Genie (feral child)

Genie (born 1957) is the pseudonym of a feral child who was a victim of severe abuse, neglect and social isolation. Her circumstances are prominently recorded in the annals of abnormal child psychology. When Genie was a baby her father decided that she was severely mentally retarded, causing him to dislike her and withhold care and attention. At approximately the time she reached the age of 20 months Genie's father decided to keep her as socially isolated as possible, so from that time until she reached 13 years, 7 months, he kept her locked alone in a room. During this time he almost always strapped her to a child's toilet or bound her in a crib with her arms and legs completely immobilized, forbade anyone from interacting with her, provided her with almost no stimulation of any kind, and left her severely malnourished. The extent of Genie's isolation prevented her from being exposed to any significant amount of speech, and as a result she did not acquire language during childhood. Her abuse came to the attention of Los Angeles child welfare authorities on November 4, 1970. In the first several years after Genie's early life and circumstances came to light, psychologists, linguists and other scientists focused a great deal of attention on Genie's case, seeing in her near-total isolation an opportunity to study many aspects of human development. Upon finding that Genie had not yet learned a language, linguists saw Genie as having the potential to be an important way to gain further insight into the processes controlling language acquisition skills and to test theories and hypotheses identifying critical periods during which humans learn to understand and use language. Throughout the time scientists studied Genie, she made substantial advances with her overall mental and psychological development. Within months of being discovered Genie had developed exceptional nonverbal communication skills and gradually learned some basic social skills, but even by the end of their case study she still had many behaviors characteristic of an unsocialized person. She also continued to learn and use new language skills throughout the time they tested her, but ultimately remained unable to fully acquire a first language. When authorities first found Genie they initially arranged for her admission to Children's Hospital Los Angeles, who assembled a team of doctors and psychologists to manage her care, and her subsequent placements eventually gave rise to rancorous and protracted debate. After living at the hospital until late June 1971 she moved into the home of her teacher at the hospital for a month and a half, and upon removal from this home authorities placed her with the family of the scientist heading the research team. In mid-1975, soon after turning 18, she went back to live with her mother, who could not adequately care for her. After a few months, Genie's mother then had her placed in the first of a series of at least six institutions for disabled adults. During the year and a half Genie lived at this location, she experienced further extreme physical and emotional abuse. Cut off from almost all of the people who had studied her, her physical and mental health severely deteriorated and her newly acquired language and behavioral skills very rapidly regressed. In early January 1978 Genie's mother suddenly decided to forbid all of the scientists except for one from having any contact with Genie, and all testing and scientific observations of her immediately ceased. Most of the scientists and doctors who studied and worked with Genie have not seen her since this time. The only post-1977 updates on Genie and her whereabouts are personal observations or secondary accounts of them, and all are spaced several years apart. As of 2008, ABC News reported that Genie was living in California, "in psychological confinement as a ward of the state—her sixth foster home. And again, she is speechless." Although no scientific analysis of Genie has occurred since late 1977, psychologists and linguists have continued to discuss Genie's case and development long after this time and there has been considerable academic and media attention given to her life and the methods of the research team surrounding her. In particular, Genie's case has been extensively compared with that of Victor of Aveyron, a nineteenth-century French child who similarly became a classic case of late language acquisition and delayed psychological development.

Mormon fundamentalism

Mormon fundamentalism (also called fundamentalist Mormonism) is a belief in the validity of selected fundamental aspects of Mormonism as taught and practiced in the nineteenth century, particularly during the administrations of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, the first two presidents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Mormon fundamentalists seek to uphold tenets and practices no longer held by mainstream Mormons (members of the LDS Church). The principle most often associated with Mormon fundamentalism is plural marriage, a form of polygyny first taught by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. A second and closely associated principle is that of the United Order, a form of egalitarian communalism. Mormon fundamentalists believe that these and other principles were wrongly abandoned or changed by the LDS Church in its efforts to become reconciled with mainstream American society. Today, the LDS Church excommunicates any of its members who practice plural marriage or who otherwise closely associate themselves with Mormon fundamentalist practices. There is no single authority accepted by all Mormon fundamentalists; viewpoints and practices of individual groups vary. Fundamentalists have formed numerous small sects, often within cohesive and isolated communities in the Western United States, Western Canada, and northern Mexico. At times, sources have claimed there are as many as 60,000 Mormon fundamentalists in the United States, with fewer than half of them living in polygamous households. However, others have suggested that there may be as few as 20,000 Mormon fundamentalists with only 8,000 to 15,000 practicing polygamy. The largest Mormon fundamentalist groups are the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church) and the Apostolic United Brethren (AUB). History: The LDS Church began prohibiting the contracting of plural marriages within the United States in 1890 after a decree by the president of the church, Wilford Woodruff. However, the practice continued underground in the U.S. and openly in Mormon colonies in northern Mexico and southern Alberta. According to some sources, many polygamous men in the United States continued to live with their plural wives with the approval of church presidents Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, and Joseph F. Smith. Some fundamentalists have argued that the 1890 Manifesto was not a real revelation of the kind given by God to Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, and others, but that it was rather a politically expedient document intended by Woodruff to be a temporary measure until Utah Territory gained statehood. They make their argument based upon textual evidence and the fact that the "Manifesto" is not worded in accordance with similar revelations in the LDS scriptures. This argument further holds that after joining the Union, Utah would have had the authority to enact its own laws with respect to marriage, rather than being bound by U.S. territorial laws that prohibited polygamy. Before statehood could be granted in 1896, however, the federal government required Utah to include a provision in its state constitution stating that "polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited". Fundamentalists (and many scholars of Mormon history) also believe that a primary impetus for the 1890 Manifesto was the Edmunds–Tucker Act of 1887, a stringent federal law that legally dissolved the LDS Church, disenfranchised women (who had been given the vote in Utah in 1870), and required voters to take an anti-polygamy oath before being permitted to vote in an election. With the selection of Latter-day Saint Reed Smoot to be one of Utah's representatives to the U.S. Senate in 1903, national attention was again focused on the continuation of plural marriage in Utah, which culminated in the Reed Smoot hearings. In 1904, LDS Church president Joseph F. Smith issued a "Second Manifesto", after which time it became LDS Church policy to excommunicate those church members who entered into or solemnized new polygamous marriages. The seriousness with which this new measure was taken is evinced in the fact that apostle John W. Taylor, son of the third president of the church, was excommunicated in 1911 for his continued opposition to the Manifesto. Today, the LDS Church continues to excommunicate members who advocate early Mormon doctrines such as plural marriage, enter into or solemnize plural marriages (whether in the United States or elsewhere), or actively support Mormon fundamentalist or dissident groups. Although some LDS Church members continue to believe in the doctrine of plural marriage without practicing it, Joseph Smith's teachings on plural marriage remain part of the scriptural canon of the LDS Church. The LDS Church prevents any of its members who sympathize with Mormon fundamentalist teachings from entering its temples. During the 1920s, a church dissenter named Lorin C. Woolley claimed a separate line of priesthood authority from the LDS Church's hierarchy, effectively setting in motion the development of Mormon fundamentalism. Most of the Mormon polygamous groups can trace their roots to Woolley's legacy. For the most part, the Utah state government has left the Mormon fundamentalists to themselves unless their practices violate laws other than those prohibiting bigamy. For example, there have been recent prosecutions of men who belong to fundamentalist groups for marrying underage girls. In one highly publicized case, a man and one of his polygamist wives lost custody of all but one of their children until the wife separated herself from her husband. The largest government effort to crack down on the practices of fundamentalist Mormons was carried out in 1953 in what is today Colorado City, Arizona, which became known as the Short Creek Raid. Other fundamental doctrines of the Latter Day Saint movement besides polygamy, notably the United Order (communalism), while equally important in the practices of some fundamentalist sects, have not come under the same scrutiny or approbation as has plural marriage, and the mainline LDS Church has mostly ignored this aspect of fundamentalism; in any case, no revelation or statement condemning it has ever been issued. Distinctive doctrines and practices: Most Mormon fundamentalists embrace the term Fundamentalist (usually capitalized). Mormon fundamentalists share certain commonalities with other fundamentalist movements, but also possess some clear distinctions of their own. Fundamentalists within the Mormon tradition do see religious authority as inerrant and unchanging, but tend to locate this authority within their view of "Priesthood", which is conceived of as more of a charismatic authority and often physical lineage than an external organization. In this view, ordination lineage becomes all-important and an external organization such as a church may "lose" its theological authority while the "priesthood" (conceived in this abstract and individualistic sense) may continue via an alternative lineage. Mormon fundamentalists frequently assert that priesthood is prior to the Church. Unlike more prevalent Biblical (non-Mormon) fundamentalist groups, who generally base their authority upon an unchanging and closed canon of scripture, Mormon fundamentalists generally hold to a concept of "continuing revelation" or "progressive revelation", in which the canon of scripture may be continually augmented. Another of the most basic beliefs of Mormon fundamentalist groups is that of plural marriage, which many of them view as essential for obtaining the highest degree of exaltation in the celestial kingdom. Mormon fundamentalists dislike the term "polygamy" and view "polygyny" as a term used only by outsiders. They also refer to plural marriage generically as "the Principle", "celestial marriage", "the New and Everlasting Covenant", or "the Priesthood Work". The practice of plural marriage usually differs little from the manner in which it was practiced in the nineteenth century. However, in some fundamentalist sects it is considered acceptable for an older man to marry underage girls as soon as they attain puberty. This practice, which is illegal in most states, apart from polygamy itself, has generated public controversy. Examples include the Tom Green case, and the case in which a man from the Kingston clan married his 15-year-old cousin, who was also his aunt. Other sects, however, do not practice and may in fact vehemently denounce underage or forced marriages and incest (for example, the Apostolic United Brethren.) In addition to plural marriage, Mormon fundamentalist beliefs often include the following principles: -the law of consecration also known as the United Order -the Adam–God teachings taught by Brigham Young and other early leaders of the LDS Church -the principle of blood atonement -the exclusion of black men from the priesthood -the belief that missionaries should teach "without purse or scrip" Mormon fundamentalists believe both that these principles were accepted by the LDS Church at one time, and that the LDS Church wrongly abandoned or changed them, in large part due to the desire of its leadership and members to assimilate into mainstream American society and avoid the persecutions and conflict that had characterized the church throughout its early years. Terminology and relationship with the LDS Church: The term "Mormon fundamentalist" appears to have been coined in the 1940s by LDS Church apostle Mark E. Petersen to refer to groups who had left the LDS Church. However, Mormon fundamentalists do not universally embrace this usage and many simply consider themselves to be "Mormon". Today, the LDS Church considers the designation "Mormon" to apply only to its own members and not to members of other sects of the Latter Day Saint movement. One LDS leader went as far as claiming that there is no such thing as a "Mormon fundamentalist", and that using the two terms together is a "contradiction." The LDS Church suggests that the correct term to describe Mormon fundamentalist groups is "polygamist sects". In rebuttal to this nomenclature argument, certain Mormon fundamentalists have argued that they themselves are in fact more correctly designated as "Mormons" in so far as they follow what they consider to be the "true" and/or "original" Mormon teachings as handed down from Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Within this context, the LDS Church is often regarded by such fundamentalists as having abandoned several foundational aspects of Mormonism as noted above.

