1942 Slaying of Two Girls

Brutal child-killing teen meets a shocking end after killing girls

Eddie Haight dies in electric chair after killing Helen and Margaret Lynch in 1942

Eddie Haight said he killed two little girls - Margaret and Helen Lynch - for no particular reason.

Daily News front page in 1942 covering the brutal child killings.

The daughters of Margaret and Patrick Lynch of Bedford, N.Y., had to learn to be big girls earlier than most kids.

With three toddlers at home, Mrs. Lynch was quarantined at a tuberculosis sanatorium after the birth of her fourth daughter in 1936. Infant Mary was sent to live with relatives, while Anne, Helen and Margaret were raised by their father outside Bedford Village.

Patrick Lynch, 46, was a busy salesman for the Donald Brush Co., but he found time to dote on his girls as years passed with no improvement in his wife’s condition.

By 1942, the Lynches had developed a cute habit. The girls often would wait in town for their father to pass after work, then pile into his sedan for a ride home before supper.

On Monday afternoon, Sept. 14, 1942, two of the girls — Helen, 8, and Margaret, 7— waited as usual. But their father did not arrive. At 6 p.m. they headed home along Stamford Road, believing they had missed their dad. At Indian Hill Road, witnesses saw them climb inside an unfamiliar station wagon.

Patrick Lynch arrived in town minutes later and learned his daughters had broken a big-girl rule: Don’t take rides from strangers. He went to the police, who issued bulletins for the station wagon.

The next day, diners at a Stamford, Conn., beanery — 20 miles from Bedford — listened to a teenager named Eddie Haight brag about a joyride he took on Monday in a hotwired jalopy.

“What kind of car?” someone asked.

“A station wagon,” Haight replied.

A diner dropped a dime.

PAT CANDIDO

Haight raped and mutilated the Bedford, N.Y., girls after hotwiring a car and going joyriding.

 Haight, a ninth-grade dropout who mowed grass for a living, had never been arrested, though he had crime in his bloodline. His father, Arnold, was a zigzag dad: He couldn’t go straight.

Please note that he had no criminal hx.  

He built a rap sheet as thick as a Dagwood and spent the 1930s locked up for a chronic case of breaking-and-entering. While he was jailed in 1939, his wife died in a house fire at their place on Wildwood Road in Stamford, north of the Merritt Parkway.

After parole, Arnold Haight slapped together a two-room shanty on the site of the fire, and he was living there with his four teenagers when police came to question son Eddie.

The youth shocked cops by admitting that he had abducted, molested, mutilated and killed the girls.

Describing acts so depraved they made detectives retch, he had “the nonchalance of a schoolboy on a picnic,” as one newspaper put it. A prosecutor called him “bumptious.”

When a reporter asked why he had done it, he replied, “No reason I can think of.”

Haight was still a few days shy of 17 when he went off the moral rails.

Driving the stolen car that morning, he forced a woman motorist to the shoulder on the Merritt Parkway but was scared off by the dogs in her car. At midday, he tried to entice several women and girls into the car in Stamford. By 6 p.m. he was cruising Bedford, where he failed at smooth-talking a teenager before finally succeeding with the Lynch kids.

There is murder, and then there is murder.

 

Daily News front page in 1942 covering the brutal child killings.

Haight subjected Helen and Margaret to pathological cruelty as he traversed rural Westchester

 County. He bound, gagged and raped the girls, then mutilated their bodies with a knife.

At Pound Ridge, he threw Margaret from the moving car for being “restless.” He had second 

thoughts, picked her up, then pitched her still alive into a brook near Bedford. She drowned.

He killed Helen by laying her in the road and mashing her with the car, rolling back and forth several times.

He dumped her remains into the Kensico Reservoir near Armonk.

Haight led cops on a field trip to reenact his pitiless acts, chuckling his way through the gruesome

 travelogue. County Prosecutor Elbert Gallagher, steamed by Haight’s demeanor, vowed a “swift trip

 to the electric chair.”

This was not an idle threat in that era, with America consumed by World War II. New York had long 

been a national leader in the use of capital punishment, and executions spiked here during the war

 years — 18 carried out in 1942 and 20 in 1944.

Capital punishment, viewed as potential distraction from the war effort, was handled briskly, often 

months after the precipitating crime.

At trial, Haight’s sanity was an issue, but his age was not.

