'Twas The Day After Thanksgiving

by Donna Pendergast

'Twas the day after Thanksgiving and all through the land

The shoppers were awake, the agenda was planned

The coffee was brewing, the tennies were laced

The stores would soon open, around the house they all raced

The stores were all decked out with flash holiday flair

with hope that the shoppers would soon buy their fare

And Mom with her coupons and dad with his cash

had compiled a list for the mad morning dash

When all of a sudden there arose such a clatter

Mall doors were now open, 'twas all that would matter

The crowd surged ahead in a frenzy quite crazy

Not a place for the weak and worse for the lazy.

Holiday lights in the window of a once simple store

gave the luster of magic to something quite plain before

When what to my wondering eyes should appear

But a runaway mob propelled from the rear.

Push forward, move faster, don't worry where you tread

Don't look back, don't falter, think bargains ahead

From outside the front door, for the length of the mall

Now dash away, dash away, dash away all.

Like leaves in the middle of a wild tornado fly

run for the shops, many presents to buy

Super special sale and bargains galore

but you need to move quickly and get through the door

Then in a twinkling, a voice on the mike

Door buster special, something you'll like

You need to get this deal, you need to buy more

But you better move fast, only five units per store."

So off to that aisle, shoppers flew in a flash

I'm going to get me one and save tons of cash

But I only can do it by fighting off the crowd

I need to be brazen, I musn't be cowed.

As boxes fly  into carts full of loot

get out of the way or I'll give you a boot

I need to get this deal, my kid needs this toy

And I'm on a mission to search and destroy
.

Don't you know it's Black Friday, only one thing to say?

Survival of the fittest is the order of the day

I'm going for the deals, I want only the best

I can't stop or falter, I can't take a rest.

Up and down the corridors, until plum out of steam

I got all my bargains, my haul is a dream

I'm done hitting stores from morning to night

Merry Christmas to all, you put up a good fight.

Black Friday is one of the most anticipated shopping days of the year for bargain-hunting shoppers. It's a time to hit the stores and officially launch the holiday shopping season. But criminals look forward to the shopping season for a very different reason. Based on experience I can tell you that they are hoping to take advantage and prey on shoppers. Be a smart shopper and heed these safety tips:

1. Avoid the ATM. Early Friday morning is no time to be hitting the money machine for a dose of cash. If you absolutely need to visit the ATM, be safe about it. Use a well-lit ATM inside an open establishment. Be especially mindful of anyone who appears to be watching you near an ATM. Also be aware of anything that seems unusual about the ATM machine itself. Criminals have become adept at rigging ATM machines to trap your card which they will extract from the rigged machine after you walk away. They can later use it by entering your pin number which they have learned by either watching you punch it in up close or watching from afar with binoculars.

2. Be Alert. Pay attention to surroundings and keep an eye out for any unusual activity. Park under lights and shop with a buddy. If you have to exit your car in a dark parking lot, wait for a crowd that is heading toward the store or mall as well.

3. Keep your purse close to your body and tightly shut. I have personally been the victim of a pickpocket who was so adroit that he was able to lift my wallet out of my purse while it was on my shoulder. I never felt a thing. Keep a tight leash on your purse and be alert in crowds and aware of persons bumping up against you. A neat tip for your purse if you are putting it in a shopping cart. Put it in the child seat area and lace the seatbelt straps through the purse handle and lock them. This prevents a thief from running by and grabbing it on the run.

4. Don't fight. Black Friday can bring out the worst in shoppers. A good deal is not worth a physical altercation.

Be safe out there tomorrow. Happy shopping, and remember, people. it's only stuff!  Today, think of what's really important and be thankful for what you already have.

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Times Up

by Donna Pendergast

It was a call that I never expected to get.  Susan Murphy-Milano was on the line and she wanted me to write the foreword to her book Times Up. I had to repeat the words to make sure I understood. "You want ME to write the foreword to your book," I  asked with incredulity? to which she answered, "Yes."

I could almost hear the smile in her voice as she repeated her request.  She went on to give her reasons, stating how much she admired me and what I had accomplished in my career and how she could think of no one else who she would rather have write the foreword to her new book.  As I listened through the fog, the words kept repeating in my mind, "She wants ME to write the foreword to HER book." WOW.

As I listened to her reasons, all I could think was why is this incredible woman saying all these things about me-she is the hero? We ended the call with me agreeing to write the foreword and her expressing her utmost gratitude that I would honor her by accepting her request. Honor to her? I thought as I hung up the phone. You have got to be kidding me. For the truth is, I was the one who was overwhelmed and honored. I never dreamed at the time that her chosen title for the book would be eerily prophetic.

