Jeffrey R. MacDonald

Jeffrey Robert MacDonald (born October 12, 1943) is an American convicted in 1979 for the murders of his pregnant wife and two daughters in February 1970. At the time of the murders, MacDonald was a U.S. Army officer (Special Forces Green Beret), medical doctor, and practicing physician. MacDonald maintains that a group of Charles Manson-type hippies committed the crimes and has filed several unsuccessful appeals attempting to overturn his convictions. Early life: Jeffrey Robert MacDonald was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York City, the second of three children of Robert MacDonald, known as "Mac," and his wife Dorothy (née Perry). Raised on Long Island, he attended Patchogue High School, where he was voted both "most popular" and "most likely to succeed," and he was Senior Class President and Captain of the high school football team. His grades were high enough that he won a scholarship to Princeton University. While at Princeton, MacDonald resumed a romantic relationship with Colette Kathryn Stevenson, whom he had dated while in high school. On September 14, 1963, upon learning Colette was pregnant with his child, the couple married. Their daughter Kimberley was born on April 18, 1964. After attending Princeton for three years, he and his family moved to Chicago in 1964, where he was accepted to Northwestern University Medical School. Their second child, Kristen, was born on May 8, 1967. The following year, upon his graduation from medical school, MacDonald completed an internship at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. He joined the Army on July 1, 1969 and the entire family moved to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he held the rank of Captain. MacDonald was assigned to the Green Berets as a Group Surgeon to the 3rd Special Forces Group in September 1969. The murders: At 3:42 a.m. on February 17, 1970, dispatchers at Fort Bragg received an emergency phone call from MacDonald, who reported a "stabbing." Four responding military police officers arrived at MacDonald's house located at 544 Castle Drive, initially believing that they were being called to settle a domestic disturbance. They found the front door closed and locked and the house dark with no lights on. When no one answered their knock on the front door, the four MPs circled to the back of the house, where they found the back screen door closed and unlocked but the back door itself wide open. Upon entering, they found Colette, Kimberley, and Kristen all dead in their respective bedrooms. Colette, who had been pregnant with her third child and first son, was lying on the floor of her bedroom. She had been repeatedly clubbed (both her arms were broken) and stabbed 37 times (21 times with an ice pick and 16 times with a knife). Her husband's torn pajama top was draped upon her chest. On the headboard of the bed, the word "pig" was written in blood. Five-year-old Kimberley was found in her bed, having been clubbed in the head and stabbed in the neck with a knife between eight and ten times. Two-year-old Kristen was found in her own bed; she had been stabbed with a knife 33 times and stabbed with an ice pick 15 times. MacDonald was found next to his wife alive but wounded. His wounds were not as severe nor as numerous as those his family had suffered. He was immediately taken to nearby Womack Hospital. MacDonald suffered cuts and bruises on his face and chest along with a mild concussion. He also had a stab wound on his left torso in what a staff surgeon referred to as a "clean, small, sharp" incision that caused his left lung to partially collapse. He was treated at Womack Hospital and released after one week. MacDonald's account: MacDonald told investigators that on the evening of February 16, he had fallen asleep on the living room couch. He told investigators that he was sleeping on the couch because his youngest daughter, Kristen, had been in bed with his wife and had wet his side of the bed. He was later awakened by the sounds of Colette and Kimberley's screams. As he rose from the living room couch to go to their aid, he was attacked by three male intruders, one black and two white. A fourth intruder, described as a white female with long blonde hair and wearing high heeled boots and a white floppy hat partially covering her face, stood nearby with a lighted candle and chanted: "Acid is groovy, kill the pigs." The three males attacked him with a club and ice pick. During the struggle, MacDonald claimed that his pajama top was pulled over his head to his wrists and he then used it to ward off thrusts from the ice pick. Eventually, MacDonald stated that he was overcome by his assailants and was knocked unconscious in the living room end of the hallway leading to the bedrooms. Investigation: The army's Criminal Investigation Division (C.I.D.) did not believe MacDonald's version of events. As they studied the physical evidence, they found it did not seem to support the story told by MacDonald. The living room, where MacDonald had supposedly fought for his life against three armed assailants, showed little signs of a struggle apart from an overturned coffee table and knocked over flower plant. Fibers from MacDonald's torn pajama top were not found in the living room, where he claimed it was torn. Instead, fibers from the pajama top were found under Colette's body and in Kimberley and Kristen's bedrooms. One fiber was found under Kristen's fingernail. The murder weapons were found outside the back door. They were a kitchen knife, an ice pick, and a 3-foot long piece of lumber; all three were determined to have come from the MacDonald house. The tips of surgical gloves were found beneath the headboard where "pig" was written in blood; they were identical in composition to a supply MacDonald kept in the kitchen. The MacDonald family all had different blood types — a statistical anomaly that was used to track what had happened in the apartment. Investigators theorized that a fight began in the master bedroom between MacDonald and his wife, Colette, who possibly argued over Kristen's wetting MacDonald's side of the bed while sleeping there. Investigators speculated that Colette probably hit her husband on the forehead with a hairbrush, which resulted in his head wound. As MacDonald retaliated by beating her with a piece of lumber, Kimberley — whose brain serum was found in the doorway — may have walked in after hearing the commotion and was struck at least once on the head, possibly by accident. Believing Colette dead, MacDonald carried the mortally wounded Kimberley back to her bedroom. After stabbing Kimberley (whose blood was discovered on the pajama top MacDonald said he had not been wearing while in her room), he went to Kristen's room, intent on disposing of the last remaining potential witness. Before he could do so, Colette — whose blood was found on Kristen's bed covers and on one wall of the room — apparently regained consciousness, stumbled in, and threw herself over her daughter. After killing both of them, MacDonald wrapped his wife's body in a sheet and carried it back to the master bedroom, leaving a smudged footprint of Colette's blood on his way out of Kristen's bedroom. C.I.D. investigators then theorized that MacDonald attempted to cover up the murders, using articles on the Manson Family murders that he'd found in an issue of Esquire in the living room. He then took a scalpel blade from a supply in the hallway closet, went to the adjacent bathroom, and stabbed himself once. Putting on surgical gloves from his supply, he went to the master bedroom, where he used Colette's blood to write "pig" on the headboard. Finally, he laid his torn pajama top over the dead Colette and repeatedly stabbed her in the chest with an ice pick. MacDonald used the telephone to summon an ambulance, discarded the weapons out the back door, and lay by the body of his wife while he waited for the military police to arrive. On April 6, 1970, Army investigators interrogated MacDonald. Less than a month later, on May 1, the Army formally charged MacDonald with the murder of his family. Article 32 hearing: An initial Army Article 32 hearing into MacDonald's possible guilt, overseen by Colonel Warren Rock, convened on July 5, 1970 and ran through September. MacDonald was represented by Bernard L. Segal, a civilian defense attorney from Philadelphia. Segal's defense concentrated on the poor quality of the C.I.D. investigation and the existence of other suspects, specifically a woman named Helena Stoeckley. Segal presented evidence that the C.I.D. had not properly managed the crime scene and lost critical evidence, including skin found under Colette's fingernails. In addition, he claimed to have located Helena Stoeckley, the woman whom MacDonald claimed to have seen in his apartment during the murders. Stoeckley was a well-known drug user in the area who was known to socialize frequently with other heavy drug users, including Army veteran Greg Mitchell, her some-time boyfriend. Witnesses claimed that Stoeckley had admitted involvement in the crimes, and several remembered her wearing clothing similar to what MacDonald had described. On October 13, 1970, after one of the longest Article 32 hearings in U.S. Army history, Colonel Rock issued a report recommending that charges be dismissed against MacDonald because they were "not true," and he recommended that civilian authorities investigate Stoeckley. In December, MacDonald received an honorable discharge from the Army and returned to his home state, New York. Justice Department: fter the Article 32 hearing MacDonald returned to work as a doctor, briefly in New York and then in Long Beach, California in July 1971, where he was an emergency room physician at the St. Mary Medical Center.[12] He also made media appearances, most notably on the December 15, 1970 episode of The Dick Cavett Show, during which he made jokes and complained about the investigation and its focus on him as a suspect. During this time Freddie Kassab, MacDonald's stepfather-in-law, turned against MacDonald. Initially, he was one of MacDonald's supporters and testified in support of his innocence during the Article 32 hearing; however, his support lessened after MacDonald's appearance on The Dick Cavett Show. His support continued to erode after MacDonald refused to provide him with a transcript of the Article 32 hearing. MacDonald also made contradictory and at times outlandish claims; in one instance he told Kassab that he and some Army friends had actually tracked down, tortured, and eventually murdered one of the alleged killers of Colette and the children, but refused to provide details about who the person was or what he might have told MacDonald. MacDonald later claimed that it was a lie to try to put to rest Kassab's persistence about finding his stepdaughter's killers. Once Kassab finally received a copy of the Article 32 hearing transcript (after lengthy evasions by MacDonald), he noted numerous inconsistencies in MacDonald's testimony. One example was MacDonald's assertion that he had sustained near-life-threatening injuries during the alleged assault on him; Kassab saw MacDonald in the hospital less than 18 hours after the attack and found him sitting up in bed, eating a meal, and with very little in the way of bandages or dressing. In March 1971, in company with U.S. Army investigators, Kassab visited the crime scene for several hours in order to test the physical evidence against MacDonald's testimony. His work convinced him that MacDonald himself had committed the crimes. Since the Army's investigation was completed, the only way that Kassab could bring MacDonald to trial was via a citizen's complaint through the Justice Department. He filed the citizen's complaint in early 1972, but it was held in limbo because the three murders happened while MacDonald was serving in the U.S. Army, and since MacDonald was no longer with the Army, the citizen's complaint was declared moot. Between 1972 and 1974, the case remained trapped within the files of the Justice Department as they struggled over whether or not to prosecute. On April 30, 1974, after much persistence in pursuing the prosecution of MacDonald, Alfred and Mildred Kassab, aided by Peter Kearns, and the Kassabs' attorney Richard C. Cahn of Huntington, New York, presented a citizen's criminal complaint against Jeffrey MacDonald to U.S. Chief District Court Judge Algernon Butler, requesting the convening of a grand jury to indict MacDonald for the three murders. As a result of the complaint, a grand jury was convened on August 12, 1974. Justice Department attorney Victor Worheide presented the case to the grand jury, and U.S. District Judge Franklin Dupree was assigned to oversee the hearing. Trial and conviction: A grand jury in North Carolina indicted MacDonald on January 24, 1975, and within the hour MacDonald was arrested in California. On January 31, 1975, he was freed on $100,000 bail pending disposition of the charges. On May 23, 1975, MacDonald was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to the murders. On July 29, 1975, District Judge Franklin T. Dupree, Jr. denied MacDonald's double jeopardy and speedy trial arguments and allowed the trial date of August 18, 1975 to stand. On August 15, 1975, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the trial and on January 23, 1976, a panel of that court, in a 2–1 split, ordered the indictment dismissed on speedy trial grounds. An appeal on behalf of the Government led to an 8–0 reinstatement of the indictment by the U.S. Supreme Court on May 1, 1978. On October 22, 1978, the Fourth Circuit rejected MacDonald's double jeopardy arguments and, on March 19, 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review that decision. The murder trial began on July 16, 1979 in the Federal courthouse in Raleigh, North Carolina. Although MacDonald’s lawyers, Bernard Segal and Wade Smith, were confident of an acquittal from the first day, one thing after another went badly for the defense. It began when Dupree refused a defense request to admit into evidence a psychiatric evaluation of MacDonald, which suggested that someone of his personality type was unable to kill his wife and children. Dupree explained that since no insanity plea had been entered for MacDonald, he did not want the trial bogged down by contradictory psychiatric testimony from prosecution and defense witnesses. Prosecution: During the first day of the trial, Dupree allowed the prosecution to admit into evidence the 1970 copy of Esquire magazine, found in the MacDonald household, part of which contained the lengthy article of the Manson Family murders in August 1969. Prosecutors James Blackburn and Brian Murtagh wanted to introduce the magazine and suggest that this is where MacDonald got the idea of blaming a hippie gang for the murders. Government lab technicians testified that MacDonald’s blue, button-down pajama top had 48 small, smooth and cylindrical ice pick holes through it. In order for this to have happened, the pajama top would have to remain stationary, an unlikely occurrence if MacDonald had wrapped it around his hands to defend himself from the blows from an attacker wielding an ice pick. Also, by folding the pajama top one particular way, the government demonstrated how all 48 tears could have been made by 21 thrusts of the ice pick, the same number of times that Colette MacDonald had been stabbed with the ice pick and in an identical pattern, implying that she had been repeatedly stabbed through the pajama top while it was lying on her.