After enjoying and reviewing the biography ‘Charlotte Brontë’s Thunder’ by Michele Carter, I found her latest fiction entitled ‘The Brontë Code’ equally entertaining. ‘The Brontë Code’ acts as an excellent introduction to the intricate code elaborated on in the non-fiction, and presents biographical background to enhance our understanding of the famous nineteenth-century Brontë family.

In a mystery that echoes elements of ‘The DaVinci Code’, Carter’s version of murder, mayhem, and secret societies involves Freemasons, anagrams, and ancient rituals buried deep within the Brontë novels.

When the story opens in the present-day, Lucy Owens, a struggling journalist from San Francisco, has made her way to Haworth, in the north of England, to visit the Brontë museum and to immerse herself in the local scenery. While in the village, Lucy’s absorption of Brontëana lends a slight dissonance to her musings when she learns she shares several odd, life coincidences with her favorite Brontë sister, Charlotte. Nonetheless, she roams the moors to retrace the steps of her literary muse with the hope that she will connect with her own talent as a novelist.

Her adventure begins during an afternoon ramble among the heather and harebells. Haunting cries and the image of a man (Heathcliff?) draw her to an abandoned farmhouse where she discovers a body. The dead man is Danny Cowan, and his ancestry links back several generations to the 1840s when the Brontë fictions were first published.

Lucy’s curiosity drives her to investigate the murder, which leads her directly to ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Wuthering Heights’. Her attraction to Charlotte and the strange similarities in their lives create a further pull beyond simple curiosity. The undercurrent of a mysterious force, while frightening, enables Lucy to crack a secret code that’s been hidden in plain view for over one hundred and sixty years. Is Charlotte guiding her to even deeper secrets?

A murder mystery is not complete without the catalogue of possible suspects. In ‘The Brontë Code’, several characters could be implicated in the dastardly deed. The villagers prefer to keep their secrets to themselves, and our woman sleuth must break through their veneer of civility to find a killer. She discovers a companion-in-arms in Sarah Chadwick, a local whose belief in a Brontë conspiracy theory allows the village folk to dismiss her as an odd duck, but Lucy finds her knowledge of history and Freemasonry invaluable.

An additional point of interest is whether a romance is brewing between a long-time resident and Lucy. The only problem is, however, that her love interest may be the man who killed Danny Cowan.

At approximately 300 pages, ‘The Brontë Code’ is the perfect read over a summer weekend. The mystery and intrigue kept me flipping to the next chapter, and the charmingly quirky characters provide occasional comic relief. The novel is a colorful mix of past exploits intertwining with contemporary events, and presents the reader with a fascinating lead-in to the more scholarly ‘Charlotte Brontë’s Thunder’. Your level of enjoyment is not predicated on your level of knowledge of Brontë lore or literature: both books assume you know nothing, but by the end you will know a great deal.

Los Angeles Times Headline

March 28, 2011

Dorothea Puente, 82 died at the Central California Women’s Facility where she was serving life without parole. She was sentenced for three first degree murder convictions for two life terms. She was a Sacramento boarding house operator who was convicted of killing her tenants in the 1990’s. She died of natural causes.

Who was Dorothea Puente?

At 64 years old, her grandmotherly figure, made headlines across the country. Hers was a macabre story that included: buried victims in her Victorian-styled home, a body found in the Sacramento River, and; several heinous killings.

She was considered to be one of the coldest and calculating female killer that ever lived. She was claimed to have drugged and killed her victims to collect on their disability checks. The amount that she robbed totalled to around $87,000 which prosecutors claimed, she had used for faced-lift operations, among other things.

The Early Years

She was given the birth name Dorothea Gray on January 9, 1929, in California, USA. She had alcoholic parents: a father, who was a cotton picker, died when she was four (4) years old; and mother, who a prostitute, also died when she turned six (6). She was sent to an orphanage after the death of her mother, where relatives claimed her several years later.

Conflicting accounts marked her early childhood. She claimed that she had seventeen (17) other siblings. This was not proven however: what was known was that her father had weird tendencies of pointing a gun on his head, whenever he was drunk. It was also reported that she was sexually abused in the orphanage where she stayed.

At seventeen (17), she married and bore two (2) children. The marriage was short-lived; since the husband died of heart attack after two (2) years. She gave up the two children for adoption. She was later caught forging checks in Riverside, but was given parole six (6) months after.

The Turbulent Years

Shortly after her released from parole, she was impregnated by a man she barely knew. She again, gave up the baby for adoption. In 1952, she married a second time around – to a Swiss named Johanson. The marriage lasted for more than a decade and was marked with turbulence and marital squabbles. She divorced Johanson in the mid 60’s and later married Roberto Puente, who was nineteen (19) years her junior. Her marriage only lasted for two years since Roberto was oftentimes seen cavorting with other women.

Dorothea Puente’s fascination with managing a boarding house, started in the early 60’s when she was still married to Johanson. However, in that same year, she was prosecuted for managing a brothel and was sentenced for ninety (90) days in the Sacramento County Jail. Her turbulent era, stopped for sometime when she found work as nursing aid; and as manager of a boarding house later on.

Before the split-up of her marriage to Roberto, she managed to take over a three (3) story, sixteen (16) bedroom house in Sacramento, California. She converted this into a home for the poor, unwanted and the homeless. She nevertheless, took charged of encashing her tenant’s Social Security checks. And this proclivity to government checks, eventually led to her reign of terror!

The Macabre Years of Horror

The bizarre stories started when neighbors found the ‘odd’ activities of a man named, Chief, who was purportedly the handyman of Dorothea. Chief was an alcoholic man, and was oftentimes seen digging lumps of soil and carting it away from the basement area of the house. The basement floors were then covered in concrete. After these were all done, Chief mysteriously vanished. There was no trace of him; and nothing was heard of him either!

Dorothea married the third time around in 1976, another abusive man named Pedro Montalvo. This third husband of hers was another alcoholic; which contributed to the collapsed of their marriage after three (3) months. Dorothea was next seen in pubs and bars luring old men, who received pensions or benefits. She took hold of their checks, forged their signatures, and encashed the checks herself. She was eventually nabbed, and was charged with multiple counts of fraud. She was placed on bail, but continued with her illegal activities though on probation.

Paper Trails of Murders and Illegal Activities

Authorities claimed that the series of murders started with the death of one Ruth Munroe, 61 years old, who died allegedly, of drug overdose. She had around $6,000 with her when she moved in with Dorothea. She died two weeks later, of Tylenol and Codeine overdose, which medics claimed were a clear case of suicide. A month after this incident, Dorothea was charged and convicted of drugging other elderly people and robbing them. Dorothea was sent for five (5) years in prison, but was released three (3) years later. The terms of her release specified, that she will have no contact with the elderly, nor of encashing government checks issued to others.

Dorothea’s pen pal while still in prison, Everson Gilmouth, a 77 year old man from Oregon, came in handy when she was later released from prison. Everson was there to pick her up on his red pick-up truck. However, his body was later found, dumped in the Sacramento River, about five (5) years later. His pick-up truck was given to a handyman, whom Dorothea hired to build a 6 x 3 x 2 box, supposedly to store books and other household items. The box was then nailed shut; and the handyman then helped Dorothea transport the box to a nearby storage area. However, the box was dumped by her on the river bank en route to the storage depot.

A year later, the box was found by two (2) fisherfolk. They informed the police officials about the decomposing body that they found inside the box. Dorothea, meanwhile had been collecting the pension check of Gilmouth, and wrote the members of his family that he was sick and cannot write the letters himself.

She continued with the boarding and lodging business that catered to the homeless and alcoholics. She encashed their checks and gave them a small amount of money, which they always spent on booze on a nearby pub. She then tipped the police, and had them arrested. Dorothea then pocketed the rest of their money for her own use.

On November 11, 1988 the police was able to get bodies buried in the lawns of the then 60 year old Dorothea. On further investigation, they found several other bodies buried on the basement. She was sentenced and convicted for life without possibility of parole. She died in prison several years after, of natural causes.

Amnesty International and other human rights groups report that over half the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice. Specifically, Amnesty International reports that 63 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes, while 91 other countries, a number of which are in the English Speaking Caribbean (ESC), retain and use the death penalty. The countries that comprise the ESC are: Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Dominica, Bahamas and Suriname.

