friends

i'm glad to have bumped into some friends from school. they remembered that i had muscle spasms and collapsed. they congratulated me on my baptism. we just caught up.

Murder of Melanie Carpenter

Melanie Carpenter was a woman who was abducted from a Fleetwood Town Centre tanning salon, and found dead several weeks later. Disappearance and death: On January 6, 1995 after Carpenter had received some suspicious phone calls from a man feigning interest in a business deal, she was snatched from where she was working. The afternoon that Carpenter went missing, a bank security camera recorded a 37-year-old man named Fernand Auger making a $300 withdrawal using Carpenter's debit card. The image was shown on national TV the next day, and a warrant was issued for Auger's arrest. Auger at the time was on parole for doing an armed robbery, but before Auger could be arrested, he committed suicide Carpenter's body was found several weeks later in Hope B.C., and was concealed by a white blanket, and in a crevice. Investigation and aftermath: Just days after Carpenter had disappeared, Auger had become the number one suspect in her abduction. In 1995 the Melanie Carpenter Foundation was established. After Carpenter's death, Steve Carpenter, Melanie's father formed a petition to keep murderers in prison as speeches were made, petitions were signed and rallies were held in protest against Canada’s parole system.

The Family Murders

The Family was the name given to a close-knit group of men believed to be involved in the kidnapping, drugging, sexual abuse and, at times, torture of young men and teenaged boys in Adelaide, the capital city of the state of South Australia, and surrounding areas throughout the 1970s and into the mid-1980s. The existence of the group came to the attention of the public following the murder of five teenagers between 1979 and 1983. The high-profile occupations of some of the suspects led to claims of an alleged high-society conspiracy. The name of the group stems from an interview a police detective gave on 60 Minutes, claiming the police were taking action "to break up the happy family". Four of the five murders remain unsolved. Only one suspect has been charged and convicted for crimes: Bevan Spencer von Einem was sentenced in 1984 to a minimum of 24 years (later extended to a minimum 36-year term) for the murder of 15-year-old Richard Kelvin. Victims: -Alan Arthur Barnes, aged 16, murdered in 1979. Last seen being picked up by a white Holden sedan with three or four people in it while hitchhiking, his body had been severely mutilated and dumped in the South Para Reservoir, northeast of Adelaide. A post-mortem examination revealed that Barnes had died of massive blood loss from an anal injury, likely caused by the insertion of a large blunt object. His body also showed signs of beatings and torture. He had died several days after he went missing and Noctec was found in his blood suggesting he had been drugged. -Neil Fredrick Muir, aged 25, murdered two months after Alan Barnes in 1979. His remains had been dissected and neatly cut into many pieces, placed in a garbage bag and thrown into the Port River at Port Adelaide. Skin bearing tattoos had been removed and most of the body parts were placed in another garbage bag before being placed within the abdominal cavity. The head was tied to the torso with rope passed through the mouth and out through the neck. A post-mortem examination revealed that Muir had died of massive blood loss from an anal injury, likely caused by the insertion of a large blunt object and Noctec was found in his blood. -Peter Stogneff, aged 14, murdered in 1981. His skeletal remains were found ten months later by a local farmer at Middle Beach, 50 km north of Adelaide. Stogneff's body had been cut into three pieces in a similar fashion to Neil Muir. Little more could be determined as the remains had been accidentally burnt by the farmer while clearing his property of scrub. -Mark Andrew Langley, aged 18, murdered in 1982. His mutilated body was found in scrub in the Adelaide foothills nine days after his disappearance. Among the mutilations was a wound that appeared to have been cut with a surgical instrument that went from his navel to the pubic region and part of his small bowel was missing. The hair around the area had been shaved as it would have been in an operation in a hospital. The post-mortem revealed that Langley had died from a massive loss of blood from gross injuries to his anus, similar to Alan Barnes. The sedative-hypnotic drug Mandrax, also known as a "Quaalude" and popular in the 1970s disco scene, was found in Langley's blood. -Richard Dallas Kelvin, aged 15, murdered in 1983. The son of popular Adelaide Channel 9 News presenter Rob Kelvin, he was abducted a short distance from his North Adelaide home. His body was found by an amateur geologist in the Mount Crawford Forest. Kelvin was held captive for over five weeks and a post-mortem examination revealed that he had died of massive blood loss from an anal injury, likely caused by the insertion of a large blunt object. Analysis of Kelvin's bloodstream revealed traces of four hypnotic drugs, including Mandrax and Noctec. Trace evidence, including hair and fibres from Bevan Spencer von Einem's home, was found on Kelvin's body and clothing. Case: Police believe that up to 12 people, several of them high-profile Australians, were involved in the kidnappings. The suspects and their associates were linked mainly by their shared habits of "actively having sought out young males for sex," sometimes drugging and raping their victims. Bevan Spencer von Einem was convicted in 1984 of the murder of Richard Kelvin and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1989, von Einem was charged with the murders of Alan Barnes and Mark Langley, but the prosecution entered a nolle prosequi (voluntarily discontinue criminal charges) during the trial when crucial similar fact evidence was deemed inadmissible by the presiding judge. Von Einem was also one of the last people seen with Neil Muir following his abduction. Apart from von Einem, three other core members are thought to be directly involved in the murders, although while DNA testing re-commenced in 2008 no further charges have been laid. Suspect 1, an eastern suburbs businessman, is believed to have been with von Einem when Kelvin was abducted. Suspect 2, a prominent Adelaide physician, Peter Leslie Millhouse was initially charged with Muir's murder but found not guilty at trial in 1980. Millhouse died in a nursing home at Cessnock in NSW on 30 June 2015, aged 80. Suspect 3 was a former male prostitute and a close friend of von Einem and Suspect 1. The remaining known associates were involved to a lesser degree; they were either indirectly involved or had knowledge of the murders but continued to interact with the group. Another Adelaide doctor, Dr Stephen George Woodards was also alleged to have links to the 'family' and recently (2011) stood for child sexual abuse charges. The statutory suppression order on his identity lapsed during the course of his trial and an application for a new order was denied. Other suspects include several members of the legal community, the brother of an Olympian and members of the business community. Two men who were living with suspects 1 and 2 respectively at the time of the murders were also "persons of interest". Although many had previously been named, with the exception of Suspect 2, their identities have since been suppressed by the courts. A cold case was opened in March 2008 with a $1,000,000 reward available for anyone who provides information leading to a conviction. The reward carried an offer of immunity to accomplices dependent on their level of involvement. Due to changes in the Forensic Procedures Act which now allow DNA samples to be taken from suspects in major indictable offences, all the suspects voluntarily submitted to DNA testing. The ongoing investigation featured in an episode of Crime Stoppers which went to air on 2 March 2009. The cold case review was completed in November 2010 with no charges being laid against any of the three key suspects. Some authorities do not recognise the term "The Family", stating that, "They should not be given any title that infers legitimacy. These people have no such bond, only an association that with time probably no longer exists". Some who have examined the cases, however, argue that there were many more victims: criminologist Alan Perry of the University of Adelaide has argued that the murders were part of widespread series of kidnappings and sexual assaults of boys that might number several hundred victims in South Australia from about 1973 to 1983.

