In Cold Blog

Creating Contented Children

incoldblog@aol.com (Michelle McKee) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:31:00 +0000

By Carol Anne Davis

First, an apology for the comparative brevity of this blog but I’ve had the flu followed by two colds and appear to have left my brain somewhere inaccessible. But, whilst convalescent, I read a deeply disturbing newspaper article about a recent custody case.

A young boy from Wiltshire in England had lived for only a few months with both biological parents before they separated. Thereafter he stayed with his mother: his father subsequently remarried. At this stage, he continued to live with his mum.

But a bitter custody battle ended this year when the pre-teen child was ordered to go and live with his father, despite the fact that he said the man had ruined his life. The child also said that he would punch and kick rather than lose his home. Ironically, his father and stepmother are often absent for work purposes so he will partially be raised by a nanny. Yet he was happy with his mother and was also succeeding at school.

So what was the thinking behind such a colossal decision? The father’s legal team said that the mother had poisoned the boy’s mind against the father and it does appear that there was truth in this. A child psychiatrist and the child’s own court-appointed guardian also said that it was harmful to him to be alienated from his dad. Fair enough – but surely significant contact (supervised if necessary) would have been far healthier than forcing this youngster to lose the day to day sanctuary of his mother and his home?

This child will also lose most of his friends and will have to go to another school as his father’s house is a two hour drive away from everything that he has held dear for the past few years. No wonder his mother’s barrister said that `he will be very upset, angry and defiant when this hugely disruptive move is implemented.’

Can such a move really be in the best interests of the child? Yes, good fathers are often horribly penalised by our so-called justice system and we need to redress the balance – but is taking a boy away from a loving home really the answer? Surely there has to be a middle ground? By removing a young boy from his safe, known environment we are creating a wealth of emotional pain and, given the oppositional mindset that this will create, possibly sowing the seeds of future criminality.

All of the books by Carol Anne Davis are available from amazon.co.uk in Britain and some are on sale at the American amazon.com. For further details please see her website at www.carolannedavis.co.uk

Fort Hood Massacre: Major Nidal Malik Hasan receives 32 additional charges of attempted murder

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:22:00 +0000

BY COREY MITCHELL

In Cold Blog founder Corey Mitchell is now the High Profile Crime expert for Examiner.com. Be sure to check out his daily updates on the biggest true crime cases.

On Wednesday, Fort Hood massacre suspect Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was charged with 32 additional counts of premeditated attempted murder on the lives of 30 members of the military and two civilian police officers.

To read the entire article please visit Fort Hood Massacre: Major Nidal Malik Hasan receives 32 additional charges of attempted murder

Corey Mitchell is a critically acclaimed Los Angeles Times best-selling author of several true crime books including DEAD AND BURIED, PURE MURDER, and HOLLYWOOD DEATH SCENES. He is also the founder of the premiere true crime website, In Cold Blog, executive producer for a new true crime television series, and a former Hollywood crime expert and blogger for the Discovery Channel. He can be reached at truecrimewriter@aol.com.

Follow Corey Mitchell on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

Shaniya Davis: Father Bradley Lockhart talks about daughter, Shaq, and child trafficking (video)

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:17:00 +0000

BY COREY MITCHELL

In Cold Blog founder Corey Mitchell is now the High Profile Crime expert for Examiner.com. Be sure to check out his
daily updates on the biggest true crime cases.

Bradley Lockhart, father of 5-year-old murder victim, Shaniya Davis, appeared on Nancy Grace's television program Monday night to talk about the death of his daughter, the kindness of strangers, and what he intends to do to stop child trafficking.

To read the entire article please visit Shaniya Davis: Father Bradley Lockhart talks about daughter, Shaq, and child trafficking (video).

Corey Mitchell is a critically acclaimed Los Angeles Times best-selling author of several true crime books including DEAD AND BURIED, PURE MURDER, and HOLLYWOOD DEATH SCENES. He is also the founder of the premiere true crime website, In Cold Blog, executive producer for a new true crime television series, and a former Hollywood crime expert and blogger for the Discovery Channel. He can be reached at truecrimewriter@aol.com.

Follow Corey Mitchell on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

Lakewood Police Massacre: Friends and family members of dead cop killer Maurice Clemmons arrested

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:48:00 +0000

BY COREY MITCHELL

In Cold Blog founder Corey Mitchell is now the High Profile Crime expert for Examiner.com. Be sure to check out his daily updates on the biggest true crime cases.

At least six people have been arrested for assisting Maurice Clemmons after he killed four Lakewood, Washington police officers Sunday. Among those arrested were Clemmons's alleged half-brother Rickey Hinton, 47, Douglas Davis, 22, and Davis's brother Eddie Davis, 20.

To read the entire article please visit Lakewood Police Massacre: Friends and family members of dead cop killer Maurice Clemmons arrested.

Corey Mitchell is a critically acclaimed Los Angeles Times best-selling author of several true crime books including DEAD AND BURIED, PURE MURDER, and HOLLYWOOD DEATH SCENES. He is also the founder of the premiere true crime website, In Cold Blog, executive producer for a new true crime television series, and a former Hollywood crime expert and blogger for the Discovery Channel. He can be reached at truecrimewriter@aol.com.

Follow Corey Mitchell on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

Lakewood Police Massacre: Suspect Maurice Clemmons shot dead by police in Seattle

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:19:00 +0000

BY COREY MITCHELL

In Cold Blog founder Corey Mitchell is now the High Profile Crime expert for Examiner.com. Be sure to check out his daily updates on the biggest true crime cases.

Maurice Clemmons, 37, was shot and killed by Seattle police early Tuesday morning after a two-day, two-city manhunt.

To read the entire article please visit Lakewood Police Massacre: Suspect Maurice Clemmons shot dead by police in Seattle

Follow Corey Mitchell on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

Lakewood Officer Massacre: Maurice Clemmons "vowed not to do evil" (parole documents included)

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:25:00 +0000

BY COREY MITCHELL

In Cold Blog founder Corey Mitchell is now the High Profile Crime expert for Examiner.com. Be sure to check out his daily updates on the biggest true crime cases.

Clemency and parole documents for suspected Lakewood police officer shooter Maurice Clemmons detail a history of bad choices, a lack of respect for other human beings, and an ability to convince authority figures to give him second, third, and fourth chances.

To read the rest of the article please visit Lakewood Police Massacre: Maurice Clemmons "vowed not to do evil."

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Sweating It Out

incoldblog@aol.com (Michelle McKee) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:49:00 +0000

By Stephen Singular

On Thursday morning, October 8, 2009, self-help expert James Arthur Ray posted a question on Twitter, “For anything new to live something first must die. What needs to die in you so that new life can emerge?” That afternoon at the Angel Valley Retreat Center outside Sedona, Arizona, Ray led 63 people into a 20-feet-square makeshift tent. It was pitch black inside, just over four feet high in the center, and two-and-a-half feet high at the edges. Every fifteen minutes, Ray’s assistants raised a flap on the tent, brought in more volcanic rocks the size of cantaloupes, and doused them with hot water, until the temperature reached 122 degrees. Ray was simulating a Native American sweat lodge purification ceremony designed to cleanse the body and spirit. The 63 participants had paid him $9,695 for this experience, the culmination of a five-day “Spiritual Warrior” retreat. In his 2008 “New York Times” bestselling book, Harmonic Wealth, Ray contended that one can become a millionaire through spiritual study. The retreat, he promised, would “absolutely change your life.”

“911,” the Yavapai County police dispatcher said at five p.m. on October 8. “Where’s your emergency?”

“Angel Valley,” a female answered. “Two people not breathing. There’s no pulse.”

“Is this the result of a shooting or something?”

“No, it’s a sweat lodge.”

Inside the tent, a man and a woman had lost consciousness. The dispatcher sent emergency personnel to Angel Valley, suddenly filled with EMS vehicles, police, and Ray’s staff frantically dismantling the tent. The unconscious pair were 40-year-old James Shore of Milwaukee and 38-year-old Kirby Brown of Westtown, just north of New York City. They were rushed to Verde Valley Medical Center, and pronounced dead. Nineteen others were hospitalized for dehydration, respiratory arrest, kidney failure, and elevated body temperature. All but four were soon released, while 49-year-old Liz Neuman of Minnesota remained in a coma from multiple organ damage. James Ray had bolted Arizona, going to Los Angeles for a speaking engagement at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

“We attempted to interview Mr. Ray at the scene,” said Yavapai County Sheriff Steve Waugh. “He refused to talk to us.”