In the late 1990’s Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations viewed with alarm what they believe is a trend toward the increasing popularity of hangings in the Caribbean, a vestige of British colonial rule. England had only one form of execution for murder – that was hanging by the neck until dead. Although England ended the death penalty in 1991, the ESC maintains the tradition of hanging murders. Human rights groups decried the fact that a number of governments in the ESC had undertaken controversial steps to change their justice systems and constitutions and sever ties with international appeals bodies to make it easier to carry out such executions.

Of course, many in the United States are not aware of the death penalty debate that raged between human rights groups and the governments of many of the ESC nations of the Caribbean; nor are they aware that executions in the ESC are still carried out by hanging. This article is mainly about one ESC woman on death row who beat the gallows. It is my belief that gender-bias helped save her from hanging. However, first we must take a few moments to examine the roots of the discussion. To do so we must look at what has become known to both the proponents of the death penalty and those in favor of it abolition, as Pratt and Morgan.

PRATT AND MORGAN

Pratt and Morgan, two consolidated cases from Jamaica, ( Pratt v. Attorney General for Jamaica, 2 App. Cas. 1), resulted in a 1993 landmark judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the British court of last resort for many Caribbean nations. In essence, that judgment established the principle that both Pratt and Morgan, who had been prisoners on Jamaica’s death row for a period exceeding five years, could be seen as victims of cruel and inhumane punishment if they were sent to the gallows, and should therefore, have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The Privy Council also recommended that other prisoners on death row in the region for five years or more should also have their sentences commuted.

The Privy Council then reviewed the tortured chronology of the appellants’ appeal process which included lost applications for appeals, rulings denying their appeal with no written explanation, and failure of Jamaica to recognize the recommendations of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights after their review of the case. It was the ruling of the Privy Council that in any case in which execution is to take place more than five years after sentence there would be strong grounds for believing that the delay is such as to constitute inhumane treatment or punishment as proscribed by the Constitution.

As a result of Pratt and Morgan all prisoners in the Caribbean who had been on death row for longer than five years had their sentences commuted to life in prison. Scores of prisoners continue to be removed from death row as a result. It is reported that for those remaining the Pratt and Morgan decision has set off a scramble to extend their appeals process beyond the five year limit. Before Pratt and Morgan, there were 450 prisoners on death row throughout the ESC. While only a handful of hangings have occurred in the region since Pratt and Morgan, the death row population is now much less than half of what it was in 1993 – a direct consequence of the commutation of sentences.

In the late 1990’s Trinidad and Tobago was the only ESC nation with women on death row. Amnesty International reported, as of April 1999, there were seventy six men and five women on death row in Trinidad.

TRINIDAD

I traveled to Trinidad in June 1999 to learn more about the country and about the women on death row. The ESC islands of Trinidad and Tobago form a unitary state, with a parliamentary democracy modeled after the United Kingdom. The country is headed by a president who is elected by the parliament. There is an independent judiciary but constitutional cases may be appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The two islands host a population of 1.3 million people and comprise a land mass about 1.5 times the size of the state of Rhode Island. The southernmost tip of Trinidad is only three miles from the Coast of Venezuela. The major ethnic group is of East Indian descent (40.3%), followed closely by those of African descent (39.5%), 18% of the people are of mixed nationality, while those of European descent comprise 0.6% of the population. The country is endowed with rich deposits of oil and natural gas and boasted a GDP of $5.4 billion for the year 1996.

Women on Death Row

While in Trinidad I was able to learn about three of the five women on death row. There is Giselle Stafford. She was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of a man. Angela Ramdeen was sentenced in 1997 to be hanged. Ms. Ramdeen was convicted for the murder of her two step children. And, then there is Indravani Pamela Ramjattan who went to death row for the 1995 slaying of her common law husband, Alexander Jordan.

No women have been executed in Trinidad since its independence from Great Britain in 1962. Most of the women on death row are there as a result of some form of domestic violence. A number of women’s groups, as well as Amnesty International, believe that domestic violence against women is a way of life in Trinidad. It is reported that 27 women were murdered in domestic violence encounters in 1998. In total there were a reported 2,282 cases of domestic violence in the same year. Unfortunately, there were only six women’s shelters in the entire nation in the late 1990’s and no legal aid exists for battered women. What we know as the battered wife syndrome in United States Courts as a defense to assault or homicide of a spouse is unknown in Trinidad. Such evidence if presented in Trinidadian court could only be used to show “diminished responsibility.”

The Ramjattan Case

Among the women on death row in Trinidad Ms. Ramjattan’ s case was the most chronicled because of interest by women’s groups and human rights activists. Despite Trinidad’s Attorney General’s zeal to carry out the death penalty for all those on death row within the Pratt and Morgan five year limitation there was much local speculation that the government of then, Prime Minister, Basdeo Panday, would not execute women.

Indravani Pamela Ramjattan, Haniff Hillaire, and Denny Baptiste were all convicted in 1995, in a joint trial for the murder of Ramjattan’ s common law husband Alexander Jordan at Cumuto, Trinidad. The facts of the case show that Ms. Ramjattan completed the equivalent of an eighth grade education. At the age of 16 her parents accepted money from Alexander Jordan, a man in his thirties, who took Ms. Ramjattan as his common law wife. They had six children together in a ten year period. During this same period Ms. Ramjattan suffered abuse at the hands of Jordan and in 1991 she left him. She took two of her children and went to the town of Sangre Grande and began living with childhood sweetheart, Denny Baptiste. Shortly thereafter, Jordan tracked her down and forcibly broke down Baptiste’s door and took Ms. Ramjattan back to Cumuto. Upon arrival in Cumuto he beat her unconscious.

Shortly thereafter, Ms. Ramjattan wrote a letter to Baptiste and Hillaire, his friend who lived in the same housing complex, to come to Cumuto to rescue her. Ms. Ramjattan swore in a court affidavit that she did summon Baptiste and Hillaire but never asked them to kill her husband. Nevertheless, the evidence further showed that late on the night of February12, 1991, Ms. Ramjattan met Baptiste and Hillaire behind her house. She gave them a piece of wood and directed the two men to the area in the house where Alexander was sleeping. Baptiste and Hillaire entered the home and struck Jordan in the head several times with the piece of wood while he lay sleeping. They then rolled his body in a bed sheet, transported him to Jordan’s van, and placed him inside. According to testimony, Ms. Ramjattan brought kerosene to the two men who then sprinkled it on Jordan’s body and set him and the van afire. An autopsy showed that Jordan had died from three blows to his head which fractured his skull. His body was also covered with first degree burns.

Ms. Ramjattan was pregnant by Baptiste when she was taken into custody, after the murder of Jordan. She did not speak to a lawyer until a year into her detention because she had no money to hire a lawyer. The baby later died when prison officials refused to take her to the hospital when she went into labor.

Following Ms. Ramjattan’s conviction her appeals were heard by the local courts and by the Privy Council which found that her case did not fit the statutory definition of provocation or unlawful force. One of the Privy Council Judges, Lord Browne-Wilkinson, however, had described the case as “tragic” as it was clear that Jordan had “beaten her mercilessly.” Ms. Ramjattan’ s plight gained the attention of the Coalition Against Domestic Violence in Trinidad and other women’s groups in Kenya, and throughout the world who contend that to hang Ms. Ramjattan would be an injustice, given what they believe to be her unstable mental state at the time of Jordan’s death. A new team of lawyers was assembled which obtained expert evidence on her behalf to take to the Privy Council which alleged that at the time of the murder Ms. Ramjattan suffered emotional and cognitive distortions that would have rendered her psychologically incapable of understanding the consequences of her plan to have Jordan murdered.

It is interesting to note that at the trial level Ms. Ramjattan’ s lawyer chose not to present evidence of her years of abuse. Rather, it was the prosecution that used the abuse evidence to reinforce the argument that Ramjattan had a strong motive to murder her husband. Similarly her lawyers chose not to focus on the abuse in her first appeal to the Privy Council.