In hindsight, I now know that the tone of that call was nothing out of the ordinary. For Susan, it has never been all about herself but rather always about everyone else. She has spent her life looking out for and trying to ensure that women in abusive relationships didn't have their lives cut short because they were naive and in denial as to the inevitable outcome of  their dangerous situations. You see for Susan it was a matter of life and death, she had seen a horrific outcome first hand and she was determined that no one else would have to experience what she had gone through.

In January 1989, Susan's father, Philip Murphy, a 30-year Chicago police officer and decorated violent crimes investigator killed her mother with his .44-caliber service weapon.  He then took his own life by shooting himself in the head.  It was the culmination of a violent and abusive pattern of behavior which had characterized her parents entire marriage. After finding her parents' bodies, Susan vowed to change the way intimate partner homicides are handled and investigated. It was to become a lifelong crusade which undertook with ferocity and passion.

She went on to become a nationally renowned  crusader and women's rights advocate who spent her career advocating for women and children who are the victims of domestic violence. A much sought after speaker she has been regularly featured on shows such a  "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "Larry King Live," MSNBC, CNN. The list goes on.   Her books Defending Our Lives, Moving Out, Moving On, Times Up, and the just released Holding My Hand Through Hell have empowered scores of women and set the standard as the go to  tomes for women in trouble. She was a contributor here at Women In Crime Ink for a period of time but had to give it up because  of the demands on her time and the need to fulfill other commitments.

But  it was what she did behind the scenes that really defines Susan as a person.  Always available on the other end of a phone she personally involved herself in the fight to keep women safe sometimes at considerable risk to her own personal safety.  I personally  was the recipient of Susan's concern and compassion last year when I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer.She was always at the other end of a phone and her calls always seemed to come when I needed them most. In her personal life and her professional life Susan burned the candle at both ends and saved more lives than we will ever know.

As the fates would have it, she couldn't save her own. On October 1, Susan decided to forego her treatment and let nature take its course with her cancer.  I was blessed in my situation, needing no radiation nor chemotheraphy after my initial surgery. Susan was not as lucky. Without treatment, she is reported to be declining rapidly, although comfortable and well cared for by a team of hospice care workers and a dear and committed friend who is holding her hands toward heaven. It is a cruel and unfair irony. The woman who saved so many lives can not save her own.  She has fought a valiant fight but this  demon  is  just too strong. We all, of course, hope for a miracle, but the odds are hugely against her and time is said to be running out.

Susan realizes more than most that time can be short.  She has lived life fully grasping it and making the most of it, and she will leave behind  a larger legacy than most can ever hope to leave behind. So I know I speak on behalf of Susan when I say these words,  fight the fear, follow your dream, seize the day, don't be afraid to love, take a chance. You never know when your time might be up.

Go softly on the wings of angels, sister. You have earned some rest. I love you!

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.

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The Throw Away Child

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.

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Justice: An Elusive Concept

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.

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Milford Memories: A Haunted Park

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.

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Caveat Emptor: If Walls Could Talk

by Donna Pendergast


Stigmatized property is property which buyers or tenants may shun for reasons that are unrelated to its physical condition or features. Homes which have been the sites of murders, suicide or which have been reportedly inhabited by ghosts all qualify as stigmatized properties. It is a psychological taint rather than a taint associated with the physical condition of a property. The National Association of Realtors defines stigmatized property as property that has been "psychologically impacted by an event which occurred or was suspected to have occurred on the property such event being one that has no physical impact of any kind."

The Amityville Horror house (pictured above) is an example of a property contaminated by a sordid past. It appears cheery and comfortable but it's history is anything but. Six of seven members of the Ronald DeFeo family were murdered here in 1974 by DeFeo's oldest son who later was convicted of all crimes. George and Kathy Lutz moved in a year later and began to report unusual and bizarre paranormal activity. These events later became the subject of the best selling book and movie The Amityville Horror. Another movie Grave Secrets: The Legacy of Hilltop Drive chronicles true events surrounding a house located near an abandoned graveyard where two human graves were found during excavation for a swimming pool. A series of inexplicable paranormal events followed this discovery. The Jon Benet Ramsey house and the house where Nicole Bown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were murdered are also examples of properties tainted by association with a horrific event.

The subject of stigmatized properties is a complex one and the rules vary state by state. Currently about half of the states have laws requiring disclosure of psychological impairment. Other states such as California have passed legislation limiting the requirement for disclosure of a murder or other violent event to three years after the event. Even in the states with disclosure statutes there is variability in what defects must be disclosed.