On October 9, Yavapai County sheriff’s deputies served search warrants at Angel Valley, as autopsies were conducted and blood samples checked for poisons. Yavapai County building-safety manager Jack Judd said there was no record of an application or permit for a sweat lodge at Angel Valley and the structure hadn’t been inspected before it was taken apart on October 8. Four years earlier, the police revealed, another sweat lodge participant at Angel Valley had lost consciousness, but was eventually revived.

Sheriff Waugh announced that the fatalities were not accidental, but being investigated as homicides. James Ray, like the Ramsey family in Boulder, Colorado, after the 1996 strangulation of their six-year-old daughter JonBenet, made a counter-announcement: he was putting together his own investigation team to find out the truth about the sweat lodge deaths. The police were not impressed.

No charges have yet been filed. In early November, I visited the site of the retreat and spoke with the Arizona authorities. They were tight-lipped, but said the case was “moving forward.” James Ray has cancelled the rest of his seminars for 2009 in order to face whatever is coming. Civil suits against him are already in the works, but he could be charged with negligent homicide. If he is, this will open up fascinating territory about self-help gurus and legal culpability. Stay tuned for further developments and more reporting from Arizona.

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

Lakewood Police Massacre: Suspect Maurice Clemmons paroled by Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:02:00 +0000

BY COREY MITCHELL

In Cold Blog founder Corey Mitchell is now the High Profile Crime expert for Examiner.com. Be sure to check out his daily updates on the biggest true crime cases.

Maurice Clemmons, a suspect in the massacre of four Lakewood, Washington police officers, was paroled in 2000 by former Arkansas Governor, 2008 Republican Presidential candidate, and current Fox News television host Mike Huckabee.

To read the rest of the article please visit Lakewood Police Massacre: Suspect Maurice Clemmons pardoned by Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee

Corey Mitchell is a critically acclaimed Los Angeles Times best-selling author of several true crime books including Dead and Buried, Pure Murder and Hollywood Death Scenes. He is also the founder of the premiere true crime website, In Cold Blog, executive producer for a new true crime television series, and a former Hollywood crime expert and blogger for the Discovery Channel. He can be reached at truecrimewriter@aol.com.

Follow Corey Mitchell on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

Lakewood Police Massacre: Suspect Maurice Clemmons may be dead

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:01:00 +0000

BY COREY MITCHELL

In Cold Blog founder Corey Mitchell is now the High Profile Crime expert for Examiner.com. Be sure to check out his daily updates on the biggest true crime cases.

Maurice Clemmons, 37, has been upgraded from a "person of interest" in the shooting of four Lakewood, Washington police officers, to a "suspect." In addition, a police spokesman hinted that Clemmons may actually be dead.

To read the entire article please visit Lakewood Police Massacre: Suspect Maurice Clemmons may be dead.

Follow Corey Mitchell on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

Skull Stalkers

incoldblog@aol.com (Michelle McKee) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:53:00 +0000

By Dr. Katherine Ramsland

Recently, a book landed on my desk that demanded to be read: Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius, by Colin Dickey. Anyone who knows true crime has probably heard about body snatchers, those infamous nineteenth-century midnight requisition crews who advanced the cause of medicine. In addition, anyone who pays attention to the news knows that there are body collectors – people like Anthony Sowell, who prefers the decomposed for company. He’s not alone. Some people also find comfort in possessing skulls. This book examines the thievery of body parts during the nineteenth century as a dubiously noble art: it’s about the people who watched where deceased men of genius were buried in order to grab their valuable skulls.

The book opens with the exhumation of the musical composer, Franz Joseph Haydn, as his remains were set to be transferred to better digs. To everyone’s surprise (except the thieves), most of him was there, but nothing existed between his shoulders and his wig. It turns out that an enterprising team had hired an accomplice to deflesh the skull and soak it in limewater for bleaching and preservation. It wasn’t just a relic to them, it was scientific evidence of genius.

This type of skullduggery occurred during an era when “people readers” could profile a man according to the bumps and depressions on his skull, and as criminologists opened museums because they thought we could best understand the criminal mind by gazing at criminals’ skeletal remains. However, while the skulls of criminals were fairly easy to get, the remains of a genius were another matter. Such people didn’t quite grasp the notion of donating their heads after death to science. (There was an exception: members of the elite Society of Mutual Autopsy donated their brains to each other.) The convergence of these factors made such skulls highly valuable for necropreneurs.

Not all skull stalkers wished to sell their grim retrievals. Some wanted to possess them, as if by some magical osmosis they might absorb the dead man’s creativity, or at least penetrate and document its secret. Too bad their founding hypothesis was wrong. (Just to be clear, there were collectors of other body parts as well – I’m thinking of certain parts of Napoleon and Rasputin – but Dickey’s book is devoted to the cranium club.)

So, during the nineteenth century, if you were an intellectual superstar – an artist, a philosopher, a composer, a poet, or even a mystic – you were fair game once gone. Among the stories told in this dark history of ideas are the “saving” of the skulls of Mozart, Goya, Beethoven, and Swedenborg.

Now, I like skeletons as much as the next person. They’re strange and sometimes even funny. I collect the Mexican folk art figures – skeletal mariachi bands, wedding couples, cooks, surgeons and funeral parties – so I can see why someone might want mortal reminders around. After all, Argentine dictator Juan Peron actually sat the freshly-exhumed, embalmed figure of Evita at his dining room table, next to his second wife. (See my Cemetery Stories.) But skulls are another matter. Their hollow-eyed, unblinking stare is creepy, like an unrelenting super-ego from the other side. It just seems to know things.

One of the truly ironic tales in this book involves Emanuel Swedenborg, the eighteenth-century Christian mystic, known for his intellectual virtuosity. While alive, he’d described spirits that entered his cerebral chamber and spoke with him. They seemed demonic, so he didn’t fancy them as roommates in his brain space, but this aspect of his mysticism attracted cranioklepts. After Swedenborg died in 1772, a number of people wondered if he’d really died or was just faking it so no one would discover his secret immortality. Still, his burial vault remained undisturbed for nearly two decades, until someone finally unsealed the coffin, just to see. This left it vulnerable to thieves in 1816. Someone attending another funeral saw the coffin, grabbed the head and figured on a killing in the skull market. However, they learned that Swedenborg’s disciples valued mortal remains only slightly more than worms that play pinochle on your snout. Dreams of enrichment quickly decomposed, although a phrenologist collected the skull to try to locate the “organ of imagination.” Apparently, he failed, and Swedenborg’s corpse finally got its head back.

This book is a darkly fun read, and not just for Halloween.

Dr. Katherine Ramsland has a MA in forensic psychology from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a master's degree in clinical psychology, and a Ph.D. in philosophy. She has published thirty-five books, including True Stories of CSI, Inside the Minds of Serial Killers, Inside the Minds of Healthcare Serial Killers, Inside the Minds of Mass Murderers, The Human Predator: A Historical Chronology of Serial Murder and Forensic Investigation, The Criminal Mind: A Writers' Guide to Forensic Psychology, and The Forensic Science of CSI. With former FBI profiler Gregg McCrary, she co-authored The Unknown Darkness: Profiling the Predators among Us, with Professor James E. Starrs, A Voice for the Dead, a collection of his cases of historical exhumations, and with Henry C. Lee, The Real World of the Forensic Scientist. She has been translated into ten languages and has published over 900 articles on serial killers, criminology, forensic science, and criminal investigation. She writes a regular feature on historical forensics for The Forensic Examiner (based on her history of Forensic science, Beating the Devil’s Game) and teaches forensic psychology and criminal justice at DeSales University in Pennsylvania. Her most recent book is The Devil’s Dozen: How Cutting Edge Forensics Took Down Twelve Notorious Serial Killers. In addition, she has published biographies of Anne Rice and Dean Koontz and penned three books about penetrating the world of “vampires” (Piercing the Darkness), ghost hunters (Ghost), and the funeral industry (Cemetery Stories).

