A history of violence

 by Kathryn Casey

"As a close family member to the killer, in his defense the act he committed was and is not expected. We tried to get him help but as a grown man there is only so much a person can do to help someone. Now he has destroyed so many people’s lives. Our hearts do go out to the other families. We have never been on this side of the law, and we have so much mixed emotions. Ralph has a lot of good in him. It's shocking to many people that knew Ralph that he would do this, but he is sick and he hide it well. And yes, the laws should be different to protect anyone. Ours prayers go to the two young girls now left without a mother."

The above comment was under a March 9th piece on an Albuquerque, N.M., television station Web site. The news article above it was titled: UNM mourns Murder Victims. UNM is the University of New Mexico, and the victims being mourned were long-time English professor Hector Torres (photo above), a popular, soft-spoken educator with a good sense of humor who enjoyed the occasional beer with friends, and Stefania Gray (photo below right), a 43-year-old high school teacher, a graduate student and the mother of two daughters. The author of the comment identified him or herself only as a guest to the site.

First some background: Torres and Gray were found slain in Torres's Albuquerque apartment a day earlier, March 8th. Accused of the crime is Gray’s former boyfriend, Ralph Montoya (photo below left), 37. According to an Associated Press article, Montoya turned himself into his attorney the day after the murders, confessing to the crimes. He told police where to find the bodies. The kicker is that Montoya has a long history of violence toward women.

For more than a decade, Las Cruces and Rio Rancho women filed complaints against Montoya. In 1995, the charges were stalking, assault, attempted arson, and attempted breaking and entering. The complainant was a student at New Mexico State University, and Montoya pleaded guilty. His punishment: probation. Three years later, another Las Cruces woman swore out a restraining order against Montoya, charging that he had harassed her for months, making up to 20 threatening calls a day. Particularly eerie, there’d been sightings of him at her apartment window.

Then in 2005, another woman charged that Montoya harassed her after they dated only briefly.

 

What seems obvious here is that Montoya didn’t take it well when a woman broke off a relationship. This isn’t a case where his victims didn’t follow through, where they failed to pursue their options. The women did what they could, filing police reports and getting restraining orders. So did Stefania Gray, little more than a month before her murder.

On January 28th, Montoya allegedly followed Gray to Torres’ apartment, pushing his way inside. Gray attempted to flee, but Montoya pushed and kicked her, pulling a knife. It was Torres who talked to Montoya, convincing him to leave. In response, Gray detailed the attack in a restraining order she obtained. She didn’t hold back, admitting she feared her ex-boyfriend, that she worried he could kill her and her children, perhaps also take vengeance against Torres. Days later, Montoya was charged with kidnapping, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated assault on a household member and aggravated burglary.

Not long ago, I wrote about the Yeardly Love murder, stressing how important it is for women to carry through with filing reports, going to the police, telling others when they've been threatened. This is the opposite circumstance. These women, including Gray, did what they were supposed to do: they identified the danger and alerted authorities. But in this case, like too many others, it didn't save lives. Why? The system let Gray down. The tragedy is that on the string of charges listed above, even with his violent history, Montoya was assessed a $100,000 bond, which meant he needed only $10,000 to be released from jail. Free to carry out his threats, on March 9 Montoya allegedly murdered Torres and Gray.

Does this case change my opinion? Should targets of abuse and/or threats keep quiet rather than alert authorities? No. It's important to form a paper trail. Gray did the right thing. The blame lies with those who released Montoya to walk the streets, and, it appears, made no attempt to protect Gray and Torres. Montoya is now being held on a $2 million bond, but why did it take two murders for this man, who was known to be dangerous, to get law enforcement's full attention?

What also caught my eye about this case was the above comment from one of Montoya’s family members. "It's shocking to many people that knew Ralph that he would do this, but he is sick and he hide it well." The person who wrote the post also says: "We tried to get him help but as a grown man there is only so much a person can do to help someone."

I only know the little bit I’ve read about this case. I don’t know if Montoya is truly mentally ill or simply unable to take no for an answer, to let a girlfriend who rebuffs him walk away. I'm inclined to believe it's the latter, but if Montoya is mentally ill, does his condition fit the legal definition of insanity? Should his mental health mitigate his alleged crimes? Those are questions for a judge and jury to answer.

