Murder on the Metro

by Gayle K. Brunelle

On the afternoon of May 16, 1937, the train doors opened at the Porte Dorée station of the Paris subway to reveal a single passenger, a woman sitting on a bench with a nine-inch stiletto buried in her neck. There were no witnesses and little evidence to help the police unravel the first murder ever committed in the Paris Métro. The baffling crime captivated the French reading public as journalists and the police uncovered the shocking truth about the victim. Laetitia Toureaux was not who she seemed to be. The beautiful young Italian immigrant, a cheerful widow, who called herself “Yolande,” was a friendly, hard-working factory worker by day.

But by night, Toureaux was a “limier-en-jupons,” a sleuth addicted to the seamy Paris underworld of dance halls.

The trail of investigation into Toureax's murder led to the Comité Secrète d’Action Révolutionnaire, a secret right-wing terrorist organization popularly known as the Cagoule, or “hooded ones.” Obsessed with the Bolshevik threat they perceived to be growing in France, Cagoule leaders were determined to overthrow France’s democratic Third Republic government. In its place, they aimed to install an authoritarian regime allied with Italy's Fascists. They did not shrink from committing violent crimes and fomenting terror to accomplish their goal.

With Benito Mussolini as their patron and Italian fascism as their model, the Cagoule obtained funds from powerful industrialists, clandestine support from the French military, and the quiet approval of World War I hero Philippe Pétain. In 1936, Laetitia Toureaux became enmeshed with this dangerous group of terrorists and the lover of Gabriel Jeantet, one of its leaders.

Much of the press coverage of the Toureaux case was not really about the sensational murder. Rather, the focus was on Toureaux herself. It derived from journalistic anxieties about assertive young women, the so-called flappers and single female of the inter-war period. Lack of actual breaks in the case was by no means a hindrance to the flood of reporting about it. On the contrary, the less the reporters, all men, actually knew about Toureaux, the freer they felt to speculate, reflecting their fears of modern female sexuality, their own erotic fantasies, and their fixation on the Paris underworld and the dance halls (known as bals musettes) that Toureaux loved.

Laetitia Toureaux’s murder was a godsend for them, because much of the Parisian reading public shared the obsession with the gangsters and prostitutes who haunted the bals musette.

The press at first portrayed Toureaux as a “douce brébis” (gentle lamb), a little naive, maybe even a flirt, but essentially an innocent victim. Yet within days after her murder, the popular press began to turn against her as deeper investigation exposed hints of a darker side to her identity.

First, it turned out that her in-laws knew next to nothing about the attractive but poor Italian immigrant who had married their now deceased son, a wealthy, handsome but socially awkward young man. Then, troubling hints of a double life began to surface -- of nights spent at bals musette and engaged in even more nefarious activity.

"LAETITIA TOUREAUX SPENT MORE THAN SHE EARNED: DID SHE HAVE A LOVER?" ran the sensational headlines in Paris-Soir on the 21st of May. Her apartment, it seemed, was decorated with a taste and elegance too rich for a mere Italian factory worker. The papers trumpeted the fact that on the night of her murder, Toureaux’s purse contained a book of first-class metro tickets. Since most Parisians knew that high-class prostitutes frequently traveled in first-class cars, the journalists speculated about just what Toureaux had been up to in the days, or nights, before her death.

Worse, it seemed that police found hundreds of letters in her apartment, tied in neat bundles, from many different men. Journalists frequently exaggerated or just got the facts wrong. Still, it was becoming clear that this woman named Laetitia, who called herself “Yolande,” had more than one career and more than one identity. After all, bals musette were where "young girls go for misadventures!" cried the papers.

The idea of Laetitia Toureaux as a female private detective or "cachottière," as her brothers Riton and Virgile called her, fascinated the press and the French reading public. Toureaux, journalists suggested, would have been fair game for any of the Paris underworld criminals because she inhabited their dark milieu of indigence and crime. She may even have been informing on them for the police. Lacking hard facts about the murder, at least any police permitted published, the press made Toureaux a lightning rod for much of the cultural angst of inter-war French society. Parisian journalists molded Toureaux’s mysterious demise into a story which made sense to its readers, re-enforced a law-and-order mentality in precarious times, and supported the established social order of the late 1930s.

To this day, Laetitia Toureaux’s murder remains officially unsolved and one of the most significant “locked-room mysteries” in the annals of historical true crime. Murder in the Metro: Laetitia Toureaux and the Cagoule in 1930s France (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2010) is the first English language book devoted to this crime or to the Cagoule. Authors Gayle K. Brunelle and Annette Finley-Croswhite (photo above left) contend that Toureaux infiltrated the Cagoule while working for the French police, and the information she uncovered ultimately cost her life.

Toureaux's tale reflects the turbulence of the 1930s, when France faced the coming of a war most people dreaded but which seemed inevitable. It was a period of great anxiety.But it also offered new opportunities, and risks, to women like Toureaux who embraced the identity of a “modern” woman. In reporting on the murder, the Parisian press was determined to fit Toureaux into their model of a “loose” woman and to enlist her in their exposé of espionage, corruption and crime in 1930s Paris.

