Thursday, December 28, 2017
Sneak out
I snuck out this morning. I told my mom where I was "running off to" so I didn't scare her but I left without her knowledge. I went to get coffee so I could get some air. It was fun
Wednesday, December 27, 2017
Broken
I've likely got more leg injuries than the rest of my family combined. The reason: my legs are uneven so I am prone to leg injuries
Nearly snuck out
I thought I was the only 1 up at this time but when I went to go get clothes 99% of my family was already up so I didn't have to "sneak out" for coffee.
Tuesday, December 26, 2017
Funny
So I usually laugh when I say my family is unlikely to come into my ward. Reason being they're not mormon and are unlikely to convert but I usually offer them to come in with me. Once I didn't since I woke my brother up having to get to church for a meeting with the bishop.
Saturday, December 23, 2017
mental torture
when i gave my talk my family came. surprisingly, they liked the service. my dad said i was his favorite speaker (because i'm his kid of course). no one in my family liked the 3rd speaker. my brother said the "charm" wore off and my dad said he spoke in monotone. i was my family's favorite speaker (obviously). my energy was great as well as my examples.
packing
my family is packing for a vacation we're taking. we're leaving for 2 weeks tomorrow. 1st off to California and then onto Hawaii. goodbye cold weather hello healthy back.
Friday, December 22, 2017
Vanishing hitchhiker
The vanishing hitchhiker (or variations such as the ghostly hitchhiker, disappearing hitchhiker, phantom hitchhiker, or the hitchhiker) is an urban legend in which people traveling by vehicle meet with or are accompanied by a hitchhiker who subsequently vanishes without explanation, often from a moving vehicle. Vanishing hitchhikers have been reported for centuries and the story is found across the world, with many variants. The popularity and endurance of the legend has helped it spread into popular culture. Public knowledge of the term expanded greatly with the 1981 publication of Jan Harold Brunvand's book The Vanishing Hitchhiker, which helped launch public awareness of urban legends. In his book, Brunvand suggests that the story of The Vanishing Hitchhiker can be traced as far back as the 1870s and has "recognizable parallels in Korea, Tsarist Russia, among Chinese-Americans, Mormons, and Ozark mountaineers."
Variations of the story: A common variation of the above involves the vanishing hitchhiker departing as would a normal passenger, having left some item in the car, or having borrowed a garment for protection against alleged cold. The vanishing hitchhiker can also leave some form of information that allegedly encourages the motorist to make subsequent contact. In such tellings, the garment borrowed is often subsequently found draped over a gravestone in a local cemetery. In this and in the instance of "imparted information", the unsuspecting motorist subsequently makes contact with the family of a deceased person and finds that their passenger fits the description of a family member killed in some unexpected way (usually a car accident) and that the driver's encounter with the vanishing hitchhiker occurred on the anniversary of their death. Other variations reverse the scenario, in that the hitchhiker meets a driver; the hitchhiker later learns that the driver is actually an apparation of a person who died earlier. Not all vanishing hitchhiker reports involved allegedly recurring ghosts. One popular variant in Hawaii involves the goddess Pele, traveling the roads incognito and rewarding kind travelers. Other variants include hitchhikers who utter prophecies (typically of pending catastrophe or other evils) before vanishing. There is a similar story which is about two travellers sitting next to each other on a train (normally a man and a woman). One of them is reading a book and the other person asks what the book is about. The first person says that it is about ghosts and they have a conversation about ghosts. Then the second person asks if the first person believes in ghosts or has he ever seen one. The first person says that in all of his life he had ever believed in or has seen a ghost. The second person then says that she doubt it and with that she vanishes.
Classifications of the story:
Beardsley and Hankey: The first proper study of the story of the vanishing hitchhiker was undertaken in 1942–43 by American folklorists Richard Beardsley and Rosalie Hankey, who collected as many accounts as they could and attempted to analyze them. The Beardsley-Hankey survey elicited 79 written accounts of encounters with vanishing hitchhikers, drawn from across the USA. They found: "Four distinctly different versions, distinguishable because of obvious differences in development and essence." These are described as:
A. Stories where the hitch-hiker gives an address through which the motorist learns he has just given a lift to a ghost.
49 of the Beardsley-Hankey samples fell into this category, with responses from 16 states of the USA.
B. Stories where the hitch-hiker is an old woman who prophesies disaster or the end of World War II; subsequent inquiries likewise reveal her to be deceased.
Nine of the samples fit this description, and eight of these came from the vicinity of Chicago. Beardsley and Hankey felt that this indicated a local origin, which they dated to approximately 1933: two of the version B hitchhikers in this sample foretold disaster at the Century of Progress Exposition and another foresaw calamity "at the World's Fair". The strict topicality of these unsuccessful forecasts did not appear to thwart the appearance of further Version 'B' hitch-hikers, one of whom warned that Northerly Island, in Lake Michigan, would soon be submerged (this never happened).
C. Stories where a girl is met at some place of entertainment, e.g., dance, instead of on the road; she leaves some token (often the overcoat she borrowed from the motorist) on her grave by way of corroborating the experience and her identity.
The uniformity amongst separate accounts of this variant led Beardsley and Hankey to strongly doubt its folkloric authenticity.
D. Stories where the hitch-hiker is later identified as a local divinity.
Beardsley and Hankey were particularly interested to note one instance (location: Kingston, New York, 1941) in which the vanishing hitchhiker was subsequently identified as the late Mother Cabrini, founder of the local Sacred Heart Orphanage, who was beatified for her work. The authors felt that this was a case of Version 'B' glimpsed in transition to Version 'D'.
Beardsley and Hankey concluded that Version 'A' was closest to the original form of the story, containing the essential elements of the legend. Version 'B' and 'D', they believed, were localized variations, while 'C' was supposed to have started life as a separate ghost story which at some stage became conflated with the original vanishing hitchhiker story (Version 'A'). One of their conclusions certainly seems reflected in the continuation of vanishing hitchhiker stories: The hitchhiker is, in the majority of cases, female and the lift-giver male. Beardsley and Hankey's sample contained 47 young female apparitions, 14 old lady apparitions, and 14 more of an indeterminate sort.
Baughman's telling: Ernest W. Baughman's Type- and Motif-Index of the Folk Tales of England and North America (1966) delineates the basic vanishing hitchhiker as follows: "Ghost of young woman asks for ride in automobile, disappears from closed car without the driver's knowledge, after giving him an address to which she wishes to be taken. The driver asks person at the address about the rider, finds she has been dead for some time. (Often the driver finds that the ghost has made similar attempts to return, usually on the anniversary of death in automobile accident. Often, too, the ghost leaves some item such as a scarf or traveling bag in the car.)" Baughman's classification system grades this basic story as motif E332.3.3.1.
Subcategories include:
E332.3.3.1(a) for vanishing hitchhikers who reappear on anniversaries;
E332.3.3.1(b) for vanishing hitchhikers who leave items in vehicles, unless the item is a pool of water in which case it is E332.3.3.1(c);
E332.3.3.1(d) is for accounts of sinister old ladies who prophesy disasters;
E332.3.3.1(e) contains accounts of phantoms who are apparently sufficiently solid to engage in activities such as eating or drinking during their journey;
E332.3.3.1(f) is for phantom parents who want to be taken to the sickbed of their dying son;
E332.3.3.1(g) is for hitchhikers simply requesting a lift home;
E332.3.3.1(h-j) are a category reserved exclusively for vanishing nuns (a surprisingly common variant), some of whom foretell the future.
Here, the phenomenon blends into religious encounters, with the next and last vanishing hitchhiker classification - E332.3.3.2 - being for encounters with divinities who take to the road as hitchhikers. The legend of St. Christopher is considered one of these, and the story of Philip the Evangelist being transported by God after encountering the Ethiopian on the road (Acts 8:26-39) is sometimes similarly interpreted.
Skeptical reception: Paranormal researcher Michael Goss in his book The Evidence for Phantom Hitch-Hikers discovered that many reports of vanishing hitch-hikers turn out be based on folklore and hearsay stories. Goss also examined some cases and attributed them to hallucination of the experiencer. According to Goss most of the stories are "fabricated, folklore creations retold in new settings." Skeptical investigator Joe Nickell who investigated two alleged cases himself concluded that there is no reliable evidence for vanishing hitch-hikers. Historical examples have their origin from folklore tales and urban legends. Modern cases often involve conflicting accounts that may well be the result of exaggeration, illusion or hoaxing.
Killer in the backseat
The Killer in the Backseat (also known as High Beams) is a common, car-crime urban legend well known mostly in the United States and United Kingdom. It was first noted by folklorist Carlos Drake in 1968 in texts collected by Indiana University students.
Legend goes a woman who is driving and being followed by a strange car or truck. The mysterious pursuer flashes his high beams, tailgates her, and sometimes even rams her vehicle. When she finally makes it home, she realizes that the driver was trying to warn her that there was a man (a murderer, rapist, or escaped mental patient) hiding in her back seat. Each time the man sat up to attack her, the driver behind had used his high beams to scare the killer, in which he ducks down. In some versions, the woman stops for gas, and the attendant asks her to come inside to sort out a problem with her credit card. Inside the station, he asks if she knows there's a man in her back seat. (An example of this rendition can be seen in the 1998 episode of Millennium, "The Pest House".) In another, she sees a doll on the road in the moors, stops, and then the man gets in the back.
Interpretations of the story: The story is often told with a moral. The attendant is often a lumberjack, a trucker, or a scary-looking man: someone the driver mistrusts without reason. She assumes it is the attendant who wants to do her harm, when in reality it is he who saves her life.
In popular culture:
-The 1998 film Urban Legend begins with this scenario.
-John Carpenter's 1978 film Halloween has the character Annie Brackett killed when she enters the car and the killer Michael Myers sneaks up from behind the back seat and slashes her throat.
-The first segment, "Terror in Topanga," of the 1983 film Nightmares is a depiction of this legend.
-An episode of the detective series Jonathan Creek, "The Coonskin Cap", begins with a version of this legend, except that instead of a killer inside the car, the pursuing driver is trying to alert the woman that there is a body tied to the back of her car.
-In a 1998 episode of Millennium, "The Pest House", Frank Black chases a doctor from a mental hospital after one of its patients escapes into the back of her car and tries to kill her. When she pulls over at a gas station, the attendant saves her by taking her inside.
-The 2003 Tamil film from India, Whistle, begins with this scenario.
-The story is featured in the television show Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction.
-The story is featured in an episode of The Simpsons when Otto tells Lisa the legend as a bedtime story. In his version, the victim is chased by another car that keeps ramming her vehicle, and she drives off the road into the woods and loses the other car. She is then killed by an axe-wielding maniac who had been hiding in her backseat.
