Oct. 22, 2012

When roofer Gerald Beloin blew the whistle on a multi-million dollar roofing scam in New Hampshire in 2002, he became a target for government retaliation rather than a hero. Well into 2013 he is still paying the price for his temerity.         

by Michael Volpe

A roofer by trade, when Gerald Beloin came across a roofing scam in 2002 he subsequently discovered corruption at almost all levers of Hillsborough County government. At the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office he encountered grave indifference. The attorney general then was Kelly Ayotte, who is now a U.S. senator from the Granite State. 

Beloin said that in 2002, while preparing to bid on a job on the roof on his daughter’s school in Groffstown, not far from Manchester, he discovered that the roof was made of a material called tectum decking. Beloin felt this made the roof a ticking time bomb for caving in because of tectum’s sensitivity to moisture.

Beloin said he kept investigating and found that his competitors’ bids were far more expensive than necessary. On his website, he pointed to a Lowe’s roofing project in nearby Gilford, New Hampshire which he said cost a fraction of the bid on his daughter’s school. That project was 170,000 square feet and it cost $6 million. Meanwhile, the winning bid on his daughter’s school was $12 million and that project was for 25,000 square feet. Beloin’s own bid on that job was just under $5 million.

Oct. 8, 2012

AVAILABLE NOW IN AMAZON’S KINDLE STORE AND BARNES & NOBLE’S NOOKBOOK STORE

by Eponymous Rox

Killing is just child’s play. A game. In fact, it’s so easy, you can plan it out on a computer, if you’re smart enough. And he is smart. A real genius, they all say: honor student, salutatorian, class vice president. So…what is that magic number then? How many times can he get away with murder?

On the outside, the quiet and withdrawn 17-year-old seemed just a harmless high school nerd, preoccupied with technology, money, computer games, and college. But on the inside he was a seething psychopath, conspiring with classmates to massacre his family so he could have a six-digit inheritance all to himself.

Meet the wily Wyley Gates, twisted mastermind of an assassin-style program called Infierno, which he used in 1986 to execute a bloodbath so heartless and gruesome it was dubbed “the crime of the century” in upstate New York.

DUNGEONS DRAGONS MURDER methodically pieces together physical evidence, autopsy findings, police accounts, trial testimonies, and even the confessions of the killer and his accomplices, to reconstruct the Gates family shootings and the other carefully orchestrated criminal acts designed to lead up to it.

Third in the 'Killing Killers' true crime series by Eponymous Rox, this special report reveals a chilling portrait of a remorseless and deeply disturbed mass-murderer set free on a technicality to slay again. And shows why it’s possible that he has killed at least once before the massacre—and since.

Sept. 24 2012

An excerpt from Seth Ferranti’s upcoming book on street gangs, Street Legends Vol. 3. The book chronicles the story of the Supreme Team from its inception to its fall to its rise again. This legendary crew was organized in the early 1980s in Baisley Park Houses in Jamaica, Queens, New York, by a group of teenagers who were members of a quasi-religious sect known as the Five Percenters. Under the leadership of Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff and Gerald “Prince” Miller, his nephew, as second in command, the gang concentrated its criminal efforts on wide spread drug distribution. 

The Supreme Team was instrumental in the birth of hip-hop and it ushered in the crack era in New York City with devastating brutality. Its influence on hip-hop has lasted 25 years and is still going strong. This book is their story, in their words and the words of others who were there. It’s brought to you straight out of the penitentiary by Gorilla Convict Publications.

by Seth Ferranti

Just like Hollywood catapulted the Italian Mafia into the mainstream with the Godfather movies, New Jack City documented the devastating crack epidemic and the drug crews that terrorized and held court in the city’s projects. Nino Brown was a fictional character, as was his crew, but you didn't have to look far to find their real life counterparts who dominated the headlines of New York City’s tabloid newspapers. Characters and cliques that seemed to evolve straight out of the pages of a Donald Goines novel rose to prominence, becoming larger than life figures and ghetto stars in their respective hoods.           

Street tales, real life crimes, newspaper headlines, Hollywood sensationalism, and rapper’s rhymes have perpetrated, promoted and created a legend of mythical proportions that has grown exponentially over the last 20 years, keeping the Supreme Team, the most infamous crew out of the Southside of Jamaica Queens, ringing bells from coast to coast. As one of the most notorious crews from a deadly era, the team towers above its contemporaries in stature, notoriety and infamy. But it’s not all convoluted hype. Infamy has its price.

Sept. 17, 2012

Handwriting analysis example from the University of Kent

 The School Stalker is an extract from Written On The Skin– an Australian Forensic Casebook by Liz Porter, joint winner of the 2007 Ned Kelly Prize for best true crime book.  This book is available in a Kindle edition. Hard copies from the author: trager@netspace.net.au

by Liz Porter 

The attractive young female teacher had been delighted to get a job on the staff of an inner-suburban boys-only high school in the Australian city of Melbourne. But in late 1996, within months of her arrival, she began receiving offensive handwritten notes, accusing her of having sex with some of her 15 and 16-year-old year students. A letter from an anonymous parent was also sent to the school principal.

The opening of the 1997 school year triggered a resumption of the notes, including a second letter to the principal, and the targeted teacher became increasingly distraught. The letter suggested that the young woman had been behaving in an improper way towards some of her male students and threatened to “seek legal advice” about it.

