Women in Crime Ink

Former News of the World Editor Rebekah Brooks' Body Language May Alienate Jurors

2012-05-20T08:16:00.004-04:00

by Dr. Lillian Glass

After watching Rebekah Brooks, former editor of News of the World and once the most powerful woman in the Rupert Murdoch empire, give her testimony, I observed that he cockiness, air of arrogance and entitlement relayed via her monotone facial expression and icy tone would not go over well at the Leveson Inquiry.

Even the dress this once fashion plate wore, a white peter pan collar in with black bodice (as seen in the photo below), backfired as it was obviously worn to manipulate in giving the illusion of appearing as a soft, meek, innocent school girl.

She has now been charged with the crime of conspiring to pervert the course of justice, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

If she presents herself the way she presented herself when she gave her testimony, and when she came out in her press conference publicly attacking by accusing police and prosecutors of bowing to political pressure to find scapegoats for the hacking scandal, this once social butterfly who hobnobbed with Prime Ministers and the crème de la creme of society will most likely be spending he rest of her days behind bars. She comes across as unlikeable and needs a major image overhaul if she is to gain any type of jury sympathy.

The body does not lie and neither does the voice. In my view she needs to come across more humble and less hostile if she has any chance of presenting her case so a jury will listen to her with an open mind.

In another blatant show of arrogance and manipulation, Rebecca Brooks and her husband decided to have their press conference five minutes before the Crown Prosecution Service had their chance to announce that Rebecca Brown has been charged. The Brown’s made a calculated move to make their announcement before 6PM to make sure it would appear on the evening news.

Her husband also did not do his wife any favor her during the presser as he accused the prosecutors of subjecting his wife to a “witchunt” and stated that there were 172 police officers investigating phone hacking, computer hacking and corrupt payments to public officials. He then went on to say “so it’s no surprise to me that the pressure is on to bring prosecutions, however weak they may be” and “I have grave reservations that my wife can ever get a fair trial, given the huge volume of biased commentary that she is constantly subjected to.”

Rebekah Brooks did not help her defense as well by stating that it was “nothing more than an expensive sideshow, a waste of public money as a result of an unjust and weak decision.”

Both Brooks and her husband will appear at City of London magistrates’ court on June 13, after having been formally charged with tree counts conspiring to pervert the course of justice after news of a deceased girl’s voicemails were hacked by News of the World and she allegedly concealed documents, computers, and other electronic equipment from Scotland Yard officers who were investigating phone hacking and corrupt payments to public officials.

While Brook’s trial is said to begin next year, it was just announced at the Canes film festival that there will be a film about her life which Producer Gene Kirkwood likens to the downfall of Richard Nixon will trace her rise to power from secretary to one of the most powerful women in the world. There is even talk of Nicole Kidman portraying Brooks because of their physical likeness. The project is said to begin when Brook’s phone hacking scandal concludes so the producer will know how the film will end.

According to a Vanity Fair article on which the film will be based, Rebekah Brooks used her “magnetic attraction” to make her way in a male-dominated tabloid world as well as getting whatever she wanted in life.

Her “magnetic attraction," which worked so well for her in the past, may now come to an end as she faces a jury of her peers. She will no longer be able to use her feminine charms to manipulate. She will need to come across a lot differently and lose the attitude if she has any chance at not spending the rest of her life behind bars.

Ushering in Intelligent Fingerprints

2012-05-15T06:58:00.000-04:00

by Andrea Campbell

A genius group from the UK is on to something big. They have found a way to glean lifestyle information from fingerprints. Not only that, but the fingerprints when rendered will be of a high resolution—meaning it will be easier to read the finest points of a print—and, they’ve made it possible to collect this information in situ, on site!

We’ve known for ages that fingerprints are obtained because sweat is secreted through the pores on our skin to create friction ridge patterns. These patterns form a maze that when lifted or dusted and put down in order to visualize is a unique map to whom we are—a positive identification.

A Little More Individualized

What if we could determine more about a person from analyzing the chemicals in the sweat we naturally secrete? That’s it! This team developed a method to test the antibodies, metabolites and nanoparticles, the chemicals if you will, that make up some of the properties within the sweat. Scientists can now determine whether the individual tested has been using nicotine or illegal drugs.

The Idea on Simmer

Previously, David A. Russell and Dr. Sue M. Jickells, co-wrote a paper in 2007 that promised this technique: “…direct chemical information from drugs or drug metabolites present in minute quantities of sweat deposited with a latent fingerprint to provide ‘lifestyle intelligence’ regarding an individual.”

This device allows samples to be collected from suspects
on site using disposable analysis cartridges in mere minutes.

Fast forward to today. Intelligent Fingerprint Ltd. is now a company of six researchers looking to commercialize this methodology. The technique would be best suited for law enforcement, border security, prison services and health care.

The Skinny on How It Works

The secretions left behind in a fingerprint, visible or not, contain materials from both the apocrine and eccrine glands. This is comprised of water, chlorides, lactic acid, ammonia, creatinine, inorganic ions, amino acids, and metabolites. It is the chemicals from metabolic processes that are the exciting part. Food is metabolized but our metabolic substances can also point to whether a person has smoked or taken drugs. According to Kristi Mayo, author of “Beyond Identification” for Evidence Technology Magazine, writes, “a metabolite of nicotine is cotinine. After a person smokes a cigarette, cotinine can be found in his or her saliva, serum, urine—and sweat.”

The testing equipment is easily portable.

This new technology then, utilizes high-sensitivity reagents, made of anti-body coated nanoparticles. These tiny particles are either gold or iron oxide that bind or cling to the antibodies of proteins and other molecules. The antibody nanoparticles conjugate—combine two substances in such a way that they can easily be separated again—then bind to metabolic antigens found in the fingerprint. Right now the reagents under this new technology can locate nicotine, drugs common to abuse, and the stress hormone cortisol.

What this means is—instead of having to catch someone and do an invasive body test of their blood, urine or saliva, the same results can be taken up from a fingerprint.

It Gets Better

Not only are there drawbacks attached to the invasive form of body fluid testing, namely, the bio-hazard risk, the need for cold or frozen transport storage, but the sample can often get contaminated. Intelligent Fingerprint however, came up with a prototype handheld device that can be used anywhere, and also, they have put together reagent kits that can analyze samples taken either from the individual, or from touched surfaces. These chemicals can test for: cocaine, methadone, morphine and the psychoactive substance found in cannabis.

A prototype of the Intelligent Fingerprinting handheld
sample-and-analyze device.

What this ultimately means is that crime scene investigators could lift prints, test them right there on site with the reagent kit, and know whether someone has used cocaine, other drugs or marijuana. Any additional information toward identification is definitely a boon. There are some questions that need to be addressed in the near future but, isn’t new technology great?

For more information:

Mayo, Kristi, Beyond Identification, Evidence Technology Magazine, March-April, 2012, pgs. 20-25.

Photos courtesy of Intelligent Fingerprinting, Ltd.

2012-05-13T12:43:00.000-04:00

Happy Mother's Day to our Readers

and WCI Contributors!

We wish all Mothers a very Happy Mother's Day today, as we celebrate this day that honors mothers and motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society.

(photo courtesy of Carlson & Meisner)

Why I am Grateful for the Bullies Who Tormented Me

2012-05-07T09:59:00.000-04:00

by Gina Simmons, Ph.D.

When I was in the fourth grade, a popular girl named Paula led a gang of girls and boys to engage in a disturbing game at recess. In this game she commanded the boys to ambush select girls, take off their clothes, and toss the clothes into mud puddles. I became one of Paula’s unfortunate victims. At the time my parents were away on a week-long vacation and I was staying with family friends. Humiliated, tearful, and muddy, I went to the principal’s office. I named names. The principal interviewed all of the children involved. He announced “since all of you told different stories I’m going to punish you all. This week you will all be benched at recess.” My sentence came down to a week of humiliation sitting next to my tormentors during every recess period. By the time my parents returned from vacation I had already served my time.

I learned some valuable lessons from this bully, and others I’ve encountered over the years. I learned that popular people and good people aren’t often the same people. I learned that I could suffer humiliation and survive. This knowledge gives me the courage to take risks that have paid off in my life. I learned that people in authority look for easy explanations and solutions. I now keep my communication clear, simple, and precise whenever I speak with someone in authority. Complexity and political success do not work well together.

Bully prevention programs have become a cottage industry in this country. The tragic suicides of bullied children break my heart and inspire many of us to find solutions to the problem of human cruelty. Social scientists find that when one person comes to the aid of a victim, it encourages others to step up as well. When we motivate children to speak up for others, it can make a huge difference in the life of a tormented child.

It’s equally important to help our children develop the inner strength necessary to cope with the inevitable injustice and cruelty they will encounter in life. Kenneth Ginsburg, M.D., a pediatrician joined forces with the AAP in their book, A Parent’s Guide to Building Resilience in Children and Teens: Giving Your Child Roots and Wings. Dr. Ginsburg writes that parents can help their children and teens recover more quickly from painful experiences by fostering what he calls the “seven C’s of resilience.” I’ll talk about four of the C’s here:

Competence: focus on something your child does pretty well, and encourage them to grow in that area. When a child works every day on skill development they can transfer that habit to learning other things important for survival.
Confidence: when children develop competencies they grow in confidence. Encourage persistence and effort rather than competition and success. I always tell my children, “I’m proud that you worked so hard for that competition,” not “I’m proud that you won.”
Connection: when children feel secure and loved at home they can suffer at school but have a safe place to recover when they go home. For many children home is just another battlefield. Encourage your child to share feelings with someone they trust.
Character: children who are taught strong morals and values can find strength in those values when confronted by unethical or cruel behavior. Teach your child to take pride in being a good, caring, compassionate person.

Of course lecturing our children about good character won’t help them learn if they watch us behave badly. In this election year our political discourse remains hostile, rigid, and filled with personal attacks. It might help to listen to your political rhetoric and try to remove the hostile tone. Your children are listening to you, and following your lead.

Photos courtesy of: j.abalos and Kenziepants.

The Eternal Hour of Lead

2012-05-04T10:13:00.003-04:00

by Deborah Blum

This is the Hour of Lead-
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow-
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

When 19th century poet Emily Dickinson wrote those lines, she was describing the terrible paralysis of grief. A good century later, analysts for the Environmental Defense Fund, would also note that the last line “aptly describes some of the symptoms of lead intoxication.”

I’ve always suspected that they also just liked the poem and wanted to use it – certainly that’s partly my motive here. But I’ve also been thinking about one phrase in Dickinson’s verse because it seems to me, recently, that as a human society we seemed perpetually caught – by which I mean poisoned – in an endless” hour of lead.”

The chemical symbol for lead is Pb, from the Latin word “plumbum” which referred to a malleable metal. The term plumbing comes from the use of lead pipes by the Romans; a plumber fixes them, a plumb bob refers to a lead weight, a plumb line is pulled straight by such a weight. An old-fashioned term for lead poisoning is plumbism. We are surrounded by references to what is arguably the most important poison in human history.

Many scholars have argued, for instance, that the plumbum-loving Roman empire – enthusiastically using lead pipes, bottles, and wine cups, leaded cosmetics and paint – came to its end partly due to lead-poisoning of its upper classes. One U.S. Environmental Protection Agency paper on the history of lead poisoning, cites “the conspicuous pattern of mental incompetence that came to be synonymous with the Roman elite” as evidence of lead’s destructive effects.

Interestingly, the EPA paper also cites poetry to illustrate the evils of lead poisoning, a scrap of anonymous verse, attributed to a Roman hermit and translated in 1829:

The feeble offspring curse their crazy sires,

And, tainted from his birth, the youth expires.

The key points there being, of course, crazy sires and dead children. “No safe blood lead level has been identified,” notes a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) backgrounder on exposure risks. Lead is a broad spectrum poison - it interferes with enzyme production, especially enzymes needed by red blood cells, and is known to cause lethal anemias. It targets neurons, disrupting the production of neurotransmitters such as glutamate (which plays a key role in learning by enhancing plasticity). It deposits itself into bones and stays there – the half-life of lead in human bones is up to 30 years. Muscle weakness, numbness and tingling, nausea, severe stomach pain, depression, fatigue, sleeplessness, loss of libido – all are symptoms of lead poisoning and all speak to its ability to impact every part of the body.

The Romans weren’t the only major civilization from our past to be affected by lead poisoning. Last summer, environmental scientists in Japan reported the results of an investigation into lead exposure in the Edo period, which lasted from 1603 to 1867, a time when the country was dominated by shogun leaders, and laws enforced by an aristocratic class of samurai warriors.

