tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25944165840480261642024-02-18T20:31:17.532-06:00Dr. Gonzo's Revenge"He accepted my open wallet with his left hand, and then extended his right for the beer can."Gonzo's Revengehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10029199887202069927noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2594416584048026164.post-54679891048008099982012-04-20T04:23:00.003-05:002014-12-08T16:55:15.455-06:00Equinox of Blood: Appendix A<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"> <span style="font-size: x-large;">Omaha: A Fragmented Timeline of Events Beginning in August, 1983</span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">This research material is dedicated to the memory of Karlena Tolston and all other victims of the monsters who stalk my town.</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b> </b>In the process of researching an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OGJa2ZYyCg">event</a> which happened some 80 years ago, I went out and picked up a new library card in order to begin the arduous task of digging through volumes of ancient journalism on microfilm in pursuit of the story. Upon visiting the library's online resource page, my spirits were lifted when I found the Omaha World Herald archives were available online. I was quickly returned to earth when I realized they only went back to August of 1983. Remembering a thing or two about the ninth year of my life, I curiously began browsing through random issues, and soon realized that something was seriously wrong in the small mid-western city where I had existed, like many 9 year olds, in a naive state of childhood bliss, unaware of the darkness enveloping the periphery of my seemingly safe little neighborhood. (Today, a man convicted of raping a 4 year old girl lives in a nice house overlooking my old elementary school. The schoolyard is connected - barrier free - to this man's back yard!)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> Not exactly unaware. Any Nebraskan alive at that time remembers two things. The heat wave, the endless string of rapes, the increase in street violence, the Commonwealth banking collapse, most of the murder victims, and the brutally cold December of 1983 have long been purged from the conscious recollection of those not immediately affected by the various occurrences. What is remembered, however, is the Nebraska Cornhuskers played for a national championship (A game lost at the end when Coach Tom Osborne admirably went for the two point conversion and the win rather than settling for a tie. After much soul-searching, Nebraska fans concluded they had definitely won a moral victory) and a young Air Force recruit murdered two young boys in Sarpy County (Immediately south of Omaha. Bellevue, Nebraska is the home of Offutt Air Force base, headquarters of the Strategic Air Command, and is only separated from Omaha by the county line.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> Serial killers were not exactly something new in Omaha. Jake Bird, one of America's most effective yet unsung serial killers committed his first known hatchet job in North Omaha back in 1928, a few years after Frank Carter, the "Omaha Sniper", kept the entire city hiding in darkness at night. Charles Starkweather began his bloody voyage just down the road in Lincoln, and Charles Manson himself spent a little time at Boys Town. As a matter of fact, <a href="http://leoadambiga.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/the-brandeis-story-a-family-owned-department-store-empire-of-the-great-plains/">E. John Brandeis</a> - Intelligence agent, millionaire playboy, big game hunter, polo star, and Brandeis Department store heir -, a man who literally ran Omaha from the mid 1940's until the mid 1970's (He would fly in from California once a month and sit at the head of a meeting table above his downtown building. Taking orders from him at the table were the <b>HEADS</b> of AT&T, Union Pacific, Mutual of Omaha, the Omaha World Herald, and a few other major corporations.) - where were we? Oh, yes, E John lived on a <a href="http://a-drifting-cowboy.blogspot.com/2012/01/cowboy-culture-six-degrees-of_23.html">ranch</a> just north of Los Angeles which was <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=29xiZ1NP4_0C&pg=PA187&lpg=PA187&dq=e+john+brandeis+baskets+ranch+fire&source=bl&ots=gXEYAMx_bB&sig=sM0a--W4FYr0JamjsUZMdpub2Xg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YBGRT6zjG9TpgQfOqZn2BA&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=e%20john%20brandeis%20baskets%20ranch%20fire&f=false">adjacent</a> to the old Spahn movie ranch where Charles Manson was headquartered at the time of his crowning achievement. The locations were so close, Manson family members and E John had to have seen each other, at least in passing, on a very regular basis..........</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hello Neighbor!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">E John Brandeis</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> Anyways, the man who murdered the boys in 1983,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Joubert"> John Joubert</a>, has stuck in the minds of living Omahans as the most depraved and evil figure in the history of our little town. (A quick review of the history of Omaha tells a different tale. Joubert's alleged crimes were actually relatively mundane and a bit more routine than any of us would care to believe.) The Autumn of 1983 can be remembered as a time of extreme fear and loathing for much of Omaha's citizenry. Women were already fairly edgy due to the string of random rapes around the area and mothers and children, beginning to pick up on the concept of "stranger danger", were completely primed to go into panic mode.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> The year before, Iowa paperboy Johnny Gosch had disappeared while delivering his newspapers. He was never found, and earned the unwanted distinction of being arguably the most famous of the "milk carton kids". The Gosch kidnapping, on the heels of literally decades of missing and exploited child cases, served to create a heightened sense of fear and awareness among many parents and children not only in Omaha but across the nation. (Years later, a military officer by the name of <a href="http://www.xeper.org/maquino/nm/AquinoVitae.pdf">Michael Aquino</a> would be implicated by a <a href="http://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/archive/oldnews2/boystown/">Franklin Credit Union</a> Scandal witness as the ringleader of the Johnny Gosch kidnapping. Aquino, a co-founder of Anton Lavey's Church of Satan as well as the founder of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Set">Temple of Set</a>, a group which once <a href="http://www.whale.to/b/satanism11.html">re-enacted</a> the "Death's Head" ritual of Heinrich Himmler's SS at a triangle shaped <a href="http://greyfalcon.us/Wewelsburg.htm">castle</a> in Bavaria, was a Psychological Warfare Specialist in Vietnam, a member of the U.S. Special Forces, and a Lieutenant Colonel known to frequent Offutt Air Force base in the 70's and 80's. He was implicated in other child abuse cases, most famously as the primary abuser in the <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/36363051/Dave-McGowan-Programmed-to-Kill">Presidio day care scandal</a>. As with the Franklin allegations he was never seriously inconvenienced and went on to work with the space program before rising to the rank of General and becoming a top administrator at the NSA.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> After the first Joubert victim, Danny Joe Eberle, was found murdered, there was quite a bit of apprehension amongst the children and parents of the Omaha area. After the second victim, Christopher Paul Walden, was found, the city was in an outright panic. Of course, as you will see, there was plenty in Omaha to be terrified of all along, and the sensationalism and slant of this story as opposed to the treatment of other cases (by the media as well as the police) lent heavily to the near mass hysteria which occurred in December of 1983.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> During a recent conversation, I was presented with a theory that Joubert was actually a mind controlled patsy and the case was somewhat of a propaganda/psychological operation designed to create hysteria and then relief amongst the citizens of Omaha while providing a scapegoat and a feeling of security upon his apprehension. As similar crimes had been occurring in and around Omaha since long before John Joubert was born and two VERY similar cases occurred as bookends to Joubert's crimes, I felt this theory was possibly worth looking into. (I had heard similar theories in the past which have remained in the back of my mind. I personally remember an acute awareness of the Joubert case amongst myself and my peers, months of being terrified to go outside, especially at night, and will never forget the creepy composite sketch shown constantly in the newspaper.) I have been working on a few different historical stories about Omaha, and have known all along that the Joubert story would consist of at least a chapter in what will hopefully become a book. With this in mind, I began to put together a research timeline of events in Omaha during the Joubert era.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> This is only a research tool which will assist in writing the story and hopefully ferreting out the truth. All information comes directly from the Omaha World Herald archives, with the exception of my personal observations and a minute amount of information from the court transcript regarding the Courtney Starks trial. This can be seen here: <a href="http://ne.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19880812_0001.NE.htm/qx">http://ne.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19880812_0001.NE.htm/qx</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> I have included events that I felt to be of interest to those researching this particular story, including suspicious homicides, suspicious suicides, child pornography cases, and many of the rapes which occurred during this time span. I also threw in a few other tidbits, but did not include run-of-the-mill homicides, assaults, and other crimes which did not seem in any way out of the ordinary to me. (There were MANY homicides and assault crimes during this time period which I left out, a fact which will shock most readers.) I also left out the <a href="http://www.american-buddha.com/franklincoverup.6.htm">Commonwealth Banking scandal</a>, which was occupying more than a few headlines during these months. To make a long story short, it seems that some very bad people bankrolled the gubernatorial election of Bob Kerrey in order to swindle what were ultimately a bunch of lower middle class investors out of their life savings. With Kerrey's assistance, the Bank was plundered and the investigation was impeded. The man appointed to oversee the investigation was Kerrey's old war buddy, Nebraska State Senator John Decamp. While this scandal is somewhat relevant, it would only serve to make our journey a bit longer and quite boring.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> I feel that anyone reading this will agree that something very evil was occurring in Omaha of 1983, and highly recommend a look at the timeline. Obviously, some of this information will make a lot more sense to Omaha natives, so I will provide a quick rundown of some of the players in this tragedy before we begin:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>William Colby</b>: Former CIA Director and head of Operation Phoenix during the Vietnam War (an operation of total terror and atrocity often intentionally targeting innocent civilians) who was appointed to investigate the Franklin Cover Up in the early 90's. Not long afterwards he was found floating in a river. While he does not appear in this story, three of his favorite Phoenix junior officers do: Michael Aquino, John DeCamp, and Bob Kerrey. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Harold Anderson</b>: Chief Executive and editor of the World Herald, known to routinely lunch with George H.W. Bush. Anderson was later accused of pedophilia and occult activity by child victims in the Franklin case.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>MK ULTRA</b>: For those who scoff at the idea of the U.S. government conducting mind control experiments, there are some 80,000 surviving (albeit often heavily redacted) military <a href="http://www.wanttoknow.info/mind_control/cia_mind_control_experiments_sex_abuse">documents</a> relating to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA">MK ULTRA</a> and various sub-projects such as Monarch, Artichoke, and Bluebird which state otherwise. Many, many more documents were destroyed before, during, and after the <a href="http://www.whale.to/b/Project%20MKULTRA.pdf">Senate</a> MK ULTRA hearings in the 1970's. There are also more than a few surviving documents from the Soviet Union and other nations.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> It has long been known to elite occultists that trauma-based early childhood conditioning had a few very effective applications. The German Nazis applied pure science to these ideas in the death camps, and soon realized that multiple personalities could be created and then programmed if enough trauma was applied. Obviously the Red Army put a damper on these experiments, but many of the scientists were quietly shuffled off to the East or the West where they were quickly situated and allowed to continue their work. Soon, the CIA was running experiments in hospitals, universities, prisons, religious institutions, military facilities, and elsewhere around the nation and the world (think: Guantanamo, Penn State......). Prisoners, servicemen, POW's, captured spies, unsuspecting civilians, and a multitude of children, many of them "throw away kids" from places like Boys Town, were soon subjected to a myriad of incidents ranging from hypnosis, drugging, and high frequency exposure to rape, forced murder, torture, electroshock, and occult rituals. It has been theorized that many of those accused of serial murder are actually MK ULTRA victims themselves. Offutt Air Force Base has been labeled by many over the years as a hotbed of MK ULTRA activity. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Boys Town</b>: Made famous by the Spencer Tracy movie, <a href="http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20Government/boys_town_abuse.htm">Boys Town</a> has been a world leader in sheltering and mentoring troubled youths as well as in charity work for many years. Boys Town has also become heavily intertwined with the U.S. government as well as with world organizations over the years. A Catholic institution on the west side of Omaha, it has also been alleged to be a procurer of helpless children for elite pedophiles and mind controllers. As it turns out, more than a few Boys Town employees and priests have been recently proven to be <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-534066.html">involved</a> in pedophilic activity.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Willie Thiesen / Godfather's Pizza</b>: A single pizza restaurant which became a national chain (which after changing hands a few times was run by former Federal Reserve Officer and winner of the Horatio Alger (a pedophile who wrote books for young boys) Award, Mr. "9 9 9" Herman Cain) under the guidance of Omaha millionaire Willie Thiesen. It has been alleged that the Godfather's in Omaha's Old Market area was a location associated with occult activity and extreme child abuse.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>22nd and Farnam Street</b>: The bar where Rosemary Caples worked was actually closer to 24th and Farnam Street. 24th and Farnam at the time was the epicenter of male prostitution in Omaha (the females worked at 25th and Farnam) and obviously a location where some of Omaha's VIPs conducted business which they would have preferred to keep secret.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Larry King / Franklin Credit Union</b>: Although it's own story altogether, the Franklin Credit Union must be mentioned here as it was in it's heyday in 1983. Larry King, a young black entrepreneur and darling of the Republican Party, founded the credit union in the early 1970's, ostensibly to provide low interest loans to poor people and minorities. Later in the 1980's, the credit union which operated on a 2 million dollar budget was raided by federal agents and found to be missing some 40+ million dollars.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> Advising Mr. King and assisting in the management of his credit union were the cream of Omaha's business elite, involving top executives of First National Bank, Kiewit and Sons, Union Pacific Railroad, Mutual of Omaha, the Omaha World Herald, and many others. It seems that hundreds of millions of dollars stemming from the Iran/Contra affair and CIA drug trafficking was being laundered through the Omaha business community.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> Soon after the raid, children began coming forward with horrific tales of physical and sexual abuse, torture, human and animal murder, forced drug trafficking and prostitution, and Satanic rituals committed by many of Omaha's ruling elite. These allegations also included then Vice President George H. W. Bush on more than one occasion. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> After years of deaths, suicides, plane crashes, an extreme propaganda barrage by the World Herald, and the tragic imprisonment of a witness for "perjury", the case was covered up and buried. An Omaha World Herald writer was sentenced for sexual acts with young boys and Alan Baer, nephew of E John Brandeis, was given a $500 fine for pandering to male prostitutes. The witness, Alisha Owen, spent the next decade in prison for claiming that the Omaha Police Chief,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Robert Wadman</b>: ,had raped and impregnated her. The courts were never interested in obtaining evidence, and she was later convicted by a sham of a grand jury which officially declared the Franklin Case a "carefully crafted hoax." They never really provided a sufficient case or even a motive for the "hoax", and sealed and destroyed rooms full of Franklin related evidence. During the course of the investigation, Owen's brother Aaron was found hung in his jail cell. This was naturally ruled a "suicide."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> Wadman, though cleared, was pretty much forced to resign and leave town. He then went to the town of Aurora, Illinois, and was conveniently on the scene when the personal aircraft of Franklin investigator Gary Caradori exploded in the air outside of town, killing Caradori and his son and destroying Franklin related evidence he claimed to have obtained in Chicago. The plane was illegally taken to a military base for examination and was never examined by civilian authorities. Wadman went on to Chief the police department of Wilmington, North Carolina. The heavy handed tactics of Wadman's Omaha days were employed there, a fact which made him highly unpopular early on. He then deliberately impeded the work of a very highly respected officer who specialized in occult crimes and Satanism, which didn't exist, according to Wadman. Wadman was eventually forced to resign over this issue.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Walter Scott Jr.</b>: <strike>Omaha's chief Freemason</strike> CEO of Peter Kiewit and Sons, the third largest construction company in the world and builder of most of Omaha's historic buildings. Scott was heavily involved in at least the financial aspects of the Franklin money shuffle. Years later, he would play host at his North Omaha estate to President George W. Bush. Bush flew into town, attended an event at the "One World Community" Health Center in South Omaha, and then went to a private fundraiser at the Scott mansion before leaving town. A few hours later a young product of Nebraska's foster care system would gun down a dozen Christmas shoppers at an Omaha mall with a high powered rifle before turning the gun on himself. It may also be remembered that Bush went straight to Omaha following the attacks of 9/11/2001.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Without further ado, here is the promised timeline:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>August 10, 1983</b>: Harold Anderson, Executive of the Omaha World Herald, is given an advisory position within the U.S. Department of the Interior.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A Council Bluffs girl is found in Indiana 38 hours after being kidnapped by an escaped Nebraska prisoner. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>August 15, 1983</b>: A 17 year old Omaha boy is <strike>executed</strike> shot 4 times, 3 in the back and 1 in the head, point blank, at the Blue Goose Game Room, 3309 N 30th street. The shooter, a co-owner of the game room, said that he didn't want the boy and his friends standing around outside the building. He then, almost immediately, shot the victim. Jacob Williams, 55, was found not guilty of the crime in January of 1984. Apparently the four shots fired at the unarmed boy's back were fired in self defense.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The night before, a couple fishing near the Missouri River north of Council Bluffs reported finding the body of a 23 year old Iranian female, a student of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, under a bridge over a creek. Her throat was cut and there was "a good deal of blood around the neck and pelvic areas of the body."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A 22 year old Omaha man is apprehended and charged with the violent rape, beating and robbery of a 35 year old woman the week before.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A 21 year old Fremont man is arrested and charged with the rape of a 15 year old girl in her car outside the Civic Auditorium where she had attended a rock concert.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A 19 year old Omaha man is arrested and charged with the rape of a 13 year old girl after being left alone with her at the home of her cousin. The cousin left, at which time the man "choked, beat, and raped" the 13 year old.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>August 16, 1983</b>: A 34 year old Omaha man dies in his North 40th Street residence of a "self inflicted gunshot wound."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The Iranian girl is identified as Firozeh Dehganpour. She was apparently stabbed multiple times in the neck and abdomen, and dumped in the creek sometime after her death. She was last seen 24 hours earlier at a UNO computer center, under the vigilant eye of UNO security. The FBI forced itself into the investigation immediately, even though they admittedly had dubious jurisdiction.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>August 17, 1983</b>: Bob Kerrey and Deborah Winger announce plans to attend the Nebraska vs. Penn State football game in late August.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Crime Stoppers offers $1000 dollars for information concerning a 13 year old girl whose murdered body was discovered in Levi Carter Park one year earlier.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">After two days of painstaking investigation, Omaha and Council Bluff's best and brightest come to the conclusion that the weapon used to stab the Iranian girl and cut her throat was indeed a knife, maybe 4 to 5 inches long. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>August 18, 1983</b>: A 25 year old Staff Sergeant at Offutt Air Force base dies of a .38 caliber shot to the chest. The wound is believed to be self inflicted and there is "no indication of foul play."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>August 19, 1983</b>: Willie Thiesen steps down as CEO of Godfather's Pizza, to be replaced by the CEO of Taco Bell, Mr. Charles Boppel.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A long heat wave continues, with no end in sight.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A 27 year old woman is raped in her car in the area of 24th and Q Street.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>August 21, 1983</b>: Omaha Police Chief Robert Wadman speaks out on the evils of gambling. This is part of a concerted propaganda effort to keep legal gambling out of Douglas County.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Police announce a prostitution sting designed to drive away an influx of new prostitutes from Omaha's streets. Apparently, 30 to 50 prostitutes displaced from Texas street corners by Hurricane Alicia had found their way to Omaha. Police were very concerned that they would disrupt the business of native Omaha prostitutes, and began an aggressive sting which resulted in the collection of heavy fines from 34 Omaha "johns". Officially, a "prostitution war" between newbies and natives was the reason for this concern.....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>August 23, 1983</b>: A woman is raped by a "knife wielding man" in the area of 30th and Dodge Street</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>August 24, 1983</b>: An 18 year old woman is raped by a man who broke into her home in the area of 60th and Fort Street.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>August 25, 1983</b>: Nebraska State Senator John DeCamp is fined $2000 for campaign violations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A woman is raped:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">(excerpt from World Herald):</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The woman told police she was alone in her home near 24th and Erskine Streets at 11 p.m. when a man broke in, grabbed a butcher knife and threatened her and her son......The man made her give him the keys to her car and drove her and her son to a secluded spot near 16th Street and Ames Avenue, Wilson said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">While the child slept in the back seat, the man raped the woman in the front seat, Wilson said. The man stabbed her in the shoulder and hit her in the face several times, breaking her nose and blackening both her eyes. He also used the knife to sexually assault her, Wilson said. At all times, the man threatened to kill the child if the woman did not submit, Wilson said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The man then drove them to Phil's Foodway, 3030 Ames Ave., got out of the car, broke a store window and stole some meat, Wilson said. He then drove the woman and child around North Omaha, going from one after - hours club to another, trying to sell the meat, Wilson said. The man finally sold the meat to a man walking near 24th and Lake Streets, and used the money to buy gas at a service station at 33rd and Cass Streets, Wilson said. About 3:45 a.m., the man spotted a male friend on a sidewalk near the 2200 block of 24th Street, parked the car and got out, leaving the woman and the child in the car.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The woman said that while her assailant spoke with his friend, a woman and another man approached him, argued with him and began chasing him down the street, Wilson said. As her assailant fled, the woman said he turned, threw the car keys to her and told her to pick him up, Wilson said. The woman drove to Central Police Headquarters. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>August 28, 1983</b>: A LaPlatte (south of Omaha) woman murders her children. She then attempts suicide. The woman, Shawna McCord, also attempted suicide as a Senior at North High School in 1975. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A 29 year old Omaha woman is stabbed in the parking lot of the Village Inn at 44th and Dodge Street for no apparent reason. The stabber then flees in a red pickup. Ten minutes earlier, two women standing in the area of 25th and Farnam had been randomly beaten by a man who jumped out of a red pickup truck. The man, George Schook of Illinois, is charged with first degree assault a few days later. He has a history of such behavior. His unnamed accomplice is questioned and released. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>August 29, 1983</b>: Jerry Sandusky gets a taste of his own medicine as the Nebraska Cornhuskers rape his defense, winning 44-6 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A 15 year old girl is forced into a car and raped in the area of 45th and Seward</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Three Creighton students (2 female 1 male) are walking in the area of 60th and Blondo when a man robs them at knife point. He then grabs one of the females, drags her into a yard, and rapes her in a tomato garden.