Another Senseless Murder

Thomas Woodel brutally murdered Clifford and Bernice Moody

Snowbird Season
By Robert A. Waters

On December 31, 1996, Clifford Moody, 79, and his wife, Bernice, 74, were murdered in their Polk County, Florida home. The Moody’s were what Floridians call “snowbirds,” or seasonal visitors to the state. They came south in the winter and went back to their home in Kankakee, Illinois for the summer.

The couple owned two mobile homes at Outdoor Resorts of America on Lake Davenport, near Bartow. They lived in a house on Lot # 533 and rented out their second home which was next door.

Clifford Moody was in poor health. He had an enlarged heart, and had recently endured triple by-pass surgery. He’d had a knee replacement and walked with a decided limp. Even with his physical problems, Clifford was active. He loved to fish for bass and spent many hours on the lake. Bernice Moody, on the other hand, was the picture of health. She looked much younger than her age. She loved to garden, and her trailer was brilliant with flora, even in the winter.

On December 30, the weather was picture-perfect for visitors to the Sunshine State, with temperatures in the mid-70s and sunny skies. Clifford and Bernice worked all day on the second trailer they owned, getting it ready for a new renter. They were seen by many of the residents of the trailer park pressure-cleaning and making repairs.

At about 12:45 p.m. on the following day, New Year’s Eve, LaVern O’Connell arrived at the rental unit. He’d arranged to lease the home for three months. He knocked on the door but received no answer. Inching his way in through an unlocked door, O’Connell discovered the bodies of the couple.

Investigators from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office were called. Court documents state that Clifford lay “on the flat of his back in the kitchen/dining room area. His eyeglasses had been knocked off and were lying beside him, about two feet from his head. He was wearing a silver-colored chain with a cross on it, and a watch on his left arm. His underwear and trousers had been pulled down to his knees or ankles.” Clifford had been stabbed eight times. The coroner later ruled that his death was due to loss of blood.

Bernice was lying in the back bedroom. She’d been stabbed 58 times. She’d also been attacked with the lid of a toilet. It had broken into several pieces as she was slammed in the head with it. Bernice had defensive injuries and died, like her husband, due to loss of blood.

Deputies interviewed almost everyone at Outdoor Resorts, but got no real leads. Then they decided to check out the dumpsters in the park. “Among the items found,” stated one court document, “were Pizza Hut boxes, pieces of [a] porcelain toilet tank lid, a wallet containing identification and credit cards belonging to Clifford Moody, keys with a tag that said ‘Cliff’s keys,’ glasses, bloody socks, paperwork with the address of Lot 301, and paperwork bearing the name of...Thomas Woodel.”

Not surprisingly, Thomas Woodel lived in a trailer on Lot # 301.
His sister, Bobbi, owned the trailer and let Woodel live with her. They both worked at a nearby Pizza Hut.

Tommy Woodel had a difficult childhood. “Albert Davis, Thomas Woodel’s father, was deaf,” one document read. “He used to drink heavily, but stopped drinking so much 20 years ago. Thomas Woodel’s mother, Jackie, was also hard of hearing [and] drank a lot. She would go out and drink, and not return until late at night when the children were in bed; as a result, they never really got to talk with their mother. Jackie was an unfit mother, and Albert Woodel sometimes had to assume the roles of both mother and father. He and Jackie would get into fist fights after he found her in a bar. The kids would sometimes go and hide when their parents were fighting.”

The home was unstable, with many moves, and for a time, Thomas and Bobbi lived in a children’s home. Other times they lived with relatives. When Tommy was eight, his father moved out, causing more chaos. At eighteen, Woodel enlisted in the Navy but was dishonorably discharged after going AWOL. Tommy was a hard worker, but also an alcoholic. He was easy-going and his co-workers at Pizza Hut were astonished when they found out that he had murdered two people. His sister Bobbi said, “[Tommy’s] a very nice, loving person that gets misunderstood a lot because he has a hard time communicating. But violence doesn’t even come close to being anything near his personality.”

Unfortunately, the evidence for the brutal murders of two innocent people lay directly at the feet of Thomas Woodel. When he was interviewed, he quickly confessed, although he tried to make the murders seem like self-defense. After working at Pizza Hut on New Year’s Eve night, Woodel got off at around eleven o’clock that night. He drank several beers and started walking home. He said he saw Bernice Moody (whom he did not know) cleaning a window and asked her what time it was. According to his statement, she pulled out a knife and said, “You need to leave or I’m going to cut you.” He said he pushed her down but she got up and came at him with the knife. As he struggled with her, she “poked” herself.

He took the knife from her, he said, and held it out in a defensive posture. She tried to attack him again, but “ran into the knife.” She fell, then got up and attacked him again. The process was repeated over and over, Woodel said, with Bernice running into the knife several more times. She continued to struggle and Woodel took the lid of the toilet and struck her to subdue her. As they fought, they ended up in one of the bedrooms and both fell on the bed where Woodel cut Bernice’s throat.