According to Tamiji Nakashima, an anatomist at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health in Kitakyushu, the investigators studied the remains of samurai men, their wives and children, about 70 in total. Earlier tests had found unusually high levels in the women compared to men; the last study looked at the children. The researchers tested for lead in rib bones, x-rayed the childrens’ arm and leg bones looking for signs of lead poisoning.

The Japanese scientists had already concluded that the lead levels in women were directly related to the white face paint popular in aristocratic circles, which turned out to be loaded with lead. They wondered if exposure to the same material might have harmed the children and the new results showed them precisely right; they found evidence of lead levels more than 120 times background level as well as bands of lead deposits in the bones.

Nakashima and his colleagues believe that the children were poisoned by touch, as they were fed, hugged, carried by their mothers, the lead-rich paint rubbed off on them. They also speculate that the gradual lead-poisoning – with its inevitable taint of death and disability – helped put an end to the shogunate reign in the late 19th century, setting up the transfer of power to an emperor.

It has only been in the last century, of course, that we’ve realized just how dangerous lead actually is. That knowledge has resulted from the new ability of scientists to detect it in very tiny amounts and to connect those trace exposures with health problems. In the dawn of lead awareness, governments have banned lead paint and leaded gasoline, moved to replace lead pipes in water systems, squeezed down allowable lead levels in consumer products.

Is this a smart response? Yes, obviously, if we are talking about poison unsafe at all levels. But only if said governments are actively – and honestly – trying to enforcement protective standards. For instance, as reported last year by The Washington Post, when inspections discovered massive lead contamination from pipes in Washington D.C. in 2004, the Bush administration not only issued misleading reassurances but moved to loosen protective measures designed to protect against lead poisoning.

Or consider the discovery of lead in popular lipstick brands sold in the United States. Although some of these products showed clear lead contamination in amounts above EPA safety levels – and although women inevitably swallow some lipstick – the U.S. Food and Drug Administration insists that the lipsticks are perfectly safe. But as I noted in a recent post for the Knight Science Journalism Tracker, there remains considerable consumer doubt and fear about such findings.

Our leaded history continues to haunt us in this country. Lead-based paint remains in hundreds of residential buildings around the country, especially in poor neighborhoods, and our government seems newly reluctant to fund programs that remove such hazards. And it’s not just a paint-in-the living room problem. As USA Today reported this week, the government has been slow to alert city residents of lead-contaminated soils surrounding their homes, linked to long closed factories.

And to raise a non-urban example, considered the still unresolved petition filed with the EPA last year, trying to force the agency to regulate the use of lead shot in hunting, which advocates say is now killing more than 10 million birds and animals every year, mostly due to consumption of spent lead pellets. contaminated by lead.

“It’s long past time do something about this deadly – and preventable – epidemic of lead poisoning in the wild,” said Jeff Miller, conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity. The government does ban the use of lead pellets in shooting waterfowl but conservationists say this barely touches the problem. Still, the EPA has been notably reluctant to take an this issue angrily opposed by hunting groups, who are already describing the petition as an attack on traditional hunting values.

This is not to suggest that lead problems – or even the worst lead problems – are concentrated in the United States. In 2010, more than 1,300 children were sickened in China by lead exposure from nearby smelting plants, leading to furious protests from their parents against government cover-ups. Not to mention, lead poisoning related to gold-extraction in Nigera, where where health experts say more than 400 children have died and thousands more been sickened – as a result of lead exposure related to handling of contaminated ores.

The feet, mechanical, go round

A wooden way

Of ground, or air, or ought

Dickenson authored the above quote in her poem The Hour of Lead and she was writing, of course, of the clock-work motions of those caught in grief. But it strikes me that the mechanical analogy applies here too because we keep repeating these same actions that bring us into harm, as if we cannot seem to fully learn – or fully respect – what our own history should have taught us here.

We remain, thus, in our eternal hour of lead, still not fully awakened from that our lead-induced stupor, apparently, and still unable to let go.

Murder in Montgomery County

2012-04-23T00:27:00.002-04:00

by Katherine Scardino

Verna McClain is a 30 year old vocational nurse, who lived and worked in Montgomery County, located just north of Houston, Texas. She was engaged to be married and had been pregnant, until she suffered a miscarriage. Then, she set out on a search to "adopt" a baby.

Vera's mother told a Houston Chronicle reporter that she was shocked and in disbelief when she heard of the crime. Verna was not a violent person. A neighbor described her as a great mother, hard worker - even working 60 hours a week at times.

But life as Verna McClain knew it came crashing down last week when she was arrested and subsequently charged with capital murder in connection with the shooting death of Kala Golden (and the kidnapping of Kala's newborn son). This charge places her at risk for a death sentence, and the District Attorney handling her case will more likely than not seek the death penalty due to the extreme facts of this case.

Ms. Kala Golden Schugard gave birth to her baby boy, Keegan, three days prior to the incident. As Kala and Keegan left their pediatrician's office, Verna McClain was waiting for them - and she had a gun. Without much ado, Verna pulled her pistol and shot Kala several times in the chest. Kala fell to the pavement. Verna grabbed the baby, little 3 day old Keegan, out of the carriage and ran with the baby to her sister's Lexus and sped off - with Kala screaming "my baby, my baby!" Kala died there on the hot pavement, alone and the victim of one of the saddest crimes this area has seen for several years.

Verna did not care about Kala - she was on a mission. Apparently, she had been pregnant and had told her boyfriend that she had given birth to his baby. But, the first step occurred in this tragic sequence of events - Verna miscarried. Now, she needs a baby, so her mission began to locate a baby who could be pawned off to boyfriend as his own.

The facts of this tragic crime seem like those of many we have heard before. What makes this case weirdly different is that baby Keegan is white and Verna McClain is black. What in the world made her think she would be able to pass this little white baby as hers and her boyfriend's?

Enter stage right is her defense attorney. What could he say to the prosecutor to mitigate these facts and her confession at the time of her arrest? Two words - Andrea Yates ... remember her? She drowned her five children in the bathtub of their home (also just outside of Houston) back in 2001. Allegedly, unknown to her husband and family, she had been suffering from serious psychological issues that were coupled with a somewhat fanatical religious belief. During the trial jurors heard a lot of testimony both from the Defense and from the State, and from mental health experts. Her case was tried twice with the last one resulting in a verdict of insanity. Remember also that "insanity" means insane at the time of the offense.

Verna McClain's neighbors, friends, family and her fiancé all expressed shock that the woman they knew could possibly commit this murder and kidnapping. There is also the distraught family of this young mother, who are now faced with an incident no one could ever imagine, least of all expect. There is a tiny infant who will never know his biological mother.

We will have to wait for the end result of this case, but regardless of what it is, it will be bad for all concerned.

Death by Bactine?

2012-04-20T10:07:00.001-04:00

by Diane Dimond

How did 16 year old honor roll student Annie McCann die? Her parents have been agonizing over that heart wrenching question for too long. Definitive answers have been few but these determined parents refuse to give up asking.

On October 31, 2008 Annie left a note in her bedroom which mentioned suicide but she had also added the hope-filled line, “But I realized I can start over instead. . . . If you really love me, you’ll let me go.” Then, she inexplicably ran away, taking $1,000 in cash, jewelry and the family Volvo. It was a shock to Dan and Mary Jane McCann whose daughter was a devout Catholic, quiet and studious – a child who had never given them any trouble.

Two excruciating days later the McCann’s got a phone call informing them Annie’s body had been found at a housing project in Baltimore, Maryland about seventy miles from their home. They were dumbfounded.

The Maryland medical examiner ultimately declared Annie’s death was due to Lidocaine poisoning and concluded she had ingested the bottle of Bactine she carried to treat her newly pierced ears. The company that makes Bactine, along with a well-known medical examiner, Dr. Michael Baden, would both later declare that drinking one bottle would never be fatal.

After reviewing the autopsy and other reports prominent psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow concluded, “It strains the imagination … to believe that a person intent on dying would choose this obscure and extremely uncertain method of attempting to take her life.”

While the official cause of Annie’s death is still listed as “undetermined” Baltimore P.D. spokesman Anthony Guglielmi (right) told me this week, “Police believe it was a suicide.” Translated: While the case is listed as “pending” it might as well be closed.

The McCann’s hired a private detective to figure out how Annie – who always had a lousy sense of direction and hadn’t been driving that long – got all the way to Baltimore. P.I. Jimmy Kontsis followed the lead of a fingerprint found on the window of the McCann’s recovered car. That led to a group of local teens who admitted one of their group, a kid named D.J., had stolen the McCann’s car. But each of them insisted Annie was already dead in the back seat so they tossed her body and took a joyride. Police said they could find no evidence to charge them in Annie’s death and auto theft charges were never pursued either.

Noting that Annie’s autopsy remarked on, “fresh injuries to her face and head,” Dr. Baden suggested Annie might have died from homicidal suffocation. Was she victimized for the $1,000 she took with her? Police made note of Annie’s clean white socks but could never find her shoes. Might they have been left at the same place she ingested the Lidocaine?

That’s the mystery!” Kontsis told me. “Even the police were, like, Lidocaine? They didn’t get it either.” Drug addicts have been known to try to smoke Lidocaine but Annie never experimented with drugs. Classmates called her sheltered and naïve.

Kontsis canvassed people at spots where Annie had been – her church, a Virginia Costco, even a pastry shop in the Little Italy section of Baltimore. He discovered a consistent description of an older, apparently homeless Hispanic woman (left) seen speaking with Annie at all three locations. A sketch of the mystery woman (who claimed to be from Honduras and was seeking immigration information) brought in no helpful information.

And then, last November the teenager known as D.J. – real name Darnell Kinlaw, now 21, — was arrested in Baltimore for murdering a woman and stealing her car. It was revealed that Kinlaw’s extensive police record lists eight charges of auto theft. Annie’s parents figured it was the perfect time to get more information from Kinlaw about the day their daughter died.

The McCanns travelled to meet Baltimore police and while they were treated politely they feel they have been lied to and ignored. Police say they are sympathetic but maintain they’ve already conducted a thorough investigation.

Look, maybe Annie McCann did manage to get a stash of Lidocaine and poisoned herself. But, that seems unlikely and after researching this case and counting up the loose ends – the odd trip to Baltimore, the missing money, the mystery woman and Kinlaw’s past – I can’t help but feel that in the absence of concrete evidence Annie’s half-used Bactine bottle gave police a convenient reason for her death. Easier to declare it a suicide and move on.

Left in the wake of that decision are Dan and Mary Jane McCann who cannot find peace. They still wonder why they never got Annie’s clothes back and why no one will tell them whether she had been raped the day she died.

The sad fact is there are countless families mourning the loss of their murdered children every day in America. They are Black, Hispanic, Asian and, in the case of Annie McCann – White. Their tears are all the same color.

In the end, it really isn’t race or ethnic background that matters when a child is murdered. It is the feeling families often get that no one cares enough to find the truth – that there will be no justice – that hurts so much.

Maybe our overburdened, understaffed police departments can find some way to work on making families feel more included in the heart-breaking process of homicide investigation.

The Throw Away Child

2012-04-13T00:01:00.005-04:00

by Donna Pendergast

It has been often said that a baby is a miracle from heaven. Miracle Jackson was just that. Born in February of 2000, Miracle was a beautiful, healthy baby girl. But there were to be no miracles in the cards in Miracle Jackson's short life. Her young life would be snuffed out after only 7 months by her own father in the most horrific sort of crime imaginable.

Miracle Jackson would die on September 14th, 2000, with a sock stuffed down her throat and duct tape affixed to her tiny face. The tape covering her eyes, nose and mouth working in tandem with the sock depriving her of the oxygen necessary to sustain her life. Her body was found stuffed into a plastic bag which was then discarded like a piece of garbage in a vacant lot in the city of Detroit.

How could this happen? If history was any indicator, how could it not?

Miracle Jackson was born to a mother, Tracey Swan, who had a history of psychiatric problems and had been diagnosed with manic depressive disorder. Miracle lived with her mother and her father, Shawn Jackson, who was her mother's short term boyfriend.

What is wrong with this picture? Everything!

Four years before Miracle was born Tracey Swan had her parental rights terminated to her other six children. This occurred when then boyfriend, Shawn Pleasant, (note the irony of the names in this case) the father of all six children, brutally beat five-year-old Kenneth Swan with a shovel. Kenneth was left severely brain damaged in a vegetative state where he now requires around-the clock care for the rest of his life. Pleasant was sentenced to a 3-15 year prison sentence on child abuse charges. He remains incarcerated on those charges to this day.

After Pleasant was incarcerated, Tracey became involved with Shawn Jackson and would later become pregnant. Jackson moved to California before Miracle was born but returned to Michigan in April of 2000 and moved in with Tracey. In July, a Child Protective Services worker was sent to the apartment on a complaint that Miracle was abused by being burned and scratched. Despite Tracey's mental instability, despite the prior termination of parental rights and despite the pending complaint, the worker opted to allow Miracle to remain in the home.

