Forensic Files Archives - Page 15 of 22

Ed Post’s Murder of Julie Post

A Spouse Scapegoats a Towel Ring
(“Slippery Motives,” Forensic Files)

The story of Julie Post’s death encompasses a favorite Forensic Files theme: As much as the show stresses science, many times the little things suspects do or say are more damning.

“Slippery Motive,” the episode about Julie Post’s murder by her husband, New Orleans salesman Ed Post, also contains one of the best quips ever from a prosecutor’s on-camera interview.

Salesman’s personality. I’ll get to that in a minute and also provide an epilogue for Ed, who is still alive three decades after he ended his wife’s life.

So let’s get started on the “Slippery Motive” episode recap, along with extra information from internet research:

Ed Post and Julie Thigpen met at the University of Southern Mississippi and married in 1967.

They moved to Louisiana, where Ed made a name for himself as a real estate agent, thanks in part to what Forensic Files calls his sophisticated manner.

Cajun success story. After Julie joined his firm, Wagner & Truax, she sold around $1 million in real estate a year, according to Forensic Files. But later, someone mentioned that she made only around $20,000 annually.

The Omni property where the murder took place in 1986 is now the St. Louis Union Station Hotel

That confused me a little because if the firm charges the standard 6 percent commission, why didn’t Julie get at least half of that, which would add up to $30,000?

On the other hand, she started working there in 1982, when $20,000 a year was pretty decent scratch.

Together, the couple were earning enough to afford a wine collection worth $30,000, according to St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Bill McClellan, who went on to write a mass-market paperback called Evidence of Murder (Onyx, 1993) about Julie Post’s homicide.

(Note: Forensic Files references Wagner & Truax as the real estate firm that Ed Post partly owned, but a reader recently wrote in that he wasn’t an owner and the firm where he worked was actually Gertrude Gardner Realtors.)

Photo of the book Forensic Files Now — *BOOK IN* STORES AND ONLINE!

Worst convention ever. But all that affluence wasn’t enough for the chubby 5-foot-7-inch Ed. He became infatuated with a cute colleague. She already had a well-to-do husband, and it was theorized that Ed wanted to turn himself into an even better provider than her spouse.

A trip the Posts took to St. Louis for a real estate conference gave Ed an opportunity to put a homicide plan into action.

He drowned Julie in the bathtub early in the morning on June 3, 1986, then quickly jumped into a T-shirt and shorts.

Ed Post, right, and his brother in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch photo

On his way out of the Omni Hotel in Union Station, where they were staying, Ed stopped by the concierge desk to thank her for a recommendation. Next, he introduced himself to the doorman and mentioned he was going jogging.

Big payout. Upon his return, he “discovered” his wife unresponsive in the tub. Police found a broken-off towel ring in the water. It looked as though Julie had grabbed it for support, it came loose from the tile wall, and then she fell, hit her head, and drowned.

Ed Post might have gotten away with it, but his greed turned reckless. He immediately called his lawyer brother to the scene, where they photographed evidence of the allegedly homicidal towel ring, in preparation for a lawsuit against the hotel (see Mark Winger).

And one more gift for prosecutors: Ed had purchased a $300,000 life insurance policy on Julie less than a month before her death.

Gratuitous interaction. At first, however, it looked as though authorities were buying the accidental-drowning story, and Julie Post’s body was transported to New Orleans for burial in Metairie Cemetery.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported on the death at the Omni, and it caught the eye of a prosecutor from the Missouri attorney general’s office.

Dee Joyce-Hayes didn’t buy all the towel-ring shaming.

Dee Joyce-Hayes in a 2010 Post-Dispatch photo

Oh, come on. She also found it odd that Ed Post thought it necessary to introduce himself by first and last name to the Omni doorman and explain where he was going.

“It’s from the book of ‘Who Cares?’ ” she said. (Best quip of the season.)

Clearly, Ed Post was trying to establish an alibi.

Soon, more authorities took an interest in the case as a possible homicide.

Hardware inquisition. Next came the trial by combat of the towel ring. Investigators had a woman of about Julie Post’s weight and height test an attached, intact towel ring in another bathroom at the Omni Hotel.

After numerous trials, investigators determined that it would take a person weighing 480 pounds — or a person weighing 120 pounds who was descending from 64 feet — to pull the towel ring directly off the wall in the way they found it at the murder scene.

The lab concluded that someone standing outside the tub, with a foot against the side, violently and deliberately wrenched the towel wring from its mount on the tile wall.

Dead giveaway. After exhuming Julie Post’s body, the coroner found marks that suggested someone had held her head down in the water.

The authorities did a great job with the forensics, but the towel ring factor got undue attention, in my opinion. There was no way of determining the condition of the towel ring before it came off the wall in the Posts’ room. Maybe it had a loosened mounting plate or was defective.

As Dee Joyce-Hayes pointed out, Ed Post’s gratuitous explanation to the doorman was the real red flag.

Too much info. Even the friendliest of business travelers is not going to introduce himself to the doorman by first and last name. The guy had a hidden agenda.

Ed Post also made sure to have a long narrative about the sights he took in on his jog, including Busch Stadium, the Gateway Arch, and city hall.

U.S. Prosecutor Dean Hoag called Post “a detail man done in by details” as reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on May 29, 1989:

“Hoag asked the jury to recall the testimony of New Orleans insurance inspector George Leggio, who said Post had kept offering him details of the ‘accident’ when all Leggio wanted was Julie Post’s health record before her death.”

Talking down to them. Ed Post’s trial for first degree murder started in 1989. In addition to the towel ring test and the accounting of the financial windfall Post would receive upon his wife’s death, the evidence included testimony that he joked around — at Julie Post’s funeral — about wanting to date his aforementioned cute colleague’s twin sister .

And there was also the matter of Ed Post’s business, Jackson & Truax, having fallen on hard times. In the mid-1980s, the New Orleans real estate market wasn’t exactly a zydeco dance party.

Ed Post in 2013, a year before his release

The jury found Ed guilty of first-degree murder after a day of deliberation. Forensic Files noted that his condescending tone on the witness stand had struck out with the jury.

A judge gave Post a sentence of life in jail without parole.

Family turns. Apparently, Post’s lawyers had offered him the chance to be considered for second-degree murder as well as first degree, but he declined, preferring “all or nothing,” according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch story on May 24, 2014.

But the murder conviction was overturned because of evidence that the sheriff’s deputies got a little too buddy-buddy with the jurors.

By the time of his second trial in 1992, Ed Post’s brother, older daughter, and best friend (Harby Kreeger) no longer believed in his innocence. They testified against him.

It’s not clear whether Ed Post’s former firm is still in business. It doesn’t have a website or any Yelp reviews

Daughter’s ordeal. As if Stephanie Post hadn’t suffered enough by virtue of losing her mother, during her three hours of testimony, defense lawyer Rick Sindel brought up the fact that she’d had an abortion after being raped.

Stephanie, who cried several times on the stand, also said that her father had abused, and had pointed a gun at, her mother.

In 1985, Julie Post had told her daughters that she and Ed were getting a divorce and they would have to switch from private to public schools, Stephanie testified.

Blame the pills. At some point during one of the trials (it’s not clear which), Dan Post testified that Julie had told him about physical abuse she suffered at Ed’s hands. Oddly, that information was supposed to work in Ed’s favor: The fact that he had a temper was intended to suggest he killed Julie in a fit of anger, punishable as second-degree murder instead of first-degree.

By this time, prison life had worn away Ed Post’s cockiness and he just wanted a deal, according to McClellan. Circuit Judge Timothy J. Wilson accepted Post’s guilty plea to second-degree murder in return for a 30-year sentence with the chance of parole.

Post admitted to drowning his wife but blamed it partly on his being on diet pills at the time. He apologized to Julie Post’s survivors. Julie’s father later remarked that the contrition gave him a bit of solace.

So where is Ed Post today, and what does he have to say for himself?

Gone quiet. After turning down several of his requests for release over the years, the parole board allowed him to exit Missouri Eastern Correctional Center in Pacific in 2014 at the age of 69.

As far as what he has to say, apparently he doesn’t. Post started keeping a lo w profile before his prospective integration back into the free world and has continued to do so.

As for an epilogue for Julie Post’s older daughter, Stephanie married a doctor who does work for Doctors Without Borders. Her husband attended at least one of the parole hearings to ask that Ed Post be kept in prison.

Dee Joyce-Hayes went into private practice at Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal and now is general counsel at the Bi-State Development Agency, according to her LinkedIn profile. I hope she gets a TV show of her own some day.

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

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube or Amazon Prime

Book cover — To order the book:
Amazon
**Barnes & Noble**
**Books-a-Million**
**Target**
**Walmart**
**Indie Bound**

Betty Lee: Death of a Damsel in Distress

Robert Fry Murders a Mother of Five
(“Four on the Floor,” Forensic Files)

A combination of bad companions and bad luck led a woman named Betty Lee to a horrible end on a spring night near Farmington, New Mexico.

A divorced mother of five, Lee was taking a break and enjoying some drinks with a couple of girlfriends.