A defense analyst said the teen was pathological, demented, a sexual deviant, anti-social, sadistic and

 psychopathic. A prosecutor’s shrink countered that Haight was sane though “abnormal.”

If he was looking for mercy, Haight did not help himself. He snickered through the proceedings, 

whistling popular songs like “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” and “Kalamazoo.”

Fifty-two days after the murders, he was convicted and rushed to Sing Sing to die. After rote appeals

 failed, Haight was bundled with two other teens for a triple execution on July 8, 1943.

William Diaz and Benitez DeJesus were both 18 on Oct. 3, 1942, when they stabbed to death a

 young soldier, Edwin Berkowitz, during a $6 mugging in Harlem.

Haight is believed to have been the youngest of the 695 men and women who died in New York’s

 electric chair. His execution was sandwiched between the Harlem killers, all carried out in fewer than

 15 minutes: at 11:01, 11:06 and 11:12 p.m. It was a model of wartime efficiency.

President Obama's Gift To Muslim Brotherhood

Pressure builds to nix gift of tanks, F-16s to Egypt

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  Turmoil in Egypt isn't stopping a shipment of 20 F-16 fighter jets, including this one - already emblazoned with Egypt's flag. (Courtesy: Carl Richards)

  
  

Later this month, the new government in Egypt is scheduled to begin taking delivery of 10 F-16 fighter jets and 200 Abrams tanks – courtesy of U.S. taxpayers.

The $213 million deal is part of a foreign aid package signed when American ally Hosni Mubarak was president, but a growing chorus of critics say the Obama administration should pull the plug. They cite Egypt’s new Muslim Brotherhood government’s mixed signals to the U.S. and Israel, as well as America’s fiscal problems, as reasons for rescinding the deal.

“A Shariah dictatorship on Israel’s border – armed with American weapons – is a deadly threat to Israel and America,” reads a petition being circulated by The American Center for Law and Justice. “All U.S. funding to Egypt must be cut off until we can certify that aid to Egypt will help the national security interests of the United States and Israel.”

“This is a different government. The government we made that deal with is now in jail.”

- Jordan Sekulow, American Center for Law and Justice

The petition has garnered more than 150,000 signatures, and ACLJ Executive Director Jordan Sekulow believes it could bolster mounting opposition in Washington. Although the deal has already been approved by Congress and could only be rescinded by President Obama, Sekulow said lawmakers have leverage because Obama needs their backing for some $1.5 billion in aid earmarked for Egypt later this year.

“It’s all up to the president,” Sekulow said. “It will take people speaking out, and we have a limited time to act.”

Egypt would add the state-of-the-art F-16s, built by Lockheed-Martin, to its fleet of 200 fighter jets. The M1A1 Abrams battle tanks would allow Egypt to increase its number of tanks by 20 percent. The first delivery is to take place Jan. 22. Critics say the arms could end up being used against neighboring Israel or even against the Egyptian people, should Morsi ever face a Syria-style revolt.

Reneging on the deal would be justified, say critics, because new Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood has long supported terrorist groups in the Middle East. Since being elected, Morsi has declared himself above the law and rammed through a constitution based on Sharia law. Human rights advocates say the regime’s treatment of women and non-Muslims is cause for concern.

President Obama has even said that Egypt’s alliance with the U.S., which was solid during Mubarak’s 30-year reign, may be in a state of transition.

"I don't think that we would consider them an ally, but we don't consider them an enemy," the president told Telemundo in September.

Note the weakness of "think" allows for doubt.  

Tearing up the agreement would not blemish America’s honor, given the new regime in Cairo, said Sekulow.

“Would we have given these to the Mubarak government when the revolution was occurring in Tahrir Square?” he said. “When things aren’t stable, you don’t just say, ‘Well we made this agreement two years ago so we have to go through with it.’

“This is a different government. The government we made that deal with is now in jail.”

A spokesperson at the U.S. Department of State declined to say whether the deal is being reviewed, but said the Obama administration seeks to “maintain a strategic partnership with Egypt that enhances the security and peace of the region.”

“We are closely following the political situation in Egypt,” the spokesperson said. “We support a stable and democratic Egypt, and we look to all Egyptians to resolve their differences peacefully.”

Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan, who recently called for ending foreign aid to Egypt altogether, told FoxNews.com last month the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Morsi government has been sending increasingly troubling signals to Washington, and giving it state-of-the-art fighter jets is a dangerous idea.

“American tax dollars must not be used to aid and abet any dictatorial regime that stands with terrorists,” Buchanan said

Iran: "Pollution" Near Nuke Plant

Note the wording of "pollution"

Note the state official response in italics.  The additional words "at all" are not necessary, but are given for emphasis, making the denial "sensitive" in analysis.

Iran to Citizens: Flee Isfahan

Iranian officials tell citizens to vacate city located near nuke site

 

Iranian workers at the Uranium Conversion Facility near Isfahan, Iran / AP

 

Iranian officials have instructed residents of Isfahan to leave the city, renewing concerns that a nearby nuclear site could be leaking radioactive material.

An edict issued Wednesday by Iranian authorities orders Isfahan’s one-and-a-half million people to leave the city “because pollution has now reached emergency levels,” the BBC reported.

However, outside observers suspect that the evacuation order may corroborate previous reports indicating that a uranium enrichment facility near Isfahan had been leaking radioactive material.

Tehran went to great lengths in December to deny these reports, tellingstate-run media outlets that “the rumors about leaking and contamination at Isfahan’s [Uranium Conversion Facility] are not true at all.”

November reports indicated that a radioactive leak might have poisoned several workers at the nuclear plant, which converts highly toxic yellowcake uranium into material that could be used in the core of a nuclear weapon.

The head of Iran’s emergency services agency said at the time that residents have no reason to worry about possible contamination resulting from a possible leak.

Stories about the potential leak soon disappeared from state-run news websites, Trend reported in late November.

Iranian officials denied that a leak has occurred and blamed Western media outlets for creating “tumult” in the region.

Wednesday’s evacuation order is now fueling concerns that Iranian officials are trying to hide something, including further fallout from a possible radioactive leak.

“Pollution in Isfahan is a problem but in the past, Iranian authorities respond by closing schools and the government to keep people at home and let the pollution dissipate, not by evacuating people,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq who has written about Isfahan’s battle against pollution.

“Mass evacuations suggest a far more serious problem,” Rubin explained. “There are two possibilities here: There is a radiation leak and the regime is lying or there is really bad pollution and no one believes the regime’s explanations.”

Rubin also pointed out that Iranian officials have a history of lying to both Western officials and their own citizens.

It remains unclear whether the technology has been properly inspected for safety because Iran has denied Western officials access to many of its nuclear sites.

The nuclear site at Isfahan has been targeted for attack in the past.

An unexplained explosion at the plant in 2011 is reported to have damaged the facility.

The nuclear plant also sits on an active fault line. The city of Isfahan has been destroyed at least six times from past earthquakes, a point of concern among regional experts.

“Given that Iran is on an earthquake zone and has lost tens of thousands of people with regularity suggests that a devastating nuclear accident is only a matter of time,” said Rubin.

Ayla Reynolds Among Unsolved Cases of 2012

BANGOR, Maine — With Saturday’s fatal stabbing in the Queen City, there are two unsolved homicides on the books for Maine in 2012 that can be added to the two open homicide cases from 2011 still being investigated.

“Those are still working investigations,” Assistant Attorney General William Stokes, head of the criminal division in the Maine attorney general’s office, said Monday.

Maine had 24 homicides in 2012, down four from the 28 in 2011, according to data compiled by Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, and the Bangor Daily News. There are 27 people charged with murder or manslaughter awaiting trials in Maine in connection with killings that date back to 1976.

In addition to the four unsolved homicides in the last two years, there are approximately 130 other homicide, suspicious death and missing person cases — including the investigation of missing Waterville toddler Ayla Reynolds — that remain unresolved through the decades, according to Assistant Attorney General Lara Nomani, who is tasked with reviewing the state’s unsolved homicides.

“I have close to 100 unsolved and close to another 30 that would fall into the missing person/suspicious death category,” she said, adding, “Those are my categories.”

Cases do not arrive on her desk before they are at least approximately 2 years old, Nomani said.

Jeffrey LeBlanc, 34, was stabbed in the abdomen on Elm Street in Bangor early Saturday and later died at Eastern Maine Medical Center in what his pregnant wife said was a crime related to the drug bath salts.