Sexual orientation and mormonism

The church recognizes and officially welcomes gays and lesbians as members under condition that they attempt to live the church's moral code. The church teaches that homosexual feelings, as distinct from behavior, may sometimes seem to be inborn, and that although these feelings are sometimes unwanted, they can and should be controlled. The church's law of chastity forbids homosexual sex in all contexts. Consistently breaking the law of chastity may result in excommunication. Nevertheless, Latter-day Saints who identify themselves as gay or lesbian may remain in good standing in the church, without ramification, if they abstain from homosexual relations. In addition to opposing gay and lesbian sex, the LDS Church also opposes and campaigns against the extension of marital rights to gay and lesbian families that would, in its opinion, undermine the tradition of heterosexual monogamous marriage. Since the 1990s, the issue of same-sex marriage has been one of the church’s foremost political concerns. In 2008, the church participated in a campaign in support of California Proposition 8, which proposed limiting the definition of marriage to a union of one man and one woman. The mobilized many of its members to donate time and money towards the initiative. The political organization ProtectMarriage.com, the official proponents of Proposition 8, estimate that about half the donations they received came from Mormon sources, and that "eighty to ninety percent" of the early volunteers going door-to-door were members of the LDS Church. The church was criticized for its involvement by non-members and by some of its members, and in 2010, general authority Marlin K. Jensen personally apologized to church members in California for the church's role.

Gender and mormonism

An official statement made in 1995 by the LDS Church's First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles states that "gender is an essential characteristic of individual pre-mortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose". The LDS Church has no official policy on the status of intersex persons. Transgender persons are accepted in the church and may be baptized, but may not receive the priesthood or enter the temple if they are considering or have undergone elective sex reassignment surgery. Within the church, there have also been a number of unofficial statements regarding gender. For example, "Strengthening Our Families: An In-Depth Look at the Proclamation on the Family" (a book compiled by the School of Family Life at the church-owned Brigham Young University) states, "Although we do not fully understand the eternal nature of gender, we should acknowledge its meaning and purpose, and humbly seek to understand and appreciate the nature of divine gender distinctions in God's plan for His children." The book also states: "God created us male and female. This is not a mistake or a variety of genetic or hormonal chance. What we call gender is an essential characteristic of our existence prior to our birth. Gender is part of our eternal identity and essential to our eternal progression. Although we may not know all the reasons why this is so, we do know some of the reasons why gender is essential to our eternal progression. To achieve our exaltation, an eternal marriage between a man and a woman is necessary .... The sexual union between a married man and woman is, among other things, the means God has ordained to bring His spirit children into mortality, which is an essential step in the plan of salvation." In a contribution to a work on the church's 1995 official statement, Robert L. Millet writes that "[o]ver the last four decades, we have observed widespread consideration of ideas and worldviews that are destructive of individuals and families." He then discusses instances such as when men have been instructed to be stoic, or stern, to hide their emotions. He continues: "In general we could say that men and women, in and out of the Church, have been taunted and titillated with views concerning man, woman, priesthood, and family that are at odds with the revealed word and thus with 'things as they really are, and ... as they really will be' (Jacob 4:13) .... No person who revolts against the divinely established role and calling he or she was given before the foundations of this earth were laid can be happy or find real fulfillment, not here or in eternity." Apostle David A. Bednar stated: "[Gender] in large measure defines who we are, why we are here upon the earth, and what we are to do and become. For divine purposes, male and female spirits are different, distinctive, and complementary. … The unique combination of spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional capacities of both males and females were needed to implement the plan of happiness". Apostle M. Russell Ballard taught, "The premortal and mortal natures of men and women were specified by God Himself. … [Sometimes women] ask: 'Is a woman's value dependent exclusively upon her role as a wife and mother?' The answer is simple and obvious: No. … Every righteous man and woman has a significant role to play in the onward march of the kingdom of God."

Faryion Wardrip

Faryion Edward Wardrip (born March 6, 1959) is an American serial killer who murdered five women in Wichita Falls, Texas, and the surrounding counties from 1984 to 1986. Murders- Terry Sims: In 1984, Terry Lee Sims, 20, a nursing student, was found stabbed and sexually assaulted at her home. She had heard him causing a disturbance outside and he lunged toward her as she went outside to investigate. Wardrip stated he targeted her for "no apparent reason" and broke her door down after she locked him out. Because of her resistance, Wardip bound the victim's hands with an electrical cord. Sims was estimated to have lived minutes after the attack was over. Police officers preserved a semen sample and a fingerprint found on Sims' shoe for future analysis. The print and semen was later positively identified to be those of Wardrip. Sims was buried at Crestview Memorial Park in Wichita Falls. Toni Gibbs: Toni Jean Gibbs, 23, disappeared on January 19, 1985, while employed at Wichita General Hospital. Not long after her disappearance, her car was later found within miles of the establishment, two days later. On February 15, her body was located in a field near Route 281, a day after she would have turned 24. Gibbs was sexually assaulted and was also stabbed to death. An abandoned bus was found near her body, which was where her murderer likely conducted the attack. Gibbs had initially survived the assault and had crawled one hundred feet, which was where she apparently died. Wardrip abandoned her vehicle near his residence after the attack was over. In 1996, Wardrip's DNA was matched to the biological evidence at the scene. Danny Laughlin, 24, was initially suspected of Gibb's murder, as he often rode his motorcycle near the area where she was killed and had met her at a nightclub days before she was killed. He also failed a lie detector test and had also made suspicious statements. Laughlin was then tried, despite that a DNA comparison of the semen at the scene and to Laughlin's was unsuccessful and only circumstantial evidence was available. After two days, the jury was deadlocked, which resulted in his release from custody. Gibbs was buried at the Clayton Cemetery in New Mexico. Debra Taylor: Months after he murdered Toni Gibbs, Wardrip traveled to Fort Worth, Texas, where he killed Debra Sue Taylor (née Huie), 25. He had met her while at a bar after her husband had left due to fatigue. He approached her and the pair danced; he then asked to drive her home. While outside, he attempted to make advances, which she rejected, and he killed her. He then left her body at a construction site, which was found a week afterward. When she failed to return home by the next morning, she was reported missing by her husband. Taylor's murder was not believed to be related to the other four cases, until he confessed to her murder while in questioning after his 1999 arrest. Taylor's husband was believed to have been the culprit before Wardrip's confession. He had passed three polygraph tests but was still suspected by police, which had "destroyed his life" as members of his and his wife's family "turned against him". Taylor was buried at Shannon Rose Hill Memorial Park in Fort Worth; date of death is listed as March 24, 1985. Ellen Blau: Ellen Blau, 21, was abducted after leaving work one night in 1985. She was employed as a waitress and was also a student at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls. Wardrip forced Blau to drive to a secluded area where he eventually killed her by strangulation, although he stated in a Cold Case Files episode that he had broken her neck. He drove her car back into Wichita Falls and abandoned it along with her purse. Her blood was also discovered on the inside of the vehicle. Once her body was found, it was in a very advanced state of decomposition, to the point where she could only be identified by comparing dental information. She may have been sexually assaulted, as her underwear had been pulled downward, but the condition of her remains prevented accurate analysis. One of her friends had lived in the same apartment complex as Wardrip and had stated that she felt uncomfortable around him. Blau was buried at Bnai Jacob Memorial Park in New Haven, Connecticut; date of death is listed as September 20, 1985. Tina Kimbrew: On May 6, 1986 Wardrip killed a waitress, Tina Elizabeth Kimbrew, 21, a recent friend of his. He had gone to her apartment and suffocated her with a pillow because she "reminded him of his ex wife". Prior to the discovery of her body, neighbors told police that they had seen a tall white man with brown hair and a baseball cap leave the complex. Danny Laughlin was ruled out as a suspect, as he did not match the physical traits as this man. A few days later, on May 9, Wardrip called the police across the state in Galveston, and confessed to the crime. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison. He was paroled in 1997 and he moved to Olney where he remarried and became an active supporter of the local church, gaining a good reputation. He eventually remarried and got a job at a screen door factory. Kimbrew was buried at Wilbarger Memorial Park in Vernon. 1999 convictions: In 1999, a Wichita Falls detective, John Little, began a cold case investigation to pursue the unsolved cases of Sims, Gibbs, Blau and Taylor. Samples of DNA from the scenes where Terry Sims and Toni Gibbs were found was later matched, indicating that they were killed by the same person. Little knew Gibbs personally, as did his wife and had also participated in the search for her body. He began to believe that the murders of these women were linked, but this had not yet been investigated, as different agencies covered each case. The investigation later led him to discover a previously unknown link between Wardrip and Ellen Blau. One of his fellow officers had stated that Wardrip admitted to knowing Blau while he was on trial for Tina Kimbrew's murder. This lead had not been investigated at the time it emerged. Wardrip himself stated that the agency would have been able to find a suspect much sooner if they had "paid a little bit more attention." Little pursued leads linking him to the four unsolved murders after he discovered that Ellen Blau lived one block away from Terry Sims and he was employed as a custodian at the same hospital where Toni Gibbs worked as a nurse. Little, who was unknown to Wardrip, asked Wardrip for a cup to spit tobacco into, after which Wardrip gave Little a paper cup that Wardrip had previously used. An analysis of DNA found on the cup matched DNA associated with Terry Sims and Toni Gibbs. Wardrip was placed under arrest, and in custody confessed to the Sims and Gibbs murders as well as those of Blau and Debra Taylor, 26. In 1999, Wardrip was sentenced to death for the murder of Sims, and three life terms for the other killings. In 2008, a federal magistrate recommended that the death penalty be overturned because Wardrip received ineffective defense in his trial. On June 14, 2011, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling that ordered the State of Texas to either give Wardrip a new sentencing trial, or agree to giving him a life sentence. The case will be sent back to the U.S. District Court for reconsideration. Wardrip remains on death row at Polunsky Unit in Livingston. In popular culture: A true crime book based on Wardrip's crimes, Body Hunter, was written by Patricia Springer in 2001. Scream at the Sky, another book about Wardrip's crimes and related investigations, was written by Carlton Stowers in 2003. The title originated from Wardrip's account of Terry Sims' murder. A 2001 episode of The New Detectives, titled "To Kill Again", highlighted the forensics used to capture Wardrip. Forensic Files covered the case in 2002. Cold Case Files also covered the case.

