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The case of missing Michele Harris to be featured on NBC's Dateline tonight
Published: January 15, 2010
The case of missing Michele Harris to be featured on NBC's Dateline tonight
NBC's Dateline will be airing a show tonight that will feature the filming and story surrounding the Calvin Harris murder trial and the disappearance of his wife Michele.
The show, which will air at 9 p.m. ET, is entitled "Mystery at Empire Lake." The show will focus on the story of a mother of four who disappears, vanishing in the night from her family's property on a vast wilderness. The show will move into the following morning, when her car was found at the foot of the driveway, but no body, no murder weapon, and no witness. The show's producers take viewers into the story behind the Calvin Harris murder trial, and describe the proceedings as a time when things got really strange.
Calvin Harris, a wealthy Tioga county businessman, was convicted by a jury of second degree murder in the disappearance of his wife Michele not once, but twice, and was sentenced on Oct. 5, 2009, to 25 years to life in prison.
Attorneys for Calvin Harris have appealed the guilty verdict.
Posted by Thomas A. (Tad) DiBiase, No Body Guy
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Murder charges filed against roommate
By SOPHIA VORAVONG • svoravong@jconline.com • January 15, 2010
Tippecanoe County's prosecutor is confident that investigators have sufficient evidence to go forward with criminal proceedings against a Lafayette man suspected of killing his roommate -- despite never locating the victim's body.
Wesley E. Kelly, 29, was charged Thursday in Tippecanoe Circuit Court with murder in the suspected death of Steven L. Smith, 52, who was last seen alive on Dec. 6, 2008.
The prosecutor's office met Wednesday with Smith's family.
"We are pleased and ready to move forward with the case," his cousin and family spokeswoman, Cyndi Miller of Danville, said.
Kelly also was charged Thursday with misdemeanor battery and being a habitual offender. He currently is serving a three-year sentence in the Indiana Department of Correction for failing to register as a sex offender.
The allegations against Kelly stem from an apparent fight with Smith on Dec. 6, 2008, at their apartment on South Fourth Street in Lafayette.
The investigation began when Smith's family and neighbors contacted police on Dec. 11, 2008, after days of not hearing from him or seeing him.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed Thursday, Smith's mother, Doris Smith, told police that her son's apartment was "unusually clean and neat" and that toiletry items were missing -- appearing as though no one lived there.
Neighbors also said that Kelly reportedly admitted to fighting with Smith, which included slamming Smith's head into a wall and a toilet. The affidavit does not provide a reason for the fight.
Investigators suspect that the two men were later standing on a downtown railroad bridge over the Wabash River when Smith was struck with a padlock that was attached to a rope.
The blow reportedly knocked Smith into the water.
"Any new information or leads that are developed -- we will continue to work those," Detective Mike Humphrey said.
Law enforcement and firefighters have searched in and along the Wabash's banks numerous times in the past year for Smith's body. Those attempts, which included searching via horseback, helicopter and by boat, were not successful.
"It presents a unique situation, proceeding with a murder case without having an actual body," Tippecanoe County Prosecutor Pat Harrington said. "But there have been a number of similar, successful prosecutions around the country."
It's a scenario that Patti Bishop, founder of volunteer search organization IN Hope, knows well. Her stepdaughter, Karen Jo Smith, went missing on Dec. 27, 2000, in Marion County.
Karen Jo Smith's body was never recovered, but the woman's ex-husband, Steve Halcomb, was convicted in December 2004 of murder and later sentenced to 95 years in prison.
Steven Smith and Karen Jo Smith are not related.
"You have the fear from the moment we knew the grand jury indicted," Bishop recalled Thursday. "Even though we knew that he did it, until the jury comes back with that conviction ...
"It was a surreal experience, especially since there was no body."
Bishop speaks daily with Miller, Steven Smith's cousin. Her organization also has helped the family put together prayer vigils and hand out fliers with Smith's information to Lafayette businesses.
What kept Bishop strong during the trial for her stepdaughter's convicted killer was faith in prosecutors and Marion County investigators.
"I give kudos to any law enforcement agency that has taken this step," Bishop said. "Crimes of this type -- where there is no body -- is happening more and more. It can be done."
Harrington said authorities waited a year to file charges in case Smith's body or other evidence was found by people hunting or fishing along the Wabash during summer and spring.
Posted by Thomas A. (Tad) DiBiase, No Body Guy
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Rilya Wilson's accused caregiver nears trial on murder charge
By DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@MiamiHerald.com
Where is the chubby cheeked 5-year-old who became the symbol of ineptitude by state welfare workers? Her body has never been found.
If Rilya is dead -- and most believe she is -- how and when did she meet her demise? Miami-Dade prosecutors can't say for sure, but insist that circumstantial evidence points to foul play.
And when will Geralyn Graham, 64, her jailed caregiver indicted for murder nearly five years ago and facing the death penalty, go to trial? Hopefully by fall, say her lawyers, who still must take depositions from several key witnesses.
``My client absolutely claims she is innocent of all the charges pending against her, and looks forward to having the opportunity to have the jury hear the quality and type of evidence the state will offer,'' defense attorney Michael A. Matters said.
The high-profile case sparked massive public interest and drastic reforms at the Florida Department of Children & Families, but Graham has remained largely out of the limelight in recent years. No trial date has been set.
For now, she is behind bars at the Miami-Dade Women's Detention Center. Done serving a two-year sentence on an unrelated case, Graham is eligible for a bond of more than $200,000 but cannot afford to get out, Matters said.
Both sides acknowledge the case has proceeded slowly, in part because the state is seeking the death penalty. Graham had to get two new lawyers in April 2006 because her previous attorney was not certified to handle capital punishment cases.
``Prosecutors always want to get their cases before a judge and jury as quickly as possible when recollections are clearest and witnesses are easily accessible,'' Miami-Dade State Attorney's spokesman Ed Griffith said. ``However, in many cases, particularly murder cases, circumstances can make that difficult.''
Both sides declined to discuss the evidence.
But without a body, forensic evidence, eyewitnesses or confessions, the state's thrust will likely focus on Graham's inconsistent accounts of Rilya's whereabouts -- a seemingly thin prosecutorial foundation, but details that Graham indeed would be expected to know because Rilya was so young.
Born to a crack-addicted mother, Rilya was under DCF supervision by 2000 and living with Graham and her lover, Pamela Graham, no relation. Rilya's younger sister also lived with them.
VARYING ACCOUNTS
DCF did not realize Rilya had vanished from the Grahams' home until April 2002, more than a year after she was last seen, because her case worker had not checked on the girl. Graham told case workers that an unidentified DCF worker -- ``a tall, heavy-set, light-skinned woman with an accent'' -- came to pick up Rilya. A second woman came later to pick up toys and clothes, she said.
``As crazy as the story sounded, I have to be honest, I believed her. She was a very nice, seemed like a lovely person, grandmother type of person,'' former DCF operations manager Barbara Ongay said of Graham, in an April deposition.
Police and DCF even printed out ID-badge photos of DCF employees to show Graham to find the mystery social worker, to no avail. Physical searches for Rilya also fizzled.
As detectives got varying versions of Rilya's whereabouts from people who had talked to Graham, the case turned from a missing persons to a homicide investigation.
During a Christmas 2000 get-together at the Graham home, friends wondered about Rilya's whereabouts. Graham claimed a ``Spanish'' friend had taken the little girl on a road trip.
`They were going to, like, all these different places, but I remember New York being specific and Disney World,'' friend Laquica Tuff said in a March 2007 deposition.
During the probe, authorities found that Rilya's DCF caseworker, Deborah Muskelly, repeatedly failed to make required visits to check on the girl. Yet she had vouched to a judge that Rilya was OK. Muskelly later told investigators she was basing her word on phone conversations with Graham.
Authorities accused Muskelly of falsifying her timesheets to improperly indicate she had visited yet another child assigned to her caseload. She pleaded guilty to official misconduct and grand theft and completed a stint on probation.
In February 2003, jurors convicted Graham of fraud for using a friend's ID to buy an SUV. Less than a year later, based on incriminating statements from Pamela Graham, Geralyn Graham was charged with aggravated child abuse of Rilya.
Pamela Graham, who also was charged, agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of child neglect and serve as a state witness against Geralyn. She has not yet been sentenced.
CAGED AND CUFFED
She told Miami-Dade Police that Geralyn Graham hit Rilya with switches. She said Geralyn had confined Rilya in a laundry room as punishment, and bound her hands to the railing of the child's bed with plastic ``flex cuffs.''
A friend of the pair told police that Geralyn Graham borrowed a dog cage that she put Rilya in when she misbehaved.
As for the social worker tale, Pamela Graham said Geralyn ``concocted the story and advised her whenever anyone inquired about Rilya Wilson to just say that DCF took her,'' Miami-Dade homicide Detective Sara Times, now retired, said in a February 2006 deposition.
