The Case for Ted Kuhl`s Innocence

March 6, 2013
Vol. 2 Issue 3
The Case for Ted Kuhl’s Innocence
Table of Contents
The Case for Ted Kuhl’s
Innocence
by J. Patrick O’Connor p. 3
March 6, 2013 Vol. 2 Issue 3
by Harriet Ford p. 11
Publisher
Joe O’Connor
[email protected]
The Brussels Airport
Diamond Heist
DEAD IN THE WATER
The Shankill Butchers
Editor
J. Patrick O’Connor
[email protected]
Authors
J. J. Maloney
H. P. Albarelli Jr.
Jane Alexander
Betty Alt
Scott Thomas Anderson
Mel Ayton
Joan Bannan
Dane Batty
Scott Bartz
Bonnie Bobit
Gary Boynton
John Lee Brook
Patrick Campbell
Amanda Carlos
James Ottavio Castagnera
J. D. Chandler
Ron Chepesiuk
Denise M. Clark
Kendall Coffey
Peter Davidson
Anthony Davis
Scott M. Deitche
Michael Esslinger
Steven Gerard Farrell
Don Fulsom
Mark S. Gado
Mary Garden
Oliver Gaspirtz
Erin Geyer
David A. Gibb
Anthony Gonzalez
Dennis N. Griffin
Randor Guy
Charles Hustmyre
John F. Kelly
David Kirschner, PhD.
Barbara Kussow
Doris Lane
Jason Lapeyre
2
Ronald J. Lawrence
David Lohr
Lora Lusher
Lona Manning
Hal Mansfield
Peter Manso
David Margolick
Jessica Mason
Allan May
Paula Moore
John Morris
Richard Muti
Tim Newark
Denise Noe
Lt. John Nores Jr.
J. Patrick O'Connor
John O'Dowd
Robert Phillips
Liz Porter
Mark Pulham
Joe Purshouse
Patrick Quinn
Randy Radic
Michael Richardson
Ryan Ross
Eponymous Rox
Anneli Rufus
Laura Schultz, MFT
Cathy Scott
Fred Shrum, III
Ronnie Smith
James A. Swan, Ph.D.
John Tait
Marilyn Z. Tomlins
Claudette Walker
Robert Walsh
Phillip K. Wearne
Sandra Wells
Evan Whitton
Peter L. Winkler
Daniel B. Young
by EPONYMOUS ROX p. 7
by Robert Walsh p. 5
Black Power, the “Third
Man,” and the Assassinations
of Bermuda’s Police Chief
and Governor
Before Lizzie Borden
by Thomas D. McDougall p. 13
by Mel Ayton p. 9
Dirty Laundry: Cold Case
84-137640
by James R. Melton p. 15
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The Brussels Airport Diamond Heist
In a daring, commado-style
operation, eight masked,
heavily armed gunmen
pulled off a lightening quick
heist of more than $50
million worth of diamonds.
by J. Patrick
O’Connor
For centuries, Antwerp has
been the world’s center of
diamond trading and remains
Helvetic Airways aircraft at the Brussels international airport (Photo: Associated Press)
so today. According to a
spokesperson for the Antwerp
World Diamond Centre about $200 accompanied by armed escorts that locked, a black Audi A8 sedan and
peel away once the Brinks vans ara black Mercedes van with blue
million in diamonds enter and
rive at the airport’s locked gate.
police lights flashing pulled up next
leave Antwerp daily, with about 99
to the airplane at 7:47 p.m. By 7:52
percent of that moving through the
On the evening of February 18,
p.m. the vehicles and 121 packets of
Brussels Airport in several ship2013,
eight
heavily
armed
masked
the diamonds were gone in a lightments each week. The spokespermen were outfitted in airport secu- ening quick and incredibly compeson said that diamonds traded in
rity uniforms and drove two black
tent robbery.
Antwerp last year had a total value
vehicles
that
had
police-style
lights
of $51.9 billion, accounting for 80
on top. They arrived at Zaventem
With commando efficiency, some
percent of the world’s rough diaInternational
Airport
in
Brussels
in
of the gunmen stood in front of the
mond trade and 50 percent of trade
darkness intent on pulling off the
jet plane pointing machine guns
in polished stones. The only other
most audacious heist in airport his- equipped with red laser sights at
major diamond center is Dubai, in
tory. They knew, due to constructhe pilots and Brinks crew while
the United Arab Emirates.
tion near the main security gate,
others calmly – speaking French –
that
gate
would
be
unlocked.
Using
ordered ground workers to open
Diamond brokers from around the
wire cutters, they opened a section
the aircraft’s cargo doors. Without
world store their diamonds and
of the other 10-foot-high security
firing a shot, the robbers unloaded
gems – sometimes for as little as
fence
on
the
perimeter
of
the
airall but four of the diamond packets
a day – in one or more of the 160
port and then waited eight minutes that contained packages of both
safety-deposit boxes located in
for the Brinks van to unload some
polished and uncut diamonds and
an underground vault at the An125 packets of diamonds in the
sped away within five minutes of
twerp Diamond Centre. Once a
cargo hold of Flight LX789, a Helarriving.
deal is brokered for the sale of the
vetic
Airways
jet
waiting
to
depart
diamonds, shipment is arranged
in the next 18 minutes for Zurich,
The London Daily Telegraph rethrough the Zaventem InternaSwitzerland.
ported that most of the diamonds
tional Airport in Brussels. The diawere uncut and that 90 percent
monds are placed in small packets
were bound for the Indian city of
and driven by armored Brinks vans Minutes after the diamonds had
been
offloaded
from
the
Brinks
van
Surat, via Zurich. Initial estimates
to the airport. On the 25-mile trip
and the doors to the cargo hold
placed the theft at $50 million, but
to the airport, the Brinks vans are
3
inside information. “This is an
obvious possibility,” she said.
because most of the diamonds were
uncut and could possibly be worth
far more one expert told The Wall
Street Journal that the take could
come to more than $300 million,
which would make the Brussels
heist the largest airport robbery
in history by over $200 million. In
2005, an armed gang hijacked a
Brinks truck at Schiphol Airport in
Amsterdam and escaped with an
estimated $90 million of diamonds.
The 29 passengers onboard were
unaware of anything amiss until informed after the robbers had made
their getaway that their flight had
been cancelled. No one inside the
airport happen to take notice either.
high turnover.”
Quoting airport
security insiders,
The Wall Street
Journal reported
that “the precision of the Brussels heist suggests
extensive help
from airport
insiders,” noting
that “all airports
employ thousands of low-paid
workers and face
An aviation-security specialist
knowledgeable about the Brussels
Airport robbery told the Journal
“the thieves appeared to have detailed information about both the
cargo and operations at the airport,
and likely had help from people at
the airport.”
“I am certain this was an inside
job,” Doron Levy, an expert in airport security at a French risk man-
agement company,” told The New
York Times. The theft, he added,
was “incredibly audacious and wellorganized,” and beyond the means
of all but the most experienced and
strong nerved criminals. “In jobs
like this we are often surprised by
the level of preparation and information: they know so much they
probably know the employees by
name.”
Levy told The Times that “the audacity of the crime recalled in some
ways the so-called Pink Panther
robberies – a long series of brazen raids on high-end jewelers in
Geneva, London and elsewhere attributed to criminal gangs from the
Balkans. But he said the military
precision of Monday’s diamond
robbery and the targeting of an airport suggested a far higher level of
organization than the cruder Pink
Panther operations.”
The Mercedes Vaneo used in the
robbery was a stolen taxi. It was
found burned out within 10 miles
of the airport shortly after the
robbers fled. The Audi, which had
French registration plates, has not
been recovered.
“There is a gap of only a few minutes” between the loading of the
gems and the moment the plane
starts to move, said Caroline De
Wolf, a spokesperson for the Antwerp World Diamond Centre. “The
people who did this knew there was
going to be this gap and when.”
Ine Van Wymersch, a Brussels prosecutor, said the police were investigating whether the robbers had
4
(Photo Mirror UK)
The Shankill Butchers
Over a 10-year-year period,
from 1972 to 1982, the Shankill
Butchers gang, led by psychopath Lenny Murphy, terrorized
Northern Ireland Catholics,
becoming the most prolific
group of serial killers in British
history.
by Robert Walsh
“A lasting monument to blind
sectarian bigotry.” – The Shankill
Butchers, as described by their trial
judge, Lord Justice O’Donnel.
Ireland in general (and Northern
The Troubles – A Short History
Ireland in particular) has long had
a troubled, violent and dark history. Invasions, rebellions, famine,
revolution, civil war and what are
generally described as “The Troubles” have cast a long shadow over
the Emerald Isle and its neighbor
(and former colonial ruler) Great
Britain. In recent years, especially
after the peace talks and ceasefire
of the early 1990’s, both the British and Irish people have begun to
bury their differences and to explore their common history, dark
and uncomfortable though it often
is. One of the darkest episodes was
that of the Shankill Butchers.
In order to understand the Butchers they need placing in context.
Northern Ireland itself was born of
talks between the British and Irish
following the 1916 Easter Rising
and subsequent violence. As part
of a treaty between the British
and the Irish rebel leadership, six
of Ireland’s 32 counties were split
from the newly-formed Irish Free
State (today’s Irish Republic). These
six counties (the six Irish counties possessing the largest Protestant majorities) became Northern
Ireland or Ulster under what was
called “Partition,” remaining under
British rule. The issue of a united
Ireland has dogged the British and
Irish ever since.
The Shankill Butchers were based
in the Shankill district of Belfast (a
staunchly pro-British part of the
city) and laid a nominal claim to
being pro-British paramilitaries.
However, leader Lenny Murphy’s
motives were far more personal
than political. Murphy was the
lynchpin around whom the Butchers revolved.
Paramilitary groups and their
political wings had long existed on
both sides and both readily employed violence. Those supporting
a united Ireland peacefully became
known as Nationalists while their
paramilitaries (and their associated
political front groups) were collectively labeled Republicans. Those
campaigning lawfully to preserve
links to Britain (campaigning according to the law as it then stood,
often with the unofficial connivance
of an often openly biased police
service and judiciary) were known
as Unionists, while their paramilitary groups (and their own political front groups) were collectively
labeled Loyalists.
There was also a religious difference. Republicans or Nationalists
were largely Catholic while Unionists and Loyalists were usually
fiercely Protestant. There were both
Catholics and Protestants who
broke that tradition, but they were
exceptions to the rule. It’s important to recognize the difference,
on both sides, between those who
adopted violence and those who
didn’t. Simply supporting either
side never meant automatic support
for paramilitary methods. Violence
was freely employed by paramilitaries on both sides, but their motivations and strategies were very
different.
Both sides readily made examples
of known or suspected informers,
5
but their other targets differed immensely. Republicans tended to attack members of the British armed
forces, officers of the Royal Ulster
Constabulary (nowadays the Police
Service of Northern Ireland), parttime soldiers (Territorials, similar
to the U.S. National Guard) and
Loyalist paramilitaries. The Republicans had clear criteria for selecting
potential targets. Their targets were
visible and selected for political or
military status rather than religious
or political sectarianism.
Targeting by Loyalists was far less
selective and far more likely to be
sectarian. The Republicans had adopted guerilla tactics, emphasized
tight security among members,
used a cell structure to further separate the activities of individual Active Service Units (known as ASU’s)
and generally tried to be inconspicuous, making targeting specific
Republicans far harder for Loyalists. Plus the politics of Loyalism
(as distinct from Unionism) have
been described as “the politics of
fear.” Many Loyalists tended to fear
the idea of Catholics
(and, by extension,
Republicans) gaining the basics of
equality, seeing it
as a stepping-stone
towards a united
Ireland. Loyalist
violence often (but
not always) placed
sectarianism before
strategy, reflecting
hatred born of fear.
date potential witnesses
and informers and for
the Butchers in general
to kill as openly, brutally
and frequently as they
did. The UVF’s membership and influence had
declined, but had revived
from the late-1960’s
onward. Violence (and
an ever-present, credible threat thereof) was
an intrinsic within UVF
policy and philosophy. It’s
no surprise that Murphy
found them attractive.
The “Master Butcher”
Murphy was born into
perpetual violence,
extremism and sectarianism. He spent his One of the many murals that decorate the walls in Belfast
childhood in staunchly and it depicts the Ulster Volunteer Force (Lenny Murphy’s
paramilitary group)
Protestant areas and was
(in his mind) related to religious
constantly bullied for having what
bigotry, he developed a lasting,
some considered a Catholic-soundvisceral hatred of Catholics. His
ing surname. Where Murphy grew
venom knew no limits and fuelled
up Catholics were often so loathed
his later crimes. Murphy was a clasthat even the wrong surname was
sic case of prey turning predator
considered susand he may have seen this simply as
pect. He was also
a means to survive in a dangerous,
taunted over a
hostile environment. What sepacommon belief
rates him from most people with
that he was illesimilar backgrounds is his sheer
gitimate and that
barbarity and his relishing extreme
his father wasn’t
sadism and violence for their own
the man who acsake.
tually raised him.
In short, Murphy
Murphy was a natural recruit and
was a ready-made
joined the UVF after leaving school.
victim of perHe was young, fanatical, violent,
petual abuse and
eager to both learn his chosen trade
Lenny Murphy
mistreatment.
(paramilitary violence) and fight
One of the more nohis perceived enemy (Northern
torious Loyalist paramilitary groups Murphy grew into a violent bully,
Ireland’s Catholics, Nationalists
was the Ulster Volunteer Force
usually ready to meet the slightest
and Republicans). He was also
(UVF) and it was his links to the
perceived insult or challenge with
far from a stereotypical NeanderUVF that allowed Lenny Murphy
instant aggression. Possibly as a
Butchers continued p. 17
to recruit his henchmen, intimidirect result of his suffering being
6
DEAD IN THE WATER
Natalie Wood and Joshua
Swalls: Foul play, or splendid
accidents?
HUNTING SMILEY: What's
Natalie Wood got to do with it?
by EPONYMOUS ROX
Without a doubt, this glamorous
woman’s fatal midnight plummet
from the deck of The Splendour
into the cool ocean waters off
Catalina Island in 1981 has got to
be the most high profile “accidental
drowning” on record.
In the hours preceding her watery
demise, she was overheard loudly
quarreling with an enraged and
jealous husband. They had been
at this all day, in fact. All evening
they’d been drinking.
Married, divorced, and remarried for a second try, the two were
known to have a volatile relationship, with more than their fair share
of public and private disagreements, be they drunk or sober. But
this argument was different. The
worst one yet.
When she drowned, she had prominent contusions in “no particular
pattern” all over the front and back
of her body. Some of these were
fresh injuries, said to have been
obtained as she frantically grappled
with a small, wooden dinghy
secured to the side of the yacht.
Some she’d received just days before
plunging to her death.
She had a variety of unexplained
Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner
abrasions, too: On her flawless face,
on her lovely hands, on her shapely
thighs and calves.
And, as demonstrated by her casual
attire on the morning would-be rescuers fished her bruised body from
the ocean—in a flannel nightgown,
cotton socks, no lifejacket—she had
clearly not entered the water voluntarily.
Yet it still took the loved ones of
celebrated actress Natalie Wood
over three decades to prove that her
saltwater drowning was more than
a little suspicious.
A perfect crime, re-evaluated
It was said to have been foretold by
a family member that she would
someday lose her life “in dark
water,” and on November 28, 1981,
during an escalating argument with
a husband on the rampage, die in
dark water she did.
His famous wife had been lost at
sea for practically two hours when
Robert Wagner finally decided
to report that Natalie Wood had
gone missing from his boat. By
that time she was surely dead, as
the emergency personnel who first
responded to his SOS call strongly
suspected. Consequently, they
found Wagner’s delay peculiar and
perplexing.
The actor’s answer when questioned
about it told them all they needed
to know. “I thought she was off on
another boat screwing around,”
a sweaty, anxious, and inebriated
Wagner blurted, “because that’s the
kind of woman she is.”
So there were already whispers of
abuse and foul play even before
Wood’s beaten corpse was retrieved from the ocean a few hours
later. Still, the coroner’s office of
Los Angeles County, where the
7
AUTOPSY SUPPLEMENTAL #81-15167 ‒ WAGNER, NATALIE / A.K.A. WOOD, NATALIE: “The right forearm showed a 4 inch x 1
inch diffuse bruising on the lateral aspect and few bruises on back of hand. The left wrist showed a slight deformity in the lateral condyle of the ulna and there was also a superficial fresh bruise in this area 1/2 inch in diameter. There were multiple small 1/2 to 1 inch
fresh bruises in the left anterior lateral thigh. There was a two inch recent bruise to the left knee. There were recent bruises to the right
upper leg in the area and right ankle. The anterior neck showed a small scratch. There was also superficial abrasion in left forehead, left
brow and left upper cheek area with an upward direction. There was white froth in the nasal oral area. There were recent bruises to the
back of the left thigh. A few day old bruises were on the back of the right thigh and knee, but there were fresh bruises and scratches to
the posterior leg…There are conflicting statements as to when the decedent went missing from the boat and whether there were verbal
arguments between the decedent and her husband…This Examiner is unable to exclude non-accidental mechanism causing these injuries.” — Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, Chief Medical Examiner and Coroner for the county of Los Angeles, California - 6/15/12
deceased was immediately transported for autopsy, didn’t hesitate to
pronounce her drowning death an
accident. Thereafter, these officials’
final determination, signed, sealed
and certified, would remain undisturbed for 31 consecutive years.
Until, in the summer of 2012, they
changed their minds at last:
Natalie Wood autopsy diagramming bruises and lacerations
Semi-perfect crimes, reevaluated
Drowning is a fast and efficient way
to end a life, but not usually the
8
weapon of choice for murderers.
Possibly because they’d have to get
wet themselves to do it right.
Nonetheless, there are some people
who adamantly believe a gang of
serial killers has been roaming the
United States and selecting college
age males for death by drowning.
Luring an unsuspecting victim
to the waterfront, preferably one
who’s publicly intoxicated, and then
drowning them when nobody’s
looking is “the perfect crime” such
theorists claim. Water washes away
all the evidence.
They’ve even dubbed these mysterious marauders of young men
"The Smiley Face Killers" since this
alleged band of evildoers has also
been rumored to leave gloating
graffiti at their crime scenes.