But her so-called friends ditched her, and she accepted a ride home with a stranger who seemed kind-hearted, but wasn’t.

With friends like these. For this week, I looked around for an explanation for why Betty’s girlfriends abandoned her that night and where the killer, Robert Fry, and his accomplice, Leslie Engh, are today.

But first, here’s a recap of “Four on the Floor,” the Forensic Files episode about the case, with additional information from internet research:

Robert Fry, 26, was cruising around in his Ford Aspire near a bar called The Turnaround on June 6, 2000.

A popular tour spot in Farmington, New Mexico

Forensic Files gives Fry’s occupation as construction worker, but a newspaper account describes him as a “marginally employed Navy veteran” who served in Guam, then worked on and off as a bouncer, security guard, and driver.

In his spare time, Fry enjoyed playing Dungeons and Dragons and collecting knives.

Abandoned and stranded. Neither Betty Lee nor the authorities knew it, but the hot-tempered, beer-swilling Fry was a serial killer. He had already committed three murders and allegedly liked to prey on Native American people.

Lee, a Diné College nursing student from Shiprock, belonged to the Navajo Nation. Her hobbies were gardening and herb-gathering.

She and two other women went to The Turnaround together, but her friends met two men there and they decided to go to a motel together, leaving Lee without a ride home.

She tried to call her brother from a pay phone but couldn’t reach him and broke down in tears.

Desert nightmare. Bobby Fry pulled up beside the 36-year-old Lee, said that he hated “to see a woman cry,” and offered a ride.

Fry, who had his young buddy Lester Engh in the car, drove her to a remote dirt road in Farmington, saying he had to stop to relieve himself.

The powerful 6-foot-1-inch Fry then dragged Betty out of the car and attempted to rape her. When she resisted, he stabbed her in the chest. She fled on foot, but Fry caught up and killed her with a sledgehammer.

Mass tow job. Engh helped Fry conceal her body in some bushes. They threw her clothes in a ravine.

But there was no quick getaway for those two. The Ford Aspire got stuck in some soft sand as they tried to reach the highway. Around 4 a.m., Fry called his parents for help, but their pickup truck was paralyzed in the sand, too, as was the first tow truck they summoned, according to Forensic Files.

Finally, Bloomfield Towing owner Charlie Bergin answered a call and pulled all three vehicles free. They went their separate ways.

The Albuquerque Journal, however, gives a slightly different version of events.

Leslie Engh in court

Mom and Dad abetting? Although the ending is consistent with the Forensic Files account — three vehicles were immobilized in the sand and Bergin freed them all — the newspaper reported that when Gloria and James Fry initially came on the scene, they didn’t get stuck.

Instead, they left their son’s sedan there and gave him a ride home, where he “changed clothes and cleaned up.” They also dropped Engh at his place. The Frys’ truck got stuck when they returned to the scene to tow the Ford Aspire, according to an Albuquerque Journal story from December 8, 2000.

Clothing unravels tale. Bergin probably had no idea a homicide had taken place near the scene, but one has to wonder about Robert Fry’s parents.

The next day, an electrical-line inspector found Betty Lee’s body after following a trail of blood (he suspected someone had poached a deer) off the road.

Police recovered a cell phone Charlie Bergin had discarded at the scene.

Bergin identified Fry and Engh as the men who summoned for help, according to Forensic Files.

Partner sings. Investigators tracked shoe prints at the murder scene to footwear found during searches of Fry’s and Engh’s homes. Both sets of shoes had Betty Lee’s blood on them. A blood stain on Fry’s T-shirt suggested that he was the one who hit Lee with the sledgehammer.

Fry stayed quiet after the authorities detained him.

Engh, who was only 22 years old and looked like a baby chicken, cracked and told detectives everything, then testified against Fry.

The trial took place in Albuquerque because there was too much publicity around Farmington.

In April 2002, a jury convicted Fry of kidnapping, attempted criminal sexual penetration, and second-degree murder.

Trail of tears. Fry apologized to the more than 20 of Betty Lee’s relatives present in the courtroom and asked the jury to spare his life for the sake of his parents, the The Albuquerque Journal reported.

Clipping from the *Albuquerque Journal* from Dec. 31, 2000.

But the jury delivered a death sentence — not a common decision in New Mexico.

Engh got 40 years.

Investigators later tried Robert Fry for the homicides of Joseph Fleming, 24, and Matthew Trecker, 18. The murders took place in a shop called The Eclectic in 1996. Fry had sneaked away with some expensive knives and swords from the store and was afraid the two men would identify him.

Thrill killer? Authorities also discovered that both Fry and Engh were responsible for the unsolved murder of a Navajo reservation resident named Donald Tsosie, 40, who had traveled to Farmington to sell plasma. The men offered him a ride home, then robbed and beat him and pushed him off a cliff in 1998, Engh admitted to police.

Fry received life sentences for those crimes.

“There’s no motive or past acrimony,” Assistant Attorney General Steve Suttle told local news site KRQE. “[Fry] just kills people, and apparently he enjoys killing people.”

In addition to seeing her son condemned to die, Fry’s mother suffered a career setback. A petition signed by 250 advocates for the murder victims called for Gloria Fry to be removed from her job as adult misdemeanor administrator for the San Juan County probation department.

Behind razor wire. An investigation revealed that Gloria Fry had driven onto the Betty Lee crime scene as police officers were studying it. The fact that she lent her son a county-owned cell phone, which he used on the night of Lee’s murder, didn’t help matters either. Gloria Fry was fired on June 7, 2002.

So what happened to the killer and his accomplice?

Engh is still inmate No. 419862 in the custody of the New Mexico Corrections Department.

Fry hasn’t been executed and lives in supermax at the Penitentiary of New Mexico near Santa Fe. His lawyers lost at least one appeal but have stayed busy with various other delay tactics over the last decade.

Justice delayed. As of April 2018, Fry was one of only two prisoners on death row in New Mexico and defense lawyers were arguing for both men’s sentences to be reduced to life without parole because the state repealed capital punishment in 2009.

While awaiting a decision, Fry began toting a Bible.

Apparently it worked, because in 2019, the New Mexico Supreme Court set aside the death penalty for Fry and the other inmate, Timothy Allen. They’ll serve life sentences instead.

BFF fail. Finally, courtesy of the mass-market paperback Monster Slayer by Robert Scott (Pinnacle, 2005), a few scraps of information came to light about the two female companions who abandoned Betty Lee.

As Forensic Files did, the book identifies one only as Tina. But it gives the other a full name, Gloria Charley. (Curiously, one of Betty’s children was named Roxann Charley.)

Gloria Charley said that Betty had turned into a fifth wheel on the night of the murder and she simply didn’t feel like giving Betty a ride back to the reservation.

Really worth it, ladies? Although Lee’s girlfriends apparently were chomping at the bit to check into that motel with those two men, it doesn’t sound as though it turned into a magical evening.

Charley got only the last name of one of them and the name the other one gave — Johnny Miller — was either fake or he didn’t get around to telling her where he lived. Police never found either of the one-night Romeos.

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

Watch Forensic Files episode “Four on the Floor” on YouTube or Amazon Prime.

Ad for book version of Forensic Files Now — To order the book:
Amazon
**Barnes & Noble**
**Books-a-Million**
**Target**
**Walmart**
**Indie Bound**

Bradley Schwartz: Short-Sighted Ophthalmologist

One Eye Surgeon Murders Another
(“Office Visit,” Forensic Files)

Like many of the criminals featured on Forensic Files, the men who murdered Dr. Brian Stidham obviously didn’t watch the show often enough.

Victim Brian Stidham left behind two children

For one, they didn’t know that phone contact between conspirators in the moments right before or after a murder is the kind of evidence that makes a county prosecutor’s job worth the commute.

Touching base. Dr. Bradley Schwartz, an ophthalmologist just out of drug rehab, did take some other precautions, however. He made sure he was out in public, eating at a restaurant around the time that a hired thug was stabbing Stidham to death in a parking lot in Tucson, Arizona.

The dinner alibi might have worked if not for what happened during the meal. Schwartz, who blamed his former colleague Stidham for the downfall of his medical practice, took a phone call from hitman Bruce Bigger.

And as if establishing an electronic trail to Bigger on the night of the murder weren’t enough, he had Bigger come to the restaurant and sit down at his table briefly to confirm that the crime had happened.

Victim overkilled. For this week, I checked around for an epilogue on Schwartz and Bigger. But first, here’s a recap of “Office Visit,” the Forensic Files episode about the case, along with information from internet research:

On October 5, 2004, a concerned passerby called 911 after finding a gravely injured man sprawled out on the blacktop.

Brian Stidham, age 37, had been stabbed 15 to 17 times (accounts vary) and his car was stolen, but police noted he still had his wallet with cash inside. They spotted a partly eaten slice of pizza on the ground.

Spouse’s house. Stidham was an ophthalmic surgeon; he specialized in treating children. Stidham had just finished giving a lecture to some University of Arizona medical students at the time of the attack.

When police showed up at Stidham’s house to deliver the tragic news to his wife, Daphne, she behaved in a strange way. They had to break into the house when she didn’t answer the door, and then her first words were to ask whether her husband had been “shot.”

