Brushes with Madness

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Planet,

Today I was reminded of how often I live in a cocoon. I overheard some coworkers talking about a recent murder that happened in town, they then mentioned a past incident regarding a student and suspicious circumstances.

It turns out that a student committed suicide eight months ago by jumping off of a parking garage in town. Some months after his death, multiple witnesses came forward implicating him in the death of a professor, including bludgeoning and immolation, in a parking garage no less, eight years earlier. These witnesses claimed they were afraid to come forward for fear of reprisal.

It turns out that the now deceased student was a student of mine a few summers ago. He came off as a bit irascible, but it's difficult to conceptualize occupying a shared space with an alleged murderer for six hours a week.

Needless to say, spooky.

Any similar events from you all?

[gblowfish]

A good friend of mine named Teak used to live in a rental house on Truman Road in Independence. We used to go over there to drink and play board games, and poker and such. This was in the early 1990s. He moved out, and some guy and his GF moved right in. They crossed paths as he was getting his stuff out and they were bringing their stuff in. Anyway it turned out this guy was Richard Davis. He and his GF tortured and killed a woman in that house and videotaped it. They're both doing life now: http://www.connectmidmissouri.com/ne...8#.UW2bKoKR_WY

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Planet,

Today I was reminded of how often I live in a cocoon. I overheard some coworkers talking about a recent murder that happened in town, they then mentioned a past incident regarding a student and suspicious circumstances.

It turns out that a student committed suicide eight months ago by jumping off of a parking garage in town. Some months after his death, multiple witnesses came forward implicating him in the death of a professor, including bludgeoning and immolation, in a parking garage no less, eight years earlier. These witnesses claimed they were afraid to come forward for fear of reprisal.

It turns out that the now deceased student was a student of mine a few summers ago. He came off as a bit irascible, but it's difficult to conceptualize occupying a shared space with an alleged murderer for six hours a week.

Needless to say, spooky.

Any similar events from you all?

My close friend worked with the guy that killed Molly Bowden several years ago. I had a few beers with him once. Just a standard, kinda geeky, computer kid.

[Titty Meat]

I'm surprised none of the older CP generation has chimed in with the dude from KC who was like Dahmer. If you went to the Westport Flea Market in the 80's you probably crossed paths right?

[Frosty]

In junior high, my best friend was this guy named Nathan (I've mentioned before here that he saved my life once when we were inter-tubing at the local reservoir and I almost drowned). In high school, we drifted apart, primarily because he was becoming more and more involved in drugs and I wasn't interested in going down that road.

During our Senior year, he got another classmate pregnant and they ended up getting married. We were working at the same grocery store at the time and I know he was trying to get clean but having a rough go of it.

After graduation, I lost all contact with him. A couple of years later, I got the news that his marriage had failed. He ended up going to her apartment where he poured gas over himself and lit himself on fire in front of her and their daughter.

She recently wrote a book about her experience and recovery. It turned out that through all of their time together, he was regularly beating her up. I had no idea that was happening or that he was even capable of that. She says in the book that the police believe that if she hadn't had someone with her that day, he probably would have killed her and possibly their daughter first since he had repeatedly told her that "if I can't have you, no one will".

It's been tough getting my mind around the whole thing.

[mikey23545]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

What an amazing story!

I wonder how many men she would have killed had she been attractive?

I am absolutely sure the total would have been higher.

I mean, that woman was tough to look at.

[Titty Meat]

Originally Posted by mikey23545

I am absolutely sure the total would have been higher.

I mean, that woman was tough to look at.

I just looked her up on Youtube guess she got the death penalty. Was she that ****ing weird in person?

[Sully]

Haven't read the whole thread, but a couple of other posters and I went to HS with The guy who raped and killed the girl at the Leawood pool. I wasn't real good friends with him, but we hung out a few times and he was often my wrestling partner.

[Sully]

Of course, my real mother takes the cake. She's nuts. She has tried to kill herself many times. When I was 13, she tried to kill herself on Christmas with the old hose in the tailpipe trick. The next day she told me about it in detail, explaining that if I were a better son she wouldn't do these things.
About 10 years ago, she asked me to borrow some money, which I didn't have to give. A few nights later, she called me late at night to drive her to the hospital er because she was having a diabetic episode. I took her and waited for several hours. The doctors kept coming out and making sure I was going to stay with her, which seemed odd. So after spending the night at the hospital all night, and then releasing her after I promised to stay with her for several days, on the way home she described that if she couldn't rely on her only son, then she had no reason to live, and had "tried" to OD on insulin. I stayed with her for a while to make sure she was safe... And cut off all contact with her soon after.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Douchemaster General

It still amazes me how inept the prosecutors were. A complete slam dunk and they blew it. Every one of them should have been disbarred.