A Victim / Survivor Perspective

incoldblog@aol.com (Michelle McKee) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:05:00 +0000

By Daun Richert-Slagle

There is a deep fascination with the criminal mind. Society has been misled by the misconception that there can be some rational understanding of it. We are led to believe that if we could only understand what is foreign to us, that maybe we could inoculate ourselves from the damage it may cause. In my opinion and experience, I have found there to be no truth to that assumption.

It is my belief, that criminals try in every way possible to deceive those around them. They tell you what they want you to believe. They want to elude punishment. They want others to validate their behaviors. They are excellent story tellers. But does that give them credibility? When does it become important to study a criminal mind outside of the chase to catch him/her? They are all different, although some of them may show signs and symptoms of the same sickness and/or diagnosis. Just when you think that you know their next move, the behaviors or thought process may quickly change. They have a fairly good idea how to successfully remain as sick as they are.

If there is clear and present danger lurking, it becomes vital to create a profile of the offender. There are times when the only fingerprint they leave behind is merely the corpse they have just discarded. In such a case, it would become vital to profile the victim and the lifestyle they lived. Is there any other real reason other than that? Well, possibly if they were an unidentified victim. As I previously suggested, profiling has its useful purposes. It is a helpful tool to assist with the capture and confinement of a criminal at large, as a means of identification, or to cease the act of a copycat killer who has the intent to recreate a crime. There may be a few others that I have failed to mention. However, it is certainly not a tool that should ever be misused.

A victim is chosen, not always by reason or by association to the offender. Other times there may be a clear and concise connection or cause associated to the crime. Therefore, anyone can become the victim of a sick and vile act. However, very few of us will become the perpetrator.

I survived several vile acts in my lifetime. I am only one of many others. There will be many more to come. I never thought it would happen to me. Those thoughts frightened me into tears as I faced my own demise. I denied it all, even as I faced my own death. “This would never happen to me!” I thought. I imagine that most people have a similar misconception about themselves. For me, that was an error in judgment that met a very rude awakening. It was a lie that I had told myself. How could I not have known that it might happen to me? Each and every person should ponder that thought.

We all encounter some degree of evil at one time or another in our daily lives. It may appear innocent and pure, or even safe and inviting at times. But the outcome is always the same. A life is interrupted, but not just one. There are so many more that must endure the loss or tragedy; including friends, family members, co-workers and communities.

I survived the hands of a serial killer. I survived the hands of two killers, all in the course of one year. I am also the mother of a murdered child. I suffered severely from dysfunctional grieving for many years following those events. The grief and suffering was much more than I could bear.

Yet, I was able to find my way back.

Nineteen years later, I was able to come forward with the truth. Once I was able to face my attacker, I wanted to know more about him. I found articles and then I came to read “I: The Creation of a Serial Killer” by the late Jack Olsen. I was appalled at the vulgarities and humiliation placed upon his victims. I have followed the comments left by their family members in response to the media surrounding Keith Jesperson; The Happy Face Killer, and to the recent coming out of his daughter into the public eye.

From what I have read, the family members continue to express feelings of disproval towards any media attention being given to the monster that still haunts their darkest thoughts. It appears that they still suffer tremendously from the pain and the sorrow surrounded by their grief and loss. I believe that this pain multiplies, each time they are forced to read the horrific comments and allegations that are constantly made regarding their loved ones. I have read every accusation, every label placed on his victims; being one of them myself. I know that I am not the only one still suffering from the heinous acts that he has committed. I am, as well as they are, labeled under the veil of his “victim profile.” However, I am finally ready to tell the world what I know of him. I have the other side of the story, a victim’s account of a serial killer's failed attempt at murder.

There were a series of events that occurred in my life, which preceded my attack that cold April night in 1990. There were reasons why I became the perfect victim. I recently finished writing a memoir of my experiences. I wanted to be able to share my story with the world so that may see life through the eyes of a victim/survivor. I wanted to tell others about the events that occurred in my life that led me to the place where I met the man that nearly took my life. I also wanted to share what pain and suffering followed my survival and the means of healing that had finally set me free.

I hope to be able to help others by sharing my experiences. Life has not been an easy path. But I am so thankful today for all of the gifts that I have been given. My experiences have opened my eyes to the truth around me. I would not trade the knowledge that I have today, for any possession on this earth. I had to go through every bit of this pain to earn it. I no longer go through life with the same misconceptions that I once had.

Fort Hood Massacre: NY Mayor Bloomberg cites lax gun laws as obstacles in Hasan probe

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:08:00 +0000

BY COREY MITCHELL

In Cold Blog founder Corey Mitchell is now the High Profile Crime expert for Examiner.com. Be sure to check out his daily updates on the biggest true crime cases.

In a Friday, November 27, 2009 editorial that appeared in The Washington Post, Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg cited "a federal law repeatedly supported by Congress [that] interfered with the FBI's ability to find out about [Major Nidal Malik] Hasan's purchase of a handgun." Had authorities known of the purchase, "it could have saved lives," Bloomberg opined.

To read the entire article please visit Fort Hood Massacre: NY Mayor Bloomberg cites lax gun laws as obstacles in Hasan probe

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Shaniya Davis: NBA star Shaquille O'Neal pays for 5-year-old murder victim's funeral

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:54:00 +0000

BY COREY MITCHELL

In Cold Blog founder Corey Mitchell is now the High Profile Crime expert for Examiner.com. Be sure to check out his daily updates on the biggest true crime cases.

Shaquille O'Neal, Cleveland Cavalier center and future NBA Hall of Famer has stepped up and paid for the funeral of Shaniya Davis.

The five-year-old girl, whose body was discovered on November 16, 2009, in a wooded area near Sanford, North Carolina, after having been raped and strangled to death, was buried this past Sunday at a funeral attended by nearly 2,000 mourners.

To read the entire article please visit Shaniya Davis: NBA star Shaquille O'Neal pays for 5-year-old murder victim's funeral

Follow Corey Mitchell on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

Alyssa Bustamante: Suspected killer's Jackass-style videos rear their ugly heads

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:20:00 +0000

BY COREY MITCHELL

In Cold Blog founder Corey Mitchell is now the High Profile Crime expert for Examiner.com. Be sure to check out his daily updates on the biggest true crime cases.

Alleged teenage killer Alyssa Bustamante, 15, has a predilection for Emo rock music, self abuse, and videotaping her brothers in Jackass-style videos. All of these factors come into play in a trio of YouTube videos that have recently resurfaced.

To read the entire article and view the video interview please visit Alyssa Bustamante: Suspected killer's Jackass-style videos rear their ugly heads

Follow Corey Mitchell on Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

Alyssa Bustamante: "Murder is a very serious thing" friend declares in video interview

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:20:00 +0000

BY COREY MITCHELL

In Cold Blog founder Corey Mitchell is now the High Profile Crime expert for Examiner.com. Be sure to check out his daily updates on the biggest true crime cases.

On Monday, I reported on an interview Jennifer Meyer, friend of teenage murder suspect, Alyssa Bustamante (pictured left), gave to CBS's "The Early Show." Meyer claimed that Bustamante told her she wanted to know what it would feel like to kill someone.

Bustamante, 15, has been charged with the first-degree murder of nine-year-old Elizabeth Olten. She has been charged as an adult in the stabbing, strangulation, and throat-slitting murder of Olten on October 21, 2009.

To read the entire article and view the video interview please visit

Alyssa Bustamante: "Murder is a very serious thing" friend declares in video interview

Shaniya Davis: Mother Antoinette Davis transferred while father Brad Lockhart discusses murder

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:38:00 +0000

BY COREY MITCHELL

In Cold Blog founder Corey Mitchell is now the High Profile Crime expert for Examiner.com. Be sure to check out his daily updates on the biggest true crime cases.

SHANIYA DAVIS CASE

On Tuesday, more developments in the Shaniya Davis murder case.

Antoinette Davis, Shaniya's mother, who has been charged with human trafficking and child abuse, was transferred for her own safety.

To read the entire article, please visit:

Shaniya Davis: Mother Antoinette Davis transferred while father Brad Lockhart discusses murder

My Perfect Date with An AIDS-Afflicted Felon

horrorauthor@gmail.com (Rick R Reed) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:27:00 +0000

By Rick R. Reed

I’m driving north on Florida State Route 75. It’s August and the flat land stretching out on either side of the highway looks baked. The slash pines, palms, and cypress trees stand like stalwart sentinels against the blistering sun: brave.