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Denial: The Perpetrator’s Evil Accomplice

by Dr. Gina Simmons

"I think my husband is sexually abusing our baby," a counseling client confided. The young mother reported disturbing observations, including: mysterious abrasions on her daughter’s rear end, the child screaming every time the dad approached, and, the kicker, "I saw him naked with an erection in the baby’s room last night!" I told her I needed to file a child abuse report. She agreed to a safety plan to protect her baby.

The next day an investigator called me to discuss the case. I repeated what the mother had told me, including more details than reported here. "She told me you exaggerated what she said," the detective told me. "She denies ever telling you she thought her husband was abusing the child." As we talked, the detective described the mother as "cagey, guarded, and highly protective of her husband." The detective stated, “Unfortunately, it is our policy not to pursue these cases when the only witness recants. Unless you have other evidence, there’s nothing I can do."

The mother never returned my phone calls. Several months later, I ran into her in a public place. As is my practice, I don’t talk to clients in public unless they choose to speak to me. This protects their privacy. She approached me and said "Hello." I responded, "How are you?"

"My husband and I are great! Things have never been better," she said with a stiff, non-Duchenne smile.

Denial, the rejection of a truth too uncomfortable to accept, really sickens me. It keeps kids in abusive homes, allows pedophiles to serve communion, and enables killers to get away with murder. Sometimes denial serves a positive function. In a New York Times article, Benedict Carey describes how denial can allow us to idealize our loved ones by overlooking flaws and exaggerating strengths. This serves as a way to preserve family relationships, and it fosters loyalty and healthy attachment. Understanding and empathizing with our loved ones encourages forgiveness and domestic harmony.

Often a couple comes into therapy with what they call "communication problems." After 25 years of experience, I’ve learned that the problems often have nothing to do with communication and everything to do with denial. Many couples who reported "communication problems" in the first session eventually revealed their denial of problems like:

· Drug/alcohol addiction

· Family violence

· Extramarital affairs

· Child abuse

· Criminal activity

The real therapy doesn’t start until clients begin to tell the truth. Otherwise, the truth remains invisible under the haze of denial. Author Richard Bach writes: “The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. We live in denial of what we do, even what we think. We do this because we are afraid."

How do you know when you’re in denial?

· You are 5 feet tall and weigh 250 pounds (yes, you eat too much).

· Your friends and family hate the way your boy/girlfriend treats you (yes, s/he’s bad).

· Your friends and family fear for your safety (yes, your behavior is risky).

· You were arrested for DUI (yes, you have a drug/alcohol problem).

· Your son violates his probation (yes, he’s resumed his criminal activity).

As an anger management expert, I work to help people lower their levels of hostility and increase empathy for others. Empathy helps us understand and forgive. We can empathize with an abuser who suffered brutal treatment in childhood. Empathy for the abuser does not mean we should excuse abuse.

We teach people healthy ways to cope with strong, uncomfortable emotions so they don’t need to rely on denial to get through the day. But as any criminal profiler will tell you, many crimes of violence stem not from the heat of rage but from the cold calculations of a psychopath. And for every psychopath moving through the world looking for a victim, there’s a denying enabler looking the other way.

Photos courtesy of Google Images.

___________

Gina Simmons, Ph.D., is a licensed psychotherapist and consultant specializing in anger management and workplace violence prevention. She writes for the Manage Anger Daily blog.

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A great loss

by Kathryn Casey

You know how some people just touch your life? You meet them and they have a way about them, an enthusiasm, a warmth that draws you in. David Thompson was one of those people. David loved books, good books, especially mysteries. He lived and breathed his passion, working at a wonderful independent Houston store called Murder by the Book (MBTB), a quirky place, shelves packed floor to ceiling, overstuffed chairs and an incredible staff. The store is so popular that the big names make sure they put it on their tour lists. I met Mary Higgins Clark there last year.

Sadly, the store posted this announcement yesterday:

It is with deep sadness that we must share the news that David Thompson passed away suddenly on September 13, 2010. David worked at Murder by the Book for 21 years, and he made an indelible impression on the store and everyone who met him.

That's David, above, with McKenna Jordan, the store owner and his wife. Cute couple, huh? Wonderful people. David was just 37 years old, and every time I saw him, he was running. He had so many projects going, he always amazed me. In truth, David Thompson made an indelible impression on the entire mystery publishing world.

In addition to working at the bookstore, David ran his own publishing company, Busted Flush Press. Typical of David, he named the company as an homage to one of his favorite authors, John D. MacDonald, whose sleuth Travis McGee lives on the Busted Flush, a houseboat he won in a poker game. David started the company in 2005, and his first effort was the resurrection of A Fifth of Bruen, a collection of the early fiction by Ireland's Ken Bruen, who'd been nominated for an Edgar for The Guards in 2004. Like many great books, Fifth had gone out of print and was in need of rescuing. When the Houston Chronicle asked David why he chose that particular work as the first in his catalog, he said simply, "I think it's one of the best crime novels ever written."