Most viewers were probably hoping for a spouse-on-spouse murder drama, but the investigation led another way. Police ultimately chalked up Daphne Stidham’s reaction to the fact that she had taken sleeping pills that night and was disoriented.

Vehicular evidence. She mentioned that her husband had an enemy, Dr. Bradley Schwartz, a fellow ophthalmologist.

Raised in Longview, Texas, Stidham loved Tucson

The next day, detectives found Brian Stidham’s car abandoned in an apartment building parking lot, with his blood on the inside of the door. They theorized that just after Stidham placed his pizza on the top of the car and unlocked the door, the attacker sprang into action.

The killer drove off in Stidham’s 1992 Lexus to make it look like a murder-carjacking scenario, authorities believed. But a carjacking didn’t make sense because of the extent of Stidham’s injuries. Thieves generally don’t hang around long enough to overkill their victims.

Self-destructive surgeon. Investigators routinely study any changes that happen in a victim’s life around the time of a homicide, so they took note that the Harvard Medical School graduate had recently left his position at Arizona Specialty Eye Care.

When Stidham joined the practice, he didn’t know that the Drug Enforcement Agency was investigating Schwartz, a senior partner who had recruited him for the job in 2001.

Schwartz was a prescription drug addict using the practice to illegally obtain Vicodin and Ritalin for himself.

The drug problem wasn’t the only turmoil in Schwartz’s life. He had ruined his marriage by way of affairs, some of them with mothers of his juvenile patients at the practice. There were malpractice suits pending against him. And he was allegedly a shoplifter.

Free but debilitated. The DEA raided Arizona Specialty Eye Care in December 2001, and Schwartz was ultimately indicted on 77 counts of prescription drug fraud. The Arizona Board of Medical Examiners suspended his medical license and made him undergo drug therapy in 2002.

Meanwhile, the happily married, clean-living Stidham started over with a new practice. He took many of the patients from Arizona Specialty Eye Care with him.

Once Schwartz, 39, completed drug therapy and regained his medical license, instead of being grateful for getting a second chance, he stewed.

The suspension had cost him around $750,000, according to an October 4, 2005, Arizona Daily Star story, and he resented Stidham’s defection.

Eye on one suspect. According to prosecutor Sylvia Lafferty, Schwartz, who once earned $100,000 a month, made about $118,000 annually after his suspension.

Schwartz had lost his hospital privileges and could no longer write prescriptions freely for patients.

In the days after the homicide, a number of Schwartz’s friends and colleagues and even his own wife said they suspected Schwartz had something to do with Stidham’s death.

Popularity begrudged. He had plenty of reason to envy Stidham, who was known for his kindness, upbeat personality, and dedication to patients. As the Arizona Daily Star recounted on November 4, 2004, just days after the murder:

“‘[Stidham] probably checked on my daughter seven times a day when she was in Tucson Medical Center,’ said Kristy Ross, whose toddler daughter, Castilleja, was hospitalized two years ago for a sudden eye infection. ‘There were seven doctors who worked with her, but I only remember Dr. Stidham,’ she said.”

Schwartz, who once had been “the top Tucson ophthalmologist” — and lived in a $580,000 house with his wife and three kids in the gated Paloma Canyon development — had discussed fantasies such as planting child pornography on Stidham’s computer or harming him with acid, Schwartz’s girlfriends told investigators. (His defense attorney would later say that Schwartz was only talking that way in an effort to impress the women.)

But at some point, he decided on murder instead.

Simple but stupid plan. Schwartz hired Ronald Bruce Bigger, a 39-year-old patient who was the son of a retired police officer.

For a guy who could perform delicate surgeries to reroute intraocular fluids, Schwartz didn’t come up with a particularly artful murder plan.

All investigators had to do was follow short paths from points A to B to C. They found evidence of two phone calls between Schwartz and Bigger near the time of the attack, then discovered Bigger’s DNA in the murder victim’s car.

Witnesses said they had noticed Bigger, an unemployed parolee, flashing a big roll of bills after the murder. Investigators found that Schwartz had recently cashed a check for $10,000.

Oddball exchange. Schwartz’s girlfriend Lisa Goldberg told police about how a “Bruce” had shown up during their dinner the night of the murder and given Schwartz information in what sounded like coded lingo.

Murder scene in a lot outside Stidham’s office

Prosecutors prevail. While the authorities investigated a case against Schwartz, the community paid tribute to his victim with the Dr. Brian Stidham Children’s Memorial Walk in Sabino Canyon on November 4, 2004.

Local papers published many accounts of Stidham’s compassion.

The trial, which started in February 2006, was a media sensation far beyond Tucson. Court TV covered the proceedings, and CBS produced a 48 Hours Mystery episode called “An Eye for an Eye” about the case.

By springtime, both culprits had been convicted.

As usual, the brawn received a harsher punishment than the brain, with Bigger getting life for first-degree murder and Schwartz ending up with a minimum of 25 years for conspiracy to commit murder.

If Schwartz’s sentence seems a little light, don’t worry: Prison has been no country club.

Bruce Bigger and Bradley Schwartz in Arizona Department of Corrections photos

Incarceration blues. On September 27, 2008, it was Schwartz’s turn to fall prey to a surprise attack. Schwartz had just left a creative writing class and was heading to the bathroom when a fellow inmate assaulted the former ophthalmic surgeon, leaving him with facial injuries including two broken eye sockets.

Bigger, who is inmate number 219577 in the Arizona State Prison Complex in Safford, has not adjusted well to prison life either. The Arizona Department of Corrections notes 14 disciplinary incidents, including disorderly conduct, threatening and intimidating, and harassment.

As for Daphne Stidham, she received $2.29 million from Pima County to settle claims that some local officials had prior knowledge of the murder plan but didn’t act properly to prevent it. One of the officials, Lourdes Lopez, was a former girlfriend of Bradley Schwartz.

*As a high school senior, Stidham was chosen to participate in an M.D. Anderson Hospital study.*

Daphne Stidham could also take comfort in the many tributes to her husband, including a scrapbook that patients and their parents created to memorialize Brian Stidham so that his two small children would one day “know the impact their father had.”

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

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube or Amazon Prime.

Ari Squire: Insurance Fraud Fiasco

A Diesel Truck Racer’s Plan Backfires
(“A Squire’s Riches,” Forensic Files)

Does Forensic Files deter viewers from trying out insurance fraud or does it make them think they’re smart enough to do a better job of it?

“A Squire’s Riches” tells the story of a building contractor who apparently fell into the second category. Like a number of Forensic Files bad guys before him, he dreamed up a plan to get rich by faking his own death.

Case of the blues. Ari Squire’s plot didn’t involve a Harvard-educated surgeon or a walking ad for vasectomies, but it did have giant diesel trucks and blue contact lenses.

As so with the others, Squire’s plan failed.

He evaded justice by taking his own life, leaving behind a wife, Denise Squire, who almost certainly had some prior knowledge of her husband’s devious plans.

Star Truck. The Forensic Files episode, first broadcast in 2010, ends with a mention that authorities were still investigating Denise Squire’s role in the crime. For this week, I looked around to find out what happened to her, but first, here’s a recap of “A Squire’s Riches“ along with additional information from internet research:

Ari Squire, 39, ran a once-thriving construction business out of suburban Chicago.

It enabled him to indulge in a pastime popular at fairs and racetracks: competing to see whose diesel truck is fastest and can pull the heaviest load. He built a huge garage on his property in Lake Barrington to give himself room to tinker with the big vehicles.

Legal cost nightmare. By 2008, however, Squire’s fortunes had turned into a big flat tire. Forensic Files didn’t mention it, but in 2007, he had pleaded guilty to Medicare fraud in connection with a business called AccuCare Inc., the Daily Herald reported. He had to pay $63,000 to settle that matter.

An earlier case on similar charges had resulted in a $126,000 judgment against Squire.

In addition, Squire’s legal fees amounted to around $200,000, according to a Dateline NBC episode about the murder. The financial strain didn’t exactly help to rekindle Ari’s already-lukewarm marriage to Denise, who at one time worked as an adjunct professor at National-Louis University.

With the start of the subprime housing crisis, business slowed down at Squire’s construction firm. It was at a breaking point.

Squire came up with a plan, and it didn’t involve bankruptcy court.

Double trouble. He decided to stage an accident in his garage, making it look as though a pickup truck fell off a jack and crushed him – and then a lightbulb broke and ignited fuel from the truck’s diesel filter.

Crime scene: a garage bigger than most houses

The blueprint required a dead body other than Squire’s, someone with a face and build that resembled his, just in case the fire didn’t obscure the body’s identifying characteristics.

His $5 million insurance policy payout would then go to three people: Denise Squire, Joseph Vaccaro, who was Ari’s best friend and business partner, and Shana Majmudar, one of Ari’s sisters.

Tempting wages. Presumably, one or all three of the parties would secretly funnel some of the money to Ari, who would disappear and assume the identity of the dupe killed in his garage.

Squire scoped out look-alikes at his favorite Home Depot in Lake Zurich.

