How Crime Victims Become Crime Survivors

by Diane Dimond

It was an overcast October Saturday at the Joint Forces Training Base at Los Alamitos, California. The 7 am start time was daunting, but I’d promised to go. I’m glad I did. It was the annual “Survive and Thrive” 5K run/walk event put on by a group called Crime Survivors. Note that it’s not crime victims – it’s crime survivors. And before you ask, no, I didn’t run, but I did walk.

The woman who started Crime Survivors is Patricia Wenskunas, my hero.

She is a blond dynamo, a catering event planner by trade and a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and attempted murder. She speaks gently, but her message packs a wallop: Crime victims deserve consideration, at least as much consideration as the criminal gets. It was a point I heard repeatedly from the crowds who attended this annual event, all touched in life-changing ways. Several participants wore T-shirts with the image of their dead loved one, taken away in a sudden spurt of violence.

Many told me what they’d endured: childhood rapes, adult sexual assaults, domestic violence deaths, or family who were killed by repeat drunk drivers. Several spoke of senseless murder. Every single person said after police arrived to tell them the awful news they were left in a foggy swirl of loneliness. They spoke of how hard it was to heal and discover the pathway to their own recoveries.

“Hi, I’m Diane Dimond. May I ask what brought you here today?”

Juenenne, a woman about my age, silently pointed to the picture of her handsome son, Jake Eric Jackson, on her shirt. Her chin quavered, her eyes brimmed and suddenly there we were – two total strangers standing on a parade field on a distant military base full of victims' rights advocates – hugging each other.

“He was at a club one night. There were a couple of guys disrespecting a young lady, and Jake stepped in to help. One hit him in the face and wrestled with him. One took out a gun and shot Jake in the chest. As he lay dying, the other man kicked him and stomped on him.”

Juenenne had driven nearly two hours that morning from her home in Phelan, California, as a step along her path to recovery. She hoped mixing with others who shared similar pain might ease her sorrow.

Doves Mean Hope

After the speeches, Patricia invited a few family members up to the front to hold and then release beautiful white doves into the overcast sky. As touching music played, Patricia gave a lingering hug to each survivor, and then the doves flew off, one by one, instinctively circling overhead, waiting for the others so they could fly off in unison. Their unity in the dreary sky was inspiring. That’s when I first noticed Mary Ann, who was certainly thinking of her dead son, Jonathan Muse, as she released her dove.

On the walking path lined with three-foot-tall pictures of lost loved ones, Mary Ann and I talked. She’d been angry at her 17-year-old son for getting his 16-year-old girlfriend pregnant. In a huff, he’d jumped on a bike at midnight and ridden off down the street. A carload of gang members happened by and inexplicably shot Jonathan dead. Mary Ann, a nurse who is married to a police officer, was pushing a baby carriage as we talked. Inside was little Shayla (photo below right), the new grandbaby who will never know her father.

“I don’t know what I’d do without this child,” Mary Anne said as she clenched her teeth against the tears.

Juenenne got justice. The two men who killed her son are in prison. Mary Ann has not, and that's part of the problem so many victims of crime face. Their terrible loss is made more burdensome as they try to navigate the justice system. Police are too busy to deliver updates on their cases, court proceedings are confusing, and the parole system is frightening. On this staggeringly long journey to justice, these folks feel victimized again and again.

I wish we could clone Patricia’s Crime Survivors group nationwide. They help educate the public and police about victim’s rights. They push to change laws and attitudes. Crime Survivors donates thousands of adult and child emergency victim bags to law enforcement every year so officers can offer a victim something. The bag contains a list of vital phone numbers, toiletries including a toothbrush, first aid kit and a journal with a pen so victims can write down their thoughts on the road to survival.

Our system simply doesn’t help crime victims. I hope you never have to experience what they’ve gone through, but odds are you might.

For more information on Crime Survivors visit www.CrimeSurvivors.com

Tweet

A Jew in St. Lou

by Lisa R. Cohen

I write this on a flight to St. Louis, where I'll be speaking today at their annual Jewish Book Festival. OK, my last name is Cohen, and that automatically confers Jewish bona fides - unless you're a British child these days trying to get into an elite private school and your mother is a convert! But other than my roots, what does AFTER ETAN, the 30-year-long (and counting) story of the most famous missing child since the Lindbergh baby, have to do with Judaism?

Turns out, a lot. Etan Patz was Jewish. His parents, Stan and convert Julie (Etan and his siblings wouldn't have been accepted to that British school), liked Israeli names. Etan's sister is Shira; his brother is Ari. Etan's uncle was a renowned rabbi who headed up a large suburban N.J. congregation. Early in the case, authorities learned Rabbi Patz took dozens of children on an annual summer trip to an Israeli kibbutz. The rumors ran wild - a family rift over religious differences? Maybe Uncle Norman had spirited Etan to Israel to bring him up more devoutly?

It was a ridiculous notion, not the least because Uncle Norman was a reform rabbi. But the Israel angle resurfaced repeatedly, after a mysterious photograph of Etan, taken by Stan Patz himself, surfaced in an Israeli magazine a few years after the boy disappeared. An even more bizarre twist? The picture's caption read "Etan Ben Haim" (Etan, Son of Life). No one could ever figure out how or why that photo appeared.

Ten years in, Federal Prosecutor Stuart GraBois, who at the time was just taking over this now-cold case, traveled to Israel with an FBI agent (photo at left) in an attempt to resolve the connection. The two men crisscrossed the country to visit Ben Haim families, knocking on doors and demanding birth certificates for any boy named Etan. All to no avail, and the mystery endures.