The car hums along, the whirr of the air conditioning compressor keeping me company. I’m too jazzed to listen to music.

I’m on my way to a date with Jim. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him, since he moved from the Tampa Bay area up north to Raiford, which is a good three hours away. I can’t blame Jim for the move (it wasn’t his choice), but it’s been hard not being able to see him the past month. Oh sure, we’ve written and Jim’s a great one for letters, especially since he can draw hilarious caricatures of the people he’s meeting in his new home.

But there’s a disturbing edge to his letters, too, and I know some of these people have been less than kind to Jim. The name-calling, for one thing, breaks my heart. But thank God Jim has a sense of humor, otherwise I don’t know how he’d get through each day.

I know he’s been hanging on for this date, which we’ve had planned for a while.

Finally, an afternoon with Jim. I didn’t know, four months ago, that I would grow to love him so quickly.

I drive on, the broad expanses of rough grass and hearty trees being replaced every so often by strip malls and towns with names like Ocala. The pavement shimmers before me in the heat. My tires hum. An armadillo hurries alongside the road. A mosquito splats against the windshield, leaving a swath of blood.

***

I remember the first time I met Jim. It was another blistering summer day (funny how in my memories of the two years I lived in Florida, it’s always summer, even when the memory took place in December or February). Jim and I had been set up and these kinds of dates always put me on edge: they never worked out.

When Jim answered the door, I was sure that this set-up date would work out like all the others: completely inappropriate. Other people never seemed to have the capacity to pick someone out for myself that I would choose on my own.

And this guy who opened the door immediately put me on my guard. I mean, I enjoy a good drag show at the local bar as much as the next guy, but here in Brandon, Florida (a suburb of Tampa, full of kids, trimmed lawns, and swimming pools), a smart little black dress and pearls just seemed out of place, especially on a very handsome blond man with great blue eyes and a nice, tight build.

But there was Jim, all smiles and beckoning me to come inside. I went into the little bungalow he lived in with a roommate (who was at work). The place was typical Florida, one-story, stucco, with a schefflera bush in the front yard, and that peculiar, tougher-than-nails, fire-ant infested grass on the front lawn. Inside, pastel walls and beige furniture completed the picture. The Golden Girls could have used the place for a set.

And there was Jim, smiling at me in his sensible matron’s outfit and just putting the finish creases on a little ironing he was doing just before I rang the bell. The whole scene made me think of a cross between June Cleaver and RuPaul.

I wasn’t sure what to say. But that really didn’t matter, because Jim was more than ready to take over (once he’d made certain I had a fruity cocktail in my hand, even though it wasn’t yet noon), telling me all about his recent move down here from Chicago (I had the same story to tell, but I wasn’t to learn until much later how very different our respective moves to the sunshine state were), his love for Barbra (need I add a last name here?), and how his health was improving under the abundant Florida sun.

I learned fast that day that clothes don’t always make the man and that Jim would turn out to be one of the bravest men I’d ever met.

***

It’s been a long drive and I’m glad to finally be pulling up in front of Jim’s new home. Raiford, Florida is north central Florida…typical of the state, but not the kind of look one usually associates with Florida (white sand beaches, aqua-marine waters, palm trees swaying in the salty breeze): Raiford is kind of grim and parched looking, especially the wide open spaces where Jim’s new home sits. It’s surrounded by dry brown grass…stretching infinitely to a blazing blue sky, where the sun beats down, relentless.

A tall fence surrounds Jim’s new home, with no nod to adornment (Jim, with his graphic design background and his love for the visual arts, I’m sure, did not approve). This fence was made of foreboding chain link and twice the height of a good-sized man, topped with razor-sharp circles of barbed wire. The only thing that looks halfway decent is the curving arch over the entrance drive and the stone monument just beside it. The arch tells visitors, in curving steel, that this is the Florida State Prison. The stone monument spells it out further: Department of Corrections, Florida State Prison.

This is where they send the big boys: the felons.

I can’t imagine Jim inside. He’s been hanging on for our date.

I can’t wait to see him.

***

When Jim and I went on our first date (after our getting-acquainted morning cocktail hour at his house) we went to Ft. DeSoto beach, a beautiful stretch of white sand just off of St. Petersburg Beach. Because it’s in a state park, the beach is backed up not by high-rises with balconies overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, but with a view that nature intended. Instead of bricks and mortar (and the attendant Florida tourists), Ft. DeSoto beach has only sand dunes, sea grass, and mangroves as a backdrop. It’s another blazing hot day and I’ve brought lunch for Jim and me (with a thermos full of mai tais…Jim’s favorite) and we spend the entire afternoon listening to the waves roll in and watching a matronly pair wade along the shoreline, net bags in hand, collecting starfish and shells.

Jim tells me about the last job he had before he went on this extended period of unemployment and how he worked as a graphic designer. He tells me about what led to his dismissal: picking up a stranger one night and bringing him back to his workplace. Out of lube, and always imaginative, Jim went into his supervisor’s cube and found some very creative use for the waxy (and slippery) substance those in the cosmetology trade call lipstick. The couple made quite a mess, not the least of which was Jim’s being fired the next day.

Jim was like that: a little imp, unable to play by the rules.

Life has a way of getting the attention of those who go against its conventions by biting them in the ass.

***

Getting into the Florida State Prison is a lot easier than getting out, but there are some obstacles. In order to arrange for my date with Jim, I had to go through the chaplain, who put me on the very short list of visitors who could come and visit him (not that there was a long list of admirers waiting to be put on that list; only Jim’s parents so far had come to check him out in his new digs—and they had made the trip all the way from Downer’s Grove, Illinois). Once inside the prison, I had to go through an anteroom, where I had to sign in and then subject myself to being frisked, right down to removing my boots to ensure I wasn’t securing a file in the heel or something. I understood the precautions, silly as they were. Yet Jim was in no shape to escape, even if I had somehow managed to smuggle in everything he would need to slip through Raiford’s well-guarded walls.

Security wasn’t as tight for my last couple of dates with Jim, which had taken place at the Hillsborough County Jail. There, things weren’t as grim, or as lonely. I would line up with a whole room full of chattering visitors, get checked in, and then be off to converse with Jim through a wall of Plexiglas, under the admiring eyes of some of the other inmates. Jealousy is such a petty thing, and particularly annoying when you’re trying to have an intimate moment with your date, while those behind him wonder what it would take to make you their bitch.

But that was before Jim’s case was adjudicated and they sent him north, to the state prison. That was before Jim began to get really sick.

***

Now, a guard down a colorless hallway leads me to the prison infirmary. I know this will be my last date with Jim and it’s hard not to recall all the laughs we shared before he was caught (he had violated his parole in Illinois, where he had been convicted of grand theft auto) at various beaches along the Gulf of Mexico, in Cuban restaurants, just listening to music at my apartment.

It’s also hard not to remember the additional details that brought him here: how, in a fit of depression, he had set fire to his roommate’s house. What did he have to be depressed about, anyway? He was only dying from AIDS (this was in the early 1990s and the drug cocktails that would keep many of his brethren living full lives were still on the horizon), isolated, and on the run from the law. Why be sad when he could number his only friends (me) at the number one? Why be sad when my friendship was not borne out of a common love for the arts and sarcastic observations about life, but instead courtesy of the Tampa Aids Network, where I had volunteered to be an AIDS buddy and was assigned to Jim?

I wasn’t sure I wanted to see Jim. He had written me, before he was confined to the infirmary, about how the other inmates taunted him and called him Spot, because of the Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions that covered him from head to toe (and continued, even now, to eat his fragile body and soul alive). I didn’t know what to expect. The last time I had seen him, he was still vibrant, still Jim: a little blond man with a quick smile and bottomless kindness.

I knew he had deteriorated…and I knew it was going to be bad.

***

Jim was alone in the room of the infirmary where they had done, I suppose, what they could to ensure his comfort. Other beds awaited other inmates, with maladies less deadly, I hoped, than Jim’s.