He invited his first pick, a married dad named Sandy Lively, to his house to discuss a a job paying $60,000 a year. Lively and Squire had similar hair and facial features. Fortunately, Lively overslept and the meeting never happened.

Young life taken. Next up, Squire lured Home Depot worker Justin Newman, age 20, to his home, with the promise of a construction job paying $15 an hour — twice the Illinois minimum wage in 2008.

Newman’s height and weight were close to Squire’s.

Police believe that, once Squire got Newman in his garage, he incapacitated him with chloroform, moved his body under the truck and let it fall on him, then started the fire and fled.

On February 23, 2008, Denise Squire called 911 to report smoke coming from the garage. First responders found the dead body under the truck and initially believed it to be that of Ari Squire, an unfortunate accident victim.

Killer’s other side. Shortly after Ari’s “death,” Denise Squire arranged for a memorial banquet at a Skokie venue called Maggiano’s Little Italy, and 120 people came to pay their respects. Ari was popular within the diesel-truck pulling community, according to Chad Embrey, a friend interviewed on Dateline:

“He was an extremely nice guy. I think he stood out because he was willing … to volunteer his parts and tools to help others that he was competing against. And usually once that competitive nature takes over, people get into it for themselves. But Ari wasn’t like that.”

The Dateline episode isn’t on YouTube, but you can read the transcript online.

Plan’s downfall. Denise Squire pushed to have Ari’s body released and cremated (Red flag No. 147 — spouse in a hurry to burn the evidence), but the authorities wanted some answers first.

Investigators found the electricity turned off in Ari’s garage, so how did the lightbulb ignite the fire? And would an experienced mechanic really be sloppy enough to slide under an inadequately secured vehicle?

Police got a break when dental records showed that the dead body’s teeth didn’t match Squire’s.

Heartbreak hotel. Meanwhile, to make it appear that Justin Newman was still alive, Squire was using Newman’s credit cards and sending text messages to Newman’s mother, Donna FioRito. She got suspicious — her son didn’t normally text — and reported him missing.

On March 2, 2008, a detective discovered Ari Squire alive and hiding in a room at a Days Inn in Eureka, Missouri.

Instead of surrendering, Squire shot and killed himself.

Cyber trail revealed. Justin Newman’s cell phone, ID, and car were found at the Days Inn. Squire had colored his hair and obtained blue contact lenses so that his appearance would match the description on Newman’s driver’s license.

With Ari Squire now legitimately deceased, next up came determining Denise Squire’s involvement in the insurance fraud plot.

Donna FioRito in a Chicago Tribune photo

Lake County Sheriff’s investigators uncovered emails Ari had sent to Denise Squire to nail down the details about disposing of the body and holding the memorial service. He had sent the messages shortly after the staged accident, while he was supposed to be dead.

Cry me a river, Denise. The widow would later claim that she thought the emails were written before her husband died, and sent automatically later.

FioRito and her other son, Frank Testa III, sued Denise Squire for wrongful death. At the four-day civil trial in 2010, Denise’s lawyer, Martin A. Blumenthal, attempted to portray her as a victim, an AP story reported:

“Denise loses sleep over the fact that just a few yards away from her, Ari did this to a young man. Don’t forget, he set the house on fire with her in it.”

A jury awarded FioRito and Testa $6 million, although it’s not clear whether they received any of the money. Denise Squire reportedly hadn’t been able to collect on her husband’s $5 million Fidelity Investment Life Insurance policy because of a suicide clause.

Career still healthy. But legal documents from 2011 reveal that a judge ordered that “beneficiaries” receive $1.3 million in insurance money. It’s not clear who the beneficiaries were, but let’s hope Donna FioRito and her surviving son got the funds.

As far as Denise Squire’s whereabouts today, it looks as though she’s using her maiden name, Denise Mary Frank, and still living in the Chicago area.

LinkedIn lists a Denise Frank with some specs consistent with Denise Squire’s career — including a gig as an administrator at the Scott Nolan Behavioral Health Center. The profile mentions a degree from National-Louis University, the same school where Denise Squire once taught part-time. She gives her occupation as a senior health care executive. Her LinkedIn profile photo, however, looks significantly different from the picture shown on Forensic Files, so there’s no saying for sure.

Sins of the father. Incidentally, the health care profession and shady dealings appear to have run in Ari Squire’s family.

Forest Hospital, one of 26 psychiatric facilities Morris Squire owned, was fined after two nurses tipped off authorities about suspect practices

Morris Squire, Ari’s father, once owned a psychiatric facility named Forest Hospital in Des Plaines, Illinois. The elder Squire sold it for $10 million in 1999 so that the hospital could pay $4 million to settle a civil Medicare fraud suit that involved charging Alzheimer’s patients for care they didn’t need.

The Chicago Tribune reported that the services Forest Hospital was billing to Medicare included “unlicensed people reading [patients] horoscopes from the newspaper.”

Morris Squire outlived his son, dying at age 90 in 2014.

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

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube or Amazon Prime

Chris Marquis: Death of an E-tailer

A Teen Entrepreneur Pays Dearly for Fraud
(“Over and Out,” Forensic Files)

Many a duped consumer has thought for a moment or two about sending a bomb to the culprit on the other end of the transaction.

A 35-year-old Indiana truck driver named Chris Dean distinguished himself by actually doing it.

It’s a particularly sad case because the dishonest seller, also named Chris, was only a teenager.

Forensic Files told the story of the clash of the Chrises in “Over and Out.” It’s a Greek tragedy spanning the internet, surface mail, and citizens band radio.

He’s with the band. For this week, I looked around for an epilogue for the bomber. But first here’s a recap of the episode along with information from internet research:

Chris Marquis bought and sold CB radios and parts over the internet.

Although Forensic Files depicts him as an obscure hobbyist with a devious streak, the Vermont native actually had established himself as a widely known and reviled entrepreneur among CB radio enthusiasts.

To inflate his image, Marquis portrayed himself as a married 27-year-old dad with a retail shop called the CB Shack, according to an investigative piece that appeared in Wired magazine six months after the bombing.

None-too-endearing. In reality, Marquis was 17, single, and childless and he ran the CB Shack online out of his bedroom in his mother’s house — there was no store.

Crime scene: Sheila Rockwell’s rented house

The tall, blond teenager wasn’t as much of a loner as Forensic Files hints, however. He managed to score a serious girlfriend who was a year ahead of him in school.

Marquis acquired his bad reputation as a CB enthusiast by making obnoxious comments to people on CB radio networks.

And he got his ill repute as a business owner by routinely misrepresenting the merchandise he sold and traded.

UPS had already received a number of complaints about Marquis from customers who said he cheated them.

No second chance. He might very well have been scared straight if the shipping giant had tipped off U.S. government authorities about the fraudulent interstate commerce and the feds showed up at his mother’s house in Fair Haven, a town of fewer than 3,000 residents.

A bit of a grifter herself, Sheila Rockwell was very close to her son, sometimes working with him as a DJ at events, and the two engaged in a little mother-son shoplifting from time to time, according to the Burlington Free Press and Wired.

Nonetheless, having FBI agents materialize on her doorstep would have in all likelihood made Rockwell flip out and beat up on her son about using her house, the mail, and the internet to defraud people across state lines.

But no intervention ever happened, and Marquis never had a chance to repent and reform.

Fateful day. On March 19, 1998, UPS delivered a package for him with a return address he didn’t recognize, a Samantha Brown from Bucyrus, Ohio.

When he opened it, a pipe bomb exploded, severing his femoral artery. His mother, who had just handed him the box, lost several fingers and part of one knee.

Police heard the explosion and saw smoke (Rockwell’s house sat right behind the municipal building) and ran inside the residence.

They saw huge craters in the floor and ceiling and found the mother and son still alive.

She survived, but he soon bled to death.

Aggressive manhunt. The murder was colossal news for a town with three police officers in a state known for public safety, and Rockwell didn’t have to wait long to win justice for Marquis, who was her youngest child (his father died before he was born).

The FBI and ATF joined the hunt for the bomber, and investigators quickly zeroed in on Chris Dean.

The trucker had told friends about being cheated out of a $400 ham radio in an online deal. Dean had repeatedly contacted Marquis to complain but got no answer.

Files never die. The house in Pierceton, Indiana, that Dean shared with his wife held a cache of incriminating evidence, including the types of hex nuts, wires, and pipes used in the bomb.

A package of 9-volt batteries in Dean’s drawer had the same lot number as the mangled one found at the crime scene.

Dean, who apparently didn’t watch Forensic Files often enough, thought he had permanently erased a computer file with the CB Shack’s address and the fake “Samantha Brown” return address used on the package with the bomb.

Police retrieved that file as well as information Dean had downloaded about how to create an explosive device.

Sheila Rockwell around the time of the trial and during her appearance on Forensic Files in 2005

Hazard in the air. The package with the bomb had been mailed from a UPS store in Mansfield, Ohio. Sprint North Supply, the product-distribution company Dean worked for, confirmed that Dean was in Mansfield on the day it was sent.