-In the 2015 episode of Scream Queens, Ghost Stories, Chanel #5 (played by Abigail Breslin) is driving and a truck starts honking at her and using his high beams. When she pulls over at a petrol station, he tells her about the Red-Devil (the murderer), lurking in her back seat but then he is stabbed by it while #5 makes her escape.
Offended
Last summer I nearly got 2 family members to come to a why I believe. My mom was like "don't be offended if they say no". I'm like "why would I be offended? This is amazing they're possibly considering it."
Thursday, December 21, 2017
The Hook
The Hook or The Hookman is an urban legend about a killer with a hook for a hand attacking a couple in a parked car. The story is thought to date from at least the mid-1950s, and gained significant attention when it was reprinted in the advice column Dear Abby in 1960. It has since become a morality archetype in popular culture, and has been referenced in various horror films.
Legend goes a young couple parking at a lovers' lane. The radio plays while they make out. Suddenly, a news bulletin reports that a serial killer has just escaped from a nearby institution. The killer has a hook for one of his hands. For varying reasons, they decide to leave quickly. In the end, the killer's hook is found hanging from the door handle. Different variations include a scraping sound on the car door. Some versions start the same way, but have the couple spotting the killer, warning others, and then narrowly escaping with the killer holding onto the car's roof. In an alternate version, the couple drive through an unknown part of the country late at night and stop in the middle of the woods, because either the male has to relieve himself, or the car breaks down and the man leaves for help. While waiting for him to return, the female turns on the radio and hears the report of an escaped mental patient. She is then disturbed many times by a thumping on the roof of the car. She eventually exits and sees the escaped patient sitting on the roof, banging the male's severed head on it. Another variation has the female seeing the male's butchered body suspended upside down from a tree with his fingers scraping the roof. In other versions the man does return to the car only to see his date brutally murdered with a hook imbedded in her.
The origins of the Hook legend are not entirely known, though, according to folklorist and historian Jan Harold Brunvand, the story began to circulate some time in the 1950s in the United States. According to Brunvand in The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings, the story had become widespread amongst American teenagers by 1959, and continued to expand into the 1960s. The first known publication of the story occurred on November 8, 1960, when a reader letter telling the story was reprinted in Dear Abby, a popular advice column: Dear Abby: If you are interested in teenagers, you will print this story. I don't know whether it's true or not, but it doesn't matter because it served its purpose for me: A fellow and his date pulled into their favorite "lovers lane" to listen to the radio and do a little necking. The music was interrupted by an announcer who said there was an escaped convict in the area who had served time for rape and robbery. He was described as having a hook instead of a right hand. The couple become frightened and drove away. When the boy took his girl home, he went around to open the car door for her. Then he saw—a hook on the door handle! I will never park to make out as long as I live. I hope this does the same for other kids. —Jeanette Literary scholar Christopher Pittard traces the plot dynamics of the legend to Victorian literature, particularly the 1913 horror novel The Lodger by Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes. Though the two narratives have little in common, he notes that both are built upon a "threefold relationship of crime, dirt, and chance... Such a reading also implies a reconsideration of the historical trajectory of the urban legend, usually read as a product of postmodernist consumer culture."
Interpretations of the story: Folklorists have interpreted the long history of this legend in many ways. Alan Dundes's Freudian interpretation explains the hook as a phallic symbol and its amputation as a symbolic castration. Swedish folklorist Bengt af Klintberg describes the story as an example of "a conflict between representatives of normal people who follow the rules of society and those who are not normal, who deviate and threaten the normal group." American folklorist Bill Ellis interpreted the maniac in The Hook as a moral custodian who interrupts the sexual experimentation of the young couple. He sees the Hookman's handicap as "his own lack of sexuality" and "the threat of the Hookman is not the normal sex drive of teenagers, but the abnormal drive of some adults to keep them apart."
Influences on film: The Hook legend has most often been depicted and referenced in horror films. Its prevalence, according to film scholar Mark Kermode, is most reflected in the slasher film, functioning as a morality archetype on youth sexuality. In Meatballs, Bill Murray's character retells the Hook legend to campers around a campfire. He Knows You're Alone opens with a film within a film scene in which a young couple are attacked by a killer while in a parked car. The slasher film Final Exam opens with a scene in which a couple are attacked in a parked car, and later, a student is murdered in a university locker room with a hook.[ Campfire Tales, an anthology horror film, opens with a segment retelling the Hook legend, set in the 1950s. I Know What You Did Last Summer features a killer stalking teenagers with a hook; at the beginning of the film, the central characters recount the Hook legend around a campfire. Lovers Lane, is a slasher film featuring a killer who murders teenagers at a lovers' lane with a hook.
happy
i'm super happy. i passed my exams, i got to "hang out" with friends the last couple days and am excited to see my family over the holidays. yay
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Friend
I ran into a friend from church today. I helped her out and she'd "entertained" me for a half hour. Or as I call it kept me busy. She felt bad she had to "ditch me". Again I'm fine as my mom's work wasn't that far. Plus I wanted to get coffee
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
i can't believe it
many people in my family are super interested in my religion despite me thinking it was a cult a few years ago. also many are interested in the temples as well as the baptisms for the dead. wow. i'm glad they're accepting of it somewhat but not accepting a baptism quite yet
bipolar weather
in Maryland winter and spring are often bipolar. meaning it could be "spring" 1 day and then "winter" the next.
Monday, December 18, 2017
california and hawaii
2 places i'm visiting over the holidays that i love. i love California since i have family over there as well as i just love the huge state. i love Hawaii because it's a tropical paradise.
anxiety
i've got fear of the unknown caused by my anxiety disorder. my family has no idea suffer an anxiety disorder. it's common enough that there's a Wikipedia page dedicated to the subject. my panic this time around is my blood sugar being super high and being yelled at before i have a chance to explain myself, which explains that.
take life as it comes and work with what i got
my philosophy is I've got to take life as it comes and work with what I've got. i never intended to join the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints ever but i did. I've also got to work with what I've got. I've inherited scoliosis and diabetes from my mom. now I've got to "work" with those limitations.
gah why me?
my family is so into my religion but i don't think they'll be baptized. the reason i think they're into it is because the holy spirit is softening their hearts. yay my family is having their hearts softened. why me?
blind
i'm nearly blind without my glasses. i needed a guide dog for the first few months but i was able to get around eventually. when i was being baptized i needed a "guide dog" again since i didn't know where i'm going and i could barely see.
Sunday, December 17, 2017
coffee
a no-no in the church i go to but something that "helps me feel the spirit". my brother and i have an interest in coffee and despite me lying to the fact that i'd stop drinking coffee on my interview I've cut down significantly. especially since it induces back pain.
sad
a friend was sad i didn't have a dance recital for my dance class despite it being intro to dance. i would've LOVED a dance recital.
double edged sword
my best/ worst quality is my loyalty. why it's awesome is because i'm willing to drop things for my friends. the reason it's bad is because i could potentially be in the middle of something when i'm dropping everything.
Saturday, December 16, 2017
okay?
so a friend asked me to have my number gotten. they asked me to have my number so we could "hang out." it's awesome but ok since i'm friends with them.
blood sugar
my blood sugar has been super high lately. likely due to my periods and the hormones associated with it. also due to my diet is why my blood sugar is high. i'm lucky it hasn't been out of control. it's been high but not super out of control.
Friday, December 15, 2017
wing it
that's what i didn't do during my talk and what i did for a speech in communications class once.
personal carrying case
during my grandpa's funeral my brothers used my bag (which is a large black tote bag) as their personal carrying case. i'm glad to be of service but it's also my bag and i should use it as i want
Thursday, December 14, 2017
unlikely
someone asked if i wanted to get more involved in my religion. an unlikely someone. someone who thought my religion was cult like. my brother used to think my religion was cult like but recently got nicer about it. likely because his ex-girlfriend's grandparents are mormon
example
i must've done something to my family since they are now interested in my religion and i'm the only exposure to my religion they have usually.
no way
if you had told me 3 years ago i'd be giving a talk as a baptized member of the church of jesus christ of latter day saints i'd've said you were crazy
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
laughing
if my dad had called me i'd be like "daddy. everything that comes out of my mouth on my end goes thru the mike so everyone can hear me talk to you."
hilarious
what it would've been had i had signs to help guide me during my talk. also what it would've been like if i had gotten a text from a family member during my talk. or a phone call.
Monday, December 11, 2017
Sunday, December 10, 2017
panic disorder
while i have a panic disorder i'm able to somewhat able manage it behind closed doors.
awesome
i was walking to CVS today after church and i was offered a ride. that was awesome since i was planning on walking.
made me laugh
someone made me smile this morning while i was talking with the bishop. he made me smile by mentioning getting a DJ for the party. the reason that made me smile was because the guy was mentioning stuff for little kids and i was amused.
funny
if i'd had friends come while i was doing my talk i would've had to write on paper "go that way" with an arrow pointing to the door.
fun yet annoying
the snow was awesome yesterday but since i had to go out to a meeting it was annnoying.
Saturday, December 9, 2017
Friday, December 8, 2017
Sore throat
I've got a sore throat. Not sure why. I've not been around contagious people and my allergies have been in check since October.
Snow
I heard it was supposed to snow tomorrow. Let's keep our fingers crossed that it does. More than 2 inches
crazy
i went somewhere and i was like "i've been in this city a LOT. why have i never noticed this before?"
that would be beautiful
whenever i mention about going on a mission it would usually be followed by "that would be beautiful." more like scary, crazy and silly.
Thursday, December 7, 2017
Painful
My talk was painful since I hated public speaking. Especially in front of all my friends and family. Another reason it was so painful was because everyone wanted to help me as well as giving me support. For once in my life I've wanted to be invisible but that's never going to happen. I'm glad I did it and I should have gotten extra credit for actually public speaking.
stress induced panic attacks
my panic attacks are now made worse since i'm stressed out. they won't go away till next Thursday since that's the day I've got to do everything by. not fun since i'm panicking. i'll be ok.
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
freezing winter
it's not even a week into december and i've got wear my slippers in the evening. it'll be cold soon
offer
i offered to posthumously baptize my grand-dad, which my dad and uncle declined. it would offer him a place in Mormonism. i wasn't surprised that my family said no. oddly that was my brother's idea who thought Mormonism was a cult
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
see me dance
my communications teacher wanted to see me dance. it wasn't for a while after her class ended
stressed out
i'm so stressed out it's like i'm about to have a mental break down. my grandfather died on Sunday, my finals are next week, I've got to work on a group project as well as study for my finals as well as go to a funeral all this week. also to top it off my mom is trying to get me to be more independent by being super bus crazy (meaning my mom is super bus crazy trying to get me to use the buses more, which i'm not against i'm just saying that's way too much considering what I've got on my plate).
