Also, what’s the real story of baby Shannon and where’s the other missing kid from 1987?
It was THREE hours that those airline pilots were out of touch and where’s the outrage?
Updates on Rodney King and Al Sharpton that will surprise, Italians find American CIA guilty and those very dangerous U.N. windows that cause so many deaths.
Much more in this True Crime post.
===============
Guest Writer regales us with a recent vacation complete with otter pics.
==========
Book Review-Gary Morgenstein's "Jesse's Girl".
A movie in a book will keep the reader on the edge of their seat.
The plot changes, the characters shift relationships, danger abounds, justice prevails and a father and son finally make their peace.
=========
Pic of the Day
The House of Horrors
“So what’s the latest with this guy who had all the bodies in his house?” recently retired husband asked my True Crime afficiando self.
“What do you mean, what’s new?”
“Well they reported that they found a bunch of bodies in his home and that’s the last I heard.”
“You do know that they believe Sowells killed those women, right?”
“Yeah, I figured that, but how come there’s not covering the story more?”
From AOL.com:
CLEVELAND (Nov. 1) - Six women whose badly decomposed bodies were found at the home of a convicted rapist were all victims of homicide, the coroner's office said Sunday.
At least five of the women apparently had been strangled, said Powell Caesar, a spokesman for the Cuyahoga County coroner. Decomposition made it difficult to determine how the sixth died, he said.
The bodies "could have been there anywhere from weeks to months to years," Caesar said.
Indeed this story had been covered for a few days. A True Crime of finding ten dead women in a man’s home is a big story but I’m not sure what else my husband wanted to hear.
“If it was a cute little kid they’d be covering it a lot more,” husband lamented to my assertion that hey, the guy killed the women and his the bodies in the nooks and crannies of his house. I told husband the guy’s in jail. What else is there to say on the matter?
This guy’s victims were evidently prostitutes. No, prostitutes don’t deserve to be murdered. But if no one reported these women missing, not even their family, just how big an impact is their very sad story supposed to have on the public?
I don’t mean it to sound cruel but even the lead detective himself mused that these women had been killed and yet there were no reports of them even missing filed with the local police departments. Some folks came out of the woodwork to mention that a niece, cousin or sister hadn’t been seen for some time now that you mention it. But the remains of many of this woman had long ago turned to mere bones.
Sowells had apparently made an offer of sex for money but strangled them instead. This fellow already had a history of rape and had been in jail for many years.
As for a cute little kid, like it of not, of course stories of missing cute little kids, even dead little kids left to rot in some idiot’s house, would be big news.
There’s a difference and while it might not be fair we’re never going to change reality.
I suspect Sowells will spend the rest of his living days in jail, perhaps get the death penalty. But once he was incarcerated that was pretty much the end of the story.
Rodney “Can’t We All Just Get Along” King Now a Boxer-
Well hey, I’m all for good old American entrepreneuralship. Rodney is the fellow who thought leading the cops on a wild chase was a good idea. Once he got caught the cops showed Rodney what they thought of that idea. The whole thing melted into a big riot and Rodney gave his famous quote about getting along.
From the Boston Herald:
Rodney King, the famed police punching bag whose beating caught on tape put a bull’s eye on cops and eventually led to the 1992 Los Angeles riots, has turned celebrity boxer and says he’s aching for a rematch with one of the members of L.A.’s “finest” who viciously pummeled him in March 1991.
Heh. Of course Rodney has to make noises about taking on the cops of his torment, all for the marketing.
I, for one, wish Rodney good luck in this endeavor.
Those Dangerous Windows at the U.N.
We covered the story of a nuclear weapons expert who plunged to his death from a window at the UN on this Blog, HERE:
With appropriate sarcasm we noted that throwing one’s self out of a window of the U.N., very far from home we must note, was a rather unusual way to commit suicide. The fact that Timothy Hampton was a nuclear expert about to testify on Iran was mere coincidence, we also noted on the original Blog post.
But of course Mr. Hampton’s family didn’t buy that suicide story for a minute. Mr. Hampton had a young child. While people with children commit suicides how many do the deed so very far from their home?
Hampton’s family hired an independent medical expert who discovered marks on Hampton’s neck indicating possible strangulation.
From the DailyMail:
A British nuclear expert who fell from the 17th floor of a United Nations building did not commit suicide and may have been hurled to his death, says a doctor who carried out a second post-mortem examination.
Now we discover that in February 2008 yet another U.N. employee died from a suicidal plunge from the windows in the U.N. building, this the one in New York.