And there he was. Asleep. He looked frail and vulnerable, not at all what you’d imagine if you thought of the terms “convicted felon” or “state pen inmate.” His face, once tanned and vibrant, was covered with purple sores. My Jim had turned into a monster in the short time that had elapsed since we last saw one another.

He turned to me and opened his eyes. At least his eyes, blue as those waters we once sat beside, had stayed the same. It took him a minute or two to recognize me, but when he did, he smiled. I moved close to the bed and took his hand. With my other hand, I touched his forehead, where a fever raced around inside, hot as the air outside these prison walls.

I don’t remember what we talked about on our last date. Probably not much; Jim drifted in and out of sleep while I stood beside him, sometimes even in the middle of a sentence: mine or even his own. He did manage to tell me about his parents’ visit the day before, how his mother had collapsed in grief the moment she saw him.

I wanted this last time of ours together to be meaningful. But what, really, is there to say, at life’s end? I leaned in close and kissed him, my cheek brushing up against one of the lesions. It felt crusty.

The only thing left to say, really, at the end of life, or even the end of a perfect date are three words: “I love you.” Jim whispered back, “I love you, too,” and then he fell asleep.

I crept away.

Jim died the next day. The chaplain very kindly told me, when he called, that he thought Jim had hung on long enough to see me. I hung up the phone and slipped outside to my patio and looked across the surface of the pond just steps away. A wind rippled across the deep green water, making the grass at the water’s edge sway. A white ibis pecked at something along the shore.

I thought of a silly drawing Jim had sent me a couple months ago. It was a colored pencil caricature of a fat middle-aged woman I had written about; she was naked and riding a surfboard. Jim had called it “Amelia’s Hawaiian Adventure.”

The picture made me laugh when all I really wanted to do was cry. But my eyes were dry. Maybe it was just Jim’s influence as he looked down, trying to replace grief with hilarity. I laughed until I was almost breathless and had to sit down, cross-legged, on the concrete.

Finally my laughs turned to sobs and I faced away from the pond and toward the sliding glass doors. The glass was bright with sun and I swore I could see Jim reflected there. He mouthed some words and I strained to read them through my tears. “Glad you could drop by.” I swallowed, containing myself and think: me too, Jim. Someone else might think our last date was kind of sucky, but for me it was perfect. After all, a perfect date is marked by a timeless connection and an intimacy borne of true love. Maybe I didn’t get the chance to bring you flowers or candy, but this date we had…well, it will be the one that will always stand out in my mind as my best, because I like to think that I sent you off, free, with the words “I love you,” lingering in your mind.

Rick R. Reed is the award-winning author of eleven novels and has been referred to as "the Stephen King of gay horror." Visit his website here and his blog here.

Alyssa Bustamante: Suspected teenage killer's friend says she wanted to murder

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:34:00 +0000

BY COREY MITCHELL

Accused teenage killer Alyssa Bustamante did indeed say she wanted to know what it felt like to kill another human being, according to her best friend, Jennifer Meyer, who appeared on CBS's "The Early Show" Monday morning.

Read the entire High Profile Crime Examiner report by Corey Mitchell - Alyssa Bustamante: Suspected teenage killer's friend says she wanted to murder

The Librarian’s Sticky Fingers

incoldblog@aol.com (Michelle McKee) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:13:00 +0000

By Steven Long

HOUSTON – It always begins the same way. Just when you least expect it a voice comes on the phone in hushed tones. Sometimes I recognize the person, sometimes I don’t. One, a dear friend once made such a call and even refused to acknowledge her name.

It was such a call that tipped me to one of the most bizarre investigative stories of my entire career.

Galveston in the early ‘90s was booming. I had left the island city after making a name for myself there by doing iconoclastic stories the rocked the establishment of that old hidebound town where every person has his own niche, every move is watched, and it seems every single one of island’s souls knows the other one. So when I got the call from somebody snitching out a fellow worker, a semi high ranking government employee, it wasn’t unusual that I knew the caller. But this was a different kind of bureaucrat who had a hand in the taxpayer’s till.

“Nobody can know I told you this,” he said in hushed tones.

“You have my word on it,” my standard reply.

Assured that his identity would be held secret, my source began to tell me he was convinced that the head librarian of the oldest medical school west of the Mississippi was stealing rare sixteenth century medical texts from his own library – and selling them.

Frankly, at that point I believed I had heard it all in my career

The librarian, Emil Frey, had the reputation of being aloof, an imperious sort, and the kind of intellectual who wore his intelligence on his forehead held high so the light would almost penetrate to his oversized brain. He wore bow ties, a tell tale sign that the person who sported them viewed himself apart from lesser beings.

So when I called Frey and asked him if he was stealing the exquisite texts from his own library I was met, not with outrage, but stunned silence. I asked him to name what was missing. Again silence was my answer. The silence told me all I needed to know. The guy knew he was had. He was so shocked in his arrogance that anybody would dare to say such a thing to him, so shocked that his cover-up was blown, so stunned that his he was being confronted by the great unwashed that he was speechless. Guilt oozed from his silence, my journalist’s well worn antennae told me.

I knew through my source that the FBI was investigating. Moreover, I learned from sources inside the university’s administration that the investigation centered on 80 books from the library’s 18,000 volume rare book collection.

Twelve days after I broke the first story, Frey resigned his $83 K position. Shortly thereafter I confirmed that Interpol was on the case indicating that the librarian was under investigation for possibly selling the books abroad. The Houston Chronicle published day after day of my stories keeping the investigation before the public.

The university changed the library’s locks and told Frey he couldn’t return to retrieve his personal belongings without an armed escort of university police. They were hell bent to guard a collection dating to the 14th century and valued in the millions.

Shortly thereafter, Emil Frey, 62, surrendered to authorities after a felony theft indictment was returned. A grand jury charged him with stealing five of the 80 missing books and selling them through a New York bookseller. After being released on bond, the librarian hot footed it out of town only to return to make a guilty plea and receive a short sentence.

Shortly thereafter, my phone rang again.

“They would have swept it under the rug had you not done those stories,” a quiet but still fearful voice whispered.

“I know,” I said.

Fort Hood Massacre: Nidal Malik Hasan's status changed to pretrial detainee

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:33:00 +0000

Fort Hood Massacre: Nidal Malik Hasan's status changed to pretrial detainee

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FORT HOOD MASSACRE: First hearing set for Hasan

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:47:00 +0000

BY COREY MITCHELL

I am happy to announce that I have taken on the position of High Profile Crime Expert at Examiner.com. I will be writing on the hottest true crime cases of the day, every day. I hope you will stop by often.

My first article is on Fort Hood Massacre shooting suspect, Nidal Malik Hasan, and his recent bedside pretrial hearing.

Again, I encourage you to get your daily headlines with me at my Examiner page and, of course, always come back to In Cold Blog to read what all of our outstanding contributors have to share.

An Outlaw's Rhapsody

joemckinney2033@yahoo.com (Joe McKinney) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:20:00 +0000

By Joe McKinney

As a kid, I would sometimes sit through an episode of The Brady Bunch, hoping beyond hope to get a glimpse of Marsha in her underwear. Unfortunately, that never happened. However, I do remember one episode that resonated with me. It was called “Bobby’s Hero,” which, for all of you keeping score at home, was episode 90 from season four. In it, Bobby develops a fascination with Jesse James. He writes a paper on the outlaw, and brings home a C+. But, worse than that, Mike and Carol get a concerned call from the principal. The Bradys discover that their youngest is worshipping a common criminal, one who built a reputation on shooting innocents in the back. The episode ends when the dire warnings of an old man prompt Bobby to have a nightmare in which his entire family is ruthlessly murdered by the black-clad Jesse James. Soon after, Bobby sees the error of his ways, and we end on the comfortable reaffirmation of our core family values.

The cynic in me says the reason I enjoyed the episode so much was because it was the only episode in which the entire Brady family gets gunned down. The only thing that would have made it any better would have been a close up of Greg’s brains splattered on the wall. But the quasi-serious academic in me can’t help but think that maybe there was an object lesson in there somewhere. After all, Bobby’s hero worship of Jesse James was hardly unique. Just about every culture and every time period has made a hero of its bygone outlaws. From Robin Hood to Bonnie and Clyde, outlaws turned folk heroes are everywhere. It makes no difference that an outlaw’s crimes fail to jive with their fame; they are heroes nonetheless. They undergo a strange alchemy that changes them from common criminal to champion of the dispossessed. As the poor and downtrodden masses, we identify with the romance the outlaw represents, if not his crimes. We thrill at the romantic adventure, the disguises, the escapes, the thumbing of our collective noses at those who hold power over us.