It was one of the most unlikely stories the detectives had ever heard. Woodel then continued his account. At some point, he said, Clifford Moody heard the commotion and came to his wife’s aid. With his physical condition, he was no match for Woodel, and was stabbed to death. A court document read: “As Woodel was preparing to leave the trailer, he thought he would take Clifford Moody’s wallet. He could not get the wallet out of Moody’s pants, so he lowered the pants to the ankles in order to get it out.”

The crime seemed senseless, as so many do.

Woodel had served a prison sentence in Michigan for auto theft. He’d been released in April, and moved to Florida to live with his sister. She'd helped him get a job at Pizza Hut as a cook.

Woodel was tried and convicted of the first degree murder of both Clifford and Bernice Woodel. Jurors didn’t buy his “self-defense” version of the events and sentenced him to death.

Assistant State Attorney Paul Wallace acknowledged that Woodel had a difficult childhood. Then he added, “But what does that have to do with what he chose to do? It has nothing to do with what he chose to do. He was not lashing out at the people who harmed him.”

Woodel’s appeals are running out and he could be executed in the near future.

The Murder of Christine Jessop

DNA Exoneration--Guy Paul Morin
by Robert A. Waters

DNA has been the gateway to freedom for many inmates--too many for Americans to have much faith in their judicial system. In Canada, DNA has also been used to clear inmates. The murder of nine-year-old Christine Jessop and the wrongful conviction of Guy Paul Morin was one of the first cases in Canada in which DNA proved the innocence of an alleged killer. This is a dark tale of kidnapping, rape and murder, and an even darker tale of cops and prosecutors framing a completely innocent man. The saddest thing about this case is that for more than 25 years, a child-killer has walked free.

On October 3, 1984, at about 3:50 p.m., Christine Jessop, a pretty nine-year-old, got off her school bus, picked up her family's mail, and bounded into her home. No one was there--her father was at work and her mother was running errands. Sometime between 4:00 and 4:30, Christine walked into a nearby convenience store and bought a pack of bubble gum.

The Queensville, Ontario schoolgirl was never seen alive again, except by her killer.

When Janet and Kenneth Jessop returned home at about 4:10, they saw Christine’s book bag on a kitchen counter, as well as the mail and a newspaper. Unable to find Christine, they called her friends and searched the neighborhood and a nearby park. No one had seen her. Sometime between seven and eight o’clock, Janet called police.

Christine was a “normal little girl,” Janet told investigators. She liked sports, especially baseball. She could be a tomboy, but she also had a sensitive side. She loved her dog, Freckles, and other animals. Christine was four feet nine inches tall, and “weighed about 40 pounds soaking wet.” She attended Queensville Public School and was in the fourth grade. Her mother told police that Christine had no reason to run away.

Within minutes of being contacted, York Regional Police began a search of the area. After interviewing neighbors, cops began to turn their attention to the Jessop’s next door neighbor. Guy Paul Morin, 23, was weird, neighbors said. He lived with his mother and father and worked at Interiors International Limited, a local furniture store. He played saxophone and clarinet in a band. A beekeeper, he kept beehives in his back yard, another “oddity,” according to neighbors.

Morin had little contact with his peers. He worked, played music with his band, and stayed home. He didn’t go to pubs and drink, spending most of his time indulging in his hobbies. He also had a girlfriend. Even though he’d never been in any trouble with police, detectives thought the neighbor fit the profile of a child-killer.

When Morin’s mother was interviewed, investigators later testified that they found his actions “strange.” Detectives said that during the session he “stared straight ahead” and never spoke. His so-called suspicious behavior caused cops to further focus on Morin as their one and only suspect.

The furniture maker, however, had an alibi.

According to a later investigation into the wrongful conviction of Morin, the court wrote: “On October 3, 1984, Guy Paul Morin was at his place of employment at IIL. His time card confirmed that he left work that day at 3:32 p.m. He testified that he drove the family Honda north in the direction of his home. He stopped at the Upper Canada Mall in Newmarket on the way and purchased a lottery ticket from Susan Scott at the Infoplace Ticket Centre. He bought groceries at the Dominion Store. He may then have filled up his gas tank at a nearby gas station. He continued to shop at Loblaws and then at Mr. Grocers. He then drove north on Leslie Street, arriving home, he swore, between 5:00 and 5:30 p.m. As he walked towards his house, his brother-in-law was leaving. They spoke briefly. Guy Paul Morin's parents and his sister, Yvette, were at home. He carried the groceries into the kitchen and then, he said, he napped until approximately 6:30 p.m. He had supper with his parents after which he worked with his father outside the house into the evening, using trilights as makeshift floodlights. At his second trial, the prosecution alleged that this alibi evidence was false and that the alibi put forward by Guy Paul Morin and his family had been concocted. (At the first trial, the prosecution contended that Guy Paul’s family [was] mistaken in their support of his alibi.)”

During the initial search for Christine, a police dog “hit” on the Morin’s car. A search of the vehicle turned up fibers that the Ontario Centre of Forensic Sciences later said belonged to Christine.

