Help Find Hailey Dunn

Texas cheerleader vanished
by Robert A. Waters

NOTE: Many "persons of interest" turn out to be innocent. A few high-profile examples are Richard Jewel, Richard Ricci, and Steven Hatfill. I have no idea whether Shawn Adkins, now designated a person of interest, is responsible for the disappearance of Hailey Dunn. In this story, I've attempted to report "just the facts, ma'am." Nothing more, nothing less.

The last known person to see Hailey Dunn was Shawn Adkins, the live-in boyfriend of her mother, Billie Dunn. On the afternoon of December 27, 2010, Adkins claims that Hailey walked out the door of their Colorado City, Texas home and headed toward a friend’s house. She never made it.

When last seen, the thirteen-year-old middle school cheerleader wore navy blue sweat pants, a light-colored T-shirt, and pink and white shoes. Five feet, one inch tall, Hailey has hazel eyes and brown hair.

The investigation hit a snag almost immediately. At first, local investigators assumed that Hailey had run away from home. But she left behind her new IPod, a new MP3 player, money, and her favorite jacket. Since it was very cold on the day she disappeared, police began to suspect there might be more to the case than a simple runaway.

Hailey’s biological father, Clint Dunn, lives less than a block from the home where his daughter was last seen. He and Hailey are on good terms, he said. He told investigators that he has been concerned about Hailey's well-being and had moved close by to monitor her living conditions.

Shawn Adkins quickly peaked the interest of investigators. Public documents reveal that in February police had been called to a domestic disturbance at the girl’s home. Reports made by officers at the scene state that Adkins threatened both Billie Dunn and Hailey. After Hailey went missing, he failed one polygraph test and walked out of two others.

ABC News reported that “both [Billie] Dunn and Adkins failed polygraph exams. Dunn took a lie detector test twice. The first test ended prematurely when investigators discovered Dunn was under the influence of narcotics. The second exam indicated that she had been deceptive...”

When police searched the home, they located more than 250 pages of computer-generated documents about serial killers, mass murderers, sexual sadists, and family murders. Billie Dunn stated that collecting such material, including posters from “slasher” movies, was one of her hobbies.

After weeks of investigation, police named Shawn Adkins as a person of interest.

What happened to Hailey Dunn? Did she run away? Was she murdered by a family member? Did she walk out the door of her home and fall into the clutches of a kidnapper?

If you have information about this case, please call Colorado City Police Department at 352-728-5294. There is a $25,000 reward leading to the whereabouts and safe return of Hailey Dunn.

When the Golden State Limited Rode into History

Crimes, Mayhem, and Tragedy on the Rock Island Line
by Robert A. Waters

For more than six decades, from 1902 into the 1960s, the Golden State Limited passenger train ran a regular route from Chicago to Los Angeles. Unlike most dull black locomotives of the day, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific’s Limited was painted bright orange with shiny aluminum siding. She must have incited many a dream of freedom to rural farmers and cowboys across the western United States each time she roared by.

Even though the Limited had a long ride through the history of train lore, it wasn’t without tragedy. In 1908, a west-bound Limited wrecked near Benson, Arizona when a rail broke. Two sleepers and the dining car left the track and several persons were seriously injured. Less than a year later, in the same area, an engineer and fireman were killed when the train again left the rails. This time, an investigation determined that the Limited was going too fast at 30 miles per hour.

Near dawn, on May 15, 1922, the Limited was making its way toward Jaynes, Arizona, just west of Tucson. The following story from the Deming Headlight described what happened:

“Robbers who attempted to hold up the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific's crack train, the Golden State Limited, at a point eight miles west of Tucson on Monday morning, were driven off after one of their number had been killed and another had been wounded by the express messenger, Harry Stewart. The dead man was later identified as Tom Dugat, a goat rancher near Tucson and a hanger-on in the Tucson pool rooms.

“The robbers used a red fuse, a railroad stop signal, to halt the train at an isolated spot, when three of their number, wearing masks, forced the engine crew, at the point of a gun, to drive the mail and express cars, that were uncoupled from the passenger coaches, a short distance down the track, where four other masked men were waiting in an automobile.

“Conductor Madigan stuck his head out of a vestibule between two of the cars to see what had caused the train to stop, when one of the bandits opened fire on him, shattering the glass above his head and showering him with the splinters. Stewart at that moment opened the door of the express car and opened fire on the bandit who was shooting at Madigan, killing him instantly. Stewart then fired at four of the robbers who were approaching the express car, wounding one of them, when the thieves beat a hasty retreat, escaping in the automobiles.