[19] Prosecutors Murtagh and Blackburn staged an impromptu re-enactment of the alleged attack on MacDonald. Murtagh wrapped a pajama top around his hands and tried to fend off a series of blows that Blackburn was inflicting on him with a similar ice pick. The prosecution made two points with the demonstration. First, the ice pick holes in the pajama top were jagged and torn, not smoothly cylindrical like the holes in MacDonald’s pajama jacket. Also, Murtagh received a small wound on his left hand. When MacDonald had been examined at Womack Hospital, he had no defensive wounds on his arms or hands consistent with a struggle. The inference was obvious and highly damaging to the defense. Another piece of damaging evidence against MacDonald was an audio tape made of the April 6, 1970 interview by military investigators. Listening to this tape, the jury heard MacDonald's matter-of-fact, indifferent recitation of the murders. They heard him become angry, defensive, and emotional in response to suggestions by the investigators that he had committed the murders. He asked the investigators why would they think he, who had a beautiful family and everything going for him, could have murdered his pregnant wife and two daughters in cold blood for no reason. The jury also heard the investigators confront MacDonald with their knowledge of his extramarital affairs, to which MacDonald calmly responded, "Oh... you guys are more thorough than I thought." Despite the evidence, the prosecution was hampered by the lack of motive for MacDonald to have committed the murders, since he had no history of violence or domestic abuse with his wife or children. Since Dupree refused both the defense and prosecution requests for any psychiatric evaluation to be done for MacDonald, he also refused the prosecution's request to allow into evidence any part of the Article 32 transcripts from MacDonald's 1970 U.S. Army hearing. Dupree ruled that since the current trial was a civilian trial and the Article 32 military hearing had several reports from the military investigators, which claimed that MacDonald may have murdered his wife and two daughters in a drug-induced rage, it was considered biased and hearsay. Defense: During the defense stage of the trial, Segal called Helena Stoeckley to the witness stand, intent on extracting a confession from her that she had been one of the intruders MacDonald claimed had entered his family's apartment, murdered his family, and attacked him. During the nine years after the murders had been committed, Stoeckley had made several contradictory statements regarding the murders, sometimes saying she was present when the murders happened, other times stating she had no recollection of her whereabouts the evening of the murders. Just prior to her testimony, separate interviews had been conducted by the defense and the prosecution, during which she denied ever being in the MacDonald apartment or ever seeing MacDonald before that very day in court. Afterwards, Segal argued for the introduction of testimony from other witnesses to whom Stoeckley had confessed. Dupree refused, in the absence of any evidence to connect Stoeckley to the scene, citing her history of long-term drug abuse. MacDonald's defense called forensic expert James Thornton to the stand. He unsuccessfully tried to rebut the government's contention that the pajama top was stationary on Colette's chest, rather than wrapped around MacDonald's wrists as he warded off blows, by conducting an experiment wherein a similar pajama top was placed over a ham, moved back and forth on a sled, and stabbed at with an ice pick. The defense also called several character witnesses. MacDonald took the witness stand as the last defense witness. Under Segal’s direct examination, MacDonald denied committing the murders. When Blackburn cross-examined him, however, MacDonald could offer no explanation against the evidence. Outcome: On August 29, 1979, MacDonald was convicted of one count of first-degree murder in the death of Kristen and two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Colette and Kimberley after the jury deliberated for just over six hours. Dupree immediately gave MacDonald a life sentence for each of the three murders, to be served consecutively. He also revoked MacDonald's bail. Soon after the verdict, MacDonald appealed Dupree's bail revocation ruling, asking that bail be granted pending the outcome of his appeal. On September 7, 1979, this application was rejected, and an appeal on bail was further rejected by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on November 20, 1979. Fatal Vision: In June 1979, MacDonald invited author Joe McGinniss to write a book about the case. McGinniss was given full access to MacDonald and the defense during the trial. MacDonald expected that the book would be about his innocence in the murders of his family. However, McGinniss' book, Fatal Vision, first published in the spring of 1983, portrayed MacDonald as "a narcissistic sociopath" who was indeed guilty of killing his family. The book contains excerpts from court transcripts and sections entitled "The Voice of Jeffrey MacDonald," which were based on tape recordings MacDonald made following his conviction. MacDonald subsequently sued McGinniss in 1987 for fraud, claiming that McGinniss pretended to believe MacDonald innocent after he came to the conclusion that MacDonald was guilty, in order that MacDonald continue cooperating with him. After a trial, which resulted in a mistrial on August 21, 1987, McGinniss and MacDonald settled out of court for $325,000 on November 23, 1987. The Journalist and the Murderer, written by Janet Malcolm and published in 1990, is about the relationship between journalists and their subjects and explores the relationship between McGinniss and MacDonald as the subject of the author's thesis that "Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible." Malcolm maintained that McGinniss tricked MacDonald—a claim that McGinniss subsequently responded to in the epilogue of a later edition of Fatal Vision. In a 2012 book, A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald, filmmaker and writer Errol Morris argued that many of McGinniss's claims about MacDonald are untrue and irresponsible. McGinniss' book was adapted into a made-for-TV film of the same title starring Karl Malden, Eva Marie Saint, Andy Griffith and Gary Cole as MacDonald. The film aired on NBC in 1984. Other media: MacDonald's murders are discussed in the Jodi Picoult novel House Rules. Post-conviction Appeals: On July 29, 1980, a panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed MacDonald's conviction in a 2–1 split on the grounds that the nine-year delay in bringing him to trial violated his Sixth Amendment rights to a speedy trial. On August 22, 1980, MacDonald was freed on $100,000 bail. He subsequently returned to work at St. Mary's Medical Center in Long Beach, California as the Director of Emergency Medicine. On December 18, 1980, the Fourth Circuit Court split 5–5 to hear the case en banc and thus the earlier decision stood. On May 26, 1981, the United States Supreme Court accepted the case for consideration and on December 7, 1981, heard oral arguments. On March 31, 1982, they ruled 6–3 that MacDonald's rights to a speedy trial had not been violated. MacDonald was rearrested and returned to Federal prison and his original sentence of three consecutive life terms was reinstated with time already served since his 1979 conviction. Defense lawyers filed a new motion for MacDonald to be freed on bail pending appeal, but the Fourth Circuit refused. MacDonald's remaining points of appeal were heard on June 9, 1982 and his conviction was unanimously affirmed on August 16, 1982. A further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was refused on January 10, 1983. It was shortly after this that MacDonald's licenses to practice medicine in both North Carolina and California were revoked. On January 14, 1983, Helena Stoeckley, aged 32, was found dead in her small apartment. She had apparently been dead for several days, and an autopsy revealed that she died of pneumonia and cirrhosis of the liver. On March 1, 1985, Dupree rejected all defense motions for a new trial. Lawyers for MacDonald appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld Dupree's ruling on December 17, 1985 and refused to reopen the case. On October 6, 1986 the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's decision. On March 27, 1991, MacDonald became eligible for parole, but he did not apply, continuing to vehemently maintain his innocence. On July 8, 1991, Dupree, after hearing arguments that MacDonald should be granted a new murder trial on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct, denied the petition. On October 3, 1991, MacDonald's defense counsel appealed Dupree's ruling on the grounds of judicial bias due to his rulings in favor of the prosecution during the trial, and of the harshness of MacDonald's prison sentence that Dupree imposed. The appeal was denied. On June 2, 1992, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against a new trial for MacDonald. They stated that the materials now introduced should have been presented by MacDonald's then-lawyer, Brian O'Neill, in the 1984-85 appeal. Therefore, all rights to further appeals were forfeited. The ruling was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on November 30 of that same year. Dupree died after a short illness on December 17, 1995. MacDonald's former in-laws, his wife Colette's mother Mildred, and stepfather Alfred Kassab, who brought the MacDonald case to the Justice Department, both died in 1994; she on January 19, and he on October 24. The courts ruled that Dupree had acted correctly when he refused to let the jury see a transcript of the 1970 Article 32 military hearing, and, because this was not an insanity trial, Dupree had also acted properly in not allowing the jurors to hear any of the psychiatric testimony. Had he done so, the jurors would have learned that none of the doctors hired by the defense, or who worked for the Army or government at Walter Reed Hospital, had concluded that MacDonald was psychologically incapable of committing the murders. The courts have also ruled that Helena Stoeckley's confessions of committing the murders were unreliable and at odds with the established facts of the case, and that her treatment at 1979 trial was correct. During trial, she was arrested under a material witness warrant and testified before the jury that she could not remember her activities on the evening of the murders due to substantial drug use; witnesses to whom she had confessed were not allowed to testify. MacDonald was granted leave to file his fourth appeal on January 12, 2006. This latest appeal is based on the 2005 affidavit of Jimmy Britt, a decorated retired United States Marshal who worked as such during the trial. Britt states that he heard the material witness in the case, Helena Stoeckley, admit to the prosecutor of the case, James Blackburn, that she was present at the MacDonald residence at the time of the murders and that Blackburn threatened her with prosecution if she testified. Stoeckley, however, met with counsel for the defense prior to this alleged meeting with Blackburn, and she told them that she had no memory of her whereabouts the night of the murders. Defense Attorney Wade Smith advised Dupree that Stoeckley had testified on the stand essentially the same as she had stated in the defense interviews. Also, she contacted Dupree during her retention as a material witness to claim she was terrified, not of the prosecutors, but of Bernie Segal, the lead defense attorney. Britt died on October 19, 2008. On April 16, 2007, MacDonald's attorneys filed an affidavit of Stoeckley's mother, in which she states that her daughter confessed to her twice that she was at the MacDonald residence on the evening of the murders and that she was afraid of the prosecutors. Her past statements concerning her daughter are at odds with the details contained in her affidavit. MacDonald has requested to expand the appeal to include all the evidence amassed at trial, evidence which he claims was discovered subsequent to the trial (for example, statements of individuals to whom Stoeckely had made confessions) and the DNA results completed in 2006. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals granted MacDonald's motion for a successive habeas petition and remanded the matter back to the District Court Eastern Division for a decision. In November 2008, Judge Fox denied MacDonald's motion regarding the statement of Britt. This denial was based on the merits of the claim, generally that Stoeckley was unreliable, as she had made many varying statements regarding the murders. Also, that MacDonald's claim that she was expected to testify in a manner favorable to him until threatened by Blackburn is contradicted by the trial records. MacDonald's motions regarding the DNA results and the statement of Helena Stoeckley's mother were also denied. The denial of these two motions was based on jurisdiction issues, specifically that MacDonald had not obtained the required pre-filing authorization from the Circuit Court for these motions to the District Court. Subsequent to the November 2008 decision, a government motion to modify the decision to reflect that Britt's claims were not factual was denied. Included with the motion was jail documentation establishing that Stoeckley was originally confined to the jail in Pickens, South Carolina, not Greenville, South Carolina, as Britt had claimed. Also included were custody commitment and release forms indicating that agents other than Britt transported Stoeckley to the trial. MacDonald appealed the district court's denial of his claim to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2011, the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court's decision, remanding MacDonald's claims back to the District Court with instructions for consideration. An evidentiary hearing on the Britt claim and the unknown hairs was held in September, 2012. Allegations of evidence suppression: MacDonald's supporters claim that the prosecution suppressed evidence. In the years since the trial, defense lawyers have used the Freedom of Information Act to find evidence that the government did not present at trial. However, all of MacDonald's claims regarding suppressed evidence have been rejected by the courts, citing evidence that many of the items had indeed been available to the defense and, even if they had not, the items did not establish his innocence and would not have changed the verdict of the jury. MacDonald claims that unidentified fingerprints and fibers found in the apartment were never matched to anyone known to have been in the house prior to or after the murders and that these prints are evidence of intruders. However, the prints do not match anyone named by MacDonald as the intruders, and fingerprint exemplars of the children were not obtained and Colette's fingerprint exemplars were of poor quality, as they were taken subsequent to embalming. Other claims of withheld evidence involve two unidentified 22 inch (56 cm) long synthetic hairs found in a hairbrush, but not pointed out specifically to the defense, and a minute spot of blood that was either type O or type B (MacDonald's blood type) that was found in the hallway. MacDonald's supporters continue to insist that this was not disclosed to the defense, despite the existence of the trial transcripts which clearly show this spot was indeed disclosed and discussed. Supporters of MacDonald also point to unsourced black wool fibers found on Colette MacDonald's mouth and shoulder as evidence of intruders that the government deliberately did not report to the defense. In 1995, two of MacDonald's supporters, Jerry Allen Potter and Fred Bost, wrote Fatal Justice, a book meant to both refute McGinniss' Fatal Vision and present the evidence they claimed had been hidden by government prosecutors. DNA testing: On September 2, 1997, the district court granted MacDonald's motion to file a supplemental affidavit with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Lawyers representing MacDonald were given the right to pursue DNA tests on limited hair and blood evidence on October 17, 1997 by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Testing began in December 2000. Defense lawyers hoped that the results would tie Stoeckley and her associate Greg Mitchell to the scene. DNA test results released by the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory on March 10, 2006, showed that neither Stoeckley's nor Mitchell's DNA matched any of the tested exhibits. A limb hair found stuck to the left palm of Colette MacDonald matched the DNA profile of Jeffrey MacDonald. MacDonald's DNA profile also matched body hairs found on the multi-colored bedspread from the master bed and on the top sheet of Kristen MacDonald's bed. A hair found in Colette's right palm was sourced as her own. Three hairs, one from the bedsheet, one found in Colette's body outline in the area of her legs, and one found beneath the fingernail of Kristen, did not match the DNA profile of any MacDonald family member or known suspect. MacDonald was unsuccessful at incorporating a motion regarding the DNA results into his motion regarding the claims of Britt, with the court stating that MacDonald must obtain a pre-authorization for what should be a separate motion regarding the DNA results. On April 19, 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit granted prefiling authorization for MacDonald's DNA claim. The court reversed the district court and remanded for further proceedings. In September 2012, the District Court conducted an evidentiary hearing, including MacDonald's claims of new DNA "evidence," on remand from the Fourth Circuit's April 2011 ruling. On July 24, 2014, the District Court rejected MacDonald's claims in their entirety and re-affirmed MacDonald's conviction on all counts. MacDonald moved the district court to alter or amend the July 24, 2014 judgment, and the District Court denied MacDonald's motion in November 2014. MacDonald has appealed the denial of his motion to alter or amend the July 2014 judgment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Parole: At the urging of his second wife Kathryn MacDonald (née Kurichh, married in 2002) and his attorneys, he applied for a parole hearing, which was held on May 10, 2005. During the hearing, he did not admit guilt and argued that he is "factually innocent". His parole request was immediately denied. His next scheduled parole hearing will be in May 2020. As of 2015, MacDonald is serving his sentence at a federal prison in Cumberland, Maryland. He continues to maintain his innocence. His projected "release date" after serving his three consecutive life terms from the date of his August 29, 1979 conviction is April 5, 2071, by which time MacDonald would be 127 years old.

