Citizen Revolt – Sweep Out the Bums!

by Diane Dimond

Could it be a trend? Oh, please tell me it’s a trend.

There seems to be a mini-movement underway of disgruntled taxpayers and law enforcement officials intent on sweeping out the bums who play-act at being our political leaders while lining their own pockets.

You may have already heard about the situation in the Los Angeles suburb of Bell, California, where eight current and past city leaders were arrested and charged with illegally awarding themselves exorbitant salaries and misappropriating public funds. When filing the charges District Attorney Steve Cooley called it a case of “corruption on steroids.”

The scandal erupted when private citizens of that working-class suburb began to show up at public meetings and demand accountability. The drumbeat got loud enough that the law moved in, arrested the eight and made sure they’d never hold political office again. How bad was it? The city manager of Bell, where one in six residents lives in poverty, was “earning” nearly $800,000 a year, twice President Obama’s salary! And even though Robert Rizzo was forced to resign, he’s still in line to draw a pension as high as $880,000 a year!

So, Attorney General Jerry Brown announced his office is suing to try and stop Rizzo’s outrageous pension, along with the excess salaries of all the city leaders. These announcements were met with bursts of cheers and tears by local residents who realized firsthand what community involvement could achieve.

Three thousand miles away, in North Providence, Rhode Island, there is a similar public corruption scandal unfolding--again spurred by angry citizens who said, in effect, were mad as hell and just weren’t going to take it anymore.

In the Rhode Island case, three city council members were forced to resign after a federal indictment reported they had demanded and split a $25,000 bribe to change zoning laws for a supermarket developer. But after U.S. Attorney Peter Neronha announced the charges--and called for anyone with knowledge of other bribery demands to come forward--they did. Citizens exhausted by the stink of corruption in their Rhode Island community reportedly told authorities about other demands the political trio had made, and the councilmen were slapped with more extortion, bribery and conspiracy charges. Two others, a local developer and an attorney, were also charged for acting as middlemen in the illegal demand for more than $100,000 in bribes. There’s an indication that one of the fed-up residents was a fellow city council member who volunteered to wear a wire to help investigators gather evidence. More charges could be on the way as more brave residents come forward to report on similar shakedowns.

In Cleveland, Ohio, the FBI began investigating citizen complaints and the resulting public corruption scandal has already resulted in three dozen guilty pleas. Just last month, the feds charged eight public officials, including Cuyahoga County commissioner Jimmy Dimora and two county judges, in a pay-for-play scheme that allegedly traded jobs for bribes and campaign donations. The FBI says, for example, that Dimora got jobs for people and in exchange he received call girl sex, fancy steakhouse meals, four-figure discounts on a Rolex watch, a gambling trip to Vegas, and free improvements on his home. After this latest round of arrests one jubilant voter showed up at the county building wearing an FBI T-shirt and carrying a sign that she’d made that read, simply: "Thanks, FBI!"

“People are overjoyed,” Rachel Manias told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I feel like we can move forward with honest government. We have a real fresh slate.”

Look, most public officials are honest, hard working and keep the best interests of their community in mind. But there are some who don’t think twice before violating the public trust. It might be a border official who takes cash in exchange for letting an un-inspected truck through a border crossing or a building inspector who looks the other way at a construction site’s bad wiring. What if that truck carried a weapon of mass destruction or that building later had a deadly fire? There are culpable people on both sides of this type equation--those who take the payoff and those of our neighbors who give it. And with every act of corruption the public’s trust in government erodes that much more. The FBI says it is determined to hold corrupt public officials accountable but the Bureau needs our help.

Let’s face it, rotten politicians and public officials thrive when we ignore what they do. They fail when we are active in our neighborhoods, when we go to public meetings, when the media shines the white-hot spotlight on their actions and when we show up at the polls to vote out the bums. They fail when citizens are courageous enough to go to authorities and report their dishonesty. In other words, public corruption exists only when we let it.

Let’s not let it anymore. Let’s all be brave.

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Hate Crimes and the Homosexual Refugee

by Gina Simmons, Ph.D.