From the NY Daily News:
A 44-year-old Austrian woman who worked for the United Nations plunged from the 19th floor of the iconic Secretariat building Sunday in an apparent suicide leap, police said.
It’s been a while but yet another U.N. employee committed suicide back in 1982.
In 1982, Johannes Raven, 57, a UN official who had just resigned from the Office of Financial Services and was reported to have been upset about his failing health, jumped from the 18th floor on the west side of the building.
Folks, suicide by jumping from a window, particularly a window from a strange building nowhere near home, is very unusual.
Somebody ought to report those dangerous U.N. windows to OSHA.
But Islam Is the Religion of Peace-
This past week an American soldier of the Muslim faith, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, took a gun and killed 13 of his fellow soldiers, also wounding 30 others.
The Muslim PR machine has been in overdrive this past week. Like they always are, folks, when one of those Islamonuts does something like orchestrate a suicide bombing or riot over cartoons or kill their fellow soldiers or, like the fine, fine fellow below, murders their own child.
From the Boston Herald:
PEORIA, Arizona - Police say an Iraqi immigrant has been arrested for allegedly running down his daughter because she was becoming "too Westernized."
Police in Peoria, a suburb of Phoenix, are releasing few details but say 48-year-old Faleh Almaleki is in custody in Georgia. They aren’t saying where he is being held.
The young woman in question finally succumbed from the wounds inflicted by her own father. Her crime? She was too “westernized”.
We understand that lots of folks take a gun and go on killing rampages. We understand that too many parents kill their own children for too many horrendous reasons. There are even folks who try to blow up airlines that do it for reasons that make sense only to themselves. It just seems then whenever something awful is done in the name of a RELIGION, it is ALWAYS, go with me here, a Muslim.
CAIR and the other apologists for the kook fringe of this relgion that teaches entirely too much violence notwithstanding, it’s about time they stop urinating upon our feet and tell us it’s raining.
These nuts riot over CARTOONS for God’s sake!
You don’t see the Presbyterians murdering their children for being too sophisticated and urbane. You don’t see Baptists strapping suicide vests on their toddlers to better surprise and kill infidels. You don’t see Methodists declaring tiny Israel, a country the size of New Jersey, as source of all evil and whose inhabitants must be killed whenever possible. You don’t see the Amish ramming airplanes into buildings in the name of Mohammed and you don’t see Jews, heaven forbid, shooting their co-workers, preceeding the act with a shout of “Allah Akbar”.
If it’s evil done in the name of a religion it’s always a Muslim.
Which tells me that there’s some serious side of that faith that teaches violence as an answer to many problems that I must suppose all those daily prayers they do just don’t address.
We all believe in freedom of religion but that freedom of religion stops when the faith preaches killing me and mine.
We were born at night, many of us out here in American la-la land, but we weren’t born last night.
Could It Possibly Have Been Three Hours?
Once again this Blog covered the very strange story of the Airline pilots who were out of contact with land for 90 minutes, at least that was the time span reported at the time. Original Blog post here.
With appropriate sarcasm, as is my wont, I pondered these pilots getting themselves so involved with their laptaps, which is what they said they were doing those 90 minutes when they were out of touch with the world as the radio squawked and the attendants furiously rapped on the cockpit doors. So I hear with my own lying ears on the morning Fox News report, that it was in reality THREE hours those pilots were out of touch with the world.
I sit in shock and now must ponder an airplane flying around for three whole hours without contact one with the world below.
I expect that the news waves will soon be filled with other shocked personages such as my own fine humble self because hey, think of the damages to Muslim hijackers could have had if they had three hours to fly around and figure out with great leisure the most damage they can do, where, and how. I hear not a word from anywhere else so thinking I may have been hearing things, I do a Google search.
I come up with no less than an actual airline pilot forum and sure enough, below, the first commenter includes a link to a Fox story verifying what I heard and, well read the words of this actual airline pilot about the ludicrousness of flying an airplane for three hours with no earth contact.
AirlinePilot Forums.com:
Fox Twin Cities included in this comment from link above.
“ Okay, I'm trying to understand how this happened. Previous reports stated that the period of NORDO was only an hour or so. New reports say 3 hours. It just isn't believable that a professional pilot would not contact ATC for that length of time.
The other day I flew from Kansas to Washington, a three hour flight or so, in the very early morning. All through Kansas City ARTCC, Denver ARTCC, and SLC ARTCC it felt like we were the only ones on the radio. The only time we heard from ATC was on check-in and hand-off. It made me uncomfortable after 5-10 minutes after check-in and not hearing any other random radio calls. Invariably, as my comfort level was exceeded the controller would hand us off to the next sector.