But Pamela Graham told officials she never knew what happened to Rilya.
The big break in the case came in March 2005, when a grand jury indicted Geralyn Graham for first-degree murder. A jailhouse informant, Robin Lunceford, had come forward to say Graham had confessed to smothering the child, then dumping her in a South Miami-Dade canal.
But Lunceford's credibility is weak -- she also gave information to Miami-Dade prosecutors about fellow inmates in two other high-profile murder cases, but was dropped as a state witness in both cases after she stopped cooperating.
EASY TARGET
Lunceford, who claimed to be penning a book about her life in jail, also told authorities that a fellow inmate might have terrorist ties and was planning to kill a federal prosecutor. Agents found the story to be bogus, making her an easy target for defense attorneys questioning her credibility. She is unlikely to be called to the stand, legal observers say.
Another inmate, however, may testify. Prosecutors say Graham admitted killing a ``baby'' to Ramona Tavia, a convicted murderer, while the two women were briefly jailed together.
Defense attorneys have yet to depose Tavia, Muskelly or Pamela Graham.
Former Washington D.C. prosecutor Tad DiBiase, who consults with police nationally on murder prosecutions without a victim's body, said the state usually needs at least a solid confession, forensic evidence or an eyewitness.
Despite the lack of evidence, the state's advantage in Rilya's case is that because she was so young, she cannot be cast as a willing runaway, he said. And Graham's tale of a rogue kidnapper might work against her.
``The jury is going to be extremely suspicious of somebody giving a bunch of different stories in a case involving a child,'' he said.
Brian Tannebaum, Graham's previous attorney, offered his strategy: to shift the blame to DCF and Pamela Graham. ``I think this case is really all about DCF. If the defense puts DCF on trial and questions why police failed to fully investigate Pam, they've got a shot,'' he said. ``The bottom line: there is not a witness that can say Geralyn Graham killed Rilya Wilson.''
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Sentencing in 40-year-old Waterford murder case
Reported by: Walt McClure
Email: waltmcclure@fox23news.com
Last Update: 1/16 9:18 am
A 40-year-old murder case comes to a close in a Saratoga County courtroom Friday morning, as the man accused of killing the fiancee of a woman he briefly dated is sentenced to prison.
63-year-old Nelson Costello stood before a judge to accept his punishment after decades of trying to hide his crime.
Costello said very little in court as he listened to the prosecutor and his victim's brother in law describe the life he took back in 1969, and what that loss has meant since then.
Nelson Costello was a 23-year-old Waterford town constable in 1969, a man who wanted a woman who didn't want him, and made the decision to kill her fiancee and then hide the crime for the next 40 years.
Nelson Costello's run from the law ended in Ballston Spa when Saratoga county Court Judge Jerry Scarano sentenced him to 5 2/3 to 17 years in prison for the April 1969 murder of David Bacon.
Prosecutors say Costello, under the guise of being a police officer, talked Bacon into following him to a spot on the Mohawk River in Waterford and shot him three times in the chest.
James Murphy/R-Saratoga County District Attorney: “It's bittersweet today. We have answers. We know what happened, but now we begin to mourn the loss of a loved one and the death of a loved one 40 years later.”
The case came into focus in late 2008, when Costello's sister learned from her brother's former girlfriend that he admitted killing a man - and she consulted a minister about it.
Captain Steve James/New York State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation: “Certainly she is a champion in this regard as far as I'm concerned. I don't stand here and assume that it was strictly the interviews and the steps that were taken to this together. Certainly, that had to be a big lift on her behalf.”
The minister called Troy police, who got the investigation going with New York State Police.
The girlfriend got involved, too, getting Costello on tape admitting his crime.
David Bacon's elderly brother-in-law Donald Miles left a hospital bed where he was scheduled for heart surgery to read a victim's impact statement in court, saying in part, “You, Nelson Costello, executed a man that did nothing to you...you cut a good man down in his prime years while you, a despicable confessed killer, get to live out yours.”
Before he was sentenced, Costello said he has thought about this every day and said he is sorry, but the DA doesn't buy it.
James Murphy: “Whether or not Nelson Costello is remorseful is something that I don't know. I know that he's probably remorseful and sad that he got caught. I know that if he were truly remorseful he would have done the right thing 39 years ago.”
As part of his plea to first degree manslaughter, Nelson Costello told law enforcement that he buried David Bacon's body along the James River in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he drove non-stop after the killing.
DA Jim Murphy says they have begun looking in that area and hope they will find Bacon's remains come spring.
Below is a copy of the press release from the Saratoga County District Attorney’s office about the Costello sentencing.
NELSON COSTELLO SENTENCED UP TO 17 YEARS IN STATE PRISON
PRESS RELEASE
January 15, 2010
Saratoga County District Attorney James A. Murphy, III announced today that defendant Nelson Costello (DOB 7-21-46) was sentenced by Honorable Jerry J. Scarano in Saratoga County Court today to maximum of 17 years in State Prison. This sentence follows the defendant’s plea of guilty on October 23, 2009, to Manslaughter in the First Degree in violation of section of Section 125.20 (1) of the Penal Law of the State of New York, (as that statute existed in 1969), a Class "B" felony offense in which the defendant admitted that he “killed Dave Bacon” on April 10, 1969, in the Town of Waterford. Because the killing took place 40 years ago, the Judge was required to sentence the defendant utilizing the laws from 1969, which dictate that the judge impose a sentence that includes a minimum time of one third the 17 year maximum. DA Murphy said:
The People are extremely satisfied with the final resolution today. This was an extremely difficult case. No body was ever found. Most DA's would not consider a case without a body, but I thought that justice required us to go forward with the case. Additionally, we did not have a murder weapon, although we have a weapon that was recovered. Unfortunately we were not able to tie the weapon to the death as there is no body and no bullets were recovered. There is no DNA or forensic evidence. Those are the type of evidence 21st century juries anticipate and expect. Also, memories after 40 years have faded. We did have, however, tapes of conversations between Mr. Costello and a witness in which the defendant made admissions that he had killed someone, but never identified his victim by name. It was due to the collaborative work of so many law enforcement agencies that this resolution was achieved. Nelson Costello's actions not only ended Mr. Bacon's life at the young age of 22, but also affected so many other people's lives. The family has waited 40 years for this day to come to finally have an answer to what happened to their loved one. Assistant DA Alan Poremba worked tirelessly with law enforcement to solve an illusive and complicated case and only through a detailed analysis and painstaking work did the pieces of the puzzle finally come together.
At sentencing today, Don Miles, the brother-in-law and “father figure” of Dave Bacon delivered a victim impact statement on behalf of Bacon’s family and close friends. Miles spoke about Dave Bacon and how his sudden disappearance on April 10, 1969, took a lasting toll on his family and friends. Many of Dave Bacon’s family members and close friends were in attendance. Don told the Court that on April 10, 1969, “one of the worst examples of mankind [Costello]…took the life of one of the best examples of mankind [David Bacon] that night.”
On April 10, 1969, at approximately 11:30 pm, David Bacon was driving from his home in Pleasantdale in Rensselaer County to his job at Behr Manning in Watervliet. He never made it to work that evening. The defendant was obsessed with David Bacon’s fiancée, Mary, and that evening Costello implemented a plan to eliminate David Bacon. That evening, Costello stopped David Bacon on his way to work and told Bacon that he was a police officer and needed to come with him right away to talk to his Captain. Bacon complied, and Costello drove Bacon to Riberty’s Grove in Waterford, where he got Bacon to step out of the car and stand near the trunk. Costello then fired three shots into Bacon’s chest using the same .357 caliber handgun he carried as a police officer/constable in Waterford. Costello placed Bacon’s body into the trunk of the rental car and drove non-stop to Lynchburg, VA where he arrived unexpectedly at a friend’s workplace. The friend showed Costello a place to bury Bacon along an embankment of the James River. Bacon was reported missing, and the circumstances surrounding his disappearance remained a mystery for over 40 years until 2008 when Nelson Costello’s sister heard from one of Costello’s former girlfriends that he had killed “Mary’s boyfriend” in the Troy, NY area sometime around 1968. The defendant’s sister and niece immediately told a minister who called the Troy Police Department on their behalf. A multi-agency, multi-state investigation commenced and culminated in the arrest of the defendant.
One of the significant pieces of evidence included tapes of conversations between the defendant and a former girlfriend. During those conversations, his former girlfriend, while working with the State Police, recorded a conversation with Costello corroborating her earlier statement that Costello killed a man back in that era. Costello stated that “what I did was permanent…what I did was irreversible”. The joint investigation of numerous law enforcement agencies culminated with the arrest, indictment and conviction of Costello today.
One of the more difficult facets of the case that prosecutors faced was that the David Bacon’s remains were never found. Therefore, they turned to the Social Security Administration for assistance. The prosecutors wanted to obtain social security records indicating that was no activity on Bacon’s Social Security number since April 10, 1969, as circumstantial proof that Dave did not just relocate without telling anyone. For months this task proved to be much more difficult than anticipated, even with the help of Congressman Scott Murphy. Congressman Murphy said, "I'm proud to have worked with District Attorney Jim Murphy to cut through the red tape and make Saratoga a safer and stronger community."