“Posses were immediately put on the trail of the robbers, all of the roads leading into Mexico being watched closely, but late reports indicate that the robbers had made good their escape in the mountains of southern Arizona.”

Authorities learned that two Ford cars had stopped at around midnight before the robbery at a Tucson service station and loaded up tanks with extra gas and oil.

Tom Dugat’s body was identified by his wife and daughter.

Winnie Ruth Judd

The Golden State Limited had at least one other brush with infamy. In 1931, Winnie Ruth Judd booked a ride from Phoenix to Los Angeles via the well-known passenger train. With the help of a cohort, she placed two heavy trunks in the baggage compartment. Once she arrived at her destination, Judd attempted to claim the trunks. When the baggage handler at Union Station saw that the trunks were dripping an odorous fluid, he called authorities. On opening the trunks, investigators found two dismembered bodies inside. Winnie Ruth Judd was later convicted of the murders of her roommates, Agnes Anne LeRoi and Hedvig Samuelson. In a sensational sex-drenched trial, Judd was sentenced to hang but was later found to be insane and spent much of the next forty years of her life in an institution.

Book Review: The Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Texas

The Crime Buff’s Guide to Outlaw Texas
by Ron Franscell
Globe Pequot: November, 2010

Review by Robert A. Waters

“If you want a wine museum, go to Sonoma County. If you want a movie museum, go to Hollywood. And if you want a prison museum, go to Huntsville, Texas.” So begins a brief section from The Crime Buff’s Guide to Outlaw Texas about the museum that houses memorabilia from one of the most infamous prisons in the country. In addition to the original electric chair and other grotesque artifacts, you can even take the Prison Driving Tour which will show you where freed inmates catch a ride away from Hell. In this section, as in all the stories, you’ll find GPS coordinates that will help you easily locate the site.

Cemeteries all across the state hold the remains of Texas law-breakers who caused mayhem and misery before meeting their maker, sometimes at the end of six-gun. There are other sites such as the University of Texas Tower in Austin where Charles Whitman holed up as he methodically slaughtered the innocent. You can travel to a real hanging tree, or you can visit bullet-pocked banks that were robbed and shot up by hardened outlaws. There are former whorehouses, a Texas “body farm,” and many more such curiosities. There are literally hundreds of places in Texas where you can hang out with the ghosts of famous outlaws such as Bonnie and Clyde, Sam Bass, serial murderer Joe Ball, or David Koresh.

Or you can search out those who upheld the law, such as famed lawman Frank Hamer, who coordinated the assassination of Bonnie and Clyde. The Texas Ranger museum has a display of relics from that organization’s storied past. And there are the graves and homes of little-known lawmen who died while upholding the law in lonely, out-of-the-way towns across the state.

Unlike so many books about crime, there are even stories about some of the victims.

If you’re hankering for serial killers, Texas has what you’re looking for. GPS coordinates lead you past the house where “Candyman” Dean Corll raped and murdered dozens of teenage boys. There’s the property that Chicago serial killer H. H. Holmes attempted to embezzle from a wealthy Texas heiress. There’s the courthouse where Tommy Lee Sells was sentenced to death. And on it goes.

The Crime Buff’s Guide to Outlaw Texas was designed to be used as a travel guide. But the arm-chair traveler can also read the stories and learn of those long-ago days when guns blazed across the heart of Texas and took the souls of many an outlaw to eternity.

While some might think such a book is bizarre, history itself is not only about politics or religion or institutions, it's also about anti-social behavior and the effects of criminal activity on society.

If you want a guide to the vast world of Texas criminal history, go to your local bookstore and pick up The Crime Buff’s Guide to Outlaw Texas.

The First Woman to Die in the Electric Chair

The Execution of Martha Place
by Robert A. Waters

Martha Place’s last gasp of breath came on the morning of March 21, 1899, in Sing Sing Prison. Her crimes were brutal, her guilt indisputable, but her execution was virulently opposed by many Americans. And for those who think today’s political dialog is caustic, read on.

Martha Place was described by the press as a “half-demented, homely, old, and ill-tempered” woman. “Mrs. Place has the face of a woman subject to a fierce anger which might drive to dreadful ends,” wrote the editor of one small-town newspaper. Still others commented on her “triangular-shaped” face and gray piercing eyes.

William Place married Martha eighteen months after having hired her to be the nanny to his teenage daughter, Ida. There seemed to be little love in the four-year marriage. William had willed his home and estate in Brooklyn, New York to Ida and that became a sticking point as his wife, Martha, wanted it all in case he died. To make matters worse, William wouldn’t let her son from a previous marriage live in the family home. It seemed to be the classic marriage of convenience, at least for William.

