Haleigh: Year Later, Only Questions

by Pat Brown

A year ago today, a little girl named Haleigh Cummings was reported missing at 3:30 in the morning by her father and his underage, live-in girlfriend. They said five-year-old Haleigh somehow vanished from her bed in their Satsuma, Florida, home.

The case remains a train wreck. A year later, Haleigh is still missing, and both her father, Ronald Cummings, and his girlfriend/wife/ex-wife, Misty Croslin, remain suspects in her disappearance.

 There are those who still believe Haleigh will be found, perhaps hidden by her biological mother or sold into a child sex ring. Most, however, believe Haleigh died that night and someone has gotten away with her murder, at least for the past year.

The perplexing question is WHO got away with what? What happened to Haleigh? Did she accidentally ingest and overdose on the drugs Ronald Cummings and Misty Croslin clearly were dealing and/or using? Did someone fail to keep an eye her, leaving her to toddle off  down the path behind the house and drown? Did someone get angry with her and kill her in a rage? Or did drug dealers steal and murder her as some sort of message to Daddy and Misty, his drug-dealing partner in crime?

Some of the facts of the case still remain sketchy, and the police haven’t been exactly forthcoming with details to fill the gaping holes in the story. We know Haleigh was last seen sometime on February 9th, the day before she vanished. We know Ron went to work that evening and Misty, then 17 years old, was allegedly watching five-year-old Haleigh and her two-year-old brother, both Ronald Cummings’s biological children with another woman.

Exactly when Ron went to work and what exact hours he can prove he was there have never been made clear. But, at 3:30 in the morning, Misty Croslin placed a phone call to 911:

"I can't find our daughter," Croslin said to the 911 operator, referring to Cummings’s daughter. "She was in her pajamas. We were sleeping."

Then Ronald told them:

"I just got home from work. My five-year-old daughter is gone. I need somebody to be here now," Cummings said. "If I find whoever has my daughter before y'all do, I'm killing them. I don't care. I'll spend the rest of my life in prison. ... I don't care."

Misty claimed the little girl disappeared out of the very room where she and the younger brother slept and was carted out the back door, which was found propped open with a cement block when the police arrived.  She said that she found the child missing when she got up to go to the bathroom and just then, Ronald arrived home. 

Although they seemed to check out the house, they didn’t appear to do much of a yard or neighborhood search, but called 911. While Misty tried to describe the child’s clothing, Ronald ranted about how his “dumb bitch girlfriend” had told him that his daughter was missing. Ronald repeatedly said someone had taken his child and that “when I find him, I will kill him.”

  

In the days, weeks, and month to follow, no trace of Haleigh is uncovered. Ronald and Misty spend little time searching for her and more time on watching TV, getting tattoos (that hideous one of Haleigh that looks like Chucky on his leg and the name of Ronnie on Misty’s back, even though they supposedly weren’t romantically involved any more), marrying each other, divorcing each other, and, finally, spending their valuable time dealing drugs and getting arrested. Now, both of them are likely heading to prison where certainly they won’t be able to find Haleigh. 

Through all of these shenanigans, Misty came out looking much worse than Ronald. She failed the polygraph and voice stress tests, couldn’t keep her story straight, and didn’t pull off too good of an act of despair. Ronald, on the other hand, gained a fairly strong fan club, people who believed he was at work when Haleigh went missing and cried convincingly on the 911 call and on camera.

But, finally, doubt is beginning to surface about Ronald’s character. He swore up and down to Geraldo that he had absolutely no involvement with drugs, and whaddya know, turns out he was a liar.

Okay. So now we know Ronnie is not a saint. And he lies. And he is a drug dealer. What else might Ronald be lying about? Let’s rewind back to the night Haleigh vanished. Here are some questions I have. What do you all think?

