TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Category: Crime

  • Esmie’s abuse

    Esmie’s abuse

    Teenager pleads guilty in mother’s stabbing death:

    This is just another story about Esmie Tseng’s plea, but I finally get to hear what kind of abuse Esmie went through…

    In Esmie Tseng’s world, a test score of 96 might have gotten the 16-year-old grounded.

    Her mother expected more. Always more. And when the Overland Park girl fell short, she often was punished in ‘unfair and cruel’ ways, Johnson County District Attorney Paul Morrison said Monday.

    Sometimes, he said, Esmie’s mother tried to teach her a lesson by humiliating her: She made her daughter take off all her clothes.

    But Esmie also was under a lot of pressure, primarily from her mother, to perform at unrealistically high levels, Morrison said. Slight transgressions often resulted in punishments such as not being able to go outside for extended periods of time, he said, or not being able to do the kinds of things that teens like to do.

    “She lived in a highly structured environment,” Morrison said.

    “It was not uncommon for her to be ordered to take her clothes off as a way to humiliate her, if that gives you a flavor of what was going on.”

    I feel bad for Esmie. I really do. That’s not sarcasm. Mental abuse like that from a parent is one of the worst tortures that a teenager can go through. However, that abuse did not warrant the violent response that Esmie gave…

    Assistant District Attorney John Fritz said that Esmie had stabbed her mother with a knife. When her mother took away the knife, Esmie grabbed another and stabbed her multiple times. Esmie did not call for help, he said.

    The way Esmie’s mother treated her would have been grounds to call social services, not a multiple stabbing with two different knives.

    Also, did Esmie’s father know that this treatment was going on?

    Now that I know a little more about the events leading up to the murder of Shu Yi Zhang, I can offer an opinion on the sentencing.

    I think the suggested eight years and four months is very reasonable for the offense and what led up to it. As I said, I feel bad for Esmie, but stabbing her mother to death was a severe over-reaction, and she needs to be punished.

    She will still have much of her life ahead of her when she gets out.

  • Esmie Tseng pleads guilty

    Esmie Tseng pleads guilty

    Esmie Tseng pleads guilty to voluntary manslaughter:

    In a shocking turn of events, shocking to me anyway, Esmie Tseng, the 16-year-old Kansas teen accused of stabbing her mother to death, has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter…

    Esmie Tseng, 16, pleaded guilty to the charge after agreeing to have her case moved to adult court. Sentencing was set for May 3.

    Prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed to recommend a sentence of 100 months in prison, or about 8 years and four months. The defense agreed it would not ask for probation.

    I’m curious as to why she pleaded guilty to an adult charge when so many people thought she should be tried as a juvenile?

  • Burned his girlfriend alive

    Police: Teen Burned Alive Over Pregnancy:

    A 20-year-old man in Ocoee, Fla., was charged with murder after he confessed to pouring gasoline over his ex-girlfriend and then setting her on fire because she may have been pregnant, police told Local 6 News.

    Winter Garden police officers investigating a report of a car fire noticed a small fire on the east side of County Road 545 on Feb. 25.

    When officers extinguished the flames, they found the body of Amelia Sookdeo, 17, burned beyond recognition.

    An investigation into the homicide led to Sookdeo’s ex-boyfriend, Dane Abdool, 20, who at first denied any involvement in the crime, according to the report.

    However, when police confronted him with inconsistencies in his story and presented a set of tire marks from his car photographed at the scene, Abdool confessed to the crime, Local 6 News reported.

    “He admitted that he had met his former girlfriend that night, she sneaked out and he picked her up and went to his apartment in Ocoee,” Winter Garden Police Chief George Brennan said. “From there they left and had an argument and he took her down County Road 545, forced her out of the car. He poured gasoline on her and ignited it.”

    Abdool told police that he was arguing with Sookdeo over her possible pregnancy and he was just trying to scare her, Local 6 News reported.

    Here’s the twist…

    “The medical examiner found no evidence that she was having a baby,” Local 6 reporter Mike DeForest said.

    Way to go, you scumbag. You killed your own girlfriend in one of the most brutal ways possible over something that is supposed to be so beautiful, like bringing a new life into the world, and she wasn’t even pregnant.

    I hope the fires of hell burn a million times hotter for you once you get there.

    My prayers and condolences go out to the Sookdeo family.

  • Dyleski facing life

    Dyleski facing life

    Dyleski could serve life without parole:

    Contra Costa County prosecutors have filed a special circumstance allegation against 17-year-old murder defendant Scott Dyleski, subjecting him to a life term without the possibility of parole if he is convicted.

    Prosecutors allege that Dyleski committed murder during a residential burglary.

