highly mobile killer Keyes, and their new one not only ominously stretches overseas, it's interactive.

Many of the thus-far nameless victims being sought by authorities were gradually hinted at by Keyes himself while incarcerated for the rape, murder and dismemberment of Alaskan teen Samantha Koenig in 2012.

But he killed himself in his jail cell before agents could extract the precise details of his decade-long murder spree.

So once again they're asking for the public's aid in identifying and locating victims of the Alaska serial killer.

You can read all about this fiendish "murder addict" and his numerous misdeeds in my original coverage below (last updated 12/12/12). Use the search box for additional references, including the case of Colin Gillis, still listed as missing from Keyes' neck of the woods in upstate NY. 

FBI requests public’s help with

dead serial killer, Israel Keyes

 
He is proving to be one of the most criminally insane serial killers of all time, with an unprecedented crime spree that includes rape, murder, dismemberment, arson, and bank robbery.

But, thankfully, Israel Keyes’ decade-long, cross-country reign of terror, which even involved burying caches of weapons, money and other materials for preplanned homicides, has officially come to an end this winter:

He committed suicide in an Alaskan jail the first week of December 2012, leaving behind a blood-soaked note currently being analyzed by the FBI. >

In so doing, Keyes executed his last sadistic act on humanity, slamming the door forever on a tenuous and terrible dialog investigators had necessarily established with him while he was in custody awaiting trial for brutally slaying a teenage girl in Alaska.

It was an arduous process getting the 34-year-old psychopath to come clean about his crimes, and throughout these interviews Keyes displayed a distinctly unfunny sense of humor which agents had feigned to be entertained by, in hopes of extracting from Keyes all the locations, names and details of his unknown victims.

But they didn’t succeed at this gruesome task in time. 

Felonies for fun 

Israel Keyes was a trained U.S. soldier in the 1990s stationed at some point in the Middle East, and when he finally returned from his tour of duty he set himself up first as a handyman and later as a construction contractor, cunningly inventing a cover for cruelties he would keep well-hidden from his wife, child, friends and neighbors.

In the construction industry he had an ideal profession, one that would give him the perfect excuse for traveling the countryside at length in search of unlucky individuals and couples to torture and kill.

It was a double life Keyes had led up until his capture in 2012; an elaborate ruse he "enjoyed" immensely within which he was able to make every state in the Union his hunting ground, and every kind of American citizen his game.

And in his capacity as a self-styled, roving serial murderer, Keyes was to be indiscriminate; he killed females, he killed males, he killed the old and the young. 

Madness to his methods 

Although Keyes was classified as an 'organized' serial murderer for his coolheaded, coldblooded criminology, at the time he was apprehended by authorities he was already descending into killer chaos of the “disorganized” variety: Targeting pairs and couples for prey, and breaking his own rules in obtaining these hard-to-get victims by killing on his home turf, using his own vehicle, and stealing victims’ credit cards to fund his adventures and travels.

This is how he got himself snared, fortunately, and it’s not that uncommon either—crafty Ted Bundy’s mental faculties also rapidly deteriorated toward the end, until he was killing solely by maniacal compulsion and leaving at his crime scenes a long and bloody trail.

Bundy too had started spilling the beans while he was incarcerated and facing death in the electric chair, and it’s believed that he did, by his last breath, tell investigators everything. More or less without the kind of exaggerations that some of his ilk are wont to do once they’re thrust into the spotlight.

Israel Keyes studied up on the likes of Bundy, he told his interrogators, but he also made it very clear to them that he was nobody’s copycat.

The chilling kills he did admit to doing show such boasts might just be true.

However, Keyes did not tell all before he expired, and, rest assured, those awful murders which he did confess to committing were not the embellished accounts or fabrications of a delusional madman perversely seeking adulation. Each and every one of these have so far been corroborated in follow ups by police. Right down to the minutest detail.

But there’s much more that Keyes had alluded to in his final days, and he was ever so slowly revealing the course of these hellish journeys and acts he undertook, before his cowardly end left investigators hanging.

So the FBI is now urgently requesting the public’s assistance in solving the half-told horrors Israel Keyes committed as he drove and flew from state to state, deliberately targeting remote areas such as campsites, boat launches, and parks to lurk in and kill. 

An urgent appeal from the FBI: 

"Mary Rook, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for the state of Alaska, requests the public’s assistance in developing information concerning the travels of suspected serial killer Israel Keyes, deceased, in order to identify additional victims. Anyone with information concerning Keyes is encouraged to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI.