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 1, 1983</b>: Three children drown in Carter Lake. The mother reports the drownings and is then taken into custody for questioning. The woman, Kathleen Howell, apparently had recently been "losing her mind" and suffering from "flashbacks."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A 15 year old Omaha girl is raped in her home at knife point.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 4, 1983</b>: The parents of kidnapped Des Moines paper carrier Johnny Gosch announce plans for a fundraiser commemorating the one year anniversary of his abduction. They have faith that information received by a 16 year old boy in Florida using the false name "Raven Darkholme" will lead to their missing son. A Florida judge seems to be impeding the investigation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 6, 1983</b>: The bridge at Hamilton and Military Streets is destroyed by fire at 4:25 p.m. Arson is suspected.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 7, 1983</b>: Local Restaurant owner Eli Caniglia dies from cancer at the age of 63.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Police claim to have found the perpetrator's blood at the location where the nude body of Iranian student Firozeh Dehganpour was recovered. After a month of careful examination, they now believe it was NOT a short bladed knife that killed her, but possibly a longer knife.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 9, 1983</b>: Omaha Mayor Mike Boyle claims the Omaha police are out to get him and his family members, stemming from his reproachment of four officers for loafing in front of a sports bar in 1981. Police Chief Robert Wadman denies any such allegations. In four different articles that day, the World Herald makes it clear which side they are on. (Mike Boyle is later recalled by Omaha voters at the urging of the local media as a result of an escalation of this feud.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> <b>September 12, 1983</b>: (excerpt from September 20th World Herald)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Rosemary Caples, of 5206 Kansas Ave., was last seen Sept. 12 at 11 p.m. leaving Wilson's Lounge, 5430 N. 42nd St.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Police believe she might be in danger because her car was used in a burglary the morning of Sept. 13 in Mondamin, Iowa, Lt. Dennis K. Howard said. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The owner of a store there spotted a man driving away in a car and noted the license number. Authorities traced the number to Mrs. Caples, Howard said. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The same day, the contents of Mrs. Caples' purse were found in front of Jones Body Shop Inc., 1517 N. 24th St. Her purse, money and house keys were missing, Howard said. Police found her papers, canceled checks and photographs strewn on the sidewalk. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Mrs. Caples, who is divorced, has a 14 - year - old daughter, Roxanne Caples, and a married daughter, Rosanna Wadel. She has worked as a bartender at the <b>Sportsman Bar, 2212 Farnam St.</b>, for the last six years. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 13, 1983</b>: A 16 year old girl, abducted 40 hours prior while walking through the Crossroads Mall parking lot, escapes from a house "north of Hummel Park" where she had been beaten and repeatedly raped. She claims another girl is still captive in the house, fearing the wrath of her abductors if she attempted escape. When she returns to the area with police, she cannot find the house.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 16, 1983</b>: Police dismiss the girls claims as "false."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">An escort/prostitution ring is raided at 87th and X streets in Southwest Omaha. "Meticulous" records including names and details of around 1000 clients are confiscated.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 18, 1983</b>: A 16 year old girl tells police she was raped at Elmwood Park by a man claiming to be a member of the Park Patrol.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 19, 1983</b>: A South Omaha girl is found brutally murdered in her neighborhood</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">(Excerpt from World Herald)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">early Sunday, Miss Tolston was attacked in a vacant lot near the Highland Elementary School playground at 27th and Madison Streets, about a block from her home. A woman walking a dog found Miss Tolston's body near some bushes about 7:15 a.m. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Police said they found a 20 - foot trail of blood leading to the body. The assailant apparently dragged the body to the brushy area to conceal it, Lt. Robert Pfeffer said. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Shell Casings Found</b> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">An autopsy conducted Sunday indicated that Miss Tolston died of two bullet wounds to the head, authorities said. Two shell casings were found near the body, police said. She also was struck in the head with fists or feet, the autopsy indicated. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The autopsy also showed bite marks on the body, leading police to believe that the assailant attacked her with his teeth. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">According to police reports, Miss Tolston's underpants and slippers were found next to a puddle of blood 20 feet from the body, which was clad in a sun dress that had been pulled over the chest. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Miss Tolston had been visiting friends in the neighborhood during the evening, Pfeffer said. Mrs. Tolston said she last saw her daughter about 8 or 9 p.m., and a niece saw her at midnight. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">As far as police know, she was last seen walking home sometime after midnight with two friends, one male and one female, Pfeffer said. </span><br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsumcM0DHUagIyBG_vaqy5ETT045V3ViJb_wATqTDvUVckvm3y-hVJYoSV2Kk-BgXgSUSM6fykn7yDGNmBBFw3q51LxaVVZHaZ-hrnAONMOy-njJSv20la_9MxZYwn6RpdSDC-eepHnqo8/s1600/img-Pregnant-teenager-s-murder-still-unsolved-30-years-later.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsumcM0DHUagIyBG_vaqy5ETT045V3ViJb_wATqTDvUVckvm3y-hVJYoSV2Kk-BgXgSUSM6fykn7yDGNmBBFw3q51LxaVVZHaZ-hrnAONMOy-njJSv20la_9MxZYwn6RpdSDC-eepHnqo8/s1600/img-Pregnant-teenager-s-murder-still-unsolved-30-years-later.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Karlena Tolston</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">On their way home, they ran into an acquaintance of Miss Tolston. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Her two friends left her with the acquaintance, Pfeffer said. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Police were seeking to determine who that acquaintance was. "That person might have been the last one to see her alive," Pfeffer said. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"We're trying to determine what happened from there." </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Police were interviewing friends that Miss Tolston visited in the course of the evening. They also interviewed the father of her baby, Pfeffer said. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Police believe she was killed between 1:30 and 2:30 a.m., because neighbors reported hearing screams around that time...</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Earlier that day, Bellevue paper boy Danny Jo Eberle, 12, disappears while delivering his papers. His papers and bicycle are found in front of the house of Dr. Joseph Troia. Unlike other missing person cases, this case is immediately covered by the local media, and the FBI involves itself in the investigation within a few hours.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX23V7i1aAh_yozgOKwS1TbYq-SAUVxqRZF67MJAflsYgXeStBALhCu9wtJSnwDt7WxhkqwDYlO6qtqeTrOuS6irdzZcrUF64myrPelcJceIwtpkN25TP71xcxR404xx_Pash9MaAx5g9j/s1600/PG-Danny-Joe-Eberle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX23V7i1aAh_yozgOKwS1TbYq-SAUVxqRZF67MJAflsYgXeStBALhCu9wtJSnwDt7WxhkqwDYlO6qtqeTrOuS6irdzZcrUF64myrPelcJceIwtpkN25TP71xcxR404xx_Pash9MaAx5g9j/s1600/PG-Danny-Joe-Eberle.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Danny Jo Eberle</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 20, 1983</b>: A homeless man is found murdered in an alley next to a bar on 22nd and Farnam Streets. This bar was where missing Omaha woman Rosemary Caples had been employed. The same day, the World Herald announces that she is missing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A 69 year old South Omaha man dies of a "self inflicted" gunshot wound to the head.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Police claim to have a suspect in the death of pregnant 18 year old Karlena Tolston.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">(excerpt from World Herald)</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The body of Karlena Tolston, 2711 Monroe St., was found Sunday morning in a vacant lot near the Highland Elementary School playground at 27th and Madison Streets. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">She died of two bullet wounds to the head, according to an autopsy conducted Sunday. The autopsy also indicated she was struck in the head with fists or feet, and showed bite marks on the body. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Miss Tolston's underpants and slippers were found next to a puddle of blood 20 feet from the body, which was clad in a sun dress that had been pulled over the chest, according to police reports. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Police found a trail of blood leading to the body. The assailant apparently dragged the body to a brushy area to conceal it, Pfeffer said. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Miss Tolston's mother, Charlene Tolston, said her daughter graduated from Bryan High School in May, and was seven months pregnant. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"She was pregnant and happy," Mrs. Tolston said. "She had changed from a kid to a woman. She wanted to have her baby and own an apartment." </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Miss Tolston had been at the home of a female cousin during the evening, fixing her cousin's hair, Pfeffer said. Around midnight, she walked home with a male cousin. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">On their way home about a block away from where her body later was found they ran into a male acquaintance of Miss Tolston. She left with him, Pfeffer said. "We're trying to determine what happened from there," he said. </span> </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The male cousin was a teenager by the name of <b>Courtney Starks*</b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Omaha business Executive Samuel Coldwell dies in his Pennsylvania home of a heart attack at the ripe old age of 50.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Police step up the search for missing paper carrier Danny Jo Eberle. The World Herald pledges "assistance" as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 21, 1983</b>: Crime Stoppers issues a $1000 reward for information regarding the murdered Iranian girl found in August.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwPsyByQacUjQ2UJZVxPJtduA97Qfp8tZyPe9RMMG2EG6Yb0jEyqqGgKIjNEX81jngXLhBeMsH7Qjd2W_akCjeuZ-jQH_XBNfeGXh4dJfL3kcte0n1is8rN3LtX9hzgarlYHfZGVCrhM5o/s1600/PG-View-of-crime-scene.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwPsyByQacUjQ2UJZVxPJtduA97Qfp8tZyPe9RMMG2EG6Yb0jEyqqGgKIjNEX81jngXLhBeMsH7Qjd2W_akCjeuZ-jQH_XBNfeGXh4dJfL3kcte0n1is8rN3LtX9hzgarlYHfZGVCrhM5o/s1600/PG-View-of-crime-scene.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eberle Crime Scene</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The body of 12 year old Danny Jo Eberle is found in a secluded area just south of Offut Air Force Base, Strategic Air Command Headquarters. It is reported much later that he had been stabbed nine times and then brutally tortured while he bled to death.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">In Northwest Sarpy County, an 11 year old paper carrier reports that a man in a red hatchback attempted to persuade her to get in his car. The man, described as in his 30's with a mustache, is decidedly NOT the man later convicted in the Eberle slaying.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The homeless man found in the alley on 22nd and Farnam is identified as 33 year old Lewis Douglas. He most likely was beaten and left to die.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A former University of Nebraska regent, Kermit Wagner, is found dead in his Platte River cabin of an apparent heart attack.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">(excerpt from World Herald):</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">.....(Kermit) Wagner traveled on university - arranged tours of Australia, New Zealand, Russia and China in recent years.....</span> </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Keep in mind, we were in the middle of serious tension with the Soviets then. In fact, these stories are all set against the backdrop of the Soviet attack of a passenger plane over South Korea.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Omaha women begin enrolling in self defense classes in record numbers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Johnny Gosch's parents claim many similarities between the Eberle case and the abduction of their own son.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A woman claims her two daughters (ages 2 and 6) were raped by a man while playing in their backyard at 29th and Parker Street.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Police say Eberle was stabbed and his hands and feet bound, labeling the crime a "murder." The FBI quickly takes evidence to Washington DC for "examination."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 22, 1983</b>: A delivery driver claims to have seen a man in his "late teens or early twenties" discard a knife behind a gas station at 72nd and Pacific Street in Central Omaha. This DOES fit the description of the eventual convict in the case, yet cannot be linked. The knife, retrieved by two service station employees, appears to be a fish fillet knife, sharpened down to about a quarter of it's original width. The FBI immediately sends the knife off to Washington as well. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The city is in near hysteria over the multitude of rapes and now the murdered paperboy. The World Herald assures us that the rapes are well within the range of statistical normality, and not to worry too much about it. In all the hype, the Karlena Tolston case is somewhat overlooked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 23, 1983</b>: (Autumnal Equinox) The man in the red car tried to entice another boy earlier that week by offering him marijuana. The boy ran away. A third boy claimed to have been abducted by the man in the red car, taken to a park and assaulted. The boy hit the man with a rock and escaped. The boy then told police a second scenario in which two men from the neighborhood abducted him and forced him to help them vandalize a house. When he refused, they took him to a park and assaulted him. He hit them with a rock and escaped. Police insist the second story was the true story and the man in the red hatchback had nothing to do with this abduction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Police announce they will use a hypnotist to help potential witnesses recall information about the Eberle slaying.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The Tolston slaying has not been mentioned in the World Herald for days, despite being labeled as one of the "most gruesome" murders in Omaha history - quite an achievement, really.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Several fifth grade girls describe Nebraska Governor Bob Kerrey as "totally awesome." A few years later, some other Omaha children will strongly disagree...........</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">HUD Secretary Samuel R. Pierce, Jr. meets with Larry King, CEO of the Franklin Credit Union.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 24, 1983</b>: A Bellevue man is taken into custody as the potential murderer of Danny Jo Eberle. The man, though never convicted for this crime, does have a history of violently raping young boys.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The World Herald mentions the Tolston case, but gives no new information.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Police Chief Robert Wadman tells Omaha parents not to become "hysterical" over the Eberle case.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 26, 1983</b>: A 19 year old woman is raped in her apartment at 99th and V Street.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Investigators say the red hatchback or a green car was possibly involved with the Eberle case.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 27, 1983</b>: A Council Bluffs Scout leader is sentenced to 2-5 years for sexually assaulting two boys on a Scout camp out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>September 28, 1983</b>: The Virginia home of Nebraska Representative Doug Beureuter is burglarized.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Child abuse cases in Western Iowa are up 30% from the year before.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">(excerpt from World Herald):</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Two Omaha boys who told their parents last week that they had been threatened and chased by two men were reported missing Tuesday night. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">One of the boys, Sammie Lee Hill, 14, of 4419 Spaulding St., also was involved in an incident last week in which he told police he was the victim of an attempted abduction. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Sammie and a companion, David William Hutchinson, 13, of 4735 N. 41st St., were last seen by their parents Tuesday morning when they left for their eighth grade classes at McMillan Junior High School.............</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">According to their mothers, Sammie and David told their parents Friday that they had been chased by two adult men in a vacant lot near their school. The mothers said the boys told them that the men yelled threateningly at them. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Sammie's mother said he told her one of the men also was involved in an earlier incident, in which Sammie told police he had been abducted by two men who allegedly wanted him to commit a crime for them. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Initially, the boy had told police he was abducted by a person fitting the description of a man involved in a separate alleged attempt to abduct a newspaper carrier, but he later changed that story. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Sammie finally told police that two men had abducted him and that he had broken free after they had taken him to a secluded area near Columbus Park at 24th Street and Woolworth Avenue and began assaulting him with a rock and a broken bottle. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Sammie, who has a brother and a sister and lives at home with his parents, was an Omaha World - Herald carrier until he quit his route after his attempted abduction report last week. </span> </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> The boys are found the next day, claiming they were again abducted and assaulted. Police declare a "hoax."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A human skeleton is stolen from Iowa Western Community College.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 1, 1983</b>: (excerpt from World Herald)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Bethel Baptist choir will join John McClain Jr. in presenting a concert at 4 p.m. Sunday at Horace Mann Junior High School auditorium. Also on the program is </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: bold;">Larry</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: bold;">King</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">, manager of the </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: bold;">Franklin</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> Community Federal </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: bold;">Credit</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: bold;">Union</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> , who will be accompanied by the Omaha Symphonic Chorus. Admission fee is $2. The concert is sponsored by Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church. </span> </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 2, 1983</b>: A 19 year old Creighton girl apparently jumps from her fourth floor dorm room, killing herself in the process.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A 36 year old man is shot by Omaha Police in the Downtown area. A strange, very religious man, he would often walk about with a scythe shaped stick and a red bible, preaching about Jesus to passers by. For some reason, the police tried to subdue him and he, out of character, grabbed an officer's billy club and began to fight back. He was then murdered by one of the policemen. Curiously, some comments made to his mother that morning led her to believe that he knew he was going to die that day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The officers who murdered him were cleared several days later and their actions labeled "self defense." The World Herald simultaneously ran an article claiming the victim was out of his mind due to a combination of marijuana and antihistamines.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 5, 1983</b>: Parents of two girls and a boy reach a settlement with a Greene County farmer, Warren Robson, accused of having "intentionally, willfully and unlawfully performed various sexual assaults and batteries on the children." The man agrees to pay $337,000.00 in the form of monthly annuities to the children, aged 9 and 16 in October of 1983. The last assaults occurred in September of 1981. For some reason, the parents and local prosecutors did not want to press charges and the farmer essentially filed "no contest" to the civil suit, leaving his name cleared and his crime unpunished, other than financially. Nebraska is truly "The good life" - if you're a well connected pedophile............</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 6, 1983</b>: The World Herald states that 19 men have been charged with "Disturbing the Peace" in the restroom of a Lincoln city park between September 21, and September 26. These include a State Revenue Department official, a former State Agriculture Department director, and a Beatrice, NE minister. Officials would not comment on the details of the charges, only making the cryptic statement: "there was a particular concern about children using the park restroom..."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span>Barry L. Donehower, 35, was sentenced Thursday to five to 10 years in the Lincoln Regional Center for the sexual assault of an 11 - year- old boy. Douglas County District Judge James Murphy, noting the concern raised by the slaying of young Danny Eberle of Bellevue, told Donehower: "I don't think you could have picked a worse time." Donehower, a privately employed airplane pilot, pleaded guilty last month to a charge of first - degree sexual assault on a child. Donehower admitted that on <b>June 22</b> he enticed the 11 - year - old to submit to oral sex...<span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 7, 1983</b>: Harold Crisp, 23, of Omaha is charged with raping an 88 year old woman in Alabama. He is wanted by police for the rape and kidnapping of a woman on August 24th while her child was in the back seat. He apparently "escaped" from an Omaha work release program on July 1st.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Robert Wadman again defends the police for shooting the marijuana crazed Jesus freak, claiming they acted "properly".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 9, 1983</b>: The World Herald tells us not to be alarmed by the recent wave (understatement) of violent crime (excerpt from World Herald):</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The close succession of violent crimes recently in the Omaha - Council Bluffs metropolitan area has created a false impression among the public that the crime rate is rising, Omaha Police Chief Robert Wadman said. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The crime rate in the area appears to be stable. Omaha Police Department figures indicate that the number of homicides and rapes so far this year is the same as last year. The number of robberies is down 6 percent, and the number of aggravated assaults is up 9 percent. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A good number of the most violent of those crimes occurred in a recent six - week period. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">or: "just go about your business, there's nothing to see here..."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The partly decomposed body of an unidentified female is found in a field in Waterloo, just west of the Omaha city limits. This case is never again mentioned in the World Herald.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Police claim to have "rumours" of a major child pornography ring in Iowa, but have been "unable to locate" any "substantial" evidence.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 11, 1983</b>: A teen age girl is sexually assaulted by a teen age boy while walking home from school in the area of McMillan Junior High School.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 12, 1983</b> (The birth date of Aleister Crowley as marked on the calendar of any self respecting occultist): A strange burglary occurs in a North Omaha business overnight in which nothing is taken but several calculators and a door is left ajar. Because the door (in no way connected with the robber's entrance and exit) was left partially open, a body was discovered in an obscure fenced portion of the building's exterior. Nobody used that door and, were it not for the "burglary", the body of Rosemary Caples would not have been discovered until the following Spring. If you recall, Ms. Caples was the former employee of the bar on 22nd and Farnam where a homeless man was found murdered in an adjoining alley the day Ms. Caples disappearance was announced and during the bloody weekend preceding the Fall Equinox when Danny Jo Eberle and Karlena Tolston were also murdered.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 15, 1983</b>: A 32 year old Carter Lake man is charged with paying 13 to 16 year old boys for sex. His bond is initially set at $200,000, but is lowered to $2000 later that day. Apparently, the value of young boy's lives is not very high in Omaha......</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 18, 1983</b>: Robert D. Miller, a bouncer at the infamous Hollywood bar in downtown Omaha is arrested and charged for sexual acts committed with the same minors. The two men claim not to know each other.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 19, 1983</b>: Crime Stoppers issues a $1000 reward for information about the Karlena Tolston slaying in September (the same day as the Eberle abduction). The 18 year old Tolston, 7 months pregnant, was last seen walking home with her cousin, Courtney Starks. It can be assumed that Starks was the suspect police claimed to have, although no arrest or further information has been revealed. According to Starks, he was walking home with her when an unknown acquaintance in a Corvette pulled up and began talking to Tolston. She allegedly then told Starks to go back home and she would go home with this individual. Her body, according to this particular article, was found the next morning behind, of all places, a City of Omaha Parks and Recreation office, beaten, raped, shot, ripped open with teeth and left dead in the weeds. Sensationalism of the Eberle case left this case rather obscured in the local consciousness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 20, 1983</b>: 40 year old Bellevue man William Fyfe is charged with two counts of sexual assault on a 14 year old and is questioned by police in the Eberle case. Police claim to have questioned 350 individuals in the case and have charged two with separate crimes. Leads are dwindling however....