Curbside “Couch-Humper” Arrested

A 46-year-old Wisconsin man, Gerald P. Streator, was arrested this month for allegedly having sex with a curbside couch. At 11 p.m. on 3 September 2012, an off-duty Waukesha police officer was jogging on North University Drive near Pebble Valley Road when he spotted an abandoned yellow couch on the curb.

The off-duty officer then claims that he saw Mr. Streator “having sex with an abandoned couch set on a curb, thrusting his hips as if he was having sex with a person,” the report says. The officer approached and yelled “what are you doing,” which allegedly caused Mr. Streator to run away. It was at that point that the officer realized that the assailant was “thrusting it between the couch cushions for sexual gratification.”

The officer chased the couch-humper to an apartment building nearby, where the perpetrator walked upstairs and entered one of the apartments. The officer contacted the police department, reported the incident and discovered Streator’s name. Police returned to the apartment the next day and spoke to Streator’s wife, who told them that her husband had done nothing wrong. Police then visited Streator’s work place and spoke to him there about the alleged incident. Streator denied being out at that time, saying that he had been at home with his wife and had gone to bed around 10:30 p.m.

He will make his initial appearance in court 1 October 2012. 

A Community Braces as Fears of Serial Killer in Bergen County After Third Body Found

There have been no arrests and still unsolved; two murders, one in Teaneck, the other in Palisades Park, both in 2010. The victims were Joan Davis [72] (Teaneck) and Dolores Alliotts [69] (Palisades Park). The crimes were eerily similar: both elderly women, both beaten, stabbed and their homes set on fire. Then in 2011 Robert Cantor, 59-year-old software engineer from Teaneck, NJ was also killed in his home, suffering a gunshot wound prior to the fire being set. I reported on these incidents back then and was among the very first to ask: is there a serial killer in Bergen County? Read HERE and HERE.

Since then, the Cantor murder appears to have been solved. Sui Kam Tung, a New York City man, has since been arrested and charged with murder and arson in the death of Robert Cantor. Authorities depicted the murder as a love triangle turned deadly. Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli stated that Tung allegedly learned that his wife was romantically involved with Cantor back in 2010 and “began a pattern of stalking the victim,” which ultimately and allegedly led to his murder. With that one out of the way, we return to the latest on the possibility of a serial killer in Bergen County.

On 21 March 2011, Prosecutor Molinelli made a public statement asserting that the murders of two Teaneck residents over the last several months are not linked and there is no ongoing threat to the community. Prosecutor Molinelli added, “If authorities believed there was any ongoing threat to Teaneck residents—including a possible serial killer—[they] would have alerted the public immediately.”

That was until a fourth victim, 70 year old Barbara Vernieri, an East Rutherford, NJ widow was found beaten to death, her home set ablaze mid-morning on Friday, 14 September 2012. Prosecutor Molinelli spoke of the complexity of the situation, explaining that Vernieri was a successful real estate broker, therefore, investigators will have to sift through “hundreds of transactions and potential witnesses.” He also insisted that the murders from two years ago had not “gone cold,” and that “Those are still very active investigations.”

Prosecutor Molinelli briefed reporters late Monday, confirming that Vernieri was beaten to death, with blows to her head and upper body and an accelerant was poured on her body, and ignited. He also said that while he cannot exclude Vernieri’s murderer as someone who was responsible for the murders of Ms. Davis and Ms. Alliotts, he claimed that he is also not saying that it is definitively the same person.

The fire at Vernieri’s home, unlike the other deaths, was extinguished quickly, because the tenant who lived upstairs called the police and reported the fire so fast. This may have saved some vital physical evidence, but we won’t know that until police report on it further. Investigators report that they are hopeful they will find evidence to either link or exclude the murders from two years ago.

Sollecito’s New Book: “Knox May Have Left My Apartment”

In his new book In Honour Bound: My Journey to Hell and Back with Amanda Knox, Amanda’s ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, finally breaks his silence, and his words mirror the bizarre and contradictory behavior both he and Knox exhibited since the murder. In the book, Sollecito questions whether Knox knew more about the murder than she revealed, casting doubt on her key alibi—that on the night of the killing she was in his apartment, watching a film and making love.