Before he became famous for the Star Wars films, writer/director George Lucas made a movie called THX 1138. In this film, set in a dystopian future, opposite-sex passion was forbidden and punishable by death. Two lovers of the opposite sex try to hide their feelings, only to find it impossible to do so. For heterosexuals, this film shows how it might feel to be gay in a hostile world. This experience of forbidden love forms the narrative for the lives of many gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) youth.

When Tyler Clementi leaped to his death from the George Washington Bridge last month, he left behind a sea of grief and a mountain of unanswered questions. New to Rutgers University, like most freshmen, he likely felt awkward and afraid. Hoping for social acceptance and connection, he set up dates in his room, after asking his roommate for privacy. His roommate allegedly conspired with another student to broadcast Tyler's private homosexual encounters over the Internet. Charged with invasion of privacy and possible hate crimes, the two voyeurs likely ruined their lives and destroyed Tyler's.

A hate crime, under current federal law, comprises criminal conduct motivated by prejudices based on some aspect of a victim's identity, such as race or religion. Victims of hate crimes often suffer more depression, stress, anxiety and anger than victims of other violent crimes. This may stem from the very frightening prospect of being hated for something you can't change in yourself. Targets of hate crimes often suffer symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, including nightmares, intrusive thoughts, and emotional numbness.

Before the Internet, a kid could reinvent himself by moving away to another school or another town. You could escape from gossip and find yourself in a better place. Now, there is no escape from your digital past. Want a government security clearance? Sorry, you've done some obscene stuff on video. Want to win a beauty contest? Well, that mean girl took pictures of you in the shower and there's a Web site to prove it.

A recent study by Dr. Karen Franklin from the University of Washington found half of all young men surveyed admitted some form of anti-gay aggression. Of those who did not admit to anti-gay aggression, three in ten reported a likelihood to behave aggressively if a homosexual attempted a seduction. Penn State researcher Sue Rankin co-authored a report showing high rates of harassment and a lack of safety for GLBT youth on college campuses. In this hostile climate it's no wonder that GLBT youth have higher rates of anxiety, depression and suicide attempts than their heterosexual counterparts.

I've counseled GLBT youth who felt accepted by one parent and loathed by the other. One could tell his parents, but had to stay closeted for the grandparents. Another bright and compassionate teen lost his church youth group leadership position after a peer revealed his sexual orientation. Though still an innocent virgin, the fact that he had homosexual feelings made him unfit to lead.

Many churches across the country actively foment hatred for homosexuals. Ironically, the same religious leaders and politicians spitting hate speech from the podium often hide a history of criminal predatory sexual behavior. Psychologists have a name for this. When we have feelings that make us uncomfortable, our mind comes up with a quick defense so that we can feel all right about ourselves. Reaction Formation is an ego defense mechanism that allows one to hide uncomfortable, anxiety-provoking feelings by expressing the opposite emotion. One can protect a heterosexual image by loudly expressing hatred for homosexuals.

Tyler Clementi left digital clues about how he felt shortly before he killed himself. He wrote in a chat forum:

...and so I feel like it was 'look at what a fag my roommate is.'--other people have commented on his profile with things like "how did you manage to go back in there?" "are you ok?" and the fact that the people he was with saw my making out with a guy as the scandal, whereas I mean come on...he was SPYING ON ME...do they see nothing wrong with this?

The world might still get to hear Tyler Clementi's wonderful violin music if one person had written, "How dare you invade his privacy like that! You should be ashamed of yourself!" How lonely Tyler must have felt when he realized that hostile voyeurism and humiliation were socially acceptable, but he was the pervert because he kissed a boy in his own room.

We can all help prevent teen suicides. Parents and friends of GLBT youth can join Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). We all should read the information accumulated by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN). Here, you can learn how to support the healthy development of young people struggling in a hostile world. Post the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number in your workplace (1-800-273-TALK). And for you GLBT teens out there, don't give up hope. As lesbian rocker Melissa Etheridge sings, "You don't have to live like a refugee."

