Serving Life

by Lisa R. Cohen

Two weeks ago I traveled to Louisiana's maximum security Angola State Penitentiary. It was almost exactly two years since I'd begun Serving Life, the documentary that aired last Thursday night on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Back in July of 2009, months before OWN decided to fund the film, before Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker came on board as Executive Producer, I first went to Angola to check out their inmate hospice program.

There I met the inmate volunteers who staffed the program and I was skeptical - it seemed too good to be true. Murderers - serving life sentences - were caring for their dying fellow inmates. Washing their bed-sore covered bodies, changing their diapers, holding their hands while they took their last breath. It was the other side of death, not the one at the end of a sudden muzzle flash, but the slow and wrenching kind, leaving plenty of time for hard reflection.

It's a volunteer position; the inmates have regular jobs that come first. So there's a lot of burnout, and the hospice coordinator planned to pick a new class of volunteers from among the ranks of the prison's 5,100 inmates. I asked if we could follow along, from the application interviews through the selection through the training, and their first patients. This way, we could watch for ourselves to decide whether it was a con job. The prison said yes.

Two years passed, during which time I was there, off and on, and then on and on, with a skeleton crew of producers and camera men (and one amazing and nimble woman) who flew in from New York. One cameramen was local - an inmate named Sean Vaughn, whose innate talents blossomed over the course of production. He himself is serving life.

They say time passes slowly in prison, but it did pass. We met the incoming class of volunteers on a freezing January day, the record-breaking, coldest day in years. They seemed to be wearing every piece of clothing they owned, and with good reason.

We watched them train in June, and their T-shirts gave us continuity problems. So did the sweat that beaded up on their faces as they concentrated on practicing feeding, bathing and changing the sick, elder inmates in the hospital wards before graduating to actual hospice patients.

Angola is, well, let's just say unique, as prisons go. It's 26 miles of acreage, a huge former plantation bounded on three sides by the Mississippi. Most of the wardens, guards and other staff actually live inside the prison, in a town with its own post office, swimming pool, baseball diamond and 9 hole golf course (called Prison View).

At Angola, they decorate big time for holidays. Life size Uncle Sam cut outs and fireworks (yes, fireworks) on the Fourth of July, turkeys with crepe paper tails at Thanksgiving, and Christmas lights strung from the guard shacks. You can't fail to notice the seasons passing by. We were there for all of the major holidays, except Easter. I imagine there were brightly colored eggs, and the staff's children probably had a hunt.

Our team lived at the prison as well, in a series of small guest houses built to accommodate the endless stream of visitors who pass through Angola. The one we spent weeks in overlooked a small lake, and alligators occasionally skirted the dock, making us more nervous than any of the "trusty" inmates who wandered freely, carrying out their farm duties - raising cattle, fishing the lake.

And we filmed. Hundreds of hours at the hospital, in the inmate dormitories late at night, the cafeterias during meals, the churches and the workshops, the college classrooms and the inmate basketball court. But mostly, we filmed in the hospice, tracking the new volunteers' progress.

There was the ambivalent "Boston" who juggled doubts about his work with anxiety over his nine-year old son's impending visit, a son he'd never met. The convicted murderer Justin, who was serving life for being at the scene even though he hadn't pulled the trigger. The "three-strikes-you're-out" lifer Ratliff, who also helped care for his older brother at the hospital, a Crohns patient. And Shaheed, who very late in the game disclosed the tragedy in his life that had helped him change his way of thinking. They all proved my skepticism wrong.

Two years passed, including 4 plus months of filming, half a dozen deaths, 4 months of edit, and more late nights than I thought there were in a lifetime. The film was finished, and we wanted the inmates to see it. It felt very important. I flew down for the first time in many months and on a very hot July day, hundreds of inmates streamed into the prison's main chapel, along with Warden Burl Cain and many of his assistant wardens, several guards, and other staff.

I was nervous. More so than I'd be the next week in Los Angeles, at a private invitation-only screening filled with, among others, the new Co-presidents of OWN, Forest Whitaker and other media muckety mucks. There I'd have to get up and join Forest in a Q&A afterwards.

But this was harder. We'd followed these men around, shoving a camera in their faces for months, as they cringed, cried and peeled back their layers - something tough guys in prison never do. Then we'd thrown out 99.9% of it, shaped the remaining .1% into a dish of our own making, and now it was going to be projected up on the giant white wall at the back of the sanctuary. Not to mention broadcast nationally the following week.