Congressman Murphy, knowing the great difficulty we endured, has told us that he hopes to introduce legislation in the future to correct this problem so that similarly situated District Attorney’s Offices throughout this country do not encounter the same obstacle.
Captain Steven James said, "The New York State Police in conjunction with the Saratoga County District Attorney's office have worked diligently to bring this case to a successful resolution. It is our intention that this overall investigation brings some measure of justice and satisfaction to the Bacon family."
District Attorney Murphy said, "This case has been 40 years in the discovery and 2 years in the investigation. Finally, today we have concluded a major chapter in this family's life. Let hope the next chapter is one of healing and peace."
Posted by Thomas A. (Tad) DiBiase, No Body Guy
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Investigation Continues Into Adam Herrman Disappearance
Posted: Dec 31, 2009 5:12 PM EST
Investigation Continues into What Happened to Adam Herrman
Adam Herrman
What Happened to Adam? One Year LaterButler County Attorney No one has seen him in more than a decade, but it's only been a year since authorities have known about the disappearance of Adam Herrman.
Herrman was eleven years old when he was last seen in 1999. Last December, his sister contacted SRS concerned that she couldn't find her brother. That's when authorities started searching the areas where Herrman once lived with his adoptive parents. They put out his picture all over the country and interviewed dozens of potential witnesses.
Although the case is no longer making daily headlines, those involved say work is constantly being done to find out what happened to Herrman. Butler County Attorney Jan Satterfield says it's taking awhile, but in a case like this time is on their side.
"As each year and each day passes, I think that makes for a stronger case to argue to a jury that Adam Hermann is dead," Satterfield said. She says the fact that this is a decade old cold case and there's no body, makes it the most complex case she's ever worked. She's collected more than a dozen binders of information on Herrman's life. Satterfield says it will continue to be a priority to answer the question, what happened to Adam Herrman.
"It's very difficult not to get emotionally involved. Especially since Adam and I would have been around the same age," said intern Sara Freeman. She's one of many working to piece together what happened to the young boy. Her work at the Butler County Attorney's office is why she's applying for law school. "It's been such an awesome experience. If and when this case goes to trial, it will be a rewarding experience that I had something to do with it," Freeman said.
Satterfield says her goal is to have the case to a grand jury by this time next year. Since this is such a complex case, she'd like jurors to help determine whether there's enough evidence to charge Herrman's adoptive parents. A grand jury would be used instead of a preliminary hearing, when a judge determines whether a case should go to trial. Satterfield says a grand jury needs to be approved by a judge in order to happen. If a grand jury makes an indictment, the case would go directly to trial.
Satterfield says Herrman's adoptive parents are the only persons of interest in the case. They never reported he was missing and cashed SRS checks until 2005. She says they've moved out of the area but authorities are keeping track of them. She says two other big cases, the Emily Sander and Carol Mould murder trials have also slowed down the Herrman investigation.
Posted by Thomas A. (Tad) DiBiase, No Body Guy
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Murder Plea Deal: 19 Years In Prison
December 16, 1987|By David C. Scruggs of The Sentinel Staff
MELBOURNE — In exchange for 19 years in prison, a former Lakeland man pleaded no contest Tuesday to the second-degree murder of a state witness who disappeared during a 1981 drug-smuggling trial.
State prosecutors say they also hope that Thomas William Bryan, 39, will lead them to the body of Richard Hunt, 30, who was abducted by two men posing as federal marshals in January 1981.
Prosecutors said Bryan and Harry Bell, another man convicted in 1984 in connection with the abduction, were hired by Clarence Zacke, a former West Melbourne auto parts dealer, to get rid of Hunt, a car repossessor who was to testify against Zacke in a drug-smuggling trial.
Posted by Thomas A. (Tad) DiBiase, No Body Guy
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Guilty
Jury finds Felipe Cruz Hernandez guilty in wife’s murder
By DEBRA DeANGELO
Express editor
There is no body, but there is a verdict: Guilty of second degree murder, with malice aforethought. The jury announced their decision in the Felipe Cruz Hernandez murder trial on Tuesday, Dec. 22, at approximately 3 p.m. in Yolo Superior Court, said a spokesperson from the Yolo County District Attorney’s office.
The trial began on Nov. 9, following Hernandez’ arrest in May for the murder of his wife, Leticia Barrales Ramos, 28, who was last seen alive on April 12. Her body has never been found, despite numerous searches in the area by the Winters Police Department and the FBI.
The DA spokesperson said the jury began deliberating late Friday afternoon, Dec. 18. She said sentencing will take place on Jan. 22, at 10 a.m. in Dept. 6 at the Yolo County Courthouse.
According to Crystal Ross-O’Hara, reporter for McNaughton newspapers, District Attorney Robert Trudgeon confirmed that DNA samples from the blood found in the couple’s Baker Street apartment in Winters matched Ramos. Ross-O’Hara noted that although Hernandez was found guilty of second degree murder, he was found not guilty of first degree murder.
She added that jury foreman Mike Sullivan commented on how tough this case was because there was no body, and another juror who asked to remain anonymous commented that the trial process “restores his faith in the system.”
Following the reading of the verdict, Winters Police Chief Bruce Muramoto had praise for Winters Police Officer Sergio Gutierrez, who headed up the investigation locally, and for the Yolo County District Attorney’s office as well, calling the overall investigation and trial “great teamwork."
Posted by Thomas A. (Tad) DiBiase, No Body Guy
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No doubt that Robert Morgenthau was a great DA. But the first to prosecute a no body case without forensic evidence or a witness? Not quite....by a long shot. I exchanged emails with the reporter, Mr. Freeman, but I must've missed the correction....
OPINION: THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW DECEMBER 26, 2009 The World's District Attorney Legendary prosecutor Robert Morgenthau on his famous cases, his brawl with Mike Bloomberg, and why he's sounding alarm about Iran.
By JAMES FREEMAN
In the criminal justice system, the people of Manhattan have been represented for 35 years by New York County District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. This is his story.
Mr. Morgenthau, who inspired the original D.A. character on the television program "Law and Order," will retire on Thursday at age 90. Much of the barely fictitious drama is set in his office in Manhattan's Criminal Courts Building. This week, amid half-filled boxes and scattered personal mementos, he sat down to discuss his life's work.
Even though he knows I'm wearing a wire—actually an audio recorder placed on the table between us—America's D.A. speaks candidly, including about his public blowups with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mr. Morgenthau says this is the first mayor he hasn't gotten along with, and that the relationship went south when his office started investigating the city's role in the death of two of New York's bravest in an August, 2007 fire. Among other mistakes, city inspectors had failed to note that the water had been turned off at the old Deutsche Bank building opposite Ground Zero. The blaze resulted in 33 "mayday" calls from firefighters, and the D.A. is amazed that only two lost their lives.
Mr. Morgenthau soon got a call from a city lawyer telling him that "the mayor wanted me to tell you that he's surprised that you're looking at the Deutsche Bank case." Mr. Morgenthau says he told the mayor's minion, "You tell the mayor that I'm surprised that he's surprised."
Why would the mayor encourage such a call? Because, says Mr. Morgenthau, Mr. Bloomberg "thinks all lawyers work for him" and "doesn't want anybody around who doesn't kiss his ring, or other parts of his body."
The mayor has also recently gone after Mr. Morgenthau's budget, with city officials demanding that he stop sending some of the money forfeited by criminals to the state government, and instead send all of it to the city. The D.A. reports that both governments benefit handsomely from the work of his office—$300 million so far this year, with another $230 million coming soon.
These big criminal forfeitures support his $80 million budget, but they are also the product of Mr. Morgenthau's unique legacy among district attorneys: his national and global reach. Such resources have allowed him to prosecute complex international business cases. Combined with his jurisdiction in the world's financial capital, he has become in a sense the world's district attorney.
Thomas Jefferson would have liked this bastion of local power as part of a federal system, but it is not always celebrated by federal officials. "I'm sure it [annoys] the hell out of them," Mr. Morgenthau observes.
The feeling is mutual. The D.A. says that while he's had to deal with the federal bureaucracy for decades, "it has just gotten worse" and "they ought to burn it down and start all over again. It's extremely worrisome."
For example, he says, "We had a lot of trouble with the Treasury Department" in his recent case against Credit Suisse, in which the bank coughed up $536 million and admitted to aiding Iran and other rogue nations in violating economic sanctions. The feds, as they did in a similar settlement with the British bank Lloyds, wanted only civil penalties.
Mr. Morgenthau would have none of it. He says Credit Suisse had been "stonewalling us" and only struck a deal after he threatened to bring criminal charges to a grand jury. "We would have gotten an indictment," he says.
