Kidnapping, Murder and Mayhem

Kansas family of killers disappears

Ma Bender was a skank.  Speaking with a heavy German accent, she hovered over guests like an angry hawk.  But she could put a meal on the table.William Bender, aka John Flickinger, common-law husband to Ma, managed the farm they owned along the Osage Trail in Kansas.

John Bender, in his mid-twenties, spoke perfect English.  He had red hair, and giggled at inappropriate times.  Most people avoided him.  It was never determined whether he was the brother or husband of Kate.

Kate Bender, a buxom beauty on the lonely plains, garnered lots of attention from men.  She claimed to be a spiritualist and a psychic, and also asserted that she could speak with the dead.

In 1872, the family drifted into Cherryvale, Kansas and built a one-room house.  A make-shift inn, weary travelers heading west could bunk down for the night after enjoying one of Ma’s tasty meals.  A covered-wagon canvas separated the kitchen and a bed from the family’s living quarters. 

Soon travelers began to disappear, particularly those who looked well-to-do.  Townspeople suspected that something was not right at the Bender place, but couldn’t put a finger on it.  Then one day, a well-dressed man with a large entourage appeared, inquiring about his missing brother.  The Benders, without realizing it, had murdered the wrong man.

Colonel Ed York, a Civil War veteran and brother to a Kansas state senator, had come looking for Dr. William Henry York.  The Benders told the colonel that Dr. York had spent a night at the inn but left the next day, heading into the Indian Territory.  Colonel York was unconvinced, but told the family he would search ahead.  He informed them that he would return if he didn’t find his brother.

That was all the Benders needed.  As soon as Colonel York and his posse moved on, the family high-tailed it out of Kansas.

A few days later, Col. York, along with dozens of suspicious townspeople, was back at the now-abandoned inn.  What they found horrified them.  Eleven bodies, including that of Dr. York, had been buried in the pear orchard behind the shack. 

Beneath the chair where travelers partook of Ma Bender’s delicacies, a trapdoor opened into a basement.  Body parts, bloody sledge-hammers, spent bullets, and swaths of blood told a grisly tale.  While eating, visitors, perhaps distracted by Kate’s ample cleavage, had been dispatched with a blow to the back of the head.  Then the trapdoor opened and the unlucky traveler descended into Hell.  Some, still alive after having been bludgeoned, had had their throats cut.  Each was stripped of his possessions, and buried, as Ma tenderly planted flowers over their graves.

So what happened to the murderous Benders?

A large posse mounted a determined search.  Twelve miles north of the inn, near the town of Thayer, they came upon the Benders’ wagon.  Nearby, several lame, starving horses had to be put down by the posse.  In town, the vigilantes discovered that the family had boarded a train.  Kate and John were thought to have headed for the badlands of Texas, while Ma and Pa made their way to St. Louis by way of Kansas City.

They would have had plenty of money for their getaway.  After identifying the victims and assessing the cash they’d been carrying, investigators estimated that the Benders had netted about $10,000 from the murders (a near-fortune in the 1870s).

The state of Kansas offered a $3,000 reward, and several vigilante groups began trying to track the fleeing foursome.  No one ever claimed the reward.

It is possible that Ma and Pa Bender settled in Michigan.  A man named John Flickinger supposedly committed suicide there—that was thought to have been the real name of William Bender.  John and Kate disappeared from history.

Persistent rumors swirled around one other possible outcome—vigilante justice.  Many years later, two members of the original posse made deathbed confessions.  They both stated that they caught the family and summarily dispatched them.  Ma, Pa, and John, the story goes, were hung.  Kate, thought to be the brains behind the murders, had been burned to death.

What really happened the Bloody Benders? 

No one knows.

TRANSCRIPT: Police statement about the disappearance and murder of Marysa Nichols

On Thursday, February 28,Red Bluff (California) Police Chief Paul Nanfito provided this timeline on the search for Marysa Nichols.

Thank you for your patience as we worked our investigation today. We are going to provide you with as much information as we can without compromising the investigation.