Where I live in Michigan there is no hard and fast stigma disclosure statute. The language in the form required under Michigan's Seller Disclosure Act suggests that residential sellers are not required to disclose information about the properly beyond it's physical condition. Since a seller normally does not make any form of representation about the stigmatizing event a claim or fraud or misrepresentation can not be sustained.

Yet many believe that he "bad karma" associated with a violent history or a gruesome reputation should mandate disclosure. Even thought the property may not be changed in a physical way the perception of it has changed and the buyers willingness to purchase may well be impacted. Stigmas also impact the value and future salability of a property.

Buyers make emotional rather than rational decisions when they purchase property. How a property "feels" is often the most factor when purchasing a piece of real estate. So would a property feel differently to a prospective buyer if they knew about the history or the psychic imprint associated with that parcel? With most purchasers that question can only be answered in the affirmative. Knowing that a property is tainted by association with murder, suicide or frightening paranormal phenomenon may well be a deal breaker. The lives and deaths of a home's former residents are considered to be a material consideration by many who want to make decisions based on full consideration of all factors.

What do you think? If you really loved a house would a home's sordid past impact your decision to buy? What about if you got a significant price reduction?

As for this girl-----I like to sleep at night. I'm taking no chances.




Statements 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

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Greek Cabby Drives Home Unfortunate Truth

by Donna Pendergast

Having recently returned from a two-week trip to Greece, I continue to ponder the provocative conversation I had with a taxi driver in Athens. On a late-night ride back to Athens after returning from the islands to the port of Piraeus, George the taxi driver, a Greek raised in Boston, had a captive audience for his opinions on what is wrong with Athens these days.

"We have crime crime," he stated. "I mean we have always had crime, but violent crime was unheard of until recently." He further clarified that pick-pockets have always been prolific in Athens but stated that beyond the inconvenience of that sort of petty crime he never had any problems with his children being out and about at all hours of the night because violent crime was unknown. He went on to say that in Athens and the surrounding suburbs, a metropolitan area of more than five million people, that there are less than twenty murders a year. "But last week, someone was killed over a pair of sunglasses. Can you imagine that?" he asked.

I could imagine that. In fact, I have handled more than a few prosecutions where a murder occurred over some trivial item or trinket, or for some other senseless reason. I have grown weary of trying to explain to a jury the whys of some of the senseless crimes that I have seen, or rather trying to explain that often there are no whys that make any sense. But rather than belabor the point with George I just listened as he blamed the economy and mostly foreigners from impoverished countries for the problems in Greece. He went on to say that the reason he relocated to Greece in the early 80's (although he maintains a house in New Hampshire) was the difference between the crime rates in Greece and the United States.

Despite George's laments, the point that I took away from our conversation was the astonishingly low violent crime rate, especially homicide rate, for such a large metropolitan area. I attempted to corroborate George's figures before writing this post, but there is little data available giving exact numbers of homicides in Athens and surrounding areas, at least in terms of as conventionally represented as the number of murder victims per hundred thousand people in the population per year. What I was able to document is that the numbers of violent crimes in Athens although rising are indeed close to what George alleged.

So, why is the murder rate in America so different than what they have in Greece and, indeed, in most other European countries? Why does a city the size of Detroit have a murder tally more than twenty times higher than a city more than five times larger in terms of population?

Sure there are differences between the United States and Europe in rates of how crimes are reported to the police, recorded by them and in differences in the rules by which multiple offenses are counted. And there are differences in the legal definitions and in the legal institutions and how they deal with and characterize crimes. But that in no way accounts for the vast differences between the reported murder rates in many large urban areas in America and our European counterparts.

It goes without saying that the murder rate reflects basic sociocultural and economic factors. Poverty, the availability of guns, and the media emphasis on a culture of drugs and violence all contribute to an increasingly violent society and an increased murder rate as a result. But does poverty actually breed crime and violence? Do socioeconomic variables determine whether or not a person is more likely to take a human life and whether or not a person has a cognizance of the value of a human life?

The truth is that in most cases murderers are not normal law-abiding citizens. They are highly aberrant individuals characterized by felony records, alcohol and or drug dependence and other deviant characteristics. So why in the U.S. do we have such a comparatively high rate of aberrant persons who are willing to take the ultimate step and take a human life? Do we as a culture value life less than our European counterparts, or do we have a systemic problem that results in an increased tendency to react in a violent manner?

I'm jet lagged and I have no answers. Do you?