•  Does Ronald do enough of a search for Haleigh when he arrives home?
•  Do we have proof that Haleigh couldn’t have died before Ronald went to work?
•  Could Ronald have disposed of Haleigh’s body on the way to work, at the work location, or on the way home?
•  Could Ronald have instructed Misty to dump Haleigh’s body somewhere while he was at work so he would have an alibi?
•  Was Ronald faking sobs on the 911 call and during his television interviews?
•  Why does Ronald immediately say he is going to kill the guy who stole his child rather than hoping police find her and save her life?
•  Could the guy Ronald be talking about actually be himself? Sometimes liars pick a truthful situation and change either the person involved or the time of the event in order to tell the story somewhat truthfully but take themselves out of the perpetrator’s role.
•  Why is Ronald willing to get himself the death penalty for killing the guy or guys who “took his child” but not willing to beat up Misty for lying to him about what happened to his daughter?
•  Why would Ronald continue to live with, sleep with, and marry a woman who won’t tell him what she knows about his child’s disappearance?
•  Why doesn’t Ronald seem to care about his other child, Junior?
•  Why would Ronald say Haleigh would be happy he was marrying Misty? Wouldn’t he want his daughter to be able to attend the wedding and celebrate with him this special day?
•  How could Ronald get married while his daughter was somewhere dead or being raped and tortured?
• Why would Ronald spend money on a tattoo of Haleigh rather than use the money to find her?
•  Why, if Ronald thinks some guys came and took Haleigh, doesn’t he try to find those guys?

I believe Ronald is a manipulative, calculating, pathologically lying criminal who exhibits all the traits of psychopathy.

Usually, in cases where children go missing in the night, the male is responsible for the death of the child and the girlfriend/wife lies for him and sometimes takes the rap. I think that’s what happened in this case.

What do you think? Does Ronald know what happened to Haleigh, and is he the perpetrator of a crime against this child?

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The Extreme Measures Taken to Hide Fingerprints

by Andrea Campbell

John Herbert Dillinger got an extraordinary share of newspaper headlines as a notorious bank robber in the 1930s. His violent gang terrorized the Midwest between fall 1933 and summer 1934. They robbed banks, killed 10 men, wounded seven others, and staged three jail breaks, during which Dillinger killed one sheriff and wounded two guards. It is believed that he tried to obliterate his fingertips, but FBI agents say they were still able to match what was left of his prints.

From the moment fingerprints became the most reliable way to identify criminals and match evidence to crime, criminals have been trying to get rid of them.

IT STARTS IN THE WOMB

Friction ridge patterns that create fingerprints start in about the fourth month of pregnancy. Their purpose is to help us grip objects we pick up. They remain the same throughout our lifetimes, although they  grow larger until we become adults. Then they stay distinctively ours until we decompose.
 

Jim Patten, a staff writer for The (Lawrence, Mass.) Eagle-Tribune, tells the story of Edgardo Tirado, who, in a February 7, 2008, drug arrest, surprised police when he took off his gloves in the booking room. Lawrence police Detective Daron Fraser says, “I thought right away this guy is hiding from something in his past and is not who he says he is.” When the gloves came off, Tirado showed the booking agent thick stitches in rows on the tips of his fingers and thumbs (photo right). His story wasn’t credible; he told officers the wounds came from defending himself in a knife fight and claimed the other man had cut his fingertips and thumbs. As to where the fight took place, he wouldn’t say. While the police had their doubts, next day information came in from an officer who had dealt with the man earlier.

 
According to reporter Mimi Hall, writing for USA TODAY, “It was after dark when Border Patrol agents in Douglas, Arizona, nabbed Mateo Cruz-Cruz allegedly jumping the fence from Mexico. At first, they noticed nothing unusual about his fingers. But when they got him to the station to take his prints, special operations supervisor Ulysses Duronslet says, the agents made a gruesome discovery: "The tips of the 25-year-old man’s fingers were blackened and burned.” Apparently, Cruz-Cruz had a prior conviction for sexual assault of a minor in Iowa and was deported in March of 2004.
 