It would be a fatal mistake.

On Wednesday, September 14, 2000 around 2:00pm, Ms. Swan received a call from Jackson at her place of employment, Burger King. Jackson advised Ms. Swan that a Child Protective Services worker had come to the apartment and taken Miracle away. A suspicious Swan contacted police who quickly determined that the Family Independence Agency (FIA) had not taken the child. The police immediately began their search for Miracle. Early the next morning Jackson admitted under questioning from homicide detectives that he had murdered the baby because he was mad at something Tracey Swan had said. Jackson then led police to where he had disposed of Miracle's body by wrapping in in a plastic bag and tossing it into the center of an abandoned tire in a vacant field.

The crime scene was horrific. Even hardened police officers blanched at the sight of the tiny baby who had been discarded like a rag doll., her body crumpled, her face completely covered in duct tape.

An odd and misplaced calculation on the part of a major local Detroit newspaper brought the savagery of the crime home to an unprepared audience. On September 15th, the Detroit Free Press carried a picture of a Wayne County Medical Examiner's worker holding up the plastic bag containing Miracle's body on the front page of the newspaper. The decision to publish the picture at all, no less publish it on the front page, almost universally sparked outrage in the community. The fallout was so severe that the Executive Editor of the Free Press issued an explanation justifying the newspaper's position on the front page of the paper the following day.

Shawn Jackson was tried on First Degree Murder charge before a horrified jury. The pictures of miracle's duct-taped face were hard to stomach even for a hard core prosecutor like myself. The jury very quickly reached a verdict of guilty of First Degree Murder. Jackson will spend the rest of his natural life in prison. with no possibility of parole.

As horrific as the murder of Miracle Jackson was, it can be said that something good came of it. Within a week of her body being found, major institutional changes were initiated in two different State of Michigan agencies. As a result of Miracle's death, computerized records of live births are now cross checked with the FIA's central record of known abusers. this puts the FIA on notice when a child is born to a parent with a history of abuse or neglect. The FIA is now required to assess the risk to those children in an attempt to head off any more tragic stories like that of Miracle Jackson.

Miracle Jackson's sad story can be told in one short sentence: Forgotten in life, remembered in death.

May her legacy be that other children are spared her horrific fate.

Miracles do happen, Hope springs eternal.

Statements made in this post are my own and do not reflect the views, opinion or position of the Michigan Attorney General or the Michigan Department of Attorney General.

The 'Smart' Bullet is on the Horizon

2012-04-11T01:50:00.017-04:00

by Andrea Campbell

Look Up in the Sky!

New technology is a slow and steady march no matter who develops it. I am always torn when a new weapon is developed, and the subject of today’s spotlight is no less frightening and anxiety-driven for me because of its dichotomy of being both useful and deadly. We’re talking about a bullet for machine guns—currently—that guides itself to a target more than a mile away, with accuracy to within eight inches.

The Stuff of Movies

This missile-like bullet was the stuff of fiction such as with the futuristic movie Runaway, a 1984 film written by Michael Crichton, a writer who had an uncanny ability to see what’s coming down the pike. The missile of today, however, can really twist and turn its way around objects, making up to 30 corrections per second.

Can You Imagine?

Developed for the military or law enforcement by Sandia labs, Red Jones, one of the researchers who worked on the laser-guided bullet says, “Where we’re headed, we’re going to be limited only by our imagination.”

Throughout history under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Defense, tens of millions of contract dollars went to companies for just such a weapon. Previously, engineers discovered that the M2, a belt-fed machine gun and standard issue in the U.S. Army 80 years ago, when fired at a distance of 1,000 meters—more than half a mile—would often miss the target by as much as roughly 10 meters.

Small but Smart

Only three years in the making, the prototype bullet is amazingly small—only four inches long and, at an inch-and-a-half in diameter, is a 50 caliber bullet. It operates using an optical sensor, which seeks and stays with a laser beam focused on a target. It also creates outputs from the optical sensors in order to steer the projectile to the target.

“The sensor,” according to Sandia labs, “sends information to guidance and control electronics that use an algorithm in an 8-bit central processing unit to command electromagnetic actuators. The actuators steer the fins that guide the bullet.” This would be similar to a miniaturized guidance system, normally utilized by actual missiles.

Adam Firestone, an army veteran, claims that: “All of a sudden now you’ve got a way to eliminate the collateral damage issue.”

Will we see a form of these miniature “smart bullets” on the streets for criminal purposes? It’s highly likely but only initially used by the upper most, financially-able suspects like drug runners or pirates. Of course now there are still engineering problems Red Jones explains, that will need to be overcome and certain practical considerations such as: can it be tossed or fall off the back of a truck and still function?

Sandia is looking for investors but from all accounts, expect to see this in an action movie in the near future, and heaven forbid, in the far horizon, hear about it in a criminal justice context.

As seen on the Sandia website: Various licensing and partnering options are available. Please contact the Intellectual Property Department to discuss.

For more information, you can download this PDF from Sandia

Photo images: Sandia labs

Did Blood Curdling Screams of Fear Belong To Treyvon Martin or George Zimmerman?

2012-04-09T09:48:00.007-04:00

by Dr. Lillian Glass

The only encouraging thing to come out the terrible incident where Treyvon Martin was killed is that it showed us that people are indeed compassionate and people do get got involved. People saw something. They heard something and they said something. They called 911. They got involved. They gave information. They all said they heard screaming and they all said they heard it.

One of the callers actually was able to capture the screaming as he called 911 as you can hear it on the tape. In listening to the blood curdling screams, it is very hard to tell who’s voice it is.

George Zimmerman has a higher pitched voice so it may have been his. There is also a deep guttural primitive sounds of the voice which may sound like someone’s life was as stake. The tone at the beginning of the tape was different front he one at the end of the tape. At one point the pitch was high and at the other point it was a raw and guttural voice, which was painful to listen to.

Personally, I believe that it was fear on the part of both of these men which caused this tragic incident - fear of one another.

In listening to George speak to police it seems like he was out for vigilante justice when he says "...they always get away with it." Who is they? Is he referring to kids, thieves and thugs, or black people by his use of the term they.

BOTH MEN FEARFUL OF ONE ANOTHER

If it is the latter, then yes, it is a racist indication. If he is referring to thugs or kids, then it is not a racist comment. In listening to George’s tape to the 911 dispatcher, I didn’t hear any specific racial comment. But what I did hear was a fearful and frustrated George Zimmerman. His pitch was raised at the end of sentences and he spoke in a softer tone which often indicates fear.

George was following Treyvon and continued to do so even after he was told not to follow him by the police dispatcher. But George, due to his own fear that a robbery would take place continued to follow him anyway. He also reported to the dispatcher on the tape that Treyvon had his hand in his waistband. He was in fear that Treyvon had a gun on him.

Trevyon on the other hand was also in fear. He was afraid of a strange man following him. He had no idea why he was being followed. He was talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone when he noticed he was being followed and told his girlfriend that someone was following him. She relayed this information to police.

As Trevyon may have feared George was out to harm him, he responded by beating George up. As an eyewitness said on the 911 tape, the one on top was wearing a white shirt. That means that the one on top was Treyvon and he was beating up George, whom he thought was following him. Apparently this is how George got his broken nose and bloodied head.

George then told police Trevyon was reaching for George’s gun and that is when George shot him in self defense.

Since George was the one being pummeled by Trevyon, being on top as an eyewitness reported, it was most likely it was George’s screams for help, but we will not know for sure until the FBI does their analysis in isolating the sounds of the tapes so the specific voices can be discerned.

From Treyvon’s point of view, he was doing nothing wrong. He had visited his father’s girlfriend and had every right to be in the neighborhood. It didn’t matter if he was suspended from school for having marijuana in his bag as was reported. What mattered is that he had every right as a free citizen to walk the streets no matter how late or dark it was . The fact that he was speaking to his girlfriend may be further evidence that he did not have wrongdoing on his mind and had no intention of committing a robbery. When he noticed someone was following him he told his girlfriend he was afraid. He evidently confronted George out of fear.

From George’s point of view he was a neighborhood watchman. He wanted to protect his neighborhood against the rash of robberies which occurred. He noticed a young man walking alone. He was in fear so he called 911. His voice indicated tones of fear as he described the young man whom he was following

It was a case of both men fearing one another, hurting and killing one another because of that unfounded fear. Yes, they killed one another. Even though George is technically alive and breathing, this fear based event has killed his reputation and his future as he will never be the same with mobs of people calling for his arrest and for the President to even weigh in.

VISIONS OF A SAD PAST AND FUTURE

To Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson who call this a racial hate crime, it is essential to note that these two civil rights leaders grew up at a time where racially motivated killings of young Black men were not uncommon. Thus it is understandable why they have reacted so vehemently against the killing of teenager Trevyon and have rallied for other to get behind their views.

To law enforcement who saw George bloodied with a broken nose and wounds consistent with being attacked and analyzing eyewitness reports that the man in the white shirt was on top may have indicated to them that it was a matter of self defense. That is why they didn’t arrest him.

As all the facts come out. we will eventually learn what really happened . We have to take heed from the Duke lacrosse player’s experience where several White men were falsely accused of molesting a Black woman. It became a racially charged issue as we see here.

Was George afraid of a young black man walking alone in a neighborhood? The answer is yes. Was Trevyon afraid of an older White man following him? The answer is yes. Did they both react out of their respective fear? The answer is yes. This was a no win situation that would only end in someone’s death.

It is terrible that an innocent man, no mater what color he is, is dead because of that fear. It is also terrible that a man, no mater what color he is has to live with the fact that whether it was self defense or not, that he is technically responsible for ending another human being’s life.

Cough Syrup, Dead Children, and the Case for Regulation

2012-04-02T00:45:00.000-04:00

By Deborah Blum

Kathleen Hobson was eight years old when her mother unknowingly dosed her with poisonous cough syrup. She’d only taken a couple spoonfuls but when investigators came round, they still found nothing left to test. After the little girl died, her mother had set the bottle on fire and then thrown it into the trash.

Charlene Canady was just four when she died from the same medication. Her father had carefully packed the cough syrup bottle, waiting for justice to come calling. I always imagine him silent when he handed the bottle over, grief and his daughter’s name caught like a kind of suffocation in his throat.

Both little girls lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, both came down with nasty little colds in the fall of 1937, and both died because they were dosed with a brand new medication, a popular, raspberry-flavored cough syrup. In all, the syrup would kill 11 people in Oklahoma, within a few weeks. Ten in Alabama. Ten in Georgia. Twenty-three in Mississippi. Nine in South Carolina. Seven in Texas. More in California, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Virginia, Louisiana, and more.

More than one hundred dead nationwide, in fact, and most of them children, Charlenes and Kathleens scattered across the United States like so much storm wreckage. “Nobody but Almighty God and I can know what I have been through these past few days,” a Louisiana doctor later wrote to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, after six of his patients died in one week.

As FDA scientists would quickly realize, the syrup was lethal because it was sweetened by a compound known as diethylene glycol which kills by causing acute kidney damage. Both diethylene glycol and the obviously closely related compound, ethylene glycol (even more toxic) are best known today for their use as antifreeze agents and homicidal weapons on more than one occasion.

But at the time that Elixir Sulfanilamide came to be, produced by the S.E. Massengill Company of Bristol, Tennessee, that wasn’t well understood. There was actually no legal requirement that companies understand their products, much less safety test them.

The company chemist who designed the cough syrup by mixing a sulfa drug into the poisonous sweetener claimed to have no such knowledge. And as the company president, Samuel Massengill responded: “We have been supplying a legitimate professional demand and not once could have foreseen the unlooked-for results. I do not feel that there was any responsibility on our part.”

The resulting Elixir Sulfanilamide scandal – and it was, indeed, an incendiary, nation-rocking scandal at the time - is mostly forgotten today. But it shouldn’t be. Those rippling deaths, the feeble government response, the indifference of the manufacturer and its big business allies - provoked such a passionate outcry that a year later, the long-delayed U.S. Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act was signed by President Franklin Roosevelt.

The 1938 law was first major upgrade of 1906 legislation. The earlier law established the U.S. government as a guardian of the American people’s safety, set precedents in regulating toxic chemicals in food and drugs. But that turn-of-the century law was in many ways a piece of regulatory lace, full of exceptions and exemptions. The new law filled many of those holes, gave power to protective rules.

Now, for the first time, manufacturers were required to safety test their wares and could be held responsible for consumer death and injury. In the case of Elixir Sulfanilamide, the company could not be held liable for a single death. It could only be charged with mislabeling – elixirs were supposed to contain alcohol and the cough syrup contained none.