Murder of Reyna Marroquin

The murder of Reyna Angélica Marroquín (born 1941) occurred in 1969 in Nassau County, New York. The crime was not discovered for at least 30 years after its occurrence. Howard B. Elkins (June 20, 1929 – September 10, 1999), a local businessman, was identified as the prime suspect, though he committed suicide before he could be charged or thoroughly questioned. The investigation was described on The New Detectives (Season 9, Episode 11, "Broken Trust"), Cold Case Files ("The Barrel"), and Forensic Files (Season 5, episode 4, "A Voice from Beyond"). Background: In 1999, a house in Nassau County, New York was purchased by Hamid Tafaghodi. Tafaghodi insisted previous owner Ronald Cohen remove a 55-gallon drum that had been seemingly abandoned in the crawl space. On September 2, Cohen noticed a note from the sanitation department that said they could not pick it up due to its weight, so he and a real estate agent opened the drum to discover a human hand and a lady's shoe. Investigation: Investigators thoroughly examined the drum, carefully removing mummified human remains, which they determined was that of a Hispanic female in her late-20s who was between 4'9"–5'0" tall, had unusual dental work, and was pregnant. The 17 inch fetus was concluded to be male. The cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma to the head, which included ten different lacerations—some with blood stains, an indication that she was still alive. In the drum were a lot of other objects besides the body that were useful in identifying the victim and a suspect. These included polystyrene pellets, three pieces of jewelry (two rings, one with the initials "M.H.R." inscribed on the inside; and a locket inscribed "To Patrice Love Uncle Phil"), green dye, and an address book. Additionally, the drum had some information pre-printed on it. The victim was identified through the address book. The address book was heavily soaked during the length of time it spent in the drum, but after it was dried out and examined under special light, it became possible to read some information in it. The investigation was difficult because that information was as old as the address book itself. She was eventually identified as Reyna Angélica Marroquín, an immigrant from El Salvador, who had worked as a nanny and for a manufacturer of synthetic flowers. Marroquín was said to have had a beautiful personality, with great love for her family and New York, and aspirations of becoming an American citizen. She left El Salvador in 1966 because she discovered her husband had a lover who was pregnant with his child. The drum she was found in was identified as being manufactured in 1965 from Linden, New Jersey and used for transporting dye, the type used in synthetic flowers. The manufacturer of the drum was contacted, and by the numbers on it, it was found to have been shipped to Melrose Plastics, a flower company that went out of business in 1972. Melrose had two owners, one of whom was Howard B. Elkins. Elkins was one of five people who had owned the house where the drum was found, thereby making him the prime suspect. All but one of the phone numbers listed in the address book were no longer in operation. The one that was turned out to be Kathy Andrade, a friend of the victim. She reported that the victim had been having an affair with her boss, Howard B. Elkins, and that Elkins had been considering marrying Marroquín before the relationship soured. The victim told her that she was afraid her boss would kill her after she called his home and reached his wife Ruth. Andrade came over, but by then, the victim was nowhere to be seen, and she never heard from her again. After the drum was found outside the residence, an anonymous call to investigators noted that the plastic pellets were the basis for making synthetic trees and also that Elkins was having an affair in the 1960s with a woman fitting Marroquín's description. The day after Det. Robert Edwards and Det. Brian Parpan interviewed Elkins and told him they would obtain a court order to take his DNA for comparison with that of the fetus, Elkins was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a neighbor's home in Boca Raton, Florida. Elkins had been somewhat uncooperative during the interview, remaining poised and indifferent, denying that Melrose Plastics had any such barrels and declining a DNA test. When Ruth called, he asked detectives to leave before she came home so he could discuss the finding of the body and "other sensitive issues" with her. Either shortly after detectives left or the following day, Elkins went out and purchased a shotgun and some ammunition at Walmart. His body was found by his son Steven and police. After his suicide, blood was drawn from Elkins and sent to LabCorp, where DNA testing determined with a 99.93 percent certainty that the unborn baby carried by the victim was his child. Elkins was described by neighbors and acquaintances in Florida and on Long Island as outgoing, friendly, jovial and sociable. Oscar Corral of Newsday found Marroquín's mother in San Martín, San Salvador where the 95-year-old woman nearly fainted when she was told of her daughter's death. She said that for the last 30 years she had dreams about her daughter's whereabouts, which included her being in a barrel.There have also been reports of Marroquin and Elkins having a child before. Det. Edwards said the investigation revealed that a woman fitting Marroquin's description showed up to Melrose Plastics at one point with a toddler, causing quite a stir within the company from employees who bantered and joked that the child's father was Elkins. Crime: Investigators believe Elkins either came to Marroquin's New Jersey apartment or lured her to the factory, and murdered her. He then brought her body back to his suburban home, likely with the intention of dumping her in the ocean later on. However, when filling the barrel with plastic pellets to ensure it would sink to the bottom of the ocean, he underestimated the weight and was unable to move the 350 pound drum back outside, so he instead hid it in the crawl space.

Disappearance of Etan Patz

Etan Kalil Patz was an American child who was six years old when he disappeared in the SoHo neighborhood of lower Manhattan, New York City, on May 25, 1979. He is the best known missing child from New York City. His disappearance helped spark the missing children's movement, including new legislation and various methods for tracking down missing children, such as the milk-carton campaigns of the mid-1980s. Etan was the first ever missing child to be pictured on the side of a milk carton. The case examining Patz's disappearance was reopened in 2010 by the New York County District Attorney's office. In April 2012, the FBI excavated a basement near the Patz residence, which revealed no new evidence. A self-confessed suspect, Pedro Hernandez, was charged and indicted later that year on charges of second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping. In 2014, the case went through a series of hearings to determine if Hernandez’s statements before receiving the Miranda warning were legally admissible at trial. The trial began in January 2015, but ended in a mistrial in May. The day of Patz's disappearance in 1979, May 25, was designated National Missing Children's Day in the US since its declaration by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. Every year on May 25, members of a network launched in 1998 as a joint venture of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) and the US's National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) of 22 countries pay respects to International Missing Children’s Day, honoring missing and abducted children while celebrating those who have been recovered. Disappearance: On the morning of Friday, May 25, 1979, six-year-old Etan Patz left his SoHo apartment by himself for the first time. He was to walk two blocks to catch the school bus at West Broadway and Spring Street and he wore a blue captain hat, a blue shirt, blue jeans, and blue sneakers that day. He never reached the bus stop. When he did not come home when school ended, his mother called the police. An intense search began that evening, using nearly 100 police officers and a team of bloodhounds. The search continued for weeks. At first, detectives considered the Patzs as possible suspects, but they quickly determined the parents had no involvement. A massive search involving neighbors and police covered the city with missing child posters featuring Patz's face, but resulted in few leads. Patz's father, Stan Patz, a professional photographer, used a collection of photographs he had taken of his son in the effort to find the missing boy. His photos of Etan were printed on countless missing child posters and milk cartons, and they were projected on screens in Times Square. Later investigations- Uncharged suspect, 1980s–90s: Assistant United States Attorney Stuart R. GraBois identified Jose Antonio Ramos, a convicted child sexual abuser who had been a friend of Etan Patz's one-time babysitter, as the primary suspect in his disappearance after receiving the case in 1985. Some boys had accused Ramos of trying to lure them inside a drainpipe, where he lived in 1982 in the Bronx. When police searched the drainpipe, they found photographs of Ramos and young boys who resembled Patz. GraBois eventually found out that Ramos was in custody in Pennsylvania in connection with an unrelated child molestation case. In 1990, GraBois became deputized as a deputy state attorney general in Pennsylvania to help prosecute a case against Ramos for sexually abusing other children to also obtain further information on Patz's case. When initially questioned by GraBois, Ramos stated that he took a young boy back to his apartment to rape him, on the day Patz disappeared, and that he was "90 percent sure" it was the boy he later saw on TV. Ramos did not use Patz's name, however, and claimed he had "put the boy on a subway." While Ramos was incarcerated, a fellow convict of his who became a jailhouse informant told GraBois and FBI agent Mary Galligan in 1991 that Ramos told him he knew what happened to Patz, and even drew a map of Patz's school bus route, indicating that he knew that Patz's bus stop was the third one on the route. In a special feature on missing children, the New York Post reported on October 21, 1999, that Ramos was the prime suspect in Etan Patz's disappearance. Ramos was known to the Patz family and was the prime suspect all along, but in the early 1980s they still could not prosecute Ramos. Patz was declared legally dead in 2001. Ramos was declared responsible for Patz's death in 2004 in a New York civil case but remains unprosecuted. Ramos denied responsibility for Patz's death. Etan Patz's parents, Stanley and Julie Patz, pursued a civil case against Ramos. They were awarded a 'symbolic' sum of $2 million, which they have never collected. Ramos served a 20-year prison term in the State Correctional Institution – Dallas in Pennsylvania for child molestation. Jose Ramos was released from prison on November 7, 2012, and then promptly arrested on a Megan's Law violation. Every year, on the anniversaries of Etan's birthday and disappearance, Stan Patz sent Ramos a copy of his son's missing child poster. On the back, he types the same message: "What did you do to my little boy?" Case reopening, 2010–present: Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., officially reopened the Etan Patz case on May 25, 2010. On April 19, 2012, FBI and NYPD investigators began excavating the SoHo basement of 127B Prince Street, near the Patz home, which case files revealed had been newly refurbished shortly after the boy's disappearance in 1979. The basement had been the workshop and storage space of a handyman. After a four-day search, investigators announced there was "nothing conclusive found", including any skeletal or human remains. On May 24, 2012, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly announced that a man was in custody who had implicated himself in the Patz disappearance. According to The New York Times, a law enforcement official identified the man as Pedro Hernandez of Maple Shade, New Jersey, age 51, and said that he had confessed to strangling Etan Patz. According to a 2009 book about the case, After Etan, Patz had a dollar and had told his parents he planned to buy a soda to drink with his lunch. Hernandez was an 18-year-old convenience store worker in a neighborhood bodega at the time of Patz's disappearance; Hernandez said he later threw Patz's remains into the garbage. Hernandez was charged with second-degree murder. According to a New York Times report from May 25, 2012, the police at that time had no physical evidence to corroborate Hernandez's confession. Statements in May 2012 by Hernandez's sister, Nina Hernandez, and Tomas Rivera, leader of a Charismatic Christianity group at St. Anthony of Padua, a Roman Catholic church in Camden, indicated that Hernandez may have publicly confessed to murdering Patz in the presence of fellow parishioners in the early 1980s. According to Hernandez's sister, it was an "open family secret that he had confessed in the church." A New York grand jury indicted Hernandez on November 14, 2012, on charges of second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping. His lawyer has stated that Hernandez was diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder, which includes hallucinations. The lawyer has also said his client has a low IQ of around 70, “at the border of intellectual disability.” On December 12, 2012, Hernandez pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and one count of kidnapping in a New York court. In April 2013, Harvey Fishbein, a defense lawyer for Pedro Hernandez, filed a motion to dismiss the case, citing that Hernandez's "confession in one of the nation's most notorious child disappearances was false, peppered with questionable claims and made after almost seven hours of police questioning". The next month, however, Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley ruled that the evidence was "legally sufficient to support the charges" and the case could move forward; he also ordered a hearing to determine whether the defendant's statements could be used at trial. Hernandez had a hearing in September 2014 about whether his statements made prior to police giving him his Miranda warnings—which he was read about seven hours into questioning—were legally admissible at trial, which would be influenced by whether he felt free to leave during the time before he was informed of his Miranda rights. The hearing was also to determine whether he comprehended the significance of the Miranda rights warnings and was competent to waive them when he did so, which was significant because it would decide whether any statements made after that point by Hernandez were legally admissible at trial. The actual truth or falsehood of the statements was not the focus of the hearing; rather, the question of the statements' truthfulness was to be discussed in the trial, which began on January 5, 2015. The case was tried in Room 733, 111 Centre Street, New York, New York. The case resulted in a mistrial in May 2015 after the jurors deadlocked 11-1 for conviction. Legacy: The day of Etan Patz's disappearance in 1979, May 25, was designated National Missing Children's Day in the US since its declaration by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. Every year on May 25, members of the Global Missing Children’s Network (GMCN), a network launched in 1998 as a joint venture of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) and the US's National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) of 22 countries that connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations, pay respects to International Missing Children’s Day, honoring missing and abducted children while celebrating those who have been recovered. In 2001, the tribute spread worldwide. ICMEC coordinates the Help Bring Them Home Campaign in 22 countries, in conjunction with International Missing Children’s Day, spotlighting the issue of child abduction around the world, and suggesting to parents some steps they can take to protect their children. The extensive media attention to Patz's disappearance has been credited as the catalyst for greater attention to missing children, including a reduced willingness to allow children to walk to school, photos of missing children being printed on milk cartons, and promotion of the concept of "stranger danger" (the idea that all adults unknown to the child must be regarded as potential sources of danger).