headaches

I've heard headaches are a sign of diabetes. I'm not feeling that good. I'm trying to cut back on coffee but it is not working since I have diabetes and it's not good

skateboarding in a skirt

I can skateboard in a skirt. I love skateboarding. I never wear a pair of heels while skateboarding since I'd more likely than not get hurt. I can skate in a skirt since I'm tougher on my legs

blameless

I hope my mom doesn't blame me for setting her up. I have a friend whose parents I think my mom would like.

my weight is killing me

I'm watching a show about people who are morbidly obese and the surgery they take

Chick-fil-A

Chick-fil-A is an American fast food restaurant chain headquartered in the Atlanta suburb of College Park, Georgia, specializing in chicken sandwiches. Founded in 1946, it is associated with the Southern United States. Chick-fil-A has more than 1,850 restaurants, mainly in the southeastern United States, and is the top chicken fast food chain in the U.S. The company's culture is influenced by its founder's Southern Baptist beliefs. All Chick-fil-A restaurants are closed for business on Sunday. In 2012, CEO Dan T. Cathy's public statements in opposition to same-sex marriage became the subject of public controversy. Same-sex marriage controversy: In January 2011, the media reported that Chick-fil-A was co-sponsoring a marriage conference with the Pennsylvania Family Institute (PFI), an organization that has opposed same-sex marriage legislation. Chick-fil-A clarified that "one of our independent Restaurant Operators in Pennsylvania was asked to provide sandwiches to two Art of Marriage video seminars." The WinShape Foundation, a charitable organization founded by Truett and his wife, also stated it would not allow same-sex couples to participate in its marriage retreats. Chick-fil-A has donated over $5 million, via WinShape, to groups that oppose same-sex marriage. Of this, more than $3 million was donated primarily to Christian organizations whose agendas included positions that oppose same-sex marriage, with the money donated between 2003 and 2009. A total of $1.9 million was donated in 2010 to groups such as the Marriage & Family Foundation, Exodus International and the Family Research Council (FRC). That year, the FRC, which received $1,000 was listed as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. WinShape has also contributed to Christian groups including Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Exodus International, the latter noted for supporting ex-gay conversion therapy. In response, students at several colleges and universities worked to ban or remove the company's restaurants from their campuses. In June and July 2012, Chick-fil-A Chief operating officer Dan T. Cathy made several public statements about same-sex marriage, saying that those who "have the audacity to define what marriage is about" were "inviting God's judgment on our nation". Several prominent politicians expressed disapproval. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, and Chicago Alderman Proco "Joe" Moreno said they hoped to block franchise expansion into their areas. The proposed bans drew criticism from liberal pundits, legal experts, and the American Civil Liberties Union. The Jim Henson Company, which had a Pajanimals kids' meal toy licensing arrangement with Chick-fil-A, said it would cease its business relationship, and donate the payment to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Chick-fil-A stopped distributing the toys, citing unrelated safety concerns that had arisen prior to the controversy. Chick-fil-A released a statement on July 31, 2012 saying, "We are a restaurant company focused on food, service and hospitality; our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena." Response: In response to the controversy, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee initiated a Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day movement to counter a boycott of Chick-fil-A launched by same-sex marriage activists. More than 600,000 people RSVPed on Facebook for Huckabee's appreciation event. On August 1, Chick-fil-A restaurants experienced a large show of public support across the nation with the company reporting record-breaking sales. A consulting firm estimated that the average Chick-fil-A restaurant had 29.9 percent more sales and 367 more customers than on a typical Wednesday. Report of policy change: In September 2012, The Civil Rights Agenda (TCRA) announced that Chick-fil-A has "ceased donating to organizations that promote discrimination, specifically against LGBT civil rights." Chick-fil-A officials did state in an internal document that they "will treat every person equally, regardless of sexual orientation." In a letter from Chick-fil-A's Senior Director of Real Estate, the company states, "The WinShape Foundations is now taking a much closer look at the organizations it considers helping, and in that process will remain true to its stated philosophy of not supporting organizations with political agendas." According to Chicago Alderman Proco "Joe" Moreno, Chick-fil-A has a statement of respect for all people regardless of sexual orientation in an internal document called Chick-fil-A: Who We Are. A document released by Chick-fil-A on September 20, 2012 does not mention any organizations opposed to same-sex marriage as being part of Chick-fil-A's donation base. WinShape Marriage will continue to be supported financially, with a stated focus on couple retreats to strengthen marriages. According to Focus on the Family's web site, CitizenLink.com, "Chick-fil-A and its charitable-giving arm, the WinShape Foundation, did not agree to stop making donations to groups that support the Biblical definition of marriage in exchange for being allowed to open a franchise in Chicago." Mike Huckabee stated that he "talked earlier today personally with Dan Cathy, CEO of Chick Fil-A about the new reports that Chick Fil-A had capitulated to demands of the supporters of same sex marriage. This is not true. The company continues to focus on the fair treatment of all of its customers and employees, but to end confusion gave me this statement." The statement provided by Chick-fil-A was posted on Huckabee's website.