The Privy Council Ruling

In late 1998 local attorneys and supporters of Ms. Ramjattan learned through interviews with her on death row the extent of Jordan’s brutality over the years. They hired Joanne Cross a lawyer at the British law form of Slaughter and May to file a new appeal before the Privy Council. The new appeal asked the Privy Council to reconsider the case based on new evidence. Said evidence consisted of a 17 page psychiatric report on Ms. Ramjattan by a London based expert on domestic abuse. Forensic psychiatrist Nigel Eastman of London’s St. George’s Hospital Medical School concluded that Ms. Ramjattan was a classic victim of “battered woman syndrome.” The report also stated that Ms. Ramjattan suffered “repetitive physical violence, culminating in a most severe attack on the 4th of February, repeated rapes… enforced isolation… amounting ultimately to imprisonment as a hostage in the days leading up to the offense, threats to kill, attacks with weapons, threats with a shotgun, worsened violence if she protested, worsened violence when she escaped, humiliation and mental abuse starving and beating their children and refusing to allow them to go to school.”

Many hoped that the Privy Council would rule in Ms. Ramjattan’s favor and set a precedent for the ESC which would provide that domestic abuse could justify homicide in self-defense. On February 3, 1999, the Privy Council did rule in Ms. Ramjattan’ s favor. However, the ruling did not go as far as her supporters hoped in setting a clear precedent concerning whether abuse can justify homicide in self-defense. The ruling did, in fact, send the case back to the Trinidad Court of Appeal. And perhaps, more importantly, provided Ms. Ramjattan an avenue to escape the gallows.

The Privy Council accepted Ms. Ramjattan’ s new evidence as adequate grounds to support her allegation of diminished responsibility on the grounds that she had not previously had the financial resources to procure such evidence. The Privy Council, further held, in relevant part:

Their Lordships’ Board has jurisdiction to hear further petitions in respect of the same matter notwithstanding the dismissal of earlier petitions. The jurisdiction will however only be exercised in exceptional cases where new ground of appeal are raised of such a character and of sufficient merit to justify a second petition.

* * * * * *

The petitioner seeks leave to adduce new evidence, not previously relied upon, to support an allegation of diminished responsibility. If she can establish the facts required by s 4A of the Offences Against the Person Act 1925, she would have a defense to the charge of murder.

* * * * * *

On this petition, their Lordships confined their consideration to the question whether a sufficient case had been made out for remission to the Court of Appeal. Having decided to remit, they did not enter upon the question whether the Court of Appeal should accept the new evidence nor what weight the Court of Appeal should give it nor whether it indeed justifies the quashing of her conviction for murder and substituting a conviction for manslaughter or the ordering of a retrial. All of these are matters for the Court of Appeal to decide; they may choose to hear oral evidence; evidence in rebuttal of the new evidence may be adduced; what in the upshot the evidence proves and what its admissibility and relevance if called at the trial would have been will have to be assessed as will the petitioners explanation for not having adduced that evidence at trial.

* * * * * * * *

Their Lordships have after some hesitation decided that the evidence of Dr. Eastman does justify a remission to the Court of Appeal so that the Court of Appeal may reconsider the appeal of Indravani Ramjattan taking into account that evidence. They do not overlook that there are still obstacles to be overcome before she can successfully challenge the jury’s verdict.

* * * * * * * *

It should also be noted that their Lordships’ Board have dismissed the petitions of Denny Baptiste and Haniff Hillaire.

The Personal Interviews

The Privy Council has firmly put the ball back in the Court of the Trinidadian Court of Appeal. Arguments in the case had been set for July 8, 1999, but have been continued by the Court of Appeal to November of 1999. We do not know how long it might take the Court to rule after the arguments.

While in Trinidad I spoke with Anthony Carmona, Chief Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, who was writing the brief for the government in the Ramjattan case, and with Rangee Dolsingh, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions who was to argue the case for the government in the Court of Appeal. After their review of the Privy Council ruling they opined that the Court of Appeal, after hearing arguments, could issue one of three rulings: 1) Find a miscarriage of Justice in the case and order a retrial, 2) Enter a substitution of verdict and reduce the conviction to manslaughter, or 3) Find the psychological evidence not credible, dismiss the appeal and reestablish the original death sentence.

Mr. Dolsingh indicated that he will argue forcefully that the death sentence should be upheld. He believed that Ms. Ramjattan is an intelligent woman who has exaggerated the amount of abuse that she suffered at the hands of her deceased husband. It was his personal belief that the imposition of the death penalty should be gender neutral and that the death penalty should be carried out in Ms. Ramjattan’ s case, given the brutality of the crime. Nevertheless, Mr. Dolsingh confided that he believes that public policy in Trinidad would not allow a woman to be hanged. This sentiment was echoed by Mr. Justice George A. Edoo, Ombudsman of Trinidad and Tobago, with whom I also met during my visit to the country. Mr. Justice Edoo, who during his career presided over numerous murder trials, stated simply that women should not be put to death. He maintains that it was his opinion, and he believes and the opinion of the majority of Trinidadians, that to put a woman to death, any woman, would be like putting your sister or your mother to death. It is too unseemly to contemplate. Perhaps, Justice Edoo has articulated the root of gender bias in death penalty cases. The unseemly notion of, perhaps, putting our sisters or mothers to death.

Many Trinidadians had been pleased to see that the government had sentenced Dole Chadee and eight members of his ruthless drug gang to death. All nine of them had been hanged a few months prior to my trip to Trinidad. Nevertheless, many on the street in Port of Spain expressed the opinion that it would prove unpopular with the electorate to put one woman to death. I also had the opportunity to speak to others about the issue. Douglas Mendes is one of the attorneys who had worked on the brief for Ms. Ramjattan’ s case, as well as briefs for a number of other death penalty cases. Attorney Mendes was resolute – he does not believe that there should be gender equality in the death penalty – because he believes there should be no death penalty anywhere in the world. Mr. Mendes refused to speculate as to what the Court of Appeal would do with respect to Ms. Ramjattan’ s case. I, later, had the opportunity to meet with Attorney Gaitry Pargass, local counsel for Ms. Ramjattan at the time of both her Privy Council appeals. Attorney Pargass believed the best ruling from the Court Appeal would be the order of a new trial, thereby allowing counsel to present the very compelling battered spouse syndrome evidence through expert testimony and eyewitness testimony. She believed such evidence would lead to an acquittal. However, Attorney Pargass confided that Ms. Ramjattan has told her that she did not have the psychological wherewithal to endure a second trial. Attorney Pargass believed that if the Court of Appeal substituted a manslaughter conviction for the capital murder conviction the trial team could then argue for her release on grounds that she had served adequate time for the crime.

My final interviews while in Trinidad was with Keith Renaud, the assistant Superintendent of Police. Superintendent Renaud believes that there should not be the amount of crime that his small nation is facing. He believes that the death penalty is needed in Trinidad to send a signal to criminals that the law will be upheld. However, it was his prediction, given the politics of the country, Ms. Ramjattan would not be hanged. The irony Renaud points out is that the Prime Minister and his Party represent the ethnic majority — those of East Indian descent (40.3% of the population). All nine of the men members of the Dole Chadee gang executed in June were of East Indian descent. This was seen by the public as a bold and popular move to eradicate crime. Yet, Ms. Ramjattan is also of East Indian descent. The majority of people in the country did not believe a woman should be put to death. Such an execution would have harmed the goodwill that the Panday government has built. There certainly appears to be gender-bias with respect to the death penalty in Trinidad. I think this is good. Perhaps, a first step to the abolition of the death penalty altogether.

Ms. Ramjattan did not deliver the death blows that killed her husband. These were meted out by two male friends to whom she had turned for help. Throughout the trial, she insisted that she called them merely to rescue her, not to kill her husband. The jury did not believe her. She was convicted as an aider and abettor – she was, therefore, as guilty as the principals who struck the death blows. Secondly, at trial Ms. Ramjattan did not once utter the words “battered spouse.” Her strategy was simply to say that she was not a party to the violence that killed her husband.

However, as I understand the defense at this point, Ms. Ramjattan’s attorney will use the evidence of her battered state to show that she had a mental state which would have “diminished responsibility” for the crime. That is, her actions as an aider and abettor were a product of the abuse she had suffered for so many years from her husband, and thereby had distorted her mind and mental processes.

The Reluctance To Put Women To Death

Mr. Justice Edoo believes that Ms. Ramjattan’ s life will be spared because to execute a woman would be like killing our sisters or our mothers. Another way of expressing this thought may be that society prefers to think of women as passive, not powerful or aggressive. To execute a woman is to acknowledge that women can be violent.