meeting a celebrity

I'd LOVE to meet a celebrity. the 2 male celebs i'd wanna meet are: Josh Hutchinson and David Archuleta. the 2 female celebs i'd wanna meet are: Miranda Cosgrove and Jeanette McCurdy

Disappearance of Madeleine McCann

Madeleine Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) disappeared on the evening of 3 May 2007 from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, a resort in the Algarve region of Portugal, sparking what one newspaper called "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history." Madeleine was on holiday from the UK with her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, her younger twin siblings, and a group of family friends and their children. She and the twins had been left asleep at 20:30 in the ground-floor apartment, while the McCanns and friends dined in a restaurant 50 metres (160 ft) away. The parents checked on the children throughout the evening, until Madeleine's mother discovered she was missing at 22:00. At first the Portuguese police seemed to accept that it was an abduction, but after misinterpreting a British DNA analysis came to believe that Madeleine had died in the apartment, which placed a cloud of suspicion over her parents. The McCanns were declared arguidos (suspects) in September 2007, but were cleared in July 2008 when Portugal's attorney-general closed the case. The parents continued the investigation using private detectives until Scotland Yard opened its own inquiry, Operation Grange, in 2011. In 2013 Scotland Yard released e-fit images of men they wanted to trace, including one of a man seen carrying a child toward the beach that night. Shortly after this the Portuguese police reopened their inquiry. Both investigations are ongoing. The disappearance attracted sustained international interest, and saturation coverage in the UK reminiscent of the death of Diana in 1997. The McCanns were subjected to intense scrutiny and false allegations of involvement in their daughter's death, particularly in the tabloid press and on Twitter. They received damages and front-page apologies in 2008 from the Express Group, and in 2011 testified before the Leveson Inquiry into British press misconduct, lending support to those arguing for tighter press regulation. People- Madeleine McCann: Madeleine was born in Leicester and lived with her family in Rothley, also in Leicestershire. Not long after her disappearance in 2007, she was made a ward of court in England at the request of her parents, giving the court statutory powers to act on her behalf while they sought access via the courts to witness statements that had been shared, under strict confidentiality agreements, between the Portuguese and Leicestershire police. Interpol described Madeleine as having straight blonde hair, blue-green eyes, a small brown spot on her left calf, and a distinctive dark strip on the iris of her right eye. In 2009 the McCanns released age-progressed images of how she may have looked at age six, and in 2012 Scotland Yard commissioned and released one of her at age nine. Kate and Gerry McCann: Madeleine's parents are both physicians and practising Roman Catholics. Kate Marie McCann, née Healy (born 1968, Huyton, near Liverpool) attended All Saints School in Anfield, then Notre Dame High School, Everton Valley, graduating in 1992 with a degree in medicine from the University of Dundee. She moved briefly into obstetrics and gynaecology, then anaesthesiology, and finally general practice. Gerald Patrick McCann (born 1968 in Glasgow) attended Holyrood Secondary School. He obtained a BSc in physiology/sports science from the University of Glasgow in 1989, qualifying in medicine in 1992. In 2002 he obtained his MD, a research degree, also from Glasgow, and since 2005 has been a consultant cardiologist at Glenfield Hospital, Leicester. The McCanns met in 1993 in Glasgow and were married in 1998. Madeleine was born in 2003 and the twins, a boy and girl, two years later. Tapas Seven: The McCanns were on holiday with seven friends and eight children in all, including the McCanns' three. The nine adults dined together most evenings at 20:30 in the resort's tapas restaurant, as a result of which the media dubbed the friends the Tapas Seven. The group consisted of marketing manager Jane Tanner and her partner, physician Russell O'Brien, who were there with their two children; physician Matthew Oldfield and his wife, recruitment consultant Rachael Oldfield, along with their daughter; and physicians Fiona and David Payne, their two children, and Fiona Payne's mother, Dianne Webster. Jane Tanner became an important witness, when she reported seeing a man carry a young girl away from the resort 50 minutes before Madeleine was reported missing. 5A Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, Praia da Luz: The McCanns arrived on Saturday, 28 April 2007, for their seven-night spring break in Praia da Luz, a village with a population of 1,000, known as a "little Britain" because of the concentration of British holidaymakers or homeowners. They had booked through the British holiday company Mark Warner Ltd, and were placed in 5A Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, an apartment owned by a retired teacher from Liverpool, one of several privately owned properties rented by the company. 5A was a two-bedroom, ground-floor apartment in the fifth block of a group of apartments known as Waterside Village, which lay on the perimeter of part of Mark Warner's Ocean Club resort (the resort's facilities were scattered throughout the village). Matthew and Rachel Oldfield were next door in 5B, Jane Tanner and Russell O'Brien in 5D, and the Paynes and Dianne Webster on the first floor. Located on the corner of Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva and Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins, 5A was accessible to the public from at least two sides. Sliding glass patio doors in the living room at the back overlooked the Ocean Club's ostensibly private pool, tennis courts, tapas restaurant and bar. The patio doors could be accessed via the (public) Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins, where a small gate and set of steps led up to 5A's balcony and living room. 5A's front door was on the opposite side of the block from the Ocean Club, on Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva. The McCanns' three children slept in a bedroom next to the front door, which the McCanns kept locked. The bedroom had one waist-high window with curtains and a metal exterior shutter, the latter controlled by a cord inside the window; the McCanns kept the curtains and shutter closed throughout the holiday. The window overlooked a narrow walkway and residents' car park, which was separated by a low wall from the street. Madeleine slept in a single bed next to the bedroom door, on the opposite side of the room from the window, while the twins were in travel cots in the middle of the room. There was another, empty, single bed underneath the window. Thursday, 3 May 2007- Tapas restaurant: Thursday, 3 May, was the penultimate day of the family's holiday. Over breakfast Madeleine asked: "Why didn't you come when [her brother] and I cried last night?" After the disappearance, her parents wondered whether this meant someone had entered, or tried to enter, the children's bedroom. Her mother also noticed a large brown stain on Madeleine's Eeyore pyjama top. The children spent the morning in the resort's Kids' Club, then the family lunched at their apartment before heading to the pool. Madeleine's mother took the last known photograph of Madeleine by the pool that afternoon, sitting next to her father and two-year-old sister. The children returned to Kids' Club, and at 18:00 their mother took them back to 5A, while their father went for a tennis lesson. The McCanns put the children to bed around 19:00. Madeleine was left asleep in her short-sleeved, pink-and-white Marks and Spencer's Eeyore pyjamas, next to her pink comfort blanket and pink soft toy, Cuddle Cat. At 20:30 the parents left 5A to dine with their friends in the Ocean Club's open-air tapas restaurant, 50 metres (160 ft) as the crow flies on the other side of the pool, a walk of 30–45 seconds, according to Madeleine's mother. The staff had left a note in a message book at the swimming-pool reception area, asking that the same table, which overlooked the apartments, be block-booked for 20:30 for the McCanns and friends. The message said the group's children were asleep in the apartments. Madeleine's mother believes the abductor may have seen the note. The McCanns and their friends left the restaurant roughly every half hour to check on their children. 5A's patio doors could only be locked from the inside, so to allow them to enter that way, the McCanns had left the patio curtains drawn and the doors closed but unlocked. They had also closed the child-safety gate at the top of the patio stairs and the gate at the bottom leading to the street. Madeleine's father carried out the first check on 5A at around 21:05. The children were asleep and all was well, except that he recalled having left the children's bedroom door slightly ajar, and now it stood almost wide open; he pulled it nearly closed again before returning to the restaurant. This was the last time either of the McCanns saw Madeleine. Tanner sighting: The sighting by Jane Tanner, one of the Tapas Seven, of a man carrying a child that night became an important part of the early investigation. She had left the restaurant just after 21:00 to check on her own daughter, passing Madeleine's father on Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins on his way back to the restaurant from his 21:05 check. He had stopped to chat to a British holidaymaker, Jes Wilkins, but neither man remembered seeing Tanner. This became an issue that puzzled the Portuguese police, given how narrow the street was, and led them to accuse Tanner of inventing the sighting. At c. 21:10 Tanner noticed a man with a child cross the junction of Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins and Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva just ahead of her, heading east, away from the Ocean Club. She said he was carrying a barefoot child, who was wearing light-coloured pink pyjamas with a floral pattern and cuffs on the legs. She described the man as white, dark-haired, 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) tall, of southern European or Mediterranean appearance, 35–40 years old, wearing gold or beige trousers and a dark jacket, and said he did not look like a tourist. Tanner told the Portuguese police, but they did not pass the description to the media until 25 May. Madeleine's Fund hired a forensic artist to create an image of the man (right), which was released in October 2007. Although Tanner had not seen the man's face, the sighting became important because it offered investigators a time frame for the abduction, but Scotland Yard came to view it as a red herring. In October 2013 they said that a British holidaymaker had been identified as the man Tanner had seen, and that he had been returning to his apartment after collecting his daughter from the Ocean Club night creche. Scotland Yard took photographs of the man wearing the same or similar clothes to the ones he was wearing on the night, and standing in a pose similar to the one Tanner reported. The pyjamas his daughter had been wearing also matched Tanner's report. Scotland Yard said they were "almost certain" the Tanner sighting was not related to the abduction. Smith sighting: Another sighting of a man carrying a child that night was reported by Martin and Mary Smith, on holiday from Ireland.[41] Scotland Yard concluded in 2013 that the Smith sighting offered the approximate time of Madeleine's kidnap. The Smiths saw the man at around 22:00 on Rua da Escola Primária, 500 yards (457 m) from the McCanns' apartment, walking toward Rua 25 de Abril and the beach. He was carrying a girl aged 3–4 years; she had blonde hair and pale skin, was wearing light-coloured pyjamas and had bare feet. The man was mid-30s, 5 ft 7 in – 5 ft 9 in (1.75–1.80 m), slim-to-normal build, with short brown hair, wearing cream or beige trousers. He did not look like a tourist, according to the Smiths, and had seemed uncomfortable carrying the child. Reported missing: Madeleine's mother had intended to check on the children at 21:30, but Matthew Oldfield, one of the Tapas Seven, offered to do it when he checked on his own children in the apartment next door. He noticed that the McCanns' children's bedroom door was wide open, but after hearing no noise he left their apartment without looking far enough into the room to see whether Madeleine was in bed. He could not recall whether the bedroom window and its exterior shutter were open at that point. Early on in the investigation the Portuguese police accused Oldfield of involvement because he had volunteered to do the check, suggesting to him that he had handed Madeleine to someone through the bedroom window. Kate made her own check at around 22:00. Scotland Yard said in 2013 that Madeleine was probably taken moments before this. Kate recalled entering the apartment through the patio doors at the back, and noticed that the children's bedroom door was wide open. When she tried to close the door it slammed shut as though there was a draught, which is when she found that the bedroom window and its shutter were open. Madeleine's Cuddle Cat and pink blanket were still on the bed, but Madeleine was gone. After briefly searching the apartment Kate ran back towards the restaurant, screaming that someone had taken Madeleine. At around 22:10 Madeleine's father sent Matthew Oldfield to ask the resort's reception desk to call the police, and at 22:30 the resort activated its missing-child search protocol. Sixty staff and guests searched until 04:30, at first assuming that Madeleine had wandered off. One of them told Channel 4's Dispatches that, from one end of Luz to the other, you could hear people shouting her name. Early response- Police: Two officers from the gendarmerie, the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR), arrived at the resort at 23:10 from Lagos, five miles (8 km) away. At midnight, after briefly searching, they alerted the criminal police, the Polícia Judiciária;[50] the latter said their officers arrived within 10 minutes of that alert. Two patrol dogs were brought to the resort at 2 am, and four search-and-rescue dogs at 8 am. Police officers had their leave cancelled, and started searching waterways, wells, caves, sewers and ruins. It was widely acknowledged that mistakes were made, perhaps the most serious of which was that the crime scene was not secured. Around 20 people entered apartment 5A before it was closed off, according to Chief Inspector Olegário de Sousa of the Polícia Judiciária. According to Madeleine's mother, an officer placed tape across the doorway of the children's bedroom, but left at 3 am without securing the apartment. The Polícia Judiciária case file, released in 2008, showed that 5A lay empty for a month after the disappearance, then was let out to tourists before being sealed off in August 2007 for more forensic tests. A similar situation arose outside the apartment. A crowd gathered by the front door of 5A, including next to the children's bedroom window through which an abductor may have entered or left, trampling on potentially important evidence. An officer dusted the bedroom window's exterior shutter for fingerprints without wearing gloves or other protective clothing. Madeleine's mother, roadblocks were first put in place at 10 am the next morning. Police did not request motorway surveillance pictures of vehicles leaving Praia da Luz that night, or of the road between Lagos and Vila Real de Santo António on the Spanish border; the company that monitors the road, Euroscut, said they were not approached for information. It took Interpol five days to issue a global missing-person alert. Media: Criminal investigations in Portugal are governed by a secrecy clause in its penal code, which means there are no official press briefings.[22] One journalist wrote that this leads to a culture of "leak, not speak," and a proliferation of gossip that is hard for others to counter without breaking the law. A Polícia Judiciária officer acknowledged in 2010 that they had been suspicious of the McCanns from the start, because the couple turned the inquiry into what the officer called a "media circus." Owen Jones described it as "something approaching mass hysteria." Bell Pottinger, representing Mark Warner Ltd, dealt with the media for the first ten days, then the British government sent in press officers. The first was Sheree Dodd, a former Daily Mirror journalist, then Clarence Mitchell, director of media monitoring for the Central Office of Information. When the government withdrew Mitchell, Justine McGuinness, a non-government PR representative, took over until September 2007, then another PR company, Hanover, was briefly involved. In September Brian Kennedy of Everest Windows stepped forward as a benefactor, and offered to cover Clarence Mitchell's salary (later paid by Madeleine's Fund); Mitchell resigned from his position and started working for the McCanns. Madeleine appeared on the cover of People magazine on 28 May 2007, and on 30 May the McCanns and a group of journalists flew to Rome, in a Learjet belonging to British businessman Sir Philip Green, to meet Pope Benedict XVI. Placing Madeleine on the front page of a British newspaper would sell up to 30,000 extra copies; she was on the front page of several British tabloids every day for almost six months, and became one of Sky News's menu options. The Portuguese tabloid Correio da Manhã published 384 articles about her between May 2007 and July 2008. By June 2008 over seven million posts and 3,700 videos were returned in a search for her name on YouTube.