The facts of this specific case aside, what is indisputable is that it is too hard for families to get help for loved ones suffering from mental illness. Laws intended to help the mentally ill are backfiring, and good people like Stefania Gray and Hector Torres are paying the price.

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The Forensic Science of Elder Abuse

by Andrea Campbell

Kelly Higashi, chief of the Sex Offense and Domestic Violence Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, cites two cases of elder abuse: In 2008 Darryl Gaynor, 38, was sentenced to 24 years in prison for sexually assaulting his 72-year-old aunt in 2007. In 2008, Martin “Tony” Brown, 48, was sentenced to 24 years in prison for the 2006 murder of his 89-year-old grandfather.

According to a recent summary of elder abuse, anywere between 186,000 to 1.6 million older Americans are physically abused every year. Authorities fear that even higher rates can be found for elders dependent on caregivers.

Unfortunately, the rates at which these offenses are prosecuted is low. And even though elders visit doctors' offices frequently, it’s thought that physicians report less than two percent of abuse to Adult Protective Services.

A Hidden Crime

Elder abuse is a crime that is largely hidden. Research is limited, spotty, and incompletely reportede. It is believed that 90 percent of the time, the abusers are family members — and abuse cases wind up as classified as domestic violence, not elder abuse. The data also is misleading because the violence is difficult to describe.

A recent one-year study of women over age 50 took place in Rhode Island based on law enforcement response to reported domestic-violence incidents. Since older women are unlikely to have initiated a call to police, they are unlikely to cooperate. The study also found that elder-abuse events are underreported; meanwhile, police aren't likely to arrest older victims’ abusers as only a fraction of cases would be prosecuted. It’s thought that 25 percent to 30 percent of women abused by intimates, family or household members are re-abused after criminal justice intervention. Health care experts believe that how the state responds to the initial attack will have the greatest impact on repeat abuse.

Still, what do you do when, according to the National Crime Victim Survey (NCVS), up to 50 percent of victims do not report their abuse to police?

Some other facts that came out of the 2002 Rhode Island test:

• Excluding multiple reports involving the same victim, there were 403 incidents involving older female victims, including thirteen sexual assaults.

• Caucasians appear to be over-represented, while Hispanic and Asian victims are believed to be under-represented.

• Slightly more than half of the suspects were current or former intimates, including married, unmarried or dating partners of the victim. About forty-six percent were other family members. There is also the possibility of "suspect pairs," such as a daughter and son-in-law or two sons working together as abusers.

• Most of abuse by non-spousal relatives was intergenerational (94.5 percent), meaning that the family member abuser was at least a generation younger.

• The majority of abusers of family members were male, but 40.9 percent of abusers were female.

• More than a third of the victims reported they had been assaulted by the same suspect previously. Almost forty percent of those victims said they had been assaulted two to five times before.

The vast majority of victims try to cooperate with police as best they can, providing a written or oral statement or pointing out a suspect. Sometimes medical personnel spot abuse or a nursing home employee or mental health worker alerts police. Doormen, landlords, an employer and passers-by noted disturbances in the Rhode Island study.

Almost half of the suspects (48.9 percent) had a prior court history or cases involving multiple assaults. And 14.1 percent had previously been charged in an attack that was not domestic.

Other Elements to the Abuse

Sometimes victims are threatened, sexually assaulted, and deprived of property through theft or intentional damage. In the cases where money was taken, the amounts were generally small, ranging from $2.50 to $250. Three cars were also reported as stolen in the Rhode Island reports, as well as a set of car keys. Other stolen items included prescription drugs, including OxyContin, and televisions, food, and clothing.

Property damage caused by suspect break-ins include damage to windows, locks, doors and door frames. Other damage appears to reflect either a struggle or rampage in the house:  damaged paneling, dishes, glass pictures, lamps, furniture, bedroom doors, coffee tables, and stoves. There was also reported damage to phones in a dozen incidents, probably reflecting the suspects’ effort to prevent victims from calling for police assistance.