The 1938 law also required manufacturers to list ingredients on their labels in some detail – another first. One of my favorite books of the 1930s, 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs, by Arthur Kallet and F.J. Schlink, is basically a litany of the hidden dangers that preceded that rule: the toothpaste that contained so much potassium chlorate that it was possible to commit suicide by eating a single tube; the high levels of lead in hair dye,;and the use of the toxic element thallium in depilatory creams. One of the side effects of thallium poisoning is that hair falls out. Cosmetic manufacturers of the 1930s thus found it handy in hair-removal products. They expressed surprise at the small epidemic of baldness, paralysis and occasional death that resulted. But, as they reminded irate physicians, they could not be held responsible for that.

But although advocates like Kallet and Schlink spent years marshaling such evidence in an effort to persuade the government to give the FDA actual enforcement powers, they were stymied by business opposition until the Elixir Sulfanilamide scandal galvanized the country. In an essay for the Annals of Internal Medicine, toxicologist Paul M. Wax called it “one of the most consequential mass-poisonings of the twentieth century.”

And it’s that case that always comes to mind when I hear politicians trumpeting the wonders of an unregulated marketplace, as with the current Republican party mantra that we don’t need strong environmental protections or – at the most extreme vantage point – even a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at all. Last year, along the same lines, conservative legislators were busily trying to defund the FDA as well.

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein points out that Americans tend to sound anti-regulation when queried. But, he adds, if you press them on which oversight they’d like to give up, the picture becomes more complicated. Klein cites a Pew Research survey done in February which found that 53 percent of respondents wanted food and food product regulation increased – only seven percent thought it should be reduced. For environmental regulation, slightly more – a full 17 percent – argued for relaxing the rules. The survey was, actually, unable to locate a majority of American citizens seeking to be less well protected.

We hear legislators suggest that hard economic times demand the loosening of regulations. But don’t forget that our country was still mired in the long-reach of the Great Depression when that 1938 law was passed. The government recognized, even then, that protection of American citizens meant more than policing our cities and defending our borders. It meant dedicated protection of public health.

Do we sometimes wish that such protection was smarter, moved faster, was more richly knowledge-based? Less influenced by politics, on occasion, by corporate lobbyists? Of course, we do. But I see that as a call to keep the process as politics free as possible (dreaming, I know), to invest more in good risk research and to use that knowledge to improve protection against everything from food poisoning to chemical contamination.

We may not remember by name the Kathleen Hobsons and Charlene Canadays of our past. And as I said, the Elixir Sulfanilamide story, is mostly forgotten as well. But we should be grateful for the way it changed our lives. And we should occasionally acknowledge those lost children; whether we recognize it or not, their ghosts still walk among us today, reminding us of what is right.

Most Everything I Know About Trying High-Profile Cases I've Learned From My Ex-Husband, John Henry Browne

2012-03-28T00:37:00.003-04:00

by Anne Bremner,

with contributions by Bob Sims

John Henry Browne is defending accused killer Robert Bales. Bales is the Pacific Northwest-based soldier who allegedly gunned down 17 civilians in Afghanistan.

Before the world knew any of the specific details of this case or who the victims were, it knew all about the accused -- and the defenses. And it knew why.

Nature abhors a vacuum. And what a vacuum of information from the military there was. John stepped up and immediately filled it. He spoke of the four stressful deployments, post-traumatic stress disorder, a head injury, financial woes, and the personal strife Bales has experienced. Sentiment prevailed. "I am not putting the war on trial, but the war is on trial," John said. Many agreed. Suddenly, public conversation was elevated beyond this case to the prosecution of the war itself.

John Henry Browne was a hippie in the 1960s. When we were married I remember him talking fondly of those halcyon days, describing San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, a mecca for the Hippie movement. He knew every nook and cranny in that neighborhood from his travels. He brought memories of Buena Vista Park during the Summer of Love 1967 come to life when he told me his stories. (I recently found an old picture of him with hair streaming past his shoulders and a drooping hippie moustache, one I used for a birthday invitation for him once.) John walked the walk as a hippie. He protested against the Vietnam War. He never served.

Many people talk of the 1960s as a time of protest, casual sex and civil unrest, a time in which some people think very little was accomplished for bettering American society. I disagree. Positive changes did come. In time. Women's rights and civil liberties improved by leaps and bounds. We steadily climbed out of the chasm of racism. The Vietnam War was ended. And from that time of momentous social change came John Henry Browne.

He has waited all his life for this case. He is made for this case. He will put the war on trial and he will win. It's ironic that decades after his period of discontent in the 60s, and on the eve of his expected retirement, John is handling the most important case of his career -- and one of the most important in this country's history.

Rules in dealing with the media in such a highly publicized case? Be brief and be quiet. Deliver a message that resonates. Tell the truth. Humanize your client. Use your case as a platform for public conversations about the greater good. Be accessible. Be relentless. Never, never, never ever quit.

I have learned all of this -- and more -- from my ex-husband John Henry Browne.

And that's why I know he will win.

The Tragedy of the Trayvon Martin Homicide: A Profiler's View

2012-03-25T21:37:00.000-04:00

Trayvon Martin

by Pat Brown

When the news reports started rolling in on the homicide of African-American teenager Trayvon Martin by Sandford, Florida neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman, the first thought that went through my head was, "I hope justice prevails," but then my second thought was, "Oh, this is going to get nasty." I am already being proven right on my latter thought but as to justice being meted out properly, I am not sure the national emotional outburst over this case with its racial overtones is going to interfere with that. What makes so much of this case difficult is the murky waters of what really happened and who was justified in doing what and who was profiling who and who was profiling out of racism and who was not.

Let's take a look at how the first news reports (blithely paraphrased and made simple for impact) brought the incident to light (and the left and the right are general categories for the purposes of pointing out the issues, not for saying everyone is so "black and white" and absolute on the incident) :

The left: White dude chases down innocent black child and wastes him.

The right: Citizen protecting his neighborhood shoots thug while defending his life.

Then, more information comes out:

The left: Okay, not-totally White dude scares the crap out of innocent not-so-small teen and teen hits stalker in fear and then not-totally White dude shoots teen dead when all teen has is Skittles in his pocket.

The right: Okay, the citizen is a bit aggressive trying to keep his neighborhood safe and maybe shouldn't have followed the kid but he has the right to shoot someone who then becomes the physical aggressor and smashes in his nose and is on top of him beating him on the ground.

The left: Regardless of who did what first, George Zimmerman is clearly a racist because he profiled Trayvon Martin as up to no good for no reason other than he was black and wearing a hoodie and standing around and he said "f***ing coons" on the 911 call to the police, so it is a hate crime.

The right: Trayvon was suspended from school so he obviously is a troublemaker and he was acting shady in Zimmerman's neighborhood and Zimmerman never said "f***ing coons" on the 911 tape but "f***ing goons,"or "f***ing tools," or "f***ing cons," etc.

Whew! Okay, so what do I think? I think this is going to be a mess for a long time no matter how you slice it or view it. But, here is my profiler's take.

George Zimmerman

Let's start with George Zimmerman. He has got some issues that is for sure (read Gina Simmons previous Women in Crime post, Anger, Race, and Psychology in the Trayvon Martin Case) but some of Zimmerman's black friends say he is all broken up about the shooting and isn't a racist. From what I have read, he is a wannabe cop, the neighborhood ninja, the overzealous protector of the community. My guess is he might qualify for a personality disorder and be more into his role as superhero than he is into being concerned about the welfare of the local citizens or being a racist of any sort. He clearly overstepped his bounds and should have left the approach of Trayvon up to the police unless he saw the young man attacking someone. In other words, causing another bodily harm is only acceptable if you are in fear of being severely injured or killed or someone else is likely to be severely injured or killed. Even with Florida Stand-Your-Ground laws which removes the duty to retreat and permits the citizen to fight force with force and still claim self-defense, you still can't actually be the one who is the aggressor because that makes you the perpetrator and not the victim.

Zimmerman was not in that position at the time he saw Trayvon walking away from him, so he clearly moved in on Trayvon, with or without his gun drawn, and Trayvon reacted either in self-defense or a fit of anger at being harassed without proper cause. I think Zimmerman's defense lawyer has his work cut out for him to prove that he in no way threatened Trayvon and Trayvon, if he punched him, did not do so when Zimmerman made a physical move on him or tried to draw his gun on him. Just because Zimmerman ended up on the ground at one point with Trayvon standing over him as one witness claims to have seen (and the supposed broken nose and damage to the back of Zimmerman's head could be the result of one punched that knocked him backwards and no further aggression), this doesn't mean Trayvon wasn't the defender and well within his rights to take Zimmerman down.

Alternatively, there is the possibility that Zimmerman followed Trayvon, not too closely and Trayvon turned on him, approached him aggressively, started cussing at him and then assaulted him at which point Zimmerman though he was going to die and pulled his gun from his holster/waistband and shot Trayvon. In this case, Zimmerman may have been stupid and annoying but if at no point did Trayvon actually have a claim to being in fear of being severely injured or killed, he would have no right to claim self-defense any more than Zimmerman if there was no immediate threat. Of course, Trayvon isn't around to speak of his emotions or Zimmerman's behavior at the time, so we will have to rely on direct and circumstantial evidence hopefully handled with a scientific objectiveness and not runaway emotion.

Okay, so right now, I am on the fence as to who was defending himself and who was the aggressor. I have to say since Zimmerman clearly escalated the whole incident and was armed at the time, it is my opinion he was far more responsible for the ensuing events than a seventeen-year-old kid who didn't see it coming.

I do want to stop and look at the issues of racial profiling and racism, both of which I think may have been blown way out of proportion in this case. Let me take you to an example that happened in my own son's experience.

I was visiting my friend, Jenny, at her home in a cul-de-sac. My son came to pick me up in my little red Mazda Miata convertible. He pulled in front of her house and was patiently waiting with engine running. All of a sudden, the woman from across the street comes straight towards the car, and standing in the middle of the street, she starts blasting an air horn and asking what he was doing there. My son was a bit taken aback as he had never had this happen before. Here was a white woman in her sixties dressed in a housecoat barking at him, a twenty-eight year old biracial young man dressed in a t-shirt, demanding that he tell her what business he had on her street. How did he react? Well, I wouldn't be surprised if many men of his age might not say "Bitch, this is a public street; mind your own damn business." Some might have even called her a racial slur.

My son said, "Ma'am, I am waiting on my mother who is inside visiting her friend, Jenny." To which the woman replied, "Oh, sorry, we have had a bunch of drug dealers and burglars around the neighborhood and I keep an eye out for anyone who doesn't belong." Then when I came out, she apologized to me as well.

My sons, David and Jeremy

Why did my son behave so politely? Well, first of all because he immediately recognized the woman in the housecoat as an overzealous neighborhood watch type of lady, the kind who shows up every month at the town council meeting and drives everyone nuts. Basically, it never really occurred to him that this white lady was dangerous or was being racist, just that she was a bit bats. And, truthfully, the lady wasn't being racist; I think she would have approached a white boy in a hoodie with the same zeal and not bothered to approach a fifty-year-old black man dressed in a suit with a Bible on his dashboard. She profiled incorrectly but not with any real racial bias.

I asked my son how he might have reacted if George Zimmerman was trailing him down the street. He had to stop and think about that. The first problem he had was that Zimmerman wouldn't have been a uniformed cop in which case he would know he should be polite for a good reason if questioned. Nor would Zimmerman have on the uniform of the Guardian Angels who you know are out patrolling the neighborhood. And he wouldn't look like an old crazy lady, but a young crazy man, possible a psychopath will ill intentions, or an asshole looking for trouble.

What then if my son had turned on Zimmerman and said, "What the f*** is your problem, dog?" And Zimmerman got all loud and obnoxious and moved in on him. My son works as a bouncer and I can see him taking defensive action not realizing that the man had brought a gun to a fistfight. It is one thing to have a concealed weapon for the purposes of protecting oneself in a surprise attack but bringing hardware to a fight that should be with fists is a bit sneaky and dangerous and premeditated; almost rings of entrapment, some kind of set-up.

Okay, so I am still having trouble getting Zimmerman out of the wrong here, but let's check out the racist issue. I am not convinced this was racial in any way, that Zimmerman wouldn't have chased down a white teenage thug looking boy either. I didn't find his description to the police very racially biased...just a calm description of the "suspect" and a general term of "asshole" to describe people getting away with crime in the neighborhood. I didn't hear any spouting of racist slurs throughout his conversation with 911.

Of course, there is that bit he muttered under his breath during that call that has become the explosive "smoking gun" that is making this "clearly" a hate crime. Zimmerman is supposed to have muttered, "F***ing coons," and it sure does sound like that.