Martha’s dislike of Ida slowly boiled into a cauldron of seething hatred and jealousy. A story in the Trenton Evening News described the relationship: “Martha was of a morose disposition and possessed an ungovernable temper that frequently broke out in an alarming way. She was an immaculate housekeeper, but possessed no other accomplishments and no personal attractions. Mr. Place was devoted to his daughter. They studied amateur photography and often took long walks together. Mrs. Place regarded this as neglect of her on the part of her husband.”

On the evening of February 9, 1898, Martha followed Ida into her bedroom, threw carbolic acid in her face, and attacked the helpless girl. Some news reports indicated that Martha smothered Ida to death, others that she strangled her stepdaughter then attacked her with the blunt end of an ax. However it happened, by the time Martha left the room, Ida was no longer the heir to William’s property.

As soon as her husband came home, Martha went after him with the ax. After absorbing several blows to the head, William staggered from the house and collapsed outside. An alarm was sounded and police rushed to the scene. There they found Ida dead. Martha, covered with pillows and with the gas jets on full-tilt, was unconscious but alive.

Her attempt at suicide failed, leading some to conclude that she was too mean to die.

William Place also survived. His wounds told a horrible tale, as did his voice once he was able to speak. Martha was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death.

By 1899, twenty-five men had succumbed to Old Sparky, but not one woman, and most people assumed that the execution would never take place. The case was hotly debated not only in America but in countries across the globe.

The governor of New York was none other than Theodore Roosevelt, and it was his job to make the final decision.

Letters from the public poured in urging the governor to spare the woman’s life. Newspapers editorialized about the case, the overwhelming number seeking a commutation. But in the end, Roosevelt determined that if the only reason for sparing Martha’s life was that she was a woman, he would order the execution to go forward.

So, on March 21, 1899, at exactly 11:00 a.m., Martha Place paid for her crime. Her last words were, “God save me.”

Many Americans never forgave Roosevelt.

A year later, as he was running for president of the United States, anti-Roosevelt newspapers around the country published the following commentary:

“It was a murder so shocking, nothing worse could be thought of. Nothing worse could be thought of--that is to say, only one thing worse could be thought of, and that was the electric killing of the old woman. Newspapers had predicted that she never would die in the electric chair. Governor Morton, a plain, kindly old gentleman, who had never shot anybody in the back and had no especial claims to glory, had twice declared when governor that he would not allow a woman to be killed by electricity.

“None--not even the very worst [woman]--had been executed in the state for years. But Martha Place committed her murder and was convicted when Roosevelt was governor.

“Roosevelt feared nothing. When urged by his friends and family not to allow the old woman to be killed so brutally, he snapped his white teeth and declared that ‘mawkish sentimentality’ could not move him.

“Women and decent men appealed to him, but his ‘courage’ could not be moved.

“‘What,’ he asked, ‘an electric chair paid for by the state and no governor has had the courage to send a woman to that electric chair? I'll show them what I dare do.’

“It was no idle boast.

“The day came, the old woman was half-pushed, half-carted into the death room. The back of her head was shaved so that the current might easily reach her brain. One of her legs was bared to the hip so that the second electrode might burn her without setting fire to her clothing.

“A score of men looked on at this sight, which history owes to the ‘brave’ Governor Roosevelt. It was a sight to be seen only once. Roosevelt will never again be governor. There will never again be a man at the head of a great state capable of sending a woman in shameful dress to a shameful death before many men.

“Roosevelt had gone to war. After heroic performances--told over his own signature in numerous magazines--he informs us that he took San Juan hill.

“At one stage of his glorious progress he saw fleeing before him a miserable Spaniard. The man's back was turned, of course. He was turning away. He had never hurt Roosevelt. He was in the army because [he was] compelled to be there. The real conflict was over. But as he ran, his back offered a most inviting shot. Roosevelt, you must remember, had never killed a man.

“He had once killed a bear in a trap according to western stories. He had killed rabbits and robins, he had indirectly killed old Martha Place. But he had not actually had the satisfaction of pressing the button.

“Here was a chance to enjoy the sensation of killing a fellow creature. It was not a foolhardy undertaking, for the man's back was turned. He could not suddenly face round and do harm, for he had dropped his weapon in his flight. If ever Roosevelt was to enjoy the sensation of taking human life, here was his chance to enjoy the sensation safely.

“He says in the shameful story which he himself has signed and left for his children to read: ‘Shot him dead with my revolver.’

“We do not pretend to guess what the next ‘brave’ deed of this brave man may be, if offices and opportunities continue to pour in upon him.

“We simply narrate these two sample deeds of heroism as guides to those who must vote this fall.

“An old woman electrocuted.