Monday, December 4, 2017
Saturday, December 2, 2017
Parabon NanoLabs
Parabon NanoLabs, Inc. is a company based in Reston, Virginia, which provides DNA phenotyping services for law enforcement organizations.
History: Parabon NanoLabs was founded in 2008 by Steven Armentrout, who is currently its chief executive.
Products-
Snapshot: Snapshot DNA Phenotyping Service is the name of a DNA phenotyping tool developed by Parabon NanoLabs which creates composite sketches based on DNA samples The algorithms used to make the composites are not open source, however, which has attracted criticism from members of the scientific community. Moses Schanfield, professor of forensic sciences at George Washington University, criticized the lack of any peer review, noting that there is no publicly-available performance record for the product. The United States Department of Defense provided approximately $2,000,000 in development financing for Snapshot.
Keystone: Parabon NanoLabs was awarded a two-year contract by the United States Department of Defense to develop a software platform dubbed 'Keystone' for the forensic analysis of DNA evidence.
Friday, December 1, 2017
dirty glasses
my glasses are so dirty that 1 of the only times my glasses were clean for a long period of time was my baptism
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
hot cocoa
while i admit i have an extremely mild chocolate allergy to my friends at church i actually am in LOVE with hot cocoa. i love it and want it often. what happens when i consume chocolate is it turns my saliva to chocolate essentially.
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
great
i'm happy my friends check on me and support me. they came over to check on me, offered me rides and supported me when i had an exam and was job hunting.
working on a website
i'm working an e Portfolio. it's the best work I've got. it might be so good i'll make another 1. i love my blog but I've also got another way to showcase my "work".
Better
So when I woke up this morning I felt like I hadn't in weeks. I wasn't in ANY pain. Granted I woke up and had to take some Motrin but I felt as good as I'd been in months.
Monday, November 27, 2017
tedious
i've now go to go in 2 days. it's super tedious since i've got to drop 1 thing off 1 day and another take a quiz and present a group project in another. when it comes to exams i'd rather get it all done in 1 day rather than have to extend my time. plus i'd rather be studying rather than going in to drop something off but i can study on campus but that means having to drag my backpack to campus and bring it home as well.
having fun
i think i know why someone asked if i wanted to give another talk soon i'm like no way. the reasons they asked i said no are: 1) my family is NOT coming back for a long time and 2) no way do i want to give another talk soon. i don't like public speaking. the reason they asked is because i was having fun.
pain killer creme
my back and joint are sore and i feel like I've exhausted all the types of pain killers I've got in my house so i used pain killer creme for my back. still hurts but at least my joints are feeling better and my kidneys aren't screaming at me 24/7.
temple trip
i'm hoping i'm going to get to go to the temple. i love that place. it's awesome. my mom likes the look it as well.
Santiago Maldonado case
The Santiago Maldonado case refers to the death of an Argentine citizen that had joined a road blockade by the Mapuche community on August 1, 2017. The death happened after Maldonado was allegedly chased during the removal of the road blockade by people from the Pu Lof Mapuche in Cushamen, located in the Argentine province of Chubut, with support from outsiders. Some people state that the discovery of Maldonado's body in a nearby river 78 days after the protest raises some questions regarding the events that occurred when his fate was unknown, especially after the corpse was found after a protected witness of the Mapuche Community in the Pu Lof informed where the body was with great accuracy. The official autopsy indicated that Santiago drowned and that his body showed no signs of violence while staying underwater for at least 60 days. The law-enforcement action was carried out by the Argentine National Gendarmerie, a security force that operates under the direct command of the National Security Minister, Patricia Bullrich, under the control of President Mauricio Macri. On October 20, 2017, the family of Santiago confirmed that the body found floating in Chubut River was that of Mr Maldonado. On October 21, a twelve-hour autopsy revealed no lesions in his body, leading some experts to believe that he had drowned. On November 24, 2017 the verdict of a commission of 55 forensic experts confirmed that Santiago Maldonado drowned in the Chubut river without external intervention, ruling out kidnapping and forced disappearance.
The event: Santiago Andrés Maldonado (born 25 July 1989) was a craftsman and tattoo artist from the town of Veinticinco de Mayo, province of Buenos Aires. A few months before his disappearance he had moved to El Bolsón, province of Río Negro, about 70 kilometers north of the Lof of Cushamen. Maldonado supported the aboriginal communities in their land claims, but, according to his family, he had never before been politically active because "he does not believe in politics". The event in dispute took place on July 31 and August 1, 2017, at the Chubut Province. The location was the Pu Lof de la Resistencia of Cushamen, a mapuche establishment built in territories seized from the Benetton family by Facundo Jones Huala, leader of the Resistencia Ancestral Mapuche (RAM) separatist group. Huala was jailed because of the violent activities including destruction of properties that RAM undertook in several locations, and members of the Pu Lof organized a picketing protest at the National Route 40, advocating for his liberation. The people in the demonstration were hooded, and had completely blocked the road with trees, stones and fire, thus not allowing any transit through the road. The protest was carried out by eight people, Santiago Maldonado among them. Judge Guido Otranto instructed the Argentine National Gendarmerie to clear the blockade and disperse the protesters, who escaped. The judge had also instructed them to use minimal violence, and film the operation on video. The protesters tried to block the road again some hours later, on August 1. The protesters reacted violently to the Gendarmerie this time, and attacked them with stones. Commander Juan Pablo Escola reported that two gendarmes were gravely injured in their faces during the attack. He sent a group of 30 gendarmes to the Pu Lof. Although he did not have a judicial warrant to do so, he considered that the attack could be considered as in flagrante delicto, which would have allowed to skip that requirement. Some protesters attempted to escape by swimming across the Chubut River, and others tried to hide in a forest next to the river. Maldonado could not cross the river because he could not swim. The whereabouts of Santiago Maldonado were unknown after that point.
Judicial case: A judicial case, led by a judge and three prosecutors, tries to determine the whereabouts of Maldonado. The national government and the provincial government of Chubut asked to be complainants in the case. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights suggested that, in case of doubt about a case being a forced disappearance or not, it should be investigated as if it was. In line with this suggestion, the Gendarmerie was removed from taking an active role in the investigation. The United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances has requested to oversee the investigation, which was accepted by Argentina. As a result, both the judiciary and the Argentine government will have to keep the organization updated about every progress of the investigation. The case was initially investigated as a search and rescue, and was later rebranded as a forced disappearance. However, the change was made without any new evidence that may suggest an involvement of the Gendarmeria. A group of twenty mapuches occupied the court on September 20, asking for the removal of judge Otranto. The Maldonado family and the CELS accused the judge Otranto of not being an impartial jury. The federal chamber of appeals of Comodoro Rivadavia recused him from the case, but clarified in the sentence that they found no reason to doubt his intellectual honesty and respect to the procedures. He was recused instead because of an interview with the newspaper La Nación, where he made an extrajudicial commentary about the accuracy of the theories, before formally closing the case. Otranto was then replaced by judge Gustavo Llerald. The Maldonado family celebrated the removal of Otranto, but complained that their specific request had been rejected. Otranto is still in charge of the case over the road block that started the case.
International cases: On August 7, 2017, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances expressed its "concern about the physical and psychological integrity" of Maldonado and requested the Argentine state to adopt "a comprehensive search strategy", taking "all the urgent measures that are necessary to search for him and find him, taking into account the information provided by the members of the Pu Lof Mapuche community that were present at the moment of the repression". The UN committee also requested that the Gendarmerie does not participate in the search and investigation of the disappearance and that the Argentine government protects all the evidence that may help to identify those responsible for the disappearance. The same day, the Minister of Security offered a reward to those who "while not having participated in the crime, offer useful information that can help find the whereabouts" of Maldonado. On August 23, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, of the Organization of American States, also took a precautionary measure asking the Argentine state to "adopt all the necessary measures to determine the situation and whereabouts of Mr. Santiago Maldonado" and to "inform about all the measures that have been adopted to investigate the facts". On October 6, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances published a document addressed to the Argentine national government in which the former expresses its concern about the lack of progress in the clarification of what happened to Santiago Maldonado. The UN demanded the Macri administration to set as a priority the clarification of the role of the Gendarmerie and to keep this force away from the investigation. It also accused the authorities of quickly rejecting the hypothesis according to which the Gendarmerie is the perpetrator of the enforced disappearance of Maldonado. The Committee expressed its concern regarding the lack of partiality of judge Guido Otranto. It finally pointed out that there are officials of the Macri administration that continue to stigmatize the members of the Pu Lof by portraying them as a threat to national security, when the government should be instead offering protection to the Mapuche community.
Theories-
Forced disappearance: According to witnesses, after the Argentine National Gendarmerie had an encounter with the Lof, agents from this security force carried somebody to a truck. The Gendarmerie denies having detained Maldonado, so does the minister of security, Patricia Bullrich. The witnesses made public comments, but refused to testify in court. They proposed to testify while concealing their identities with hoods, which was rejected by the judiciary. Other witnesses told before justice that Maldonado was taken by Gendarmerie agents. Eighty biological samples were retrieved from the vehicles used by the Gendarmerie during the operation, and used for a DNA test. Another fourteen samples were ignored, as they were unsuitable for testing. The results were released a month later: none of them matched the DNA of Maldonado. The value of this evidence has been disputed by public defender Fernando Machado, who argued that the samples would have been taken after the trucks had been washed. The judge dismissed those concerns. The prosecutor Silvina Avila made a report that established that there are no solid evidences that link the Gendarmerie with Maldonado. As of September 17, the judge does not consider the theory of a forced disappearance to be likely. Audio files were taken from WhatsApp conversations held by those involved in the operation on the day. One of the files, sent by a member of the gendarmeria, states that a sergeant had "Maldonado in a truck". A more detailed analysis revealed that the comment was made on August 16, only as part of a private joke between members of the Gendarmerie while Bullrich explained the case to the Congress. All 70 cell phones of the gendarmes were investigated, and none of them had been used to discuss an actual forced disappearance operation. Ariel Garzi, a fellow craftsman from El Bolsón, called Santiago Maldonado's cellphone on August 2. The call was answered by an unknown person. It lasted 22 seconds, during which Garzi heard the sound of steps. Ariel Garbanz, an engineer from the Communications Security Lab of the National Technological University, investigated the call and claims to know the location where the phone was answered. Judge Otranto refused to look at this evidence.