invited

my mom was invited to come to church. she politely declined and i laughed.

ask questions

when i was baptized my mom was invited to ask questions and come to church. to this day my family continues to blow my mind with my faith.

Audio Bible

Audio Bibles or spoken Bible are Bibles that were recorded in audio format. They provide the listener the ability to listen to the Scriptures without being required to look directly at written text. Benefits of audio Bibles are that they allow blind people personal access to the scriptures, and anybody can engage in other tasks while listening to the recordings which frees up time in the day to do other things. With this extra time, the listener can increase exposure to the Bible. History: The first audio Bible (KJV in English language) was recorded and narrated by Alexander Scourby in the 1950s for the American Foundation of the Blind. It was first recorded on long play records, then 8-track player, cassette tape. The Bible in cassette tape was 72-hours long, and it took 72 cassette tapes to record the entire audio Bible. From then on other audio Bibles were recorded on CDs, DVDs and other media devices.

Playaway

Playaway is a brand of portable media players designed for circulation in libraries by Findaway World, LLC, based in Solon, Ohio. The format is used in institutional lending, such as in public and school libraries. Playaway's library website states that it is currently available in over 25,000 schools and libraries. The format is used in military libraries and gives troops access to digital media overseas, where they might not have access to electricity to otherwise read or use a computer. Playaway Light: Playaway Light is a solid-state prerecorded audio player introduced in 2005 and redesigned in 2016. About the size of a deck of playing cards and weighing 2 ounces, it can store up to 80 hours of audio. As of March 2010, the audiobooks are all produced in high definition audio. The digital content (audiobook or music compilation) is preloaded at the factory and cannot be changed or copied by the end user. A 3.5 mm stereo jack provides output to earphones or an external amplifier. Playaway Light was specifically designed to use most commonly available cassette adaptors and FM transmitters. Power is provided by a changeable 1.5V AAA cell, which the manufacturer claims allows it to operate approximately 20 hours before battery depletion, 30 hours for the newer versions. There are approximately 15,000 titles on Playaway, generally priced in-line with the publisher's suggested library pricing for the CD equivalent. As of 2013, the newest Playaway versions come complete with HD Audio and high-definition sound. These new units enable users to lock the keypad and slow down reading speed. In 2016, Playaway added a backlit LCD screen with more details and simplified the button layout. Playaway Launchpad: Playaway Launchpad is a modified android tablet pre-loaded with games and other educational apps. Each tablet comes pre-loaded with several apps that have a shared subject. They come in either Orange (for Children) and Black (for Adult and Teens). There is no way for end users to add or remove apps. Playaway View: Playaway View is a portable video player. Content is pre-loaded and cannot be modified by the end user. Selections include popular movies and TV shows for kids and adults, documentaries and educational content.

pain

my back hurts due to my illness. i think my joints are sore and i can't go 1 night without being sore. i woke up took a pain killer, went back to bed, woke up later and my back was still sore.

anxiety

i've got horrible anxiety as well as being sick. i'm of course going to work on my speech but that won't take away my fear of public speaking. i'm scared since it's midterms. i'm stressed since i'm going to school and yet i'm loving it.

meet my dad

the host of the Halloween party i went to on Saturday met my dad, something he wanted to do.

midterms

it's midterms this week. we're speeding thru the fall semester. i'm so happy since it's 1/2 way thru

give a talk

i nearly dodged a bullet for giving a talk but i don't mind if i give 1. i don't like public speaking but if it's in church as well as with friends maybe.