“A fleeing unarmed man shot in the back.

“Such are Roosevelt's chief claims to heroism at present. If you indorse such heroism vote for him by all means.”

Mystery in Pacific Northwest Deepens

The Tenth Foot
by Robert A. Waters

On December 5, 2010, a boot with the remains of a foot inside was found in the tideflats near Tacoma, Washington. It was an OzArk Trail hiking boot, size 6. This type of boot was sold at Walmart stores in 2004 and 2005. Authorities told reporters that it would have been worn by a juvenile or small adult.

This is the tenth foot that has washed ashore in the Pacific Northwest since 2007. Some experts say it’s normal--most non-experts see nothing at all normal about it.

The first foot to wash ashore was identified as having belonged to a depressed individual whom investigators believe committed suicide. None of the others have been connected to any missing person.

Because it is so unusual to find shoe-clad feet along the shores of America, media speculation has been rampant. Some contend that the unidentified feet belong to persons killed in a plane crash. Or they’re the last remnants of victims of a serial killer. Or maybe they floated in from Asia, just a few thousand miles away.

The fact is that nobody knows where the feet came from. The one thing we do know is that it’s rare for feet encased in shoes to drift in on the tide. And it’s even more unusual for them to be clustered in one area.

While I don’t subscribe to the theory that the feet belong to victims of a serial killer, I think it’s irresponsible for police and experts to categorically deny it. Investigators contend that since there are no cut-marks on the feet, they can’t belong to a killer. But if the victim was shot, stabbed, strangled, smothered, or died in any other way, violence wouldn’t have shown up on the feet. Again, I don’t think it happened, but it can’t be discounted.

The plane crash theory keeps popping up. A small plane did indeed crash in 2005 near Quadra Island, not far from Vancouver. Only one of the five occupants was recovered. But DNA tests conclusively eliminated the plane crash victims.

Is the Puget Sound area around Tacoma and Vancouver a kind of gyre that funnels debris from the Pacific? Maybe, maybe not. Still, the questions remain. How did the bodies get into the water? Where did they originate? How many unfound feet have washed up in the area--feet that were buried in the sand or ended up unseen in a crevice of rock somewhere or on some lonely, deserted beach?

The mystery deepens as feet continue to make their appearance on shorelines across the Pacific Northwest.

Canada's Most Wanted Fugitive

Murder victim Sharin' Morningstar Keenan

Is Dennis Melvyn Howe Still Alive?

by Robert A. Waters

The crime Dennis Melvyn Howe committed on the afternoon of January 23, 1983 was a stain on humanity. At about four o’clock that afternoon, he stepped outside his boarding house in downtown Toronto, walked about a hundred yards, and slithered into Jean Sibelius Park. It had been raining off and on all day, and just one lone child played there, a nine-year-old girl named Sharin’ Morningstar Keenan.

Somehow, no one saw Howe and Sharin’ walk back through the neighborhood and climb the stairs to his second-story room. What ruse he used to get the creative, intelligent girl to accompany him is unknown. That night, her parents reported their child missing. Hundreds of investigators and volunteers searched the park and row houses surrounding it. They spoke with neighbors, checked nearby businesses, and even drove through the streets with a megaphone urging tipsters to come forward. For nine long, depressing days, cops and a stunned public searched for Sharin'.

Then detectives got a call from the landlord at 482 Brunswick Avenue informing them that one of her tenants had unexpectedly dropped out of sight the day after Sharin’ vanished. Investigators entered the boarder’s drab room and noticed shelving from the refrigerator lying on the floor. When they opened the door, a half-frozen body spilled out. An autopsy revealed that the trusting child had been savagely raped.

The scene was so horrible, so gruesome, so surreal that ten days later, one of the detectives who found the body quit the force. (The second, never able to forget that heart-grinding scene, killed himself a few years later.)

It seemed almost beyond belief. In the heart of Toronto, a child had been kidnapped, raped, and strangled to death. In one fell swoop, the normally peaceful city lost its innocence.

The boarder turned out to be a parole violator living and working in the city using an alias. Dennis Melvyn Howe had spent most of his adult life in prison. He’d recently been paroled from Prince Albert Penitentiary in Saskatchewan after serving 17 years. His 20-year rap sheet included theft, armed robbery, unlawful imprisonment, indecent assault on a thirteen-year-old girl, kidnapping a woman and holding her hostage, as well as dozens of other crimes. Many questioned why this obviously dangerous felon was out on the streets at all.

After murdering Sharin’, Howe borrowed $200 from his employer and bought a bus ticket. A day later, he arrived in North Bay. Howe is then thought to have continued to Winnipeg, a city of a half-million souls. After that, he vanished.

