TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Author: Trench Reynolds

  • Rocori lawsuit dismissed

    Rocori lawsuit dismissed

    Judge tosses lawsuit over Rocori deaths:

    A wrongful death lawsuit against the Rocori school district in Minnesota and against the father of a school shooter has been dismissed, but not because the case didn’t have merit.

    Seth Bartell and Aaron Rollins were gunned down by John Jason McLaughlin. 15-year-old McLaughlin was sentenced to life in prison last year.

    The families of the victims filed the suit, claiming negligence by the school and by McLaughlin’s father.

    However, the case was dismissed on what I consider the smallest of technicalities…

    Todd County District Court Judge Jay. D. Carlson dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the attorneys representing the Rollins and Bartell families had not complied with rules governing proper filing of civil lawsuits. Specifically, Carlson ruled that those attorneys failed to include their Minnesota address and that they improperly filed the lawsuit on behalf of the parents, rather than the trustees for each of the slain students.

    And people wonder why the court system is so jammed up.

    There is reason to believe that the lawsuit can be refiled.

  • Jonesboro gunman sued

    Jonesboro gunman sued

    On tapes, Jonesboro shooter explains, apologizes:

    Jonesboro gunman Mitchell Johnson is being sued in a wrongful death suit by the families of his victims. In a taped deposition, he’s trying to make himself out to be the victim. He’s even trying to lay all the blame on the other gunman, Andrew Golden.

    Mitchell insists the event was fellow shooter Andrew Golden’s idea.

    He repeatedly says no one was supposed to get hurt, just scared.

    “I was told that he was tired of people messing with him, and he was going to scare people. He was going to prove a point that he’s not a pushover, and he asked me to help him obtain to obtain a vehicle to get to and from where he needed to go. And that was supposed to be that only,” he said.

    “That was what?” an attorney asked in the deposition.

    “That was supposed to be my involvement in all of this,” Johnson responded.

    Instead, four students and a teacher were shot and killed and eleven people were hurt.

    You know you could have said no because that was a stupid idea. But you didn’t, and you took part in the shooting. The only reason you’re out of jail is because of a loophole in Arkansas law at the time regarding juvenile offenders.

    And here come the excuses…

    In the taped deposition we learn Mitchell Johnson was sexually abused when he was younger, used marijuana with his father and was a gang member.

    “I didn’t really think all the way through, I didn’t understand that, you know, what I was doing potentially put people in harm, and that if they did get killed, they don’t come back,” he said.

    Even the stupidest of children know that when you shoot somebody with a gun, there is a very good possibility of them “not coming back”.

    Mitchell says he understands why many people think he should still be behind bars. “I ask myself a lot, do I deserve to be free. I don’t think I do, in all honesty, you know?”

    Well, at least we agree on something.

  • Cho never received treatment

    Cho never received treatment

    Cho Didn’t Get Court-Ordered Treatment:

    With the failure of Cho Seung-Hui getting his court-ordered psychiatric treatment, all parties involved are busy playing the blame game.

    “The system doesn’t work well,” said Tom Diggs, executive director of the Commission on Mental Health Law Reform, which has been studying the state mental health system and will report to the General Assembly next year.

    Involuntary outpatient commitments are relatively uncommon in Virginia, officials said, because those in the system know they are not enforced. They are almost an act of faith.

    “When I let the person go outpatient, I always put on the record, ‘I hope I don’t read about you tomorrow in the paper. . . . Don’t make me look like the foolish judge that could have stopped you,’ ” said Lori Rallison, a special justice in Prince William County. “And knock wood, that hasn’t happened. But it can.”

    Cho’s case is a classic example of some of the flaws in the outpatient treatment system.

    Ya think?

    Cho, they said, slipped through a porous mental health system that suffers from muddled, seldom-enforced laws and inconsistent practices. Special justices who oversee hearings such as the one for Cho said they know that some people they have ordered into treatment have not gotten it. They find out when the person “does something crazy again,” in the words of one justice — when they are brought back into court because they are considered in imminent danger of harming themselves or others.

    So if you’re dangerously crazy in Virginia you get a free pass, it seems like.

    A day later, on Dec. 14, 2005, Paul M. Barnett, the special judge, decided that Cho was an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness and ordered him into involuntary outpatient treatment. It is a practice that Terry W. Teel, Cho’s court-appointed lawyer and a special judge himself, said they use “all the time” in Blacksburg. Special justices such as Barnett are lawyers with some expertise and training who are appointed by the jurisdiction’s chief judge.