Ominous phrases, song lyrics,
initials, and of course smiley faces,
sometimes with horns drawn on
them, these allegedly are the markings Smiley boldly leaves behind on
nearby trees and walls and boulders
and docks, after they’ve drowned
someone…but not always.
Drowning continued p.22
Black Power, the “Third Man,”
and the Assassinations of
Bermuda’s Police Chief and Governor
To avoid race riots and the resulting negative impact on tourism, a succession of Bermudian government administrations has whitewashed the assassinations of Bermuda’s governor and police
chief in the early 1970s by a radical black-power group known as the Black Beret Cadre.
by Mel Ayton
During 1972 and 1973 the North
Atlantic British colony of Bermuda,
which had become a playground
for vacationing Americans, was
suddenly thrust into a climate
of fear when a spate of murders,
including political assassinations,
occurred. Bermuda became the
only British territory ever to have
the Queen’s representative murdered in cold blood and the first
nation to suffer the violent effects of
the importation of 1960s’ American
Black Power militancy.
The tragic events of the early 1970s
had been viewed by many Bermudian politicians as a stain upon
Bermuda’s reputation as a haven for
travellers and an island of tranquillity. This attitude prompted them to
ignore the Black Power connection
to the assassinations lest further
investigations stir up trouble between the races and provoke islandwide riots. Political leaders were
also afraid that the truth about the
murders and the instability of its
political system, which the killings
exposed, would damage Bermuda’s
tourist industry which was its principle source of income.
Additionally, political leaders were
embarrassed that a militant Marxist revolutionary organization,
the Black Beret Cadre, which had
been widely supported by many
young Bermudians, was connected
to the killings. The Black Berets,
usually never attaining a member9
ship of more than 100, modelled
themselves on the American Black
Panthers. In fact, many of its members had close connections with
Black Panthers in the United States.
Although two black Bermudians
allied with the Berets were tried
and executed for the murders, the
weak response of the government
in establishing a wider conspiracy
effectively swept the whole affair
under the carpet.
The Assassinations
The first murder was committed on
September 9, 1972 and the victim
was Bermuda Police Commissioner
(Police Chief) George Duckett, a
British expatriate officer who had
previously served in a number of
British colonies around the world.
Duckett had been lured to the back
porch of his home, Bleak House,
North Shore in Devonshire, where
he was ambushed by his killer, or
killers.
The Bermuda Police, ill-equipped
to deal with a major murder enquiry, sought the assistance of
Britain’s Scotland Yard which had
been involved in prior murder
investigations on the island during
the previous decade. Scotland Yard
flew a team of detectives out to the
colony.
A substantial reward was offered by
the Bermudian Government, but
neither money nor murder squad
detectives could raise any clues to
the killer’s identity. The new governor of Bermuda, Sir Richard Sharples, a sailing friend of UK Prime
Minister Edward Heath, suspected
the involvement of the Black Beret
Cadre. Although a number of Black
Beret members were interviewed,
none were charged with the mur10
der.
Following the British detectives’
return to London, and exactly
six months to the day since the
police chief was killed, Governor
Sharples and his aide Captain
Hugh Sayers were shot dead in
the grounds of the Governor’s
Mansion in the capital city of
Hamilton. Once again a team of
detectives was requested to investigate the murders. With no more
evidence than that three or four
black men were seen or heard
running from the scene of the
latest shootings and a conviction
that the two murders were linked
with that of the police chief, the
detectives once more led a massive hunt for the killers but after
months of trying to find them
they eventually conceded defeat.
The assassins of the police chief
and governor were so confident of
their ability to elude police they
struck again in the capital city
Hamilton on April 6, 1973. Two
white shopkeepers, Mark Doe and
Victor Rego, were found dead on
the floor of their store. They had
been shot with a .32 pistol although
some .22 bullets were left at the
scene of the crime. The .22 bullets
indicated a link with the murder of
Police Chief George Duckett. With
what now appeared to be a further
embarrassment to the Bermuda
Government, Scotland Yard detectives were once more called to
investigate. A new and enlarged
Scotland Yard police team arrived
in Bermuda and in desperation the
Bermuda Government offered a
reward of $3 million for information leading to the apprehension of
the killers.
In September 1973, the Bank of
Erskine Burrows
Bermuda was robbed of $28,000 by
an armed man, Buck Burrows, and
on October 18th detectives, acting
on a tip off, arrested him. After a
second man, Larry Tacklyn, was arrested and charged, and with a large
reward still outstanding, information began to trickle in confirming
the involvement of the two men
in the five murders. For the next
two years police gathered evidence
against the accused men who were
held on remand in Casemates
Prison, situated at the western tip
of the island. By November 1975
an inquest jury had concluded that
both men had been responsible for
the governor’s assassination “with
other persons unknown.”
In 1976, Burrows and Tacklyn were
charged with the murders of Sir
Richard Sharples, Captain Hugh
Sayers, Victor Rego and Mark Doe.
Bermuda continued p. 27
The Case for Ted Kuhl’s Innocence
In 1997, Ted Kuhl was convicted and sentenced to
40 years in prison for murdering his girl friend, Janet
Nivinski, in Loves Park, Illinois. Reporter Harriet Ford
presents the case for his innocence.
J
by Harriet Ford
ust after midnight on December 6, 1996, Janet Nivinski, a
28-year-old, blue-eyed blonde, was murdered beside her car
in the parking lot of a strip mall in Loves Park, Illinois, a small
township located outside Rockford, Illinois in Winnebago
County. The bullet that killed her was fired assassination style,
six inches from her head.
During the last week of Janet’s life, she had been investigating
a discrepancy at Amcore Bank, where she was responsible for
transferring large sums of money overseas. She spoke to a male
friend about it. She was disturbed and said, “I can’t say what
it is right now, but something is not right at the bank.” A bank
employee was fired that week. Police interviewed him and dismissed him as a suspect.
An unknown man also stalked Janet a few weeks before her
death. A neighbor woman became suspicious and jotted down
for Janet and she took it home to
the license number of his car, but
decorate
this number was lost –one of several pieces of possible evidence to
Ted went to deliver a gift to Janet’s
be misplaced.
mother, Sandy Ostrander, but she
was not home.
Janet and her best friend Christa
Peterson were planning to fly to
Later that evening, Janet met Ted
California together in January.
Janet’s boyfriend, 48-year-old Ted
and a group of seven friends including Dan Johnson, Ricky MuelKuhl, surprised the two women
ler, and Christa Peterson met at the
with plane tickets, which he had
Backyard Bar and Grill for a late
purchased for them, possibly as an
supper. Located in the Loves Park
early Christmas gift.
Meadowmart strip mall, the bar
stayed open past midnight because,
Earlier on Janet’s last day, Ted took
her shopping for a Christmas tree
according to the bar tender, everyone was having an enjoyable time,
at a lot owned by his friend, Dan
laughing and bantering with him as
Johnson. The pair spent over an
well as each other.
hour picking out just the right
tree. Dan said they were having
an enjoyable and affectionate time
The only member of the group
who seemed a little out of sorts
together. Ted purchased the tree
Ted Kuhl
was Christa. She did not like what
she considered flirtatious behavior
toward her from Ricky Mueller, a
married man whose wife was not
present.
At a previous social gathering, Janet
also had voiced concern about
Mueller, telling a friend, Carol
Brannon: “Rick gives me the creeps.
I don’t trust him. He told Ted that
women are like a raccoon scratching in the garbage can. You shoot
‘em and they just keep coming
back. That remark was meant for
me.”
The Stalker in the Bomber Jacket
Outside in the strip mall parking lot, a man in a leather bomber
11
jacket and ball cap kept pacing
around the perimeter. Two security guards grew suspicious and
asked him what he was doing. The
unknown man snarled a few curse
words. Then he said, “I’m waiting
for someone inside.”
The temperature was 28 degrees,
yet the man continued to walk the
parking lot for more than an hour
instead of entering a place of business. He made a call from a payphone to young woman who is the
daughter of a gang member. After
midnight, the guards went home.
The strip mall parking lot lights
blipped out. The stalker was veiled
in darkness.
Many vehicles were still parked in
the area because the Game Place
was just closing. Around 1:18 a.m.,
Ted and Janet decided to leave the
Backyard Bar and Grill. Other people left also. Ted walked out with
Janet and Christa. Ricky Mueller,
a longtime friend of Ted’s, headed
for his car parked near Ted’s pickup
at the far north end of the lot and
some distance away.
Several blocks away, he used his
cell phone to call 911. In a panicky
voice, he reported someone had
just been gunned down, and he
provided a description of a suspect
in a leather bomber jacket, baseball
cap, and tan pants. This is the same
description later furnished by two
additional witnesses, the security
guards, who saw a man walking in
the area just prior to Janet’s murder.
Stopping to grab Christa, who was
trying to crawl under her car, Ted
rushed her back inside the restaurant and shouted, “Someone just
shot my girl!”
Dan Johnson ran outside with Ted.
They found Janet lying in a pool
of blood, clearly beyond help. The
bullet from a .357 Magnum entered
her head on the right temple area
and exploded in her brain.
Loves Park Police arrived within
three minutes. During those three
minutes, Ted ran from vehicle to
vehicle pounding on windshields
and demanding, “Who did this?”
Dan remained with him.
Ted and Janet stopped at Christa’s
car and said their goodnights.
Christa began scraping ice from her
frosted windshields. Walking five
or six stalls farther on, Ted kissed
Janet goodnight beside her car.
Loves Park Chief of Police Darryl
Lindberg arrived and said he didn’t
like Ted’s angry behavior. He asked
an officer to seat Ted in the back
of a squad car. He also said, “You’d
better check his vehicle for a gun.”
At 1:26 a.m. Ted turned to walk
away. He heard Janet scream. He
heard four to five shots ring out and
zing past his head. He began running in a zigzag pattern as if dodging bullets, according to a shopkeeper who heard a bullet strike his
storefront window and looked out.
The Bearded, Barefoot Man
Ricky panicked, gunned his van,
and sped away from the scene.
12
An excited witness at the crime
scene pointed to a vehicle and said,
“There he goes!” For no other reason than he apparently saw a guy
jump inside and gun the engine.
An officer made a traffic stop and
conducted a “field interview.” He
found the bearded driver, barefoot
and bare-chested despite the sub-
freezing temperature outside. Giving his name as Darrel D. Weichert,
the driver was allowed to leave the
scene, based solely on his denial of
any involvement. Weichert was not
asked to step out of the car. The officer did not check for bloody shoes
or shirt. He apparently regretted
this.
A short time later, the same officer (apparently realizing he had
made a serious mistake) knocked
at Weichert’s door in Loves Park,
and the man appeared without
the beard. He did not shave it off,
because according to coworkers, he
had never worn a beard. His story
was that he had been out doing
drugs and removed his shoes so
he wouldn’t wake his wife. Police
evidently believed it. Could he have
been the unknown man walking
the lot in the bomber jacket? Street
gang members were known to wear
that style of jacket.
WROK Radio man Fred Speer arrived to photograph the body. He
said the area was so dark he had to
turn headlights on from five feet
away in order to see Janet’s corpse.
Officers drove Ted and Christa to
the station to take their statements.
From blocks away, Ricky phoned
the Backyard Bar and Grill to ask if
Ted had been shot. Then he drove
to the police station and gave Ted a
consoling hug. Police took his statement also.
Christa and Ted gave short simple
statements to Loves Park police and
were allowed to go home. Their
vehicles were kept overnight inside
the yellow crime-scene ribbon.
Ted Kuhl Cont. Page 30
Before Lizzie Borden
Five months after the author’s grandfather was sentenced to only 10 years
for the shooting death of his father in
Fall River, Massachusetts, Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the axe murders
of her father and stepmother in Fall
River, Massachusetts. Was Lizzie inspired by the public sympathy and light
sentence meted out to her townsman?
by Thomas D. McDougall
When I retired in March of 2011, I finally
had the opportunity to complete
several projects that I had put aside
for many years. The first and most
important to me personally was the
completion of a family history that
I had started in the 1980’s. The advancement of genealogy information and its availability on the Internet afforded me an opportunity that
I had never been able to utilize in
my earlier search for information.
was a wealth of information available from personal recollection
and subsequent research t hat filled
in the gaps. I began to think that
my family history project could be
finalized in short order. As I turned
to my father’s side of the family I
realized just how little I knew and
how wrong I was with respect to
my projected finish date. The other
fact that began to emerge from my
My parents had both been born and research was the wealth of surprises
and skeletons that come out in the
raised in Fall River, Massachusetts,
open during an in-depth genealogy
a city rich in history that had been
project. In my case, it was the mura magnet for immigrants from the
British Isles and Europe during the der of my great–grandfather, James
McDougall, by the hand of my
mid and late 1800’s. They flocked
to the area in search of employgrandfather, James McDougall Jr.
ment in one of the city’s many mills
and supporting industries. ConAt this juncture I should point out
that my paternal grandfather was
sequently I was familiar with the
city and the story of Lizzie Borden. born in 1866 and died in 1947.
My father was the youngest in the
What I never knew and was probfamily and was raised by his three
ably never known by family members was our own peripheral consisters after the death of his mother
in 1925, when he was 4 years old. I
nection to the Lizzie Borden case.
never knew my paternal grandfather, and even my father was not
My mother’s family had emigrated
that familiar with his early life other
from England in 1910 and there
than the fact that he was born in
Scotland and became a carriage
painter when he came to America.
He and his parents and four siblings came to America in 1873, and
settled in Fall River where the elder
McDougall worked as a carpenter.
My own research confirmed this
information.
In 1892, James McDougall Jr. had
found work as a carriage painter
in New York City and was sending
money home to help his mother
pay the bills. Research revealed that
there was some significant family
strife that led to the separation of
James McDougall Sr. and his wife
Catherine. She subsequently took
up separate residence with the children. The younger James’s disappointment with how the separation
developed and was being played
out led to a major confrontation
between him and his father.
On January 29, 1892, James McDougall Jr. returned to Fall River
from New York City to effect
13
reconciliation between his parents. He met his father on the pier
of the Fall River Line where they
walked and discussed the family’s
domestic strife. At one end of the
pier the discussion grew heated and
James Jr. drew a five-chambered
Swift revolver and shot his father
five times. The account from a local
newspaper, The Fall River Daily
Globe, gave a more graphic description of the shooting:
At the time of the shooting the men
were not eight feet apart. One of
the bullets went through the flesh,
under the chin which was bearded.
Another went through the left
sleeve between the shoulder and
elbow. The shirt was not torn but
the arm was scarred. A third bullet went into the father’s left hand
entering in the back below the wrist
and lodging midway between the
palm and back. A fourth plowed
through the overcoat and undercoat
just above the middle of the stomach, and the fifth most miraculously of all, tore through the overcoat,
undercoat, jumper and undervest,
and stopped only when it had made
a small dent in a starched white
shirt an inch below the heart.
What could have caused such a desperate act on the part of my grandfather? Newspapers of the day,
including the news article from The
Fall River Daily Globe cited below,
reported many aspects of the assault and its aftermath. Two police
officers on the pier had observed
James Jr. smash a revolver against
the wall of the building and learned
from him that he had just shot his
father. The officers immediately arrested him and transported him to
the marshal’s office where Marshal
Hilliard questioned him.
14
McDougall told a straightforward
and in many ways a pitiful story to
the city marshal, and it is not pleasant to say that the circumstances
leading up to the shooting necessitates the unraveling of an unhappy
yarn of domestic life.
According to the story told by his
wife and his eldest son James, he
has not lived happily with his wife
for 18 years. He has always held
the purse strings in the household
economy and while his family may
have been stinted, it is alleged that
he has gone to his work with a wad
in his pocket.
He has compelled his wife to
provide for his family on a basis of
$1.85 a head per week she says, and
when the expenditures exceeded
that amount he has cursed and
swore and displayed an ungovernable temper. Four months ago or
thereabouts his wife thought she
had reached a point where she
should not bear with his peculiarities any longer.
One Saturday night the father went
home and found that the wife and
daughter had repaired a kitchen
carpet. The daughter had been kept
from work while the bit of household economy was being accomplished. When the father learned
of this he raved and stormed and
ordered the mother to leave the
house just as he had frequently
done before.
to Dr. Leary’s residence where it
was determined he was too weak
to have an operation to remove the
bullet from his hand. He was then
taken to his home at 89 Third Street
(bordering the backside of the Borden residence located at 92 Second
Street). He remained in a weakened state not only from the shooting, but from an illness suffered at
his work several months earlier.
Newspapers reported that he had
wanted to avoid prosecution of his
son and was more worried about
the disposition of the case than the
result of his wounds.
Meanwhile, the younger James
was arraigned in the district court
the day after the shooting. He was
charged with assault on his father
with a dangerous weapon, to wit, a
pistol loaded with powder and shot.
He pled guilty, but, as reported by
The Fall River Daily Globe, Marshal
Hilliard addressed the court saying:
This was one of the unfortunate occurrences which came to the notice
of the police. It grew out of family
difficulties. McDougal, he said, had
been employed as a painter in New
York and did all he could toward
the support of his mother who lived
apart from the father.
If this boy’s story to me is true, Your
Honor, I can readily see how he
could be worked up into a state of
mind during which he could shoot
his father. I have great sympathy
for him and have drawn this comThe mother accepted an offer to
plaint so that this court can take juleave the house and accept $3 a
risdiction. The father bears a good
week. Monday morning she left,
reputation at Tripp’s shop where
taking only a spring bed and the
he was employed, but his conduct
clothes she wore, and went to live in there could differ very widely from
a stone cottage on Pleasant Street.
his actions in the family circle.
James McDougall Sr. was first taken
Before Lizzy cont. p.38
Dirty Laundry: Cold Case 84-137640
For survivors, cold case investigators and the public, solving old
homicide cases offers the perfect
win- win situation. Beyond the
altruistic benefits, though, cold
case squads provide a goldmine
of good ink for law enforcement
agencies. So what's the ultimate
bad ink? Botched investigations.
Lawmen will go to great lengths
to hide their dirty laundry –
such as Harris County Sheriff 's
Office Case No. 84-137640.
by James R. Melton
W
hen Joe Floyd Collins awoke
on October 12, 1984, he was exactly
six weeks shy of his 46th birthday.
Life expectancy tables generously
offered him another 32 years on
earth. On that autumn evening, as
the sun sank over the Southeast
Texas prairie, the squeeze of a trigger instantly changed the prospect
of a long life into the reality of an
early grave.