Investigators were confident the fugitive would soon be captured. Yet Dennis Melvyn Howe somehow escaped. Forty-one years later, he is still Canada’s most wanted fugitive. In those years, he has been featured on “America’s Most Wanted” and other television shows. A $100,000 reward has been in effect for decades. Cops have checked out thousands of leads over the years, all to no avail. In 1998, the Canadian Community Newspapers Association launched a campaign called “Nowhere to Hide” in an attempt to get an age-enhanced photograph of Howe to ten million Canadians.

How did the career criminal who was unable to avoid being arrested for more than a few weeks while out on the streets manage to evade cops for decades? Is he even still alive? At 84, time is ticking away for cops to bring him to justice. A few years ago, the current lead investigator, Detective-Sergeant Jim Crowley, said: “There are those who think Howe may be dead, but I don’t think so. After so many years in this business, you get gut feelings. I figure he is in a small out of the way Western town or lumber camp. He may have found a safe haven with female company.” Wayne Oldham, another investigator who was once involved in the search for Howe, said: “Presuming he’s alive, and with each passing year that assumption dwindles a little, I can see him in a rural setting, essentially a recluse, employed in a menial job where identity is not critical.”

A great deal is known about Howe. He was born on September 26, 1940. Howe is five feet ten inches tall and at the time of Sharin’s murder weighed about 170 pounds. His hair was brown when he fled, but now would be gray or white. His eyes are brown. He has a scar under the left side of his chin and short, crooked fingers. Howe is left-handed and has a hairy chest, hairy arms, and square shoulders. He walks quickly and is a heavy smoker.

He goes by many aliases, all common names. A few of his known aliases were: Michael Burns; Wayne King; Ralph Ferguson; and Jim Meyers.

At the time of Sharin’s murder, Howe’s teeth were black and abscessed. Due to the constant pain he endured, investigators believe Howe would have been forced to get dental assistance. It’s possible he now has dentures, if he's still alive. In fact, after the murder, Royal Canadian Mounted Police published Howe’s dental charts in the Canadian Dental Journal with the hope that a dentist might spot the killer.

Howe’s DNA has been linked to Sharin’ Morningstar Keenan. It is available to law enforcement officials in North America.

While most Canadian investigators think Howe would never have left the country of his birth, it is possible that he fled to the United States. (What better way to throw the hounds off your tracks than to go somewhere totally unexpected?) While Howe was estranged from most of his family, he had a brother who occasionally loaned him money. In the years following the murder of Sharin’, cops learned that his brother made a dozen trips to Montana and Washington. After being questioned about the reasons for those visits, they suddenly stopped. His brother died several years ago, taking any secret he may have had to his grave.

Is Dennis Melvyn Howe still alive? Is he hiding in plain sight, maybe in some small town, cared for by a wife and children? Is he languishing in a nursing facility, his identity unknown?

To me, the most likely scenario is that he died or was killed shortly after the murder, while still on the run. Otherwise, with his deviant sexual compulsions and anti-social personality, he would have quickly come into contact with law enforcement officials, either in Canada or the United States. 

There is even a rumor in Canada that cops tracked him down and killed him. Maybe, or maybe not. If so, they created a mystery that may never be solved.

Century-old mystery forgotten

Richmond Byers vanished from Seeleyville, Indiana

The Disappearance of Little Richmond Byers
by Robert A. Waters

Shortly after the turn of the century, the presumed abduction of Richmond Byers made national headlines. Before Catherine Winters and Charles Lindbergh, the inexplicable vanishing of the child horrified Americans. The boy’s father searched for years, bankrupting the family in a vain attempt to find his son. In the end, it was futile. He went to his grave wondering what had become of the six-year-old boy he and his family called “Rich.”

As time went on, Dr. L. S. Byers wrote to newspapers across the country explaining what had happened in the small town of Seeleyville, Indiana and urging editors to publicize the case. I’ve published one of his letters below. (Although Dr. Byers doesn’t use the term in his letter, it’s clear that he thought a group of “gypsies” had taken his son.)

The letter, published in the Fort Wayne News in 1906, reads:

“After coming to the ball ground at about 3:15 p.m. Sunday, the 29th of May, 1904, bringing home his tricycle, [Rich] immediately left, we supposing he expected to return to the company of children at the game. It has not been definitely settled that he got back there, but he was seen by Mrs. Coffy [a resident of the town], who called him back and asked him what he had said to a man to whom he was talking. He told her that he said to the man: ‘You have a blackened eye, where did you get it? At the saloon?’