Officials claim finding more and more criminals who alter their fingerprints by burning the tips, using acid or other corrosives. A 2007 federal court recently sentenced Dr. Jose L. Covarrubias, of Nogales, Mexico, to 18 months in prison for replacing the fingerprints of a fugitive named Marc T. George with skin from the bottom of his feet. Although a U.S. citizen, Dr. Covarrubias holds a Mexican medical license. The 49-year-old doctor faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison. George, a Jamaican national who was involved in a drug ring, was caught and arrested sneaking across the U.S.-Mexico border May 2006, bandaged and limping badly from the painful procedure. He was facing money-laundering charges.

Every time our government ratchets up efforts to catch and identify people, Manuel Padilla, chief border patrol agent in New Orleans, says: “Whenever we do something, there’s always a counteraction to try to beat it.” Since 9/11 and our government’s tightened security measures, more people are taking similar steps to erase fingerprints, just as John Dillinger did when he tried to burn off his prints with corrosive acid in the '30s. 

 WE COUNTER
 
 When officers suspect something suspicious while printing, they inquire further. Today, in more serious crimes, the printing procedure involves taking full palm prints. Eagle-Tribune writer Patten says that in 2006, police used facial recognition software technology at the Middleton jail to identify a prisoner who had bitten off his fingertips to avoid being deported. (Photo above left. Source: Andover Police Department and an IAI Presentation; Courtesy, Mr. K. J. Burke).
 

The software breaks up facial images and assigns them numeric values, similar to the AFIS system for fingerprints. Of course, in the case of Middleton jail, officials also took a digital picture of the prisoner's hands and fed the image into the computer.

IT'S EVERYWHERE
 

In Calais, France, migrants hoping to get into Great Britain are also mutilating their hands, often trying to remove layers of skin to prevent analysis. Prefect Gerard Gavory claimed that at least 57 asylum seekers questioned in the port town over the past few weeks “had their finger prints removed.” Often polyurethane glue or cuts with razors are used. The most common method however, was burning all 10 on a stove burner. In response, a joint database within the European Union, called Eurodoc, stores asylum-seekers' prints. Gavory added: “We're not sending them to their deaths, but towards peaceful zones. In organizing a return, we will be sending a strong signal to the Afghans. At the moment they have a sense of complete impunity in Calais.”

HOW TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM?

Criminals often don’t realize that altering their fingertips in extreme ways also makes them more distinctive and, ironically, thus recognizable. History’s most famous case is Robert J. Phillips, aka Roscoe Pitts, who in 1941 had his fingertips sutured to his chest for weeks in an effort to smooth out his prints. A long time-criminal doing bank robberies and burglaries, Phillips made his New Jersey physician perform this painful operation. Phillips, however, was identified on the basis of the unaltered peripheral skin areas surrounding his fingertips and the pattern on the second joint of his fingers.

Another more recent example, this time rather successful, is Randolph Clifton Kling. Kling managed to obtain 83 driving licenses after altering both his appearance and thumb print. He got by for more than a decade, until finally arrested in 2000.

So what’s next? Likely biometrics — using patterns from the retina and iris. Facial recognition use is becoming more widespread; and, of course, vocal or voice recognition is always an option when circumstances merit. All these systems have their problems though, and so far, DNA is the most reliable. That is, until someone figures out how to manipulate our genes.

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A Holiday Nightmare

by Kathryn Casey

You probably wouldn't have noticed him in the crowd, the bearded, 36-year-old man at Wal-Mart two days before Christmas, scouring the tool aisle. He picked up one item after another, examining each, perhaps testing their weight, considering how they were made, the quality of a hatchet, a machete, and a variety of knives. What Jason Bouchard settled on, what he paid the cashier for and walked out the door with, was a crowbar.

Miles away at her Houston home, Terri Sanvincente, a well-known Adam Lambert fan and an assistant manager at a Walgreen's drug store, worried about Bouchard, a man she'd once loved who'd systematically tormented her life.

Two years earlier, she'd had the ex-army paratrooper formally evicted from their home. The separation, however, had dragged on, with Bouchard seeking custody of their three children, ages eight, six and three. Yet that, too, had recently been settled in Sanvincente's favor; six weeks earlier, after an 18-month battle, jurors granted primary custody to Sanvincente. Perhaps it wasn't surprising. At the hearing, Bouchard, who represented himself, surprisingly well, one expert says, admitted drug use and frequent masturbation. The jury ruled that he'd be allowed only supervised visits with his children.