Then there was GraBois himself, a man who has relentlessly pursued the Patz case to this day. Despite the French-sounding name, Stuart GraBois was a Bensonhurst boy who celebrated his Bar Mitzvah in Brooklyn, where he'd grown up in a tight-knit Jewish home. There were French roots, to be sure. Before leaving Paris for New York in 1906, GraBois's grandfather had seen first-hand the damage of France's infamous "Affaire Dreyfus," and would often talk to his grandson with deep anger and sadness about the decade-long travesty. The elder GraBois vividly recalled the injustice done to Jewish artillery captain Alfred Dreyfus (photo at right). Dreyfus was falsely convicted of treason and imprisoned for four years on the notorious Devil's Island, a French prison off the coast of South America, before his name was finally cleared. His case was immortalized by author Emile Zola's "J'Accuse!"

"That's why we came to America," Benjamin GraBois would tell his grandson. "Because justice is possible. Here you have a chance to go to school to make sure people get treated fairly." As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, GraBois took his grandfather's words seriously.

Over the last several years of this case, Stan Patz and now-former prosecutor Stuart GraBois joined forces against one man, serial pedophile Jose Antonio Ramos (photo below right). And here's where the Jewish ties start to strain credulity. But then, the best non-fiction stories are the ones that read like fiction. Two other unlikely allies also lent their time and effort to make the case against Ramos. These two informants separately approached GraBois, each unaware the other was doing so, because they both knew Ramos from behind bars. Both offered to help extract his confession.

In a clandestine undercover operation, GraBois inserted first one of the men, and then the other, into Ramos’s cell. One played an elaborate con. He passed himself off as both a lawyer and an amateur shrink. He escaped with incriminating evidence against Ramos but almost got himself killed in his high-stakes game. The other was more straightforward, but he, too, feared for his life. By the time he left the shared cell, he was convinced Ramos was a madman.

Their original link to Ramos? Both of them were Jewish, and both had met Ramos at prison religious services or as part of Jewish study behind bars! In fact, one of them later revealed to me that he’d risked his safety to go after Ramos because it made him crazy watching Ramos pretend to be a Jew.

Yes, that’s right, Jose Antonio Ramos underwent a jailhouse conversion. Even though he had Christian pen pals to whom he was still quoting New Testament scripture, Ramos also began wearing a yarmulke and dropping Yiddish phrases. He refused to cut his hair for religious reasons, and demanded the same kosher dietary considerations etc., as the few other Jewish inmates at the prison. He claimed to have discovered – late in life - his own grandfather’s roots as a Spanish Jew.

All of these connections, some more absurd than others, led me to the Jewish Book Festival, here in St. Louis, where I've now landed. But perhaps most resonant for me are the themes, prominent in Jewish history and culture, that this book echoes so fervently: survival under the worst of conditions; a search for justice no matter how long it takes; and the edict former Federal Prosecutor Stuart GraBois continues to live by – Never, ever, ever, ever give up.

Tweet

Handwriting Analysis: An Interview with Sheila Lowe

by Andrea Campbell

I studied handwriting analysis extensively and wrote a novel about a handwriting analyst character over 14 years ago, but could never get it published. Today I’d like you to meet our guest, Sheila Lowe, who has managed to do what I could not. (Sheila Lowe, pictured at left)

Q.: Sheila, for readers who don’t know you, could you talk a little about your background as a forensic handwriting specialist?

A.: I started studying handwriting more than 40 years ago while I was in high school, and subsequently spent 10 years reading every book I could find on the subject. Finally, I discovered Charlie Cole, an expert who taught correspondence courses in graphology, which I greedily devoured. I became certified by the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation in 1981 and four years later became qualified in the court system to testify as an expert in the field of handwriting. Dare I use a cliché and say, “the rest is history”?

Q.: What is the difference between graphology and handwriting analysis?

A.: Graphology is the generic term for handwriting analysis; however, the study of handwriting is generally broken into two different areas: personality assessment and handwriting authentication.

Q.: How are these disciplines used?

A.: Graphology is the study of handwriting to learn about behavior and personality—which includes the effects of life experiences on handwriting, as well as of illness, medications, aging, drugs, etc. Another aspect of handwriting analysis is forensic handwriting authentication, which is used in cases involving forgery. So, if you want to get better insight into your own or someone else’s motivations and needs, graphology can help. If someone has stolen your identity and forged your name, you need a handwriting analyst trained in the authentication side. Some analysts do one or the other, some (like me) do both.

Q.: Graphology gets a bad rap; can you explain?

A.: Because there is no licensing and no controls over the practice, anyone can set up shop and start analyzing handwriting after reading a book or two. There are thousands of web sites hawking graphology, many of them by people who would not be able to get a license, if only there were a requirement to get one! They have done a great deal of harm to the field and their clients. Also, there’s long been a misconception that graphology has something to do with fortune telling or occult arts. It doesn’t.

Q.: Will you talk about some of the characteristics an expert can discern using handwriting analysis?

A.: The general categories I cover in a personality profile include ego needs and ego strength, social attitudes, thinking style, fears and defenses—things like that. A lot depends on the purpose of the analysis. If I’m doing a report for an employer who has sent me handwritings of applicants, I would examine the areas specific to the job description. If the report were for a couple getting married, or for a mid-life career change, or for a child custody issue, the focus would be different.

Q.: Let’s get to your writing. What are your books? May we have a mini-synopsis?

A.: I write both non-fiction and fiction books. My non-fiction works are The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Handwriting Analysis (Alpha), which teaches the gestalt method of graphology and is like a mini course, and Handwriting of the Famous & Infamous (Thunder Bay), which has my thumbnail sketches of the handwritings of 75 well-known people from Galileo to the Son of Sam, from John Lennon to Hillary Clinton, and a whole lot of others. I also write mystery fiction — The Forensic Handwriting Mystery series (Penguin’s Obsidian) featuring forensic handwriting expert Claudia Rose. Dead Write, the third book in the series, was recently released, and I’ve just finished the next book, Unholy Writ, for release next year.

Q.: Who is your protagonist and what type of character is she?

