Forensic Files Archives - Page 10 of 22

Ronald Shaw: Mansion Murder Victim

Surprise — the Younger Wife Didn’t Do It
(“No Safe Place,” Forensic Files)

When unknown intruders commit a murder during a home invasion on Forensic Files, it’s a good bet that a family member who survived the attack played a role in orchestrating it.

Rosana and Ronald Shaw at their wedding — Rosana and Ronald Shaw

Sometimes, the person who’s left unharmed or shot in the fleshy part of a limb is a child impatient to inherit the family fortune (Sarah Johnson, Dana Ewell) or a spouse looking to avoid a custody battle and costly divorce (Brenda Andrew, Brad King).

No good deed left unpunished. And the likelihood of evil-doing in the family skyrockets when the survivor is a glamorous woman with a story about masked assailants who murdered her wealthy older husband.

So, when portly oil-company millionaire Ronald Shaw was shot to death in his driveway, police were probably surprised to find out that Rosana Shaw had nothing to do with the crime.

The mastermind of the robbery-murder was not the beneficiary of a will or large life insurance payout. He was an outsider, someone Shaw didn’t know well but was trying to help.

Hard work and ambition. For this week, I searched for an epilogue for Rosana Shaw, who was in her mid-thirties and two months pregnant at the time of the murder. I also looked for background information on Ronald Shaw and the three teenagers who descended upon his house in Youngsville, Louisiana, in 1998. So let’s get started on the recap of “No Safe Place” along with extra information drawn from internet research.

Ronald Lee Shaw, born in 1945, originally came from San Antonio. He served in the Air Force for four years, then got a gig as an oil-field laborer in Louisiana and worked his way up to management. He started his own oil and gas drilling company in the 1990s and eventually co-founded MWD Services.

As his marriage to his first wife, Karen, was heading south, he met Rosana Staufert on a business trip to Mexico. She served as a translator for him. Ronald hired her as his assistant and frequently took her along when he traveled for work.

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Trying to go straight. Shaw divorced Karen, married Rosana, and commissioned local general contractor Ernest Touchet to build a 5,000-square-foot love nest.

Ronald and Rosana's house in the beginning stages of construction — Ronald and Rosana’s new house long before the installation of the safe

As a favor, Ronald gave jobs to two of Ernest Touchet’s grandsons.

The young men had legal problems in their pasts, and some honest work would help build their character, Ernest Touchet probably figured. (It’s not clear whether the entire favor was giving them temp construction jobs on the new house or Shaw also hired them to work at his oil-services company.)

Ambush awaiting couple. Unfortunately, instead of making grandpa proud, one of the boys, Shannon Scott Touchet, 17, used the blueprint of the Shaws’ house as a roadmap to a robbery plan. He told his buddies about a safe installed in the bathroom closet of the new house.

On March 18, 1998, after Ronald and Rosana returned from the supermarket, three young males in ski masks suddenly appeared from behind the garage of their house. Just outside the front door, Ronald, 52, who was holding two bags of groceries, was shot three times.

Then two males took Rosana in the house, threatened her with death, and forced her to open the safe. They took $7,000 and a box of jewelry.

Daughter killed. Rosana begged the home invaders to spare her life because she was pregnant. They locked her in a bathroom area, according to court papers, and fled without harming her. She escaped and called 911.

First responders found her kneeling next to her husband outside. He died at the scene.

Forensic Files didn’t mention it, but Ronald Shaw’s death came as the second tragedy for his mother, Dorothy Perdue. Her granddaughter, Sheri Lynn Shaw — Ronald’s daughter from his first marriage — died in a car accident a few years before the murder.

Ronald Benson, Reginald Basile, and Shannon Touchet as teenagers around the time of Ronald Shaw's muder — Teenage felons Ronald Benson, Reginald Basile, and Shannon Touchet discarded the box of jewelry stolen during the robbery — it would have been too easy to trace

Heat on the law. The homicide shocked residents of Youngsville, known for Cajun food, friendliness, fun, and a low-crime rate, according to “Bloodshed on the Bayou,” an episode of the ID Network series Sins & Secrets.

Police felt tremendous pressure to solve the case quickly. An anonymous donor offered $10,000 for help finding the killer.

From the start, the police believed the robbery-murder was an inside job because the assailants immediately zeroed in on the safe. But, according to Rosana, a lot of people — friends, family, business associates — knew about the safe.

Business misdoings. Ronald Shaw’s grown son from his first marriage, James M. Shaw, suspected Rosana.

Others thought the hit resulted from bad blood over what the Daily Advertiser termed Ron’s “innovative” oil and gas company, which used GPS technology in drill bits. Ron had made a few bad moves at M.W.D. Services, and some of his investors lost money.

He had also rejiggered his finances to keep ex-wife Karen away from his money. She, too, was a suspect at first.

Troubled teens. But Karen’s mother reportedly told police that Ronald and Karen had patched things up and had even started hooking up romantically again, according to Sins & Secrets.

The investigation soon turned away from Shaw’s family and business stakeholders.

General contractor Ernest Touchet mentioned to investigators that his grandsons, Chris Touchet, 16, and Shannon Touchet, 17, who had worked on the Shaws’ house, had run-ins with the law in their recent history.

Dental identification. The elder Touchet admitted to police that he was afraid that his grandsons had something to do with the home invasion.

Rosana Shaw had told police that one of the robbers had gold teeth — Shannon Touchet had gold teeth.

Once the police turned their attention toward Shannon, they were able to put their case together in a few months. The trio of sloppy killers left plenty of evidence.

Rosana Shaw Little during her appearance on Forensic Files — Rosana Shaw-Little, shown during her appearance on Forensic Files, spoke English and Spanish and earned a degree from the *Chihuahua Institute* of Technology, a public university in Mexico

Ammo the same. First off, footprints found outside the Shaws’ mansion matched a pair of Shannon’s Nike Air Jordans.

At Shannon’s mother’s home, police found .38-caliber bullets like the ones used in the murder.

Although Shannon’s girlfriend told police he was with her at the time of the home invasion, her claim didn’t hold up.

Eyewitnesses emerge. The elder Touchets were an honorable bunch: Shannon’s mother disputed his alibi. She told police he was out in a burgundy car with his buddies Reggie Basil and Ronald Benson, both 18 years old, on the night of the homicide.

Some of the Shaws’ neighbors had told investigators that they saw three young men hanging around a dark-red car parked not far from the Shaws’ house the night of the crime.

A red ski mask found near the scene contained Ronald Benson’s DNA.

Denouement time. Police arrested Shannon Touchet, Reginald Basile, and a friend of theirs named Nicholas Dominique.

Ronald Benson turned himself in.

Shannon cracked immediately, admitting he told his friends about the safe and had been planning the robbery for a couple of weeks. Reggie also confessed, giving a similar story.

But Shannon Touchet testified that he had no gun with him during the robbery and that he started “crying and whimpering” when he saw his accomplices shoot Ronald Shaw. Shannon also claimed that he begged them to spare Rosana’s life. During legal proceedings, Shannon expressed remorse and said he didn’t know the robbery plot would include a murder.

Quickie deliberation. In turn, prosecutor Keith Stutes argued that Shannon’s plan had always included homicide and that he was sorry he got caught, not that he set the crime in motion.

A jury took 30 minutes to convict Shannon of second-degree murder. “Touchet, dressed in a starched white shirt and blue pants, hung his head when the verdict was announced,” the Daily Advertiser reported in 2002.

Basile pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and aggravated robbery and got a life sentence.

The Shaws barely had time to settle into their new house, seen here courtesy of Google Earth — The Shaws moved into their new house, seen here courtesy of Google Earth, before construction was complete

Borrowed getaway car. Benson tried a different tack from the other two. He clammed up and told the police nothing before going to trial.

But Benson had blabbed to a couple of cellmates who went on to testify against him. And Shannon Touchet, having made a deal for a sentence reduction from first-degree murder, ratted out Benson as well.

Still, Benson escaped the death penalty and ended up with a life sentence.

Dominique, who had lent the killers the car they drove the night of the homicide, pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact.

(Apparently Shannon’s younger brother, Chris Touchet, had nothing to do with the robbery-murder, despite that early on his grandfather worried he was involved.)

Wild claims. The next big development in the case happened in 2003, when a witness named Stacy Vasalle came forward to accuse construction company owner Ernest Touchet and his son, Dwayne Touchet, of committing the murder.

“It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” Ernest Touchet told the Daily Advertiser. “My blood pressure is going up just thinking about it.”

Dwayne Touchet said that Vasalle, an ex-girlfriend, was looking for revenge because of their breakup.

Ronald Benson requested a new trial based on Vasalle’s claims, but Judge Marilyn Castle declined, calling her statements “suspicious and incredible.”

Shannon Touchet lost a 2003 appeal.

Still a Shaw. As far as an epilogue on the trio of home invaders, now in their 30s, they are all serving their life sentences in Louisiana State Penitentiary, according to the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections telephone information line.

What became of Ronald Shaw’s young widow?

Photo of Rosana Shaw from her Facebook Mary Kay cosmetics page — A current screenshot from Rosana Shaw’s professional Facebook page

Rosana remarried at some point — she was identified as “Rosana Shaw Little” on Forensic Files. Although she has since dropped the “Little” from her name, it appears that she still has a husband.

Cosmetics entrepreneur. It’s not clear whether she lives in the huge house she once shared with Ronald Shaw, but she has remained in the Youngsville area.

Now in her late 50s, Rosana works as a Mary Kay beauty consultant and apparently practices what she preaches. She looks the same today as she did in the Forensic Files episode, produced back in 2006.

In her spare time, she does volunteer work for her local Adopt a Grandparent organization.

Youngest descendant. Rosana has two children. One of them is the daughter from her union with Ronald Shaw.

She has fair hair like her late father.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

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Douglas Mouser: Suddenly Homicidal

Did Prosecutors Railroad Genna Gamble’s Stepfather?
(“Picture This,” Forensic Files)

Most Forensic Files cases offer more than enough evidence to make viewers relieved the perpetrator ended up behind razor wire.

Douglas Mouser’s conviction for the murder of his stepdaughter, on the other hand, leaves doubts.

Authorities seemed to mold evidence to fit their own theory about how high school sophomore Genna Gamble ended up lifeless in a ditch not far from her home in Modesto, California.

Reprimanded and warned. For this week, I looked into Mouser’s whereabouts today and whether he has snagged the support of any innocence advocates.

So let’s get going on the recap of “Picture This” along with additional information from internet research.

On the morning of Oct. 14, 1995, an aerobics instructor named Kathy Mouser reminded her 14-year-old daughter, Genna, that she was grounded for the weekend and forbidden to use the phone.

Thrown away. Then, Kathy left for the gym to teach a class. When she returned at 1 p.m., no one was home.

Kathy would never see her daughter alive again.

Police located the Beyer High School student’s unclothed body in a lonely area next to a walnut orchard 20 miles from the Mousers’ house. She had been strangled via ligature.

Genna had also sustained blunt force injuries, but had not been sexually assaulted.

Her feet had no dirt on them, suggesting the assailant had killed her elsewhere, than transported her body to the disposal site.

Suspect character. Phone records revealed that Genna had defied her parents and made several calls that day. Her friends didn’t remember Genna bringing up anything beyond the usual chitchat.

But one said that Genna suddenly hung up without saying goodbye.

Her pals also mentioned that there was a sketchy character, a guy of around 18 or 19, in Genna’s life and he liked to prey upon younger girls, according to defense attorney Richard Herman, who appeared on Forensic Files.

Security malfunction. But he had an alibi, so investigators turned to another male close to Genna: her stepfather, who had raised her since age 2.

Douglas Scott Mouser, who worked at federal research facility Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, seemed to have an alibi at first. He said he was at work — he had gone into the office for a few hours on Saturday — at the time of Genna’s disappearance.

The comfortable house in Modesto, California, where Genna Gamble lived with her mother and stepfather

In an odd coincidence, the security cameras at his office weren’t working that day and neither were the ones at the Jack in the Box where Mouser said he bought lunch.