To top it off, one of Dean’s buddies told authorities that Dean said he “was going to send the guy [Marquis] a package in the mail and boy is he going to be surprised,” the Washington Post reported on March 21, 1998.

U.S. Marshals transported Dean to Burlington, Vermont, where Federal District Court Judge William Sessions charged him with offenses including murder and “sending an explosive device on an airplane, knowing it could endanger the safety of the aircraft,” the New York Times reported on April 5, 2000.

A mother’s mercy. To avoid capital punishment, Dean pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. He also met with Sheila Rockwell one on one and apologized for killing her son.

Rockwell said that while she couldn’t forgive Dean, she didn’t want to see him get the death penalty either.

As far as why Dean, who had no prior criminal record, committed capital murder over a $400 fraud, it may have been a case of a tightly wound guy stewing until he snapped. Dean had some compulsive traits, according to the Wired story by writer Scott Kirsner:

“Dean was obsessively neat. Neighbors remember him constantly washing his cars—a Corvette and a Blazer. Joe Stump, his landlord, recalls that Dean kept his lawn buzzed down practically to AstroTurf length. ‘And the house was always spotless inside,’ Stump adds.”

Last message. A judge gave Dean life in jail without parole after federal prosecutors alleged that he had threatened to kill witnesses and hatched a plan to break out of St. Albans jail. They also pointed out that “it will be just as easy for Dean to construct a [bomb] at age 70 as it was at 35,″ the AP reported in 2000.

The judge also ordered Dean to pay Rockwell $50,000, although the Burlington Free Press noted that it was unclear whether Dean was able to come up with the money.

He mouthed “I love you” to his wife, Diane, as he was led out of the courtroom.

Defense never rests. But just because Dean pleaded guilty didn’t mean that he accepted his punishment. Early on, he trotted out complaints about having an unhappy childhood.

That didn’t get him anywhere.

In 2006, he argued that a U.S. Supreme Court decision that said federal sentencing guidelines weren’t mandatory should apply to his case.

A federal magistrate in Vermont ruled against him.

Today, Dean resides in Hazelton, a high-security federal penitentiary in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia.

Hazelton is a rough place. In April 2018, an inmate died after a fight with a fellow prisoner.

The Bureau of Prisons website notes that all visiting at Hazelton has been suspended; it doesn’t provide a reason or an end date.

CB radios remain. On the bright side for Dean, the institution seems to have a menu of commissary items priced far more reasonably than the $5 cans of Coke the Orange Is the New Black ladies complain about.

The list includes cinnamon raisin bagels for 55 cents each, a pizza kit for $3.40, and an entire six-pack of Pepsi (no Coke) for $3.30.

By the way, if you’re curious about the state of the CB radio in the age of GPS and smartphones, you can check out a piece in BND.com.

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

Book cover of Forensic Files Now — To order the book:
Amazon
**Barnes & Noble**
**Books-a-Million**
**Target**
**Walmart**
**Indie Bound**

Update on Bobby Kent’s Killers

They Should Have Let the Police Handle It
(“Payback,” Forensic Files)

Bobby Kent was described at best as an Eddie Haskell type, ingratiating to parents and teachers and snide to his peers.

At worst, the 20-year-old weight lifter was a sadistic bully, alleged to have sicced an attack dog on his best buddy and sexually assaulted two other friends.

Instead of going to the authorities or telling their parents, three of Bobby’s associates decided to end the abuse by killing him. They recruited four more people to assist in a crime that became the subject of a Forensic Files episode as well as a paperback and a movie.

The tale of the seven middle-class Floridians ages 18 to 20 who assassinated Bobby Kent in a remote Broward County spot near the Everglades on July 14, 1993, still fascinates the public. Here’s an update on those involved:

Ali Willis in 1999 & 2012 TV appearances

ALICE “ALI” WILLIS
DOB: 8/29/75
Relationship to Bobby Kent: Former girlfriend
Appearance: 5-foot-3, hazel eyes
Status: Released.
Having served six years of a 40-year sentence later reduced to 17 years in a minimum security facility, she is free and now calls herself Alice. After moving to Palm Bay, Florida, she picked up a charge for retail theft in 2013. It was a probation violation, but it didn’t land her back in prison. A year earlier, she appeared on a Dr. Drew show, where she was introduced as the mother of four children. The Sun Sentinel reported in early 2018 that she lives with her husband and kids in Melbourne, Florida. Incidentally, Alice told NBC Miami that she has not stayed in touch with the other conspirators.

Marty Puccio is comforted by his mother circa 1995 and in a recent mugshot

MARTIN JOSEPH PUCCIO
DOB: 03/01/1973
Relationship to Bobby Kent: Best friend from childhood
Appearance: 6 feet, 202 pounds, brown eyes
Tat: Bulldog with a human body
Status: Serving life in Desoto Annex in Arcadia.
A judge reduced Marty’s sentence from the death penalty to life. His prison profile lists his status as in close custody, which means he “must be maintained within an armed perimeter or under direct, armed supervision when outside of a secure perimeter,” according to Florida’s Inmate Orientation Handbook. It’s the second strictest category, right behind maximum, which is reserved for death row inmates.

Lisa Connelly with lawyer Kayo Morgan in a Sun Sentinel photo and a prison shot

LISA CONNELLY
DOB: 07/31/1974
Relationship to Bobby Kent: Best friend’s girlfriend
Appearance: 5-foot-3, brown eyes
Status: Released.
Connelly served 11 years, part of it in community custody, meaning she stayed outside of prison at times but was monitored. She exited jail for good in 2004. Lisa lives in Pennsylvania with a daughter from her relationship with Marty Puccio and a younger son, according to the Sun Sentinel. During his Forensic Files interview, Lisa’s cousin Derek Dzvirko mentioned knowing Lisa’s daughter and that she was “smart” — so maybe she’ll do a better job of picking friends than her mother did. After having trouble landing jobs because of her record, Lisa turned to self-employment, becoming a certified optician and running a cleaning business, according to a 2013 Sun Sentinel story. She has kept a low profile since her release, and appeared in shadow during an interview with American Justice on the “Payback for a Bully” episode.

DONALD SEMENEC
DOB: 07/15/1975
Relationship to Bobby Kent: Dating his ex-girlfriend, Ali Willis
Appearance: 5-foot-4, 190 pounds, blue eyes
Tats include: “Skull w/dishonor”
Status: Serving life in Gulf Correctional Institute in Wewahitchka.
Don expected a sentence of no more than 22 years but instead got life because he “delivered a stab wound to Kent’s neck that started the homicidal frenzy,” according to a Sun Sentinel story. He is serving his life sentence with no mention of parole eligibility. According to a 2013 Sun Sentinel piece, Donald has accrued 20 infractions in prison, including possessing a weapon and drug and alcohol use.

Derek Dzvirko in a prison photo and in a Forensic Files appearance in 2001

DEREK DZVIRKO
DOB: 11/02/1973
Relationship to Bobby Kent: Sketchy. He’s Lisa Connelly’s cousin.
Appearance: 6-feet, 237 pounds, green eyes.
Status: Released.
Dzvirko, who reportedly helped carry Bobby Kent’s body to the water’s edge, confessed a few days after the murder and led police to the crime scene, according to NBC Miami. He testified against the others in a plea deal and served six years in minimum security. A Florida Corrections Department profile notes his nickname of “Quarter Pounder.” After exiting prison in 1999, the beefy ex-conspirator worked as a truck driver for a while. He lives in Missouri as a single father of one, according to the Sun Sentinel.

DEREK L. KAUFMAN
DOB: 05/08/1973
Relationship to Bobby Kent: Sketchy
Appearance: 6-foot-3, 220 pounds, blue eyes, shaved head
Tats include: Female grim reaper, alien head
Status: Serving life in Gulf Correctional Institute in Wewahitchka.
As far as victimhood, Kaufman didn’t really have a dog in the race; there’s no mention of Bobby Kent’s ever hurting him. He reportedly got involved in the murder plot because he liked hanging around with impressionable teenagers. He told the conspirators that he belonged to the Mafia and would provide a gun. Instead, he produced a bat. “It wasn’t as bad as the judge said,” Derek’s grandfather Sam Kaufman said at Derek’s sentencing, according to the Sun Sentinel. “A dumb kid, that’s all.” Derek is not serving his time quietly, having committed 18 infractions in jail, including drug use and disobeying orders.

Heather Swallers circa 1995 and in prison

HEATHER SWALLERS
DOB: 05/04/1975
Relationship to Bobby Kent: Sketchy. Friend of a friend.
Appearance: 5-foot-2, blue eyes
Tat: “Love” across four fingers
Status: Released.
Heather got a light sentence by pleading guilty to second-degree murder and testifying against the other conspirators. She served 5 years in minimum security and lives in Georgia with her children, according to the Sun Sentinel. Although she was present during the murder, it sounds as though she had the smallest role in it out of the seven.

As far as Bobby’s parents, at the time of the sentencings, Farah and Fred Kent reportedly felt that justice had been served.