In so many ways, David's world revolved around books, the store, and, of course, McKenna. They met at MBTB when she began working there in 2003. In graduate school at the time, she signed on for part-time work on Saturdays. A Chronicle article on their romance that ran this past March is titled "A Storybook Marriage." (That's where the opening photo, taken in the store, is from.) Six-and-a-half years after meeting, David and McKenna married at Dryburgh Abbey in Scotland. That's a beautiful photo from the happy day, below right.

Individually and as a couple, David and McKenna are admired throughout the mystery publishing world. As if they didn't have enough going on with Busted Flush and the store, next year they were scheduled to co-chair Bouchercon, the mystery world's annual convention, in St. Louis, with Crimespree Magazine's Jon Jordan. Actually, my last contact with David was an email about the event I sent about a month ago. I had the mistaken impression they were already lining up panels and asked about being on one. David didn't snap at me for bothering him with something that was many months away. Instead, he patiently explained that it was a bit early.

But then, David had always been generous with his time. I first met him when I happened to be in the neighborhood and dropped in at the store. From that first day, David, McKenna, everyone on the staff made me feel welcome. Before I wrote my first novel, they hosted Diane Fanning and me for a joint true crime book signing. They invited us back when our first novels came out, and every year since.

I'll always remember how when I was there signing Singularity, my first Sarah Armstrong mystery, I talked with David afterward. I was working on the second book in the series, and I wanted advice on how much of the first book's plot to give away in the second. "Be careful," David stressed, appearing genuinely concerned. "You don't want to ruin the first book for readers by revealing too much in the second!"

At the time, David was busy closing up the store, but he patiently answered my questions, even taking the time to pull books from the shelves, particularly good examples with recurring characters, for me to read. Later, David and McKenna invited me back when Blood Lines debuted.

On this sad occasion, I join a legion of authors who lament David's passing. He was truly one of the good guys, and we are all poorer for his absence. Prayers and condolences are undoubtedly arriving from around the world for McKenna, their friends and family, for everyone at Murder by the Book and all who knew and loved David. He will sincerely be missed.

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Fall from Grace

by Pat Brown

It used to be the men who just walked away from it all. The man who went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back was not just a Hollywood movie contrivance. More than one woman could tell a story about a husband who left for the corner market and kept right on going. But those were the days when a woman pretty much knew her fellow had deserted her, and she didn't demand a police investigation that would end up costing the jurisdiction a fortune. And the man just left; he didn't stage his flight as an abduction.

Then along came a bug-eyed spider by the name of Jennifer Wilbanks, the so-called Runaway Bride. Four days before her April 2005 wedding, she vanished. Because she had left no note and made no phone call to her fiancé, and because some of her clothing, clumps of her hair, and a weapon were found, indicating the possibility of foul play, a major search was launched. Most importantly, family and friends swore up and down she had no questionable history of narcissism or attention-seeking, and their daughter would never do such a thing (let's ignore her three arrests for shoplifting and dumping her previous fiance). Sixty-thousand dollars later, Wilbanks turned up claiming she had been abducted, a story she finally confessed was a lie. She claimed she had just gotten cold feet, but this extreme behavior is more indicative of a female psychopath wanting a lot of attention. She got it, a real tough sentence of community service, and a book deal. Woo hoo. And now she is in love again.

Audrey Seiler, another purposefully gone-missing woman, cost the taxpayers $100, 000. The supposedly angelic, straight-A University of Wisconsin student went missing exactly one year before Wilbanks, although she is not nearly as well remembered. Search teams scoured the area for five days until she was found in a marshland, wild-eyed and raving. She, like Wilbanks, claimed she had been abducted. Her parents, like Wilbanks's parents, told police that she was not the kind of girl who would run away or fake her own abduction. Yet she did, and all to get her boyfriend's attention. She got no more jail time than her soulmate, Jennifer. I don't know what she is doing today.

And now, we have Emily Grace. Friends and family started a Facebook page when she went missing this past August. She left behind a couple of children, vanishing after a concert. The search led from her home state, New Jersey, to Celebration, Florida, where she was seen on video at a bank cleaning out her bank account. This 45-year-old woman told no one she wanted to disappear, and her family and friends stated vehemently that this was out of character. Nancy Grace, in spite of her familiarity with other runaways like Wilbanks and Seiler, wanted to believe this time around that the family was telling the truth, that this mother wouldn't desert her kids. Nancy believed someone abducted Emily, forcing her to get her money out of the bank. Many agreed with Nancy that this must be what happened, especially when Emily's personal items -- her dress, her keys, her credit cards -- were found strewn on a golf course by the side of the road like they had been tossed out of a moving car. It was this very same information that led me to believe Emily Grace had staged an abduction just like Wilbanks. Nancy and I had quite a tiff about it on her show! I turned out to be right on this one.

After a month on the lam, Emily is now back home. Isn't that sweet? And the police are filing no charges against her in spite of the fact that three states ran up bucks looking for her. But even more galling than this was when her parents asked that we all respect her privacy and not bother her. "We understand that there may be many questions about what has happened over the last several weeks," her parents said, "but we ask you to respect Emily's privacy during this time of healing and transition."