Photos courtesy of JoeHallock.com and ozap.com

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Getting Away with Murder

by Kathryn Casey

We like to think that the bad guys get caught, and that when a murder takes place, the person responsible is held accountable and punished. Unfortunately, that often doesn't happen. One of the most disturbing headlines I've seen ran in the Houston Chronicle on a recent Sunday: People Are Getting Away with Murder.

Reading the piece, I learned that the national clearance rate on homicides is a dismal 64 percent. As the cause, the article cites a lack of money, manpower, too many murders and not enough folks in law enforcement investigating. It points out that in a city like Houston, with six million folks, there's more crime than cops to go around. In all, 120 Texas communities didn't even reach the national threshold, with clearance rates of 63 percent or lower. Take Galveston, for instance, where of the 32 murders committed in 2004, only seventeen were solved. That means that fifteen families are still waiting for justice. San Antonio is even worse, with a clearance rate of only 39 percent. The trend isn't new. One study showed that from 1980 to 1996, the national clearance rate dropped by 7 percent, and since then it's continued to slide.

Why? Multiple reasons. The above study noted an increase in stranger-on-stranger killings, which are harder to solve than crimes of passion. While another study, one from 2001, agreed that the main issue may be manpower, both stressed that quality police work is also an issue, especially the actions of the first officers on the scene. Was homicide notified quickly? Was the CSI unit called? Were witnesses identified and statements taken?

Yet, one of the cases in the Chronicle article was particularly disturbing, because three years after Bridgette Gearen's murder, the 28-year-old's family is still waiting for the lab results to come in that could point to her killer.

From its first moments, the Gearen case has been both perplexing and terrifying. This young mom disappeared one night simply by walking out a door.

It was July 2007, and Gearen was staying at a beach house with friends, enjoying a bit of R&R, needed time off from the stress of work, watching over an elderly grandparent and caring for her toddler, Kyra. The group planned to take a drive on the beach at midnight, and Bridgette was the first one out the door. She walked down the stairs, and they heard the gate close behind her. Minutes later, her friends followed, but by then, Bridgette was gone.

Beachcombers discovered her body near the shoreline the next morning. The autopsy said Bridgette had been strangled, battered and raped.

Some witnesses have come forward to say that they heard screams and others that they may have seen Gearen get into a dark-colored SUV, although they couldn't tell if she did so voluntarily. Many wonder why Bridgette was the first one out the door, since she had a fear of going out at night and rarely would alone. Did she see someone she knew? Or was there a stranger waiting in the shadows?

Perhaps some or all of these questions could be answered by the lab results. But the forensic evidence analysis in the Gearen murder is still bogged down at the apparently overwhelmed Texas Department of Public Safety's crime lab.

"It's horrible that a case like this takes so long," Detective Tommy Hansen of the Galveston County Sheriff's Office told the Chronicle. "You can have the suspects committing more crimes, but we can't do anything until we get the results back."

So Gearen's family and friends wait. The community waits. And, at least for now, one or more murderers remain free, with nothing to prevent them from taking other lives. In this age of strained resources, Bridgette Gearen's case is far from an anomaly. I talked with a homicide detective a few weeks ago who told me he literally had dozens of murder investigations assigned to him, some recent but others cold and growing colder. And every day when he walked into his cubicle, there were more case files on his desk crying for his attention.

Bridgette's daughter, Kyra, was 2 when her mother disappeared. She's 5 now. At some point, she'll grow up and begin asking questions. Let's hope that by then law enforcement will have answers for Kyra, and, looking at the bigger picture, that this disturbing trend will be reversed. Resources are tight, it's true, but is that sufficient reason to allow killers to get away with murder?

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Guest Michael Streed talks about SketchCop

by Andrea Campbell 

There is so much involved with being a forensic artist and it is a small community. Today we have an interview with Michael Streed, artist extraordinaire. 

Q.: Michael, thank you for being my interview guest. Can you tell WCI readers something about your background?