    Teel said he does not remember Cho or the details of his case. But he said Cho most likely would have been ordered to seek treatment at Virginia Tech’s Cook Counseling Center. “I don’t remember 100 percent if that’s where he was directed,” Teel said. “But nine times out of 10, that’s where he would be.”

    And there, he said, ended the court’s responsibility. The court doesn’t follow up, he said. “We have no authority.”

    And why doesn’t the court have authority? They’re ‘the court’ for crying out loud. If they don’t have the authority, who does?

    That night, Cho e-mailed a roommate saying he might as well kill himself. The roommate contacted police, who brought Cho to the New River Valley Community Services Board, the government mental health agency that serves Blacksburg.

    There, Kathy Godbey examined Cho and found he was “mentally ill and in need of hospitalization,” according to court papers. That was enough to have Cho temporarily detained at Carilion St. Albans Behavioral Health Clinic in Christiansburg, a few miles from campus, until a special justice could review his case in a commitment hearing.

    New River Valley’s Mike Wade maintained that the community services board’s responsibility ended there.

    I see a lot of responsibility ending, but no responsibility taking. How come no one saw this huge gap in responsibility before? Why did it have to take the deaths of 32 innocent victims?

    “When a court gives a mandatory order that someone get outpatient treatment, that order is to the individual, not an agency,” said Christopher Flynn, director of the Cook Counseling Center. The one responsible for ensuring that the mentally ill person receives help in these sorts of cases, he said, is the mentally ill person. “I’ve never seen someone delivered to me with an order that says, ‘This person has been discharged; he’s now your responsibility.’ That doesn’t happen.”

    Virginia law says community services boards — the local agencies responsible for a range of mental health services — “shall recommend a specific course of treatment and programs” for people such as Cho who are ordered to receive outpatient treatment. The law also says these boards “shall monitor the person’s compliance.”

    When read those portions of the statute, Wade said, “That’s news to us.”

    Oh, that’s just great. The people running the mental health agencies don’t even know the law.

    I’m not saying that forced treatment would or wouldn’t have stopped a madman like Cho Seung-Hui, but we’ll never know until someone tries.

    Ever since the day after Virginia Tech, we’ve heard nothing but how they need to close the loophole in the gun laws. It wasn’t until 3 weeks later that someone besides me was talking about shoring up the mental health laws. That’s just sad.

    I think the problem is that we’re too worried about people being offended. You can’t lock a crazy person up because they might get offended. I’d rather have a crazy person with hurt feelings than a mass of bodies.

  • Why Cho chose Norris Hall

    Why Cho chose Norris Hall

    Isolation Defined Cho’s Senior Year:

    This article is mostly about Cho Seung-Hui’s self-imposed isolation and how his mother tried to get him help from various church congregations in Virginia.

    What caught my eye in the article is a tiny blurb about why he more than likely chose Norris Hall for the site of his cowardly rampage.

    What Cho was thinking remains a mystery; so many who knew him say they never heard him speak until the video he mailed to NBC News was aired on television. One clue exists in Cho’s final selection of courses. He was taking a sociology class called Deviant Behavior, according to interviews. The class met on the second floor of Norris Hall, where most of the shootings occurred.

    Basically, familiarity bred contempt.

  • Gregory White sentenced

    Gregory White sentenced

    Joplin man convicted for having firearms, ammunition in house:

    Gregory White, the father of Memorial Middle School shooter Thomas White, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for possessing firearms as a convicted felon.

    White had convictions of attempted burglary in Florida in 1980 and a meth conviction in California in 1988.

    White’s attorney, federal public defender Ann Koszuth, argued for a sentence at the lower end of the range, referring to her client as “a very solid and good family man,” with a good work history and only a distant criminal past.

    “This is a family that’s going to need its father back as quickly as possible,” Koszuth told the judge.

    The judge said he recognized this was “not the typical case we see here for a felon in possession.”

    “On the other hand, the number of guns you had is not just a slight violation,” Dorr said.

    It seems like a fair sentence to me.

  • None more negative

    None more negative


    I can finally cross one off the list of bands I need to see before I die. I’ve seen Black Sabbath and Dio, and last night Type O Negative was added to the list.

    Charlotte, NC does not normally attract the best metal bands since they get no radio play, so Type O coming to the area was something of a miracle for me. And they did not disappoint.

    They opened up with “Magical Mystery Tour” by the Beatles. They also played songs from every album. The one that surprised me the most was “Anesthesia” from Life is Killing Me, as that’s one of my favorite Type O songs of all time. From the new album, they played “Profits of Doom” and “These Three Things”.

    My only small disappointment was that their set seemed kind of short to me. I would hazard a guess that they played 90 minutes at most. It could just be that I’m not used to small club shows and that there were two opening acts.