Leigh Beinen, a law professor who studies gender bias in capital cases, contends the reason so few women face execution has to do with the symbolism that is central to the death penalty. She states “Capital punishment is about portraying people as devils, but women are usually seen as less threatening.” Beinen believes that juries and judges tend to find more mitigating factors in capital cases involving women than in ones involving men. She further maintains that women who kill spouses are often seen as victims. Women are likely to kill someone they know without premeditation, which is considered less serious than killing a stranger.

Elizabeth Rapaport, a scholar who does not believe that there is inherent gender-bias with respect to the death penalty in the U.S., argues that most murders, whether committed by men or women, are not sufficiently aggravated to tempt prosecutors to pursue a death penalty. She also believes that an important reason why so few women are eligible for capital sentences is that women who kill are more likely than men to kill family and other intimates in anger than for a predatory purpose. Predatory murder is committed to gain some material or other advantage, in contrast with killing that appears to be stimulated by powerful emotion. Felony and other predatory murders are most often committed against strangers and least often committed against family and other intimates.

Ms. Ramjattan has no prior criminal record. Of course, what may be viewed as not predatory in the United States would not pass muster in Trinidad. The prosecutor will argue to the Court of Appeal that Ms. Ramjattan called the killers to her home, she provided them the murder weapon, and then gave them the kerosene with which to set her husband afire. Although seemingly cold-blooded, these do not appear to be predatory acts as defined by Rapaport. They were not performed for material gain. Instead, it appears that revenge was the motive. Yet, Mr. Dolsingh believed the acts of Ms. Ramjattan were as predatory and cunning as those of an animal.

Conclusion

Courts are usually conservative about forging new law and would rather await input from the legislature. If the Court of Appeal does not decide to overturn the death penalty for Ms. Ramjattan it could have been possible that the President or the Prime Minister could commute the death sentence to a life sentence. This is not without precedent and may make for a compromise middle ground for the country.

A few months after I returned to the U.S. from Trinidad the Court of Appeal in Trinidad stunned the ESC legal community by ruling in favor of Ramjattan, even before oral argument could be heard. Although oral arguments had been set for November 18, 1999, on October 8, 1999, the court of appeal voided Ramjattan’ s murder conviction and substituted one of manslaughter. Chief Justice Michael de la Bastide, in an oral opinion, overturned Ramjattan’ s death sentence, stated that she had suffered from battered wife syndrome, and as a result suffered “diminished responsibility” for the killing of her husband Alexander Jordan.

In reducing the charges against her, the judge then sentenced Ramjattan to five years in prison, in addition to the eight years she had already endured since first being arrested for the crime. In essence, a precedent was set: for the first time in the ESC, battered wife syndrome was ruled a legitimate defense to a capital murder charge. However, to some the victory is a hollow one because of the five additional years Ramjattan had to spend in prison. A Trinidadian newspaper aired the sentiment of many who have followed the case when it opined:

The removal of Indravani Pamela Ramjattan, 36, from death row was inadequate. She could have been set free given the brutality she endured which led to her crime… While it is understandable that the courts would not want to send a signal to abused wives that conspiring to kill their husbands is a way out, the years Ramjattan has already spent on Death Row should have been taken into consideration in passing sentence.

Again, I sought the insight of Rangee Dolsingh as to the turn of events with respect to the actions of the court of appeal. Mr. Dolsingh, who was to argue the case on behalf of the government on November 18, 1999, was also bewildered by the turn of events. He indicated to me in a telephone conference that he still had not learned why the court of appeal made the decision to overturn the murder conviction without further argument. Further, Mr. Dolsingh indicated that he believed it was the psychiatric report of Dr. Nigel Eastman that convinced the court of appeal that there was ample evidence in the record of diminished responsibility because of the amount of abuse and battering suffered by Ramjattan. Mr. Dolsingh believes that the case is not yet over. He maintained that Ramjattan had every right to, once again, go to the Privy Council in an effort to have her sentence reduced to time served.

What we can say with some degree of certainty is that my prediction rang true. The inherent gender-bias with respect to putting women to death saved Ramjattan from the gallows in the English-speaking Caribbean. It is my understanding that Ms. Ramjattan was quietly released from prison in 2003, and is living in Trinidad with her children.

The old mystery conundrum, “Who killed Cock Robin?”, has promoted the creation of many attractively scheming works of literary fiction over the last two centuries in which the creative authors have endeavored to give the human mind puzzling homicide scenarios to contemplate with the hope of solving. While a great many Americans spend countless hours of their time reading Agatha Christie, James Patterson, Dashiell Hammett, and the numerous other contemporary writers of murder mysteries, some grotesque real-life homicides, 3000-plus, were committed on September 11, 2001, on one day, which required at that time an equal, or greater, amount of deductive reasoning and sound forensic investigation to solve. Sixty-four of those murders might be case-filed under the name, “The perplexing Burlingame Endgame Murders,” named after the command pilot of the American Airlines Flight 77, and the fifty-eight passengers, and other five members of the crew, on-board the Boeing 757, and, of course, that intriguing final part of a chess game that always demands an extra-special attention to detail which, according to the federal government, was allegedly flown into the west wall of the Pentagon at allegedly 9:37 a.m. on 9/11 by an Arab hijacker, Hani Hanjour.

My thought processes were acutely stimulated recently while listening to the Larry O’Connor Show, on WMAL, 105.9 FM, on Tuesday September 11, 2017. During that radio show, I was intrigued, if not very puzzled, by the statements of Debra Burlingame, the younger sister of the deceased Flight 77 pilot, Charles Burlingame, about what supposedly happened on September 11, 2001, at the Pentagon. Debra, supposedly a veteran lawyer, has, since 9/11, continually parroted the federal version of what happened to Flight 77, a scheduled American Airlines Boeing 757 jet flight from Washington, DC to Los Angles, California being hijacked in-flight and flown by the high-jacker, Hanjour, into the Pentagon, insisting that her brother, and the other 63 crew and passengers who were listed on an American Airlines Flight 77 manifest, were killed when the jet airliner made impact with the Pentagon’s western wall at, supposedly, 450 mph at about 60 feet above the ground. What is utterly baffling about these alleged facts is why Debra has supported, for nearly sixteen-years, a series of assertions about the death of her dear brother, which could not have possibly occurred due to scientific impossibility.

Since 9/11, many scientifically “correct” facts about what “really” happened at the Pentagon on that awful day have emerged from thorough forensic and scientific examinations and analyses of the dubious facts alleged by the federal government immediately after the Pentagon incident and, later, in its published 500-plus page tome, “The Report of 9/11 Commission.” As a former deputy sheriff for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, I graduated from the 72nd San Diego County Sheriff’s Academy in June 1985 after an intense exposure to criminal forensics. Before that, I had studied inorganic chemistry for one year in an engineering program at Tyler Junior College (TJC), in Tyler, Texas, and, after completing a baccalaureate degree at U.T. Tyler, I completed my first, and only, year of law school at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, in San Diego, California. Later, in 1992, I took an M.A. Degree from the University of Texas at Tyler, which included a graduate-level course in forensic chemistry. Hence, I came to view the events, and federally alleged facts, at the Pentagon with the eyes of a suspicious forensically trained cop, which led me to see a completely different set of facts, as I will set forth in this article.