In 2006, Mr. Morgenthau's office began an investigation into New York's Alavi Foundation, which turned out to be an Iranian government front. Money from the foundation "was being used to pay Iranian agents around the world," he says. Last month the U.S. government seized $500 million of the foundation's assets, including a Fifth Avenue office tower.
Mr. Morgenthau lacked the statute to bring legal action so he referred the Alavi inquiry to the FBI, while continuing to track a larger financial web. Individuals associated with Alavi had received money from Iran's government-controlled Bank Melli, which has been sanctioned by our government, the United Nations and the European Union for its support of the regime's nuclear and missile programs. The D.A.'s investigators found a money trail leading from Melli and other Iranian state-controlled banks, through legitimate banks in London and other European cities and into correspondent banks in the United States.
Credit Suisse, Lloyds and "eight other banks that we know about," according to Mr. Morgenthau, were involved in "stripping." This means disguising that Iran is the origin of transactions routed through American banks.
What are the Iranians buying with their ill-gotten American currency? Mr. Morgenthau obtained a shopping list that includes tantalum, a hard metal used in roadside bombs. But the Iranians are thinking bigger. He reports that he showed the shopping list to an executive at Raytheon, which manufactures missiles for the American military. Mr. Morgenthau says that after reviewing Tehran's wish list, the Raytheon official was stunned at the sophistication that would be required to create it, and replied, "My hands went cold."
The Iranian finance investigation led him to evidence showing the destination of a North Korean cargo plane that was seized in Bangkok by Thai police on Dec. 12. Despite Iranian denials, Mr. Morgenthau says the massive weapons shipment was bound for Tehran.
After years of prosecuting world-wide financial cases, including bringing down the criminal enterprise known as the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, Mr. Morgenthau has assembled a formidable intelligence network. "When people trust you, you get a lot of information from all around the world."
Mr. Morgenthau says "It takes a long time to build the kind of network we have" and adds that he expects his successor, Cyrus Vance Jr., will continue to focus on international financial crimes and Iranian finance in particular. That's because these cases are effective.
Regarding Iran, the lifelong Democrat scores both parties in Washington for ignoring the gathering threat. His own concern flows in part from his experience as a newly minted ensign aboard a destroyer the day Pearl Harbor was attacked. Mr. Morgenthau later saw action in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, and was fortunate to survive one sinking when a convoy ship violated standing orders and picked him and fellow crew members out of the water. He doesn't want his country to be caught unprepared again.
'Everyone has dropped the ball on [Iran sanctions]. The president is smoking pot or something if he thinks that being nice to these guys is going to get him anywhere," Mr. Morgenthau says. He says economic sanctions can "have significant impact" because most of Iran's enablers are not terrorists, just people "trying to make a buck. . . . They don't enjoy being the focus of an investigation." The D.A. argues that more aggressive federal enforcement of existing sanctions, plus a new effort to restrict Iran's gasoline imports, could make life very difficult for a regime that is under increasing pressure from its own citizens.
"The president has to say this is a priority. We have sanctions and we ought to make them work," he says. "The boss," as he's known to Manhattan prosecutors, is particularly concerned about Iran's progress in missile development and its budding relationship with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez. While the two countries have opened banks in each other's countries, the D.A. reports that they nonetheless are transacting business in dollars through New York.
Mr. Morgenthau says his habit is to "never look back," but he obliges when pressed to revisit some of his most famous wins and losses. Boss of mob bosses John Gotti evaded the long arm of Mr. Morgenthau for years but was ultimately convicted of murder by the feds. "The [FBI] didn't turn over key evidence they had to us," he says.
Asked whether he should have indicted board members along with Tyco Corporation CEO Dennis Kozlowski and CFO Mark Swartz, Mr. Morgenthau responds, "probably."
Of his recent prosecution of Anthony Marshall, convicted of stealing from his mother Brooke Astor, Mr. Morgenthau makes clear that the case had a significance beyond exposing the lifestyles of the rich and famous. He notes a disturbing trend of children ripping off their parents and grandparents. The case, he says, "sent a message all over the country: You can't steal from your elders."
Mr. Morgenthau notes that his office was the first in the country to "indict the footprint," which means securing indictments before finding a defendant. This has the practical effect of removing the statute of limitations.
Mr. Morgenthau is proudest of his victories in cases widely considered unwinnable. He notes that his office was the first in the country to successfully prosecute a murder case with no body and no witness. In 2000 he won convictions against Sante and Kenneth Kimes. The mother and son killed Irene Silverman when they believed she had caught on to their plot to swindle her out of her Upper East Side mansion. The son later admitted to disposing of the body in a dumpster.
Mr. Morgenthau took on another lost cause but finally prevailed, 15 years after the disappearance of Gail Katz-Bierenbaum. Discovering flight records at New Jersey's Essex County Airport led his team to conclude and ultimately prove that her husband had pushed her body out of a Cessna over the Atlantic.
Overall, it's hard to argue with the results. While he is quick to credit the police and other city officials, Mr. Morgenthau notes that when he became district attorney in 1975, Manhattan was suffering almost 650 murders annually. Last year, there were 62. From more than 39% of the city's murders, Manhattan's share has fallen to just 12%.
Manhattan's renaissance has allowed many New Yorkers to consider not just survival, but success, and more specifically how to keep more of what they earn from the tax collector. Mr. Morgenthau has aggressively pursued those who seek to preserve their capital in other jurisdictions, but that doesn't mean he favors the current system.
"I think taxes in New York City and State are much too high," he says. "But you're never going to see them reduced unless everybody pays what they're required to pay under the law."
Mr. Morgenthau's effort to go after citizens who park their money in tax havens has led to more frustration with the Mayor. The D.A. says Mr. Bloomberg "has never been any help. I've talked to him three times about it and each time the conversation is almost identical. I tell him how much money is offshore and in the underground economy and he always says, 'I'm paying my taxes.' And I always say, 'Mike, no one is suggesting you don't, but there are a lot of other people who don't.' And then he says, 'I'm glad I'm not a lawyer.'"
Before exiting the public stage, Mr. Morgenthau also wants to set straight the record on one of the most controversial episodes in the history of the United States Supreme Court. Justice Abe Fortas was denied a Senate vote in 1968 when President Lyndon Johnson sought to elevate him to chief justice to replace the retiring Earl Warren.
The following year, Fortas resigned his seat as an associate justice after it was revealed that he received money from the foundation of Louis Wolfson, who had been convicted of crimes related to a securities case.
But Mr. Morgenthau already knew about the payments from Wolfson. As a U.S. attorney appointed by John F. Kennedy, he had been investigating Wolfson for years, against the wishes of Wolfson's friends in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. (To be fair, politicians seeking contributions were not the only defenders of Wolfson. More recently, Henry Manne has written in these pages that Wolfson invented the modern hostile tender offer, enhancing the power of shareholders and making the U.S. economy more competitive.)
In any case, Mr. Morgenthau believes that Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach was fired by LBJ in 1966 because he refused to block Mr. Morgenthau's indictment and subsequent conviction of Wolfson. At the time, Mr. Katzenbach said disputes with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover caused his resignation.
Knowing of the $20,000 per year "for life" that Wolfson's foundation was sending to Fortas, Mr. Morgenthau contacted Mr. Katzenbach's successor Ramsey Clark, told him of the deal, and suggested that he tell Chief Justice Earl Warren to consider delaying his retirement. Mr. Morgenthau says Mr. Clark never informed Warren. Wolfson had powerful friends.
Just like viewers at the end of a "Law and Order" episode, observers of the legendary D.A. are treated to one more twist in the tale.
Mr. Freeman is assistant editor of the Journal's editorial page.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A9
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Thursday, December 17, 2009
Man accused of murder of former Windsor woman held over for trial
Sharon Dunn
John Sandoval will appear in Weld District Court at 11 a.m. Jan. 8 for a plea hearing and trial setting. Attorneys on Wednesday determined they would need a four-week trial to get through all the evidence and witnesses. They will have April, May or June to pick from for the trial. Also, public defender Ken Barker has planned to ask the court to move the trial to another county based on the amount of pre-trial publicity.The former Greeley man accused of killing his wife 14 years ago kept her memory close to him before his arrest last June in Las Vegas.
Police noted John Sandoval, 44, kept two pictures of his estranged wife, Tina Tournai-Sandoval, hanging above each post of his bed in his Las Vegas home. He told friends and a cell mate that he continued to harbor feelings for her, even though she had divorced him, got into tattoos and joined a biker gang.
The idea, however, that Tournai-Sandoval would quit the Greeley nursing job she loved and walk out on a new life she was living in a new apartment was not remotely logical, prosecutors said during a preliminary hearing.
Weld District Court Judge Gilbert Gutierrez said Wednesday that he was convinced there was enough probable cause to believe Sandoval committed the crime of first-degree murder under the relaxed standards of a preliminary hearing, with all the evidence being seen in the light most favorable to the prosecution. He set an 11 a.m. Jan. 8 time for a plea hearing and trial setting.