Alvar Larsson

Alvar Larsson was a Swedish boy who disappeared in 1967. Alvar and his family lived at a farm called Sundslätt at the southeast part of the island Sirkö in Åsnen, one of the largest lakes in Småland. He left his house on a Sunday morning to take a walk and bring in some wood, leaving no traces behind. In 1982, more than fifteen years after the disappearance, his cranium was found on a small island 6 km away. The disappearance attracted a lot of media coverage at the time and many theories as to what happened have been put forward. Thomas Quick has confessed to the crime, but has recanted all his confessions. Disappearance and search: On the morning of April 16, 1967, Alvar was woken up at half past seven by his mother. He ate a bun, drank a glass of fruit juice and dressed in his everyday clothes. Before breakfast and a visit to the church later that morning, Alvar wanted to go for a walk. His mother let him go and told him to bring in wood as he returned. No-one has reported that they've seen him since. By the time it was too late for Alvar to eat breakfast, get dressed and leave for church, his mother phoned the nearest neighbours asking about Alvar, but no-one had seen him. Alvar's father phoned the nearest neighbour and the two men searched the farm for the boy. Later, all the neighbours were asked to join the search. A constable named Emanuelsson was asked to start a search for Alvar as he was only five kilometers away at the time. The initial search party consisted of the family, neighbours, two police officers, a privately owned Alsatian dog and the home defence. The search went on into the night without result. In the early morning, Harald contacted the police and informed them that Alvar had not returned, and yet another search soon started. In the afternoon, fifty servicemen from the army infantry regiment I 11 in Växjö joined. During the following week, more people arrived to aid the search, and the lake was searched by the use of boats. A police helicopter was also flown in from Stockholm at the Tuesday. At most, 150 persons were in the search party at the same time. Theories- Run away: Initially the main theory was that thirteen-year-old Alvar had run away. However, it is hard to explain why Alvar would not have dressed up more with heavier shoes, eaten breakfast, brought his money and/or used his bicycle if he had planned to leave. A boy of Alvar's age had been seen north of Kalmar, in Påskallavik, but he could later be identified. This was also the case for a boy who had gotten a ride by a truck driver, a boy that had been seen spending the Sunday night at the postal station in Rottne, and other boys that had been spotted hitch-hiking in the area. Accident: That Alvar would have been alive during the week-long search and later died is dismissed by most sources. If he had died in an accident, it would most likely have happened early Sunday, and the location of his death would have been the lake. It is just short of a kilometre from Sundslätt to the lake, and Alvar is speculated to have suddenly decided to row by boat. During the searches and investigations, all the boats in the lake were checked, but one is said to have been forgotten by its owner due to its bad state. That Alvar could not swim suggests he would not have entered a boat, but if he had, his lack of ability to swim could have become fatal. It is said that the fact that Alvar's clogs have not surfaced at the waterside, as opposed to many other clogs, suggests that he did not drown in the lake. Crime: The first theories involving a crime were suggested on the Monday, and these ideas seemed more plausible as time passed. The police received several tips about persons who had acted suspiciously, all of which could be rejected. The theory was that Alvar would have gone to the cellar to smoke and that someone would have passed and convinced him to follow them. Grave-opening: In 1978, more than ten years after the disappearance, a grave was opened. A woman had told the police of how a relative of hers had told her of how he'd killed a boy in Småland in 1967 and how he'd hid the body near the deserted summer house for two years. The man would then have moved the body to the bottom of a grave, prepared for a relative of his, where he'd covered it with spruce twigs. Although he had been celebrating the 50th anniversary of his wedding on the day Alvar disappeared and had been working the night before, the grave was opened. In front of a large press gathering, the coffin was lifted out and nothing was found under it. Finding of the skull: In November 1982, three hunters had rowed to Harö, a small island, to train their dogs. In a bay they had found a human skull. Realizing that the teeth had fillings and thus could not be an archeological finding, the men contacted the police. The police immediately assumed that the skull belonged to Alvar and using his dental record, this theory could be confirmed. The island was searched in detail but the only other findings were two rowing boats. The owners soon reported to the police and it could be excluded that Alvar would have used any of the boats to get to the island. Although there was a big hole in the back of the skull, experts could not determine whether it had received a fatal blow or whether the damage had been caused by the weather in the years that had passed since the boy's death. The skull of Alvar has been buried alongside of the boy's father and any crime involved with the disappearance has been barred under the statute of limitations.

