What a Difference a Week Makes: Report from Cairo

by Pat Brown

Life is strange. We often never see what is right around the corner, even when we are walking directly in the midst of it.

January 14, 2011, ten days before the beginning of Egypt Revolution 2011. It was a perfectly normal day, a little bit of scattered rain, but, otherwise, it was pleasant. Cool, but not chilly. I took my daughter to the zoo (she's 30 years old, but, so what). Many families were out strolling cheerfully that Friday morning. We got ourselves a map, and made our way through the exhibits--parrots, hippos, llamas, flamingos, elephants, German Shepherds, and Cocker Spaniels. We were able to feed a lot of them. We kissed a chimpanzee and patted a lion. We had our photos taken. We had cotton candy and tea.

We left the zoo, took a taxi to the Cairo Tower and rode the elevator up to the very top. We watched the sun set over the panorama of the city, taking pictures as we walked around the observation deck. Then the sun disappeared and the lights of the city sparkled and boats on the Nile displayed necklaces of neon-colored bulbs. A soccer game was being played below us, with enthusiastic crowds cheering on their teams.

We were hungry, so we grabbed a cab and rode down the road toward Giza until we found the Chinese restaurant we had spotted earlier that week. My daughter, after a week of Egyptian food, wanted a bit of change. Then, we took a taxi back to our hotel, two blocks from Tahrir Square on Talaat Harb, the main shopping street. We found our favorite ice cream stand and, cones in hand, enjoyed the end of our last evening together in Egypt.

My daughter flew out early the next morning, and I came home that Tuesday. I had spent three weeks in Egypt, mixing business with pleasure, mostly staying in Cairo but making trips out of the city to Alexandria, Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simbel. In spite of the terrorist bombing of the Coptic Christian church in Alexandria that happened New Year's Eve, the day I arrived in Egypt, all was quiet. No place I was in and no one I spoke with gave any hints of the coming events. Even people who were there the day before the revolution say they had no clue what the morning would bring.

Now, I sit here and watch the protests and the violence unfolding right outside my hotel, at the Egyptian Museum I visited twice, in Tahrir Square, which I crossed a dozen times, and it is hard to believe I was just there. This is not to say there wasn't a building momentum toward the days the people rose up against President Hosni Mubarak. Unemployment is ungodly high, over 60 percent (and I do not think that includes women). Food prices have been soaring, and students are graduating to lives with no future.

History always shows us what we can expect in the future. We can see this in the United States just as well, as changes occur and joblessness, frustrations, and anger build. Mass murders, school shootings, homegrown terrorism, violence against women and children--all of these are warning signs we should pay attention to, as a nation and in our communities. You never know; you could be watching your children at the baseball field in the afternoon and wake up to find your world turned upside-down the very next morning.

My prayers go out to the people of Egypt, and to Americans. We never know what tomorrow holds, but we can all do something about it today, and maybe we will have a better future for ourselves and our children.

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Where is the Outrage?

by Pat Brown

I doubt we can find very many people who feel bad for Ingmar Guandique, the man convicted of killing Chandra Levy. My own heart is not bleeding for him. On the other hand, my brain is about to explode. Why am I hearing no outcry about this frightening guilty verdict that the jury arrived at after an incredibly short trial with pitiful evidence? It is hard to see how any prosecutor would have even wanted to try this case with what he had to work with. It is horrifying that a jury would convict on emotion rather than solid facts. As much as I have never been totally enamored with the Innocence Project's overuse of DNA to disqualify all other solid evidence, they and I agree that this miracle conviction is a stomach-turning travesty. While Guandique is hardly innocent, as far as criminal matters go, he did attack two women and has a history of other criminal activities. Past criminal activities of an individual do not prove a similar criminal activity is that individual's doing unless evidence proves it so.

There, my fellow citizens, is the problem. Guandique was a good scapegoat; no, a great scapegoat. No one cares if Guandique stays in prison for decades. In fact, even I prefer he remains incarcerated forever. I don't really give a fig about Guandique's suffering because he is clearly a predator and hardened criminal who needs to be behind bars. But, I do care that our justice system is convicting people without credible evidence.

First, let's take a look at what evidence got Guandique a life sentence for the murder of Chandra Levy:

• He attacked two other women within the same park, though he did not succeed in either raping or killing them. He was, in fact, trying to rob them.
  
• An inmate who knew Guandique in prison said Guandique confessed to him.

No witnesses put Guandique on the trail at the time Levy was theoretically murdered. No evidence was found in Guandique's home linking him to the murder. Guandique, a known thief, did not steal Levy's ring or her Walkman. The only DNA evidence from the crime scene came from Levy's leggings, and, although it was from a male, it did not match Guandique. There was no videotaped confession with details only the killer would know. In fact, the details of the supposed confession Guandique made to his prison mate were not very convincing. Guandique passed the polygraph.

Recap: DNA from the crime scene does not match Guandique and nothing else links him to Levy's murder.