Forty-year-old Sanvincente, it would later appear, took little comfort in the ruling. She continued to worry that she and her children (one dressed as Lambert on the right) remained in danger from a man who'd pushed her and hurled constant insults. “She was always afraid of what he was going to do next,” said Tabitha Charlton, Sanvincente's first family attorney, who walked away from the case fearing for her own safety. “Jason is brilliant in an evil way.”

In the wake of the court decision, Sanvincente became obsessed with protecting her children. She fretted constantly about Bouchard, what he was planning, what he might do to her, to their children. In hindsight, it would seem wisely so.

Last Christmas morning at four a.m., Bouchard parked in front of 16411 Sky Blue, Sanvincente's home, the one in which his three children, their mother and a babysitter slept. With him, he carried the newly purchased crowbar and a gallon gas can. Outside the house, he pulled up the hood on his sweatshirt to cover his head from a stormy night, then walked to the back of the house. Once there, he poured gasoline on a window ledge near the door and ignited it, to trap those inside. As the fire spread, Bouchard circled the house to his children's bedroom. It was there that he used the crowbar for its first intended purpose: breaking the window. Inside, his eight-year-old son heard the commotion, saw the fire, and ran to wake the others. Later Bouchard would say, "I was proud of him at that moment. He wasn't afraid anymore. He took charge."

By then, Bouchard was on his way to the front door. He wasn't finished.

Beating on the door, he waited for Sanvincente. When the door opened, her mind must have been swimming, so much that at first she misjudged the situation. "Have you called them yet?" she asked Bouchard, most likely referring to 911 and the fire department.

"Called who?" he replied. Later, he'd say, her eyes grew wide.

"Oh, my God," she cried. It was then that Bouchard used the crowbar for its second purpose, pummeling Sanvincente. With the first blow to the face, she fell, shouting at her children to run. But Bouchard didn't stop. In all, he struck her at least twenty times, while his two sons watched.

Apparently believing he'd accomplished what he'd come for, Bouchard woke up neighbors, who rescued the children. When police arrived, he surrendered. "I don't think she knew I was going to kill her," he'd say later. "... I thought I'd killed her, yet she lived another fourteen hours."

Why did he savagely beat the mother of his children? In a rare admission, Bouchard gives insight into the psychology of such killers. In a chilling letter to the Houston Chronicle, he wrote: "Killing Terri Sanvincente was my only option left before too much time under Terri Sanvincente's manipulation and influence forever took them down a path of future self-hatred ..."

What Bouchard's letter to the Chronicle gives us is a window into his diseased mind. What we see is a man without remorse, one who has manipulated facts and events to justify his actions and feels blameless. Killers like Bouchard feel entitled. It's what they want that counts.

The rest of us are expendable.

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Personal Assistant's Murder Trial Heats Up

,by Cathy Scott

Two worlds collided when a quiet 26-year-old woman named Natavia Lowery went to work for the powerful, outspoken 62-year-old Linda Stein, a property broker to the rich and famous.

For years, the New York City media referred to Linda as the “realtor to the stars.” Despite her toughness, people were drawn to her. Stein, a self-made woman who swore like a sailor and smoked pot like a hippie, could command a room equally with her wit and razor-sharp sarcasm. She’d jumped head first into the music industry in the 1970s when she co-managed the legendary punk-rock band The Ramones. She had turned herself into a successful, fiercely independent businesswoman with big-name clients.

Natavia’s working-class upbringing contrasted starkly with Linda’s upper-class life. Natavia (photo right) was an only child, the daughter of a housekeeper and maintenance man, and had been raised in the Grant projects on Amsterdam Avenue in Harlem. After her father’s death, her mother eventually remarried, and the family moved to Brooklyn. Natavia excelled both academically and in competitive sports. In high school, she was a star runner on the girls' track team. Upon graduation from high school, she enrolled at North Carolina State University, where she was a member of the modeling troupe Black Finesse. She dropped out after just one semester to finish a business degree at Hunter College in Manhattan. Natavia’s classmates remember her as being soft-spoken but also sticking up for herself when she needed to.