Law Enforcement

When police arrive at the scene, they perform a number of tasks to investigate and take action if they have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed (including either arresting the suspect if present or filing an arrest warrant if the suspect is known and not present), securing evidence at the scene, and providing assistance and support to the victim. If the victim is 60 or older, in the case of the Rhode Island study, police must also report elder abuse to the state’s Department of Elder Affairs (See: R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-66-8).

Responding officers also look for witnesses. They photograph any visible injuries; confiscate weapons or firearms; and give victims rights-and-safety pamphlets. By the time police arrive, about 20 percent of the suspects have left the scene, so police file arrest warrants for them, typically charging misdemeanor assaults, simple domestic assaults, or simple assaults.

Bruising is a Major Sign

Conventional wisdom is that bruising is normal in elderly people due to accidental falls. Most people think that because older people have thinner skin and less subcutaneous fat they bruise more often than their younger peers. For that reason, researchers decided to study “normal” bruising in elderly people and then follow up with a separate study of bruising caused by physical abuse.

To learn what normal bruising looked like, researchers recruited 101 people 65 and older, with an average age of 83. Trained interviewers went to their homes every day for six weeks. They examined participants from head to toe for bruises. Each bruise was photographed, and its location, size and color documented. Interviewers also noted how long it took for the bruises to fade.

They found that 90 percent of the bruises were on the extremities. Not a single accidental bruise was found on the neck, ears, genitals, buttocks or soles of the feet. Of the 20 large bruises (larger than five centimeters—about two inches—in diameter) only one occurred on the trunk of the body.

They found that red and purple were the most common colors on the first day a bruise appeared. However, some fresh bruises were yellow, a significant finding because many people believe that yellow bruises are more likely to be fading older bruises. Indeed, yellow was the most common color in bruises that stayed visible for more than three weeks.

Bruising from Abuse

Once researchers knew what accidental bruising looked like, they turned their attention to deliberately inflicted bruising. Stark differences emerged. The team of researchers examined 67 people, 65 and older, who had been reported to adult protective services as possible abuse victims. Seventy-two percent of those who were physically abused no more than 30 days before examination had bruises. When compared with the previous group (who had not been abused), they had significantly larger bruises. Abusive bruises are often larger and more than half are two inches or more in diameter.

The physically abused elders were much more likely to have bruises on the head and neck, especially the face, and on the back. Researchers also noted significant bruising on the right arm, perhaps because people raised their arms in an attempt to block an attacker.

Another important finding is that 91 percent knew what caused their bruises. Only 28.6 percent of the comparison group—those who had normal, nonabusive bruising—remembered the incident.

Aileen Wigglesworth, a gerontologist and assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine, worked on both studies. Wigglesworth said that although the studies give police and prosecutors forensic markers that are vital tools in elder abuse cases, more work remains on other fronts, including such basic issues as the credibility of people who ask for help.

“People tend not to believe elders,” says Wigglesworth.

Sources:

NIJ sponsored study of an extensive telephone survey of older Americans: http://www.ncjrs.gov/ pdffiles1/nij/grants/226456.pdf

Philip Bulman, editor of the NIJ Journal. “Elder Abuse Emerges From the Shadows of Public Consciousness” NIJ JourNal/Issue No. 265: NCJ 229883

A wealth of information: http://www.centeronelderabuse.org.

Study about normal bruising, Bruising in the Geriatric Population, is available at: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/214649.pdf

Study about abusive bruising, Bruising as a Forensic Marker of Physical Elder Abuse: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/226457.pdf

Listen to a panel discuss how forensic markers and technology are used to detect elder abuse and neglect, go to: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/journals/media.htm

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The Torch Killer, or The Wickedest Stepmother Ever

by Laura James

I remember visiting a prison for women, where, out of 163 inmates, I found but three or four with regular features and only one who could be called pretty; all the rest, old and young, were more or less of an ugly and repulsive appearance.

--Raffaele Garofalo, Criminology (1914 Textbook)

If Mrs. Mumbulo's victim had been a man, you'd know her name today. But her ill-starred victim was her 11-year-old stepdaughter.

On March 21, 1930, Mrs. Edna Mumbulo of Erie, Pennsylvania, threw a pan of gasoline on little Hilda and set her on fire, not only killing her, but inflicting a slow and agonizing end.

