TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Category: Crime

  • Red Lake families sue consulting firm

    Consultant sued over Red Lake shootings:

    Families of the victims of the Red Lake shooting are suing a consulting firm whose job it was to provide the school with a contingency plan in case of such crises. Obviously, their contingency plan didn’t work.

    The families are suing MacNeil Environmental Inc. stating that their security plan didn’t work.

    The lawyers say they have received strong expert opinion on their claims that MacNeil’s plan was confusing, poorly formatted and contained conflicting directions for school staff.

    Normally I’m against families of school shooting victims suing 3rd parties but this lawsuit actually sounds like it does have merit.

    Previously the families had sued the Red Lake School District and were awarded $900K between the families.

  • Jury recommends death for Abdool

    Jury Sentences Abdool To Death:

    The jury that convicted Dane Abdool of setting his girlfriend on fire has recommended the death penalty.

    Abdool was convicted of killing Amelia Sookdeo by wrapping her in duct tape, dousing her in gasoline and setting her on fire.

    The story isn’t over yet as the judge has final discretion on sentencing.

  • Parents of Baby Left Alone in Car Seat for 8 Days Face Murder Charges

    Tracy Hermann and James Sargent
    Tracy Hermann and James Sargent

    Link

    Tracey Hermann, 21, and James Sargent, 23, are charged in the child neglect death of their 5-month old son Benjamin Sargent. They’re accused of leaving the baby strapped in a car seat, in his crib for 8 days while, among other activities, played video games.

    Should this reflect on gamers as a whole? Hell no it shouldn’t. This should only reflect on two ‘people’ who didn’t give a damn about their own son. Video games weren’t the only thing they did for 8 days and if they didn’t play video games they would have done something equally as trivial instead of caring for their own child.

  • Zarate’s lawyer claims diminished capacity

    Report: Accused killer of Randolph teen had mental defect:

    Instead of going for an insanity defense the attorney for accused killer Jonathan Zarate is now going for a diminished capacity defense. Here’s the difference…

    A defendant deemed to be insane at the time of a crime in New Jersey cannot be held criminally responsible. A person found guilty of committing a murder, but found to have diminished capacity, or a mental defect or impairment, is merely convicted of a lesser offense than murder.

    For those of you new to the site then 18-year-old Jonathan Zarate killed his 16-year-old neighbor Jennifer Parks, dismembered her body, then hid her body for 24 hours, and then tried to dump her body into the Passaic River.

    Basically, this kind of defense admits guilt but tries to get a reduced sentence other than a murder sentence.

    The prosecution, however, subscribes to the common sense theory…

    Office Executive Assistant Prosecutor Robert Lane said the report will be reviewed over the next week to see if the office wants to hire its own expert. But Lane told Judge Salem Vincent Ahto that Jonathan Zarate’s mind appeared clear when he scrubbed up the crime scene, cut off the girl’s legs to cram her body into a steamer trunk and tried to toss the trunk over a bridge into the Passaic River.

    The only mental defect Zarate has is that he’s a raving psychopath.

    The judge wants the trial to start on April 17th but Zarate’s attorney, Anthony Fusco, said he won’t be ready. How much more time does he need? It’s been almost 3 years since Jennifer Parks’ death. Get on with it already. Doesn’t the victim’s family have the right to a speedy trial too?

    Nod to Keb.

  • NIU shooter was on Ambien

    Girlfriend: Shooter was taking cocktail of 3 drugs:

    Remember when I said that Stephen Kazmierczak meds had nothing to do with the shooting? I stand corrected…sort of.

    It turns out that Kazmierczak was on three drugs, Prozac, Xanax, and Ambien. Prozac is an anti-depressant which as I stated before should have still been in his system at the time that he stopped taking it. Xanax is an anti-anxiety drug kind of like Valium. I’ve been prescribed Xanax before. After taking one of those the only thing I wanted to do was sleep so I don’t think it was the Xanax. Ambien is a drug that is supposed to help you sleep. In a lot of cases, it does the exact opposite at best.

    A few years ago there was a member of my family who was prescribed Ambien for sleep. Whenever they took an Ambien to try to sleep they would end up being up for hours in a stupor-like state. It got to the point where I didn’t want to be around them when they were on Ambien and I was worried for their own safety. Luckily when I expressed my concerns they realized what Ambien was doing to them and stopped taking it. In my personal opinion, I think Ambien is a danger and should be taken off the market.

    There have been instances where people arrested for car accidents have claimed that they were on Ambien and didn’t even remember that they were driving. Can I draw the conclusion that Ambien caused Kazmierczak to on his killing spree? Logically, no. Only by anecdotal evidence would I try to make that conclusion. However, I don’t think it should be ruled out.

  • NIU shooting and the media

    Northern Illinois shooting goes unnoticed:

    This is an op-ed piece from the San Jose State student newspaper about how the national media has treated the NIU shooting and how it’s basically ignored the story since it happened.