Luckily I sat in the front row where I couldn't see anyone's face. It was very quiet, but I was thrilled when the audience laughed in all the places I'd hoped they would. It's hard to believe, but we'd worked very hard to include the humor - which there is in every part of life, especially the toughest parts. The AP reporter who covered the screening wrote afterwards that the room was also filled with quiet sobbing - I was too far away to hear for myself.

But afterwards the Warden spoke briefly. "It's incredible," he said, visibly moved and teary himself. "Many of you have a chance to change your lives, and this says you can do it... And

you're worthy of this film. You're worthy of what the public is going to think about you.... My encouragement to you is, you have a legacy. And you can't betray it. You can't betray this hospice program. So you just got to live it... We can't be counterfeit, and if we do, then we desecrate what you just saw. And we can't do that. So it draws out the best in all of us."

A lot of very positive reviews followed, including the Washington Post, New Orleans Times Picayune, and others. But the Warden's comments - those were the most rewarding I've gotten so far.

Serving Life encores this Wednesday night, Aug 3, at 9pm and then again at midnight. See the trailer here, and find out where it's showing in your zip code.

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Defining Features

by Lisa R. Cohen

For the last two years, I’ve been in and out of prison. I’m out now, and have something to show for it – a documentary film I directed and produced called “Serving Life” that will premiere on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) on July 28. I’ll be writing about it in my next few blogs. It’s been two years in the making, and I’m mighty proud of our small production team’s heroic efforts. You can watch the promo for it here.

The film, executive produced and narrated by Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker, led us to the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary, otherwise known as Angola, aka “the Alcatraz of the South.”

I happen to have been to Angola many times in the past, and I know the place better than many. The 26 mile property, contained on three sides by the Mississippi River (except when it floods the levies there as it did last month) is an unearthly world unto itself, a throwback to a long ago time when Angola actually was a plantation, worked by forced emigrés from the African nation it was named for.

My first visit to the maximum security prison was over 15 years ago, and when I arrived this time around, on a sweltering July day, for a week of preliminary shooting, some things had changed. Since the ‘90s, under the current Warden, Angola has had so many outside visitors, they’ve built guest cottages on the premises. So this time we literally moved into the prison. Every morning we’d leave our cozy four bedroom cabin, overlooking a lake filled with with cedar stumps and sinister looking alligators, and head to the prison hospital.

There, tucked away in a corner of a chronic care ward, a group of inmates staffed the prison hospice. Day after day, these volunteers walked the chain length enclosed path from their dorms to the hospital, to wipe a dying man’s fevered brow, change his diaper, and, finally, to hold his hand while he takes his last breath. It’s a burn-out job. In fact it’s not a job at all, it’s all-volunteer. At Angola inmates work every day; the volunteers come to hospice before and afterwards. So it’s no surprise there’s a constant need for fresh recruits.

Our mission was to follow a new crop of inmate volunteers–watch them get picked, get trained, and then find out whether they were up to the task. If a hardened criminal can be taught to perform the ultimate act of compassion, what excuse do the rest of us have?

By last summer we were in full production. That meant weeks on end watching as these men tested themselves. What they learned about themselves, we did too, and the results were both chilling and life-affirming.

The first day at the hospital, I met probably a few dozen inmates. They all looked exactly the same to me, even though at Angola they dress in street clothes, a kind of informal uniform of jeans and colorful t-shirts that advertise the various prison clubs they belong to. But their faces all blurred together, impersonal, hard-lived, and I could only identify them by their charges–murderers mostly, armed robbers, a heroin-lifer, and multiple drug offenders.

As the days passed, though, personalities emerged, and pretty soon these men defined themselves–by their past criminal acts, their current struggle to redefine themselves, and their hopes for the future. (And they all maintain hope, even the ones who are destined to die at Angola, perhaps in a hospice bed.)

I met their children, their sisters, their brothers (some serving time in another part of the prison). I watched them recoil with disgust as they started training, but then come to embrace the most grueling parts of the work. I watched them make each other laugh– and me too–because that’s what you do in real life even in the darkest times.

I spent this week filming on the start of another venture, just the first days of a long, long haul. On Monday I sat in a room in Nashville and listened as a group of women bared their painful pasts. On Monday they all looked the same to me, just like Robert and "Animal" and Stephen did two years ago.

But by yesterday, as I said goodbye and headed for the airport, I’d begun to know their stories of courage and survival. These women were taking shape to me, and their message was that much more powerful. It made me realize, once again, that this is why I do it. And that getting the chance to pass on those stories can make us all a little more human.