Invariably, when large military or commercial jet aircraft crash into mountains, into the ground, and into buildings and skyscrapers the crashes of these airplanes leave a great deal of wreckage, especially engine component wreckage. The composite structure of a Boeing 757 contains ten-tons of titanium and steel engine components, which should have been quite visible after such an aircraft crashed into the western wall of the Pentagon, and the damaging impact of those engine parts should have caused the grassy well-kept grounds around, and near, the crash site to be greatly disturbed, gouged, and plainly messed-up. Yet, the facts show that the first media news crew to arrive at the Pentagon site directly after the alleged crash, a CNN news-crew presented a seventy-second broadcast wherein the CNN reporter, Jamie McIntyre, stated that he “did not see a crashed Boeing 757 jet airliner on the west side of the Pentagon, where the wall was damaged.” He had flatly stated that “if there was a crash of a large jet, it must have been short of the Pentagon, for the wreckage that is on the Pentagon grounds must have been that belonging to some type of much smaller aircraft.” In the news-clip, McIntyre looked plainly confused, and that seventy-second broadcast via CNN was never again shown on national television on, or after, 9/11. Thank goodness for the invention of the DVR, for if recording devices across the nation, in the living rooms of millions of television watchers, had not been running at that moment, that television broadcast segment would have been lost to history, and, in all probability, the existence of it would have been denied by CNN and the federal government. Jamie McIntyre’s subsequent denial, in 2002, of what he had reported seeing at the Pentagon came in early 2002, when concerned citizens who had seen and heard his short-lived news-flash began questioning the federally alleged facts. The denial by McIntyre about what he had seen and heard on the morning of 9/11 was clearly coerced through some type of intimidation; as much as was the 1947 denial statement of U.S. Air Force Major Jesse Martel, the Air Force intelligence officer who had first stated that he had clearly seen the remains of a crashed flying saucer near Roswell, New Mexico. He had later confessed that had been ordered by a commanding Air Force general to appear in an officially published Air Force picture and say that what he had seen was from the crash of a weather balloon, instead of what he had really seen. A movie was subsequently made about Martel’s denial, featuring Martin Sheen as a reporter who had found and interviewed Jesse Martel at an Army Air Corps reunion.

Another startling factor that enters into the Flight 77 conundrum is the fact that the “only” evidence for the hijacking of the Boeing 757 was the alleged cell phone calls to Theodore “Ted” Olson, the USDOJ’s solicitor general, from his wife, the well-known CNN correspondent Barbara Olson, supposedly during the flight of AA 77. Olson had reported that his wife called him twice from Flight 77. Borrowing from Chapter 5 of Dr. David Ray Griffin’s 2011 book, “9/11 Ten Years Later: When state Crimes Against Democracy Succeed,” “Chapter 5 turns to the chief method through which the (conspiratorial) perpetrators convinced the American people that the attacks had been orchestrated by Muslims: the apparent phone calls from the 9/11 planes, through which Americans were first told that Middle Eastern men had hijacked four airliners. This information was provided by a leading member of the Bush-Cheney administration, the Department of Justice’s solicitor general, Theodore “Ted” Olson, who told CNN, and hence the world, that his wife, well-known CNN correspondent Barbara Olson, informed him that her plane, American Airlines 77, had been hijacked by men armed with knives and box-cutters. In 2006, it became public knowledge (by means of the FBI’s evidence provided for the trial for Zacarias Moussaoui) that Ted Olson’s report – that his wife had talked to him twice from AA 77 – was not true. This could hardly have been more important, given the fact that the alleged phone calls had provided the evidence that the planes had been hijacked, combined with the fact that the first and most important conveyor of this reported evidence was Ted Olson. And yet the American media, which have the responsibility of reporting the information to the American public have never reported the FBI’s acknowledgment that the Olson calls never happened. This chapter also treats other evidence that the “phone calls from the planes” never happened.”

As far as actual pictures, or video camera footage, showing a Boeing 757 flying toward the Pentagon, circling the Pentagon in the sky, and flying from the west at 60 feet above the ground into the Pentagon’s western wall, there are none; except one that was released by the federal government over three years after 9/11 showing only the “extremely unidentifiable nose” of some type of aircraft pointed toward the western Pentagon wall; which was, and still is, totally inadequate in determining that it was a Boeing 757. There were, however, working video cameras installed at an operating Citgo service station adjacent to Pentagon, and on a high floor of a nearby hotel, which were aimed at the sky where the 757 jet had allegedly approached the Pentagon. The tapes for these particular cameras were suspiciously seized by the FBI not more than ten minutes after whatever hit the Pentagon had done its damage, and have never been revealed to the American public. Currently, the FBI claims that “there were never any such tapes, and, if there were, they cannot be found.” These suspicious facts make the (only) two eye-witness statements for the federal story, which claim to have seen a Boeing 757 approaching the Pentagon, highly dubious; for if there were two reputable people who saw the plane, there must have been many more who saw the same thing. Now, about what spokes-people for the federal government, people from the NIST, the FAA, and the FBI, said about the wreckage of the Boeing 757, which should have been very visible on the Pentagon grounds after such a crash on 9/11. During those weeks, months, and years following 9/11, federal representatives stated over-and-over, with straight faces, that the entire jet aircraft, the entire Boeing 757 fuselage, air-frame, and the ten-tons of titanium and steel engine parts were totally “vaporized” by the fiery heat produced from the crash of the jet into the Pentagon wall.

Well, I’ve seen the pictures of the wreckage of crashed U.S. Air Force C-141 Starlifters, when the aircraft and the four large jet engines crashed into mountains and the ground at approximately 500 mph., and there were great amounts of engine wreckage remaining. You see, the JP-4 kerosene jet fuel fire created in the crashs of large jet aircraft will cause those aircraft to burn at no more than 850 degrees Fahrenheit. For steel and titanium to melt, much less vaporize, there must a temperature of more than 2,000 degrees. In the real crash of a Boeing 757 jet airliner into a brick/concrete wall, a fire would be created that would burn at no more than 850 degrees, and an 850 degree fire would not cause steel and titanium to vaporize, much less melt. For an aircraft to vaporize in a crash, the fire and heat must be, at least, 10,000 degrees, since all matter must go from a solid state, to a liquid state, and to a gaseous state through stages of elemental change. For pieces of steel and titanium to instantaneously transform in a gas, or vaporize (bypassing the liquid stage) the temperature must be extreme, and in some cases, greater than the heat created by the most potent chemical accelerants known to man.

Therefore, there is no reasonable doubt that if a Boeing 757 had crashed into the Pentagon’s western wall, a great amount of wreckage would have remained, which makes CNN reporter Jamie McIntyre’s first, suddenly disappeared, television report a correct observation of the Pentagon at approximately 9:30 a.m. on the morning of 9/11. So, if the American Airlines Flight 77, from Dulles to LAX, did not crash into the Pentagon, what caused the 16-foot gaping hole in the Pentagon wall and the homicides that occurred during the melee; and what happened to the real Flight 77 that left Dulles at 8:20 a.m. on 9/11? The years of hard investigatory work done by noted engineers, physicists, and forensic experts, who have freely contributed their efforts to the ongoing pursuit of truth by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth.org), have produced some astounding results that are beyond dispute. Some other type of airborne missile or much smaller aircraft was remotely projected or flown into the Pentagon wall.

The very obvious lies and deceptions that were made parts of the 200 million dollar federal 9/11 investigation and its lackluster product, “The Report of the 9/11 Commission, convey to the reasonable human mind a particularly sinister depiction of what could have been nothing less than the horrible results of criminal conspiracy. The “Report’s” particularly incriminating omission of any mention of the complete collapse of the Solomon Building, WTC Building 7, at free-fall speed in a manner identical to remote controlled demolition at approximately 5:15 p.m. on 9/11, is a fact that contributes to the verbal testimonies of numerous eye-witnesses, who normally worked on different floors of that particular building; that the federal employees of the CIA office, on the 10th floor of Building 7, were busily involved in the operation of a peculiar, obviously secret, project during the morning and early afternoon hours of 9/11, and that they, and all the other building occupants were suddenly evacuated from the Building at approximately 4:15 p.m., for some reason unknown to the occupants. One of the witnesses had heard that Building 7 was going to be “pulled,” a term used in the process of “controlled demolition.”

The deductive conclusions formed by AE911Truth.org investigators were that WTC Building 7 was the CIA/NSA command center for all of the 9/11 conspiracy implementation operations (for the WTC, the Pentagon, and wherever else operations were being conducted). Confidential informants for AE911Truth.org have provided information that intelligence agencies of the federal government, mainly the CIA and the NSA, were responsible for the collapses of the WTC Towers and the events at the Pentagon. Is this hard to believe? Of course it is! What rational member of the American electorate would believe that the federal government would conspiratorially orchestrate the murders of over 3,000 innocent human beings? That was the expected human reaction on which the federal government agencies involved in the conspiracy were counting. So, extending the reasonable deductions beyond the collapses of the WTC Towers and Building 7 to Flight 77, the reasonable person must consider that if 3,000 innocent human lives perished needlessly in New York, why would the lives of the 58 passengers and six crew members of Flight 77, plus those people slain at the Pentagon, matter to the federal government?