I’ve been thinking an awful lot about that alchemical process lately, and it occurs to me that the one common denominator across all those different criminals turned folk heroes, is the power of art. A song - specifically, a ballad - can turn the vilest crime into an act of charity. When Robin Hood’s men usurp the spiritual authority of the church, as they do in the ballad “Robin Hood and Allan a Dale,” or murder a police officer, as they do in “Robin Hood and the Widow’s Sons,” the crime itself gets buried in a clever rhyme. What takes center stage is the hypocrisy of the Medieval Church, or the unjust oppression of bad government. We fail to see the horror, the aftermath, the other side of the ballad. Instead, we see a symbol of our own liberation.

Kenedy, Texas: June 12, 1901

Located about 75 miles south of San Antonio, Karnes County is a rugged, beautiful country made up of rolling hills and clear running streams and dense forests of mesquite and oak trees. Its large pastures are thick with Johnson Grass, making it natural ranching country, a life which appealed to the German and Mexican families who settled it in the early 1800s.

By 1901, it was a small, but thriving, community based on corn and cattle. German immigrants grew wealthy, while the Mexican immigrants of the day lived as renters on their ranches. And one of the largest ranches in the area belonged to W. A. Thulemeyer. He rented out a small corner of his property to two young Mexican men, Gregorio and Romaldo Cortez. Both were married. Gregorio had four children; Romaldo and his wife had none. Though Romaldo was the older of the two, Gregorio seems to have been the more mature. It was Gregorio who first made the decision to settle down (the two had for several years worked as itinerant ranch hands throughout South Texas, dragging their families along with them), and it was under Gregorio’s supervision that their corn crops prospered. And it was Gregorio who was fated to become a folk hero of the Texas-Mexico border.

Trouble came to the Cortez brothers on June 12, 1901. A few days before, an unidentified Mexican man had stolen a horse in adjacent Atascosa County. The sheriff in Atascosa had tracked the thief to Karnes County and asked W.T. “Brack” Morris, the sheriff in Karnes County, to pick up the trail. Brack Morris was a former Texas Ranger with a reputation for being quite handy with a pistol. In 1901 he was serving his third term as sheriff and knew nearly everyone in Karnes County. He’d gotten word that Gregorio Cortez had recently acquired a new horse and went out to the Thulemeyer Ranch with a translator to make inquiries.

Morris’ translator was a man named Boone Choate, who seems to have had a higher opinion of his knowledge of Spanish than he perhaps had a right to. They arrived at Gregorio Cortez’s house mid-morning and found a clapboard house set back from the road behind a small, split rail fence. Choate climbed down from the horse-drawn carriage the two men had ridden in on and hollered toward the house while Morris remained in the carriage.

Sensing trouble, Gregorio told Romaldo to go see what the men wanted. Romaldo went out to meet the men. Choate asked if Gregorio was at home. When Romaldo said that he was, Choate told him to get his brother and bring him out.

Romaldo turned to the house and said, “Te quieren,” which in Spanish is the familiar way to say, “Hey, get out here. These guys want to talk to you.”

Unfortunately, when literally translated into English, the phrase means “you are wanted,” which has an entirely different meaning to a police officer. This was the first of three disastrous mistranslations that put Gregorio Cortez on the path to folk hero status.

Gregorio came outside and stood in the yard behind Romaldo. Choate then proceeded to ask Gregorio about the mare he had recently acquired from another Mexican rancher in the area.

Unfortunately, Choate’s Spanish was not up to the task. Instead of using yegua, the Spanish word for mare, he used caballo, which means stallion. Gregorio was understandably confused. He didn’t own a stallion, and he told Choate as much. When Choate’s second translating mistake came back to Morris, it sounded to the ex-Texas Ranger like just another Mexican trying to get away with something. He dropped down from his carriage and ordered Choate to tell the two brothers they were under arrest.

Things get a little murky after that.

Apparently, Gregorio said something that Choate heard and translated as “No white man is going to arrest me.” An obvious threat, if you’re a cop about to the cuffs on somebody.

Later, at his trial, his lawyers said that Gregorio Cortez simply said, “You can’t arrest me for nothing.”

It’s not difficult to picture the scene.

The two brothers, realizing they were about to be arrested, got angry. “Why?” they shouted. “We haven’t done anything.” They were shouting. And Morris, who had no intention of taking any flak from a couple of poor Mexican farmers, went for his gun. Meanwhile, Romaldo advanced on the authorities, hands slicing the air in front of him like a wronged tragedian in a silent movie. Morris shot him in the mouth, wounding, but not killing, him. He then turned to Gregorio, fired, and missed. Gregorio returned fire, and his aim was truer. Morris fell to the ground, hit three times. And Choate doomed himself to villain status by turning and running to a hiding spot in the surrounding chaparral, leaving Morris to bleed to death on the road.

When the smoke cleared, Gregorio picked up the sheriff’s pistol, went inside his house, packed up the wife and kids, and loaded everything into the sheriff’s carriage and rode to Romaldo’s house.

What started out as a misunderstanding based on bad translation was now the murder of a police officer, resisting arrest, and theft of a carriage and two horses.

Gregorio Cortez had greeted the morning as a free man, but now the gallows was looming at his back.

After seeing to his family, Gregorio and Romaldo set out for the nearby town of Kenedy. Romaldo was feverish and fading fast, which left Gregorio with little choice but to deposit him with another branch of their family and set off on his own. He then began a nearly one hundred mile walk to the home of Martin and Refugia Robledo, who rented a home from a wealthy German rancher named Schnabel.

By all rights, Gregorio should have been safe there at the Robledo house. He had evaded several posses on the way, and was relatively sure that no one had tracked him through the rough country.

Unfortunately for him, the sheriff of Gonzales County, Robert M. Glover, was a very good friend of the sheriff Gregorio Cortez had just killed, and Glover was determined to get revenge.

While the other posses were busy wandering the countryside, Glover arrested the women in Gregorio’s family and interrogated them. Using what he learned from them, he organized a posse and headed for Schnabel’s ranch. Though the rumor was never supported with reliable testimony, it appears Glover and his crew picked up a bottle of whiskey on the way to Schnabel’s ranch and had themselves a bit of a wake for the dearly departed Sheriff Brack Morris. They were, in all likelihood, quite drunk when they converged on the Robledo house.

The approaching posse evidently made a great deal of noise as descended on the property, because Gregorio and Martin Robledo were outside, hiding in the brush, waiting for them.

The posse dismounted, with the exception of Glover, and charged the house. Glover rode around to the southeast corner of the property, and there he met up with Cortez. The two men started shooting at one another, and the battle went on until Cortez managed to hit and kill Glover. Cortez then hid, barefoot, in a briar-strewn field until the fight, which grew in legend to become the Battle of Belmont, was over. Then he quietly reentered the house, got his shoes, and fled.

Meanwhile, the posse had their blood up. They engaged the Robledo family and ultimately captured them, but not before Schnabel was shot in the face. He was killed instantly, and there is still some doubt as to who actually inflicted the fatal wound. Mrs. Robledo was charged with the crime, but convincing evidence was raised during the trial to suggest that the fatal shot actually came from another deputy named Tom Harper. But regardless of the cause of Schnabel’s death, the focus remained on Gregorio Cortez. He was now wanted for the death of two sheriffs, and every lawman in the state was itching to put a noose around his neck.

He fled to another friend’s house, where he was given a horse, saddle, and gun, and from there embarked on a mad dash across the state, bound for Laredo. Along the way, he became the subject of the largest manhunt in Texas history. At one point, a posse of three hundred deputies and conscripts (though contrary to legend, the Texas Rangers were not involved at that point) pursued him.

Cortez managed to elude them at every turn. For ten days he used tricks and courage and just plain luck to stay one step ahead of everybody before finally getting turned in by a friend to the Texas Rangers, who took him into custody without firing a shot.