Questions? You think? How about an apology? And a payment to the police departments?

For all of you families out there with the next Wilbanks, Seiler, or Grace: When your squirrely one goes missing, don't put up a Facebook page begging everyone to get involved with the search, don't tell the police your black sheep never exhibited any behaviors that raised your eyebrow, and please sign a statement that you will be willing to foot the bill if your darling, the one "who would never go off without telling us," shows up tanning herself on a Florida beach with a margarita in her hand.

Finally, apologize to all the future real abduction victims who will get a less-than-enthusiastic, halfhearted investigation because you cried wolf and made us skeptics.

Oh, and to the next woman who wants to run off, for goodness sake, leave a note. And to the ones who actually fake their own abductions, I hope they throw the book at you. Enough is enough.

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Interview with Kathryn Casey about her latest true crime book: Shattered

by Andrea Campbell

I am happy to share this interview with my friend and Women in Crime Ink colleague Kathryn Casey about the release of her new true crime book: Shattered

Q: Kathryn, for WCI readers who don’t know you that well, can you tell us a little about your background?

KC: I began as a magazine writer in the mid-eighties, and wrote for a lot of the national magazines, Reader’s Digest, TV Guide, Ladies Home Journal, MORE, Seventeen, and Rolling Stone. As a reporter, I profiled celebrities, wrote about all kinds of subjects, including lifestyles and health. But from the beginning, I had a knack for investigating and writing about criminal cases. In the mid-nineties, I began writing true crime books, and I’ve done that ever since, adding crime fiction two years ago with the debut of Singularity, the first in my Sarah Armstrong mystery series.

Q: Since today we're talking about Shattered, would you give us the set-up or a brief synopsis?

KC: The murder took place in 1999. David Temple was a former Texas football star, high school and college, working as a teacher and coach in a Houston suburb. He and his wife, Belinda Lucas Temple, were college sweethearts. She was bright, beautiful, and a beloved teacher, and they had one child, a toddler named Evan. To those on the outside, they appeared the perfect, happy family. But behind the scenes, that was far from reality. Belinda was eight months pregnant with a baby girl, Erin, on that January morning David called 911, claiming he’d discovered her shot through the head in the master bedroom closet. From the beginning, the investigators suspected David was the killer. There were too many signs at the home that the scene had been staged. Then, they focused even more tightly on him after discovering that he was carrying on an affair with a beautiful young English teacher. But this was a complicated and frustrating case. In the end, it would take nine years to bring David Temple into a courtroom.

Q: Kind of a two-part question here: How do you choose your projects, and what elements do you look for? Also, have you started working on a book project that fell through for any reason?

KC: When it comes to true crime, I look for cases with lots of twists and turns, ones that will resonate with my readers. I spend a year on each book, often conducting a hundred or more interviews, so it’s a long road. With that in mind, I look for a case that will hold my interest, one I care about, and one, I hope, that will explore something about our society or the human condition. I strive to see the big picture through the lens of the case I’m studying. The Temple case, for instance, sheds a light on intimate partner homicide, particularly involving pregnant women. This is a horrendous problem, one virtually ignored until this past decade, with the sensational Scott Peterson trial. I can’t say that I’ve had a book fall through. I guess I’ve been pretty lucky.

Q: What type of background work do you do to begin, and how do you find your interview subjects?

KC: It’s a big commitment, but I go to the trials. Sometimes this can translate to six weeks or more living in a hotel room and long days in the courtroom, but for me, it’s necessary. I want to be there, with the families and jurors and the defendant, listening to the evidence. Once the trial is over, I use what I’ve learned as the foundation to begin my own investigation, seeking more evidence from those who’ve taken the stand. These people, connected with the case, often suggest others, and I fan out, talking to everyone willing to talk to me, finding out all I can about those involved and the events that fell into place leading up to and following the murder.

Q: Obviously you are digging into the lives of victims and those accused, their families, and the criminal justice professionals involved. How do you get cooperation? Also, do you let their emotions change your point of view or the way the story is told?

KC: I’ve found over the years that most people involved in such tragedies want to tell their stories. I never assume that someone won’t talk to me. Many will still be trying to figure out why things happened, and talking to me, cooperating so that the book is accurate, is one way to make that possible. The only way I can depict a case fairly and accurately is to talk to everyone involved who is willing to talk to me, and I do that. I try to keep an open mind. People are sometimes falsely accused and even convicted, so it’s important not to presuppose that a guilty verdict means the person actually committed the crime.

It’s difficult not to identify with the families whose lives have been torn apart by these tragedies. I often ache for all they’ve been through. I see their suffering as part of the story, and I include it in the book. It’s important to understand how devastating murder is, what it does to all those involved. It’s the most horrendous of acts, the taking of a life, and to treat it without emotion is to become desensitized to the pain. That said, the evidence is the evidence, and the events that lead up to the murder aren’t written by me but by those involved. When I write a novel, I construct the plots. But when it comes to true crime, I’m a chronicler, who researches and pulls together the evidence to paint the picture, to explain what happened and why.