Bangor police detectives continue to investigate but are releasing few details about what they think happened during the stabbing, which left a long trail of blood in the snow outside the two-unit apartment building.

Matthew Blanchard, 24, was shot to death along India Street in Portland on July 11 while out with three other men, two of whom also were wounded by gunfire. Portland police still are looking for witnesses or others with information about the killing to come forward.

Another shooting in the state’s largest city, on Aug. 1, 2011, is considered an unsolved homicide.

Portland resident Allen MacLean, 41, apparently went to a party on outer Congress Street and was shot in the chest about 4:30 a.m. and died on a sidewalk in front of a gas station across the street.

Police scoured the city looking for a suspect and witnesses in the predawn shooting death, but have released few details in the following 16 months.

“They are all open investigations,” Portland police Sgt. Dean Goodale said Monday of the unsolved homicides, explaining why he could not release any information.

The body of Samantha Folsom, 26, originally from Greene, was found by her parents in a closet inside her Lewiston apartment on Nov. 19, 2011, and is the fourth unresolved homicide in the last two years. Few details about her death have ever been released, including how she died.

Local police indicated last year that they were searching for at least one person of interest. A sergeant with Lewiston Police Department said Tuesday that he wasn’t aware of any movement on the case, and referred all questions to his lieutenant.

China resident James Dodge, 38, who was mortally stabbed in the chest on July 13, 2012 at his home originally was on the list of unsolved homicides, but that case has been resolved, Stokes said.

“We’ve declined prosecution on the grounds of evidence of self defense,” he said.

Three other people were in the house at the time of the stabbing, officials have said.

Waterville toddler Ayla Reynolds, who went missing from her father’s home on Dec. 17, 2011, falls into the missing person/suspicious death category, Nomani said.

Police said in May that it is “ highly unlikely ” the 20-month-old will be found alive.

The attorney general’s office years ago hired Nomain, a former drug prosecutor, to review and analyze the state’s cold cases, under the direction of Stokes.

“There is about 12 that we’ve been about to successfully bring [to prosecution] in the last dozen or so years,” he said.

The October arrest of Gary Sanford Raub, 63, who was going by the name Gary Robert Wilson in 1976, is one cold case that today’s technology led to an arrest in 2012.

Raub was caught in Seattle and charged with murdering Blanche M. Kimball, whose body was found stabbed repeatedly in her Augusta home on or around June 12, 1976. Police matched his DNA to the homicide scene because he took part in an undercover “chewing gum survey” that police staged in July.

“The DNA is getting even more sensitive as we speak,” Stokes said.

It was much different 30 years ago, he said.

Both Stokes and Nomain said working cold cases is not as easy as it looks on the television show that bears the same name. Whenever a new cold case is reopened, it’s like starting all over again with compiling the evidence — often some is missing or in several different locations — and rounding up witnesses, which gets harder as time goes by and people move or die.

“It’s incredibly painstaking,” Nomain said. “You have to keep your eye on the ball long-term.”

The work may be arduous, but the payoff — being able to tell family members of the dead that their case is solved — is well worth the effort, Stokes said.

“We owe it to the families of the victims,” he said. “We’re not going to let these close out — they never close.”

F. Lee Bailey Denied Maine Bar Admittance

Former high-profile attorney F. Lee Bailey denied Maine Bar admittance

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Bailey was to work on the Dennis Dechaine case.   Statement Analysis has shown that Dechaine was guilty of the murder of Sarah Cherry.  

F. Lee Bailey, a longtime attorney who has represented many high-profile clients, including O.J. Simpson and Patty Hearst, was denied a bid to practice law in Maine.

Bailey, 79, passed the Maine Bar Examination in February. He had been licensed in Massachusetts and later in Florida. But he was disbarred in both of those states in the early 2000s after a Florida Supreme Court ruling on seven counts of attorney misconduct stemming from his handling of a case involving an accused marijuana dealer.

Bailey spent 44 days in federal prison before he was released after repaying millions of dollars worth of stock in a pharmaceutical company he had transferred from his former client’s assets.

“Mr. Bailey has not met his burden of demonstrating by clear and convincing evidence that he possesses the requisite good character and fitness necessary for admission to the Maine Bar,” five members of the State of Maine Board of Bar Examiners concluded in a 22-page decision in November.

Four other members of the board wrote a minority opinion in a seven-page dissent.