    Now if only Iced Earth would come to Charlotte.

  • Culture of death

    Culture of death

    Kids submerged in culture of death games:

    I don’t know if this is a letter to the editor or not, but this may just be one of the most misinformed opinions about video games I’ve ever heard. It’s basically a commentary about how the media is to blame for crimes like Virginia Tech and blah blah blah…

    What is appalling is what most consider to be mass murder is now being exploited as a profitable venture. The video game entitled “Super Columbine Massacre” allows the gamer to play the part of murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as they randomly shot their Columbine High School classmates in the halls, classrooms, library and cafeteria. This real-life portrayal of a murderous rampage that took the lives of 11, ending with the double suicide of the killers, has been turned into a marketable source of entertainment.

    Other games put the participant in the role of Lee Harvey Oswald during his assassination of President Kennedy. Another allows a shooter to take aim on Mexicans crossing the border. And yet another provides vivid instructions as to how to assassinate the president. All are presented in explicit and bloody detail. What is next: Terrorist-in- training videos?

    What does this say about our society when “entertainment” vehicles are available to anyone that wishes to become a murderer at the click of his or her mouse? What possesses someone who seeks enjoyment from killing in cyber space? And what stops a person from acting out these fantasies in real life? Sometimes these people are not stopped and what took place at Virginia Tech is the result.

    I can’t believe I’m defending games like SCMRPG and JFK Reloaded, but these games are niche games that you can’t just go out and buy at your local video game store. And SCMRPG is not presented in explicit and bloody detail. It’s cartoony at best, even though its message is disturbing.

    Also, to make the leap from video games to “Terrorist-in- training videos” is absolutely ludicrous. Let’s not forget the age-old classic of parental responsibility, either.

    If kids under the age of 17 are playing M-Rated games, it’s more than likely that the parents are letting their kids play it. But it’s much easier just to blame video games, isn’t it?

  • The Metal Molester strikes again

    The Metal Molester strikes again

    Randall S. Shesto II

    Wisconsin Heavy Metal Singer Charged With Having Sex With Underage Girl:

    Well, well, well. A few months ago, I posted about Randall S. Shesto II. He is the 20-year-old lead singer of the Wisconsin-based “metal” band Nailwounds. Previously, he was caught with an underage girl, and I dubbed him The Metal Molester. All sorts of people came to his defense, stating things like that the girl was lying about her age. To that I say…

    It turns out that RJ Shesto’s first arrest was not his first dalliance into jailbait.

    Randall S. Shesto II (photo) — a.k.a. RJ Nailwounds, lead singer of NAILWOUNDS (MySpace page) — was charged in a criminal complaint with having sex with a 15-year-old Town of Mukwonago girl three weeks before his encounter with a Sheboygan County girl that led to his conviction there.

    Like the earlier case, Shesto is charged in a complaint that says he met the 15-year-old through MySpace.com, had ensuing meetings with her and the two eventually agreed to have sex. The girl was not legally old enough to make that decision, however, and the complaint indicates that she did have some qualms about her decision after making it.

    From another article…

    The Town of Mukwonago girl’s sexual encounter with him in her home occurred on Dec. 22, and for a time remained a secret. The girl’s father had met Shesto during a visit he made to her home, and the father was led to believe that Shesto was 18 and attended Mukwonago High School.

    After the father learned of Shesto’s arrest on sex charges in Sheboygan County, he became suspicious and decided to look into his daughter’s MySpace.com account. After seeing indications there that the two had sexual contact, the father brought her in to speak with Mukwonago police.

    The girl detailed her relationship with Shesto to police and explained that he knew she was 15, and she knew he was 20. She also explained how the two had sex in her home on Dec. 22.

    I might be able to buy the “she said she was 18” defense once. But what are the odds of lightning striking twice here? Slim to none and Slim just left.

    Thanks to Blabbermouth for linking to here.

  • Asperger’s as a criminal defense

    Asperger’s as a criminal defense

    I first heard of Asperger Syndrome when I was blogging about the case of William Freund. Freund was a 19-year-old from Aliso Viejo, California who donned a paintball mask and a cape, armed himself with a shotgun, and went on a neighborhood shooting spree. He entered the unlocked home of Vernon Smith and shot and killed Smith and his 22-year-old daughter Christina before turning the gun on himself.

    Now before we go any further, I’ll give you just the briefest of rundowns on Asperger’s. There are many who argue about the precise definition of Asperger’s, but it is believed to be a mild form of autism in which the afflicted have an extremely hard time with social interaction. For example, an AS patient may have a difficult time detecting sarcasm or reading a person’s body language and may take everything as fact. AS patients may also have an obsession with one particular subject or pastime. I realize this is just barely scratching the surface of Asperger’s, but it will do for now.