On Oct. 19, 1995, Tournai-Sandoval set off after her graveyard shift at North Colorado Medical Center to meet Sandoval to collect money he owed her for an IRS debt the pair incurred. She had moved into her own place in August and had filed for divorce. After that planned meeting with Sandoval, she was never seen again.
“All of these are clear indications of a woman looking forward to getting on with her life after her divorce,” said Assistant Weld District Attorney Michael Rourke. “But following her meeting with the defendant, there's nothing. Not one phone call, or document. ... Nothing. No documented use of her Social Security number, no credit card activity ... no other documentation on the divorce she was so looking forward to.
“She did not commit suicide, and she did not up and run away ... and she most certainly did not run off with a biker gang and use drugs.”
Prosecutors spent two and a half days presenting their case against Sandoval, which police built chiefly in 1995. Prosecutors then wouldn't touch the case because her body was never found. A death certificate was issued for Tournai-Sandoval in 2002 after a Weld District Court judge ruled there was enough evidence to believe she was deceased.
The evidence, however, may not hold up so well in trial, where the rules of evidence are greater. Public defender Ken Barker said prosecutors will have a difficult time proving the individual elements of first-degree murder, just from the first element of where the crime was committed.
“I believe the inquiry here stops at probable cause because there was a lack of evidence in 1995, and there's still a lack of evidence,” Barker said. “Nothing much has changed except for the length of time. ... Over time, people forget. Their recollection changes.”
That happened in the case of Sandoval's aunt, Graviela Delgado, who lived in his basement in 1995. She struggled in a second interview with law enforcement this fall to remember where she actually saw her nephew the night of Tournai-Sandoval's disappearance.
But even Delgado — who has never been helpful to police in the investigation, according to Greeley police detective Mike Prill — may be rethinking the case.
In an interview this fall with an FBI agent, Delgado got the first look at photos of Sandoval taken hours after his arrest, in which he has scratch marks on his chest and neck — marks the Weld County coroner determined were mostly likely caused by human fingernails.
“After seeing the photos ... she said it appeared to her that Sandoval had a struggle with someone, and they gave her more to think about regarding John Sandoval's involvement in Christina's disappearance,” Prill testified Wednesday.
Rourke said every bit of evidence — while no body has ever been found — points to Sandoval's guilt. He was the last known person to be with Tournai-Sandoval, evidence pointed to her dropping off the face of the earth with no signs of an intent to go anywhere, her purported fear of her estranged husband, and his actions since her disappearance were that of someone fleeing and trying to cover up his guilt. Tracking dogs tracked Sandoval's scent, incidentally the same scent tracked from Tournai-Sandoval's car to his house, even to the hospital where Sandoval was undergoing X-rays after his arrest. Three of her credit cards and a new jacket of Tournai-Sandoval's were found in her estranged husband's house the night of her disappearance.
Barker recalled a recent media report of a woman found in Australia 50 years after her disappearance.
“It's unlikely and uncommon, but it does happen,” Barker said.
He said people automatically pointed to Sandoval because of his reputation and convictions for being a peeping Tom, suggesting it was unlikely that kind of behavior could lead to murder. During a search of Sandoval's Las Vegas home, police found several videos in which Sandoval had filmed up women's skirts without their knowledge and filmed himself having sex with women, also without their knowledge.
“They have boots that have soil on them,” Barker said. “It's not uncommon for boots to have soil on them in October. The gun. There's lots of evidence that John Sandoval liked to target shoot. Where's the blood? I'm not sure what the prosecution's theory is at this point. They haven't tied anything together. ... There's very little physical evidence that points to John Sandoval committing this crime.”
The prosecution mentioned that Sandoval's whereabouts at certain points, such as the night of his wife's disappearance, couldn't be accounted for.
“We keep bringing up that he'd been arrested for peeping Tom, and he was out all night, perhaps that's where he was,” Barker said. “There was a warrant out for his arrest” for peeping. Maybe that's why he ran from police, Barker suggested.
Tournai-Sandoval's mother, MaryEllen Tournai, declined to comment after the hearing, as many of her family and friends stopped to hug her on the way out of the courtroom.
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Arrest made in death of missing pilot
BARTOW, Fla., Dec. 18 (UPI) --
A Florida man was charged Friday with killing his former boss, a pilot who vanished more than a year ago.
Stobert Lindell Holt Jr., 42, was arrested at the Orlando airport on his return from a business trip to Colombia, an FBI spokesman told CNN. A state grand jury handed up an indictment Wednesday charging him with the first-degree murder of Robert Wiles.
Wiles was last seen at the Lakeland office of National Flight Services Inc., a company his father owns, on April 1, 2008. Holt also worked for the company at one time.
Thomas and Pamela Wiles received a ransom demand two days after their son vanished.
David Couvertier, a spokesman for the FBI in Tampa, said no body has been found. FBI officials have not said why they believe Wiles is dead.
In March, the FBI said an employee or former employee of the company might be responsible for Wiles' disappearance, the Orlando Sentinel reported. They said the kidnapper appeared to be familiar with Wiles' routine, company operations and his parents.
Copyright 2009 by United Press International
All Rights Reserved.
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From Columbia Tribune
Defendant returns for court
State granted a delay in revived murder case.
From left, Johnny Wright of Lawrenceville, Ga., walks away from the bench and his attorney, Cleveland Allen Tyson, after Associate Circuit Judge Christine Carpenter delayed a preliminary hearing for Wright Saturday at the Boone County Courthouse in the presumed homicide of Becky Doisy more than 30 years ago. Assistant Prosecutor Richard Hicks asked for the delay.
By T.J. Greaney
Published December 11, 2009 at 2:56 p.m.
Updated December 12, 2009 at 7:01 a.m.
Johnny Wright, charged in the 1976 disappearance of Columbia waitress Becky Doisy, appeared in Boone County Associate Circuit Court yesterday afternoon after being released on 10 percent of a $100,000 bond in November.
Prosecutors were granted a continuance for the preliminary hearing in the second-degree murder case until Feb. 5.
Wright declined to speak to reporters. His attorney, Cleveland Allen Tyson, said he planned to file a motion at the next hearing to dismiss the case.
Tyson said he believes prosecutors are weighing whether they have sufficient information to proceed with the prosecution of his client.
“My gut instinct tells me that they do not,” Tyson said. “But we’ll see.”
Wearing a suit, Wright appeared with his wife, Marva Edwards, and other relatives.
Tyson said Wright had been at his home in Lawrenceville, Ga., since he bonded out of jail last month.
Doisy of Columbia disappeared at age 23 in August 1976 after witnesses reported seeing her with Wright. A former roommate of Wright told police in 1985 that Wright had bragged about the murder and showed him Doisy’s lifeless body on the night of her disappearance.
Authorities obtained an arrest warrant in November 1985 accusing Wright of second-degree murder, but police could not find him.
Doisy’s body has not been found.
Wright’s whereabouts remained unknown to Columbia police until September, when he walked into a Georgia police station and asked for a background check as a qualification for getting a job. He showed police a week-old ID card with the name “John Wright.” When police in Georgia checked the name against an FBI database, it triggered a hit that said Wright was wanted on a murder charge in Boone County.
He was extradited to Missouri in October and held in the Boone County Jail with his bond unchanged since 1985 at $100,000. Last month, Wright’s family posted a $10,000 bond through a bail-bondsman to ensure he would return for future court hearings in the case.
According to multiple sources and public records, Wright has been living under the name of Eroll Edwards for about 25 years. He is married with two children.
Reach T.J. Greaney at 573-815-1719 or e-mail tjgreaney@columbiatribune.com.
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In an interesting twist, prosecutors in Connecticut are resisting a defendant's efforts to have his missing victim's brother tested to see if the bones recovered two years after the murder actually belong to the victim:
DNA case heard in state's high court
Prosecutor: Judge can't order test via state law
By Ken Dixon
STAFF WRITER
Updated: 12/09/2009 11:14:20 PM EST
HARTFORD -- A special state prosecutor Wednesday told the Connecticut Supreme Court that state law cannot force the brothers of a teenager killed by a Bridgeport car thief in 1984 to submit to DNA testing to determine if bones found two years later are those of the victim.
But a special public defender said that if the bones were not those of 15-year-old Alex Palmieri, Thomas J. Marra Jr., 10 years into a 60-year murder sentence, might be a free man.
During a 50-minute hearing before the high court, Frederick W. Fawcett, representing the state's attorney's office, said there was no reason to believe that Marra would not have been convicted in 1990.
Fawcett said that most of the evidence hinged on the testimony of two gang members who described Marra beating the boy with an aluminum baseball bat until his brains splattered on the floor of the gang leader's Clark Street garage, and then locking the body in a refrigerator that was tossed into Bridgeport Harbor.