    People reacted in horror when Seung-Hui Cho attacked Virginia Tech University last April, and grief gripped the nation for several days. Compare that with Thursday, when people didn’t even bat an eye when Steven Kazmierczak committed a similar crime at Northern Illinois University. It felt like a bad horror movie we had seen before.

    Some took note, a few grieved and a lot just didn’t notice.

    Only five days after the event, the NIU shooting and the issues surrounding it were less significant to CNN than satellites being shot down and Bill Clinton picking on a heckler. By contrast, the shooting at Virginia Tech filled our media’s consciousness for at least a week.

    I hate to say it but the truth hurts sometimes. Ever since Columbine, it’s been all about body count as far as the media is concerned. At Columbine 13 were killed. At Virginia Tech 32 were killed. At NIU just 5 were killed. I think it also had something to do with the fact that as far as we know so far Stephen Kazmierczak wasn’t an attention seeking douchebag like Cho, Harris, and Klebold. Go down the list of categories on my site and tell me how many of the shootings you’ve heard of.

    This is where I like to think that this is where this site serves its purpose. When one of these incidents unfortunately happens I post about it from start to finish.

  • NIU gunman covered his tracks

    Gunman Hid His Tracks, Officials Say:

    It seems that The Times is on a roll lately.

    Anyway, this is an article about how NIU gunman Stephen Kazmierczak covered his tracks prior to the shooting.

    The hard drive from his computer and the SIM card from his cell phone are both missing. I think this lends credence to my theory about Kazmierczak possibly being a paranoid schizophrenic.

    This wasn’t the typical school shooting either because as of yet there’s no evidence that Kazmierczak craved any kind of attention like that of Cho Seung-Hui or Kimveer Gill.

    I think this is just a tragic incident of an undiagnosed mental illness.

  • Meds played little to no role in NIU shooting

    Reports of Gunman’s Use of Antidepressant Renew Debate Over Side Effects:

    This is a great article from the NY Times (which is rare) about what kind of role antidepressants played at the NIU tragedy.

    In a word, they probably played no role whatsoever.

    Kazmierczak was on Prozac and was off of it for three days prior to the shooting. According to the article, Prozac doesn’t leave your system in that time.

    Now the anti-depressant Luddites will still use this as an argument because they can’t make up their minds if being on or off antidepressants causes situations like this.

    Most medical professionals quoted in the article say that when patients on antidepressants have violent outbursts like this it usually indicates another underlying problem.

    And I’m sure they’ll also ignore this quote.

    Dr. Michael Stone, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia, maintains a database of 1,000 violent crimes, including mass murders, going back decades. In many cases the accused had stopped taking drugs for schizophrenia, Dr. Stone said.

    “I only have a handful of cases,” he added, “where the person was on an antidepressant.”

    I wouldn’t be surprised if Kazmierczak had undiagnosed schizophrenia.

    Personally, I couldn’t laud the benefits of antidepressants enough. Being on one has literally saved my life.

  • Abdool convicted

    Orlando-area man convicted of setting on fire, killing girlfriend:

    Dane Abdool was convicted in the burning death of his girlfriend Amelia Sookdeo.

    As you may recall Abdool was accused of wrapping her in duct tape, dousing her in gasoline, then setting her on fire when she told him she was pregnant. Autopsy results stated she wasn’t pregnant at all.

    It only took jurors four hours to hand down a guilty verdict.

    Abdool is eligible for the death penalty.

  • Nee sentenced to 9 months

    Man Gets 9 Months in Mass. School Plot:

    That’s 9 months with three months served.

    I’m surprised but I’m not. I’m surprised that the judge actually sentenced Joe Nee to jail time but I’m not surprised that he got less than Tobin Kerns.

    Let’s get some reactions…

    “Obviously, being his parents, we’re heartbroken,” father Thomas Nee said after the sentencing.

    Heartbroken that his position as head of the Boston police union didn’t carry enough clout maybe. If he was such a caring father maybe he wouldn’t have thrown his son out of the house when Nee went to live with the Kerns family. Or maybe he wouldn’t let his son wear a t-shirt to the school of the Columbine killers that said ‘Remember the Heroes’.

    Next, we’ll hear from Joe Nee’s attorney, the always humorous Thomas Dreschler…

    Nee’s attorney, Thomas Drechsler, asked Judge Charles Grabau to spare Nee any additional jail time.

    “My client did go to police, and Kerns didn’t. I felt that he should have gotten a more lenient sentence,” Drechsler said. He said he plans to appeal the conviction.

    The only reason Nee went to police was that he was in fear of Tobin Kerns going to the police first. He should have gotten a lot more time than Tobin Kerns. By most accounts, Nee was the ring leader.

    Now let’s hear from Nee’s sister…

    Nee’s family was in tears, hugging outside the courtroom. His sister, Katherine Nee, said the ruling sends a message that people should not go to the police.

    You mean how like a lot of the kids in Marshfield were afraid to go to the police about a policeman’s son?

    I expect a few things to happen. I expect the sentence to be reduced on appeal. I expect Nee to get special treatment while in jail. I also expect that this won’t be the last time we hear about Joe Nee’s criminal activities. Either that or he’ll become a Boston cop.