zoey Dean's talent

This book revolves around 4 girls in Los Angeles, California. The "leader" is trying to win a contest and gets caught in a lie

less caffeine Jackie

I'm not sure if cutting back on caffeine is a good idea but I am cutting back. I'm having a hard time and feeling the effects. Headaches, fatigue and irritability. Now, I'm feeling better. I'm sleeping more and am feeling better. I don't feel dependent on it any more

Murder of Dennis Jurgens

Dennis Craig Jurgens (December 6, 1961 – April 11, 1965) was the most famous and only fatal victim of prolific child abuser Lois Jurgens, who abused a total of six adopted children during a period spanning the 1950s to 1970s. The eventual trial of Lois Jurgens for his murder made national headlines and was the top news story for the state of Minnesota in 1987, and is one of few crimes that FBI agent Kenneth Lanning argues can legitimately be described as "ritual abuse". Early history: Dennis Jurgens was born Dennis Craig Puckett in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, the child of teenage Jerry Sherwood (who herself was a ward of the state) and her teenage boyfriend. At the urging of authorities, Jerry placed him for adoption with the promise that he would be given good care. Dennis was adopted by the Jurgenses, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota, a suburb of Saint Paul: Harold Robert Jurgens, a former bandleader turned electrician, and Lois Germaine Josephine Zerwas Jurgens, a homemaker. Lois had grown up in an impoverished family of sixteen siblings and used her marriage to the middle-class Harold Jurgens as a means to improve her social standing. She had a pathological need for control over her environment and obsessively cleaned and tended to her home and garden, desperate to appear the picture of the perfect housewife in 1950s suburban America. In the decade preceding the adoption of Dennis, Lois Jurgens had suffered bouts of depression and psychosis, including an extended stay at a psychiatric institution where electroconvulsive therapy was administered. She was diagnosed as having mixed psychoneurosis and also unable to conceive a child with Harold. This drove Lois further into madness, as she felt she needed children to complete the "perfect picture" of her life. Officially forbidden to adopt children owing to Lois' history of mental illness, the Jurgenses managed to adopt a baby named Robert privately. Robert fit in well at the Jurgens household, as he learned from a young age not to get in his mother's way or cause an undue mess that would likely send Lois Jurgens into a rage. The Jurgenses' adoption of Robert seemed successful in the eyes of authorities, who began to consider the possibility that the Jurgenses might adopt more children through official channels. Dennis arrives at the Jurgens home: Just past one year of age, Dennis was placed in the Jurgens home in anticipation of an adoption, after spending much of his first year in foster care where he was well-loved and cared for by an elderly woman. Almost immediately, Lois took a severe, obsessive dislike to the child, who was a normal, rambunctious, and spirited toddler- unlike Robert, who in Lois' eyes, was the "good son". Harold Jurgens suggested that perhaps they should not go forward with the adoption of Dennis, but Lois refused out of concern that it would discourage the authorities from allowing them to adopt further children. Within months of Dennis' arrival, he was rushed to the hospital with first and second-degree burns on his genitalia, which were reported and accepted as accidental. The process of adopting of Dennis was completed. Abuse at the hands of Lois Jurgens: Lois Jurgens had a reputation amongst her extended family and neighbors as an intense, angry woman with a short and volatile temper, but Dennis' arrival in her home provoked sadistic rages that targeted Dennis as he aged from one to three-and-a-half years of age. Throughout the years of frequent abuse, it has been reported that while Harold Jurgens made little effort to curb his wife's abuse of young Dennis, he personally never mistreated the boy. In her effort to make Dennis "right" in her eyes, Lois embarked on a series of sadistic and corporal punishments: Angered at Dennis for rejecting certain foods, she responded by placing horseradish on the food and then force-fed it to him. According to reports from family members who eventually testified at the murder trial, Dennis turned purple from being force-fed the bitter and spicy horseradish and also having his oxygen supply cut off when Jurgens covered his mouth and nose. This treatment, along with the exertion as he struggled, sickened Dennis to the point of vomiting, which further enraged Jurgens, who then forced him to eat his vomit. Lois obsessed about Dennis' weight, which according to medical records was appropriate for a child of his age and build at the point of his adoption. He was frequently starved, to rid him of "sloppy fat," as Lois called it (she also called him "Sloppy Fat" as a nickname). Due to this frequent starvation, Dennis gained only three pounds in a two-and-a-half year period as he aged from one year old to three-and-a-half years old. The coroner noted in his report that Dennis had almost zero subcutaneous fat, at the level of a person who had died of starvation. Aside from the incident when Dennis was hospitalized with burns on his genitals, there were many other incidents of abuse which fell under the category of sexual sadism. Lois' remedy for the toddler wetting his diaper too frequently was to place a spring-action clothespin upon the end of his penis. The coroner noted there was evidence of adult human bite marks on his penis, and scarring all over his scrotum; he was also found to be wearing two diapers and a pair of rubber pants at the age of three-and-a-half years. Testimony from neighbors and family members told of young Dennis showing up to public events wearing sunglasses at the age of two to hide his frequent black eyes. In addition, Lois took to tying Dennis' limbs to the bedposts to keep him in bed, and tied him to the toilet to force a bowel movement. By all accounts, Lois was obsessed with abusing Dennis, and she wanted the world to know he was a "bad child"; she made no apologies about the inappropriate way she was disciplining him. Lois considered herself a devout Catholic and believed she was doing "God's work" by making Dennis "perfect" in her eyes. To this end, she forced religious training on her young sons; reports had young Robert flawlessly reciting the Rosary at two. Dennis struggled with such training and was forced to pray and recite his Rosary kneeling on a broomstick for extended periods, until he did it correctly. To the casual observer, the Jurgenses seemed to be a normal, church-going family with a perfectly maintained house and yard. Certain neighbors and family members knew there were problems with Lois' treatment of Dennis but did nothing to prevent it. They attempted to mind their own business and feared retribution from Lois, who was not above threatening the lives of her family members. In the 1960s, the term child abuse had not yet been coined and no one, not even medical professionals and teachers, were required to report suspicions. The murder of Dennis Jurgens: During the early morning hours of April 11, 1965, Dennis Jurgens died at the hands of Jurgens. The official cause of death was peritonitis due to perforation of the small bowel. It is not known specifically what caused the fatal blow, though the injury was later found to have been, beyond a reasonable doubt, inflicted by Lois Jurgens owing to evidence of her constant physical abuse. Along with the aforementioned evidence of starvation and the scarring and bite-marks on his genitalia, the coroner discovered multiple lacerations and multiple generations of bruises covering most of his body. The night of his death, a great flood had hit the Saint Paul area and the Mississippi River's waters were rising to record levels, causing flooding in the region and inside the Jurgens home. Lois, who abused Dennis constantly, was pushed to new levels of rage as the flood waters filled her basement. The only witness to Lois's final abuse of Dennis was Robert, who was 5 years old at the time. Many years later, at his mother's trial, by then 27-year-old Robert recounted the events of that evening, testifying that his mother had beat Dennis extensively and had thrown him down the stairs. Dr. Michael B. McGee, a full-time pathologist, was the leading forensic Examiner in the case. After the murder: Though there was an investigation, society and law enforcement of the mid-1960s did not accept the concept that a child in a middle-class home could be the target of abuse. It would have been difficult at the time to prove that Lois Jurgens had committed murder. In spite of extensive physical evidence pointing towards severe abuse, the medical examiner did not classify the death under any of the standard classifications of accident, suicide or murder; he simply marked it "deferred." There was also a great deal of suspicion surrounding Jerome Zerwas, the brother of Lois Jurgens, who was a police lieutenant in the town of White Bear Lake, Minnesota. A common belief amongst witnesses and neighbors at the time of the murder, and among the investigators who eventually re-opened the case, is that he interfered with the investigation and destroyed incriminating evidence. Although Lois was not charged with Dennis's murder, the death caused sufficient suspicion for the authorities to remove Robert from the home; he was placed with his paternal grandmother for a period of just over five years, during which the Jurgenses spent a great deal of effort and money attempting to regain custody. Finally, at a time when Robert was hospitalized with pneumonia, his grandmother burned to death in a house fire. There is some suspicion that Lois Jurgens herself set the fire, given that it occurred while Robert was hospitalized, and that Lois had been known to threaten burning down the homes of several neighbors and family members who had spoken to authorities. Robert was returned to the Jurgens home and, going through new channels, the couple was eventually able to adopt four school-aged siblings from Kentucky. By this point, Lois' rage and mania had gone beyond her ability to maintain an appearance of normalcy, and she and Harold had relocated to rural Stillwater, Minnesota, possibly to escape the gossip of their former neighborhood where Dennis was killed. As the new adopted children were older, there were many firsthand histories (recounted to the media during the 1987 trial of Lois Jurgens) describing the severe abuse they suffered at their adoptive mother's hands. Beatings and displays of Lois' explosive temper were daily events; especially bad days could include her slamming a child's forehead into a nail protruding from a wall, forcing a child to stand barefoot in snow, and shoving a used sanitary napkin in a child's face. During this period, Lois was once again placed in a psychiatric facility. Eventually, all four of the siblings from Kentucky and Robert escaped the home by running away and getting help from concerned neighbors. Their flight, coupled with the lingering suspicions surrounding Dennis' death, resulted in the termination of Lois and Harold Jurgens' parental rights. They were informed they would not be allowed to foster or adopt any additional children. The Investigation: Now in her late thirties, Dennis's birth mother Jerry Sherwood sought out Dennis in the early 1980s, assuming that he would now be a young adult and (as she had given birth to four more children with Dennis's birth father) that he might want to meet his siblings. Her search led her eventually to his grave, and her continued investigation led to a phone call to Lois Jurgens to inquire about what had happened. Lois was cordial on the phone, and even offered to mail some mementos. When these mementos failed to arrive, Sherwood called again, only to discover that the Jurgenses had switched to an unlisted number—further fueling her suspicions. Sherwood eventually located Dennis's death certificate; because the death was categorized as "deferred," the case was still technically open. This, coupled with the lack of a statute of limitations for a murder charge, could lead the way to a prosecution of Lois Jurgens. Jerry took her case to the White Bear Lake police department and then to the local media. The Trial: The St. Paul Pioneer Press ran a cover story about the investigation on Sunday, October 12, 1986. Though the name of the adoptive family was not given, many suspected that the story was about Lois Jurgens. Sherwood's tenacity, along with the tragedy of her personal loss, kept the story in the public eye. Eventually Lois Jurgens was arraigned, and her identity released by the media. Jurgens' other adopted son, Robert, testified at the trial, at which Lois Jurgens (now in her 60s) was convicted of third-degree murder and sentenced to prison. The investigation, trial, and conviction are considered landmarks in the history of child abuse law. Aftermath: Lois Jurgens served only eight years of her sentence, released early for good behavior, and lived a secluded life in Stillwater, Minnesota, until her death in 2013. She always proclaimed her innocence. Harold Jurgens died in 2000; at the time of his death, there was suspicion that Lois had poisoned him, but this was investigated and ruled out. Novel and Adaptations: Barry Siegel's true-crime novel A Death in White Bear Lake recounts the story via extensive research and oral history. A 1992 NBC television movie, entitled A Child Lost Forever, told the story from the perspective of Jerry Sherwood (played by Beverly D'Angelo), and a theatre piece, The Jurgens File, by playwright Brian Vinero, examined the story from the perspective of the community. The latter was developed at New York City's 78th Street Theatre Lab in 2005.