M.: I began my career as a ‘street cop’ and retired 31 years later as “The SketchCop.” During that time, I worked several investigative assignments that helped me learn a lot about eyewitnesses. It also helped hone my interviewing skills. Shortly after becoming a police officer, I trained as a police composite artist with the Los Angeles Police Department. My career as a forensic artist paralleled my work as a police officer and took me throughout the country to train with the best forensic artists of that era. I blended my forensic art training with college courses in life drawing and was privileged to become trusted to work on some of the country’s worst cases including the torture murder of a DEA agent in Mexico, The Baton Rouge Serial Killer, The Samantha Runnion Abduction/Murder and the Anthony Martinez Abduction/Murder. In addition, I have logged over 600 hours of forensic art training, 1,300 hours of law enforcement training to supplement the casework I have done. 

Q.: Eyewitness drawings are more difficult than the average person thinks. I was trained for forensic art but never pursued it because I am an alpha type, have a tendency to ask leading questions, and haven’t learned the proper interview techniques. Can you speak to that?

M.: To become a successful forensic artist, you must be an active listener. A successful interviewer guides an eyewitness versus leading them. Most important is that the eyewitness must trust you immediately, from the moment you walk into the room. Interviewing is an art that is often overlooked in favor of an aesthetically pleasing sketch. Luckily, interviewing is a skill that can be taught. Without it, you’ll sketch nothing but a useless, but ‘pretty’ picture. The good news is, you can become a good interviewer as long as you know when to hide the alpha. 

Q.: We’re here today to talk about a software program called SketchCop Facette Design, can you explain what that is?

M.: SketchCop Facette Face Design System is a software program that allows law enforcement personnel the ability to create digital composite images that appear as if they were prepared by a skilled forensic artist.

Q.: Two-part question here: What was your impetus for designing this program?

M.: My motivation for creating the software was to provide a viable tool for law enforcement agencies that did not have access to a qualified forensic artist and if they did, I wanted them to have a reliable backup tool to use when their artist wasn’t available.

And how is yours different or better than what’s out there currently?

M.: SketchCop Facette Face Design System creates an image that appears as if sketched by an artist even though it was created by computer using a software solution. Our program is intuitive, portable and easy to use with modification tools that can create subtle changes similar to those a forensic artist would make. We also support the software and it’s users by offering online training. No other company can boast having software that was developed and supported by an experienced forensic artist still working in the field.

Q.: What are the actual problems inherent with designing a program such as this?

M.: I think the most difficult part of conceiving such a program is not allowing it to get away from you and become too complicated. The software must have a low learning curve and be easy to use; otherwise, you’ll frighten away potential users. As a forensic artist there is a natural tendency to want to the software to be perfect and do everything. I have always had the mindset that like a forensic artist, it is only a tool, albeit a valuable one. With that in mind, we are creating a legion of officers who can turn out high-quality images without the burden of feeling like they have to become artists themselves. Luckily, I found a software company with a strong architecture that we were able to combine with our database and wealth of experience to create SketchCop Facette Face Design System Software. 

Q.: How did you even know where to begin?

M.: From the day I began my career as a forensic artist, I knew there would always be a technology solution looming on the horizon. Several companies had already developed such a program hoping that pencils would soon be replaced by pixels. I had done consulting work for a couple of these companies, hoping that input from an experienced police detective/forensic artist would help advance their products. It didn’t. So, it wasn’t long before I figured out that it would be better to help drive the technology train rather than be left behind at the station. 

Q.: Can you explain briefly how the program works and who it is for?

M.: SketchCop Facette Face Design System Software is for law enforcement/military and select investigative personnel, both sworn and civilian support staff. No artistic skills are required. This allows us to focus on the importance of the interview process. The process for interviewing and building the composite closely mimics that of a forensic artist. During the interview, the eyewitness selects various facial components to create the suspect’s face. With a few clicks of the mouse, the user can complete the composite image and easily make the necessary modifications.

Q.: Would you like to talk about one case you are particularly proud of?

M.: My most challenging case to date and the one that is most personal is the abduction/rape/murder of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion in 2002. My witness in that case was her 5-year-0ld playmate who witnessed the abduction. We worked together to create a composite image of the suspect who was identified in two days. I could not have done it without her.