Drowned: It is suspected that Maldonado could have escaped from the Gendarmerie by trying to cross the Chubut River. He could have received a stone throw that had rendered him unconscious, and he would have drowned in the river afterwards (the subsequent autopsy revealed no evidence of any injuries, and the "Witness E" who was last seen with Maldonado reported no such impact). As of September 17, the judge Guido Otranto considers it the most likely case. On September 22, 2017, judge Otranto was taken off the case after Santiago Maldonado's family complained that he was not impartial. In dialogue with La Nación newspaper, rescue experts from Esquel confirmed that it is highly unlikely that Santiago Maldonado might have drowned in the Chubut river. The government, however, considers it a likely possibility, and asked for further searches. The presence of many aquatic plants and the strong flows would make it more difficult to find a corpse. The autopsy conducted on 21 October 2017 confirmed that, in fact, forensic evidence clearly pointed to drowning as the cause of death. A new search revealed a corpse in the river on October 17, whose identity and autopsy is under investigation. There were no reports of other deaths or missing people in the area, and it was confirmed that it was a male, with light blue clothes as those that witnesses reported that Maldonado was wearing. The corpse was found 300 meters upstream from the area of the events.
Received a mortal wound: Maldonado could have received a mortal wound during the escape, which would have caused his death at some later point. The Mapuches may have buried the body and then made up an accusation about an alleged forced disappearance in order to advance their political agenda.
Hiding: Maldonado may still be alive, hiding in the Mapuche territory. A search with search and rescue dogs conducted on August 16 suggested that he would have been in the area in the previous 24 hours. However, those dogs are not considered a conclusive evidence. The government also considers that Maldonado may have never been in the protest to begin with. As all people in the protest were hooded, it is not possible to properly recognize him in photos or filmings of the event. The Maldonado family reported that he was a quiet and peaceful man, which would make it unlikely that he would take part in a violent protest in a road. The mapuches Beatriz Garay Neri, Soraya Noemí Guitart and Nicolás Jones Huala reported that they talked with him on August 1, in the morning, but did not provide further details about his presence or the topics of discussion. They did not report his absence either, and ignored his full name.
Murder: Santiago Maldonado used his cell phone for the last time on July 21, 2017. That day, four or five hooded members of the RAM invaded the small house of Evaristo Jones, a worker for the Benetton family. Jones reported that he tried to defend himself by stabbing one of those people with a knife. As there are no cases of knife injuries treated in nearby hospitals on that day, or info about Maldonado's activities in the immediate days prior to the August 1 protest, it is suspected that he may be the stabbed thief, and that he had bled to death days before the protest. The family of Maldonado tried to refute this theory by providing a video of another picketing protest of the RAM that took place on July 31, which would have been attended by Maldonado. They also provide testimonials from numerous people who saw Santiago after the supposed attack. In addition, Evaristo Jones, the attacked worker, denied having hurt any of the attackers. The Maldonado family also affirms that they had telephone conversations with Santiago on July 25 (his birthday) and on July 27. Through DNA tests it was proved that Santiago Maldonado was not injured in said episode.
Escape to Chile: The RAM operates in both Argentina and Chile, and knows several unguarded passages though the Argentina–Chile border. It was thus installed in the public by the media that Maldonado could have escaped to Chile. Argentina requested the INTERPOL to search him. As of August 31, no NN bodies resembling Maldonado were stored in South Chilean morgues, the search continued until he was found dead in Argentina.
Reactions: Argentine human rights organizations condemned the disappearance, demanding the national government to adopt measures to bring back Maldonado alive, find who is responsible for the disappearance, and keep the Gendarmerie away from the investigation. They have also accused the government of not acting diligently to find Maldonado. The disappearance of Maldonado has also mobilized international human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. In Buenos Aires, La Plata, Bariloche, Mar del Plata, Bahía Blanca, General Madariaga, Mendoza, Malargüe, El Bolsón, Rawson, Viedma, Gualeguaychú, Rosario and Neuquen thousands of people marched in demonstrations demanding that Maldonado appears alive and the resignation of Bullrich. People also marched to demand that Santiago Maldonado is brought back alive in Bogotá (Colombia), Asunción (Paraguay), Montevideo (Uruguay), Canelones and Fray Bentos (Uruguay).[58][59] In Spain, several Argentine residents marched to Plaça de Catalunya to ask for Santiago Maldonado. On August 11, there was a large mass demonstration in Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires. On August 21, during the 49th ordinary session of PARLASUR, in Montevideo, Argentine representatives condemned the disappearance of Santiago Maldonado. The disappearance of Maldonado took place shortly before the 2017 midterm elections. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, leader of one of the opposition parties, mentioned the case repeatedly during her rallies. Kirchner and several Kirchnerite politicians used it to draw controversial comparisons between the presidency of Mauricio Macri and the 1970s Dirty War. However, political analysts consider that the case is unlikely to have an impact on the election results, and that the aggressive rhetoric of Kirchner may actually scare independent voters and increase the chances of the Cambiemos official coalition. August 30 is the International Day of the Disappeared, and several teachers affiliated to the CTERA union mentioned the event during school classes. This action was rejected by groups of parents because it described the involvement of the Gendarmerie as a confirmed fact, and it was considered a case of political indoctrination. The Macri administration first negated the disappearance of Maldonado. As the days went by, members of Mr. Macri's cabinet send contradictory messages. On September 1, 2017, a month after Santiago Maldonado's disappearance, thousands of people expressed themselves through rallies and demonstrations asking for his appearance alive. The largest demonstration took place in Plaza de Mayo and was organized by Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Línea Fundadora), Relatives of the Disappeared and Imprisoned for Political Reasons, HIJOS, the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS), the Argentine League for the Rights of Man, and the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, among other organizations. In other cities, such as Mendoza, Mar del Plata, San Luis, San Juan, Neuquén, Salta, Posadas, Jujuy, Santiago del Estero, Villaguay, Concepción del Uruguay, Gualeguaychú and Concordia there were rallies and demonstrations with the same demand. In Rosario and Córdoba there were rallies with an attendance of 40000 each. There were also protests in Spain, Brazil, France, Uruguay, Chile, Mexico, Austria and the United States which were organized through social media. In London, São Paulo, Berlin, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, Barcelona, Sidney, Santiago, Mexico City, Vienna, Washington DC and New York City, groups of people expressed their solidarity with the demand for the appearance of Santiago Maldonado alive. On September 2, 2017, former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón stated that the disappearance of Santiago Maldonado had "all the characteristics of a forced disappearance". On September 3, 2017, bishop Ángel José Macín, president of the Catholic Aboriginal Ministry of the Argentine Episcopal Conference, criticized both the Macri administration and certain communication media because of the labels they have been using to refer to the Mapuche community ("terrorists", "undemocratic", "violent", trained by "ETA, FARC, and the Turkish Kurds"). Monsignor Macín argued that this way of referring to the indigenous peoples "has not been seen in this country for a long time (and) make us baffled, astonished, outraged".
Conclusions: On 21 October 2017, after a 12-hour autopsy involving 55 experts, Judge Gustavo Lleral confirmed that Maldonado's body did not have any signs of violence and the cause of death was established as death by drowning. On November 24, 2017 the veredict of the 55 experts confirmed that Maldonado drowned without external intervention.
panic disorder
my panic disorder has been working more often than usual. i don't know how to calm it.
Sunday, November 26, 2017
no coffee
once when i got something to help with my recovery after a muscle spasm someone was like, "want coffee?" and i said "well i had a seizure so..." and the person was like no caffeine but offered me water instead.
give another talk
i want to give another talk but not for a while. i love talking as well as having fun but that was torture for me and my family.
not wrong
the bishopric is wrong in hoping my family will come back to the church. i don't think it's wrong that they WANT my family to come back it's just unlikely to happen so that's where it's "wrong".
polish off
i should really polish off the bread i was given the day before thanksgiving. it's so tasty. I've restrained myself since it's bread and has sugar on it.
Saturday, November 25, 2017
i love college
so for my final exams i only have to do: 2 quizzes and 1 oral group project. that is it. 1 is a take home quiz and i'm like i'll finish it and turn it in after my communication class exam.
Earrings
When I was in the process of being baptized my mom gave me new earrings for the occasion since its a milestone
Friday, November 24, 2017
sales
once i went to a shopping center and it took me a while to get from point a to b. point b was supposedly where i needed to be to get something. the reason it took a while was because i was distracted by sales. i'm a total girl.
Sweetheart
A friend is a sweetheart to me. 1 of them spent time with me to hear me talk and drive me occasionally
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
reading him right
i'm hoping i'm reading a friend right. he said he rarely ever goes to another ward to hear someone give a talk as well as occasionally giving me a ride to the singles ward if i need it. the reason i'm hoping i'm reading him right is i'm hoping he's somewhat interested in me as a friend.
mom's idea
1/2 my talk was my mom's ideas. when someone said nice talk most of the time i said, mom's idea.
gah
i understand i'm pretty animated and lively when i gave my talk but why did someone ask if i wanted to do it again? i barely understood the principles of what i said, rarely used scripture of it and used secular references. many people were telling me "great talk" and 1 person came up to me and said thanks for my inspirational words. it was torture for my family and me.
awesome
this morning went very well. i got bread and was taught about understanding something by getting to the root of the problem.
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
Mineral, Washington murders
The Mineral, Washington murders, dubbed by the media as "the Tube Sock Killings," is a series of unsolved murders that occurred in remote areas of Lewis and Pierce County, Washington, near the remote community of Mineral, Washington, in 1985. The murder cases were widely publicized, and were featured on the television series Unsolved Mysteries in 1989.
Case-
Harkins and Cooper: On August 10, 1985, Steven Harkins, 27, and his girlfriend, Ruth Cooper, 42, left their Tacoma, Washington home for a weekend camping trip at Tule Lake in Yelm, Pierce County. When the two did not return to their jobs at a Tacoma vocational school the following Monday, their families reported them missing. Four days later, on August 14, hikers passing through Pierce County found Harkins' body near a remote campsite. He had been shot in the head, and his body, still in a sleeping bag, suggested he had been murdered while sleeping. Nearby, searchers also found Harkins' and Cooper's pet dog, who had been shot to death as well. At the time, law enforcement suspected that the case may have been connected to the murders of Edward Smith and Kimberly Diane La Vine, a couple from Kent, Washington who were abducted, murdered, and disposed of in a gravel pit near the Columbia River in March 1985. On October 26, a skull was found at the dead end of Eighth Avenue South, near Harts Lake, about 1.5 miles from where Harkins' body was found. Dental records confirmed the skull belonged to Cooper, and two days later on October 28, her body and her purse were also recovered from the area, fifty feet from where her skull had been found. A tube sock had been tied around Cooper's neck. According to the autopsy, Cooper had died of "homicidal violence," though a spokesman later stated she had died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen. After the discovery of Cooper, the murders were publicized by Crime Stoppers in an attempt to recover information leading to the arrest of those responsible.