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

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Detroit Breakdown, Motor City Shakedown

by Donna Pendergast

Last week Detroit Mayor Dave Bing issued a "call to action." Joining other local, state and federal officials Bing urged Detroit residents to take a place on the front lines of crime fighting efforts by acting as the eyes and ears of police to combat murder and gun crimes. "We've had enough," Bing said. "We as a community have to be upset. Everyone is tired of what has been happening in the city and it's time for it to stop."

In recent weeks Detroit's murder and gun rate have spiraled out of control with a sharp spike in homicides and several 24-hour spans that saw multiple persons wounded and killed by violence in the city. As of last Friday Detroit has recorded 230 homicides compared with 190 homicides at the same time last year. "We have to be upset. We have to be outraged at some of the things going on," Bing said.

Beginning September 1st Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee has instituted Operation Inside Out: Night Angels which requires officers assigned to desk jobs to work eight hours each week in high crime areas of the city. This will put 40-50 additional officers on the street at any given time. But will these efforts to move officers from desk duty to patrol make a difference? Even Bing recognizes that police work alone cannot solve a problem as pervasive as violence in Detroit. "Another thousand officers are not going to stop the crimes that go on," said Bing. "I am appalled as I read every morning, on a 24-hour basis, the crimes that are perpetrated by so many of our young people and are gun related."

So what is the answer to curbing Detroit's downward spiral? As the former Homicide Principal Attorney in the prosecutors office covering the city of Detroit, time and time again I have witnessed the death and destruction that goes hand in hand with gun violence. Yet, taking guns off of the street will not address a problem that goes much deeper. Perhaps more important is addressing the culture of turning a blind eye and refusing to turn in those who perpetrate heinous crimes against family, friends, neighbors and the community.

Witnesses who refuse to cooperate are a big problem not only in Detroit, but in communities across the nation. The "Don't Snitch" street code is killing neighborhoods. It is extremely difficult for the police and prosecutors to make cases without cooperating witnesses. Plain and simple an "anti-snitch" culture lets killers walk the street because people are too intimidated, frightened or reluctant to disclose what they saw. This widespread refusal to cooperate further perpetuates the cycle of allowing violent predators to think that they are unstoppable and further empowering them to commit more violent acts without fear of reprisal.

The reasons behind the "Don't Snitch" ethos are varied. Witnesses keep silent for fear of their lives. Many of the neighborhoods where these crimes occur are inter-generational neighborhoods. People know each other, they know each others' families and they know where they live. The problem is complicated by a misplaced loyalty to community that fails to recognize the honor of opposing crime, and weak bonds between the police and the communities they serve.

The problem has become much worse in the aftermath of the 2004 homemade DVD Stop Fuc****Snitching created by Rodney Bethea. This DVD became a national sensation with it's anti-cooperation subversive message that threatens "rats," "bitches," and "snitches" with violent retribution. In the video men purporting to be drug dealers threaten violence against anyone who cooperates with authorities by telling what they know about criminal activities. A particular target singled out for contempt were individuals who informed on others to get a lighter sentence for their own crimes.

As the DVD gained a national audience tee shirts began to appear around the country carrying the Stop Snitchin message and further driving home the message that all forms of cooperation with the police should cease. Shirts, bumper stickers, CD's and DVD's perpetuating the Stop Snitchin message became commonplace across the country and rappers helped spread the message with lyrics that shunned the idea of ratting on your friend or local thug.

These shirts were once widely available in gas stations and stores in urban communities but after public backlash many retailers pulled them from their shelves. They can still be found online. The Internet carries a vast array of paraphernalia carrying the Stop Snitchin message. The most common version of the Stop Snitchin tee shirt carries a stop sign with the message Stop Snitchin and bullet holes implying deadly harm to those who violate this creed. Another version of the shirt carries the message "Snitches are a dying breed" Yet another version of the shirt carries a picture of a rat in a circle with a line through it.

Although police and Prosecutors have been coping with reluctant witnesses for decades the metastasis of this omerta sort of code of silence from organized crime to social norm has become epidemic and has had a serious impact on law enforcement efforts. As this urban phenomenon has taken root in the neighborhoods of cities like Detroit, police and prosecutors have had to deal with the dilemma of confronting witnesses who are witnesses to a crime, addressing their fears of retribution and now convincing them that there is no dishonor in helping to right a community wrong.

So how do police and prosecutors gain community trust and counteract the Stop Snitchin message in neighborhoods that are being torn apart by senseless violence? How do we change attitudes that equate cooperation with authorities with weakness and dishonor? What can community leaders do to change attitudes that have become social norms in many communities that can least afford to perpetuate this sort of non-cooperation with authorities?