“The man was in his shirt sleeves. Now, he had a coat somewhere. He would not have been dressed like that had he been a resident of any town near here, as everybody was dressed up, it being the first really fine Sunday that spring, which makes me believe he had a wagon somewhere near the town. Besides, five wagons passed through the town that afternoon and six wagons were together when they passed through Terre Haute, eight miles west of here.

“One of them came back next day. Four were overhauled the next night [and searched], but the sixth one has never been overtaken.

“A doctor of Clinton, sixteen miles from Terre Haute, wrote me that a covered wagon went into a lane four miles from his home that Sunday night. Now it is the custom for these rovers to go into camp before sundown, as they depend on the children to beg their food and let their emaciated horses graze. It is useless to try and convince me that that wagon did not have my boy in it. And then a covered wagon was seen over 100 miles north, near the state line, making good headway.”

Richmond Byers was described as having a light complexion, and gray eyes. His left eye was noticeably crossed. He had a V-shaped scar on the edge of his left ear. He was said to be small for his age, and very bright.

Shortly after the child vanished, citizens of Seeleyville turned out en masse to search the area. There were many deserted coal mines nearby and each was thoroughly searched. The fields and woods and ponds surrounding the town yielded no clues, nor did the abandoned houses in the vicinity. An article in the Logansport Journal described the search and concluded: “There was then only one solution to the mystery--that the boy had been kidnapped by a band of gypsies who had been camping in the vicinity and who left on the night of his disappearance.”

Later in the article, the editor wrote: “Persons who were near the camp of the gypsy band south of this city last week say they saw a boy fitting the description of Richmond Byers playing around the wagons. His face, they say, was scarcely tanned and it was believed that he had been with the band only a short time. While playing around the camp, he was reprimanded several times by the women and told to get back into one of the wagons.”

Dr. Byers and his wife Maggie began the long search for their child by visiting local law enforcement officials in cities surrounding Seeleyville. As reports of children who resembled their son came in, Dr. Byers would rush to another town, only to be disappointed to learn that the boy was some other child. He visited cities in Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, Arkansas and numerous other states. A $2,500 reward was established by friends of the family as Dr. Byers’ practice suffered because he was gone for so much of the time.

For years, the doctor and his wife had high hopes of locating his long-lost son. But it never happened. Richmond Byers was as lost as yesterday.

What happened to the boy?

Today, when a child goes missing, law enforcement officials always investigate the family first. Simultaneously, they track down sex predators and try to eliminate or include each in the investigation.

At the turn of the century, “gypsies” were always a convenient scapegoat when a child went missing. While there are few documented cases of these groups actually abducting a child in America, it’s always possible. But the more likely scenario is that the stranger seen talking to Richmond Byers abducted him for sexual gratification, then murdered him and hid his body.

While articles about the vanishing of Richmond Byers can still be found in the old newspapers of the time, the case has largely been forgotten today.

If anyone has additional information about this case, please contact me.

Georgia Tech Student Turns Tables on Career Criminal

Yuhanna Williams brought a knife to a gunfight

Another self-defense shooting
by Robert A. Waters

After the shooting of armed robber Yuhanna Williams, Alice Johnson, executive director of Georgians for Gun Safety, is reported to have said: “It’s certainly appropriate to defend yourself if your life is in danger. [But] I really have to wonder why anyone would want to kill another human being over the money in the cash register.” Unfortunately, more often than not, the reverse is true. Thousands of clerks have been killed by thugs after they gave robbers the “money in the cash register.” This story, however, is not about a clerk complying with the orders of an armed psychopath--it’s about a carjacker who got what was coming to him.

Just before 8:00 p.m., on December 11, 2010, twenty-three-year-old Ryan Moore stopped in the parking lot of Ingles supermarket in Rockdale, Georgia. A student at Georgia Tech, he’d just completed his last final exam for the semester. He borrowed a friend’s car and drove to the store to buy orange juice.

Police reports state that when Moore stepped out of his car, two men approached and tried to rob him. At least one of the assailants had a knife. Newspapers reported that the robbers attempted to take Moore’s car.

There was a brief struggle, and Moore was cut on the chin and arms. The victim, who possesses a concealed carry permit, drew a .357 Magnum and fired. Yuhanna Abdullah Williams, 30, died at the scene. He'd been shot in the head. The second robber fled and, as of this writing, has not been identified.

Ryan Moore was taken to Rockdale Medical Center and later released. He has not been charged.

Yuhanna Williams was transported to the morgue.

A month earlier, a customer at a video store in the same plaza shot and killed another robber.

According to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, at least six self-defense shootings have occurred in or around the metro Atlanta area this year.

• A clerk at a liquor store in Cobb County killed a robber in an exchange of gunfire.