Riemer and Robertson: Over a month after the discovery of Ruth Cooper, on December 12, 1985, Mike Riemer, 36, his girlfriend, Diana Robertson, 21, and their daughter, Crystal Louise Robertson, age 2, traveled from their Tacoma home to Pierce County, planning to find a Christmas tree near the Nisqually River. Riemer, an animal trapper, also planned to check on traps he had set in the area. Later that evening, customers at a Kmart store thirty miles north in Spanaway found the couple's daughter, Crystal, standing outside the store entrance. Crystal was placed in temporary foster care until her maternal grandmother saw her photograph on a local news broadcast two days later. When asked where her mother was, the dazed two-year-old told her grandmother that her "Mommy was in the trees." According to investigators, the two-year-old was "not nearly verbal enough" to provide any information. Police searched the area both on foot and by air, looking for evidence of Riemer's red 1982 Plymouth pickup truck, but efforts remained fruitless. On February 18, 1986, over two months after the couple's disappearance, the body of Diana Robertson was discovered half-buried in snow by a motorist near a logging road off of Washington State Route 7 in Mineral. Bloodhounds scoured the area in the following days, but six inches of snowfall impeded the search Riemer's pickup truck was also found near Robertson's body. In the truck, police discovered a note on the dashboard that read "I love you, Diana." It was written on a manila envelope. Robertson's mother claimed the handwriting was that of Riemer. Bloodstains were also found on the seat of the truck. An autopsy revealed that Diana Robertson had been stabbed seventeen times, and, as with Ruth Cooper, was also found with a tube sock tied around her neck. Due to Riemer's disappearance, investigators believed he may have been responsible for Robertson's murder, and had abandoned his daughter at the Kmart store and then subsequently fled. Police theorized that Riemer may have been responsible for Harkins' and Cooper's murders as well; an alternate theory, however, claimed that Riemer was also a victim of the same killer who had murdered Robertson, Harkins, and Cooper. In February 1986, after the discovery of Robertson's body, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published an article revealing that Riemer had been charged with domestic assault against Robertson on October 19, 1985. However, the couple had reconciled by December, the month in which they disappeared. Riemer, who worked as a roofer at Seattle’s Queen City Sheet Metal and Roofing Inc., was described by his employer as a "typical roofer who worked hard and played hard."
2011 development: On March 26, 2011, hikers discovered a partial human skull later determined to be that of Mike Riemer. It was found in an area within a mile radius of where Robertson's body had been discovered in 1986. After recovery of the skull, Lewis County investigators stated that they believed Riemer could have been a possible victim of homicide as well, though his cause of death could not be determined. Based on the condition of the skull, however, authorities were able to rule out a gunshot wound to the head.
Depictions in the media: In September 1989, the case featured prominently on the series Unsolved Mysteries, which i've seen.
preperation
i'm going to have to clean up the house for my friends. hopefully we'll stay on the main floor and won't go upstairs or in the basement. obviously i'm going to get up a little earlier than usual (like when i normally do when i go to school). i'm going to need to prep my coffee so they don't see it.
Monday, November 20, 2017
crazy
everything i do in the church is crazy supportive. like my baptism and talk everyone wanted to help or give support. the reason its been crazy supportive is because i'm popular and everyone wants to give their 2 cents.
blind
i'm super near sighted without my glasses. when i go tubing i can't wear my glasses so i need a guide
meeting my new visiting teachers
my old visiting teacher and her husband left in September so i got new ones
puke
the day i gave my sermon i drunk coffee to give me energy. after i gave my talk i wanted to puke due to the caffeine and giving the talk.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
why me?
whenever i do a project, whether i'm creating an emblem for a team i played on to a speech i gave everyone wants to help. all i say is "why me?" i'm grateful for the help but seriously? people are WAY too nice to me. that's even more annoying to me.
caution to the wind
while walking home a couple times people have driven me closer to my house to i didn't have to walk far in fear of my safety.
iced coffee
the good thing about my not being at church is my being able to watch things at home and drink coffee.
mental torture
i'm listening to a devotional. it's torture for me but i'm going to listening to it since i'm not at church.
Saturday, November 18, 2017
nutjob
i can't believe that i didn't act like a nut job during my talk. i was animated as well as not hunched over scriptures but why not act silly? i usually crack jokes
seriously
i'm seriously wondering what the heck is with my family. i'm glad they're happy seeing me grow spiritually but why remind me about things?
torture
i loved giving my talk last weekend. absolutely loved it. my family was there, people complimented me on it and i loved speaking. there was 1 MAJOR issue: i hated being in the center of attention. while i love speaking i don't like being in the center of attention. another issue was my brother had to get a hair cut as well as my brothers (and parents) had to be there. i don't think they liked being there.
that thing
since we have another conference i promised my mom i'd read out of "that thing" i was given at my baptism.
murders of Katherine and Sheila Lyon
Katherine Mary Lyon, and Sheila Mary Lyon were sisters who disappeared without a trace during a 1975 trip to a shopping mall in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.. Known colloquially as The Lyon Sisters, their case resulted in one of the largest police investigations in Washington Metropolitan Area history. It has long been "one of the most high-profile unsolved cases in the D.C. area." The girls' remains have never been found. In 2013, a team of cold case investigators with the Montgomery County, Maryland, police made a break in the case. They focused on Lloyd Lee Welch, by then serving a lengthy prison sentence in Delaware for child sexual abuse, the culmination of a long criminal record that had begun a few years after the girls' disappearance with a burglary arrest in their jurisdiction. Police records show that during the original investigation, Welch came forward a week after the girls' disappearance and falsely told a security guard at the shopping center visited by the girls (immediately before they disappeared) that he had witnessed another man abduct them there. The description Welch provided of the other man matched a description that newspapers and other media already had provided the public. According to that description, a conservatively dressed man had demonstrated a new type of audiocassette player at the shopping mall as children and teens, including the Lyon sisters, gathered near him. A short time after Welch told this story to the mall security guard trying to cast suspicion on the other man, he was questioned at a police station, failed a lie detector test, admitted he had lied, was released and was not questioned again until more than 38 years later. During the reopening of the case, police discovered that a mug shot taken of Lloyd Welch in 1977 bore a strong resemblance to a police sketch of a possible suspect who had been seen staring inappropriately at the Lyon sisters in the shopping mall. Detectives began interviewing Welch in prison; he made statements that further implicated him although he continued to protest his innocence. One of his relatives told them he had helped Welch burn two heavy, bloodied duffel bags in Bedford County, Virginia. In July 2015 Welch was indicted and charged with the girls' murders there; his uncle is a person of interest as well.
Background to the sisters' disappearance: The two sisters were born to John and Mary Lyon in Kensington, Maryland. They had an older brother, Jay, who later became a policeman. Their father John Lyon was a well-known radio personality at WMAL, a local radio station then held by the owner of the ABC Television affiliate in Washington and the now-defunct Washington Star; he later worked as a victims' counselor. The sisters' disappearance continued to be featured in high-profile stories in the national media for months. Located a half-mile away from their home was Wheaton Plaza shopping mall (now Westfield Wheaton). On March 25, 1975, Katherine and Sheila Lyon walked to the mall to see the Easter exhibits. It was their spring vacation and they planned to have lunch at the Orange Bowl, which was part of the mall. They left home between 11:00 AM and noon. Their mother had instructed them to return home by 4:00 PM; when they had not arrived by 7:00 PM, the police were called and an extensive search was conducted. Police felt comfortable enough with the accuracy of this timeline to release it to the public.
11:00 AM to Noon: The girls leave home.
1:00 PM: A neighborhood child sees both of the girls together outside the Orange Bowl speaking to an unidentified man, according to what he later tells investigators.
2:00 PM: The girls' older brother sees them at the Orange Bowl eating pizza together.
2:30 to 3:00 PM: A friend sees the girls walking westward down a street near the mall which would have been one of the most direct routes from the mall to their home. This is the final sighting of the sisters that is absolutely confirmed by the police.
4:00 PM: This curfew set by their mother passes. The girls are expected home and do not arrive.
7:00 PM: Police are called. The investigation and an active search by professionals begin.
Police investigation: Police were told by witnesses that the sisters were in the Wheaton Plaza mall at approximately 1 PM. A neighborhood boy, who knew the sisters, reported that he saw them together outside the Orange Bowl speaking with an unidentified man, about 6 feet tall, 50 to 60 years old, and wearing a brown suit. The man was carrying a briefcase with a tape recorder inside; there were also other children around who were speaking into a microphone he was holding. The witness's description of the man led authorities to view the unknown person as a prime suspect in the Lyon sisters' case and two composite sketches of the man were created. Police investigating the case followed up on reports from several people who said they recognized the sketch of the unknown man with the briefcase. Press reports indicated that a man matching the sketch was seen a few weeks earlier at the Marlow Heights Shopping Center and the Iverson Mall, both in neighboring Prince George's County, Maryland. These people reported that he had approached several young girls and asked them to read an answering machine message typed on an index card into his hand-held microphone. The police never publicly acknowledged a direct link between these reports and the Lyon sisters' disappearance. As the weeks wore on, numerous volunteer groups combed vacant lots and stream beds for the sisters. The search continued and press interest reached such a fever pitch that on May 23, 1975, Maryland Lt. Gov. Blair Lee ordered 122 National Guardsmen to participate in a search of a Montgomery County forest for the missing girls. No trace of the girls was ever found. A new lead was discovered as of September 20, 2014. The police searched the woods of Thaxton, Virginia and entered a house in Hyattsville, Maryland, seizing several items. These searches were relevant to the new suspect named Lloyd Welch and his relatives.
False leads: On April 7, 1975, about two weeks after their disappearance, a witness in Manassas, Virginia, reported seeing two girls resembling Sheila and Katherine in the rear of a beige 1968 Ford station wagon. The witness stated that the girls were bound and gagged in the vehicle. The driver of the station wagon resembled the man in the publicly available sketch of the prime suspect. The witness further claimed that when the driver spotted the witness tailing him, he ran a red light and sped west on Route 234 towards Interstate 66 in Virginia. The station wagon had Maryland license plates with the possible combination "DMT-6**." The last two numbers are unknown due to the bending of the car's plate. The known combination was issued in Cumberland, Hagerstown, and Baltimore, Maryland at the time. This supposed sighting inspired a small army of mobile citizen band (CB) radio users to scour the area throughout the evening and into the night with a running commentary and chatter but without any tangible results. A search for matching plate numbers failed to produce any information. Although this witness's report was at first treated as credible, and a media firestorm erupted because of it, it was later deemed "questionable" by police. Despite its questionable nature, media continue to mention this report as credible. Several phone calls from people claiming to have the girls and offering to exchange them for ransom money were made to the Lyon family in the immediate aftermath of the sisters' disappearances. The one that went the furthest and that had seemed most credible began with an anonymous male voice on April 4, 1975, and demanded that John Lyon leave a briefcase with $10,000 inside an Annapolis, Maryland, courthouse restroom. The money was left just as the instructions from the caller required, but the money was never claimed. This same anonymous person called John Lyon later and maintained that police had surrounded the courthouse and he could not retrieve the ransom. The man was told that he would have to show some evidence of having the Lyon sisters in his custody before another attempt would be made to leave him a ransom. Although the caller then said he would be in touch with the family, he never contacted them again.