On December 31, 1984, Christine’s body was found in a field near Sunderland.

According to court documents, “Christine Jessop's body was on its back and her legs were spread apart in an unnatural position, with her knees spread outward. She was wearing a beige turtleneck sweater, a blue pullover sweater, a blouse from which some buttons were missing and a pair of white socks with blue stripes. Subsequently, it was determined she was in fact wearing two pairs of socks. Her panties were found at her right foot. Blue corduroy pants with a belt and a pair of Nike running shoes were found just south of her feet.”

An autopsy report revealed that Christine had been killed by multiple stab wounds to the upper body. Semen was found on her panties, but in 1984, DNA testing was still just a gleam in the eye of genetic biologists. There was no way to identify who the semen came from. Fortunately for Morin, the panties were stored in an evidence locker.

Since the child’s remains had been found in their district, the Durham Regional Police Service took over the lead in the case. Investigators met with the York Regional Police and were told to question Guy Paul Morin.

After further interviews, in which Morin continued to proclaim his innocence, he was arrested and charged with the murder of Christine Jessop.

The first trial took place in January, 1986. The prosecution’s theory was that Morin was an oddball who snapped on the day of the kidnapping. He raped and murdered Christine and then took her body several miles away to dispose of it. A technician from the Ontario Centre of Forensic Sciences testified that red fibers found in Morin’s car came from a sweater worn by Christine. This, the prosecution claimed, “linked” Morin to the murdered child. In addition, two jailhouse snitches, including one identified only as “Mr. X,” testified that while Morin was waiting in jail for his trial, he confessed to killing the girl.

On February 7, with little evidence against the suspect, he was acquitted by the jury.

That should have ended the case, but it didn’t. In Canada, the prosecution can appeal for a new trial if an accused person is acquitted. The prosecution did just that and won.

If a jury trial is a gamble, then Morin drew a dead man’s hand on his second trial. On July 23, 1992, he was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. The same jailhouse snitches, including the infamous “Mr. X,” were viewed more favorably by this jury. But it was said that scientists from the Quebec Centre of Forensic Sciences carried the day when they swore that fibers in Morin’s car matched fibers from a sweater worn by Christine and that a single hair on a necklace the child wore matched that of Morin.

Guy Paul Morin entered the prison as a child-killer. He was abused and raped by other inmates, even as his defense attorneys worked to get him a third trial.

An article from the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys summarized what happened next. “While Morin's appeal was pending before the Ontario Court of Appeal,” it read, “a forensic DNA test [on the semen] unavailable to either party during the first two trials eliminated Morin as the perpetrator. On January 23, 1995, Guy Paul Morin's appeal of his conviction for murder was allowed based on the DNA report, his conviction was set aside, and a directed verdict of acquittal was entered.”

Morin was set free and was eventually awarded nearly $ 1.5 million dollars. An inquest to determine what went wrong was devastating to the Canadian criminal justice system. Testimony revealed that the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence. Technicians in the forensic lab contaminated the samples presented to them and withheld that information from the defense. The prosecution was aware of the problems in the lab, but illegally chose not to reveal them to the defense. “Mr. X” and the second jailhouse snitch were coached by prosecutors and their sentences cut short for testifying against Morin. In the hearing, it became clear that cops and prosecutors zeroed in on Morin to the exclusion of all evidence, including an airtight alibi that would have cleared him.

An article in The Canadian Encyclopedia illustrates how hard cops worked to convict Morin. “Some of the most dramatic moments in the Morin inquiry came,” the article read, “when Janet and Ken Jessop alleged that two veteran Durham regional police detectives, Bernie Fitzpatrick and John Shephard, convinced them to alter their original versions of events. The Jessops originally told the detectives that they arrived home at 4:10 p.m...But Morin could not have made it home from work before 4:14. In order to convince the court that he had enough time to kidnap and murder Christine, the Jessops changed their story to say they arrived home at 4:35.”

Ken Jessop tearfully apologized to Morin, as did many of those involved in the case.

Christine Jessop’s murderer is still unknown.

Animal attacks on humans

Animals wild and tame
by Robert A. Waters

Wild animals don’t abide by the rules of man. Instead, they live by the law of the jungle: kill or be killed. Even pets and creatures in captivity can have killer instincts. The much-publicized chimpanzee attack that left Charla Nash blinded and mutilated is a grim reminder of this unalterable fact. While more animals are killed by man than vice versa, it is still true that lions, tigers, snakes, and bears attack thousands of humans each year, particularly in so-called Third World countries. In the water, alligators, crocodiles, sharks, and other creatures take a similar toll on humans. Even in our civilized domiciles, we’re never quite safe from predators--human or animal.

Less than a week ago, a mountain lion entered the home of Michelle Bese in Chaffee County, Colorado. The lion came inside through a doggy door while chasing one of Bese’s five dogs. The other four dogs attacked the young lion. The fight between the dogs and the lion raged for several minutes as Michele and her five-year-old son hid in a bedroom. After responding to a 911 call, deputies who entered the home found a bloodbath. One dog had been killed, and two blinded by the lion. After officers shot the creature, investigators from the Colorado Department of Wildlife said the young lion weighed about 40 pounds, much less than he should have weighed. A newspaper report stated that humans are moving into wildlife habitat and that encounters are becoming more common.