On Tuesday, February 26, 2013 at around 5:30 p.m. the Red Bluff Police Department received a report of a missing juvenile identified as Marysa Nichols. It was reported that her mother had dropped her off at Red Bluff High School's Education Outreach Academy (EOA) at approximately 9:50 a.m. on February 26. Marysa told her mother that she would be home at around 2:30 p.m. in the afternoon.

When her mother returned home at around 4 p.m. her daughter was not at home.

At around 5:30 p.m. she reported her daughter missing to the police department. At around 1 a.m. officers and detectives searched the creek area for the missing juvenile as this is an area that she would have crossed when walking home from school. Officers and detectives worked on this investigation until approximately 3 a.m. on the morning of February 27, 2013.

The creek area was searched again on the 27th at around 8 a.m. Neither of these searches produced any leads or information regarding the disappearance of Marysa Nichols.

Information about the missing juvenile was released through the Critical Reach System, her photograph was released to local media. Throughout the day on Wednesday, investigators and officers continued their investigation which included efforts to obtain video surveillance footage as well as information from other electronic devices.

Patrol officers again searched the creek area for the missing juvenile late in the night on Wednesday.

On Thursday, February 28, 2013 our investigators went up with CHP Air Ops to continue the search. This day was also a regularly scheduled training day for the Tehama Inter-Agency SWAT team. Prior to the start of their training they were utilized to once again search the creek area for Marysa.

At approximately 11:03 a.m. two members of the SWAT team located a deceased female in the creek area west of Red Bluff High School and east of Baker Road.

At this time the Red Bluff Police Department requested an activation of the Child Abduction Response team (CART). Approximately (20) additional personnel responded to assist with the investigation.

RBPD was assisted by personnel from Tehama County's Sheriff's Department, Tehama County District Attorney's Office, TIDE Task Force, Tehama County Probation Department, California Highway Patrol, State Parole and Corning Police Department as well as investigators from the Tehama County District Attorney's Office.

The California Department of Justice, forensic crime scene investigators responded to assist in processing the crime scene.

Based upon the scene we have determined that this is a homicide investigation. Our investigation is continuing and an autopsy is scheduled for Saturday, March 2, 2013.

Utilizing photographs as well as specific items at the crime scene we have identified the victim as Marysa Nichols.

RBPD Staff with the assistance of a local pastor notified the mother and step-father.

CHP assisted in providing a notification to the biological father who is located in the Fresno area.

Our tip line numbers are 530-737-3160and 530-737-3225.
 

The Legacy of Sgt. Robert Alvin French
by Robert A. Waters

My father, John Waters, was born and raised near Ocklawaha, Florida.  He attended East Marion High School with his best friend, Robert Alvin French.  In 1942, French, a gunner in the USAAF, was killed in action.  Here is the story of my namesake, as best as I can piece it together through scattered military records and memoirs.Robert Alvin French was born August 23, 1922, in Elmore County, Alabama. His father, Thomas G. French, and mother, Leona, moved to Ocklawaha, Florida where French attended East Marion High School.  Fourteen students graduated with the class of 1940.  These included Robert French and my father.  French, the class secretary, was voted “Best Sport.”  The class motto read: “It is the Set of the Sail, and Not the Gale, that Determines the Way We Go.”

French’s carefree school-boy days ended on January 5, 1941, when he enlisted in the army.  Five days later, he began basic training, likely at the Southeast Army Air Corps Training Center at Maxwell Field, Montgomery, Alabama.

Assigned to the 93rd Bombardment Squadron, 7th Bomb Group, French received training as a gunner in a B-17 Flying  Fortress.  Within months of his enlistment, he obtained the rank of sergeant. 

On December 7, 1941, Japanese Zeros bombed Pearl Harbor. 

Even before that “day of infamy,” 21 B-17s flew 10,000 miles across the vast ocean to their base at Batchelor Airfield in Australia.  Robert French may have been in this group.  Or he may have arrived with an earlier group of 14 Flying Fortresses that was sent to defend the Philippines.  On March 11, 1942, waves of Japanese Zeros attacked the islands, destroying the entire U. S. Army Air Force there except for a small group from the 93rd BS which happened to be on patrol.  This remnant escaped to Australia.  Two planes from the squadron flew back to Mindanao and rescued General Douglas McArthur, who had fled the carnage in the Philippines.  Before leaving, the general held a news conference and famously stated: “I came through and I will return.”