"There's no remedy the trial court can afford," said Fawcett, adding there's no room in state law for a judge to order the DNA testing of family member. "A third party is not included in the statutory language."
Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers asked what harm would be caused by taking a swab from inside the cheek of one of Palmieri's two surviving brothers.
Fawcett said that testing a sibling could result in personal information getting out that could make the person ineligible for health insurance. "The ramifications to the third party are limitless," Fawcett told the seven-justice panel.
"It doesn't give rise to a reasonable probability that Mr. Marra would have been acquitted or not prosecuted?" asked Associate Justice Richard N. Palmer.
"That's correct," Fawcett said, detailing the witness account of the killing and testimony from Palmieri's girlfriend and family who said he was never seen again until a sneaker and foot bones, later identified as belonging to a Caucasian at least 14 years old, washed up along the harbor in 1986.
The sneaker was identified by Palmieri's girlfriend as similar to those he wore, but DNA technology at the time could not identify the bones.
Fawcett said Marra sent state investigators on "wild goose chases" with hints where Palmieri's body might be buried. The refrigerator was never found, even though Coast Guard divers searched the harbor for a year.
Kenneth Paul Fox, the special public defender, said that at the time of Marra's sentencing in 1990, DNA forensics were not as sophisticated as they are today. In fact, blood stains lifted from the scene were lost at the time of the trial and the supporting evidence consisted of a written analysis of the blood.
"Thomas Marra has filed under the statute because he believes there is biological material, which, if tested, would be material to his guilt or innocence under his criminal conviction," Fox said, recalling that initially, there was no body -- or parts of a body -- to identify.
"So they were facing a situation where they would be trying Mr. Marra without physical evidence of the victim, even without physical evidence that the victim had died," he said.
Fox said there was a motion at the state court level to order a brother to submit to DNA testing, but the issue wasn't fully argued in court, even though the defense thought there was an agreement to get the sample for comparison. The family eventually declined to be tested.
"The claim is that if the DNA testing effectively shows that these remains are not remains of Alex Palmieri, then that is exculpatory evidence that is material to Mr. Marra's guilt or innocence," Fox said.
"So our position about that is that there isn't a sufficient record before you at this point to deal with that issue," Fox said. "Our expectation is that if we succeed under the statute we'll be back in court in Bridgeport and if we're going to seek an order to have the brother swabbed, we'll have that motion, but we're not barred from arguing that motion." But Justice Flemming L. Norcott Jr. and Justice Peter T. Zarella indicated that state law does not address the issue of possibly ordering people who are not accused of crimes to provide DNA.
"What we're saying is, it's outside the statute," Fox replied.
"If it's not under the statute, what authority is it under?" Zarella said. "Is it not a question of law?" Fox admitted that while there have been cases where courts have ordered third-party DNA testing, such action hasn't occurred in Connecticut.
"Testing is defined by the statute and comparison with a relative is not the only kind of testing that could be taken," Fox said. "It may tell us that the person's bones had some genetic disease of some sort and then we'll be able to show Alex Palmieri didn't have this disease, something like that," Fox said. "There's a lot of DNA technology. It is now possible to extract DNA from the bones with reliable results." He said that if the blood samples hadn't been lost, it would also be possible to extract DNA from them.
Fox asked the justices to imagine a new trial, without the admission of the bones, and decide whether it would be different from the trial that sent Marra to prison for 60 years. "The question is when you can have confidence in what the jury will do if this evidence hadn't been available to them," Fox said.
"The great strength of the state's case is these two witnesses, who claim that they had assisted Mr. Marra," he said. "Our position is that if the bones and sneaker are gone, this story is greatly weakened and the credibility of the two witnesses is weakened."
"How does that undermine the testimony of the two witnesses?" Zarella asked.
"Because the state has to concede that they made a tremendous effort to find something in the harbor and failed," Fox replied. "The foot and sneaker were very powerful."
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Defendant’s bail reduced in dog-trainer slaying case
Skagit Valley Herald
November 25, 2009 - 11:55 AM
Scott Terrell
Murder defendant Michiel Glen Oakes of Kennewick appeared in Skagit County Superior Court on Wednesday for a bail reduction hearing.
MOUNT VERNON — A judge this morning cut in half the $5 million bail of a 41-year-old man accused of planning and carrying out the murder of an elite Anacortes dog trainer.
The dog trainer, Mark Stover, has not been found, though friends and family are grieving his death.
Meanwhile Michiel Glen Oakes of Kennewick, Stover’s ex-wife’s new boyfriend, is being held in the Skagit County Jail, charged with first-degree premeditated murder.
After a hearing during which Oakes’ lawyers touted the man’s good qualities, such as raising four children, Skagit County Superior Court Judge Mike Rickert lowered the bail from $5 million to $2.5 million.
The courtroom filled with supporters of both Oakes and Stover.
Stover was last seen Oct. 28 at his home and dog-training business south of Anacortes. Investigators found blood in his house and on his car, which was abandoned at a nearby casino. Stover’s police-trained dog, Ding, was also found at his home, wounded by gunshot.
Oakes was later arrested at Stover’s ex-wife’s home in Winthrop.
• Tahlia Ganser can be reached at 360-416-2148 or at tganser@skagitpublishing.com.
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After two trials, the jury could not reach a verdict against Chad and Shannon Floyd and the prosecution declined to try a third time. The case was covered on 48 Hours earlier this month:
Golub case to air on '48 Hours'
Published 12/5/2009 in Local News
By RACHAEL GRAY
rgray@gctelegram.com
The case of a missing man last seen in Johnson City will air on tonight's episode of "48 Hours Mystery" on CBS.
The episode, called "Justice in the Heartland," will feature the case of Michael Golub, a man who lived in Johnson City and mysteriously disappeared in 2005. The episode will be broadcast at 8 p.m. on CBS.
Chad and Shannon Floyd, formerly of Johnson City, were charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. They were tried twice, with both trials ending in hung juries. A third scheduled trial for the case never happened as prosecutors decided to drop the charges against the Floyds in wake of having no new evidence in the case.
Golub was an ex-boyfriend of Shannon Floyd, and together they have an 8-year-old son, Mikey. Golub was last seen on May 20, 2005. His body has never been found.
Susan Zirinsky, 48 Hours executive producer, said the story appealed to producers because "in a town where everybody knows everybody, someone knows something," she said.
"Yet two trials later, no one stands convicted of a crime, and there's still no body. Where's the justice?" she said.
Zirinsky said the size of the town and the circumstances around the case were peculiar.
"Something happened to him," Zirinsky said. What happened, she said, is unclear.
She said Golub's mother, Deb Golub, was compelled to find justice for her son.
"You feel like you want to take the journey with her," Zirinsky said.
The show brought in two private investigators to examine the evidence and uncover what they believe happened. The investigators will reveal new facts and new theories as to what happened and why, according to Louise Bashi, director of CBS News communications.
Two trials against the accused resulted in hung juries, and repeated requests for dismissal with prejudice -- meaning the state could not retry the accused -- had been denied by the judge, said Ashley Anstaett, a spokeswoman with the Kansas Attorney General's office.
Anstaett said prosecutors agreed to the dismissal in November 2008 because they were concerned that if a third trial with the exact same evidence resulted in another hung jury, the Floyds most likely would have been granted a dismissal with prejudice.
"Unless there is new and significant evidence that comes to light, the case will not be re-filed," Anstaett said in an e-mail Friday.
Richard Guinn, the lead prosecutor assigned to the case through the Kansas State Attorney General's Office, had said during the trial that the Floyds' motivation to kill Golub stemmed from a custody battle for their son. The Floyds' attorneys insisted their clients were innocent and that Golub had a history of substance abuse, suffered from depression and had been suicidal. The defense attorneys also argued because no body or murder weapon had ever been found, there was no certainty of Golub's death.
Small drops of blood belonging to Golub found on the Floyds' porch linked the couple to Golub and was key evidence for prosecutors. However, the evidence was not enough to convince the jury in either trial.
Golub, 6-foot tall with short brown hair and blue eyes, was last seen wearing jeans, T-shirt, hat, work boots and sunglasses.
Golub went by the nickname "California Mike" and had a tattoo on his right shoulder of Sonic the Hedgehog and the words "milk man" written underneath.
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This case was in the system for a long time but Ulysses Roberson was convicted earlier this month:
From Tahoe Daily Tribune
By Adam Jensen
ajensen@tahoedailytribune.com
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — After nearly three days of deliberating, a jury found Ulysses Roberson guilty of second-degree murder in the 1985 killing of his 4-year-old son, Alexander Olive, on Monday morning.
Seated at the defense table, Roberson did not immediately show any emotion after the court clerk read the verdict, but proclaimed his innocence after Judge Suzanne Kingsbury had given final thanks to jurors for serving on the case.
“I did not kill my son,” Roberson told the courtroom.
By finding Roberson guilty of second degree murder, the jury concluded Roberson killed Olive but did not do so in the “willful, deliberate, and premeditated” way that defines first degree murder.