A.: Claudia Rose is a modern single woman entering her forties, who, in the first book, Poison Pen, becomes involved with LAPD detective Joel Jovanic. Her handwriting analysis practice brings her in touch with crimes such as forgery, and using what she knows, she’s better able to understand the people, both good and bad, who are involved. Claudia has a hard time staying detached in cases where kids are in jeopardy, which is the case in Written in Blood and Unholy Writ. She’s warm and compassionate, but she’s learning to be tough when she needs to be. And she’s learning to allow herself to open up in a love relationship — one of her big challenges at the beginning of the series.

Q.: Do you use the misconceptions about handwriting analysis in your books?

A.: Yes. Claudia regularly has to answer the same questions and misconceptions that I do. I hope the series will help clear things up.

Q.: Does your character go into the courts?

A.: In Written in Blood there is a major courtroom scene that is very similar to testimonies I’ve given in my own practice. Claudia has to face the same challenges and stress of testifying that I do.

Q.: On the business side, how did you find a publisher? Did you start with an agent?

A.: I’ve had seven agents, and now I have a good one. I sold my fiction books and the first two mysteries on my own. It’s a lot easier to sell non-fiction without an agent, but I did a lot of studying on how to go about it before setting out. In fact, I read The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Published, and following its guidelines may have made the difference. I tried for a long time and, as I said, a number of agents, to sell my first mystery, Poison Pen, to a major publishing house. Finally, I had an offer from a small startup publisher, Capital Crime. They got the book reviewed in Publisher’s Weekly. I was lucky enough to get a starred review, which attracted the attention of my then-editor at Penguin, who made an offer for the first two books, and later, two more.

Q.: What can you tell us about your publisher and your experience (e.g., contract, editing, promotion, anything such as that) with them?

A.: Considering my good experience with a small press (for fiction), I encourage anyone having difficulty getting picked up by a large publishing house to try them. You’ll have control over cover art and work closely with your editor. At large houses, you’re likely to get your book cover with a note that says, “Here’s your cover. We hope you love it as much as we do.” Luckily, so far, I have! Regardless of the size of your publisher you will be expected to promote the book yourself (and pay for the promotion yourself). If you’re not willing and able to do that, don’t even bother looking for a publisher. They need to know that you’re willing to invest your (probably small) advance in promotion. That means creating a web site and/or blog, printing bookmarks, attending conventions and speaking on panels, visiting bookstores, etc. One note about bookstores: unless you have a very well-known name, book signings tend to be a waste of time and the big box stores discourage them. It’s often more effective just to do a “drop-in” signing. Call in advance to make sure they have your books in stock.

Q.: Do you have any advice for writers who want to break into the field?

A.: Learn your craft. If you’re writing genre fiction, find out what the rules are so that you can break them. Get into a critique group in your genre, hire a private editor to read your material, and listen to what that editor has to say about your work. Oh, and leave out most of the adverbs (those pesky “ly” words that make the writing weak).

Q.: Is there anything you would like to tell WCI Readers?

A.: Buy books! Whether they’re traditional books that you can cuddle up in bed with, or a Kindle that you can take on a plane (where I’m writing this, on my way to Bouchercon, a mystery convention), support your favorite authors. When someone tells me, “I love your books. I pass them around to all my friends,” I remind them that authors don’t get royalties on borrowed books, and it’s those royalties that allow authors to keep on writing the stories they love to read.

Thank you, Sheila.

http://www.sheilalowe.com/ for handwriting analysis;

http://www.claudiaroseseries.com/ for mystery

Tweet

Eleven Bodies and Counting

by Pat Brown

The people living in Anthony Sowell's Cleveland neighborhood are appalled and stunned to find a serial killer in their midst. Sowell, a convicted rapist, is now an alleged serial killer (alleged, since we have yet to prove he killed the 11 women found dead in his house and any others who turn up as police tear apart his house; he could have just been maintaining a graveyard for a buddy). They ask how so many citizens could disappear without law enforcement warning that a serial killer was at large in their area.

Even worse: How could so many women go missing right around a violent sex-offender's home -- especially a house that reeked of death so badly that neighbors complained to the city? No parole officer went in to see if there was something amiss. No police detective brought a cadaver dog by to check out the stench.

Is this an anomaly? Is this a particularly bad police department? Is the city totally uncaring about these women because they were black, in a rundown area? No. This scenario occurs over and over across the country, which is why the handling of serial-homicide investigation needs to change.

First, let's look at the police department. Can you say "not enough manpower and funding to handle all their cases"? You bet. Any big city police department is drowning under its caseload. Shrinking tax dollars mean slashed city budgets, including public safety funding. Cities are furloughing officers and hiring no new ones. Detectives don't have the time or manpower to clear backlogs of rape and murder cases, let alone reports of missing people.

Complicate this with the victims themselves. It's unlikely that all of Sowell's victims were drug addicts, alcoholics, or prostitutes (he could have grabbed a church lady coming by with tracts on how to bring Jesus into his life). But the more times the possible victim has disappeared before (off on a drunk, out of town with a boyfriend, off to score drugs), and the longer her rap sheet before she went missing, the more likely it is that an overworked detective won't take time away from rape and murder investigations to spend hours tracking down some woman who is off bingeing in Atlantic City.

Anthony Sowell knows all this very well. He knows which victims to grab: those who are easy to con, and those police are unlikely to look for. Some victims won't go to the police because they have criminal records, or they don't believe the authorities will believe them. Tanja Doss was attacked by Sowell four years ago, but never reported the assault for just that reason. Sowell also knows police don't like to admit there are serial rapists and serial killers in their jurisdictions, because that means community pressure. Serial murder cases are extremely difficult to solve and terribly time consuming. The police are just too tired to deal with more demands.

There are, however, methods which could improve this situation. One is to establish a Suspected Serial-Homicide unit. All missing persons, unsolved rapes and sexual murders go into the unit's database and are monitored. This way someone is paying attention to a map that would, for example, eventually have shown a lot of dots around Anthony Sowell's house. There would also be a dedicated detective or two to link crimes together and pay extra attention to violent sex offenders who have been released back into the community.