Rodney Alcala

Rodney James Alcala is a convicted rapist and serial killer. He was sentenced to death in California in 2010 for five murders committed in that state between 1977 and 1979. In 2013, he received an additional sentence of 25 years to life after pleading guilty to two homicides committed in New York in 1971 and 1977. His true victim count remains unknown, and could be much higher. Prosecutors said that Alcala "toyed" with his victims, strangling them until they lost consciousness, then waiting until they revived, sometimes repeating this process several times before finally killing them. One police detective described Alcala as "a killing machine", and others have compared him with Ted Bundy. A homicide investigator familiar with the evidence speculates that he could have murdered as many as 50 women, while other estimates have run as high as 130. Alcala compiled a collection of more than 1,000 photographs of women and teenage boys, many in sexually explicit poses. In 2016, he was charged with the 1977 murder of a woman identified in one of his photos. He is known to have assaulted one other photographic subject, and police have speculated that others could be rape or murder victims as well. He is sometimes called the "Dating Game Killer" because of his 1978 appearance on the television show The Dating Game in the midst of his murder spree. Early life and education: Alcala was born Rodrigo Jacques Alcala Buquor in San Antonio, Texas, to Raoul Alcala Buquor and Anna Maria Gutierrez. In 1951, his father moved the family to Mexico. After he abandoned them three years later, his mother moved Rodney and his siblings to suburban Los Angeles when he was about 11 years old. He joined the U.S. Army in 1960, at age 17, where he served as a clerk. In 1964, after what was described as a "nervous breakdown", during which he went AWOL and hitchhiked from Fort Bragg to his mother's house, he was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder by a military psychiatrist and discharged on medical grounds. Other diagnoses later proposed by various psychiatric experts at his trials included narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and (from homicide expert Vernon Geberth) malignant narcissistic personality disorder with psychopathy and sexual sadism comorbidities. After leaving the Army, Alcala graduated from the UCLA School of Fine Arts and later studied film under Roman Polanski at New York University. Early criminal history: Alcala committed his first known crime in 1968: A motorist in Los Angeles called police after watching him lure an eight-year-old girl named Tali Shapiro into his Hollywood apartment. The girl was found alive, raped and beaten with a steel bar, but Alcala had fled. To evade the resulting arrest warrant he left the state and enrolled in the NYU film school, using the name "John Berger". In 1971, he obtained a counseling job at a New Hampshire arts camp for children using a slightly different alias, "John Burger". In June 1971, Cornelia Michel Crilley, a 23-year-old Trans World Airlines flight attendant, was found raped and strangled in her Manhattan apartment. Her murder would remain unsolved for 40 years. The FBI added Alcala to its list of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives in early 1971; a few months later, two children attending the arts camp noticed his photo on an FBI poster at the post office. Alcala was arrested and extradited to California. By then, Tali Shapiro's parents had relocated their entire family to Mexico and refused to allow her to testify at Alcala's trial. Unable to convict him of rape and attempted murder without their primary witness, prosecutors were forced to permit Alcala to plead guilty to a lesser charge of assault. He was paroled after 34 months, in 1974, under the "indeterminate sentencing" program popular at the time, which allowed parole boards to release offenders as soon as they demonstrated evidence of rehabilitation. Less than two months after his release, he was re-arrested after assaulting a 13-year-old girl identified in court records as "Julie J.", who had accepted what she thought would be a ride to school. Once again, he was paroled after serving two years of an "indeterminate sentence". In 1977, after Alcala's second release, his Los Angeles parole officer took the unusual step of permitting a repeat offender—and known flight risk—to travel to New York City. NYPD cold-case investigators now believe that a week after arriving in Manhattan, Alcala killed Ellen Jane Hover, 23, daughter of the owner of the popular Hollywood nightclub Ciro's and goddaughter of Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. Her remains were found buried on the grounds of the Rockefeller Estate in Westchester County. In 1978, Alcala worked for a short time at the Los Angeles Times as a typesetter, and was interviewed by members of the Hillside Strangler task force as part of their investigation of known sex offenders. Although Alcala was ruled out as the Hillside Strangler, he was arrested and served a brief sentence for marijuana possession. During this period, Alcala convinced hundreds of young men and women that he was a professional fashion photographer, and photographed them for his "portfolio." A Times co-worker later recalled that Alcala shared his photos with workmates. "I thought it was weird, but I was young, I didn’t know anything," she said. "When I asked why he took the photos, he said their moms asked him to. I remember the girls were naked." "He said he was a professional, so in my mind I was being a model for him," said a woman who allowed Alcala to photograph her in 1979. The portfolio also included "... spread after spread of naked teenage boys," she said. Most of the photos are sexually explicit, and most remain unidentified. Police fear that some of the subjects may be additional cold-case victims. In 1979, according to later trial testimony, Alcala knocked unconscious and raped 15-year-old Monique Hoyt while she was posing for photographs. Dating Game appearance: In 1978, despite his status as a convicted rapist and registered sex offender, Alcala was accepted as a contestant on The Dating Game. By then he had already killed at least two women in California and two others in New York. Host Jim Lange introduced him as a "successful photographer who got his start when his father found him in the darkroom at the age of 13, fully developed. Between takes you might find him skydiving or motorcycling." Actor Jed Mills, who competed against Alcala as "Bachelor #2", later described him as a "very strange guy" with "bizarre opinions". Alcala won the contest, and a date with "bachelorette" Cheryl Bradshaw, who subsequently refused to go out with him, according to published reports, because she found him "creepy". Criminal profiler Pat Brown, noting that Alcala killed Robin Samsoe and at least two other women after his Dating Game appearance, speculated that Bradshaw's rejection might have been an exacerbating factor. "One wonders what that did in his mind", Brown said. "That is something he would not take too well. Serial killers don't understand the rejection. They think that something is wrong with that girl: 'She played me. She played hard to get.'" Samsoe murder and first two trials: Robin Samsoe, a 12-year-old girl from Huntington Beach, disappeared somewhere between the beach and her ballet class on June 20, 1979. Her decomposing body was found 12 days later in the Los Angeles foothills. Samsoe's friends told police that a stranger had approached them on the beach, asking to take their pictures. Detectives circulated a sketch of the photographer, and Alcala's parole officer recognized him. During a search of Alcala's mother's house in Monterey Park, police found a rental receipt for a storage locker in Seattle; in the locker, they found Samsoe's earrings. Alcala was arrested in late 1979 and held without bail. In 1980 he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for