In an excerpt from his book, Sollecito writes:

“My poor memory seemed a ridiculous reason to throw me into an isolation cell and accuse me of involvement in the crime…If the problem was with Amanda and the things she might or might not have done outside the house—assuming she left at all—why not focus the investigation on her?...Maybe she knew something. Maybe there was something she hadn’t told me. But please, I thought, leave me out of it.”

Sollecito goes on to insist that he “didn't believe for an instant she was capable of murder,” but admits he had doubts about the friends that Knox mixed with.

Let’s break these statements down. Let’s say your DNA is found on a murdered female victim’s severed bra next to her body and police ask you where you were during the time of the murder and you say you don’t remember who you were with because you had smoked marijuana less than 24 hours ago. Do you think that it would then be "ridiculous,” as Sollecito says, for police to hold you as a major suspect in the crime?

Moreover, Sollecito told police (less than 24 hours after the murder) that he was with Knox in his apartment the entire night. Less than two days later Sollecito did an interview to Kate Mansey of the UK's Sunday Mirror in which he claimed that he and Knox were at a party of an unnamed friend. Then, less than 4 days after the murder he changed his story again, claiming to police that Knox had left his apartment at 9:00pm and returned at 1:00am on the night of the murder, and that Amanda told him to lie. He claims that he doesn’t think that Amanda is capable of murder, even though he had only known her at that point for approximately one week.


Sollecito certainly leaves the door wide open in regard to Knox not being at his flat at the time of the murder. Then, when police confronted him and told him that a knife confiscated from his apartment was found to have Knox’s DNA on the handle and Kercher’s DNA on the tip; Sollecito said that he accidentally pricked Kercher with the knife while cooking her a fish diner in his apartment, even though it was later determined that Kercher was never in his apartment.

Police knew very well that Sollecito and Knox were inseparable from the time that they met and for a short time after the murder. That is why they focused on him as well as her. Moreover, he became even more of a focus when police intercepted a phone call that he had with his father just days after the murder, where he called police “stupid,” because they didn’t find the knife that he carried frequently on his person when they searched him. If Sollecito wanted to truly “stay out of it” he would have been honest with police right from the start, telling them that Knox had left his apartment. There is only one problem with that scenario: he was with Knox when she left his flat and he was there during Kercher’s murder. His cover-ups go far beyond an innocent bystander simply sticking up for his true love of one-week. After all, his DNA was found on Kercher’s severed bra, and the contamination theory doesn’t hold water. Sollecito’s DNA was found nowhere else in Knox’s apartment and there was no way to transfer it to Kercher’s bra.

The probability, or even plausibility, that two people could smoke a joint and completely forget where they were, who they were with, and any of the events of the night (only hours later) is comical. Moreover, even if we were to believe this truly ridiculous theory, what is to stop us from asking: if they didn’t remember anything, how can they say they didn’t do it and don’t remember?


In another section of his book, Sollecito writes that Knox did not have a key to his apartment. Therefore, he surmises that if she had slipped out to murder Kercher, he writes, she would have had to ring the doorbell for him to let her back in. This didn’t happen, he says (funny how he has such selective memory). Yet, this clearly contradicts his earlier statement that he is unsure if she had left his apartment or not. But, again, he blames his memory loss on the joint that he smoked, so he really can’t be held accountable for any of these statements…hedging his bets, if you will.

“I knew I had nothing to do with Meredith's murder, but I was furious with myself for having such a foggy memory and I knew it was in part because of the joint I'd smoked on the afternoon of November 1,” Sollecito writes. Interestingly enough, Sollecito can remember most of the events that took place during the afternoon and early evening hours, just not of any events that occurred during the time the murder was taking place.