A guard at Lawrence Livermore didn’t recall seeing Mouser that day.

Investigators had their suspect.

Bring on the junk science. With no forensic evidence in the house, they concentrated on Mouser’s car and soon connected it to the murder.

The police brought in Gary Robertson, a Canadian specialist in photogrammetry, the practice of using mathematical calculations to uncover information about a picture.

Robertson theorized that postmortem indentations found on Gemma’s thigh matched the impressions a seatbelt and car rug in Douglas Mouser’s vehicle would leave — if her body lay in a certain position.

Story concocted. That part makes no sense to me. Couldn’t they arrange the seatbelts and rug and a test model in any car to line up with virtually any impressions?

But that didn’t stop prosecutors from creating their own narrative.

Perhaps, Mouser become enraged when he witnessed Genna flouting his authority by using the phone, they thought.

She was quite the handful.

Impossible years. Deputy attorney general Birgit Fladager mentioned that Genna had seen a counselor for oppositional defiant disorder.

According to the Mayo Clinic website, the syndrome, known as ODD, can cause frequent loss of temper, anger, resentment, argumentativeness toward authority figures, vindictive behavior, and deliberate attempts to annoy others.

In other words, Genna acted like a teenager.

Police, spurred by the conjecture of FBI-trained profiler Michael J. Prodan, maintained that Mouser struck his stepdaughter in anger during an argument, and then panicked because a child abuse charge could threaten his job.

Telltale technology. So, he strangled her, disrobed her to eliminate forensic evidence, and threw her body in the ditch off Tim Bell Road outside of Waterford, they asserted.

It was all speculation. The only solid evidence the state had against Mouser was that his employer disputed his claim that he logged onto his computer around the time of the homicide.

Mouser was charged with first-degree murder in August 1997. Superior Court Judge Hurl W. Johnson later reduced Doug’s bail from $1 million to $500,000.

Plant physiology lesson. Birgit Fladager and fellow Stanislaus County assistant district attorney Joseph “Rick” Distaso served as prosecutors during the three-month trial.

The duo didn’t have DNA or blood splatter or ballistics to help them, so they hawked their dubious forensics — the photogrammetry plus some forensic botany. A vegetation expert determined that pieces of yellow star thistle found on the underside of Mouser’s car were in the same life stage as star thistle found at the dump site.

Next, came the circumstantial evidence.

Anger and flak. Although Forensic Files didn’t mention it, the prosecution obtained a tape of a suspicious conversation between Kathy Mouser and her son, Gerren Gamble, 18.

When Gerren asked Kathy whether Doug Mouser had killed his sister, Kathy answered, “You know how Genna was.”

And there was also the matter of Mouser allegedly telling neighbors that he and Genna argued about chores — evidence of flaring tempers that could have boiled over — the day she disappeared, according to court papers.

Sneaked out? To me, the strongest evidence against Mouser was the statement from her friend that Genna hung up without saying goodbye. If an unknown assailant entered Genna’s room, she would have screamed or asked for help. If one of her guy friends stopped by, she would have had a chance to say goodbye to her gal pal on the phone. Only a surprise drop-in by a parent would spur her to instantly hit the receiver.

Mouser’s lawyer put together a different narrative.

Richard Herman theorized that after Doug Mouser left for work, Genna slipped out of the house and was killed by an unknown assailant or an unsavory acquaintance.

Profiler assailed. Genna’s brother sold drugs out of the house and Genna had socialized with at least one sex offender, according to the book Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis by Brent E. Turvey.

The tome also suggests that criminal profiler Michael J. Prodan examined only a few of the available crime scene photos, never actually visited the site, and didn’t know about the alleged drug activity going on in and around the Mouser house.

Kathy and Doug Mouser at Genna Gamble's funeral — Kathy and Doug Mouser at Genna Gamble’s funeral

During the trial, the jury members traveled to the house and the dump site to see them with their own eyes.

Outcome a surprise. It was all a lot to digest.

They deliberated for six days before convicting Mouser of second-degree murder in December 1999. He received a sentence of 15 years to life.

Fladager believed the lack of forensic evidence actually made the case stronger. “It’s hard to attack circumstantial evidence,” she said.

The Contra Costa Times would later call it a “stunning victory” for the prosecutors.

‘Intent to kill.’ Richard Herman, meanwhile, said the case was the biggest failure of his life. “This shakes my whole foundation of my practicing of criminal law,” Herman said. “This is a tragedy for the family and a tragedy for justice.”

His client hasn’t had much post-conviction luck.

The California Supreme Court declined to review Mouser’s 2004 appeal. A subsequent court action affirmed the attorney general’s opinion that “the evidence strongly suggests that defendant possessed an intent to kill.”

Declined again and again. In 2011, Genna’s biological dad, Tom, and his wife, Carole Gamble, appeared at a parole hearing to encourage the board to keep Mouser incarcerated.

Despite Mouser’s status as a “model prisoner,” the board turned down his bid for freedom in 2011.

He was refused again after a 2014 parole hearing where Birgit Fladager argued that Mouser had shown no remorse and refused to admit his crime or provide details about it.

Of course, that could mean he didn’t really do it.

A 2018 parole hearing was postponed, but the board met and heard a victim impact statement from Tom Gamble.

So, is anybody in Douglas Mouser’s corner?

Believers exist. The Innocence Project has not taken up his case, but his wife — Genna’s biological mother — reportedly believes in his innocence and at one point moved to be closer to his prison.

And Douglas Mouser has defenders in the court of public opinion. Two recent reader comments from the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Facebook page:

“I knew Doug Mouser back then and I will never believe that he did this. All evidence was circumstantial at best. He was and I believe still is a good man wrongfully convicted. To continue to deny him parole is cruel…. [Genna] had a questionable boyfriend that was never questioned.” — Polly Wallis

“With no evidence the jury were convinced on the theatrics of the prosecutors. This is a seriously unsafe conviction with probably an innocent man in jail and a killer possibly still free.” — Graham Bevan

Sensational trial. Today, Douglas Scott Mouser, 59, also known as #P76180, resides in Valley State Prison, a medium-security facility in Chowchilla, California.

Meanwhile, the lawyers responsible for putting him there have enjoyed upward career trajectories.

In a sensational trial watched around the world, Birgit Fladager and Rick Distaso successfully prosecuted Scott Peterson — for murdering his wife, Laci, when she was eight months pregnant— despite that they had scant forensic evidence and were up against celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos.

Prosecutor Birgit Fladager smiles after helping to convict Scott Peterson — Birgit Fladager smiles after Scott Peterson’s conviction

Everybody loves Birgit. The earnest, mild-mannered Fladager later won her bid for Stanislaus County District Attorney.

She has received a lot of public approval. “I found Birgit to be a prosecutor’s prosecutor – gutsy, savvy, knowledgeable, competent, tough and ethical,” wrote her former colleague Thomas Fontan in the Modesto Bee.

Even her old foe Richard Herman praised her “believability” as a prosecutor.

Rick Distaso has also moved up in the world, becoming a superior court judge.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

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Michael Prozumenshikov: A Success Story Dies

An Immigrant Becomes a Millionaire But Goes out of Bounds
(“Going for Broke,” Forensic Files)

For a while, Michael Prozumenshikov seemed to be doing everything right. In hopes of a more prosperous life, he came to the U.S. from Soviet-era Russia, where he’d grown up in an apartment crammed with 30 other people.

Michael Prozumenshikov dressed up with a bow tie — Michael Prozumenshikov

Fast track. He got a job as a janitor for $63 a week after arriving in Minneapolis, studied finance, and earned a stockbroker’s license.

Amid the 1980s Wall Street bubble, Prozumenshikov grew into a tiger of a salesman. He nabbed a $240,000 signing bonus when Prudential-Bache Securities recruited him as an investment adviser.

Within seven years of coming to America, he was driving a Mercedes, living in a newly constructed 20-room house, and making $1 million a year.

Rich man targeted. But as so with many other Forensic Files subjects (Ari Squire, John Hawkins), his American dream turned into a cautionary tale.

Prozumenshikov’s story, however, differs a bit from the usual because he ended up as the homicide victim rather than the perpetrator.

For this week, I did some research into Prozumenshikov’s background and how he botched the financial fiefdom he created.

Missing husband. So let’s get going on the recap of “Going for Broke,” along with extra information culled from online research and the book The Pru-Bache Murder: The Fast Life and Grisly Death of a Millionaire Stockbroker by Jeffrey Taylor.

At 10:30 p.m. on January 28, 1991, Michael Prozumenshikov called his wife, Ellen, to let her know he was on his way home.

He never arrived.

Michael Prozumenshikov's McMansion — Everything about Michael Prozumenshikov, including this house built to his specs, seemed to whisper “new money”

In pieces. Police found his Mercedes, with his checkbook, credit cards, and some cash inside, in a parking lot in Wayzata.

Soon after, a headless torso and two legs from a caucasian male turned up under some abandoned Christmas trees. The severed tip of a left pinky finger found at the scene and scars on other body parts helped police identify the victim as Michael Prozumenshikov, age 37.

So who would want to kill this respectable family man?

Well, lots of people, it turned out.

Hammer time. Although he labored long hours and aimed high, Prozumenshikov also liked to take short cuts. It was a pattern that started when he still lived in the USSR.

After excelling in hammer-throwing as a boy in Leningrad, Prozumenshikov used his athletic connections to get into dental school there, according to Taylor’s book.

He was a poor-performing student but still managed to network his way into a job as a dentist in a clinic in Russia, according to Taylor.

Career switch. But the U.S. had more-strenuous requirements, and Prozumenshikov failed his dental exams here.

Associates described Zachary Persitz as mild-mannered and well-liked

Fortunately, he landed in a more lucrative field thanks to a friend who encouraged him to try a career in finance. He learned quickly and pursued clients — many of them fellow Russian Jewish immigrants — aggressively.

But Prozumenshikov was in too much of a hurry. Greed overtook him, and he made impossible claims to prospective clients, engaged in unauthorized trading, and falsified information.

Few fans. Like most good con men, he had a knack for putting on an optimistic front even as things headed south. He persuaded clients to stay with him despite their losses, according to Taylor.

Although the police had no specific murder suspects at first, they found that a lot of people didn’t feel all that bad to hear about Prozumenshikov’s demise, according to Rocky Fontana, a Hennepin County Sheriff’s detective who appeared on Forensic Files.

First off, Prozumenshikov had begun to separate himself, literally and figuratively, from the Russian Jewish émigré community that had helped make him successful.

Ostentatious style. He, Ellen, and, and their sons, ages 11 and 13, had moved to Wayzata, a lakeside town with a yacht club and median house price of $600,000.

And he liked to flaunt his Rolex watches and Montblanc pens. On his desk, he kept framed photos of cars and houses he aspired to purchase, according to Taylor’s book.

While the Prozumenshikov sons were attending private schools, their father was busy erasing the personal fortunes of the people who trusted him to help them attain better lives for their own kids.

This doesn’t fly. Zina Shirl, who appeared on Forensic Files, said that Prozumenshikov went renegade with $20,000 of her money.

He had also used clients’ money to make disastrous investments in Texas Air, which promptly dived 75 percent in value (and no longer exists), according to Forensic Files.

Even as his clients’ accounts were shrinking, Prozumenshikov would make as many as 100 trades on a single account in a year so he could pocket the commissions

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No Shangri-La. He wiped out the $70,000 life savings of a World War II vet named Clem Seifert, who would later enthusiastically volunteer to testify in the killer’s defense.

Prozumenshikov had also persuaded clients to invest in developing a Reno, Nevada, resort that was an utter scam. The project never happened.

Clearly, Prozumenshikov’s death was somehow related to his job. His wife told police that on the night he disappeared, he had called her to ask for his supervisor’s number.

Follow the Mazda. Next, he called his boss from a pay phone to ask for $200,000 in cash for a client. He refused.

Then, Michael Prozumenshikov disappeared.