For the middle-aged man some
knew as Floyd and others called
Joe, luck was fast running out. But
the robber who shot him had the
unexpected good fortune to gain
the oddest bedfellow — the Harris
County Sheriff 's Office.
Fumbling and stumbling from the
outset, Texas's largest sheriff 's department all but guaranteed a killer
would get a free pass and Joe Floyd
Collins's murder would wind up
quickly — and quietly —in the cold
case bin.
Even a quarter of a century later,
Sgt. Eric Clegg said he had searched
all of the Harris County Sheriff 's
Office’s cold cases from the 1980s.
He couldn't find records of the
one-of-a-kind robbery-murder at
a liquor store in Huffman, a mix of
suburbs and farms at the county's
far northeast corner. In 2009, Clegg
was one of two sergeants assigned
to the cold case squad.
A year later, presented with the
victim's name, a date, crime details
and the actual Harris County Sheriff 's Office case number, 84-137640,
the sergeant acknowledged the
case's existence and reopened the
investigation.
Over time many reasons emerged
to explain why Clegg would seek
to keep the cold case locked in the
deep freezer and out of public sight.
And he may have inadvertently
revealed in a 2011 news story that
most likely he knew the case's status
and whereabouts all along.
Today case files and other official
records detailing Joe Floyd Collins's murder remain off limits to
this writer's eyes. But a review of
the few available documents, along
with recent witness recollections,
provides ample information to lay
bare the string of Harris County
Sheriff 's Office blunders that torpedoed and sank the investigation
into the liquor store owner's death.
The Murder of Joe Floyd Collins
On that fateful fall day, it was mere
chance that Joe Floyd Collins was
working at all. Usually an employee
ran his store. But Floyd had recently fired the clerk and could not find
a stand-in for that Friday.
So he worked alone at his County
Line Liquor, aptly named because
the store occupied a 12-by-24-foot
maroon portable metal building
beside Farm-to-Market 1960 in
far northeast Harris County, just
90 feet from neighboring Liberty
County.
In the 1960s and 1970s, “Nineteensixty” was truly the Promised Land
15
for the Houston area's unbounded
opportunity and explosive suburban growth.
But that explosive growth had
never spread east of Lake Houston.
So County Line Liquor remained
a forlorn outpost on a weeded
postage stamp-sized lot squeezed
between FM 1960 and the Union
Pacific Railroad tracks.
It shared far more with nearby
bucolic Dayton, 12 miles farther
east in Liberty County, than bustling urban Houston, 30 miles to
the southwest. Although the nearest
business was at least a mile away, it
still seemed the ideal location for
attracting thirsty customers from
neighboring Liberty County's dry
Precinct 4.
County Line Liquor's isolated location also made it a perfect target
for a predator to strike with little
fear of detection. For Collins, the
shotgun he kept hidden behind the
counter seemed to level the playing
field. So he took his chances.
Despite Floyd's buckshot bravado,
an emboldened gunman fired a
single bullet into his stomach,
grabbed the day's receipts — $30 or
so — and abandoned the bleeding
victim on the floor of his store.
In Huffman on that Fridayin October, the sun set at 6:53 p.m. In the
twilight just after 7 p.m., customers Henry Zarsky and wife Norma
from Liberty County's nearby
Eastgate Community stopped by
County Line Liquor. They were
heading home after inspecting one
of Henry's soybean fields.
Henry entered and walked to the
cooler, grabbed a six-pack and
16
hoisted it onto the counter. To
his surprise, he spied Floyd lying
mortally wounded on the floor in a
spreading pool of crimson.
Hurrying to the door, Henry frantically summoned Norma. She called
the Harris County Sheriff 's Office.
Then the bleeding liquor store
owner asked Norma to call his wife.
So Norma dialed again. She passed
on the urgent news to the victim's
wife at her home in the Tanner
Settlement near Hull in far northeast Liberty County. The message
touched off a desperate race — a
race that would have no winners.
Patricia Ann Collins, the wounded
man's wife, dashed more than 30
miles diagonally across most of Liberty County, driving through three
townsand countless traffic signals,
to reach the liquor store.
She arrived to find no ambulance,
no emergency medical technicians,
no patrol cars, and no lawmen. Just
a trio of somber onlookers. And a
dead husband.
Somehow, when getting the address
right meant life or death, the Harris
County Sheriff 's Office apparently
dispatched emergency responders
to an area almost 10 mileswest of
the liquor store.
Such a dispatching error would
spell disaster for paramedics and
investigators alike — and for Joe
Floyd Collins who would bleed to
death awaiting help.
All along, that help had been available no more than four minutes
away at Houston Fire Department
Station 65, just 3.43 miles from
County Line Liquor and the dying
Joe Floyd Collins.
If Station 65 had gotten a call to the
crime scene, emergency technicians
might have been able to stanch the
loss of precious blood, infuse vital
fluids, minimize the effects of shock
and summon a Life Flight helicopter.
So Floyd mighthave had a chance
to live. Those chances can't be independently assessed now because the
HCSO, through the Texas Attorney
General's Office, blocked release of
Collins's autopsy results.
Deputies were not at the liquor
store either. So the crime scene
was not secured in a timely manner, possibly allowing onlookers to
contaminate the store's interior and
exterior areas.
But a single clue recovered at
Floyd's autopsy — the bullet that
took his life — should have been a
real game-changer. It offered both
a path to solving the crime and a
second chance for the snake-bitten
Harris County Sheriff 's Office. This
thimble-sized glob of lead promised to be the Holy Grail needed to
unravel the mystery of the murder
of Joe Floyd Collins.
Yet the tattletale clue was only half
of the puzzle. Solving the riddle
required finding the weapon that
fired the fatal bullet.
Cracking the Cold Case
Collins's murder case had lain
frozen for 25 years when, in 2009,
an informant contacted the Harris
County Sheriff 's Office cold case
squad to offer information about
Cold Case Continued p. 38
Butchers continued
thal thug and possessed brains as
well as brawn. It was through the
UVF and other such groups that
Murphy combined his unrelenting
anti-Catholicism with the technical
skills and personal contacts needed
to assemble and lead the Shankill
Butchers. Murphy furthered his
“education” by regularly attending
trials as a spectator, becoming a
regular feature in the public gallery.
Murphy clearly wanted to understand policing and the law in order
to frustrate them. Studying the legal
system was an excellent opportunity to find its inherent weaknesses
and later use them to evade and
obstruct law enforcement. If he
already intended a campaign of
purely sectarian murder, he was
actively laying the foundations by
this point.
The victims came from an unusually broad variety of backgrounds.
Most were Catholics (chosen simply for being Catholics), some were
killed in personal feuds with one
or more Butchers, a few were other
Loyalists killed in factional feuds
and others were what the military
call “collateral damage” (they happened to be in the wrong places at
the wrong times). Such was Murphy’s dominance over his gang that,
even after he had been imprisoned
on unrelated firearms charges,
other Butchers continued to kill on
his personal orders as he felt that
continued killings would hamper
police efforts to see him convicted
of serial murder. Murphy was so
confident of his absolute command
that he sometimes called himself
the “Master Butcher.”
One of the things that marks the
Butchers as serial killers rather
than paramilitaries is their collective desire for power and domination, a desire to act as they pleased
regardless of the damage to others
and to kill out of hatred and sheer
enjoyment rather than furthering any political goals. It would be
wrong to say that their paramilitary links were purely incidental
to their crimes. Their environment
(religious, political, social and
criminal) was the breeding ground
from which they came together
and played a sizeable part in local
citizens being terrified to speak
out. The “Troubles” weren’t by any
means a sideshow, but I’d argue that
their crimes were far more about
personal gratification than devotion
to a cause.
The methods varied as much as the
victims. The standard method was
for a group of Butchers to cruise the
Shankill district in a black taxicab
similar to those used in London.
All the Butchers knew the Shankill
district intimately. They knew
which routes Catholics used to
pass through the Shankill, the best
escape routes, that local residents
were terrified to co-operate with
the police, fearing both the Butchers themselves or the paramilitaries with whom many Butchers
had links. The Shankill was their
personal hunting ground and they
used it to indulge a combined passion for sadistic murder, confident
that those who knew or suspected
their identities were highly unlikely to inform. They inspired such
extreme fear that local people took
a different route if they saw a black
cab parked in the Shankill that
looked remotely out of place.
“The Cut-Throat Murders”
Once victims were chosen they
were overpowered and dragged into
the back of the cab. Once inside
they were beaten, slashed, choked
and then (depending on the Butchers’ whim) probably killed and
dumped in public places where
they were sure to be found. One
victim was deliberately left within
a minute’s walk of the local police
headquarters. If the Butchers were
feeling particularly sadistic their
victim was kept alive and taken to
one of several locations considered secure and safe (especially the
Lawnbrook Social Club, a Loyalist
drinking den). Victims were then
gratuitously tortured until either
they died or the Butchers became
bored and silenced them permanently. The level of sadism especially distinguished the Butchers from
other criminals in Northern Ireland. Not only did they kill for little
or no political or paramilitary gain,
they reveled not only in killing for
killing’s sake, but also in making
their crimes as barbarous as possible. Neither sadism nor recreational
killing were common practice, even
in a place as troubled and violent as
1970’s Northern Ireland.
Other victims died through poisoning, gunshot wounds, a bomb
attack and simply being beaten to
death. Unlike the victims of many
serial killers, they had few common denominators, there was little
to indicate a pattern of the kind a
psychological profiler might find
useful. All that usually linked the
victims was their Catholic religion,
the violence of the murders and the
fact that they all occurred within
the Shankill district, but the Butchers did have one particular trademark that stood out. Many victims
were found with their throats cut,
several were cut so severely that
they were almost decapitated before
17
being dumped in public places
where they were always going to be
found quickly. The victims’ bodies also usually bore the signs of
torture before death and mutilation
afterwards. Merely killing wasn’t
enough for the Butchers; they had
to embellish their crimes as well
which indicates a greater interest in
killing for pleasure over killing on a
professional basis. Torture, throatcutting and mutilation were their
hallmarks, leading to local people
and the press referring to their
crimes as “the cut-throat murders.”
In total, at least 30 individual murders have been attributed to various
Butchers between Murphy’s first
kill in 1972 and the Butchers’ last
known killing in 1982.
The Romper Room
Murphy’s first personal victim was
Francis Arthurs in July 1972. Arthurs was a Catholic and had been
travelling through the Shankill in
a taxi from the predominantly Nationalist Ardoyne district. The taxi
was hijacked and Arthurs was taken
to the Lawnbrook Social Club, a
Loyalist drinking den. Arthurs
was dragged into what club members called the “romper room,” a
room set aside for what they called
“rompering.” Rompering always
involved violence and degradation,
often torture and sometimes murder. Torture sessions and punishment beatings in the romper room
were usually conducted in front
of an audience as the torturers felt
making spectators into accessories
made them keep quiet. Arthurs
would never leave the romper room
alive. He was held prisoner until
non-paramilitary customers had
gone home and then the remaining drinkers took turns beating and
torturing him. Every thug present
18
took their turn before beating Arthurs as a group. He was then shot
and dumped on a Shankill street
less than a mile from the crime
scene.
One of those involved later admitted that one of the gang, a 20-year
old man, was especially violent
and sadistic. He made a point of
delivering more blows and hitting
harder than anyone else as though
he had something to prove or a
particular level of hatred. The same
man also tortured Arthurs with a
knife just before the shooting. It
was Lenny Murphy, the story of the
Shankill Butchers had begun and
there was no turning back.
Murphy in The Maze
The killings continued. Three more
victims swiftly followed Francis
Arthurs. All were sadistic, involved
considerable torture before death
and were seemingly for no political motive while all were similar
enough that police believed they
were the work of the same killer.
After the UVF-ordered murder of
William Pavis (a Protestant suspected of selling firearms to Republicans) Murphy and his accomplice,
Mervyn Connor, were arrested
and Connor folded. He confessed,
implicating Murphy as the actual
shooter. Both ended up in Crumlin
Road jail awaiting trial.
Unfortunately for the prosecution,
Connor then suffered fatal cyanide poisoning, a supposed suicide
note detailing his immense guilt
at “falsely” implicating Murphy. It
later transpired that Murphy had
dictated the note for Connor and
then forcibly fed him the poison.
Connor lingered overnight and
died the next morning. Two prison
officers specifically assigned to
guard Connor were mysteriously
distracted into watching television
with other inmates. Seemingly in
spite of their specific assignment
to protect Mervyn Connor night
and day they didn’t see Murphy
approach Connor’s cell, they didn’t
hear him dictating the fake suicide
note and false confession and they
didn’t hear Murphy holding Connor in a headlock while pouring
a phial of cyanide into his mouth.
Murphy was promptly transferred
to Her Majesty’s Prison, Maze
and the case collapsed (with the
star prosecution witness dead, the
remaining evidence wasn’t nearly
enough to take to trial).
Murphy’s time at The Maze was
equally eventful. Back among other
Loyalist paramilitaries he displayed
willful, abrasive and confrontational behavior that caused resentment
among other Loyalist inmates. That
discontent (and his already fearsome reputation) caused many to
view him as a problem but also as
too dangerous to confront openly.
The UVF’s grip on Murphy began
to slip even further, giving him an
even freer hand. Violent confrontations with other Loyalists, some of
whom were far senior to him in the
Loyalist hierarchy, further marked
him as dangerously reckless and,
on his release, even many extremists kept a wary distance from both
Murphy and the tightly-knit clique
he gathered after his release in May
1975.
Murphy’s Inner Circle
There were three men who were
especially keen to follow his lead,
marking them out from other
Butchers who tended to participate
in some murders but not others.
William Moore, Sam McAllister
and a fellow Crumlin Road inmate, Robert “The Basher” Bates,
formed Murphy’s inner circle. They
provided weapons, vehicles and
extra muscle once victims had been
chosen. McAllister and Bates were
mainly there for their violence,
while Moore supplied the black taxi
used in some of the murders, a set
of butcher knives and a meat cleaver stolen from his former workplace
and often firearms as well. William
Moore was perhaps Murphy’s most
obedient follower and ever-present
in the Butchers’ career.
Murphy was married while in jail
and the couple had a baby daughter.
With his domestic affairs settled
down (as much as they ever would
be) it was time for Murphy to stop
killing alone and begin leading the
Butchers as a unit. The Butchers’
first collective crime was also one of
their most destructive, involving an
armed robbery at Casey’s Bottling
Plant, a local liquor wholesaler.
Paramilitaries on both sides often
supplemented their income with
crimes such as drug dealing, extortion and robberies and the Butchers
were no exception. Casey’s was a
lucrative target. It would also be the
scene of a quadruple murder committed, not out of necessity, but on
sectarian grounds. Once Murphy
and his accomplices forced their
way into the plant and detained the
four staff present, Murphy discovered that they were all Catholics.
His response was to simply execute
them all.
Marie McGrattan, Frances Donnelly, Gerard Grogan and Thomas
Osbourne paid with their lives for
the crime of following a different
religion. Only weeks later, in late
November 1975, Catholic Francis
Crossen was found dead, severely
beaten and with his throat cut, in
a Shankill alleyway. Five days later
it was UVF member Noel Shaw,
shot dead in an internal UVF feud.
In January 1976 Catholic Edward
McQuaid was murdered in a
drive-by shooting and in February
another Catholic, Thomas Quinn,
was found stabbed to death in the
Shankill. Archibald Hanna and
Raymond Carlisle were both Protestants but, the Butchers having
mistaken them for Catholics, they
were promptly shot dead while they
sat in their delivery truck only three
days after the discovery of Thomas
Quinn. Two weeks after they were
killed, Catholic Francis Rice was
found stabbed to death in a doorway.
Murphy Orders Killings from
Prison
Then the Butchers took what was,
by their standards, a long hiatus. In
March of 1976 Murphy attempted
the drive-by shooting of a Catholic
woman. He was arrested later the
same day and jailed to await trial
for attempted murder. After many
months on remand (and without a
killing attributed to the Butchers)
he made a plea bargain in October,
1977 and received a 12 year jail
sentence. Shortly after his arrest he
received visits from two men still
identified for legal reasons only as
“Mr. A” and “Mr. B.” Through “Mr.
A” Murphy ordered that the killings should continue, partly due to
his own desire to kill and partly to
divert suspicion for the previous
murders away from himself. “Mr.
A” and “Mr. B” now became Murphy’s representatives, passing his
orders to the rest of the gang. Such
was Murphy’s dominance over his
followers that only months after his
sentencing the killings restarted.
After Francis Rice’s murder it wasn’t
until August of 1976 that another
victim was found. Cornelius Neeson was discovered lying on a
Shankill street corner having been
beaten to death with a hatchet. At
the end of October, 1976 Catholic
Stephen McCann was discovered,
stabbed and shot to death, not far
from where Thomas Quinn had
been found. Only five days before
Christmas of 1976 a 22-year old
Protestant, Thomas Easton, was
found beaten to death near the sites
of the Quinn and McCann murders.
The new year began with a short
break for the Butchers, followed
by another murder. On January 31
Loyalist paramilitary James Moorehead, a member of the rival Ulster
Defence Association (UDA), was
found lying on a Shankill pavement having been beaten to death.
Moorehead’s death was the result of
a personal dispute rather than for
paramilitary reasons. He had fallen
foul of the Butchers and paid the
usual price. On February 3 (again
within walking distance of where
Quinn, McCann and Easton had
been murdered) another Catholic, Joseph Morrissey, was found
hacked to death with a hatchet. Late
in March of 1977, Francis Cassidy (another Catholic) was found
stabbed and shot to death lying on
a grassy knoll in the Shankill.
Kevin McMenamin was perhaps
the most tragic victim of the Butchers and also by far the youngest.
He was only 7 years old when a
Loyalist bomb planted by one of the
Butchers exploded outside a known
Republican club during a parade
marking the anniversary of the
19
1916 Easter Rising. The Butchers
hadn’t targeted him directly, but the
bomb they planted killed him just
the same.
Gerard McLaverty (yet another
Catholic) was a true rarity among
the Butchers’ victims in that he was
their only victim to survive an attack. He was found in an alleyway
having been slashed, stabbed and
beaten. After emergency medical treatment he survived and was
driven round the Shankill district
by RUC detectives who’d been
working to catch the Butchers for
several years, albeit with a conspicuous lack of success. McLaverty
was actually able to identify the
men who had attacked him, spotting them from the car as armed
detectives drove him round the
Shankill district. McLaverty was the
last known victim of the Shankill
Butchers until 1982 by which time
many of the Butchers were behind
bars.