We could also use more training in psychopathy for detectives, parole officers, and parole boards. Many are unable to recognize psychopathic manipulation and ploys. Some will think Sowell is rehabilitated (which can never happen with sex offenders) and no longer dangerous if he periodically offers barbeque to neighbors (which Sowell apparently did). Essentially, for many dealing with sexual psychopaths, if they see no evil and hear no evil, the sex offender is behaving himself.

Some people ask if Sowell is one of those brilliant serial killers who are always portrayed like Hannibal Lecter in movies. The answer is no. Most serial sex offenders are of average intelligence, but they get lucky because they grab their victims when no one sees them do it, often pick victims who aren't missed, and their crimes get lost in the excess of criminal activity in the jurisdiction. Investigative methods and training often fail to identify these predators.

Anthony Sowell was one of those who got lucky. His house smelled like dead bodies for years, but many thought the smell came from the sausage factory next door. The owner of the factory went nuts trying to eliminate the smell, spending thousands of dollars replacing equipment, because even he thought the horrific odor might be the factory's doing. What a break for Sowell!

Sowell, a 50-year-old ex-Marine, was previously convicted when he was 30. He received just 15 years for kidnapping, choking, and raping a woman, because a plea agreement reduced the charge to attempted rape. So, actually, Sowell isn't even a convicted rapist, though he is a registered sex offender. Considering the violence the woman faced before she escaped, I bet she would have ended up dead if she hadn't jumped out of a window. I also bet Sowell committed many more crimes before he got caught for this one. Unfortunately, he did his time, and in June 2005 he was released and given another chance at life; another chance to rape and kill.

Sadly, 11 or more women will never get their second chances.

Tweet

When Loved Ones Do The Unthinkable

by Diane Dimond

There’s a drama playing out in West Babylon, New York that makes you want to go home and tell your family how much you love them. It also makes you wonder how much bad news about your loved one you could accept if he or she did something so horrible it caused seven innocents to lose their lives.

On Sunday, July 26th, at about 10 o’clock in the morning, Diane Schuler got behind the wheel of her red mini-van with five children, all under the age of nine -- including her brother's three little girls -- to return home from an upstate New York camping trip. At some point during the drive, Schuler’s young niece, Emma, picked up a cell phone and called her father. “There’s something wrong with Aunt Diane!” she is reported to have cried.

Diane Schuler had inexplicably gotten on a suburban highway going the wrong way. The horrific head-on crash that followed -- after she drove the wrong way for almost two miles -- killed everyone in her vehicle except her five-year-old son, Bryan. Three unsuspecting men in the other vehicle, a Chevy TrailBlazer SUV, all died. In a split second, eight people were dead in a pile of twisted and burning wreckage barely recognizable as automobile parts.

Flash forward to the toxicology report on this seemingly happily married mother of two. The coroner’s office concluded that Diane Schuler had a blood-alcohol level of .19 – more than twice the legal limit – plus six grams of unabsorbed alcohol in her stomach. In addition, her blood carried 113 nanograms per milliliter of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. The medical examiner said the level indicated Diane had smoked weed as recently as 15 minutes before the fiery crash. Translated: Schuler was very drunk and very high at the time of the accident.

Oh, and police report they found a 1.75-liter bottle of vodka in the minivan after the deadly accident.

Police waited until after the dead were buried to release Diane Schuler's toxicology report. After the information came to light, the grieving husband, Daniel, went before the press to categorically deny his 36-year-old wife had an alcohol or drug problem. He revealed he works nights, and their two children were frequently left with a babysitter, but he insisted some sort of unidentified medical problem must have caused her to lose control of the car. “She was a perfect wife, upstanding mother, a hard worker, a reliable person, trustworthy,” he said through his tears, remembering both his wife and his dead two-year-old daughter.

Denial in the face of reality. And a mourning man is left to nurse his critically wounded young son back to health. Your heart goes out to Daniel Schuler, as delusional as he is in the face of overwhelming forensics.

But that’s not all this new widower must face. A flamboyant New York attorney named Irving Anolik has entered the picture to claim “there’s a strong fragrance of criminality” to the crash deaths. He plans to file a civil suit against the Schulers. Anolik represents the family of Guy and Michael Bastardi, a father and son who died in the SUV. Anolik says it is “inconceivable” that the Schulers were unaware Diane had a drinking and drug problem.

“Any person who was aware that she was drinking is an accomplice … whoever sold her the marijuana committed a crime,” said Anolik. “She didn’t just wake up one morning with a drug problem and capable of drinking that much alcohol.”

Anolik has a point, but the whole idea of blaming the family and making them pay for their dead loved one’s actions doesn’t sit well with me. I completely understand the urge for revenge, the need to make someone pay you back for the awful thing that’s happened. But ultimately, it's empty satisfaction.

We’ve become a society of blame seekers. Someone must take the blame for all the bad things that happen to us in life. One person’s bad judgment can't be merely accepted. For some reason, we need to point the finger of responsibility at others and demand money to ease our hurt and our loss. Of course, money doesn’t do either. The dead are still dead, and we still feel the tremendous loss deep in our souls.

But there’s always a lawyer willing to take the case for the promise of 30% of the settlement amount. Almost all the plaintiffs I’ve spoken to at the end of long, grueling, wrongful-death lawsuits say the same thing. In retrospect, they realize the years-long legal process they endured only served to keep their grief fresh. It prolonged the pain and the time it took to heal. The family of the Bastardi father and son were in court recently asking a judge to name an executor of Diane's estate so they'll have something to sue.

Do I think the survivors of the dead in this case deserve something? Yes. They deserve some peace for the awful event that has shattered their lives.

Tweet

It's not CSI Folks!

by Kathryn Casey

Over the decades, I've spent a considerable amount of time in courtrooms. It’s part of the job. Awhile back, I sat in on a long trial, seven weeks. (There I am below right.) On the first day, I heard a phrase I hear in nearly every trial I attend these days. The prosecutor had the crime scene specialist on the stand, and the D.A. said something on the order of, “It’s not exactly CSI, is it, Sir?”