Community mobilization is necessary to counteract the message that turning in violent perpetrators is wrong. Community leaders must place pressure on retailers to stop spreading the Stop Snitchin message through shirts and other paraphernalia. A positive message must be spread through churches and other community organizations that emphasizes community cooperation and empowerment through standing together and standing up against crime. And the police must develop and nurture community relations to build bonds that foster cooperation between neighborhoods and those entrusted to protect them.

Ralph Godbee has it right, we really do need the citizens to be the eyes and ears of the police. It's the only way that Detroit has a chance.

*photo credit: brookewill

Statements 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.

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We Tell Our Children There Are No Monsters

by Donna Pendergast

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 trial will prove beyond any doubt that we delude ourselves...

Those were the words that began my opening statement in a horrific murder trial where two 12-year-old girls were sexually assaulted and stabbed in a park. Their broken bodies were later found stuffed in a hidden culvert, a visual image that haunts me to this day. The pictures were as bad as it gets and remain indelibly engraved in my mind.

With the recent spate of horrific child murders that memory comes back all too often. I am forced to ponder the concept of a society where children are not safe to run and play, and parents live in very real fear of monsters who walk the streets and hide in the shadows or sometimes who don't bother to hide at all.

Leiby Kletsky, 8 years old, was recently murdered in Brooklyn, New York, on the very first time that he was allowed to walk home from a summer day camp. His dismembered body was found in a trash can in Borough Park, a tight-knit and insular community of orthodox Jews which is considered by most to be a "safe" place in the community. In Detroit, the police await the identity of the burned body of a small child found in an abandoned home, while at the same time acknowledging that the description matches that of Mariha Trenice Smith (pictured right), a five-year-old child who disappeared or was abducted from her home this past Sunday morning, a short distance away from the burnt out home where a small body was found. And in Norway, a country mourns the slaughter of at least seventy innocent youths hunted down and murdered last Friday at a wooded retreat accessible only by boat. The shocking details of the brutal massacre are still continuing to emerge.

When a child dies, our sense of comfort and security is turned upside down. In an increasingly violent world we are forced to confront an unfortunate truth; there are monsters out there. So how do we take today's realities and redefine what it means to be a parent? How do we keep our children safe while allowing them to experience the world and become independent? How do we balance our fears and and yet still allow our children to play outside, to ride their bikes and to walk to school. How do we protect our children without clipping their wings and cramping their style?

For a generation of Baby Boomer and Generation X and Y parents the answer is difficult. Many of them grew up in a world where streetlights were the curfew, cell phones were unknown and walking to a friends house alone was a rite of passage. A walk home after dark was nothing to be feared-it was the norm and it was a special occasion when their parents offered or agreed to give them a ride to their friend's house or to an event. Yet they survived and thrived and became increasingly able to spread their wings and fly the coop.

Now they parent a generation of children who only need see the evening news to know that danger lurks outside their very door. They are responsible for keeping their children safe in a world where predators lurk around many corners and sometimes have access to their very homes via gaming technology, the Internet or via bold and sensationalistic crimes. They are tasked with policing their children's every activity while suspecting that every restriction and rule may have a detrimental effect on their children's mental and physical development. Astute parents fear that epidemics like childhood obesity are related to an increasingly restrictive environment where their children's ability to run and play is dependent on parental supervision and the ability of an adult to transport them to limited and well defined locations for safe play. They understand that they are the first line of protection for their children yet fear that such protection is stunting their children's potential and ability to grow and flourish.

Metal detectors can not shut violence out of our children's lives. As parents it is our responsibility to keep them safe. On the other hand it is also our duty to insure that our children don't find themselves unprepared in a world that bears little resemblance to the the restrictive and regulated environment of the family womb. We need to equip our children to flourish on the journey from a protected environment to a world that requires intelligence, insight and the ability to grasp the big picture.

There are no easy answers.

Statements 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

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A New Year's Mystery: Former Bush Aide's Murder

by Donna Pendergast

As the rest of us were making preparations to ring in the new year, a grizzly discovery was being made in Cherry Hill, Delaware. On New Year's Eve, the body of John Wheeler III, 66, was discovered when the contents of a garbage truck were emptied iat a local landfill. Indentifying information was found on his person. Police have declined to say how Wheeler was killed, but his death has been ruled a homicide.

Wheeler, a Republican stalwart, served in the Reagan and both Bush administrations. After graduating from West Point in 1966, the Army officer served as a captain in Vietnam. After he retired from the military in 1971 as a decorated veteran, he attended Harvard Business and Yale Law schools.