At the time of the incident, my wife of 25 years had been diagnosed with cancer and was undergoing treatment. I had one son in the police academy and another at war in Iraq. By the time the suspect was convicted and sentenced to death, my wife had passed away, my son had graduated the police academy, my other son was still at war, and forensic art became my salvation.

Q.: Is there anything else you care to tell WIC readers?

M.: I am happy to say that my career has come full circle, yet it is far from being complete. I am currently a forensic artist with the Los Angeles Police Department, right back where my forensic art career began. My services are also in demand from many other police agencies throughout the Southern California area. SketchCop Facette Face Design System is gaining traction in law enforcement circles and the feedback has been fantastic. Many police officers have commented that it is the best digital composite imaging software they’ve experienced.

Over the years I have been blessed with many opportunities to help victims overcome their experiences while trying to figure out new ways to help cops catch crooks. I have a fascinating career, balanced by a loving, supportive family, that should keep me going for years to come.

Note: To contact Michael or try out a demo, click here.

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Burke and Hare: Victorian Serial Killers

by Cathy Scott

Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist and expert witness, introduced the Victorian term “burking” to jurors in a 21st century case. It happened during the trial of two people charged with the murder of casino magnate Ted Binion. The prosecution's theory of the murder included burking, a term derived from the slaying style that two 19th century murderers used in Scotland. William Burke and William Hare killed by putting pressure on their victims' chests while covering the mouths and noses. Burke and Hare, two Irish laborers who originally went to Edinburgh to work on the Union Canal, ultimately became known as murderers and body snatchers.

In the Ted Binion case, Dr. Baden claimed that not only did Binion die from a drug overdose, but that he also was strangled using the same technique Burke and Hare specialized in two centuries earlier. Burking is not a theory typically prosecuted in modern courtrooms. Burke and Hare used the method they’d perfected because it left no obvious trace of foul play and little evidence of murder.

Yet, according to Dr. Baden's theory, this remarkable cause of death was performed in the late 1990s by defendant Sandra Murphy--who weighed 120 pounds--by sitting on Ted's chest, causing his sternum and upper ribcage to collapse, leaving it concave. By Sandra’s side, the prosecution and Baden contended, was her co-conspirator and co-defendant Rick Tabish. The motive? Binion’s millions. The jury believed Baden and, in 2000, they convicted the couple of murder. My book Death in the Desert, about the Ted Binion case, goes into depth about Baden's theory of old-fashioned burking.

On a technicality, the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the convictions of Murphy and Tabish. Prosecutors, in turn, charged and tried the couple again. The defense countered the burking theory with photos and medical evidence proving that Binion had always had a concave chest--a physical defect he was born with. Yet despite evidence to the contrary, Dr. Baden took the stand and stuck to the burking theory. I was in the courtroom when Baden's testimony appeared to captivate the jury in Clark County District Court. This time around, however, while the latest jury seemed fascinated, they apparently didn't buy Baden's burking theory and handed down “not guilty” verdicts.

Back in the 19th century, Burke and Hare moved from Ulster to Edinburgh, where they lodged with a pair of prostitutes named Maggie Laird and Nell MacDougal. Maggie rented out rooms. On November 29, 1827, when an elderly pensioner boarding with them passed away of natural causes, they seized the opportunity and hit on the idea of selling the boarder’s remains to a local anatomy school desperately in need of bodies for dissection. They took the corpse to Dr. Robert Knox, who worked out of a private anatomy classroom in the Royal Medical Society's Hall in Surgeon's Square at the Edinburgh Medical School. Knox paid them seven pounds and ten shillings for the corpse.

Medical schools required cadavers for anatomy classes, and the demand always outstripped the supply. Attracted by the ease with which they had made the money, Burke and Hare decided to go into the business full-time. They upped their price to ten pounds and, for the next 10 months, the two ferried miscellaneous corpses of more than a dozen boarders to the dissection school, earning them ten pounds from Dr. Knox for each body in good condition.