Cortez was taken to San Antonio, where he was tried and convicted for numerous crimes. Despite multiple trials and attempts to lynch him, his death sentence was ultimately commuted by Texas Governor Oscar Colquitt. He was released from prison in 1913 and died three years later of pneumonia.

The Man and the Legend

It’s not hard to see why Cortez became a folk hero. After all, Mexicans living in South Texas, whether legally or otherwise, have long been treated like dirt by their white neighbors. For the thousands of Mexicans living in poverty, Gregorio Cortez was a shooting star. Here was one of their own making the assembled might of the white establishment look like a bunch of chumps. Like Robin Hood before him, he underwent an apotheosis at the hands of balladeers, who immortalized him in song.

Here is Hally Wood’s beautiful translation of “El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez,” which I found in Americo Paredes’ book With His Pistol in his Hand:

In the county of El Carmen
A great misfortune befell;
The Major Sheriff is dead;
Who killed him no one can tell.

At two in the afternoon,
In half an hour or less,
They knew that the man who killed him
Had been Gregorio Cortez.

They let loose the bloodhound dogs;
They followed him from afar.
But trying to catch Cortez
Was like following a star.

All the rangers of the county
Were flying, they rode so hard;
What they wanted was to get
The thousand-dollar reward.

And in the county of Kiansis
They cornered him after all;
Though they were more than three hundred
He leaped out of their corral.

Then the Major Sheriff said,
As if he was going to cry,
“Cortez, hand over your weapons;
We want to take you alive.”

Then said Gregorio Cortez,
And his voice was like a bell,
“You will never get my weapons
Till you put me in a cell.”

Then said Gregorio Cortez,
With his pistol in his hand,
“Ah, so many mounted Rangers
Just to take one Mexican!”

There are innumerable variants of the story, and each embellishes some element of the manhunt. Gregorio’s flight became a vehicle upon which the Mexican folk ballads of northern Mexico and South Texas, a tradition collectively known as corridos, heaped tale after tale of daring do.

This process seems to have started relatively early. The newspapers of the day show a great deal of divisiveness about Gregorio Cortez and what his punishment should be. In some cases, such as with the San Antonio Express News, articles would run side by side, one calling for the immediate lynching of Gregorio Cortez, the other praising his resourcefulness, his courage, his pluck. Mexicans, and a few Anglos as well, took up the story and made Gregorio Cortez into a local god.

The corrido tradition surrounding Cortez became so elaborate, in fact, that by 1958 Americo Paredes was able to devote an entire book to separating Gregorio Cortez the man from Gregorio Cortez the legend. Paredes’ book, With His Pistol in his Hand, remains the finest treatment of the Gregorio Cortez story. In almost every respect, it is a fair and honest attempt to get at the truth of what happened during those ten days in June, 1901. And it is also a loving tribute to the Mexican musical tradition of the corrido.

But in my mind Paredes’ book does take the logical next step and connect the role of art in making heroes out of criminals. Look at Robin Hood, immortalized in songs, novels and movies. Look at the gangsters, bank robbers and rum runners of the 1930s immortalized by the pulp fiction industry and Hollywood. Bonnie and Clyde are no longer reckless psychopaths; they are Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway enacting a modern fable of true love pitted against the cold, indifferent world. Robert Ford, who shot Jesse James in the back (an act that arguably saved a good many innocent lives), is now reviled as a coward and an assassin, lumped in with the likes of the Sheriff of Nottingham and King John.

It seems, ultimately, that crime can pay...as long as you have a soundtrack.

The Narcocorrido: An Afterward

Somewhere out there somebody is saying, “Yeah, but...Robin Hood, he lived a long time ago. His crimes have been whitewashed by time and circumstance and political irrelevance. Today we know the Medieval church stood in the way of scientific progress and that it committed more sins that it helped to prevent. The Sheriff of Nottingham was a villain, through and through. He deserved to meet up with someone like Robin Hood and his Merry Men. And besides, none of that applies to us. All Robin Hood is these days is a historical abstraction, like King Arthur. Lighten up, man. It’s just a story.

Even Gregorio Cortez, whose biography is fairly well documented, is from another time. The players in his drama have been dead for more than half a century, right? What’s the harm in making up stories about him?

Well, there’s nothing wrong with having heroes, to be sure. People need heroes. And they’re going to look for them among their own. Not only do heroes provide the sense of adventure I craved as a boy, but they validate one’s way of life. For the Mexicans in the smoky cantinas of South Texas, Gregorio Cortez was a literal expression of what could be, of what any of them could be. Robin Hood represented the same thing to the oppressed lower classes in England. So heroes, as a Platonic form, are not bad. Far from it.

But there is a danger here, depending upon your point of view. Art, after all, is not static. Just as communities change, take on new systems of moral value and new economies, so too do the stories those communities tell. And today, a good part of the South Texas border culture is wrapped up in drugs and illegal migration and violence. Yes, there are still good and true people living along the border, but to paraphrase Thoreau, they are living lives of quiet desperation. They are surrounded by drug cartels that openly engage the government, that kill indiscriminately, that piggy back off the migrant worker’s illegal border crossing quest for a better way of life. The reality of life on the border is one of violence and fear.

And the corrido has changed to reflect this new reality. A new form of the folk ballad has emerged called the narcocorrido, or drug ballad. These are polka-based dance tunes that tell the story of drug runners and border criminals. They are extremely popular. Early examples of the form date back to 1930s, but it wasn’t until the 1970s, when the band Los Tigres del Norte took the Mexican music world by storm, that narcocorrido rose to prominence.

Today, nearly forty years later, the narcocorrido is a mainstay of Mexican music. The ballads its practitioners write and perform contain the exploits of real people. They describe real crimes. And they are making heroes of drug dealers in much the same way as earlier corridos made a hero of Gregorio Cortez.

Except that nowadays the bands performing narcocorridos can reach hundreds of millions of people.

Go anywhere south of the Rio Grande with a picture of Los Tigres del Norte or Rosalino “Chalino” Sanchez, and you won’t have to look very hard to find somebody who knows all their songs by heart.

The implications are frightening. Tempers on both sides of the border are short enough as it is. People become rabid when you start discussing immigration. Add to that the very real threat of drugs and organized warfare sponsored by drug cartels, and you might as well drop a lit match into a powder keg. It will take us years, maybe even several generations, to heal the mistrust that has risen up between the United States and Mexico.

The narcocorrido, I think, will help to deepen that mistrust, rather than help to heal it. Looking back on Gregorio Cortez, we can view his story within the context of the racism of his day, a factor that goes a long way toward mitigating his crimes. We can root for him during his adventures because our modern sensibilities tell us that he was treated unjustly, that he was made a criminal just because he was a Mexican living in an Anglo world. But we can’t say that about the hero of a narcocorrido. When he kills a Los Angeles policeman and flees back to a little village south of the border, thumbing his nose at American justice as he runs, we don’t get to couch his crime in terms of human rights and a demand for dignified treatment. All we can see is a worm eating its way through our moral bread basket. And with heroes like that, who needs villains?

Joe McKinney is a horror, crime, and science fiction writer from San Antonio. He is also a homicide detective for the San Antonio Police Department.

Killers and Their Families

noreply@blogger.com (Corey Mitchell) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:53:00 +0000

By Harry MacLean

Writers often tend to focus on the effects of the crimes they cover on the victims and their families. Which is as it should be. Every now and then, though, I’m reminded of the families of the criminals themselves, which we tend to treat less kindly, as if there’s some sort of guilt by association.

Not too long after IN BROAD DAYLIGHT came out, I received a long letter from one of Ken McElroy’s many, many children. She was objecting to how I portrayed her father, and insisted that he was a kind, loving man who had never abused his children or his wives/girlfriends.

When the man who allegedly shot McElroy as he sat in his pickup on the main street of town died a few months ago, I wrote of him in a blog as a heavy drinker and hot-tempered man. One of his family members wrote in that he was not hot tempered unless provoked by people like me, and he was well-loved by family and friends.

In my latest book, THE PAST IS NEVER DEAD, involving the trial of James Ford Seale (pictured above) in 2007 for the murder of two black youths in 1964, I mentioned the rumors that Seale’s first wife was manic-depressive and had possibly committed suicide. One of her grandsons wrote an angry letter to me insisting that she was a wonderful upbeat woman, and berating me for needlessly ripping on her.