In a Sun Sentinel article from May 12, 2013, however, Bobby’s 41-year-old sister, Laila Kent, condemned the decisions to let the three girls and one boy (Derek Dzvirko) out of prison:

“It disgusts me that they have freedom after killing someone. They’re horrible people and they should be ashamed of what they did. They don’t even deserve to be alive.”

The American Justice episode is no longer on YouTube or Daily Motion, but you can watch it on Amazon Prime.

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

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube here or here. Note: It’s one of the few episodes of the original Forensic Files narrated by someone (Peter Dean) other than Peter Thomas.

To order the book:
Amazon
**Barnes & Noble**
**Books-a-Million**
**Target**
**Walmart**
**Indie Bound**

Bobby Kent: Bully and Victim

Middle-Class Kids Turn Homicidal
(“Payback,” Forensic Files)

“Payback” is one of a handful of Forensic Files episodes narrated by someone other than Peter Thomas.

Peter Dean did an earnest job of it, but no one can replace the assuring voice of Peter Thomas. Plus, watching the episode kind of felt like cheating on him.

There’s another thing missing from “Payback” — a sympathetic character.

The episode details how seven young people from respectable families conspired to kill 20-year-old Bobby Kent. But even the victim sounded like someone who’s hard to mourn.

Shakespearean drama. Bobby occasionally beat up his best buddy since childhood, Marty Puccio, and even turned the poor lad into a revenue stream by coercing him to dance at a male strip club.

Farah and Fred Kent with their daughter, Laila

Marty and a group of associates, all from the Fort Lauderdale area, decided to end the abuse by killing Bobby. They came up with a plot reminiscent of Julius Caesar, except with a cast of underachievers who probably didn’t care much about iambic pentameter.

The bizarre story made headlines nationally and was the subject of a mass-market paperback and a Hollywood movie.

More about those later and also some follow-up on the killers, but first here’s a recap of the episode along with information from internet research:

Lush lives. Bobby Kent was born to Farah and Fred Kent, who had anglicized their surname after moving from Iran to the United States. Fred Kent was a successful stockbroker.

The Kents’ short, dark, handsome, and popular son did well at South Broward High School, attended community college, and had solid career ambitions.

His friends, not so much.

Marty, 20, dropped out of school in 11th grade.

Ali Willis, at 18, had already been married and given birth to a baby who her mother and father cared for. “Payback” described her as a former girlfriend of Bobby’s and also said that he had raped her at some point in the relationship. Marty would later allege in court papers that Bobby had threatened to kill Ali and her child unless she resumed their relationship.

Lisa Connelly and Marty Puccio in happy days

Happy couple. Lisa Connelly, 18 and a high school dropout, had fallen in love with Marty Puccio, and being his girlfriend pretty much took up all her bandwidth. Forensic Files and the book Bully portrayed Lisa as awkward and overweight with low self-esteem. To her credit, Ali told Lisa that she was attractive and just needed a little attitude.

At least one source (I can’t remember whether it was the book or the movie) alleged that Bobby had acquaintance-raped Lisa as well as Ali.

Even though Marty and Lisa had a serious relationship and were expecting a baby, he continued to feel dominated by Bobby Kent.

Privileged upbringing. Both young men had grown up in the upscale Pembroke Pines neighborhood and were bodybuilders. Although Marty, at 6-feet, was the tall one, Bobby always had the edge physically and also harbored a sadistic streak that he trained on Marty at times.

Newspaper coverage of the crime from the Palm Beach Post

At one point, Marty wanted to escape Bobby’s bullying so badly that he begged his parents to move. When they declined, he fled to New York to stay with relatives. But he soon returned.

Marty’s love-hate relationship with Bobby persisted. At Bobby’s urging, the two of them took a stab at entrepreneurship by making a pornographic videotape of a middle-aged man they knew from the gym. The film quality was too poor to sell, and their older friend refused to oblige when the two asked him to star in another video. They responded by beating up the poor gentleman.

Rogues’ gallery. Meanwhile, Lisa resented the amount of time the two boys spent together and also the bullying Bobby doled out to both of them. Bobby liked to call Lisa “Shamu.”

Lisa may have been the mastermind behind the murder plan.

The rest of the brain trust consisted of Ali’s new boyfriend, Donnie Semenec, age 18, her friend Healther Swallers, 18, Lisa’s cousin, Derek Dzvirko, 19, as well as Derek Kaufman, a blue-eyed mullet-wearing 22-year-old claiming to be a Mafia contract killer who could offer up his expertise; the kids believed him.

Alligators, really? On July 14, 1993, with a promise of a tryst, Ali invited Bobby Kent to a spot in the Everglades. As she distracted him, some or all of the conspirators came out of the shadows and stabbed and bludgeoned him.

He begged for mercy and apologized for whatever he’d done wrong, but they killed him anyway.

Derek Kaufman allegedly was the last person to assault Bobby, hitting him with an aluminum bat.

The friends left him out in the open near the water. They believed alligators would consume his body in its entirety and leave no evidence. The conspirators threw the knives and the bat in the ocean and agreed upon an alibi: that all seven of them were hanging around together the night of the murder and that Bobby was out on a date with a woman they didn’t know.

Police discovered Bobby’s decomposing remains on the beach four days after the Kents reported their son missing. The attackers hadn’t stripped him, and police found his driver’s license in his clothing.

Marty came under police scrutiny even before they found the body, and he initially did a good job of feigning worry about his friend.

But it’s hard enough to keep any secret that involves more than one actor. With a whole group of young people as inexperienced as the not-so-magnificent seven, it didn’t take long for the details to come spilling out.

Media magnet. The conspirators cracked and acknowledged a plot against Bobby. They gave various excuses, mostly that they were merely bystanders or that they consented to the plan under the impression that they would only beat him up, not kill him.

Meanwhile, news of a homicide perpetrated by young people mostly from unbroken, comfortable homes registered shock from coast to coast. The Miami Herald ran a 14-page article entitled “What Is Happening to Our Children? Caution: Growing Up in the ’90s may be hazardous to your health. Or even fatal” in October 1993.

The authorities would separately try and convict each of the seven kids with charges of first-degree murder or conspiracy, or both.

Marty Puccio received the most severe sentence, death by the electric chair. “Justice is served,” Farah Kent said after the decision. “Now he will fear for his life as my son did for his.”

The Kents hearing a judge sentence Marty Puccio

All of the kids went to prison. A judge later reduced Marty’s sentence to life.

So, how are these dissolute characters, now middle-aged, doing today?

For the most part, the girls made out better than the boys. The state of Florida let Ali, Lisa, and Heather out of jail after a few years.

Boys inside. While the three ladies aren’t exactly out there researching a cure for cancer or rescuing people from burning buildings, they don’t seem to be causing much trouble, either.

Except for Derek Dzvirko, who went on to appear in the Forensic Files episode, all the boys still live behind razor wire.

The Kent Murder case landed on the cover of a Miami Herald insert in 1993

The next blog post will provide more details on all seven of the conspirators’ epilogues. In the meantime, a mention of the book and movie seems in order.

Tome run. My neighbor lent me a copy of Bully: A True Story of High School Revenge by Jim Schutze (Avon, 1998) a few years ago. She had read it seven times.

For me, once was enough, although I did like the book and it held my interest the whole way through. Schutze did a good job of establishing a sense of place, conveying how living in a land of sunshine and shiny things devoid of character produced morally disabled kids.

As far as the movie based on the book, well, I hated it.

With Bully, director Larry Clark — who first made a splash with the 1994 effort Kids, which gave actress Chloë Sevigny her big break — distinguished himself as the king of gratuitous nudity.

No Hollywood magic. Although all the cast members, including Bijou Phillips and Rachel Miner, were technically adults, they look so young and Clark lingered over their bodies to such an extent that the movie seemed like highly stylized child pornography.

Perhaps that’s why you won’t find Bully on Netflix (streaming or DVD), HBO Now, or Amazon Prime.

Acting-wise, the cast did nice work, especially Bijou Phillips. Nick Stahl was an odd choice to play the stocky Persian-American Bobby Kent, but he did a lot with the role just the same.

You can check out a trailer of the movie on Youtube if you sign in to verify your age.

More to come. But this information shouldn’t be construed as a recommendation to watch Bully. It’s an ugly movie with no engaging heroes or anti-heroes.

As mentioned, the next post will supply more up-to-date information on the whereabouts of the seven real killers and show more-recent photos of them.

Until then, cheers. — RR

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube.

Image of Forensic Files Now book cover next to logos of places that wil be selling it — To order the book:
Amazon
**Barnes & Noble**
**Books-a-Million**
**Target**
**Walmart**
**Indie Bound**

Melissa Brannen’s Disappearance

Caleb Hughes Makes a Child Vanish
(“Innocence Lost,” Forensic Files)

Note: This post was updated in October 2020

Melissa Brannen in a blue dress — Melissa Brannen

I try not to use clichéed phrases, but this one seems unavoidable in telling Melissa Brannen’s story: every parent’s worst nightmare.

Melissa, age 5, vanished while attending a holiday party with her mother in Lorton, Virginia.

The little girl, dressed in a red skirt and blue Sesame Street sweater, strayed from single mother Tammy Brannen’s field of vision for a minute.