Suspects: Fred Howard Coffey was convicted in 1987 for the 1979 beating, strangulation murder, and molestation of a 10-year-old girl in North Carolina and (as of 2012) is serving a life sentence (after an earlier death sentence was overturned) in a North Carolina prison. Authorities learned that he interviewed for a job (and was subsequently employed) in Silver Spring, Maryland, six days after the Lyon sisters vanished. Silver Spring is a short distance from Wheaton Plaza. Investigators have been unable to determine if Coffey is connected to the case, and he was never charged in the disappearances. Raymond Rudolph Mileski Sr. was another possible suspect named in press reports. Mileski resided in Suitland, Maryland in 1975, not far from the malls in Prince George's County that had reported a man with a microphone approaching young girls. In a family disagreement, Mileski murdered his wife and teenage son and wounded another son inside their home in November 1977. He was convicted of the homicides and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Based on both prison informants' tips and Mileski's own claims to know something about the Lyon sisters case, which he offered to share more fully in exchange for more favorable prison conditions, authorities searched his former residence in April 1982, but no evidence was discovered. Mileski died in prison in 2004. John Brennan Crutchley had also been considered a suspect.
Lloyd Welch: After the disappearance, a friend of the Lyon sisters, a girl who was in their age bracket, described to detectives how a long-haired man at the mall had stared at the girls so long and so intently that she confronted him. A sketch artist made a drawing based on her description: white, late teens or early 20s, acne on his face, scars on his left cheek, shabbily dressed. That sketch, though, appears not to have been widely disseminated. The drawing shows similarities to a 1977 mug shot of Lloyd Welch. The description from the sisters' friend contrasted sharply with the only description of a possible suspect that was made public in 1975, that of the well-groomed, conservatively dressed person eventually labeled "tape recorder man." Aside from the strong differences in facial features, hair and clothing, the long-haired man and "tape recorder man" were several decades apart in age. The day that newspapers printed a description of the conservatively dressed man carrying a briefcase with audiocassette recorder and holding a microphone, Lloyd Welch returned to Wheaton Plaza mall and told a security guard that he had been there the week before. He said he had seen a man with a tape recorder talking to two girls and, later, forcing the girls into a car, according to court records. Montgomery investigators were summoned to the mall and took Welch to a nearby police station to interview him. They gave him a polygraph test. Told he had failed it, he admitted he had provided false information about witnessing the abduction and was released by police, according to documents in the case. For more than 38 years thereafter, information about Welch's possible involvement in the case was accessible only via a search of police records. The identity of the Lyon sisters' female friend who had told police about him was never published and remains confidential to this day. Welch's cousin, Henry Parker, told detectives in December 2014 that in 1975 he met Lloyd Welch at a property on Taylor's Mountain Road, in Thaxton, Virginia. Parker said he helped remove two army-style duffel bags from Welch's vehicle. Each bag "weighed about 60 or 70 pounds and smelled like 'death,'" according to a search warrant affidavit, which was filed and sealed in January 2015. Moreover, Parker said the bags had been covered in red stains. Without knowing their contents, Parker threw the bags into a fire. In February 2014, inmate Lloyd Welch was named as a person of interest in the case. Police said Welch, who was 18 years old in 1975, and has since been convicted of rapes in three other states, had been "seen 'paying attention' to the sisters." Over a year later, in July 2015, Welch, then serving a lengthy sentence in Delaware on a child-molestation conviction, was indicted on first-degree felony murder for his alleged involvement in deaths of Katherine and Sheila Lyon. He also was charged with abduction with intent to defile. The location of any remains of the girls' bodies is still unknown. If Welch is brought to trial without them in evidence, it would be the longest time to have elapsed between a murder and a trial in a bodyless murder conviction. On September 12, 2017 Welch pleaded guilty to two counts of first degree murder "for the abduction and killing of Katherine and Shelia Lyon in 1975.
Good practice
So I did a "service project" which is packing a thanksgiving meal for people who couldn't otherwise afford it. It's good practice for when I'm on a potential mission. It was fun, I was fed and I gave back to people
Friday, November 17, 2017
football game
i'm going to a football game tonight. it's my Alma mater vs a rival school. i love these football games.
frozen banana
i ate several frozen bananas on balboa island. of course i had to gnaw on them since they were frozen. they were nice and sweet.
be a light
most people don't know/ forget that i'm a Mormon (even a liberal 1). i think it's because: i don't act like 1, i drink coffee and am pretty liberal. my friends from church think i'm a light or an example for my classmates. right.
street and dressy
I've got to find an outfit that's street and dressy. i love my church stuff but i'm also seeing my grandfather this Sunday so I've gotta find a balance.
yay
i'm seeing grandpa this weekend. Chinese food is my favorite. i can't wait for an awesome vegetarian meal.
Fire
For once my mom's encouraging me to make a fire. The furnace is broken so I've got to make a fire. Its cold
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Brewed coffee
Brewed coffee is made by pouring hot water onto ground coffee beans, then allowing to brew. There are several methods for doing this, including using a filter, a percolator, and a French press. Terms used for the resulting coffee often reflect the method used, such as drip brewed coffee, filtered coffee, pour-over coffee, or simply ground coffee. Water seeps through the ground coffee, absorbing its oils and essences, solely under gravity, then passes through the bottom of the filter. The used coffee grounds are retained in the filter with the liquid falling (dripping) into a collecting vessel such as a carafe or pot. Paper coffee filters were invented in Germany by Melitta Bentz in 1908 and are commonly used for drip brew all over the world. In 1954 the Wigomat, invented by Gottlob Widmann, was patented in Germany being the first electrical drip brewer. Drip brew coffee makers replaced the coffee percolator in the 1970s due to the percolators' tendency to over-extract coffee, thereby making it bitter. One benefit of paper filters is that the used grounds and the filter may be disposed of together, without a need to clean the filter. Permanent filters are now also common, made of thin perforated metal sheets or fine plastic mesh that restrain the grounds but allow the coffee to pass, thus eliminating the need to have to purchase separate filters which sometimes cannot be found in some parts of the world. These add to the maintenance of the machine, but reduce overall cost and produce less waste. Filter coffee is central to Japanese coffee culture and connoisseurship. Drip brewing is a widely used method of coffee brewing. There are several manual drip-brewing devices on the market, offering a little more control over brewing parameters than automatic machines, and which incorporate stopper valves and other innovations that offer greater control over steeping time and the proportion of coffee to water. There also exist small, portable, single-serving drip brew makers that only hold the filter and rest on top of a mug or cup. Hot water is poured in and drips directly into the cup. Brewing with a paper filter produces clear, light-bodied coffee. While free of sediments, such coffee is lacking in some of coffee's oils and essences; they have been trapped in the paper filter. Metal filters do not remove these components. It may be observed, especially when using a tall, narrow carafe, that the coffee at the bottom of the coffeepot is stronger than that at the top. This is because less flavor is available for extraction from the coffee grounds as the brewing process progresses. A mathematical argument has been made that delivering comparable strength in two cups of coffee is nearly achieved using a Thue-Morse sequence of pours. This analysis prompted a whimsical article in the popular press. A less familiar form of drip brewing is the reversible or "flip" pot commonly known as Napoletana.
Coffee-Mate
Coffee-Mate is a non-dairy creamer manufactured by Nestlé, available in powdered, liquid and concentrated liquid forms. It was introduced in 1961 by Carnation. An unopened bottle of Coffee-Mate can last up to two years with no refrigeration and can stay fresh for two weeks once it is opened. The product is popular in offices where refrigeration may not be available. A benefit of the non-dairy creamer is that it is good for those individuals who are lactose-intolerant. Once opened, liquid non-dairy creamer should be refrigerated.
Varieties: The original product was introduced in 1961, and followed by Coffee-Mate Lite and Coffee-Mate Liquid in 1989. In the US, where the product is manufactured by Nestlé in Glendale, California, the product is available in liquid, liquid concentrate and powdered forms. American Coffee-Mate comes in over 25 different flavours, including gingerbread, Parisian almond creme, and peppermint mocha. Discontinued varieties include Coffee-mate Soy and Coffee-mate Half & Half. In Europe, it is only available in powder form as a coffee creamer in one or two varieties depending on the country with no added flavours. The European version of Coffee-mate is manufactured without the use of hydrogenated fat, which is linked to heart disease. The powdered form of Coffee-Mate has more calories than liquid half-and-half milk with 30 calories per tablespoon, however in liquid form the calorie counts are the same (i.e., 20 calories per tablespoon).
Ingredients: Coffee-mate Original contains: Glucose Syrup, Palm Oil (including partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil), Milk Proteins, Stabilisers (Sodium Hexametaphosphate, Sodium Citrate), Acidity Regulator (Dipotassium Phosphate), Emulsifiers (Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, Mono- and Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Ester of Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids), Anti-Caking Agent (Silicon Dioxide), Colour: Riboflavin
Logos: In 2003, the heart logo of Coffee-Mate appeared.
closed minded
my mom's a little closed minded when it comes to me doing newer things. like i'm going to an old ward, which i don't mind going to. everyone loves me there.
Murders of Sally McNelly and Shane Stewart
Sally Ann McNelly and Shane Paul Stewart were two teenagers who were murdered near Lake Nasworthy in San Angelo, Texas after spending the evening watching a fireworks display on the Fourth of July in 1988. Their murders, which remain unsolved, were attributed to rumors of a Satanic cult in which they both were involved. The case received national attention among the Satanic panic phenomenon of the 1980s, and was profiled in national media as well as on Unsolved Mysteries.
Background: Sally and Shane were both teenagers from San Angelo, Texas, who began dating in 1987 while in high school. After a prolonged breakup, they reunited on the evening of July 4, 1988, and made plans to watch the annual firework show at Lake Nasworthy. During their relationship, Sally's friends had witnessed her attending parties with occult activities and where black magic was being practiced; they alleged that she and Shane had been involved with a Satanic cult. In March 1988, Sally and Shane turned a gun over to local police, claiming that they had been given it by a member of the cult and told it had been used in a murder-robbery. Police searched its serial number, and discovered it had been reported stolen. On the evening of July 4, 1988, Sally and Shane were seen alone on the shore of Lake Nasworthy before midnight by a fisherman offshore. On July 7, they both were reported as missing persons.
Discovery of bodies: On November 11, 1988, Sally's remains were found off FM 584, roughly 4 miles (6.4 km) south of where they were last seen, near the Twin Buttes Reservoir's South Pool. Three days later, on November 14, Shane's remains were discovered in the vicinity. According to their autopsies, they had both died from shotgun blasts to the head. The case remains unsolved.