The morning of October 30, 2007, started out like any other. Natavia showed up for work at her boss’s Upper East Side, Fifth Avenue apartment. Linda spent the morning in her bedroom doing yoga exercises while Natavia printed e-mails from Linda’s personal computer. But as the day progressed, something went terribly wrong. By the end of the day, Linda was discovered dead and the police and paramedics were investigating the crime scene inside her spotless apartment, preparing to move her body to the morgue. Six days later, Linda was buried. Four days after that, Natavia was under arrest, charged with the murder of her boss.

According to a confession made by Natavia and released by the Manhattan district attorney’s office -- which was challenged by Natavia’s lawyers but ultimately ruled admissible in court -- Linda walked to the desk in her living room, where Natavia was working on Linda’s e-mails, and asked what was taking so long. Linda started blowing marijuana smoke in Natavia’s face and berating her at the same time.

“Get the fucking e-mails! How can you be so fucking slow?” Linda reportedly hollered. If that’s what actually happened that midday, perhaps Stein’s anger was born out of frustration: she could no longer open her own messages because her right hand and arm were numb from the after-effects of chemotherapy she'd endured fighting breast cancer. Linda apparently smoked marijuana to ease the lingering pain. In addition, Linda was on prescription medication that caused mood swings. Verbally, Linda was a fighter; physically, she was not in shape to defend herself against a physical attack.

Whatever it was that sparked the tirade that day, according to Natavia Lowery’s reported account to police, Linda then waved either a walking or yoga stick at Lowery as she continued berating her assistant. Then, at about 12.30 p.m., Linda returned to Natavia's work spot and offered, as a way of making peace, to buy her assistant lunch.

“I’ve got my own money in a savings account. I don’t need you to buy me lunch,” said an indignant Natavia, who repeated the alleged conversation to detectives. “Black people don’t have any money,” Linda purportedly responded. “C’mon, save your money. I’ll buy you lunch.”

Currently being tried in a Manhattan criminal courtroom, the case against Natavia Lowery is not looking good for the former personal assistant. The scenario prosecutors have laid out for the jury is that Linda, who sold homes to Madonna, Elton John, and Angelina Jolie, confronted Natavia, and, in response, Natavia killed her. But Natavia’s team of lawyers said their client may be a thief, but she’s no killer.

This week, lead prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon presented a taped phone message from Natavia to Linda. Natavia and Linda’s daughter, Mandy Stein, were the last to see Stein alive. Each was captured on security videotape leaving the Central Park West apartment building, with Natavia the last to leave.

The message from Natavia was left hours after Linda was killed. Prosecutors contend that Natavia called in the message to create an alibi.

Instead, according to evidence presented in court, Natavia slipped up. In the message left on Linda Stein’s phone answering machine, Natavia asked Linda to give her a call before 5:30 p.m. that day.

"Hey, Linda, it's Natavia," the 28-year-old said in her message, which the prosecutor described as a “breezy" message. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm leaving work at 5:30. … If you get this message before 5:30, you can just call me. If not, talk to you later."

The problem with that statement was that message was left just after 6 p.m. -- proof, the prosecutor told the jury, that it was done to cover Natavia’s tracks.

Testimony provided by Verizon and T-Mobile phone experts show the call originating at 6:09 p.m. from Brooklyn, where Lowery lived, and not from Linda’s apartment.

It’s evidence like this -- what at any other time would be considered a small detail -- that gets people convicted.

But time will tell. The trial is expected to last another four to six weeks.

Photos courtesy of the New York Daily News.