Challenge for prosecutors. Unfortunately, that was all it took for Caleb Daniel Hughes to grab her, exit via a window, put her in his red Honda Civic, and take off on the chilly night of December 3, 1989.

At the time Forensic Files first aired “Innocence Lost” in 1999, Melissa was missing — and she still is. No one figured out what Hughes did with her or her body.

Because the state of Virginia requires a proven location of a body to get a murder conviction, prosecutors charged Hughes with abduction of a minor with immoral purpose. That got him a sentence of 50 years, initially.

Struggling single mother. For this week, I looked around for epilogues for Caleb Hughes and Tammy Brannen, but first here’s a recap of “Innocence Lost,” the Forensic Files episode about the case, along with additional information from internet research.

Tammy Brannen was a 27-year-old accountant when she moved to northern Virginia with her daughter after a divorce. Her ex-husband lived in Texas.

She got a job with a defense contracting company, CACI Inc., and moved into a two-bedroom apartment in the Woodside complex.

On the weekends, she worked at a jewelry store. Her parents helped take care of Melissa.

The holiday party took place in Woodside’s clubhouse and drew about 200 residents.

Wolf loose. Woodside was known for its friendliness and sense of community, which is nice to hear (I lived in a couple garden apartment complexes in New Jersey, and they were cesspools). Tammy Brannen had no reason to worry about her daughter’s safety among her neighbors.

At least one person who wasn’t an actual tenant, Caleb Hughes, attended the party. He was a newlywed in his mid-20s who worked as a maintenance man for the complex.

Guests recalled that Hughes paid attention to Melissa at the party and spoke to her, although he would later deny it.

After Tammy said her goodbyes to her neighbors at the party, she all of a sudden couldn’t find her daughter. Melissa had asked permission to take home some potato chips just a few moments before.

Tammy discovered an open window in the utility closet in the back of the room. That was the only clue.

Laundry’s a giveaway. The police, citizen volunteers, and 300 military personnel quickly mobilized a search effort for Melissa. They distributed 35,000 fliers and 10,000 bumper stickers in the Washington, D.C., area. Some local movie theaters played home video footage showing Melissa. A $100,000 award was offered for help.

Still, no sign of Melissa.

But investigators had already come up with a suspect on the night of the disappearance. Caleb Hughes told a fishy-sounding story about his whereabouts when detectives interviewed him at his house. They looked in his washing machine and discovered the outfit he’d worn that night, including his leather belt, knife holder, and shoes; everything had already gone through the wash cycle.

In an exchange that sounded like TV police-show dialogue, a detective told Hughes, “I think you took Melissa out of that party.”

“Prove it,” Hughes replied.

Media frenzy. The police did so using evidence retrieved from Hughes’ car. They identified fibers from Melissa’s Big Bird sweater. Retailer J.C. Penney had manufactured it using material in a rare patented shade of blue named Plum Navy 887.

Meanwhile, the massive media coverage surrounding Hughes’ prospective guilt compelled Baltimore Sun columnist Roger Simon to condemn it as “media justice” akin to mob justice in a piece he wrote for the January 10, 1990 edition.

“There was a stampede among local stations in Washington to ‘own’ the Melissa Brennan story,” Simon wrote, noting that at least one TV anchor’s voice choked with emotion on air when she spoke of Melissa.

Hughes, on the other hand, clammed up about the disappearance. But his wife, Carol, was happy to cooperate with police. Carol, who worked as a supply buyer for the local public school system, helped investigators establish a timeline for Caleb Hughes’ movements the night Melissa vanished.

Cruel game. Investigators believe Hughes took off Melissa’s pink coat in the car, sexually assaulted her, and then killed her. Forensic Files noted that most strangers who kidnap children murder them within three hours.

Tammy Brannen is consoled by her father, Lt. Col Larry Pigue, in a Baltimore Sun photograph

As if Tammy hadn’t experienced enough of an emotional roller coaster following the disappearance, a couple of moronic young adults perpetrated a cruel hoax against her. They said they were holding Melissa and would release her for $75,000 in ransom.

An FBI agent posing as Tammy Brannen handed the money to a courier whom they subsequently followed to an apartment shared by Emmett Muriel Grier III, 20, and Anthony Girard McCray, 24

Grier, a college dropout whose father was a sheriff’s deputy in Detroit, and McCray were charged with extortion in 1991. Grier got a prison sentence of just shy of 4 years, and McCray, who allegedly devised the plan, received 7 years.

Authorities believe they had nothing to do with Melissa’s disappearance, however, and that Hughes acted alone as the kidnapper.

Bad guy wins. The 50-year sentence with no possibility of parole the judge handed to Hughes in May of 1991 was an impressive achievement for the justice system considering no body ever turned up. Prosecutor Robert Horan Jr. would later call the Brannen disappearance the most haunting case he ever worked on.

So where are the parties today?

On June 22, 1993, a Virginia appeals court overturned Hughes’ conviction for intent to molest, meaning he could end up resentenced on charges of abduction alone.

Sure enough, a Washington Post interview with Tammy from 1999 referred to a 2013 release date for Hughes — a huge letdown considering his original sentence would have kept him behind razor wire until 2041.

It’s not clear what happened with the plan to spring Hughes in 2013, but as of 2016, he was still incarcerated in Fairfax County’s Augusta Correctional Center as inmate number 1058054.

A state of Virginia website lists a release date of August 2, 2019 for him — and it looks as though he’s out (thanks to reader Marcus for writing in with the update) after serving 29 years of his sentence.

The Virginia state police lists his status as probation supervision. I plugged his current address into Google and, unfortunately, it’s a house rather than a prison.

Since his release, he has worked at a fast food restaurant, a cosmetics manufacturer, and a job staffing company, according to the Virginia state police website.

At least in the last two jobs, there’s limited chance of his coming into contact with children, but the Burger King gig sounds like a bad idea.

A 2019 mug shot of Caleb Luges — A prison photo from 2019, the year Caleb Hughes was released

Still hopeful. And what happened to the protagonist in this story? Tammy Brannen went back to school and completed an MBA and got married again, to a widower with four children, Leon Graybill, she met at karaoke night, according to the Washington Post interview.

She told reporter Sara Davis that she uses her husband’s last name but still lists her phone under “Brannen” so that Melissa can find her in the event that she turns up alive one day.

The article notes that Caleb Hughes refused Tammy’s requests for information about what he did with Melissa.

Fairfax County Prosecutor Robert Horan Jr., who viewers may remember from his appearance on Forensic Files, turned up in the national news for a different case, in 2003. He successfully prosecuted Lee Boyd Malvo, a sniper who terrorized the Washington, D.C., area with random serial murders.

Horan retired in 2007.

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

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

Maynard Muntzing: A Physician Who Did Harm

A Two-Timing M.D. Wreaks Havoc
(“A Bitter Pill to Swallow,” Forensic Files)

So many awful things in this world could have been prevented via a simple vasectomy, and I’m not just talking about visits to Chuck E. Cheese’s.

For example, married factory owner Howard Elkins killed his pregnant girlfriend, Reyna Marroquin, in 1969 to avoid scandal and divorce but got caught 30 years later.

And Carolina Panthers wide receiver Rae Carruth arranged for the shooting of his pregnant girlfriend, Cherica Adams, in 1999 because he was already paying $3,500 a month in child support to another woman and that was enough.

Then there’s the subject of this week’s blog post, Maynard Muntzing, M.D.

Grave consequences. The young doctor had two small children, two girlfriends, and two big problems: Neither woman knew about the other, and one of them was pregnant with his child.

An episode of Forensic Files entitled “A Bitter Pill to Swallow” documented the crimes that the Ohio farmer’s son committed against the pregnant girlfriend, Michelle Baker, to extricate himself from his predicament.

Baker survived Muntzing’s unlawful acts, but they had tragic consequences for her just the same.

Muntzing got a relatively light prison sentence, but he had to forfeit his medical license. It would have been much kinder and more cost-effective for him to get a vasectomy after his first two kids came into the world.

The $320,000 new love nest was not to be

Most kind cut. It seems odd that someone intelligent enough to complete medical school didn’t make the connection between having unprotected sex and creating a pregnancy — and do something to stop it.

Meanwhile, surgeons have been performing vasectomies since 1823 (well, all right, the first one was on a dog), and today they hurt less than a bee sting, according to Men’s Health writer Kevin Donahue.

Okay, enough of what could have been, and on to what actually took place.

For this week, I looked around for an epilogue for Muntzing, but first here’s a recap of the Forensic Files episode plus additional information from internet research:

Tropical whirlwind. Michelle Baker, a soft-spoken paramedic and firefighter, fell in love at first sight with Maynard Muntzing II, a tall, nice-looking ear, nose, and throat specialist who had graduated from Ohio University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine.

The couple, both 33, moved into her house in Huber Heights, Ohio, and his children from a previous marriage stayed with them on the weekends. Maynard seemed happy when he learned of Baker’s pregnancy. She was thrilled.

He suggested they elope in Key West.

They flew to Florida, but Muntzing backpedaled on the wedding plan, saying he wanted to do it when his family could attend.