In it, they said that Bailey had demonstrated “by clear and convincing evidence that he has the moral qualifications, competency and learning in the law and has otherwise satisfied the factors established by the Maine Bar.”

The majority members pointed to a number of factors that guided their decision, including the disbarments, recurring income tax questions and Bailey’s uncertain residency status.

Bailey appeared before the Maine Board of Bar Examiners on Oct. 31 to “resolve doubt regarding Bailey’s good character and fitness to practice law in light of the past disbarments,” the majority members wrote.

At that hearing, Bailey presented several witnesses who testified on his behalf, including Deborah Elliott, his partner, with whom he lives in Yarmouth.

He also offered to be supervised by Maine attorney Stephen J. Schwartz, who had agreed to confer monthly with Bailey regarding case management and clients’ funds.

According to the Board’s written report, Kenneth Fishman, an associate justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court who had worked with Bailey as a law partner and continues their friendship, said the case resulting in Bailey’s disbarment was an “aberration” and that “Bailey’s demeanor since [the Claude] Duboc [case] is now less arrogant and ‘far more humble’ than before.”

Bailey also submitted numerous affidavits and letters that spoke to his good character, including by former Maine Gov. John Baldacci.

The majority report cites a Maine Bar rule that says it treats a lawyer who has been disbarred in any other state “as if the attorney has been disbarred also in Maine.”

One of the six factors the board is required to consider in determining whether an applicant should be readmitted to the bar is whether “the petitioner recognizes the wrongfulness and seriousness of the misconduct.”

The majority of the board concluded that he had not recognized the wrongfulness of his past conduct.

“Rather than accepting that he was disbarred because of his own misconduct, Bailey continues to place blame elsewhere,” the majority wrote.

Board members also wrote that Bailey was “less than forthright with this Board throughout the admissions process.”

The Sun Journal was unable to reach Bailey for comment Monday.

Jonbenet Ramsey Note Part One

Having raised the issue of the murder of Jonbenet Ramsey, I referenced the ransom note.  

I recognize 

that not all readers are familiar with the case, or the note.  

Statement Analysis of the note shows that it was not a genuine ransom note, but a deception intended to cause investigators to believe that kidnapping was the motive.  

Over the years, much analysis has been done on it, with Patsy Ramsey as the author.  I include it here, now, not for analysis, but for discussion.  

1.  In the note, what do you see that links it to Patsy Ramsey?

2.  Regarding profiling, what can you tell us about the author?

3.  Is there language that is specifically female?

4.  What do you find about the education level of the author?

5.  Any particular phrases jump out at you?

6.  What do you make of the length?  What does length indicate in analysis?

7.  Do "Foreigners" refer to themselves as "foreigners"?

8.  I have highlighted a few phrases as noteworthy.  Please touch on some of them for 

     commentary.  

Please limit your comments to the ransom note.  Next will be what you think happened to 

Jonbenet, and why.  Stay within principle and reason.  There was one silly book published that was void of principle, and was not Statement Analysis.  It simply was a book that said, "this

means that" without principle to apply to anything.  Without a foundation, there can be no 

scientific process; that is, one that can be applied repeatedly, with similar results. 

Having said that, it is true that language does come from somewhere; not a void.  Even lies are 

of great value, as words chosen, even during deception, have an origin.  What does not come

from experiential memory may come from memory:  memory of a movie, memory of a book,

story told, and so on.  This is why it is so difficult to make up a complete lie, and why, even 

in training investigators, it is so challenging that I end up giving the "liar" a script to follow,

lest the exercise be tainted as the subject will begin to work from childhood memories. 

We will look at the note's language, and then discuss the case in more depth.  

The murder of Jonbenet Ramsey taught the nation just how a "missing" child case can be

left unadjudicated when high priced defense attorneys are summoned to halt the march to 

truth.  

Once, a defense attorney sought to protect his client from malicious prosecution, while seeking

to learn the truth. 

Today,  it is win at all costs and those with guilt who have money, can hire attorneys that will

frighten off prosecutors.  Today's cases echo this weakness. 

                            Ramsey Ranson Note 

1. "Mr. Ramsey.
2. Listen carefully! We are a group of individuals that represent
3. a small foreign faction. We xx respect your bussiness
4. but not the country that it serves. At this time we have
5. your daughter in our posession. She is safe and unharmed and
6. if you want her to see 1997, you must follow our instructions to
7. the letter.