By now the Ocklawaha country boy, Sgt. R. A. French, a gunner in USAAF, found himself in the middle of some of the most savage aerial combat ever seen.

The B-17 Flying Fortress in which he was a crew member had been nicknamed “Baby ‘A’ Red.”  Captain Weldon Smith, from California, piloted the plane until its final crash. 

The American bombers were vastly out-numbered by the Japanese Zeros.  By June, 1942, most of the B-17s had pretty much been used up.  They were kept in the air only by the dedication and ingenuity of crew members who jury-rigged repairs on a daily basis.  Few new parts made their way across the Pacific.  All new B-17s produced were shipped to Europe – no reinforcements came to relieve the beleaguered 93rdBS.

Robert Alvin French died on June 30, 1942.

The following description of the dogfight and crash that killed him comes from Fortress Against the Sun, by Gene Eric Salecker:

On June 30 two Fortresses from the 28th BS and three from the 93rd BS flew “in the longest combat mission ever flown by the group with a return to the same base.”  Taking off from Batchelor Field near Darwin, at 1:45 p.m., the B-17s bombed Kendari airfield on Celebes just before sunset from 8,000 feet through a heavy cloud cover.  “Hit the field good,” Capt. [ John A. ] Rouse put in his diary.  “Looked like about 150-200 Zeros and bombers on the ground.  Figure we damaged or destroyed about 40 of them…”  Turning from the attack, the three 93rd BS planes were suddenly jumped by a lone Zero.  “He made six separate passes,” wrote Lt. [Edward C.] Teats.  The crews from the three Fortresses concentrated their firepower and eventually shot the persistent fighter down but not before he had caused some damage himself.  “Evidently,” Teats reasoned, “the pilot was killed or badly hurt and ‘froze’ to the gun triggers, but his last pass got one of Smitty’s [Capt. Weldon Smith]  engines.”  Throughout the flight, Smith had been losing oil on his No. 3 engine and had planned to feather the propeller after the bomb run.  Now, hit in the No. 4 engine, Smith checked his gauges, found that No. 4 was still operating properly and shut down his No. 3 engine.

Having already feathered his No. 3 engine, Smith was coming in for a landing when the damaged No. 4 engine suddenly quit.  At the same time, the contact cables on the right side of the plane, failed him, causing him to dive nose first into the ground.  Three crewmen were killed in the crash and the other six were badly shaken and injured.  Ignoring his own injuries, bombardier Everett “Stinky” Davis went back into the burning plane to save his fellow crewmen.  Wrote a war correspondent, “While the ship blazed furiously, he fought his way through the confusion of twisted white-hot girders and roaring flames to pull out the tail gunner.  He went back for a side gunner, [and] returned for the other side gunner.  Finally, he even thrust himself into the center of the conflagration and struggled out with the radio operator.”  A week later, his superiors recommended Lt. Davis for the Distinguished Service Cross.

Robert Alvin French suffered massive injuries and was transferred to a nearby Army hospital.  He died there the same day.  A military document sent to his parents after the war stated that he was “cut up badly.” It also called him one of the “heroic dead of WWII.” French was buried in the USAF Cemetery Rookwood, Sydney, Australia, next to Sgt. Burke Glover and Sgt. West Bryson, both of whom died in the crash.

After the war, in 1948, the remains of Robert Alvin French were exhumed and transported back to the states.  He is buried in Longwood, Florida.

NOTE:  If anyone has additional information about Robert Alvin French, please contact me.

Union troops rape, scalp, and murder Native Americans
by Robert A. Waters

During the so-called Civil War, Federal troops weren’t content to commit atrocities only against Southern civilians.  In 1864, they turned their attention to an entirely peaceful group of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians camping near Sand Creek, Colorado. 