In August, 2009, again in Colorado, Donna Munson, 74, was killed and partially eaten by a 450-pound bear. Munson, who lived in a remote area of the wilderness, took joy in feeding bears. In fact, she built a fence around her porch so she could hand food out to them without getting too close. On August 7, she was attempting to feed a small bear that had been injured. As she fed the young cub, a much larger bear appeared. Munson, who was on the phone to her son, told him she was going to use a broom to drive the large bear away. According to an article in the Denver News, “Sheriff's investigators said that the bear ‘clubbed’ her through the wire fence that she had built around her porch, rendering her unconscious. It then grabbed her, pulled her underneath the fence to the back yard and then slashed her to death.” Forestry officials said they had warned Munson time and again about feeding the bears.

In Lee County, South Carolina, a woman was mauled by a pit bull. Ethel Mae Horton rushed from the house to help her husband who had first been attacked. During the confrontation, she died of a heart attack. Newspaper articles said the couple was trying to feed several dogs in their back yard when the pit bull named Brutus attacked.

And who can forget this attack at one of Florida’s most popular tourist spots?

“A whale trainer at SeaWorld died from ‘multiple traumatic injuries and drowning’ after a 12,000-pound killer whale grabbed her ponytail and pulled her underwater in front of shocked onlookers at Shamu Stadium,” the Orange County Sheriff's Office said. The headlines were everywhere--Dawn Brancheau, 40, the whale’s trainer, was mangled by the Orca. It turns out that Tilikum, the 22-foot-long whale, had killed twice before. Authorities say they don’t know whether the whale was attempting to play or whether it launched a full-fledged attack. One tourist said that the whale seemed upset. Officials will not euthanize the whale. According to friends and family, Brancheau, who had worked as a park trainer for 13 years, would not want her killer put to death.

Killer bees. Deadly frogs. Scorpions that have more venom than a rattlesnake. Snails with enough toxin to kill in minutes. These are just a few of the less well-known killers. They are more numerous in some parts of the world than lions, tigers, and other animals that attack. They all take a deadly toll each year.

Review of A Small but Spartan Band

Review of A Small but Spartan Band: The Florida Brigade in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia by Zack C. Waters and James C. Edmonds
University of Alabama Press

by Robert A. Waters

All male ancestors of fighting age that Waters family historians have been able to trace fought for the Confederacy during the War Between the States. They hailed from Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and Florida. When I was growing up, that war mattered more to many of our family members than the recently-fought conflict in Korea. My great-great grandmother received a Confederate pension because she was the widow of a southern veteran. I still fondly remember family conversations about the struggle for Southern independence and our family’s participation in that lost cause. That’s why I’m ecstatic that my brother Zack and his writing partner Jimmy Edmonds have published this long-needed book.

Even though Florida was a backwater country in 1861, it already had a long history of conflict.

Native Americans had populated the state for at least 8,000 years--the wars they fought amongst themselves are unknown. But when the Spanish arrived to establish a settlement in 1527, they were driven off by the fierceness of the local Indians. It was four decades later that the Spaniards finally set up a small fort called San Augustin. Shortly after that, Jean Ribault led a band of French Hugenot settlers to an area near Jacksonville, but he and his men were quickly massacred by the Spanish.

From that time on, the history of Florida was drenched in blood. There was the razing of the fort in St. Augustine by British pirates; the Apalachee massacre; the Battle of Pensacola; the near-extermination of native Florida Indians by the invading Seminoles; the Dade Massacre and Chief Osceola’s determined campaign against settlers in central and southern Florida; and slave raids. In 1810, a rebellion of settlers against Spanish rule led to further violence and established the Free and Independent Republic of West Florida.

In the 1820s, Andrew Jackson fought and eventually subdued the Seminoles, thereby opening up the territory for settlement.

On March 3, 1845, Florida, the land of flowers, became the 27th state to join the union.

By 1861, when Florida became the third state to secede from that same United States of America, it had about 140,000 residents. Most weren’t available to fight: women, children, and slaves made up the bulk of the population. In fact, only about 15,000 males in the state were able to take up arms. Many of those fought in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.

A Small but Spartan Band describes the Florida soldiers’ travails from the beginning of the war in 1861 until Lee’s surrender in 1865. Florida troops fought bravely in some instances, and less so in others, mostly depending on their leadership. They gained a reputation after the war as having been poor soldiers, or worse, deserters. This book shows that much of that reputation came about because Southern historians of the post-war era were looking for scapegoats to blame for the loss of the war to the hated Yankees.