Later that morning, as Hilda lay in the hospital gasping her last breath, her father and stepmother were already in their insurance man's office cashing in her $6,000 life insurance policy.

Edna admitted it. She said she didn't intend to throw the gasoline on little Hilda -- the pan accidentally ignited, see, and Mrs. Mumbulo was only trying to throw the blazing pan outdoors; she was aiming for the window in the girl's room, and, gosh, it was closed, and the lit gasoline splashed back six feet onto Hilda's bed, without, somehow, ever singeing Mrs. Mumbulo.

That was her defense. In other words, the case was as open-and-shut as rotten meat in the refrigerator.

Okay, there is a bit more to the tale than that. None of it, I assure you, in the least helpful to Mrs. Mumbulo's attorneys.

I came across this case in an article recently printed in the Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, which resurrected the Torch Killer case from total historical obscurity. The article is a very well written account of the murder investigation and subsequent trial -- a brilliant rendering of the case, though bracketed with some curious commentary. The author posits that Edna Mumbulo was a victim of old stereotypes about wicked stepmothers -- that locals were able to assume the worst of her because the "wicked stepmother" opinion had a ready-made foundation in our fairy tales.

"The stepmother stereotype has been harmful," he states. "The Erie public, having consumed a lifetime of fairy tales and myths, organized the known facts of the Mumbulo case into the 'wicked stepmother' framework. In doing so, they condemned a woman to prison...Whether she committed the act or not, she was convicted because she was the living embodiment of the 'wicked stepmother.'”

And yet justice was not actually blind to Edna's individuality. Edna Mumbulo was gorgeous. Look at her photo, that hair, that smile. Imagine her weeping on the stand before her all-male audience. Yep, file Edna under Too Beautiful To Be Bad.

The author, Joseph Laythe of the Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, was kind enough to clarify for me that Edna did not put in as good an appearance at the trial as the photo run by the Associated Press might imply. And yet I am reminded of a comment once made by an Illinois State's Attorney in 1912 on women defendants: "The defendant need not be beautiful; if she merely appears feminine on the stand she is safe."

One lone juryman held out for an acquittal, and hours of wrangling with others who wanted to send her to the electric chair led to a compromise verdict of second-degree murder.

Mrs. Mumbulo's imprisonment was a mere lull in the legal battle. It was common knowledge in 1930 that only ugly women commit brutal crimes. Edna was an attractive young woman and a mother. During her trial for murder, she was reunited with a daughter she didn't raise, and everyone saw them weep and fall into one another's arms. What is clear from the newspaper coverage of the case -- surprisingly sparse at the time -- is that the men on the jury and on the bench did not want to believe this attractive woman -- a mother, forget the step -- could commit such an atrocious crime.

Over time, they convinced themselves that it might have been an accident after all. The judge recommended a pardon. Instead, the governor gave her a Christmas commutation in 1938, sentencing her to time served. Edna ended up serving a mere eight years and three months for murdering her stepdaughter.

Who locked Cinderella in the tower on the night of the ball? Who poisoned Snow White's apple? Who abandoned Hansel and Gretel in the woods? Rather than perpetuate stereotypes, our fairy tales fail to paint a portrait as horrifying as Pennsylvania's unfortunately all-too-real, gasoline-wielding wicked stepmother.

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The Poisoning of a Flapper Girl

by Deborah Blum

First, this is the story of a beautiful young actress, the adventure-loving heroine of hit films such as Madcap Madge and the Flapper. But second, and perhaps important, it is the cautionary tale of her death by poison at the age of 25, just as she was making the move from starlet to full-fledged star.

The actress, Olive Thomas, had the look of a charming child - a shining bob of dark, curly hair, big violet-blue eyes, and a pale, heart-shaped face. It was a look that launched her career, starting in 1914 when she’d won a “Most Beautiful Girl in New York City" contest. She went on to become a featured Ziegfield Follies dancer, a graceful waif drifting in a zephyr of scarves. The pin-up artist, Alberto Vargas, painted her wearing only a red rose and a wisp of lacy black satin. Within a few years, she was making films for Selznick Studios.