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Parricide

by Katherine Scardino

In our cybernetic world, we are used to new words popping up regularly. However, I admit that I've recently learned a new word that has been around since about 1555. That word is “parricide”, meaning one who murders his parent or parents. I don't suppose young people killing their parents is a revelation to our society, unfortunately. But within the last few years, it seems that it's been occurring with more frequency. I want to know why. What are we, as adults, doing, or not doing, that would produce children who commit these atrocities?

I've read various articles that assume kids who kill parents are abused, isolated, feel that there is no one to help them, or have parents who are themselves substance abusers. I do not agree with this assumption. Here are a few examples:

Colorado 14-year-old John Caudle (photo right) killed his mother and stepfather to avoid chores. He argued with his mother, obtained two .22 caliber pistols from a gun safe, shot her dead, and then shot his stepfather. This boy then spent the rest of his day watching movies and playing on a computer.

Maryland teenager Cory Ryder hired a hitman to kill his parents after they barred him from PlayStation and television. Fortunately, this 16-year-old couldn't finalize the murders; his mother was suspicious and called police, who set up a sting. The boy met with an undercover officer and offered the officer his stepfather’s new truck as payment for killing his parents, telling the officer “two bullets is all it takes.”

Seventeen-year-old Ohio teen Daniel Petric (photo left) killed his parents when they refused to allow him to play the Halo series of video games. The teen's lawyer said Petric was a “typical 16-year-old boy” obsessed with the game trilogy, which he played 18 hours a day when he could. After the murders, he fled the house taking only one thing with him -- the Halo 3 game.

A 17-year-old Adrian, Michigan, boy killed his parents over taking away his cell phone and Xbox 360 as punishment after an argument. After the murders, Marshall Sosby called 911, sobbing, and relayed that his mother had killed his father and then killed herself -- by shooting herself in the back of the head. The report of the incident indicated that this boy showed no remorse.

In Belleville, Indiana, 18-year-old David Ludwig (photo right) killed his girlfriend’s parents because they would not let his 14-year-old girlfriend stay out late enough to suit him.

And, this month in my own backyard here in Houston, high school senior Danish Moazzam Minhas (photo below left) was arrested for conspiring with one of his friends to kill his mother because she was too strict. This friend walked into the home and killed Danish's mother. Just because...

So, what is the problem here? Are young people becoming desensitized to the value of life after watching gory movies, playing video games, or just not being taught that life is all about rules? Somehow, that all sounds so trite and simple. When I was a teen and didn't get what I wanted, pouting was big on my list of responses. These days, conflict or arguments can end in murder. Are our young children not being taught how to deal with situations that simply don't go their way? Admittedly, teenagers deal with the normal turbulence of adolescence. Situations adults don't see as serious feel “life changing” to teenagers. Kids cannot run away from home; they have nowhere to go.

Psychology tells us people who commit parricide are of three types: the severely abused child; the severely mentally ill child, and the third, the darling of the tabloids, the dangerously antisocial child. The cases I have cited here appear to be more along the lines of spoiled brat, which likely falls into the category of “dangerously antisocial child”.

I've always been concerned about children becoming desensitized to morality, ethics, and just the basic “thou shall not kill” rule when they sit in front of the television or play video games all day. I managed to keep my children on a schedule, but today, many parents aren't around. Even if they are around to supervise, they're too busy to pay attention.

When parricide occurs in our society, we want answers so we can fix the problem. Have our children lost their moral compass? Did they ever have one? Growing up is hard. Growing up without parental supervision is harder. Now, supervising your children can get you killed.

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Missing Morgan: The Family’s Pain

By Robin Sax

Morgan Harrington was a 20-year-old Virginia Tech education major who wanted to be a teacher.  She spent time working with children and victims of domestic violence. She loved Harry Potter and the Twilight series. Morgan disappeared Saturday October 17, 2009, after being shut out of a Metallica Concert at the University of Virginia's John Paul Jones Arena. Her remains were found in a field Wednesday, January 26, 2010. 

I had the privilege of being on the Dr. Phil show with Morgan’s family about six weeks ago. I was impressed by their strength and fortitude. The circumstances behind her disappearance were still a mystery; Morgan was still a missing person. And so her parents, showing so much grace and strength in the face of such difficulty, still had hope. 