The investigator said, “No, it’s not.”

It may seem odd that a television program was a topic of testimony in a murder trial, but the CSI-type shows come up more often than not in courtrooms. Prosecutors increasingly feel compelled to defuse the myth, to explain to jurors who watch the sophisticated CBS series and others like it that not all the gadgets and techniques they see in television are gospel, and that even the ones that do exist often aren’t available in run-of-the-mill, budget-strapped cop shops.

What types of crime solving methods? You know, like the holographic facial reconstruction on Fox’s Bones. At times, it can actually be pretty comical. I once had lunch with a homicide cop and a crime scene officer, while they laughed about a CSI Miami episode in which a murder was solved based on an ant bite. Bite evidence is, of course, not unusual. But in this case, the TV sleuths measured and mapped an ant bite on a corpse, reconstructing the little critter’s minuscule mandible, then linked the resulting information not only to a certain species but – forgive me if this is wrong I am getting it second hand – to a specific ant colony. Wham! Crime solved. Wow. I was impressed. But everyone else at the table found the plot less than plausible.

Why is the CSI effect a bad thing in a courtroom? Prosecutors fear jurors who watch such unrealistic, forensic heavy programs may expect too much. They may expect absolute physical evidence to convict.

Of course, there’s another side to the coin. Many defense attorneys object to the CSI comment. Why? For the defense, it’s not usually a bad thing for juries to assume all the stuff on CSI is real world. If they believe the TV show is gospel, jurors figure their local P.D. hasn’t met the standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” in a case without iron-clad forensic evidence. After all if CSI is viewed by many as a real-world guideline for how a crime scene is investigated, what’s to be made of a police department without equipment to measure an ant bite and conclusively tie it to the correct ant hill? Of course that assumes a police department has an unlimited budget, a state-of-the-art lab, and the likes of David Caruso on staff.

Maybe it’s not surprising or new that we’re getting drawn in by dramatic presentations on television and confusing them with real life. I remember the first murder trial I sat through as a fledgling reporter, more than two decades ago. I’d grown up watching Perry Mason on my family’s black-and-white television, and I was shocked that witnesses weren’t allowed to ramble on without waiting for lawyers’ questions and, even more so, that neither the prosecutor nor the defense attorney cornered a single witness on the stand and spurred a confession.

Actually, to this day, I’m still waiting to be in a courtroom where a suspect yells out: “All right, I did it!”

Tweet

Mommy's Little Girl

by Diane Fanning

More than a year ago, I agreed to write a book about a story that dominated the national media. I finished my manuscript in mid-May this year, and it seems like that day was long, long ago. Today, at last, St, Martin's Press releases MOMMY'S LITTLE GIRL: Casey Anthony and Her Daughter Caylee's Tragic Fate.

I kept photos of Caylee in front of me as I wrote. As a mother, I could not comprehend how any woman could carry a baby in her body for nine long months and then, two to three years later, look at the innocent, trusting face and even think of harming her toddler. I thought of my own daughter often as I researched and dug into the facts of this incomprehensible crime.

I really did not want to believe that Casey Anthony -- or any mother -- could murder her own daughter. But after months of immersion in the available evidence and in interviews with people close to the case, I could reach no other conclusion.

So I was gratified by the reviews the book already received, making months of slogging through the muck worthwhile.

Hal Boedeker of the Orlando Sentinel wrote of MOMMY'S LITTLE GIRL: "Author Diane Fanning tirelessly recounts the young woman's lying ways, theorizes how Anthony might have disposed of her daughter and concludes that Anthony is 'an individual whose self-absorption and insensitivity to others is a destructive force.'"

Mike DeForest of WKMG-Channel 6 News said in a television book review: "At least for a little while, for people following the Casey Anthony saga, this is basically going to be like a bible for them."

Want additional reading material before picking up the book? See my post, Is Malignant Narcissism the Answer? here at Women in Crime Ink -- or read the first chapter of the book on my website. You can also view video clips of my interview with 48 Hours.

You'll find MOMMY'S LITTLE GIRL in bookstores everywhere today. If you pick up a copy, I'd love to hear your feedback (write diane@dianefanning.com) after you read the book. But whether you read it or not, I am sure you will join me in demanding nothing less than justice for little Caylee.

Tweet

Money and Murder

by Katherine Scardino

Did you know it costs more than $2 million, give or take a few hundred thousand, to prosecute a capital-murder defendant from the moment of arrest until the jury returns a verdict? That's without the continuing costs of a decade or so of appeals of every death sentence.

Killing a citizen for killing another citizen to prevent the killer from killing again is costly -- and frankly, embarrassing. Many studies find there is absolutely no evidence that executing the “worst of the worst” deters anyone from committing any kind of crime, especially murder. In 1995, a poll by Hart Research Associates found that the majority of police chiefs did not believe the death penalty significantly reduces the number of homicides. In fact, these police chiefs ranked it as the least effective way to reduce crime. The only thing Texas has gotten from all its many executions is a bad reputation and the distinction of killing more people than any other state in the United States, as well as some entire countries.

After 33 years of executions (since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed restoration of the death penalty in 1976), some states are looking at the bottom line: What are we getting in return for executing violent criminals? New Mexico recently backed away from capital punishment. The cost is too great for the return; worse, several prisoners have been exonerated, which can scare even the most steadfast death-penalty supporter. No one can stomach the execution of an innocent person.

Texas is currently in turmoil over the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was convicted of setting a fire that killed his three young daughters in 1991. The evidence used to declare the fire arson in 1991 has been found flawed and unreliable by Texas' arson commission in 2009.