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A Southeast Iowa paperboy reports a man in a dark green pickup tried to abduct him. The man called him by his name and claimed to be his uncle Bill. The boy managed to escape. Another rural Iowa paperboy claimed a similar encounter with the dark green truck a week prior. The man was described as in his late 30's with brown hair, blue eyes, cowboy boots, and a shirt that read "I'm Number One!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 22, 1983</b>: Bert Howard, a well known Omaha organized crime figure dies at the ripe old age of 50 from an apparent heart attack. In the mid 70's, he was caught running a gambling ring while he was the owner of a used car lot. The investigation revealed that he had provided free automobiles through his attorney to Judge Theodore Carlson (who later sentenced John J. Joubert to death in the Eberle case and was a central figure in the Franklin cover up a few years after) and the assistant City Prosecutor Anthony Troia (Eberle's bike and newspapers were found in the driveway of a relative, Dr. Joseph Troia. The Troias are a well established Omaha family with many members prominent in the Omaha legal and medical communities. One Dr. Troia is a head physician at Boys Town pediatrics). Troia and Carlson received no punishment for the bribes. Howard, with a criminal record dating back to 1955, had run an adult bookstore in downtown Omaha in the early seventies and was currently the owner of a semi nude lounge in Council Bluffs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Harold Crisp, the man who raped the 88 year old Alabama woman, is returned to Omaha, charged with (and later convicted of) the murder of Rosemary Caples, whose body was discovered after the October 12th burglary of a North Omaha business.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 23, 1983</b>: A Kansas City author claims that tensions with the Soviets are manufactured in order to justify military and classified spending.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A 17 year old Council Bluffs girl is raped in her house the night before.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A Des Moines newspaper columnist shoots his wife and mentally disabled daughter before turning the gun on himself while driving in the family car.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 25, 1983</b>: Trial begins in the case of 4 Omaha prostitutes who sexually assaulted, robbed, and murdered Laura LaPointe, another prostitute, in the remote Hummel Park area north of Omaha.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Richard Duff, 32, is captured for the murder of a Kansas City man in a North Omaha alley several days prior. It turns out he has been <b>acquitted of 3 felonies</b>, including another <strike>hit</strike> murder in the past 14 years "by reason of insanity."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 27, 1983</b>: Colonel Richard L. Purdum of Offut Air Force Base is appointed a councillor to the governor of <a href="http://www.saskfarmersmarket.com/0-6482-aksarben-promoted-by-cia.html">Ak Sar Ben</a>, according to Walter Scott Jr.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">David Heer, a 43 year old system designer at Northwestern Bell telephone company is charged with a <b>misdemeanor</b> for producing underage sex films.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">100 people assemble downtown to protest the U.S. invasion of Grenada.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 28, 1983</b>: The World Herald proclaims that so far there are no Nebraska victims attributed to Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole, a pair of serial killers recently apprehended in Texas.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A lady is found wandering lost in North Platte. Her behavior baffles police, but they later find out she is the victim of multiple personality disorder and has possibly 22 different personalities. Apparently, she switched from which ever personality took her to North Platte, and was then lost and confused. In early November, men who <b>could not be named</b> arrived to fly her to a location that <b>could not be disclosed</b>, according to the North Platte psychiatrist who cared for her.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>October 31, 1983</b>: A woman is abducted from a Halloween party and raped and stabbed near Carter Lake.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>November 2, 1983</b>: Iowa authorities announce that September had the highest number of child abuse cases ever reported in a single month in the state</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The Eberle case is now the most expensive investigation in Sarpy County history, according to the Sarpy County Sheriff's office</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>November 5, 1983</b>: A 17 year old Arkansas girl is abducted from the Greyhound bus station and raped, possibly at Carter Lake</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A 14 year old boy sexually assaults two girls, ages 5 and 6, while babysitting them</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>November 7, 1983</b>: Two women are robbed, cut, and one of them is raped while working at a South Omaha fast food restaurant late at night. The rapist, a white man in his early 20's, claims to be a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A 26 year old Offut Air Force Base officer, 1st Lt. Margis B. Repecka of Omaha, is found dead in his 54th and Grover Street home from a bullet wound. A .357 revolver is found at his side. Police proclaim the wound to be "self-inflicted."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>November 9, 1983</b>: A 34 year old Omaha woman is beaten and raped in her downtown apartment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>November 14, 1983</b>: An 18 year old Omaha woman is raped by a man giving her a ride home from a Council Bluffs bar.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>November 15, 1983</b>: A man with a gun tries to abduct a 28 year old woman in downtown. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>December 2, 1983</b>: 12 year old Christopher Walden of Bellevue disappears while walking to school.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcnT9pGXNKq_SMX4pE5-fuE0cjgscRpLPad9ODxePQTwuacskVFZtkQ4-wWrzZgjpm4SMmNy0SazYKWmsQn9O-ESglQY5Yai2QCoPPw7YsGvb4Ml1FNl-bIXMVci4Po664nEZCQ-2YTziq/s1600/PG-Chris-Walden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcnT9pGXNKq_SMX4pE5-fuE0cjgscRpLPad9ODxePQTwuacskVFZtkQ4-wWrzZgjpm4SMmNy0SazYKWmsQn9O-ESglQY5Yai2QCoPPw7YsGvb4Ml1FNl-bIXMVci4Po664nEZCQ-2YTziq/s1600/PG-Chris-Walden.jpg" height="240" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christopher Paul Walden</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>December 3, 1983</b>: The parents of Christopher Walden (Air Force, like the Eberles) make a public plea for the safe return of their son. A massive search is underway involving a multitude of law enforcement and civic officials as well as private volunteers. The FBI assigns about 20 people to the case, rather quickly. Again, they are all over this case from the start, although many other Omaha missing person's reports receive considerably less attention. Evidence is collected along the boy's route to school, although it is unknown if any of it is related to the crime. School officials had neglected to call the Waldens when the boy didn't show up, so his disappearance was not known until much later. Apparently making calls when a student is absent without notification is up to each school's principal. (The year before, I read the book "Tom Sawyer" and felt that skipping school for a day was a good idea. I talked my little sister into doing it with me. Both of our schools had called my parents by 10 A.M.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>December 4, 1983</b>: Searches continue for the missing Christopher Walden, nothing new is revealed. Schools are urged to teach students not to accept rides or favors from strangers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A 24 year old woman is raped at gunpoint.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">At the end of the day the search is unofficially called off. Rumors alleging a connection between this crime and the Eberle boy are spreading around town like wildfire, fanned in part by the World Herald itself. Parents are no longer allowing their kids to walk to school.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>December 5, 1983</b>: Two hunters retrieving a downed pheasant in an isolated grove of trees near the former town of Portal (A location in the news several weeks prior. Portal was a town built in western Sarpy county in the late 1800's. Due to frequent flooding of the creeks, the town was deemed unsustainable after several years and became farmland once again. The only remnants of the town left to be seen in 1983 were the Portal cemetery and the Portal schoolhouse, a historic one room schoolhouse in the news as the destination of teenage thrill seekers due to an old legend about the school. Supposedly a teacher killed all the children in the schoolhouse in the distant past, leaving the schoolhouse itself to be remembered as the "Hatchet House" by generations of bored and gullible teenagers. According to the World Herald, the story is complete fiction. Nevertheless, in a grove of trees adjacent to the school:) stumble upon the grisly remains of Christoper Paul Walden. They are described as "visibly shaken." This location is an out of the way area rarely used by anyone but locals, and if it weren't for the hunters, the body may have gone unnoticed for months.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWFnG7g69EH9Oinxb8ZsyswfhB_AT-VgkzzQvqO0yl-AEIOMIPZKYKsgux9jxuwJuvx5FPAyTyioQ70jzyUKjQyCUaWiCaM0XvascbM4zTo-BpcuEufMtMmuVXouWqtBcg7oOPHeTIWVb0/s1600/PG-police-sketch-of-suspect.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"></span></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_184Ke3CkeADdC4u2ck28LQ1CsbiAdlVM_7klo7zdsP-ylVq0ofmMMVDdoez7eWNRfQvVU8W8HtIJpxiSfTlJGdNoUXMlKEg-LdHq35jHMjYgcaej_wIYqYUN9qgtjrM7c_lGLJlkQRbq/s1600/PG-Clothes-of-victim-discov.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_184Ke3CkeADdC4u2ck28LQ1CsbiAdlVM_7klo7zdsP-ylVq0ofmMMVDdoez7eWNRfQvVU8W8HtIJpxiSfTlJGdNoUXMlKEg-LdHq35jHMjYgcaej_wIYqYUN9qgtjrM7c_lGLJlkQRbq/s1600/PG-Clothes-of-victim-discov.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walden's Clothing</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> Authorities admit that Walden had been stabbed multiple times, but refuse to comment whether he was sexually molested or not. Police give a description and composite photo (a menacing photo imprinted in the memory of many Omaha children and their parents in the following month, although not even remotely resembling the man later convicted of the crime) based on a description provided by unnamed witnesses of the abduction.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWFnG7g69EH9Oinxb8ZsyswfhB_AT-VgkzzQvqO0yl-AEIOMIPZKYKsgux9jxuwJuvx5FPAyTyioQ70jzyUKjQyCUaWiCaM0XvascbM4zTo-BpcuEufMtMmuVXouWqtBcg7oOPHeTIWVb0/s1600/PG-police-sketch-of-suspect.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWFnG7g69EH9Oinxb8ZsyswfhB_AT-VgkzzQvqO0yl-AEIOMIPZKYKsgux9jxuwJuvx5FPAyTyioQ70jzyUKjQyCUaWiCaM0XvascbM4zTo-BpcuEufMtMmuVXouWqtBcg7oOPHeTIWVb0/s1600/PG-police-sketch-of-suspect.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Police Sketch of Suspected Killer</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b> December 7, 1983</b>: (excerpt from World Herald)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Investigators think that Christopher Hall Walden, unlike Danny Joe Eberle, probably was slain at the spot where his body was found. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Sarpy County Sheriff Pat Thomas said at a press conference Wednesday that it appears young Walden was stabbed to death in the plum grove near Cornhusker Road northwest of Papillion where his body was found by hunters Monday night. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The 12 - year - old son of Air Force Lt. Col. and Mrs. Stephen Walden, 4558 Holly St., had been missing since leaving for school about 8:20 a.m. Friday. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Young Eberle, a 13 - year - old Bellevue newsboy, was reported missing Sept. 18 after he went on his morning route. His body was found three days later along a road south of Bellevue, and authorities believe he was killed elsewhere. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">He too died of multiple stab wounds; both bodies were clad in underwear. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The officers, who are conducting one of the most intense investigations in metropolitan Omaha history, have not said whether either boy was sexually molested. However, Thomas said Wednesday that there is sexual motivation in both cases "to some extent.".....</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">.....Thomas and Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Chuck Wiley said an autopsy has been completed in the Walden case. Wiley said that much material from the autopsy has been sent to FBI labs in Washington, D.C..... </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">......The two said little about the nature of the wounds. Thomas said that many of the stab wounds were in the chest, and some appeared as though they could have been fatal. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Also discussed at the Wednesday press conference in Bellevue was a report by witnesses who saw an encounter between a boy who looked like Christopher and a young man. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A composite sketch of the young man was drawn by the FBI Saturday and has been circulated nationally..... </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">.....Regarding the incident reported by the witnesses, Wiley said the boy was not seen to have been shoved into a car. The officers declined to discuss the witnesses or the nature of what they saw. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">But Wiley and Herb Hawkins, special agent - in - charge of the FBI for Nebraska and Iowa, said the witnesses did not see anything violent or aggravated enough to cause them to call police at that time......</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">....They said the witnesses stepped forward Friday night when they learned there was a missing youth. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">He said the FBI has brought in an additional 10 agents to work on the case, bringing the total number of FBI agents involved to 45. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"We've dropped almost everything except the essential things" to work on the Walden case, Hawkins said. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The Eberle - Walden task force now totals more than 100 officers working around the clock, according to Robinson. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Rewards in the cases now total more than $48,000. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The suspect is described as being 18 to 25 years old, 5 feet 8 to 5 feet 10 and about 160 pounds. He is described as a white male with a dark complexion. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The officers have declined to identify any car possibly connected with the case......</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A prominent psychiatrist weighs in on Omaha's new serial killer:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">(excerpt from the World Herald)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The killer of two Sarpy County boys may have been physically abused or witnessed disturbed behavior in his family when growing up, but he probably exhibits few outward signs that would distinguish him from most people..........</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Authorities are investigating the similarities of the killings of 12 - year - old Christopher Walden, whose body was found in a rural area of Sarpy County Monday night, and Danny Joe Eberle, 13, who was killed in September. Both boys were kidnapped and stabbed several times, and their bodies were dumped in secluded, rural areas. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Authorities believe the same person killed the boys. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Dr. Kentsmith, basing his profile on the limited information released to the public, said the killer probably did "nothing bizarre" before the killings.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"Since he has been able to do such violence, he may have had a history of violence; he may have been abused as a child, either physically or emotionally," Dr. Kentsmith said. The abuse may have been sexual, he said.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The psychiatrist said it is possible that the killer witnessed "disturbed behavior" in his family, such as alcoholism.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">"One thing that may be significant," Dr. Kentsmith said, "is where this (the killings) has been happening. The killings might have been committed by<b> someone who grew up in the area. He certainly is familiar with the surrounding area, some of the rural areas (of Sarpy County)</b>." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Dr. Kentsmith said the killer is likely to be a quiet, non - descript person who has not been involved in earlier violent episodes. He probably has an "inability to empathize, to understand what the victim is experiencing," Dr. Kentsmith said.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">A forensic psychologist, meanwhile, said Tuesday that the killer probably is psychotic and subject to "schizophrenic messages" perceived messages from God or some "mystical force."</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">This psychologist, who asked that he not be identified, said the killer probably is a loner with a history of being unable to cope with his own sexual development.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The killer "probably had some contact with the law, but for a much less serious offense, such as exhibitionism or molesting a minor," the psychologist said.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The killings also suggest that the killer suffered from "organ inferiority" he feels his body is unattractive and is trying to compensate for that, the psychologist said. The killing may have been an attempt to show dominance and superiority, the psychologist said.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Authorities have not said publicly whether either boy was sexually abused, but the psychologist said the use of a knife appears to be sexually symbolic.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">"The knife is symbolic of the penis, and the stabbings are symbolic of the penetration of another's body," the psychologist said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Very insightful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The Bellevue Police Chief offers safety tips to parents of young children, and police patrols are stepped up before and after school. Those in poor neighborhoods are increasingly afraid of random violence, women across the metro are in fear of random rape, and suburban children and parents are now hysterical over the prospect of a local serial killer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>December 8, 1983</b>: Police believe one man is responsible for the murders of both Christopher Paul Walden and Danny Jo Eberle. The similarity to the Johnny Gosch abduction is again noted. Suburban housewives continue to panic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Carter Lake announces a community plan to watch children and provide safe houses on every block. Apparently a 9 year old girl was almost abducted from her own driveway by a man wearing drag in early November.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>December 9, 1983</b>: Witnesses were again hypnotized before making their statements. The FBI cannot comment. The FBI states that Walden was kept alive for two days and then murdered at the plum grove where his body was found.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The stab wounds to Walden's chest formed a design of some sort.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>December 12, 1983</b>: Men all over town are accused of being the killer. A 10 year old girl saw a man with a stocking cap driving through her neighborhood and reported it to police. Police are interviewing people across the metro who look like the man in the composite sketch, and many of these people are being shunned by neighbors, friends, family, and co-workers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Rumors are circulating that the boys were partially dismembered and stabbed up to 100 times. The FBI emphatically denies these allegations, but they persist to this day. One particularly nasty rumor described how Joubert played tic tac toe on Walden's back with a knife. This may have stemmed from the occult markings on Walden's torso.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>December 18, 1983</b>: Police still are on the lookout for the killer of Karlena Tolston. They claim to have a suspect, a "sexual psychopath", but do not have the evidence to charge him. For the first time it is revealed that Karlena's cousin, Courtney Starks, was the last person to see her alive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">(excerpt from World Herald)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; text-align: left;">.....Three months after Karlena Tolston, 17, was killed, people who live in the Bancroft Park area say the unsolved slaying has changed their neighborhood, causing them to live in fear......</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; text-align: left;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">.....Omaha police have made no arrests in the case, though they say they know who killed Miss Tolston. Detectives just don't have enough evidence to arrest him for the crime, said Lt. Robert Pfeffer of the homicide unit. Pfeffer said the suspect lives in the Bancroft Park area and that police consider him a sexual psychopath. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Brutal </b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The murder was unusually brutal the most brutal that veteran homicide detectives have seen in years, Pfeffer said. Miss Tolston was shot twice in the head, stomped, beaten, cut and possibly strangled. Police believe the murder was sexually motivated because of the way the body was mutilated. Parts of the body had been bitten off.......</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">When the body was found, broken white beads were strewn along a 20 - foot trail of blood. The killer had pulled her body by the legs, letting her head drag in the mud in the lot at 27th and Madison Streets. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Shots, Screams Heard</b> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: large;">Several people who live near the death scene heard shots, screams and dogs barking wildly around midnight. None, however, called police. Several said that at the time they were not sure what exactly they had heard. "I did hear some screaming," said one woman who asked not to be identified. "It sounded like the voice of a little girl. I heard my dogs barking back in the alley in a very mean way, like there was somebody around. I closed my curtains and I stayed in the house. I didn't call the police. I didn't think anything of it." </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: large;">Police canvassing the neighborhood found Miss Tolston's purse and stubs of welfare checks in an alley across the street. They did not find the murder weapons the .25 caliber handgun and the tennis shoes that left a bloody imprint on the girl's cheek. They found two spent ammunition shells by the body. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">.....Miss Tolston, seven months pregnant when she was killed, spent the night before her death with friends and relatives. One of her cousins braided and beaded her hair. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">She had left a friend's house around midnight and walked toward her house with a second cousin, Courtney Starks, 17. Starks later told detectives a man in a Chevrolet Corvette passed them near 27th and Drexel Streets and stopped. Miss Tolston seemed to know the man and stopped to talk, he told detectives. Starks waited a while, grew impatient and went home, he told detectives. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Hardly the work of a 17 year old amateur.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>December 19, 1983</b>: A 24 year old South Omaha man is found hanging in his bedroom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Not even Mr. T can save the movie "D.C. Cab", according to the World Herald in a rare moment of honesty.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The 17 year old son of Mayor Mike Boyle is assaulted by a man in his 20's for no apparent reason outside of a party, resulting in a fractured cheekbone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Children are suffering from stomach aches, sleeplessness, and high anxiety due to fear of Omaha's serial killer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>December 21, 1983</b>: Police declare that an "older model, cream colored car" was used in the Eberle-Walden murders.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>January 1, 1984</b>: A 12 year old Omaha girl is raped by a man who broke into her home on New Years Eve.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">December, 1983 is officially declared the coldest month in the history of Omaha. Fortunately for the women and children of Omaha, this seems to have severely curtailed the violence of previous months.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Two South Omaha girls, 13 and 14, are abducted and taken to a house by three men in a pickup where one of them is raped.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>January 11, 1983</b>: A man seemingly attempts to rob a Bellevue church daycare with a knife at around 8:30 a.m. The woman working there manages to escape and call the police, giving them the license plate number of her assailant. The rental car is traced back to a local car lot, where the driver's own car is being repaired. His personal car fits the description of the car used in the Walden murder. John Joubert, a 20 year old Air Force service man and assistant Boy Scout leader is arrested for the attempted robbery and placed in solitary confinement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>January 12, 1983</b>: Joubert is convicted by the World Herald as the murderer of Eberle and Walden in the morning edition, and formally charged in the afternoon. Investigators are looking into Joubert's whereabouts during the Johnny Gosch kidnapping, but ultimately find he was nowhere near Iowa at the time. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI6ZW7d-TS42Sx0738nZvAjYshSYU77-4Y1K5ECpnJDyJHIhoDPE4JBoXO0jDjTSZVKqduLi3vwFgHXYO8xXDg8E93xY7Q272JcTh2Jw4AdQAzOgVmK3tJlIYcupUqWItgoknUwc6WsA2J/s1600/PG-John-Joubert,-mugshot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI6ZW7d-TS42Sx0738nZvAjYshSYU77-4Y1K5ECpnJDyJHIhoDPE4JBoXO0jDjTSZVKqduLi3vwFgHXYO8xXDg8E93xY7Q272JcTh2Jw4AdQAzOgVmK3tJlIYcupUqWItgoknUwc6WsA2J/s1600/PG-John-Joubert,-mugshot.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Joubert 1984</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> John Joubert, a 20 year old member of the Air Force, had a troubled history. His parents divorced at an early age, and he was forbidden to see his father throughout the rest of his childhood. He then began stabbing people, and allegedly fantasized about victims crying for help and even cannibalizing them. By some accounts he was a very bright boy, by others he was very slow. Either way, he hardly seemed like Air Force material, but somehow was welcomed right in. Just in time, it seems, for a Maine boy was murdered (Joubert would later be convicted of this crime as well) right before he signed up with the Air Force and set off for training in the deep South before being stationed at Strategic Air Command headquarters just south of Omaha, Nebraska.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5s7LekGt0zdIcwaKK2euYnJen-oF8mb2ikkwE2XGdA2-vpkvV7mqeuZQt47_7J7-zKupbZ1y6fQeescmvyBe_mw827IzVyb2MRPRGFCFE_2Fto8z-ZLVVKjzqAEVcC9NHICHxdxDvc_-t/s1600/PG-Rope-used-to-tie-hands.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5s7LekGt0zdIcwaKK2euYnJen-oF8mb2ikkwE2XGdA2-vpkvV7mqeuZQt47_7J7-zKupbZ1y6fQeescmvyBe_mw827IzVyb2MRPRGFCFE_2Fto8z-ZLVVKjzqAEVcC9NHICHxdxDvc_-t/s1600/PG-Rope-used-to-tie-hands.