Disappearance of Beverly Potts

Beverly Rose Potts (born April 15, 1941) was an American girl from Cleveland, Ohio who in 1951 became the subject of a famous missing persons case when she disappeared only a few blocks from her home, after attending a show in a nearby park. Disappearance: Blonde, blue-eyed Potts was described as a shy, quiet and responsible child, fascinated by the performing arts, who was due to enter the fifth grade in fall 1951. At the time she was living on Linnet Avenue with her parents Robert and Elizabeth and 22-year-old sister Anita. On August 24 she and neighbor Patsy Swing were given permission to see the Showagon, an annual summer children's performance event which that evening was being held in Halloran Park, less than a quarter of a mile from the girls' homes. This was a special treat, as the park was generally considered unsafe after dark, when large trees dimmed the surrounding streetlights. It was also frequented by the local vagrant population. The two girls initially headed to the park about 7pm, but at eight o'clock--deciding it would be easier to maneuver on foot through the large crowds--they returned home to drop off their bikes, arriving back at the show sometime before 8:30. At about 8:45, Swing, made uneasy by the gathering darkness, suggested they head home. However Potts said she had been given permission to stay for the entire show, which was not due to end until after nine o'clock, so Swing returned alone. She would later say that she had last seen Potts in the crowd still watching the performances onstage. At about 9:30, with the show over and the park emptying, a thirteen-year-old male acquaintance of Potts' saw her heading diagonally across the park in a northeasterly direction, about 150 yards from the corner of Linnet and West 117th streets. This would have been the quickest route to her home, which would then only be a few minutes' walk away. The boy recognized Potts by her distinctive 'duck-like' gait, walking with toes pointed outward. Several other witnesses claimed to have seen a girl resembling Beverly near a battered black 1937 Dodge coupe idling on West 117th street, apparently speaking to the two young men--one dark-haired and one blond--inside. The various witnesses placed this encounter anywhere between 8:30 and 9:30, but all were in agreement that they had not seen the girl entering the car.When Potts did not return home by ten o'clock, her family began searching the area. About an hour later, having found no sign of her, they called the police. Investigation: The police immediately began a large-scale search of their own but were likewise unable to find any trace of the missing girl, even after several days' investigation including door-to-door canvassing of nearby neighborhoods, tracing suspicious cars, searching nearby waste land and using a plane to survey open railway cars. They took and thoroughly investigated many thousands of telephone tips, which had been spurred by the extensive press coverage of the disappearance, but none provided any solid leads. Investigators were, however, quickly able to clear her immediate family of any suspicion. Beverley's home life had been stable and by all accounts happy, and there appeared to be no reason for her to have run away. Further complicating the case was the fact that Potts was known to be unusually shy--especially around males--and particularly cautious of strangers. Investigators theorized that she had thus most likely been enticed into a nearby house or car on her way home by someone she knew, perhaps with the promise of a babysitting job--despite her youth, Potts was regularly hired as a sitter for neighborhood children--or a request to run an errand.[1] It was thought that the girl's body might have been buried in one of the nearby houses on Linnet Avenue, and at least one search to that effect was carried out in 1973, in the basement of what by then was an auto body shop. However, no signs were found there or elsewhere, and no plausible local suspect was ever uncovered at the time or since. Suspects: Several other suspects have emerged over the years, but none can be definitively linked to the case. In 1955 Harvey Lee Rush, a drifter and Cleveland native, told police in California that he had killed Potts after luring her to a nearby bridge with candy; however he placed the murder in 1952, a year after Potts' actual disappearance. Rush recanted his entire story shortly after being extradited to Cleveland, saying that he had confessed merely as a way to get back to his hometown. In 1980, two retired Cleveland police detectives, James Fuerst and Robert Shankland, revealed that in 1974 they had received a tip from a local attorney with a client whose brother had supposedly confessed to abducting Potts. The detectives subsequently found and questioned the brother, who, they said, had readily admitted to having lived near Halloran Park in 1951 and making a habit of picking up and molesting young girls there. The man did not remember abducting Potts in particular, but said he had "flashes" of memory involving a girl named Beverly. Fuerst and Shankland were convinced the man was guilty, but the county prosecutors' office refused to pursue the case, citing a lack of evidence. William Henry Redmond, an Ohio native and former carnival worker, was indicted in 1988 for the 1951 Pennsylvania murder of eight-year-old Jane Marie Althoff. While in prison, Redmond reportedly told a cellmate that he had killed three other young girls. When questioned about the Potts case in particular, Redmond refused to make a statement one way or the other. He was in the general area at the time of Potts' disappearance and had a record of child molestation convictions dating back to 1935; however Potts would have been considerably older than his previous victims. In 1994, a letter was discovered under a carpet in a Cleveland house, written by a woman who claimed to have caught her husband disposing of Potts' body in their furnace. Upon being traced and questioned by police, the woman said that the allegation was false; she had written the letter solely as a revenge fantasy against her abusive husband. More letters were sent to reporter Brent Larkin of the Cleveland Plain Dealer beginning in 2000, purporting to be from an elderly and infirm man who claimed that he wanted to confess to molesting and murdering Potts before his imminent death. The anonymous author pledged to turn himself in on August 24th 2001, the fiftieth anniversary of Potts' disappearance, but shortly beforehand wrote again to say he had had to enter a nursing home and would be unable to honor his promise or otherwise reveal himself. An extensive investigation failed to turn up any clues to the author's identity; Larkin now believes the letters to have been a hoax. Aftermath: The enduring mystery of Potts' apparently random disappearance and the extensive investigation quickly captured the imagination of the press and by extension the entire city, becoming notorious especially among parents fearful for their own children's safety. It has since become one of Cleveland's most well-known missing-persons cases. Thea Gallo Becker, author of Legendary Locals of Cleveland, says that it "remains one of the most haunting and heartbreaking mysteries in Cleveland history.". Potts' mother died in 1956--reportedly hastened by "heartbreak" over her daughter's disappearance--and her father in 1970. Beverly's only sibling, Anita, continued to search for her until her own death in 2006. There is a memorial marker to Beverly situated next to the graves of her parents.

Michaela Garecht

Michaela Joy Garecht (born January 24, 1979) was nine years old when she was abducted on November 19, 1988, in Hayward, California, San Francisco Bay Area, in broad daylight at the corner of Mission Boulevard and Lafayette Avenue, outside a grocery store then known as Rainbow Market, now called Mexico Super. Abduction: Garecht was abducted at approximately 10:15 a.m. on November 19, 1988. Garecht and a friend left home at 10:00 a.m. and rode their scooters to the market, two blocks from Garecht's home. They left the scooters by the side door as they went inside the store. Upon leaving the store, the two girls started walking home, completely forgetting about the scooters. When they realized they had forgotten them, they turned back to where they left them; however, they saw that Garecht's scooter was missing. Garecht then spotted her scooter farther down in the market parking lot, where it had been placed near a parked car. When Garecht bent down to pick the scooter up, an unidentified white male jumped out of the parked car, picked up Garecht from behind, and threw her into the back of his car. Garecht's friend was the only witness and she ran back into the store to get help. The abductor managed to escape with Garecht and she has not been seen or heard from since. Witness' description: Garecht's abductor is described as a white male in his 20s at the time of the abduction. The most distinguishing characteristic was that he seemed to have severe acne, boils and pockmarks on his face. He had shoulder length, dirty blonde hair. He may have been wearing his hair in a ponytail at the time. He was around 6 feet 0 inches (1.83 m) in height and had a slender build. The witness described him as having fox-like eyes. The abductor drove a large older model American-made sedan. It was possibly a four-door vehicle and was either cream or tannish gold in color. The car may have had cement splatters on the sides and lights set into the rear bumper. The front bumper was battered; the vehicle appeared run-down, it may have previously been in an accident. The car was last seen speeding south on Mission Boulevard towards nearby Union City, California, with Michaela inside. Search: Garecht's kidnapping led to one of the most extensive police investigations by the Hayward Police department and they received 5000 tips in the first year alone. In 1994, The Daily Review reported that police had followed up more than 15,000 leads. More than two decades later, the investigation at the Hayward Police Station continues. Chief investigator Inspector Robert Lampkin declared, "we'll go anywhere, any corner of the earth to try to bring Michaela home". It has also remained an open case with the FBI and it is believed to still be solvable. At the time of the kidnapping, Garecht's photo was featured as a missing child on milk cartons nationally and thousands of fliers and posters were spread throughout the community. Garecht's kidnapping was one of the most high-profile missing-child cases and received national media attention. Garecht's case was the first missing-child case to feature on America's Most Wanted in 1988. The case featured once again on the show in 2009. The case has also featured on numerous other television shows including Unsolved Mysteries (twice) and many talk shows including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dateline NBC, Larry King Live, CNN, Geraldo, Leeza, Maury, The Susan Powter Show, The Jane Whitney Show, The Today Show, Good Morning and The Early Show. The case has since caught the attention of the international media. The reappearance of kidnapped schoolgirl Jaycee Lee Dugard, after 18 years in captivity, led police to be initially hopeful that Dugard's abductor, Phillip Garrido, might have also been involved in Garecht's disappearance. Hayward is within an hour's drive from Garrido's Antioch home in Contra Costa County, and Garecht's abduction took place three months after Garrido was freed from prison for rape and kidnapping. Like Garecht, Dugard was also thrown into the back of a car in broad daylight and in the presence of witnesses. The general description of the kidnapper and the car used in both kidnappings are also similar. Although no evidence has been found linking Garecht's abduction to the Garridos, a connection to the abductors has not yet been ruled out and the investigation continues. Wesley Shermantine, one of the so-called Speed Freak Killers duo, wrote a letter to The Stockton Record after his partner in crime, Loren Herzog, committed suicide in January 2012, in which he pointed out that Herzog bore a resemblance to the composite of the person who kidnapped "that Hayward girl. The anniversary of Garecht's kidnapping is marked every year by her family at the location where the kidnapping took place. Several ribbons are tied to the tree next to where the kidnapper's car was parked.

Block party

A block party or street party is a crowded party in which many members of a single community congregate, either to observe an event of some importance or simply for mutual enjoyment. The name comes from the form of the party, which often involves closing an entire city block to vehicle traffic. Many times, there will be a celebration in the form of playing music and dance and activities like pony rides, inflatable slides, pop corn machines and BBQs. Block parties gained popularity in the United States during the 1970s, particularly within the hip hop community. Block parties were often held outdoors and power for the DJ's sound system was taken illegally from street lights, as referenced in the song "South Bronx" by KRS-One. Block parties are reported as a World War I innovation originating from the East Side of New York City, where an entire block was roped off and patriotic songs sung and a parade held to honor the members of that block who had gone off to war. Traditionally, many inner city block parties were actually held illegally, because they did not file for an event permit from the local authorities. However, police turned a blind eye to them. In the United States, block parties usually occur on holidays such as the Independence Day and Memorial Day. Some towns may also have an annual block party. Sometimes the occasion may be a theme such a "Welcome to our town" for a new family or a recent popular movie. Often block parties involve barbecues and lawn games such as Simon Says, karaoke, and group dancing such as the Electric Slide, the Macarena or line dancing. In many small towns, the local fire department may also participate in the party, bringing out trucks that they display for show.