8. You will withdraw $118,000.00 from your account. $100,000 will be
9. in $100 bills and the remaining $18,000 in $20 bills. Make sure 
10. that you bring an adequate size attache to the bank. When you get
11. home you will put the money in a brown paper bag. I will call you
12. between 8 and 10 am tomorrow to instruct you on delivery. The 
13. delivery will be exhausting so I advise you to be rested. If we 
14. monitor you getting the money early, we might call you early to
15. arrange an earlier delivery of the money and hence a earlier 
16. delivery pickup of your daughter.

17. Any deviation of my instructions will result in the immediate 
18. execution of your daughter. You will also be denied her remains
19. for proper burial. The two gentlemen watching over your daughter 
20. do not particularly like you so I advise you not to provoke them. 
21. Speaking to anyone about your situation, such as Police, F.B.I.,
22. etc., will result in your daughter being beheaded. If we catch you 
23. talking to a stray dog, she dies. If you alert bank authorities, she
24. dies. If the money is in any way marked or tampered with, she dies.
25. You will be scanned for electronic devices and if any are found, she
26. dies. You can try to deceive us but be warned that we are familiar
27. with Law enforcement countermeasures and tactics. You stand a 99% 
28. chance of killing your daughter if you try to out smart us. Follow
29. our instructions and you stand a 100% chance of getting her back. 
30. You and your family are under constant scrutiny as well as the 
31. authorities. Don't try to grow a brain John. You are not the only
32. fat cat around so don't think that killing will be difficult. Don't
33. underestimate us John. Use that good southern common sense of yours. 
34. It is up to you now John!
35.      Victory!
36.      S.B.T.C"

Understanding JonBenet Ramsey Case Failure to Prosecute

The Jonbenet Ramsey case is something that can help readers understand what it is that can be so frustrating in a desire for justice.

The cases of Ayla Reynolds and Hailey Dunn are two cases which, seemingly, are not difficult to understand, yet puzzle those who yearn for justice, as to why no arrests have been effected.

Some blame police, and some blame prosecutors.  In both cases, there is little mystery as to the fates of the missing children, and no debate on "who done it?" amongst commentators.

It is the Jonbenet Ramsey case, when viewed dispassionately, that is a visible reminder of what can go wrong in our justice system.

Let's review:

A child was found murdered in her own home.  Statistically, this puts the immediate suspicion upon the parents.

We learned that the 6 year old was involved in child beauty competitions, and was dressed in an inappropriate sexualized manner.  (Reference point:  mid 1990's.  Since that time, the sexualizing of children has become more accepted, culturally, as seen in the child pageants in all their extremes, on television).

The sexualization of the 6 year old child shocked most Americans and increased suspicion upon the parents.

Next, the behavior of the parents:

They sought to immediately leave the area.
They refused to submit to police interviews.
They refused to take polygraphs to clear themselves.
They lawyered up and worked against the police in solving the crime.

The Ransom note was not only a fake, but it came from within the house, and its length and content showed knowledge of the family and fearlessness of being found out, as seen in the 'practice' note.

The content showed linguistic ties to Patsy Ramsey.

Statement Analysis showed not only deception on the part of the parents, but linguistic indicators of sexual abuse, not surprising given the sexualized appearance of the child, as well as the many urinary tract infections and chronic bed wetting.  Individually, these things can be dismissed, but when taken in a whole, portray a tragic life for the child.

The police concluded that Jonbenet Ramsey died in the home, under the care of the parents, who then engaged in a cover up, feigning kidnapping and a staged murder scene.

They presented this to Alex Hunter, the District Attorney, who appeared to work against the police.

What was at stake?

It would be Alex Hunter versus high priced Ramsey attorneys, who are paid many more dollars per hour than Alex Hunter and his team of lawyers, the "assistant district attorneys."

Hunter then took to publicly disparaging the police.

The war began.

The war should have been Hunter versus Ramsey attorneys, but Hunter made it:

Hunter versus the police he was paid to represent.

Why?

This is where the fear factor comes in.

When a new attorney joins the district attorney's office, the new attorney is gaining valuable experience, particularly, in court.  As a prosecutor, the "win versus loss" record is very important.  The greater the record, the more likely that a private firm will snatch up the talent with a salary often 400% or more greater than the state pays.