Determined to honor the service of Vietnam veterans, he served as the first chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and passionately led the fund-raising effort to create the memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. He also served as the first chief executive of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). A more recent crusade involved bringing the ROTC back to ivy league campuses.

Recently, Wheeler served as special assistant to the secretary of the Air Force from 2005 to 2008 when he became the special assistant to the acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Logistics and Enviroment. His most recent work was as a defense consultant to the Mitre Corporation, a non-profit organization that manages work for the U.S. Defense Department. Wheeler also wrote a manual on the effectiveness of biological and chemical weapons, which recommended that the U.S. not use biological weapons.

Wheeler was last seen Tuesday night stepping off of an Amtrak train from Washington at the Wilmington, Delaware, station. His body was discovered when an employee at the landfill observed his body falling off the dump truck into a trash pile. By backtracking the truck's route, police have been able to determine that all trash collection stops made by the truck before it arrived at the landfill involved large commercial disposal bins. These bins were located in Newark about twelve miles west of Wilmington. Police are now reconstructing the last few days of Wheeler's life in an attempt to shed light on his murder.

The conspiracy theorists are already running amok with theories that sound like the start of a government conspiracy thriller. The Internet has been abuzz with dark suggestions about covert involvement in Wheeler's death. Many are suggesting that Wheeler was privy to some secret information that he acquired over the course of his distinguished career. They dismiss as unlikely the idea that a random act of violence such as a mugging would result in a body being disposed of in a trash container. They further argue that the method of body disposal is more consistent with a targeted hit. Wheeler's connection to and involvement with the Mitre organization has also been the subject of much speculation.

There are a number of questions surrounding Wheeler's murder. Was he reported missing before his body was discovered in the landfill? From where, exactly, along his route home did he disappear? What did he do in the days before his untimely death? What do his cell phone records reveal about who he may have been in contact with in his last hours? Perhaps, as the answers to these questions are revealed, investigators will have a clearer picture as to whether Wheeler's death is run-of-the-mill random violence or whether there is something more sinister afoot.

Although Wheeler's death does seem strange for an act of random violence, as a prosecutor for 24 years, I can vouch for the fact that strange things happen every day in the big city. Women in Crime Ink will keep you updated on any unusual developments on this unfortunate end of a distinguished life.

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

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Full Circle

by Donna Pendergast

“Oh, my God, it was him,” I thought to myself as a cold shiver ran down my spine one afternoon at work in 2002.

The memories all flooded back in a rush. “Oh, my God, it was him.”

The time was the school year starting in the fall of 1980. The place was the University of Michigan campus located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The climate was one of tension and fear.

I was a senior at the university and lived at South Quad, one of the largest dormitories on campus. I was a resident advisor (RA) on the fifth floor of the dorm and got free room and board for acting as an advisor/mentor to all the students on my assigned hallway. Every one of them was an incoming freshman that fall semester. Their names, for the most part, have now long since faded from memory, but I’m sure that there is one memory we all still retain and that is the memory of being in fear. A killer who would be dubbed the “Sunday Morning Slasher” was killing women on and near campus and the campus was in a state of high alert.

As a Resident Advisor it was my job, amongst other things, to make sure that the girls on my hallway took safety seriously. That year the job was easy. There was a shadow over the campus, four women had been killed and everyone was scared.

We all went about our normal campus activities but there were signs of tension everywhere. I kept a sign up sheet outside my dorm to pair women up for night time excursions to the library and other campus events. The men in the dorm were volunteering to escort women to and from nighttime activities. Another volunteer service was posting a phone number all around campus that women could call for a free ride if they got caught out after dark. If you were a female and you lived in Ann Arbor that year, plain and simple, you didn’t walk alone at night. A killer of women was out there and although then nameless he was very real to everyone on campus.

I foolishly risked a nighttime walk only once that year and I still remember that walk like it was yesterday. Caught late at night at an athlete’s party that had degenerated into a rowdy free for all, I wanted to go home and my friends wanted to stay. They stayed behind and I left risking a mile long walk home at 2:00 am. I remember the fear and jitters as I looked over my shoulder every two steps as I walked home through a desolate area of campus on that dark night. I was lucky, I made it back to the dorm safely. I never knew how lucky until many years later.

Fast forward some twenty two years later. The former Resident Advisor is now a prosecutor working in the Wayne County, Michigan, Prosecutors office. I was the Principal Trial Lawyer and a supervisor in the Homicide Unit the day I got a fateful call that was about to bring all those long suppressed frightening memories rushing back in a flash.