Humanitarian services of latter day saints

The LDS Church is widely known for its worldwide humanitarian services. The church's welfare and humanitarian efforts are coordinated by LDS Philanthropies (LDSP), a church department under the direction of the Presiding Bishopric. Welfare efforts, originally initiated during the Great Depression, provide aid for the poor, financed by donations from church members. LDSP is also responsible for philanthropic donations to the LDS Church and other affiliated charities, such as the Church History Library, the Church Educational System—which includes Brigham Young University, the Perpetual Education Fund, and the Polynesian Cultural Center—the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and efforts dedicated to providing funds for LDS missionaries and temple construction. Donations are also used to operate bishop's storehouses, which package and store food for the poor at low cost. Distribution of funds and food is administered by local bishops. These local storehouses distribute commodities to the needy as requested by local bishops on a specified form. Bishop's storehouses also provide service opportunities for those receiving assistance and for those desiring to serve missions or to volunteer in the church's welfare program. The day-to-day operations of the storehouses are typically run by senior-aged missionaries as store managers. The church also distributes money through its Humanitarian Services division to natural disaster victims worldwide. The church's Humanitarian Center, established in 1991, prepares emergency relief supplies for worldwide shipment to disaster victims, works to establish a global sense of self-reliance, and offers service opportunities to both church members and non-members. The emergency relief supplies that the church donates typically include clothing, personal care kits, and medical supplies. According to the LDS Humanitarian Center website, it ships about 12 million pounds of shoes and clothing, one million hygiene kits, and one million pounds of medical supplies per year, to relieve suffering in more than 100 countries. When a disaster strikes, the church works with local government officials and other organizations to determine the immediate needs, and sends the necessary supplies and food to the affected area within hours. Missionaries are then sent to help alleviate other long-term damages by assisting injured persons and reconstructing damaged buildings. The church carries out these efforts without regard to the nationality or religion of the recipients, and 100 percent of the financial contributions donated to the church by members and non-members are used for humanitarian purposes. The church has been involved in providing relief aid for victims of several disasters in recent years, including Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, and the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. In 2005 the church partnered with Catholic Relief Services to provide aid for struggling families and individuals in Niger, and it has also partnered with Islamic Relief to help victims of flooding in Pakistan. In addition, the church sponsors five global projects (neonatal resuscitation training, clean water projects, wheelchair distribution, vision treatment, and measles vaccinations), and works with local government agencies and other religious and secular organizations such as the American Red Cross and UNICEF to accomplish these needs. In 2003 the church joined Measles Initiative and has committed one million dollars per year to the campaign.

Connecticut River Valley Killer

The "Connecticut River Valley Killer" refers to an unidentified serial killer believed responsible for a series of similar knife murders mostly in and around Claremont, New Hampshire, and the Connecticut River Valley, primarily in the 1980s. Investigation: In the mid 1980s, three young women disappeared from the Claremont area. In 1985 and 1986, the skeletal remains of two of the vanished women were recovered within about a thousand feet of each other in a wooded area in Kelleyville, New Hampshire. The condition of the remains made the cause of death difficult to determine, but certain factors pointed to multiple stab wounds. Between the recovery of the first and second bodies, a 36-year-old woman was stabbed to death in a frenzied attack inside her home in Saxtons River, Vermont. Ten days later, the remains of the third missing woman were found; postmortem examination revealed evidence of multiple stab wounds. At this point, investigators began examining prior homicides in the area and found two previous cases, in 1978 and 1981, that further reinforced the presence of a burgeoning serial killer. At the peak of the investigation, and after additional homicides and one non-fatal attack, investigators noted similarities in M.O., oft-used dump sites, and specific wound patterns that linked many of the murders, suggesting a common perpetrator. Murders: Seven homicides are commonly cited as being conclusively linked to the Connecticut River Valley killer. On October 24, 1978, 27-year-old Cathy Millican (born May 25, 1951) was photographing birds at the Chandler Brook Wetland Preserve in New London, New Hampshire. The next day, her body, with at least 29 stab wounds, was found yards away from where she was last seen. On July 25, 1981, 37-year-old University of Vermont student Mary Elizabeth Critchley disappeared while hitchhiking. She was last spotted near Interstate 91 at the Massachusetts/Vermont border, as she had been hitchhiking to Waterbury, Vermont, where she lived with a friend. On August 9, 1981, her body was found in a wooded area off Unity Stage Road in Unity, New Hampshire. Owing to the condition of the body, the medical examiner was unable to determine a cause of death. 16-year-old nurse's aide Bernice Courtemanche was last seen by her boyfriend's mother in Claremont on May 30, 1984. She was thought to have set out to see her boyfriend in Newport by hitchhiking along Route 12. She did not reach her destination and was subsequently reported missing. Two months later, on July 20, 1984, 27-year-old Ellen Fried—supervising nurse at Valley Regional Hospital—made a late-night stop to use a payphone outside Leo's Market in Claremont. Fried spoke with her sister for approximately an hour when she suddenly remarked on a strange car she'd observed driving back and forth in the vicinity. She stepped away from the phone briefly to make sure her car's engine would start and then returned. After speaking for a few minutes longer, Fried concluded the call. The next day, Fried failed to report to work, and her car was found abandoned on Jarvis Road, a few miles away from Leo's Market. On July 10, 1985, 27-year-old single mother Eva Morse (born May 6, 1958) was seen hitchhiking near the border of Claremont and Charlestown, New Hampshire, on Route 12. This is the last time anyone would see Morse alive, and she too was reported missing. On September 19, 1985, the remains of Ellen Fried were found in a wooded area near the banks of the Sugar River in Kelleyville, New Hampshire. Postmortem examination revealed evidence of multiple stab wounds and probable sexual assault. During the afternoon of April 15, 1986, 36-year-old Lynda Moore (born April 20, 1949) was doing yard work outside her home in Saxtons River, Vermont, a short distance from I-91. That evening, her husband returned home to find his wife's dead body, bearing multiple stab wounds. The crime scene suggested a fierce struggle had taken place. Numerous witnesses reported having seen a slightly stocky, dark-haired man with a blue knapsack lingering near Moore's home the day of the murder. The man was thought to be between 20 and 25 years old, clean shaven, with a somewhat round face, and wearing dark-rimmed glasses. The following year, a composite sketch was released. Four days after Moore's murder, a fisherman happened upon the remains of Bernice Courtemanche about one thousand yards from where Ellen Fried's remains had been recovered. Forensic examination uncovered evidence of knife wounds to the neck and an injury to the head. Six days later, the remains of Eva Morse were found by loggers about 500 feet from where Mary Elizabeth Critchley's body had been discovered in 1981. Postmortem examination found evidence of knife wounds to Morse's neck. On January 10, 1987, 38-year-old nurse Barbara Agnew was returning from a skiing outing with friends in Stratton, Vermont. That evening, a snowplow driver encountered her green BMW at a northbound I-91 rest stop in Hartford, Vermont. The door was cracked and there was blood on the steering wheel. On March 28, 1987, Agnew's body was found near an apple tree in Hartland. She had been stabbed to death.There was a heavy snowstorm in the area during the night of Agnew's disappearance, and she was a mere 10 miles from her home. Her reasons for pulling into the rest stop have been puzzling to investigators. Jane Boroski attack: The killings remained unsolved and had apparently stopped when, late in the evening on August 6, 1988, 22-year-old Jane Boroski, seven months pregnant, was returning from a county fair in Keene, New Hampshire, when she stopped at a closed convenience store in West Swanzey to purchase cola from a vending machine. Boroski returned to her car and began drinking the beverage when she took notice of a Jeep Wagoneer parked next to her. Via her rear-view mirror, Boroski then saw the driver of the vehicle walking around the back of her vehicle. He then approached her open window and asked her if the pay phone was working, at which time he immediately grabbed her and pulled her from the vehicle. Boroski struggled, and the man accused her of beating up his girlfriend and asked if she had Massachusetts plates on her car. Boroski responded that she had New Hampshire plates, but this did not deter her attacker, who proceeded to stab her 27 times before driving away and leaving her to die. Boroski managed to return to her car and drive on Route 32 toward a friend's house for help. As she neared the house, she noticed a vehicle driving in front of her and realized that it was her attacker. Boroski finally reached her friend's home at which the occupants immediately came to her aid. Her attacker apparently performed a U-turn and slowly passed by the house as Boroski was tended to before speeding away into the night. Boroski was treated at the hospital, where it was determined that the attack had resulted in a severed jugular vein, two collapsed lungs, a kidney laceration, and severed tendons in her knees and thumb. Fortunately, Boroski's baby survived, although not without complications; Boroski's daughter would later be diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy. Boroski was able to provide authorities with a composite sketch and the first three characters of the attacker's license plate. Cold case: Despite two composite sketches, the formation of a task force, assistance from criminal profiler John Philpin, a handful of local suspects, and an Unsolved Mysteries segment concerning the murders (aired April 10, 1991), no arrests were made in the Connecticut River Valley killings and the case grew cold, as the killings ceased after the attack on Boroski. In 1993, Scribner published a book, The Shadow of Death: The Hunt for a Serial Killer, by true crime author Philip E. Ginsburg. Both the Unsolved Mysteries segment and Ginsberg book featured substantial input by Philpin. Suspects- Delbert Tallman: On May 20, 1984, 16-year-old Heidi Martin went for a jog in Hartland, Vermont, on Martinsville Road. The next day, her body was found in a swampy area behind Hartland Elementary School. She had been raped and stabbed to death. 