Many were behind bars, but not
all. Murphy served only six years
of his 12-year sentence on firearms
charges, but his influence was still
ever-present around the Shankill.
While he was in jail, murders attributed to the Butchers ceased for
several years but didn’t end with the
failed attack on Gerald McLaverty.
One of Murphy’s reasons for often
attending trials as a young man was
to know his enemy. By accumulating first-hand knowledge of police
procedures, criminal law and the
workings of the Northern Ireland
court system, Murphy had evolved
a number of ways to hamper police
investigations. Their known links
to paramilitary groups inspired fear
of retribution. The culture among
many living in Northern Ireland
20
was to avoid informing in
general, owing to either a
distrust or hatred of the
police or out of a simple
desire to avoid being
maimed or murdered.
Fear is a very powerful
weapon when used wisely
and the Shankill Butchers used it to great effect.
It was to further confuse
the police and aid his
own chances of escaping
prosecution that Murphy
ordered his followers to
restart the killings a few
years later. He knew that
Chief Inspector Jimmy Nesbit
while he was in jail he
the McLaverty attack (and periphwas less feared (making
the chance of somebody informing eral gang member named Edwards)
the police that little bit greater) and and their known associates. With a
solid witness who was prepared to
he also wanted to lay the groundtalk, Nesbitt knew that there was alwork for denying any involvement
because the killings continued even ways a chance that a suspect would
either talk to save himself or let slip
after he had been jailed on unresome vital information accidentally.
lated charges.
DCI Nesbitt was proved right.
The Downfall of the Butchers
McAllister slipped up during questioning, originally admitting only
The Butchers’ downfall finally
his role in the McLaverty attack.
began with their failed attack on
Unfortunately for him, McAllister
Gerald McLaverty. Having left
let slip that he knew far more than
McLaverty for dead the remaining
he should about the type of knife
Butchers seem to have been perused on McLaverty which was very
fectly confident in their security,
similar to that used on a number
confident enough to strut around
of the Butchers’ other victims.
the Shankill in broad daylight
Nesbitt pressed the point, pushed
without seeming overly concerned
every suspect he questioned and
about being caught. Their arroeventually many of the Butchers
gant carelessness gave McLaverty
and their associates finally admitted
the chance to identify his attacktheir respective roles in the gang.
ers and gave the police (perpetuThe prime mover in all the vioally meeting a wall of silence) the
lence was overwhelmingly named
breakthrough they so desperately
needed. With McLaverty’s attackers as Lenny Murphy. Many Butchers
firmly identified, chief investigating directly implicated him and his two
still-unidentified associates (“Mr.
officer Detective Chief Inspector
A” and “Mr. B”) in both the “cutJimmy Nesbitt was able to order a
throat murders” and various other
series of dawn raids and picked up
paramilitary crimes. However, they
Sam McAllister, his accomplice in
later retracted their stories after, it
is claimed by some, intimidation
from the senior members of the
UVF. Lenny Murphy (still serving
his firearms sentence), “Mr. A” and
“Mr. B” were all questioned several
times regarding the Butchers’ inquiry but prosecutors (lacking either
corroborative witnesses or forensic
evidence against these three suspects in particular) decided that
none of them would face charges.
The other Butchers were tried during 1978 and on into early 1979.
In February 1979 11 men stood
convicted of a total of 19 murders
and various related offences (not
including the murders attributed to
the Butchers, but lacking final confirmation). In addition to being the
most prolific group of serial killers
in British legal history the Butchers
also collected the longest combined
prison sentences of any criminal
gang in British legal history. Describing their crimes as “A lasting
monument to sectarian bigotry”
Lord Justice O’Donnel handed
down 42 life sentences totaling over
2,000 years among them. He also
had no hesitation in stating that, in
his opinion, those sentences should
carry a “full-life tariff,” meaning life
without the possibility of parole.
Even though it was curtains for
the gang, it wasn’t over for Lenny
Murphy. He’d managed to avoid
even being prosecuted after principal witnesses were allegedly intimidated into recanting their evidence,
leaving the prosecution with
nowhere near enough to take him
to trial. This didn’t stop him killing
for pleasure as soon as he was released. In July, 1982 it was the turn
of a Protestant, 33-year-old Norman Maxwell, who suffered from a
learning disability. He was a quiet,
inoffensive man wouldn’t have been
able to spot the attack coming or
defend himself when it came. In the
end he did neither. He was found
on a patch of waste ground in the
Shankill, beaten to death, only one
day after Murphy’s release. In early
September a Protestant, James
Galway, disappeared. The UVF suspected Galway of being a police informer, what Northern Irish people
call a “tout.” In Northern Ireland
even being suspected of “touting”
was enough to make him a marked
man. After being abducted and shot
dead, Galway’s body was eventually
found crudely buried in a shallow
grave on a local building site.
The penultimate victim was another UVF member, Brian Smyth,
one week after the murder of James
Galway. Smyth was another fellow paramilitary who had made
the mistake of crossing Murphy by
not paying a debt. Smyth did pay
the penalty. He was drinking in a
Loyalist club when his drink was
spiked with a lethal dose of cyanide.
Staggering out of the club and presumably realizing he was already in
grave danger, Smyth was promptly
shot dead by a passenger on a
passing motorcycle. Murphy killed
Brian Smyth over a fairly small debt
that could easily have been resolved
without bloodshed.
The Butchers’ final confirmed
victim was, true to their particular
preference, yet another Catholic. Joseph Donegan was passing
through the Shankill when he
hailed the wrong black taxi. As
soon as he boarded the cab Donegan was attacked and murdered.
He was found dead in a doorway
like many previous victims, having
been viciously beaten to death.
Murphy Gunned Down by the
Provisional IRA
What goes around, comes around.
Murphy had been born into a climate of violence, had inflicted terrible violence of his own and, some
might say appropriately, he died
violently as well. It was Tuesday,
November 16, 1982. Murphy had
been followed into the Glencairn
estate (in the heart of the staunchly
Loyalist Shankill district). He was
standing outside his new girlfriend’s house when a van pulled
up and out jumped two masked,
armed members of the Provisional
IRA. Murphy was hit by over 20
bullets, dying instantly. Speculation
over who ordered the killing was
rife for several days afterward, until
the IRA issued a statement openly
claiming responsibility. By contrast with Murphy’s indiscriminate
butchery, the IRA statement reiterated its policy of “non-sectarian
attacks” that were not based purely
on religious prejudice. The fact that
Murphy was deeply unpopular with
some leading Loyalists, his (Republican) killers did the job in the heart
of the Shankill and that his killers
seemed to know his movements
very well has led to suggestions that
the Loyalist leadership colluded
with the IRA to arrange his murder.
The Republicans sought revenge
for Murphy’s anti-Catholic atrocities, many Loyalists wanted a man
often regarded as a “mad dog” put
to sleep permanently. This might
explain why IRA gunmen found it
so easy not only to track Murphy’s
movements, but to enter the heart
of the Shankill, murder a wellknown Loyalist heavyweight and
still escape unscathed.
A popular suspect for arranging
Murphy’s death is senior UDA
21
figure Jim Craig. Craig had clashed
with Murphy following Murphy’s
release and there was no love lost
between them. Supporting this
theory (unconfirmed though it still
is) is the fact that Craig was himself murdered by UDA members
for what they considered “treason,”
specifically allegations that Craig
arranged for several rival UDA
leaders to be murdered by the
Provisional IRA. A simpler theory
suggests that Murphy was a man
who had made many enemies and
that one of them finally caught up
with him.
Lenny Murphy was buried with full
paramilitary “honors” at Carnmoney Cemetery (ironically, home to
several of his victims) in late November, 1982. His gravestone bears
the phrase “Here lies a soldier.” That
gravestone has since been smashed
and had to be replaced.
Drowning continued
To be sure, ever since 1997 when
21-year-old Patrick McNeill vanished from New York City and
his badly decomposed corpse was
found in the East River several
weeks later, there have been hundreds of documented incidences
of similar disappearances and
drownings in America’s northland.
Moreover, just as diehard believers
in the Smiley Face murder theory
are claiming, there is by now a well
established victimology of young
men meeting such a tragic end.
Police are never able to solve this
vexing syndrome, even if they try,
22
which they usually don’t, so conspiracists think they can.
vehicle, that only certain types of
men are disappearing and drowning, and that Natalie Wood’s death
Every compelling conspiracy theory was hardly an accident.
that goes viral will invariably have
its naysayers and critics though,
Totally valid objections, each and
and chief among those who perievery one of those. Except it’s true
odically strive to debunk the Smiley that intentional drowning does not
Face one is the FBI, the Center for
fit the motif of serial killers, for the
Homicide Research, a handful of
very simple reason that it’s much
expert criminologists and univertoo speedy and bloodless a death
sity professors, and swarms of local, to satisfy their perverse yearnings.
outraged law enforcement agenThese are deeply twisted creatures,
cies that feel self-conscious about
and they seek power and pleasure
clusters of young men drowning in exclusively through sexual assault,
their jurisdictions and don’t want a torture, brutal murder, and dislot of attention drawn to the situamemberment. None of which is
tion.
typically evidenced on the bodies of
drowned men.
It isn’t, after all, an especially appealing feature of any municipality As well, even the most “organized”
to have youths jumping in droves
brand of psychopathic killer is, by
into icy rivers, lakes, ponds, and
virtue of profound mental disorder,
streams and perishing, but all of
incapable of teaming with others,
these authorities state, in no uncer- let alone his own ilk, so the notion
tain terms, that water recreational
of a group of them somehow evaddeaths really aren’t that rare in the
ing capture for more than 15 years,
scheme of things.
while fleetingly amusing to envision, is also rather specious.
More males drown while swimming and boating than females do
Serial killings versus serial killers
anyway.
Whether one is a police detective,
Serial killers do not drown their
a medical examiner, a professional
victims, they also add, so therefore
private eye or a citizen sleuth, the
these young men are simply drink- sharpest tool anyone has for dising too much and, just as poor,
section and analysis will always
drunken Natalie Wood did decades be Occam’s Razor, a tried and true
ago, they’re somehow staggering
principle which posits that the siminto water and accidentally drown- plest hypothesis is most likely to be
ing.
the correct one. Or, as Einstein so
eloquently summed up in decades
It’s a flimsy argument at best, and
past, “Everything should be kept as
since it never fixes the problem op- simple as possible, but no simpler.”
ponents always cry foul in response
to it. They counter with the obviThis is the only sensible approach
ous: that these guys aren’t going
to investigating because, otherwise,
swimming or boating in the winwith every assumption that is made
tertime, that most are barely over
about a thing another possibility for
the legal limit for operating a motor error is introduced into the equa-
tion, increasing the probability that
a theory is wrong…
The theorizing of the public and
police concerning missing/drowned
men are at extreme odds with each
other, producing a stalemate. These
two entrenched beliefs will always
be irreconcilable because one is
constructed on a plethora of odd
assumptions and the other is overly
simplistic.
Sadly, this has left the reasonable
and important question as to why
so many young males are now
ending up dead in the water unanswered. But, while the drownings
are most likely not due to a serial
killing gang being at large in the
region, their frequency shows they
are by no means accidental, either.
Fraternal order of licensed serial
killers....?In fact, stripped of all
rhetoric and assorted red herrings,
the evidentiary facts that have thus
far accumulated in The Case Of
the Drowning Men reveal the vast
majority of victims were last seen
being accosted by bouncers and/or
cops only minutes before vanishing. A sharp razor is hardly necessary then to peel away such a thinly
veiled mystery and see that their
subsequent deaths are, instead,
due to a pattern of excessive force.
Inglorious and shameful as that
truly is.
It’s no secret that cops and bouncers are valued for their skilled aggressiveness, and that far too often
such aggression erupts into acts of
brutality. To address this chronic
problem, technology for subduing people in “nonlethal” ways was
invented, and over the past two
decades such handheld devices
have become so popular and afford-
able that even average citizens can
purchase them now without too
much difficulty or even background
checks.
Unfortunately though, just like
mercilessly pummeling a young
man until he’s rendered unconscious, employing a nonlethal
weapon against him, such as a
stun-gun or taser, can also lead to
sudden death or a deathlike coma,
especially if used improperly or to
excess. Technically, this could be
deemed an accidental consequence,
yes, but it’s clearly not one directly
caused by inebriation.
When in the process of ejecting
a young man from a bar and/or
arresting him in this manner he
does inadvertently die from being
roughed up or repeatedly stunned,
it’s only then and there that a
nearby river, lake, stream or pond
presents itself as the ideal solution
to the gruesomely unexpected.
The motive for such devious thinking is obvious: while disposal and
cover up is an unpleasant business,
it’s better than facing community
backlash and legal ramifications
that result from a wrongful death.
Wrongful death and devious
thinking
As with Natalie Wood's perilous
tumble of convenience, pushing the
dead or mortally injured over the
railing of a ship positioned miles
away from land, or else standing at
the shoreline and heaving them on
the count of three into a body of
freshwater, is a crime after the fact.
A desperate, kneejerk attempt by
the felonious to hide and disguise
the original offense.
And, like Wood, somebody fairly
intoxicated, who’s only been
knocked unconscious or is comatose, could still “naturally” drown
once fully submerged, displaying
all the usual drowning symptoms
when the bodies resurface again:
saturated lungs, foam at the mouth,
high levels of magnesium and
chloride distributed unevenly in
the left and right chambers of the
heart, volumes of watery fluid in
the stomach and diluted blood.
For that matter, anyone who’s ever
studied police forensics 101 knows
that even a stone-cold cadaver can
manage to draw some water into its
air passages, if it soaks long enough.
When and if assault victims ditched
in this underhanded manner are
ever recovered, any telltale contusions and lacerations that may still
be visible can easily be explained
away as well—many bouncers are
actually off-duty cops moonlighting as security for pubs and clubs,
and every police department enjoys
a cozy relationship with the local
coroner’s office.
23
That means it doesn’t take a preplanned, sophisticated plot to pull
off an accidental drowning whenever one becomes necessary, nor to
accomplish the misdeed time and
time again without getting caught.
A few confidential phone calls is all
it would require.
This scheme will make manufactured drowning deaths seem to
qualify as perfect crimes per se, but
the success of the heartless ruse is
dependant entirely on halfhearted
investigations.
Fame and infamy
Thanks to Hollywood, the very
machine that made Natalie Wood
and her embroiled former husband
Robert Wagner superstars, serial
killers too have become celebrities. As a result, the public today
is unabashedly enamored with
such malevolent personalities,
reimagining them as principled and
omnipotent slayers, instead of the
out-of-control sadists and psychos
that they really are.
The present-day enthrallment with
such monsters, promoted by blockbuster films like Silence of Lambs
and Hannibal that grossly misrepresent these antisocial predators,
has also led to widespread fallacies
about them, too. Particularly as it
relates to their prevalence.
In reality, serial killers are but a tiny
fraction of the criminal population,
and tortuous death at the hands
of such deranged strangers only
accounts for slightly less than one
percent of all the murders committed annually. Whereas, in approximately 85 percent of all other
homicides committed within this
same time span, the victims were
acquainted with their attackers.
Many even related to them, either
by blood or through marriage.
Likewise, despite the idea of a serial
drowning gang being a premise
worthy of the big screen, most if
not all missing-found-drowned
males were in fact last observed involved in disputes or physical altercations. So it’s fair to conclude they
were already dead or on the brink
of dying when their bodies were
surreptitiously placed in water. The
drowning events, therefore, were
not the real cause or manner of
their deaths, but rather the violence
that preceded them.
Fists, firearms or whatever, these
kind of regular run-of-the-mill
“crimes of passion,” whether spontaneous or hastily premeditated, in
clear view or covered up, are usually isolated acts of extreme aggression, occurring primarily in the
victims’ residences and, not infrequently, in public gathering places
like bars and discotheques.
Admittedly, the odd serial slaying
now and then by a coldblooded
psychotic may be more luridly
fascinating for some, but the truth
Natalie Wood autpsy - “accidental drowning” overturned 31 years after death
24
is it’s plain old passion, manifested
in the form of a sudden blind and
murderous rage, that is the source
of nearly all homicides worldwide.
Almost every single murder takes
place in the heat of the moment,
during some sort of impromptu
confrontation between two or more
average citizens which rapidly gets
out of hand.
An angry friend or relative, a jilted,
cheated lover, a bouncer annoyed
with a boisterous patron, a cop
on the beat resorting to excessive
force or lethal tasering, a husband
feeling cuckolded and hell-bent on
revenge…forget about serial killers,
these are society’s homicidal maniacs. Normal people experiencing
heightened emotions that set the
stage for runaway violence which
can, and often does, result in unintended deaths.
Universally, any indirect murder
of this nature is classified as manslaughter, but, regardless that an
assault turning deadly may indeed
have been unanticipated, if the killing wasn’t done in self-defense it
can still carry a pretty hefty prison
sentence. Especially when the perpetrator endeavors to conceal his
crime by secretly disposing of the
victim…
Accidentally on purpose
Apart from the possibility that
someone may have been bribed or
even threatened back in 1981, it’s
not impossible that it was solely due
to the fame of the people present on
the night Natalie Wood drowned
which served to influence the erroneous ruling that her death was
purely an accident.
The testimonies of Wood’s illustri-
Robert Wagner’s yacht, ‘The Splendour’
ous and equally drunken companions on that evening, Robert
Wagner and Christopher Walken,
were always in glaring contradiction, so who knows if LA County’s
former coroner wasn’t a bit starstruck in deliberately choosing to
disregard other qualifying factors,
too. Namely, the couple’s protracted
squabbling on deck and below,
the inordinate delay by Wagner in
reporting his spouse missing, the
ugly remarks he made about her
to first responders, and indications
of assault on her body when it was
finally recovered a short distance
from his yacht.
The hired skipper of The Splendour
at the time has since also described
a long and vicious argument Wagner had with Wood in their cabin
and on deck prior to her falling
overboard, as well as an elaborate
cover-up of the same by the actor
and his representatives in the days,
weeks and months following her
death.