It appears that Texas did, in fact, execute a man for a crime he did not commit. Oops! My bad! What else can we say? Well, according to Gov. Rick Perry, right after he replaced three members of the arson commission, Cameron Todd Willingham (photo below) was a “bad man” who deserved to die, right? No, Gov. Perry, you are wrong. Whether Mr. Willingham was a “bad man” wasn't the point. The point is that Texas spent the money to have a jury trial, and presented bad, incompetent, allegedly “expert” evidence about arson -- and that this evidence led a jury to find Willingham guilty of capital murder and sentence him to death.

There are so many flaws in the U.S. capital-punishment system that it's hard to pick just one. It would be nice if capital punishment were eliminated in the United States so we could join the company of the rest of the world's civilized nations. But more likely, it will be because of money, money, money.

Let’s look briefly at the money issue. In Texas, a death penalty case costs an average of $2.3 million, about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years -- and that's from a Dallas Morning News report back in 1992! Obviously, as of 2009, the cost is even higher. In California, the death-penalty system costs taxpayers $114 million each year, above and beyond the costs of keeping convicts locked up for life. (L.A. Times, March 6, 2005).

The cost of a capital crime -- a crime for which a person may be sentenced to death -- can be too much for some jurisdictions, such as Austin County, Texas. In August in a small, bucolic community halfway between Austin and Houston, four men, all relatives, were arrested, jailed and charged with capital murder in the death of a Houston doctor visiting his summer home there. Austin County hasn't had a capital-murder prosecution in 15 years. The cost of prosecuting these four men for capital murder will be prohibitive. Each of the four defendants is entitled to two defense lawyers, defense experts, and a multitude of other defense expenses.

So: What if smaller counties “Just Say No”? Their resources could be channeled into better schools, more police officers, solving old crimes, building new libraries, etc.

That would leave only the larger jurisdictions prosecuting capital cases. And how could that be acceptable? That would mean if someone committed a capital murder in Harris County, for example, they could be sentenced to death. If the same person committed the same crime in a small county, he wouldn't be charged with capital murder -- so punishment would be determined by where a crime was committed.

That is exactly what is happening in various counties across Texas, making the death penalty even more flawed and inequitable.

The cost of prosecuting a capital case is enormous. The return is small -- so small that all you get back is one executed person unable to commit any more crimes -- and a lot of invoices. Let’s ALL just say no.

Tweet

Funny, Freaky, Freeing, or Just Plain Irresponsible?

by Robin Sax

Marge Simpson’s "Playboy" pictures are out now in the November issue. It's the first time a cartoon character has been featured on the risqué magazine's cover, and I’ve got to admit -- at first I chuckled. Then I started thinking ... Why? Why Marge? Why "Playboy"?

Marge Simpson is a wife and mother of three kids on Fox's long-running series, “The Simpsons.” The "Playboy" pictures feature Marge (remember, she’s an animated character) sitting naked on a bunny chair, wearing nothing but her signature blue hairdo. The spread also features a story inside called, “The Devil in Marge Simpson.”

There has been much banter about this on the blogs, and I really liked what Hollywood Gossip had to say on the matter:

As a housewife and mother of three, we fear that Marge’s pictorial - which includes a three-page spread and interview -- sets a bad example. What will Maggie [her daughter] think when she gets old enough to use Google? How will Bart’s classmates react to these images? It’s really all the fault of Kate Gosselin. Clearly jealous of the attention that famous mom has received -- Marge set out to reclaim the spotlight. Mission (grossly) accomplished.

Of course this is a tongue-in-cheek post, but it raises an important question: How does this affect the children? As a woman, there’s a part of me that thinks it’s refreshing to see a “regular” (if imaginary) mom on the coveted cover of a major magazine. It’s a nice change of pace from the usual image of impossible perfection we see on every other magazine cover. But how about putting Marge on "In Style", "Harpers Bazaar", "The New Yorker," or even "Parents"?

Why did "Playboy" choose Marge Simpson? What about Jessica Rabbit or Lara Croft or even Betty Boop? If we’re talking about sexualizing an animated character, why not choose one that was created to be a sex symbol? In an age when we worry about kids growing up too fast, we want our public figures to be good role models. So why did "Playboy" need to turn Marge into a sexy hottie when there are certainly enough others to go around?

Some argue "The Simpsons" isn’t really for kids. But I don’t care. Every kid knows who "The Simpsons" are, and most watch it. It appears on regular TV channels, and Marge is a cartoon character with special kid appeal.

The bottom line: I agree with the folks at MTV who said that "Playboy" is probably trying to attract younger readers. I guess that’s where my problem is. You put Marge on the cover, and all of sudden kids are going to pick up the magazine thinking it’s for kids, unaware of what's inside the covers.

Perhaps what makes this even more troublesome is that the cover appears right before Halloween, when we’re smack in the middle of the new trend of overly sexualized Halloween costumes. Remember the good old days of princesses, bulky coats over costumes, and bunny faces? Gone!

Now we see lacy garters, bustiers, and devils in mini-skirts. Susan Linn, director of the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood in Boston, says that corporate marketers are increasingly aiming at girls as young as preschool age as if they were teenagers! Linn, who also wrote "The Case for Make Believe" and "Consuming Kids," said much of it is based on a marketing strategy known as CAGOY, or "Children are Getting Older Younger."

"It's a marketing phenomenon, created by marketers, based on an assumption that children are acquiring the trappings of maturity earlier. There is no evidence of that," she says. Linn said there is evidence, however, that the commercialization of childhood intensifies serious issues like childhood obesity, eating disorders, low self-esteem and precocious sexual activity. It also interferes with imagination and creative play.

So if costumes are sending bad messages, and if over-sexualizing leads to a host of sociological and psychological problems, why open that Pandora’s Box? When will the media and marketers err on the side of caution and start thinking about what’s in the best interest of our children? Yes, this is the same media that criticizes parents for not doing their job protecting their kids. So here’s my question: When will society and the media start doing theirs?