2017 developments: In June 2017 San Angelo police pulled over a local man, John Cyrus Gilbreath, on suspicion of marijuana possession. A female passenger in his car told them Gilbreath was dealing, and on that basis they obtained a warrant to search his house. Among the items they found in the house were what they described as writings, audio tapes and "biological material" that they said may be connected to the McNelly and Stewart homicides. They announced Gilbreath is now considered a person of interest in that case.
Coffee palace
In Australia, a coffee palace was a temperance hotel built during 1880s. They were hotels that did not serve alcohol, built in response to the temperance movement and, in particular, the influence of the Independent Order of Rechabites in Australia. James Munro was a particularly vocal member of this movement. Coffee Palaces were often multi-purpose or mixed use buildings which included a large number of rooms for accommodation as well as ballrooms and other function and leisure facilities. The beginnings of the movement were in 1879, with the first coffee palace companies founded in the cities of Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. The movement in particular flourished in Melbourne in the 1880s when a land boom that followed the Victorian gold rush created an environment in which it was the construction of lavish buildings and richly ornamental high Victorian architecture, often designed in the fashionable Free Classical or Second Empire styles to attract patrons. Many of the larger establishments were bestowed prestigious names such as "Grand" or "Royal" in order to appeal to the wealthier classes. Coffee palaces were popular in the coastal seaside resorts and for inner city locations attracting catering for families as well as interstate and overseas visitors. Ironically as the temperance movement's influence waned, many of these coffee palaces applied for liquor licences. Many have since been either converted into hotels or demolished; however, some significant examples still survive.
Australia--
Victoria-
Melbourne:
-Collingwood Coffee Palace. 232 Smith Street, Collingwood (now in Fitzroy) (1879 – constructed as a four-storey building) (demolished - though two levels of the facade remain atop a Woolworths supermarket)
-Brunswick Coffee Palace, Brunswick (1879)
-The Coffee Palace. Flinders Street. (1880)
-Victoria Coffee Palace. Collins Street East (1880 - began as the Victoria Club) (demolished)
-Melbourne Coffee Palace. Bourke Street. (1881)
-Grand Coffee Palace (1883) (now renamed the Hotel Windsor)
-Gladstone House Coffee Palace, North Melbourne
-The Biltmore, Albert Park (1887)
-Victoria, Albert Park
-The George, St Kilda (1887)
-Mentone Coffee Palace, Mentone (1887) (now Kilbreda College)
-Auburn Hotel, Auburn (1888)
-St Kilda Coffee Palace, St Kilda
-Prince of Wales Coffee Palace
-Federal Coffee Palace. Corner of Collins and King Streets, Melbourne (1888) (demolished 1972)
-Garand Open House, Melbourne (demolished)
-Parer's Crystal Cafe. 103 Bourke Street, Melbourne (demolished)
-Burke & Wills Coffee Palace. Corner of Collins and Russell Streets, Melbourne (demolished)
-Queen's Coffee Palace. 1 Rathdowne Street, Carlton (demolished 1970)
-Hawthorn Coffee Palace, Hawthorn (demolished)
-Moris's (West Melbourne) Coffee Palace, West Melbourne (demolished)
-Sandringham House, Sandringham (demolished)
-James' Coffee Palace, Williamstown (demolished)
-Prahran Coffee Palace, Prahran, Victoria
Ballarat:
-Reid's Coffee Palace (1886)
-Victoria Coffee Palace. Cnr Lydiard and Doveton Crescent. Soldiers Hill. (demolished)
Bendigo-
-Sandhurst Coffee Palace (demolished)
-Central Coffee Palace (demolished)
Queenscliff-
-Palace (1879)
-Baillieu (1881) (later renamed Ozone Hotel)
-Vue Grande (1883)
-Queenscliff Hotel (1887)
Other:
-Mildura Coffee Palace, Mildura, Victoria
-Ozone Coffee Palace, Warrnambool
-Marnoo Coffee Palace, Marnoo, Victoria
-Wimmera Coffee Palace, Horsham, Victoria
Tasmania:
-Imperial (Hobart) Coffee Palace, Hobart, Tasmania (built in two sections, firstly in the 1880s then extended in 1910. Cast iron verandah, balcony and mansard roof were removed during the 1950s and the 1910 extension was demolished in the 1960s)
-Tasmanian Coffee Palace, Hobart, Tasmania, 89 Macquarie St (established in Ingle Hall which was built c1814). Also known as Norman's Coffee Palace, the Orient, and Anderson's. Now home to the Mercury Print Museum.
-Federal (Sutton's) Coffee Palace (later Metropole), 67 Brisbane Street, Launceston, Tasmania (demolished 1976)
-Shield's Temperance Hotel (Shield's Coffee Palace), 77 Esplanade, Launceston, Tasmania. Ironically established in the former Burten Brewery in 1859, the building was eventually reduced in size as the Monds Flour Mills expanded in the early 20th century with the building finally being demolished in the 1950s.
-Commonwealth Coffee Palace, 23-29 Tamar Street, Launceston, Tasmania (demolished 1960s)
South Australia:
--Grand Coffee Palace, Hindley Street, Adelaide, built 1890.
Grayson's Coffee Palace, Adelaide (demolished 1918)
-Coffee Palace, 110 Hindley Street, Adelaide, built 1903. Known as Grant's 1908-1919 and West's 1919-. Identified by architects as one of the most significant 20th century buildings in South Australia.
-Port Pioneer Coffee Palace. Hindley Street, Adelaide. (1879)
New South Wales:
-Sydney Coffee Palace, Sydney, New South Wales (founded 1879, rebuilt 1913-1914) (demolished ?)
-Sydney Coffee Palace, Woolloomooloo, New South Wales
-Grand Central Coffee Palace (1880), Sydney
-North Queensland Coffee Palace, George Street, Sydney
-Canberra Coffee Palace, Manly, New South Wales (built 1912, demolished 1955)
-Dorrigo Coffee Palace, Hickory St, Dorrigo, New South Wales (burnt down sometime after 1923)
-Bee Hive Coffee Palace, Sydney NSW
-Great Western Coffee Palace, Sydney NSW
-Town Hall Coffee Palace, Sydney NSW
-Johnsons Temperance Coffee Palace. York Street, Sydney. (built 1879
-Rose and Crown Coffee Palace. Knightsbridge, Sydney.
-Alpine Heritage Motel (built as: Goulburn Coffee Palace) Goulburn, New South Wales
Queensland:
-People's Palace, Brisbane (built 1910-11, in 2015 operating as a backpackers' hotel)
-Canberra Hotel, Brisbane (built 1929, sold 1985 and later demolished)
-Royal George, Nambour, Queensland (built 1911, licensed in 1912 and destroyed by fire on 15 February 1961)
-Hill's Coffee Palace Dalby, Queensland
Western Australia:
-Horseshoe Coffee Palace, Perth WA
-Burnett's Coffee Palace and Temperance Hotel (Perth's first 'Coffee Palace', although the building, constructed c1834, was previously the (licensed) Devonshire Arms, prior to that The Mason's Arms), corner Hay and Barrack Streets, diagonally opposite Town Hall, Perth WA
-Ellis's Grand Central Coffee Palace (still standing as the Grand Central Hotel), Wellington St, Perth WA
-Continental Coffee Palace (Wellington St, Perth WA
-Rechabite Coffee Palace, Wellington St, Perth WA (Opposite Central Railway Station)
-Royal Coffee Palace, 165-167 Murray St, Perth WA
-Musson's (Sydney) Coffee Palace (Hotel), Murray St, Perth WA
-Cornwall Coffee Palace (previously the Yankee Coffee Palace), 239 Murray St (between William and Barrack Sts), Perh WA
-Prince of Wales Coffee Palace, Murray St, Perth WA
-(Shafto's) Victoria Coffee Palace, Wellington St, Perth WA
-Wilson's Coffee Palace, King St, Perth WA
-Paris Coffee Palace, corner of James and Pier Sts, Northbridge WA
-Worsleys Coffee Palace, Katanning, Perth WA
-Metropolitan Coffee Palace, Stirling St, Northbridge WA
-Britannia Coffee Palace, 323 William St, Northbridge WA
-Perth Coffee Palace, William St, Northbridge WA
-1904 Wise Directory has 20 coffee palaces listed in Perth and other locations in W.A>
United Kingdom:
-Douglas Coffee Palace, Douglas, Isle of Man (demolished 1930)
-Newport Street Coffee Palace, Swindon
-Ossington Coffee Palace, Newark-on-Trent
3 weeks straight
i'm being forced to go to an old ward for 3 weeks straight due to scheduling issues. oh well. least i know everyone
Edgecombe County serial killer
The Edgecombe County serial killer, also known as the Seven Bridges Killer, is an as yet unidentified serial killer in the surroundings of Edgecombe and Halifax counties in North Carolina, United States. There are ten suspected victims, all African-American women, and the remains of eight have been recovered. It is suspected that Antwan Maurice, a registered sex offender who was charged with a murder fitting a similar profile, was responsible for the Edgecombe deaths. All of the victims had a history of drugs and/or prostitution.
History: In June 2008, the sheriff's office requested assistance from the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) and formed a task force of local, state and federal officials to try to find out if the killings are connected. In 2010, the remains of Roberta Williams, missing since 2008, were discovered off Seven Bridges Road between Battleboro and Whitakers, North Carolina. In January 2011, more human remains were found by a hunter in Edgecombe County. The remains were as 37-year-old Yolanda Lancaster, who was listed as missing. In September 2009, a suspect, Antwan Maurice Pittman, a registered sex offender, was charged with at least one of the cases, that one of Taraha Shenice Nicholson, 28, who was found strangled. Authorities are still questioning whether Pittman may have been connected to some of the other killings. The first victim found was Melody Wiggins, 29, back in 2005. In 2007, Jackie Thorpe, 35, was found nude in a pile of trash. 2008, the body of Ernestine Battle, 50, was found in a wooded area. In June 2009, a farmer found the skeleton of Jarniece Latonya Hargrove, 31, also in a wooded spot.
Conviction of Antwan Pittman: On September 28, 2011, a jury convicted Antwan Pittman of first-degree murder of one of the women, 28-year-old Taraha Nicholson. Although he has never been charged in the death of any of the other alleged victims of the Edgecombe County serial killer, authorities have stated that Pittman is a suspect in at least seven of the other cases.
Public awareness: In July 2012, a motorcycle ride was held in contribution to the five women found murdered. The ride was organised to help raise awareness for the nine women found dead who are suspected to be victims of the Edgecombe killer.