Considering the actress had multiple, days-old bruising when she
disappeared and drowned, the captain’s tale of a final and fatal alterca-
tion between the unhappy twosome
is therefore a credible story. One
that challenges the iconic leading
man’s historical version of exactly
how his 43-year-old, water-phobic
wife entered the Pacific Ocean, and
which, in light of the new inquest
into the actual circumstances of
her drowning and injuries, also
explains why Robert Wagner is
steadfastly refusing to cooperate
with investigators.
Some fans and sympathizers speculate that Wagner, now in his 80s,
has clammed up only on the good
advice of his lawyers. He’s a major
celebrity, a veritable household
name, they argue, and his silence is
not an admission of guilt but rather
to protect his career, his family and
his legacy.
True or false motivations, only
those conducting the fact-finding
mission at this stage in the renewed
inquest will be able one day to tell
us. However, be he a famous man
or just an infamous rogue in hiding, Wagner’s stonewalling should
be viewed no differently than any
other prime suspect attempting to
dodge a worrisome police probe, or,
25
when made to answer under oath,
outright lying or taking the Fifth
to avoid self-incrimination. Acting
belligerent or being uncooperative
speaks for itself.
Not known
In his own brief but comparatively
ordinary existence, 22-year-old
Joshua Aaron Swalls, who somehow disappeared and “accidentally
drowned” while visiting Indianapolis in November 2012, had probably
never even heard of the late, great
Natalie Wood. Nor does it seem
very likely that he’d ever watched
any of her once-groundbreaking
movies either. His was a different
era, one which came to an end for
him much too soon.
Distanced by decades and thousands of miles, not to mention
celebrity status, Joshua Swalls’s
accident and Natalie Wood’s are
obviously two distinctly unique
events that happened to two distinctly unique individuals. Viewing
their drowning deaths in terms of
basic forensics, these are the other
notable differences between them:
1. With a blood/alcohol concentration of 0.14, Natalie Wood was
somewhat intoxicated when she
drowned, and Joshua Swalls was
not.
2. Wood died in saltwater off the
coast of California; Swalls in the
freshwater of a small, Indiana retention pond.
3. Wood’s body was found within
only hours of dying and well before
rigormortis had fully set in; Swalls’s
decomposing corpse wasn’t discovered until three weeks after he’d
vanished.
26
4. Wood was a middle-aged female
of petite stature; Swalls was tall,
athletic and svelte, and had only
just reached manhood.
By contrast, a pond, whether manmade or natural, tends to be quite
shallow. But even if spring-fed, its
waters are relatively calm as well.
Therefore a drown
victim, upon death,
will, gently sink
to the pond’s silty
bottom and then,
when gases from
putrefaction have
filled their corpse
to maximum
capacity, lurch like
a helium balloon
to the surface once
more.
Yet these two November drown victims have uncanny
similarities in their
cases that are impossible to ignore: Both
went missing under
extremely suspicious
circumstances, with
key witnesses to their
disappearances and
Joshua Swalls, murdered in
Indianapolis November 2012
drownings issuing
Water and air
contradictory statetemperature determents to investigators. Both sufmines how quickly a cadaver does
fered virtually identical injuries
that, but in the time between these
prior to dying which were inconsis- inevitable events—sinking, rotting,
tent with those derived in standard and ascending—those in ponds and
drowning events. Both were clad in wide open bodies of seawater will
the type of clothing that clearly im- usually sustain no further injuries
plied they had not planned on goafter death and during decompoing swimming and therefore hadn’t sition, unless nibbled away at by
entered the water voluntarily.
marine animals.
And both of their cases were speedily closed by authorities as accidental, with no signs of foul play
involved in either of them.
Still waters
“The deep blue sea” is, of course,
very deep. But not necessarily peaceful. Still, it’s not the type
of body of water where a drown
victim, once fully immersed, will
be dragged across jagged rocks or
other underwater obstacles. An
action that commonly occurs in
narrower, fast-flowing rivers and
creeks and which contributes to
most postmortem injuries, particularly to the face and hands.
Bodies sunken in a river or creek
naturally sustain more damages
because if the currents are swift
enough corpses can be tossed
against submerged objects and
dragged along stones in a riverbed.
Once refloat finally occurs, they can
then travel on the water’s surface
for several miles before they’re
sighted by anyone. As they’re carried along like that, they can also
collide with docks, barriers and
piers, become ensnared by tree
limbs or other floating debris, and
even get mangled by the propeller
blades of a passing craft.
However, any dedicated examiner
conducting a thorough evaluation
of such wounds can discern the
difference between the ones which
occurred after a victim had expired
and those inflicted while they were
still alive.
in water when not even engaged
in any water-recreational activities
should additionally raise eyebrows.
In each of these troubling cases
Decedent Joshua Swalls was depolice and medical examiners could
livered to the morgue for autopsy
also tell that the odds of either batwith pronounced “contusions of the tered victim diving into that water
right forehead and eyebrow, bridge on their own volition were fairly
of nose, and right zygomatic arch in slim: Joshua Swalls wasn’t drunk,
the shape of a reverse C, continuwasn’t on drugs, wasn’t mentally
ous.” He also had an “abrasion of
defective, and wasn’t going to take
tip of nose” and additional “abraded a quick dip in frigid weather; and
contusions to kneecaps bilateral,
Natalie Wood, who frankly didn’t
and to shins, multiple bilateral, with know how to swim because of an
one underlying a tear in the left
intense dread of water, had no hispants leg.”
tory of ever being reckless with her
life or suicidal.
All of these injuries were judged by
the medical examiner to have been On the other hand, she was known
received before or at the time he
to be in a dragged-out domestic
died, not after.
dispute with a spouse on a drunken
tirade only moments before she
Given the way both Wood and
“accidentally” fell into the Pacific
Swalls presented at autopsy then,
Ocean. A man seeing red that night
each clothed in non-swimming
because he thought Wood and
apparel and plainly beaten, the only Walken were having an affair, and
nagging question left for authorities who’s last words to his doomed wife
to answer was just how these two
were purported to have been “get
black-and-blue people had entered off my f—cking boat.”
the water where they drowned and
who it was that had previously
It took the people who cared about
assaulted them, since neither an
her more than 30 years to achieve,
ocean nor a pond could have posbut at last the dubious ruling on
sibly caused all their injuries.
Natalie Wood’s manner of death
has been overturned and the long
Ascertaining the true sequence of
overdue investigation into the likeevents which ultimately led to a
lihood of homicide fully launched.
victim entering a body of water and But Joshua Swalls’s drowning is
then drowning in it is part of any
every bit as questionable as hers is,
complete forensic analysis, and a
and still it continues to be listed as
meticulous inquiry by a coroner is
an accident.
demanded as a matter of law in all
premature deaths.
Will his loved ones have to wait
three decades for justice, too?
Everyone can agree that, whether
perfect people or fundamentally
Eponymous Rox is the author of
flawed, dying at age 22 or age 43 is
The Case Of The Drowning Men
much too young to be considered
and Hunting Smiley
natural. And anytime someone dies
Bermuda continued
Burrows faced an additional charge
of murdering the police chief.
Burrows was found guilty of murdering George Duckett, Governor
Sharples, Captain Sayers, Mark
Doe and Victor Rego. Tacklyn was
found not guilty of murdering the
governor but guilty of murdering
the two store owners. (In my book,
Justice Denied, I provide compelling evidence that it was Tacklyn,
not Burrows, who actually shot Sir
Richard Sharples.)
It emerged that although the two
men were low-level professional
criminals, they entertained some
sympathy with the Black Power
movement and this had established
the political motive for the crimes.
However, it was never established
at their trials that the Berets trained
Burrows and Tacklyn in the use of
firearms or that the black militant
organization had told Burrows
he was an important figure in the
“coming revolution,” giving him the
title of Commander-in-Chief of All
Anti-Colonialist Forces in Bermuda. Additionally, jurors were never
told the spate of robberies and drug
deals were designed to secure funds
for the Black Berets. But jurors were
privy to a wider conspiracy when
Burrows sent a written confession
to the prosecutor in which he admitted killing the governor “along
with others I shall never name.”
Both men received the death
sentence. On December 2, 1977
Burrows and Tacklyn were hanged
in Casemates Prison. The executions provoked revenge racial riots
throughout the island causing
millions of dollars’ worth of damage to property and the deaths of
three people. The riots were incited
by the Black Berets and the intem27
perate remarks of leading radical
politicians. Rioters attacked police
stations and business premises,
especially in the capital city of
Hamilton, and a state of emergency
was put into effect that included a
call-up of the Bermuda Regiment
and the despatch of troops from the
United Kingdom.
A Whitewash
For the past 30 years the people of
Bermuda had been given a whitewashed version of what exactly
occurred when the murders were
investigated and the two killers
brought to trial. However, as many
Bermudians had suspected all
along, the government had erred in
not bringing the assassins’ accomplices to justice.
Ten years ago the British Foreign
Office released its files about the
murders. Although they added
to the sum of knowledge of the
circumstances surrounding the
murders it was the release of the
Scotland Yard Murder files some
years later that put the true story
of the assassinations in the proper
perspective.
In the summer of 2004 I visited
Scotland Yard’s Archives branch
situated a short distance from London’s St. James’s Park Tube station.
Scotland Yard Assistant Departmental Records Officers Andrew
Brown and David Capus allowed
me access to the Scotland Yard
Bermuda Murders Files before they
were reviewed and transferred to
the National Archives. At the time,
they were inaccessible to Bermuda’s
newspapers and they had not been
seen by any member of the public.
In September of 2004 I received a
28
letter from Sir Richard Sharples’s
widow, Baroness Sharples. She
knew about others who were involved in the assassination of her
husband. Specifically she named a
third man who was investigated by
police but never charged. Baroness
Sharples wrote, “(name redacted)
was the third involved, he went to
the USA at that time where he was
under observance, returned to Bermuda many years later, where I was
informed he would not be arrested
if he did not step out of line…” In
subsequent telephone conversations, Baroness Sharples expressed
dismay and disgust that the authorities had not arrested him. She
also believed there was sufficient
evidence compiled by the police to
bring him to trial.
Additionally, further research by
this author and a series of interviews with police officers involved
in the murder investigations have
provided a context that had been
missing when two of Bermuda’s
leading newspapers ran a series of
stories which had been based on
the newly released Foreign Office
files.During my research I also
made contact with a former high
ranking Bermuda police officer,
ranked within the top six officers
on the Bermuda force, who provided me with information about
the murders. According to one of
his former colleagues in the force,
“… he was an honest man and took
his job seriously and professionally…he was one of those people
who if he told you to do something
you did it not only because it would
be an order but because you knew
it was right and that he would back
you up if there was subsequently
any problems; you could trust
him…..He was privy to a great deal
of information and procedures…..
He was someone with ‘status’”. The
senior officer said the information
I gave him went beyond anything
published on the assassinations.
He also said I was correct in my
conclusions about who was to
blame for the assassination of the
governor and the police chief and
that I was “…accurately centred in
the middle of the nest.” Additional
interviews with former prison officers revealed that the assassins
were in constant communication
with Black Beret members during
a period of incarceration following
their arrests.
An Unholy Alliance
The Scotland Yard Murder files
reveal how a group of Bermudians,
an “unholy alliance” of underworld
criminals and a remaining hardcore of black militant activists
within the Black Berets, conspired
to commit murder, assassination
and robbery. Self-styled “Godfather” Bobby Greene, who owned a
restaurant in the Court Street area
of Hamilton, led the underworld
element. He was the mastermind
behind the spate of robberies in the
early 1970s and was a known drug
importer/dealer. The governor’s
assassins spent most of their free
time at the restaurant. In fact, it was
known as a meeting place for the
militants.
The Scotland Yard files also reveal
that the Black Berets had “reconnoitred Government House” on at
least four occasions and watched
the homes of leading politicians in
the years before the actual shootings. The Berets had even planned
a series of political assassinations
when the time was ripe for their
“Marxist revolution.” Investigators discovered the planned attack
on Police Chief Duckett was taken
straight from an urban guerrilla
manual that was amongst literature
read by Black Beret members. Additionally, Black Beret leader John
Hilton “Dionne” Bassett had been
seen firing a .38 revolver, the same
type of weapon used to kill the
governor. He fled the island after
the murder of the police chief and
never returned. It is believed he
joined the Black Liberation Army
in the United States. The BLA was
responsible for assassinations of
New York City police officers in the
1970s. This information was never
revealed during the trials of the
governor’s assassins. Bassett died in
the 1990s.
The “Third Man”
The Scotland Yard files reveal the
police gathered compelling evidence against another Black Beret
leader and that he conspired with
Burrows and Tacklyn to murder the
governor. Until a Royal Commission re-investigates the assassinations his name must be withheld.
He is referred to in my book as the
“third man” and is still alive and
living in a Middle Eastern country. (Scotland Yard detectives were
also convinced a “fourth man” was
involved but they were unable to
discern his identity.)
The “third man” had expressed
hatred for the governor on more
than one occasion.
The “third man” was the most
violent member of the Berets. He
was the leader of the more militant
faction of the Black Power organization. He was a strong advocate
for the elimination of the island’s
political leaders and the institution
of a “revolutionary Marxist government.”
A witness, who senior police
sources said had been a police
plant in the Berets, testified he
had “reconnoitred” the Governor’s
Mansion with the “third man” on
at least four occasions. The “third
man” had also drawn up sketch
plans of Government House and
Police Headquarters.
A live 12-bore shotgun shell
was found in the apartment of the
“third man.” It was linked to the
weapons used in the shootings.
On March 14, 1971 the “third
man” had threatened to kill a senior
police officer, Detective Inspector
John Joseph Sheehy. He was found
guilty of the offense and sentenced
to a period of corrective training.
He also had a criminal record in the
United States. On August 7, 1972
at Berlin, Vermont, he was arrested
and charged with attempted breaking and entering of a Sports Shop
whilst armed with a .22 rifle. He
was later allowed bail but returned
to Bermuda where he remained.
The “third man” was observed
handling the weapon that was used
to assassinate the governor.
The “third man” had showed a
consciousness of guilt by fleeing the
island under disguise when police
eventually connected him to the assassination. When police officers attempted to arrest him he struck one
of them, then made his escape on a
flight to the United States disguised
as a woman. Police sources reveal
his eventual destination was Cuba
or Algeria via Canada(The police
received information from intelligence sources that the Berets had
received funding from the Cuban
government). He was aided in his
escape by Calvin “Shebazz” Weeks,
a leading member of the Berets. In
an email to the author, these facts
were corroborated by the alleged
assassin’s biological daughter who
now lives in the United States.
At one time the “third man” had
shared an apartment with convicted
assassin Larry Tacklyn and a notorious Bermudian criminal, Dennis
Bean. Bean had been convicted of
the robbery of a store in Hamilton
and had eventually been sentenced
to 12 1/2 years in prison.
Scotland Yard detectives discovered that on the night of the governor’s assassination the “third man”
went out of his way to be conspicuous and to be observed socializing
with non-Berets. Senior police
officers believed he had been trying
to establish an alibi.
Investigating police officers
discovered that the quick-tempered
and violently anti-white “third
man” had a controlling influence
over the convicted assassins. He
exerted a kind of “psychic hold”
over Burrows and Tacklyn and
persuaded them they were active
revolutionaries who could change
Bermudian society at a stroke and
help institute a revolutionary-type
government. Although Burrows
said the assassination of the governor was on his “direct orders” and
“inspired efforts” the murder was
in fact planned and directed by the
extreme faction of the Berets with
Burrows and Tacklyn playing the
secondary role of hit men. Many
years later some former members
of the Berets would come to believe that Burrows had indeed been
indoctrinated by militant members
of the group and this small group of
Berets were behind the murders.
Following the escape of the “third
man” to North America, the authorities decided it was not in the
interests of Bermuda to bring him
to justice even though there was
substantial and compelling evidence to show he had participated
29
in the governor’s assassination.
Police in the United States and
Canada had been contacted by Bermudian authorities and a request
was made for them to “keep an eye”
on him but he was never extradited.
He returned to the island a few
years later but the arrest warrant
had mysteriously gone missing. As
a former police officer involved in
the murder investigations stated,
“With regard to arresting (the
“third man”) I don’t believe there
was much choice - the whole file
including warrants… had gone, I
believe from the court registry … I
have a vague memory of an arrest
on arrival prior to them discovering
everything missing. I do not know
why it was not reinvestigated with
fresh information; maybe too much
was missing. Maybe a deal was
struck?”
The missing arrest warrant, according to the ex-police officer source,
indicates there were people in high
places who conspired to prevent the
arrest of the” third man.” “My opinion is and was,” the former police
officer said, “that if they brought
(him) back this would create such
a political mess with the Bermuda
Industrial Union (Author’s Note:
The BIU was allied with the opposition Progressive Labour Party)….
The government had enough on its
plate. The island was divided 50-50
on the race issue. They had enough
trouble dealing with all the black
participants (in the murders)…..
I guess the feeling was if anything
comes to light that can directly
involve and get a confession from
someone or point to (the “third
man”) that they could put before
the courts, it’s better to have him at
arm’s length and being watched.”
Numerous sources for this book
also deduced that the reason why
30
the “third man” was not arrested
was due to his strong links to
powerful individuals on the island.
The motive for stealing or destroying the arrest warrant, the sources
allege, was a fear that riots would
ensue.
ment administrations in the interest of racial harmony. Over time
the history of the assassinations
became a myth. And what people
believe happened will unfortunately
enter into the culture and memories of generations to come.
Myth Instead of Truth
The Black Berets continue to
play an important role in Bermuda’s political life. Using the
same tactics as many Marxists
in the UK who joined the Labour Party in the 1970s, many
Berets infiltrated Bermuda’s
established left-wing Progressive
Labour Party (PLP) in order
to continue their covert radical agenda. They were clearly
aware that their previously overt
appeals to racism and violence
would be rejected by the moderate black majority. However, the
PLP has done nothing to correct
the historical record with regard
to the Berets. For the past 35
years PLP members have romanticized the black militant
organization and embraced
many of its former members.
Additionally, leading Bermudian
politicians of both races have not
spoken out about the conspiracy
because they believe it would not
only affect tourism, which is the
island’s principle source of income,
but also expose the instability of
Bermuda’s political system.
The Black Beret Cadre believed it
had a God-given right to inflict its
pathologies on the rest of Bermudian society and in so doing created
great harm to the island and its
people, both black and white. The
role the Black Cadre played in the
assassinations was whitewashed by
consecutive Bermudian govern-
Justice Denied By Mel Ayton
Ted Kuhl Cont. Page 30
The next day, Ricky Mueller arrived
at Ted’s house and asked Ted to go
skeet shooting with him.