In his new book, Sollecito also makes new allegations against Perugia police. While being held in custody in Perugia, he writes, that police stripped him naked while threatening and slapping him. Sollecito was subject to what he calls a “less than scrupulous” set of “time-honored pressure techniques,” in which, he believes, the police asked him to repeat his story multiple times in order “to catch me out in whatever inconsistencies they could find.” He also claims that police never seriously believed in his guilt, but pursued him aggressively in order to have him testify against Knox. When he wouldn’t, Sollecito claims that they set him up. Sollecito says that, while searching his apartment, officer Finzi reached into his cutlery drawer in the kitchen, “pulled out the first knife that came to hand, a large chopping knife with an eight-inch blade,” and turning to a fellow officer he asked, “Will this knife do?” to which the officer answered, “Yes, yes, It’s great.”

Sollecito paints himself as a hero in the book—much as he did in the interview he gave to UK’s Sunday Mirror (when he falsely claimed that he and Knox were at a party while the murder was taking place). Sollecito claims that his family, and his lawyers, urged him to abandon Knox and change his testimony in order to buy favor with police and save himself, but he writes, “…my determination to stick by Amanda, and by what I knew to be the truth, was one thing I knew I had exactly right. Nothing in the world—not the people I cared about most, and certainly not the threat of further punishment for a crime I did not commit—could induce me to change my mind.”


READ PART ONE

Sollecito Arrives in U.S. to Promote his New Book

Almost one year to the day that Amanda Knox and Raffalele Sollecito had been released from jail after their conviction had been overturned; they are once again back in the news. This time it is Sollecito who is stealing the headlines. Yesterday, Sollecito arrived in the United States to promote his new book, Honor Bound: My Journey to Hell and Back with Amanda Knox, which is scheduled to be released on 18 September 2012. The book is co-authored by Los Angeles-based Andrew Gumbel who spent six years in Italy and was a Reuters foreign correspondent.

In leaked excerpts of his new book, Sollecito speaks about his “indescribable joy,” after being acquitted and released in Perigua, Italy almost one year ago today. He also speaks of his love affair with Amanda Knox, including their first night together:

“I showed Amanda around and invited her to plop down on the bed while I loaded a film on my computer. Of course, by the time I settled in next to her, all thoughts of the movie were quickly forgotten and we pulled each other’s clothes off before the opening credits finished rolling. When I woke up the next morning, Amanda still had her arms wrapped tightly around me. I remember feeling safe and warm in a way I hadn't since I was a little kid.”

The Associated Press received an advanced copy of the book Teusday and say that it describes how the early days of their relationship became a nightmare: the horror of Kercher’s slaying; the misunderstandings that swept them up in the case; their tabloid portrayals as two suspects unrecognizable to themselves. In the book Sollecito also wrote about his first night in prison, saying he wavered between “great waves of indignation and a nagging sense of guilt.” He said that while he knew he was innocent, he was angry at himself for having a “foggy memory” of the night of the killing because he and Knox had smoked marijuana.

It will be interesting to see what he has to say about the night of the murders and his side of the story now, considering that he and Knox have told several conflicting and different stories about what had happened and where they were throughout this whole ordeal. UK’s The Telegraph writes briefly that in his new book, Sollecito questions whether Amanda Knox knew more about the murder than she revealed, casting doubt on her key alibi--that on the night of the murder she was in his apartment, watching a film and making love. Yet, he still appears to maintain that smoking weed caused him not to remember these crucial events.

Knox has also signed a multimillion dollar publishing deal, and her book is due out soon as well. It is unlikely that there will be any true closure or any clarity added by these two, if you are familiar with the case and with the way that they both speak so confusingly about the events; Know even falsely claiming that another man (Patrick Lumumba) was present at the murder scene. Moreover, it is not likely that anything truly enlightening will be added in this book as Sollecito’s correct legal status is that he STILL stands accused of Meredith’s murder unless and until the Italian Supreme Court signs off on the case’s outcome.


However, Gumbel told mediabistro.com, “Not only will the book leave no doubt about Raffaele’s innocence; everything Raffaele and his family have to tell, backed by previously unpublished documents in the case, suggests that his incarceration had almost nothing to do with the actual evidence but had another motivation entirely — to be revealed when the book comes out.” But then again, Gumbel may just be trying to hype it up for the sake of book sales.