I tend to dismiss these sorts of complaints as coming from the predictably aggrieved. I’ve begun to give them a second look. Many of these people have done nothing wrong, and often to them their father or grandfather or whoever did the crime is a human being they’ve grown up loving. Naturally, they’re going to be defensive; naturally they’re going to be unhappy about how their relative was portrayed. They can’t be objective.

Could you be?

This won’t change the way I write, or what I write about, but I’ve resolved to be a little more understanding of those who may also be innocent—the friends and family members of the killers themselves (assuming, of course, that they have had nothing to do with the crimes themselves, or in creating the perpetrator of the crimes).

It’s important for true crime writers to attend to their own humanity.

Harry N. MacLean is an Edgar Award winning true crime author. You can find out more about Harry and his books by visiting his website at HarryMacLean.com.

Before Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd Jr. There was Paul Broussard

noreply@blogger.com (andy kahan) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:51:00 +0000

By Andy Kahan

For the fourth time since he was sentenced to 45 years in 1992 for the brutal murder of 27 year-old Paul Broussard, Jon Buice is once again eligible for to be released on Parole after serving 17 years.

On July 3rd, 1991 Buice was a member of a gang of 10 young men who drove from The Woodlands which is roughly 30 miles north of Houston to a section in Houston called Montrose to quote several of them "To beat up queers". The gang had previously descended upon the Montrose area to throw "Queer Rocks" at gays who were walking in the neighborhood.

Paul and two friends had just departed a nightclub that evening when the "Woodlands Ten" stopped them for directions. The pack of wolves immediately descended upon Paul and began attacking him with fists, steel toed boots, nail studded 2 X 4's and a knife wielding Jon Buice. Paul suffered abrasions, a broken rib, bruised testicles and three stab wounds. As Paul lay writhing on the ground, his attackers rifled through his clothes looking for money.

Paul died from his wounds eight and half hours later after this brutal, vicious and hate-filled violent act. Paul a graduate of Texas A&M had his whole future taken from him simply because he was gay. Paul was attacked and murdered because he was gay. If the crime occurred today there is no doubt Buice and the others would be prosecuted under the new Federal Hate Crime Statute titled: The Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd Jr. Act. I firmly believe the primary motive for The Woodlands Ten was a Hate Crime against an entire community with designs to intimidate.

Believe it or not there is a ground-swelling of support for the early release of Jon Buice. His paid consultants claim that Jon was young and under the influence of drugs and alcohol. One of his attorney's stated on a local television show that Paul's death was a "Little altercation" and that Jon only had a small pocket knife on him. The attorney further elaborated that the stab wounds did not cause Paul's death and that he died of blood loss due to delay by Houston Paramedics who were afraid of HIV.

A prominent Gay-Rights Activist claimed Paul laid on the ground for over an hour and that emergency personnel would not touch him for fear of contracting Aids. The activist on local television claimed that I was and still am protecting the city from civil liability and that I have steered Paul's mother Nancy away from filing a suit against the city. He further commented that Jon is a "Fine young man". Somehow the fact that Jon showed off the knife and bragged to others he stabbed Paul seemingly is lost to his supporters.

Buice will no doubt once again have a hired gun i.e. a Parole Consultant advocating that he has served more than enough time and it is appropriate to grant him Parole. Strangely enough I received an email from one of Jon's former cell mates who has gone on the record stating that he is not all that rehabilitated. A letter sent to the Parole Board advises members that Jon is a first class manipulator and still prefers to hang out with supremacist offenders. The letter also states that Jon does indeed know how to deal with the prison system like a pro which should explain his exemplary behavior, however if he does not get his way he becomes really angry and mean spirited.

Again, the above was unsolicited and is coming from someone who lived next to him for several years.

Paul's mother Nancy has had to endure not only the painful loss of her son but has spent 17 years immersed in the roller-coaster trials and tribulations of our criminal justice system. Nancy and I have attended so many Parole Hearings on at least seven of the defendants that I literally lost rack of how many times we had to plead to the Board to keep those who elected of their own free will to take Pauls' life.

In 2007, Nancy and I met with the Parole Board and we respectfully requested that if parole is denied to please exercise your professional judgement by granting a five year-set-off. Nancy travels from out-of-state each time and it would be more than humane to cut her some slack by utilizing the maximum set-ff as prescribed by law. We enacted legislation in 2003 to allow Parole Board members to grant five year denials for obvious no brainer cases like this, yet for some reason still to this day we have yet to granted such a break.

On Nov. 17th, Nancy and I will once again meet with the Parole Board and plead our case. And yes, once again we will be asking that if Parole is denied that the Board exercise their professional judgement by giving Nancy the maximum set-off which at the very least will allow her more time to heal and certainly give the Board more time to consider cases more worthy of consideration. A statement from a member of The Texas House of Representatives pretty much sums it all up when she wrote to the Parole Board, "While Ms. Rodriguez should be commended for her dedication to her son and the pursuit of justice in his memory, it should be noted that I do not see why she should have to suffer through this time and time again when there is an available alternative to the Parole Board, i.e. a Five Year Set-Off".

For those who care to weigh in on whether or not Parole should be granted, I would encourage all to exercise your First Amendment Rights by voicing your opinion to The Texas Dept. of Criminal Justices Victim Services by emailing: Victim.svc@tdcj.state.tx.us---please reference Jon Buice,TDCJ# 630496.

An Anti Social Culture

incoldblog@aol.com (Michelle McKee) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:40:00 +0000

By Carol Anne Davis

The police have said that anti-social behaviour is no longer a police matter in Britain, that it’s a job for local authorities. They made this outlandish statement at the recent inquest of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter Francecca, who burned to death in October 2007.

Fiona lived in Leicester with her two children, a teenage daughter who had a mental age of four and a learning-disabled nine year old son, and was bullied on an almost daily basis by a loosely-formed gang of local youths, ranging from age ten to seventeen. The abuse had been going on in various forms for seven years. Some of them smashed bottles outside her home whilst others screamed insults at her and her children. Her son Antony had stones thrown at him as he rode his bike and was asked to buy cigarettes for younger kids. At night, the menacing gang would hang around outside her house for hours, shouting abuse and keeping her awake.

The vulnerable single parent wrote to her MP, admitting that she didn’t know what to do to keep her children safe. She often phoned police but it could be four days before an officer attended. Sometimes no one turned up.

In fairness to the police, she sometimes over reacted, phoning them to complain that teenagers were smoking outside her home. But even when her claims were valid - she had five of her windows broken by the thugs in the space of a few weeks - nothing was done. In the year leading up to the murder-suicide, she phoned and emailed community support and beat officers on thirteen occasions, admitting that she was often too afraid to go out, that she was becoming a prisoner in her own home.

The authorities knew who the ringleaders were but regarded it as `mere’ anti-social behaviour. But, as many of the taunts circulated around the children’s disabilities, it was actually a hate crime which should have been given a much higher priority. Yet community officers who visited the home had no idea that it included two learning-disabled children who had been terrorised for much of their lives.

The warning signs continued, with Fiona Pilkington admitting to social services that she felt suicidal. They should have referred her to the mental health authorities, but instead took no action. Police also failed to link with other services, and, as a result, no one had the full picture of a family under siege.

Eventually, the depressed and anxious thirty-eight-year-old had had enough. She put her eighteen-year-old daughter Francecca and her pet rabbit in her car and drove to a layby. Parking, she set the vehicle alight with petrol, burning herself and her daughter to death.

The public were shocked by her acts and the circumstances leading up to it, but even more shocked by the attitude of the police, suggesting that this was a local authority issue. The government was equally incensed and attacked their mindset as ludicrous.

The Home Secretary has now issued guidelines to make thuggery a priority target, and thugs who breach their ASBOS will be taken back to court and dealt with accordingly. Local people who have the courage to testify against them will get additional help. It’s too late for Fiona Pilkington and her daughter but perhaps another equally vulnerable family will be saved.

All of the books by Carol Anne Davis are available from amazon.co.uk in Britain and some are on sale at the American amazon.com. For further details please see her website at www.carolannedavis.co.uk