Also the next day, police and fire
department members scoured the
crime scene area, the garbage cans,
and the entire roof of the strip mall.
No gun was ever found.
Zeroing in on Ted
already been repaid months earlier.
Thus, there did not appear to be
any friction over money aspects of
the house.
First believing the murder was
a gang-related shooting, police
continued to press Ricky, Ted and
Christa for more details. They were There was later a mention by Janet’s
stymied by the fact there was no ap- mother Sandy Ostrander (only after
parent motive for the murder.
Ted became a suspect) suggesting
that Ted and Christa might possibly
It is apparent from the chronology
be seeing each other.
of these reports that Ricky began
to fear he would be accused. He
Christa’s night at Ted’s
eventually turned suspicion toward
Janet’s boyfriend and lover, Ted.
Christa was Janet’s close friend
since grade school. The 28-yearIt is a staple of police investigation
old single mother was emotionally
to take a hard, close look at the
shattered by Janet’s murder. She
people closest to a murder victim,
felt surrounded by violence. Just
such as a spouse or lover. Ted fit the 12 weeks earlier, her ex-boyfriend
bill.
had been gunned down during a
drug-related incident. Now Janet’s
By all accounts, Janet and Ted
bloodied body lay on the tarmac.
lived together off and on for two to She reasoned, “What if the killer
three years. Janet told Christa that
saw me and might be coming after
she would set ultimatums: “If you
me too?”
don’t want a child by November
(Dec. etc.), I’m moving out.” After
Christa’s children had stayed with
it became apparent to her that Ted, their father that weekend. She did
the father of a college-age son, did
not want to go home alone to an
not want more children she moved empty house. She asked Ted if she
out a final time. Nonetheless, the
could sleep on his sofa until morncouple still enjoyed a close personal ing.
relationship. They continued to see
each other socially, and on occaThat innocent request led invession, intimately. In fact, a pregtigators to conclude that Ted and
nancy exam was actually part of
Christa were having an affair – a
the forensics report. Janet was not
manufactured motive for the crimepregnant.
of-passion theory. They could find
no other motive. Both Ted’s and
The second area of potential conJanet’s close personal acquaintances
flict was Janet's request to Ted
and family members later stated to
to have her name taken off the
me and to investigators that they
mortgage on the house they had
knew this alleged affair never happurchased while living together.
pened.
There was no indication in any of
the statements that this conflict was A co-worker with Ricky Mueller
more than a verbal request by Janet. also knew Ted, Janet, and Christa
on a social basis. He spoke to me
The money Janet loaned Ted for
much later after the trial to say he
the down payment of his house had drove past Ted’s home every night
on his way home from work. He
never saw Christa’s car there—only
Janet’s car.
The Interrogations
Ricky, Ted, and Janet were interrogated on several occasions during
the remainder of December.
On December 18, Ricky’s 10th
contact with police, he was taken to
Reid and Associates for a polygraph
examination. He failed all questions
regarding his supposed knowledge
that Ted was the shooter.
After failing his polygraph test,
Ricky’s nervous state increased, and
he changed his story again, eventually 16 times in the records and
even more times to friends. Ricky
began to claim he had furnished
false statements to police in order
to protect himself from Ted and
indicated he feared Ted would also
shoot him.
Once Ricky was willing to say he
saw Ted with the gun, Illinois State
Police persuaded him to make a
pretext call to Johnstone Supply
(heating and air conditioning)
where Ted worked, to get Ted to
implicate himself. They recorded
the call and listened in.
In the call, Ricky says in a very
nervous voice, “I can’t sleep. I can’t
eat. I need to know what to do to
protect you and me. Why’d you do
it Ted?”
Calmly, Ted answers Ricky, “Come
on buddy. I was there. If you really believe I shot Janet, where’s the
gun?”
Christa’s Consistency
31
Significantly, Christa Peterson’s and
Ricky’s first statements matched
before he began to change his story.
go home. He reasoned correctly
that they had no evidence against
him.
Christa saw Ted running from an
unknown man firing at him. She
tried to crawl under her car and
Ted grabbed her and ran with her
to the restaurant. At least three
additional witnesses, identified
by private investigator Joe Lamb,
reported seeing a shooter simultaneously while Ted was fleeing.
His employers urged him to have
a lawyer present, but Ted foolishly
believed he did not need an attorney: “I knew I was not guilty. I did
not want to appear guilty by asking
for a lawyer. I also believed police
would do their job. They would find
the killer.”
In an attempt to get additional
information, police began to accuse
Christa of lying. Still she refused
to verify several police scenarios
in which they suggested to her that
Ted was the gunman. They said
they had photos and evidence to
prove that she was lying. They also
said Ted had confessed to shooting
Janet. Even with that revelation, her
story remained consistent. She kept
asking what possible motive could
Ted have to shoot Janet.
It is apparent from police reports
that police hoped to break Christa’s
story. They continued to press her
concerning Ted's actions, implying
that she was not telling the truth
and was withholding information.
This is documented in several parts
of the report as "Christa became
defensive."
On January 8, 1997, Christa took
a polygraph test and passed it. The
examiner said she was truthful in
her statements.
Ted
Shocked that his best friend would
accuse him, Ted suggested that he
and Ricky meet at the Illinois State
Police headquarters, where he expected to confront his accuser and
32
It was Ted’s suggestion to confront
Ricky at the police station instead
of running and hiding, as a guilty
person would do. He showed up
after a full day’s work and underwent a brutal 14-hour interrogation
throughout the night, during which
he was shouted at, accused of lying,
given coffee but refused permission
to go to the restroom.
State law dictates that in the course
of an investigation, a suspect must
be informed of his legal rights.
It is clear that by the December
19 interview, police believed Ted
was the offender and had begun to
focus on him to the exclusion of all
other possible offenders.
incriminating statements were
made without benefit of rights
advisement, the interviewee has
no obligation to continue with the
interview.
A legal expert needs to evaluate
whether Ted's rights were violated
at this time.
Interrogators began suggesting differing scenarios of the crime, and as
the night progressed, a wearied Ted
began to change his story. Eventually, they promised him that he
could leave if he signed a statement
written by them, in which they
claimed Janet “pulled a gun and Ted
wrested it away from her. During
the struggle, the gun accidentally
fired.”
Actually Janet died with a shot glass
in one hand and car keys in the
other. It is evident that she did not
have a gun.
Exhausted and believing the scenario impossible, Ted foolishly
signed it.
In some jurisdictions, when incriminating statements are obtained from an interviewee, without
benefit of a rights advisement, a
"cleansing statement" is required
prior to continuing the interview.
Ted later said, “I was broken. I was
in shock. I was shaking so badly I
had to pull over and stop my truck
in order to gain some composure. I
also knew it was an impossible scenario. From where I stood with my
back turned, I would have had to be
left-handed and a contortionist to
shoot Janet in the right temple, and
I believed the police would realize
that when they checked the facts.
But they stopped checking the facts
when they got that document—
which was never a confession to
premeditated homicide—signed.”
A cleansing statement essentially
is a clear advisement by police,
basically stating that even though
From that point on throughout the
remainder of the investigation, police made no effort to corroborate
Theoretically, the rights advisement should have been initiated
once incriminating statements were
obtained and additional such statements were being sought.
any of the statements made by Ted
or Christa.
Satan’s Disciples
Loves Park Police also ignored
investigating other possible suspects. Private investigator Joe Lamb
examined surveillance video film
from that night and traced license
plates to members of a violent street
gang, the Satan’s Disciples, known
for drive-by shootings in Rockford.
Loves Park police had originally
believed the crime to be a drive-by
shooting. Another car in the lot belonged to a driver who actually had
a murder conviction on his record.
This information was withheld
from the jury.
No Forensic Evidence
From the Crime Lab’s reports covering the forensic examination of
the physical evidence, there was no
physical or forensic evidence that
linked Ted to the shooting.
The bullet fragments recovered
from Janet and from the Game
Place should have been compared
on the Integrated Ballistics Identification System through the
state crime lab to determine if the
weapon used in this homicide was
ever used in another violent crime.
If it were used after this incident,
then it would be very strong evidence that another person was the
actual killer.
Police believed the multiple gunshots reported by Ted, Christa and
other witnesses were a result of
echoes within the parking lot. However, there was nothing to indicate
any efforts were made to verify this
fact.
At the time of the investigation into
Janet’s murder, I was a newspaper
reporter for the Rockford Labor
News. I found a bullet hole in a utility pole near Christa’s car, indicating that shots were fired in her direction, but police also ignored this.
They claimed it could have been
there for some time. The bullet hole
indentation strongly supports Ted’s
and Christa’s statements that the
gunman fired at them after he shot
Janet. This refutes the theory of Ted
being the shooter. “Why would he
run dodging bullets fired by himself?" I asked. I could find no police
report of gunfire at Meadowmart
Mall in previous months.
Inconsistencies at the Trial
In 1997, Ted Kuhl was sentenced
to 40 years without any forensic
evidence, no gun ever found, no
motive ever substantiated, and a
single eyewitness who changed his
story 16 times as a matter of court
record.
Several inconsistencies worked
against Ted at the trial, many of
them related only indirectly to the
actual homicide investigation.
Age difference
Ted Kuhl was 48 at the time, 20
years older than Janet. The age difference worked against him in the
trial. A Rockford attorney later said,
“Juries typically do not like cradlerobber boyfriends, such as Ted was
portrayed.”
Too Dark to See
Ricky testified he could see Ted
from 50-feet away aiming a gun.
This is highly unlikely. WROK radio news reporter, Fred Speer, who
photographed the crime scene, said
it was so dark he had to turn the
headlights on to see the body from
even five feet away.
I visited the parking lot at 1:26 a.m.
(the time of the shooting) on a
December night and stood approximately where Ricky said he was. I
do not believe Mueller saw what
he described unless he was much
closer than he claimed to be.
Too Far Away
Fifty feet from the victim is also
inconsistent with Forensic Doctor
Larry Blum’s autopsy report. Stippling around the wound indicated
the gunman fired from as close
as six inches. That is consistent
with what Christa saw before she
dropped to the pavement to hide.
She described the gunman standing in front of Janet. Janet screamed
and turned her head toward Ted, so
the bullet entered her right temple.
Christa also saw Ted begin to run
under gunfire.
At least three other witnesses at
the scene saw the gunman and Ted
simultaneously, but they could not
agree on the description so their
testimonies were laughed out of
court.
The Wrong Color
Ricky Mueller also stated in court
that Ted’s ball cap was white. In
fact Ted wore a green ball cap that
night. His attorney had the cap in
the courtroom, but failed to call the
discrepancy to the attention of the
jury.
The funeral dress
Even though her story remained
33
completely consistent, prosecutors
treated Christa as a hostile witness, quickly identifying her as the
“other woman.” They pointed out
that she spent the night with Ted
after Janet’s murder. They also suggested he bought the blue dress for
Christa, which she wore to Janet’s
funeral. Christa had a Visa receipt
to prove she purchased the dress—
not Ted—however this was not
noted in court.
served in Viet Nam and saved other
soldiers but could not save Janet.
Not Enough Emotion
Twenty years earlier, Ted had
claimed he served in Viet Nam to
impress a boss, and later to impress Janet’s pro-military father. Joe
Lamb later mused, “Ted had told
the Viet Nam lie for 20 years and
he never killed anybody. If everyone who ever told a lie is guilty of
murder, the prisons couldn’t hold
them all.”
Ted’s calm demeanor worked
against him at the trial. Janet’s
mother, Sandy Ostrander, initially
described Ted to me as “charming.”
Sandy had been the one to introduce Ted to her daughter at a pizza
bar in Loves Park.
Once police began to suspect him,
she turned bitterly against Ted
because, “He didn’t even cry at her
funeral. Is that the way a man acts
who is supposed to love Janet with
all his heart?” The jury appeared to
be suspicious of Ted’s lack of visible
emotion.
Ted’s brother Monty Kuhl spoke
with me. He said that both he and
Ted were never outwardly emotional. They did not openly weep
at their own mother’s funeral. Ted’s
grief was very private, however
Monty saw Ted’s tears during times
they were together shortly after
Janet’s death.
The Viet Nam Lie
Janet’s mother did not begin to
suspect Ted until police began to
listen to Ricky’s accusations. That’s
when she accused Ted of being a
pathological liar and pointed to a
lie he admittedly told—that he had
34
This lie actually damned Ted in
court, even though it had absolutely
nothing to do with the murder
investigation. Assistant State’s Attorney Weber used the Viet Nam lie
to persuade the jury. He thundered,
“Ted Kuhl lied from the beginning
of this investigation and innocent
men do not lie!”
Missing From Police Reports
Unfortunately, Loves Park Police
did not write in their reports that
no gun was found in Ted’s or Christa’s vehicles. This worked against
Ted at trial. The glaring omission
from the reports prevented defense
attorney Albert Altamore from
having the grounds to argue that no
gun was in the vehicles. Altamore
was widely known as a DUI defense
attorney at that time.
The omission also allowed Assistant
State’s Attorney Glen Weber to create doubt in the minds of the jury:
“Ladies and gentlemen, you know
the gun had to be there.”
Both Christa’s and Ted’s vehicles
were left inside the yellow crimescene ribbon and driven the next
day by an officer, who would have
seen a gun if it had been lying on
the floorboard or seat. But this
was not permitted in court simply
because it was not in the police
reports.
I also had a statement directly from
Loves Park Police Chief Lindberg
that the vehicles were searched, but
this was not admissible at trial.
Information withheld
Defense attorney Albert Altamore
was never informed that Ricky
Mueller had recanted a statement
in which he claimed to hear Ted say
he was planning to kill Janet. In a
lost post-conviction relief appeal,
defense Attorney Dan Cain asked,
“How can anyone flip flop on such
a damning statement? How can
anyone forget that?”
At the appeal, Cain called the
prosecutor to the stand. Attorney
Mark Karner admitted withholding this information from the jury.
Also present at the appeal, Ricky
admitted he did not recall Ted ever
threatening to kill Janet. He did
not make eye contact with Ted, and
kept his head down.
In spite of this, Chief Judge Michael
Morrison denied Ted’s appeal. “The
evidence shows that Janet was shot
from very close, and by your own
admission you had walked only
three or four steps,” said Morrison.
The judge ignored all the witness
statements that a second man stood
in front of Janet.
Cain later stated, “Any good trial
lawyer knows that he could have
turned the verdict on this point
alone.”
Did political motivation play a
part?
Both Loves Park Chief of Police
Darryl Lindberg and the aspiring
young assistant state’s attorney,
Glenn Weber, were campaigning
for career moves—Lindberg for
mayor of Loves Park, and Weber
for a judgeship. Without implying
intentional wrongdoing on their
parts, I view both of these two as
strongly motivated to bring the
murder case to a quick close.
All criminal justice professionals
are motivated, and rightly so, to
convict the guilty as well as to protect the innocent; however not to
the extent that they overlook other
strong possibilities in a murder
case and bend the facts to fit their
theory. Clearly, that is what happened. Investigators left so many
other avenues unexplored, once
they decided to prosecute Ted Kuhl.
tan’s Disciples street gang, Johnny
White, convicted two years after
Janet’s death for the 1998 drive-by
shooting death of Rockford woman,
Paula Proper. Johnny White strongly implied that Ted is not the killer.
His specific words included, “It was
a very dark night in the parking
lot (the night of Janet’s death). He
also drew an outline of a hand on
the paper and wrote across it, “The
hand of the true killer.”
His letter drew my attention, because Satan’s Disciples were known
to be at the crime scene on the
night of the murder, documented
by Joe Lamb. Loves Park police
never questioned these gang members, though it is well known to
police that gang members do commit drive-by shootings in order to
move up in the gang.
Gang Related?
Missing Evidence
Defense investigator Joe Lamb believed the killing might have been
a case of mistaken identity. Janet
had a twin sister involved with a
man known to associate closely
with the Hell’s Angels gang. Lamb
also believed the man in ball cap
and bomber jacket, who was seen
circling the parking lot, was the real
killer. Lamb may have been able
to prove it if he had lived just one
more day. He had identified a gay
male exotic dancer, who had moved
to Chicago, as one of the men in the
parking lot on the night of Janet’s
murder. Lamb had scheduled an
interview with the dancer, however
Lamb died in his sleep of a heart attack the night before. That dancer’s
name was buried with him, to my
knowledge.
Six video surveillance cameras,
which actually may have filmed the
shooting that night, went missing.
Police somehow lost this potentially
crucial evidence, and it has never
turned up. Post conviction relief
Attorney Cain asked, “Doesn’t that
raise a red flag in any thinking person’s mind?”
Significantly, I received correspondence from the leader of the Sa-
Cain prepared seven significant
issues for a second post-conviction
relief appeal.These issues were
never heard, due to a missed filing
deadline by a matter of hours. At
least one of these issues included
the highly suspicious driver, Darrel D. Weichert, stopped by police,
who was not wearing shoes or shirt,
and had on a fake beard. It was 28
degrees that night. Why no shirt
and no shoes and a fake beard on a
freezing night just moments after a
fatal shooting?
The barefoot man, Darrel Weichert,
has a link to the victim's family. He
was living with a Darla Fawcett at
the time. Her relationship to Gary
Fawcett is uncertain, as the family refuses to speak to me, however Janet's twin sister was living
with Gary Fawcett and they had a
two-year-old child. If Fawcett was
not an actual member of the Hell’s
Angels, he did have a key to their
club building, according to Dan
Johnson. Janet's twin and Gary
Fawcett were said to be heavy drug
users and Janet had been threatening to remove their child. Was that
a motive for murder? People who
knew and feared Fawcett said he
was certainly capable of violence.
The Gunman
Other people have contacted me
at the newspaper office since Ted’s
conviction, one of them a woman,
returning from a late shift. She said
she saw a man running through
her yard behind the Meadowmart
shopping mall minutes after the
shooting. According to her, the
man carried a gun.
That gunman was not Ted Kuhl,
(as police later suggested to me)
because Ted was seated in the Loves
Park squad car at the time. He
never left the crime scene.
Ted was never alone in the parking
lot. Where and when could he have
hidden a gun in front of numerous
witnesses at the scene?
The answer is, he could not.