During the four years of the conflict, Florida Rebels were isolated from family and friends back home. The mail was unreliable and they rarely received letters from loved ones. Their own letters to the homefolks were sometimes poignant, telling tales of suffering and death. On December 7, 1864, C. O. Bailey of the Seventh Florida regiment wrote: “We had an awful time of it--the ground was frozen all the time. It had rained a hard rain a few days before we started and the roads were badly cut up and then being frozen it was like walking on sharp rocks...” Many of the Florida soldiers had no shoes as they marched in the freezing Virginia sleet.

In one of the early tests of the mettle of the Floridians, the Battle of Seven Pines, E. A. Perry’s Second Florida Infantry fought impressively, charging through artillery bombardment to finally rout the enemy. A Federal soldier later wrote about the battle: “Our shot tore their ranks wide open, and shattered them asunder in a manner that was frightful to witness; but they closed up again at once, and came on as steady as English veterans. When they got within 400 yards, we closed our case-shot and opened on them with canister; and such destruction I never elsewhere witnessed.”

The Floridians fought in almost all the major campaigns, as well as many little-known skirmishes.

At Fredericksburg, the Eighth Florida performed miserably. The regiment was divided into two groups, with Companies A, D, and F commanded by Captain William Baya. During the engagement, Baya was ordered to fire on the bluecoats. Because his troops had been placed in an unprotected open area, he refused. Captain Andrew Govan of the Seventh Mississippi, wrote: “[The Floridians] failed repeatedly to obey my commands when ordered to fire on the bridge-builders.” Because of such occasional lapses, the Florida troops gained a reputation as being unreliable.

On the other hand, at Gettysburg, they performed with great valor. They were part of Pickett’s charge and suffered appalling casualties.

After the war, the surviving Florida troops went home to desolation. Many had lost everything--others were able to re-start their lives and eventually prosper. Some became farmers, ranchers, business-owners, doctors, lawyers, and politicians, contributing to the re-building of the state. For more than a hundred years after the last shot was fired, the War Between the States shaped many of the beliefs and actions of Floridians.

A Small but Spartan Band does something remarkable: with thousands of books covering every aspect of the so-called Civil War, the authors plow NEW ground. No full study of the Florida troops has been done in 110 years--certainly none that meet academic standards. (Don’t let the word “academic” fool you--the writing is brisk and fast-paced, sometimes leaving the reader breathless from the descriptions of the action.)

For my brother Zack, this book was a labor of love, consuming 25 years of reading, researching, and writing about the war that changed American history. His articles on the subject have been published in many journals and periodicals.

If you have any interest at all in this subject, buy A Small but Spartan Band. It stands to be a classic in the literature.

DNA Helps Cops Crack Cold Case

The killer of Ellen Rutchick was identified 38 years later by DNA

DNA Helps Cops Crack Cold Case
by Brooklyn White

If there is one thing that is worse than being the victim of a crime or the loved one of a victim, it is probably being in the dark because of an unsolved crime. Your loved one has been gone for years, but there is no closure for you because their killer has not been arrested, tried and punished. You have no idea why they were killed and any kind of speculation only makes you more confused and bewildered. Cold cases are a thorn not just in the side of the detectives who are unable to solve them, but also for the victims’ families who desperately want answers, and with them closure.

So when new evidence opens up and the case is solved, there is reason to rejoice, even if nearly four decades have gone by and the perpetrator of the crime is now deceased. Relatives and descendants of Ellen Rutchick can now heave a sigh of relief, 38 years after she was raped and strangled to death in her apartment in Boston in 1972. Police identified the perpetrator as Michael Sumpter after DNA from the crime scene matched his samples; incidentally, Sumpter’s DNA also matched evidence in another rape case in 1985 when a 21-year-old who lived in the same areas as Rutchick was raped and the case went cold because of the lack of leads.

Unfortunately, Sumpter is now dead – he passed away because of cancer in 2001 when in jail serving a sentence on another rape charge. The only solace in the whole issue for the victims’ families is that Sumpter was finally caught and jailed for rape, and was serving time when he died.

DNA matching technology was used to identify the culprit on the initiative of Rutchick’s relatives. They had heard of a project that was started in 2002 to revive sexual assault cold cases and attempt to solve them using DNA evidence. With over 600 cases having been solved by this method, they wanted to see if Ellen’s murderer could be identified, even though 38 years had gone by. The detectives assigned to this project had already matched Sumpter to the 1985 rape case, so when they reopened Ellen Rutchick’s case, it was just a matter of time before they found that Sumpter’s DNA matched evidence stored from the case all those years ago.

DNA evidence is now increasingly being used to identify criminals in violent cases. Thanks to CODIS, the nationwide federal database that holds over 7 million DNA profiles, it is easy to identify criminals who have a past or who are repeat offenders. While the solving of Ellen Rutchick’s rape and murder brings relief to her relatives and friends, it also proves to the rest of us that criminals are not beyond capture – no matter how many years go by, as long as the technology exists, the bad guys will eventually be caught.

By-line:
This guest post is contributed by Brooklyn White, who writes on the topic of Forensic Science Technician Schools. She can be reached at brookwhite26-AT-Gmail.com.