They'd have won that case 100 times out of 100 had they re-done it today.

They did a mediocre, but not altogether terrible job. The problem is that DNA was so 'novel' a concept then, and so new to the general public, that it was easy to blow holes in it if you were a skilled defense team.

Cochran was the master of baffling with bullshit and he was given an absolutely perfect case to use that approach on.

There's no such thing as a 'slam dunk' murder case, to be honest. They're extremely hard to win if you have a good defense team. Simpson probably had the best team ever assembled and he set them to work on a barely understood 'new' science. The prosecutors didn't even understand it that well and it was obvious in how they tried to use it.

But again, given how limited general knowledge of DNA was at the time, it's not terribly surprising that the verdict went as it did.

And like I said, if that trial happens even 5 years later, OJ's jury comes back with a guilty verdict in 10 minutes. The evidence presented by the prosecutors was sufficient to seal a verdict. The Jury just didn't know what to do with it.

EDIT: Dane's spot on about Ito, though. That guy did an absolutely horrific job overseeing that trial.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

They'd have won that case 100 times out of 100 had they re-done it today.

They did a mediocre, but not altogether terrible job. The problem is that DNA was so 'novel' a concept then, and so new to the general public, that it was easy to blow holes in it if you were a skilled defense team.

Cochran was the master of baffling with bullshit and he was given an absolutely perfect case to use that approach on.

There's no such thing as a 'slam dunk' murder case, to be honest. They're extremely hard to win if you have a good defense team. Simpson probably had the best team ever assembled and he set them to work on a barely understood 'new' science. The prosecutors didn't even understand it that well and it was obvious in how they tried to use it.

But again, given how limited general knowledge of DNA was at the time, it's not terribly surprising that the verdict went as it did.

And like I said, if that trial happens even 5 years later, OJ's jury comes back with a guilty verdict in 10 minutes. The evidence presented by the prosecutors was sufficient to seal a verdict. The Jury just didn't know what to do with it.

I disagree and the reason is that the O.J. verdict was a slam to the LAPD, Daryl Gates and the sham trials that occurred in the wake of the Rodney King beating.

It was payback and everyone in the city knew it.

Furthermore, those jurors weren't his "peers". His peers lived in Malibu, Brentwood, Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades, not downtown or South Central L.A.

[jettio]

Originally Posted by Radar Chief

I’ve got a cousin whose ex-wife hired a hit man to kill him. He got ambushed in his own house and ended up talking the guy out of it.

Glad your cousin survived, but that was an astonishing lack of professionalism.

[ThaVirus]

I was too young to have seen the specifics of the OJ case as they unfolded, but I've been told it was basically Johnny Cochran saying "What the **** is this "DNA" shit? I've never even heard of it. It can't be used here"..

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

I disagree and the reason is that the O.J. verdict was a slam to the LAPD, Daryl Gates and the sham trials that occurred in the wake of the Rodney King beating.

It was payback and everyone in the city knew it.

Furthermore, those jurors weren't his "peers". His peers lived in Malibu, Brentwood, Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades, not downtown or South Central L.A.

Numerous interesting things about that verdict. One is that the prosecution made in error in jury selection by having so many black women, as they were the demographic least empathetic towards him abusing a white woman.

The concept of DNA was so novel to the uninitiated that I'm sure it seemed like pseudoscience to them. Bill Simmons of all people wrote an excellent recap of the OJ verdict wherein he talked at great length about the prosecution's ineptitude, especially WRT to properly explaining DNA to the jury.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

I disagree and the reason is that the O.J. verdict was a slam to the LAPD, Daryl Gates and the sham trials that occurred in the wake of the Rodney King beating.

It was payback and everyone in the city knew it.

Furthermore, those jurors weren't his "peers". His peers lived in Malibu, Brentwood, Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades, not downtown or South Central L.A.

Doesn't that again speak to the timing of it, though? And to the fact that there just wasn't a hell of a lot the prosecutors could've done about it?

I can't speak to the internal politics of LA, obviously. And really, I was quite young when the trial was conducted. But when I was in school later, I went over many of the transcripts and even watched most of the testimony - the Prosecutors did a credible, but by no means good job.

It was a much harder case than most people give Darden/Clark credit for. And really, you can only do so much when you have a racist dickweed as a key witness.

It wasn't a good L, but it was one that where the verdict itself gives me more pause than the performance of the prosecutors. The prosecutors efforts, to my eye, should have easily secured a conviction.

[Radar Chief]

Originally Posted by jettio

Glad your cousin survived, but that was an astonishing lack of professionalism.

Hollywood makes it look easy, as simple as point and click on a computer game, but pulling the trigger on someone in front of you pleading for their life takes a level of callousness most don’t possess.
The guy most likely wasn’t a killer, just thought he could be because he thought he needed the money more than a clear conscience.