Police were able to connect a brown 1986 Mazda 626 seen parked near Prozumenshikov’s black Mercedes on the night of the murder to a handsome 39-year-old dam inspector named Zachary Persitz.

The Prozumenshikov and Persitz families were close friends. Their sons had sleepovers together.

Henpecked husband. Persitz, also a member of the local Russian Jewish community, entrusted Prozumenshikov to invest $150,000 for him. A lot was riding on that investment.

Although the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources surely paid Persitz a decent salary, his wife, Julia, a concert violinist, had been needling him about why he couldn’t be as successful as his buddy Michael Prozumenshikov, Fontana told Forensic Files.

But Persitz wouldn’t be buying Julia a McMansion or an E-Class Cabriolet anytime soon. A combination of Prozumenshikov’s mismanagement and the 1987 stock crash diminished Persitz’s wealth by anywhere from $37,000 to $120,000 (sources vary on the amount of the loss).

Paint clue. Shortly after the homicide, a car wash employee wrote down the license plate number of the Mazda after noticing the driver trying to wash blood from inside its trunk. Persitz told the car wash workers he hit a deer.

Zachary Persitz with his two sons and Bernese mountain dog — Zachary Persitz had two sons and a Bernese mountain dog to feed

Police discovered that paint found on Persitz’s bumper looked similar to that from an orange gate near the crime scene. And bumper fragments found there matched those missing from Persitz’s Mazda, whose interior revealed blood splatter.

Authorities also learned that an ax that Persitz kept in his locker at work had gone missing, according to an AP account from 1991.

Wife worried. And the Persitz family had a Bernese mountain dog whose hair matched a strand found at the murder scene (not that the family pet was in on the homicide — shed fur carries and transfers like crazy). County prosecutor Kevin Johnson remarked it was “the first time a search warrant has been executed on a dog in Hennepin County.”

On Feb. 4, 1991, authorities arrested Persitz and set his bail at $750,000.

There was circumstantial evidence against him in addition to the forensics.

Ransom of $200K. The day before the homicide, family friend Rudolph Lekhter and Persitz had gone out shooting at Bill’s Gun Range in Robbinsville.

Prosecutors believed Persitz set up a meeting with Prozumenshikov, then threatened the 6-foot-tall 200-pound-plus stockbroker with a gun and demanded $200,000 to cover his losses plus interest.

When Prozumenshikov couldn’t produce the cash, Persitz shot him (possibly with one of Lekhter’s guns, although he wasn’t implicated), threw him in the trunk, and then headed to a compost site 60 miles away the next day. He crashed threw a gate there and dismembered the body.

Chicago Tribune writer Jeffrey Taylor’s book about Michael Prozumenshikov was no mere mass-market true crime effort. The hardcover tome got A+ marks from mainstream book reviewers

Back in the USSR. Once charged, instead of going the usual Forensic Files killer route by claiming the victim attacked him first, Persitz declared himself not guilty by way of insanity.

Judge Robert Shiefelbein delayed the trial so the defense team, led by Joe Friedberg, could obtain Persitz’s 1970s records from a psychiatric hospital in Russia.

Mental health professionals for both the defense and prosecution ultimately agreed Persitz suffered from OCD and severe depression. In fact, the judge agreed to another delay so Persitz could undergo electroconvulsive therapy.

Death wish. Persitz said that, as a child, he had witnessed violence between his parents and had tried to kill himself at age 11.

His claim of suicidal tendencies was credible. While awaiting trial in 1992, Persitz and fellow inmate Russell Lund made a pact to suffocate themselves with plastic bags. Lund succeeded, but deputies reached Persitz in time to save him.

The defense argued that the crime itself was crazy enough to prove insanity. Persitz admitted to shooting Prozumenshikov once on the frozen Lake Minnetonka and again in the Mazda, then hacking up the corpse the next day.

“Clearly, chopping a body up in the early morning hours when it’s 20-below is nonsensical,” defense attorney Paul Engh offered.

Victim of his own success? Still, prosecutor Kevin Johnson made the state’s case that Persitz had been plotting the murder for months and was sane enough to know that killing Prozumenshikov was wrong.

The jury convicted him of the murder on June 23, 1993. In a separate hearing, the panel rejected the insanity plea. He received a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 27½ years.

Widow Ellen Prozumenshikov blamed the murder on Persitz’s “envy” and “greed,” the Tribune Star reported:

“Michael was living his American dream. His dream was suddenly ended by someone who couldn’t bear to see it realized, who couldn’t accept Michael’s life in comparison to his own.”

Michael Prozumenshikov's gravestone, included his portrait — Michael Prozumenshikov’s burial was as flashy as his life

With the trial over, Ellen, a dental hygienist, also said she hoped to begin the “healing process for our family.”

Down by the river. Persitz’s parole eligibility would have come around in 2021, but he couldn’t wait.

He hanged himself in Stillwater in 2010.

Persitz had admitted that he threw Michael Prozumenshikov’s head and hands — the instruments of his deceits — into the St. Croix River, but they were never found.

That’s all for this week. Until next time, cheers. — RR

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Jason Massey: Cherub-Faced Killer

A Menace to People and Pets Gets Justice Texas-Style
(“Pure Evil,” Forensic Files)

Except for the mullet, Jason Eric Massey looks like a wholesome youth straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

But as Forensic Files has taught us, outward appearances mean nothing (John Schneeberger and Barbara Stager).

Jason Massey wearing a mullet — Murderer Jason Massey

The button-nosed golden-haired youth left a trail of horrifying cruelty in his wake, and he’s one of the few criminals depicted on the show who has already been executed.

Gruesome find. For this week, I looked for some background on Jason — who killed two teenagers and did other awful things — that might explain how he grew into a monster.

So let’s get going on the recap of the episode, along with extra information from internet research.

On July 29, 1993, a work crew found the body of a girl in a brushy area near Telico, Texas.

A few hundred feet away, police found a dead boy.

A library card in his wallet identified the male victim as James Brian King, 14, who went by “Brian.” He died from two bullet wounds.

Unusually vicious. Brian’s body was intact, but the killer had cut off the girl’s head and hands and disfigured her in other depraved ways. She was ID’ed as Brian’s stepsister, Christina Benjamin, 13.

Medical Examiner Sheila Spotswood, who appeared on the episode, said Christina’s injuries were the worst case of mutilation that she’d ever seen.

Investigators found blond hair from two individuals — Christina and an unknown person — at the scene. They also recovered a distinctive tan fiber.

Christina and James had gone missing on July 26, 1993, from their home in Garrett, Texas, where they lived with common-law husband and wife James King and Donna Benjamin.

Frightening fetish. That night, James witnessed his son get in a car with a driver he seemed to know, but he didn’t get a look at his face. Although James didn’t see her, investigators believe Christina was in the car, too.

With few clues, local investigators turned to the FBI for help profiling the killer.

The feds believed that it wasn’t exactly a sex crime — Christina hadn’t been raped — and noted that it was probably committed by someone who started out by abusing animals and derived sexual pleasure from inflicting injuries.

Vehicle full of evidence. Meanwhile, an anonymous caller to the Ellis County Sheriff’s Office suggested looking into Jason Massey, a 20-year-old high school dropout.

Investigators questioned Jason and impounded his 1982 tan Subaru.

Inside, they found a receipt for some ammunition, a hunting knife, bloodstains, and tan carpeting with fibers matching the one from the crime scene.

Detectives emptied out a vacuum cleaner and garbage can at a car wash recently visited by Massey and found more of Christina’s hair and a card from Jason’s probation officer.

Firearm ID’ed. A lab determined the bloodstains in the Subaru were genetically similar to blood from Christina Benjamin’s relatives.

Jason’s cousin owned a .22 caliber pistol, which someone had borrowed without permission from his grandmother’s house. Investigators pegged it as the murder weapon.

Jason was arrested.

So who was this Howdy Doody-faced sadist?

Cruelty started at home. The man who would grow up to admire Ted Bundy and Charles Manson was born in Jan. 7, 1973, to a single mother who was more interested in partying than raising Jason and his younger sister.

Specific details were hard to come by in mainstream media, but British crime blog Shots reported that she used to beat him and leave him alone in the car while she drank at local watering holes.

Jason’s mother also liked to eat in front of him and his sister but deprive them of food, according to the Crime Library.

The family had a history of moving from one dilapidated residence to another. It’s not clear what role Jason’s father, also a substance abuser, had in Jason’s life.

Mother steps in. By the time Jason was in his early teens, his disturbing extracurricular interests became apparent.

A ninth-grade teacher named Edith Robinson recalled that Jason carried around an article about Charles Manson and seemed fascinated by swastikas. He also considered Ted Bundy one of his personal heroes.

Although neglectful, Jason’s mother cared enough to consult a psychological professional when she discovered notebooks he’d written about rape and other violent fantasies.

At 18, he wound up in the Dallas Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit, but he was released soon after, according to Crime Library.

As far as his occupation, multiple sources refer to Jason as a roofer, although it’s not clear whether he worked steadily.

Pulchritude problem. Before the homicides, his record included only one offense, a DWI conviction, but his luck would run out soon.

On, March 17, 1994, Texas indicted Jason on two counts of murder.

In the run-up to the trial, the DA said he was afraid that Jason’s good looks would sway the jury if he testified.

Dangerous on the witness stand? By the time the court date rolled around, Jason had replaced his T-shirts with button downs and ties. And he had snipped away the party in the back from his hair.

He also had a polite manner while in custody, calling a reporter “Ma’am,” for example. Of course, the courteous behavior implied that he could present himself as normal enough to fool younger teens into liking him.

Jason decided not to testify.

Goal-oriented. At the trial, prosecutors contended that, after luring Christina and Brian into his car, Jason shot Brian King at close range, then chased Christina as she ran from the vehicle, shot her in the back, stabbed her, and mutilated her body after death.

But the forensic evidence wasn’t the star at the trial. Jason Massey’s journal and testimony from his friends were.

He had written about his desire to commit hundreds of homicides and become the most famous serial killer in the U.S.

More sick ideas. “I’m going to embark on a sacred journey. Yes, I’m going to start my campaign as a serial killer,” he wrote in his diary in 1981, the AP reported. He allegedly aspired to cannibalism as well.

In court, Jason Massey, right, looked more like a Goldman Sachs intern than a thrill killer

Massey had said he wanted to decapitate a woman and have sex with her head, according to the Clark Prosecutors website.

Chris Nowlin, who was described as Christina’s boyfriend or friend, told investigators that Jason talked about his desire to kill women, but he didn’t take him seriously. Nowlin, an ex-convict who also knew Brian King, said Jason and Christina met through him and made plans to sneak off on a date together.

Nice try. Jason’s court-appointed lawyers tried to turn Nowlin’s words against him. “It doesn’t say much about the credibility of [Christina’s] boyfriend if he didn’t take those alleged threats seriously,” said Steve Kelly, the AP reported.

Another of Jason’s defense attorneys, Mike Hartley, argued that one or more of Jason’s disreputable associates — some of whom were helping the prosecution — could have committed the murders.

But the evidence against Jason just kept rolling in. A former school friend named Anita Mendoza testified that Jason sent her threatening letters and disturbing violent images and may have killed her dog.

Intervention relatively early. It was credible testimony. The investigations turned up a cooler Jason had used to collect mementos of dozens of animals he had killed.

On October 6, 1994, the jury found Jason Massey guilty of murder.

“It’s almost a miracle we caught him as quickly in his career as we did,” prosecutor Clay Strange told the Houston Chronicle. “I’ve met a lot of people meaner, but no one more evil.”

Gina King and Jeanette Bellows, relatives of the slain teenagers — Gina King, sister of Brian King, and Jeane Bellows, grandmother of Christina Benjamin, both appeared on Forensic Files

Indeed, law enforcement got him before his victims numbered anywhere near as many as those of Jeffrey Dahmer, another benign-looking but utterly deranged murderer.

At Jason’s sentencing hearing, the prosecution read numerous horrifying thoughts taken from Jason’s journals.

Disgruntled prisoner. The jury gave him a death sentence after deliberating for 15 minutes (“15 minute deliberation included a 14 minute bathroom break,” quipped YouTube commenter mrabrasive).