A reporter from Texas called the prosecutors office wondering what the state of Michigan was doing about Coral Eugene Watts. Coral Eugene who? I thought as I began the research to find out what I could about this serial murderer who was allegedly going to be released from prison in Texas. What I was about to find out was far more frightening and horrific than any of us had ever dreamed of back in the school year of 1980 - 1981.

Some twenty two years later the Sunday Morning Slasher now had a name to me, Coral Eugene Watts, (pictured right) and what I was about to learn about Coral Eugene Watts was far scarier than the plot of any grade B horror movie. Coral Eugene Watts had been the nameless, faceless killer of my senior year. It had been him lurking in the campus shadows and he was a diabolical killing machine.

As it turns out, unbeknown to most of the students on campus, the Ann Arbor police had focused on Coral Eugene Watts at some point during that frightening school year after watching him follow a lone women walking on campus late one night. In fact, the subsequent dogged police surveillance of Watts caused him to leave Ann Arbor and head for Texas in March of 1981.

The Sunday Morning Slasher had left the University of Michigan campus but he wasn’t done with coeds and he wasn’t done killing. The trail that he left behind in Michigan was a bloody one. To this day we don’t know how many women were killed in Michigan but we know that there were many. After later being apprehended he admitted to one murder in Michigan but the police consider him to be the suspect in dozens more including the four women murdered in Ann Arbor. The trail that he was about to leave in Texas would become bloodier yet.

The police now believe that Coral Eugene Watts may have been the most prolific serial murderer in the history of the United States. This post would be pages and pages long if I were to attempt in any way to give you a taste of the monster that was Coral Eugene Watts. Suffice to say that his trail of murder and destruction almost defies comprehension.

After leaving Michigan, Watts surfaced in the Houston, Texas, area where he would begin a killing spree that would end only after he was apprehended in May of 1982. Between September of 1981 and May of 1982 Watts killed at least twelve women and probably many more than that. On the day of his apprehension Watts had already killed a 21 year old woman as she was returning home from her birthday celebration. A short time later he was in the process of killing two young women in their apartment when one of them dove off a second floor balcony to escape him. This caused Watts to flee right into the arms of police who were responding to calls about commotion in the apartment.

After Watts was apprehended the District Attorney in Houston and the police department made a plea bargain with him in an effort to resolve a number of open missing persons and murder cases that they couldn’t prove but believed were tied to Watts. After receiving full immunity Watts confessed to twelve Texas murders in great detail. He later led police to all the murder locations and to several undiscovered bodies as well.

Pursuant to the terms of the plea agreement Coral Eugene Watts pled guilty to Aggravated Burglary in the case of the two roommates. He was sentenced to sixty years in prison by a reluctant judge, the Honorable Douglas Shaver. The judge went along with the plea bargain because he understood the prosecution and police dilemma. Without Watts’ confession the crimes would have never been solved, but Watts wouldn’t give a statement without immunity for the murders. The sixty year sentence was a reassurance to everyone that Watts would spend the rest of his life in prison. Judge Shaver said at sentencing that it was his suggestion to the Department of Corrections that he be made to serve each and every minute of the sixty years that he had been sentenced to.

It wasn’t a perfect result but a monster was off the streets and everyone could breathe a sigh of relief –or could they?

Fast forward to September of 2002. Watts is scheduled for release from the Texas Department of Corrections in May 2006 because of the quintessential “technicality” one always hears about when they find out about a criminal getting off after committing a crime. This technicality is too complex to go in depth about in this post, suffice to say that it was based on a legal nuance that no one had ever anticipated or prepared for.

By the time I hear about the case, the state of Texas had exhausted all of it’s options to keep Watts in prison. Texas was looking to Michigan to review old cases where Watts was a suspect to see if anything was overlooked and whether there might be a viable Michigan case still out there.

After learning what I could about the monster that was Coral Eugene Watts, I called the Michigan State Police. An informal task force was formed to comb through almost two hundred old Michigan cases that were possibly tied to Watts. This informal task force contained myself from the Wayne County Prosecutors office and others. I was a participant because the bulk of cases suspected to be tied to Watts were from the Detroit area, which is within the jurisdiction of Wayne County. The Michigan State police and the Michigan Attorney General’s office were also a part of the task force, as were law enforcement members from various localities where murders suspected to be tied to Watts were located.

The task force effort was a frustrating one. We knew that Watts had committed a number of murders but we did not have sufficient proof to charge him on any of the cases. Lt. Bill Hanger of the Michigan State Police continued to comb through the cases but the clock was ticking towards May 2006 and nothing was screaming out on any of the cases other than the ticking clock. I began to dread the calls from Andy Kahan, the head of the Crime Victim’s Assistance Unit for the Mayors office in Houston because I had no good news to tell him.