Q: Have you ever done a prison interview?

KC: Many times, for magazines and books. It can be a chilling experience. It’s more than unsettling to sit across from someone who describes in detail how he or she has committed a horrendous crime. I’m often amazed at how skimpy the motives are and how calm and collected the killer can be while describing a victim’s final moments. Yet most of those I’ve interviewed, even years after their convictions, maintain their innocence. Do I believe them? As I said before, I do my best to give them the benefit of the doubt. I listen to what they tell me, ask them for anything I can research to bolster their claims, and afterward I follow through, looking for evidence that contradicts the guilty verdict.

Q: What is on the horizon for Kathryn Casey?

KC: I have a third Sarah Armstrong novel, The Killing Storm, coming out on October 26th. I’m very excited about the book. I love this character. Sarah is a Texas Ranger/profiler, a single mom. Since inventing her, I’ve put that poor woman through hell. In the first book, Singularity, she tracked a serial killer. In the second, Blood Lines, she was charged with saving a teen pop star from a perverse and deadly stalker, and in The Killing Storm, Sarah will have to fight her way through a hurricane to save the life of an innocent child.

Q: Do you have a blog?

KC: I have one associated with my Web site, www.kathryncasey.com, where I occasionally write about what I’m doing, a little bit about my personal life and writing. I’m also proud to say that I’m one of the founders of Women in Crime Ink.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to tell WCI readers?

KC: I’d like to thank everyone who reads my books, especially those who recommend them to others. Word of mouth is truly the best way to spread the word. Thanks all of you! Please keep reading: I really do enjoy the writing!

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Diane and Terri

by Anne Bremner

Remember Diane Downs? In 1984, she was convicted in the state of Oregon for the murder, attempted murder, and criminal assault ... of her own children. This was 1984, before Court TV, Nancy Grace, the saturation of cable news and true crime shows. In Diane’s case, it took the police nine months to make an arrest. She claimed that her car had been hijacked and that a “strange man” had shot her and her three children.

As it turned out, she was the one who shot her own children and herself. Alas, her story never held water. She behaved oddly, was caught in several lies, and after nine months of investigation, detectives were able to acquire enough evidence for prosecutors to indict. Who is to say how a person whose child has disappeared or has been murdered should behave?

Twenty-six years ago, we didn’t have the access to potential suspects we have today. Diane Downs didn’t have a Facebook page, so we weren’t able to peer into her comings and goings around the time of her crime. We didn’t tune in to Nancy Grace to check the latest developments, nor were we able to get online to chat about our suspicions with a worldwide audience. Had we been able to, I suspect we would have come to the same conclusions. That woman is lying! This is the same conclusion many have come to regarding Terri Horman. However, this time, we have had access to myriad websites, local news shows, social networking sites, and almost daily briefings from the father and biological mom of missing Kyron Horman.

Those of us who have followed Kyron's case from the beginning remember the odd behavior Terri Horman exhibited on the day her stepson disappeared; The Facebook posting about "hittin' the gym," the bizarre vacant look in Ms. Horman's eyes at the family news conference, and, most troubling, her refusal to engage the public at all. Her soon-to-be ex-husband, and his former wife (Kyron’s biological mother), have done countless press conferences and have made themselves accessible to the police for repeated questioning. But Ms. Horman has remained silent and uncooperative. The public therefore has been left to weed out information about this woman -- the last person to see Kyron -- on our own.

The similarities between Diane Downs and Terri Horman are striking indeed. Both women have children from numerous relationships, and both women appear to use sex as a tool to manipulate. In Terri’s case, it appears that she attempted to seduce a gardener in her employ in the hopes he would agree to murder her husband, Kaine.

As if that wasn’t enough, Ms. Horman was found to have sent lurid text messages and images of herself in various stages of undress to a man who was helping with the search for her stepson just weeks after the boy had gone missing. From the beginning, her story didn’t hold water. She claimed to have gone to school early for a science show but did not stay for the whole thing. Her husband claims she took his truck that day so she could bring home Kyron’s science project, which she never did. She claims to have been certain places during the several hours after leaving the school, yet her cell phone pings tell a different story.

As with Ms. Downs, people have a feeling they know she is not telling the truth but must wait for the wheels of justice to grind slowly and methodically. I wonder what would have been Diane Downs' Facebook status update on the day she did her deadly deed. “Hittin’ the salon and then off to the mall for a little retail therapy!” If it walks like a duck... .

Photos courtesy of Alate News and The Oregonian

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Poisoned by Art: The Chemical Life and Death of William Blake

by Deborah Blum

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake, the brilliant British poet, published "The Tyger" in 1794 and it's always been one of my favorite poems. I studied him during a brief period when I thought I might want to be a poet, a career plan undone by the fact that I disliked having my poems read by others, an attitude that caused me real problems in my college poetry class.