    William Freund’s obsession was more than likely guns. On the Asperger’s forum, WrongPlanet.net, Freund often spoke of wanting a real friend, being suicidal, and threatening to start a terror campaign. On the site SomethingAwful.com, he asked what kind of buckshot was the best for home protection. He stated that on Halloween, he was going to wait out on his porch with his shotgun and shoot anybody who tries to vandalize his pumpkins. That was possibly the worst site that he could have posted that on. The Something Awful community is not known to be kind to any user who posts such outrageous statements, and I’m sure his Asperger’s didn’t help.

    The moderators of WrongPlanet tried to reach his family to tell them of the terror plot he was allegedly planning, but they could not. Since Freund took his own life, no trial was ever held, but at the time I commented that Asperger’s would be eventually used as a murder defense. At the time, not knowing that it already had been tried.

    The next time I heard about Asperger’s was from the case of John Odgren. He is the 15-year-old student from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in Massachusetts who stabbed and killed another student by the name of James Alenson in a school bathroom.

    Alenson was stabbed in the heart and abdomen and slashed across his face and neck with a 13-inch kitchen carving knife. Odgren is alleged to have two obsessions, forensics, and his knife collection. He had a penchant of bragging to classmates that he could pull off the perfect murder. After the murder took place, Odgren ran into the school hallway and admitted what he had done to school officials and police. By all accounts, he didn’t act like someone who had just committed a murder. Some reports say that he was joking with police and when Crime Scene Services arrived he excitedly offered to assist them.

    While the case has not yet gone to trial, his defense attorney was quick to offer up Asperger’s as a defense to the media.

    While blogging about the Lincoln-Sudbury murder, I asked some blogging doctors I know what they thought about using Asperger’s as a medical defense.

    One medical doctor explained to me that Asperger’s patients can sometimes have explosive episodes and that AS patients can have a lack of impulse control. A surgeon told me that since the explosive outbursts are a part of the disease, he doesn’t think the suspect should be sent to prison but should be under constant supervision and a controlled environment. I asked a Ph.D. who has a son with autism what her opinion was, but I’ll get into that a little later.

    Both crimes that I’ve mentioned so far do not seem like explosive episodes. Freund had been threatening to go on a rampage for a while. In my opinion, John Odgren had his crime planned out very far in advance, as he had the day of the murder circled on his calendar.

    Yesterday I read about the story of Robert Derderian. He’s an 18-year-old who is accused of sexually molesting a 12-year-old girl and videotaping what basically amounts to rape.

    He has also been charged with sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl several times over the course of last summer. According to his defense attorney, he may not be competent to stand trial because he has Asperger’s and autism and will not speak to his attorney.

    I find this claim hard to believe. One of the symptoms of autism and Asperger’s for many sufferers is an extreme dislike of physical contact. That’s not to say that is the case for all AS and autism patients, but it is rather prevalent among them. My point is this. Any criminal defense attorney who has an iota of integrity should not use Asperger’s as a criminal defense.

    The Ph.D. whose opinion I asked about this told me the following. Using autism/Asperger’s as a criminal defense is seen as having a very negative effect on the public perception and understanding of autism and Asperger’s as it suggests a direct link between autism/Asperger’s and violence.

    If this becomes standard practice among defense attorneys, it could lead to a sort of witch hunt against Asperger’s patients.

    AS patients are probably having a hard enough time as it is without this kind of social condemnation. A few bad apples, so to speak, should not let society cast a bad light on a group of people who are already misunderstood.

  • Cho’s ticket out of the bughouse

    Cho’s ticket out of the bughouse

    EXCLUSIVE: Va.Tech Gunman Ordered to Get Treatment at On-Campus Facility, Lawyer Says:

    The other day I asked if Cho Seung-Hui was court ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment, why did no one from the court follow-up to make sure he was attending said treatments. It turns out that no one was required to.

    With no agency responsible for checking up on court-ordered psychiatric care, it is unclear whether Cho showed up for treatment or received care at another facility. As is standard practice for Montgomery County, the court would have sent Cho to the eligible provider nearest to his home. Cook Counseling center, which is located a few buildings away from Cho’s senior-year dorm, is funded by student health fees and provides care to those enrolled at Virginia Tech.

    Now, I’m not trying to blame anyone but Cho for the massacre, but it seems that Virginia has another loophole they may want to close.

    What’s the point of court ordering someone for psychiatric treatment if there are no repercussions for not following those orders?