Joe Lamb documented the time
of gunfire from video surveillance
cameras, which show a bullet striking a storefront glass. Ted had only
35
12 seconds to hide a gun, which
nobody ever found. Lamb also
conducted his own ballistics test
and confirmed to himself that more
than one shot was fired from where
Janet’s body dropped. These shots
were fired toward Ted and Christa.
No history of angry outbursts
I spent hours talking with Ted’s
family and friends. All of them, including a next-door neighbor who
has known him from childhood, his
former wife of 18 years, Diana, and
his son Jason, say Ted never had a
single incident of violent behavior.
In short, he was mild mannered
and not given to outbursts of temper.
Ted was a Boy Scout leader, a hard
working middle-class citizen and
a law-abiding man with no previous criminal history. His employers, Albert and Roseanne Kunze at
Johnstone Supply, were adamant
that Ted did not kill Janet.
Psychologists say it is highly unlikely that a mentally stable man would
suddenly exhibit a violent, murderous psychotic fugue immediately
after kissing his girlfriend goodnight. Yet that is what police say
happened—that he walked three
or four steps, turned, and shot her
without provocation or motive.
The Case for Ted Kuhl’s Innocence
Ted’s employers were so shocked at
Ted’s arrest that they hired a pair of
top-notch private investigators to
look for the real killer.
A highly respected forensics scientist, Arthur Chancellor, was
employed as an investigative consultant. He examined police reports
36
and witness statements.
In his professional analysis, Arthur
Chancellor states: “Minor personal
conflicts between Ted and Janet
were not violent or long lasting.
Such personal problems or conflicts
that evolve into motives for a homicide have traditionally come to
the attention of family and friends
over a period of time. If this were
the case, it would be consistent and
expected that family and friends
would be able to identify specific
times and events in the recent past
when heated arguments, accusations, or even physical assaults
occurred (as in the case of Howard
Purcell who was known to attack
his wife more than once before he
was convicted of murdering her in
Rockford's staircase-killer case). No
family member or close friend ever
identified such conflicts.”
Ted’s college-age son, Jason Kuhl,
had in fact, just days before the
homicide, spent Thanksgiving with
Ted and Janet at Ted’s place. He said
the three of them had truly enjoyable time together. He would have
known had there been any animosity or friction between them.
In the words of Chancellor: “There
is not enough evidence to convict
Ted Kuhl of premeditated murder.
I find no logical motive. I do not
see any evidence of where the gun
came from or where it went afterwards.
“I am struck by the dichotomy
presented by police of Ted, ‘the
intelligent murderer’ who is able to
conceal a weapon all evening and
then dispose of it in 12 seconds in
front of witnesses. But at the same
time, Ted stupidly picks a public
place when he could easily have
lured Janet to a private location and
shot her without any witnesses.”
Chancellor also pointed to Ricky’s
behavior immediately after the
shooting as inconsistent with the
behavior of someone in deadly fear
of another. “Would Ricky hug Ted
at the station and then ask Ted to
go skeet shooting the next day if he
honestly believed Ted was trying
to shoot him or harm his family?
Absolutely not.”
“I do not believe this was a crime
of sudden passion. There are just
too many inconsistencies. Christa,
Ricky, and two additional witnesses
(names withheld from reporters but
furnished to Chancellor) observed
the gunman who matched the description of the man in the bomber
jacket waiting for someone inside.
“The last official contact available
for my review is Christa's grand
jury testimony. Transcripts document possible government misconduct, in that while they were
waiting to testify, Christa and Ricky
were placed in the same waiting
room where Rick openly discussed
his proposed testimony. Ricky specifically said he was going to testify
that he actually saw Ted shoot Janet
(something he later denied).
“Ricky’s startling claim coupled
with Christa’s prior knowledge of
Ted's so-called confession (which
the police had told her during interviews) may have been an attempt
to induce her to change her testimony or to be uncertain as to what
exactly she observed that evening.
However she remained steadfast,
even though police repeatedly
told her she was in denial and that
her mind had blocked out painful
details.”
After the trial, Christa actually
went to a hypnotherapist to find out
if she had indeed blocked details
from her mind. She told the same
consistent story under hypnosis—that she saw Ted run when an
unknown gunman fired at Janet.
The Man in the Bomber Jacket
In Chancellor’s analysis of the
crime, he states: “I see the time and
location of the homicide as very
inopportune.
“Waiting until Ted and Janet parted, appearing out of the dark, firing
without leaving Janet a chance to
defend herself, then shooting other
rounds at the potential witnesses
while leaving the scene, having a
planned escape route and getting
away unobserved—these are marks
of premeditation. This is all consistent when the unknown man in
the bomber jacket walking the lot is
substituted as the gunman.
“None of it makes sense when Ted
is considered the suspect. The most
important aspect of the police
interrogation is the fact that neither Ted’s oral admissions nor final
written statement make any sense
when compared to other evidence
documented in this case. There is
a legal maxim that roughly states
a man cannot be convicted based
on his confession alone. Yet in this
case, it appears the only real evidence police have is what they were
able to obtain through questionable interrogation techniques. That
evidence basically consists of Ted’s
and Ricky’s statements.”
Joe Lamb’s investigation led him
to identify people associated with
violent street gangs overlooked by
the investigators. He believed one
of them killed Janet. Lamb was not
certain of the motive, but he believed the street gang certainly had
stronger reasons for killing Janet
than Ted Kuhl, who had none.
What Now?
Ted Kuhl remains in prison – convicted in 1997. His son, friends, and
loyal employers continue to visit
him. I made a visit to his prison
only once, where I heard his story
and was satisfied that he told the
truth.
Ted has lost every appeal. He
recently asked for a clemency
hearing, which also was denied.
He writes to me occasionally. He
has indicated that he could plead
guilty, ask for mercy, and perhaps
be released, but that outcome is
uncertain. His former employers,
Albert and Roseanne Kunze, spent
thousands of dollars in the hopes
of overturning his conviction. They
hired Joe Lamb and Arthur Chancellor at their own expense. Both
highly respected investigators arrived at the same conclusion independently, that Ted is not guilty.
Ricky Mueller and his wife were
later divorced. Mrs. Mueller absolutely refused to speak with me
about the case. Her demeanor and
bearing indicated she was terrified.
I have heard rumors from the
streets suggesting that Ricky actually was threatened by street gang
members and forced to say his best
friend pulled the trigger. There is
no way to prove this is true, but I
would consider it more believable
than Ricky’s story of fearing that his
best friend would kill him for no
reason.
I once interviewed a Loves Park bar
bouncer known as Big Tiny, who
had information linking a drive-by
homicide with the Satan’s Disciples,
(the leader of which wrote to me
hinting he knew the real killer). Big
Tiny has since died.
Janet’s mother, Sandy Ostrander,
died of cancer a few years after Ted
went to prison.
Ricky Mueller moved out of town
and took a job in Freeport, Illinois.
A former co-worker called the
news office years after Ted’s conviction to say Ricky once tried to sell
him a supposedly “hot” gun during the time of the investigation.
This co-worker has since moved to
Wisconsin.
Both Joe Lamb and I spent hours
talking with Christa Peterson.
She remained tormented by Ted’s
conviction and the suggestion that
she was having an affair with him.
Her reasoning was: “Janet was like
a sister to me. She slipped Christmas gifts under my tree so my kids
would have surprises. We were going to California together. So even
if it was true, and Ted had these two
women who are still great friends,
why would he need to kill one of
us?”
Christa eventually moved out of
town. I have no information on her
whereabouts.
The young assistant state’s attorney
and trial prosecutor, Glen Weber,
lost his bid for a judgeship. He took
a position in Jo Daviess County in
northwest Illinois as state’s attorney. He was later dismissed due to
allegations of official misconduct.
I have a copy of the official docu37
ment. A Rockford policewoman
once said to me that Weber tried to
coax her to lie on the stand. That
officer has since died of cancer.
Weber was welcomed back to the
Rockford court system and later
worked for a respected legal firm in
Rockford.
Chief of Police Darryl Lindberg was
soon elected mayor of Loves Park
where he has enjoyed a long career.
Illinois has a history of wrongful
convictions. In January of 2003,
then-Governor George Ryan commuted the sentences of 167 death
row prisoners, calling the system
“terribly flawed” after 13 death row
inmates were exonerated by DNA
evidence. That number grew to 151
nationwide while I was working on
the Ted Kuhl case.
Since then, wrongful convictions
have continued to be overturned by
DNA evidence. Sadly, there was no
DNA evidence in the Janet Nivinski
homicide. Ted has very few options
left. He will serve his 40 years if additional evidence does not exonerate him at some point in the future.
My book, Shadow in the Rain, a
fictionalized re-telling of Ted’s story
is available on Amazon.com.
Before Lizzy Continued
Dr. Leary also testified and noted
that the elder McDougall’s wounds
were “peculiar” but not necessarily fatal unless complications arose
which were not now apparent. The
court adjudged the younger McDougall as probably guilty and held
38
him on a $1,000 bond for the grand
jury.
Shortly after this hearing James
McDougall Jr. returned to court
and was charged with assault with
intent to kill. He was found guilty
and sentenced to six years in the
Massachusetts Reformatory where
he was received on February 20,
1892. A report from the Office of
the Commissioners on the Reformatory intake record noted: “This
assault grew out of a family quarrel. Parents had separated, father
refused to assist the mother and
James, who worked in New York,
gave her his earnings and she relied
on him. He had threatened to
kill James if he helped his mother
anymore and James bought a
revolver to use in self defense. His
father was one of the meanest men
that ever lived and that he caused
his family to suffer. James has the
sympathy of nearly all the people in
Fall River.”
Meanwhile, efforts to locate the
bullet in the senior McDougall’s
hand were unsuccessful and he
passed away on March 4, 1892. The
official cause of death recorded on
his death certificate was “fracture
with necrosis of bones of hand and
inflammation of tissue of same.”
On June 20, 1892, the younger McDougall was arraigned in Superior
Court and charged with the murder
of his father. On October 31, a plea
agreement was reached whereby
James pled guilty to manslaughter
and he was sentenced to 10 years
in the Massachusetts State Prison.
James McDougall Jr. was released
on parole on September 13, 1900,
and returned to Fall River, Massachusetts. He married Marie Elisabeth Durand in 1910, and raised
five children. James died of cardiac
failure January 9, 1947, and is buried next to his father in Oak Grove
Cemetery in Fall River.
How does this connect to the Lizzie
Borden case? The first and most
obvious similarity is the proximity of the Borden and McDougall
residences. The Borden horse barn
exited to Third Street and it very
likely that the McDougall family
would have had occasion to speak
with the residents of the Borden
household in spite of the differences
in social status. James McDougall’s
occupation as a carriage painter
may have also inspired some interest in his part in the Borden family
carriages. The elder McDougall
was also known to have been a
member of several fraternal or
social organizations to which the
Borden men also belonged. Some
also believe that Lizzie may have
been inspired to commit patricide
by James McDougall Jr., a theory
that could be furthered as the
McDougall trial unfolded. Lizzie
Borden could have been moved
by the sentiment of sympathy for
the younger James and the relatively light sentence he received.
As noted earlier the connection to
the Borden case is peripheral, but it
makes one wonder!
Cold Case Continued
the case. He described the nature
and location of the crime and identified a person of interest who had
the means, motive and opportunity
to commit the robbery-murder.
That person had left the area about
the time of the crime and made a
telephone call to discuss the robbery-homicide.
And the informant revealed exactly
where investigators could find the
possible murder weapon, a revolver
still available for testing decades
after Floyd's murder.
Would a simple ballistics comparison mate the fatal bullet to the suspect weapon and unmask a killer?
Would Joe Floyd Collins's long
string of bad luck finally be coming to an end a quarter of a century
after his murder?
Bad luck maynot have beenJoe
Floyd Collins's best friend, but it
was most certainly his lifelong close
companion.
A Bad Luck Joe
In the 1970s and early 1980s, he
would learn the fickle alchemy
guiding his fortune and misfortune.
While bad luck sometimes seemed
to turn magically into good, more
often than not Floyd's good luck
took a dark turn.
Dorothy “Dottie” McMichael
lived through those flip-flopping
fortunes with Collins, whom she
called Joe. She married Joe in the
summer of 1977. Now more than
30 years divorced from Collins,
from her Arkansas home Dottie shared information about her
ex-husband. After suffering several
strokes, Dottie searches carefully
to find the right words to convey
those memories.
Hailing from northeast Liberty
County, Joe was the son of an abusive alcoholic father. After attending Hardin schools, Joe served in
the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam.
The tempo of Joe Floyd Collins's
tango with good and bad luck
quickened in California in 1979.
Married to Dottie for two years,
Joe was involved in a car crash that
would cripple him for the rest of his
life.
“Around midnight he was drunk
and driving on the interstate to his
girl friend's house,” Dottie remembered. “Another drunk driver
crossed the median and hit him
head on.”
“Joe was hospitalized for a long
time and bedridden for several
months at home,” she said. “He
ended up with a stiff elbow and a
stiff knee that forced him to walk
with a limp and a cane. He had little
range of motion in his right shoulder. He was no longer capable of
hanging drywall.”
Idled from work and enduring
painful injuries, Joe turned increasingly to alcohol for relief. “He took
to drinking all the time,” said Dottie, “usually a quart of Jack Daniel's
every day.”
Collins sued the other driver.
“While waiting for his lawsuit to
come to court,” Dottie said, “Joe
decided he wanted to live in Liberty
County. We packed up everything
and moved to Texas.”
In June of 1980, Collins won a
$250,000 settlement in his lawsuit,
minus $50,000 paid to his first wife
for back child support.
According to an online inflation
calculator, his share of that settlement would be worth $714,000 in
2012 dollars. Feeling that he had
struck it rich, Joe went on a spending spree.
“He purchased a house in Hardin, a
house full of furniture, new vehicles
and two boats,” Dottie said.
Back in his native Liberty County,
Joe and wife Dottie befriended
entrepreneur Eddie Elliott and wife
Phyllis of Dayton. In 1975, Elliott
had seen a need and opened a new
business in a portable building in
Harris County just outside of the
Liberty County line. He named it
County Line Liquor.
“In 1981, Joe started working for
Eddie at the liquor store,” Dottie recounted. “He was drinking
continually and became more and
more violent. I finally called it quits
in 1982.”
That's the year Joe Floyd Collins
struck his deal with friend Eddie Elliott. “The store was making
good money,” recalled Elliott, who
owns several real estate parcels and
operates a septic tank business in
Dayton. “Joe had been working
there a year. He knew there was
good money to be made.”
Collins jumped at the chance
to spend some of the remaining
money from his accident settlement
to purchase Eddie's County Line Liquor. Eddie Elliott kept title to the
tiny parcel of land, but Joe Floyd
Collins owned the liquor business.
Eddie sold the lot in 2012.
Dottie saw Joe one last time in September of 1984 after he asked her
to join him for a drink. Apparently,
she said, he just wanted to brag to
her that “the bigwigs” wanted to
induct him into their clique.
“Some of the things he said didn't
make a lot of sense,” Dottie recalled.
“He told me he was being checked
39
out as a prospect to join 'the club.'
He was on top of the world.”
As if on cue, three weeks later, on
October 12, 1984, good luck once
again changed to bad. Instead of
living the additional 32 years cited
in lifespan tables, Joe Floyd Collins
would take a fatal bullet to his gut
and tumble from the “top of the
world” into a bottomless death pit.
A simple headline on an inside
page of the Houston Chronicle's
October 14, 1984 Sunday edition
read: “Liquor store owner slain.”
Three brief paragraphs followed.
The story caught my attention because I lived in the country perhaps
10 miles from the little liquor store.
I had shopped there a few times for
beer and spirits. Over the decades,
I forgot many of the story's details.
I would not set eyes on the story
again for 27 years until I located it
at the Houston Public Library in
late 2011.
A former news reporter and editor, I understood the rhythm of
crime stories — arrest, charge,
indictment, trial and punishment.
I expected the saga to unfold and
conclude over time. But I never saw
any follow-up. Still, I got an unexpected reminder that very day. In
mid-afternoon, my telephone rang.
A Person of Interest
“Hey, Jim,” said the caller. I recognized the voice of a family member,
L.R. “Matt” Matthews. “Have you
heard anything about someone getting killed in a robbery at the liquor
store out on Nineteen-sixty?” Matt
asked. Like me, he was obviously
familiar with the store.
40
“Yes,” I replied. “I just read about
it in the newspaper this morning.
Isn't that something? You still staying at your mother's?”
“No,” he said. “I'm back home in
Pasadena.”
After a little more small-talk,
werang off. Almost immediately
I began to feel a vague uneasiness
about the call. Matt, a confirmed
36-year-old alcoholic awaiting trial
and sentencing for his first drivingunder-the-influence charge, had
been staying for perhaps two weeks
at his mother's home near Dayton.
Once again he had been banished
from his own home in Pasadena for
threatening the lives of his wife and
children during a drunken rage.
And now he had returned suddenly
and unexpectedly to that home
close on the heels of the liquor store
robbery-murder.
Even with little to buttress my
suspicions, I realized he could have
been the robber who murdered
the store owner. Motive-meansopportunity is a starting point but
qualifies, at best, as circumstantial
evidence and certainly can't prove
guilt.
Matt had the motive — he was usually broke and always craved alcohol. He had the means — a .38-caliber pistol that once belonged to his
deceased policeman father. And he
had the opportunity — staying just
eight miles from County Line Liquor. The closest liquor store to his
mother's house, it was likely where
he bought his Canadian whiskey.
And when he drank, he took on an
overriding aura of superiority. Was
he calling me to gauge whether the
murder was getting its due publicattention?
From that moment, L.R. Matthews
became my “person of interest.” My
thoughts boiled down to a simple
notion: Contact the Harris County
Sheriff 's Office and lead them to
the suspect weapon. A ballistics
test would easily determine if the
revolver had fired the bullet that
killed the liquor store owner.
If it matched and my suspicions
proved correct, the case could be
solved. If not, the HCSO could
keep searching for the killer. And I
would have done my civic duty.
But, having little more than a vague
hunch, I demurred. I still hoped
for information about the crime.
Years passed, then decades. News
about the fatal crime was as dead as
the victim. Yet, it dogged my mind.
Had it been solved? Had I simply
missed the news?
From the mid-1980s and through
the 1990s, Matthews continued
to amass DUI charges, threaten
the lives of family members and
get banished from his Pasadena
home. He became a regular guest
of the Harris County Jail and Texas
Department of Criminal Justice
prisons.