How can someone go from California (I think) to Minnesota without talking to ATC?”
Folks, this pilot and co-pilot say they were on their laptops and just go so involved. I ask again as I did in my original Blog post, BOTH OF THEM?
So I document again this weird incident and wonder when it will all be solved. And when will they stop airline pilots from playing an intense game of Space Invaders while they are flying planes?
What’s the Strange Story of Baby Shannon?-
Just as soon as I heard the news that a 7 month old baby was missing from its crib, this in the dead of night, Halloween night, I began collecting links and pics. Babies are seldom stolen from their cribs by strangers, especially babies whose cribs are in their parents’ bedrooms.
From AOL.com:
CHIPLEY, Fla. (Nov. 2) - Search teams looking for a missing 7-month-old girl scoured dense vines and marshes for a second day Monday.
Authorities said Shannon Lea Dedrick was last seen when her parents went to bed about 3 a.m. Saturday.
Before I even had a chance to type a word about the missing Shannon, who I feared was dead by the hand of her parents because, again, it’s just not likely a stranger stole into their parents bedroom and took the baby while not arousing anyone in the house, particularly the sleeping parents right in the same room.
Then I hear the news that baby Shannon was found, alive and well. While this was amazingly good news, the story behind Shannon’s abduction and report of same is still murky and unclear.
From Foxnews.com:
The baby sitter and mother of a 7-month-old Florida girl missing for five days and then found alive in a box under the sitter's bed were charged Thursday in Shannon Dedrick's disappearance.
As best as I can determine, Shannon’s mother, Chrystina Mercer, asked the child’s “babysitter”, a Susan Elizabeth Baker, to take custody of Shannon. Baker agreed. Shannon was found wrapped in a box underneath Baker’s bed, evidently in an attempt to hide baby Shannon from searchers.
Why Shannon’s mother “chose” this awful Baker woman to take custody of little Shannon is not clear at all. According to the story at the link above, Susan Baker is suspected in the disappearance of a 3 year old, Paul Baker, her stepson. Paul or his body has never been found. Susan Baker did spend some time in jail when investigators, looking for little Paul, found another child, a 6 year old, who appeared to have been badly beaten. That child was her husband’s sister.
Susan Baker is hardly the sort we’d want to give our children to is what I’m saying here, what with that poor little 3 year old still missing and the other child in her home found badly beaten.
Even odder, Susan Baker phoned up authorities earlier this year complaining that the Mercers were mistreating baby Shannon, shaking her, smoking cigarettes and doing drugs in the presence of the child.
I don’t know who’s going to be charged with what in this mess. Obviously this was a report of a false crime in an attempt to hide passing Shannon to someone else.
And through it all, if we’ve learned nothing, there is a helpless 3 year old that still remains missing from 1987 and it looks like someone might have gotten away with murder.
Al Sharpton’s Ex-Wife & Kid Tell Police Where To Go
From the NY Post
The rabble-rousing Rev should give his daughter a sermon about road rage.
The Rev. Al Sharpton’s ex-wife and daughter were arrested last night after berating a pair of Harlem cops who pulled them over for running a red light in the wrong lane to get around their slow-moving, unmarked cruiser, sources told The Post.
I mean, come on. Ole Al’s daughter got tired of the slow pace of the police cruiser in front of her (read it again, a POLICE cruiser) so she veered around the car, crossing double lines into oncoming traffic to do so, then ran through a red light to get around the police vehicle. The police cruiser was unmarked so I suppose it’s possible Al’s daughter, along with his ex-wife, didn’t know.
According to the linked story, Al’s daughter dropped her father’s name quite frequently at the police station after being handcuffed and carted off in custody.
Al Sharpton says it’s highly unusual to have such a routine traffic stop end up at the police station but hey, that’s Sharpton for you. No mention that bit about swerving over the lines into oncoming traffic or running the red light directly in front of a police cruiser.
Man Caught On Videotape Having Sex With a Horse
I actually feel sorry for this fellow. He evidently is not mentally the brightest bulb in the lamp. And, in his own way, he truly regrets actions that he seems unable to control.
I tend to cover such human indecent acts with animals on this True Crime Blog, not for yuks. It’s just that animals are innocent, they can’t call 911, and I don’t think they especially enjoy intimacy with humans in this manner. It’s important that human beings engaging in this behavior be thrown in the slammer both for preservation of our humanity but also for protection of the animals. Goodness knows how bad this situation would be if there were no punishment meted out for it.