I listened to those two words over and over and I still had problems with turning "coons" into "goons" or into anything else nonracist... until I asked myself if there could be any less objectionable thing he might have muttered offhandedly at that moment, and I came up with "F***ing cones." In other words, when he parked and exited the car in chasing down Trayvon and he might have hit or stepped on a road cone, those two words might be just a normal expletive one might let out at that moment. So I listened over and over again and it does sound more like "F***ing cones" to me. How will we know? I would guess the crime scene photos ought to let us know if there were traffic cones at that location or any other object or possible circumstance to influence Zimmerman into saying something that sounded like "coons." If not, interviews with everyone possible is necessary to find out whether Zimmerman was the type to ever say use such ugly derogatory racist language or not.

So, until I learn absolutely that Zimmerman has uttered racial slurs in his past, I will not assume he is being racist. A possible aggressor, a troublemaker, a bad profiler, an annoyance, a fool, and a dangerous whack job, but not necessarily a racist.

Let's not forget that there are youths of all races and cultural backgrounds that trouble our neighborhoods. In my own town, there are some bratty kids who play in the streets and dance in front of cars and make nasty comments when we slow to drive by. We have had break-ins in my town and there are signs of gang activity here. My town has become much thuggier looking in recent years, with young men and women of all colors in hoodies and other clothing that makes many citizens raise an eyebrow as to the character of the young people within them. Regardless of the right to dress as one pleases, certain clothing sends certain messages and it behooves parents to make sure their sons and daughters don't look or act like criminals when walking about the neighborhood just to be on the safe side. But, back to the issue at hand, at this point (unless Zimmerman is proven to be a racist or that Trayvon chased him down and assaulted him), I think George Zimmerman was "gunning" to be a hero and Trayvon ended up being the unsuspecting victim of Zimmerman's overactive zealous power trip. We shall see how it all plays out; let's just hope it is on the evidence and not the result of a bunch of political, personal, and emotional issues. The tragedy of the killing of Trayvon Martin is bad enough, but I hope we don't add to that, the tragedy of fueling racial division if this case turns out not to be about racism at all.

Now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords! Only the Truth by Pat Brown

Everyone loves Sweet Billy Ray!

Harkening back to the writing styles of the earlier American authors – John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, and Carson McCullers, Only the Truth is a story of soul searching, a psychological mystery which examines the question, “Whom should one love and when should one quit doing so?” Billy Ray, a lonely and rather slow, uneducated African-American man living in the mountains of Tennessee, runs across a mysterious young woman at the railroad tracks. She asks to go home with him and Billy Ray takes her with him as she requests. He comes to love this woman, Charlene, unconditionally. She is the only woman he has ever loved, and life is finally good for Billy Ray. Then Charlene shoots the neighbor and burns down the neighbor’s house. His happy life destroyed, a confused and devastated Billy Ray is at a loss. Is the woman he loves “just a troubled girl” or a psychopathic killer? Billy Ray sets out on a quest to find the truth, only the truth, whether it leads him to be able to save Charlene from a death sentence or it frees him from her spell.

Anger, Race and Psychology in The Trayvon Martin Case

2012-03-24T15:57:00.003-04:00

by Gina Simmons, Ph.D.

After 17 year old Trayvon Martin was shot last month by a neighbor as he walked home from a convenience store, it poked the deep wound of racial injustice in this country. As more protests mount and African American leaders shout out for justice in this case, we should all seek to understand the emotional and psychological issues that led to this young man's death.

It's likely that Martin's shooter, George Zimmerman, had some unresolved anger issues. As a psychotherapist who specializes in anger and conflict management, in my opinion Zimmerman's comments to emergency and non-emergency police revealed smoldering anger. As he speaks to the police dispatcher he mutters what sounds like a racial slur. He also says, "These a**holes. They always get away."

Perhaps Zimmerman experienced a heightened threat sensitivity, anxiety or paranoia. As neighborhood watch captain he likely perceived any stranger walking through the area as a potential threat. The 46 calls he made to police, in the months prior to the Martin shooting, suggest he took his volunteer position very seriously. Zimmerman, angry about recent burglaries in the area, may have suffered from irrational fears that warped his perceptions.

All of us fall victim to perceptual biases that cloud our judgement and decision-making abilities. The confirmation bias makes us see only the information that confirms our prior beliefs, while ignoring evidence that contradicts them. When racial prejudice mixes with the confirmation bias, we often won't even see behavior outside the stereotype. You can't make decisions based on evidence that you can't see.

Anger distorts our perception by narrowing our focus to the perceived threat. Our brain uses short cuts, called heuristics, to rapidly sort through information. The availability heuristic leads us to make decisions based on what easily comes to mind from our memory. So if we've been reading lots of news reports about terrorist attacks and we hear a loud boom, our first thought might be "we've been attacked by terrorists."

Trayvon Martin likely felt fear in his last moments of life as well. Walking through the neighborhood, talking on the phone to a girl, he may have felt pretty relaxed until he saw a large white man following him. He allegedly mentioned this to the girl. She said she told him to run. Witnesses reportedly heard cries for help, a shot, and then nothing.

In 2005 Zimmerman was twice accused of either criminal misconduct or violence. He reportedly had a spotty employment history and financial problems. As a teen he was the victim of a minor criminal assault. When people feel like victims they often act like abusers, as fear leads them to overreact to minor events. Zimmerman, feeling a renewed purpose as neighborhood watch captain, may have felt a warped sense of urgency about a young black man on his street.

Strong emotions and preexisting anxiety distort perception. You see threats when they are not there. After the 9/11 attacks I worked a 12 hour day. A patient told me they contacted the FBI regarding information they had related to the attacks. Tired and stressed I got into my car, late at night, tossed my purse on the passenger seat and heard a strange crunch. The seat was covered with glass. I leaped out of my car and my first thought, "terrorist." After I got my heart rate under control I noticed that the window was broken and a black trash container was stolen.

The availability heuristic led me to a perceptual error clouded by fatigue and anxiety. This happens to all of us. In my case, no one was harmed by my distortion of perception. Unfortunately for the Martin family, Zimmerman carried a concealed weapon, and apparently felt entitled to use it.

Photos courtesy of David Shankbone and bMethe.

America’s Newest ‘Most Wanted’ List

2012-03-21T00:00:00.006-04:00

by Diane Dimond

In the unlikely event they make a movie of my life story a good place for the opening scene would be the post office in Albuquerque where my Mother used to take me as a child.

Scene one, act one, would be me making a bee-line to the bulletin board displaying the FBI’s 10 most wanted list. The future crime writer transfixed.

“So that’s what a murderer looks like,” I always thought to myself, leaning in to the grainy black and white photos. I would peer deep into the eyes of the fugitive bank robber or kidnapper to try to find a clue as to what made these men turn so bad. (Back then, the list was all men) I admit it – I was a strange child.

Today, another fugitive list has caught my attention. Its complied by the Office of the Inspector General at Health and Human Services and it highlights those involved with one of the fastest growing crime sectors in America: Health care fraud. As our population ages and government programs literally pour money into elder care this type fraud has become a multi-million dollar a year problem. Looking at the O.I.G. web site brings back memories of my post office visits. The site has photos (in color!) of the 10 Most Wanted health care fugitives. Two are women. And because this is the digital age there is a videotaped message from the Deputy Inspector General for Investigations, Gerald Roy who says the feds are currently looking for 170 criminals who’ve defrauded at least 400 million dollars from our health care programs. But Roy only hints at who these people are.

“Some criminals may be hiding overseas,” he says. “But fleeing the country is not a get out of jail free card. We have a global reach. We regularly work with domestic and foreign law enforcement agencies to bring these fugitives to justice in the U.S.” Here’s what Roy didn’t say and what I glean from studying this Most Wanted web site: A vast majority of suspects facing fraud charges hail from foreign countries. Many of them are now suspected of fleeing to India, Russia, Nigeria, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Columbia. They have names like Gautam Gupta and Anupal Gayen. Others have Hispanic surnames like Gonzales, Velazquez and Lopez. One of the women on the Most Wanted List is Ekaterina Shlykova.

All of them have been charged with various schemes to bilk Medicare or insurance companies for goods and services that were not needed, not prescribed or never even delivered to the patient. They preyed on people in states with large elderly populations like Florida and Arizona. They also operated in California, Michigan, Illinois, Rhode Island, Texas and New York. I don’t bring this up as a way to bash foreigners. In fact, among those on the “Also Wanted” Inspector General’s list is a brazen American psychotherapist from Hawaii who the feds say fraudulently billed about $1 million to his state’s Medicaid program and various insurance companies for therapy sessions he shortchanged or didn’t bother to conduct. He did the same thing in Colorado in the early 80’s. Dr. Carlos Warter was found hiding in Argentina last year and is now fighting extradition back to the States.

No. This isn’t about condemning the actions of all non-citizens but facts are facts. One of the highest rates of health care fraud in the country is in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, New York where a majority of residents are immigrants from Russia. In a recent story about a $250 million dollar fraud scheme in Brighton Beach the New York Times reported, “The city’s Russian-speaking immigrant population, many of whom grew up under a Communist system that bred disdain for the rules (has) … a willingness to cheat to get around them.”

In Miami, Florida, the nation’s other hot-spot for health care fraud, a trio called the Benitez Brothers and twenty co-conspirators allegedly pocketed $110 million in ill-gotten Medicare payments. Most defendants have pleaded guilty but the brothers – Carlos, Luis and Jose – are still at large. The point in bringing this problem to light is to remind folks that crime fighting can start with you. If a health care provider asks you to sign a form for a service or a medical item you never got – physical therapy, a wheelchair, a scooter, a hospital bed or elbow or knee braces – report it to the O.I.G. Hotline at 1-800-HHS-TIPS . Suspect fraud if you get a notice from your insurance company that they paid for an un-delivered service. If you are one of America’s 25 million diabetics and you are getting too many lancets or test strips via those mail order pharmacies many insurance companies make us use these days, chances are someone is illegally profiting from it. Chances are good that if a health care provider is cheating you they’ve cheated others and investigators need to know about it to build a case. And if you can, check out that spiffy web site I found and take a close look at the mug shots there. If you know something about one of the fugitives there – say something! It’s time we all became active in fighting this multi-million dollar crime.

Unemotional Monotone and Many Shoulder Shrugs for Survivor Producer Accused of Killing His Wife

2012-03-18T16:17:00.018-04:00

by Dr. Lillian Glass

Reporters from 48 Hours went into the prison in Mexico to interview Bruce Beresford- Redman, the Survivor Producer accused of killing his Brazilian born wife Monica and the mother of his young daughter and son.

In my view as a body language expert, I see many signals of deception n his very unemotional and monotone interview. The interview is loaded with shoulder shrug which can often be a huge “tell” in terms of determining whether or not someone is being truthful or not.

He starts of f the interview by saying “I didn’t kill my wife”. There is a shoulder shrug at the end of this statement.

Then he says “We were getting along splendidly.” As he said this he shakes his head “No “as opposed to shaking it “Yes”. When someone’s body language and nonverbal actions contradict their words, they are usually lying. Then we see another shoulder shrug of deception at the end of the statement. Also the word “splendidly” is very unusual. It is not a word commonly used. Oftentimes when someone I trying to manufacture the truth they will throw in these flowery words which can be a red flag .

He says “The next morning she wasn’t back. I was really nervous. As he says this there is another shoulder shrug complete without any vocal emotion.

Here are some of his other comments during the interview and associated body language “tells”.

“She sort of disappeared” is also said with a shoulder shrug. How does one “sort of disappear”? That is a very telling comment in my view.

“I collapsed (shoulder shrug indicating possible deception) and went numb. Actually he shold gave said he went nub and then collapsed, not the other way around.

As he describes his wife for the cameras as being funny and warm, he shakes his head no. Still shaking his head No he says “ She was as lovely a person on the inside as she was on the outside.” There was an accompanying shoulder shrug as he said this. He concludes with “She was amazing.” As he shakes his head “No.” He also shakes his head “No” as he says “She had this accent like listening to honey through gauze.” “He goes on to say “It was beautiful. It was mellifluous,” as he shrugs his shoulder once again.

“There weren’t issues going on at the time,” was also followed by a shoulder shrug.

Her cell phone was so damaged and shattered that you had to shout to make yourself heard, so she didn’t take it with her.” This statement was also followed by a shoulder shrug.

And finally, the shrugs go on and on as he said “ I want to help find someone who killed my wife.”

When one looks at the body language of his sister in law, it says it all. Her eyes are opened very wide as she speaks and you can see the white around her eyes indicating fear and anger as she speaks of her sister. She never wanted to believe that Bruce had anything to do with her sister's death as she stated, but now every part of her body says the opposite.