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unique Rope</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> Apparently, he kept and used a most uncommon type of rope, fibers of which were later used to convict him (the World Herald convicted him in the court of public opinion the morning the story broke) in the summer of 1984. Omaha breathed a collective sigh of relief as it seemed the serial killer scare was over and kids were safe to walk the streets once again. Never mind that similar child abductions had been occurring all along and, as we will see, would continue in the future. Joubert was executed by electrocution in 1996.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>March 23, 1986</b>: 11 year old Richard Chadek is abducted while riding his bike in a bank parking lot on a Sunday afternoon. His body is found in a West Omaha field on April 2. The killer is never apprehended.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>*July 31 / August 1, 1986:</b> (Lammas on the Satanic Calendar, a date calling for human sacrifice): At exactly midnight, Ms. Linda Wierzbicki, a 32 year old Omaha theater actress and teacher at a Catholic school is stabbed in the head 11 times and left dead in the parking lot of her apartment complex. It is called a robbery attempt, although Ms. Wierzbicki purportedly did not carry a purse. Police are searching for a young black male driving a black muscle car.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Coincidentally, a 20 year old black male driving a black Pontiac Trans Am is arrested about 20 minutes later just down the road at 36th and L street after crashing into several utility poles. The driver, Courtney W. Starks of South Omaha (the last person to see Karlena Tolston alive) is arrested by Officer Donald Fiala Jr. (another prominent Omaha surname) and is taken to University Hospital where he is subsequently arrested for driving while intoxicated. He is charged and sentenced to 30 days in prison on the morning of Friday, August 1. Later that afternoon police receive an "anonymous tip" (although from who we may never know - if he was immediately arrested after the murder which he allegedly committed spontaneously while alone, who could have possibly tipped off the police?) and transport Starks from the jail to the police station for questioning. He is thoroughly grilled by Officers Clyde Nutsch and James Wilson Senior of the homicide department culminating in a taped confession for the murder. He never again accepts responsibility for the murder, instead claiming that his confession was forced.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Apparently Starks spent the night of July 31st partying with his employer, one Cathie Caffrey, who had hired him as a part time employee of Nuncio's Licorice Stick Lounge (Now "Douger's") on 42nd and Cuming Street. She was quite friendly with young Starks, claiming that he "<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">was a friend who sometimes visited her home, took her 8 - year - old daughter to ballet lessons and ran errands" </span>although the two were not romantically involved. Ms. Caffrey and Susan McCann, the on duty bartender that night at Nuncio's, had two decidedly different time lines of events, although neither the court nor the World Herald seemed to concern themselves with such trivialities. The mostly established timeline seems to occur as such:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Starks and Caffrey were driving around in Stark's car doing something all evening. Caffrey had somewhere around $3500 in cash on her all night, a fact which Starks was well aware of. At some point Starks and Caffrey had an argument over Starks' driving while intoxicated, and Caffrey went into the bar to fume while Starks left the premises around 11:30 p.m. The two women's stories also involve Starks successfully playing a Star Wars video game around the time he left (while simultaneously claiming he didn't come back in the bar at all), and the women's times don't match up. According to McCann, she refused to serve Starks anymore and he and Caffrey left together at 11:30. According to Caffrey, they returned to the bar at 11:30, at which time Starks left alone. Not too important in a first degree murder case, I suppose, so let's move on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Starks also, depending on which of the two women you ask, did or did not have access to a boning knife allegedly found at the murder scene. McCann claims it was in the bar and then in Starks car, while Caffrey claims the knife was never in Starks possession. Anyways, Starks left the bar around 11:30 and then showed up at Caffrey's house ostensibly to borrow money from the same Caffrey he had just left at the bar. Caffrey's house was roughly eight blocks from the crime scene. Starks apparently conversed with Caffrey's daughter for a few minutes and then left. According to the girl, Starks arrived at around midnight (as the murder was occurring) - a fact she knew because a movie had just started. A check of the listings determined that the movie actually started at 11:45, which put Starks back on the road at around 11:55.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">(I made the drive and side detour in under ten minutes on a cold winter night with little traffic, so it is conceivable that Starks could have arrived at the crime scene on an active summer night in time to commit the crime. Either way, he was conveniently nearby.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">At around midnight, a man heard a scream in the parking lot of the Charleton Apartments. According to him, </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">(excerpt from World Herald:)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Scott Johnson, then a resident in Miss Wierzbicki's apartment complex, testified that he heard two or three screams outside about midnight. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Johnson, who was clipping coupons and watching television at the time, said the screams came soon after he heard a car pull into the parking lot. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Saw the Body </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Johnson said he looked through the screen door of his third - floor apartment, saw someone lying on the pavement and shut off his living room light. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">"I didn't want anybody that was out there to know that I was watching," Johnson said. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">He said he walked downstairs to the ground level and started to move toward the person on the pavement when he saw a tall, slender man coming toward him. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Johnson testified that he said "Hi" as the two passed about 6 feet apart, but the man said nothing. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Johnson said didn't go any nearer to the person he saw on the ground. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">He said he returned to his apartment and about 5 minutes later he saw a tall, slender man walk from behind another part of his apartment building, climb into a dark - colored Trans Am and drive off "hurriedly."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The perpetrator apparently spent a lot of time around the crime scene afterwards, made sure he was seen, and caused no harm to Johnson, contrary to the image of "drug crazed Negro" painted at his trial (mostly by his own "defense" attorney). According to another witness:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">(excerpt from World Herald:)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">When the witnesses went to investigate, they saw a man run from the lot, cross 42nd Street, jump into a yard and then hide in some shrubs. Several minutes later, the witnesses said the man returned to the parking lot, picked up a cigarette package and then sped away in a Pontiac Firebird or Trans Am. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">This account is troubling for several reasons. First of all, for anyone to have left the crime scene, crossed 42nd Street, hid in a yard, and returned, they would have to have gone about 4 blocks up the street, as the only thing across 42nd right there is the Center Mall parking garage. Also, there is an apartment building and a fenced property standing between the crime scene and 42nd Street. Furthermore, while all the witnesses seem to describe a different version of him returning for his cigarettes, the police later claimed to have FOUND his cigarette pack at the crime scene. Could the return actually have been to PLANT the pack?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">(excerpt from World Herald:)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Although friends said the woman did not usually carry a purse, police Sgt. John Lehotyak said evidence indicates she was stabbed during a robbery attempt. He declined to elaborate.</span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Police claimed to find the boning knife, a pack of Kools, and Ms. Wierzbicki's purse (contents dumped out) around the scene of the crime, despite repeated claims by acquaintances that Wierzbicki did not carry a purse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Moving forward, a friend who had been waiting to hear from Ms. Wierzbicki arrived to check on her at around 1:45 A.M. and found her lifeless body in the parking lot. Starks, of course, was already in jail for driving while intoxicated. By the next afternoon, police had extracted a taped confession from Starks. To this day Starks claims he does not believe he could kill anybody, and if he did, it wasn't him in his right mind committing the crime. He, however, has no recollection of the event. Police and the World Herald immediately began promoting the idea that Starks was broke and needed money, causing him to pull in the parking lot and stab Wierzbicki in the head 11 times at exactly midnight on a Satanic holiday.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The following Monday, Starks claimed that police questioned him for four hours about the murder of Karlena Tolston. Police have now stated that Starks was and still is a suspect in his cousin's murder, although they have no evidence to arrest anyone with. James Martin Davis was appointed to defend Starks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">For those unfamiliar with Omaha, James Martin Davis is the premier criminal defense attorney in town. A former military operative and Secret Service Agent with the Nixon administration, it is rumored around town that Davis was assigned to protect Ronald Reagan the day he was shot. (I have been unable to either confirm or deny this.) He later would defend both Police Chief Robert Wadman as well as Boys Town itself against sexual abuse allegations in the wake of the Franklin scandal. He is a pompous, crooked, showboat who finds his way into the middle of all high profile criminal trials in Omaha, and has run for public office unsuccessfully on at least one occasion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Martin's brilliant plan to defend Courtney Starks was for Starks to say that he was under the influence of alcohol and PCP that night and could not remember whether he murdered anyone or not. Not quite enough blood had been taken from Starks that night to test for PCP, and one Omaha officer had stated that he had only seen PCP in Omaha one time in the previous decade. Nevertheless, the official story told by Starks, Davis, the World Herald, and the court itself was that Starks was under the influence of PCP the night of the murder. This ultimately, according to the judge, spared Starks the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison + 20 years to be served afterwards for the weapons charge. Starks sits in the Nebraska penitentiary to this day, paying for a crime he does not know whether he committed or not, while simultaneously remaining the scapegoat in the extremely brutal rape and execution of his young cousin during that most bloody weekend in September of 1983.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">(excerpt from the Omaha World Herald, personal observations in <b>bold</b>:)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Unsolved Slayings Haunt Victims' Kin Unsolved Murder</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span class="pubName" style="font-weight: bold;">Omaha World-Herald (NE)</span> - Sunday, July 25, 1993</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span class="tagName" style="font-weight: bold;">Author: </span>CHRIS BURBACH, WORLD - HERALD STAFF WRITER</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Barbara Stennis expects the answers to hurt, but she would prefer that pain to the agony of not knowing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Who killed Kenyatta Bush, Mrs. Stennis' teen - age daughter? How can the killer still be free? And why - why? - did that person take Miss Bush's life?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">"I still get mad," Mrs. Stennis said. "I'm concerned about the who, but I most want to know why. I can't understand it. I often wonder, 'How does this person go to bed at night?' I don't understand it."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">More than 90 percent of the homicides in Douglas, Sarpy and Pottawatomie Counties in the last 10 years have been solved. That's well above the national clearance rate of less than 70 percent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">But with homicides, almost perfect isn't good enough - not for the families of victims, and not for the police. Their frustration grows as time passes and the chance of bringing killers to justice wanes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Two of the highest - profile slayings in the last decade in Omaha remain unsolved. Nine months have passed since Miss Bush, 17, disappeared from North High School Sept. 23. She was found dead 10 days later.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">And it has been more than seven years since 11 - year - old Ricky Chadek last was seen alive, riding his bicycle near 42nd and Valley Streets. His strangled body was discovered March 31, 1986, in rural Douglas County, eight days after he had disappeared.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Ricky and Miss Bush are but two of many homicide victims whose deaths remain unexplained. Law - enforcement agencies in the Omaha - Council Bluffs metropolitan area list 26 unsolved homicides from 1983 through 1992. Even though the names of their loved ones have slipped from the limelight, the relatives of those victims have not forgotten.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Frank LaMere, executive director of the Nebraska Indian Inter - Tribal Development Corp., said he thinks every day about his sister Michelle LaMere. She was killed north of Omaha in 1984.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">"We still are deeply saddened, frustrated and angry that we were never able to reach resolution in that case and that we can now only rely on the Creator in the hopes that he will take care of everything," LaMere said. "We have resigned ourselves to the fact that we may never find the murderer, and you cannot know how frustrating that is to her brothers and sisters, and especially to her mother."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A murder investigation never is closed, Omaha Police Sgt. Pitmon Foxall said. There is no statute of limitations on prosecuting a homicide suspect.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">But Foxall said the chances of building a strong enough case to convict dramatically decrease when detectives are unable to identify a suspect within a day or two of the killing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Immediately after someone is reported killed, a law - enforcement agency throws all the detective power it has into the case, Foxall said. Investigators collect as much physical evidence as they can and track down and question witnesses and acquaintances of the victim.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Foxall said that, in Omaha, the initial investigation usually reveals some link between the victim and the assailant and some reason for the killing. Detectives often can follow that track to a suspect.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">When that information isn't immediately apparent, as in the Ricky Chadek and Kenyatta Bush cases, the investigators look for other witnesses. They interview and re - interview people who know or might have had any contact with the victim in an effort to find a link with the attacker.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Sometimes no one knows of such a connection. Killings by strangers, such as in a robbery, are the hardest to solve, said Lt. Ken Landwehr of the Des Moines Police Department.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">In other cases, people know but won't tell, Foxall said. That often happens with gang - related shootings........</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">..........Sometimes a lucky break makes hard work pay off.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">That's what happened in the case of Rosemary Caples, said Officer Jimmy Wilson, a veteran Omaha homicide detective. He said investigators believed Ms. Caples was dead after she disappeared Sept. 12, 1983, but searchers could not find her body.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A month after she disappeared, burglars broke into Hy - Temp Manufacturing Inc., 30th and Saratoga Streets. The Hy - Temp employee who discovered the burglary also found Ms. Caples' decomposed body in an area outside the plant where no one normally walked.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Wilson said police learned Ms. Caples' car had been used in the burglary of a Mondamin, Iowa, Western gear store. From photographs of people who had committed similar burglaries in Omaha, the owner identified the Mondamin burglar.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Wilson found the suspect in jail in Fairhope, Ala. The man confessed to killing Ms. Caples and was convicted of first - degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Detectives have made several trips to question suspects arrested in other states for crimes similar to the Chadek killing. They scan daily teletypes that announce arrests by other agencies for similarities to Ricky's death or other unsolved local homicides.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Tips Checked On occasion, people call with tips, Foxall said. Every one of those tips, however insignificant it might seem, is checked out, he said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">In Miss Bush's case, there is one person whom police have not been able to eliminate as a suspect, Thorson said. And some forensic evidence, which he declined to detail, still is being examined.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Mrs. Stennis said she believes the police are doing all they can to find her daughter's killer. But she said she suspects there are people who know more about what happened to Miss Bush than they have told police.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">"But they won't say anything," she said. "I would advise them to talk to the police. Anonymously, if they have to. Send in a tape recording. Say something. Why not try to help, if they're Kenyatta's friends like the whole community said they were?" Unsolved Homicides The victims in the 26 unsolved homicides from 1983 through 1992 in the Omaha - Council Bluffs metropolitan area:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">1983 - Karlena Tolston, 17 years old and seven months pregnant, shot twice in the head, beaten and cut. Mutilated body was found Sept. 18 behind a city Parks and Recreation Department building, 27th and Madison Streets.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Firozeh Dehghanpour, 24, an Iranian student at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, was found dead Aug. 14 under a bridge above Pigeon Creek River Road, about three miles north of Council Bluffs in Pottawattamie County. Stabbed to death. Last seen about 9:30 p.m. the day before, when she left UNO's Eppley Administration Building.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">1984 - Frank Cannon, 54, an unemployed truck driver from Council Bluffs, shot to death Sept. 27. Body was found in his car on a county gravel road two miles north of Council Bluffs near the Lewis and Clark monument. Last seen about 9:15 a.m. Sept. 27 at a restaurant at the Interstate 80 - 29 and South 24th Street intersection.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Michelle LaMere, 21, of Omaha, run over by a car on secluded Shongaska Road in Ponca Hills area north of Omaha. Douglas County sheriff's investigators said evidence indicated the driver hit her on purpose. Body was found the morning of July 9. Last seen just before midnight July 8 at 22nd and Leavenworth Streets. 1986 - Ricky Chadek, 11, disappeared March 23, 1986. Last seen riding his bicycle into a bank parking lot at 42nd and Valley Streets near his home. Body was found eight days later near 168th and Ida Streets. He had been strangled.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Stephanie R. Caldwell, 24, a go - go dancer from Omaha, was stabbed to death. Body was found June 2 in Elkhorn River about one - half mile south of the Q Street bridge. Last seen about 2 a.m. May 27 near 24th and Farnam Streets.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">1987 - Kathryn Huber, 17, of Bellevue disappeared Nov. 28. Body was found Dec. 4 along U.S. 75 north of Omaha. She had been strangled. Last seen about 6:30 p.m. Nov. 28 when she left her apartment, 3819 S. 25th St.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Hulen Brown Jr., 32, was found shot to death Nov. 26 near 23rd and Grace Streets. An unemployed Omaha man, he was shot in the head at close range.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">1988 - William Baker, 45, was killed Dec. 21 <b>Winter Solstice</b> in an office behind his restaurant, the Dining Car, 1017 S. 10th St. He was shot several times.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Frank Jasper, 19, of Kansas City, Mo., was shot about 12:10 a.m. Sept. 8 during a fight between three Kansas City men and two Omahans in a parking lot at 2215 Seward Plaza.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Irvin C. Settje, 35, was shot to death April 22 during a robbery of the Ginn service station, 4709 Hamilton St. Settje was an attendant at the station.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">1989 - Chantelle Cotton, 18, was shot to death Sept. 21 <b>Autumnal Equinox</b> near 22nd and Charles Streets in the Logan Fontenelle low - income housing development. Although not a gang member, she was shot while a bystander during a gang - related shooting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Harold Prather, 54, a homeless man living in Omaha, was found dead June 24 near railroad tracks around 14th and Nicholas Streets. He died of head injuries.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">1990 - Willie Bemore, 59, a city Public Works Department employee, was found dead Dec. 13 in the basement of his home, 3521 Maple St. He had suffered multiple stab wounds. Several things were taken from the home, leading police to theorize that the killing occurred during a burglary.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">George Gass, 48, an Omaha Public Power District Supervisor, disappeared Sept. 7 after leaving his home in LaVista to buy cigarettes. His skeletal remains were found Nov. 11 in a field southwest of Crescent, Iowa. The cause of death was not determined.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Brian Gordon, 23, was shot to death in his home, 3720 N. 42nd St. Body was found there early Dec. 14.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Mitchell Simon, 41, was found stabbed to death March 31 in the Ohio Fish Market, 2604 N. 16th St., where he worked. Last seen alive the previous night by co - workers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">1991 - Marcia Crouse, 28, a housekeeper at the Western Inn Motor Lodge in Council Bluffs, was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death in her apartment, 1108 Marshall Ave. in the Bluffs. She was found dead Sept. 20 <b>Autumnal Equinox</b>. Miss Crouse, who was hearing - impaired, had last been seen three days before.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Forrest Hillary, a 40 - year - old homeless man, was found dead about 5 a.m. May 22 in an alley near 17th and Jackson Streets. He was stabbed in the neck. Police suspected the stabbing occurred during a fight near 19th and Jackson Streets.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Donna Reed, 36, of Omaha was found Aug. 26 in a vacant lot at 16th and Ohio Streets. Last seen about 10 p.m. Aug. 23 near 19th and Corby Streets. Cause of death not determined. Prosecutors charged a habitual sex offender, who is in prison for a separate sexual assault, with killing Ms. Reed, but dropped the charge after a judge ruled they lacked proof.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Ismil Thomas, 16, died in January 1992 from wounds he suffered when he was shot Oct. 27, 1990, while leaving a party near 23rd and Saratoga Streets. Police have said Thomas was with members of the Bloods street gang, and several Crips gang members were there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">James "Sonny" Thomas, 38, an employee of Ticket Services, was shot Nov. 29, 1991, as he answered a knock on his apartment door at 1607 Burdette St.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">1992 - Lolita Braxton, 32, was found dead about June 12 at Whiskey Pete's Bait, Gun & Tackle, 202 Browne St. on the north edge of Levi Carter Park. Police have refused to say how she was killed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Kenyatta Bush, 17, disappeared Sept. 23 <b>Autumnal Equinox</b> from North High School. Body was found 10 days later in rural Washington County. Her throat had been cut. Last seen at 8:36 a.m. Sept. 23 in a hallway at North.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Mary Cronin, 27, a college student and waitress from Ralston, disappeared April 12. Her skull and other bones were found in early May 1993 in wooded area of northwest Cass County. Last seen in the parking lot of Cappy's Food & Spirits, 5059 S. 108th St.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Robert L. Flakes, 54, owner of F&J Auto at 24th Street and Camden Avenue, was found dead about 1:20 a.m. March 17 in a van outside a house he owned, 2432 Larimore Ave. He had been shot.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Another unsolved homicide stems from 1993: Charlene "Sha - Sha" Quinzi, 37, died April 12 in her upstairs apartment, 2100 Poppleton Ave. Police and fire investigators have said an arsonist started the blaze on the first floor of the house.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large; text-align: left;">Just for fun, this local VIP died a "natural" death inside a basement which only locked from the outside in a room rented to someone who none of the buildings' owners can recall on the Winter Solstice of 1999. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"> <span class="pubName" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: bold;">Omaha World-Herald (NE)</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">- Tuesday, February 1, 2000</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><span class="tagName" style="font-weight: bold;">Author: </span>JOHN W. ALLMAN, WORLD - HERALD STAFF WRITER</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">For more than 23 years, the room has been there, in the basement of a business, kept tightly shut with a combination lock.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A small room, with no running water, tucked down the hallway from the furnace at 6324 Maple St.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">For more than 23 years, the room has been rented - supposedly for storage. No one - not the building's owners, past or present, or tenants, current and former - says they have ever seen anyone enter or leave.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">No one questions the room's use. It stays locked. The rent checks still arrive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Even now, a month after a man's body was discovered inside.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The discovery came Dec. 21, nearly 28 hours after William <b>Kranda</b> , an adviser to two Omaha mayors and a one - time mayoral candidate, left his house to go Christmas shopping.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Kranda</b> , 60, was Douglas County's chief deputy treasurer when he died.