From the Sun News:
A Longs man was sentenced to three years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to a charge related to having sexual intercourse with a Conway woman’s horse.
Rodell Vereen, 50, was charged in July with buggery and trespassing after the woman found him in her barn at Lazy B Stables in the Wampee community of Horry County, police said. The woman held him by pointing a shotgun at him until police arrived.
Verren should spend some of his upcoming prison time in serious prayer. It could help.
Italians and the CIA
So a bunch of American CIA types caught some Muslim terrorist type back in 2003 on the streets of Milan. They shipped this guy off to Egypt where he is alleged to have been tortured.
Reporting from Washington and Rome - An Italian judge on Wednesday convicted 23 Americans of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric off the streets of Milan in 2003, a sweeping verdict against one of the CIA's most valued anti-terrorism tools -- the practice known as extraordinary rendition.
Let’s waste no words here. America does not torture unless you count panties on the head or water being poured into nostrils with no danger to life as torture. Egyptians and other assorted countries WILL torture certain prisoners, and they likely will do so for America upon request. I suspect this is something done when a prisoner is seriously believed to have information that might cause many deaths.
I knew this was a joke when some fellow named Mike German appeared on the Glen Beck show on 11/6/09 saying that the CIA should have been found guilty by Italy. German is from the ACLU and right there you have a lefty crazy.
Now I want to see if Italy comes over here, grabs our citizens to take them back and put them in an Italian jail.
Heh.
Couple Steals Airline Luggage
The thing that worries me about this story, other than a mild amusement that someone got such a great criminal idea, so easy to do, is how easy these people got themselves into airline luggage areas. The return from the crime, as one might imagine, is questionable. I think they probably often get a bunch of dirty underwear and shaving gear in return for their labors.
From AZCentral.com:
The suitcases were stacked without identification tags, the owners' names erased from the bags they never picked up at Sky Harbor International Airport.
Detectives uncovered nearly 1,000 pieces of stolen luggage Tuesday while serving a search warrant at a home in the northwest Valley, linking the items to Keith King, who's accused of plucking the bags off airport baggage carousels.
What I wonder is suppose some Islamonut gets it into his or her head to send off a suitcase packed with explosions INTO an airplane? If these people got into the luggage area so easily to take stuff AWAY, how easy is it to get suitcases INTO an airplane?
I understand that luggage is x-rayed for bombs and such before putting onto an airplane but criminals, especially the fine, fine Islamonuts, are very patient. If there’s a loophole in the procedure, as obviously there is here when folks can walk off with any suitcase not their own, the terrorists will figure it out.
Two Stupid Criminal Stories
Announced Death of Opponent Before Body Even Found
From Telegraph.com:
Mauricio Fernandez was being sworn in again as mayor of San Pedro Garza Garcia, one of northern Mexico's most exclusive communities, when he announced to his cheering supporters: "Black Saldana, who apparently is the one who was asking for my head, was found dead today in Mexico City."
Only, ahem, at the time of Fernandez’ speech, Saldana’s body had not yet been discovered. Ole Mauricio will be going to jail instead of City Hall.
I always heard about corrupt Mexicans but this really illustrates the depravity of their electoral system.
For if they elect dumb mayors like this then there is no hope.
Dumb But Really Tragic or Else Something Weird Going On Here
From the Austrian Times:
"A 60-year-old man was burnt alive as he tried to kill his wife at their home in Feistritz an der Drau in Carinthia’s Villach-Land district today
According to the story, this poor fellow had doused himself with petrol and his house where his wife and her alleged lover were inside. All the while he threatened to burn it all to a crisp.
So why on earth did he douse HIMSELF with petrol? Was it an accident? Cause when he lit that match it was the cuckolded husband who burnt to a crisp while the cheating wife and her lover suffered only from a bit of smoke inhalation.
Or could this fellow’s wife be lying about it? Could SHE have doused her husband with gasoline and set the poor guy on fire?
==============
”Jesse’s Girl” by Gary Morgenstein
Amazon code for this book here.
Let us begin with the firm assertion that this book could be a movie. I’ve no doubt that this book was written by an author who was watching the movie in the theater of his mind as he typed the words of the plot.
Which is not, I again firmly assert, a bad thing.
And because “Jesse’s Girl” is a book and not a movie, the subtle emotional nuances are more effectively presented in the narrative that a book always bests a movie media at.