Justice: An Elusive Concept

2012-03-14T00:01:00.018-04:00

by Donna Pendergast

The concept of justice is sprinkled throughout the scriptures and is an ideal that is sought in many arenas of daily life. People seek justice to create a proper ordering of random things and persons within a society, in the enforcement of laws, to solve disagreements between persons and in response to criminal behavior.

But what is true justice in the case of an almost unimaginable act of criminal depravity? What is justice for a purposeful act of harm and violence where one persons gratification comes from stealing the life of another human being? In the case of a purposeful serial murderer like Coral Watts, who may have murdered as many as a hundred beautiful and talented women, can there ever really be justice for the family and friends who were the peripheral victims of such a diabolical and depraved predator?

I struggle with these concepts on a daily basis while prosecuting homicide cases and when dealing with the survivors, the family and the friends of a person whose life was callously snuffed out by by an act of senseless violence. In the depths of pain and misery survivors look to the prosecutor to guide them through the nuances of an unfamiliar criminal justice system and to obtain justice for them for an incomprehensible loss. Often the families look to the prosecutor as a sort of lifeboat who will save them from disaster and fix the circumstances that put them in touch with the justice system. Unfortunately, as prosecutors we can't fix anything we can only try to do justice, whatever that is, by seeking a conviction.

In seeking justice for the survivors, there are things that you learn, some of them the hard way. After having prosecuting over 100 murder trials I have learned NOT to say "I understand how you feel." As one survivor pointed out very early on, I don't understand how they feel and never could. Instead I've learned to say "I understand that I can't understand what you are going through but I have dealt with other families in this situation many times before and here is the benefit of my experience.

I have also learned to expect what often happens after a verdict even if it's a favorable verdict. Many survivors describe a hollow feeling after a jury verdict in a homicide trial because even a guilty verdict will never bring back a loved one. Accordingly, I've learned to caution families that there will likely be a letdown after the verdict as they adjust to the new reality that the fight is over but the pain goes on. The mother of a man beat to death by a pack of savage brothers and their friends several levels below "Deliverance" grade caliber once said to me after the verdict "I thought I would feel better but I don't," not a surprisingly revelation considering the testimony that she had to sit through including the fact that her son and his friend had been chopped up and fed to pigs. It was closure after eighteen long years of wondering what had happened to her son who had disappeared while on a hunting trip up north, but closure at a terrible cost.

But the question remains "Is a jury verdict that one is guilty of homicide and subsequent resultant incarceration in prison true justice?" The dictionary defines justice in a number of ways. One definition defines justice as the ideal morally correct state of things and persons. Another entry defines justice a what is fair.

The question remains whether or not anything can be morally correct or fair when dealing with the senseless obliteration of a human life. Without delving into the complex and gut wrenching arena and dodging the land mines associated with the debate over the death penalty (maybe a subject for another day) I've come to the conclusion that there is no true justice for survivors rather justice as we can best do it under a horrendous set of circumstances and with an imperfect system.

Unfortunately true justice and true closure for the survivors remains an impossible dream.

Statements made in this post are my own and are not intended to reflect the views, opinion or position of the Michigan Attorney General or the Michigan Department of Attorney General.

Virtopsy: Is It Feasible?

2012-03-12T01:30:00.010-04:00

by Andrea Campbell

(photo left:Jensen Larson/Discovery Health: TV Guide site)

If only the world of television was closer to reality or even on the horizon of probability, examinations for evidence and especially the cause of death would be so much easier. Take for example, the autopsy. This is a grueling, back-breaking process calling for much determination, the correct tools, and years of knowledge. Breaking skin with cutting tools, using saws to split through cartilage and bone is a difficult, highly specialized and tedious task. If it could only be done in a high-tech manner such as what we see on television shows such as Bones and CSI—with detailed scans and video images of what lay inside—so, can it?

Virtopsy Up for Opinion

According to an article for Newswise from Johns Hopkins Hospital, high-tech “Virtopsies” are not total reality and the more traditional physical examination of autopsy is ‘still the gold standard for determining cause of death’ experts claim. “The latest virtual imaging technologies–including full-body computed tomography (CT) scans, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasound, X-ray and angiography are helpful, they say, but cannot yet replace a direct physical inspection of the body’s main organs.”

Pathologist Elizabeth Burton, M.D., deputy director of the autopsy service at Johns Hopkins, reiterates that traditional autopsies to determine how and why someone died are less frequently performed, but the original methodology is still the basic process used. According to an article written in the January online Annals of Internal Medicine by Burton, along with Johns Hopkins clinical fellow, Mahmud Mossa-Basha, M.D., they offer their own opinion as to why the numbers of conventional autopsies have steadily declined over the past decade and why, despite this drop, the virtopsy is unlikely to properly replace it anytime soon.

Autopsy Drawbacks

A recent German study using the conventional method of both autopsy and imaging, versus just virtopsy, showed that the diagnoses using both techniques together netted more accuracy then just the virtual version alone which failed to find almost double the new diagnoses as the conventional version.

Problematic Concerns of Both

"Medical problems most commonly missed or not seen by autopsy included air pockets in collapsed lungs (which could have impeded breathing) and bone fractures, and the most common diagnoses missed by imaging were heart attack, pulmonary emboli and cancer,” says Burton. She believes that imaging results can also create question because most tissue examples need to be physically examined for analysis. Costs may also be prohibitive as imaging equipment costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and full-body CT scans for example can run about $1,500 each, which, when added to device purchasing and maintenance fees, make vitropsy an awfully expensive option.

One of the positive reasons for imaging usage on the other hand, are that the body can remain closed; and Virtopsy detects internal bleeding, and hidden fractures hard to find in a traditional autopsy. And it is also best at something like following bullet trajectories in gunshot victims, where the track is easiest to follow from the unique image perspective.

“Steady progress in imaging technology is refining conventional autopsy, making it better and more accurate,” says Mossa-Basha, a clinical fellow in neuroradiology at Johns Hopkins. “Physicians really need to be selective and proactive—even before a critically injured patient in hospital dies—in deciding whether an autopsy is likely to be needed and, if so, whether to approach the family in advance. Only in this way do we ensure that we are using the latest scanning devices appropriately during autopsy and when it is most effective in producing the most accurate-as-possible death certificates.”

For additional information, visit the National Institutes site at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/visibleproofs/galleries/technologies/virtopsy.html

Source:

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/doctors/results/directory/profile/6976979/Elizabethburton?setsize=10&dbase=main spec_disease=Anatomic%20and%20Clinical%20Pathology

For some interesting real life cases on autopsy and the subsequent evidence, visit:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/visibleproofs/galleries/cases/index.htm

Photos: Lifelog.it, Brooklyn Museum

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown's New Novel: Only the Truth

2012-03-10T23:16:00.000-05:00

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Harkening back to the writing styles of the earlier American authors – John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, Carson McCullers, and James Cain - Criminal Profiler Pat Brown's Only the Truth is the story of a simple, rather slow, uneducated man, Billy Ray, who loves a mysterious woman who appears out of nowhere and comes to live with him. Two years later, she shoots their neighbor and burns down the neighbor’s home. He stands by helplessly as the woman he loves is arrested, jailed, and charged with premeditated murder. His happy life turned upside down, Billy Ray sets out to find the truth about his Charlene, whether the truth leads to his ability to save her life or it frees him from her spell. Available at Amazon for only $2.99!

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Q&A with Pat Brown

Q: What made you write a fiction book?

A: I have actually written a few short stories before but, one day, I just got an idea for a mystery novel and I saw the main character, Billy Ray, living in his little house up in the mountains and I started writing. Next thing I knew he had run into Charlene at the train tracks and the story started to develop.

Q: Did you write an outline of the story or did it just unfold?

A: I have to say that, for me, writing fiction is an amazing experience! No, I did not plan out a beginning, middle, and end for this story; it truly did just happen as I wrote it. It is almost a surreal experience in that the characters take on a life of their own as one's fingers hit the keys on the computer, do things one does not expect them to do, and I was just as surprised by the twists in the story as its readers will be! I had to keep writing just to find out what happened!

Q: Are your main characters based on real people in your life?

A: Actually, they are all composites of people. Billy Ray is a combination of two men I know, one being a simple country boy and the other a city man who was a bit of a criminal but had an oddly kind heart. Charlene is a composite of a couple of interesting patients I ran into during my sign language interpreting career, girls who seemed quite sweet but there was definitely something concerning about their behaviors and personalities. The police chief wasn't based on anyone I know but he definitely should be played by The Rock if the book ever becomes a movie ::laughs::.

Q: Does criminal profiling feature heavily in the book?

A: Since I am a criminal profiler, I can't help but present my characters as real people with real psychological issues. There is nothing fabricated about the kind of thinking and behaviors the reader will encounter in the book.

Q: Why did you self publish this book?

A: I have two new books coming out with traditional publishers: How to Save Your Daughter's Life (HCI) in September 2012 and The Murder of Cleopatra (Prometheus) in early 2013. I wanted this book to come out now, while I have six months to concentrate on publicizing it and, besides, one thing great about self-publishing (besides not having to wait one or two years to see your book in print) is that an author can offer the book to readers at such a reduced price because the middle man is effectively eliminated. For only $2.99, readers can enjoy a new mystery novel at a fraction of the cost of purchasing a book published by a regular publisher.

Q: Anything else you would like to say about Only the Truth?

A: Yes. I love Billy Ray. One thing about fiction is that you get very emotional over your characters. You feel like you know them and want other people to know them. I feel sad if Billy Ray and Charlene and Chief Williams and the others in the story remain anonymous. I want people to know them. So, oddly, if people don't read my nonfiction books or if they don't like them, I don't take it nearly as personally than if people don't read or like Only the Truth! Strange, eh? I am so protective of my characters and I want the best for them. I want their story to be heard.

Only the Truth available at Amazon for $2.99 on Kindle OR on your desktop with a free download application. Coming soon to B&N and Smashwords.

No Heroes Here

2012-02-29T10:02:00.000-05:00

by Holly Hughes

As the last Thanksgiving holiday came and went, the social media sites were busy reminding us all that we have much to be thankful for. A lot of postings were put up honoring our military. Those brave men and women who literally sacrifice their lives so that we might be free. They are heroes. They should be honored, remembered and thanked every day that we breathe the air of freedom and enjoy all the rights afforded to us by this great country of ours.

Then my thought turned homeward. As proud as I am of our fighting men and women, I am equally appalled and embarrassed by what is happening on our college campuses across the country. We call them institutions of higher learning. The young people attending them are supposed to be our best and brightest. What a sad state of affairs. What exactly are we teaching these young people? Certainly not honesty, integrity, decency or compassion. Arguably, a well-rounded individual would be encouraged to learn and grow morally and spiritually as well as intellectually.

Instead, what has come to light, shockingly, is a hierarchy that values the reputation of a football program over the physical and psychological well-being of children. As we watch the Penn State Pedophilia Scandal unfold it becomes increasingly aware that multiple adults were aware of what Jerry Sandusky was doing and yet, not one stepped up to do the right thing. Despite the fact that Pennsylvania has mandatory reporting laws, the head-coach, the graduate assistant, the janitor, the janitor’s co-worker, the janitor’s supervisor, the head of finance and the head of business decided to disregard those laws and allow a pedophile to continue abusing children unchecked. We have all heard the expression that it takes a village to raise a child. All it would have taken here is one man. Just one to step up, to “man up” as it were.

Instead, we see conspiracy of silence carried out by the very people who are supposed to be setting examples for our young people. Most, if not all, of these men knew that Sandusky had six adopted children and took in foster children. Not to mention, the hundreds of children he had access to through his “charity”, The Second Mile. Can any of these men argue with a straight face or a clear conscience that they thought pedophilia was a one time event? Part of the Penn State Alma Mater reads “may we do nothing here that would bring shame” or words to that effect. They have certainly failed miserably in this instance. The example they have set is one of dishonesty, deceit and disregarding the law if it might affect their bottom line. There are no heroes here.

Next, we turn to the Syracuse mess. Assistant coach Bernie Fine has been accused publicly of molesting at least two young boys with a third recently raising new allegations. At first blush, this case seems distinguishable. There was not a long grand jury investigation which unearthed multiple victims. We had no eyewitnesses to this alleged abuse. Or, so we thought. In a sick twist we now find out that not only did coach Fine’s wife know about what was happening, but she even made jokes about it with one of the alleged victims. She admits in a 2002 recording that she “knew everything” that coach Fine did to this young boy. In fact, she tells him, she looked through the window one time and watched while she was pretending to take out the trash. In my humble opinion the trash she should have taken out of her home was not the sack of garbage she was carrying.