"Based upon investigation conducted following his arrest in March 2012, Israel Keyes is believed to have committed multiple kidnappings and murders across the country between 2001 and March 2012. Keyes lived in Washington from 2001 to March 2007, at which time he moved to Alaska. While living in Alaska, Keyes worked as a general contractor but traveled extensively. In a series of interviews with law enforcement, Keyes described significant planning and preparation for his murders, reflecting a meticulous and organized approach to his crimes. It was not unusual for Keyes to fly into an airport, rent a car, and drive hundreds of miles to his final destination. This was the case in the murder of Bill and Loraine Currier, where Keyes flew into Chicago, rented a car, and drove across several states before arriving in Essex, Vermont. After the murder of the Curriers, Keyes continued his travels on the east coast before returning to Chicago and then to Alaska.

"Keyes admitted responsibility for robbing several banks during this timeframe, two of which investigators have corroborated. Keyes used the proceeds from his bank robberies to pay for his travel, along with money he made as a general contractor. Keyes also admitted traveling to various locations to leave supplies he planned to use in a future crime. Keyes buried caches throughout the United States. The FBI has recovered two caches buried by Keyes—one in Eagle River, Alaska, and one near Blakes Falls Reservoir in New York. The caches contained weapons and other items used to dispose of bodies. Keyes indicated the other caches he buried throughout the U.S. contain weapons, money, and items used to dispose of victims.

“Investigators believe that Keyes did not know any of his victims prior to their abductions. He described several remote locations that he frequented to look for victims—parks, campgrounds, trailheads, cemeteries, boating areas, etc. Keyes also told investigators that prior to the Currier case, his victims’ disappearances received little if any media coverage. Based on his own research, Keyes stated that one of his victims has been recovered but authorities ruled the death accidental. Investigators have not identified this victim or where this crime occurred.

"Keyes admitted to murdering four people in Washington; he killed two people (independent of each other) sometime during 2005 and 2006 and murdered a couple in Washington between 2001 and 2005. It is unknown if these victims were residents of Washington or if they were vacationing in Washington but resided in another state. It is also possible Keyes abducted them from a nearby state and transported them to Washington.

"Additionally, Keyes admitted to investigators that in 2009 he murdered a victim on the east coast and disposed of the body in New York State. Based on Keyes’ statements, investigators believe Keyes abducted the victim from a surrounding state and transported him/her to New York.

"The timeline below is an outline of Keyes’ travels and whereabouts throughout the United States from 2001 to present. Due to Keyes’ pattern of traveling significant distances by car, the locations are grouped by region rather than specific states." 

  ·         October 5, 2004 to October 16, 2004: Eastern US

·         April 20, 2005 to April 25, 2005: Washington, British Columbia

·         May 10, 2006 to May 15, 2006: Western US

·         September 1, 2006 to September 7, 2006: Alaska

·         October 21, 2006 to October 23, 2006: Western US, Mexico

·         November 8, 2006 to November 16, 2006: Alaska

·         February 5, 2007 to February 8, 2007: Southwest US

·         March 1, 2007 to March 9, 2007: Washington, Canada (drove to Alaska)

·         April 24, 2007 to May 4, 2007: Western US, Mexico

·         August 26, 2007 to September 6, 2007: Western US

·         October 29, 2007 to November 2, 2007: Western US

·         November 12, 2007 to November 13, 2007: Western US

·         12/April 2007 to 12/17/2007: Midwest and Western US

·         01/May, 2008 to 01/08/2008: Western US

·         01/28/2008 to 02/15/2008: Southern U.S. and Western US

·         May, 11/2008 to May, 17/2008: Western US

·         07/03/2008 to 07/07/2008: Western US

·         09/16/2008 to 09/24/2008: Western US

·         October 24/2008 to November 5, 2008: Southwest US, Midwest U.S. and Western US

·         December 5, 2008 to December 7, 2008: Hawaii

·         December 11, 2008 to December 25, 2008: Mexico

·         February 23, 2009 to February 27, 2009: Western US

·         April 1, 2009 to April 14, 2009: Eastern US, Western US

·         09/11/2009 to October 03/2009: Southern US

·         December 17, 2009 to December 29, 2009: Southern US

·         January 11, 2010 to February 25, 2010: Western US

·         March 1, 2010 to March 10, 2010: Western US

·         April 24, 2010 to April 30, 2010: Western US

·         May 19, 2010 to July 18, 2010: Midwest U.S. and Western US

·         July 18, 2010 to July 22, 2010: Southwest US

·         October 15, 2010 to October 25, 2010: Midwest US, Eastern US

·         June 2, 2011 to June 16, 2011: Midwest US, Eastern US

·         September 15, 2011 to September 25, 2011: Western US

·         February 2, 2012 to February 18, 2012: Southern US

·         March 6, 2012 to March 13, 2012: Southwestern and Southern US

If you have information contact 1-800-CALL-FBI.