Tweet

The Monster's Wife, Culpable?

by Contributors to Women in Crime Ink

Police have charged Nancy Garrido along with her husband, Phillip, for abducting and imprisoning Jaycee Dugard for the past 18 years. Both are charged with 29 counts each, ranging from kidnapping to rape. Dugard's stepfather has identified Nancy, a nursing assistant believed to have assisted in the delivery of Dugard's two children, as the woman who snatched his stepdaughter off the street, and police say Nancy (left) was home with the then 11-year-old for five months while her husband cooled his heels in jail on a parole violation. Meanwhile, her attorney maintains Nancy's innocence, saying she too was her husband's victim, kept under Garrido's control.

The question for WCI bloggers: If it turns out that Nancy Garrido is involved in this heinous crime, and if it turns out that she's been a victim of prolonged domestic violence, how much weight should this be given, and should it impact guilt/innocence or sentencing?

Pat Brown: Nancy Garrido deserves to accept full responsibility for her actions. Why? Because she wasn't an innocent girl like Jaycee who might have been snared by an older Phillip Garrido and brainwashed. She was a full grown adult who met Garrido when he was already in prison and she knew he was in prison for kidnapping and rape. She chose to partner with him, and she chose to participate in his criminal activities. She is as guilty as he is for what happened to Jaycee Dugard (left) and her children. I say a life sentence without parole is fully appropriate for Nancy Garrido.

Andrea Campbell: In my opinion, if Nancy Garrido was free to come and go, yet still aided in perpetuating the kidnapping and crime against Jaycee Dugard, and then allowed it to continue with the imprisonment of the children, she should be charged as a co-conspirator. At the very least, it is criminal aiding and abetting.

Kathryn Casey: It appears that Nancy Garrido had every opportunity to turn her husband in and end the nightmare for Jaycee and her family. If that’s true, it’s fitting that she’s held responsible right along with the monster she chose as her husband. What woman marries a man in prison for kidnap and rape, allegedly assists in a kidnapping once he's released, and then sits back and does nothing while he imprisons and violates a child? Should abuse by Garrido against Nancy come in at all? Sure, in sentencing. If Nancy has been victimized by her husband, the jury or judge who hands down the sentence should be able to fully assess the entire picture.

Diane Fanning: Nancy Garrido should be judged solely by her actions in the guilt/innocence phase of the trial. If the state proves--as I believe they will--that she aided and abetted in the crimes committed against Jaycee Dugard and in keeping her captivity a secret for all these years. Then, she should be found guilty of all of that. If there was on-going long-term, verifiable domestic violence perpetrated on Nancy, that should be considered as a mitigating circumstance only during the sentencing phase and weighed against the actions she took or did not take regarding Jaycee.

Susan Murphy-Milano: Nancy Garrido is a full-fledged accomplice and co-conspirator, who in my opinion willingly participated in the crimes against a helpless child. Garrido should receive no mercy and have her lawyer strike from the court record the untruths told about her being a battered woman.

Jaycee Dugard was locked away like a caged animal from the outside world behind a series of fences, sheds and tents in the back of a suburban home. She was brainwashed and raped for years and gave birth to two children, the first when Jaycee was about 14. Those children, both girls now 11 and 15, also were kept hidden away in the caged compound.

I am reminded of Michelle Lyn Michaud, also of Sacramento, sentenced to death for her role in the 1997 kidnap, rape and murder of a 22-year-old student. During the trial, defense attorneys also tried to portray Michaud as a battered woman who would do anything to please her boyfriend, James Daveggio, who also was sentenced to death.

Nancy Garrido is a predator, and the battered-women’s theory is a way to mask and not take responsibility for her heinous crimes.

Katherine Scardino: Nancy Garrido should be judged solely on her own actions - if it is proven that she herself committed a direct criminal act - such as kidnapping, assault or some other direct act against another individual, or an act that is a crime by omission - meaning that she should have taken some reasonable action to prevent a criminal act - such as injury to a child by omission - she will be tried for her own crimes.

If her crime is an act by omission, then it is possible that she'd been so brainwashed or assaulted by this man that she could not take any preventative measures to protect or save Ms. Dugard. That may come in during the guilt phase of the trial - but generally, as Diane said, that information would only be admissible during the sentencing phase of a trial as possible mitigating evidence, just like information about a person's background - i.e., child abuse, sexual assault, beatings, etc. The jury can hear and consider this evidence when deliberating her punishment. The jury can give whatever weight they feel is appropriate to this type of information.

Cathy Scott: If Nancy Garrido was involved in the kidnapping and imprisonment of Jaycee Dugard, then, yes, she should pay. But I do believe some consideration -- even compassion -- should be afforded her if it turns out that she too was a victim of Philip Garrido (above right). The control from such a twisted and sociopathic mind reaches beyond prison bars, which may partly explain Garrido's failure to report her husband once he was jailed.

Tweet

Silenced

by Susan Murphy-Milano

Two years ago today, 23-year-old Stacy Ann Peterson vanished from the house in the Illinois suburb of Bolingbrook that she shared with her police-officer husband Drew Peterson, her two children and his two sons, whom she'd adopted.

After several months of being stalked and living under her husband's tight, controlling reins, Stacy Peterson told her husband the marriage was over. In October 2007, Stacy met and consulted with divorce attorney Harry Smith -- ironically, the same lawyer Kathleen Savio hired to represent her when she decided to divorce Peterson.

When Stacy failed to show up at her brother's house that late-October day, family members were concerned, especially her sister Cassandra Cales. Just two days earlier, after a cozy family night of movie and pizza, Stacy warned Cassandra that she planned to leave Peterson and said: "If something happens to me, I just want you to know it was Drew." When Cassandra couldn't reach her missing sister, she went to Stacy's house and found the four children home alone, with no sign of Peterson's car. At the Bolingbrook Police Department, Cassandra filed a missing-person report.

Within 48 hours, camera crews and journalists besieged the once quiet suburban cul-de-sac. Peterson, then a police sergeant, gave them a show -- a bizarre public display including personal attacks on his wife and her family in the wake of her disappearance. The national media covered Peterson's act like a low-life reality TV show. Each day as Peterson left his house, journalists shoved microphones in his face, hungry for a sound bite for evening crime or news broadcasts. If you were a resident of Illinois during the first three weeks after Stacy vanished, you saw Peterson served up on local, cable and radio programs like a charred chicken flapping its wings almost around the clock.

