Diane and Terri

by Anne Bremner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photos courtesy of Alate News and The Oregonian

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

by Deborah Blum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And what shoulder, & what art.

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

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

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

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

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

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

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One Fatal Night in Las Vegas

by Cathy Scott

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Desperation: The Story of an Abused Woman

by Katherine Scardino

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Caylee Anthony’s Body Language Around Mother Casey

by Dr. Lillian Glass

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photos courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel and The Associated Press.

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The Murder Wall

by Donna Pendergast

The Murder Wall: its very name is so in-your-face, but then again, it's supposed to be. It all began in 1987, when Nancy Ruhe-Munch, Executive Director of the Parents of Murdered Children (POMC) national organization, had an idea. Inspired by the use of memorial walls for Holocaust victims and for troops killed in the Vietnam War, she conceived of the idea of a traveling tribute to honor the memory of murder victims. With the help of Ann Reed, another POMC member who designed the end product, the Memorial Wall became a reality. In 1995 it was renamed "The Murder Wall" to emphasize that the victims died at the hands of another in addition to memorializing their names.

Now numbering nearly 4,000 names, the ever-growing wall carries the names of murder victims on engraved plaques. Each plaque carries 12o names, dates of birth and dates of death on 3 1/2- by 2 1/2-inch solid walnut panels. The wall travels to different places, where it is usually unveiled by members of an honor guard who pull away swatches of black cloth to reveal the names of the sons and daughters, whose lives were senselessly taken, to waiting family and friends watching for their loved ones name to be uncovered.

I sit on the Advisory Board for the local chapter of POMC. I have seen The Murder Wall up close several times at different chapter events. It always has the same effect on me: so very many names, so very sad and senseless. Announcer Herbert Morrison's famous moan upon witnessing the crash of the Hindenburg always comes to mind: "Oh, the humanity!"

The names that stare back are stark reminders of once-living persons now reduced to names, dates and memories left behind in the hearts and minds of their loved ones. But the stories behind the thousands of names don't begin to illustrate the true impact that murder has on society. Among these children might have been a future president, a pope or the person who discovers the cure for cancer. But most of all, I am struck by "why:" Why, as a culture, do we have so little respect for human life?

What the wall symbolizes goes much deeper than the stories of the individual victims whose names are immortalized on those shiny brass plates. It is a symbol of a culture where life is cheap and thoughtless, violent depravity has become a way of life. It's a culture of murder so vicious and pervasive that parents live in fear of their children not coming home from school each day; where a child can be murdered in the blink of an eye by gang-member thugs just because they live on the wrong street or because someone wanted their apparel or other personal possessions. It's a culture where many people hide in their houses at night out of fear of the very real bogey man who could be waiting in the dark.

What has happened to our culture in the last 60 years or so that murder has become ordinary instead of extraordinary? Little more than half of a century ago, any murder was front-page news; now only the most sensational cases merit a mention in the press. The less sensational cases are now considered commonplace and may only end up as a name etched on a plaque on a traveling wall, largely unnoticed by all but victims' families and friends.

What has happened to society as a whole within less than the average life span? We continue to build ever higher walls around ourselves, our families and our possessions. But rather than reduce the threat, the danger we face becomes ever more real. Crime drives up walls, walls disconnect us from people around us, which exposes us to more crime and drives up bigger walls.

Perhaps the answer lies in a quote by Sir Isaac Newton: "We build too many walls and not enough bridges." I know that The Murder Wall is one wall too many. Unfortunately, its ever-growing size shows that one wall is not nearly enough.


Statements made in this post are my own and 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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Oklahoma: Where Crime Blows Like the Wind

By Susan Murphy Milano

The adopted song for the state of Oklahoma originates from the 1950s Rogers and Hammerstein musical sung by Shirley Jones and Gordon McRae. A line from the song says: “Winds come sweeping down the plain, smells sweet.” I would like to add a verse of my own: "The sweeping murder down the plain, it smells foul, just the same,” new lyrics now sung by the families of Chanda Turner and Shiela Deviney.

In the state of Oklahoma, specifically Garvin County, justice has literally been removed, erased, whatever you would like to call it, for the families of Chanda Turner and Shiela Deviney. Both of these women lost their lives as a direct result of intimate partner homicide. The elected officials, law enforcement and political powers in the State of Oklahoma have decided never to investigate, bring forth charges and arrest the husband and boyfriend in these cases. Instead, they gave each of the suspects their blessings, allowing them to tamper with crime-scene evidence after each murder, right under the noses of Old West-mentality law enforcement.