I changed jobs from the Wayne County Prosecutors office to the Michigan Attorney General’s office in August of 2003, but I couldn’t escape Coral Eugene Watts or Andy Kahan. I took over the job of the lawyer handling the Michigan Attorney General’s end of the Watts' case so it was still mine just in a different forum.

TICK, TICK, TICK,…

A fortuitous break was about to occur much to everyone’s surprise.

On January 15, 2004, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox went on national TV on The Abrams Report to talk about Coral Eugene Watts and the ticking clock. The phone number to the Michigan Attorney General’s office Criminal Division was running across the bottom of the screen asking for persons to call if they had any information.

Call it divine intervention or whatever you will, Joseph Foy, a witness to a crime committed in Ferndale, Michigan, in 1979, was flipping through the channels and saw the footage of Watts being shown on The Abrams Report. Foy had come forward in 1981 identifying Watts after seeing footage on TV when Watts was apprehended in Texas. The case hadn’t been pursued in Michigan because Watts was expected to be locked up for the rest of his life in Texas. I, of course, didn’t know any of this at that time The Abrams Report aired.

The morning after the broadcast I went to work and found a pink message slip waiting. It said “Joseph Foy, saw one of Watts’ murders," along with a phone number.

“Sure you did," I instantly thought, having been frustrated over the case for so long.

I looked at my secretary and said one word “Wacko?"

She replied, "I don’t think so."

Before I returned the call to Joseph Foy, Lt. Hanger called to talk to me about the previous night’s broadcast on national TV. I mentioned the message that I had received and I can still hear the skepticism that I heard in Lt. Hangers voice when he said “Oh yeah?" I was skeptical as well, we had been frustrated at every turn for so long.

Later that day I returned Mr. Foy’s call. What I found on the other end was a lucid, coherent, well spoken individual who seemed to know what he was talking about. After that call I quickly called Lt. Hanger and spoke to him for the second time that day but this time things were different.

“I think we have our case” I told him.

We did indeed finally have our case. It wasn’t a perfect case, but it was a case and the gods were about to smile on us in a number of ways.

The original Ferndale Police Department file had been lost, but the Detroit Police Department had a full copy of the file from a task force effort on Watts, which occurred right after his arrest in Texas. The original composite sketch of the suspect which was drawn the day after the Ferndale murder, with Mr. Foy’s assistance, was in a box in the basement of the sketch artist who still worked for the county sheriff's department. What are the odds of that twenty two years later?

It wasn’t a great case. It was old and it was based on one witness, but it was a case. Complicated legal maneuvers later strengthened the case when the judge ruled that evidence of Watts’ murders in Texas could be admitted to show a pattern and scheme of behavior.


The trial was held in November 2004. The headline of the local paper on the first day of jury selection read as big and bold as if World War Three had just started. In large bold black type the headline screamed that Michigan was the last hope to keep this monster in prison. My first task of the day was a frantic call to the jail lockup area at the courthouse, which is manned by the county sheriff’s department. My plea to the deputy sheriff stationed at that post was to tape over the newspaper boxes in the courthouse to prevent potential jurors from seeing the headlines.

The trial was dramatic and stress filled. Many of the family members of victims from Watts' Texas murders attended the trial because this had become their trial as well. They were finally getting a chance to see Watts put away on a murder charge. The trial was broadcast live on Court TV and there were 32 other media agencies in attendance in a make shift media center set up at the courthouse. The pressure during the trial was enormous, the stakes were just so high. Suffice to say for the purpose of this post, I didn’t sleep much for a few weeks.


When we got word that the jury had a verdict my heart was beating so hard that I thought it was going to beat out of my chest. The words “Guilty of First Degree Murder” have never sounded so sweet.

In retrospect I often think about how strange it is that things all came together in the manner that they did. The fortuitous appearance of the Attorney General on national TV, the likelihood that Joseph Foy would be flipping through the channels at that very moment, and the way that we were able to reconstruct the file and locate the composite sketch in a basement box like we did.

However, nothing is as strange to me as the fact that the scared 22-year-old coed of my senior year in college ended up with the upper hand. How weird that I was the one who put the monster that was Coral Eugene Watts away for good. Who would have dreamed it back in the school year of 1980?

The hunter had become the hunted. All I can say is full circle.

Note: Coral Eugene Watts died of prostate cancer in a Michigan prison in September 2007.

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

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