Stacey Lannert

Stacey Ann Lannert is an American woman convicted of the murder of her father, Tom Lannert, when she was 18 years old. She testified that he had sexually abused her since she was 8 years old. Sentenced to life in prison, she served 18 years. On January 10, 2009, outgoing Missouri Governor Matt Blunt commuted Lannert's sentence and that of another woman convicted under similar circumstances. He said, "After an exhaustive review of the facts in both cases, I am commuting the sentences of Stacey Lannert and Charity Carey, who suffered extensive abuse before they took action against the men who raped them and subjected them to other horrible physical and emotional abuse." Lannert's new sentence of 20 years made her eligible for immediate conditional release, and she was released on January 16, 2009. Lannert founded a resource website and non-profit organization, Healing Sisters, to aid women who have suffered abuse. In 2011, she published a memoir about her experiences, Redemption: A Story of Sisterhood, Survival, and Finding Freedom Behind Bars. Early life and education: Stacey Lannert was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1972. Her parents are Deb Underwood and Thomas Lannert. She has said that she was close to her father and he made her feel special. But he was drinking to excess and started sexually abusing her when she was eight, and raped her at nine. Her parents divorced when she was young. Although she tried to tell her mother and a babysitter about her father's rapes, she did not have the language to make them understand, and he had threatened her to keep her quiet. Her sister Christy is two years younger. She has said their father physically abused and beat her from when she was in first grade, becoming especially violent when drinking. Stacey Lannert went to live with her mother, by then in Guam, six months before the murder. Her sister Christy asked her to return, and Lannert tried to persuade her father to let Christy live with her and her mother. He would not let her go. The crime and the trial: At the age of 18, in the town of St. John, Missouri, Lannert shot her father twice while he was sleeping on a sofa. Later, after confessing to killing him, she said that he had repeatedly raped and abused her as a child, threatening her so she would maintain secrecy. She said that, based on fears for her sister, she had decided to kill him to stop him. She testified that on July 4, 1990, she and her sister got home late, entering the house via a basement window at approximately 4:15-4:30 am. Seeing a rifle, she decided to kill her father. Finding her father asleep on the sofa, she shot him. This shot broke his collarbone and startled him awake. In fear, Stacey closed her eyes and shot again. The next day, she consulted with an adult friend, who encouraged her and helped her to dispose of the murder weapon. She called the police, pretending to have found her father dead on the sofa upon returning home. But, she confessed the murder to Lt. Tom Schulte, and said it was because of the years of abuse she had suffered. Stacey Lannert was charged with first degree murder and other felonies. Lannert's lawyer offered the defense of insanity or mental defect, after his attempt to use the "battered spouse syndrome" in her defense. In a pre-trial ruling, the court limited mention of "battered spouse syndrome" but allowed the defendant to make "an offer of proof of self-defense". The St. Louis County prosecutor, Bob McCulloch, never called Schulte to testify, although he was the first official to talk with Lannert and had years of experience with sexual abuse victims.But, the judge refused to include any claim of self-defense in his instructions to the jury. "But under Missouri law, the self-defense argument was not valid because she wasn't in actual danger at the moment she pulled the trigger." The judge concluded that there was not any basis in the evidence for her claim of self-defense. The jury subsequently found her guilty in 1992 and sentenced her to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, as required by the law. The prosecutors had alleged that she murdered her father because she wanted his money. Lannert claimed that her father had sexually abused her from the age of eight. She said although she had reported the abuse to her guidance counselor, babysitter, and psychiatrist, no one took action to help her. Several expert witnesses testified at both Lannert's trial and appeal, agreeing that Lannert showed signs of abuse. She was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Her sister Christy was tried and convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. She was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. She was released on parole after serving two and one half years. Time served and appeals: After the judge's sentencing, some members of the jury expressed outrage that facts of sexual and physical abuse suffered by Lannert had not been introduced at the trial. The presiding judge, the Hon. Steven H. Goldman, issued this statement regarding Stacey Lannert's case: "[The] sentence is severe for a 20 year old. It is also somewhat surprising considering the evidence of sexual abuse by the victim's father...[a] conventional life sentence would be more appropriate from a comparison standpoint." The Missouri Court of Appeals found in favor of the trial judge. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, issued this statement after Lannert filed a petition for appeal: "The 'absence of aggression or provocation on the part of the defender' element of the Missouri self-defense statute does not articulate a time frame during which the initial act of aggression and the act of self-defense must occur. It is therefore deeply troubling that the jury was not completely informed of the scope of the abuse Lannert suffered, her fear, or her rage that her sister may also have been victimized by their father. This evidence of battered spouse syndrome might have placed Lannert's actions in proper context, and may have allowed a jury to conclude that Lannert was not the initial aggressor on the night of her father's death, potentially resulting in a very different outcome than what she faces today." On March 11, 2003, the court ruled in favor of the original trial judge, though "reluctantly." It held that Lannert's appeal failed before the cited standards: "Deadly force may be used in self-defense only when there is (1) an absence of aggression or provocation on the part of the defender, (2) a real, or apparently real, necessity for the defender to kill in order to save himself from an immediate danger of serious bodily injury or death, (3) a reasonable cause for the defender’s belief in such necessity, and (4) an attempt by the defender to do all within his power consistent with his personal safety to avoid the danger and the need to take a life." The court rejected Lannert's position that "a man who raped his daughter, when she was in the third grade, made him 'the initial aggressor', and the author of his own doom". More crucially, the court noted that the Battered Spouse Syndrome does not amount to a defense in itself, but is a support for a claim of self-defense, indicating the frame of mind in which the defendant finds herself at the time of the act. The court declined to override Missouri's rules for jury instruction or interpretation of the Battered Spouse Syndrome law. Lannert, after exhausting all of her appeals, sought from Missouri Governor Matt Blunt either commutation of her sentence to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years (she had already served 18 years) or pardon. She had gained support for clemency. On January 10, 2009, the outgoing governor announced the commutation, after completing an "exhaustive review of the evidence," in which he determined that Lannert had suffered extensive abuse by her father, Thomas Lannert. In view of time served, Stacey Lannert was soon released from prison. McCulloch has said he does not believe her claims of abuse. Lannert was described as having been a 'model prisoner,' active in many different community projects, as well as helping other survivors of incest and abuse. She trained service dogs for the handicapped. She was president of the Outreach program, an organization that brings troubled teens to prison to meet inmates and warn them to take a different path. Stacey Lannert has since founded Healing Sisters, a resource website and non-profit organization to aid women who have suffered abuse, as well as to work to end sexual abuse in America. She has appeared as a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show on May 14, 2009; The Joy Behar Show on March 16, 2011; and Piers Morgan Tonight on April 20, 2011. In 2011 she published a memoir, written with Kristen Kemp: Redemption: A Story of Sisterhood, Survival, and Finding Freedom Behind Bars.

Pretty Little Liars (TV series)

Pretty Little Liars is an American teen drama mystery–thriller television series loosely based on the popular book series of the same title, written by Sara Shepard. The show premiered on June 8, 2010 on ABC Family. After an initial order of 10 episodes, ABC Family ordered an additional 12 episodes for season one on June 28, 2010. These episodes began airing on January 3, 2011 and ended on March 21, 2011. The ratings success of the first 10 episodes prompted the book series to be extended beyond the initial eight novels. On March 26, 2013, ABC Family announced that a spin-off, Ravenswood, would air in October 2013. The spin-off show aired 10 episodes before being canceled. On June 10, 2014, Pretty Little Liars was renewed for its sixth and seventh seasons. In November 2014, actress Lucy Hale confirmed the seventh season will be the final season in the series. However, in August 2015, executive producer I. Marlene King and actress Shay Mitchell stated that an eighth season or a television film is a possibility. Plot: Set in the fictional town of Rosewood, Pennsylvania, the series follows the lives of four girls, Aria Montgomery, Hanna Marin, Emily Fields, and Spencer Hastings, whose clique falls apart after the disappearance of their leader, Alison DiLaurentis. One year later, the estranged friends are reunited as they begin receiving messages from a mysterious figure named "A" who threatens to expose their deepest secrets, including ones they thought only Alison knew. At first, they think it's Alison herself, but after her body is found, the girls realize that someone else is planning on ruining their lives. Setting- Rosewood: Rosewood is a fictional town in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is the principal setting of the series and the books. The Liars live in this town along with most of the other characters. It contains many principal locations: the police station, the Rosewood High School, the church, the Rosewood Shopping Center, Hollis College, the Rosewood Community Hospital, the Rosewood movie theater, the mausoleum, the dental office, the Ophthalmology Cabinet, and the Rosewood Court. Virtually all these locations are actually exteriors on the backlot of the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank. Interior scenes are filmed separately on nearby soundstages. For example, different sides of the same building on the backlot are used for the entrances of the Rosewood police station and high school. Secondary locations: -Radley Sanitarium -Fictional towns: Ravenswood -Real towns: New York, Cape May, Philadelphia, London and Hilton Head Island, Brookhaven -"A"s Lairs -University of Cicero -Zoo of Norristown -Chalet in Thornhill -Hector Lime's molding studio -Lost Woods Resort -Storage unit facility -An ice factory -The cabin in the woods -The lake house -The equestrian center -The Correctional Centre for Women of Chester County -"A"s Dollhouse -The old Campbell farm (located near Wayne, Pennsylvania) -Carissimi Group office

Kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard

The kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard occurred on June 10, 1991, in South Lake Tahoe, California. Dugard was 11 years old at the time and was abducted from a street while she was walking from home to a school bus stop. Searches began immediately after the kidnapping, but no reliable leads were generated. She remained missing for more than 18 years. On August 24 and 25, 2009, convicted sex offender Phillip Craig Garrido visited the campus of UC Berkeley accompanied by two girls. Their unusual behavior sparked an investigation that led to his bringing the girls to a parole office on August 26, accompanied by a young woman who was then identified as Dugard. Garrido, 58, and his wife Nancy Garrido, 54, of Antioch, California, were arrested for kidnapping and other charges. On April 28, 2011, they pleaded guilty to Dugard's kidnapping and sexual assault. Law enforcement officers believe Dugard was kept in a concealed area behind the Garridos' house in Antioch for 18 years. During this time, Dugard bore two daughters who were ages 11 and 15 at the time of her reappearance. On June 2, 2011, Phillip Garrido was sentenced to 431 years imprisonment; his wife Nancy Garrido received 36 years to life.