In the way of people who seem to own charmed lives, Thomas soon married a member of Hollywood’s inner circle, Jack Pickford – younger brother of screen star Mary Pickford. The couple rapidly developed a reputation for wild behavior, intense partying, intense quarreling, usually over his numerous side affairs – he’d developed syphilis as a result of one of them. They separated, reunited, separated, tried again, ever delighting the gossip magazines. “She and Jack were madly in love with one another, but I always thought of them as a couple of children playing together…” Mary Pickford wrote sadly in her autobiography many years later.

In early September 1920, the couple sailed away to Paris, reportedly on a reconciliation holiday. They checked into the Hotel Ritz and whirled off to enjoy time in a Prohibition-free city, drinking and dancing at the Left Bank bistros until the early morning. At the end one particularly drunken spree, Pickford and Thomas staggered into their hotel room at nearly three in the morning. Jack, barely standing, simply fell into the bed. His wife, still restless, still energized by the evening, puttered around the room, wrote a letter, and finally tiring, went into the bathroom to get ready for sleep.

As Pickford told the police, he was floating in a whiskeyed haze when Olive began screaming, over and over, “Oh my God, my God.” He stumbled into the dimly lit bathroom, where she was leaning against the counter. Mistaking it for her sleeping medicine, she had picked up a bottle of the bichloride of mercury antiseptic lotion that he rubbed on the painful sores caused by syphilis, poured a dose, and chugged it down.

Also known by the rather awful name of corrosive sublimate, the compound is acutely poisonous; it kills by attacking the digestive track and eventually destroying the kidneys. As the name implies, corrosive sublimate is extremely caustic. As it burned down her throat, she had a moment to realize her mistake. He caught her up and carried her back to the bed, grabbing the phone and calling for an ambulance. “Oh my God,” she repeated, “I’m poisoned.”

As the story broke, as Thomas lingered in the hospital for three more days, the newspapers repeated every rumor smoking around them – his infidelities had driven her to suicide; Pickford had wished to get rid of her and tricked his wife into taking the poison; as the days passed, he became more evil, she more saintly. So many people flocked to Thomas’s funeral in Paris that women fainted in the crush and the streets became carpeted with countless hats, knocked off and trampled.

The police launched an investigation, including an autopsy, and concluded that it was, as Pickford had said, just a terrible accident. In an interview with The Los Angeles Examiner after his return to California, Pickford couldn’t stop dwelling on how much his wife had wanted to live: “The physicians held out hope for her until the last moment, until they found her kidneys paralyzed. Then they lost hope. But the doctors told me she had fought harder than any patient they ever had.”

Olive Thomas’s death by bichloride of mercury wasn’t the first, wasn’t the only, and wouldn’t be the last. In New York City, the medical examiner’s office calculated that the compound caused about 20 deaths a year, mostly suicides. But Thomas definitely gave the poison a new star status, and her death still serves as one of many reminders – not always appreciated – that mercury has made a poisonous path through far too much of human history.

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Profile of 'The Profiler'

by Cathy Scott

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

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

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

Who, indeed?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Behind Prison Walls: Inside Ellis Unit One

by Donna Pendergast

That old white haired judge in Dallas

Didn't pay my story no mind

They're taking me down to Huntsville

I'm bringing in a load of time

--Merle Haggard

Huntsville, Texas, is the execution capital of the world and the headquarters of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Huntsville has become a metaphor for incarceration and Death Row issues. Hearing the word conjures up visions of chain gangs, prison riots, and Death Row. Immortalized in books, movies and songs, Huntsville is a metaphor for all things prison-related, and its very existence has served as a threat for generations of Texan school children who taunted each other about being sent to Huntsville for bad behavior.

Being a Midwestern girl from Michigan, Huntsville was not a place that I ever expected to see--especially not from the inside. That all changed in early 2004, when I found myself on a plane with a colleague and two Michigan State Police troopers. We were headed to Huntsville to attempt to interview serial murderer Coral Eugene Watts (right) prior to making a charging decision on a cold case. He was suspected of committing that crime in Michigan in 1979. The reason we were reviewing the cold case is a long and fascinating story (watch for it to be covered in a future post).