Do you suppose that Wendy Burlingame, the 33 year old daughter of Charles Burlingame, had started to deductively put two-and-two together by 2006, in order to conclude that Flight 77 had not crashed into the Pentagon, but, instead, had been flown from Dulles to some unknown out-of-the-way airstrip, the passengers deplaned by CIA/NSA agents, and executed in cold blood? Is it reasonable, or merely fantasy, to suspect that Wendy was subsequently murdered in an arson fire that consumed her in her U.S. Army veteran boyfriend’s apartment on December 6, 2006, to permanently quiet her vocalized suspicions and allegations? The arson investigators who officially probed the fire included two, unnamed, federal agents, according to the Guttenberg, New Jersey City Fire Department, which had responded to the two-alarm fire. In most cases, a fire-chief of a particular city has the sole responsibility of publicly reporting that a fire was not the result of arson, but, in this particular case, the Hudson County District Attorney, Edward Defazio, took the role of stating publicly for the record that “no accelerant was used in the fire” and that arson could be ruled-out. Hence, there must have been an original suspicion of arson and criminal activity emanating from the county D.A. that surrounded the unusual conflagration. Several independent investigators certainly thought so, which leads the reasonable person to suspect that the fire might have been deliberately set, in some manner, to murder Wendy Burlingame; since the crime of murder is defined as the unlawful killing of one human by another with malice aforethought, or criminal negligence.

Like I said at the beginning of this article, pure unadulterated scientific fact will, in nearly all thorough murder investigations, eventually trump conspiratorial lies and misrepresentations about speculative events and happenings. Inquiring human minds with knowledge of physical science and forensics, minds that are deductive and intuitive, will always succeed in ferreting-out the unscientific and illogical discrepancies in a criminal investigation, even if false public perception, created by the media, keeps those conclusions from being believed. The willingness of the human mind to accept fact over contrived fiction, and the propaganda that promotes I false perception is the crux of the issue. The investigation of the suspicious deaths of truth-revealing witnesses and whistle-blowers in the wake of a criminal conspiracy promotes a cogent linkage of evidence that will lead, directly or indirectly, to the identification of the conspirators. As such, to add to the suspicious death of Wendy Burlingame, the mysterious death of Beverly Eckert, who lost her husband on 9/11, thickens the plot and adds weight to the evidence for conspiracy. Beverly, like Wendy, didn’t buy into the federal explanation for 9/11, and was one of the original 9/11 victims’ families who organized to seek truthful disclosure about what really happened to the WTC Twin Towers and Building 7. According to Beverly, before she was killed she was offered a considerable amount of money from agents of the federal government to remain silent about her 9/11 concerns, but she refused the money and was adamant about not remaining quiet. A week before she died in a very mysterious commuter airplane crash, on February 12, 2009, Beverly Eckert met with Barack Obama at the White House representing 9/11 victims’ families advocating a new full fact-disclosing investigation of 9/11. Was Beverly murdered, along with the other human beings in that commuter plane crash, by the federal government to silence her persistent 9/11 petitions?

The mysterious death of Kenneth Johannemann, a janitor for both of the WTC Twin Towers, who was working on 9/11, was another incident that smacks of conspiracy. Kenneth was working in the north WTC Twin Tower on September 11, 2001, when he distinctly heard explosions coming from the tower basement and from upper-floors of the tower. In fact, Kenneth rescued a victim of full-body burns from the basement explosion, which occurred at the base, and not the top, of the North Tower. On October 31, 2008, seven years after 9/11, Kenneth was found dead, the victim of a gunshot to the head. A note was found saying that Kenneth was depressed after being evicted from his residence; but Johannemann’s large caring family testified that one of his cousins had offered him a place to live, and that he wasn’t a person prone to depression. According to all that knew him, Kenneth was not depressed in the days and weeks leading up his death, and regularly told his account of what he had scene and heard in the North WTC Tower to public gatherings. Perhaps that was his fatal error, stating the truth of really happened in the North Tower on 9/11. An article by Montreal journalist and writer Craig McKee regarding William Rodriguez, a fellow-janitor at the WTC, and friend of Kenneth Johannemann, indicates that he, both, saw and heard exactly what Kenneth had observed on the morning of 9/11. A portion of the article is included below:

“No matter how well known he (Rodriguez) is within the 9/11 Truth movement (in fact he’s one of its best known figures), very few others have heard the things he has to say – things that make the purveyors of the official federal story very nervous. That’s because if what he reports is true, then the official story can’t be true. That official version contends that airplane impacts and the resulting fires were solely responsible for the collapse of the Twin Towers. But if his account of explosions in the basement of the North Tower is true, then there must be a great deal more to the story. In the documentary, “9/11 Mysteries,” Rodriguez describes what happened while he was in the building’s sub-basement, level B1: “All of the sudden, we heard a huge explosion. It was an explosion that came from under my feet, meaning that it came from the sub levels between B2 and B3.” Rodriguez adds that after the basement explosion, he heard the impact of the impact that has been reported to be Flight 11 hitting the North Tower. “And there was a huge explosion at the top of the building. You could hear the difference from the bottom and all the way to the top. The one from the top, which was actually seconds after, was very far away. The one in the basement was pretty loud and you felt your actual feet moving with the floor. There was a tremor through the walls, that the walls cracked and the false ceiling totally collapsed.”

Therefore, in summation, ALL of the true relevant and material facts surrounding what actually happened on 9/11, at the Pentagon and in New York City, totally conflict with the federal version of the pernicious happenings reported on public television by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and published in the “Report of the 9/11 Commission” and on national cable television, which cost the American taxpayers over 120 million dollars from start to finish. Yet, do you expect a group of shadowy, pragmatic, and sadistic federal conspirators to freely own-up to their heinous crimes and the mass murders they committed; to finally get some conscience and make public confessions? No, you can’t expect them to do that, but you can expect them to make errors in judgment in attempting to cover their tracks and eliminate all of the incriminating evidence linking them to a 9/11 criminal conspiracy. The bottom line crux of this article is that a Boeing 757 jet airliner, carrying 58 passengers and 6 crew members of American Airlines Flight 77, did not crash into the Pentagon wall, and that two Boeing 767 jet airliners, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were not flown into the North and South WTC Twin Towers. Instead, carefully constructed jet drones closely resembling Boeing 767 jet airliners were used, which were built over a two-year period by private federal contractors working secretly for the CIA/NSA. And the kicker was that the federal contractors had no idea about the real purpose for the secretly-built drones. As for the total free-fall collapse of the two WTC Twin Towers and the WTC Building 7, the three super-structures were completely collapsed through the use of controlled demolition using an incendiary super-heat producing explosive called military-grade nano-thermite.

Until a very indignantly vocal minority of the American national electorate (the aggregate U.S. citizen voters over 18 years of age), or an equally clamerous majority of them, are convinced of the true and correct facts about the mass-murders committed on 9/11, the truth cannot be realized. These murders which were perpetrated by federal conspirators to implement a neo-conservative agenda for a very fascist “new American 21st Century,” planned several years before 9/11. By blaming 9/11on radical Islamists and securing the passage of the unconstitutional Patriot Act, the federal government instigated a continuous unwinnable state-of-war against the “terrorism” of its own making thereby drastically changing the American republic after 9/11 into a nation of People coerced by continual fear. And it will continue to plod along in apathetic ignorance as it did in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. It took nearly 35 years, after the fact, for the American public to accept the sordid reality that Franklin Roosevelt had deliberately concocted the plan to kill over 4,000 American soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors in the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941 in the name of pragmatism. The Japanese attack was a harrowing surprise to the men and women in uniform at Pearl Harbor on that fateful morning, but not for FDR, who knew about the pending attack 72 hours prior to it happening. He could have warned the Pearl Harbor Naval Command about it. But he didn’t, because he had promised his cousin, Winston Churchill, in 1939, that he would see to it that the United States entered the European war against Adolf Hitler’s Germany. It was, then, a devious backdoor to war! History has proven this to be the gospel truth, but that truth really hasn’t mattered to a late 20th Century and early 21st Century American electorate, who, it seems, don’t really care about the scourge of conspiracy. Nearly sixteen years have elapsed since 9/11, and the false federal propaganda and the progressive media have dominated the duped minds of a large percentage of the current American electorate to cause them to believe the federal explanation for 9/11. Over a hundred million American men and women turn 18 years of age, and become members of the electorate, every calendar year. Will another sixteen years inexorably elapse before the awful truth is known? Or will it ever be known. God only knows!