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">His body was found inside the room - which is accessible only through locked entrances at the alley door and the three upstairs suites.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Even now, a month later, no one seems fazed - not by the discovery or the questions that remain unanswered. Those questions involve <b>Kranda</b> 's death, whether anyone was with him when he died and the room where he was found.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">With no sign of foul play, Police Chief Don Carey declared the police investigation closed a day after <b>Kranda</b> was found. Carey called the death "just like any other case" and directed his department not to comment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Preliminary autopsy results showed that <b>Kranda</b> died of natural causes. He had a history of heart problems, but no one has said conclusively that he died from a heart attack.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">County officials mourned the loss of their colleague but have said little else. His family will not talk.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">There is much that has not been said. Investigators will not say why <b>Kranda</b> was at 6324 Maple St. or whether they believe he was alone at the time he died. They will not say how long <b>Kranda</b> might have lived after he was stricken. They will not say who alerted them to the location of his body.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">If someone was with <b>Kranda</b> and did nothing to help him when he fell ill and did not call for help, that lack of action does not constitute a crime as defined by state law, according to the Douglas County Attorney's Office. Nebraska's law does not address the failure to aid a person who is dying. The law also does not address the failure to report a person's death.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Dr. Paul Shyken, who owns the building, said he has yet to talk to the man who rents the room for $50 a month. He said he does not know how <b>Kranda</b> got inside, but he believes someone must have let him in. He said he is not looking into the death further.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">"If there had been foul play ...," Shyken said. "I'd certainly be more concerned if something had happened."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Shyken refused to name the man who rents the room.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">"When I bought the building, that space was leased," Shyken said. "It's been leased ever since."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Shyken, an Omaha dentist, said that he has never met <b>Kranda</b> and that <b>Kranda</b> never leased space in the building. Shyken said the room has changed hands once, around 1988, when a different man began paying rent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Shyken said that he has been inside the room only once. At the time, he saw furniture, an old refrigerator and file cabinets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">"I don't even have a key to the storage room," Shyken said. "It doesn't have any value except for storage."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">From the outside, Shyken's building is as unassuming as most of the offices and homes that line Maple Street's business district.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">There is a church - Benson Baptist - across the street. To the west, an office building shares space with apartments.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Built in the 1960s, the building has been home to at least 11 tenants ranging from dental clinics and insurance companies to a photography studio and a beauty school.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Currently, two of the three available office suites are leased. One is occupied by an insurance agent, the other by a construction business.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Shyken said, in light of the discovery, he has asked employees of the insurance agency to make sure the alley door stays locked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Kranda</b> 's car, a white 1993 Buick Park Avenue with the license plate Nebraska 1 - K1, was found parked in the alley outside the basement entrance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The alley behind the building is not foreign to traffic, but few recall seeing vehicles park directly behind Shyken's property.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">A former tenant, Scott Stormberg, remembers seeing cars parked behind the building.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">"The room was always locked. I never saw inside the room," said Stormberg, a dentist who leased space from Shyken for a clinic from 1984 to 1998. "I don't think whoever used that was there that often. Every few weeks, we'd see cars back there."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Little information has been released about the case. This is what is known:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Kranda</b> told his wife, Sandra, that he was going out to buy Christmas presents for their grandchildren.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">He left his house at 2422 S. 105th Avenue about 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 20, and was believed to be headed toward the Westroads Shopping Center at 102nd Street and West Dodge Road.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The morning of Dec. 21, Sandra <b>Kranda</b> reported her husband missing to police. On the missing person's report, she declined the option of having his absence publicized, but police - citing his heart condition - issued a press release. By 5 p.m., <b>Kranda</b> 's face was in the newspaper and on TV.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Darien Morrison had no idea at the time that police were looking for a car that he had followed into the Benson business district a couple of days before.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Morrison, funeral director at Kremer Funeral Home, which is just east of Shyken's building, said he remembered the car when he read news accounts that <b>Kranda</b> was missing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">"I just remember seeing his plates," Morrison said of the distinctive 1 - K1 plate. "I knew it wasn't the first time he'd been in the area."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">At 9:50 p.m., on Dec. 21, Douglas County 911 emergency dispatchers received a call.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">It was placed from a convenience store at 64th and Maple Streets. A man says that he has found <b>Kranda</b> and that he believes <b>Kranda</b> is dead. The man says that police should meet him at the convenience store.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">"I'm not sure of the address," the man says. "I can take them there."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The building has been in Benson for nearly 40 years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Jack D. Webster, bought the land on July 26, 1961, and built it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Webster died several years ago. His widow, Joan, said she does not remember her late husband mentioning someone using the basement.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">On June 28, 1976, Milton Parker bought the property from the Web Co. Inc., according to county records.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Parker wanted to use the building to house a heating and cooling business.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">"The real estate guy that we bought it from told us there was a tenant downstairs who used one space for storage," Parker said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">He never met the man leasing the space or ventured into the locked room. Every few months, a check would arrive for the next two to three months' rent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">Two years later, Parker sold the building to Shyken. He told Shyken about the basement room.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">"I told him there was a guy renting the space there, that he never gave us any trouble, and he used it for storage," Parker said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">The man paid Parker by check, but after so many years, Parker said he can no longer remember the man's name.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: large;">"Nobody seemed to know much about him or anything," he said. "I was kind of curious just what was stored there.</span></div>
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</div><div align="center"><a href="http://gonzosrevenge.blogspot.com/2012/01/fear-and-loathing-on-campaign-trail_10.html">Continued From 1/9</a></div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div align="center"><br />
</div><div align="left"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaUwm-4pD3vlgyf2cs1QgC7ATnTTkJILN0BphyphenhyphenZKtkpjyKWciA8ybTKiacwyUCI7NGZQbLg1tfg0pIKtVIrQIF6qregS2Vz0pTU_4C2wsv0kp5AIBXU7KHGk0NCex-qWZYYq_h5Y_2uMHz/s1600/imagesCAISVP61.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nfa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaUwm-4pD3vlgyf2cs1QgC7ATnTTkJILN0BphyphenhyphenZKtkpjyKWciA8ybTKiacwyUCI7NGZQbLg1tfg0pIKtVIrQIF6qregS2Vz0pTU_4C2wsv0kp5AIBXU7KHGk0NCex-qWZYYq_h5Y_2uMHz/s1600/imagesCAISVP61.jpg" /></a></div> <br />
Doctor Hunter S Thompson wrote a little narrative entitled "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72" back in, naturally, 1972. It was written as a series of Rolling Stone articles about the 1972 Presidential campaign and was later assembled as a book. An outstanding piece of work, this book captured the campaign from the very center of the vortex, and relayed it in an abstract fashion which was equally a fascinating view of the machinations of a Presidential campaign and a snapshot of a time and place from which we are now very far removed (?).</div><div align="left"> The 1972 campaign was a dark and fascinating event which pitted a strong grassroots underdog first against his own party establishment and then against the oppressive weight of the Nixon administration. Nixon was a ravaging monster, whose narcissistic tendencies alone would cause him to destroy anything standing between himself and re-election. At one point in the narrative, Dr. Thompson uncovers startling evidence that Nixon cut a deal with Democrat power brokers to sell his own party down the river in order to secure the '72 election. In essence, Nixon agreed to set the stage for Ted Kennedy to capture the Presidency in '76 (and hold it for the next eight years), if the Democrat power brokers would ensure McGovern take a fall in '72. The Democrats were all for it. McGovern was a man willing to expose the rats in his own party and completely reshape the Democratic Party during his Presidency. This obviously frightened the corrupt hacks usually clustered around the center of any political operation. Apparently, four more years of Nixon was preferable to an honest man at the helm.</div><div align="left"> Anyways, this left Dr. Thompson quite stunned. In an attempt to understand why, the Doctor decided to employ a very unique method:</div><div align="left"><br />
</div><div align="left"> </div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div align="left"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div align="left"> "The game had already started, but there was no score. I dumped my ale bottles in the Styrofoam cooler, then opened one and sat down to watch the action and brood on Nixon's treachery. But first I concentrated on the game for a while. It is hard to understand how somebody else thinks unless you can get on their wavelength, get in tune with their pattern, their pace, their connections......and since Nixon is a known football addict, I decided to get my head totally in the rhythm of this exhibition game between the Rams and Kansas City before attempting to jump into politics.</div><div align="left"> "Very few people understand this kind of logic. I learned it from a Brazilian scientist back in the Matto Grosso back in 1963. He called it "Rhythm Logic," in English, because he said I would never be able to pronounce it in the original Jibaro. I tried it once or twice, but the Jibaro language was too much for me - and it didn't make much difference anyway. I seemed to have an instinct for Rhythm Logic, because I picked it up very quickly. But I have never been able to explain, except in terms of music, and typewriters are totally useless when it comes to that kind of translation.</div><div align="left"> "In any case, by the end of the first quarter I felt ready. By means of intense concentration on every detail of the football game, I was able to "derail" my own inner brain waves and re-pattern them temporarily to the inner brain wave rhythms of a serious football fanatic. The next step, then, was to bring my "borrowed" brain waves into focus on a subject quite different from football - such as presidential politics.</div></blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><div align="left"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5pet3L3RgWSDjSyicE4ju2hxAZKjuqIwNQLFm5EWEO4LMiYJMrbx8dgj7c4fZWGA8zKX0D9lfabp2GabraVvzqKX_nSf9TxHXtA9sJQNFkE1rVgzh8EUwe6xT-Uo3ekw7bkwb8sCcHzWv/s1600/imagesCAYOLGB7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nfa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5pet3L3RgWSDjSyicE4ju2hxAZKjuqIwNQLFm5EWEO4LMiYJMrbx8dgj7c4fZWGA8zKX0D9lfabp2GabraVvzqKX_nSf9TxHXtA9sJQNFkE1rVgzh8EUwe6xT-Uo3ekw7bkwb8sCcHzWv/s1600/imagesCAYOLGB7.jpg" /></a></div></div></blockquote><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><div align="left"> "In the third and final step, I merely concentrated on a preselected problem involving presidential politics, and attempted to solve it subjectively . . . although the word "subjectively," at this point, had a very different true meaning. Because I was no longer reasoning in the rhythms of my own inner brain waves, but in the rhythms of a football addict.</div><div align="left"> "At this point, it became invariably clear to me that Richard Nixon had in fact sold the Republican Party down the tube in Miami." - Hunter S. Thompson 1972</div></blockquote></blockquote></div></blockquote><br />
To be sure, Doctor Thompson's insight is greatly missed right now. He would be more afraid and disgusted than ever, but, political junkie that he was, would have been sucked right into the "vortex" of the 2012 campaign. In my amateur attempt to chronicle this event, I have found myself keeping Thompson's book handy at all times. It is a wonderful source of insight and inspiration, a historical record of a similar event, and a how-to guide for finding the real story at the heart of such a monstrous spectacle. A question has weighed heavily on my own mind of late, and after re-reading the little gem posted above, I decided to take the Doctor's advice.<br />
My question is simple. Why would American voters fall for Mitt Romney? This soon after the Bush Era, and even sooner after the Bush-inspired Tea Party "uprising," I would think Republicans would be more than willing to stay away from a vanilla Big Money puppet type who is the offspring of another Yankee Big Money puppet politician. This is a complete recipe for disaster in the general election.<br />
I wasn't sure what I could do to get in the head of the voting public. A football game wasn't going to cut it. I needed to get right to the cerebrum of the average New Hampshire working stiff. As I was contemplating the matter, a slightly malevolent sigh from my dog Sally reminded me of the fact that she was down to three or four kibbles and maybe two bits. Knowing that it would be irresponsible of me to leave a hungry Rottweiler home with a couple of well fed toddlers the next day, I realized I was going to have to venture out into the bone chilling January darkness and purchase some dog food.<br />
And then it hit me like a lightning bolt. Wal Mart! What better way to find the common wavelength of the American voter than a late night trip down the aisles of Sam Walton's wonder of the modern world? It crossed my mind almost instantly that the answer to Obama would be found there, but the Romney blunder was going to take some serious Rhythm Logic. Focusing my mind on the task, I retrieved a small shopping list from my wife, threw on my winter coat, and prepared myself for the numbing first five minutes spent in a subarctic front seat waiting for the thermostat to open and bring relief from the unbearable chill.<br />
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This was one of those nights which cause a person to seriously question the sanity of living in the upper Great Plains. A biting north wind was gusting at up to 50 miles per hour, scooting tiny particles of dry snow sideways across the icy blacktop in intermittent bursts. As I pulled into the Walmart parking lot, I was suddenly aware of the heavy handed presence of the Man. Three Omaha police cruisers and two Nebraska State Patrol vehicles were briskly wrapping up some business in the abnormally empty parking lot. I don't know exactly what happened, but I was in quite a hurry to get inside, and they were in quite a hurry to get to the warmth of the Quick Trip coffee machine around the corner, so we crossed paths without even a glance.<br />
Now, Walmart in the middle of the night, even on a bitterly cold night when only those who REALLY need something, are that bored, or are hopelessly intoxicated venture in, is a bustling place with a rhythm all it's own. There are usually only one or two registers open, and they generally<br />
possess an anxious line of people, six carts deep, wistfully looking back and forth between the multitude of late night Walmart employees on break and the long dim row of closed cash registers. Before I even passed the restrooms (closed for cleaning - please use the facilities at the back of the store), I was fully conscious of how and why Barack Obama had been elected.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Barack Obama, future U.S. President</td></tr>
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</div> Among the first images transmitted to my brain upon entering the store and gravitating quickly towards the warm interior was a display of low cost beauty products. In between lowbrow romance flicks on Blu Ray, huge tubs of cheese balls, and stacks of Chinese junk, these beauty products were packaged with the inference that you could become a supermodel or an anchorman for just $9.99. Moving past the registers, which only three years ago were plastered with images of Barack Obama and his charming wife Michelle*, I worked my way past shelf upon shelf of energy boosters, vitamins, and weight loss supplements, past the Valentine's Day display (I'm not sure, but I think I saw Easter Baskets and marshmallow eggs around the corner), and right into the aisles of Christmas discount merchandise.<br />
Selling Barack Obama to the average American was not difficult. Easily starstruck, a good media campaign and a few vague promises of "hope and change" were enough to send the mainstream public into an orgiastic voting frenzy. Too many people expect something for nothing (demand it, in fact), consider photogenic quality and arrogant mouthiness the necessary traits of leadership, and, trusting suggestive propaganda, are easily herded in whatever direction the handful of corporations which owns every U.S. media outlet decides to send them.<br />
As I found this train of reasoning interrupted by the outrageous price of dog food (pre tax), I decided that I was being a little unfair. There were other reasons for the Great Obama Wave of '08. Eight years of Bush was probably the most notable. Bush had always had a knack for inflaming the passions of nearly half of America's eligible voters. Unfortunately for him, this was the half that hated him. His supporters really never had much of a choice, and only supported him because he was not a Democrat. Like Mitt Romney today, you would be hard pressed to find an actual Bush crusader anywhere, only a bunch of "better than" apologists.<br />
I was too young to remember Nixon, so I can honestly say that no political figure in my lifetime has stirred up such intense hatred from the opposition as George W. Bush. Not Clinton, not Reagan, maybe Obama...........but GW really takes the cake. At first it seemed merely partisan. Any Republican could expect to be slighted by NPR, attacked by Saturday Night Live, and heckled by MSNBC. Comedy Central sitcoms were something quite new however, and a good indicator that Bush was not in for an easy ride. While September 11th slowed his critics and boosted his ratings temporarily, this boost was extremely short and quickly began to backlash. Conservatives and Liberals alike began to question the heavy handed government response to 9/11 (after they voted FOR all these measures, of course), and the invasion of Iraq brought a massive series of nationwide protests and attacks on Bush were renewed more vigorously than ever.<br />
After he somehow defeated fellow Skull and Bonesman John Kerry to gain re-election, his Presidency completely degenerated to the level of an old fashioned robber baron. Like a Mafia protection outfit or a Mitt Romney investment group, he began the wholesale and unabashedly visible liquidation of everything that generations of Americans had worked so hard to build. Our country was flooded with illegal immigrants, our money was being sucked off to Saudi Arabia, China, and the foreign bank accounts of a large junta of thieves, swindlers, and other traitorous swine, and we were dumping trillions of dollars into questionable military adventures with no credible raison d'etre. A large housing crisis was looming on the horizon, we were not even attempting to access the nearly 90% of our natural resources which sit in the ground untouched, the Constitution was being ripped to pieces, and our government was running up a credit card bill so high that it can't be displayed on a standard calculator!<br />
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</div> The final and possibly most devastating straw came on a cold dark evening near the very end of the Bush era. A cast of characters which play enemies on TV and rarely seem to be able to accomplish anything together and in a hurry accomplished something in complete unity and in a very big hurry. Barack Obama and John McCain dropped everything they were doing (badmouthing each other to get your vote) and rushed to Washington. There they were joined by Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, G.W. Bush, and a rogues gallery of other American traitors to give a very large sum of your money to their masters. This is how the Bush era ended. Bigger government than Stalin could have ever dreamed of, higher debt than any nation had ever run up, a complete transformation of American law, and the ever more apparent question of which party was which. By that point, even the most feeble minded Republican was beginning to seriously question what the Hell was going on and how the Hell were we going to fix it. Unfortunately, the best answer they could come up with was John McCain.<br />
Obviously the Democrats were able to step right in and take advantage of the situation. All it took was a man with a celebrity aura and a few vague promises and America ate it up. It's amazing what a little fear and loathing can do to a person's outlook. Many assumed, wrongly, that "hope" and "change" meant something a bit more technical. They thought that this would mean an end to the "blood for oil", a restoration of our civil liberties, and a more restrained fiscal policy that would stave off the coming Depression. Democrats have a historically poor track record on these issues, but Americans have a historically short memory, so Obama had no problem finding support and praise for his imaginary agenda. He was elected by an overwhelming landslide, yet Americans knew nothing about him! We knew he used to smoke crack, but we knew nothing about his education because all the records were sealed. We knew he liked to run around with some very shady characters (and more than a few intelligence hacks), but we didn't even have proof that he was a U.S. citizen. This man is the most shadowy, artificial figure in U.S. history, yet he was unquestioningly and overwhelmingly accepted as the President of a very troubled and dysfunctional nation. Given the normal shadowy and artificial nature of corrupt politicians, this most extreme case was a blatant recipe for disaster.<br />
Milling over the fact that not all Americans were shallow and starstruck, but rather just a little too trusting of snake oil salesmen, I realized I had stalled out in the Sporting Goods department, where my cart had taken me while I was lost in thought. "This will never do," I thought. In order to really find the answer to my question, I had to follow the Doctor's prescription for Rhythm Logic to the letter. Idly contemplating the Obama phenomenon would not cut it. I had to get into some serious Walmart shopping and really feel the pain and pleasure of the American consumer! As I was a little too nervous to see what fishing line and hooks were going to run me this year, I decided to head on over to the grocery section and put a dent in my wife's list. It was going to take the entire list before I was completely in tune with the Walmart rhythm, and I could not afford to waste any more telekinetic energy on the likes of Barack Obama.<br />
Ignoring the malevolent stare from an obviously disgruntled night stocker, I worked my way around a stack of boxes laying on their side and headed down the less stifling main aisle past the electronics and shoes until I found myself surrounded by upright freezers and several more disgruntled (and cold) night stockers. Painfully checking prices and filling my cart, I became intently focused on the business of shopping. There is a certain protocol that must be followed when shopping Walmart in the witching hours. Surly stockers, random pallets, intoxicated shoppers, and miscellaneous boxes must be navigated with great care, and proper right of way procedures must be followed. "Don't give ground to these swine!", the Doctor might have said, although sometimes you must be a bit diplomatic or you will find yourself walking deep into the middle of aisles without your cart in order to retrieve essentials.<br />
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Entering the meat aisle, I was sure of one thing. The overwhelming security apparatus, the cops out front, the extremely high price of macaroni and cheese, and the idea of being in the belly of what many see as a predatory monopoly and agent of the Red Chinese made me wonder why anybody wouldn't strongly consider Ron Paul. But that's not why I was here. I still couldn't unlock the riddle of Mitt. In a country where few know or care about our nation's history, and spend no time contemplating what it means, there is little reflective political thought running through the general population. Politics for many is an obstacle to be listlessly endured between weather and sports. Rules of self-governance and personal liberty are naively assumed to be safeguarded merely by their own existence.<br />
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</div> Those who do care about politics either are simple Bush or Obama rejectionists who put little thought into the matter beyond their menial dislikes, or are of the more knowledgeable and philosophical class which generally makes up the core of the two modern political parties. These people often surround themselves with politics, which causes them to be unfortunately bombarded with propaganda. The idea of the propagandists is to quickly herd these people into a box with the bait being intelligent and sometimes reasonable political views. Once in the box, the walls are closed with inferences which do not necessarily reflect reality. Those that become slowly trapped in these boxes (which seem very real and righteous) are also taught to immediately attack, hate, and, most importantly, fear any viewpoint which disrupts the reality of the walls of the box. This creates a society in which little good is accomplished because the people in the boxes possess strong fear and loathing for anything foreign to their box.<br />