Arriving in Texas, I quickly learned that Huntsville is a town with six separate prisons within the city limits and near the actual town. Our intended destination was Ellis Unit One, on the outskirts. Ellis Unit One is a maximum security facility where the average prisoner's sentence exceeds 40 years. The prison, which houses up to 2,400 male prisoners, was the site of Texas Death Row until shortly after a major escape attempt in 1999. Even before the escape attempt, prison officials were busy relocating Death Row to the Polunsky Unit in West Livingston, Texas. After the escape attempt, officials sped up the move, completing it in 2000. The Death Row transfer, performed under heavy security, was the largest transfer of condemned prisoners in history.

While it may have lost Death Row, Ellis Unit One has lost none of its formidable cachet. A foreboding view on the horizon as one travels the field-lined road leading up to the prison, Ellis Unit One makes its presence known, even from a distance. As I saw the building looming up ahead, the stark reality that I was soon entering those walls sunk in. The thought was disquieting, to say the least.

After parking in a public parking lot, we walked to a gate and flashed credentials up to guards in a sentry tower (pictured above), standing watch heavily armed. The guards had been advised of our anticipated arrival, and we were accompanied by a high-ranking representative with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, so we were buzzed through the gates quickly and allowed to start toward the prison facility itself. Inside the doors we had to sign a log, turn in personal effects, and put on identification badges handed to us through a window in the foyer area. We were then allowed to proceed through multiple sets of doors that clanged shut behind us with an eerie sound of finality.

This was a first for me. I've been in various jails plenty of times before to interview witnesses, but this was a prison; different--and not in a comfortable way. Even accompanied by two police officers, a male colleague and the corrections official, I was still uneasy and ready to get down to business as quickly as possible so we could get out as quickly as possible.

Prison officials had cleared room for us in a small office used for storage. My fellow assistant attorney general and I hunkered down there while the two troopers were taken and seated in a small adjacent conference room, where the interview was set to take place. Prison officials had set up hidden cameras in the conference room, transmitting back to a television set in our makeshift office. That let us watch as the interview  it took place.

While we waited for guards to transport Watts to area, I needed to use the restroom. I was directed to a bathroom in the infirmary, requiring a journey through several halls. As I headed there alone, I cautiously eyed the trustee inmates working openly and seemingly on their own in the hallways just steps from me. I found myself moving quickly, eager to return to the relative security of my office sanctuary. I would have been moving even faster had I known then that another of the Huntsville prisons had once been the site of a seige by three armed prisoners who took multiple hostages using weapons smuggled inside in a ham and  canned peaches. When the siege ended eleven days later, two of the armed gunmen and two civilian hostages -- a teacher and a librarian -- were dead.

There was a bit of levity during the wait for Watts once I got back to the storeroom. My colleague had pulled aside the shade on small window in the corner of the room and was peering outside. He announced there were a couple hundred naked men right outside the window. Certain that he was trying to get my goat and make me even more uncomfortable than I already was, I said, "Sure there are," as I bounded over to the window and pulled aside the shade. I got an eyeful. There were indeed some hundred-plus naked men standing directly outside the window hosing down after coming in from the fields, where they raise crops for the prison. In my haste to close the shade, I tripped over a box while my colleague laughed hysterically, saying "I told you so." To think I thought I was uncomfortable before that.

The interview with Watts was cordial but provided no answers. He played cat and mouse with the troopers for a couple of hours before announcing that he wanted to end the interview and be led away. I breathed a sigh of relief as we passed through the barbed wire fence. We were done--or so I thought. We gave it our best shot but were still going to charge the case even without a statement from Watts.

As it turned out, we weren't quite done yet. While enjoying a relaxing late lunch at a genuine Texas BBQ joint, we received a call from the warden. Watts had decided he wanted to talk. We hightailed it back to the prison and went through the same complicated entrance procedure. With insufficient time to reassemble the camera setup, my colleague and I waited and paced in the infirmary while the troopers went back into the conference room to reinterview Watts. It was all for naught. In true serial murderer style, he again toyed with the officers. After an hour or so, we left with no more information than the first time around.