Here again, we have a coach, an authority figure, who not only betrayed the young boys he is accused of molesting but every student to whom he held himself out as a role model. Then we turn to the wife, who is, incidentally, still married to this man. The same man who she explained on the 2002 tape “had no interest in me and vice versa." The same man she told the alleged victim could only get satisfaction from boys and not her. A mother of three children herself, not only did she not rescue this young boy from the abuse, but she herself engaged in a sexual relationship with him when he turned 18. The woman with the power to stop this situation, instead exacerbated it. There are no heroes here.

Another disturbing university incident comes to us out of University of Florida, A & M. This past year a young man, a 26 year old died as a result of hazing. Which fraternity, you might ask? None. This was the band. Yes, the band. In the wake of this death we are now hearing an alarming number of parents coming out to the press and saying they had lodged numerous complaints about the hazing in the past. Some authorities at the school have come out in defense of themselves blaming it on certain students. They claim they strongly discouraged hazing and taught that it was a prohibited practice. But, ultimately, doesn’t the buck stop with the leaders? If they knew there were “rogue” students out there continuing to engage in this practice, why weren’t they dismissed from the band? Could it be, again, the reputation and monetary advantage to having them remain untarnished? I don’t know. What I do know is that a young man is dead and it could have been prevented. There are no heroes here.

Lastly, I turn to the events at UC-Davis. A group of peaceful protestors, sitting cross-legged on the ground with their arms intertwined were sprayed full-on in the face with pepper spray by the university police. I am a huge proponent of law order. As a felony prosecutor for ten years I got to know a lot of police officers and have enormous respect for them and the job they do. But, having said that, I cannot support the decision here to pepper spray a bunch of college students in the face for exercising their right to free speech. In all the reports released on this incident there is no claim that these students were threatening, verbally or otherwise. There is no allegation that any of them had weapons. No hint that the crowd standing around was rushing at the police or being intimidating in any way. Once again, the people in authority have failed to act appropriately. The people with the power to set a good example, instead used excessive force simply because they didn’t get their way. There are no heroes here.

It has been a sad and disturbing year for colleges in the news. Hopefully, these terrible tragedies will cause those in power to review their policies and their priorities. An acknowledgment that being charged with the molding of America’s youth is not a challenge to be taken lightly. We must not only tell them to do the right thing, we must set an example by doing it ourselves. If we trained our college students like the military is training our troops, with honor and a sense of duty we might turn out some heroes of our own.

Photos:

Striking Photography by Bo;

Marsmet551

Lisa Ann Rogers

NicoMachus

Media and the Public Miss the Mark in Identifying Domestic Violence

2012-02-27T19:21:00.002-05:00

Article Written By *Ava Rose and Robin Sax with input from Debi Biederman-Ash, Patti Giggans (Peace Over Violence) Hillary Selvin (NCJWLA), Terra Slavin (LA Gay Center), Ruth Williams (NCJWLA)

The headlines come in every day, from cities, suburbs, rural communities, and elite enclaves:

“Authorities say a man fatally shot his estranged wife at the Hemet Courthouse Wednesday, then turned the gun on himself in his car a few miles away…. Both victims were at the courthouse to attend a hearing regarding child custody/support issues.” (KTLA5.com , 1/04/12)

“An employee opened fire outside a northeastern Georgia food processing plant Thursday, fatally shooting his wife before killing himself, authorities said.” (Atlanta Journal Constitution, 1/05/12).

“Bayonne was reeling Tuesday from a spasm of butchery after a jealous man murdered his estranged wife, her boyfriend, and his rival’s baby boy." (NY Daily News, 12/06/11).

Or just today: “A pregnant woman was allegedly beaten and held captive for nine days in a bizarre ordeal that ended when police in the Central Valley town of Ceres arrested her boyfriend and two other men Tuesday. The victim's boyfriend, 21-year-old Richard Garibay, found a message on the woman’s phone on Jan. 27 that he didn't like, according to Ceres police.” (LA Times, 2/09/12)

So often, the reports characterize the attacks as “bizarre,” “unexplained,” and “shocking.” The authorities are unsure what motivated the attacks. Sometimes, the perpetrator is even identified as one of the “victims.” And always, the reports describe the disbelief of families, friends, coworkers and neighbors, who never saw it coming. Events like these are so often presented by the media as “unexpected and unexplained.“ But are they really?

If you do a Google search, you will find hundreds of these incident reports, and if you read past the first few paragraphs, between the statements of shock and incredulity, a pattern will begin to emerge. The couple was “estranged,” the victim was the assailant’s former wife or girlfriend, there is a history of child custody “issues,” and the precipitating event was a break-up, divorce filing, or the discovery that the victim had begun another relationship. Often, if you make it down to the last paragraph, you will find a history of “domestic disputes,” a prior restraining order, or even a previous charge of spousal battery. And yet, no one seems to identify the pattern.

Even after the victim has been severely injured, killed, or goes missing, there is rarely an effort made to connect the dots. And by reporting these stories as if they were inexplicable disasters rather than cautionary tales, we are missing an opportunity to educate the public about the signs that were missed. Consider this. What if domestic violence-related killings were given the level of scrutiny afforded to the passing of Whitney Houston? What if we took the time to piece together the tragic events leading up to these deaths, as we did when years of substance abuse and sycophantic enabling resulted in Michael Jackson's overdose? Throughout the last week, many people had no trouble saying, "we are shocked but not surprised" by Whitney's demise, because the public has come to recognize the dire consequences of drug addiction. In the world of Domestic Violence, so often we, too, are shocked but not surprised. No one sees the pattern better than those of us who work with these victims. We know, because if you have spent any time with battered women, you are not shocked by these murders at all, just overcome with a dreadful feeling of “here we go again.” You know that an abused woman is seven times more likely to be killed when she leaves the relationship. And this is not a random series of unforeseeable events. In fact, the pattern is all too clear: possessiveness, jealousy and abandonment rage are pervasive in relationships that end in homicide, as are struggles over property and children.

If you understand domestic violence, then you do not say, as many in law enforcement and the media do, “We do not know what was in the mind of [the suspect].” You know that regaining control is the driving force in violent relationship, and you recognize that an abuser never feels more out of control than when his partner has left him, or has custody of their children, or takes up with another partner.

Are these events tragic? Without question. But are they unforeseen, “one-off” events that could not have been predicted? The answer is NO. And would recognizing the patterns prevent all these heinous crimes? Of course not. But until friends, neighbors, family, coworkers, law enforcement, prosecutors – and yes, the media – see the picture, we’ll never know how many deaths we could prevent.

*Ava Rose, LCSW is Director of Women Helping Women ~ Community Counseling & Support Services, a program of the National Council of Jewish Women/ Los Angeles, and Steering Committee Member of the Westside Domestic Violence Network.

The Miramonte Elementary School Scandal and the Psychology of Paraphillias

2012-02-24T15:20:00.000-05:00

by Gina Simmons, Ph.D.

A dark cloud hangs over a Los Angeles Elementary School after two long-term teachers were arrested on allegations of lewd acts on children under the age of 14. Miramonte Elementary, educates low-income, mostly Latino youth, and ranks at the bottom in achievement for schools in its comparison group. When a film processor notified authorities about strange photos of blindfolded children with tape over their mouths, Miramonte Elementary hit a new bottom.

Veteran teacher, Mark Berndt, allegedly masturbated in the classroom, placed his semen on a spoon and fed it to blindfolded children in a "tasting game." Photos of children with the milky substance near their mouths alerted the film processor and stemmed a nearly year long investigation. Investigators allegedly found a blue plastic spoon with semen on it in a trash container at the school along with hundreds of photos of children.

Disturbing as the allegations are, the story gets sicker. Investigators arrested another suspected Miramonte teacher, Martin Springer for lewd acts on young children. He and Berndt were apparently friends. Two teachers aides also came under suspicion at the school. One was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2005 for lewd acts on children in cases going back as far as 1995. Another teacher's aide wrote a love letter to an elementary school child. The mother of that child complained to school authorities and was allegedly rebuffed. Students who reported the strange sexual behavior were allegedly told to "stop making things up."

In reaction to these disturbing allegations, Los Angeles Unified School District administrators removed the entire staff of Miramonte school and replaced them with new people. They provided counselors for each classroom, as the investigation and interviews of students and staff continues. Some Miramonte parents have spoken in protest of the removal of teachers beloved by their students. An atmosphere of anger and distrust, mixed with poverty and powerlessness, likely creates a toxic environment for learning. Those with immigration issues may have felt more powerless to report abuses to authorities.

How Did They Get Away With It For Decades?

Pedophiles, those with a sexual attraction to children, are a sneaky bunch. They know that children don't understand sexuality and cannot talk about it intelligently. They know that most people don't want to believe sexual exploitation of children exists in their neighborhood, school, house, backyard, or office. So it's easy for them to hide in plain sight.

I once worked with a boy who was molested by his grandfather, while sitting on Grandpa's lap, at the computer, with his parents sitting a few feet away in the same room. When I worked in residential treatment with a group of pedophiles, I learned that they can engage in sexual activity, with one hand under the table, while eating dinner. The other diners, unless they have x-ray vision, won't see or suspect a thing. Psychologists call this "perceptual set" which prompts us to see what we expect based on our emotional needs. If your basic need is food, you'll focus more on the spaghetti and meatballs on the table.

The Psychology of Paraphilias

Besides being sneaky and immature, pedophiles can become fixated on specific objects, rituals or behaviors that stimulate them sexually. Called paraphilias, these fixations can become the primary way the individual finds sexual satisfaction. Besides pedophilia, other paraphilias, like frotteurism (touching and rubbing against people against their will) or voyeurism (watching the private activity of others without their consent or knowledge) have a hostile component. The prowling perpetrator gets a power rush by sexually exploiting someone without their knowledge or consent.

Pedophiles often reveal a history of childhood trauma and sexual victimization. When they molest children, they psychologically reenact the abuse, bringing it under their own control. Recent neuroscience research finds abnormalities of the brain in the early development of pedophiles. They show a decrease in the volume of gray brain matter in the central striatum which impacts their emotions and behavior. In addition they show abnormalities in the frontal and central regions of the brain. These parts of the brain control the ability to practice restraint, use good judgment and apply reason to their behavior. These folks are sick and it shows in their brain scans.

What Can We Do About it?

Pedophilia is not curable. Those who enter treatment with a desire to get better usually need lifelong therapy and medication. Usually they are given antidepressants to reduce the drive to molest, in addition to hormonal medication to reduce the sex drive. Our best defense for our children is to pay attention. Ask the school their policy on reporting possible offenses. Do they screen employees. How do they handle complaints? Teach your children about these people so that they know what to do when an adult asks something of them that feels creepy or weird. Encourage your children to speak up when something feels wrong to them. Blindly obedient children make easy victims. Finally, try to stay involved in your child's school, and get to know the teacher. Your visibility and observing eyes can act as an inhibiting factor for a molester.

Photos courtesy of CBS News and Willibys-corruptjustice.

Developing Fingerprints on Submerged Weapons Now a Reality

2012-02-20T01:42:00.002-05:00

by Andrea Campbell

When new technology comes down the pike, to me, it’s just as interesting as how it came to be—or whose brainchild it is—as is what the science enables us to do. That’s why when I read about this technique for pulling latent fingerprints off of handguns that have been underwater, I had to share it with you as it is on the cusp of becoming mainstream. Some information about the authors and the tests follow.

Principals

Kathryn Book for nine years has been a Physical Scientist/Forensic Examiner in the Latent Print Operations Unit at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico. Part of her job is to work with the Bureau’s Evidence Response Team providing latent and human remains processing. The other author and teammate of this plan is James Tullbane, a Supervisory Special Agent on the Technical Dive Team in the Evidence Response Team Unit. Previously he worked as a member of the Underwater Search and Evidence Response Team (USERT) for five years. It’s not surprising that this kind of talent has endeavored to take on a discipline as yet unproven.

The Typical Past

Divers who have recovered materials from water in the capacity of providing evidence for collection, detection, preservation and processing of weapons underwater have basically turned the materials over to the Firearms and Toolmarks Units in order to discover any distinguishing characteristics such as caliber, ammunition and other related tasks. Never had the evidence gone first to the laboratory for latent print processing as it was thought that nothing of significance could be collected in the way of individualistic fingerprints.

Book and Tullbane, however, launched some tests and subsequent studies to see if the possibility of latent print detection and recovery of print evidence could be obtained on handguns that had been submerged in water.

Collection Techniques

The current protocol for collecting handguns within the FBI parameters are to: 1. Photograph the weapon in place, 2. Package the evidence in the found water, and, 3. Submit it to firearms for ballistics testing.

The study and new methodology the authors of these tests took upon themselves found great success: latent prints were developed on weapons tossed into various types of water, well up to 70 days under submersion!