South County car bomber
The South County car bomber was a person (or persons) who terrorized south St. Louis County, Missouri with a series of fatal car bombings in 1977. Two people – Shirley Marie Flynn and Robert Curtis Jackson – were killed in bombings on October 18, 1977 and November 3, 1977, respectively. A third victim, Ronald Sterghos, escaped injury in an earlier attack on October 7, 1977. The bombings ceased after that and were never solved, despite an extensive effort by police. The bombings appear to have been random and some investigators believed that they were the work of a deranged individual, although authorities have also noted similarities between the St. Louis County bombings and a car bombing on March 7, 1978 in Paducah, Kentucky in which William Ohlhausen, who had been Shirley Flynn's boyfriend, was seriously injured.
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Jessica Dubroff
Jessica Whitney Dubroff was a seven-year-old girl who died while attempting to become the youngest person to fly a light utility aircraft across the United States. On day two of her quest, the Cessna 177B Cardinal single-engine propeller aircraft, piloted by her flight instructor, crashed during a rainstorm immediately after takeoff from Cheyenne Regional Airport in Cheyenne, Wyoming, killing Dubroff, her 57-year-old father, and her flight instructor. Jessica was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts to Lisa Blair Hathaway and Lloyd Dubroff and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in California when she was four. Although billed by the media as a pilot, Dubroff did not possess a medical certificate or a student pilot certificate, since they require a minimum age of 16 or a pilot certificate that requires a minimum age of 17, according to U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations. At the time of her trip, there was no record-keeping body that recognized any feats by underage pilots. Nevertheless, local, national, and international news media picked up and publicized her story, and closely followed her attempt until its tragic ending. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the crash and concluded that the fatality was caused by the pilot's improper decision to take off in poor weather conditions, his overloading the aircraft, and his failure to maintain airspeed. The three factors resulted in a stall and subsequent fatal crash in a residential neighborhood. The NTSB also determined that "contributing to the instructor's decision to take off was a desire to adhere to an overly ambitious itinerary, in part, because of media commitments."
"Sea to Shining Sea" flight: Dubroff began taking flight lessons from flight instructor Joe Reid on her sixth birthday and became enthusiastic about flying. Her father suggested the idea of a coast-to-coast flight, which Jessica readily accepted, and Reid agreed to provide flight instruction and his aircraft for the endeavor. They decided to name their flight "Sea to Shining Sea"; Lloyd ordered custom-made caps and T-shirts with that logo to distribute as souvenirs during their stops. Although she had received over 33 hours of flight training, seven-year-old Jessica did not hold an FAA medical certificate, nor any pilot or student certificate. In the U.S., a person must be at least 16 years of age to be eligible for a student pilot certificate, and 17 for a pilot certificate. Since Dubroff was not certified to fly the plane, a rated pilot (normally her flight instructor Reid) had to be at the controls during all flight operations. While the coast-to-coast flight was promoted as a "record" attempt because of Dubroff's young age, there was no known body recognizing record flights by underage "pilots" at the time of her flight (The Guinness Book of Records had officially discontinued its "youngest pilot" categories seven years earlier, because of the risk of accidents). The flight would be made in Reid's Cessna 177B Cardinal, a four-seat single-engine propeller aircraft manufactured in 1975, registered N35207, which like most aircraft had dual flight controls in the front. Jessica would sit in the front left seat, Reid in the front right, and Lloyd in the back. It was agreed that Reid would be paid for his services at normal flight instruction rates, plus compensation for the layover time. Reid reportedly told his wife that he considered the flight a "non-event for aviation", simply "flying cross country with a 7-year-old sitting next to you and the parents paying for it." Nevertheless, Jessica became an instant media celebrity. ABC News gave Lloyd a video camera and blank cassettes to tape the flight; once the journey began, it was vigorously followed by supporters, media outlets, and others who monitored its progress, reporting each time Dubroff landed or took off. Dubroff slept during one of the flight segments en route to Cheyenne, and was assisted by Reid in one of the landings due to high winds.
Final flight segment: After a long day of flying from their Half Moon Bay, California departure point, Jessica, her father, and her flight instructor arrived in Cheyenne the evening before their ill-fated flight. They were welcomed in Wyoming's capital city by Mayor Leo Pando. After some media interviews, they got a ride to their hotel in the car of a local radio station program director, who recalled them discussing the forecast weather conditions for the next day. As forecast, the weather on the morning of the scheduled flight consisted of an area of heavy precipitation over and to the north and west of Cheyenne, with better conditions to the east, where the flight was headed. As the group was about to board their aircraft, the program director who had taken them to their hotel the previous evening interviewed Dubroff by telephone. When rain began to fall at the airport and the weather seemed to be deteriorating, the director invited her to stay in Cheyenne, but Dubroff's father declined, explaining that they wanted to "beat the storm" that was approaching. After a telephone discussion with a Casper weather briefer, Reid decided to take off despite the worsening conditions at the airport, and to try to escape the poor weather by turning immediately eastward. He decided to file a visual flight rules (VFR) flight plan, and depart under VFR, to be better able to cope with the heavy weather in his immediate takeoff path and the vicinity of the airport. As the aircraft began taxiing to the departure runway, the rain intensified and visibility at the airport fell below the three mile minimum required for VFR flight. Cheyenne's control tower advised the Cessna about the reduced visibility and that the "field is IFR". In general, when an airport is officially IFR (normally because of reduced visibility or low cloud ceiling), only IFR or special VFR operations are allowed. Reid then requested and received from the control tower a special VFR clearance to allow him to exit the airport's control zone visually, despite the reduced visibility.
Crash: At 8:24 a.m. MDT, Reid's aircraft began its takeoff from Runway 30 to the northwest, in rain, strong gusty crosswinds and turbulence. According to witnesses, the plane lifted off and climbed slowly, with its nose high and its wings wobbling. It began a gradual right turn, and after reaching an altitude of a few hundred feet, the plane rolled out of its turn, then descended rapidly, crashing at a near-vertical angle into Kornegay Court, a street in a residential neighborhood. Dubroff, her father, and Reid were killed instantly by blunt force trauma sustained from impact forces. Reid, who was legally the pilot in command for all of Dubroff's flights, was allegedly manipulating the controls during this particular flight segment.
Investigation: The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the accident and published a detailed final report eleven months later on March 11, 1997. From the official point of view, the pilot in command was flight instructor Reid, who was the only one on board rated to fly the aircraft. The investigation focused on his decision-making prior to takeoff and his actions once airborne. Several experienced pilots who were at the airport at the time of the accident testified that they considered the weather at that time unsuitable for flight, as a thunderstorm seemed to be forming or moving over the field. In addition, investigators determined that the weight of the aircraft during its takeoff roll exceeded its maximum allowable takeoff weight by 96 lbs, which would have increased the stall speed by about two percent. Since the aircraft was flying in moderate to heavy rain, the NTSB calculated that the water flowing on the wings would have further increased the stall speed by about 1.5%. A higher stall speed reduces the margin of safety at slower airspeeds, such as during a climb. Like most flight instructors giving dual instruction, Reid was seated on the right side, while the aircraft's primary flight instruments were mounted on the left, in front of Dubroff in this case. Investigators speculated that because of the heavy rain in his immediate climb path, Reid's forward visibility became greatly restricted. To maintain control through the climbing right turn, he would have had to turn his head to the left to see the flight instruments (most critically the attitude and airspeed indicators) and to the right to see the ground through the side window. Such side-to-side head motion, combined with the worsening flight visibility during the climb and the reduced stall margin, could have led to spatial disorientation and loss of control.
Probable cause: The NTSB concluded that the probable cause of the accident was Reid's "improper decision to take off into deteriorating weather conditions (including turbulence, gusty winds, and an advancing thunderstorm and associated precipitation) when the airplane was overweight and when the density altitude was higher than he was accustomed to, resulting in a stall caused by failure to maintain airspeed." The NTSB further determined that "contributing to the pilot in command's decision to take off was a desire to adhere to an overly ambitious itinerary, in part, because of media commitments."
Aftermath-
Child Pilot Safety Act: The accident and its associated publicity led to federal legislation to prevent similar "record" attempts by underage pilots from taking place in the future. The legislation passed the House on September 11, 1996, and the Senate on September 18, 1996. On September 27, 1996, differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill were resolved. On October 9, 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Federal Aviation Reauthorization Act of 1996, including the Child Pilot Safety Act, into law. The statute prohibits anyone who does not hold at least a private pilot certificate and a current medical certificate from manipulating the controls of an aircraft, if that individual "is attempting to set a record or engage in an aeronautical competition or aeronautical feat." Since a medical certificate and a private pilot's license have a minimum age requirement of 16 and 17 respectively, the new rule prohibits "child pilots" such as Jessica Dubroff and Vicki Van Meter from manipulating the flight controls if they are pursuing a record, and the pilot in command's pilot certificate may be revoked for allowing such activity.
Media responsibility: After the crash, there were claims that the media frenzy around the "bogus" record attempt contributed to the accident by helping promote the flight and pressuring its schedule. This was supported by the NTSB, which determined that the pressure induced by the intense media attention was a "contributing factor" in the accident. ABC's Ted Koppel reflected on the media's role in the tragedy on Nightline: "We need to begin by acknowledging our own contribution...We feed one another: those of you looking for publicity and those of us looking for stories." Koppel ended by asking "whether we in the media...by our ravenous attention contribute to this phenomenon", and answered: "We did." Time featured Jessica's portrait on its front cover, in which she is seen wearing a gray cap with the inscription, Women Fly. The headline reads, "Who Killed Jessica?" The child pilot was also featured on the cover of People.
Civil litigation: Lloyd Dubroff was Lisa Blair Hathaway's common-law husband when Jessica and her brother were born. In 1990, he separated from Hathaway, and in 1991 he was 52 years old when he married 19-year-old Melinda Anne Hurst, with whom he had a child the following year. In December 1992, Hathaway gave birth to Jessica's full sister, Jasmine, who was conceived while she lived for a time with Lloyd and Melinda in California. Before his death in the crash, Dubroff bought four separate life insurance policies, each for $750,000. Two of the policies named Hathaway as beneficiary and two named Melinda Dubroff, so that each was to receive $1.5 million in the event of his death, ensuring adequate child support for his underage children living with the two women. His grown son and daughter (both in their 30s) from a previous marriage, were not addressed by these policies. After the crash, Melinda Dubroff sued Hathaway for Hathaway's $1.5 million: Melinda Dubroff's attorney Roy Litherland said in a San Mateo County court that the $1.5 million Hathaway was designated was "in excess of any reasonable level of child support." In December 1996, Lisa Hathaway filed a counter-suit against Melinda Dubroff and Lloyd Dubroff's estate for $1.5 million, the exact amount of money Lloyd Dubroff intended, saying Lloyd Dubroff "gave his word he would care for and support her for the rest and remainder of her natural life." On December 18, 1997, San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Judith Kozloski ruled that the $1.5 million insurance benefits should be equally split between the two women; the other claims were dismissed.
Burial: Dubroff was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Pescadero, California.
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