Underground jewel, definitely worth your buy.

When you have been charged with an M-1 (slang term for « first degree murder charge »), it looks like the whole world is against you. Trick Trick introduces the album with his M-1 track that symbolizes the State of Michigan vs. Christian Mathis. Back in 2003, Trick Trick had been charged with felony firearm and was facing a first degree murder charge. The case went on trial in February 2004, but would be adjourned later on and the charges against Christian Mathis would be eventually dropped.

The introduction starts dramatically with some bell sounds, violins and gunshots in the background. Accusers are here and point their finger at Trick Trick.

M-1 follows with a very entertaining rhythm. Piano, keyboards and violins introduce the dramatic circumstances of Trick Trick’s arrest and trial. The atmosphere is overheated and you can feel Trick Trick’s struggle to prove that he’s the wrong one.

No need to introduce Welcome To Detroit featuring Eminem. The masterpiece was played on nearly each Detroit radio station for months and fully introduces you to the gangsta atmosphere of the Detroit hood.

My Name Is Trick Trick is Christian’s entry. Violins, keyboards, claps are a joyful introduction of a Detroit O.G.

Trick Trick’s raw voice makes the track particularly pleasant.

Better believe the hype is real.

Rich of two different styles, track 5, Attitude Adjustment will marry Trick Trick with Jazze Pha’s southern style. Very beautiful and original style that shouldn’t leave the listeners indifferent.

Big Mistake featuring Mr Porter has the raw sound of the D12 Underground EP bassline that contrats with Denaun Porter’s R’n’B sounding voice combined with Trick Trick’s raspy voice.

Nice gangsta song aimed at the beloved ones that have been lied to.

No More To Say is written on a sophisticated rhythm. Featuring Eminem and Proof, dramatic and definitely gangsta, the song is a warning against people running their mouths.

A track that is very much representative of the streets of Detroit.

Leave Your Past is dedicated to Christian Mathis’ homies. The rhythmic track mixed up with keyboards, claps and soft vocals will introduce you into a nostalgic dimension. The song sounds like prayer and gives the listener a very nice and soft soul music note. An invitation to forget about the dramas of hood life.

Lady, track 9, also softens Trick Trick’s harsh Detroit style.

More romantic, it expresses regrets to the lady of his life.

Let’s Roll is another beautiful Mr Porter- Trick Trick duo written for a party atmosphere.

Before the release of Trick Trick’s album, I had already listened to his nice and rhythmic track « Get Bread ». You gotta love this « hustling style » song. You gotta « get bread » when you live in the hood. Beautiful, raw, rhythmic, the listeners will enjoy a track that fully represents the Detroit ghetto.

Sucha is a quite sarcastic track aimed at the wankstas. If you’re such a gangsta why you fake so much? Better watch your back in front of real killas!

The two last songs War and What Da FXXX feature two other Detroit talents, Obie Trice and Ms Korona (the female emcee that was opposed to Xzibit in 8 Mile).

Globally, Trick Trick’s album is excellent. It is well handled lyrically and instrumentally. I recommend this album to any hip hop lover and particularly to those who are very fond of a raw Detroit gangsta style. Trick Trick doesn’t have to fake himself. He has the credibility and the talent.

The album is an underground jewel that is definitely worth your buy. I promise you that Trick Trick won’t disappoint you.

Copyright© 2005 by Isabelle Esling All Rights Reserved

GERMANY: BUSTED! It has been reported that a professional’s well-endowed lover allegedly tried to kill him with her breasts. Allegedly his jealous girlfriend tried to smother him with her size 38DD bosoms because she said she wanted to make his death “as pleasant as possible,” authorities say. She was charged with attempted murder. This was in 2012.

This little report begs many a question. Was the attempted murder done in bed? Were the parties dressed or were they naked? Had the professional been unfaithful with some other woman beside his chesty lover? What was the motive for the attempted murder? Finally, since “malice” is required for every murder or attempted murder charge what facts herein show “malice” since she allegedly said she wanted to make his death “as pleasant as possible.” Such evidence sounds only like attempted manslaughter. There isn’t enough evidence of attempted murder here – still what a way to go…

ITALY: Sensuous Sun Screening? In 2011 a woman was arrested on an Italian topless beach for rubbing on sunscreen in “an overly sensuous manner.” Said violation was reported to police by a mother who had brought her two teenage sons to the beach. The mother was shocked by the other woman’s show of public sunscreen use and filed a lewdness complaint against the woman for an act of “extreme sensuality.”

This little report also requires some answers to pertinent questions from the Italian authorities about this incident: 1) why would a mother take not one, but two, teenage sons to a topless beach; 2) what distinguishes “sensuality” from “extreme sensuality;” finally, 3) when did “extreme sensuality” become a crime? Inquiring minds would like to know.

SWEDEN: We wonder what her husband had done to her? In 2012 a woman admitted stabbing her husband to death with a fillet knife she had received as a Christmas present from her employer. She contends that the stabbing was in self-defense. Swedish police said that after the attack on her husband, the victim, a 42-year-old, wrote a bizarre note to her boss stating, “Thank you for the Christmas gift… By the way it worked!”

The words in the note may have provided evidence of a conspiracy between the woman and her employer. A conspiracy is defined as an agreement, express or implied, between two or more people to commit an act that is illegal and at least one of the conspirators undertakes an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. Could this have been the case? Inquiring minds would like to know.

If you’re a huge fan of Midsomer Murders you may be interested in some of these fascinating facts I have put together for this article.

First up, did you know the original title for the series was going to be called Barnaby. The scriptwriter Anthony Horowitz came up with the name Midsomer Murders which we all know the series by. Caroline Graham who wrote The Killings at Badger’s Drift was the inspiration on which the series is based on. Arguably Caroline Graham is the best detective writer since Agatha Christie.

Over the years the production team have hired over 900 actors and more than 22 thousand extras. Each episode takes five weeks to films and at any one time there could be over 100 people on the set. Often the filming is disrupted during the summer time as strimmers and chainsaw operators cut their hedges and lawns. Also aircraft noise has also disrupted filming.

The original detective Barnaby, John Nettles once knocked on a door during filming and announced himself as “Detective Sergeant Bergerac”. This was his previous role so it’s not surprising that he got confused once.

The very first murder victim in the first show was Emily Simpson. She was hit over the head with an iron bar, breaking her neck and killing her. Her murderer Katherine Lacey then dragged the body to the bottom of the stairs.

Some of the more unusual objects which were used as murder weapons over the series include, a saucepan, a doped horse, a drinks cabinet, bottles of relish, a poisonous frog and a faulty microphone to name just a few.

Recently, the boundaries of Midsomer have been extended to include Henley Regatta, the Devon coastline and Snowdonia. Locations are chosen if they have a village green so they can cut the traffic off, also there has to be full co-oporation from the villagers that live there.

The most dangerous village is Badger’s Drift as it has had the highest death toll. Some of the most famous faces to appear as characters are Orlando Bloom, Suzi Quatro and Jenny Agutter. Rumour has it that Sir Roger Moore, Holly Willoughby, Sharon Stone and Johny Depp would like a part as victim or a murderer in future episodes of the show.

The theme tune is played by Celia Sheen on a theremin. This unusual instrument which gives off a very errie sound was invented in Russia in 1920 by physicist Leon Theremin. The theme tune is re-recorded for every episode using this instrument.

Midsomer Murders is now one of most successful and ITV’s longest running detective drama series, and has now been sold to over 200 countries.

There are many other things that can bring family, generational curses. Like spilling of blood, sexual immorality and exploitation, betrayal, mockery, treachery, stealing, cheating, etc. Some families are struggling with difficult curses today because their parents or grandparents killed people, especially the innocent. In January 2008, we were invited to join a church in planting one of their branches in a village. As we entered the new church premises, I noticed that it was a residential building with unkempt surroundings; grasses, littered with household properties. Even the fruits in the compound were left to ripe and rotten. Only the part of the building where the new church would start was cleaned and repainted. Later, I overheard the elders of the church discussing how the church got the place. The villagers gave the entire property free-of-charge to the church. All the members of that family had died – parents, children, young and old. What happened? An innocent visitor was murdered in that place and the family denied knowing whatever happened to him. This brought a curse sudden and rapid death upon the family. Both their young and old began to die one after the other. In fact, we were told that the descendants of the family who were married or lived outside the place also died as they visited.