When I say I've done my time in Huntsville, it means something different than it does for most. Nonetheless, it was more than enough time for me. As many who are finally let out those exit doors surely say: "I'm not going back."

Last night I dreamed that I woke up with straps across my chest
And something cold and black pullin' through my lungs
‘N even Jesus couldn't save me though I know he did his best
But he don't live on Ellis Unit One
--Steve Earle, "Ellis Unit One"

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

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The Value of Advocacy and Journalism

by Robin Sax

When it's used in relation to crime, the word “media” is often paired with such words as “sensation,” “frenzy," or even “tabloid media.” In the world of crime, getting “media” is a concept loaded with surprisingly negative connotations. Rarely do people acknowledge as beneficial the media's role in  justice and advocacy.

Why do some cases draw media attention and others fall by the wayside? For example, why was the case of Amber Dubois highlighted less than that of Chelsea King (both were missing/murdered teens in San Diego)? Or why did Natalee Holloway and Jon Benet Ramsey make constant headlines while the names of Mitrice Richardson and Mickey Guidry barely registered? We can certainly draw our own conclusions about these questions from politics, timing, socio-economics or just basic psychology.

But sometimes, it's to the media that we owe thanks for spotlighting an issue, a cause, or a case that needs some attention.

A particular case near and dear to my heart is the most recent involving John Mark Karr (also known as Alexis Valoran Reich). The name John Mark Karr may sound familiar to you already. Karr falsely confessed to the 1996 killing of child beauty queen Jon Benet Ramsey.   Diane Dimond’s article of May 10, 2010, “Help Stop this Man,” shows the true value of investigative journalism, as well as the power of using one’s voice to make change and seek justice. John Mark Karr, also known as Daxis, is now transgendered and assuming the name Alexis Valoran Reich (yes, as in the Third Reich!). He is reportedly living in a woman's homeless shelter in Seattle and seeking a teaching or nanny job. And he has a new victim.

On her site, Dimond shares her opinions, praise or criticism on urgent stories. As she says, she “holds a mirror up to our society and asks you to form your own opinion. It’s a complicated world out there, full of situations of good versus evil, right versus wrong. My job is point them out.” But this time she took it to another level. She wrote on  May 10: “Today I want to ignite a nationwide manhunt. John Mark Karry has got to be located and stopped!”

John Mark Karr is a very dangerous man today. He is currently on the loose and must be found. See wanted poster. Karr is the worst kind of crazy imaginable. He has convinced not only the public but also many law enforcement officials that he is merely delusional -- but I think that is calculated behavior on his part. This makes him especially dangerous. Karr is beyond a skilled manipulator. He has a Manson-esque personality and has been known to say he wants to be like Manson.

Samanthia Spiegel, a 19-year-old college student, was involved with Karr for a time and decided she wants nothing to do with him. Now he is threatening her, and she has had enough. The constant and controlling telephone calls and e-mail chats with Karr have driven her to file a restraining order in San Francisco. In the police report, she alleges Karr has threatened her life multiple times and continuously boasts of sexually exploiting children. Spiegel told police she is worried because over time she has revealed to Karr where she lives, what kind of car she drives and where she goes to school.

Karr has a group of cultish followers around the country who will do anything he asks. “I’m afraid they will come after me or anyone I’m immediately associated with,” Spiegel wrote on the last page of the restraining order request. She also lists her elderly parents as among those in need of protection.

We need to make sure we separate the history of the Jon Benet Ramsey case from what Karr is doing today with Samantha Speigel (and who knows who else!). We must find him and assess his current behavior and the evidence against him. Karr himself asserts that he is a pedophile. He clearly has made many threats that warrant our concern.

And I am not alone in these feelings – as evidenced by this is comment on Diane Dimond’s blog:

This John Karr story is the best and most important story you have done in the 2 decades I have known you. As a father, this story scares the hell out of me. As a man and a human being, it appalls me. You have, again, exposed an urgent, pressing story that needs the attention of the police, the authorities, and the media. Your reporting provides a valuable service, and it seems at times that you are doing God’s work. Thank you, Jerry

Let's all prove the value of journalism by helping to advocate for Samantha Spiegel’s safety and locate John Mark Karr. More information online at http://alexisvaloranreich.com/

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