Schools invariably accepted bodies with no questions asked. Thus, Burke and Hare set themselves up as procurers of human bodies to satisfy the demand of Edinburgh's medical schools. In today’s world, the pair would be labeled serial killers.

Most of the corpses were of drunken down-and-outs who Burke and Hare suffocated when their victims fell into alcoholic stupors. Originally, they set about digging up the graves of the recently departed in the dead of night, stealing the bodies and selling them for cash to a doctor for use in anatomy demonstrations. But digging up bodies was apparently too much work for the pair. So the entrepreneurs started murdering people in Edinburgh's old town and selling the cadavers. Early in 1828, another of their fellow lodgers--Joseph--came down with a fever. Burke took a small pillow and laid it across Joseph's mouth, and Hare lay across the body to keep down Joseph’s arms and legs. Thus, the term "burking" was born. They would employ that technique in all the murders that followed.

Their greed, however, got the better of them when they started killing and disposing of people whose disappearances were noticed by the police. Also, students began recognizing the corpses and became suspicious. Both men, along with their female companions, were arrested. The evidence against the men was circumstantial, despite local cries for justice. Then a deal was struck: Hare agreed to give evidence against Burke in exchange for immunity against prosecution. And Maggie Laird turned King's Evidence and testified against Burke and Nell MacDougal. Nell received a "Not Proven" verdict but Burke was found "Guilty."

The trial of William Burke began at 10 a.m. on Christmas Eve 1828 and lasted no longer than Boxing Day morning (celebrated the first weekday after Christmas when gifts are given to service workers). The jury, following a brief deliberation, found him guilty of murder. On January 28, 1829, William Burke went to the gallows and was hanged at Edinburgh in front of a large crowd.

In a twist of irony, Burke’s body was given to a local medical school for dissection. A free man, Hare left Edinburgh shortly after the execution of his partner. He died penniless in London in 1859. Dr. Robert Knox, the physician who so willingly purchased most of Burke and Hare's bodies, was never prosecuted.

William Burke and William Hare are remembered in Scotland with a degree of romantic nostalgia. In Nevada, they are remembered for the trial and retrial in which Dr. Michael Baden tried to pass the pair's particular style of murder onto a case that was proven an accidental self-overdose of prescription and street drugs.

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Teachers Behaving Badly

by Anne Bremner 

This post has been written by a dear friend of mine and a true talent, Katherine Kaufmann (pictured left), better known as "Coach Kitty." She has been my personal trainer for years, and she voraciously follows media regarding crimes and legal issues. She always has a sharp and witty opinion about everything she sees, and I'm honored to give her an opportunity to voice that opinion here. Take it away, Coach Kitty! 

I heard a story today about a little girl, just 12 years old, and so cute. What happened to this young girl at the hands of someone who was charged with protecting and educating her is appalling and illegal. Upon entering the sixth grade, Vicki (not her real name) became quite a teacher’s pet. (In all fairness, she did come from a broken home and the teacher was just taking her under his wing, right?) This handsome sixth-grade teacher would invite her to his home for dinner, she joined him on family outings, and he showered her with gifts and attention. What Vicki didn’t know was that like any pedophile worth his salt, Mr. Larson (not his real name) was doing something known as grooming. Alas, he was preparing his young victim for an eventual sexual assault.

By the time Mr. Larson eventually raped Vicki, it seemed to her the natural progression of a close relationship. Although she did know that they were doing something wrong, she never thought it was illegal or really even bad. Remember, she was just 12 years old. Mr. Larson had invited her over for slumber parties with his kids and had shared a sleeping bag with her many times, so by the time he raped her, nothing really seemed amiss for Vicki. After all, Vicki had known Mr. Larson since she was in the second grade and he was her teacher,. She knew his wife and kids, and this must be how things work, right?

Mr. Larson was eventually charged with first-degree rape of a child and sentenced to 30 years in prison. You should have heard the radio and TV pundits in my city where this crime took place. The outrage and fury was palpable. One noted radio talk show host was ready to form a lynch mob to go after Mr. Larson and the people I heard discussing the case at Starbucks were beside themselves with horror. This poor little girl! And this pedophile in our schools--how could this happen? Now, everyone clings a bit closer to their little girls, and every real or perceived threat to them is swiftly investigated.