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A True Crime

by Lisa R. Cohen

Talk about a crime related news week! Sunday night we heard that one of the biggest criminal masterminds in the world has just left this earth. I'm sure for days, maybe weeks, we'll hear more of the story, unraveling bit by bit, stringing along the news cycle. But for me, personally, Sunday marked a milestone in a different fight against crime.

This past Sunday, as Navy Seals were locked in mortal combat with Osama Bin Laden, a film I produced premiered at the Tribeca Film festival. (I still have a hard time saying or writing that line.) I was part of a small team of talented producers, directors of photography, editors, and a director who have all worked, off and on, over the last four years on The Education of Dee Dee Ricks, which will continue to garner attention when it airs on HBO this October.

Luckily, Dee Dee herself is not a victim of this crime. She's a smart, beautiful, tough-talking, wise-cracking woman of means, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007.

For two years after that, she had me follow her around with a camera crew, documenting her life. Through a double mastectomy, a brutal round of chemotherapy, and the havoc it all wrought on her personal life, her finances, and her body, Dee Dee fought hard, kicking, screaming, and sometimes cursing like a dockworker.

Eventually she won.

But that was only part of how she spent her time and resources. Arguably she spent the better part taking on the inequities of cancer care in this country. In plain terms, Dee Dee set out to learn why a rich, white woman who can afford whatever she needs can win her fight, but a poor, underinsured black woman can't - and often doesn't.

And then she set out to tell the world, or at least anyone who would listen to her, and eventually, anyone who would watch our documentary. She interviewed doctors and advocates, and women who weren't as fortunate as she. She met and befriended Cynthia, another funny, outspoken breast cancer patient, who seemed like Dee Dee in many ways, except the critical one that placed her in so much more jeopardy. And she met a man who has worked for decades to change all that.

Dr. Harold P. Freeman is a renowned, elegant, soft-spoken, Harvard educated, African-American cancer surgeon (that's a LOT of impressive qualifiers). As a young man, he watched his own father die of cancer, which inspired his life's work. In his lifetime, he's seen amazing strides in cancer research, seen science transform the odds, as people today beat cancer. From when he started, to where things are now, miracles are now commonplace.

What makes him shake his head in dismay, then, is how many people are still dying. They're not dying because nothing can be done, or because their disease baffles the doctors. They're dying because they're poor. And that, says Dr. Freeman, is what is truly criminal.

"It's not a scientific issue," he says. "It's a moral issue. People should not die simply because they're poor." He's talking about the women he has seen with no insurance and no other means to get treatment until they find their way to the cancer center he runs in Harlem. By that time, he chillingly describes, they sometimes have no breast tissue left in the affected area. Just tumor. By that time, it's too late.

Why didn't they go in sooner? Well, as Dr. Freeman told a captive audience after the Tribeca screening, if you have no insurance and you go to an emergency room because you have a little lump in your breast, you'll sit there for hours. When you're finally examined, you'll be told you're in the wrong place. You have to go get a Medicaid card first, then appear somewhere a hundred blocks south to get examined.

"At that point," Dr. Freeman explained, "the effort to get help is so much more painful than the painless lump in your breast, you'll throw up your arms and go home."

Dr. Freeman then told the audience about something he has developed over the years to counter that sense of helplessness, something that is now growing in practice all over the country. It's a concept called Patient Navigation. First, it's outreach and education - to help bring women (and men) to places like the Ralph Lauren Cancer Center, which Freeman heads up. There, an often panic stricken or numbed patient in denial is turned over to an actual human being, someone looks like them, speaks their cultural language, and will hold their hand every step of the treatment way, steering them around the myriad hurdles that cause even the hardiest to give up.

No insurance? Your navigator will take you through every step to get it, then line up tests, procedures, surgical options, chemo, etc, etc. No support at home? Your navigator's latched on, as are the doctors, nurses, social workers - even the in-house pharmacist. No one to prod you to make appointments and then keep them? You'll get the call from your patient navigator. As Dr. Freeman says, it's a low tech approach, but it literally saves lives. But so much more needs to be done.

I was with Dee Dee the day she met Dr. Freeman and, as she likes to say, fell in love. That day, he made her cry, and then she did the same to him. You'll have to watch the film to see why. Since that day, she has championed him and his cause, raised millions of dollars for it, and quite literally bared her soul and every other part of herself to get people to look... and listen. A hot blond who can also make you laugh while she moves you to tears is a powerful tool.

I have great hope for this team, and I'm proud to have been able to help tell their story. And after Sunday night, instead of the tired refrain, "If they can put a man on the moon..." I'm going to try a fresh tack. If we can track down and take out Osama Bin Laden... we should be able to win this war on crime too.