Duke lacrosse accuser Crystal Gail Mangum arrested again

How could you, Crystal Gail?
by Robert A. Waters

In her short mis-spent life, Crystal Gail Mangum has made headlines more than most. We all remember the Duke debacle, in which she accused Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans of raping her. The charge came at the perfect time for Mike Nifong--he was running for district attorney of Durham County, North Carolina and needed the black vote to get elected. Lo and behold, he latched onto the rape allegations and, like a bulldog, held on to the bitter end.

It was the perfect meta-narrative for the national media: privileged white jocks brutalize a down-trodden black mother, student, and all-American girl. While the case was being tried in the media, Crystal Gail’s name wasn’t published. At least, not at first. But the three lacrosse players weren’t so lucky. They were threatened and smeared and sent packing from Duke University. Worse, they faced the prospect of spending thirty years in prison.

It soon became apparent to most Americans that there was no truth to the charges. Yet Nifong and Mangum continued to pursue the case. Nifong did indeed win his election, but from that point on his life went downhill. He ended up losing his job, getting disbarred, and being sued by the players.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper finally put an end to the legal witch hunt by announcing that “based on the significant inconsistencies between the evidence and the various accounts given by the accusing witness, we believe these three individuals [Seligmann, Finnerty, and Evans], are innocent of these charges.”

However, he recommended that no action be taken against Crystal Gail, whose name had finally been published. Mangum had mental issues, Cooper said, and it would do no good to arrest her for making a false charge. Because of Cooper’s charitable interpretation of the law, the All-American girl walked away scot-free.

This wasn’t Crystal Gail’s first brush with the legal system. In 2000, her driver’s license was revoked after being arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.

In 2002, Crystal Gail stole a taxi. After a high-speed chase in which she attempted to run down a police officer, she was arrested and pled guilty to driving while impaired, attempting to elude arrest, larceny, and attempted assault on a government official.

Of course, since it didn’t fit the formula, little of this was published by the media for many months.

By 2006, Crystal Gail Mangum was working as a stripper and an escort. On March 13, she claimed to have been gang-raped by numerous lacrosse players. DNA from three or five different men (depending on what article you read) was indeed found on her clothes or in her body. None, however, came from the lacrosse players.

Now Crystal Gail is back in the news. A report in the Raleigh News and Observer reads: “According to authorities, Mangum, 31, and her boyfriend, Milton Walker, were fighting in their apartment at 2220 Lincoln St. She then set fire to Walker’s clothing inside a bathroom tub, located in a bathroom in the middle of the apartment, police said. She tried to start another fire after officers arrived, according to an arrest warrant read during Mangum’s first court appearance this morning. Police said Mangum also threatened to stab Walker.”

She’s in jail with a million dollar bond and an attempted murder charge hanging over her head. In a way, I feel sorry for Crystal Gail Mangum. She does seem to have mental problems. But the false accusations she made against the lacrosse players were so egregious that any sympathy I may have is outweighed by her obvious dangerousness. (False accusations can be as harmful as a physical assault.) If the charges against her are proven to be true, she should be isolated from society.

Searching for an identity: "Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee"

Two artist sketches of a woman found murdered benath the Lake Panasoffkee Bridge in central Florida



Unquiet Rest
by Robert A. Waters

Sometime in the waning winter of 1971, a young woman was murdered. Her killer placed a leather belt around her neck, pulled it tight, and held on until the girl quit struggling. Then he dumped her off a bridge in central Florida.

She has no name. Or at least not a name that anybody knows. Shortly after she died, the young woman was discovered floating in the black acidic waters just beneath the Lake Panasoffkee Bridge on Interstate 75. For nearly forty years, all efforts to identify her have failed.

The Sumter County Sheriff’s Office has investigated the case with a fierce doggedness. Before the advent of computers, investigators sent out flyers describing the case to thousands of police agencies across the country. They contacted the news media in hopes of generating stories about the case. Investigators even contacted the popular television show “Unsolved Mysteries” and the case was featured in a chilling segment that has been repeated many times. In the beginning, numerous leads came in--all were investigated, including hundreds of calls from parents who thought the remains might be their missing daughter.

In 1986, Sheriff James Adams gave the woman a nickname: “Little Miss Lake Panasoffkee.” He arranged for her body to be exhumed and examined by forensic anthropologist Dr. William Maples. In addition to what was already known, the autopsy uncovered several key facts about the young woman.

She was Caucasian with possibly a touch of Native American ancestry. She was five-feet-two and weighed about 100 pounds. The woman was between 18 and 23 years of age, and had given birth to at least one child, probably two. At some point in her life, the woman had been well-taken care of. She had extensive dental work which included silver fillings and a porcelain cap. An orthopedic surgical procedure known as the Watson-Jones technique had repaired a weakness in her right ankle that caused her to fall and sprain it many times. After learning of the Watson-Jones procedure, the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office advertised in medical journals hoping to jog the memory of some doctor who might have performed the surgery.