• In Stone Mountain, a barber shot a suspected burglar and held him at gunpoint until police arrived.

• The owner of a tattoo parlor killed one of three armed robbers.

• A resident in DeKalb killed one burglar and wounded a second one.

• A homeowner in Ellenwood killed one of three armed intruders as his children lay asleep in another room.

• Three armed home invaders were captured by police when a Decatur resident heard them kicking in his back door--the homeowner shot one of the men.

None of the victims who fought back were charged with any crime.

In most of the incidents described above, the assailants had long criminal records. Yuhanna Williams, for instance, had been arrested numerous times in the nine years since he turned 21. Charges included simple battery, disorderly conduct, public indecency, DUI, violation of probation, and possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute at a school.

Lucille Giscombe, a frequent shopper at Ingles, perhaps said it best. “I feel everyone has to defend themselves,” she said. “These people [robbers] are ruthless. They have no regard for human life. I have a gun. I am like Rambo, so they need not bother me.”

Quirky Quotes from Old Newspapers

Vintage Quotes
Compiled by Robert A. Waters

From the Statesville (GA) Landmark, March 8, 1907

"The jury in the case of William T. Gilpin, charged with the murder of W. W. McDonald, a prominent attorney, of Douglas, Ga., tonight brought in a verdict of not guilty, after having been out several hours. Gilpin shot McDonald in his wife's room at the Rimes House in Vidalia one night last October. He had concealed himself in the closet of the room. After McDonald had entered, Gilpin sprang from his place of concealment and emptied two revolvers at McDonald, and the latter subsequently died from his wounds. (Gilpin was, of course, guilty of premeditated murder, but the unwritten law is that a man has a right to slay the despoiler of his home.)"

From the Statesville (GA) Landmark, March 8, 1907

"John Bullard was hanged Friday at Marietta, Ga., for the murder of his 17-year-old daughter last September. He was a victim of consumption and it had been a question whether he would die before the day of his execution. He was so weak from the disease that he had to be supported on the scaffold and with his dying breath he declared that the death of his daughter was due to an accident."

From the Frederick (MD) News, September 26, 1902

Nashville, Indiana, Sept. 25--"Mrs. John Browning missed her 2-year old baby. After searching for the child over an hour, she found it 100 yards from the house, sitting in some tall grass and in its lap lay a large rattlesnake. The baby was patting the snake on its head and body, and the snake lay coiled. The mother screamed and the snake moved slowly into the grass. The child was taken to the house and was found to be unhurt. Afterward, Mrs. Browning went to the spot where the child was found, and a few feet away she found the snake and killed it. It was almost three feet long, and had eight rattles and a button. What puzzles the family most is the fact that a small gold ring worn by the child was found on the ground close to the snake. The reptile had undoubtedly carried it to the place. Perhaps it fell off the child's finger, but maybe the snake took it off. The snake was charmed by the rlng, so the Brownings think."

From the Atlanta Constitution, January 26, 1910

MAN WHO WROTE "GOO-GOO EYES" PUT IN THE POOR HOUSE BY BOOZE

"Hugh Cannon, who wrote Goo Goo Eyes, Ain’t That a Shame Bill Bailey and other classics of ragtime, was sent to Eloise poor house today at the age of 36. He told the story of his life in short expressive sentences. 'I quit the coke easy,' he said. 'Fifteen days in the jail cured me of that. I hit the pipe in New York for a year and stopped that. I went up against the morphine hard and quit but booze--red oily booze—that’s got me for keeps. I started when I was 16. I’m 36 now and except for seven months on the wagon I’ve been pickled most of the time. It was twenty years--twenty black, nasty, sick years--with only a little brightness now and then when I made good with some song.'"

NOTE: Hughie Cannon died two years later in a Toledo infirmary. Cause of death was cirrhosis of the liver. Cannon sold the rights to all his songs and died in abject poverty.

From the Iowa Press Citizen, December 21, 1920

TWO BANDITS TAKEN AFTER HARD BATTLE

MILLTOWN, N. J., Dec. 21--"Two bandits were captured by a citizens posse here shortly after midnight following an unsuccessful attempt to rob the First National bank. Two other bandits escaped. A watchman heard the noise in the bank and sounded the alarm. Thirty citizens responded. Armed with rifles, pistols, shotguns, axes , etc., they started for the bank. Two of the robbers surrendered. They said they were Clifford Jackson of New York and Frank Voorhees of New Brunswick. They refused to identify their companions."