    In court documents filed Wednesday, deputy district attorney Harold Jewett said Dyleski entered the home of Pamela Vitale with the intention of stealing, counterfeiting or fraudulently using access card information.

    Dyleski is accused of killing Vitale on Oct. 15, 2005. Vitale’s husband Daniel Horowitz found her stabbed and bludgeoned to death that evening.

    Dyleski cannot get the death penalty due to his age. Which is more consideration than Pam Vitale got.

  • Henderson speaks out

    Henderson speaks at hearing:

    Richard Henderson Jr., the Florida 20-year-old accused of bludgeoning his family to death on Thanksgiving Day, spoke out in court yesterday against the advice of his attorney…

    “I have something to say,” Henderson blurted out, to the surprise of his public defender, Steven Schaefer, who advised him to keep quiet. Henderson insisted, and Schaefer let him speak.

    “I want to plead guilty and get this over with,” Henderson said. He was dressed in a jail-issued blue jump suit and shackled at the wrists and feet. A dozen bailiffs stood by.

    He faces the death penalty if convicted.

  • We now interrupt this blog for A SPECIAL REPORT

    We now interrupt this blog for A SPECIAL REPORT

    A SPECIAL REPORT: HAZING

    Dr. Scott of Polite Dissent was nice enough to send me this article. In the wake of the Sierra Vista High hazing incident, the Las Vegas Review-Journal decided to follow it up with A SPECIAL REPORT on hazing.

    They interviewed some former high school athletes for their SPECIAL REPORT and read what some of them had to say about hazing…

    “It’s humorous, and a little cruel, but you think, hey, you know what, they (the seniors) did the same thing to me a couple years ago,” said former Centennial wrestler Chris Fletcher, 20, who acknowledged throwing clothed, younger wrestlers into showers and duct-taping others to chairs.

    And the cycle of abuse perpetuates.

    “They didn’t enjoy it while it was happening, but they enjoyed it when they were varsity players and got to do it,” said Ronald Tekpho, 20, who played football and ran track for Valley before graduating in 2003.

    Many of the former athletes expressed disgust with allegations surrounding a Feb. 3 incident at Sierra Vista that has left six basketball players facing expulsion and felony charges.

    The players are accused of pinning down a younger teammate while at least one of them penetrated his rectum with fingers.

    “Hazing is supposed to be fun,” Tekpho said, “not a violation of somebody.”

    Asked to elaborate on “fun” types of hazing, Tekpho described spraying a locker with a water hose while a junior varsity player was trapped inside.

    “He was screaming, ‘It’s cold, it’s cold! Let me out of here!’ ” said a chuckling Tekpho, a Community College of Southern Nevada student who aspires to be a police officer. “We let him out. We weren’t going to let him die in there.”

    While I’m glad that he is disgusted about sexual assault, the fact that he’s giddy over false imprisonment doesn’t make me feel any better. And the fact that he’s trying to be a cop makes me fearful.

    Playing varsity football for Chaparral in the late 1990s, Steve Puterski and his teammates had one rule after randomly choosing a younger athlete to haze.

    “There was no hitting in the face or the groin,” said Puterski, now a 25-year-old journalist in Greeley, Colo. “We just basically beat them in the arms and legs, so they’d be sore but not seriously hurt.”

    Puterski says he was similarly hazed years earlier as a junior varsity player.

    “They all just kind of took a turn. It was like a senior’s privilege,” he said. “Maybe 10 or 15 guys would come and give you three or four licks each, then they’d help you up, and one of them would give you a ride home. It was just a tradition.”

    So how long will it be before forced sodomy among high school athletes becomes “tradition”?

    We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

  • Dyleski to stand trial

    Dyleski to stand trial

    Judge orders Dyleski to stand trial in Vitale murder:

    A judge has ruled that there is a sufficient amount of evidence to reasonably try Scott Dyleski for the murder of Pam Vitale, and he will be tried as an adult…

    During the first three days of testimony Contra Costa County prosecutor Harold Jewett presented evidence painting Dyleski as a disturbed young man.

    He showed Dyleski’s drawings, that included a figure holding a bloody knife who was wearing a ski mask and a trench coat. Jewett pointed out that some of the clothes found by detectives during their investigation included a bloody ski mask and a trench coat that he believes Dyleski wore during the killing.

    Jewett also presented drawings and printed examples of symbols found in Dyleski’s bedroom that were similar, but not identical, to the mark found on Vitale’s back. Defense attorney Ellen Leonida of the public defender’s office argued against allowing Dyleski’s artwork in, saying a lot of artwork is disturbing and is not evidence of murder. But the judge disagreed, and will allow certain of Dyleski’s drawings to be used by prosecutors in a trial.

    Witnesses who lived with Dyleski at his home about a mile down Hunsaker Canyon Road from Vitale and Horowitz testified that on the morning of Oct. 15, Dyleski came home with scratches or “gouge-like” marks on his face.

