Celebrity Crime

May 16, 2013

With good reason, conspiracy theories abound about the shooting deaths of oil scion Ned Doheny and his companion/secretary Hugh Plunkett at the fortress-like mansion Greystone in Los Angeles.

by Benjamin Welton

On the night of February 17, 1929, two would-be writers converged together in order to make history in Los Angeles, America’s fabled land of never-ending sunshine and raw economic opportunity. These two men—Leslie White and Raymond Chandler—did not knew each other that night, nor were they writers yet. They would learn and apply that craft in the 1930s in the various pulp magazines of the day, with White taking the lead while Chandler was busy drinking himself out of a job at the Dabney Oil Syndicate. The hardboiled and cynical worldview that these men shared captured the zeitgeist of the Depression, but the seeds of this bitter harvest were planted in the late 1920s, right before America’s decade-long party came crashing down. In the era before James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, the seedy world of Southern California was rife with corruption and an almost expressionist tapestry of nihilist violence and amorality.

In the same way that the double murder that occurred on February 17, 1929 foreshadowed darker things to come (at least in the literary world), the events of that night were partially based on an even greater scandal of that age. President Warren Harding, America’s 29^th commander-in-chief, is often placed near the cellar of the historical rankings of U.S. Presidents, and much (if not all) of that is due to the Teapot Dome Scandal that consumed his entire administration, even after his sudden death in San Francisco in 1923 (which is another crime for another day). Between the years of 1920 and 1923, President Harding’s Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall took and pocketed bribes in order to lease U.S. Navy petroleum reserves (which were then primarily located at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, as well as California) to private oil companies.

 May 2, 2013

 “Surrender had played out for good with me…” Jesse James.

When the Ford brothers assassinated Jesse James on April 3, 1882, the longest-running outlaw saga in American history was over.

 by Robert Walsh

Confederate bushwhacker, desperate outlaw, bank robber, political terrorist, gang leader, multiple murderer, folk hero. Jesse James was all of them. One thing he wasn’t (as much as his latter-day apologists like John Newman Edwards would like you to think) was some sort of Robin Hood who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. While he made great play of continuing to fight for the Confederate cause (when he wasn’t claiming to represent poor, dispossessed Missourians against rich Northern carpetbaggers) he was out for himself.

There was certainly an element of political thought behind his actions (Northern banks and businesses often being prime targets) but most of what he stole stayed in his pocket and, while violence was always going to be a part of his life and career, he also killed even when there was no need for bloodshed.

April 15, 2013

Winton Cooper

Popular BBC reporter Winton Cooper was brutally murdered by his own son.

by Ben Johnson

Staff at the BBC, one of the most high-profile broadcasting companies in the world, was left in shock after the January 2013 trial of a violent murderer who bludgeoned a former reporter and broadcaster to death with a hammer.  Not least because the perpetrator of this sickening crime was the victim's own son.

Winton Cooper was a well respected local journalist, spending many years as a popular reporter working for BBC Radio Sheffield. Since retiring, Cooper, 64, had moved to the picturesque village of Marnhull, a quiet and respectable area on the Dorset coast, known for its natural beauty and quaint architecture.

This peaceful lifestyle was eventually to be shattered by the arrival of Joseph Cooper, then aged 24, in 2009. Winton and Joseph were virtually estranged after an acrimonious divorce between Winton Cooper and his former wife, Joseph's mother, in the mid 90's. This came during the height of Winton's media career, and left his young son devastated at the falling apart of his family.

April 5, 2013

From George Washington through Ulysses S. Grant, U.S. presidents followed a relentless policy of removing Native Americans from their lands. President Andrew Jackson codified ethnic cleansing into law when he signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830.

by David Robb

In 1830, it was called “The Indian Removal Act.” Today it’s called “ethnic cleansing,” which is considered a crime against humanity by the International Criminal Court. But for nearly 100 years it was the stated policy of every U.S. presidents from Washington to Grant – including Lincoln.

Ethnic cleansing was codified into U.S. law in 1830 when President Andrew Jackson asked Congress to pass the Indian Removal Act. This allowed him to legally relocate all Native Americans who were then living east of the Mississippi to the west side of the river. The result: The Trail of Tears, in which as many as 10,000 Indians died during the forced march westward.

To this day, many Native Americans will not carry $20 bills.

March 18, 2013

"I am the bullet in the chamber.  Just do it".-- Nike sports advertisement featuring Oscar Pistorius

Oscar Pistorius’s rise to world fame was as unlikely as his arrest for the shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

By Binoy Kampmark

It remains to be seen whether this will become a crime of its own singular description, or yet another point of comparison in terms of previous acts of brutality.  Will it be deemed South Africa’s O.J. Simpson trial, with its lashings of bloodlust voyeurism that finds form in evidence, exposures, and innuendo?  The suggestions are that this has already begun, despite the fact that the trial is scheduled to start on June 4. The alleged murder of the model and self-appointed spokeswoman against domestic violence Reeva Steenkamp by the Parlympian Oscar Pistorius is something the analysts and commentators find magnetic. More than bullets were fired the day Steenkamp was killed behind the locked door of the Blade Runner’s bathroom.

Aug. 29, 2012

Pat Tillman

Pat Tillman was an incredible recruiting asset for the military in the wake of the terrorist attacks on America on September 11, 2001.  The popular Californian was an academic and athletic standout in high school and at Arizona State University.  Motivated by intense patriotism, Tillman gave up a lucrative professional football career and joined the Army Rangers.
by Don Fulsom

A Sports Illustrated All-Pro safety for the Arizona Cardinals in 2000, Tillman enlisted in the elite military squadron at the end of the 2001 season.  Just wed to his high school sweetheart, he turned down a three-year $3.6 million contract with the Cardinals to help avenge the surprise air assaults on his homeland.

On April 22,  2004, at age 27, Cpl. Tillman was killed in action in a canyon in eastern Afghanistan.  Apparently, his death was a not-uncommon “fog of war” tragedy caused by “friendly fire.” The entire rear of Tillman’s movie-star handsome head was blown out by a burst of three tightly placed bullets to his forehead from an M-16-type rifle.  The fatal shots were fired from a scant 10 yards away.

Initially, however, Pentagon officials refused to disclose that U.S. bullets had killed the Army’s No. 1 “poster boy.” The story the Army put out claimed Tillman was fatally wounded during an ambush by as many as one-dozen Taliban insurgents. 

They knew better.  Documents obtained by The Washington Post in 2005 say the first Army investigator on the scene determined “within days” that his fellow Rangers killed Tillman in an act of “gross negligence.”  The documents also show that top Army officials—including the theater commander, General John Abizaid—were almost immediately informed that Tillman’s death was fratricide.