From the Ukiah (CA) Republican Press, November 22, 1939

"NEWS DISPATCHES the other day carried a story [that the] failure of the Ham and Eggs amendment to pass at the recent election was believed responsible for the suicide of 72-year-old Henry Brutt, of Los Angeles. The unscrupulous heads of the Ham and Eggs racket have the blood of this unfortunate old man on their hands, if the story is true. Aged men and women all over California were led to believe Ham and Eggs was a panacea for all their misfortunes. Some method must be found to drive this racket, the most infamous and cruel yet devised, from California."

NOTE: The Ham and Eggs Amendment was an effort to give all unemployed Californians (about 800,000) $ 30 per month. It was to be funded, of course, with a massive set of new taxes and bonds.

From the Waterloo (IA) Courier, December 26, 1894

"DIED IN PRISON.—Charles Holchrist, who was sent to Anamosa in 1878 from Grundy county for life, for murder, has recently died. A letter from Anamosa says that Holchrist was a farmer in Grundy county and while riding through the country in a wagon with two other men (all three of them in a drunken condition) a quarrel arose and Holchrist struck one of his companions with a hammer and killed him. The murdered man was his farm hand and a mere boy. An arrest followed and a trial resulted in Holchrist's conviction and sentence to prison at hard labor for life. When the penitentiary doors closed upon him Holchrist left a wife and daughter and a little property in Grundy county. He was assigned to the stone shed and worked there faithfully for fifteen years. The prison officials speak of him as an orderly and good workman. His courage did not desert him and his cheerfulness was habitual until a year ago. Mrs. Holchrist and the daughter communicated regularly with the husband and father until last year, when the wife importuned him in a letter to give her a deed to the family property, which consisted of some town lots. He hesitated about doing so, but finally yielded. As soon as the wife obtained possession of the property she began an action for divorce, obtained a decree and is now married and living at Lake Park, Iowa, near the Minnseota line. Then his daughter, who is a school teacher, stopped writing to him, all of which tended to crush him. He lost his strength, became unable to work and was sent to ward No. 6, which is peopled by old and infirm men. Here he merely existed for the last six months."

Twenty Quotes About Murder

Ambrose Bierce

Murder quotes
Compiled by Robert A. Waters

"There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colorless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from the Sherlock Holmes book, A Study in Scarlet.

"There are 4 kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy." Ambrose Bierce, Writer.

"Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder." Arnold J. Toynbee, Historian.

"What the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order." P. D. James, Author.

"I didn’t want to harm the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat." Perry Smith, as quoted by Truman Capote in the classic true crime book, In Cold Blood.

"Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from bloody men." Psalm 59:1-3, New King James version.

"You feel the last bit of breath leaving their body. You're looking into their eyes. A person in that situation is God!" Ted Bundy, serial killer.

"The boys with their feet on the desks know that the easiest murder case in the world to break is the one somebody tried to get very cute with; the one that really bothers them is the murder somebody only thought of two minutes before he pulled it off." Raymond Chandler, Author.

"It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night." Edgar Allan Poe, from "The Tell-Tale Heart."

"These concerns (for orphan children in India and elsewhere in the world) are very good, but often these same people are not concerned with the millions that are killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers..." Mother Teresa (1910-1997).

"I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?" Clint Eastwood, in the movie Dirty Harry.

"Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." George Orwell, Author.

"You shall not murder." Deuteronomy 5:17, New King James version.

"The very emphasis of the commandment: Thou shalt not kill, makes it certain that we are descended from an endlessly long chain of generations of murderers, whose love of murder was in their blood as it is perhaps also in ours." Sigmund Freud, Psychoanalyst.

"I never killed a man who didn't need it." Clay Allison, western outlaw.

"Unnatural death always provoked a peculiar unease, an uncomfortable realization that there were still some things that might not be susceptible to bureaucratic control." P.D. James.

"You know, everybody uses this word [closure] and banters it around...I don't have any closure and most parents of murdered children or crime victims don't really have closure because your life is changed forever by that event." John Walsh, whose son Adam was kidnapped and murdered.

"There is a legitimate argument over whether the death penalty effectively deters violent crime, although my personal observation is that not one of the criminals who have been executed over the years has ever killed again." Dinesh D'Souza, Author.

"I can't express the feeling. I felt so much better. I'm so glad Florida has the guts to keep the electric chair. At least there was a split second of pain. With lethal injection, you just go to sleep." Raymond Neal, brother of murder victim Ramona Neal, after serial murderer Gerald Stano was executed for her slaying.

"There is a generation that curses its father, And does not bless its mother. There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes, Yet is not washed from its filthiness. There is a generation--oh, how lofty are their eyes! And their eyelids are lifted up. There is a generation whose teeth are like swords, And whose fangs are like knives..." Proverbs 30: 11-14, New King James version.