Murder of Atcel Olmedo

Atcel Olmedo (previously known as the DuPage Johnny Doe) was an American toddler who was allegedly murdered by his abusive stepfather and his mother in 2005 and disposed of in Naperville, Illinois. His body was not positively identified until 2011, after one of his six siblings came forward. The case received national attention and was broadcast on several different television shows and examining forensic evidence on the body was analyzed to assist with his future identification. His case remains unprosecuted; the suspects have not been located, and they have possibly left the United States. Discovery: A small body was found in Naperville, DuPage County, Illinois by a man walking his dog. The corpse had been wrapped in a blue laundry bag that was disposed of alongside the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway (Interstate 88). It was clothed in a blue button-down collared shirt with matching pants. The remains were decomposed beyond recognition, deceased for several weeks, although it may have been up to one year. The medical examiner determined that the body was that of a Hispanic, Native American or Asian male between three and five years old with black hair. His eye color and exact cause of death were impossible to determine due to the state of his remains. He was interred following a plot-side service in October 2007, in a donated plot, accompanied by a teddy bear the both of which were covered by a multi-design decorated blanket. Investigation: The clothing that the then-unidentified victim wore, Faded Glory, was traced to Walmart, its exclusive retailer. They were presumed to have been purchased in the same town the body found, at the Walmart nearby. The company assisted with the investigation, as they released for review all records of purchases of the items; only one sale could not be traced as it was a cash purchase. His footprints were taken and compared to those from hospitals in the area, but did not match any of the records. By studying isotopes from his body, he was believed to have lived in Illinois for most, if not all, of his short life. The analysis also indicated that his mother had lived in the northern part of the continent, where she spent most of her pregnancy.[ In 2005, an investigator from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children became involved in Olmedo's case. Its solving was made a priority by the organization resulting from it being "profiled". The evidence was compared to at least twelve missing boys from Illinois and other missing children in the United States who were of the same age range and race. His face was also forensically reconstructed many times in 3D and 2D, along with a digital rendering to give an approximation of his likeness when he was alive. To assist with the search for the victim's identity, television shows, such as America's Most Wanted and Without a Trace broadcast the case. The local police department was working on a child abuse case in early 2008 when they believed that the boy may have been a victim of the same person. A girl, who later turned out to be his sister, explained her stepfather had subjected her to violent beating which left visible wounds on her body. Identification: Olmedo was identified through DNA comparison after his sister revealed while in foster care that she believed that the unidentified body was her brother, as her grandmother had told her in 2006 that he had been murdered a month before his third birthday. His demise is allegedly due to the abuse of their stepfather and his mother. Atcel's parents returned from Mexico to the United States without Atcel. His sister asked the whereabouts of her brother. She noticed that when ever the missing Atcel was mentioned his siblings would be beaten by the parents. Officials have been unable to locate his mother and stepfather, who may have fled to Mexico. Neither of the suspected perpetrators of the crime have been officially charged, which is why their names have not been released. After Atcel was identified, the boy's name was finally added to the headstone which also states the date his remains were found and the inscription "Son, Unknown, but not forgotten". An $11,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the killers.

Controversy and criticism of the latter day saints

The LDS Church has been subject to criticism and sometimes discrimination since its early years in New York and Pennsylvania. In the late 1820s, criticism centered around the claim by Joseph Smith to have been led to a set of golden plates from which the Book of Mormon was reputedly translated. In the 1830s, the greatest criticism was for Smith's handling of a banking failure in Kirtland, Ohio, and the LDS Church's political and military power in Missouri, culminating in the 1838 Mormon War. In the 1840s, criticism of the church centered on its theocratic aspirations in Nauvoo, Illinois. Criticism of the practice of plural marriage and other doctrines taught by Smith appeared in the Nauvoo Expositor, which led to a series of events culminating in Smith's murder in 1844. As the church began openly practicing plural marriage under Brigham Young during the second half of the 19th century, the church became the target of nationwide criticism for that practice, as well as for the church's theocratic aspirations in the Utah Territory. Beginning in 1857, the church also came under significant media criticism after the Mountain Meadows massacre in southern Utah. Academic critics have questioned the legitimacy of Smith as a prophet as well as the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham. Criticism has expanded to include claims of historical revisionism, homophobia, racism, and sexist policies. Notable 20th-century critics include Jerald and Sandra Tanner and Fawn Brodie. Evangelical Christians continue to argue that Smith was either fraudulent or delusional. Mormon apologetics organizations, such as the Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR) and the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), have been founded to counter these criticisms. Most of the apologetic work focuses on providing and discussing evidence supporting the claims of Smith and the Book of Mormon, and much of it features criticism of the perceived lack of honesty when it comes to the scholarship of non-Mormon critics. Scholars and authors such as Hugh Nibley, Daniel C. Peterson, Jeff Lindsay, Orson Scott Card, and James E. Talmage are well-known apologists within the church. In recent years, the Internet has provided a new forum for proponents and critics of religions, including the LDS Church. The church's support in 2008 of California's Proposition 8 sparked heated debate and protest by gay-rights organizations and others. The church expressed support for a Salt Lake City ordinance protecting members of the LGBT community against discrimination in employment and housing while allowing religious institutions to consider lifestyles in actions such as hiring or providing university accommodations. Jewish groups criticized the LDS Church in 1995 after discovering that vicarious baptisms for the dead for victims of the Holocaust had been performed by members of the church. After that criticism, church leaders put a policy in place to stop the practice, with an exception for baptisms specifically requested or approved by victims' relatives. Jewish organizations again criticized the church in 2002, 2004, 2008, and 2012 stating that the church failed to honor the 1995 agreement. The LDS Church says it has put institutional safeguards in place to avoid the submission of the names of Holocaust victims not related to Mormon members, but that the sheer number of names submitted makes policing the database of names impractical. Due to doctrinal differences, the LDS Church is generally considered to be distinct and separate from mainstream Christianity by Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches, which express differences with one another but consider each other's churches as Christian. Many have accused the LDS Church of not being a Christian church at all as a result of disagreements with Apostolic succession and the "Great Apostasy", the Nicene Creed and, more so, Mormon cosmology and its plan of salvation including the doctrines of pre-mortal life, baptism for the dead, three degrees of heaven, and exaltation.

Bill Kurtis

Bill Kurtis (born William Horton Kuretich; September 21, 1940) is an American television journalist, producer, narrator, and news anchor. He was also the host of a number of A&E crime and news documentary shows, including Investigative Reports, American Justice, and Cold Case Files. Previously, he anchored CBS Morning News, and was the longtime anchor at WBBM-TV, the CBS-owned and -operated TV station in Chicago. Kurtis is currently the scorekeeper/announcer for NPR’s news quiz show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! Early life: Kurtis was born in Pensacola, Florida, to Wilma Mary Horton (1911–2002) and William A. Kuretich (Croatian: Kuretić), of Croatian origin (1914–2001), a U.S. Marine Corps brigadier general and decorated veteran of World War II. His father’s military career included extensive travel for his family. Upon his retirement, the family settled in Independence, Kansas. At age 16, Kurtis began working as an announcer for KIND-AM, a radio station in Independence. He graduated from Independence High School in 1958, the University of Kansas with a B.S. in journalism in 1962 and he earned a juris doctor degree from Washburn University School of Law in 1966. While in law school he worked part time at WIBW-TV in Topeka, Kansas. After passing the Kansas bar examination and accepting a job with a Wichita law firm, Kurtis discussed his options with Harry Colmery and Bob McClure of Colmery and Russell and decided not to pursue a career in law. Career- Television career: On the evening of June 8, 1966, Kurtis left a bar review class at Washburn to fill in for a friend at WIBW-TV to anchor the 6 o'clock news. Severe weather was approaching Topeka, so Kurtis stayed to update some weather reports. At 7:00 p.m., while on the air, a tornado was sighted by WIBW cameraman Ed Rutherford southwest of the city. Within 15 seconds another sighting came in: “It’s wiped out an apartment complex.” Kurtis's warning “For God’s sake, take cover” became synonymous with the 1966 Topeka tornado that left 16 dead and injured hundreds more. Kurtis and the WIBW broadcast team remained on the air for 24 straight hours to cover the initial tornado and its aftermath. Being the only television station in town and one of the few radio stations not damaged by the tornado, WIBW became a communications hub for emergency operations. The experience changed Kurtis’s career path from law to broadcast news. Within three months, after seeing his work covering the tornado, WBBM-TV in Chicago hired Kurtis and set the stage for a 30-year career with CBS. The year 1966 in Chicago was the beginning of a tumultuous four years, and as a reporter and anchor Kurtis was in the middle of historic events. He covered the neighborhood fires that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and again when Robert Kennedy was shot. The protests against the Vietnam War dominated the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and Kurtis never left the streets. In 1969, Kurtis produced a documentary about Iva Toguri, “Tokyo Rose,” the first interview after her conviction for treason in 1949. His reporting, along with Ron Yates of the Chicago Tribune, helped persuade President Gerald Ford to pardon her in 1977. His law degree came into play when he covered the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial in 1969, which led to a job with CBS News in Los Angeles as correspondent. One of his first assignments was covering the Charles Manson murder trial for 10 months. He also covered the murder trials of Angela Davis and Juan Corona and the Pentagon Papers trial of Daniel Ellsberg. In 1973 Kurtis returned to Chicago to co-anchor with Walter Jacobson at WBBM-TV. In 1978, his investigative focus unit broke the Agent Orange story, U.S. veterans who were sprayed by the defoliant in Vietnam. After a dramatic screening of the documentary in Washington, D.C., the Veterans Administration issued guidelines to diagnose and compensate those veterans affected by Agent Orange. Kurtis returned to Vietnam in 1980 to cover the Vietnamese side of the story and, while there, discovered some 15,000 Vietnamese children conceived and left behind by Americans when the U.S. pulled out in 1975. A story Kurtis wrote for The New York Times Magazine was instrumental in obtaining special status for the children to enter the United States, where they live today. In 1982, Kurtis joined Diane Sawyer on the CBS Morning News, the network broadcast from New York City. He anchored three CBS Reports: The Plane That Fell from the Sky, The Golden Leaf, and The Gift of Life. He returned to WBBM-TV in 1985. In 1986, Kurtis hosted a four-part science series on PBS called The Miracle Planet as well as a four-part series in 1987 on the CIA. He formed his own documentary production company, Kurtis Productions, in 1988, the same year he produced "Return to Chernobyl" for the PBS series Nova, and became the first American television reporter to enter the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster. Kurtis narrated nearly 1,000 documentaries, and Kurtis Productions produced nearly 500 for series like The New Explorers on PBS; Investigative Reports and Cold Case Files for the A&E Television Network; and Investigating History for the History Channel. He also hosted American Justice, produced by Towers Productions. For CNBC, the company has produced nearly 100 episodes of American Greed. In 1994, Kurtis obtained a videotape showing Richard Speck, convicted of murdering eight student nurses in Chicago in 1966, having jailhouse sex and using drugs within the maximum security facility known as Stateville in Joliet, Illinois. He aired a report on WBBM-TV, Chicago, and produced a documentary for A&E Network that shocked the nation. It resulted in the most sweeping changes to the Illinois penal system in its history. Kurtis has received two Peabody Awards, numerous Emmy Awards, awards from the Overseas Press Club, and a duPont and has been inducted into the Illinois and Kansas Halls of Fame. In 1998, he was awarded the University of Kansas William Allen White citation. He is the narrator of a multimedia book by Joe Garner, We Interrupt This Broadcast, with a foreword by Walter Cronkite and epilogue by Brian Williams. Kurtis has authored three books, On Assignment (1984), Death Penalty on Trial (2004), and Prairie Table Cookbook (2008). Film work: Kurtis narrated the 2010 documentary film Carbon Nation by Peter Byck and was the narrator in the 2004 film starring Will Ferrell, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and its sequel Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013). On July 8, 2013, Kurtis was named the Voice of Illinois Tourism. Tallgrass Beef Company: In 2005, Kurtis founded a grass-fed beef company to raise and distribute a healthy beef product without artificial hormones, antibiotics, the use of grain in the feed, and feedlots. There was no market for grass-fed and grass-finished beef in 2005, but slowly the story of how cattle evolved on grass, not corn, began to catch the imagination of customers. By 2013, the grass-fed market was growing rapidly and Tallgrass Beef Company is among the leaders in the organic and natural food movement. Other: Kurtis and his sister, Jean Schodorf of Wichita, Kansas, inherited the historic site of the Little House on the Prairie as designated by the State of Kansas. It is now a not-for-profit museum with their grandmother’s one-room schoolhouse, a tiny post office from Wayside, Kansas, a homesteader’s farmhouse, and attendant farm buildings. Kurtis's father was a cousin of Frank Kurtis in the Indianapolis 500 Hall of Fame. On several occasions starting in 2009, Kurtis appeared on NPR's news quiz show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, filling in for regular announcer Carl Kasell. He replaced Kasell on a permanent basis on May 24, 2014. Kurtis also contributed a spoken-word introduction to The Dandy Warhols' 2005 album Odditorium or Warlords of Mars.The Shrine of Christ’s Passion, an interactive half-mile winding pathway of 40 life-size bronze statues depicting the Stations of the Cross that opened in June of 2008, features a description of each scene and a short meditation recorded by Kurtis. Article in Northwest Indiana Times about the Shrine of Christ's Passion Military service: Kurtis served as an enlisted man in the United States Marine Corps Reserve (Topeka, Kansas 1962–1966). He was commissioned a Lieutenant (j.g.) in the United States Navy Reserve (Chicago, Ill. 1966—1969)