A first degree murder conviction carries a sentence of 25 years to life in state prison, while a second degree murder conviction carries a sentence of 15 years to life.
Roberson is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 6.
Alexander Olive's mother, Rosemary Olive, was seated in the audience and dabbed tears from her eyes following the reading of the verdict. Several lawyers, courthouse staff, investigators and alternate jurors also attended Monday's hearing.
Outside the courtroom, Rosemary Olive said the verdict brought closure to a more than two decades-old tragedy.
She profusely thanked everyone involved with the case and said it was her “assignment” to get Ulysses Roberson off the street following the disappearance of Alexander.
“I wish that my son were alive, but I'm very thankful that this man won't be able to hurt any more people,” Olive said.
Olive asked Hans Uthe, El Dorado County Assistant District Attorney, about the likelihood that Roberson would be paroled. She said she didn't want to have to think about Roberson any more.
Roberson won't be eligible for parole for at least a decade and the district attorney's office will fight any moves to parole him, Uthe said.
Uthe, who has been involved on the case since Rosemary Olive reported her son missing in 1986, said he felt “great” about the verdict.
He complimented prosecutor Patricia Kelliher on the prosecution.
“She put together a wonderful presentation of a very difficult case,” Uthe said.
The length of time that had passed since the killing occurred and the fact that Olive's body has never been found were two of the trickier aspects surrounding the prosecution.
Kelliher did not to attend the reading of the verdict, reportedly because of Monday's inclement weather. She was listening on the phone as the verdict was read.
Roberson's declaration of innocence was a move by a man who has done everything he can to use the system to his advantage, said South Lake Tahoe Police Captain Martin Hewlett, who has worked on the case for more than a decade. Hewlett said he was thankful for Monday's verdict, a statement echoed by South Lake Tahoe FBI Special Agent Chris Campion, a 13-year veteran of the case.
Most jurors declined to comment about their deliberations while leaving the courthouse on Monday.
Reaching the verdict took longer than expected, but everyone was on the same page during deliberations, said juror Phil Molton.
One female juror, who declined to give her name, said the jury did not have enough evidence to find Roberson guilty of first degree murder.
“We reached the verdict with the evidence we had,” the juror said.
Another female juror, who also declined to identify herself, summed up the feelings of the jurors following the trial, which has lasted more than two months.
“I'd really just like to go home,” she said.
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On December 15, 2009, the Intermediate Court of Appeals of Hawaii reversed the conviction of Jenaro Torres for the 1992 murder of Ruben Gallegos. The reversal was based upon the erroneous admission of testimony from a Navy Criminal Investigative Services (better known as NCIS) Agent. The agent, Robert Robbins, testified that a .38 caliber Smith and Weson revolver recovered from the defendant had been fired within 8 hours of its recovery, which was around the time that the defendant had been seen with the victim. Because Agent Robbins was never qualified as an expert, and given his experience on this topic probably could not be qualified as an expert, the appellate court ruled that he should not have been permitted to testify on this issue. The court further ruled that the prosecutor's use of Agent Robbins testimony in its closing meant that the testimony could not be harmless error. The case also contains a discussion of the history of no body murder cases and the specific evidence used against Torres. The case, State v. Torres can be found on Westlaw at 2009 WL 4810445 (2009) and points up the danger of using a lay person in a quasi-expert fashion.
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Stobaugh charged with murder
Estranged wife of Sanger man vanished nearly five years ago
11:56 PM CST on Thursday, November 12, 2009
By Donna Fielder / Staff Writer
A grand jury has indicted a Sanger man on a charge of murdering his estranged wife, nearly five years after she was last seen at his house and never heard from again.
Immediately after the grand jury’s finding, armed with an indictment warrant, officers went to Charles Stobaugh’s farm and arrested him on a charge of murdering Kathy Stobaugh.
Texas Ranger Tracy Murphree and Denton County Sheriff’s Department Investigator Larry Kish arrested Stobaugh at his farm about an hour after the indictment. Though he had not known the case was being actively investigated again, he showed little emotion when he was taken into custody, Murphree said. Stobaugh did not talk to the officers.
“It was good to finally take him in,” Murphree said. “It’s been a long time coming.”
The Texas Ranger said he had always believed the case against Stobaugh was strong, but there was no body, which makes murder a more difficult charge to prove.
“We laid our case out for the grand jury and they agreed with us that there was only one conclusion: that Kathy Stobaugh is dead and that Charles Stobaugh killed her.”
Stobaugh, 54, was being held in the Denton County Jail late Thursday in lieu of $100,000 bail.
Kathy Stobaugh, 43, visited Charles Stobaugh on Dec. 29, 2004, at the farm near Sanger where she formerly lived with him. She did not return to her two children at the house she was renting in Sanger, and her car remained in his driveway. He told the children she had gone on a trip. When she didn’t return to teach her class at a school in Nocona after the holidays, she was reported missing, but she had been gone for several days by that time.
Charles Stobaugh told law enforcement officers that she stayed at the farm only half an hour and drove away, but her car was back in his driveway the next morning. He said they argued over property settlement issues in their divorce and she left angry, saying he might never see her again. He theorized that she had left with someone on a trip.
He said he called her cellphone several times because he was concerned for her. But phone records showed he never called her number. Her bank account was never accessed. He soon stopped cooperating
with the investigation, and Murphree described him as the only suspect in her disappearance and probable death.
Denton County sheriff’s deputies and the Texas Rangers searched extensively on Stobaugh property, in surrounding fields and on land in Cooke County for the missing mother and schoolteacher. They followed numerous leads and made pleas for information from the public. But the leads ran out and there was nowhere left to search, and the case faded from public notice.
Members of Kathy Stobaugh’s family never gave up. Her father, James Munday, her brothers, Chris and Mark, and their wives Keitha and Kim, waited tensely at the courthouse Thursday to find out if the grand jury would hand up an indictment. They sat in the courtroom as Judge Bruce McFarling read off the indictment list and smiled when they heard Charles Stobaugh had been indicted on a murder charge.
Then they waited for his arrest so they could watch him being arraigned.
“They called us a couple of months ago and told us they were working on the case again,” said Fort Worth police Officer Chris Munday, who pushed hard for an arrest over the years.
His brother, Mark, said the family always believed the day would come when there would be an arrest.
“I knew something would happen sometime to bring it out,” said his wife, Kim.
The Stobaughs met when they attended Texas Woman’s University, family members said. They married and she worked for North Central Texas College for a number of years. She had recently returned to TWU and obtained a teaching certificate. She was working in the Nocona school district when she disappeared.
Chris Munday said in an earlier interview that the marriage had always been rocky.
“She finally had enough and was getting out and making a life for her and her children.
He didn’t want the divorce and wouldn’t accept any divorce settlement,” Chris Munday said.
He said Charles Stobaugh told police that she got upset because he offered to sell everything and split it, and that’s why she left.
“Who would get upset about getting $500,000?” he said.
James Munday, Kathy’s father, said Thursday that his wife died a year ago not having seen justice for her daughter.
“It’s been a long time,” the elder Munday said. “Too long.”
The husband and wife team of Cary and Susan Piel will prosecute the case, said First Assistant District Attorney Jamie Beck. They began work shortly after they won a high-profile murder conviction in the Robert “Bobby” Lozano case in August. He also was accused of murdering his wife.
They began talking with Murphree about the old case, and he suggested they look at it, said Beck.
He said the subsequent investigation and review of the evidence did not produce a “smoking gun.”
“We don’t have a body,” Beck said. “But we believe we have enough evidence to go forward. That’s what a grand jury is for. They told us they believed we had a case.”
DONNA FIELDER can be reached at 940-566-6885. Her e-mail address is dfielder@dentonrc.com.
Posted by Thomas A. (Tad) DiBiase, No Body Guy
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No longer a no body murder case but it's somewhat satisfying to have the victim and an arrest:
* Husband charged with murder in wife's death
* Friends react to arrest in Kelly Morris' death
* Web only: Kelly Morris' dad says he won't stop searching
* Photos: Candlelight vigil held for Kelly Morris
* Photos: Family remembers Kelly Morris at Christmas
* Nov. 17 emergency custody order in Morris case
* Scott Morris arrest documents
Related Links Related Links
* WRAL.com archive: Kelly Morris disappearance
Related Stories Related Stories
* Missing woman's husband detained after skeletal remains found
Missing mom's husband charged with murder
Scott Morris
Posted: Nov. 18, 2009
Updated: Nov. 18 10:39 p.m.
Oxford, N.C. — The husband of a Granville County woman missing for more than a year has been charged with first-degree murder in the case.
Family members of Kelly Morris, 28, also said Wednesday that authorities notified them that skeletal remains found Tuesday afternoon in the southern part of the county are those of the mother of two.