21-year-old Delbert C. Tallman confessed to the crime and was tried; however, he later recanted his confession and was acquitted. Nearly three years later, Barbara Agnew's body would be found approximately a mile from where Martin was discovered. Tallman has resided in Bellows Falls, Springfield, and Windsor, Vermont, as well as Claremont, New Hampshire, the focus of most of the Connecticut River Valley killings. He was convicted in 1996 on two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child and was incarcerated at Lake County prison in Florida for failure to comply with sex offender registration requirements. Tallman was released from prison on October 6, 2010. Given the circumstances of Martin's murder, and the dearth of information related to the arrest and trial of a suspect, some websites cite Martin's death as unsolved and part of the Connecticut River Valley killings. There is, however, no evidence presently available to the public that Tallman was involved in any other cases. Michael Nicholaou: In 2001, private investigator Lynn-Marie Carty was contacted by the mother of Michelle Marie Ashley, a Vermont woman who had been missing since December 1988, along with her two children. The woman enlisted Carty to gather information pertaining to the possible whereabouts of her daughter, as well as her two grandchildren, whom she believed to be in the company of Ashley's common-law husband, Michael Andrew Nicholaou. Michael Nicholaou was a Vietnam veteran who'd served as a helicopter pilot in the Army. Nicholaou had earned two Purple Hearts, two Silver Stars and two Bronze Stars before being charged in 1970, along with seven comrades, with strafing civilians while on a reconnaissance mission in the Mekong Delta. (Years later, military acquaintances would describe Nicholaou as having, on at least one occasion, abandoned his camp to seek hand-to-hand individual combat with the enemy, armed only with a knife, stating that he was going "hunting" for humans.) Murder and attempted murder charges were ultimately dropped, and Nicholaou returned home disgraced and bitter, subsequently filing suit against the US Army. During this time and throughout the remainder of his life, Nicholaou received treatment from the Veterans Administration for posttraumatic stress disorder. While living in Virginia, Nicholaou opened and operated a sex shop called The Pleasure Chest. The store was raided twice, and he and his business partner were charged with selling obscene materials; in one instance, they were convicted, and in the other, there was a mistrial. At the time, Nicholaou remarked to the The Progress, "Evidently the police don't have enough serious robberies, murders and rapes to occupy their time." It was in Virginia that Nicholaou met Michelle Ashley and soon after moved to Holyoke, Massachusetts, where the couple had two children, Nick and Joy. Michelle's family, who lived in New England, regarded Michael Nicholaou as strange and quiet. As his marriage to Michelle became more troubled, Michelle attempted to leave him, taking her two children with her. This prompted Nicholaou to pursue Michelle's whereabouts, making contact with her family during this period. Michelle, who told family members that she feared for her life, eventually returned to Nicholaou, but expressed intentions to family to leave him for good. In December 1988, Michelle's mother dropped by the home of Michael and Michelle to check on her daughter after weeks of no contact; she found spoiled food in the refrigerator, an abandoned baby book, and the apartment vacant. There was no trace of Michelle, Nicholaou, or the two children. Shortly after consulting with Michelle's mother in 2001, Carty was easily able to obtain Nicholaou's contact information with some cursory Internet research. She called Nicholaou, who was living in Georgia, and he answered. Nicholaou initially asked how she had found him and denied knowing anything about the family's whereabouts. Eventually, he stated that Michelle was a "slut" who had been doing drugs and ran off, abandoning the children. He stated that the children were fine, and Carty confirmed this by reaching Nick the following day, who tearfully described life with his combat-traumatized father, who had since remarried. By 2005, Nicholaou's second wife, Aileen, had also sought to escape him after he'd attacked her. On December 31 of that year, Nicholaou tracked down Aileen to her sister's home in Tampa, Florida. Wearing a black suit and tie and carrying a guitar case filled with guns, Nicholaou led his wife and stepdaughter, 20-year-old Terrin Bowman, into a bedroom while his sister-in-law fled to summon police. While awaiting for the arrival of the SWAT team, Nicholaou shot Aileen, Terrin, and himself. Aileen and Michael Nicholaou died at the scene; Terrin died at the hospital a short time later. Carty read about the tragedy in the newspaper and was compelled to investigate Nicholaou's past, as well as explore other New England crimes around the time of Michelle's disappearance. It was then that Carty began reading about the Connecticut River Valley killings and suspected that Nicholaou could have been the perpetrator. Among many points of interest to Carty was that one of Nicholaou's ex-wives was a nurse, a profession shared with three of the Connecticut River Valley victims. While Nicholaou's residence in Holyoke was about 90 miles (140 km) from Claremont, Carty was able to determine that Michelle had relatives in the area, and a note in the abandoned baby book placed her in 1986 at the same Hanover, New Hampshire, hospital from which Barbara Agnew would disappear a short time later. It was also determined that Michael Nicholaou owned a Jeep Wagoneer on August 6, 1988, which is consistent with the vehicle described by Jane Boroski. Carty began communicating with Boroski shortly after Nicholaou's murder-suicide (both were interviewed in a 2008 episode of THS Investigates: Serial Killers on the Loose that focused on the Connecticut River Valley killer). Carty shared her findings about Nicholaou with Boroski. Boroski was shown pictures of Michael Nicholaou and expressed that there was "some resemblance" between him and the man that attacked her. The culmination of Carty's interactions with Boroski was that Boroski is now convinced that Michael Nicholaou was her attacker and, by extension, the Connecticut River Valley killer. New Hampshire cold case detectives, in 2007, stated that they were in the process of examining surviving physical evidence, as well as Michael Nicholaou's possible connection to the case. To date, no conclusions have been publicly announced, and Nicholaou has not been conclusively linked to the crimes of the Connecticut River Valley killer. It's worth noting that Nicholaou's candidacy as a suspect is hampered by the fact that he appears to have been living in Virginia at the time of the Courtemanche, Fried, and Morse murders (reinforced by the date of his obscenity trial), and likely both up to and beyond that time. Furthermore, online sleuths have variously posited Nicholaou as being the Colonial Parkway Killer, the Route 29 Stalker, the Blue Ridge Parkway Rapist, and the murderer of Julianne Williams and Lollie Winans at Shenandoah National Park. There is no physical or compelling circumstantial evidence presently available to the public which factually connects Nicholaou to any of the "Connecticut River Valley" cases or other case in VT or NH beyond his slight resemblance to some sketches. Gary Westover's deathbed confession: In October, 1997, a 46-year-old Grafton, New Hampshire, paraplegic named Gary Westover related to his uncle, retired Grafton sheriff's deputy Howard Minnon, that he had a confession. Westover told Minnon that, in 1987, three buddies picked him up for what was described as a night of partying. Allegedly, they loaded Westover and his wheelchair into their van and set out to Vermont, where they abducted, murdered, and dumped 38-year-old Barbara Agnew, who had long been considered a victim of the Connecticut River Valley killer. Westover provided the names of the three friends and Minnon recorded them on a piece of scrap paper. Thereafter, Minnon shared Westover's information with his wife, daughter, and law enforcement. Minnon felt, however, that authorities were not interested in his information. Westover died in March 1998, and Minnon died in 2006. In August 2006, one of Westover's aunts wrote Anne Agnew, sister of the victim, with the information originally given by Westover to Minnon. Agnew forwarded the letter to Carty, who ran the name of Michael Nicholaou by Westover's aunt, who stated that the named "sounded familiar." Carty believes that authorities are in possession of the names Westover provided to Minnon, and further speculated that Westover may have become acquainted with Nicholaou at an area Veterans Affairs hospital, although none of this has been confirmed and the Connecticut River Valley killings remain unsolved. Other possible victims: Joanne Dunham, 14, was sexually assaulted and strangled on June 11, 1968, in Charlestown, New Hampshire. Ginsberg cites Dunham as a Connecticut River Valley victim in Shadow of Death, although this inclusion is primarily his own and is made on the basis of geographic proximity to the later crimes. On October 5, 1982, 76-year-old Sylvia Gray was found bludgeoned and stabbed to death in a wooded area, a few hundred yards from her Plainfield, New Hampshire, home, a day after having been reported missing. 38-year-old Steven Hill was last seen on June 20, 1986, retrieving his paycheck from his Lebanon, New Hampshire, employer. On July 15, Hill's body was found with multiple stab wounds in Hartland, Vermont, across the Connecticut River from where Sylvia Gray's body had been found four years prior. On July 25, 1989, 14-year-old Carrie Moss of New Boston, New Hampshire, left her parents' home to visit friends in Goffstown and disappeared. Exactly two years later, on July 24, 1991, Moss's skeletal remains were found in a wooded area in New Boston. While her cause of death could not be determined, she was thought to be the victim of a homicide.