A journalist at USHistory.org describes the scene: “Sand Creek was a village of approximately 800 Cheyenne Indians in southeast Colorado.  Black Kettle, the local chief, had approached a United States Army fort seeking protection for his people.  On November 28, 1864, he was assured that his people would not be disturbed at Sand Creek, for the territory had been promised to the Cheyennes (sic) by an 1851 treaty. The next day would reveal that promise as a bald-faced lie.
Union Col. John Chivington“On the morning of November 29, a group called the Colorado Volunteers surrounded Sand Creek.  In hope of defusing the situation, Black Kettle raised an American flag as a sign of friendship.  The Volunteers' commander, Colonel John Chivington, ignored the gesture.  ‘Kill and scalp all, big and little,’ he told his troops.  With that, the regiment descended upon the village, killing about 400 people, most of whom were women and children.”  (There is some dispute about how many Indians died—the numbers range from 163 to 500.)

As the American flag waved futilely above the encampment, government troops began blasting away with cannons and rifles.  During the chaos, the Indians also raised a white flag, which was ignored.

Few Indians fought back.  Many attempted to flee, but the Union troops had surrounded and killed their horses.  Other Indians ran down to the creek and buried themselves in the sand.  Chivington’s troops, however, dug them out like moles, killing and scalping them.

One soldier, John S. Smith, testified before a Congressional committee about the dreadful scene: “I saw the bodies of those lying there cut all to pieces, worse mutilated than any I ever saw before; the women cut all to pieces ... With knives; scalped; their brains knocked out; children two or three months old; all ages lying there, from sucking infants up to warriors ... By whom were they mutilated? By the United States troops ...”

Another eye-witness, Stan Hoig, also testified: “Fingers and ears were cut off the bodies for the jewelry they carried. The body of White Antelope, lying solitarily in the creek bed, was a prime target. Besides scalping him the soldiers cut off his nose, ears, and testicles – the last for a tobacco pouch.”

Black Kettle, who escaped the massacre, said: “Although wrongs have been done me, I live in hopes. I have not got two hearts ... I once thought that I was the only man that persevered to be the friend of the white man, but since they have come and cleaned out our lodges, horses, and everything else, it is hard for me to believe white men anymore.”

Still, he made another truce with the U. S. government.  This time it cost him his life.  In part, because of the massacre at Sand Creek, groups of renegade Cheyenne had begun attacking settlers.  Using this as an excuse, none other than two famous Union Civil War generals, Phillip Sheridan and George Armstrong Custer, conspired to once again murder innocent Indians.  On November 27, 1868, Custer attacked yet another peaceful encampment along the Washita River in Oklahoma Territory, killing about 100 Cheyenne.  As usual, most were women and children.  This time Black Kettle wasn’t so lucky—as he and his wife fled across the Washita, Federal troops shot them in the back, killing them.

While Custer met his fate at the Little Big Horn, Chivington lived a long and sordid life.

Because he resigned from the Army, he was never court-martialed.  However, the facts presented about Sand Creek at several state and congressional hearings ruined his reputation. 

In 1865, he traveled to Nebraska after his son, who owned a freighting business, drowned.  Unable to keep his hands off Sarah, his dead son’s wife, he seduced and married her.  After gaining control of his son’s business, he abandoned Sarah, prompting her to sue him.  An editorialist in the Rocky Mountain News wrote: “What [Chivington] will do next to outrage the moral sense and feelings of his day and generation remains to be seen; but be sure it will be something . . .”

The journalist was right.  Accusations of murder, assault, wife-beating, forgery, and extortion were a few of the legal scrapes that kept his name in the news.  At one point, he fled to Canada to avoid charges against him.  Chivington was elected sheriff of Araphoe County, Colorado, but quickly found himself on the wrong side of the law once more.  Then, while working at the coroner’s office, he stole $800 from a corpse.  After admitting the theft, Chivington escaped jail by agreeing to repay the family.

Soon his home burned down, and it was widely assumed that he’d done it to collect on insurance.

An unrepentant John Chivington, Abolitionist, soldier, mass murderer, and all-around scoundrel, died in 1894.  
Comanche Chief Black Kettle 

Multiple Murderer Tommy WyattTommy Wyatt dies of natural causes in Raiford
by Robert A. Waters

On February 8, a stone-cold killer met his maker. Thomas Anthony Wyatt, who fled a work crew while serving a 15 year sentence for kidnapping and assault, spear-headed one of Florida's most notorious murder sprees.

Florida Supreme Court documents describe the Vero Beach Domino’s Pizza murders: "On May 13, 1988, Wyatt and his codefendant, Michael Lovette, escaped from a North Carolina prison road gang and fled to Florida, engaging in a spree of crimes along the way, including the murders of three Domino's Pizza employees in Vero Beach and the murder of Cathy Nydegger near Tampa…

"The evidence presented at Wyatt's trial on the Domino's murder counts revealed the following. On May 16, 1988, Wyatt and Lovette stole a 1983 Cadillac Seville with a red-burgundy body and white canvas top in Jacksonville, Florida, and then drove down the east coast of Florida to the Vero Beach/Yeehaw Junction area near State Road 60.

"At some time between 11:00 and 11:45 p.m. on May 17, both men entered a Vero Beach Domino's Pizza restaurant armed with handguns. While Lovette held William Edwards, the store manager, at gunpoint in the office until the time lock on the store's safe opened, Wyatt took Frances Edwards, who was William Edwards' wife, and Matthew Bornoosh, a deliveryman, to the restroom in the back of the restaurant. Wyatt forced Bornoosh to remove his Domino's shirt, and Lovette put it on.

"During the course of the robbery, Wyatt raped Frances Edwards. After the safe opened, the men retrieved money from inside the safe, and Wyatt shot all three victims to death: William Edwards was shot in the head and chest; Frances Edwards was shot in the head; and Matthew Bornoosh was shot in the left ear and head…"

The take in the robbery was $1,153.00, less than $400 for each life.

Wyatt and Lovette traveled across the state to Tampa where they met Nydegger in a bar.  They kidnapped her, and drove her to Indian County where Wyatt shot her in the head, killing her.

Overwhelming evidence, including semen inside Frances Edwards and bullets matching the gun used to murder Nydegger, linked Wyatt to the crimes.  He received a death sentence, while Lovette got ten life sentences.

Before the crime spree, Wyatt had 26 arrests and convictions.

He died at Union Correctional Institution, near Raiford.  Wyatt was 49, and a Florida Department of Corrections press release stated that his death was due to “natural causes.”

A predator in the true sense of the word, he brought misery to almost everyone he met.

On January 17, Florida Death Row inmate William Van Poyck wrote that “my old friend Tom—just 4 months ago had a hale and hardy soul, now a mere envelope of cancer-gnawed flesh and bones —was removed from his cell by wheelchair, too weak to offer anything but meager protest, and transferred to the one place he dreaded going to, our notoriously filthy, blood spattered clinic holding cell.”

Sounds a lot worse than merely going to sleep on a gurney.

What goes around comes around.

Anne RubensteinGetting away
by Robert A. Waters

“There are no perfect murders.”  This statement, like so many clichés, is a lie.  One-third of all murders in America are never solved.  Even with today’s technological advances (DNA, computers, video-camera surveillance, the ability to trace cell phones, forensics, and automated fingerprint systems), the unsolved rate is the same as it has been for decades.  This means that about 4,000 killers walk free every year.  Do the math: a couple hundred thousand murderers may still walk the streets.Below, I’ve described three unsolved cases that occurred in 1965.  If the killers are still alive, they will certainly be in their seventies and unlikely to be brought to justice. 

On July 30, 1965, Suellen Evans met her killer as she walked through the Coker Arboretum at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  In broad daylight, an assailant pulled her behind some bushes.  Using a knife, he cut off her blouse while attempting to rape her.  Hearing screams, a female student ran to the scene, breaking up the assault.  But it was too late—Suellen’s throat had been slashed and she’d been stabbed through the heart.  Some witnesses claimed a middle-aged man with red hair fled the scene, others that the attacker was dark-skinned.  Such a brazen assault in a public area should have resulted in a quick arrest, but the perpetrator was never found.  After 48 years, someone got away with murder.

The tragic slayings of Anne Rubenstein and her eleven-year-old daughter, Mae Rubenstein, have likewise never been solved.  On February 13, 1965, Mae was home alone in Highland Park, New Jersey, while her mother went grocery shopping.  An intruder entered the home, stabbed the girl 15 times, then cut her jugular vein.  Mae was already dead when her mother returned home and confronted the attacker.  Using a kitchen knife, the killer stabbed Anne Rubenstein 35 times.  The violent, bloody attacks left the community in shock.  For years, police attempted to develop leads, but came up empty-handed.  Since there seemed to be no sexual assault or robbery, detectives were stymied for lack of a motive.  Although police refuse to give up, and still continue to investigate the case, no viable suspects have ever been found.  The killer would likely be 65 to 75 years old if he’s still alive.

The “Bangor House Strangling” in Bangor, Maine, occurred on the morning of March 18, 1965.  A hard-working chambermaid, Effie MacDonald, went missing during her shift.  Hotel employees found her body in a third-floor room.  Investigators determined that she’d been raped, beaten, and strangled with her own stocking.  According to family members, Effie “never drank once in her life, never smoked, and never swore.”  Even after 48 years, her family remembers her as a kind person who loved knitting.  After a lengthy investigation, Bangor Police Detective Capt. Clifton E. Sloane claimed he knew the name of the murderer but didn’t have enough evidence to convict.  Today, the case is still unsolved.

Florida to execute cop-killer
by Robert A. Waters

At 6 p.m., on February 26, 2013, Paul Howell is scheduled to die at Florida State Prison in Raiford for the pipe-bomb murder of state trooper Jimmy Fulford.  As he drifts into an endless sleep, Howell’s death will certainly be less painful than that of the law officer.

Court documents describe the details leading up to the slaying:

“In January of 1992, [Paul Augustus] Howell constructed a bomb for the specific purpose of killing Tammie Bailey at her home in Marianna, Florida.  Bailey, Howell, and Howell's brother, Patrick, were part of a drug ring involving a number of other individuals in which drugs were obtained in Fort Lauderdale and then sold in Marianna, Florida. Howell intended to eliminate Bailey as a witness because she had knowledge that could link Howell and his brother to a prior murder.  The bomb was placed inside a microwave oven and then the oven was gift-wrapped.  Howell paid Lester Watson to drive [to Marianna] and deliver the microwave to Bailey.  Although he knew that Howell had often made pipe bombs, Watson testified that he thought the microwave contained drugs. Howell rented a car for Watson to use for the trip. Watson was accompanied on the trip by Curtis Williams.

“While traveling on I-10 toward Marianna, Watson was stopped by Trooper Jimmy Fulford for speeding.  Fulford ran a registration check on the car and a license check on Watson, who gave the trooper a false name and birth date because he did not have a valid driver's license.  The radio dispatcher contacted the car rental company and was informed that Howell had rented the car.  The dispatcher [called] Howell at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to determine whether the rental car had been stolen from him.  Howell told the dispatcher that he had loaned the car to Watson but did not know that Watson would be traveling so far with the vehicle.  Howell was informed by the dispatcher that Watson was going to be taken to the Jefferson County Jail.  Howell did not give any warning to the dispatcher regarding the bomb.

“Deputies Harrell and Blount of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department arrived at the scene and Watson gave them permission to search the vehicle.  Trooper Fulford and the deputies observed the gift-wrapped microwave in the trunk of the car.  Watson was arrested for speeding and driving without a valid driver's license and was transported, along with Williams, to the jail by Deputy Blount.  Deputy Harrell also proceeded to the jail, leaving Trooper Fulford alone with the rental car.  Shortly thereafter, a massive explosion took place at the scene. Testimony presented at Howell's trial by the State's explosives expert indicated that Trooper Fulford had been holding the microwave in his hands when the bomb went off. Trooper Fulford died instantly due to the massive trauma caused by the explosion.”

Fulford’s injuries were beyond belief.  He suffered massive trauma to the head, chest, pelvis, arms, and legs.  His right leg was missing, and his left leg was nearly severed.  Several fingers had been blown away, and, according to the medical examiner, “the frames of his eyeglasses had been driven into the bones of his face and head by the force of the blast.”

In 1992, Howell was sentenced to death for the capital murder of Jimmy Fulford. 

Married, with two children, Fulford spent 13 years as a state trooper.  His twin brother, Timmy, told reporters that “we grew up on the farm, raising tobacco.  Had some cattle, [too].  We worked hard, but we had some fun, too, hunting and fishing.   And every Sunday we were dressed up in our black pants and white shirts and black bow ties, exactly the same. We’d walk the railroad tracks to church, picking dewberries along the way.”

Jimmy graduated from Florida State University with a degree in criminology, but at heart, he was a country boy.  “We were really brought up in the church,” said Timmy. “That’s where we got our values.  You didn’t cuss [because you’d] have your mouth washed out with soap.  You helped people when they needed you.   I think that was part of why Jimmy became a trooper.  He lived to help people.  I think Jimmy thought of it as a calling.”

Not everyone is in favor of executing the killer.

Mary Hamer, MD, sent a press release to Florida Governor Rick Scott:

Please Abolish the Death Penalty.

*Dedication: I Mary Hamer MD dedicate my Anti-Death Penalty essays (1-4)  to Mr. Paul Howell who is scheduled to be Executed by Florida Governor Rick Scott & the Florida Taxpayers on February 26th, 2013 at 6 PM EST.  While Mr. Howell will be lying on the Death gurney in Raiford, Florida having a lethal cocktail of a Barbiturate, a Paralytic & Potassium solution (5) injected into his veins -- Most Floridians are going to be leisurely eating their dinners & watching the evening news in their comfortable homes with their children & pets.  Bon Appetite & Cheers Florida.  For the record, I Mary Hamer Apologize to humanity for Florida’s revengeful, cruel & barbaric act committed against Paul Howell & all the other Death Row inmates awaiting execution or who have already been murdered in Florida.  I Mary Hamer also officially withdraw my name from the Human race, because I will not participate in or condone this legalized, savage & expensive crime perpetrated by the Florida Governor, the Florida Judges, State Attorneys & Florida citizens.  Two Wrongs do Not make a Right.

*PETITION to Forida Governor Scott:  I hereby petition Florida Governor Scott to Please Stop your Execution order of Paul Howell.  Please show the world you are an Enlightened person who is willing to show Mercy on people. Show the world you are a Leader in the New Smart on Crime ethic -- which Heals the community including the Victims & the Offenders -vs- the Hard/Tough/Macho on Crime ethic which divides & hardens the community.  Show the world you have the courage to Abolish the Death Penalty -- as an irrational & expensive historical act.

Thank you.  Respectfully,  Mary Hamer, MD. 
Florida, A Death Penalty State.
 

Walter DurantyWalter Duranty, Stalin’s Propagandistby Robert A. Waters

“One death,” Josef Stalin is said to have quipped, “is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.”  Researchers estimate that in 1931 and 1932, the Soviet dictator purposefully starved to death at least six to ten million Ukrainians.  The final number of deaths is unknown—as Nikita Kruschev said, “No one was keeping count.”  New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty, stationed in Moscow, won fame, fortune, and a Pulitzer Prize for ignoring the slaughter.  As the bodies, too numerous to be buried, were stripped clean by ravens, Duranty hung out with Uncle Joe.  While freezing trains hauled thousands upon thousands of dissidents to the gulags, the journalist claimed it was their choice—they could have got with the program and handed their property over to the state. 

Anyway, it was all for the best, he claimed.  Once in place, the “collective farm system” (i.e., communism) would benefit everyone.  As for the millions who died: “You can’t make an omelet without cracking an egg,” Duranty said.

After it was too late for the world to intervene, Duranty privately conceded that ten million Ukrainians died of starvation.  Whatever the final tally, it was a massacre that even surpassed Hitler’s genocide.

Drinking, dining, and carousing with Moscow’s elite, the one-legged Duranty became Stalin’s unofficial spokesperson.  Like the Holocaust-deniers, he heard no evil, saw no evil, and reported no evil.  A Satanist, alcoholic, womanizer, pervert, and sycophant to the most brutal dictator in modern history, Duranty was an odious character.

So it makes perfect sense that he would receive the Pulitzer Prize.The following verbal sketch, from The Ukrainian Museum in New York, describes the crimes perpetrated by Stalin: “The horrific event, known in Ukrainian as the Holodomor (literally, murder by starvation), took place in 1932-1933, less than twenty years after Ukraine was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union. Determined to force all Ukrainian farmers onto collective farms, to crush the burgeoning national revival, and to forestall any calls for Ukraine's independence, the brutal Communist regime of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin embarked on a campaign to starve the Ukrainian people into submission. “The Soviet government confiscated all the grain produced by Ukrainian farmers, withheld other foodstuffs, executed anyone trying to obtain food, and punished those who attempted to flee. As a result, in the land called the Breadbasket of Europe, millions of men, women, and children were starved to death.

“Stalin boasted privately that as many as 10 million people...had perished during the Holodomor. At least 3 million of the victims were children.

“Despite the magnitude of the atrocity, the Soviet regime, behind its Iron Curtain, denied the existence of the Holodomor for decades, denouncing any reports as ‘anti-Soviet propaganda.’ It was not until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent establishment of an independent Ukraine that the contents of many sealed government archives were uncovered, exposing a wealth of gruesome information.”

While history hasn’t been kind to Uncle Joe’s mouthpiece, the Times refuses to return Walter Duranty’s tainted Pulitzer.

Eighty years later, it’s time to right that wrong, and consign this hack to the gulag of Literary Hell.

Cory Miller
Florida clerk fires back, killing robber
by Robert A. Waters

The Hollywood Police Department has ruled that a clerk who killed an armed robber acted in self-defense.  No charges will be leveled against Leonard Carr, employee of an Exxon gas station that sits near the Seminole Hard Rock Café.

On January 16, Hasib Kuric saw two suspicious men behind the store.  He rushed into the gas station and yelled, “They’re masking up.”  (The store owner allows Kuric, a homeless man from Bosnia, to sleep in the bed of a U-Haul truck on the property for doing odd jobs around the store.)

As Kuric ran into the gas station to warn the clerk, two robbers allegedly barged in behind him.  The men, wearing gloves and masks, held guns, and began firing at the handyman.  “You’ll never do this again,” one yelled, referring to Kuric warning the clerk.  Ducking behind food shelves, the handyman escaped the gunfire.

The robbers turned on Carr.  The store clerk pulled his own weapon, and a shootout began.  In the gun-battle, Carr shot twenty-three-year-old Cory Miller.  The robber dropped to the floor and died near the entrance of the store.

Hollywood Police Sergeant Pablo Vanegas said, “The clerk was armed, at which point multiple shots were exchanged between [Carr] and the suspect. [Carr] had no choice.  Unfortunately, someone was killed, but no innocentpeople were hurt.”

Joshua Stuart, 19, whom police identified as the second robber, ran from the store and got into a car.  Police captured him two blocks away.

Cory Miller’s first arrest came when he was only eleven-years-old.  At the time, cops charged him with larceny and obstruction without violence.  Since then, he had many arrests.  He was convicted of grand theft in 2009.

Police believe Miller and Stuart may have robbed a 7-Eleven store on Christmas Eve.  In that robbery, the clerk, Thomas Newsome, suffered a broken hip and split tongue while being beaten.

Stuart now faces charges of second-degree attempted felony murder, second-degree murder, and armed occupied burglary.  (In Florida, if anyone gets killed during a crime, all participants can be charged with murder.)

Several days after the botched robbery, Carr spoke with a reporter.  “I'm no gun-toting person,” he said. “I believe in my safety and I bring my gun from home to work.”  He said he is thinking of changing jobs.

The dangerous streets of south Florida crawl with gangs, thugs, addicts, and other lowlife.  Many of the good people have chosen to arm themselves.  The Second Amendment to the Constitution still lives and breathes in the Sunshine State.