When not incarcerated, he bounced
from job to job, frequently working for meager commissions at
fireworks stands during the Fourth
of July and Christmas-New Year’s
holidays.
Finally, in 1999, Matt was arrested
in Williamson County near Austin
for his eighth DUI. He would soon
learn why Williamson County has
a reputation for refusing to coddle
drunk drivers. He was held in jail
until 2000 when the court sentenced him to 35 years in the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice.
Paroled in 2006, he stayed for a
time at a half-way house, then
moved once again into his mother's
house. By the end of the year, she
would be dead and Matt would
share in her estate.
In early 2008 when Matt chose to
sell his share of his mother's farm, I
volunteered to drive him to Liberty
County to arrange for a real estate
agent's services.
Knowing our trip would carry us
past the liquor store site, I casually recounted my memories of the
crime. Of course I didn't remind
him of our long-ago telephone
conversation or mention my suspicions about him. I timed the story
to finish just as we passed the nowempty lot.
At the instant I finished, without
even a one-second pause between
my voice and his, Matt said: “Well, I
can guarantee you that's one liquor
store I've never been in.”
It was clear that instead of truly
listening to my story he had been
forming a diversionary answer and
sprang it at the earliest opportunity.
To me, the speed of his response
jolted me from the plausible and
possible squarely into the probable.
Matthews had expressed no sympathy or empathy for the murder
victim and survivors. Instead, he
seemed bent on tailoring his reply
to distance himself from the crime
scene— and from the crime.
But I recalled that he and I had
once stopped at the liquor store to
buy beer. And I clearly remembered
that long-ago telephone call zeroing in on the liquor store robberymurder. His hasty disclaimer set off
alarm bells in my head.
In that instant, I resolved to carry
out my plan to contact the Harris
County Sheriff 's Office and bare my
suspicions. In this unscripted crime
saga in which Matt had long ago
emerged as the person of interest,
I would finally become the informant.
Elected to his first term, Harris
County Sheriff Adrian Garcia reactivated the department's cold case
squad in 2009.Garcia named Sgt.
Eric Clegg to the squad. In November of 2012, Harris County voters
re-elected Garcia to a second term,
and the squad remained active.
In 2009, fulfilling the pledge to myself, I shared with Sgt. Clegg what I
could remember about the murder.
The crime was a robbery-homicide.
It occurred at a liquor store.
The location was the Harris-Liberty County line on FM 1960.
It happened in the mid-1980s.
The victim was the liquor store
owner.
I supplied the name, address and
vital statistics of Matt, my “person
of interest.”
I also gave the current location of
Matt's .38-caliber revolver.
Here are the facts I didn't recall:
The victim's name.
The liquor store's name.
The store's address.
The exact date of the crime.
In a follow-up phone conversation,
Sgt. Clegg said: “I searched all cold
case records from the 1980s, and I
can't locate this case. Call me if you
find additional information.”
It was as if the sergeant was saying
the crime had never occurred. But
I knew better. My memory may not
have been perfect, but I certainly
didn't have a history of inventing
or imagining events. His lack of
interest perplexed me, and I vowed
to ferret out the information he said
he couldn't find.
Over the next year, I spent uncountable hours searching the
Internet and Harris County records
and talking to Huffman old timers
for any mention of the robberyhomicide at the liquor store. The
result? Nothing. It was if Joe Floyd
Collins and any memory of him
had simply, well, vaporized.
Finally, in June of 2010, a full
year after I first contacted Clegg,
I placed this personal want ad in
the Liberty Vindicator, a weekly
print and online newspaper serving
Liberty County: “Seeking info on
mid-80s liquor store robbery/murder at Harris-Liberty County line
on FM 1960. Need to know victim's
name, store name, approximate
date of crime, whether solved.” The
ad included a phone number and
an email address. I paid for the ad
to run an entire month.
The ad produced near-instant
results. On the first day it appeared,
on June 10, 2010, a title company
manager from Liberty responded
to the ad and telephoned me.
Although caller Angela DeDear
couldn't recall the exact date of the
crime, she knew the name of the
murdered liquor store owner.
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The victim was her step-father,
Joe Floyd Collins. He had owned
County Line Liquor at exactly the
location I had described to Sgt.
Clegg. And Floyd's wife was Angela's mother, Patricia Ann Collins,
who had made that futile crosscountry dash to her dead husband's
side so many years ago. Angela and
her mother had always called him
Floyd.
Armed with these revelations, I immediately searched Internet sites to
verify the information and find the
date of the crime. The RootsWeb
site quickly produced the victim's
name and the crucial date of his
death — October 12, 1984.
Passed on by phone to Harris
County Archivist Sarah Canby
Jackson, C.A., the date of death
and a name led her quickly to a
handwritten entry in the Harris
County Medical Examiner's intake
log for October 12, 1984. It read:
“Joe Floyd Collins. WM/43. GSW
of the abdomen. Hom.” Translation:
White male, 43 years old. Gunshot
wound of the abdomen. Homicide.
The entry also revealed that a single
.38-caliber slug was removed from
Collins at autopsy and turned over
to HCSO Homicide Detective R.S.
“Ronnie” Phillips. Thus began the
evidentiary chain of custody, a critical milestone in criminal investigations.
For me, the medical examiner’s log
gave the first revelation that the
murder weapon indeed had been
a .38-caliber pistol, the same type
of pistol available to Matthews, my
person of interest, that I had described to Sgt. Clegg a year earlier.
42
Ms. Jackson also forwarded a onepage document titled, “Medical Examiner's Investigation.” Although
far short of investigators' full case
files, it summarized the crime
details:
According to Detective Phillips, the decedent was the owner
and operator of a liquor store at
the above location (Identified as
the 5000 block of FM 1960 East
at the Huffman-Eastgate Road).
The decedent was found on floor
behind counter still alive with
gunshot wound to abdomen at 7:05
p.m., by a customer, Norma Zarsky,
who called Harris County Sheriff 's
Office. The decedent expired in the
presence of Ms. Zarsky and two
unknown Caucasian males while
waiting for ambulance. The cash
register was open and all folding
money was missing from register.
Angela DeDear would tell me 25
years later that the killer got perhaps $30 for his efforts.
The report also contained the Harris County Sheriff 's Office case
number — 84-137640. I immediately telephoned Sgt. Eric Clegg
and relayed the newly uncovered
information. I forwarded him copies of the documents Ms. Jackson
had unearthed.
Given these documents detailing
the robbery-homicide, Clegg excused his earlier failure to locate the
case's records, saying: “I didn't have
an address.”
At last, gifted with the case's critical
information, Clegg had an address.
But it was the wrong address. There
is no 5000 FM 1960 East in Huffman.
Re-Opening Cold Case No. 84137640
So,confronted in June of 2010 with
the Harris County Sheriff 's Office
case number and no longer able to
deny the case's existence, Sgt. Clegg
agreed to reopen the robbery-homicide case. He assigned Homicide
Detective Anthony J. Kelly to the
investigation.
Immediately I felt a tremendous
sense of relief. At long last I expected a quick resolution to my suspicions. Either the bullet recovered
at Joe's autopsy would match L.R.
Matthew's .38 revolver. Or it would
not.
The first two monthsof therenewed
investigation into Joe Floyd Collins's death passed quietly. Then,
in September of 2010, in a phone
call, Detective A.J. Kelly dropped
a bombshell: The bullet that killed
Floyd, removed at autopsy soon after his murder, could not be found.
In a flash, my optimism changed
to despair. The solution I sensed so
close at hand suddenly seemed remote, light years away. A black hole
had opened and swallowed forever
any chance that the Harris County
Sheriff 's Office had the ability to
thaw and solve this frozen murder
case.
Without a doubt the fatal bullet
was the Harris County Sheriff 's
Office’s most important clue in its
investigation of Joe Floyd Collins's
murder. How could such valuable
evidence disappear? I was stunned.
Kelly's Harris County Sheriff 's Office homicide division didn't have
the bullet, but the detective did
have a story. In 1984, Kelly said,
the Harris County Sheriff 's Office — the state's largest sheriff 's
department and third-largest in the
entire nation — didn't possess its
own ballistics testing water tank.
Instead, he said, the sheriff 's office relied on the Houston Police
Department's tank.
Kelly said Harris County Sheriff 's
Office Detective Ronnie Phillips
received the bullet from the Harris
County Medical Examiner's office,
now the Harris County Institute of
Forensic Sciences. He passed it to
the HPD crime lab. And the HPD
crime lab, he said, promptly lost the
bullet.
“I'm sure you've heard on TV that
the Houston Police Department's
crime lab has had a lot of problems
in the last few years,” Kelly ventured.
But the Houston Police Department's Lt. Alan Harris wasn't
nearly as anxious to let his office get
thrown under the bus for losing the
bullet. In 2011,Harris headed the
HPD's homicide evidence room.
And after reviewing his department's records, he offered a far
different outcome in the short-lived
history of the Harris County Sheriff 's Office’s mysterious .38-caliber
slug.
Yes, he said, Detective Phillips delivered the evidence to the HPD not
long after Collins's autopsy. Then
Phillips picked up the bullet the
very next day. Phillips retired at age
73 from the Harris County Sheriff 's
Office on December 31, 2008 and
could not be located for comment.
Wherever the fault for losing the
evidence ultimately lies, one of law
enforcement's most basic investigative tools — the chain-of-custody
protocol — was violated. Big time.
This rule requires documenting
and cataloging evidence and its
movement from the time it is first
gathered until it is used in investigations and trials and beyond
through the appeals process. This
precaution ensures that evidence
remains untainted and can fend off
legal challenges.
Lost within days of the crime, the
missing bullet meant that, short of
an unlikely confession from out of
the blue, Joe Floyd Collins's killer
likely could never be called to account. This cold case had become
frigid.
And it appears that Sgt. Clegg tried
to make sure the Harris County
Sheriff 's Office would never be
called to account either. His claim
to me in 2009 that he had searched
all Harris County Sheriff 's Office’s
cold cases from the 1980s without
locating the Collins case proves, at
best, to be shaky.
In a Houston Chronicle story in
December of 2011, Clegg praised
cold case squad clerk Rebecca
Sweetman for keeping track of all
the squad's 541 cold cases. “She
knows those cases,” Clegg told
Chronicle reporter Anita Hassan.
“She's just a wealth of information.”
Most likely neither Sgt. Clegg nor
Rebecca Sweetman could have
overlooked a crime so unique that
no similar crime had occurred in
the Harris County Sheriff 's Office’s
jurisdiction in the 1980s.(Houston
Chronicle, “Cold case unit clerk an
integral part of the team,” Dec. 9,
2011.
However, the Collins crime closely
matches a similar case that occurred in 1986 just one and a half
miles from the Pasadena home of
Matt, my person of interest. An unknown assailant mortally wounded
and robbed liquor store owner
Eang Peng Ngov, taking $1,000 just
two days before Christmas. That
case also remains cold.
Questions about the unsolved case
brought an odd response – and
little interest – from the Pasadena
Police Department's cold case
squad Detective R.R. Rogge.
Two weeks after revealing that the
bullet that killed Floyd had been
lost, Detective A.J. Kelly sent me an
email on October 22, 2010 closing
the investigation into Matthew's
possible role in Joe Floyd Collins's
murder. It read:
There has been no further
development in regards to this
investigation. Additional research
has not provided any additional
information or evidence which
links (Matthews) to this homicide.
I, along with SERGEANT CLEGG
have discussed this case as well as
the new information provided by
you and concluded that the only
way to proceed, if at all, would be to
approach (Matthews) cold. Without
any additional information or probable cause this may be more detrimental to the investigation than
good. The new information has
been included in the case file, and
if in fact (Matthews) is in anyway
involved, hopefully another avenue
will present itself to investigators .
..
The email made no mention of
the missing crucial evidence, the
43
phantom slug that killed Joe Floyd
Collins.
Suspect Dies of Overdose – Questions Remain
In another two weeks, in the early
morning of November 5, 2010, at
age 62 Matt would be pronounced
dead at Montgomery County's
Conroe Regional Medical Center.
Attending physicians said his death
was caused by mixing alcohol and a
powerful prescription pain medication. Given his many addictions, his
death came as no surprise.
Many questions remain, but a few
cry out for answers. Were there
other serious blunders or omissions
in the investigation of Joe Floyd
Collins's murder? Although records
aren't public, other sources offer a
glimpse into the case.
Angela DeDear, Collins's stepdaughter who responded to my
personal want ad andprovided the
initial information that resulted in
reopening the murder case, noted a
potentially huge lapse.Investigators
at the crime scene didn't gather the
customer tabs that Floyd kept. The
names on those credit slips should
have been checked by investigators.
Could Matt's name have been on
one of those slips?
Angela also recalled that her
mother, Patricia Ann Collins, told
her that husband Floyd's shotgun,
found with him in the liquor store,
had been fired. Supporting that
assertion, the last sentence in the
Chronicle story of October 14, 1984
reads: “Collins is believed to have
shot at his assailants but it was not
known whether anyone was hit . .
.”(Houston Chronicle, “Liquor store
owner slain," Oct. 14, 1984.)
44
Asked about the shotgun, Detective
A.J. Kelly pleaded ignorance. Had
the shotgun been fired and had the
assailant indeed been wounded,
providing blood evidence that,
properly preserved, could have
revealed the killer's DNA decades
later? Are the remaining case files
still intact?
Norma Zarsky, the customer who
first called the Harris County
Sheriff 's Office and then phoned
Patricia Ann Collins, had remained
with husband Henry at the liquor
store during the investigation. In an
interview from her Eastgate home,
she said she saw the shotgun in a
patrol car at the scene.
She also said that Harris County
Sheriff 's Office homicide investigators never contacted her or husband Henry for follow-up interviews.
So what are the chances that Joe
Floyd Collins's murder, plucked
randomly from 540 or so cold cases, could be the only Harris County
Sheriff 's Office case bungled into
oblivion? A handful of cases? Or
many? Odds greatly favor the notion that other cases lie hidden
from public review deep in the cold
case freezer for similar embarrassing reasons.
Finally, what internal checks and
balances exist in the Harris County
Sheriff 's Office to police and punish its own? Could the department's
right to seal records from public
scrutiny also conveniently shield
the Harris County Sheriff 's Office
from lapses in the quality of its
investigations?
Whatever the answers, the botched
investigation into the robberymurder of Joe Floyd Collins leads
to at least one inescapable conclusion: In a homicide case so riddled
with careless miscues and missteps,
the Harris County Sheriff 's Office
rendered itself totally impotent to
uphold its sworn duty. Did Floyd's
fickle luck or the Harris County
Sheriff 's Office’s gross negligence
cause this law enforcement debacle?
Guess how Joe Floyd Collins would
answer. If only he could.
Code of Silence
Robbery-homicides are rare at
liquor stores in the greater Houston
area. A check of archived stories
in the Houston Chronicle turned
up a single liquor store robberyhomicide from 1985-1990. (Houston Chronicle, “Murder suspect
sought,” Dec. 25, 1986.)
And it occurred in Pasadena just a
mile or so from the home of L.R.
Matthews, the person of interest
in the Joe Floyd Collins robberymurder case.
In 1986, just two days before
Christmas, a gunman entered P
& H Liquor Store at 7341 Spencer
Highway, shot owner Eang Peng
Ngov in the head and took about
$1,000 from the cash register. A
Life Flight helicopter flew Ngov, 36,
to Memorial Hermann Hospital in
Houston where he died from his
wound.
Just as in the Joe Floyd Collins case,
a customer found Ngov bleeding on
the floor behind the counter. The
Cambodian native had operated
the store for 10 years. Besides his
widow, he was survived by a 4-yearold child.
And, like the Collins case, no
follow-up news stories of Ngov's
death ever appeared, signaling that
the case had gone cold.
In an attempt to learn if the two
similar cases were related, this writer contacted the Pasadena Police
Department's Detective R.R. Rogge,
who alone made up that agency's
cold case squad in 2011.
The writer explained his interest in
the case and related details about
Collins's murder to the detective.
At the beginning, Rogge proved
helpful, noting that an initial check
failed to turn up evidence in the
Ngov case. He promised to look
deeper.
When contacted a few weeks later,
however, his attitude had taken a
one-eighty. His hostile comments
indicated he had talked to an unnamed Harris County Sheriff 's
Office cold case detective about the
Collins case.
Referring to both the Collins and
Ngov cases, he admonished the
writer that both cases were very
old. Dredging them up, he said,
might upset survivors. And Matt,
the person of interest, had died and
could never be prosecuted anyway.
Rogge also said that it might be
impossible to locate survivors.
At the time, the Pasadena Police
Department's Web site featured
four cold cases, three of which were
older than both the Collins and
Ngov cases.
And far from upsetting survivors,
a basic premise of cold case squads
is to solve old crimes and bring
closure to survivors. If cold case
squads held back due to concern
over upsetting survivors, the squads
would probably lose the public's
confidence.
As for closing cold cases only
through prosecution, any resolution is preferable to no resolution.
And finding the likely address and
phone number of Ngov’s widow’s
took a 10-minute search of an online directory.
One Murder,
Two Victims:
The Wrongful
Conviction of
Ryan Ferguson
Ngov's autopsy report revealed
he had been shot in the head,
the bullet passing “through and
through.” So the fatal bullet was not
found during the autopsy. Detective Rogge would not reveal if the
bullet was recovered at the crime
scene or whether it remains in evidence files today.
Perhaps the Ngov case shares yet
another similarity to the Collins
murder. Like Collins, Ngov too may
have been killed by a disappearing
bullet. And, like Collins, he may
have been the victim of a botched
police investigation.
Ryan Ferguson
In a case rife with DNA and other
physical evidence, not one shred of
evidence linked 17-year-old Ryan
Ferguson to the murder of Columbia
(Mo.) Daily Tribune sports writer
Kent Heitholt in 2001. Ferguson's
conviction in 2005 proved only how
far the police and prosecution would
go to close Columbia's only unsolved
murder. A Boone County (Mo.) Judge,
at a three-day-evidentiary hearing in
mid-July 2008, heard testimony of how
the police and prosecution withheld
exculpatory evidence from Ferguson's
trial attorneys and manipulated and
threatened witnesses who dared not
support their trumped-up case against
Ferguson.
Read More
http://www.crimemagazine.com/one-murder-twovictims-wrongful-conviction-ryan-ferguson
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