The worst-case scenario -- a hellish reality for any parent -- unfolded that late January day when the Virginia State police said they were “fairly confident” that skeletal remains found in a hayfield on the Anchorage Farm in Albemarle County were those of Morgan Harrington. Dan Harrington, Morgan’s father, posted these words on the family’s missing person site:

Morgan's mother, Gil, and I are overwhelmingly saddened by yesterday's discovery, but we are also relieved because our questions can now be answered and we can give our daughter a proper burial. We know that because of the good life Morgan led and the love she created for everyone around her, she is now in a safer, better place. We appreciate everyone's respect for our privacy at this difficult time and we thank everyone who has helped us through this tragedy and helped us find Morgan.

While searching through the family’s “Find Morgan” site, I came across a post by her mother, Gil, uploaded just two days before her daughter’s body was found:

Despite the length of time Morgan has been gone I remain hopeful. Part of me is waiting to be surprised. Waiting for God to pull the rabbit out of the hat and bring Morgan home. I remember that the light always returns, it cannot help but return. Will the light of my life return soon? I cannot imagine that all the water of Morgan's potential is to run down the drain and be wasted. Can it really play out like that?

As a mother, I cannot begin to imagine coping with the horror the Harrington family now lives with. In cases of murdered children, there will be a range of emotions affecting the family: feelings of helplessness, guilt, grief, listlessness, anger, rage, horror, pain (both physical and emotional), and more. Many marriages break up after the death of a child. Unanswered questions haunt the family until the trial of the murderer (if ever found). And even then, not all the details will ever be known – nor would many families really want to know them. 

In the case of the Harringtons, I believe that Gil and Dan will be able, somehow, to weather the hurricane of grief. From what I have seen of them, this couple has an inner strength that will help them to cope. Still, life will never be the same.

At least when a child is still missing, you can share in the hope that they will be found alive. When you reach the point that remains have been found, there is no longer hope. The only solace is a sort of closure and a chance for healing. As Dan Harrington said, they will now be able to give Morgan a proper burial. 

Sometimes the ones who suffer the most aren't just the parents but the siblings left behind. These children have to live with the absent-parent syndrome (parents who are missing in their own way while dealing with the tremendous anxiety and stress of a missing child and then the trauma of the child's death).

Besides the ghastly circumstances the siblings face – going back into society and trying to be strong and brave – they also shoulder their parents' grief. It can be a huge burden. Dan Harrington said that his son Alex and Morgan were close, and that Alex is having the most difficult time of anyone. Alex has been in New York City during many of the past weeks and compartmentalized the limbo of waiting for news of Morgan. Keeping busy with work was a good distraction. But now that his sister has been found, he will travel back home and face the tragedy (and the new reality of his parents' grief).

I have had the opportunity to meet and speak with many families who endured the various stages and aspects of dealing with such a monstrous loss, an abduction, or other crime committed against their children. In some ways, it's so much easier to connect to a family that is still searching, still clinging to the hope that somehow, somewhere their beloved child is simply missing and will return home. Cases like Jaycee Duggard and Elizabeth Smart -- as tragic as they were -- still are considered “happy endings.

There are examples of survivors who have done incredible things after the homicide of a child. Mark Klaas is such an example. After the murder of his daughter, Polly Hannah Klaas, in 1994, Mark established the Klaas Kids Foundation. Mark has fingerprinted over a quarter of a million children in the last decade, had tremendous success with his public awareness campaigns, and is involved in legislative efforts to strengthen sentences for violent and recidivist offenders -- to name a few of his activities. I'm constantly amazed at what Mark, and many other parents, are able to do following such a tragedy. We can all learn from their strengths.

The Harringtons involved themselves in the legislative process while they were searching for Morgan. They asked lawmakers to reauthorize Kristen’s Act, which creates a national database to search for missing adults. The 2002 federal law was named for Kristen Modafferi, an 18-year-old Charlotte, N.C., woman who vanished in June 1997. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children could not help the search at the time because Modafferi was an adult. The House voted to reauthorize the law in February, and it is pending before the Senate. It is activism like this that helps to reaffirm that Morgan Harrington did not die in vain.