This leads to a drain of talent.

Rather than dare go up against the talented attorneys hired by the Ramseys and risk public humiliation, Hunter attacked the police department, which then began their own finger pointing, finally imploding with leaked statements, rebukes, and eventually, resignations from all the stress.  Police experience was called into question as if a lack of murders in their area should be held against them as a lack of experience.  The Ramsey case was not a major mystery, and, as they told us early on, there was no predator out there.

Steve Thomas was one major casualty that wrote about what he went through.

The DA found an investigator to float the intruder theory.  It is like a psychologist:  we can find a psychologist to testify to anything and we can find an investigator to find anything.  In fact, the Ramseys went polygraph shopping and found one to 'pass' them.

When Mary Lacy took over as District Attorney, she brought in John Mark Karr, aka "Captain Highpants" of whom she did not bother to check if he was ever in Boulder, and had a large self-congratulatory celebration, one by one, praising each one on her team, finally receiving all the praise herself.  It was a circus like atmosphere of self indulgence; the longest self-praise press conference I had ever seen.

When pedophile Karr was found to be the wrong man, eventually she tagged "unknown" DNA as proof that the Ramseys did not do it.

The unknown DNA did not prove the Ramseys did not do it, nor did it prove they did.  It only proved that there was unknown DNA present.  This was a transparent and flimsy attempt to rehabilitate her tainted office from the beating it took on the Jonbenet Ramsey case.

Jonbenet Ramsey did not receive justice because the District Attorney's office feared going up against the talented, high priced attorneys hired by the Ramseys.  Hunter and his team refused to be publicly humiliated in a highly public trial that would have been, perhaps, as big as the OJ trial.   Alex Hunter appeared to have no bottom as to his fear, and appeared ready to say anything to keep from going to trial.

I suggest to readers that had the Ramsey attorneys been hired by the State to prosecute John and Patsy Ramsey, there would have been a plea bargain arranged, just as I suggest that had Joe Tacopina been in charge of prosecuting Deborah Bradley, we would have learned of Baby Lisa's burial, and there would have been a plea bargain of guilt seen.

The public must understand and put this into perspective when it comes to cases like Baby Ayla.  There is no mystery of "who done it?" and there are no arguments being pressed that a kidnapper entered the home.

The public must understand that 109,000 deviant images, including those clarified as strictly "child pornography" in the case of 13 year old Hailey Dunn, there is no debate on "who done it?" or if Hailey is alive.  We had drugs, sexual perversion, violence, and lies, yet no arrests?

Strangely enough, with the release of the number of deviant images, there appeared no media outcry for arrests.  Ray Guidice told us that federal prosecutors have an excellent record for prosecuting child porn, and that this should have been referred to them.  What was it that kept locals from referring it to the feds?  Regional pride and ego?

As to the police affidavit, having read it, and having analyzed the statements of the two suspects, my conclusion is that the police have told the truth.  Hailey never made it alive out of that house, as Nancy Grace said recently, and the failed polygraphs of mother and her boyfriend matched Statement Analysis of their lies.

Both of these cases appear to be Failure to Prosecute.

Prosecutors come and go.  The talented are often pulled into the private sector where their incomes can immediately double, and often go much higher, leaving behind their former co-workers to face off against them in court rooms.  Some talented stay, due to shear dedication.  These dedicated prosecutors have something else, besides the pressure of fighting talent and lower salaries:  the Media.

                                     This is where media pressure can cut both ways.

 Hamstring The Prosecutor

There is something that can utterly hamstring a talented prosecutor.

Media coverage can allow us transparency for the sake of justice, but it can also frighten off assistant district attorneys from going forward with charges.

Media coverage, as has become cartoon-like, can also become the place where public opinion becomes the jury, with an attorney simply floating out lies, suggesting, for example, that a rape victim had multiple partners.  This becomes 'dropped into' the mix and prosecutors are now left severely limited as public opinion is swayed by such devious propaganda ploys.

Prosecutors cannot go before the media and lie with impunity.  Defense attorneys, under 'suggestion', can lie about anything they wish, without consequence.

Knowing, for example, that their client killed her own child, they can talk up "live sightings" anywhere and everywhere, including naming specific towns and cause the public to not only have false hope, but to pressure the police to waste resources in chasing down all fake leads, all the while the defense attorney smiles.