Samsoe's murder, but the verdict was overturned by the California Supreme Court because jurors had been improperly informed of his prior sex crimes. In 1986, after a second trial virtually identical to the first except for omission of the prior criminal record testimony, he was again convicted and sentenced to death. A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel nullified the second conviction, in part because a witness was not allowed to support Alcala's contention that the park ranger who found Samsoe's body had been "hypnotized by police investigators". Additional victims: While preparing their third prosecution in 2003, Orange County investigators learned that Alcala's DNA, sampled under a new state law (over his objections), matched semen left at the rape-murder scenes of two women in Los Angeles. Additional evidence, including another cold case DNA match in 2004, led to Alcala's indictment for the murders of four additional women: Jill Barcomb, 18, a New York runaway found "rolled up like a ball" in a Los Angeles ravine in 1977, and originally thought to have been a victim of the Hillside Strangler; Georgia Wixted, 27, bludgeoned in her Malibu apartment in 1977; Charlotte Lamb, 31, raped, strangled, and left in the laundry room of an El Segundo apartment complex in 1978; and Jill Parenteau, 21, killed in her Burbank apartment in 1979. All of the bodies were found "posed...in carefully chosen positions". Another pair of earrings found in Alcala's Seattle storage locker matched Lamb's DNA. During his incarceration between the second and third trials, Alcala wrote and self-published a book, You, the Jury, in which he claimed innocence in the Samsoe case and suggested a different suspect. He also filed two lawsuits against the California penal system, for a slip-and-fall incident and for refusing to provide him a low-fat diet. Third (joined) trial: In 2003 prosecutors entered a motion to join the Samsoe charges with those of the four newly discovered victims. Alcala's attorneys contested it; as one of them explained, "If you’re a juror and you hear one murder case, you may be able to have reasonable doubt. But it’s very hard to say you have reasonable doubt on all five, especially when four of the five aren’t alleged by eyewitnesses but are proven by DNA matches." In 2006, the California Supreme Court ruled in the prosecution's favor, and in February 2010 Alcala stood trial on the five joined charges. For the third trial Alcala elected to act as his own attorney. He took the stand in his own defense, and for five hours played the roles of both interrogator and witness, asking himself questions (addressing himself as "Mr. Alcala" in a deeper-than-normal voice), and then answering them. During this bizarre self-questioning and answering session he told jurors, often in a rambling monotone, that he was at Knott's Berry Farm applying for a job as a photographer at the time Samsoe was kidnapped. He showed the jury a portion of his 1978 appearance on The Dating Game in an attempt to prove that the earrings found in his Seattle locker were his, not Samsoe's. Jed Mills, the actor who competed against Alcala on the show, told a reporter that earrings were not yet a socially acceptable accoutrement for men in 1978. "I had never seen a man with an earring in his ear", he said. "I would have noticed them on him". Alcala made no significant attempt to dispute the four added charges, other than to assert that he could not remember killing any of the women. As part of his closing argument, he played the portion of the Arlo Guthrie song "Alice's Restaurant" in which the protagonist tells a psychiatrist that he wants to "kill". After less than two days' deliberation the jury convicted him on all five counts of first-degree murder. A surprise witness during the penalty phase of the trial was Tali Shapiro, Alcala's first known victim. Psychiatrist Richard Rappaport, the only defense witness, testified that Alcala's borderline personality disorder could explain his testimony that he had no memory of committing the murders. The prosecutor argued that Alcala was a "sexual predator" who "knew what he was doing was wrong and didn't care". In March 2010 Alcala was sentenced to death for a third time. Unidentified photographs: In March 2010, the Huntington Beach and New York City Police Departments released 120 of Alcala's photographs and sought the public's help in identifying them, in the hope of determining if any of the women and children he photographed were additional victims. Approximately 900 additional photos could not be made public, police said, because they were too sexually explicit. In the first few weeks, police reported that approximately 21 women had come forward to identify themselves, and "at least six families" said they believed they recognized loved ones who "disappeared years ago and were never found". None of the photos were unequivocally connected to a missing person case or unsolved murder until 2013 when a family member recognized the photo of Christine Thornton, 28, whose body was found in Wyoming in 1982. As of September 2016, 110 of the original photos remain posted online, and police continue to solicit the public's help with further identifications. Additional associations, charges, and convictions- New York State: After his 2010 conviction, New York authorities announced that they would no longer pursue Alcala because of his status as a convict awaiting execution. Nevertheless, in January 2011, a Manhattan grand jury indicted him for the murders of Cornelia Crilley, the TWA flight attendant, and Ellen Hover, the Ciro's heiress, in 1971 and 1977, respectively. In June 2012 he was extradited to New York, where he initially entered not guilty pleas on both counts; but in December he changed both pleas to guilty, citing a desire to return to California to pursue appeals of his death penalty conviction. On January 7, 2013, a Manhattan judge sentenced Alcala to an additional 25 years to life. (The death penalty has not been an option in New York State since 2007.) Washington State: In 2010, Seattle police named Alcala as a "person of interest" in the unsolved murders of Antoinette Wittaker, 13, in July 1977, and Joyce Gaunt, 17, in February 1978. Alcala rented the Seattle-area storage locker, in which investigators later found jewelry belonging to two of his California victims, in 1979. Other cold cases were reportedly targeted for reinvestigation in California, New York, New Hampshire, and Arizona. San Francisco: In March 2011, investigators in Marin County, California, north of San Francisco, announced that they were "confident" that Alcala was responsible for the 1977 murder of 19-year-old Pamela Jean Lambson, who disappeared after making a trip to Fisherman's Wharf to meet a man who had offered to photograph her. Her battered, naked body was subsequently found in Marin County near a hiking trail. With no fingerprints or usable DNA, charges are unlikely to be filed, but police claimed that there is sufficient evidence to convince them that Alcala committed the crime. Wyoming: In September 2016, Alcala was charged with the murder of 28-year-old Christine Ruth Thornton, who disappeared in 1977. In 2013, a relative recognized her as the subject of one of Alcala's photos made public by Huntington Beach PD and NYPD. Her body was found in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, in 1982, but was not identified until 2015 when DNA supplied by Thornton's relatives matched tissue samples from her remains. Alcala admitted taking the photo, but not to killing the woman, who was approximately six months' pregnant at the time of her death. Thornton is the first alleged murder victim linked to the Alcala photos made public in 2010. The 73-year-old Alcala was reportedly "too ill" to make the journey from California to Wyoming to stand trial on the new charges; he remains in California State Prison, Corcoran, pending further appeals of his death sentences.