Over the years, Jason Massey’s appeals included such alleged factors as ineffective counsel, inadequate DNA testing, lack of investigations into other suspects, and a judge who looked bored. The Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty helped him file the legal actions.

Jason solicited pen pals while in prison and lamented that he never got a chance to marry or have kids and that his six brothers and sisters didn’t visit him.

Last hope gone. In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Jason Massey’s final appeal.

He had his date with a gurney and syringe on April 3, 2001, in Huntsville, Texas.

For his last meal, Jason enjoyed “three fried chicken quarters, fried squash, fried egg plant, mashed potatoes, snap peas, boiled cabbage, three corn on the cob, spinach, broccoli with cheese, one pint of caramel pecan fudge or tin roof ice cream, and a pitcher of sweet tea,” according to Clarkprosecutor.org.

Normal on the surface: Jason Massey with his sister and two young relatives

Contrition. In his final words, Massey apologized to Christina Benjamin and James King’s family and revealed that he had thrown Christina’s head and hands into the Trinity River. (They were never found.) He also proclaimed his newfound love for God, stating, “Tonight I dance on the streets of gold. Let those without sin cast the first stone.”

Christina Benjamin’s grandparents watched the execution. Jason looked at them and mouthed the words “I’m sorry” as the lethal injection began to take effect.

Jason Massey died without achieving his dream of becoming a world-renowned serial killer, but he snagged a Forensic Files episode that was broadcast just seven months after his death.

And he probably inspired a lot of Texans to pay more attention to who their kids were hanging around with.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

Update on Dana Satterfield’s Daughter

What Happened to Ashley After Forensic Files?
(“Driven to Silence,” Forensic Files)

A decade after her mother’s homicide, Ashley Satterfield unwittingly helped catch the killer.

And it’s a good thing she did. After murdering hair salon owner Dana Chyleen Satterfield in 1995, teenage felon Jonathan Vick went on to accrue a lengthy police record.

Murder victim Dana Sattefield — Murder victim Dana Satterfield

Epilogue on a child. His 2005 arrest and subsequent conviction stopped what would have undoubtedly turned into an even longer streak of violence. It also provided some consolation to Dana’s family.

Forensic Files viewers will remember that the victim’s mild-mannered daughter, Ashley, appeared on “Driven to Silence,” the episode about Dana’s murder. It was produced and first broadcast back in 2008, so an update on the woman who lost her mother at age 8 seems in order.

But first here’s a quick recap of the episode along with additional information drawn from internet research:

Spotted fleeing. On July 31, 1995, a 17-year-old South Carolinian named Jonathan Vick bragged to his buddy that he planned to snag a date with Dana Satterfield. His friend thought he was a little out of line to assume a married — albeit separated — 27-year-old mother of two would take an interest in a teenage boy.

Little did the buddy, Michael Pace, know that his friend wasn’t just arrogant. He was a psychopath, who later that evening entered Dana’s South Carolina business, Roebuck Hair and Tanning Center, and raped and strangled her. He left her body hanging from a water heater in the bathroom.

Jonathan Vick in custody circa 2005. (Note: Some media accounts spell his first name ‘Jonothan’)

Diane Harris, a door-to-door saleswoman who had earlier that day sold Dana a bottle of cleaning fluid, saw a man jump out of the window of the mobile home that housed Dana’s salon.

Mystery informant. While running to summon help, Diane Harris (it’s not clear whether that’s her real name or a pseudonym) came face to face with the escapee for a moment and was thus able to help police work up a sketch.

Michael Pace tried to assist investigators, too — he just didn’t try quite hard enough.

He anonymously called the sheriff’s office multiple times to suggest checking out Jonathan Vick, but Vick’s fingerprints didn’t turn up at the murder scene. And an unnamed tipster’s claims don’t constitute enough evidence for an arrest.

Spotlighted on TV. Meanwhile, police had already ruled out the default suspect — Mike Satterfield, Dana’s estranged husband.

Anyone with two eyes could see that a mountain of a man like him would have trouble fitting through the door of a mobile home let alone a window. And he had an alibi anyway.

In 1997, Unsolved Mysteries produced a segment about Dana’s murder, but it didn’t yield any solid prospects.

The case went cold until 2005, when Ashley Satterfield, then around 18, inadvertently revved up the idled murder investigation.

Scurrying about. Michael Pace worked at a station that Ashley visited for an oil change. After seeing Ashley and learning she was Dana Satterfield’s daughter, he contacted authorities again — but this time he revealed his identity and gave them enough information to force Vick to submit a DNA sample.

It matched genetic evidence found at the crime scene.

Vick had long known that he was a suspect in the case and had changed his address twice to avoid the police, according to an AP account.

But that didn’t mean he stayed on his best behavior. By the time police hauled him in on Oct. 24, 2005, in Greenville, he was a married father with arrests for domestic violence and vandalism. Vick also had a history of antagonizing co-workers and being fired from jobs. And yikes, one of his girlfriends dropped out of sight in an unsolved disappearance.

Hair of a chance. Authorities charged Vick with murder, kidnapping, and criminal sexual conduct for his attack on Dana Satterfield.

At the trial, the prosecution’s arsenal included genetic evidence, at least one eyewitness account, and damning admissions Vick had made to a fellow detainee.

The defense didn’t have a lot of ammo but hoped that a hair belonging to someone other than Vick that was found on Dana Satterfield’s body would become the bombshell that blew up the case.

Ashley Arrowood as an infant with mother Dana Satterfield and in 2016

Escapes executioner. But evidence showed that the killer had dragged Dana across the floor of the salon where she had spent all day cutting and styling hair — of course stray hairs ended up on her clothes and body.

In November 2006, a jury convicted Vick of Dana Satterfield’s murder. Because he committed the crime at 17, he wasn’t eligible for the death penalty. He got life instead.

So what has happened to his victim’s daughter since she appeared on Forensic Files?

24/7 job. Now known as Ashley Arrowood, she went on to have two children of her own and dedicate herself to helping survivors of horrible crimes.

She became a victim advocate for the Spartanberg County Sheriff’s Office. In an interview with the Spartanburg Herald-Journal in 2016, Ashley said she makes herself available at all hours for victims in need of someone to talk to. She attends bond hearings with them and encourages them to draft impact statements and read them at sentencing hearings.

She also started a jailhouse program to make inmates aware of the effects their crimes have on victims’ friends and family.

Perpetrator still denying. Entrepreneurial like her late mother, Ashley operates her own photography business.

In an interview with Channel 7 wspa.com, Ashley said that she hasn’t started forgiving Vick yet, because he’s still denying his guilt.

Vick continues to maintain that an unknown assailant killed Dana Satterfield. Meanwhile, he has proved himself a rough customer while incarcerated. On one occasion, he threatened the life of a Spartanburg County detention officer. That got him an extra three years.

Parole possibility. More recently, Vick landed himself in the special management unit — which means 23 hours a day in the cell — for six months as punishment for attacking a fellow inmate at Lee Correctional Institution.

Today, Vick resides in Lieber Correctional Institution, a maximum security facility in Ridgeville.

Ashley Arrowood’s knowledge of the criminal justice system should help her make a good case against granting Vick parole when he becomes eligible for review in 2035.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

Tina Isa’s Parents: An Epilogue

Zein and Maria Isa Kill Their Child for Being American in the U.S.
(“Honor Thy Father,” Forensic Files)

For some parents, having a rebellious teenage daughter means she’s smoking marijuana and dating an ex-con with a neck tattoo.

In the case of one St. Louis couple, it meant that she snagged a part-time job at Wendy’s and went to the prom with a nice young man.

Matchmaker dad. Palestina “Tina” Isa’s mother and father didn’t take pride in their daughter despite that she wanted to earn her own spending money, got good grades, and secured a college scholarship so she could study aeronautical engineering.

Tina Isa with prom date Clifford Walker — Tina Isa, with prom escort Clifford Walker

Her parents wanted her to work at the family business, marry a Palestinian boy of Zein’s choosing, and move to the West Bank village of Beitin.

Tina’s rejection of the Isas’ cultural traditions upset them so much that they murdered her to save face, in a so-called honor killing.

Catch It If You Can. For this week, I looked around for more background on the family and what happened to Zein and Maria Isa between the murder and their own deaths.

“Honor Thy Father” is hard to catch on TV and unavailable on streaming services but, like the best Forensic Files episodes, it sticks with you after one viewing.

So let’s get going on a recap, along with some added facts drawn from internet research:

Do as I say not as I do. Zein, 60, was a Muslim Palestinian grocery store owner who became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and Maria, 48, was also a naturalized citizen but originally from Brazil, where the couple met and married.

Maria was Roman Catholic but had agreed to bring up the children as Muslims.

It’s not clear why it was okay for Tina’s dad to hitch up with someone from a different background but unacceptable for Tina to do the same. (And there was also the little matter of Zein marrying Maria despite that he already had a wife and three kids back on the West Bank.)

Spoiled the party. The Isas were frustrated with Tina, 16, because she lived outside the boundaries of their culture.

Maria and Zein Isa in mug shots — Maria and Zein Isa

The couple, who moved to the U.S. in 1985, objected to her joining the tennis and soccer teams and trying out for cheerleading.

After Tina stole away to the prom with 18-year-old Clifford Walker (media accounts vary as to whether they were dating or just good friends), her mother, sisters, and at least one male relative showed up at the dance, ambushed her in the women’s bathroom, and made her go home, according to a People magazine account from Jan. 20, 1992.

Witnessing evil. Zein and Maria began proceedings to withdraw Tina from school in her senior year. Her sister referred to her as a whore during a guidance counselor’s meeting, the New York Daily News recounted. She also said Tina deserved to die.

The threat worried guidance counselor Pamela Fournier, who reminded the family they’d end up in prison if they acted upon it, according to the book Guarding the Secrets: Palestinian Terrorism and a Father’s Murder of His Too-American Daughter by Ellen Harris.

But the family wasn’t taking advice from any public school professionals.

On the evening of Nov. 6, 1989, the Isas called 911 to report Tina’s death.

Bloodbath at home. Tina had come home late that night and demanded $5,000, then attacked Zein with a knife when he refused, he explained to first responders.

Out of fear for his life, Zein grabbed the weapon from Tina and stabbed her eight times, he said.

But the medical examiner determined that the number of defensive wounds on Tina’s body refuted her parents’ story that she was the attacker.

Prosecutor’s godsend. Her friends from Roosevelt High School told police that Tina was terrified of Zein and Maria and had said if anything bad happened to her, they should tell police that her parents did it.

Tina Isa's neighborhood in St. Louis — The Isas lived in this modest neighborhood on the south side of St. Louis. Source: Google Earth

But the most explosive piece of evidence came as a surprise, and from the federal government no less.

The FBI had planted recording devices in the Isas’ apartment at 3759 Delor Street because they suspected Zein belonged to Abu Nidal, a terrorist group allegedly planning to blow up the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C.

Disturbing recording. In what St. Louis homicide detective Mike Guzy called a “once in a lifetime evidential gold mine,” the FBI provided a seven-minute audiotape of the murder. (The federal agents couldn’t rescue Tina because no one was monitoring the recording in real time.)

According to “Family Dishonor,” an episode of TV series Arrest & Trial, the first translators who started listening to the tape, which featured a mix of English, Arabic, and Portuguese, were too horrified by Tina’s screams to continue.

The recording revealed that the confrontation started with Maria arguing with Tina about her lifestyle, followed by Zein announcing that “tonight you are going to die” and stabbing her with a seven-inch deboning knife while the 200-pound Maria held her down.

Tina begged her mother for help during the attack. Maria told her to shut up.

Contrary to the Isas’ claim, Tina never demanded $5,000.

Shaky story. In the run-up to the ensuing trial, the defense strenuously argued that the judge should bar the tape from the courtroom.

That process ate up about a year but didn’t win any concessions.

The Isas’ explanation for what happened to Tina could be summed up as “here’s why she deserved to die, but we didn’t really murder her.”

