Lona Manning

January 1, 2007

by Lona Manning

They can look you in the eye, win your trust and melt your heart. They can lie about the past, the present, and the future. They are chameleons, changing names and identities as easily as we change our outfits.

They are conmen and women. They are sociopaths.

Some of the names of the victims in this article have been changed or withheld to protect their privacy.

James Rubin Rowe

It didn't matter to Marina Howard that her wedding rehearsal dinner was being held on Friday the 13th. She was still the luckiest girl in the world. Only eight weeks ago, she had applied for work as a hostess at a steakhouse restaurant and been swept off her feet by the owner, Mike Grogan. Mike was husky, tall and broad shouldered with dark hair, with piercing eyes and an easy laugh.

by Lona Manning

"There is no God. There's no heaven. There's no hell. There are no angels. When you die, you go in the ground, the worms eat you."

-- Madalyn Murray O'Hair

When David Travis arrived for work on Aug. 28, 1995 at the headquarters of American Atheists in Austin, Tex., he knew something was wrong: The door was locked and a note was posted on it: "The Murray-O'Hair family has been called out of town on an emergency basis. We do not know how long we will be gone at the time of the writing of this memo."

January 15, 2006

Photo credit: New York World-Telegram and Sun archives, Library of Congress.

by Lona Manning

Prologue

March 4, 2007

by Lona Manning

As Bruno Richard Hauptmann counted down the days to his execution at the State Prison in Trenton, N.J., his wife Anna went on the lecture circuit, asking her fellow German immigrants to donate to the Hauptmann defense fund. Her husband was not guilty of the "Crime of the Century," she pleaded -- he had not kidnapped and murdered the little Lindbergh baby.

Many checks were mailed directly to Hauptmann at the Death House. He realized that the donors who sent only one dollar didn't necessarily believe in his innocence, they wanted him to endorse the check so they could have the autograph of the man condemned for killing the child of the world-famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh.

March 23, 2004

Who are they? These images are a sampling of unidentified victims profiled on The Doe Network.

by Lona Manning

Todd Matthews has always known where he belongs. His home is in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, where the soft-spoken 33-year-old lives with his wife and two young sons. Home is where the ties to his past are as close as the quiet graveyard where his ancestors are buried. "I was born, live and work in a three-mile radius," Matthews explains. This may be why, he surmises, he is obsessed with helping people who are lost. Specifically, dead people who are lost.

Updated January 14, 2007

by Lona Manning

"The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters"

Kelly Michaels never intended to become a preschool teacher -- she had taken fine arts and drama in college -- but she wanted to live near New York City and was looking for something to pay the rent when she applied at Wee Care Day Care in Maplewood, N.J. Although Kelly doubted if she had the qualifications, the director, Arlene Spector, had been encouraging and had persuaded her to give it a try. Once hired, Kelly was quickly promoted from teacher's aide to preschool teacher.

by Lona Manning

Mary and Robert Halsey

Robert Halsey is in prison in Massachusetts. He's in his 70s, in poor health and he's been behind bars since 1993. Officially, he was convicted of sexual assault on children, but in another sense, he was convicted of being the bogeyman. His trial transcript makes for chilling reading -- and not for the reason you might expect. It raises the frightening possibility that an innocent person was accused and convicted of a childish concoction of fantasy and fear.

by Lona Manning

Most people who know about the Hurricane Carter case only know the Hollywood version presented in the movie starring Denzel Washington. The Hurricane, released in 1999, features crooked, lying, racist cops and frightened witnesses who won't come forward. Carter himself is brash but noble, persecuted his whole life by one obsessed detective who keeps sending him to jail.

December 6, 2002
Last update: July 10, 2009

Nancy Smith, center, with her four teenage children.

by Lona Manning

BULLETIN – Lorain County Common Pleas Court Judge James Burge has overturned the convictions of Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen. Smith, a single mother, was a bus driver for Head Start when she and Allen, a 40-year-old unskilled laborer, were accused of perverted sexual assaults on little children and have served nearly 15 years in prison since their convictions in 1994.

“The court has absolutely no confidence that these verdicts are correct,” said Judge Burge prior to acquitting the two.