Sollecito is scheduled to speak at UW's Kane Hall Room 110, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $5 at the door, or free with advanced purchase of his book at the University Book Store. Sollecito is scheduled to appear on the Katie Couric show on Tuesday 9/18/12. Protesters are also scheduled to meet Tuesday morning, 10:30 am to 12:00 pm, near the studio (Lincoln Center). Hopefully Katie will ask the tough questions and not fold to the Knox PR machine. Here’s a PPP from www.truejustice.org on some of the poignant questions that Sollecito is yet to answer and that Couric should be asking him (CLICK HERE). In any event, the two former lovers will become rich because of this tragedy, and Kercher’s parents will keep being reminded of what happened to their daughter.

New Twist in Trayvon Martin Case: What the Media is NOT telling You About the Law

Read PART 1

Yesterday, George Zimmerman’s defense attorney, Mark O'Mara, said that he will not be using the much-debated “stand-your-ground” defense after all. O'Mara said that they will instead likely try to use a traditional self-defense argument to have the second-degree murder charge against his client dismissed.

How it works is, if a defense team uses the stand-your-ground defense, the judge will determine whether or not the law applies. Zimmerman would have to take the witness stand and be cross-examined by the prosecution. If the judge were to apply the stand-your-ground law, the case will be dismissed and never even make trial. Using a traditional self-defense argument, however, the jury must decide whether or not self-defense applies to the case.

Zimmerman’s attorney would have you believe that he is abandoning the stand-your-ground defense because he believes the judge to be bias against his client. In fact, O'Mara filed a motion today asking a Florida appeals court to reconsider a ruling by Judge Kenneth Lester refusing to step down from the case. In a motion filed last month, O’Mara claimed Lester made “gratuitous” and “disparaging remarks” about Zimmerman and showed bias in a July 5 ruling that raised Zimmerman's bond from $150,000 to $1 million. The bond increase came after prosecutors presented evidence Zimmerman and his wife, Shellie, misled the judge about their finances. Shellie Zimmerman was later charged with perjury.

Nonetheless, a closer look at the actual Florida Statute might paint a better picture of why O'Mara has likely abandoned the stand-your-ground defense.


Chapter 776 of the Florida Senate Statute— JUSTIFIABLE USE OF FORCE—(776.012) states, “A person is justified in using force…to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force…[and if] He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another.” However, later in chapter 776, as described in code 776.041(2), “The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who: (2) Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself.”

The reason why this lawful wording is important to point out is because Zimmerman is the one who was stalking Martin in his car. Zimmerman described the situation to the 911 operator, that he witnessed the “suspicious looking” Trayvon Martin start to run away. The 911 operator urges Zimmerman not to follow him, as he (Zimmerman) is not lawfully allowed to do so; yet, Zimmerman exits his car and chases Martin on foot. At this point, Zimmerman becomes the “aggressor,” and therefore stand-your-ground status is in question, and as the law reads, does not apply to Zimmerman as a suitable defense.

Consider the situation, one that no one is really breaking down to its simplest form. You are walking down the street. You see a man in a car driving slowly near you and starring at you. This person then begins stalking you and intensely starring at you while on the phone. You start to run, scared that this person is going to possibly harm you. As you are running away, you notice that this person is running after you. Now, you have two options: you can continue running or “stand your ground” and fight. Note: because Trayvon Martin is dead, we do not get to hear his story. Was he attacked first by Zimmerman? Maybe he was attacked by Zimmerman and overpowered him. Should a person being attacked then be lawfully killed because he or she actually fights off their attacker? In any event, Zimmerman was clearly the aggressor, bottom line. Zimmerman had no right to chase down Martin, just like no one has the right to chase you down on the street at nighttime while you are walking alone. On what planet does George Zimmerman have the right to claim self-defense, let alone stand-your-ground???

Polygraph Testing in Private Sector & Criminal Justice System

Ever since the inception of polygraph (lie detector) tests there has been considerable disagreement regarding its validity. Even in the face of conflicting scientific field studies, advocates of the system still claim a 90-100 percent accuracy rate. Moreover, polygraph has little validity with scientists. Currently there is no scientific field evidence that polygraph tests can be used effectively as a valid test in criminal investigations or to prescreen employees. A 1997 survey of 421 psychologists estimated the accuracy of a polygraph to be at approximately 61 percent, which is slightly better than chance. Even so, law enforcement agencies across the nation are devoted proponents of this unscientific device; even the American public, at large, seems to believe in its validity as well.