Okay, here’s the deal. That story is only partly true. The teacher’s name in the real story would have been Mary Kay LeTourneau and the student's name would have been Vili Fualaau. Oh ,and the other part that isn’t quite true is that Mary was only charged with second-degree rape and was sentenced to six months in the county jail and three years of treatment. She was not, however, forced to register as a sex offender. Then, two weeks after her jail sentence ended, LeTourneau was caught having sex with 13-year-old Fualaau in her car and was re-arrested. That time, she was sentenced to 7-1/2 years behind bars, and upon release required to register as a level-two sex offender.

The part where the radio pundits and public were outraged? Meh? Not so much. I actually heard Mary Kay referred to as a “dreammaker” and, if I had a dime for every time the song "Hot for Teacher" by Van Halen was played as an intro to a story about her, well, let’s just say I could quit my day job.

This double standard that society has with the way it reacts to female and male sexual predators is deep and complicated. On one hand, it appears to be rooted partly in the idea that women, unlike men, are incapable of sexual aggression. By the same token, it seems to many, that young boys are willing participants in these sexual encounters. Although both may or may not be true, it seems to me anyway, that it shouldn’t matter. If a child is unable to legally consent to sex before a certain age it is a crime for he, or she to have sex with anyone. If an adult has sex with a child, that act is considered rape. The punishment and social taboo associated with it should be the same for men and women.

Susan Strickland, a 
University of Georgia professor and social worker who treats sex offenders, surveyed 60 women 
serving time for sexual offenses. 
She found that women who have sex with boys:

a. lack the mature relationship skills to partner with men their age;

b. are also motivated by a need for power and control, and they see the boy as a blank slate they can turn into the partner they want;

c. may never have had relationship in which they felt safe.

You know what I say to that? So what? It’s either a criminal act or it’s not. I realize that the motivations between male and female predators might be different, but the outcome is the same. A child is stripped of his or her sense of security, autonomy, and ability to trust. And that is a crime. The society at large would do well to see children as children whether boys or girls. With the same developmental components and emotional capabilities.

In the case of Mary Kay LeTourneau, as well as Debra Lafave (a teacher charged with seducing a 14-year-old boy), the fact that both are blonde and stereotypically pretty has only added to the myth that they were fulfilling boyhood dreams rather than committing crimes. I did notice that the majority of media figures who had this impression were men. Perhaps they can’t see past sixth grade, and, lucky for them, they are now free to act on that hot-for-teacher fantasy they’ve been harboring all this time. However, as long as a child is under the age of consent, women and men who commit these crimes should be treated equally in the eyes of the law and society.

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A Simple Case of Silver Poisoning

by Deborah Blum

In two earlier posts, I wrote about the possible copper poisoning of the great British poet and artist William Blake and the apparent gold poisoning of the powerful mistress of a French king, Diane de Poitier.

The very simple lesson in both stories seems to be that regular metal exposure will kill you. And certainly there are many other examples to support this. The metal lead is a notorious neurotoxin, and recent news stories link it directly to the poisoning of some 18,000 people in mining regions of Nigeria. The metal mercury is equally dangerous, enough so that all of us are warned against eating too much seafood--especially long-lived fish like salmon and tuna--because of environmental mercury contamination in the oceans.

One could argue, of course, that this is too simple a lesson. As always in toxicology, the dose makes the poison. Health experts today actually recommend regular metal intake, at least in very tiny amounts, for strengthening everything from bones to immune function. My daily multivitamin, for instance, contains 8 milligrams of iron and .5 mg of copper. And also trace amounts of zinc, nickel, manganese, molybdenum and chromium. I occasionally worry that over a lifetime I'll have swallowed a tin can's worth of metal. And some health experts worry that long time, metals like copper and iron in vitamins may bioaccumulate (build up in tissues).