First assistant circuit attorney Dee Joyce-Hayes, who Forensic Files watchers may remember from “Slippery Motives,” led the prosecution.

A clipping from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch trial coverage

Sisters not protective. In addition to the murder tape, Joyce-Hayes had FBI phone recordings of Zein speaking to his older, married daughters, who encouraged the brutality.

Tina’s sister Soraia Salem, 24, suggested chaining the teenager in the basement and hiring a hit man, while another sister, Fatima Abdeljabbar, said that God should make Tina “sleep and not get up,” according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch account.

Fatima would later say in court she didn’t remember any such conversation.

The newspaper mentioned that the family owned some assets on the West Bank, so it’s possible Tina’s sisters wanted to get rid of her instead of share. Or perhaps Tina’s freedom made them jealous as they were trapped in drudgery-filled marriages, as Guarding the Secrets implies.

‘She’s the violent one.’ Whatever the case, the defense stuck to its story that Zein’s taunts of “Die, my daughter, die” were retorts in response to Tina’s knife attack upon him.

Defense lawyer Dan Reardon contended that on past occasions, Tina had attacked Zein with a meat cleaver and kicked him in his bad leg, the AP reported.

More doublespeak. Maria’s lawyer argued that Maria tried to protect Tina and was guilty of nothing but “being married to Zein Isa.”

At the same time, Maria told the judge that her daughter was disrespectful and that she and her husband “should not have to pay with our lives for something [Tina] did.”

Joyce-Hayes was careful to avoid stoking Islamaphobia as part of the prosecution’s case, according to a St. Louis Post Dispatch account:

“‘Many bad things have been done in the name of the Christian religion and in the name of Islam. We are not here to blame Islam or Islamic culture. We’re here to blame these people,’ said Joyce-Hayes, gesturing toward the defendants.”

Diabolical doings. The jury deliberated for just under four hours before returning with guilty verdicts.

Judge Charles Shaw gave Zein and Maria Isa sentences of death by lethal injection.

Tina Isa's mother, Maria, works on a quilt with other inmates — Maria Isa, top left, works on a quilt with other inmates

In 1993, Zein Isa briefly faced another indictment on racketeering charges for plotting the terrorist attack. (In fact, an alternative theory about Tina’s murder conjectures that Zein’s primary motive was to silence his youngest daughter because she knew too much about his activities in Abu Nidal.)

Goodbye to you. The feds decided to drop the terrorism charges against Zein because he already had virtually no chance of getting out of prison.

And fortunately, the state of Missouri didn’t have to pay for Zein’s three hots and a cot for very long.

His health deteriorated on death row. In 1997, authorities moved him to Boone Hospital Center with corrections officers guarding him 24 hours a day.

Mom gets a break. He died of diabetes and other complications a week later, according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch and a New York Daily News retrospective from Nov. 10, 2013.

In 1997, Maria’s capital punishment sentence was reduced to LWOP because a court ruled her brutality should be considered separately from her husband’s, according to the NY Daily News.

Her son-in-law Azizz Hamed called Maria “a victim of her husband, and society here,” according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on May 17, 1997.

Tina with a school friend. Classmates planted flowers and dedicated the yearbook to her memory

Inappropriate terminology? Maria died of natural causes at age 70 on April 30, 2014, in the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic, and Correctional Center, commonly known as the Vandalia.

Good riddance.

Finally, it should be pointed out that some observers believe that categorizing deaths like Tina Isa’s as “honor killings” is to falsely normalize them, because they’re aberrations that most Islamic peoples find horrifying. And they are caused by sexism, not Islam.

Or as one YouTube commenter summed it up, “This isn’t Islam, it’s Hislam.”

That’s all for this post, until next time, cheers. — RR

Kenneth Pierce: Hit, Run, Repeat

Nicole Walker’s Killer Works the System
(“Journey to Justice,” Forensic Files)

Before launching into this week’s post, I should mention that Filmrise, the company that uploads Forensic Files to YouTube, has begun changing the URLs for most of the episodes.

I’ve been updating older blog posts with the correct links. In the meantime, if you end up clicking on a broken one, know that the episode is still available on YouTube — you just have to search for it by name.

Hit and run victim Nicole Walker — Littlest victim: Nicole Rae Walker

And speaking of missing links, Kenneth Pierce is definitely a criminal with compromised humanity.

Drunk history. The Florida resident, whose story was told in the Forensic Files episode “Journey to Justice,” started out as a teenage vandal, when he and his buddies slashed tires for fun. By middle age, he had a criminal résumé with 20 misdemeanors and felonies, including two hit and runs.

Not one to learn from his mistakes, Pierce topped off his record at age 53 by plowing his pickup truck into a group of children ages 6 to 12, then fleeing the scene.

Pierce was charged with vehicular homicide and received 60 years for that crime, which killed one girl and put another one in the hospital for two months.

Surprising epilogue. So, at last, it seemed like the end of the road for Kenneth Pierce — the state of Florida would forever cut off his access to any wheeled vehicle except maybe a laundry cart.

But Forensic Files tacked a note onto the HLN closing credits saying that Pierce was released from prison in 2017.

But why and how?

I got in touch with the Broward State Attorney’s Office for some answers. But first, here’s a recap of “Journey to Justice,” along with extra information from internet research.

Water hazard. On June 23, 1992, after a rainstorm in Dania Beach, a small city near Fort Lauderdale, a group of neighborhood children were headed home on a stretch of Southwest 33rd Street without a sidewalk.

Apartment complex near the accident scene — The accident took place in front of this apartment building in Dania, Florida

They waded through a large puddle between the street and a parking lot on block 4600, according to Forensic Files. (Earlier media accounts said that the kids were “playing” in the 75-foot-long puddle, but that’s still no excuse for what happened next.)

A Chevrolet Silverado suddenly swerved toward the kids. While pushing his 10-year-old sister, Gina, out of the truck’s path, 12-year-old Joel Mansey noticed the letters “F” and “O” on its grille, according to court papers.

The vehicle struck Nicole Walker, 6, Brooke Mansey, 9, and Michelle Vitello, 10.

Tragedy in an instant. Neighbors heard the thud and ran outside. One of them, Lydia Jones, described the scene to a South Florida Sun-Sentinel reporter:

“[The] girls were lying face up in the water. I went to Michelle first. She was going in and out of consciousness and I gave her CPR. I could see her leg was broken. Brooke got up and ran inside to her mom. Little Nicole, we just lost her pulse.”

Nicole Walker, 6, who was blind in one eye, died of multiple injuries at Memorial Hospital in Hollywood that night. Brooke Mansey had been carrying Nicole, and the Silverado hit Nicole directly in her back.

Let’s grille him. Brooke sustained a fractured shoulder and Michelle had so many injuries she needed a body cast.

After seeing Nicole Walker in the hospital, sheriff’s detective Bruce Babcock vowed he’d spend “the rest of my career looking for the guy,” the Miami Herald reported.

Fortunately, a bystander who worked at a body shop had chased the vehicle. He identified it as a 1989 or 1990 Silverado with regular street tires, according to court papers. Someone found a piece of the death vehicle’s grille in the shallow part of the puddle.

Brooke Mansey at Nicole Walker's funeral — Brooke Mansey at Nicole Walker’s funeral

Hiding in plain sight. With the community now on high alert about the hit and run, an anonymous caller told police of seeing a parked Silverado matching the metallic blue one that killed Nicole Walker.

Police found it parked in Kathryn and Kenneth Pierce’s driveway in Davie, Florida. Someone had partially blocked the Silverado from view by surrounding it with other vehicles and a washing machine. Detective Baron Philipson stayed with the Silverado for 23 hours to make sure no one tampered with it before police obtained a search warrant, the Sun-Sentinel reported.

Still, no one could connect the car with the hit and run right away.

Lucky chips. Detectives noted that the tires differed from the ones that made impressions at the crime scene. The truck had an intact grille, although blue ties held it into place. Someone had wiped away any fingerprints inside the vehicle.

A neighbor told police that Kenneth Pierce had removed the camper top from the Silverado, which belonged to Kathryn Pierce, after the accident. Kenneth had asked for help repairing damage to the grille of the vehicle. Apparently, he changed the tires as well.

Investigators determined that colored chips found on the injured children’s clothing matched the paint on the Silverado. They concluded that the piece of grille found at the scene also came from Pierce’s vehicle.

Pathological reoffender. In October 1992, when the authorities finally arrested Pierce, it probably didn’t come as a shock to anyone in law enforcement. Pierce was out on parole for lying in an attempt to get a driver’s license (his aliases included Jay Carl Mishler and Jay Carl Mitchell); his own had been revoked.

His aforementioned legal record also included looting parked cars as a juvenile in the 1950s in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, leaving the scene of an accident in 1965 and then again in 1975, a 1977 no-contest plea for a DUI hit, then a cocaine-smuggling charge in Baltimore in 1985, and a DUI in Key West, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal.

Michelle Vitello when she was recovering from her injuries — Michelle Vitello, seen here while recovering from bone and liver injuries sustained in the crash, went on to appear on Forensic Files

Pierce’s words were as sloppy as his driving. He told one friend that he only clipped a garbage can and another that he hit a dog on the night his car mowed down the children. A cell mate would later tell authorities that Pierce told him he heard a scream but didn’t stop at the scene because he didn’t have a valid license.

Son ensnared. It later came out that Pierce bragged that authorities wouldn’t be able to connect the Silverado to the accident.

And Kenneth Pierce didn’t seem to mind dragging his loved ones into his problems. He enlisted his son, a 27-year-old construction worker named Trent, to help replace the grille after the accident — making Trent guilty of altering evidence.

When police first came to arrest Trent, he slipped through a window, but they snagged him anyway and put him in Broward County Jail along with his dad. Trent eventually pleaded no contest in return for probation and community service.

Toon time. Kenneth Pierce went to trial in April 1993.

The prosecution showed off a forensic animation presentation, purported to accurately re-create the car’s slam into the girls. Media accounts made a big deal of the “state of the art” science, but I tend to believe it was basically a high-tech cartoon. There’s no proof it replicated the accident exactly.

The physical and circumstantial evidence against Pierce seemed more sturdy — and there was a ton of it, thanks to his own loose lips as well as the remnants of the Silverado on the victims’ clothing and at the crime scene.

Vehicular murder weapon. Pierce’s court-appointed lawyer, Bo Hitchcock, managed to find some witnesses who said the car that hit the children was green, not blue, and newer than Pierce’s vehicle, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

That was about all the ammo Pierce’s side had.

In March 1993, one hour into deliberations, jury members went outside to study dents in the Silverado. After a total of 4½ hours, they convicted Kenneth Pierce of vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of a fatal accident, tampering with evidence, and violation of parole.

Keep him forever. Brooke Mansey and Michelle Vitello, who were in the courtroom, “cried, smiled, and giggled,” according to the Sun-Sentinel.

The judge gave Pierce 60 years. His wife, Kathryn, left the courtroom “crying hysterically,” the newspaper reported.

Under a habitual offender rule, he would have to serve two-thirds of his sentence before consideration for parole, at age 94. Broward County prosecuting attorney Kenneth Padowitz noted that the sentence would end the “revolving door” approach to justice that allowed Pierce to serially reoffend.

“Nicole can rest now,” Suzanne Walker, the little girl’s mother, said, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “Mom got her baby justice.”

*A Sun-Sentinel clipping shows Suzanne Walker (far left) and her remaining family members in court to hear the first sentencing of Kenneth Pierce (far right). Suzanne and her husband ended up divorc*ing

In free fall. But for Suzanne Walker, the anguish caused by her daughter’s death triggered self-destructive behavior that ultimately landed her in legal woes of her own.

She began drinking heavily and using crack cocaine, and stole $2,000 from the local Griffin Little League — she was the group’s treasurer — to fund her drug habit, according to the Sun-Sentinel.

Suzanne Walker admitted her guilt to a DUI charge from 1994, pledged to reimburse the Little League, and entered a residential drug problem. She received probation for her offenses in 1995.