Several composite sketches have been done over the years. They were shown on “Unsolved Mysteries” and have been publicized over the Internet.

Investigators theorize that Little Miss Panasoffkee was raised in a caring family that provided for her. At some point, possibly in her teens, her life may have gone off track. At the time of her death, four lower and two upper teeth were missing, pointing to a later lack of dental care or violence. The young woman may have become estranged from her family. “We believe it’s a person from a disenfranchised family,” said Captain Gary Brannen. “[She’s] not in the family fold, so to speak.”

Recently, a section of one of the girl’s bones was sent to the FBI for genetic analysis. A DNA profile was extracted, so if her family is ever located, she can be identified and returned home.

A few other pieces of information are available: Little Miss Panasoffkee was probably right-handed; she was wearing a thin gold-colored neck chain; she wore a gold-colored ring with a transparent stone on her right hand; and she had a seventeen-jewel Baylor watch on her left wrist.

Little Miss Panasoffkee’s killer has escaped justice for four decades. It is unlikely that he’ll ever be caught.

While the murderer has gone about his own life, the lost soul of an unknown daughter rests fitfully in a grave far away from home. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus tells of a straying child who “came to his senses” and returned home to his father. Little Miss Panasoffkee never had that chance.

If anyone has any information about this case, please contact Captain Gary Brannen at the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office by telephone at (352) 793-0222 or (352) 793-0278.

Three Unsolved Cases from Tennessee

China Videon has been missing for nearly eleven years

Tennessee’s Unsolved
by Robert A. Waters

I lived in Tennessee from 1969 to 1974. I met the lady who would become my wife there and got my undergraduate degree from Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. Since the Marcia Trimble murder, I’ve been interested in crimes that have taken place in the Volunteer State. In a previous post, I wrote about the kidnap and murder of six-year-old Dorothy Ann Distelhurst in Nashville. Here are sketches of three other unsolved cases in the state.

On the morning of June 11, 1973, Nashville police were called to Rothberg’s Shoe Store at 4914 Charlotte Avenue. The business had been a fixture in the city for many years. When investigators arrived, they found the body of fifty-nine-year-old Mollie Rothberg behind the counter. She’d been stabbed repeatedly. The motive appeared to have been robbery. A person of interest was seen in the area riding a “chopper” motorcycle. His jacket displayed a skull, crossbones, and Nazi-style cross. He was never located and the case has never been solved.

It’s been more than ten years since China Videon disappeared off the face of the earth. She was a student at Riverdale High School in Murfreesboro. On the evening of October 19, 1999, China got off work at the Bi-Lo Grocery Store and visited her mother at a nearby beauty salon. After chatting for a few minutes, she left to go to a friend’s house. She has never been seen since. China’s car, a black Mazda, was found nine months later at an apartment complex in Antioch, a few miles from Murfreesboro. Items she’d bought at the grocery store were still in the car. Rutherford County Sheriff’s Detective Bill Goodwin said, “It’s clear that China Videon was a victim of a crime.” But investigators never had any good leads. Her mother, Suzanne Videon, believes her daughter is dead. “China and I were almost like friends,” Suzanne said. “[But] I’m denied a chance to bury her, to say goodbye to her.”

At about two o’clock on the afternoon of March 7, 1991, Pauline George, 50, drove to her home just outside of Knoxville. She checked her mail, took a shower, and put on a housecoat. Three hours later, she was found dead in her basement. Pauline worked as an admissions clerk at Fort Sanders Parkwest Medical Center. At five that afternoon, she planned to go to dinner and a movie with her boyfriend, Jack Lane. Lane discovered her body when he arrived to pick her up. A terrific struggle had taken place. Pauline had been brutally beaten but died from multiple stab wounds. It’s unclear if a sexual assault had occurred--DNA testing proved inconclusive. Pauline’s purse with money still inside was left on the bed and no jewelry was missing. Her home stood near a railroad track and some investigators theorize that she was murdered by a transient who’d hopped a train. Others think it was someone she knew, although Jack Lane and family members have been eliminated from suspicion. The Knox County Sheriff’s Office continues to investigate this baffling mystery.

Murderers walk among us.

From decades-old graves, their victims cry for justice.

Daniel Dewey, murdered by a twisted serial killer


An Unknown Serial Killer in Louisiana?

by Robert A. Waters

The last struggles of Danny Dewey ended in a patch of woods near Greensburg, Louisiana. The seventeen-year-old lay in a fetal position, hog-tied on the cold ground.

According to an article from APBNews.com, Dewey “was bound alive with [an] elaborate rigging. Knotted ropes lashed him wrist-to-wrist, ankle-to-ankle, wrists-to-ankle. Another cord was wrapped around his neck to his feet. The more the victim squirmed to break free, the tighter the ropes constricted his breathing until he was asphyxiated.”

No doubt, the killer stood watching, experiencing pleasure as the helpless boy’s final breaths rendered him lifeless. Some accounts of the crime assert that the boy had been sexually assaulted--others state that he wasn’t.

In any event, it was a horrible end to a short, sad life.