The sheriff, in my opinion, has used everything in his corrupt and crooked magic bag to harass and personally threaten each of the families. It is likely the Garvin County Sheriff's Office is still operating under 1850s Old West procedures when it comes to the murder of a wife and a girlfriend. The current sheriff might want to change the language on the office's website, which reads: "The office of the sheriff is one of antiquity. It is the oldest law-enforcement known within the common-law system, and it has always been accorded great dignity and trust."

Chandra Turner (left), just 23 years old, was shot to death at her home in Paul's Valley on July 12, 2000. Her boyfriend claimed she shot herself while he slept through the sound of gunfire and later found her outside on the back steps after she was dead. Crime scene photos depict blood throughout the inside of the home, including on the mattress he claimed he was asleep on. The mattress had been stripped of sheets; no one asked where they went. There were more signs of cleanup in the bedroom, including a bottle of cleaning solution on the floor. The boyfriend had fresh scratches on his arms, and Chanda was covered in bruises. There were signs of a struggle in the living room, including broken furniture.

Shiela Deviney (right), 30, died on January 6, 2004, when her mobile home, located about one mile east and one mile south of Maysville, Oklahoma, burned to the ground. She was murdered. It should be no surprise that Sheila had been married to an abusive, controlling man. They had a court date over past-due child support scheduled the next day. According to eye witnesses, her ex-husband was at the home, although by law not allowed on the premises. He and another friend destroyed evidence and took items from the home.

Where are my manners? I forgot to mention that the "participation" (more like hawking into a spitoon) of the district attorney's office, both past and current administrations, has been non-existent. The office refuses to open the cases. They will not take calls from the families, who have important documents and information. They refuse to give a damn!

Perhaps it has something to do with the person who now heads up the investigations for the district attorney's office? Oh, wait, I remember now. He was an investigator on both the Chanda Turner and the Shiela Deviney cases.

Last month, Intimate Partner Homicide Investigation Radio, a new show about victims likely killed by a husband or a boyfriend, presented these two cases. The Blogtalk Radio show is hosted by "Cold Case" investigative research director Sheryl McCollum, former Atlanta prosecutor turned defense attorney Holly Hughes, and myself. Our broadcasts alone were, in our opinion, more than enough to actually have both the Turner and Deviney case re-opened. Calls burned up the show’s switchboard with folks calling in with information from witnesses of "who done it," and with locations of important evidence. Each caller stated they had never been contacted by law enforcement or the prosecutors office.

According to Sheryl McCollum, "Although we will never know what forensic evidence was present because the crime scene was not secured properly in either of the cases, other evidence provided is more than enough to investigate and demand each case be re-opened."

McCollum goes on to say, about Chanda Turner’s case: "We know from photographs that there was blood spatter evidence that was not considered, we know from forensic reports that there was primer residue evidence that was ignored."

Defense attorney Holly Hughes, the former Atlanta prosecutor, believes that the Gavin County prosecutor, by refusing to open both the Turner and Deviney cases, is covering up for those who did not properly do their jobs. It is clear from the photos of the fire in the Deviney case.

Within three weeks of the airing of Shiela Deviney’s case, a group of Oklahoma businessmen who heard the show and wish to remain anonymous posted a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the people responsible for Sheila’s murder.

Perhaps the prosecutor has a memory lapse, practicing his own version of "blue light special" justice, forgetting that he was elected by the people, taking an oath, placing his hand on the Bible, swearing to do a job and ensure justice.

To the elected officials in Oklahoma, as your song goes “it ain’t too early and it ain’t too late" to do your jobs and re-open the cases!

Many times we don't realize the impact of writing and posting blogs, or doing what some call silly radio shows for broadcast over the Internet; they do have an impact and people are listening and taking action. In addition, in Oklahoma, because of our show, a newly formed alliance of concerned and committed citizens was created and named the Eleventh Commandment. It was created to counter a growing plague of police corruption, political apathy and administrative malfeasance, all of which have played a part in the untimely and unsolved murders of a number of local citizens. The Eleventh Commandment reads, "Thou shall not get away with it!"

The Internet, in my opinion, can be an important tool if used correctly, specifically for cold cases, taking the lives of those buried and forgotten long ago and holding them under the light for justice!

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