Murder of Anjelica Castillo

Anjelica Castillo, previously known as Baby Hope, was an American four-year-old girl from New York who was murdered in 1991. Her body was not identified until 2013. The case received national attention due to the young age of the victim and the manner of her death. After her identification, Castillo's cousin, Conrado Juarez confessed to murdering the girl. Death: Castillo was apparently tortured and starved before her murder, for which her cousin, Conrado Juarez admitted to later raping and sodomizing the child and then smothering her. The child was bound to a table in Juarez's apartment and deprived of water during multiple occasions. She had been staying with Juarez due to her parents' separation, and had been in her father's custody at the time of her murder. Juarez was originally going to only rape Anjelica, but then suffocated her with a pillow after she cried out. Soon after she died, her body was placed in a cooler, which was disposed with the help of Juarez's sister, Balvina Juarez Ramirez, now deceased. Her mother, Margarita Castillo, never reported her missing, stating that Anjelica's father had taken their children after they ended their relationship. Margarita also suspected that he may have taken the girl to Mexico with him, as she never returned. She was unable to communicate in English, which also affected her decision. Margarita Castillo did claim that she and her family had searched for her daughter but were unable to locate her, but she was still subjected to a large amount of criticism and anger from others. Other reports reveal that her family also neglected to report her missing as some of the family members, including her mother, were apparently illegal immigrants. They feared that if it was discovered that some were in the country illegally during the course of an investigation, they would be deported. Discovery: Anjelica's decomposing body was discovered inside a blue cooler along the Henry Hudson Parkway in Manhattan, New York. These conditions contributed to the initial lack of identification, as her face was not recognizable. Her body was found naked and had been bound with both rope and a Venetian blind cord. She was placed in a fetal position with her hands pressed together. The body was then wrapped in a garbage bag and placed inside the cooler, which was filled with unopened soda cans and water, which was presumably ice at one time. Examiners concluded that the then-unidentified girl was possibly Hispanic, had dark, wavy hair in a ponytail, was malnourished, weighing 28 pounds (13 kilograms), and a victim of sexual abuse. She was initially estimated to have been between three and five years old. After examination was completed and the case remained unsolved, police provided fees in 1993 to have the victim buried after a public funeral was held. A casket was donated to bury the victim and a funeral service was held to the public. One of the officers who was investigating the case gave a eulogy. Two hundred people attended. Investigation: After the victim's remains were found, a witness told authorities that she had seen a Hispanic man and woman carrying a cooler in the location prior to the discovery, around the time the girl was estimated to have been murdered. In autumn of 1991, images of a nude child were located in New Jersey, which were believed to possibly have been that of the victim, as the girl in the photographs matched Anjelica's description. Anjelica's body was exhumed in 2006 and 2011 to obtain DNA information, which would later be compared with DNA from her mother, Margarita Castillo. Authorities reopened the case in 2013 and requested information from the public, which led them to Castillo. This occurred after an anonymous woman told authorities that she had overheard a conversation two years prior between a mother not knowing what happened to her daughter and another person. After she was identified, a sign with her name was placed on her headstone, which was marked as "Baby Hope." Her father was believed to be involved in her death, until her cousin, Conrado Juarez, was arrested. To date, Castillo's father has never been located, but is believed to reside in Puebla, Mexico, and may be unaware of what happened to his daughter. Identification and arrest of Conrado Juarez: "She wasn't missing; her father took them [her children] away and maybe that was my mistake, let him take them away. I did not go to the police because I was afraid of not being heard. I was afraid, not knowing the language." -Margarita Castillo, mother of the victim. Until 2013, the two suspects in the case of Baby Hope were never found. It was not until Conrado Juarez, fifty-two, was arrested after being questioned by police when he was located working as a dishwasher in a restaurant in Manhattan, New York. Juarez was initially believed to have traveled back to his native country of Mexico before his arrest. He was thirty at the time he committed the crime. He was subsequently charged with felony murder. Police stated that they are also fearful of possible additional victims of Juarez. When first interviewed by reporters, Margarita Castillo refused to show her face but spoke through a closed door. She gave her explanation of why Anjelica was not reported missing and also described her devastation when she learned of the fate of Anjelica and her anger toward Juarez. She was subjected to criticism throughout the community for not reporting anything about Anjelica's disappearance. Some members and friends of Anjelica's family had never known she had existed. Castillo's sister, Laurencita Ramirez, spoke to news reporters about the case. When she was eleven, she learned about Anjelica's disappearance, but the two had never met. Ramirez stated that she was not familiar with the Baby Hope case until 2013. She did, however claim that she saw a resemblance between the victim and herself and wondered if the then-unidentified victim was her missing sister.

Murder of Deanna Criswell

Deanna Lee Criswell (known as "Jane Doe 19" while unidentified) was a sixteen-year-old American girl who was found murdered in 1987 in Marana, Arizona. Her body was not identified until February 11, 2015 through DNA after relatives came across her unidentified persons profile online. She had been shot to death, most likely by William Ross Knight, who was known for his criminal career in the 1980s. Discovery: Criswell's decomposing body was located on the side of Interstate 10 on November 25, 1987 in Marana, Pima County, Arizona by a homeless man. She was estimated to be between seventeen and twenty-one, at a height around five feet three inches and a weight of 138 pounds. It was believed that the victim was white or possibly a Hispanic or Native American female with fair skin. The victim's brown hair was determined to be short and curly. Her eye color could not be determined, as she had begun to decompose after being exposed to the hot environment for several days or weeks. She was wearing several layers of clothing, including a denim jacket with its sleeves rolled, a white jacket, gray sweater, a multicolored flannel shirt, black jeans, white shoes and purple underwear, the large amount of clothing indicating she was a runaway. The victim also had unusual and large upper front teeth that had a gap in between. Her body was found underneath a bridge, on the side of a road, after she was shot five times with a .22 caliber firearm. Investigation: The case was eventually reopened in 2009. At their location in Virginia, the FBI completed a forensic facial reconstruction of the victim in 2010, after her exhumation, in hopes that someone who knew the victim in life could possibly recognize her. Her DNA was also processed by the agency. In 2011, a partial DNA profile was generated from evidence at the crime scene, which was not possible to perform in the past due to lack of knowledge. The profile matched a local criminal, William Ross Knight, who was notorious for his crime spree of robberies in the 1980s. Knight died in 2005 due to liver complications. Although a suspect was identified, the victim's DNA did not match with any individual in the CODIS database. Identification: It was announced that Criswell's body was identified on February 11, 2015. Her estranged aunt and uncle, who at first were hoping she was still alive, eventually turned to online databases, to search through unidentified persons cases after their hope dwindled. Criswell was never reported missing by her family members, which is most likely a major reason why she remained unnamed for decades. Because of her history of running away from home, her family made the assumption that she would contact them when she wanted to," as she had called her sister once after departing. The pair began to search through cases in Arizona, as they eventually learned that Criswell had been given a bus ticket by Knight to the area that she was later found dead. It is believed that the two were in a romantic relationship, although Knight was considerably older than Criswell. Knight is also believed to have purchased the bus ticket that transported the victim to Tucson, according to her family. Approximately five to ten months before her identification, they had discovered the unidentified person case on The Doe Network and believed that the Jane Doe was their missing niece, as the reconstruction bore a strong resemblance to her. Other characteristics, such as the height and weight approximation, were also similar. After the pair contacted authorities, DNA samples were taken from Criswell's immediate family members to compare to the then-unidentified remains. It was decided that the grave that stands over her remains will be removed and updated to bear the victim's name.