At the turn of the century, polygraph was given another try by the scientific community. Ten popular field studies were done to test the validity of polygraph once again, which included a survey done for purposes of applicant screening and security clearances for employees using the polygraph. With these studies, scientists were trying to answer vital questions about its scientific validly. The answer to the first question—are polygraph examinations valid?—provided results that polygraph examinations detected deceptiveness and nondeceptiveness better than chance, but some cases also showed a high error rate, particularly in nondeceptive subjects. Scientists also found that there was a great deal of variability in the results. For instance, results for correct innocent detections ranged from as low as 12.5 percent to as high as 94.1 percent; or results for false positives ranged from 75 percent to zero percent in two studies.


Although many of these tests indicate that polygraph testing is better than chance at differentiating deception from nondeception, there is also enough scientific proof to hold this system as unscientifically proven. Scientific analysis puts the error rate of the polygraph between 10 and 25 percent, which means that a large number of incorrect decisions would be made if the lie detector was widely in use. Furthermore, in United States v. Scheffer (1998), the Supreme Court [majority] stated, “There is simply no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable: The scientific community and the state and federal courts are extremely polarized on the matter”. So clearly, if the Supreme Court holds this position on the polygraph, why should it then be used in the private sector or criminal justice system to prescreen employees? It shouldn’t.

Knife Wounds and there Effect on the Body

Sharp force injuries (or injuries produced by objects with sharp edges) are divided into three different categories: stab wounds, incised wounds, and chop wounds. Each injury and its location should be analyzed. For instance, most homicidal stab wounds are frontal and on the left side of the body, as most people are right handed.

When trying to determine whether the wound was caused from a single-edged knife, a double-edged knife, or a serrated knife, the size and shape of the wound must be closely analyzed. For instance, a single-edged knife causes a regular, linear wound without abraded margins. A single-edged blade will also one blunt end and one pointed end, hence the term “single-edged.” Likewise, a double-edged knife will cause an oval-shaped wound, with both margins of the external skin appearing in a V-shape. A serrated-knife (knife with teeth) may cause serration marks, such as ragged-edges around the wound with more damage to the surrounding tissue.


Determining the type of Sharp force injury can be very tricky, for a number of reasons, when it comes to investigations. For instance serrated knives are usually indistinguishable from wounds caused by single-edged knives. The body and skin, being pliable, can stretch and distort the wound, dependent upon the angle, force, and so on from which the knife was applied. The presence of “bridging tissue” in the depth of the wound, below the skin surface usually indicates a laceration (tearing apart of tissues; a type of blunt force injury), which should be distinguished from a sharp force injury. This does not occur with sharp force injuries, as these sharp objects result in the separation of surrounding tissue.

The technical meaning of a stab wound is a wound made by a sharp object in which the depth of penetration into the body is greater than the length of the wound on the skin. The opposite is true for an incised wound (shown above), where the length of the injury on the surface of the skin is less than the depth of penetration. The same knife can be used to create both types of wounds. For instance, an attacker could swing a sharp knife at a victim, and the knife could penetrate the skin slightly causing a longer wound than deep cut. In this instance, the tip of the knife will cause all of the damage. On the other hand, the attacker could use that same knife and thrust it deep into the victim, causing a typical type stab wound.

Cast-off splatter can also tell investigators several things about how the crime took place. For example, if the splatter was found on the walls and on the ceiling, it could indicate that the attacker swung the knife back or raised the knife forcefully, several times, away from the victim and back into the victim. This would cause the blood to fly off the knife, as it is being swung away from the victim, and deposit onto the walls and ceiling—likely on the walls behind the attacker or on the ceiling at a 90-degree impact angle. As the instrument continues to swing backward, the movement accelerates and additional blood will “cast-off” the knife, approximating a linear pattern.