Though I cannot say I fully understand the grief or pain the Harringtons feel -- or any family of missing or murdered children for that matter -- I know it's our obligation as a society to unite and demand that justice prevail. Those responsible for these crimes must be found, prosecuted, convicted and sentenced for the heinous acts they committed.

We cannot make sense of a senseless crime. We can only mourn the loss of such a lovely young woman, whose life tragically ended far too soon. We send our prayers to Morgan’s family. And we pray that something so unthinkable will never happen in our family. 

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Paws for Scofflaws

by Donna Pendergast

Some of you might remember Sheriff Joe from a prior post. Sheriff Joe, the top dog at the Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff's Department, is the top dog on another front as well.

In a win-win move for the county, its animals and its inmates, Sheriff Joe opened the Maricopa County Animal Safe Hospice (MASH), created to care for abused and neglected animals. It also cares for pets belonging to women in county domestic-violence shelters.

Female inmates care for smaller animals in an air-conditioned jail closed because of plumbing problems. The facility has been reconditioned to comfortably house the animals. Male inmates care for larger animals at a fenced-in area near Tent City, a housing facility for hundreds of inmates.

Inmates clamor to work in the no-kill facilities. The pay of 28 cents an hour is less important than the opportunity to get out of their cells and work with the animals. The prisoners feed and care for them, walk them twice a day, and teach classes to prospective owners on animal behavior and pet nutrition. MASH adopts out animals for reasonable fees in top-notch condition after being vaccinated, neutered and nursed back to health. It requests a minimum donation of $100.00 for dogs and $25.00 for cats. Adoption fees help pay for the maintenance costs of the facility.

People who adopt pets from MASH must promise to care for them with love and affection while satisfying routine needs: adequate meals, water and ongoing medical care. They also must agree to return unwanted animals to a no-kill shelter or to MASH.

The program has saved the county millions of dollars, created a positive way to teach inmates a work ethic, and provided them a chance to give back to the community at no cost to the county. What could be smarter in these days of massive government budget deficits? It comes down to using government dollars wisely and taking advantage of a large and often willing resource, an overflowing inmate population.

The idea of using inmate labor is nothing new. Inmates have always been used inside prison and jail facilities to reduce inmate idleness and provide needed services. County jails have long used inmates on work crews that maintain county roads and collect highway litter. These minimal efforts have barely touched the potential of the jail and prison population, and weren't aimed at making a profit or reducing government expenditures.

Some states are considered models, demonstrating new ways to use the untapped resources that lie within jail and prison walls. In Kansas, low-risk prison inmates have been the main source of labor for state park services and maintenance for more than 40 years. In California, inmate firefighters contribute three million man-hours fighting forest fires; they save the state more than $80 million dollars each year. The inmates work alongside professional firefighters, distinguished only by their prison garb.

In Decatur, Georgia, inmates at the regional prison do so much work for the county and other counties that contract for their work that the prison, which covers its $2 million operational costs, is more than self-sufficient. Inmates with special skills provide labor in valuable arenas such as mechanics and roofing. Others do grass cutting, road work and construction. They also can pick up valuable skills, such as running heavy machinery, while working at the Decatur County solid-waste facility.

Clearly, not all inmates are candidates for outside, supervised work. But many opportunities exist to offset recession-exacerbated budget gaps. In Colorado, some 17,000 inmates have jobs in works programs managed by Colorado Correctional Industries, a self-funded division of the Colorado Department of Corrections. These inmates make fishing rods, dorm furniture, file cabinets, clothing and a multitude of other items, generating more than $65 million in revenue last year.

In these days of ballooning deficits and rising prison costs crowding out other spending priorities, a long-term, fiscally responsible approach to criminal justice is a resoundingly good idea.


Statements made in this post are my own and are not intended to reflect the views, opinion or position of the Michigan Attorney General or the Michigan Department of Attorney General.

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