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We all know politicians are crooks. You would be hard pressed to find anyone willing to seriously argue this point. However, we do not acknowledge this in the light of day. These opinions are welcomed from late night comedians or truck stop bumper stickers, but we find ourselves passionately attaching ourselves to these crooks and not only defending them but extolling their virtues! We have followed this insanity to such a distance that we find ourselves in a world where we feel as if we've won or lost merely by whether our champion has an "R" or a "D" in front of their name. It doesn't matter what they do, only what they say and how much the other side hates them. In this brave new century, however, two things have occurred which have begun to open the eyes of the masses. George W. Bush and Barack Hussein Obama. The end of the Bush Era ushered in a massive uprising in the Republican Party. The Tea Party flared up, demanding the Republican establishment represent the common man and the ideals of the Revolution. It seemed that enough people had seen through Bush and finally were demanding real change. So why would throngs of people show up on Election Day to cast ballots for Mitt? (Personally, I wrongly assumed that the familiarity of the people of New Hampshire with Mitt Romney would have worked against him!)<br />
Still standing in the meat aisle, no closer to enlightenment than I had been by the dog food, I noticed a man strolling by with a brand new Sony flat screen in his cart. I looked around and saw three kids scurrying towards the register with a 12 pack, trying to avoid the 1 AM liquor cut off. Then I noticed the young couple next to me, sleeping baby bundled up in the car seat, checking over their shopping list and comparing prices of various cuts of chicken. They were obviously in need of every penny they had, and then some, but they were still performing the necessary business of shopping with the cheerful enthusiasm that humans display. These people probably spent a lot of time thinking about inflation (whether they identified it as such or not), but most likely didn't give a rat's ass about the Republican primary. There was little money in the bank accounts of these people I was seeing on this bitter night at Walmart, and the future looked very dim indeed, but these people, like me, were going about their business, somehow surviving, and still enjoying life.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Young Willard Mitt Romney, safely in France, protesting in favor of the Vietnam War draft</td></tr>
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</div> And then it became clear. People don't know that the modern United States of America is but a house of cards waiting to fall, and refuse to admit to themselves that there may be a problem. They know times are hard, but they will not allow themselves to conceive of a future in which the prosperity of old is not restored. They don't really understand why things are so bad, they don't really understand how to change it, and they continue to hold to tradition and blind optimism. Hopefully this works, and they are right, but this idea is restraining many Americans from seeing clearly the path towards reformation and recovery. It is preventing them from taking the necessary steps of preserving the American Dream.<br />
And so I understood at last how a desperate Republican electorate, turned off and fired up by eight years of Bush and steaming mad from three years of Obama, could repeat their mistakes of the past and elect a candidate exactly the same as the one who had caused much of their troubles in the first place. They don't want to admit to themselves that we are in such desperate shape, but remain in the comfortable mental state where an "R" can save us from the "D"'s and bring back the prosperity of days past. They are easily attracted to a slick political stereotype, as he is in their comfort zone and is acknowledged in mainstream soundbites as a clear front runner. The shallow mantra of "anybody but Obama" is easily converted into votes for the guy with the mainstream endorsements and the money to run a big campaign. The problem is, the Republican Party was too tainted by Bush in the eyes of mainstream America for a guy like Romney to come along and unseat the Obama/Clinton machine.<br />
Walking out of the store contemplating the $150 bill for what would have been $60 worth of groceries when G.W. Bush first took office, I hoped I was wrong. I hoped that New Hampshire was an anomaly and that the rest of America would still wake up and resist what seems to be our fate. On the way out the door I passed a trio of college kids huddled around the Red Box holding an animated discussion about whether to rent "Cowboys and Aliens" or "Apollo 18." With a sigh, I zipped up my coat and trudged dejectedly back out to the frozen tundra and a cold ride home.<br />
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As the Ron Paul supporters made a proud but dejected retreat from the state of New Hampshire, votes for Mitt Romney were still piling in. Second place was good for the campaign and a sign of hope that the followers of other candidates were not blessed with that night, but the overwhelming majority of votes for Romney was downright depressing. As many of the Ron Paul supporters who had been campaigning furiously in New Hampshire probably felt a kinship with Paul Revere, furiously galloping through the old colony bearing the message of freedom and a call to arms to the inhabitants of the "Live Free or Die" state, a loss of this magnitude felt like a desperate failure. Many of the Ron Paul voters probably imagined themselves as fed up colonists, firing a musket ball at the King's armies while hiding in bushes and wearing tri-corner hats.<br />
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</div> There was a dark point in the middle of our great Revolution at which everything seemed hopeless. Many parts of the Northern colonies were under British control, only a small percentage of the colonists were actively supporting the Rebels while an equal percentage at least - especially those with money and influence - were in open support of the Crown. The Colonial Army was tattered, worn out, undersupplied, outmanned, and in a terribly poor state of health and morale. The ragtag government in Virginia was of little assistance, overseas negotiations with France were going nowhere, and the support and faith of the sympathetic colonists was quickly decreasing. It's never good to be on the side of the loser, particuliarly when the winner is going to be in a foul mood afterwards.<br />
While the Revolution in the North was hanging on solely by the iron will of George Washington, the military genius of his officers, and the stubborn guerilla resistance of the working class inhabitants of the New World, the fate of everything rested on a small band of Patriots lurking in the swamps of South Carolina. If the aggressive British campaign in the South was successful, the North would be completely cut off militarily and economically, and would have little chance of surviving. It was on this stage that the dramatic tide which eventually swept back North and gave birth to the greatest nation ever created was begun.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox" of South Carolina</td></tr>
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</div> Francis Marion, a Southern planter known as the "Swamp Fox" led a group of courageous patriots in a David vs. Goliath scenario against the large and expensive British campaign to recapture the Southern colonies. Operating from a secret island deep in the swamps, these brave patriots waged such a successful guerilla campaign that the British were eventually thoroughly routed from the Deep South. By this time, Washington had regrouped, Congress and Benjamin Franklin had recruited the French navy, and the British had been drastically wounded by their unsuccessful South Carolina experience. We today have these South Carolina freedom fighters to thank for standing up and defending freedom at a point when everything hung in the balance.<br />
On the reluctant march out of New Hampshire, the Ron Paul supporters could probably hear the faint clacking of spectral Redcoat boots marching on cobblestones and, off in the distance, see the Union Jack being raised over the Manchester Courthouse. A lost battle to be sure, but hope for a sustained campaign was suddenly renewed. Lifting their heads high, they headed off towards South Carolina, fabled birthing ground of Party Nominees and home of the saviors of our Revolution, with the bright flame of liberty burning in their eyes and a renewed appetite for battle with the oppressive agents of the Crown.<br />
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To Be Continued............... <strong>Wrapping Up New Hampshire, Huntsman Bites It, Gingrich Declares "Armageddon" </strong><br />
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*From celebrity magazines to "news" journals, Good Housekeeping to the National Enquirer, images and headlines proclaiming the Messiah, his implied promises, and his Nobel Peace Prize, were omnipresent and extremely dishonest. You can fool all of the people most of the time - or however that saying goes - but you can't hold their attention for very long. Barack Obama has since dropped from the foreground, and Angelina Jolie has returned to her rightful place in the direct line of sight of Walmart shoppers. <br />
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</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div>Gonzo's Revengehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10029199887202069927noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2594416584048026164.post-4651243381073274772012-01-10T06:01:00.005-06:002012-01-20T04:08:59.305-06:00Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 2012 1/9/12<div align="center"><br />
</div><div align="center"><a href="http://gonzosrevenge.blogspot.com/2012/01/fear-and-loathing-on-campaign-trail.html">Continued From January 4</a></div><div align="center"><br />
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</div><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Hawkeye Wrap Up........Huntsman Sets his Trap.........Paul Fires First........Saturday Night Live........Mitt's Bane</span></strong></div><div align="center"><br />
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As the Iowa Caucus results were just being delivered with the Wednesday morning newspaper, the entire media circus had already packed up and left, mostly for New Hampshire, leaving the suddenly quiet and slightly bewildered state of Iowa behind. They seem to have left several key elements of the story behind as well. We know that Mitt Romney officially won, although it is alleged that he didn't. As Rick Santorum refuses to contest the official vote tally, Romney's eight vote escape will officially enter the books for posterity. With rumours swirling through the now empty January cornfields of lights going out during the counts, late arriving armies of unregistered voters, and a little hanky panky at the last minute to give Romney the official victory, it is hardly surprising that Santorum would prefer to leave well enough alone and get to the warm sunny cotton fields where his new found popularity and familiar message might appeal to his Baptist cousins.<br />
So, what's the score? Who really won? What does it all mean? The answers to these questions may be a bit surprising. They will also be a little disconcerting to some, and probably met with smug relief by more than a few others. There are apparently somewhere around 2,250,423 eligible voters in the state of Iowa. This Republican Presidential cycle has undoubtedly been the most hyped, most analyzed, and most expensive pre-caucus campaign by <strong>either </strong>party in the history of U.S. Party politics. Throngs of sleazy journalists and their even more loathsome subject matter - politicians - have been canvassing the state of Iowa since about the time the Missouri River topped it's banks last Spring. If you lived in Iowa you had to chase Ron Paul supporters off your property with a shotgun before disposing of the wire signs left behind in your grass. If you tried to catch an Iowa State football game at the local tavern, you ran the risk of Rick Santorum tugging at your shoulder and extolling the virtues of a Federal Masturbation Ban during a crucial fourth quarter drive. You couldn't turn on a radio or television without hearing Rick Perry's "Washington Outsider" speech, or drive down the street without running over a CNN power cable. Again, this was supposed to be a BIG DEAL - "the eyes of America and the World are on the humble state of Iowa this evening...." and so on and so forth.<br />
Of the 2,250,423 eligible voters in the state of Iowa, 147,255, or <strong>6.54% </strong>actually showed up to vote, and 25,000 or 17% of them voted for Barack Obama! (Approximately 1.5% of <strong>them</strong> or around 375 voted "other Democrat"). This low turnout produced essentially a 3-way Republican split, and some uncertainty over who will get Iowa's delegates when it's all said and done. While Romney has the brutally efficient combination of establishment money, the best campaign managers establishment money can buy (not already on Clinton retainer), and the full technical support of the Republican Party, his campaign's oversight and haughtiness may have just cost him a bit when the Iowa votes are finalized much later his year. By that time it may not matter.<br />
Santorum may have also been caught napping at the end of the day in Iowa. He seems to be the type not to overlook technical details, but the sudden surge in his support probably caught him as unawares as the rest of us. Ron Paul, on the other hand, possesses some very savvy campaign strategists, hordes of volunteers who would lay down their lives for him, and the experience you would expect from a 76 year old Texas politician. His campaign appears to have ensured that a well instructed delegate was left at every caucus site be named as a delegate to the County Conventions in March, which will elect delegates for the Congressional District Conventions in April which will prep candidates for the Iowa Republican Convention in June. Quite a long procedure considering Iowa's 28 (3 of those are unpledged Party officials) delegates don't really go very far, particularly when split up among six candidates.<br />
The most realistic prediction is this: by the time of the Congressional District Convention, Santorum, Gingrich, and Perry are gone. As it stands now, they hold 6, 4, and 3 respectively. Romney and Paul probably hold six of each as well, and these other 13 could go either way. Most likely they will side with the winner, but they could be Ron Paul supporters in disguise, and will cast for him either way. What this says is that wins in Iowa (and New Hampshire) are really only meaningful as they pertain to recognition and fundraising. The unpredictable winner-take-all-state of South Carolina, and the crown jewel of January -Florida (full of retirees who would feel very comfortable with a suspected Socialist like Mitt Romney in charge)- will play a much more concrete role in not only cementing a front runner but laying a foundation for victory.<br />
One last, and definitely not least most important thing we learned from Iowa, is that the omnipresent Obama machine is hovering nearby, poised to strike and systematically destroy whoever the Republicans offer up as a sacrificial nominee. With rumours of Hillary Clinton replacing Biden as Obama's running mate, I'm not sure George Washington himself could decisively beat Obama today. Attack ads are a hell of a thing, to be sure. A billion dollars worth of attack ads, in this society......Romney has temper tantrums over simple allegations leveled by the amiable Rick Perry. Imagine how he will crack when Hillary Clinton has her way with him.<br />
Obama, in the more Soviet style Iowa Democrat Caucus (Obama _ Other _), received nearly as many votes as any one of the three top vote getters in the Republican Caucus. There was no real reason for Obama voters to even turn out, aside from maybe a bit of Hawkeye pride at being part of this grand tradition. This shows that of the growing percentage of Americans disgusted with Obama or politicians in general, many reserve even more distaste for the Republican Party in particular. While probably still the lingering side effects of being Bushwhacked, these feelings show that mainstream Americans do not trust the Republican Party to step in and fix the ever growing list of problems facing our once proud nation today. The conditions are truly ripe for even a terribly unpopular incumbent to maintain his stranglehold on the executive office for four more years.<br />
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Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor who more than slightly resembles a Simpsons caricature, as everyone knows made the decision to snub the Iowa Caucuses and focus exclusively on the New Hampshire primary. Jon, better known as Jon Huntsman Jr., is, naturally, the son of Jon Huntsman Sr. Jon Huntsman Sr. was born in Blackfoot, Idaho, on the summer solstice of 1937. Go figure. After graduating several college programs with high honors, he spent two years in the military from 1959-1961. Later in the sixties, he turned up in the Los Angeles business community, with an egg production company. He later teamed this company up with a division of Dow Corning (a company extremely intertwined in Eisenhower's "military industrial complex" and which curiously built and runs the town of Lake Jackson, Texas - famous these days as Ron Paul's home base and the source of the pesky "newsletters) and became the President. After inventing the plastic hinged container for the Big Mac, he eventually founded Huntsman Chemical and was on his way towards becoming one of the wealthiest men in the world. While being heavily involved in the Mormon Church, the Republican Establishment, the "military industrial complex", and a whole host of other prestigious entanglements, one of his more recent associations stands out as very interesting in the context of today's events. In 2007, he founded Huntsman Gay Global Capital, teaming up with one of Mitt Romney's former raiding partners. (in 2001, 2 years after Romney's departure, Bain invested $600,000,000 in Huntsman, Inc.). What is the point of all this? Absolutely nothing. This guy's son is running for President and he has been quietly Santoruming his way around New Hampshire for the past several months while everyone else was in Iowa.<br />
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Huntsman may not have much of a chance. The little publicized, unexciting, former ambassador to China may surprise everyone with a strong showing on Tuesday. Another possibility is that months of carefully built support may have been immediately steamrolled by the stampede of politicians, pundits, and observers fresh in from Iowa. One thing is for certain, while he probably has the backing and connections to go as far as he wants, he doesn't have the public's attention or the "ground game" to run with the big dogs. Not in this cycle, anyways. Maybe not in any cycle. If he somehow pulls off a miracle and wins New Hampshire, it will bring a collective sigh of relief for all the other candidates not named Romney. The race will still be wide open, and Romney will begin to look like an outcast from his own party. This is probably nothing more than idle chatter. If Huntsman comes in a weak third in New Hampshire, his days will be very numbered from here on out. Maybe something like one.<br />
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As the world woke up trying to make sense of the Iowa proceedings on Wednesday morning, they found Ron Paul right in their face and loaded for bear. Taking the odd strategy of attacking Gingrich and Santorum while letting them throw their combined weight at Romney, he seems to be trying to cement himself as Romney's alternative before taking on Romney himself. Possibly a bit surprised to be in contention, his campaign goals may have not yet broadened beyond delegates and platforms. He has exposed himself, however, as a masterful politician, a revelation a bit disturbing when one contemplates the dastardly deeds of other master politicians. The night of the Caucuses, he made a very clear, powerful, and well received speech at the perfect time of the night. His speech was first, about halfway through the ten o'clock news, and carried in full on every major news network. He then fired a shot at Newt Gingrich the next morning which probably resonated very well in South Carolina before sitting down to a rather long and favorable CNN interview to be played later in the afternoon.<br />
During my formative introduction to life as a political junkie in the early eighties, I was introduced to a world where abortion was the key litmus test (causing politicians to change platforms and even parties on a regular basis to stay in tune with the narrow but constantly shifting opinion gap on this issue), Vietnam draft dodging was one of the worst accusations that could be leveled at an opponent, the name of Ronald Reagan was a highly charged curse or blessing, and shadowy agents of Satan lurked in every dark alleyway, waiting to either ritually murder children or purchase pornography at the corner Seven Eleven. After Santorum's victory in Iowa, waking up on Wednesday to Paul's attack on Gingrich, and then seeing Gingrich and Perry throw out the hallowed name of Reagan at every opportunity, I felt as if I had traveled a quarter century back to a time when my only real concern was the prospect of being turned to glass at the whim of a Soviet bureaucrat. The infinitely more dangerous menace of an Iranian dromedary brigade armed with a hydrogen bomb and possibly a manual detonator was still many years in the future.<br />
What Paul did was simple, and quite brilliant. With the youth and independent energy of Americans who might give Conservative change a chance already in his back pocket, he decided to reach out to older Republican voters with an appeal to one of their most revered ideals. He singled out Newt Gingrich as the candidate to attack on the war issue. He established that Newt (and others) are very eager to start wars which may be unnecessary. He then promoted his insane belief that war should be entered into legally and only as a last resort. Following this, he very quickly contrasted the fact that Newt received a deferment while he, Ron Paul, served as a flight surgeon. In masterful style, he quickly built up some emotion and derisively referred to Newt as a "Chicken Hawk". This brilliantly simple retro sound bite was paired with a successful CNN interview later Wednesday afternoon, after which Paul retired to prepare for his all out assault on New Hampshire beginning on Friday.<br />
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While Paul was gearing up for a potentially make-or-break scenario at the debates on Saturday, Santorum, Gingrich, Perry, and Romney were already crowding Huntsman on the campaign beat. Santorum failed to dazzle (the highlight being when some amateur reporters asked him if he'd ever googled himself), Gingrich held a steady sideshow status, and Perry was very unremarkable. Romney continued to make the hollow, empty speeches that corporate puppets with establishment backing are known for. He also made a few errors. In a rather innocent statement aimed at Conservative small business owners, Romney praised the right to "fire" anyone he pleases. As the vast majority of American voters are coming to the harsh realization that they don't own much of anything at all, such a comment when reduced to a sound bite may prove hazardous to Romney's "better than" status among the slight majority of Republican voters.<br />
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As our heroes took the stage for the debates on Saturday night, to be followed by a debate on Sunday morning, many were curious as to who would win the New Orleans - Detroit NFC Wild Card game. Unfortunately the only people who really watch these debates are political junkies like myself, and we rarely watch a debate without having already selected a favorite. We then proceed to cheer for our candidate as if he were a football team, while hating the other debaters and booing the moderators as if they were intentionally spotting the ball well short of the first down marker. I can only hope, for America's sake, that the people of New Hampshire not only viewed these debates, but viewed them with an open mind and an honest desire to choose the best candidate for America.<br />
Mitt Romney was obviously touted as the "winner" by establishment media hacks following both debates. This follows a pattern we have seen throughout these debates and is hardly a surprise anymore. The reality this time is merely that Romney wasn't a "loser". While attacked by Gingrich as promised, he merely seemed to shrug off Gingrich's assaults leaving the debauched former Speaker of the House obviously frustrated. Santorum and Huntsman also tried to assault Romney, but Romney's hollow words quickly diffused much of their energy. In the meantime, Rick Perry took the opportunity to add his own highlight to the debate. Beaming like a three year old boy who had just successfully used a toilet for the first time, he properly recited the three Departments of Government which would be eliminated by the Rick Perry administration. (After the debates, Perry, Santorum, and Gingrich immediately departed for South Carolina, forsaking the granite bedrock of Yankee politics for the more welcoming Baptist bedroom communities of the old Confederacy).<br />
As stated earlier, the politician hidden inside Ron Paul began to reveal itself this week. After the Ron Paul circus hit New Hampshire Friday like a Texas gully washer, he went on to have a most memorable appearance in the Saturday Night debates. When presented with his "Chicken Hawk" quote in regards to Gingrich, he used the opportunity to go right for Newt's throat. He again slammed the war hawk policy of his competitors, while clearly and tactfully outlining his policy of moderation and strength through trade and diplomacy. He also, naturally, pointed out that Newt was a "draft dodger". After successfully putting Santorum on the defense at the start of the debate, he now had Newt flustered as well. As the enthralled audience looked on, Newt tried to explain that he had a child and was not eligible for service. With the natural timing and calculated bravado possessed only by the finest Roman Gladiators, Paul replied "I had two children. When I was called I went." Drowned out by the most deafening applause of the debate, Newt meekly stated "I wasn't eligible, I wasn't eligible....." Realizing that he had just been outmaneuvered by a craftier old campaigner than even the former Speaker himself, it wasn't hard to imagine Newt, for the first time in this campaign, choking back real tears. <br />
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At the end of the Saturday night debates, the candidates were asked what they would be doing if they were not campaigning. Santorum, trying to appeal to the average American, said that he would be watching the championship basketball game. Reminded that he meant football, he said "I mean football". Romney also said he would be watching the championship football game. This is a perfect example of how out of touch these guys are, and how they will say anything to try to appeal to their listeners. The BCS Championship game which Romney referred to wasn't until Monday night. Romney had no idea when it was, what it was, or who was playing. Santorum, depending on how the next three weeks plays out, will probably be home to watch the National Championship basketball game.<br />
Ron Paul's answer was decidedly different, and exactly what you wanted to hear from a President. He said he would get everyone to bed and probably sit up and read an economic textbook. He was probably telling the truth. Contemplating the return to $3.50 gas and $5 pork chops, I can only hope Barack Obama is managing to squeeze in a few Economics textbooks between his midnight czar appointments and Halloween celebrity soirees. <br />
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After the debates were over, Ron Paul was acknowledged by more in the mainstream media as the "alternative" to Mitt Romney. As Santorum, Gingrich, and Perry vacated while the getting was good, Paul and Huntsman seem to be left standing alone against Romney as the Nation's first primary gets underway. The polls seem to have Paul firmly in second place, but the large amount of undecided voters will definitely twist the outcome in an unpredictable fashion as was the case in Iowa. If Huntsman defeats Paul, it will be a major blow to the Paul campaign, and will probably help propel Romney to an early finish line. If Huntsman defeats Romney, it will open up the gates a little for everybody, and probably give us an extended version of this immensely entertaining political spectacle. A close second place or unlikely first place finish by Paul will probably tag Paul as the front runner against Romney, signalling a short campaign for all the others - particularly Perry and Huntsman.<br />
