Move Over, Omaima

This show was so good tonight, I thought I'd embed it here. It's about a cook who had his wife for dinner.

To be serious about it, he didn't actually eat her, only cook her before dumping her into the dumpster:




It's quite similar to the infamous Omaima Nelson case where the woman killed then ate much of her new husband at around Thanksgiving back in the early 1990s.

She was up for parole a couple of years ago, but she was denied.

I'll Make Sure I Watch "48 Hours" Tomorrow Night

It is the season opener, and it is an update of the Dana Chandler case, mentioned on a number of blog posts here. She was the Kansas woman convicted of killing her ex-husband and his fiancee back in July of 2002. She was convicted this past March and sentenced to two "hard-50" life terms.

I might end up posting the updated episode when it is loaded on the CBS website by Sunday morning.

Here is a preview:

Despite detectives' original reservations that a woman who lived eight hours away in Denver could be responsible for these homicides, the victims' families had long suspected Mike's ex-wife, Dana Chandler. It became more feasible when they discovered that she had a 27-hour window where no one heard from her, and that she had bought two 5-gallon gas tanks the day before the murders.

While we were researching, we made sure to check into alternative theories to ensure that no stone was left unturned. We re-interviewed all the family members and spoke to people who knew Mike and Dana as a couple, as well as separately. We went to the crime scene, went through the Siscos large divorce file, and read various psychological reports that had been done. We headed out to Colorado to check Dana's alibi. We made several attempts to try and speak with Dana herself, but she would not agree to talk to us on or off camera.

48 Hours Did an Update on the Amanda Knox

case last night. Here is the updated video:


Watch CBS News Videos Online


I like this comment at the CBS link:

by 66witches December 6, 2009 7:30 PM EST
I think that the persons writing above who point out problems in Knox's and Sollecito's testimony are relying on a lot of unproven facts. The police record of timings of things are flawed and disputed, and the police are also in on it with that evil deranged slob Mignini. By the way, it was the police who first implicated Lumumba, not Amanda, and she was basically bullied into what is called an "interrogator's trap" in which a suspect is basically asked to imagine a possible scenario. It's very easy to imagine that you would be the perfect picture of stoic nobility under aggressive interrogation, but different people buckle under different levels of pressure, which is why in the US and UK and some other countries, there are stringent rules around how interrogations are conducted. Coercion, leading questions, bullying, aggression, - it doesn't have to take electric shock torture to get a compromised confession. For some people an hour of extreme, threatening and accusatory interrogation is enough to create a confusion. That entire interview in any case, was ruled inadmissible as it was under duress, without an interpreter and no lawyer present. If you have ever had to make a police statement you know that they put things into their own words, supposedly based on what you've said and they write it down and then you sign it. The only reason that interrogation was heard in court is because in the FLAWED and CORRUPT Italian judicial system, the civil case is heard simultaneously with the criminal case. Civil cases have a lower burden of what is admissable and so this loophole allowed that illegal and flawed entrapment of an interrogation to be heard by the same jury that was hearing the criminal case, simultaneously. We may never know why it sometimes appears that Amanda and Raffaele appear to have something to hide about their activities that evening, or at least are rather vague and insubstantial. Maybe they were smoking Salvia and went on an astral journey that lasted til 5 a.m. and can't exactly discuss the fact that they were at an alien rave on Venus all night, or maybe don't even remember what happened. It doesn't matter, because the fact they don't have a verifiable alibi other than that they weren't there should NOT be enough to convict. And even looking or acting a bit suspicious or in ways that don't conform to expectations is hardly proof of a hideous crime. To me, Amanda is not faking it one bit when she speaks about Meredith being her friend. Mignini on the other hand comes off as a loathsome toad with bizarre fixations. Catholic-Mafia run Italy also has very convoluted and hypocritical morals surrounding alternative lifestyles, sex and getting high. The agenda to enforce a traditional code of so-called morality is also a big factor in this case. I personally don't find the footage of the pair embracing after the murder was discovered as so weird as everyone is making out. If you are with your lover when you suddenly find yourself in an extreme and scary situation, involving death and tragedy, wouldn't the natural thing to do be to seek solace in their arms? I didn't find their embrace to be particularly racy, it seemed comforting. Anyway, thanks for showing this program CBS. I hope you continue to follow up the story.