But you might ask, are all metals health risks in larger quantities? An interesting--but definitely peculiar--exception turns out to be silver, one of the precious metals. The following is a story, concerning that point, from my recent book, The Poisoner's Handbook:

In the chilly January of 1924, scientists at the New York City Medical Examiner's office got a chance at a true oddball case, the death of the Famous Blue Man. The man had spent most of his life as one of the human curiosities exhibited at Barnum and Bailey’s, the Greatest Circus on Earth, as it traveled around the country. The Blue Man had recently died at Bellevue; the pathologists said his body was one of the strangest they’d seen stretched on a marble table in the morgue.

The famed human oddity was 68 years old when he checked himself into the hospital, short of breath and complaining that when he lay flat, he couldn’t breathe at all. As his hospital records noted, he was a tall, thin man, with glistening white hair and an equally glossy white mustache. His skin was so deep a blue to appear black at a distance. His lips were blue; his tongue was blue. The scleras--what would usually be called the whites of the eyes--were also blue.

This wasn’t the exhausted bluish patchiness of cyanide poisoning though. The skin was smoothly colored with an almost lustrous look. It was that overall effect of polishing that led the doctors to a diagnosis--the Blue Man was suffering from a disease called argyria (from the Greek word argyros meaning silver). The condition was known to deposit silver through the body, staining the tissues to a deeply polished blue-gray.

The Bellevue doctors suspected that the Blue Man, a former British army officer, had achieved his later fame by dosing himself with silver nitrate. This was a salt made by dissolving silver into nitric acid and evaporating the solution, leaving behind a glossy powder, which could be mixed for other uses. Silver nitrate was easily available;  it was used in photographic processing, by dentists to treat ulcers in the mouth, and blended into drops that went into the eyes of newborn babies to prevent infections.

Their patient firmly denied any silver exposure, denied any self-medication at all. As he’d told his circus admirers, he was a freak of nature, he insisted, and blue at birth. But when he died that fall--from rapidly worsening pneumonia--they decided to take a thorough look at his story. The resulting autopsy showed that he was blue-silver on the inside too, the membranes smooth and glistening, the muscle tissue a dull, reddish brown with a faint silver tint, the spleen colored a bluish red, the liver bluish gray. Even the brain shone silver, its familiar curves and coils slightly reflective in the pale light of the morgue.

Still, how much metal did his body contain? To find out, city toxicologist Alexander Gettler made an acid solution of the organs and cooked it dry, creating a gray ash. He flushed hot water, ammonia and nitric acid through the ashes, washing the silver out of them. He then measured the silver from each organ, totaling up the results to calculate the whole body content. Gettler’s conservative estimate was that the Blue Man’s body contained a good three-and-a-half ounces of solid silver. About half the metal was in the muscle tissue, another fourth in the bones, and the rest mostly concentrated in the liver, kidneys, heart and brain.

But the silver hadn’t killed the Blue Man. He had died of the pneumonia; the only effect that silver doses seemed to have had was to turn him that remarkable deep indigo color. “Among the heavy metals which may become deposited in the human body in relatively large amounts,” Gettler wrote in his report on the case, “silver is of slight and perhaps least toxicity.”

Of course, the toxicology lab was now in possession of a nice quantity of pure silver. His co-workers took the gleaming pellets acquired from the Blue Man’s body, melted them down and shaped them into a bullet. Just in case, his friends assured Gettler, he ever had to analyze a vampire. He carefully placed the bullet on his desk. Just in case, he replied.

It's a good story--or so I think--but it also makes a case that, among the metals, silver is relatively neutral in effect (as long as one doesn't care, of course, about turning blue or accumulating internal silver deposits). It also led me to consider the possibility that with some effort, one could become the amazing precious metal human, storing wealthyinternally ,so to speak, in which case my choice would be platinum.

But as it turns out, becoming the Famous Platinum Woman,would work only if I was willing to insert the word "Dead" into that description. Platinum turns out not only to be wonderfully valuable but wonderfully poisonous. So, between you and me as concerns metal exposure, I'm hoping to limit myself to those multivitamins.

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