Why are we not all raising hell over this? Guandique could have committed the crime, but so could Condit or one of his buddies, and so could I, for that matter. We really don't know if Guandique is guilty (and neither does that jury), and we don't know if Chandra Levy's murderer is still at large. This is not justice.

Now, let's take a look at other cases that haven't gotten near a courtroom for lack of enough evidence for the prosecutor to feel comfortable presenting the case.

The case I wrote about in my book, The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths, is a good example. My suspect in the case, Walt Williams, is still free in spite of:

• He confessed to being on the path near the location of the murder at the time of the murder.
• The night of the murder, he threw away all the clothing he had worn (including his shoes) after being on the path where the homicide occurred.
• He wrote a story about killing people in the park just weeks before the victim was found murdered in a park.
• He said the following day to the girlfriend who had ended their relationship hours before the murder in response to her question if he was going to do something stupid (like suicide), "You don't know what I have already done."
• He covered his body in long pants and long sleeves the day after the murder in spite of the fact the temperature was in the high eighties
• He failed the polygraph and gave a phony alibi.
• There is no DNA left from the crime that does not match him.

Walt Williams remains free because there is not enough conclusive evidence to convict him. He could have been a nut job who was coincidentally near the area of a crime and because he is a bizarre person, he said and did strange things that made him look like he should be the killer. I tend to think this is not the case, but I agree with the prosecutor that even though the evidence is strong enough to make him the number one person of interest, it is not absolute proof that he committed the crime.

What about the man who said he murdered Ronni Chasen, the Hollywood publicist, for $10,000? By the time I got on "The Early Show" and gave commentary on this crime, the story went like this: The police had been doing surveillance on a man named Harold in connection with the shooting of Chasen. Ronni Chasen was shot in her car as she drove home from a film premiere through the quiet streets of Beverly Hills. Chasen had been shot five times in the chest and shoulder through her passenger window as she waited at a light.

Some pundits claimed it was a hit because the killer used a 9mm pistol with cop-killer ammunition (hollow-point bullets) and made a tight pattern of his shots. So, the theory was a professional hit man had killed Ronni on behalf of either someone in her will or someone who was angry with her. When the police moved in on Harold, a middle-aged ex-felon with weapons and drug charges on his record, at his crummy Hollywood hotel, he pulled his weapon and blew his brains out. He had told someone he would never allow himself to be taken back to prison.

I was asked, "Could Harold be the killer of Ronni Chasen?" I said it was possible. I did not believe the shooting to be all that professional because I also own a 9mm with that ammo, and I could shoot a pretty tight pattern if my target was only a few feet away. I surmised that if the police had followed information from Chasen's life to Harold, and Harold blew his brains out as soon as the police showed up, maybe he was linked to the crime, knew why the police were there and he offed himself. He could be a good suspect, because, although he wasn't a professional hit man (and, as I said above, I didn't think the murder had to be a professional hit), he was a thug who needed money, and I wouldn't doubt he would be willing to kill to get some.

Bombshell tonight: Harold is no longer a good suspect. Turns out, Harold was a bit off his rocker. He was going around telling all kinds of crazy stories, including one that he killed Chasen and another that he wanted to go out in a big blaze. Someone called America's Most Wanted with that tip and they turned the tip into police. There was nothing linking good ol' Harold to Chasen except his own big mouth, plus the gun he used to kill himself was not used to kill Chasen.

Oh, but, there is the point. Let's say someone wants to put the Ronni Chasen's murder to bed, close it out, considered it solved. All that has to be done is for a story to go out that another ex-felon heard that Harold sold a 9mm after Chasen's murder to someone whose name he can't remember. If Harold had survived the shot to his head, he could have been hauled into court and the ex-felon could testify to Harold selling off the murder weapon (or one like the murder weapon. "One like" is terminology commonly used to convict people without actually having the solid evidence).

Remember, you heard it here if the case is closed with the deceased Harold as the guilty party.

So, how does this happen in our criminal justice system and our courts, this use of scapegoats to close cases? And why?

The why part is the most important. For the prosecution to move forward with a case that lacks conclusive evidence, or for the police department to close a case without solid proof of the suspect being dead and guilty, there has to be a reason. The most likely scenario involves a case that is really dogging the police department. Either the press is making their lives miserable or the family and community just won't let it rest. It gets to the point where closing out the case would stop the negative publicity in its tracks. The Chandra Levy trial came on the heels of a major police trashing by a series of articles written in The Washington Post.

The Martha Moxley murder case got Michael Skakel convicted on little-to-no evidence after former LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman published his book, Murder in Greenwich, condemning the police of incompetence. The 2003 Florence Jean Hall murder in Covington, Tennessee, was closed with the conviction of an ex-felon employee on a questionable confession and zero physical evidence, in my opinion, because the fairly wealthy family had some pull in town. Otherwise, the family of this woman would have come under more serious scrutiny and James David Johnson would never have been convicted (or they would have been convicted with him). Politics and expedience are the motivators behind taking a weak case to court.