What Are Latents?

In order for fingerprints to be deposited on a surface, they are of two types: Eccrine or Sebaceous. Eccrine (or merocrine gland substances) are the major sweat glands of the human body found in virtually all skin and are fingerprints and is made up of sweat or perspiration that is exuded from the pores of our skin and which highlights the friction ridge patterns on our fingertips. These glands produce a clear, odorless substance consisting primarily of water and NaCl, secretions of the apocrine glands. NaCl is mostly reabsorbed in the duct to reduce salt loss.

Sebaceous prints on the other hand, include fatty acids, lipids, cholesterol and glycerides, including both eccrine secretions and the sebum produced by the sebaceous glands; this is an oily secretion comprised of free fatty acids, wax esters, squalene and more. The most likely method of deposit is when someone touches their nose, hair, skin or other object that contains oils. Now the likelihood of developing the water-based or Eccrine prints is unlikely as they will dissipate in water. Sebaceous prints are less soluable—capable of being dissolved—and the potential for reading them after they have been deposited on a weapon thrown into water is greater.

Difficulty in Processing

Several factors make it difficult to pull prints such as, the surface of the weapon in the way of textured surfaces or a phosphate finish on the weapon, previous oiling or storage of the handgun, and a wiping clean of the gun often provide effective in removing all trace of latents.

Test Set-up

For the testing several natural prints were applied to the weapons along with another print using Lightning Powder’s Latent Print Reference Pad, and all were marked and placed on both sides of the barrel and photographed for reference. Although the tests were conducted in a lab in a controlled environment (e.g. plastic containers), the water used was both fresh and salted with Instant Ocean. Nine trials were done using elapsed time intervals up to 70 days.

Results

Regardless of method of development, processing handguns immediately after removal from water yielded positive results. There were some factors that help to determine the ideal conditions and the things that affect less than prime results are: handguns should be processed immediately, the water temperature if too warm impacts the results; the best results occurred with metal weapons in cold water; and the addition of heat and salt greatly reduces the detection of latent prints.

Obviously further testing and documentation is needed for presentation in court, and evidence proofs in court, but we are very encouraged this will become a mainstay for processing fingerprints from guns thrown into water.

Sources

--Book, Mary Kathryn and James Tullbane. "Detection of latent prints on handguns after submersion in water" Adapted from Evidence Technology Magazine, September-October 2011, pages 22-25 and 29.

Image: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Gun on dock: Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Milford Memories: A Haunted Park

2012-02-15T00:01:00.033-05:00

by Donna Pendergast

Milford Michigan is a sleepy serene village located in a bucolic area of affluent Oakland County Michigan. Despite it's trendy shops and a recent burst of development on the village outskirts it retains a small town charm with Victorian style architecture downtown and several parks sprinkled throughout the small village. The largest of these parks is Central Park which sits on the banks of the Huron River just off the downtown business district. With it's tennis courts, play scape, picnic areas and wooded trails, Central Park appears to be the picture perfect small town park.

Appearances can be deceptive.

On January 4th 1992, Cynthia Jones a 15-year-old honor student was abducted from Central Park at knife point by a masked man who left her boyfriend tied to a tree. The boyfriend later became a target of the investigation. He was the subject of intense scrutiny right up until May 27th, 1992 when serial murderer Leslie Allen Williams was apprehended by authorities and and confessed to Cindy's abduction and subsequent murder. Williams also confessed to the murders of three other teenage girls, Kami Villenueva who was abducted from her home a few months before Cindy was kidnapped and sisters Melissa and Michelle Urbin who were abducted while walking near their rural home in Fenton Michigan.

Leslie Allen Williams, an almost forgotten serial murderer, is a miscreant who had multiple violent felony convictions at the time of his apprehension. Described by psychiatrists as a woman hater and a sociopath motivated by sadism he was a time bomb waiting to explode. After confessing to the four murders he led authorities to the makeshift graves of all four girls. He later pled guilty to all four murders which spared the families and myself the rigors of a trial. His parole on multiple violent felonies prior to the teens murder was the impetus for a complete reform of the Michigan parole system. The multiple pleas of guilty ended the court saga of Leslie Allen Williams but they would not be the final chapter in Central Park's dark history.

On August 9th, 1995, two twelve year old girls, Casey Fiolek and Jennifer Wicks went missing in Milford and were widely reported as possible runaways. I remember like it was yesterday hearing the news of their disappearance on the radio. Call it what you will, a premonition or prosecutor's instinct I knew instantly that this would end badly. I knew in my heart that Casey and Jennifer had not run away. In the days following the disappearance I was astonished at how little media attention was paid to the disappearance of two 12-year old girls.

Unfortunately the situation was about to change and not in a good way.

On August 12th, 1995 a teenage boy was present at Central Park for a festival called Milford Memories. He wandered into a wooded area of the park and observed what appeared to be part of a body sticking out of a culvert pipe. What appeared to be a body was, in fact, two bodies: Casey and Jennifer, one on top of the other, sexually assaulted, choked and stabbed and stuffed into the culvert like two discarded rag dolls. The discovery was beyond horrifying. The story of how they ended up there, more horrifying yet.

An intense police investigation led the police to two local but homeless drifters, Aaron Stinchcombe and Russell Oeschger, miscreants who had been living temporarily in a wooded area of the park. Stinchcombe knew Casey's older brother from having grown up around town. He along with Oeschger had befriended the two girls in a more populated area of the park earlier in the day on the date of their murder.

The two girls spent the afternoon hours preceding their murders hanging out with the two much older men. Aaron Stinchcombe was 20 years old and Russell Oeschger was 30 years old. During the course of that afternoon the girls persuaded the men to purchase alcohol for them to celebrate their upcoming 13th birthdays. A plan was put in place where the girls would meet back up with the men at the park late at night. Little did Casey and Jennifer know that a much more diabolical plan would be hatched after they left the park in the late afternoon hours.

Jennifer was spending the night at Casey's house and the two girls snuck out of a bedroom window shortly before midnight. They headed for Central Park not knowing that what really waited for them in the park was no party but rather two monsters of the night wearing human faces. The girls met up with the men and while sitting around a picnic table began drinking the alcohol that had been purchased. Having never consumed liquor before the girls became intoxicated very quickly. After the girls became intoxicated, Russell Oeschger led Jennifer away under the pretext of showing her the bathrooms. Aaron Stinchcombe led Casey deeper into the woods to an area under a tree. What started out as a lark in the park for two young girls was about to become a scene worse than any nightmare or horror movie.

Jennifer was raped, choked and stabbed to death by Oeschger up near a bathroom located within a park. At about the same time Casey had sobered up to the point where she realized that something had gone very wrong. She began screaming "Where is Jennifer, You killed her didn't you?" to Stinchcombe who than began to beat her. At some point, Oeschger having already killed Jennifer, came over to assist Stinchcombe with Casey. Casey was raped by Stinchcombe and beaten and stomped on by both men to the point where both men thought that she was dead.

As Stinchcombe and Oeschger debated what to do with the bodies, Casey surprised both of them by jumping back up and beginning to scream. The men began twisting her head around on her neck chanting "wind up toy, wind up toy." Casey was then choked and stabbed to death and both girls bodies were then transported to the culvert and stuffed inside.

The chilling details are known only because both men made ghastly almost matching confessions that haunt me to this day nearly two decades later. I introduced those confessions in Stinchcombe and Oeschger's respective murder trials to two different but equally horrified juries. Both men were convicted of first degree murder and will spend the rest of their natural lives in prison.

Unlike the happy connotation attached to the name for the annual summer festival, my Milford memories cause me to shudder every time that I think of Cindy, Casey and Jennifer. In the case of Casey and Jennifer I always wonder how two ne'er-do-wells could escalate from petty crimes to such diabolical and monstrous acts of murder. As to all three cases, I wonder what the odds are that such a seemingly idyllic setting in such a serene and quiet community would be the scene of such horrific evil not once but on two different occasions only a few years apart. I'm sure that these questions will haunt me for the rest of my life.

As I told Casey and Jennifer's respective juries during opening statements at trial: "We tell our children there are no monsters. They don't come out at night, they don't hide in the dark, they don't torture and kill little girls. This case will prove beyond any doubt that we delude ourselves..."

But even those words did not do justice to explain the crimes and evil that befell Cindy, Casey and Jennifer in Milford's Central Park.

In the age old cycle that defines the evolution of any community people come and people go and memories fade with time. But in this case my memories of Cindy, Casey and Jennifer will remain with me for the rest of my days.

So Cindy, Jennifer and Casey, since I can't forget here is my prayer to you:

Rest assured you are still remembered
Keep those who remember in sight
Please watch over and protect our children
From the monsters who lurk in the night.

Rest in peace sweet angels, you are remembered today and always.

Statements made in this post are my own and are not intended to reflect the views, opinion or position of the Michigan Attorney General or the Michigan Department of Attorney General.

No Visible Tears, Defensiveness and Body Language Tells of Baby Lisa’s Parent’s on Dr. Phil

2012-02-10T10:29:00.000-05:00

by Dr. Lillian Glass

After watching Deborah Bradley and Jeremy Irwin, the parents of missing Baby Lisa Irwin, on Dr. Phil, it is my view that something does not seem right from a body language and communication perspective.

There were several signals of deception in my view along with signals of defensiveness. Her “crying” on the air seemed to remind me of the non-tears and extremely quick recovery time, complete with lack of facial transition of Casey Anthony and Susan Smith.

What struck me a odd was her immediate display of a crying facial expression as soon as Dr. Phil asked her about the Kansas City Police Department and if she thought she was treated unfairly. There are no tears as she transitions to a non crying facial expression within milliseconds. In my view anger would be a more appropriate reaction instead of self sympathy tears.

She then gets defensive and volunteers the following information in a harsh and defensive vocal tone . Say says “It’s not a circus. It’s not a joke. ” Those are her words No one else said it was a circus or a joke? When someone volunteers extraneous and tangential information that has little or nothing to do with the case , it usually indicates a signal of deception. It may very well be a case of “thou dost protest too much.”

She goes on to say “This is not a game. This is my baby.” Once again no one said anything about a game. In analyzing her statement, when someone is playing games and is the first to bring up the term “game," it is often a game they may be playing.

In Debbie Bradley’s case, perhaps she is playing that “cat and mouse game” with the Kansas City police as they says he is not cooperating. Perhaps the reason she has been interviewed b them so many times, according to her attorney Joe Tacopina, is because they don’t feel thy are getting any answers from her and may very well feel as though she is playing games.

Deborah Bradley clutches on to Jeremy Irwin’s hand as his finger is extended. And does not interlock with hers, showing distance between them in my view. His cupped fist may also display anger. Perhaps he is angry at Debbie for what may have happened to Baby Lisa on her watch.

As he speaks he breaks away from her grip and comforts himself by interlocking his own fingers as he places them on his groin area. This indicates that he is feeling extremely vulnerable. He ignores the hand that Deborah places on his thigh.

His tone is robotic, yet his voice betrays him as he displays a shakiness as his words tend to trail off at the end. This may be further indication that he may be masking his true emotions.

Dr. Phil then asks Deborah if during the 90 days new light was shed and whether something developed.

Deborah looks down and says in an arrogant manner “ Yes but I’m not gonna talk about it.”

If she is not going to talk about it then why appear on Dr. Phil? Why not speak to the Kansas City police and tell them about the these new developments.

The constant dabbing of her non-tears with no liquid present throughout the interview is very disturbing.

Joe Tacopina spins his spin and speaks on behalf of the couple. As he does this we see several signals of deception with him in my view from his cocked head to his blinking, shoulder shrugs, etc, which may indicate to me that he may not really believe everything he is saying.

As he speaks, we continue to see Deborah dab her tearless eyes. To me that is a HUGE red flag body language wise.

When Dr. Phil asked baby Lisa’s mother if she was wrong when she said that all the lights were turned off in the house after her husband Jeremy contradicted her by saying the lights were on when he came home, she immediately went on the defensive and began to attack Jeremy . She leaked out anger as she looked up and said that what he said was a it was a huge exaggeration.

Her looking up during his crucial statement along with her anger and defensiveness could be interpreted as a signal of deception. It is interesting to note that Jeremy doesn’t speak up and intervene and agree with her statement.

When Dr. Phil asked her about the cadaver dog’s hit we could see her squirm around, indicating discomfort at this line of questioning. Then we see her lick her lips, no doubt due to a case of ”cotton mouth” which is due to anxiety, which is often a signal of deception. We then see her bite her lips which indicates she was no doubt holding back information.

While I am not accusing Deborah Bradley of wrongdoing, her body language and facial language and speech content and Jeremy’s voice patterns and body language may speak volumes.