Halloween parties

i'm going to a Halloween party tonight as Dracula. i love going as something scary. tomorrow i'll use the "Dracula" dress as my church outfit since it's modest and cute.

John Smith (murderer)

John David Smith III is an American murderer convicted of killing his first wife and also believed to have murdered his second. Skull fragments found in a locker owned by him belong to a third, unidentified, woman, and a photograph found in his possession of an unidentified woman is the basis of an ongoing "Jane Doe" inquiry. He is the subject of the television movie Murder on Pleasant Drive, an episode of Cold Case Files and the books Stranger in my Bed by Michael Fleeman and My Sister Is Missing: Bringing a Killer to Justice" by Sherrie Gladden-Davis. The case was also featured on Medical Detectives, Forensic Files season 9, episode 19: Deadly Matrimony, and Who The Bleep Did I Marry season 2, episode 5: The Third Mrs. Smith. Smith married Janice Hartman on June 30, 1970 when they were both 19. The marriage was troubled; Janice's brother said that Smith was abusive from the first. Hartman left Smith in 1974 and returned to Ohio intending to divorce him. A few days later she disappeared. Soon after, Smith's brother Michael observed him building a narrow box which he claimed was for Janice's belongings. In 1979 their grandfather discovered the box and called Michael, who found inside it a dismembered corpse with rainbow hair which he believed to be Janice Hartman. He told John, who took the box away. Smith married his second wife Betty Fran Gladden Smith, in March 1990. While confined to her home by an injury, she disappeared from West Windsor Township, New Jersey on October 4, 1991. Michael Smith kept his secret until 1999, when told the FBI about the box. Inquiries with law enforcement officials in Ohio and Indiana produced the box and remains, which had been found in 1980 by highway workers in an Indiana field. Smith was arrested in October 2000 in Escondido, California, where he was living with his third wife. He was convicted in July 2001 of the murder of Janice Hartman and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. His first parole date was in 2011. He unsuccessfully appealed his conviction in 2002. The family of Janice Hartman sought civil damages against Smith's grandfather and brother for their alleged involvement in covering up Smith's crime for over twenty years, but the claims were unsuccessful. Smith remains incarcerated at Marion Correctional Institution.