Blake, obviously, didn't have that problem. But he had plenty of others. He struggled for recognition during his lifetime. He was plagued by chronic illness and also by apparent hallucinations. He often talked of heavenly visions, the appearance of angels or of his dead brother. In my poet days, my coffee house friends and I joined in speculations that he was spaced on drugs, perhaps opium, when he created his etchings, his paintings of coiling dragons, or wrote of tigers in all their wild glory.

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

I rarely dwell among the metaphysical poets these days, having spent most of my post-college days writing about science, a subject that I'm happy to share with others. This year, after publishing a book called The Poisoner's Handbook, I've spent most of my time continuing to look into the ways we kill each other with chemicals. Yet, curiously, that led me back to William Blake. I discovered a research paper suggesting that Blake's death might have been caused by copper poisoning -- sometimes called copper intoxication - resulting from his work as an engraver.

During the year, I'd developed a certain fascination with the unexpected toxicity of valuable metals. In a previous post here, in fact, I explored the possible poisoning by gold of the powerful mistress of the French King. I decided to take a closer look at the role that copper exposure could have played in the life, and possibly death, of William Blake.

Much of Blake's income derived not from his poetry but from his work as one of the most able engravers of his time. To that end, he worked almost exclusively with copper plates that he painstakingly etched with a solution of nitric acid. In fact, he'd began such work -- and a lifetime of copper exposure -- when he was apprenticed to an engraver at the age of 14. Could this account for his visionary writing and art work, I wondered. Could those gleaming visions of celestial beings be merely a byproduct of breathing in the fumes of a red-gold metal?

There is, in fact, a condition called "metal fume fever", also known as the brass shakes. When metallic fumes are inhaled -- such as those produced by applying acid to copper -- a host of unpleasant symptoms result, including tremors, yellowed skin, chills, nausea, aches and fatigue. It's mostly associated though with heating metals such as zinc or chromium during soldering work.

Blake did suffer at the end of his life from constant chills and tremors and from a definite yellowing of the skin.

And what shoulder, & what art.

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

Although copper is an essential trace element -- we need a tiny amount daily -- too much copper exposure -- and this can be from metal contamination of water and food as well as by inhalation --can lead to severe liver and kidney damage, with symptoms including nausea, dizziness, severe headaches and, again, that yellowed look to the skin.

Trying to retroactively diagnose Blake's death at age 70 in 1827, scholarly physicians have speculated about a number of naturally occurring diseases of the bile ducts, the liver and the kidneys. His symptoms can be matched to such illnesses as well as to chronic copper poisoning. It might even be that a natural illness was aggravated by metal exposure. It could have been made worse, of course, by exposure to the acids used for etching.

Could such chemical exposure also explain Blake's claims that his work was influenced by celestial visions? There's nothing to suggest that copper aids in spiritual insights, that metal fume fever includes hallucinations involving saints, or invokes visionary poetry.

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Blake's work as a copper engraver -- he famously scorned oil paints in favor of his elegant etchings -- may indeed shaped his life -- have made him ill, more moody, more philosophical perhaps in his ideas of existence. But the chemistry of genius, whatever that may be? That was uniquely his.

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One Fatal Night in Las Vegas

by Cathy Scott

This week marks the fourteenth anniversary of the day Tupac Shakur was shot. 

And with the anniversary comes ESPN’s new documentary: One Night in Vegas: Tyson & Tupac. The rap star, poet and actor was gunned down just hours after watching Mike Tyson knock out Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. “(Tupac) didn't last long, but the time he did last, every minute, every tenth of a moment, was explosive," Tyson told ESPN. 

Tupac was also explosive. In the minutes following Tyson’s professional fight, Tupac got into a street-like fight inside the MGM Grand as he was leaving the arena. 

At the elevator bank just before the MGM’s main lobby, Tupac and his crew ran into Orlando Anderson, a known Crips street gang member from Compton, California. Tupac’s music producer, Suge Knight, who was with Tupac that night, was a known member of the rival gang Mob Piru.

When he spotted Anderson, Tupac said to him, “You’re from the South,” meaning South Compton. And the fight was on. Tupac, Suge and their entourage stomped and kicked Anderson. A security guard split them up, but Orlando, when Las Vegas police arrived, declined to press charges. The officers did not file a police report and did not even take Orlando’s last name. It would be Compton gang cops, a few days after the shooting, when Las Vegas police realized the scuffle might have significance, later offered up Orlando’s full name. They also offered up Orlando's lengthy rap sheet, gang history, and his street moniker "Baby Lane." 

Backpedal a few years to 1992 after Tyson was sent to prison to serve out a sentence for rape. That’s when Tupac reached out to Iron Mike, saying he was going to be in the area and would like to visit him in prison. While they may have been an unlikely pair, both knew how to put up a fight, as evidenced later with the MGM scuffle Tupac started. 

From prison, Tyson paid attention to Tupac’s thug-life image. They regularly talked on the phone. That’s when Tyson, who was a few years older than Shakur, handed out brotherly advice. Shakur told friends it meant a lot to him. “Tyson was giving me a lot of advice,” Tupac told a radio station. “I really looked up to him something hard. He’d tell me to calm down.”