Just two years later, her daughter’s killer would test her emotional strength again.

Not again — and again. As the result of an appeal Pierce filed in 1997, a court ruled that his 60-year sentence had been miscalculated. Pierce’s lawyers pushed for a new sentence of just 15 years. The judge gave him 40. He would have to serve 85 percent (34 years) before parole consideration, according to the Sun-Sentinel. “Pierce, 57, will likely spend the rest of his life in prison,” the newspaper noted.

But Pierce somehow finagled another sentencing go-round in 2000. Pierce claimed that prison had changed him for the better, begged for a chance to reunite with his family, and finally apologized to the Walkers (“I’m sorry for all the problems I’ve caused this family and the children”). The unimpressed judge declined to reduce the 40-year term.

In 2012, Pierce got a shot at parole because of a clerical error, but Circuit Judge Lisa Porter put the kibosh on it and sent him back to his cell. Upon hearing the news, Suzanne Walker cried with joy and said she was “ecstatic,” and Brooke Mansey and her mother, Sherry, also in the courtroom, expressed gratitude, according to CBS-TV Miami reporting.

Guess who got out. Not everyone was on Team Nicole that day, however. “He never gets a fair deal,” a woman identifying herself as Pierce’s daughter, Tammy, told CBS-TV. “He’s a good father and he’s a good man.”

Tammy got her way on May 1, 2017, when the justice system let Pierce back on the streets.

So, how did a man who repeatedly proved himself a menace to society serve only 24 years — instead of at least 34 (85 percent of the 40-year sentence)?

Extra-credit opportunities. Apparently, the guidelines for keeping an offender in prison are more complicated than they sound.

Kenneth Pierce in a mug shot — Kenneth Pierce in an undated mug shot

“Prisoners can get credit for all kinds of things,” an attorney who worked on the Pierce case told ForensicFilesNow.com. “Nothing surprises me.”(See also Ron Gillette.)

In an e-mail to ForensicFilesNow.com, Broward State Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Paula McMahon confirmed that, contrary to old media reports, the judge actually sentenced Pierce before the 85 percent rule went into effect.

Bad influence on progeny. The state placed Pierce under “conditional release supervision” through 2033, and the Department of Corrections website listed his most recent home as on Oak Garden Lane in Hollywood, Florida.

He has since died, according to Suzanne Walker (thanks much for writing in with the tip).

Sadly, it looks as though the legal problems of Kenneth Pierce’s son continued. A felony-records website lists a “Trent Pierce” as under “probation felony supervision” as recently as 2017.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

Shannon Mohr: In the Path of a Con Man

David Davis Preys on a Nurse on the Rebound
(“Horse Play,” Forensic Files)

Shannon Mohr’s romance started out as a fairy tale and ended as a cautionary tale: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

The “it” in this case was David Davis, a self-proclaimed millionaire.

As YouTube commenter BellaMarley1 wrote: “Never trust anyone who tells you he’s a millionaire…nobody decent would do that.”

Fortune hunter. Maybe it’s not so much decency as wisdom. People with a lot of money usually know that announcing it can attract scammers and gold diggers or at least mean getting stuck with the check.

Of course, David Davis didn’t need to worry about being victimized for his money — he didn’t actually have any.

He wanted a cash infusion and tried his hand at the ever-popular Forensic Files murder and insurance fraud combo.

Delving into personal history. For this week, I looked around for more information about what David Davis was doing in the eight years between Shannon Mohr’s homicide and his capture on a tropical island.

I also searched for biographical details on Shannon Mohr. Forensic Files mentioned only that she was a nurse who wanted a family.

So, let’s gallop into a recap of the Forensic Files episode “Horse Play,” along with extra information drawn from internet research:

Wholesome girl. Shannon Mohr was born on Sept. 1, 1954, in Toledo, Ohio, to a devout Catholic family.

The sweet, caring child was “daddy’s girl and mommy’s best friend,” according to a 2013 episode of Happily Never After.

She fulfilled her dream of becoming a registered nurse, but hadn’t made progress on the marriage and children front.

One night in 1979, she reluctantly went to a friend’s wedding without a date. She had recently broken up with a Toledo firefighter. “Go, maybe you’ll meet somebody,” her well-intentioned mother told her.

David Davis' farm, where he lived with Shannon Mohr — Shannon moved to David Davis’ farm after they married.

It worked.

At the nuptials, Shannon, 25, met David Davis, 35. He was handsome and charming enough to make her forget about the age difference.

Play for sympathy. David told her he owned farms all over the country and was worth seven figures.

He said that he was a veteran who had sustained an injury in the Vietnam War, then attended the University of Michigan, where he was on the football team — and played in the Rose Bowl — and graduated with a psychology degree.

Oh, and his fiancée died in a car wreck and he thought he’d never love again, he told Shannon, according to “Gallop to the Grave,” the Happily Never After episode about the case.

Shannon’s parents, Lucille and Robert Mohr, liked the charismatic bachelor, too. (Even the judge who later presided at the murder trial noted that he was smooth, articulate, and clever.)

Whirlwind romance. There were some negative indicators early on, nonetheless.

Shannon and David married in Las Vegas (bad sign) on Sept. 24, 1979, after knowing each other for eight weeks (really bad sign), and they took out $220,000 dollars of insurance on her eight days after the wedding (worst possible sign).

But the warning signs were probably lost amid all the joy of a new relationship.

Shannon Mohr as a girl — Shannon Mohr years before David Davis entered her life

Sole breadwinner. Shannon moved to David’s 100-acre farm in Hillsdale County, Michigan. He grew corn and soybeans. She got a nursing job at Flower Hospital in Sylvania.

Shannon’s pay was the only income the couple had, according to the Chicago Tribune, but he most likely came up with some Dirty John-esque story to explain it away. And the lovebirds weren’t together long enough to start arguing about money.

On July 23, 1980, just 10 months after the wedding, the couple rode their Tennessee walking horses to visit neighbor Dick Britton. While at Britton’s property, David helped him repair some machinery, and then he and Shannon trotted off toward home.

Teary-eyed. But David came rushing back to Britton’s house, saying Shannon’s mare bolted and Shannon hit her head on a rock.

Shannon was lying on her back with no shoes on and her blouse partly unbuttoned.

She was lifeless by the time the two men rushed her into the emergency room. Doctors attributed the death to head and spinal injuries.

Lucille and Robert Mohr arrived at the hospital to find David Davis crying.

Cash flow problem. In his grief, he managed to articulate that he wanted the body cremated, but he ultimately agreed to let the Mohrs bury Shannon back in Toledo.

Lucille and Robert Mohr's house — Lucille and Robert Mohr’s house in Ohio

David sheepishly told his in-laws that he couldn’t afford to pay for a funeral because his money was tied up in the farm and he didn’t have any life insurance on Shannon.

The Mohrs funded the funeral, which took a surprising turn when David Davis’ mother and stepfather, Joyce and Theodore Powell, showed up.

David had told the Mohrs he was an orphan.

Parents galore. His father, David Ellsworth Davis, was still alive, too. The Mohrs also discovered that their daughter’s husband wasn’t a millionaire, didn’t own multiple farms, hadn’t really served in Vietnam, never played college football, and hadn’t graduated.

So, who was he, really?

David Richard Davis was born in Flint on Sept. 27, 1944, and his parents split up when he was 12. His father described him as a good student at Southwestern High School who enjoyed archery and other outdoor activities.

Premium story. He had two daughters from a previous marriage, to a woman named Phyllis June Middleton (Shannon didn’t know he had an ex-wife). Phyllis and David lived together on the Michigan farm. Alleging physical abuse, she filed for a court protection order and the couple divorced in 1976, according to reporting from Gannett News Service on Jan. 10, 1989.

Phyllis probably didn’t realize how lucky she was to get out of that marriage alive — or maybe she didn’t have enough life insurance to put her in danger.

Although David denied it at first, he had a total of $330,000 in life insurance — the original policy plus some subsequent smaller ones — on Shannon Mohr. The policies were due to expire at the beginning of August 1980, just days after Shannon’s untimely death, according to the Sun-Sentinel, a Florida newspaper that always has great crime coverage.

David would later give various explanations for the existence of the policies, including that he didn’t pay attention and never knew about them, they each took out insurance on the other to help pay farm expenses in case one died, and that an insurance salesman sought them out and sold them on the idea of insurance.

Need that piece of paper. The Mohrs also discovered that David had plans to go on a trip to Florida with a girlfriend shortly after Shannon’s death, according to the Toledo Blade. David claimed he needed to get away and regroup — and his gal pal had invited herself.

While away, the grieving husband had neighbor Dick Britton forward him his mail. He needed multiple copies of Shannon’s death certificate for insurance purposes.

To the police, however, Shannon’s demise still looked like an accident, and they closed the case.

Intrepid reporter. The Mohrs launched a letter-writing campaign to persuade the Michigan attorney general’s office to continue investigating. Dick Britton also urged authorities to take a new look at the evidence against his former friend.

A month after Shannon’s death, her body was exhumed and an autopsy revealed a severe gash on her head and bruises on her face, hand, and arm.

Still, no forensic alarm bells sounded, and the case stayed closed.

Caught: Fugitive David Davis under arrest

Then, a Detroit Free Press reporter named Billy Bowles started poking around and discovered sketchy incidents from David’s past. He had twice profited from fire insurance on his farm — he “insured everything,” his father-in-law would later say — and collected worker’s compensation from a suspicious injury supposedly incurred while working for a car manufacturer.

Out at sea. Bowles also found out that David had taken some advanced courses in pharmacology at the University of Michigan. Investigators theorized that David used succinylcholine in the murder.

Michigan reopened the case of Shannon Mohr’s death.

Meanwhile, David had sold his Michigan property, collected five-figure payouts from Shannon’s smaller policies, and taken up residence on a sailboat in the Bahamas with a girlfriend. He was waiting for the final results of Shannon’s latest autopsy so he could get his hands on the bulk of the insurance money.

After a third autopsy, investigators farmed out lab work to Swedish scientists who had developed methods for detecting succinylcholine. They found high concentrations in two areas of Shannon’s body, suggesting someone had given her two shots of the drug, which is often used on horses.

Media aid. Investigators eventually concluded that the injections, not the head injury, killed Shannon. Succinylcholine paralyzes every muscle except the heart and makes it impossible to breathe without a ventilator. The drug probably left Shannon conscious as she slowly suffocated.

The authorities moved to arrest David Davis in Haiti in December 1981, but he fled, leaving his sailboat behind. He eluded them for eight years.

Then, Unsolved Mysteries broadcast an episode about the case.

A Beverly Hills dentist named Cheri Lewis later said that the fugitive looked like a man with odd thumbs whom she had dated, according to the Detroit Free Press. Lewis later noted that David garnered sympathy by speaking of his wife Shannon, “who drowned.”

And Hollywood stuntman Beau Gibson thought David Davis’ picture resembled his best buddy, “Rip Bell,” who had given him flying lessons, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Detroit Free Press clipping shows one of the wives David Davis didn’t kill

You’re busted. But only one of David Davis’ associates — who remained anonymous — actually called the toll-free number on Unsolved Mysteries. The tipster said the fugitive was living under the name David Myer Bell in American Samoa, where he and his 23-year-old wife resided in a tin-roofed shack.

Four FBI agents arrested David Davis at Tafuna International Airport in Pago Pago, where he was working as a pilot for Pacific Island Airways. (He met his wife, Maria Koleti Sua, on the job. She also worked for the airline.)

He admitted his real identity and peacefully submitted to the arrest, according to the Detroit Free Press on Jan. 7, 1989.

Tropics-wear. “Oh God, I don’t know what to say,” Lucille Mohr told the Detroit Free Press upon her ex-son-in-law’s capture. “It has been eight years of hell…my heart’s coming out of my chest.”

At a stopover in Hawaii, David, 44, wore a blue and white Aloha shirt during FBI questioning, according to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

In addition to identifying himself as a pilot, David had posed as a doctor, nurse, and “even as a harpsichord player” while on the run, according to an FBI spokesman quoted in an AP account.