Cindy Anthony knowing not only that Caylee was dead, but where she could be found, walked around with Caylee's ashes around her neck while planting seeds that Caylee was alive, holding up in Brooklyn, New York, with "Zanny the Nanny" and there was nothing prosecutors could do to stop her.  In hindsight, they should have countered the nonsense, but they were concerned about appearing to be bullies, as Baez portrayed the state as having "millions of dollars" at their disposal, playing with the minds of future jurors.

In this scenario, the deck is stacked against the prosecutor.  Even the dedicated and talented prosecutor, who has stayed with the state in order to get the 'bad guys' off the street, and build a name for himself for future political positions (see Rudy Guiliani) can have a very difficult time with the limitless tongues of their talented counterparts.

Joe Tacopina over-talked journalists and even cleverly pre-empted the news that Deborah Bradley had purchased wine for her "Adult Time" night.

When a cadaver dog hit in the home, he put the brakes on where police could search.  From the beginning, Deborah Bradley, like the Ramseys and like Justin DiPietro, worked against the police, not with them, so as to keep the crime hidden.

Baby Ayla case:

1.  We have a history of abuse that can be testified to.  Of course each point will be countered by defense, but that is to be expected.

2.  We have a life insurance policy purchased against Ayla, weeks before going "missing"; but no life insurance policy purchased against DiPietro's other child (thank God).

3.  We have a broken arm, untreated for 24 hours.

4.  We have DNA evidence found in the basement.

5.  We have an implausible story of someone entering the home.

6.  We have DiPietro's public words where he said that someone did not approve of his parenting.  This severely limited the pool of potential kidnappers.

7.  We have his lies, and even where the polygraph is not admissible during trial, unless stipulated by both sides, a Grand Jury can ask about its results.  They will learn that he did not pass it, but he "smoked" it, which is something that the Grand Jury (made up of people who just might be parents or grandparents) can contemplate.

I would not want to be his defense attorney.

It is likely that, early on, the prosecutors told police, "find that body!", but given the vastness of Maine, and the Kennebec River, this failed.  It is likely that the prosecutors pushed for delays, waiting for one of the three to crack, which did not happen.  (Arresting them on lesser charges, in my opinion, would have made one of the two mothers crack, especially when separated from their own child).

The Hailey Dunn case is not one in which pundits are debating who is responsible.  There are no crime commentators, on television, radio or online, who are saying Justin DiPietro was truthful.

Everyone knows who is responsible for the deaths of these children, even though the specifics remain unknown to us.

Arrests, even on lesser charges, can produce results.

Did anyone really believe that Shawn Adkins, so terrified that he hides behind masks, would not have broke and given up Hailey's location when arrested and faced with being a child molester in general population?

Yet, no arrests to date.

Here we are, New Year's Day, 2013, and justice has not been served, here on earth, at least, for Jonbenet Ramsey and the amateurish 'ransom note'; nor for the drugged and perverted world that took the life of Hailey Dunn, nor the Neglect atmosphere that finally ended beautiful Ayla Reynold's life.

Where are the arrests?

The Boulder office has been so compromised that barring a death bed confession by John Ramsey, Jonbenet's death will always stand for what it is:  Cowardice.

But it is for Hailey and for Ayla that prosecutors can, and must, take action, even without a body.  Others have done it, and so can they.

Joe Tacopina utterly silenced the bravado of investigative police in the Baby Lisa case.  He wiped the swagger right off them, and hope for justice dwindled.

But for Hailey Dunn, there are so many attendant crimes, child pornography the obvious and easiest to prosecute, and get some measure of justice, or, better yet, a deal done with Adkins or Dunn.  For Billie Jean Dunn, it has always been about her; from her inappropriate appearance to her love of attention.  She would make a deal in a New York minute should she be arrested on attendant charges.

In the Baby Ayla case, there are two mothers who do not want to lose custody of their own children.  That they conspired to lie via withholding information about a child speaks to legal Jeopardy as to their own children, yet, we have learned nothing about them losing custody.  How this is, I do not know and cannot think of a scenario where anyone would consider, after such a thing, that their own children would be safe with them.

Let us hope that in 2013, Justice for these children will be realized.

                                                  Mas vale tarde, que nunc.