But 'Pac did not appear to take it to heart. And he did not calm down. By the time Tyson was released from prison in 1995, Tupac was in jail on Rikers Island in New York, held on suspicion of a similar charge as Tyson’s, this one sexual abuse against a woman Tupac had met at a club and took back to a friend’s hotel room. Tupac was convicted and sent to the Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York.

Tupac was released on bond, posted by his record producer Suge Knight, pending an appeal. But before the appeal could be heard, Tupac was dead. 

The same night as the Tyson-Seldon fight, Tupac was shot when a gunman in a white Cadillac pulled up to Tupac and Suge’s car and opened fire with a high-caliber Glock handgun, hitting Tupac several times, including in the chest. The Clark County coroner determined the cause of death as multiple gunshot wounds. 

The last time Tyson would talk to Tupac would be in Tyson’s dressing room immediately following the fight. “I told him I’d see him that night and we could hang out,” Tyson told ESPN. Six days later, the 25-year-old hip-hop star was dead. Tupac’s unsolved murder has frustrated rap fans ever since, despite Compton Police (a law enforcement department which has since merged with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department) offering up Orlando Anderson as a suspect. For their part, Las Vegas police have said there wasn’t enough evidence against Orlando, and members of Tupac’s entourage were uncooperative. I began covering the case a couple of hours after the shooting, which was the topic of my book, The Killing of Tupac Shakur, and it appeared, after Anderson's name had become known, that there was motive -- the scuffle -- not to mention Compton Police's discovery of a Glock in the home Anderson lived in and Anderson bragging on his home turf that he'd killed Tupac. But Las Vegas police, who traveled to Compton, did not formally interview Anderson and declined to arrest him. Eighteen months after Tupac was killed, Orlando Anderson was murdered in what police said was an unrelated shooting. We may never know if Orlando was, in fact, the gunman in Tupac's death. 

As for Tyson, he told ESPN that Tupac’s memory lives on through his works. "He's going to last until the time this Earth comes to an end. I'm glad to be a part of his life and to have known him. (Tupac) was probably a misguided warrior. He had a heart as big as this planet. He had so much love and compassion, and you couldn't even see it under his rage." 

In the meantime, the murder of Tupac Shakur, unofficially at least, remains unsolved. 

Photo of Tyson and Tupac, courtesy of ESPN. Other photos courtesy of Yahoo! Images.

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Desperation: The Story of an Abused Woman

by Katherine Scardino

I have a client who is accused of murder -- the murder of her husband. She is one of those women who really has no defense. She has been beaten, abused, insulted, threatened, and generally derided to the point of having no backbone. She is a woman who has no self confidence, no belief that her life is worth a copper penny. She believed that her husband had all the control. There is no “but” after that statement; it is absolute and final.

One day he went too far. He called her names. He threatened her with death. He called her a “f---ing b---h” and said that he was going to kill her. He said it over and over ... yelling in her face, holding a gun in his hand. Unfortunately for this abusive, overbearing man, this woman now had a gun of her own. She shot him, not just once, but twice.

Shooting two times is a bit more troubling for a defense lawyer than just one time. Why is there a need to shoot two times? Maybe she shot two times to be absolutely sure that she would never have to endure this overbearing, arrogant piece-of-crap husband again -- ever! And because of this second shot, she won’t. He is now dead.

If a prosecutor said, "So, show me the evidence that all this abuse happened," how would this woman do that? There was no other person around, just herself and her husband. No one else. Who would believe her? His family thought he was a wonderful man, a wonderful husband. She knew differently. But she never told anyone because she felt no one would believe her.

What does this woman do now? She is charged with murdering her husband. She could go to prison for the rest of her life, or a major part of it. She certainly would be an old woman when she was eventually released.

She gets an attorney -- either hired or appointed. If she has to have an appointed lawyer, she has to pray with all her heart that he or she is an attorney who will find some sympathy for her life story. She prays that this lawyer will understand her story, stand by her and take up for her.

I am relating this to you because this is where I enter the story. I was appointed to represent this woman. She has never been involved in the criminal justice system before, ever in her life. She was married to this man for several years, and each year was worse than the year before.

I came into the story after the husband was dead. How am I to defend this woman? She is a worker, a person who has always had a job -- and not just any job, but a job that requires hard labor. She does that for a living. Her hands are rough and calloused. Her face is weathered and beginning to get some early wrinkles. She is thin, and when she has to dress for court, either in a skirt or a dress with some sort of heels, she looks out of place and obviously uncomfortable ... as if she would feel better in a pair of Levi's, work boots and gloves. I sense that, and I almost wish that it would be acceptable for her to show up in court in her usual, comfortable attire. Would the jury have more empathy, or identify more closely with her? I cannot help but feel that they would. But for now, it is better that she conform with society. Let’s not rock the boat.

Trial has not yet started. I am trying to put her in a position of power, or at least at a place where she can give me an opinion about what she wants out of this trial. Does she want me to work out a plea? (I am hoping she does not want that option.) It is difficult for her to make a decision about her own well-being since she has had no position of power in all of her married years.

I want her to help me with her defense in this case. It is hard to talk to her because she speaks in a whisper. Her voice is almost nonexistent. How did that happen? How can another human being get to the point where she has no voice, no power, no idea that her feelings can have any impact on anyone, especially on anyone in any authority.

Women like this one have been used and abused all their lives. Often, they have been sexually or physically abused during childhood and early adolescence. No one has ever asked their opinion about anything. They have never been of any value to anyone.

You, who are reading this are probably thinking, “Well, this is just impossible. There are no women today who are really like that.” I beg to differ with you. Yes, there are many women like the one I just described. They are good people. They may have been raised in a good family, with good parents and had a normal family life. But, somewhere along the road to adulthood, they ran into a man who was not normal. Is there a gene in these women's makeup that allows them to fall under the control of this man? I do not have a background in this field to tell you the answer. I can only say that it happens and it is scary to know that women like this are floundering - there is not much hope for them because they do not know how to fix the problem. Many of them do not even know they have a problem.

So, what will happen to my client? She could possibly spend most of the rest of her life in prison. We are awaiting trial right now. I am hoping that the trial will end with a not guilty verdict. But, I cannot guarantee that verdict to her. I can only assure her that I will work very hard in her defense. For now, this woman has some hope -- enough for her to hang on to and believe that her lawyer is working for her. What else does she have?

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Caylee Anthony’s Body Language Around Mother Casey

by Dr. Lillian Glass

Despite grandmother Cindy Anthony’s comments concerning what a good mother her daughter Casey was to her granddaughter Caylee, or how much Caylee loved Casey and vice versa, a body-language analysis of Caylee and Casey since 2008 shows something different. Based on my observations of photos of Casey and Caylee over two years, it doesn’t appear as though there was a lot of TLC and bonding between mother and daughter.

That may be attributable to the interaction of Casey's mother Cindy early on. After all, Cindy was the first to hold her newborn granddaughter. Perhaps Casey so resented her baby getting all of Cindy's love and attention that Casey didn’t think twice about getting rid of her own daughter.

The girl's remains were found in a remote area about a mile from the Orlando home of Casey's parents. Casey, charged with first-degree murder in Caylee's June 2008 death, has denied having anything to do with her daughter's death. One of the most disturbing videos, to me, which we have seen over and over again, is of Casey “playing” with Caylee on the floor. Caylee kicks her feet as she tries to get away from Casey. At the end of the video, we see Casey turning her head away as Caylee keeps kicking to escape Casey’s grip.

To me, the last frames of video say it all. Casey’s facial expression shows disdain, aggravation and frustration at innocent Caylee’s existence. Caylee doesn't look happy, either. You can see the red marks under her eyes which may be indicative of a lot of crying and emotional abuse. Since the beginning of her tragic life, Caylee didn’t feel comfortable around Casey. Casey seemed to treat her like a prop -- an object, instead of a loved daughter. In fact, it's hard to see love and affection between the two in photos taken of the two of them.

Even early on in her life, when she is being held by Casey, Caylee seems to want to get away. She doesn’t nuzzle into Casey’s body but instead turns away. She also clenches her little fist in anger and makes a facial expression indicating discomfort and upset. One of those photos shows that she clearly has not bonded with Casey.

You can see that as a toddler there are no smiles from Caylee when she is held by Casey. That's not a good sign. Caylee looks sad and serious. She doesn't look like a happy child around her mother.

As Caylee gets older, it's still difficult to detect any affection or bonding between daughter and mother. Instead, Caylee’s attention is elsewhere as she points and pulls her body away from Casey, as though she wants to get away from her. There is no nuzzling or cuddling.

In the photos where Caylee is smiling, it's not a genuine smile with cheekbones raised. Instead, around her mother, Caylee's smile is forced, crooked, uncomfortable, tense and contrived.

It's as though someone told her to smile, and she obediently complied. But her smile does not appear to be heartfelt.

In one photo, there's lack of love and affection as Casey grabs her daughter's wrist. She doesn’t hold Caylee’s hand and looks down as though Caylee isn’t even there. Caylee does not seem happy about this, as revealed by her little fist-like hand position which indicates that she appears to be upset in her mother’s presence.In one of the last photos of mother and daughter together, the two are completely disconnected. Caylee is not smiling and looks very unhappy. What is most disturbing is the little mark on her cheek along with the bags and circles under her eyes.

Caylee appeared to be very capable of being happy, affectionate, connected and loving around other people. She's cuddly and comfortable in a pose with her great-grandfather, taken the last time her grandmother, Cindy Anthony, saw Caylee alive.

And look at Casey’s genuine smile with family friend Ryan Paisley.

Caylee’s relaxed facial expression and comfortable body language show up in a photo with her Grandpa George. That's in marked contrast to photos when Caylee appears with Casey.

As demonstrated in her body language in the photos, little Caylee did not feel comfortable with her own mother. She may have instinctively feared Casey. From the beginning of her short life, she may not have felt safe with her own mother. Ultimately, Cayley was right.

Photos courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel and The Associated Press.

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