On November 12, 1979, deer hunters came upon the body. The victim had long blonde hair, blue-gray eyes, and wore pants that were too big for him.

Police were unable to identify the remains, so residents of the community took up donations to bury him. For twenty-nine years, his headstone read simply: “Unidentified Homicide Victim.”

Louisiana State Police Detective Dennis Stewart had been a child when Dewey was found. In 2000, Stewart obtained necessary court documents to have the body exhumed so additional tests could be performed. Dental records were taken, and DNA obtained from bone marrow. The new information was submitted to several state and national databases, including the FBI’s CODIS (Combined DNA Index System). Still, there was no match.

Later that year, Stewart submitted fingerprints that had been taken at the time of the boy’s discovery to another FBI database. This time there was a match. Records show that Daniel Dewey had been arrested in Baytown, Texas not long before he was murdered. He’d been stopped for driving a motorcycle without a helmet or driver’s license.

The detective contacted Billy Dewey, Danny’s older brother, who described a chaotic childhood. There were four boys, and they grew up in Texas.

“Our mother died in a car accident when I was seven and Danny was six,” Billy Dewey said. “We were all just sort of farmed out after that, going from relative to relative. Our upbringing was pretty rough.”

When Danny was seventeen, the family they were living with moved away, leaving the boys homeless. “The last time I saw Danny,” Billy said, “he was getting on a bus.”

In 2000, Danny was exhumed for the final time. This time he was given a family funeral.

While Detective Stewart was happy to identify Dewey, he can’t rest. There’s still an unidentified killer out there who has gotten away with murder for thirty years.

In fact, Daniel Dewey’s killer is almost certainly responsible for two other murders in the area. On February 1, 1978, the body of Dennis Turcotte, 22, was discovered near Abita Springs, Louisiana. The next month, the remains of Raymond Mark Richardson, 17, were found in a wooded area near Gulfport, Mississippi.

In both cases, the method of killing was the same as that of the Dewey case. “[Turcotte and Richardson] were in a fetal position,” Stewart said, “hog-tied, if you will. When they struggled, the ropes constricted and caused their deaths.”

It seems unlikely that two killers with the same unique MO would be operating in the same area.

What happened to the killer?

“I’m sure it was the same person,” Stewart said. “But after those three it ended. Either the killer died or went to prison.”

Or maybe he was institutionalized, became disabled, moved to another location, or simply stopped killing.

Whatever the case, the deaths of three young men scream for justice. And Detective Stewart is to be commended for his persistence and dedication. Without him, it’s doubtful anyone would have ever known the sad story of Daniel Dewey.

Orwell and Duranty

A Re-Reading of Animal Farm
by Robert A. Waters

In 1932, Walter Duranty won the Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles that minimized one of Russia’s several holocausts--the deliberate starvation of millions of Ukrainians by Stalin’s communist government. A few years later, a well-known British author named George Orwell was turned down by publisher after publisher when he submitted a “fable” critical of the revolution. Needless to say, once it was published, Animal Farm did not win a Pulitzer.

Orwell’s own publisher wouldn’t touch the book because of its depiction of the brutal murderousness of the Russian regime. After several more rejections, a small anti-communist company called Secker & Warburg published it in 1945. Despite its inauspicious debut, Animal Farm has been named one of the top 100 novels in the English language.

A few days ago, I re-read the book. I first encountered Animal Farm while in college. I’d just read 1984, a sci-fyish yet realistic novel that literally scared any tendencies toward communistic thought straight out of me. Then I picked up Animal Farm.

The story itself is well-known. The animals at Jones’s Manor Farm, downtrodden with heavy work-loads, revolt and take the farm from its be-sotted owner. They rename it Animal Farm, and pledge to run the place with the idealistic view that “all animals are equal.” But within months, the pigs, smarter than the rest, hijack the revolution. They murder animal “comrades” that don’t agree with them. They force low-intelligent animals to work even harder and longer than they ever did under their human owner. All the while, the pigs lounge around and grow fat while the other animals starve and die of over-work. Orwell’s final conclusion is that some animals are “more equal” than others.

One of his several conclusions seems to be that Russian citizens were better off with the Czars than under Stalin’s murderous communist dictatorship.

He was right, of course. Stalin was responsible for the deaths of a staggering 20 million people. Author R. J. Rummel wrote an article entitled, “How Many Did Communist Regimes Murder?” In it he states, “Few would deny any longer that communism--Marxist-Leninism and its variants--meant in practice bloody terrorism, deadly purges, lethal gulags and forced labor, fatal deportations, man-made famines, extrajudicial executions and show trials, and genocide.”

While Duranty blind-eyed the obvious, Orwell wrote two long-lasting works describing the terror of totalitarian rule. With the exception of the Bible, Animal Farm and 1984 have had a greater impact on my views than most other books. In my world-view, freedom always trumps restriction. Dictators, left or right, scare me.

While the New York Times Pulitzer Prize winner’s writings are generally scorned today as propaganda, Orwell’s books are still influencing readers.