Dawson murder case

The Dawson family, a family of seven (parents Carnell and Angela, and five children), were all murdered in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, on October 16, 2002. After Angela had repeatedly alerted police to drug dealing, assault, and other crime in her East Baltimore neighborhood of Oliver, the entire family died after their home was firebombed. A neighbor, Darrell L. Brooks — once a page in the Baltimore City Council chamber — pleaded guilty to the crimes and was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole. At the time of the attack, Brooks was on probation but had been left unsupervised. After repeated vandalism of their home, the Dawsons survived a first arson attempt on October 3, 2002, only to succumb to the second. The outcry over the magnitude of the crime was only matched by the frustration expressed by many residents who simply could not believe that city officials, who were aware of the escalating violence, had been unable to protect the family. City officials defended their actions, saying an offer to relocate the family was refused. The tragedy underscored the failure in attempts to encourage residents of Baltimore to stand up to drug dealing and of the city to provide protection to those who did. In 2005, relatives of the Dawson family filed suit against the city, state and various agencies. They alleged that despite the launch of the "Believe Campaign" in 2002 (which encouraged residents to supply information about drug dealers) there were insufficient resources to protect witnesses who did come forward. The lawsuit was later dismissed, a ruling which was later upheld in an appeal to the Maryland Court of Appeals. Numerous efforts to reclaim and rebuild Oliver in the name of the Dawson family have been undertaken by politicians, activists and ordinary citizens. Mayor (and later Governor of Maryland) Martin O'Malley, U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, State Senator Nathaniel McFadden and the action group known as Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD) have worked in individual and collective ways to ensure the Dawson family a lasting public memory. The house where the Dawsons died reopened in April 2007 as the Dawson Safe Haven Community Center.

Lululemon murder

The Lululemon murder was a 2011 fatal violent assault by one coworker on another committed at the Lululemon Athletica store in the Bethesda Row shopping district. In November 2011, Brittany Norwood was convicted of the first-degree murder of a coworker, Jayna Murray, in the Bethesda, Maryland, Lululemon Athletica store where they both worked. Prosecutors said that in March 2011, Norwood lured Murray back to the store after closing, then attacked her, inflicting over 300 injuries, including head trauma and stab wounds. Murray died in the store's back hallway, after which Norwood staged a crime scene to claim that intruders had raped both women and killed Murray. The prosecution was barred from introducing evidence that Murray had accused Norwood of shoplifting. The defense argued for a conviction of second-degree murder, claiming the attack was not pre-meditated. The case received intense media coverage and was commonly referred to as the "Lululemon murder". In January 2012, Norwood was sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. In a published opinion on April 29, 2015, the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland rebuffed Norwood's request for a new trial, effectively ending Norwood's direct appeal options. Media portrayals: The Lululemon murder case is featured in a season nine (2012) episode of the American true crime television series Snapped. The case is also featured in a season one (2016) episode of the docu-crime series Criminals at Work. It is also featured in Episode 31 of the podcast My Favorite Murder.

awesome

i'm going to keep my fingers crossed for an awesome weekend despite being semi-unwell. i'm feeling much better compared to Tuesday. granted i'm still hacking up both my lungs and am on a ton of medication. i'm at least able to breathe thru my nose somewhat. i'll still need a ton of medication for my lungs and to suppress my coughing.