This and the fact that Gary Morgenstein does dialogue better than most any writer I’ve ever read.
Jesse is a troubled teen, the adopted son of the book’s protagonist, middle-aged Teddy Mentor. Teddy is the troubled father of the troubled teen and the book’s plot takes Teddy and his son Jesse on a hardscrabble jaunt from Montana to Kentucky. The father-son meet up with a female, Theresa, who is introduced in the story as having one relationship with Jesse then the tale veers into a different direction when it is revealed that Theresa is not who Teddy thought she was, in terms of her relationship to his son Jesse as well as who she presented herself to be.
The book/movie has it all, a love interest for Teddy, appropriate maudlin moments for the female movie audience, and adventure and action for the restless males in the movie seats. There’s lots of plot twists and turns as father/son and in some cases Theresa herself drive across Kentucky trying to avoid both the law and an errant individual who wishes them all great harm.
Protagonist Teddy is a decent fellow. So while he finds his more normal geeky PR executive self in a dangerous situation he’d never have imagined in his former life, Teddy never really causes anyone any great harm. In fact, Teddy’s greatest wish is to save his son’s life and reach a connection with him that had eluded him until Jesse embarked on a mission to find the blood family he never knew. A Quote:
”Alone. He’d never really been alone with Jesse. He’d hid behind Molly, deferred to her superior parental instincts, and then when she died and Jesse went completely off the rails, he was only too eager to send his son away. Forget the agony, poor Teddy and his guilt, he could’ve found one last alternative.”
This is a riveting book, never boring, always surprising. There’s plenty of characters in the mix, some bad, some good, most like the majority of humankind I suspect-good, bad and mostly trying to survive in an often difficult world.
I’d recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a great movie with all the elements to entertain but it’s a book. Which makes it all the better.
NOTE- Gary Morgenstein is a Conservative and has a daily show- WIMS Radio, 1420, out of Michigan City, Indiana? Gary’s on Sundays from 10:30-11AM, ET, offering the conservative perspective. You can listen to it online
===============
The Pull of The Eel
Got your attention? Good. Now get your mind out of the gutter.
The Eel River is a northern California river, with both Wild and Scenic River State and Federal status. It is also one of the rivers which host an annual salmon run.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eel_River_(California)
For me, the Eel River has a bit more personal connection, too. I don't have many memories of my childhood. Perhaps my brain can only hold so much, or the parts where nothing exciting happened have been weeded out. Of the few memories I can call up, one is of the Eel River.
Once upon a time, way back in the distant past, my parents and I camped somewhere by the Eel River. I remember lots of big trees, ferns, and a short walk in the rain to a large gravel-bedded river (lots of river bed, not so much river water) where we fished. Mom
thought we were crazy to fish in the rain, but it wasn't a hard rain. I don't remember if we caught anything, but I do remember wondering if there were bears in among those fern-surrounded trees. I remember that odd in-the-rain fishing trip with my dad with fondness, and the few times Harry and I've been near the Eel River, I keep coming back to
that trip yet again.
For vacation this year, the pull of the Eel River on my memory won, and I pulled Harry along with me to visit the river and the surrounding redwoods. We stayed for three nights at the Benbow Inn, right on the south fork of the Eel River, and just a skip away from the redwoods. We alternated between sightseeing, trying to find some decent non-yuppie food, relaxing, trying to find some decent non-yuppie food, admiring the river, and trying to find some decent non-yuppie food.
I now know I could *not* live in Garberville, any more than I could live in Santa Barbara. Ah, well.
The trees are astounding, the river was all I remembered it to be (including low, with mostly rocks and not so much river), and Harry and I had a wonderful time. The inn wasn't very busy (end of the season, I think), the river was amazingly clear, and sitting on the balcony at the inn - cross-stitching - with just a glimpse of river water visible through the trees will likely be one of my new fond Eel River memories.
One of the highlights was being the only people at the river's edge and seeing two wild otter come out of the rocks across from us, give us a brief look, and then start having lunch in the water. I don't know what they were eating, but it was crunchy. Then they swam off to the west with classic otter loops and rolls.
I'd go back in a heartbeat, but only if I can take some of my own food.
Michelle
winebird@winebird.com
The Desk Drawer writer's exercise list
================
A Brain Infection? A Medical Journey Surpassed by Few
A Medical Odyssey to a Quadruple Heart Bypass
To My Townhall Blog
My Twitter Page, I post all Blog posts there with the link
My Face Book Page
MySpace Page
EMAIL ME
==============
No comments:
Post a Comment