On Monday before the primaries, not-exactly-new-but-potentially-devastating revelations about Mitt's role in the Bain investment group began to hit the press. This may not affect the New Hampshire race, but may play a key role in South Carolina, and even into Florida. For now, Mitt is the heavy favorite, with the machine, the money, and the full support of the Establishment. He will happily control the dialogue of the campaign right up to the moment when he takes a November fall to Obama. Paul is the quintessential underdog. The grass roots, pay-as-you-go populist who, only in America, still has a chance to upset a big-money champion. Does America truly love the underdog, or is America more comfortable under establishment control? Do we really want to see Boise State or Hawaii bust the BCS, or are we more comfortable watching Alabama and Texas play for the prize? We will see.<br />
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A vote for Ron Paul is a bit like getting in your grandfather's '64 Chrysler for an after church drive in the country. While lounging in the cavernous dull pastels of the back seat, you sit back and contemplate the beautiful American scenery while Eisenhower's great feat of modern engineering rolls by underneath the tires. Hands at ten and two on the wheel, Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians softly crackling from the AM dashboard speaker, and seat belt fully locked in place, Grandpa heads steadily towards his destination at approximately three miles under the speed limit. With the old V8 purring along (begging for a little gasoline and a chance to leave a black mark on the fresh pavement) you can almost see a faint gleam rising from behind a distant hilltop on the western edge of a landscape shadowed by dark clouds and the crumbling remains of an antiquated superpower. This gleam is the ever elusive American Dream. It may not be exciting, it may not be fun, in fact it may be the most downright boring trip you've ever been on, but you know you can count on Grandpa to get you there in one piece - if anyone can.<br />
A vote for Mitt Romney is a different story. A vote for Mitt Romney is like piling in the back of an Escalade with a bunch of well dressed men you don't really know under the pretense of attending some glamorous back-to-the-Eighties New Year's Eve gala. While the company may seem distinguished and the party may sound like the best way to spend the evening, you cannot shake the feeling that at any point you might receive a .38 to the temple and be left in a drainage ditch on the outskirts of town.<br />
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<a href="http://gonzosrevenge.blogspot.com/2012/01/fear-and-loathing-on-campaign-trail_20.html">To Be Continued.................</a><br />
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</div><div align="center"></div>Gonzo's Revengehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10029199887202069927noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2594416584048026164.post-37444419579253261772012-01-06T03:43:00.001-06:002012-01-10T06:02:33.367-06:00Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 2012<div align="center"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><strong>JANUARY 4, 2012</strong></span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;"></span></strong></span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>FORWARD</strong></span></div><div align="center"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> It was difficult to allow myself to steal the good Doctor's favorite title, but nothing more aptly describes the situation we have now found ourselves in. As he saw the writing on the wall and took his exit from a world increasingly shadowed by a darkness more stifling and deadly than even the one which enshrouded the dark days of 1972, I feel that he would not really mind my borrowing of it, provided I put it to good use. If this is possible, I promise I will.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I will also try and stick to the Doctor's general rules. Get the story, highlight the important tidbits overlooked by others, and keep the campaign rather than any one candidate the focus. I will, of course, take the Doctor's lead and give a little preference to the grass roots underdog, providing he remains in the right and remains in the campaign.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Unlike the Doctor, my life is way too boring for conventional Gonzo journalism. Where the Doctor was flying around the nation with press access and insider correspondence, I am working a less than glamorous job and dealing with three delinquent children ages 2, 4, and 6. However, with the modern applications of the Internet and social media, information and images are flying around at a rate that would have frightened even the most hardened political junkie back in 1972. In a sense, we have all gone a little Gonzo, although none of us have the touch of the Master.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> As I'm sure we are all acquainted with the main cast of characters, let's get right to the heart of this thing!</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>HAWKEYES RUN LEFT...... PAUL ROCKS THE VOTE..... PERRY WATERS HIS HORSE..... BACHMANN SURRENDERS...... GINGRICH SHARPENS HIS TALONS...... OFF TO NEW HAMPSHIRE!</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Having spent approximately thirty three years of my life within a twenty minute drive of Council Bluffs, Iowa, I have a bit of an understanding of the workings of the Iowa political process. When the pundits vaguely speak of "organization" and "ground game", they are referring to a very intricate and most American process of backroom deals with preachers, union leaders, small town politicians, and practically any other Iowans of influence within their respective communities. Apparently, the guy with the goofy grin wandering the countryside for the past five years with nothing but a Hawkeyes jacket and a feel for the desperation of back country Iowa Protestants was the undisputed master of this process.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> With his vows to criminalize abortion and prohibit Constitutionalists from imposing "man on dog" sex on the unsuspecting masses, Rick Santorum was able to ease the minds of the entire Bible Belt with a lot of leg work, a very low profile, and a well timed propaganda barrage by the national media. There is more than one precedent for this, most recently the guitar strumming FOX fun host Mike Huckabee, but the rise from around 5% to first place status in a matter of three weeks was, along with the 8 vote separation from Mitt Romney, ultimately the biggest story of the 6 month battle for Iowa.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> While Rick Santorum took the Bible Belt with old fashioned foot work and a little help from above, Mitt Romney muscled his votes with all the precision of a sledgehammer. His money, influence, and high media profile ensured him a quarter of the votes without having to expend much effort. When it came time for the other candidates to spend their big attack money, they seemed to focus it on Mitt and Newt Gingrich simultaneously. As Gingrich took a run through the spotlight at the same time, the attacks seemed to bleed him, while neither hurting nor helping Romney. In the end, the flood ravaged counties on the dark Eastern banks of the Missouri River were, with no other alternative, more receptive to the candidate who seemed most likely to maintain big government standards. The destructive floods of 2011 were definitely a tragedy for the ages, and the wounds to Western Iowa's economy left deep scars which will be slow to heal. The people of these communities are left in the bad position of being completely dependent upon the "mercy" of the Federal Government. I suppose in that light, Mitt Romney doesn't look like such a bad option.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Iowa has always leaned more to the Left than other Midwestern counterparts, while maintaining a rigid Evangelical base in the less populated agricultural regions. Democrats are more likely to win the state in the General Election, but state politics are often likely to produce "moderate" Republicans. This is the type of state where a man like Romney should clean up in a normal year, and at least be hailed as a "steady moderate" in desperate times such as these. This is also a state where a Christian Federalist like Santorum can pull solid support in a normal year. In the era of the Tea Party, that vote should have gone a different direction than Santorum however, particularly when a home grown Tea Party Princess and defender of the cornfields from the Muslim caliphates like Michelle Bachmann was in the race. This tells us one of three things: <strong>A.</strong> The Tea Party is dead <strong>B.</strong> The Tea Party is torn between fear of Obama and fear of abortion or <strong>C.</strong> The Tea Party never really existed in Iowa. The next two months should provide a more accurate assessment of the state of the Tea Party and it's impact, agenda, and relevance.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> As Ron Paul, the plucky little Texan with the stuttering problem and ubiquitous minions of determined campaign volunteers entered a school auditorium on election day, he encountered a reception generally reserved for someone like Justin Bieber or Hillary Clinton. Amidst thundering applause, he delivered a message of small government, personal responsibility, adherence to the law, and individual freedom to a group of young voters who would have booed and hissed at G.W. Bush or Rick Santorum, slept through Gingrich or Romney, and, had they been old enough to vote three years ago, chanted and danced to Obama or Hillary. One third of Ron Paul's election night vote was from Democrats or Independents, many of them youngsters with no responsibility for our crumbling state of affairs but all the culpability for it in the long run.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Needless to say, the policies of the Bush years and then the outlandish idea of running John McCain for President in 08 led to a mass migration from the Republican Party. The Tea Party seemed to galvanize those remaining and even bring a few fringers back around for a time, but fear and loathing of many things - Iran, Obama, men marrying dogs - seems to have splintered and marginalized the Tea Party back into a more conventional Republican fold. The Ron Paul "Reloveution", as it is fondly called by the kids, seems to be EXACTLY what the party needs right now. A Massachusetts Democrat with a Republican haircut, a knight errant of the Spanish Inquisition who slept with his dead fetus, and a dinosaur from the 90's who was run out of town by his own party due to ethics issues are hardly the answer to reviving Conservatism in mainstream America. Ron Paul seems to have found the magic so effectively used by the Clintons over the years, yet his own party has turned on him, seemingly for proposing legality amongst those in authority.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Paul did manage to sneak away with close to a winners share of the votes anyway. Interestingly, he defeated Romney in many of the urban areas along the Mississippi River, where recent natural disaster was not on voters minds. He was the heavy favorite of Iowa voters who labled themselves as "true Conservatives" and grabbed a few counties in the middle of the Bible Belt. He also managed to get his speech aired at the perfect time of the evening when everyone was still watching. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> In the end, Paul may be bitter about the last minute Santorum surge, but he definitely won a moral victory, established himself as a contender for at least a while longer, and guaranteed himself something at the end of the road. Due to the very unique nature of Paul's supporters, he holds the power to at least hand the election to Obama, no matter where he finishes. After all the shots taken at him, I suspect his price for endorsement of another Republican will be very high. If it was me, I would demand to choose the Vice President, install Ron Paul as the Federal Reserve Chairman, and make someone like Jesse Ventura the Secretary of Defense. Love it or leave it, Mitt. What Paul will do remains to be seen, but he is definitely heading to New Hampshire with an enthusiasm I personally have never seen him display.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The other Texan in the race, Rick Perry, did not fare so well at all. With only ten percent of the vote, his massive amounts of money and campaign time essentially did nothing but assist in the takedown of Newt Gingrich, and probably the rise of Santorum. When all was said and done, Perry had dumped upwards of $300 PER VOTE in Iowa, and received nothing in return. As he gave his speech, he literally looked like someone had just run over his dog. A sharp dresser and charming stump speaker, with his money and experience he should have captured a bit more of the Santorum vote, even DESPITE his poor and well publicized debate performance. Again, the so called Tea Party either disbanded or never really existed in Iowa to begin with. Perry announced he was going home at the end of the night, but the next morning jumped back in, choosing to bypass New Hampshire and head for the more sympathetic Colony of South Carolina where he hopes to find the missing Tea Party and maybe get a few of them to vote for him. Apparently someone in Texas threw more money on the table and sent him to try his hand in the Deep South. This seems futile to many observers, and leaves me wondering who, why, and for what purpose? Time will tell. I can't say I'm completely unhappy. His Clark Griswold-like behavior and seemingly endless supply of money spent attacking Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich adds a flavor that no Republican campaign should be without.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Tea Party Princess Michelle Bachmann, on the other hand, received closer to Five Percent of the vote. An early favorite, a self proclaimed founder of the Tea Party, a staunch defender of heterosexual marriage, an Iowa native, and a representative of the neighboring state of Minnesota, she should have had a very strong "ground game", a good base of support in the Santorum zone, and somewhat of a home field advantage. She never received much bad press from mainstream Republicans, and was the winner of the Ames straw poll at the start of the campaign season. Whether it was her constant miscues, her oversimplification of issues, her false demeanor, or her incessant screaming repetitive words and phrases that turned her off to Iowa voters, she finished dead last among those actively campaigning in the state. While sounding optimistic Tuesday evening, she effectively dropped out of the race the next morning. Apparently in her case the pocketbooks all closed. Unfortunately for us, we won't have Michelle Bachmann to kick around anymore. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Newt Gingrich, the crafty veteran playing for the Establishment in this one, did not come out as bad as he could have. After riding out the wave of public interest which Santorum then hopped on at just the right time, he found himself paddling into the primaries in the second tier of expected vote getters. Taking much deserved fire from his fellow Republicans while having no "ground game" to speak of, Newt was merely riding on the publicity and recognition he still garners from his time in the spotlight during the 1990's. Considering that time ended in somewhat of a disgrace, he was probably playing with a double edged sword. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Newt's final speech in Iowa revealed an angry, embarrassed Newt that we have not seen in a long time. For a consumate show politician who can conjur tears from thin air, the image of a non composed, angry, bitter, revengeful, uncivil Newt Gingrich was a sight that left more than one observer scratching their heads. Whether calculated bluster to assist his campaign or sway backroom deals or genuine thirst for blood and vengeance, Newt promised America a spectacular battle of attrition against Mitt Romney in the coming days and weeks. This will probably begin at the infamous New Hampshire debate on Saturday night. As gripping as this may be, most Americans will be busily drinking, dining, shopping, or watching the New Orleans Saints. Whatever happens will be revealed to them in packaged sound bites on Monday, complete with expert analysis.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> After a long, arduous Iowa campaign (which was interrupted now and then with spastic periods of controversy and the rise and fall of almost every player in the game) closed out with a photo finish and some possible late night shenanigans, we are left with more questions than answers. Can Santorum do well in Baptist country? Will Gingrich sink Romney? Did the old Revolutionary from Texas hit his high water mark, or start the early stages of a groundswell? How many states until we don't have Dick Perry to kick around anymore? Does anyone remember John Huntsman? One thing we know for certain. As we enter this fateful year which more than a few predict will end with either chaos and destruction or enlightenment and consciousness expansion, we are truly witnessing the most colorful Republican primary in at least a generation. As we travel our predestined path towards that fateful Winter Solstice, will we be looking at four more desperate years of rule by Obama, or will one of these characters pull the sword from the proverbial stone and claim the White House desk for his own feet?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://gonzosrevenge.blogspot.com/2012/01/fear-and-loathing-on-campaign-trail_10.html">To Be Continued..........</a></span></div>Gonzo's Revengehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10029199887202069927noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2594416584048026164.post-67967471209738091942011-11-07T04:58:00.001-06:002022-06-02T01:20:29.927-05:00Chapter II: Part B A Star Is Born<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> <strong> </strong></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong><u>CHAPTER II: PART B</u></strong></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong> A STAR IS BORN</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong>"I want you never fearing of wrongful incrimination by local police (cult leaders)."</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong>-Attributed to Jared Loughner in YouTube video</strong></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://gonzosrevenge.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html">Continued From Chapter II: Part A</a></div><div align="center"></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Jared Lee Loughner was born on September 10th, 1988, to Randy and Amy Loughner, who live in a quiet Tucson suburb 5 miles west northwest of the Casa Adobes Safeway and roughly ten miles south southeast of Pinal Park Airfield in Marana, the CIA's admitted primary airfield during the Vietnam era and a beehive of illicit Intelligence activity. Amy, a quiet yet seemingly friendly woman (she has never spoken to her neighbors, yet, unlike her husband she does smile and wave) is ostensibly employed as a Pima County Parks Manager. Her husband Randy, supposedly employed in the construction industry in some distant past, bought the house around 1981, before marrying Amy, and is said to enjoy restoring vintage cars. He is rarely seen, preferring to leave the house under cover of darkness, and is not exactly described as Mr. Rogers by others in the neighborhood.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYYL-K4_u1Ob4LYvx5SCjKYLOW5GckuG_QfSDP73aBVAVTdXMg1is_IHcE8ymwl4yrYH1y_JRESRICKAuY_Pe-fsCfXXPpb7xGlVaeJuxUziA2R8gqfHqGAgOur7Qt1lQdN_zpu4hEu4KJ/s1600/4092835.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYYL-K4_u1Ob4LYvx5SCjKYLOW5GckuG_QfSDP73aBVAVTdXMg1is_IHcE8ymwl4yrYH1y_JRESRICKAuY_Pe-fsCfXXPpb7xGlVaeJuxUziA2R8gqfHqGAgOur7Qt1lQdN_zpu4hEu4KJ/s320/4092835.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Randy Loughner is the son of Alpheus Loughner Jr., formerly a corporal at Davis-Monthan Air Force base (at the time attached to Strategic Air Command) a stones throw south of downtown Tucson. Alpheus was arrested at the age of 22 for his part in a string of liquor store robberies, and was sentenced in 1952 to five years probation. Leniency was granted due to his willingness to help convict his accomplices. The same year, he married Eva Julia, then 20, who gave birth to Randy. Several years later the couple would have a daughter, but were soon divorced. Nothing else is known of Alpheus, now living in Texas at the age of 79 under the moniker "Big Al". Ms. Julia remarried and gave birth to two known sons under the surname of "Beckham". Nothing remarkable is known of her life except she was arrested for selling alcohol to minors while working at a store in 1960 at the age of 28 and spent the last 18 years of her life working at Tucson Medical Center.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Also employed at Tucson Medical Center was Amy's mother, Lois Totman, by all accounts a proud and loving grandmother of young Jared Lee. Amy's father, Laurence Totman, was a former Navy veteran and nurse at the Tucson Veterans Affairs Hospital. After the shooting, one individual claimed Jared's mother was Jewish and Amy even attended the same Synagogue as Gabrielle Giffords. This was then broadcast by every media source imaginable, adding to the confusing jumble of truth, speculation, rumor, and outright lies which in essence clouded the story during it's time in the spotlight. It turns out Amy may have had a Jewish maternal grandfather, although her family seems to have been practicing Catholic on both sides for generations. The lie, as usual, was loudly spoken and quietly retracted, if retracted at all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Records show Amy graduated Cal State Polytechnic University in Pomona with a degree in ornamental horticulture in 1981. She began working for Pima County Parks and Recreation as a maintenance worker in 1987, a year before the birth of her only child, Jared. She is now manager of the 101 acre Agua Caliente Regional Park in Tucson. Less is known about the life and work history of Randy Loughner. He appears to be very anti-social, rarely speaking to neighbors, and then only to scare them from his property or yell about trash left on the curb. There are no records of police calls made <strong>about</strong> Loughner during his time on Soledad Street, however there are more than a few police calls made <strong>by</strong> Loughner including claims of vandalism, an abandoned truck, and rocks thrown at his own vehicle. Some neighbors claim to have been scared of Loughner, while others have claimed at least two immediate neighbors actually moved due to "fear" of Loughner. Odd that people in a suburban neighborhood would abandon their property out of fear, yet seemingly not a single police report or any type of complaint was ever filed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Randy apparently was quite proud of his cactus lawn and walked his dog daily. Sometimes Amy would walk with him but the two were never seen speaking or holding hands. Obsessed with privacy, his house and backyard were obscured by trees, bushes, and a very high fence. Not long after the shooting, he built a wooden wall on the front of the house blocking all doors and windows, and filled in all holes and gaps where anyone could peer into the backyard. A strange event occurred during the media circus initially following the shooting. Reporters and sightseers trying to look in the backyard saw an apparent makeshift altar with a small replica human skull in a flower pot </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">full of dead oranges next to several tall candles and a bag of potting soil. A reporter actually jumped into the backyard and photographed the scene, prompting Loughner to call the police. The police arrived quickly and moved the crowd away from the Loughner house. Most accounts state this occurred on Sunday, January 9. At the time of this writing, no trespassing arrests have been made and no charges filed. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDFMFQts_ytKM6HPe66dx-N445EAtRNUgvqMEGDyk9ncetu6b1W5fsSO5hIVG3HATllRKeRDURL8Pn5QszqM8yTaOZ44QDQs4gmTQ5mVCjc4P764rHdZanMNZM38mcE6DLA4Y_6cEO95oP/s1600/loughner_home--300x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDFMFQts_ytKM6HPe66dx-N445EAtRNUgvqMEGDyk9ncetu6b1W5fsSO5hIVG3HATllRKeRDURL8Pn5QszqM8yTaOZ44QDQs4gmTQ5mVCjc4P764rHdZanMNZM38mcE6DLA4Y_6cEO95oP/s1600/loughner_home--300x300.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Oddly enough, this seems to have been reported by only one publication, and referenced by all others who distributed the story. In the report, an unnamed "expert" (see Popular Mechanics "debunking" of 9-11 conspiracy "myths") was quoted as saying potting soil was part of occult ritual. This "fact" was flagrantly repeated in every account of the story. No real mention of potting soil or dead oranges appears to exist in any conventional occult practice, and the "altar" does not seem to be clean or even recently used. However, as an unnamed "expert" was quoted in a news source calling this an obvious ritual altar, it most definitely became so in the minds of American observers (it is, after all, a bit weird, and the guy allegedly did try and kill 20 people). Was this a Satanic altar or merely last years Halloween display left in the backyard........under a camouflage tent? Either way, the alleged knowledge of an unnamed "expert" was enough to cement a fact in the minds of practically everyone (including this author) who read or heard the story. Just how did America reach this level of gullibility?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> (Note - I cannot for the life of me put together a specific timeline which includes this event, raising several questions. <strong>1)</strong> Was this before or after the FBI searched the house? One anonymous comment on an Internet story claims it was before the FBI searched, but that remains in the realm of hearsay. <strong>2)</strong> The "shrine" remains undisturbed and unmarked, which would seemingly be highly unlikely after even the initial police search. Had the police been there yet? <strong>3)</strong> If not, it means the media found out the shooter's alleged identity, assembled in a large group outside of his parent's house, spotted the "shrine" through the fence, and climbed the fence to photograph it before the police even showed up? We know this to be false because at the time of this incident the Loughners were inside the house, whereas after the shooting they arrived home from the grocery store to find the media, police and onlookers waiting. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> So, <strong>4)</strong> after the initial police investigation did the cops leave the "shrine" undisturbed and the house unguarded and inhabited with potential "tamperers" at best, improbable "accomplices" at worst (proper police investigators would not leave anything to chance so early in an investigation, particularly one of this magnitude) until <strong>whenever the FBI got around to investigating the attempted murder of a member of Congress?</strong> Or, <strong>5)</strong> did the FBI find this "shrine" to be of no interest, not even worth so much as a look under the skull or around it for other evidence?<strong>*</strong></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> You would think such an item, Halloween decoration or not, would garner a tiny bit of interest in light of recent events, not to mention Loughner's wearing of a skull mask in "his" <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L1lsLU-kUw">YouTube video</a>, chillingly similar to the skull in his backyard. Not only would it be potential evidence and a treasure trove of information for the FBI profiling department, but any self respecting law officer would look into such a blatant example of potential cult activity at least to confirm or rule out possible accomplices. So soon after the event, he could have been a "militia" member, Neo-Nazi extremist, Muslim terrorist, <a href="http://www.nolanchart.com/article6227-the-ron-paul-terrorist-report.html">Ron Paul supporter</a>, drug cartel affiliate, <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/tag/exclusive/">juggalo</a>, or a member of any number of other groups (<strike>The CIA?</strike>), foreign or domestic, who might target a U.S. Congresswoman and a Federal judge. (Irresponsibly, I will add I found one anonymous Internet comment claiming oranges and potting soil were part of occult practices of the drug cartels. If true, this would be very interesting, yet, again, is nothing more than hearsay. The other 99% of comments mainly agreed with the lone anonymous "expert", although the police apparently did not.)</span><br />
<blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><strong>*</strong> Apparently if you answered "4", you might be correct. One account states that on Monday, January 10th, the FBI got around to visiting the house (although another account puts the skull/reporter event on that day). The Loughners, left alone with evidence all weekend, apparently barricaded the doors and refused to answer. FBI agents supposedly broke down the door to gain entrance. No obstruction charges have been filed.<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>"There was times when we'd be out with other neighbor kids, and Jared wouldn't be allowed out. He'd be watching from the window or door," neighbor Rick Dahlstrom </strong><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/jared-lee-loughner-family-portrait-isolation/story?id=12587114"><strong>told</strong></a><strong> ABC News. "They all became very isolated. Randy was isolated, Amy wasn't out anymore. Something changed. They just kept to themselves."</strong></div></blockquote><br />
This is one of many conflicting accounts relating to the nature of Jared Lee and his parents. Depending on who you ask, Randy was a loving father or a raging animal, Amy was outgoing and friendly or quiet and reserved, and Jared was a nice yet socially awkward child or a creepy weirdo who was obviously going to grow up and gun down senior citizens at a suburban supermarket.<br />
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<blockquote><strong>"If you would have told me then that this could happen, I would never believe it. They were very caring parents." - Michele Montanaro, friend of the Loughners</strong></blockquote> Obviously, little is known about the childhood of Jared Lee. The life of a lower middle class schoolboy is hardly noteworthy outside of his immediate community, and a detailed biography of his early life would be even more difficult in this case, without the cooperation of his parents. To look for answers in the story of young Jared Lee would literally be like looking for a needle in a haystack, but at least local Tucson journalists could have made some effort. The only effort the media put into this story was in interviewing neighbors and a few alleged high school friends of Loughner.<br />
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<blockquote><strong>"The people who lived here before us left because they were afraid," - Stephanie Woods, 22, who, along with her brother, has lived next door for seven years.</strong></blockquote><blockquote><strong>"No matter what we do, it's always wrong. If the trash collector comes a day late, (Randy) comes out and tells us our trash stinks, as if we can do something about it, they are not normal neighbors." next-door neighbor Anthony Woods </strong></blockquote> Consensus pretty much states that Randy Loughner was a strange and angry man. He somehow frightened neighbors into selling their homes, liked to call the police, and seemed to keep a tight leash on his boy. Reports state that Amy seemed to be a very caring and attentive mother to young Jared, and her parents seemed to spoil Jared in the way many grandparents do. He played an instrument, did well in school, and does not appear to have been destined to deviate so far from societal norms, despite his crazy father. Nobody aside from Randy, Amy, Jared, and maybe the Central Intelligence Agency really knows what went on behind the doors of the Loughner home, however a few educated guesses might be made.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimj_tNFyAYF3Qu9eczMB3Lp8mafAfCxwcAx9SW9IvCjj8j0AcCqOUqgn635-QB4kMhuDRs9FRco_ewwz3D6WX-BvF4RqpAULsxIL9tdE66HLZ6MvpgwcyT5EyzWnnFvJH-DHyO7LtAepr3/s1600/thumbnail1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimj_tNFyAYF3Qu9eczMB3Lp8mafAfCxwcAx9SW9IvCjj8j0AcCqOUqgn635-QB4kMhuDRs9FRco_ewwz3D6WX-BvF4RqpAULsxIL9tdE66HLZ6MvpgwcyT5EyzWnnFvJH-DHyO7LtAepr3/s1600/thumbnail1.jpg" /></a></div><div align="center"></div> It was widely reported on the Internet that Loughner was a mind control victim immediately following the shootings. This is a somewhat reasonable speculation, however no real evidence was ever put forth to back the claim. The classic <a href="http://dmc.members.sonic.net/sentinel/gvcon8.html">mind control</a> victim (this cannot be dismissed as conspiracy "theory". The CIA was caught repeatedly working on <a href="http://www.wanttoknow.info/mind_control/foia_mind_control/190691_assassins_programmed_mind_control">mind control</a> and openly admitted the <a href="http://www.theblackvault.com/documents/mindcontrol/comcont.pdf">Russians</a> had the capability) is taken and reprogrammed at an early age, yet this was probably not the case with Jared. He appears to have been a fairly well rounded child, a fact in contradiction with the behavior of a typical child victim. He did, however, come from a complete military/medical background and live in a city so infested with intelligence operatives it made East Berlin look tame by comparison. His neighborhood itself is supposedly an area teeming with homes used to store and redistribute wholesale drug shipments fresh up from Mexico. He also lived in a very private household with a very questionable patriarch. Surely both Jared and Amy may have been living in the hellish shadow of domestic violence, but as it was never reported or even remarked upon, the claim cannot be made. He was described as "a little off" by one of the neighbors, but was more likely a socially awkward, insecure, lonely child living with a strict father than a victim of ritual abuse and brainwashing.<br />
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There is also no verifiable evidence of schizophrenia in the family, although Randy's behavior was not quite "normal". Schizophrenia is a disease which more often than not appears in late adolescence, as did Jared's more extreme behavioral issues, but is rarely diagnosed in young children who have not suffered extreme trauma. He is labeled by the media as a schizophrenic, easily believable considering not only the crime he is accused of but also his behavior both before and after the shootings, begging the question of whether his madness is a natural disorder or was created by external forces.<br />
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On the Autumn Equinox of 2004, Jared was stuck with a sharp object by another teenager while at school. Apparently a boy named Tony Kurz walked up and stuck Jared with a needle protruding from a Bic pen. The police were summoned to the high school and then proceeded to question Tony. In Reaganesque fashion, the boy "did not recall" whether he stuck Jared or not, and seemed to have misplaced the needle. Jared's parents did not wish to press charges, but they did request that Kurz be tested for HIV and other such diseases. This concluded Jared's first documented encounter with the police, whom he later referred to as "cult leaders."<br />
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As stated in a quote a few paragraphs above, something about Jared and his family "changed" as Jared moved into his late teenage years. It doesn't seem that the family "changed" so much, they were always isolated from the rest of the neighborhood, but Jared began to change - noticeably. Of course, most kids change when they become teenagers, but the change in Jared went far beyond acne, nocturnal emission, or general pointless rebellion. He seems to have caught a fast train off the deep end.<br />
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</div> At some poorly defined point in time, Jared stopped being an awkward but fairly average American youth, and began to exhibit increasingly problematic behavioral problems. Until his junior year in high school, he is said to have been a good student, a talented musician, and was never known as a troublemaker. It all seems to have started after a break up with a high school girlfriend. According to this girlfriend, Ashley Figueroa, Jared's home life "seemed really dysfunctional, his parents wouldn't let me come over." Jared was "very nice and extremely smart" but prone to tantrums. "When he'd get mad, he'd clench his fist and flail his arms," she said. "It scared me." <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN0AHNQa-CbDv2uc5_hPiiW1_lUFyTvcC8OQ4VHhYpGwZLOPk7oDSdJF7qmxo_gPlL2EmgBDUfmfRgpY34AamcMHRaIhiNa5wlUFRBKsVVxiO1fx8Hib9uGDdQM85nMvBCywBpRU69It9w/s1600/thumbnail+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN0AHNQa-CbDv2uc5_hPiiW1_lUFyTvcC8OQ4VHhYpGwZLOPk7oDSdJF7qmxo_gPlL2EmgBDUfmfRgpY34AamcMHRaIhiNa5wlUFRBKsVVxiO1fx8Hib9uGDdQM85nMvBCywBpRU69It9w/s1600/thumbnail+2.jpg" /></a></div><div align="center"></div> Following this split, it is reported that he began experimenting with marijuana, salvia, and various psychedelics, including the CIA's drug of choice, LSD. On May 12, 2006 he apparently showed up for school after consuming a heavy amount of Vodka. <a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/loughner-vodka-report?page=0">Police were called</a> to the school and Jared was taken to Northwest Hospital due to the severity of his intoxication. According to the police report "He (Loughner) advised he drank the alcohol because he was very upset as his father had yelled at him......I was advised by the nursing staff that he had stolen the alcohol from his father's liquor cabinet." Amy and Randy were apparently summoned to the hospital to sign a referral as Jared was considered under arrest. No record has been made available concerning this arrest or what punishment, if any, was handed to Jared by the courts. At this point in time Jared dropped out of high school, began acting and speaking in increasingly abnormal fashion, and occasionally began to show an interest in things like currency, language, brainwashing, and the Mayan prophecies. <br />
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He also displayed an interest in local politics, and attended more than one of Gabrielle Giffords' "Congress on your corner" meetings in the summer of 2007. At the final gathering he attended (until 2011), he posed a rather bizarre question to Giffords: "What is government if words have no meaning?" This statement is classic Loughner upon observing any of his game forum posts or YouTube videos, but one might assume that Ms. Giffords was caught quite off guard by the question. Apparently she fumbled for an answer before simply moving on to the next question, which supposedly angered Jared greatly.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyjTEX0or5X9ofxsi4gMT2go-vlxTzl8EV8-Nou2PyIhAYuAPa64qEu_7jP3KBYfRsD9HvCIdgppev0orsb4tsScP_pzpwkpymxo18Qjz4iHpm2VJvwwDKfFaXuPDiNKEp0vMqphp8uamo/s1600/IMG_3862.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyjTEX0or5X9ofxsi4gMT2go-vlxTzl8EV8-Nou2PyIhAYuAPa64qEu_7jP3KBYfRsD9HvCIdgppev0orsb4tsScP_pzpwkpymxo18Qjz4iHpm2VJvwwDKfFaXuPDiNKEp0vMqphp8uamo/s320/IMG_3862.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div> What exactly <strong>is</strong> government if words have no meaning? As you will see, the interaction between Loughner and Giffords is a very important element in this saga, due to a significant piece of information disclosed shortly after the shooting. The question makes little sense, although it made perfect sense in Jared's mind. He had an understanding of the Orwellian connection between language and thought, and questions or statements such as this were very common for him. (Irresponsibly I will add that some have suggested this was a type of code phrase related to mind control) It would seem from Gifford's point of view this guy was some sort of a creep asking insane questions and her security team would need to do an immediate check on him. Whether this happened or not remains in the realm of the unknown. He does not seem to have held any sort of fascination with Giffords, nor does he appear to have been stalking her. When police went to his parents home, they allegedly recovered a letter from Giffords' office thanking Jared for attending an event on August 25, 2007.<br />
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Fifteen days later, on September 10th, 2007 (Jared's 19th birthday) Jared caught a drug paraphernalia charge in Tucson proper and was sentenced to a Diversion program which he completed in November of 2007. Loughner and a friend, Bryce Tierney, were driving around smoking marijuana, probably to celebrate Loughner's birthday, when they were pulled over, searched, and found to be in possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Both were ticketed and released. At his court appearance on October 4th, Jared was given a twenty dollar fine and sentenced to a Diversion program which he seems to have completed rather quickly. Exactly what Diversion program he completed is a bit of a mystery. According to Neal Cash, President of the Community Partnership of Southern Arizona - which manages publicly funded behavioral services in Tucson - "There's no record of his receiving publicly funded mental health treatment or anyone contacting the local mental health hot line about him." Cash's files would not include records of Loughner receiving private treatment.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Hr4TBkYpj4rJHTOjuje9XT0f34jJz1jm-CGVcNUdbsmC6li630ba-tKVxsaJoGqe1l_XOZHaIIadzxULGThQbo-ooRXohHQiQkEsdciJdIwHjA-DFECZWmbDWv8k-LLaojHeyOFsdxsg/s1600/D65-352325.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ida="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Hr4TBkYpj4rJHTOjuje9XT0f34jJz1jm-CGVcNUdbsmC6li630ba-tKVxsaJoGqe1l_XOZHaIIadzxULGThQbo-ooRXohHQiQkEsdciJdIwHjA-DFECZWmbDWv8k-LLaojHeyOFsdxsg/s1600/D65-352325.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em>(Pima County Courthouse. Perhaps tellingly, the Bank of America Building towers ominously over its shoulder.....)</em></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div> Private treatment seems to be exactly what Jared received. Before this story can continue, a brief side trip must be taken. A closer look at Tucson, Marana, Gabrielle Giffords, and an old Watergate villain is a necessary part of understanding this tragedy. For those wondering about the significant fact regarding the relationship between Giffords and Loughner - you'll just have to wait! <br />
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<strong>To Be Continued..............................</strong>Gonzo's Revengehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10029199887202069927noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2594416584048026164.post-85000145415157928702011-08-23T04:56:00.000-05:002011-08-23T04:56:27.312-05:00Of Straw Polls and Piss Poor Journalism August 15th, 2011:<br />
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The results from the Iowa "straw poll" are in and, believe it or not, Ron Paul is essentially tied as the Republican front runner! You would not be aware of this, unless you live in Russia or somewhere American news is actually reported. American journalism has outdone itself this time in it's loathsome misrepresentation of the facts.<br />
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The reality of the situation is this: Ron Paul and Neocon puppet Michelle Bachman accounted for almost 60% of those polled (4671 and 4823 respectively), followed by Tim Pawlenty with 2293, which caused him to promptly drop out of the race. Apparently he feels that he cannot statistically overcome fellow Minnesotan Bachman, let alone Ron Paul or the two supercandidates lurking around the corner. He should have understood this fact to begin with.<br />
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Following Pawlenty was that freak from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum, with 1657 votes despite extensive campaigning in Iowa of late. Close behind sat Herman Cain, former Federal Reserve board member and winner of the Horatio Alger Award (an appropriate award for many Federal Reservers, I suspect), with 1456. Texas governor Rick Perry, despite not being on the ballot or in the debates, received 718 write in votes. Following him was Sean Hannity's "winner" of the debates, Mitt Romney, with a paltry 567. Newt Gingrich and the rest were inconsequential.<br />
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A debate was held two days prior to the "straw poll", an event held in Ames, Iowa the summer before every presidential election year. This event is mainly a Republican fundraiser used to showcase the party and create somewhat of an initial pecking order for the next year's primaries. The event this year was preceded by a highly publicized debate aired on FOX news (while the heavy handed attack on Tripoli went unreported) and spun throughout the entire propaganda industry.<br />
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Mitt Romney looked very much like a Saturday Night Live charicature of Mitt Romney, and did very little to distinguish himself. He made one strong, sensible comment related to the tenth amendment, although it was actually a lie he was never called on. <br />
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<blockquote><strong>Why wouldn't you just let each state make their own decision? And the reason is because people move from state to state of course in a society like ours, they have children. As to go to different states, if one state recognizes a marriage and the other does not, what's the right of that child? - Mit Romney</strong></blockquote> Bachman was quite possibly the loser of a nasty side debate relating to Minnesota politics with Pawlenty, a waste of dialogue which was incessantly egged on by the fine journalists from FOX news moderating the event. Herman Cain was not asked the right questions and did not answer the ones he was asked in dramatic enough fashion to really make an impression. He does not seem to have the flair to stand out among the sharks he is swimming with.<br />
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Newt Gingrich, however, was given royal treatment by his friends at FOX. Presented off to one side and seemingly above (due to camera angles) the other candidates, he answered softball questions with an authority, clarity, and statesmanship unrivaled by his opponents. Due to his treatment by FOX, he seemed like a professor lecturing his pupils (the other candidates) rather than a crooked hypocritical womanizer. Fortunately, nobody saw through it and his miserable showing in the subsequent straw poll is a good indicator of his impending elimination from this race. I cannot figure out his motivation or agenda, although it is surely evil, and expect him to crawl back into the establishment woodwork sooner than later.<br />
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Rick Santorum, also looking like a caricature of Rick Santorum (more MAD magazine than SNL), did himself no favors by repeatedly whining about lack of coverage of his own twisted viewpoints. Furthermore, this <strong>extreme</strong> establishment candidate repeatedly affirmed his Obama-like contempt for the U.S. constitution as a whole, and also affirmed that he is a very disagreeable individual. Mr. Santorum, despite his rabid fundamentalist social agenda (similar to the social structure of the most backward corners of the Islamic world) stood shoulder to shoulder with all the other candidates not named Ron Paul on three main points. The war must go on, the federal government does not have to abide by the tenth amendment, and our current situation must be remedied from the bottom up. Attacking entitlements, government workers benefits, and government work programs in a down economy will accomplish nothing but a greater acceleration towards complete breakdown. This is merely a simple reversal of Communist class warfare tricks, targeting the poor rather than the rich, and these concepts are much better debated by cooler heads AFTER the bigger fish are fried and the U.S. economy is back on track. To start by attacking these issues will bring nothing but further economic, social, and structural decay to our once great land.<br />
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Despite the existence of Barack Obama, Rick Santorum has the potential to be quite possibly the most dangerous political frontman in American politics today. Seemingly one of the rare politicians to actually believe his professed viewpoints, Santorum appears to hold legitimate Presidential aspirations. His stand on the Tenth Amendment clearly shows his strong desire to use the federal government to force his social agenda on America. The possibility of another dead fetus lover (Barbara Bush kept one in a jar) in control of the White House and both houses of Congress brings to mind visions of a Third Reich controlled by a hybrid of Pat Robertson and Jiminy Cricket. America could not survive such an ordeal (particuliarly on the heels of the Bush/Obama right/left combo), although, thankfully, we will not have to. Santorum made the calculated decision to attack Ron Paul (the others ignored Paul), showing that he is operating with true motivation rather than just following some Neocon campaign script. Ron Paul was the favorite of the crowd, and leading in many obscure polls. To defeat him in debate was a logical move in Santorum's mind in order to give him an edge over the other candidates.<br />
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<blockquote><strong>We have Ron Paul saying, oh, what the states want to do -- whatever the states want to do under the 10th Amendment's fine. So if the states want to pass polygamy, that's fine. If the states want to impose sterilization, that's fine. <br />
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No, our country is based on moral laws, ladies and gentlemen. There are things the states can't do. Abraham Lincoln said the states do not have the right to do wrong. <br />
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I respect the 10th Amendment, but we are a nation that has values. We are a nation that was built on a moral enterprise, and states don't have the right to tramp over those because of the 10th Amendment. - Rick Santorum</strong></blockquote><div align="center"></div> This was a big mistake for at least two reasons. Ron Paul's following is so far removed from Santorum's vision of a better America that he has less chance than Obama of stealing any of their votes. More importantly, Ron Paul shredded him in the ensuing debate. In the process of educating Mr. Santorum on the finer points of foreign policy, the Tenth Amendment, simple economics, and telling the truth in general, Ron Paul hit several home runs, stole the show for a little while, and set himself clearly apart from the rest of the group on the issue of the unpopular, expensive, and largely illegal wars currently being fought by our nation.<br />
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<blockquote><strong>I think we need to recognize that right now Iran is on offense and our troops are in danger everywhere in that region. And I think we need a very serious national debate about it. - Newt Gingrich</strong></blockquote><br />
Another interesting fact of this debate was the claim made by most of the candidates to one another that "you stand shoulder to shoulder with Barack Obama...." on this or that issue. When asked about our current military policies, all except Ron Paul stood shoulder to shoulder with Barack Obama. New statistics show that America's dissaproval with our post 9-11 military policy is at an all time high. Not as surprisingly as you might think, Republicans are now more in favor of ending the wars than Democrats, although the sentiment is shared by voting majorities in both parties. Ron Paul, unlike all the other current Republican candidates, has the most potential to appeal outside of the increasingly polarized Republican base. Even with Obama's lower than ever approval ratings, the incumbent's base will stick with him and swing voters will NOT go out of their way to vote for another Texas governor, let alone a female from the North Woods. Ron Paul's growing number of supporters will not, for the most part, let Obamaphobia cause them to vote for an establishment Republican. If he gets the nomination, we could actually see "change" in Washington. If not, the elephant party will be split, and Obama will be granted another four year reign of terror, despite the probable Republican takeover of the Senate.<br />
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<blockquote><strong>If the federal government can force American citizens or if a state can force their citizens to purchase health insurance, there is nothing that the state cannot do. This is clearly an unconstitutional action - Michelle Bachman</strong></blockquote><blockquote><strong> I support the federal marriage amendment.......I also want to say, when I was in Minnesota, I was the chief author of the constitutional amendment to define marriage as one man, one woman. - Michelle Bachman</strong></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><strong> </strong></div> Immediately following the debate, Sean Hannity proclaimed Mitt Romney the obvious winner and announced that results of a FOX online poll would show who won the debate within the hour. Sean Hannity, doing what he does best, managed to put the entire audience to sleep before the hour was up, and FOX decided against showing the results of the poll. Before boring everyone away, however, he proclaimed Romney the winner, interviewed the always robotic Bachman, and discussed every candidate's performance except that of Ron Paul. When I first saw the poll, about the time they were supposed to show it on FOX, Ron Paul had somewhere around 5000 votes, with the others trailing substantially (by substantially I mean the others only had several hundred votes apiece). This was actual news, and therefore had no place on FOX anyways.<br />
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<strong> </strong>For Ron Paul, the Freak candidate whose followers are on Homeland Security watch lists, to be leading all these establishment clowns was the biggest story to hit a campaign trail since Dewey defeated Truman, yet was barely even mentioned in the mainstream American media! For all practical purposes Ron Paul and Michelle Bachman tied, and the others were eating their dust. This was the biggest news, a bombshell in fact, to come out of Ames, yet the average headline went like this: "Bachman wins straw poll, Perry to enter race..." and the ensuing story generally completely ignored Ron Paul. (CNN did mention Paul's second place in their headline, but the article barely mentioned him.) The sound byte repeated on the propaganda wires was of Michelle Bachman saying that this somehow proved Barack Obama would be defeated (in so many words). How exactly a Republican splitting votes with other Republicans in a straw poll fifteen months before the general election says anything about dethroning a Democrat is beyond me.<br />
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To make a long story short, by Monday Ron Paul was still getting the very intentional silent treatment from America's corporate media, while fellow Texan Rick Perry was receiving something along the lines of fellatio from every media source imaginable. Rush Limbaugh did mention that Ron Paul was a "nutjob," although what that makes Rick Santorum is anybody's guess. Coincidentally, the big three of right wing talk radio conveniently did not even watch the debates. The Glenn Beck show took the stance that Rick Santorum won, although Glenn Beck's extreme Neocon radio partner most definitely falls into the "nutjob" category. Rush Limbaugh, while still wistfully trying to push Romney on his unresponsive masses, decided to jump on the Rick Perry bandwagon (between Sarah Palin plugs), and Michael Savage also seems to be taking the Perry train. That train is headed straight for Hell, and America would be wise to steer clear.<br />
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Regardless of who commentators and particuliarly professional journalists personally endorse, they have an obligation to get the story right rather than slide the facts around to make the story agreeable to their point of view. Ron Paul essentially won the straw poll hyped by those who would like to silence him. The media has gone above and beyond in order to suppress this story and it's ramifications from the American people. Why? More to follow...............<br />
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<strong> </strong><blockquote><strong>...and our goal should be peace and prosperity. It is under the principles of liberty that you have the greatest chance of achieving peace and prosperity. That is why I am so down on these wars that are costing us trillions of dollars, why we have to reform the monetary system, why we need honest money, a gold standard and not paper money out of the Federal Reserve system... - Ron Paul</strong></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><strong> </strong></div> Gonzo's Revengehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10029199887202069927noreply@blogger.com0