“On many occasions,” this “concerned parent” wrote, “my son has mentioned that this lady uses inappropriate and suggestive comments to year 10 boys in class.” The “parent” also drew attention to the teacher’s appearance – her ‘very short dresses which leave little to the imagination.”

When the teacher turned to the police, Detective Tony Warren, then based at a station near the school, was assigned to the case.

Although the teacher had destroyed some of the early notes she had been sent, dismissing them as pranks, she had soon begun keeping them, and had collected a considerable number to give to the detective. One note described her as “a big slut who roots boys in year 9 and 10.”

Sept. 10, 2012

Although some radicals have championed the dissolution of the family, it is, in varying forms, an institution deeply ingrained into every human society. It survives because it is necessary for the upbringing of children and because humans of both genders crave intimate, stable partnerships. The family, like any other institution, has it own set of troubles that can often lead to crime. Something that inevitably causes problems is that monogamy is not a natural state for humans of either gender. Jealousy, on the other hand, comes naturally to humans of both genders and that is one of the reasons monogamy evolved as an ideal in the West (and some other cultures). The human male appears to be biologically programmed to be sexually attracted to women of childbearing age. For this reason, many people will identify with the situation portrayed in The Millionaire’s Wife in which middle-aged George Kogan left his equally middle-aged wife Barbara to take up with a younger woman. It is also true that many people will find themselves disillusioned with a spouse as the wife does in A Socialite Scorned and the husband in One Last Kiss. As these three books demonstrate, all-too-often, the words “until death do us part” can take on a tragic and homicidal meaning.

by Denise Noe

Sept. 3, 2012

Joan Webster

On Saturday November 28, 1981, Joan Webster, a 25-year-old Harvard graduate student, landed at Logan Airport in Boston aboard Eastern flight #960. Shortly after retrieving a suitcase from the luggage carousel, she disappeared.

by Eve Carson

Joan Webster, a 25-year-old, second-year student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, had everything going for her as she flew back to Boston after spending Thanksgiving with her parents in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Just before she took the holiday break, her presentation of an 11-week auditorium project had been rewarded with high accolades from her teacher and classmates.

At Harvard, she was the dorm proctor at Perkins Hall. Smart, popular, attractive, she was available to anyone who needed her help and friendship. A quote tacked on her dorm room wall read, “It costs so much to be a full human being.”

Her flight aboard Eastern # 960 and several other flights arrived at Logan Airport around 10 p.m. on Saturday, November 28, 1981. As Joan went to retrieve her one stowed suitcase, many passengers crowded around the only luggage carousel in use that night. Shortly after retrieving her suitcase, Joan Webster disappeared.

Aug. 29, 2012

Pat Tillman

Pat Tillman was an incredible recruiting asset for the military in the wake of the terrorist attacks on America on September 11, 2001.  The popular Californian was an academic and athletic standout in high school and at Arizona State University.  Motivated by intense patriotism, Tillman gave up a lucrative professional football career and joined the Army Rangers.
by Don Fulsom

A Sports Illustrated All-Pro safety for the Arizona Cardinals in 2000, Tillman enlisted in the elite military squadron at the end of the 2001 season.  Just wed to his high school sweetheart, he turned down a three-year $3.6 million contract with the Cardinals to help avenge the surprise air assaults on his homeland.

On April 22,  2004, at age 27, Cpl. Tillman was killed in action in a canyon in eastern Afghanistan.  Apparently, his death was a not-uncommon “fog of war” tragedy caused by “friendly fire.” The entire rear of Tillman’s movie-star handsome head was blown out by a burst of three tightly placed bullets to his forehead from an M-16-type rifle.  The fatal shots were fired from a scant 10 yards away.

Initially, however, Pentagon officials refused to disclose that U.S. bullets had killed the Army’s No. 1 “poster boy.” The story the Army put out claimed Tillman was fatally wounded during an ambush by as many as one-dozen Taliban insurgents. 

They knew better.  Documents obtained by The Washington Post in 2005 say the first Army investigator on the scene determined “within days” that his fellow Rangers killed Tillman in an act of “gross negligence.”  The documents also show that top Army officials—including the theater commander, General John Abizaid—were almost immediately informed that Tillman’s death was fratricide.

Aug. 20, 2012

A simple “road rage” incident led to the shooting deaths of four rookie California Highway patrol officers in the Newhall section of Santa Clarita on April 5, 1970. The officers’ deaths led to major changes in how the California Highway Patrol and other police departments train their officers.

by Mark Pulham

Santa Clarita, in Southern California, is the fourth largest city in Los Angeles County. It is known as the home of Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park, though the park is actually just outside the city limits.

The city, just 35 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, was, in 2006, ranked as number 18 in the top 100 places to live by Money Magazine. On a list of cities that have at least 100,000 inhabitants, it is ranked as the sixth safest in the United States, according to the FBI.

The southernmost, and the oldest, district in Santa Clarita is Newhall, a location for many television shows and movies, such as the 1954 suspense film Suddenly in which Frank Sinatra’s character attempts to assassinate the President of the United States as he passes through town.

But to many, the name of Newhall is synonymous with one thing, an incident that occurred in April, 1970. At the time, Newhall was more rural than it is now, some may even have described it as a “sleepy town.” In one night, that image would change.

It began with a small event, a minor occurrence that should have blown over a moment after it had happened, and then forgotten. Instead, what happened snowballed into a major tragedy.