To me, it seemed Peterson treated Stacy's life like a dirty rag. In his attempts to discredit her, Peterson made comments such as "You know she came from a broken home," or, "Her mother went missing too, so this is not a surprise." Then I heard Peterson say, "Stacy is where she wants to be." My heart sank as I thought of the boys who'd now lost a mother twice.

Seventeen days after Cassandra reported Stacy's disappearance, the Will County State Attorney's Office obtained a court order and exhumed the body of Kathleen Savio. Savio, Peterson's previous wife, was discovered dead in a bathtub in the marital house in 2004. Suddenly, the media and police focus swung from Stacy's disappearance to a new autopsy into the cause of Kathleen's death. The effort to find Stacy lost its momentum. The ground began to freeze, making the search more difficult for family and teams of volunteers. And the media remained hooked on Drew's public displays and his love life, leaving no time to find answers or enlist the public's help in finding Stacy.

In the months that followed, I met with people who knew Stacy personally. From the moment she married Drew, Stacy worked to knit a loving family environment, integrating Drew's then-estranged family into the couple's new life. From all accounts, she had a kind, warm and giving heart. People's eyes sparkled when they spoke of her. She made friends and family feel welcome. When a guest didn't show up for a gathering, Stacy called urged, "Come on," one relative recalled. "We're holding dinner, where are you? We're not starting until you get here."

Another told me: "Stacy was the glue, and that's why her disappearance is so painful to those of us who knew her."

Stacy Peterson's dream was to be a loving wife and mother, an all-around nurturer. She enrolled in nursing classes at a local college. When Stacy could no longer live under Peterson's heavy-handed control and constant watch, she made plans to leave. But like many women in her position, she made a mistake. She told her husband what she planned before she moved to a place where she'd be safe from him.

Stacy was silenced in the prime of her life. But there can be no silencing of family and friends who will continue to search for her until she is found. A grand jury met for 18 months before handing down an indictment against Drew Peterson for the death of Kathleen Savio.

I believe when that trial begins, the long silence about how Kathleen Savio lost her life will be lifted and the truth about how Stacy died will also be revealed. During the trial, thanks to Illinois' new hearsay law, Stacy Peterson's words will finally be heard.

Tweet

Dittrich's Murder Behind the Badge: True Stories of Cops Who Kill Makes its Debut

by Women in Crime Ink

Most men and women who aspire to be police officers begin their careers with a noble dream of community service, upholding the law, and helping those in need. Yet over time the rigors and emotional strain of dealing with society’s worst element wear on even the most idealistic officers like a sheet of sandpaper, until their compassion is slowly rubbed away.

A few become corrupted and slip into criminal behavior, directly contradicting their oath to guard the public. Even worse, there are some who hide behind their badges to commit the most heinous crimes imaginable.

In a shocking true-crime narrative that reads like a thriller, former police officer, former detective, and mystery writer Stacy Dittrich tells 18 stories about cops who kill. From the brutal to the bizarre, the senseless to the extreme, these men and women abused their power, took human lives, and are now paying the consequences. Line-of-duty shootings aren't featured within the pages of "Murder Behind the Badge: True Stories of Cops Who Kill." Society typically sees these crimes from serial killers, rapists, and other violent criminals.

Some of the officers killed for love, others for money, and still others because of seemingly trivial personality conflicts. Dittrich profiles, among others:

• New Orleans cop Antoinette Frank, who brutally murdered four innocent people: her own partner, two restaurant owners, and her own father, whom she buried underneath her home.
• 
  Canton, Ohio, police officer Bobby Cutts Jr., who murdered his former girlfriend when she was nine-months pregnant.
• 
  Bollingbrook, Ill., police sergeant Drew Peterson, currently indicted in the death of his second wife, and being investigated for the disappearance of his third.

• California Highway Patrolman Craig Peyer, who pulled over San Diego State college student Cara Knott over a frivolous traffic violation, then murdered her.

• Prince George County, Md., officer Keith Washington, who brutally gunned down two furniture delivery men in his own home for simply being late with the delivery.

• Columbia, Mo., officer Steven Rios, who slit the throat of his gay lover after the man threatened to tell everyone, including Rios’ wife and police chief, of their relationship.

• Gerard Schaefer, one of Florida’s most notorious serial killers, who found it easiest to commit his crimes while working as a police officer and deputy sheriff.

• New York City cop Charles Becker, the first police officer ever executed for the crime of murder in 1915.

With a foreword written by WCI’s own Pat Brown, "Murder Behind the Badge: True Stories of Cops Who Kill" is already receiving praise:

“As a crime victim myself who went on to become a felony prosecutor, police have been a constant in my life for many, many years. They are some of the most honorable people I have ever known. Dittrich exposes the dichotomy between police who fight crime every day vs. those who have become criminals themselves…a real mind twister!” -- Nancy Grace, host of HLN’s The Nancy Grace Show

"Murder Behind the Badge" reveals the dark underbelly of the cop-shop, the evil that can lurk within. Some of these cases you may have heard about, many you have not. Now, learn the inside details of how a murderer gets a badge and is sometimes protected by fellow officers. Only another cop could walk the public through how a psycho gets on a police force in the first place. Only another cop could explain how the mindset of the thin blue line is sometimes so similar to the mindset of the truly disturbed. Author Stacy Dittrich is that cop. This is the book. In the realm of true crime this is a must-have!” -- Diane Dimond, Investigative Journalist/Author of "Who You Love: Inside the Michael Jackson Case"

"Murder Behind the Badge: True Stories of Cops Who Kill" is now available for pre-order on line and will be in book stores everywhere Nov. 16, 2009 (Prometheus, Hardcover).

Tweet