Only the pilot claim was genuine. He earned FAA certification while on the lam.

Cold-hearted husband. By the time the feds nailed him, the once-rugged-looking David Davis was “overweight, slovenly” and “gray-bearded” but he “nevertheless cut a dashing figure,” according to the Detroit Free Press.

His trial kicked off in November 1989.

The prosecution would conclude that on the day Shannon died, David Davis suggested they have sex outdoors. While Shannon was getting undressed, he sneaked up on her and gave her one or two shots of succinylcholine to immobilize and kill her, but she fought back before the drug took effect. She left scratch marks on his arm, which the Mohrs noticed at the hospital. (He said they came from tree branches he brushed by in his hurry to summon help for Shannon.)

He then staged the horse accident by hitting her head with the rock, the prosecution believed.

Popping the question. Early on, sheriff’s deputies had noticed that the rock with the blood on it was the only rock anywhere near the scene of Shannon’s death.

Shannon Mohr as a child in her first communion dress — First communion: Shannon considered becoming a nun

And evidence of David’s con jobs and lies came spilling out.

David had asked a series of women to marry him after knowing them for just weeks, investigators discovered. Shannon was apparently the first one who said yes.

A gal pal named Jeanne Hohlman testified that David said he was a CIA agent assigned to protect Shannon. After Shannon died, he told her the mission was over and they could start dating again, according to Happily Never After.

David Davis chose not to take the stand.

Escape from execution.The jury took 2¹⁄₂ hours to find him guilty of first-degree murder. Noting that Shannon’s death by suffocation was “more despicable than a contract murder,” Hillsdale Circuit Judge Harvey Moes sentenced the wife-killer to life without parole.

Lucille Mohr said she wished Michigan still had the death penalty, but her husband noted that “being locked up in a cage the rest of his life is probably 100 times worse,” the Gannett News Service reported on Jan. 8, 1989

In captivity at Marquette Branch Prison, David continued to profess his innocence.

Bid rejected. “I could never have hurt her,” he told the Toledo Blade in 2001, still maintaining that Mohr fell from her horse and hit her head.

David filed an appeal with a federal court that year. There was continuing controversy over the lab work purported to reveal the presence of succinylcholine — a number of industry professionals regarded the tests as junk science — but it didn’t help David’s case much.

The real smoking guns were the insurance policies, David’s tall tales about his life, and the murder scene appearing staged.

He lost on appeal.

The death he deserved. In prison, David boycotted the television room when other inmates watched the TV movie about Shannon’ murder, according to the Toledo Blade story, which also noted he sported a “white beard and wrinkles.”

Ultimately, David got a taste of his own medicine.

He acquired neuromuscular disease and died at the age of 70 in a prison health care facility in 2014.

Lucille and Robert Mohr, who ultimately received the bulk Shannon’s life insurance payout, died in 2008 and 2012, respectively.

Intrepid cop. Billy Bowles, who Forensic Files viewers will remember from his appearance on the show, died the same year David Davis did. A colleague credited him with spending seven years toiling over a “10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle” until a picture emerged in the Shannon Mohr murder case.

According to the Chicago Tribune, another hero of the whodunit challenge was “tenacious state police officer Detective Sgt. Don Brooks,” who never bought the story that Shannon’s death was an accident. Brooks went on to appear on Forensic Files.

The obituary for Dick Britton, who died in 2021, notes that assisting with the investigation was among his favorite accomplishments. (Thanks to reader David Lewis for sending in the update.)

Shannon Mohr’s murder spawned many episodes of various true crime shows. No luck finding anywhere to see them for free online, but you can watch the made-for-TV movie, Victim of Love: The Shannon Mohr Story, on YouTube. The Philadelphia Inquirer called it “great trash TV.”

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

Bart Whitaker: Relative Tragedy

A Young Heir Tries to Hasten His Fortune
(“Family Interrupted,” Forensic Files)

Two years before a masked assailant shot them in their own house, Kent and Patricia Whitaker found out that their son had formulated a plan to kill them.

Kent and Tricia Whitaker with sons Kevin and Bart — Kent and Patricia Whitaker with Kevin and Bart

But how could parents believe such a thing? Their mental highlight reel was probably playing footage of an 8-year-old Bart teaching his little brother how to ride a bike.

At it again. So the couple believed Bart’s explanation that it was all a joke or misunderstanding when a college friend tipped off police about a murder plot.

Instead of thanking his lucky stars that his parents bought his story, Bart decided to push his luck again. (a common Forensic Files pathology — see Barbara Stager and Mark Winger.)

Bart, then a wholesome-looking 22-year-old with a Princess Diana complexion, came up with a new plot to wipe out his mother, father, and brother, and get his hands on all of the family’s assets, worth $1 million to $1.5 million.

Jekyll and Hyde. He succeeded in annihilating two-thirds of the other Whitakers but, instead of an office visit with an estate attorney, Bart got himself a trial with a judge and jury. They handed him a death sentence.

Past posts on this blog have briefly touched on the Whitaker murders and their aftermath, but a deeper dive seems in order.

The Whitakers house in Sugar Land, Texas — The scene of the crime in Sugar Land, Texas. The house is part of a planned community

I’m curious to find how the community in and around the family’s home in Sugar Land, Texas, reacted when the justice system bared the id of the respectable-seeming young man in their midst.

Partners in crime. There’s also the question of what turned Bart Whitaker into a homicidal fiend. Was he a born a sociopath or did some kind of abuse taint and mold him?

And finally, I checked into where Bart’s young accomplices are today.

So, let’s get going on the recap of “Family Interrupted” along with extra information drawn from internet research:

Gathering place. Thomas Bartlett Whitaker was born on Dec. 31, 1979, to Kent Whitaker, a comptroller for a family-owned construction business, and Patricia, known as Tricia, who gave up a career as an elementary school teacher to stay at home with Bart and his younger brother, Kevin.

Bart would later tell ABC’s 20/20 that he never felt as though he fit in. In a jailhouse interview with Lisa Ling in 2014, Bart said he committed the murders because he felt inadequate and thought his parents didn’t love him.

But from the outside, his home life and social life seemed near perfect.

The Whitakers had the “cool house to be at” and Kent and Tricia “were the second parents to so many people,” according to Kevin’s friend Brittany Barnhill, who appeared on the 48 Hours episode “The Sugar Land Conspiracy.”

Mr. Popular. During her teaching days, Tricia was known for her kind and fun-loving approach to her job, according to friends who appeared on 20/20.

Kent spent lots of time with his sons. He and Bart enjoyed biking long distances together.

Bart was close to 19-year-old Kevin, a college sophomore who looked up to him. After all, Bart was graduating from Sam Houston State University with honors. Barnhill also noted that Kevin’s friends considered Bart “cool.”

House of horror. Little did Kent, Patricia, and Kevin Whitaker know that their life together was just a house of cards.

On Dec. 10, 2003, after the Whitakers returned from a dinner to celebrate what Bart said was the completion of his final exams, an unknown gunman shot all four of them as they entered their house in Sugar Land, a wealthy suburb of Houston.

Tricia and Kevin sustained fatal chest wounds from the Glock pistol. Kent was also hit in the upper body but survived, and Bart escaped with a wound to his upper arm. He had been the last one to walk into the house; he lagged behind while checking his phone messages.

Waking nightmare. Sugar Land had a practically nonexistent murder rate and Kent would later recall that, when he saw the armed intruder, he figured it was one of his kids’ friends playing a prank with a paintball gun.

Then, things took a horrifying turn for Kent. As an NBC account later quoted a Whitaker lawyer:

Bart and Kevin Whitaker — Bart (left) and Kevin were always close

“He watched his son Kevin walk into the house, heard the first and fatal shot, and saw his son’s fallen body in their darkened home. He heard Tricia’s last, wet coughs as Kent himself lay dying from his own gunshot wound. The bullet hit Kent nearly six inches from his heart.”

Convenient scapegoat. But Kent didn’t die. A neighbor named Cliff Stanley raced onto the scene and used his own T-shirt to stanch Kent’s bleeding bullet wound.

Bart called 911, explaining that he was shot in the arm and had just chased the shooter out the back door. When asked about the race of the assailant he said, “Maybe black — I don’t know.”

Homicide detective Marshall Slot, who appeared on both Forensic Files and the 20/20 episode about the murders, recalled that he thought the operator was joking when she said a shooting of four people had taken place in Sugar Land.

Red herring. But he arrived to find a real firearm, not a paintball gun, on the scene and four people with one bullet wound each. It turned out the gun was registered to Kevin Whitaker. Someone had pried open his gun safe.

Police initially thought they had a suspect in an armed robber who struck a different house soon after the Whitaker attack, but bloodhounds didn’t pick up his scent at the Whitakers’.

In the meantime, a newspaper reporter discovered that Bart never finished college. He had transferred from Baylor University in Waco — where an informant tipped off police about Bart’s aborted plan to kill his family in 2001 — to Sam Houston State University. Apparently he skipped a lot of classes, then stopped going entirely, and blew his tuition funds on some form or recreation; it’s not clear what kind.

Blueprint for murder. Forensic Files didn’t mention it, but Bart had a prior arrest record for breaking into his high school and stealing computers — after which his parents sent him to a private Christian academy, according to the LA Times.

Chris Brashear in court — Chris Brashear
in court. A
newspaper
account described
the gunman as
slight in build

Investigators also found it troubling that a picture of Bart taken at the “graduation” dinner showed him giving the finger (although I’d file that one in the “kids like to make obscene gestures, no big deal” folder).

Then, a buddy of Bart’s named Adam Hipp came forward five days after the murders and told police that Bart had tried to enlist him to shoot Bart’s parents two years earlier. Adam had replicated a diagram of the house’s layout and where the triggerman was to lie in wait.

Hipp said that Kent and Tricia had heard about the plot, but didn’t take it seriously.

Phones bugged. Police first checked out Adam Hipp himself as a suspect, but he had an alibi for the night of the shooting.

Next up, they focused on two of Bart’s co-workers from the Bentwater Yacht & Country Club near Lake Conroe. Chris Brashear and Steven Champagne denied any involvement in the homicides and provided DNA samples and scent-test specimens.

Cops secretly tapped Brashear’s and Champagne’s phones, but they never picked up any incriminating conversations.

Friend starts singing. Still, in an effort to unnerve the young men, police continually made it clear that they were watching them.

The authorities also directed Adam Tripp to try to get Bart to admit he planned his family’s murder. Bart didn’t specifically refer to any plot, but a phone call recording caught him trying to bribe Adam to keep quiet in return for $20,000.

Finally, a year and a half after the shootings, Champagne admitted that Bart hired him to help kill his family.

Money tangled. Champagne explained that he staked out the Whitakers at the graduation dinner at Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen — where Bart enjoyed bread pudding with “Congratulations” spelled out in chocolate sauce — and called Brashear to let him know when the group left the restaurant.

Champagne also drove the getaway car although, he claimed, he really didn’t want to get involved with the homicide plot but felt trapped.

Brashear was the shooter, he said, and Bart had promised to cut both of his buddies in on a $1 million life insurance payout he would receive after his family’s death.

Rudy Rios allowed Bart Whitaker to assume his name while hiding out in Mexico

Sack of evidence. Champagne led police to the spot where he and Brashear threw a bag with the murder evidence into Lake Conroe. Divers recovered it.

The bag contained a chisel with paint matching that on Kevin’s gun safe. It also held a glove that matched one left at the murder scene and a water bottle with Chris Brashear’s DNA sealed on the inside of the cap.

Brashear and Champagne were arrested almost two years after murders.

Bart never paid his accomplices for their hit man services. He helped himself to $7,000 to $10,000 of his dad’s cash and fled to Mexico with the help of his friend Rudy Rios.

Tall tale. Rios got Bart settled in the town of Cerralvo, where he soon found a girlfriend and got a job at a furniture store owned by her family, according to 48 Hours.

The popular new guy in town explained to his south of the border friends that he sustained the bullet wound to his arm while fighting in Afghanistan. (Murderers like to tell war stories, whether they happened or not — Michael Peterson and John Boyle.)