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A Day To Laugh Out Loud

By Lisa R. Cohen

Tradition has it here at Women in Crime Ink that this day be marked with a twinkle in the eye. Crime is a serious business, but the sad fact is often criminals don't have any other way to earn a living because... they are so dumb. I had fun trolling through the many websites that celebrate just how dumb they can be.

Here are some of my favorites. I used the very scientific LOL gold standard - if the stupidity of the perp literally had me laughing out loud, it made the cut.

From the folks at Cader Books: "...In the early hours of the morning, in June 1995, Mike Cyprian ducked into a restaurant in Hammond, Louisiana, to make a phone call. He left his car engine running and his nine-foot python lounging uncaged inside. When Cyprian came out of the restaurant he saw his car in a different spot and a man running away.

...While lightening the load of a security van by $160,000 in May 1995, two robbers in Arlington, Texas, foolishly ignored the 23 Japanese tourists nearby. Although none of the visitors spoke English, they silently handed police 39 photos of the getaway car's license plate. The men were arrested soon after.

...Klaus Schmidt, 41, burst into a Berlin bank in August 1995, waved a pistol, and screamed "Hand over the money!" When staff asked if he wanted a bag, he replied "Damn right it's a real gun!" Guessing Schmidt was deaf, the manager set off the alarm, saying later, "It was ridiculously loud, but he didn't seem to notice." After five minutes punctuated by Schmidt occasionally shouting "I am a trained killer!" police arrived and arrested him. Schmidt then sued the bank, accusing them of exploiting his disability.

...Bob Briggs, 24, owner of a Domino's Pizza restaurant in Independence, Missouri, dressed as a giant red rabbit and stood in the road to attract business. In August 1991, he was knocked unconscious by Bobo the Clown, who was promoting a Pizza Hut across the road. Briggs declined to press charges, which is perhaps unfortunate as it would have made an interesting court case."

From a website simply called Stupid Criminals: "...a burglar broke into a Norwegian grammar school – and solved some maths problems. Nothing was stolen in the raid on a school in Klaebu, reports Aftenposten, quoting Adresseavisen. But the intruder did take on a mathematics test intended for third grade students. And, according to local law enforcement officials, he – or she – did a good job, solving all the problems correctly.

...A nurse and two cameramen were arrested at the Munich beer festival for filming a porn movie on the city’s famous big wheel. The 21-year-old registered nurse, unnamed due to German privacy laws, and her two acquaintances were spotted ‘filming sexual acts’ by three Italian tourists in another carriage of the ride. The Oktoberfest tourists alerted authorities, who detained the nurse and the filmmakers – a 25-year-old student and a 30-year-old teacher. Munich police released a statement saying, 'The trio were spotted in the carriage with filming equipment. The 21-year-old suddenly disrobed and produced a sex toy that she began to use while the other two filmed her.'” The three have been charged with public indecency.

...Memo to robbers: Don’t hold up the establishment where you’re trying to get a job.

Megan A. Whittaker, 35, of Menasha, Wisconsin, was arrested Sunday and accused of holding up the local Q-Mart convenience store. Cops say she brandished a toy gun and forced the clerk to open the register. Identification was easy — Whittaker was a regular customer and had recently applied for a job at the store, reported the Oshkosh Northwestern newspaper. Whittaker realized during the robbery that the clerk knew her, police said. So she told the clerk she was her own twin sister. Cops found Whittaker at her apartment, along with the $181 and case of beer that had been taken from the store.

She faces up to $100,000 in fines and a 40-year prison sentence."

Then there was the Ashland Kentucky man who wasn't going to be deterred when he lost his standard issue ski mask.

"...Police say Kasey Kazee entered Shamrock Liquors and attempted to rob the store. Employees were astonished that he had disguised his face by wrapping it in duct tape! The store manager chased him out with a baseball bat and an employee held him in the parking lot until police arrived. Police removed the duct tape after taking pictures, and arrested Kazee, who denied any memory of the incident."

Sometimes it's a toss-up as to whether the criminal is stupid, or just plain wacko. And at CrazyCriminals.com they found some of the wackiest:

"...In Bent Forks, Illinois, kidnappers of ice-cube magnate Worth Bohnke sent a photograph of their captive to Bohnke's family. Bohnke was seen holding up a newspaper. It was not that day's edition and, in fact, bore a prominent headline relating to Nixon's trip to China. This was pointed out to the kidnappers in a subsequent phone call. They responded by sending a new photograph showing an up-to-date newspaper. Bohnke, however, did not appear in the picture. When this, too, was refused, the kidnappers became peevish and insisted that a photograph be sent to them showing all the people over at Bohnke's house holding different issues of Success Magazine. They provided a mailing address and were immediately apprehended.