So, this leaves the question, if the prosecutors were so successful with these weak cases, why aren't more people railroaded? The answer is the proper ingredients have to be in the mix and it has to be worth it. The important ingredients are an emotional case the community wants resolved, a very sympathetic victim with devastated family members in the courtroom, a darned good political and economic reason to take the risk, and a really good fall guy that the jury is all too happy to convict.

Guandique? Total low-life criminal. Michael Skakel? A smug Kennedy with a big mouth who says stupid things. James David Johnson? A dangerous ex-con who is no loss to the community.

So why isn't Walt Williams on the list? First of all, Williams has no criminal record. Most scapegoats are ex-convicts or felons that look the part (Michael Skakel was an anomaly in the scapegoat world). The case is twenty years old, the family of Anne Kelley has never made waves, the community hardly remembers the crime and the media never has given the murder more than a short paragraph right after it happened. Maybe if my book makes enough of a stir or it gets made into a movie depicting the police and prosecutor in the worst way, then Walt Williams will be brought in and a jury will convict him in spite of that pesky reasonable doubt issue. Or, maybe, to prove me wrong, they will simply claim that newly found DNA matches a deceased sex murderer in prison and close the case down without showing us the actual DNA match. Or, worst of all, maybe they will find a rapist who just happened to be in the area at the time and railroad him.

Maybe they will say it was Ingmar Guandique because, after all, Anne Kelley was murdered in a park, too! I am sure they can convince a jury that this would have been the first crime for the then ten-year-old illegal immigrant, a violent product of the El Salvadorian Civil War and the Mara Salvatrucha aka MS -13 gang, big for his age and already a violent predator. Ingmar Guandique raped and murdered Anne Kelley as an initiation to the gang which operates in the area of her murder (and it is actually true the MS-13 gangs exist within a half mile of the homicide location; the path passes through their territory).

Before you start labeling this theory ridiculous and not worthy to be presented in a court of law, go back and look over the evidence that got Guandique convicted of Chandra Levy's murder. There isn't any.

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Profile of 'The Profiler'

by Cathy Scott

The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths, by criminal profiler and WCI contributor Pat Brown, with co-author Bob Andelman, hits book shelves tomorrow (May 18).

Waiting for police to act on the 1990 murder of Anne Kelley, Pat Brown couldn't understand what was taking so long to bring the case to a close. Brown had long suspected a possible connection to the odd man who'd briefly rented a room in her home. At the time unfamiliar with the criminal investigative process, Brown believed the Kelley case was unusual. But as she began exploring unsolved murders in her area, she soon realized the case, unfortunately, was not all that rare.

For example, in Washington, D.C. alone, Brown learned  that the murders of more than 120 women remained unsolved. "Who killed Nia Owens, Dana Chisholm, and Ann Bourghesani?" Brown asks in her latest book, The Profiler.

Who, indeed?

Brown vowed to do something. It was a move that would define her ensuing career as a criminal profiler. "Dead women were turning up everywhere," she writes in The Profiler. "It's like when you're pregnant and suddenly you notice how many other women are pregnant." It was a seminal moment. While she might not have been able to bring the Kelley case to an immediate close, she could help investigators and families figure out who might have killed other women, plus help determine if any of those cases were related, suggesting a serial killer might be on the loose.

She printed photos of 15 murder victims -- all women -- from across the country. She laminated the photos and placed each above the word "unsolved," written in large letters. Next, she hung the photos in a booth she rented at an outdoor festival. Festival-goers were stunned at the display. They'd assumed cases they'd read about in newspapers and seen on TV news reports had been solved. "They never caught that killer either," one person commented, pointing to the photo of a woman in the display.

Eventually, Brown launched a nonprofit group and web site. She took every training course available and read some 400 books on the subject and subtopics. Then she began profiling criminals. When the D.C. sniper in 2002 shot at people and their vehicles, the news media found Brown through her site. The attention catapulted her into the public eye and onto the airwaves, and one mystery case led to another. Today, she travels across the country consulting, criminal profiling and commenting on cases.

The Profiler is the result of that work, looking at individual cases, the evidence and circumstances surrounding them, any similarities to other cases, as well as peculiarities of certain murders. With this book, which Brown calls purposeful, she not only wants to pass on what she's learned and details of the cases she's worked on; she's hoping to see national changes in use of profilers. Her concept would have police departments use criminal profilers as standard tools, either inside the departments or outside, for the homicides they investigate.

In addition, she wants to to see profilers involved early on in a homicide investigation, within the first 48 hours. "What I've learned over a decade and a half of profiling cases is that you cannot bring a criminal profiler in late in the game. The evidence is long gone.

"We have far too many unsolved crimes, we have too little justice, and we have too many killers on the streets repeating those crimes," says Brown, who also received a master's degree in criminal justice from Boston University in 2007. Her aim is for "criminal profilers to be trained, including police investigators. There are thousands and thousands of unsolved homicides across the country."

But with law enforcement funding tight, Brown is realistic and understands fulfillment of her goal will take time. Eventually, she believes, it will happen. "In the long run," Brown says, "It could help save a lot of lives."

The Profiler is available wherever books are sold. Or order it on Amazon.com

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