Bart also reportedly told them his mother was a prostitute and he was essentially an orphan.

But Rudy Rios couldn’t resist a $10,000 reward offered for information on Bart’s whereabouts. Rudy ratted him out, and the law hauled Bart back to the U.S.

Trio of convicts. A grand jury indicted Bart, then 25, and Steve Champagne and Chris Brashear, both 23, in October 2005.

Chris Brashear pleaded guilty in 2007 and received life with the possibility of parole after 30 years.

Steve Champagne got 15 years in exchange for testifying against Brashear and Bart.

Police believe that while the Whitakers were out celebrating, Brashear entered the house, pried open the safe, and made an attempt at giving the master bedroom a ransacked look.

You missed something. But investigators couldn’t help but notice that the drawers were all neatly pulled out to the exact same length and nothing had been removed from them. The Whitakers’ cash, jewelry, and computer equipment remained untouched.

Bart and his lawyer in court — Bart, right, and his lawyer in court

Brashear shot Kent, Patricia, and Kevin as they entered the house and then gave Bart his courtesy wound in the arm. In his haste to exit the scene, Brashear gathered up Bart’s cellphone instead of the gun.

Then, Brashear entered a getaway car driven by Champagne, and they dumped the bag with the murder items in the water.

Would-be Waco whackers. After the shootings, Bart did a good job of pretending that he was happy that EMTs saved his dad’s life, but at some point, he told Champagne he wanted to finish off the job and really kill his dad the next time, according to 20/20.

Apparently, Bart’s bloodlust had been brewing for even longer than originally thought. Investigators found out that in addition to Bart’s 2001 and 2003 attempts to eliminate his family, there was at least one prior plot: In 2000, Bart had a couple of his Baylor acquaintances break into the Whitakers’ home to kill them, but the henchmen fled when an alarm went off, according to an AP account.

On March 8, 2007, after deliberating for two hours, a jury found Bart Whitaker guilty of murder.

Serious needling. Before the sentencing phase, both Kent Whitaker and Tricia Whitaker’s brother asked that Bart be spared the death penalty. Bart had admitted his guilt and expressed remorse for the murders and for roping his friends into the plans, they stressed.

Bart had also said he always felt he couldn’t live up to his parents’ expectations (a halfway decent explanation for lying about college, but way short of mitigating murder).

According to a Houston Chronicle account, after an emotional, contentious 12 hours during which some jurors at first disagreed about whether Bart constituted a “continuing threat to society,” Bart got a sentence of death by lethal injection.

The Bentwater country club — The Bentwater Country Club, where Bart got to know his two accomplices

Corrections officers’ pet. The kind-hearted Kent Whitaker forgave Bart and fought for years to stave off his looming execution. (Kent also said he forgave shooter Chris Brashear.)

Kent believed his son had reformed.

Although no one knows whether Bart’s remorse was genuine, his polite, cooperative behavior behind razor wire impressed the guards so much that several of them wrote letters asking for clemency for Bart, according to the LA Times.

His lawyer Keith Hampton urged the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to remember the Old Testament story of Cain, who killed his brother but was himself spared by God.

Last-minute reprieve. In February 2018, each of the seven board members separately voted to commute Bart’s sentence, and the governor concurred.

“Mr. Whitaker’s father insists that he would be victimized again if the state put to death the last remaining member of his immediate family,” said Gov. Greg Abbott.

Texas halted Bart’s execution within hours of his date with a gurney and syringe. The state reduced his sentence to life.

In return, Bart agreed to give up any rights to parole.

Faithful father. Today, Bart resides in the William G. McConnell Unit, or McConnell for short, in Beeville, Texas.

Along with his second wife, Tanya Youngling, Kent Whitaker visits Bart regularly, speaking to him from behind a glass partition. Tanya also accompanied Kent for court proceedings related to Bart’s fate.

Tanya and Kent Whitaker at their wedding — Second chance: Kent Whitaker marries Tanya Youngling

Kent came out with his own book about the shootings and their aftermath, and he travels around the country to speak about forgiveness.

As far as an epilogue on Bart’s accomplices, Chris Alan Brashear occupies a cell in the Eastham Unit and will reach parole eligibility in 2035, when he’s 53.

Parents provided. Steve Champagne got out and stayed out. He’s no longer listed with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Finally, as to the question of what turned Bart into such a callous and motivated killer, no mention of any type of abuse or trauma came up.

Quite the opposite, his parents were kind and generous by all accounts. They bought him a townhouse to live in while he was supposed to be attending college and gave him a Rolex for his faux graduation.

Bart Whitaker, it seems, was born— rather than made — a sociopath.

You can watch the entire 48 Hours episode about the case online on a CBS news site.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

Janet Siclari’s Surfside Homicide

Update on Thomas Berry — Rapist and Killer
(“A Cinderella Story,” Forensic Files)

If you’re looking for a defendant who’s undeserving of sympathy and makes you thankful the U.S. has life sentences without parole, Thomas Jabin Berry is just the ticket.

Janet Siclari

As Forensic Files watchers will remember, Berry’s excuse for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl was that he thought she was 13.

Fortunately, that victim survived the attack. But Berry killed the next person he raped, an ultrasound technician from New Jersey named Janet Siclari.

Her story. For this week, I checked on Berry’s whereabouts today and also looked for additional biographical information on Janet Siclari.

So, let’s get started on a recap of Forensic Files episode “A Cinderella Story,” along with extra information drawn from internet research.

Janet Siclari came into the world on Dec. 30, 1957, and grew up in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, with three brothers.

Favorite getaway. She earned a certificate in radiology in 1979 and got the highest academic awards in her class. Janet moved to North Arlington and worked at General Hospital in Passaic.

For Janet, visiting North Carolina’s Outer Banks in the summer was a family tradition that started in her childhood.

In August 1993, the 35-year-old vacationed there with her brother Robert Siclari and two friends, Celeste Bethmann and Nancy Matt. They stayed at a rental cottage in Southern Shores for a week, then decided to spend an extra day in the area and checked into the Carolinian hotel in Nags Head.

Eerie feeling. Siclari, who was athletic but tiny at 92 pounds, disappeared after a night out at a comedy club followed by drinks and dancing at the Port O’Call Restaurant & Gaslight Saloon on Aug. 28. Robert was asleep when she came home but remembered waking up briefly and hearing her say she was going outside to smoke.

Janet Siclari with her brother Robert Siclari and two girlfriends at the beach — Janet Siclari, left, with her brother Robert and two friends

In the morning, Robert noticed his sister’s bed hadn’t been slept in and saw police on the beach outside his window, according to an account from the Bergen Record.

A local maintenance crew worker had found her body, dressed in a blue tank top, outside the hotel. Someone had stabbed her repeatedly, slit her throat, and left her to die.

Stormy circumstances. “Blood seeped in the white sand 25 feet in either direction,” according to a Bergen Record account from Feb. 2, 1999. Apparently, Janet had survived for a short time after the attack and tried to crawl back to the hotel.

The day after the murder, Hurricane Emily caused tens of thousands to flee the area temporarily, but police didn’t let it get in the way of their work.

A tantalizing suspect soon emerged in a burly bartender, Edward Read Powell, who had flirted with Janet and later admitted to police that he was sitting around eating pepperoni with a knife near the scene of the murder.

Hostile waitress. Although Forensic Files didn’t mention it, three additional prospective perpetrators came to light as well, according to “Murder in Paradise,” a 2013 episode of Nightmare Next Door.

There was Powell’s waitress girlfriend, who exchanged surly words with Janet’s brother when he sent his food back at her restaurant — and she’d seen Read socializing with Janet.

The third suspect, a cabana attendant who hit on Janet and reportedly made her a little uncomfortable, was also questioned by police, who discovered he had a past conviction for stabbing a relative.

Bring in the feds. Next, thanks to a tip from Janet’s mother, investigators checked out Janet’s ex-boyfriend, a New Jersey mechanic and biker club member. He had served time in prison as an accessory to the murder of a man from a rival gang.

Rapist and killer Thomas Jabin Berry — Thomas Berry in court

But one by one, the four suspects fell away.

An autopsy revealed that Janet had been raped, so investigators ruled out the waitress as the killer. And none of the DNA samples collected from the male suspects matched the rapist’s genetic profile.

The FBI came in to help local authorities, but a year after the murder, they hadn’t found a single eyewitness despite interviewing 100 people in connection with the case, according to the Bergen Record. The area had a low stranger-on-stranger crime rate, so there weren’t a lot of usual-suspect types to haul in for questioning.

Funds offered. Robert Siclari, who owned an environmental consulting firm in Alexandria, Virginia, put together a $20,000 reward for information that would help solve the crime.

“We lost Janet and we can’t bring her back,” Robert told the Virginian-Pilot. “But we don’t want something like this to happen to someone else.”

Still, the case turned cold.

Then, in 1997, something wonderful happened in the world of forensic science. CODIS — the combined DNA indexing system — was created so police across the U.S. could share genetic profiles of convicted felons.

Knife wielder. When authorities entered Janet Siclari’s rape kit sample in the database, they got a match with Thomas Jabin Berry. The roofer and commercial fisherman, who was 27 at the time of the murder, had undergone DNA testing after committing a parole violation.

The Carolinian, seen here in a vintage post card, fell into disrepair and closed, but East Carolina University maintains a webpage where former guests can share old memories of the Nag’s Head property.

Berry’s ex-girlfriend told police that he always carried a fishing knife and that a pair of shoes and socks found near Janet Siclari’s body belonged to him.

The findings about Berry, who lived in the North Carolina towns of Engelhard and Manteo, weren’t exactly a shock. His record included “indecent liberty with a child” involving the aforementioned 12-year-old girl.

Talk about a lowlife. During his on-camera interview with Forensic Files, Berry — who had three children by two different women — called his actions toward the girl “consensual.”

Apparently no one had informed him that children can’t consent.

The girl would later testify that Berry had lured her into the woods under the guise of helping him find a lost nephew. Then he raped her in a fort, according to court papers from North Carolina vs. Berry in 2001.

Crack defense. Berry got a 10-year suspended sentence for his crime against the 12-year-old girl.

Under police questioning for the attack on Janet Siclari, Berry said he had been smoking crack cocaine at the time and couldn’t remember whether he had raped and killed Janet, according to the court papers.

In his Forensic Files interview, Berry said that, if he did have sex with Janet, “it would have been consensual” and he never killed anybody. He also said he sometimes had sex with people he just met on the beach and that was how he met his wife.

Third victim. Doris Berry, the suspect’s mother, strenuously defended him, saying he was “not capable of committing murder” even “to save his own life.” Meanwhile, her son had a history of sex crimes dating back to when he himself was 12 years old, according to a Bergen Record account.

At the trial, a woman named Shelley Perry testified that Berry had tried to rape her after breaking into her house in 1992. She managed to escape and never pressed charges.

In 1999, a jury convicted Thomas Berry of the rape and first-degree murder of Janet Siclari.

Sympathy for the devil. At the sentencing hearing, Janet Siclari’s mother, Damy Siclari Daber, spoke of how the death had devastated the family and said that son Robert Siclari felt guilty. “I tell him it’s not his fault … It’s that maniac’s fault,” she said, as reported by the Virginian-Pilot on Jan. 28, 1999.

Meanwhile, Doris Berry portrayed her son as a victim — a sweet guy who was severely abused by his father and used to hide in the woods to escape him, the Virginian-Pilot reported.

The defense also attempted to win the jury members’ sympathy by showing them a childhood photo of Thomas Berry holding a fish he had caught.

Good prisoner. But in the end, the jury didn’t think his case held water.

Berry received two consecutive life sentences.

Today, Thomas Berry resides in Warren Correctional Institution in Manson, North Carolina. He lost a 2001 appeal and is not eligible for parole.

Berry is housed in medium security. Born on Jan. 4, 1966, he has a lot of years ahead of him, and all of them are highly likely to be spent behind razor wire.

That’s all for this post. Until next week, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

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