They later admitted to FBI agents they did not understand the principle involved in the photograph/newspaper concept. 'We thought it was just some kind of tradition,' said one.

...Police in Los Angeles had good luck with a robbery suspect who just couldn't control himself during a lineup. When detectives asked each man in the lineup to repeat the words, 'Give me all your money or I'll shoot,' the man shouted, 'That's not what I said!'

...The two suspects had been apprehended and now sat in a courtroom at the defendant's table. A witness was on the stand being asked questions by the prosecutor. 'And ma'am you say you were robbed of your purse on the street?' Yes sir, the witness answered. 'And the two men who robbed you, are they here in the courtroom today?' Before the witness could answer both defendants raised their hands. The judge and jury laughed openly.

...In Redondo Beach, California., a police officer arrested a driver after a short chase and charged him with drunk driving. Officer Joseph Fonteno's suspicions were aroused when he saw the white Mazda MX-7 rolling down Pacific Coast Highway with half of a traffic-light pole, including the lights, lying across its hood. The driver had hit the pole on a median strip and simply kept driving. According to Fonteno, when the driver was asked about the pole, he said, 'It came with the car when I bought it.''

And this one's not laugh out loud funny, but I thought the guy should have gotten off for outsmarting the judge. I doubt it though.

"A lawyer defending a man accused of burglary tried this creative defense: 'My client merely inserted his arm into the window and removed a few trifling articles. His arm is not himself, and I fail to see how you can punish the whole individual for an offense committed by his limb.' 'Well put," the judge replied. 'Using your logic, I sentence the defendant's arm to one year's imprisonment. He can accompany it or not, as he chooses.' The defendant smiled. With his lawyer's assistance he detached his artificial limb, laid it on the bench, and walked out."

In closing I leave you with my favorite crime joke for April Fool's. It's my favorite because it's so absurd, it's got talking animals, and most of all, because it was told to me by Willie Nelson (to be fair, he told me and four other people in the room, but still...):

...A duck walks into a bar and says to the bartender, "Got any grapes?" The bartender says, "No, we don't have any grapes here."

The duck leaves.

The next day, the duck comes back. "Got any grapes?" he says to the bartender. "I told you," says the bartender grimly, "we don't sell grapes." The duck leaves.

Next day, the duck is back. "Got any grapes?" he asks, and now the bartender is pissed. "Look," he says to the duck, "I told you once, I told you twice, we don't sell grapes here. If you ask me again, I'm going to nail your feet to the bar." The duck leaves.

The next day, the duck is back.

"Got any nails?" he asks the bartender.

"No, we don't have any nails," is the answer.

"Good," says the duck. "Got any grapes?"

Happy April Fools!

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Get to know Jose Antonio Ramos

by Lisa R. Cohen

As I wrote in my last post, Cyrus Vance Jr. is beginning his new term as Manhattan's District Attorney by taking a different tack than his predecessor, the legendary Robert Morgenthau.

Morgenthau meted out criminal justice in New York City for three decades until finally retiring in January. Throughout almost his entire reign, he demurred from pursuing the infamous Etan Patz case. "Not enough evidence," he'd say, on the few occasions he even deigned to comment.

The case involved the disappearance of six-year-old Etan Patz off the streets of New York on his way to the bus stop, walking the two blocks on his own for the first time ever. He was never seen again. The mystery sparked a nationwide manhunt and a shift in our cultural sense of safety.

Even if you didn't read my last post, you would know from reading any one of numerous headlines, or watching ABC News Nightline's lengthy top story last Friday, that Vance has revealed he's taking a fresh look at the 31-year-old case with an eye to (hopefully) bringing charges against Jose Antonio Ramos.

Ramos is coming to the end of a very long prison stint in Pennsylvania for molesting two boys back in the '80s. He's due out in November 2012, unless a new charge can start the clock ticking again. Since there's no statute of limitations for murder, nor, in some situations, for felony kidnapping, the Patz case might be the way to do it. But people need to know more about Ramos to understand why people like Stuart GraBois, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney, have fought so hard for so many years to keep him locked up.

Ramos's mug shot, grim and forbidding, has been splashed across the tabloids for years, but few have ever really talked to him, or even met him.

I have, and it's not an experience I'd want to repeat. When he refused to talk to me for my book, AFTER ETAN, I was disappointed. But part of me was glad not to face the barrage of invective and crazy I'd been through on the first go round, for a prison interview I produced at ABC News back in 1991, the only time Ramos has ever talked on camera.

Ramos has been locked away since a June day, much like this one, in 1986, when he was arrested in his converted school bus by the side of a highway. He'd gotten stuck there when the bus sputtered to a halt, just as he was about to hit the interstate heading across state lines.

He was trying to escape the Pennsylvania State Police, who'd put out a BOLO (Be On the Lookout) for him, once they'd heard the story of a sweet faced eight-year-old I call Joey. Joey and his parents walked into a Western Pennsylvania barracks, sat down in front of a video camera, and with little hesitation and no artifice, Joey told police that over a period of two days Jose Ramos had anally and orally assaulted him several times.

Joey didn't appear traumatized, just slightly uncomfortable, mostly unaware that he would be affected for the rest of his life. That's exactly the kind of victim Ramos would go after. A boy, often, although one father I talked to said Ramos used to wheel his pre-verbal twin toddlers off to babysit for hours at a time, and we'll never know what happened to them on his watch.

But usually his target was a boy, one whose parents were either very open, absent or in some way marginalized - impoverished, or a junkie or alcoholic ... maybe just hapless.

Ramos was very attentive to both parent and child. He looked menacing, but his voice was soft and mellifluous. After a while, he'd offer to take the boy fishing, or to the movies, eventually on sleepovers; a welcome break for a beleaguered single mom. He talked about wanting to be a father figure, giving these little "friends" of his what they desperately craved - attention and affection.

On at least one occasion, another (four-year-old) victim told police Ramos threatened to kill him if he alerted anyone. But sometimes a child was so eager to please, he'd simply go along with Ramos's seduction, not understanding what was happening. Maybe some of it even felt good. That was the plan, to create a victim who had "participated" and so was just as much to blame. Joey hadn't been coerced in a classic sense, and in a way, that was part of the damage done.

I met Joey four years after Ramos had gotten to him. He was a likeable boy, but he seemed numb and slightly sad. In those four years, he'd been attacked countless times over, by other kids who knew what had happened, and who hurled offensive slurs, ostracizing him. His own brother, fearing he'd be tainted by association, was the worst offender. Joey's grades had tanked. He had recurring nightmares of Ramos chasing him. It was heartbreaking.

When I interviewed him for the book, Joey, now an adult, told me that was worse than the sexual abuse. By then he was old enough to understand what had really happened to him, to suffer anguish because he hadn't put up a fight, and to turn his loathing inward. His family hadn't had the resources to get him treated properly. Again, heartbreaking. Ramos left a swath of such victims around the country, wandering from one to the next. When I heard he'd settled for awhile near a home for Downs' Syndrome children, and even targeted some of them, it literally made me nauseated.

Since that June day in 1986, Jose Ramos hasn't had access to a young victim. In two years, if and when he walks free, he'll have been without for 27 years. Maybe he'll be too old, too wary, too chastened to stalk again. I very much doubt it.

I hope he never gets that chance. But if he does, take a good look. Get to know this face well.

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Red Letter Day for Etan's Family

by Lisa R. Cohen

 On Tuesday I called Stan Patz. "Hi," I said. "Am I the first of the legions of annoying media calling you today to check in?"

Patz is the father of Etan Patz, the famous missing six-year-old who disappeared 31 years ago Tuesday, the day now marked as National Missing Children's Day. He vanished during a two-block walk from his downtown New York home to the school bus stop.

His mother (above, with Etan) kissed him goodbye on the sidewalk in front of their loft apartment, and he set off, taking that walk on his own for the very first time.

Last year, when I wrote the book about this then-30-year case, the only book ever written on it, I called it AFTER ETAN: The Missing Child Case That Held America Captive. There was a "Before Etan," and an "After Etan."

Before Etan, parents didn't have the image of that beautiful blond-haired boy, an image of what could be their own child's fate, lurking in their hearts. After Etan, they did, and for many, the world changed forever.

The case has never been officially solved, although the book details the best convincingly detailed argument for what happened that day, and then tells what happened in the twisting, turning years following, as law enforcement struggled to make sense of the mystery, unraveling clues over time. Because it's this incredible, ongoing mystery, every year, on May 25th, the media calls come in, a trickle over the last several, but the day is always marked by someone.

"I think it's going to be a pretty quiet one," Stan replied to me. "I'm not anticipating a lot of attention." Which, to Stan (below left), is good and bad. He hates attention, but on the other hand, he's fought for 31 years to keep people interested in solving this case.