Bullying and Suicide

There is a strong link between bullying and suicide, as suggested by recent bullying-related suicides in the US and other countries. Parents, teachers, and students learn the dangers of bullying and help students who may be at risk of committing suicide. In recent years, a series of bullying-related suicides in the US and across the globe have drawn attention to the connection between bullying and suicide. Though too many adults still see bullying as “just part of being a kid,” it is a serious problem that leads to many negative effects for victims, including suicide. Many people may not realize that there is also a link between being a bully and committing suicide. The statistics on bullying and suicide are alarming: -Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, resulting in about 4,400 deaths per year, according to the CDC. For every suicide among young people, there are at least 100 suicide attempts. Over 14 percent of high school students have considered suicide, and almost 7 percent have attempted it. -Bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims, according to studies by Yale University -A study in Britain found that at least half of suicides among young people are related to bullying -10 to 14 year old girls may be at even higher risk for suicide, according to the study above -According to statistics reported by ABC News, nearly 30 percent of students are either bullies or victims of bullying, and 160,000 kids stay home from school every day because of fear of bullying Bully-related suicide can be connected to any type of bullying, including physical bullying, emotional bullying, cyberbullying, and sexting, or circulating suggestive or nude photos or messages about a person. Some schools or regions have more serious problems with bullying and suicide related to bullying. This may be due to an excessive problem with bullying at the school. It could also be related to the tendency of students who are exposed to suicide to consider suicide themselves. Some of the warning signs of suicide can include: -Showing signs of depression, like ongoing sadness, withdrawal from others, losing interest in favorite activities, or trouble sleeping or eating -Talking about or showing an interest in death or dying -Engaging in dangerous or harmful activities, including reckless behavior, substance abuse, or self injury -Giving away favorite possessions and saying goodbye to people -Saying or expressing that they can’t handle things anymore -Making comments that things would be better without them If a person is displaying these symptoms, talk to them about your concerns and get them help right away, such as from a counselor, doctor, or at the emergency room. In some cases, it may not be obvious that a teen is thinking about suicide, such as when the suicide seems to be triggered by a particularly bad episode of bullying. In several cases where bullying victims killed themselves, bullies had told the teen that he or she should kill him or herself or that the world would be better without them. Others who hear these types of statements should be quick to stop them and explain to the victim that the bully is wrong. Other ways to help people who may be considering suicide include: -Take all talk or threats of suicide seriously. Don’t tell the person they are wrong or that they have a lot to live for. Instead, get them immediate medical help. -Keep weapons and medications away from anyone who is at risk for suicide. Get these items out of the house or at least securely locked up. -Parents should encourage their teens to talk about bullying that takes place. It may be embarrassing for kids to admit they are the victims of bullying, and most kids don’t want to admit they have been involved in bullying. Tell victims that it’s not their fault that they are being bullied and show them love and support. Get them professional help if the bullying is serious. -It is a good idea for parents to insist on being included in their children’s friends on social networking sites so they can see if someone has posted mean messages about them online. Text messages may be more difficult to know about, so parents should try to keep open communications with their children about bullying. -Parents who see a serious bullying problem should talk to school authorities about it, and perhaps arrange a meeting with the bully’s parents. More states are implementing laws against bullying, and recent lawsuits against schools and criminal charges against bullies show that there are legal avenues to take to deal with bullies. If school authorities don’t help with an ongoing bullying problem, local police or attorneys may be able to. People who are thinking about suicide should talk to someone right away or go to an emergency room. They can also call a free suicide hotline, such as 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Friends and relatives of suicide victims also need to find someone to talk to as they grieve, especially if they are suffering from depression or suicidal thoughts themselves.

Heather O'Rourke

Heather O'Rourke (December 27, 1975 – February 1, 1988) was an American child actress. She was discovered at the age of five by director Steven Spielberg while eating lunch with her mother at the MGM commissary. Spielberg cast her as Carol Anne Freeling in the 1982 horror film Poltergeist, where she had the movie's most recognizable line: "They're here!" She reprised the role in the second and third installments. O'Rourke also had a recurring role on Happy Days from 1982 to 1983, and made several television guest appearances. She died at the age of 12 of cardiac arrest and septic shock caused by a misdiagnosed intestinal stenosis in February 1988. Early life: O'Rourke was born in San Diego, California to Kathleen and Michael O'Rourke. Her mother worked as a seamstress and her father was a construction worker. She had an older sister, Tammy. Kathleen and Michael divorced in 1981, and O'Rourke's mother married truck driver James A. "Jim" Peele in 1984. After her parents' divorce, O'Rourke rarely saw her birth father and called her stepfather "Dad". Before O'Rourke began acting, the family lived in a trailer park in Anaheim. Her success later allowed the family to purchase a home in Big Bear Lake, California. In between acting jobs, O'Rourke attended Big Bear Elementary School where she was president of her class. At the time of her death, the family was living in Lakeside, California. Career: In a contemporary interview with American Premiere magazine, producer Steven Spielberg explained that he was looking for a "'beatific' four-year-old child...every mother's dream" for the lead in his 1982 horror film Poltergeist. While eating in the MGM commissary, Spielberg saw five-year-old Heather O'Rourke having lunch with her mother while older sister Tammy was shooting Pennies from Heaven. After his lunch, Spielberg approached the family and offered O'Rourke the Poltergeist role; she was signed the next day, beating Drew Barrymore, who was up for the role. In the Poltergeist trilogy, O'Rourke played Carol Anne Freeling, a young suburban girl who becomes the conduit and target for supernatural entities. The New York Times noted that she had played the key role in the films and commented, "With her wide eyes, long blonde hair and soft voice, she was so striking that the sequel played off her presence." During the production of the original Poltergeist, Spielberg twice accommodated the child actress when frightened. When scared by performing a particular stunt, Spielberg replaced O'Rourke with a stunt double wearing a blonde wig; and when disturbed by the portrayal of adult abuse toward the child characters, Spielberg did not require her to perform the take again. For her work in Poltergeist, O'Rourke earned between US$35,000–$100,000. O'Rourke played the role in all three films. O'Rourke and Zelda Rubinstein were the only original cast members to appear in the third film, Poltergeist III. O'Rourke's delivery of the lines "They're here!" in the first film, and "They're baa-aack!" in the second (that film's tagline), placed her in the collective pop culture consciousness of the United States. "They're here!" is #69 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Movie Quotes. After her work in 1982's Poltergeist, O'Rourke secured several television and TV movie roles. In April 1983 she starred as herself alongside Morey Amsterdam and well-known Walt Disney animated characters in the hour-long television special, Believe You Can ... and You Can! She also appeared in CHiPs, Webster, The New Leave It to Beaver, Our House, and had a recurring role on Happy Days as Heather Pfister. In the television movies Massarati and the Brain and 1985's Surviving: A Family in Crisis, she played Skye Henry and Sarah Brogan, respectively. Death: O'Rourke became ill in early 1987 and was misdiagnosed by doctors at Kaiser Permanente Hospital as having Crohn's disease. She was prescribed prednisone to treat the disease, which caused her cheeks to appear puffy and large. On January 31, 1988, O'Rourke suddenly became ill again, vomiting and unable to swallow. The next morning she collapsed while preparing to leave for the hospital and her stepfather called paramedics. O'Rourke suffered a cardiac arrest en route to the hospital, and after resuscitation she was airlifted by helicopter to Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego, where she died later that day. Speaking to reporters, O'Rourke's manager David Wardlow initially announced that it was believed she died of influenza. However, hospital spokesman Vincent Bond announced that O'Rourke died during surgery to repair an acute bowel obstruction (caused by congenital stenosis of the intestine) complicated by septic shock; this report was corroborated by the San Diego County coroner's office on February 3, two days after her death. Later reports changed the specific cause of death to cardiac arrest caused by septic shock brought on by the intestinal stenosis. O'Rourke was interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery on February 5, 1988. Her tomb is a scheduled stop for "Haunted Hollywood" tours. Lawsuit: On May 25, 1988, Sanford M. Gage, the O'Rourke family attorney, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Diego. O'Rourke had been seen by doctors at Kaiser since birth, and the suit claimed that they failed to properly diagnose her long-standing small-bowel obstruction: had they not simply treated her for Crohn's disease with prescription drugs, she could have had a period of remission by means of a major bowel surgery; and this misdiagnosis caused O'Rourke's death.[29 Kaiser Permanente spokeswoman Janice Seib responded: "We have reviewed the case extensively, and we believe that the diagnosis and the course of action taken by our physicians was entirely appropriate. It's a very complex case, complicated by a number of factors, and not given to any simple answers." The case went to arbitration and was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. Aftermath: O'Rourke's death complicated Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's marketing for her last work, Poltergeist III, out of fear of appearing to be exploiting her death. Tom Skerritt and Nancy Allen, O'Rourke's co-stars, were discouraged from giving interviews about the film to avoid questions about her death. O'Rourke died four months before the theatrical release of Poltergeist III, which was dedicated to her memory. On September 26, 2008, DirecTV began airing a national TV advertisement developed by Deutsch; directed by Erich Joiner and cinematographed by Daniel Mindel, the advert features O'Rourke's famous "They're here!" scene from Poltergeist blended with contemporary footage of her co-star, Craig T. Nelson, intended to mimic the film. After the advertisement drew criticism from bloggers and columnists for exploiting O'Rourke, DirecTV responded in a Q&A session with readers of The New York Times. Jon Gieselman, DirecTV's senior vice president for advertising and public relations, explained that O'Rourke's family "was involved in the spot from start to finish [and that] Heather’s mother not only approved, [...] she also commented that Heather’s inclusion was a wonderful tribute to her daughter."

Arroyo Grande Jane Doe

At approximately 9:20 PM, October 5, 1980, a white female between fourteen and twenty-five (most likely younger than nineteen) was found with blunt trauma and stab wounds on her head and back, respectively. The body was discovered by two men driving on a dirt road, one of which was an off duty police officer. Examiners determined that the blade of the weapon used to stab the victim was around three inches long. Her unclothed body was found next to a road in Henderson, Clark County, Nevada. Her hair, being brown, red or strawberry blond, was shoulder-length and she stood around five feet two inches and weighed 103 to 110 pounds. She still had wisdom teeth as well as a gap visible between two teeth on her upper right set; she also wore earrings and painted her nails silver. Her eyes were a hazel-blue (some sources state "green") and a presumably amateur tattoo of an 'S' was on one of the arms. She was deceased likely a day before she was discovered. The officer that discovered her body, who was off-duty at the time, donated money for the victim's burial and regularly visits the site with his wife and donates flowers in memory of the victim. In 2003, her body was exhumed when authorities followed clues to a missing girl from California, who was eventually ruled out by DNA. The body was exhumed in 2002 and 2009 as well. In June 2015, "Arroyo Grande" Jane Doe's case was officially reopened by investigators.