Husband charged with murder in wife's death
Morris was last seen Sept. 3, 2008. The following day, the house she shared with her family at 3220 Tump Wilkins Road caught fire, which officials ruled was arson. Hours afterward, authorities found Morris' car about a mile from her home with her keys, purse and cell phone inside.
William Scott Morris, 35, of 113 W. Church St., Creedmoor, was taken into custody and charged Tuesday evening. In addition to murder, he also faces a charge of fraudulently burning a dwelling.
He was being held in the Granville County Detention Center without bond Wednesday afternoon. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Dec. 2.
At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Granville County Sheriff Brindell Wilkins said authorities received information Monday that led them to a wooded area off Sam Moss Hayes Road in Creedmoor, where the remains – identified using dental records – were found Tuesday afternoon.
Family members told WRAL News that the remains were found in the Tar River Fox Pen along Sam Moss Hayes Road.
"There were searches conducted in that area,” Al Mignacci, a volunteer who searched for Kelly Morris, said.
Citing the ongoing investigation, Wilkins declined to comment further on the case or a possible motive.
"I hope this arrest will bring some closure to Kelly's family," he said.
James Ray, owner of the fox pen, also declined to talk about the case but did say Scott Morris is not a member of the preserve.
Meanwhile, Kelly Morris' father and stepmother – Pat and Juanita Currin – have filed a petition for custody of the Morrises' 6-year-old daughter, who has been staying with her father and grandparents.
A second daughter, Kelly Morris' from a previous relationship, has been staying with her father.
Chief District Court Judge Daniel Finch on Tuesday signed an emergency order that states that Kelly Morris was likely the victim of a homicide and that Scott Morris was likely involved in her death.
A custody hearing is scheduled for Friday.
The order states that Scott Morris had the “intent to deceive” investigators, made numerous inconsistent statements to authorities about his whereabouts the day his wife went missing and will likely be charged with kidnapping and/or murder.
The order further suggests that Scott Morris' father, Jimmy Morris, might have been involved in a cover-up.
According to search warrants in the case, family members and friends told authorities the couple was having marital problems and had talked about divorce. They also indicate inconsistencies between Scott Morris' account and those of others regarding his actions in the hours after he says he last saw his wife and the following day.
Lisa Thompson, Kelly Morris’ friend, said she wants to see justice served.
"He has no heart. He should not have anything to do with society or anybody else,” Thompson said of Scott Morris.
Family members, authorities and volunteers from as far away as Texas have searched relentlessly over the past year for the missing woman.
"She was a loving mother, a loving daughter," Kelly Morris' mother, Wanda Hollis, said Wednesday. "Today has been a bittersweet day, but we found Kelly."
* Reporters: Erin Hartness, Beau Minnick
* Photographers: Pete James, Richard Adkins
* Web Editors: Kelly Hinchcliffe, Kelly Gardner
Posted by Thomas A. (Tad) DiBiase, No Body Guy
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Just thought this was interesting even though he didn't personally prosecute the case (which is the Kimes case).....
Morgenthau Night at the Javits Center
By Tom Robbins in Crime and Punishment, Featured, Town-Gown LowdownWednesday, Nov. 11 2009 @ 10:37AM
Being Veterans Day eve, it was fitting that past and present employees of the Manhattan District Attorney's office gathered last night to honor their outgoing boss, Robert Morgenthau, who has headed the office since 1975.
Morgenthau is a veteran of the Second World War where he served as a Lieutenant Commander on a series of destroyers. One of them, the USS Lansdale, was torpedoed and sunk off the North African coast by German planes. A troop carrier nearby exploded, taking 500 soldiers and sailors with it. Morgenthau, minus life preserver, spent hours treading water. The way he tells it, that's where he pledged to do good works if he made it out of there alive: "I made a lot of promises to the Almighty, even though I didn't have a lot of bargaining power at the time."
Last night there was no shortage of testimony about the good deeds he lived to accomplish. Most everyone had a tale of a personal kindness or courtesy extended to them by the executive director of the 800-person office. This is expected at events celebrating retiring managers. The difference here was that this one was held at the main exhibition hall at the Jacob Javits Convention Center and some 1200 people attending each had their own stories.
The event included a video tribute from a Morgenthau alumna, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and remarks by Cyrus Vance, Jr. who won election to the DA's post last week.
There was supposed to be a mini-roast from assistant D.A. Peter Kougasian, a narcotics prosecutor known for his office wit. But after a couple of jokes, the prosecutor launched into somber praise for Morgenthau's dedicated work in support of the Armenian people. Yes, the Armenians. Among his good works, the outgoing D.A. has campaigned to make sure the world doesn't forget the wholesale Turkish slaughter during World War I, a carnage that his grandfather, Henry Morgenthau Sr., vainly tried to stop when he served as American ambassador to Turkey. The ambassador's grandson has crusaded with equal fervor on behalf of victims of the holocaust, about which his father raised a similar alarm while a member of Franklin Roosevelt's wartime cabinet.
Morgenthau is 90 years old and his hearing, damaged during those hours spent in chilly waters, is fragile. But his voice, if hoarse, is strong as ever and he took the podium last night to talk about what he said had been the "privilege of leading this office."
"People are always asking me, 'What's the most important case you ever had?' My answer always is that every case is important to the victims.
"I will confess," he added, "that I got the most satisfaction out of doing things people told me I shouldn't or couldn't do." A few years ago he had insisted that murder charges be filed against a mother and son grifter team who had swindled an elderly widow who had then disappeared. There was no body or witness, and, as Morgenthau noted, the day before the trial "the paper of record ran a story quoting all the experts saying we couldn't win the case.
"I have a very low regard for experts," he said. "That goes back to my time in the Navy and the last ship I was on was hit by a kamikaze plane that skidded into us just below the water line." An expert, brought aboard to inspect the damage, assured them that only the plane's engine or undercarriage had been left behind. "Based on that sage advice," Morgenthau said, "instead of being repaired, we continued some 1200 miles to Leyte Gulf. We were out among the destroyers for about a week when we learned that we had a 550 pound bomb set against the bulkhead with the firing pin still intact. So I have never trusted experts. In the Navy, the expression for expert is 'The son of a bitch from out of town'."
He proudly touted something else the experts are still pondering, the astonishing drop in crime achieved during his years: 648 Manhattan homicides the year he took office; 62 last year.
"I was always reluctant to claim credit for any reduction in crime," he said, "because I knew it could always go up and I'd get the blame. But now that I'm leaving," he added with a trademark twinkle, "I don't hesitate to take the credit."
There had "obviously been no one factor in the criminal justice system that led to that extraordinary reduction," he continued. "Basically, it was the hard work of all of you. You are an extraordinary group of people."
Then he stepped off the stage to shake hands and pose for photographs with admiring fans and colleagues. There was a long line of them, even for the Javits Center.
Posted by Thomas A. (Tad) DiBiase, No Body Guy
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On October 8, 2009, I had the pleasure (?) of watching the oral arguments in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals for the case of United States v. Harold Austin. Those of you who follow this blog (both of you) will recall that this is the case prosecuted by yours truly (along with fellow prosecutor Tonya Sulia (now Goodman)) in January of 2006. Nearly four years later the case was up for appeal before DC's highest court. Not surprisingly the three judges, Judges Glickman, Blackburne-Rigsby and Ruiz, spent the entire time questioning the attorneys on the so-called re-initiation by the defendant, Mr. Austin. In a nutshell, two days before his arrest, we brought Mr. Austin up from the DC Jail to the DC Homicide Section to see if he would speak to us about the murder of Marion Fye. He invoked his rights, however, and therefore we could not speak to him. When he was arrested two days later, however, he asked to see the arrest warrant while in the car being transported, again from the DC Jail (where he was being held on armed robbery charges) to the Homicide Section. Austin was given the warrant and the affidavit by Detective Chris Kauffman. Eventually, having read the affidavit and warrant, Austin asked to talk to the police and made a confession where he admitted shooting Ms. Fye but claimed it was by accident during a struggle over the gun. He then stated that he dumped Ms. Fye's body in a dumpster behind Ben's Chili Bowl. (Yeah, that Ben's Chili Bowl.) The Court seemed troubled by two things: did the police trick or induce Austin to re-initiate a conversation with the police (even though the subjective intent of the police is irrelevant) and second, does the fact that Austin only asked for the warrant (a single piece of paper with virtually no information about the crime) but was given the multi-page affidavit make a difference? The Court explored this question even though it had not been raised by the defendant before the appellate hearing and had certainly not been raised in the trial court below. Moreover, in all liklihood when the defendant requested the "warrant" he really meant the affidavit that outlines the evidence against him not the warrant that simply lists the actual offense for which he is being arrested. There's no telling when the decision will be made but needless to say, the Court's questions left me a little nervous. Even if they find what the police did to be improper, however, they could still find the error to be harmless since the evidence against Mr. Austin was quite overwhelming. I eagerly await the result!
Posted by Thomas A. (Tad) DiBiase, No Body Guy