Dangerous Rx. During their stay in the Sunshine State, Baker started to suffer unexplained bouts of abdominal cramps and bleeding.

The waves of illness soon started to follow a pattern: They took place after Muntzing procured beverages for her.

Early on, however, Baker had no reason to suspect Muntzing of foul play. He seemed serious about their future together. He bought a new house for them to live in with their new baby.

What a cad. Michelle’s own doctor, who had examined her after the cramping episodes, determined that her pregnancy was still on track.

Unfortunately, Baker soon had emotional anguish in addition to the physical pain. She learned that a “fishing trip” Muntzing was taking “with a buddy” was actually just a cover story for a few days of a double life.

Muntzing was having a relationship with another woman, a nurse named Tammy Erwin.

Baker broke up with him when she found out, but took him back after he apologized and swore off Erwin.

Candid corruption. The cramps and bleeding commenced again, but this time, Baker’s twin sister, Melinda, noticed the connection between consuming beverages from Muntzing and the episodes.

The sisters set up a hidden camera in Michelle’s kitchen and, sure enough, it captured footage of Muntzing mixing an unknown substance into Michelle’s cola while he was alone in the kitchen.

The Baker sisters found white sludge at the bottom of the glass but went to the police instead of confronting Muntzing.

Cops handle it. Somewhere in the middle of this mess, Muntzing secretly married Erwin.

Meanwhile, police tested the glass of cola. They determined the contaminant was Cytotec, a drug known for inducing labor.

Michelle Baker in her Forensic Files appearance

Investigators set up something akin to a To Catch a Predator sting operation of their own on August 14, 2000, during another dinner date at Baker’s place. As soon as their pinhole camera, concealed in a figurine, caught Muntzing making one of his special cocktails, two police officers swooped in and arrested him.

“I hope this is a prenatal vitamin,” one of the lawmen called out, referring to the vial of a mysterious substance that Muntzing had inadvertently revealed on camera.

Police found the mother lode of the stuff in Muntzing’s car.

Lab tests again confirmed the presence of Cytotec, and Muntzing eventually admitted he used the drug to get rid of his “problem.”

Boyfriend owns up. It’s not clear whether he intended to kill Baker, but at the very least, he was trying to terminate her pregnancy without her consent.

In her Forensic Files interview, Baker said she had told Muntzing she wanted to have the baby with or without his support.

She went into labor 28 weeks into her pregnancy and gave birth to a stillborn girl.

Dead reckoning. Muntzing pleaded guilty to attempted felonious assault and contaminating a substance for human consumption. On October 26, 2001, Judge Barbara Gorman sentenced him to serve five years in prison and to surrender his medical license.

(He got off easy, considering that a Florida man named John Andrew Weldon received 13 years in a prison camp in 2014 for causing his girlfriend to miscarry by giving her Cytotec disguised as an antibiotic.)

Tammy Erwin Muntzing, age 38, pleaded guilty to charges related to filling the prescription for the Cytotec (yep, she was in on it), and Judge Gorman gave her five years of probation and 100 hours of community service and forced her to give up her nursing license.

How ’bout it, guys? (Mick Jagger, this means you)

In August 2002, Michelle Baker filed a $3.5 million lawsuit against Maynard and Tammy Muntzing for causing her miscarriage.

Newspaper accounts note that the coroner had found no traces of the Cytotec in the placenta after the baby’s birth, making it difficult to prove cause and effect in court.

Latest drama. Although there’s no word on how Baker or her lawsuit fared, DailyCourt.com published a notice of Muntzing’s filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2007.

Muntzing’s name surfaced again in 2013 in an obituary for his father, a prominent local 4-H organizer and onetime agricultural columnist for the Chillicothe Gazette.

The article indicated that Tammy and Maynard Muntzing were still married, and living in Lima, Ohio.

Incidentally, Rae Carruth made headlines in February of 2018 for his bid to win custody of his son, Chancellor, who was born prematurely to Cherica Adams before she died of her gunshot injuries. But Carruth had a change of heart by the time he got out of prison. He settled for visitation rights only.

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

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

Bette Lucas: Bad Heir Day

Steven Lucas Kills His Mother
(“Step by Step,” Forensic Files)

Note: This post was updated in 2021.

Baker Steven Lucas III had two daughters, shaky finances, and a widowed mother worth $4 million.

So when Bette Lucas turned up dead near the bottom of a staircase in her house in Tyler, Texas, naturally investigators had some questions for her one and only child.

It took two jury trials and six years, but they eventually put her son behind razor wire.

Local princess. For this week, I looked around for an epilogue for the convicted killer, but first here’s a recap of “Step by Step,” the Forensic Files episode about the Bette Lucas case, with additional information from internet research.

Baker Steven Lucas III (known as Steven) was born in 1945, the son of Texas socialite Bette Calvert Lucas and Baker Steven Lucas Jr., who made a fortune in real estate before dying in a car accident in 1985.

Bette Calvert Lucas never remarried after the death of her husband, who in addition to being a businessman had served as mayor of their hometown of Tyler for eight years.

But she stayed active on the party and charity circuits and was known as something of a glamour gal in Tyler, a city of about 70,000 residents in Smith County.

Steven Lucas in a circa-2002 photo from Rapsheets.org

Videocassette-era crime. Steven had some type of career in the oil business, but it wasn’t gushing cash. He was running out of money of his own and had borrowed $350,000 from his mother.

Bette reportedly had grown impatient and wanted repayment, but instead her son asked for another loan.

On June 6. 1988, Steven, age 43, and his daughter Stefani stopped by Bette’s house ostensibly to return a videocassette recorder.

But the VCR ended up damaged and Bette ended up deceased.

Steven claimed they were arguing because Bette insisted on carrying the VCR up the stairs, which connected to a balcony. Worried that the machine was too heavy for Bette, he tried to wrest it away from her, he said.

What’s the rush? As they struggled with the 30-pound VCR, Bette lost her balance and fell over the balcony’s guard rail, then landed on the staircase, Steven alleged. He didn’t explain how she flew through the air laterally to reach the adjacent steps.

Bette was alive but unconscious when the ambulance arrived. Instead of riding to the emergency room with Bette, her son and granddaughter stayed at the house to clean up blood at the scene.

Steven did swing by the hospital later, and directed the medical personnel to remove Bette from life support. He arranged to bury her almost right away, and the community seemed to accept her death as an accident.

But investigators didn’t buy it and put him on trial for murder in 1991 in Tyler, the county seat.

The jury had mixed opinions about the strength of the forensic evidence presented during the six-week trial and couldn’t reach a decision after 22 hours of deliberation. The judge declared a mistrial.

Yes, it’s a circus. The authorities exhumed Bette’s body and made sure not to skimp on the forensics for the second trial. It took place at the Frank Crowley Criminal Courts Building in Dallas in 1994.

The trial attracted more media attention than the first, with Court TV broadcasting the proceedings. (I couldn’t find any video on YouTube, but a commenter on the Injustice Anywhere Forum posted a Court TV transcript.)

The prosecution built a replica of the balcony and demonstrated how a woman of Bette’s height had a center of gravity too low to cause an accidental fall over a 3.5-foot-tall guard rail.

Forensics roll in. There was also the matter of the multiple head wounds, whose size and shape suggested that they were made with a candlestick from Bette’s house.

And Bette had no broken bones, an unlikely outcome for a 66-year-old who took a steep fall.

Not to mention that any intelligent person of her age would know to hold onto a railing when carrying something heavy. A friend of Bette’s who appeared on Forensic Files said it was unlike her to haul anything weighty anywhere in the first place.

Investigators believe Steven argued with his mother over money that day, lost his temper and beat her to death with the candlestick, then staged the scene to look like an accidental fall.

Estate plan. According to the crime show The New Detectives, Stefani admitted that her father and grandmother were arguing over something that day, but said she wasn’t paying attention because the two of them got into disagreements frequently.

Although it’s not clear whether or not Steven knew, Bette reportedly was planning to remove him from her will — an incentive for him to get her out of the way fast.

The second jury came back with a guilty verdict, and Steven began a 35-year sentence.

The next blip out of Steven Lucas came in 2004, when the 5th state Court of Appeals in Dallas rejected his bid for a third trial.

Free at last. He exited prison in 2014 and moved to El Paso. (Thank to readers who wrote in to confirm his release.)

In 2019, Legacy listed Steven as having died but gave no other information, except to note that no memorial services had been planned. (Thanks to reader Sean for writing in with the news about the death.)

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

Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube

Category: Forensic Files

Ed Post’s Murder of Julie Post

Like this:

Betty Lee: Death of a Damsel in Distress

Like this:

Bradley Schwartz: Short-Sighted Ophthalmologist

Like this:

Ari Squire: Insurance Fraud Fiasco

Like this:

Chris Marquis: Death of an E-tailer

Like this:

Update on Bobby Kent’s Killers

Like this:

Bobby Kent: Bully and Victim

Like this:

Melissa Brannen’s Disappearance

Like this:

Maynard Muntzing: A Physician Who Did Harm

Like this:

Bette Lucas: Bad Heir Day

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: