Jan. 3, 2013 

Editor’s Note: The first Al Qaeda attack on the American homeland was the February 26, 1993 bombing at The World Trade Center, a complex owned and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. This attack killed six people and injured more than a thousand. It also traumatized millions of people in the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area.

Even though this was the most destructive bomb attack suffered by American civilians in a time of peace, it took more than 10 years for authorities at all levels of government to admit that America had been attacked by terrorists who were encouraged and protected by foreign nations. It took just as long to admit that the organization that was responsible for 9/11 was also responsible for the 1993 attack.

Patrick Campbell was in the lobby of the North Tower when the bomb exploded in the basement 20 feet below him. A marketing manager for the Port Authority, Campbell describes the chaos that enveloped the Trade Center in the aftermath of the explosion and the many questions that still haunt him about this terrible day.  

by Patrick Campbell

At approximately 11:30 a.m., a Ryder van rolled at a leisurely pace northwards on West Street in Lower Manhattan towards the underground parking garage at the World Trade Center, located on West and Vesey streets. Eyad Ismoil was at the wheel and Ramzi Yousef, the terrorist leader, sat beside him. Following the van in a red getaway car was Mohammed Salameh and Mahmud Abouhalima, with Abouhalima at the wheel.

The four men were part of an Al Qaeda terrorist cell based in Jersey City, New Jersey, and they were now completing a mission that they had been working on for the previous five months. Yousef is a nephew of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the Al Qaeda leader who planned the 9/11 attack.

The van entered the World Trade Center parking garage and Abouhalima continued to drive the red getaway car for half a block and then turned right into Vesey Street, which is the northern boundary of the World Trade Center site. Vesey Street is a very wide street and Abouhalima had no problem double parking while he waited for Yousef and Ismoil to emerge from the garage.

The garage seemed empty as the van arrived on the second level below the street [the Basement 2 level], but for a moment Yousef thought they had a problem when he saw a Port Authority van, the same size and color as the Ryder van, parked in the  spot previously selected by Yousef  to park the Ryder van.  However, the Port Authority van suddenly started up and headed off towards the exit, and Ismoil swung the Ryder van in and took its place.

While Ismoil kept an eye out, Yousef lit four fuses, three of which were back-ups in case the first one failed, and then he closed and locked the back of the van, while Ismoil locked the front doors, and both then strolled  across the garage to the elevators servicing the North Tower lobby. When they arrived in the lobby they exited through the West Street entrance and within four minute of lighting the fuse they were in Abouhalima’s getaway car and were speeding away from the World Trade Center. The fuse would burn for another seven minutes and then the bomb would explode. By this time, the terrorists were in the Holland Tunnel on their way to Jersey City.

Dec. 31, 2012

An excerpt from The Beverly Hills Supper Club: The Untold Story Behind Kentucky’s Worst Tragedy by Robert D. Webster. This is the true untold story of what led to Kentucky’s worst tragedy – a story of greed, corruption, deceit, mafia rule, government cover-ups, kidnapping, and even murder. In fact, this book details what should now be considered as the worst case of mass murder in United States history.

by Robert D. Webster

Introduction

It seems to me it was a Wednesday night. I may be wrong, but I think that’s when I received a telephone call that persuaded me to begin a project that would completely consume the next five years of my life. The man introduced himself as David Brock, but I certainly didn’t know who he was. In search of an author, he had been given my name and telephone number by the staff at the Kenton County Public Library in Covington. I had written two other books and dozens of smaller articles on local history, and he was told that I might be the person to talk to. Before 30 seconds had elapsed in the call, he posed his simple question: “Would you be interested in writing another book?”

Thoughts quickly went through my mind, “Oh my gosh. If I start yet another book and spend more countless hours locked in my office, my wife’s going to leave me.” I had just finished a book detailing the history of the many movie theaters that had once graced the streets of our Northern Kentucky neighborhoods. In fact, my office was still filled with clutter left behind after months of necessary research for the publication. I had to admit, however, I was more than a little curious as to the topic. I had always been interested in local history and maybe this gentleman had a good idea. I asked, “What about?” His reply: “The Beverly Hills Supper Club fire.”

At first, I thought I had dodged a bullet. While I didn’t know everything there was to know about the fire, I certainly knew there had already been quite a lot written on the subject. The story was more than 30 years old, yet it was a topic that remained extremely familiar to residents throughout the region. Also, there had been very little written about the club’s early history and that greatly intrigued me. The place was a speakeasy in the 1920s, serving illegal alcohol during the Prohibition era. From the late 1930s to the early 1960s, it was one of the largest illegal gambling casinos in the entire Midwest – owned and operated by members of the Cleveland syndicate. A concise account of the club’s entire history might prove to be a great seller. However, the Beverly Hills Supper Club is best known for one particular event.

Dec. 25, 2012

Emory University Medical School

Back in 1999, Dr. James Murtagh, a member of the faculty at the Emory University Medical School, had the temerity to cooperate with a National Institute of Health investigation of widespread grant fraud being perpetrated by his employer. Emory retaliated, ousting Dr. Murtagh and making his life as miserable as it can.

 by Michael Volpe

Emory University in Atlanta is a relatively small university with a very prominent reputation. It’s often referred to, along with Duke and Davidson and a few others, as being part of the “Ivy League of the South.” Because of Emory’s superior academic qualifications, its graduates dominate the ranks of the employed of most of Atlanta’s media, courts, business, and political worlds. But under this veneer of respectability that Emory projects, a great deal has been and continues to be amiss in its Medical School, particularly its dealings with Grady Hospital, one of the largest public care facilities for the poor in the world.

Emory’s treatment of Medical School faculty member Dr. James Murtagh has opened up a Pandora’s Box of ills. Rather than deal with the many issues of fraud and conflict of interest uncovered over the last 13 years by the National Institute of Health and other government agencies, Emory has persisted in stonewalling instead of reforming.

When Dr. James Murtagh first began cooperating with investigators from the National Institute of Health in 1999, he never imagined that the consequences of that would still be playing out in an Atlanta courtroom more than 13 years later.

Dec. 18, 2012

Bath School Massacre

The worst school massacre in U.S. history took place in 1927 in the little town of Bath, Michigan where 38 students, two teachers and two rescuers were murdered and 53 others seriously injured.

by David Robb

The worst school massacre in U.S. history was not Virginia Tech, where in 2007 a gunman killed 32 people and wounded 18 others; it was not Columbine High School, where in 1999 two teenagers shot and killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 21 others; and sadly, it was not Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012, where another mass murderer killed 20 children and six adults.

The worst school massacre in U.S. history took place in 1927 in the little town of Bath, Michigan, when Andrew Kehoe blew up part of a school and his own car, killing 37 students, two teachers and two rescuers – and seriously injuring 58 others, including two students who would die later from their injuries.  If the 400 pounds of dynamite Kehoe had placed at the other end of the school’s basement had detonated as planned, the bombing could have killed far more of the 275 students and 12 teachers in the school that day.

Today, Kehoe’s heinous crime is all but forgotten.

Dec. 12, 2012

Crime Magazine's Review of True-Crime Books

by Denise Noe

A multitude of approaches can be taken in crime writing. Crime is a subject that lends itself well to academic research. Thus, much writing on crime seeks to illuminate its history and the history of crime fighting techniques as well as to explore the social and psychological underpinnings of criminality. Humor is well known as a psychological defense mechanism. Much work on crime is written from a humorous slant as the most awful things in life can often inspire bursts of laughter. In addition, human weaknesses and faults of all kinds are always ripe for comedy. True crime books can also tell the stories of those victimized by crime and those who commit crimes. In this column, I examine a group of books that represent all of these diverse approaches to crime writing.

Dec. 10, 2012

Mary Rogers

 The disappearance and murder of Mary Rogers in 1841 became a major tabloid story for the New York newspapers. Edgar Allan Poe wrote a mystery story about it, but Mary’s murderer was never identified.         

by Doug MacGowan

Sunday, July 25, 1841, was a hot day in New York City. That morning 20-year-old Mary Rogers left the boarding house owned by her mother to attend services at her church. She returned home later that morning and talked briefly with her mother and with one of the residents, Daniel Payne, who happened to be her fiancé. Payne would later testify that Mary had outlined her plans for the day: visiting her aunt until evening and then returning home. The aunt lived nearby, only a quarter of an hour trip by horse-drawn carriage. Mary asked Payne to meet her at the nearest carriage stop that evening and escort her home.

That afternoon, the city was crippled with a severe thunderstorm. When Payne went to meet Mary at the carriage stop, he found that she had not returned from her aunt's. He surmised that she had wisely stayed at her aunt's in order to avoid the storm, and would return the following morning.

By Monday morning the weather had cleared up, but Mary did not return home. This caused her mother and Payne and Alfred Crommelin (another boarder and, coincidentally, a former beau of Mary's) to set up a search plan. The natural starting place was the home of the aunt Mary had visited on Sunday. But the aunt stated she had not seen Mary on Sunday nor had she expected a visit from her.

The three continued their search Monday afternoon, but with no success. Believing the necessary search needed more than three people, they placed an ad in the New York Sun newspaper asking if anyone had seen "a young lady (wearing) a white dress, black shawl, blue scarf, Leghorn hat, light colored shoes, and parasol light-colored." Anyone who had seen a young woman matching this description was asked to contact her mother because "it is supposed some accident has befallen her."

Mary had disappeared once before. In October of 1838, she went missing for several days. Upon her return, she vaguely stated that she had gone to visit relatives in Brooklyn, although she did not explain why she had not told anyone of this journey beforehand. Her mother now wondered if her second disappearance was a similar episode. Perhaps she would reappear soon.