Then, as we were continuing with the inaugural crusade that evening, we were also informed that an extended member of the family, who had tampered with the properties of the late relatives, was also lying critically ill. He was at the point of death. The villagers requested that we pray with him. Terrible! Can you believe this? A whole family – the young, the old, descendants and even extended family members being wiped off because of the murder of just one innocent person. We must indeed be very careful of what we do in this life. When you kill, when you murder another human being, the event does not just stop at that. The blood becomes restless and keeps crying for vengeance. And it can do that for many generations to come. Blood is very powerful. In fact, the word of God said that the life of a being is in the blood. And we can see that physically and spiritually. It also said that anybody that kills should be killed. Now, even when you were not caught in the act, heaven sees you and the curse will still come for you and your family. It is the curse of death with other terrible ones. Don’t commit murder, don’t waste blood because you have the power or in a position to do it. Don’t instigate, plan, observe, conspire or encourage it. Be careful! When Cain killed his brother Abel, the brother’s blood refused to be silenced. It kept crying until God heard it and responded by cursing and banishing Cain. He was made a wanderer, a vagabond and a fugitive. The earth was also cursed because of this. Sometimes, when you see this wandering, vagabond, restlessness, much movement and less results and unproductiveness spirit in individuals, families and communities, just check their foundation. It could be as a result of spilling of blood and generational curses. When David indirectly murdered Uriah, God punished him and cursed his family and generations to come. Israel still suffer because of this till today. When Ahab and Jezebel murdered Naboth, God also arranged their own shameful and painful death and cursed their family. I remember he told Jezebel that dogs will also lick her blood the same place they licked Naboth’s. When Judas secretly betrayed, conspired and killed Jesus, he was cursed. He hung himself and his family was made desolate. There is no secret before God. Be careful!

Just look at this scripture before go on, “This will ensure that the land where you live will not be polluted, for murder pollutes the land. And no atonement can be made for murder except by the execution of the murderer. You must not defile the land where you are going to live, for I live there myself. I am the LORD, who lives among the people of Israel.” Numbers 35:33-34. Did you read that? Murder pollutes the land. Murder pollutes lives, it pollutes families, etc. Do you still wonder why our families and country are heavily polluted by crimes, violence, suicides, strange diseases, filthiness and unproductiveness? Spilling of blood! They have been terribly polluted by the blood of the innocent that is daily spilled on the altar satanic rituals, quest for quick money, fame, position and power. They have been polluted by blood of people murdered everyday by cultists, kidnappers, armed robbers, politicians, evil security men, terrorists and assassins. (I hope you are hearing the gory stories of how the security men were killing innocent Nigerians like worthless chickens?) Our land is polluted by reckless abortions, poisoning and witchcraft killings of innocent souls in the land. Just listen, look around and listen to news – it is murder, bloodshed, betrayal, violence everywhere! In fact, there is no value for blood and life any more. Even the so-called places of worship are not excluded. We saw how a very promising young female minister was poisoned by her own ‘evil’ workers. The other day, we saw how a baby disappeared in the children department of a supposed worship place at Akure. And it is not just about Akure. It is happening all around us. True. We read daily how people suddenly disappear, are dismembered and are used for rituals and sacrifices by these agents of Satan; some by their own trusted friends and relations. Though, this happens everywhere, some towns and states have unfortunately become notorious for this. Blood, blood everywhere! The blood, like that of Abel, is crying very loud and asking for revenge on the murderers, their conspirators, their families and the land. We will continue.

Gabriel is the author of the books / audiobooks: Power of Midnight Prayer, Receive Your Healing, Breaking Generational Curses: Claiming Your Freedom, Never Again!, I Shall Not Die, Move Forward and many others https://www.scribd.com/author/492213355/Gabriel-Agbo

The title is self-explanatory. The current spree of mass murderers suggest several different psychological characteristics. The first characteristic is that the potential mass murderer notices the recurrent nature of mass murders that take place in any given society. His grandiose fantasy is that he wants to out compete past mass murderers. Therefore, he diligently plans how he is going to surpass all previous mass murderers and become the greatest mass murderer in history. He is dark side competitive towards other mass murderers. He displaces his competitive urges into murderous/suicidal deeds rather than the normal competitive activities of other people.

The second characteristic is that he envies the people that he kills. He wants to die the same way that they do. Therefore, he is both the victim and the perpetrator of murder. He sees death as a desirable solution to his problems with the world. He may even hate the world and the people in it and think that he is nothing and should die along with his victims. He is like a person split in two parts. One part wants to kill others, while at the same time wishing to die himself. He thinks in black-and-white terms. It is either all or nothing. At some point he adopts a paradoxical vision of himself as omnipotent and grandiose and also undeserving and of low value.

He abstracts people and takes the position of the loner and justifies that his position is the absolute right one and dares anyone to prove that there is another way to view the world and existence. He is emotionally repressed, insulated and traumatically reverberating towards insults that have never been resolved. He can number his persecutors one at a time, but his revenge extends through the coping mechanism of generalization. He goes from one victimizer to a hundred victims and victimizers, all deserving to die. Mass murder and suicide is his solution to his problems He believes that if he were in the massacred position that he would omnipotently survive, when in fact he has very powerful mixed feelings about being alive and dead.

He believes that he can do whatever he wants, but that no matter what he does it’s not going to change anything. So, he resorts to mass murder and suicide to drastically change his sense of non-being. He lives in a black hole where part of him wants to do nothing and another part wants to do something. When he plans to mass murder, he believes he is doing something and he does experience the feeling of being God and the Devil at the same time. He has the omnipotent power of life and death. His defenses make him so armored that he renders it impossible for anyone to get to him. He fights voraciously against being vulnerable. He won’t and can’t feel the normal range of human emotions. His coping mechanisms, learned in childhood, are usually justification, rationalization, intellectualization, abstraction, repression, splitting, drinking and drugs.

Most of us utilize very well internalized mechanisms for keeping our dark side inclinations and emotions in check and under control. A Mass murderer at some point has had this part of his survival/kill or be killed mind brain ripped open and then he proceeds to act out his fantasies onto very specific and significant target people. Murder and suicide is his solution to his need to be heard, understood and accepted. His grandiosity keeps him from understanding that his very distorted thinking, not only gets him rejected socially, but, it also alienates and pushes other people away; because of its extreme idiosyncrasy. Through mass murder and suicide, he finally gets everyone’s attention. It is only when he commits his atrocities, that people and the media start to try to analyze and understand him. In his perverse way, he has achieved his goal.

In fantasy, he gets his reckoning. But when the fantasies intensify to the point of acting out, he loses all sense of normal morality and impulse control. He is driven to feel omnipotent God and devil like power through destruction and murder. His level of existence is at the survival levels. He even becomes consumed about the visualizations concerning his own death. He doesn’t question. He just acts! He cannot solve his own problems as most of us would consider to be by normal methods. He believes in very black-and-white terms that he can solve them through mass murder and self suicide.

An Alex Delaware and Milo Stugis murder mystery thriller, giving you the psychological thinking and the dogged police perspective. As always the story is full of twists and turns with several very likely suspects all with dubious backgrounds and possible motives.

The opening chapter describing an 8 year old crime, that is the catalyst for the rest of the book, is quite familiar for those of us that remember the terrible murder of Jamie Bulger. The description of that crime is very close to what happen to Jamie, but that is as far as the similarity goes within the rest of the story. This murder leads to other deaths, crimes against young women and will lead to the revealing of some pretty unpleasant secrets.

Alex is involved as he consulted on the original case, at first it seems a simple request to Milo to ask a few questions and soon he and Milo are in too deep to stop. Alex and Milo’s characters have been well developed over the years of their collaboration in other books but even if this is the first you have read you will find plenty that explains who they are and how they are able to work so closely together.

The secondary players are also well developed with good descriptions of personality and character. The story flows well leaving you wanting to read just one more chapter, then just one more! The ending is not completely cut and dried so leaving you something to think about and even speculate on a little.

A very worthy read if you love a mystery and enjoy reading about familiar crimebusters who after only one book you feel you know intimately and feel comfortable with.