Posted 12/3/12 by: FBI Anchorage,

Special Agent Eric Gonzalez (907) 276-4441

MISSING PERSON: Leah Remini says Scientology leader's wife has vanished

Actress Leah Remini filed a missing person report for the Scientology leader's wife this week, informing police that the woman hasn't been seen nor heard from since 2006:

 

Remini recently broke with Scientology herself, the controversial faith of alien-believers worldwide and one which she's been affiliated with her whole life.

 

The 43-year-old plans to release a scathing tell-all book about her experience in the cult-like organization, she and her spokespeople have promised.

 

In the meantime, the King of Queens actress marched herself to the Los Angeles Police Department and finally disclosed to them the existence of a religious riddle nobody was trying to solve: Where is Shelly Miscavige?

 

Miscavige is married to church-head David Miscavige, and Remini claims the Scientology leader's wife disappeared off the face of the planet seven years ago, after being whisked away by her husband to "a secret compound near Lake Arrowhead in the mountains above Los Angeles."

 

Dozens of other scientologists are housed there, Remini also told authorities, and they're being "completely cut off from the outside world."

 

The Church of Scientology has come under severe scrutiny of late, with many prominent former members complaining of heavy-handed techniques and serious invasions of their private lives by its leadership.

 

Such revelations, coupled with high-profile breakups like that of extreme scientologist Tom Cruise and the actor's unhappy ex, Katie Holmes, casts doubt as to the church's true mission and membership requirements.

 

Such matters also make Remini's recent scary accusation sound a lot less farfetched, too. And because she is not the first to have notified police about the abrupt disappearance of the Scientology leader's wife, detectives' suspicions were also aroused.

 

But today the LAPD has a different stance regarding the case of the missing Scientologist: They insist that Shelly Miscavige is not a missing person per se, and therefore succinctly closed their brief investigation.

 

Still, no one else has actually seen the spouse of David Miscavige for years now...

 

So what's the deal? Is she missing or not?

 

Police Probe Python Double Murder Mystery

INVESTIGATION CONTINUES INTO PYTHON MURDERS

 

Canadian police are still probing the deaths of two young brothers believed to have been crushed to death by an African Rock Python this past weekend while they were sleeping.

 

So far they've revealed some holes in the initial tale told by the owner of the snake in question, Jean-Claude Savoie. Namely that it wasn't kept in Savoie's exotic pet store below his apartment where the boys were killed, but in the apartment itself.

 

He also had no permit to own or house that particular breed, a snake infamously known as temperamental and potentially vicious.

 

Although rarely attacking humans as a food source, experts say that African Rock Pythons are the most aggressive of their species and, at 20-feet in length when fully mature, grow to be the largest too.

 

Indeed, in 2009 the senior herpetologist at Florida's museum of natural history, Kenneth Krysko, characterized these specific types of pythons as so ill-tempered "they come out of the egg striking."

 

The entire tragic event in New Brunswick Canada has sparked worldwide controversy now, and many acclaimed snake handlers have expressed deep skepticism over the likelihood of such a double killing, regardless of the reptile's notoriously nasty reputation.

 

Rock Python's are known to bite although they are nonvenomous, and "typically they lunge at you" explains Jay Brewer of the Reptile Zoo in California. But he, like a great many other experts in the field, still doesn't believe it was the snake that killed the youngsters.

 

“It doesn’t sound logical,” Brewer says. “It’s paranoid, so it will immediately go on the defensive, but it won’t wrap you up and kill you. They generally don’t want to constrict you. I would like to see absolute proof it was guilty. It just doesn’t jive. I don’t know how [the boys] wouldn’t have got up and run away. The dots don’t quite connect.”

 

Johan Marais of the African Snakebite Institute in South Africa echoed those sentiments.

 

"I'm totally skeptical," he says, because "the snakes only eat a few times a year when in captivity," and unlike human predators they "don't kill for fun."

 

The last reported human attack by an African Rock Python was well over a decade ago and occurred right in Marais' own region. Three years earlier, in the U.S., one also suffocated an infant in his crib.