But what I really want to know is why no-one is talking about the ditched cell phones? This seems really significant to me. If Meredith and Raffaele had taken them as part of the staged break in, well, first of all what a dumb choice as they're so identifiable! Secondly, why not dispose of them a bit better! It makes a lot more sense that Guede, the interrupted burglar and opportunistic sex attacker, would have taken them at some point - perhaps when it was still a burglary - and then panicked and ditched them when he ran off. I also find it significant that Guede never implicated Amanda or Raffaele in the crime until it was clear that there was a huge media interest in her and that he could manipulate things to shift the blame. I think all Americans should judge the merits of this case based on how the outcome would have been in a US court. By those standards, properly upheld, there is no way there would have been a conviction and so for that reason alone, all US citizens should support Amanda's right to a fair interrogation, arrest, and trial. Sending letters demanding Mignini's resignation would be a good start. Thanks for reading.

This Larry King Live interview with Knox's parents was from a couple of months ago:

L-king/Knox from Ray Turner on Vimeo.

I REALLY Like This Recent Episode

of my favorite current show, 48 Hours:


Watch CBS News Videos Online


That woman is really something else--Dana Chandler, I mean.

I Have Been Uploading

more episodes of 48 Hours Mystery to my iPod, and the most recent episode was the Travis Alexander murder in Mesa, Arizona. A "friend" of his, Jodi Arias, who was starting up a photography business and was a bartender in her hometown of Yreka, California, just 45 minutes away from my hometown of Medford, Oregon, was arrested and charged in his murder. I have to say she is one crazy individual.

The murder happened just nine months ago, and Arias won't be tried until sometime in 2010, but if she thought giving an extensive interview with CBS would help her case, she certainly was mistaken:


Watch CBS Videos Online

I am surprised her attorney even allowed her to do the interview; she impeaches herself with her complete lack of feelings about the man she killed. She is eerily detached from the whole thing.

The murder was a classic O.J.-style case of jealousy. She couldn't have Travis, who was seeing other women after breaking it off with her, but she decided if he wouldn't have her, he wouldn't have anybody.

The show makes a big deal out of the fact both the accused killer and the victim were Mormons, but that detail really isn't important. Even if they were both atheists, this would have happened. People use others for sex all the time, whether they are religious are not, but few of these relationships end in murder. Arias is one screwed up individual.

The only way she will not get the death penalty is for her to plead insanity. Arizona is marginally more forgiving of murderers than Georgia, Florida, or Texas.

I suppose the reason her website and both of their MySpace pages are still up has to do with the fact they will be regarded as evidence in Arias' trial.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

I like this photo gallery from the L.A. Times of the California state flower, the California poppy.

I try and buy the seeds most years, although packages are hard to come by.
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Is "snark," which yours truly engages in on a regular basis, the ruination of the United States?

I seriously doubt it. This book sounds like yet another diatribe by a snob, just like those who wailed about the lack of "civility" in politics and dialogue were snobs.
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There's not much of anything going on worth commenting about. I have been uploading episodes of 48 Hours Mystery and watching them. As I've mentioned, I don't have television to speak of, so I have been watching the online or podcasts.

The show had reports of the Darren Mack and Chaz Higgs cases which were huge news here in Reno, and since I hadn't seen those episodes before and wanted to keep them, I bought and uploaded them on the iPod. Those cases were offbeat, but neither has anything on the truly bizarre "Black Widow of Lomita" case in California where a Filipina woman, Sonia Rios Risken, married two U.S. servicemen over a period of many years and apparently got both of them knocked off by relatives in the Philippines so she could collect on insurance money. Well, as they say, what goes around comes around, and Sonia herself got knocked off nearly two years ago at her home. All three murders are to date still officially unsolved. A 48 Hours episode about the case aired a month or so ago. It is worth posting the show here, I think, for future reference:


Watch CBS Videos Online



You can't make these cases up.