Murders of Koby Mandell and Yosef Ishran

The murders of Koby Mandell and Yosef Ishran occurred on 8 May 2001, when two Jewish teenagers, Yaakov "Koby" Mandell and Yosef Ishran, were killed on the outskirts of the Israeli settlement of Tekoa in the West Bank, where they lived with their families. The identity of the killers has never been determined, though Israel and a number of sources state that Palestinian terrorists were responsible. Koby Mandell was an Israeli-American, his family having emigrated from the United States to Israel in 1996, and the murders resulted in legislation by the U.S. Congress aimed at strengthening the U.S. response to the killing of Americans overseas. In response to his death, Koby's parents set up the Koby Mandell Foundation to provide support for families bereaved by terrorist attacks. Disappearance and discovery: Koby Mandell and Yosef Ishran were two Israeli teens, 13 and 14 years old. Koby was a citizen of both the United States and Israel. The boys lived and attended school in the Israeli settlement of Tekoa, Gush Etzion, near the West Bank located Palestinian town of the same name variously referred to in English as Tuqu', Tekoa, and similar spellings. On 8 May 2001, the boys skipped school and went hiking in the Judean desert surrounding their village. At first, their parents did not worry about the boys. They believed that they had gone to school, and then to Jerusalem to participate in a political demonstration. But when the boys did not come home by midnight, their parents informed the authorities. The bodies of two boys were discovered the next morning in a cave near the West Bank settlement where they lived. USA Today reported that, according to the police, both boys had "been bound, stabbed and beaten to death with rocks". The newspaper continued, "The walls of the cave in the Judean Desert were covered with the boys' blood, reportedly smeared there by the killers". CNN and the Irish Independent reported that "Israel's Channel Two TV said police believed there were at least three assailants who dipped their hands into the boys' blood after the killing and smeared it on the walls of the cave." Miro Cohen, a sheep rancher described the scene to Time: "A rock the size of a computer rested on Kobi's smashed skull. Both bodies were covered with stones. Blood smeared the walls, and the dirt floor was muddy with it." The bodies were so badly mutilated and disfigured that dental records had to be used for positive identification. The Jerusalem Post reported that police could not determine whether the boys had been killed outside the cave, or if their bodies were deposited in the cave after the murders. After forensic examination, the bodies, together with blood-stained rocks, were taken out of the cave. The boys' funeral was attended by thousands of people. Responsibility: Israeli police made several statements about responsibility for the murders. They were reported variously as stating that thieves, who stole 100 goats from Tekoa the same night, may have been responsible; that there was no clear link between the two crimes; and that there was no link. One police commander however expressed the view that there was "no doubt" the murders were committed "for nationalistic reasons". Police said the killings appeared to have taken place during a "chance encounter" rather than one that had been planned in advance. Israeli security forces arrested 20 Palestinians from nearby villages and imposed curfews and roadblocks in response to the attack. A few of the many news agencies that reported about the murders said that an anonymous person claiming to represent an Islamic militant group telephoned one or more other news agencies to take responsibility. The Irish Independent reported that a call was made to Reuters, and that the call could not be authenticated but purportedly claimed revenge for the killing of an Islamic Jihad militant the previous Saturday as a motive. The Irish Independent did not name any particular group. The Jerusalem Post said in its day-after the event story that an anonymous caller to unnamed "foreign news agencies" had said he represented a group called "Hizbullah-Palestine" and that the boys were killed as revenge for the death of a four-month-old Palestinian baby, Iman Hiju, who became the youngest victim of violence when she was killed by an Israeli tank shell a few days previously. That death was apologized for by Ariel Sharon, who stressed that the "soldiers did not intend to kill her". A subsequent Jerusalem Post story, printed in 2008, suggested that the boys' killings might be attributable to "Bedouin shepherds". Three books on terrorism that include compilations of terrorist attacks against Israel subsequently listed the murders as being attributable to Islamic Jihad and/or a "splinter group" of Hezbollah, called "Hizbullah-Palestine". Another source blames "a Palestinian mob". The Boston Globe reported that Israeli settlers, among other possible motives, suggested "a group of Palestinian youths had staked a claim on the cave during the seven months of violence, and that Israeli youths had been warned not to hike there." Most sources simply blame unidentified Palestinian terrorists. According to a 2004 U.S. Congressional report, there was never a "meaningful investigation or prosecution" of the case, and apparently, the perpetrators have yet to be apprehended. Reactions: The Israeli government condemned the killings. Ariel Sharon blamed the murder on the Palestinian Authority. Sharon said that Palestinian security forces do nothing to stop terrorists from murdering innocent civilians. He said that Palestinian TV was promoting violence "by broadcasting music videos filled with images of children throwing stones." The Palestinian Authority condemned the killings. A spokesman for the Authority, Saeb Erekat said, "The Palestinian Authority regrets the loss of life of these two boys and all children, be it Israeli or Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim or Christian." He added, that killing civilians on either side of the ongoing conflict is a crime, and that "the short way for peace and stability is finishing the Israeli occupation." Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestinian National Authority, responded by blaming Israel for "victimizing Palestinian children". He cited the case of a three-month-old Palestinian girl, Reema Ahmed, wounded by gunfire the previous Wednesday during an Israeli attack on a Palestinian refugee camp. Shlomo Riskin, a rabbi from Efrat, saw "a profound distinction" between "Israel and its enemies": "If a child is killed by Israel, it is in an act of defense directed at a building where shots were fired at soldiers. In the case of Kobi and Yossi and Shalhevet, the enemy picked out innocent children to destroy them." Ariel Sharon characterized the boys' deaths as a "horrific murder" and ordered a missile strike on Yasser Arafat's Fatah offices in Gaza City, in which 20 Palestinians were wounded. U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher called the killings of the Israeli boys "horrible, brutal". Pope John Paul II, speaking in Malta, said he was saddened by "news from the Holy Land of terrible violence even against innocent young people." Koby Mandell Act: As a result of the murders, several legislators introduced the Koby Mandell Act, which reprimanded the State Department for, as it said, not doing enough about Palestinian terrorists who had harmed American citizens, and which would create an Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism in the Department of Justice. The legislation was spearheaded by Sarah Stern, currently with the Endowment for Middle East Truth and formerly the lobbyist for the Zionist Organization of America, but was not a priority of other Jewish groups, who said that it did more to reprimand the State Department rather than support counter-terrorism: by targeting only Palestinian terrorists, they said, it was too narrow in its scope and would not, for example, have been able to deal with the murder of Daniel Pearl. The provisions of the law which created the office were eventually incorporated into a 2004 omnibus spending bill. The Koby Mandell Foundation and comedy shows: The mission of the Koby Mandell Foundation, set up by his parents Seth and Sherri Mandell, is to "work to bridge the isolation that bereaved children and adults are struck with after the loss of a loved one." Leonard A. Cole, in his book Terror: how Israel has coped and what America can learn, writes that Koby's parents are determined "to take the cruelty of Koby's murder and transform it into kindness." Both Seth and Sherri Mandell reject responding to violence with violence. Seth Mandell says that "Throwing stones at Arab houses makes us as bad as the Arabs, and is not an intelligent response." Urging against the violence he says: "There’s plenty of stuff that can be done that is non-violent and makes a point." Sherri Mandell says that "Revenge, to her, means they have won". Koby's parents organized comedy shows to commemorate the memory of their son, who they say loved jokes.