 

But the point is: Snakes don't slay unless they're very, very hungry and, regardless, they don't expend a lot of energy on hunting their prey since the act of strangling and slowly devouring their kill is unto itself exhausting. 

 

They lay in wait.

 

Searching for answers in the bizarre strangulation deaths of the two Canadian children, some people are speculating that the python may have reacted in fear, perhaps when it allegedly fell through the ceiling over the sleeping siblings' mattress.

 

But they're still pondering how it could have had so much time and opportunity to execute a virtually soundless double-asphyxiation.

 

Investigators also report that the young boys had been playing earlier in the day with the kind of livestock which appeals to these deadly predators, such as baby llamas, goats and ponies. But that theory doesn't support an accidental killing, which means, if the snake is in fact responsible, its motive remains unclear. 

 

Rock pythons do have a tremendously well-developed sense of smell but extremely poor night vision, so it's therefore "not impossible" that these enticing animal odors may have been lingering on the boys' skin, clothing or hair and served to seal their gruesome fate.

 

Yet, days later, even police don't sound too sure of the 'mistaken identity' scenario anymore, and their criminal investigation is still underway:

 

“Originally we thought it strangled the boys,” said Jullie Rogers-Marsh, a constable with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, “but now we aren’t confirming exactly what happened until we get autopsy and necropsy results.”

 

While complete autopsy findings for the asphyxiated victims are still pending today, necropsy results on the euthanized python have since been analyzed. These confirmed the suspect snake was absolutely healthy.

 

Read my original Killing Killers article Boa Constrictor Falsely Accused of Strangling Two Boys here. 

 

*Are you a snake owner, breeder, expert, or victim? Your comments and opinions on this case are welcome and can be solicited anonymously if you prefer.
 

Is rap star Usher an unfit dad?

Usher almost loses another son

 

In the real world, if somebody's child is killed one year, and then the next another one nearly perishes as well, there'd be legal intervention by the State pretty darn fast.

 

For rap star Usher, 34, who just lost his 11-year-old stepson Kile to a boating accident last year, and who's own five-year-old almost met a similar fate at the bottom of a pool this week, that's not likely to happen though.

 

As we've too often seen, big celebrities like that get big breaks in the court system, and often it's done at little people's expense.

 

However, regardless of Usher's untouchable status, his ex-wife Tameka Foster is determined not to lose anymore of her sons to what she deems her ex's poor parenting skills.

 

She's filed emergency custody papers today, following the happier news that Usher-Junior's life was ultimately saved.

 

The boy had been diving in his father's pool for objects his aunt and her friend were throwing to him when he suddenly got an arm stuck in a drain at the bottom.

 

Workers at the mansion managed to free the then-unconscious child, whereupon he was rushed to the hospital and revived after nearly drowning.

 

Foster and Usher divorced in 2009 and ever since have battled fiercely over their biological children.

 

Hopefully this time a judge will seriously address the mother's repeated concerns and finally grant her full-custody petition.

 

The welfare of all youngsters should take priority over the wealth and prestige of their parents. Especially in cases where a troubling pattern of neglect might be developing.

 

EPONYMOUS ROX

 

Boa Constrictor falsely accused of strangling two boys

THE PYTHON DID IT:

 

In a reptilian whodunnit, a Boa Constrictor was initially blamed for the strangulation deaths this weekend of two small boys 5 and 7 from New Brunswick Canada.

 

Now, however, investigators say it wasn't the Boa Constrictor after all, but rather a 15-foot African Rock Python weighing in at about 100 pounds.

 

The enormous New Brunswick snake is believed to have escaped its cage on a first-floor pet shop just below a room where the two brothers where sleeping, then traveled upstairs through ventilation ducts to find and strangle them.

 

The boys were guests of the owner of the exotic pet store, a business which was once the subject of a public petition to close the joint down, allegedly for animal mistreatment.

 

Although the exonerated Boa Constrictor, wrongly charged with murder, is oblivious of his own near brush with fate, the Python perp is presently incarcerated and destined to be euthanized, sources say.

 

Rogue reptiles like the New Brunswick snake are quite rare, experts are quick to point out today, and it's extremely unusual even for big predators like a Boa Constrictor or an African Rock Python to hunt and attack humans, let alone commit a double homicide.

 

They're theorizing that, for some bizarre reason, this supposed monstrous murderer mistook the two youngsters for food, despite some evidence that it didn't actually attempt to eat them...

 

What do you think? Maybe Mr. Python is being falsely accused too?

 

EPONYMOUS ROX