"I was wrong," he wrote to me later that day. "A Wall Street Journal reporter has interviewed me at length, and his photographer was just here to take pictures."

"There is news," he continued, and I could almost hear the excitement in his words on the page. "The new Manhattan District Attorney has announced he's re-opening the case."

I got the call from the reporter himself soon afterwards and filled him in on some of the background of the case. I told him that this break was a testament to the tenacity of Stan and his cohort, the former Assistant U.S. Attorney Stuart GraBois, who had stood by Patz, followed the case for more than two decades, and had himself broken it, zeroing in on a most viable prime suspect.

Jose Antonio Ramos (right) has never been charged for Etan's abduction and murder, although in 2004 he was found legally responsible for Etan's death in a civil suit Stan Patz brought against him.

The former Manhattan D.A., Robert Morgenthau, had the case for decades but always insisted he didn't have enough evidence to prosecute. His spokesperson would always follow up with a "can't comment on an ongoing investigation," and no one could know exactly what their case was.

The new D.A., Cyrus Vance Jr, now says he's willing to take a fresh look. It doesn't mean they're about to convene a grand jury, or charge Ramos, or anything that concrete. But it does signal a willingness to go after Ramos for what many close to the case believe is the heinous crime he committed all those years ago. For that, and for the fact that he's not blindly sticking to the status quo, Vance (left) is to be commended.

There is no statute of limitations on murder. It's unclear, based on New York state law, if there's a statute of limitations on the kind of kidnapping charge they might be able to bring against Ramos.

Stan Patz is especially pleased because of a looming deadline. In 2012, Ramos will have served the full term for two other child molestation cases for which he was convicted. He was put in jail by prosecutor GraBois (right), not for the Patz case, but because of it. It was GraBois's gusto that led him to pursue the other cases when he couldn't nail Ramos on the Patz case. Ramos, it turned out, was a serial pedophile, but over the last 25 years, he's successfully been kept away from an entire generation of small victims.

But in two years, Ramos will walk free. Stan Patz and Stu GraBois want to make sure that won't happen. The wheels of justice grind slowly, and two years isn't very long at all by that measure.

Stan was grateful, after all, that Tuesday wasn't such a quiet day. And today, at last, there's a measure of hope.

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The China Syndrome

by Lisa R. Cohen

Over the last six weeks, a spate of horrific crimes, mostly against children, have stunned the Chinese public, cast a pall over schoolrooms there, and opened the window a sliver onto the disparities between crime - and punishment - between our two cultures.

To begin with, violent crime is rare in China. Also, none of these incidents involved the American weapon of choice - a gun. Few Chinese own guns, and instead the rampages were committed by knife- or hammer-wielding madmen.

The crime spree began on March 23rd, when eight children were stabbed to death while waiting to go inside their school in the southeastern province of Fujian. Four died immediately, four more in the hospital. They were mostly first graders. The mother above left grieved for her murdered child.

Just three weeks later, a man brandished a meat cleaver at children and bystanders outside another school, this time in southern Guangxi province. He hacked to death a student and an elderly woman, and injured five others, chasing his victims through their village before being detained by police.

Then, in the space of ONE WEEK, three more incidents seemed to turn the attacks into a sociological phenomenon. In the first, the killer entered the school itself, and stabbed an astounding 17 children, along with a teacher, as the assailant bolted from room to room. The very next day, another knife wielding attacker slashed his way past a school security guard and two teachers to injure 28 children, five of them critically.

But amazingly, that wasn't the worst of it. Less than 24 hours later, a crazed man also walked into a school, also with an 8 inch blade, evaded the elderly porter at the front door, barricaded himself inside a ground floor first grade classroom, and turned on the class of 37 students.

Only seven of the children were left unharmed. Government officials didn't report any deaths, but bystanders said otherwise, citing at least four of them. They described scenes of gore and carnage that will haunt them forever.

And finally, this past weekend, a man stabbed eight more people to death, including his mother, wife, and daughter. This one wasn't school related, but the knife wielding slasher image is all too vividly imprinted here as well.

They say that guns are so much worse than other weapons because they so neatly and easily dispatch their victims. When you lose your temper with a loaded gun in your hand, you don't have time to calm down in the split second between the pull of the trigger and the bullet leaving the chamber. But there's something about the gore of knife violence, the insanity that must be in play for someone to swing a blade around, to get that close to other humans in order to inflict your damage. Especially such young ones.

The victims' tender years are an especial affront to the Chinese public. The government's official 'one child' policy means a society where parents who lose a child...lose their whole family.