Oklahoma girl scout murders

The Oklahoma girl scout murders occurred on June 12, 1977, at Camp Scott in Mayes County, Oklahoma. The victims were three girl scouts, between the ages of 8 and 10, who were raped and murdered and had their bodies left in the woods near their tent at summer camp. The case was classified as solved when Gene Leroy Hart, a local jail escapee with a history of violence, was arrested, but he was acquitted when he stood trial for the crime. Thirty years later, authorities conducted new DNA testing, the results of which proved inconclusive, as the samples were too old. History: Camp Scott opened in 1928 as a Tulsa-based Magic Empire Girl Scout Council. Situated along the confluence of Snake Creek and Spring Creek near State Highway 82, the 410-acre (1.7 km2) compound was located right outside of Locust Grove.Gene Leroy Hart had been at large since 1973 after escaping from the Mayes County Jail. He had been convicted of raping and kidnapping two pregnant women as well as four counts of first degree burglary. Hart was raised about a mile from Camp Scott. Less than two months before the murders, during an on-site training session, a camp counselor found her belongings ransacked, her doughnuts stolen, and inside the empty doughnut box was a disturbing hand-written note. The author vowed to murder three campers. The director of that camp session treated the note as a prank and it was discarded. Killings: Sunday, June 12, 1977, was the first day of camp. At around 6:00 PM CST, a thunderstorm hit the area, and the girls huddled in their tents. Among them were Lori Lee Farmer, 8, and Doris Denise Milner, 10, along with Michele Guse, 9, of Broken Arrow, a suburb of Tulsa. The trio were sharing tent #8 in the camp's "Kiowa" unit. On Monday morning, a camp counselor made the discovery of a girl's body in the forest. Soon, it was discovered that all three girls in tent #8 had been killed. Subsequent testing showed that they had been raped, bludgeoned, and strangled. Aftermath: Camp Scott was evacuated and was later shut down.Gene Leroy Hart, a Cherokee, was arrested within a year at the home of a Cherokee medicine man and tried in March, 1979. Although the local sheriff pronounced himself "one thousand percent" certain the man on trial committed the crimes, a local jury acquitted Hart. Two of the families later sued the Magic Empire Council and its insurer in a $5 million alleged negligence action. The civil trial included discussion of the threatening note as well as the fact that tent #8 lay 86 yards (79 m) from the counselors' tent. The defense suggested that the future of summer camping in general hung in the balance. In 1985, by a 9–3 vote, jurors sided with the camp.By this time, Hart was already dead. As a convicted rapist and jail escapee, he still had 305 of his 308 years left to serve in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. On June 4, 1979, he collapsed and died after about an hour of lifting weights and jogging in the prison exercise yard. An autopsy report concluded the 35-year-old Hart died of a heart attack (acute cardiac dysfunction). Richard Guse, the father of one of the victims, went on to help the state legislature pass the Oklahoma Victim's Bill of Rights. Guse also helped found and then chaired the Oklahoma Crime Victims' Compensation Board, which would later gain prominence for its "Murrah Fund" in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing. Another parent, Sheri Farmer, went on to found the Oklahoma chapter of the Parents of Murdered Children support group.