    Witnesses also testified that Dyleski became paranoid on the day before his arrest on Oct. 19, and began talking about his fear that his DNA might be found on Vitale’s body. He told a story of a woman who pulled over in a car and grabbed his arm while he was on a walk in the neighborhood as the reason for his concern.

    All that even after Dyleski’s mom destroyed evidence…

    After Dyleski’s Oct. 19 arrest, authorities arrested Fielding as an accessory to murder after the fact for destroying a red writing journal of her son’s, a box of disposable gloves and a written list of the names and credit card information for a number of her and her son’s neighbors. The charges were dropped after Fielding agreed to testify for prosecutors against Dyleski.

    Not only that but Pam Vitale’s DNA was found on Scott Dyleski’s belongings…

    Prosecutors concluded the hearings Friday with testimony from David Stockwell, a DNA expert who said Vitale’s DNA was found on the boy’s duffel bag, with a statistical probability that 1 in 13 quadrillion other Caucasians would share the same profile.

    Detectives discovered the duffel, which was affixed with Dyleski’s nametag, during a search of the property where the teen lived with 11 other individuals.

    The bag contained bloody clothes that prosecutors believe Dyleski wore when he allegedly killed Vitale, and a mixture of both their DNA was found on a ski mask, shoes, and the bag itself.

    Dyleski is ineligible for the death penalty because he was under 18 at the time of the murder.

  • Scott Dyleski’s Checklist

    Scott Dyleski’s Checklist

    Dyleskis ex-roommate finds disturbing checklist:

    I get a lot of comments from people who say that Scott Dyleski is a great kid and couldn’t possibly be capable of killing Pam Vitale. Oh yeah? Well, what do you have to say about this?

    It was in late January that David Curiel — who lived with Dyleski and two other families in a Hunsaker Canyon home about a mile down the road from Vitales — found a number of index cards that included detailed personal and financial information about other Hunsaker Canyon residents who were victims of credit card fraud. The handwritten cards included the dates of birth, frequent flier numbers and passwords to eBay and Amazon.com accounts.

    And prosecutors say one of the cards included this checklist:

    – Knock out/kidnap

    – Question

    – Keep captive to confirm PINS (personal identification numbers)

    – Dirty work

    – Dispose of evidence

    – Cut up and bury

    Things that make you go hmmm?

  • Sierra Vista High Hazing Incident

    Sierra Vista High Hazing Incident

    School attack alleged:

    Another high school athletic hazing incident has been reported. This time it’s from Sierra Vista High School in Las Vegas, Nevada…

    The incident, which took place about 5:45 p.m. on Feb. 3 in the school’s gymnasium, involved members of Sierra Vista’s boys varsity basketball team. Six or more players jumped a newcomer to the squad and took him to the floor. One or more of the attackers inserted fingers into the victim’s rectum, sources said.

    And once again there are allegations of a cover-up…

    Sources familiar with the incident also are raising questions about the conduct of a Sierra Vista administrator. Educators are required by law to report abuse involving minors. In this incident, sources said that the victim was reluctant to step forward. His mother first called police.

    “This administrator tried to dissuade the (victim’s) mother from reporting it,” one source said. “He also asked Metro (police) to postpone the investigation until after the game.”

    A school administrator trying to cover up a crime by an athletic team. Go figure.

    I will give the school this much credit, the athletes involved have been suspended and face expulsion. Police are also saying that those involved may be looking at felony charges.

    I wonder how long it will be before someone defends this instance of sexual sadism as “boys being boys”.

    Link via Bad Jocks.

  • Friend dropped the dime on Dyleski

    Friend dropped the dime on Dyleski

    Friend casts suspicion on Dyleski:

    It turns out that it was Scott Dyleski’s close friend and partner in the alleged credit card fraud/marijuana growing scheme that tipped off investigators to Dyleski in the brutal slaying of Pam Vitale…

    According to sources close to the case, a teenage friend of Dyleski saw him hours after the killing with scratches on his face. Dyleski told his friend he got scratched while walking in the woods.

    A few days later, as the case attracted media attention, Dyleski told his friend he was worried investigators might find his own DNA on Vitale. He told his friend that Vitale saw him in the woods and grabbed him.

    The story made the friend suspicious about Dyleski. He also was worried because he and Dyleski were involved in a scheme to use fraudulent credit cards to purchase marijuana-growing lights and have them sent to the homes of neighbors.

    Originally, it was thought that Dyleski killed Pam Vitale because he was caught having the marijuana growing equipment sent to Vitale’s house, but that has since been abandoned since no evidence has been found substantiating that.

    The friend will testify against Dyleski in exchange for credit card fraud charges being dropped.