What is going on??? According to news reports out of China, including one by fellow journalist and friend Barbara Demick, the LA Times Beijing bureau chief, China's social structures are also under attack. Chinese internet forums are jammed with opinions. The assailants were an unemployed teacher, an unemployed health professional, an unemployed insurance salesman. You get the pattern. Two of the schools were known for catering to wealthy and privileged parents.

"We should think about these cases from a deeper side," read one post. "The voices of weak people were ignored, and then they took revenge on society."

Such critics posit that Chinese society has changed so fast, traditional infrastructure is collapsing, giving way to commercial free-fall. One Chinese newspaper featured an online poll citing that 64% of respondents believed the first attack, the one that started the series, was due to social inequalities - "the widening gap between rich and poor in China." In a (very expedient) trial, the assailant, Zheng Minsheng (he's the unemployed health professional), said he was angry after being jilted by a wealthier woman.

And that's another big difference between our two cultures. Zheng's trial disposed of, he was too, executed on April 28th, a little over a month after the attack took place, just a few days after the death sentence was approved by the People's Supreme Court. One month from the crime to the punishment. In this country, Mr. Zheng wouldn't have gotten much past an arraignment.

Will such swift justice deter the next in this crime wave? Maybe, but the two most recent acts of carnage occurred after Zheng was put to death, so it's doubtful. Some in China fear their culture will have to take more far reaching, global steps to curb the violence. For future generations.

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The Road to Hell...

by Lisa R. Cohen

Between 1,500 and 1,800 children left orphanages in Russia last year, striking out to find real homes in America. But now, because of the chilling new case of seven-year-old Artyom Savelyev, next year there may be none.

Yesterday, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman announced an immediate suspension of U.S. adoptions in Russia, pending an upcoming visit from a U.S. delegation to resolve the issue. It should be noted that other Russian officials disputed this ban, and the State Department says that for the moment it can't figure out who to believe.

Artyom, also known by his American name Justin Hansen, got off a plane from Washington, D.C., in Moscow last week, all by himself, carrying nothing but a backpack with some toys, one pair of outsized underwear, and a letter from his adoptive mother, Torry Hansen.

Did I mention he is SEVEN YEARS OLD?

In the letter Artyom clutched when he got off the plane, where he was met by a driver Hansen hired off the internet to deliver the boy to the Russian Education Ministry, his 26-year-old single mom justified her actions. She said she'd been misled by the Russian adoption agency to believe Artyom was mentally healthy, when, she claimed, he was in fact emotionally disturbed.

"He is violent," she wrote in the letter above, "and has severe psychopathic issues/behaviors." Hansen's mother, Nancy, told reporters later that Artyom grew increasingly  disturbed during the six months he lived in their small-town Tennessee home, and at one point threatened to burn it down.

This might be the most glaring headline to come out of the sad story of Russian adoptions gone awry, but it's only the latest in a string of incidents involving these children, abandoned in orphanages, who languish there for several years before seemingly well-intentioned adoptive parents come forward. But during that time unclaimed, in group homes with inadequate attention, the damage is being done.

"Reactive Attachment Disorder" is often used to describe such lost souls, who missed out on the critical bonds formed in early years with a loving parent or adult. They may never have been held, cuddled, hugged. That yawning developmental hole results in a spectrum of behavioral problems, up to and including extreme violence. Was Artyom about to burn down the house? We'll never know. But there have been cases where the other children in the house, even the adults, were at physical risk.

In fact, in the years since Russia opened its borders to allow these kids out in search of new life with a real family, the number of willing families has slowed. The 1,500 figure of last year is much lower than the 5,800 Russian orphans adopted just six years ago. Taking these kids out of moldering group institutions and resettling them into the arms of strangers is no quick fix.

It's a tough and complicated problem. Hansen says the Russian adoption officials knew of Artyom's problems and lied to her about them. She said she was blindsided and eventually  had no choice but to do what she did. Here are a few choices she did have, however:

She apparently consulted with psychologists, but never took the boy to see one. She's a nurse. She should know better. She didn't seem to contact anyone back in Russia about the problem, and didn't even seem to think her son should be returned personally. One of her critics referred to her act as 'taking out the garbage.' How much preparation and forethought did she put into her choice to adopt this child in the first place?

Artyom, his Russian driver reported, seemed a likeable and unfazed seven-year-old. He gave away his toys to the people around him, pulling them out of his backpack 'like a magician.' He spoke only English in response to Russian questions, and talked about wanting to go back to his home in the U.S.

He won't be going back. And now many others like him, and even in much better shape than he is, won't be going anywhere either. They've lost that choice too.

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