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Sunday, September 30, 2018

Soldier Joseph Bushling Is Missing.

Joseph (Joe) Michael Bushling
He was 27 from the army base at Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah on May 8, 2011.

He left the English Village area early in the morning on May 8 and drove out into the desert in a black 2001 Mitsubishi Lancer.
Around 7:00 p.m., he called a friend and left a message, saying he'd run out of gas and that he was going to try to walk back to the Dugway Proving Ground. He also said he was very cold, that he'd lost his flip-flops and he was using his shirt as footwear. He said it was raining and he needed help. He never arrived back in Dugway and has never been heard from again.

On May 14, the Mitsubishi was found abandoned in a deep ravine off a gravel road in a very isolated area 64 miles from Dugway's main gate. Some of Bushling's belongings were inside the vehicle, and the keys were missing.

On May 16, Bushling's Arkansas Razorbacks hat was located in the desert six miles from the car. and his flip-flops. 
The terrain where he disappeared is rough and desolate, with lots of caves, and cellular phone reception is poor to nonexistent. 

Dugway had once served as a chemical weapons testing facility and there are caches of munitions concealed in the desert around the base.

At the time of his disappearance he was wearing blue jeans or shorts, and a t-shirt wrapped around his feet.
He was 5'9" tall, 190 lbs, with brown hair in a buzz cut and hazel eyes. He has an appendectomy scar on his abdomen and a scar from gallbladder surgery. He has the following tattoos: an American flag on his right shoulder, a Celtic design on his neck, the words "Jeremy 88-00" on the left side of his chest, and a tribal design extending from his left shoulder down to his elbow. 

A death certificate was issued for him in August 2014; the cause of death was given as exposure due to low temperatures and lack of protective clothing.

Bushling's father said that he was murdered and that the army covered it up.

Please, if you have any information anything at all call 
Tooele County Sheriff's Office 435-882-5600
Dugway Police Department 435-831-2929

His family needs answers.

Fred Davis Went Hunting And Never Returned.

Fred Richard Davis
He was 31 years old when he went missing from Naples, Utah on August 29, 1985.
He was supposed to meet his family in Jackson Hole, Wyoming to go on a hunting trip, but never arrived there.
His vehicle, a beige C10 pickup was located September 19, 1985 in the parking lot of the Dunes Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada.
The truck was unlocked, the windows were rolled down and the keys were inside it.
He was last seen wearing Western-style clothing, including blue jeans and a Western-type belt.
At the time of his disappearance he was 5'11" tall, 165 lbs with shoulder length brown hair, mustache and blue eyes.

Duane Brown's Car Was Found, But he Is Still Missing.

Duane David Brown
He was 43 years old when he disappeared on October 23, 1986 from Salt Lake City, Utah.
He was last seen being dropped off at a parking lot located at 348 East South Temple.
He was last seen wearing a light blue business suit. 
His car was later recovered at the Salt Lake City Airport, but there was no trace of him.
DNA is available.
At the time of his disappearance he was 6'1" tall, 195 lbs with brown hair and blue eyes.

Jessica Chambers' Murder Retrial Day 6

Deliberations began today in the in Jessica Chambers' murder retrial and continue on to tomorrow.
In closing arguments today, the state argued that cell phone tower evidence put Tellis and Chambers together and that Tellis' answers to investigators changed after they confronted him with evidence.
The defense argued that investigators were aggressive, hounding defense witnesses.
RETRIAL DAY 1
RETRIAL DAY 2
RETRIAL DAY 3
RETRIAL DAY 4
RETRIAL DAY 5
RETRIAL DAY 6
PART 1
CLOSING ARGUMENTS
DELIBERATIONS DAY 1

Mysteries That Were Solved By Psychics: Case #2 Susan Jacobson

Susan Jacobson
On May 15, 1976, she left her Staten Island home to go to a job interview at an ice cream parlor. 
When she didn't return for dinner, her parents contacted police. 
The police said that she had probably run away with her boyfriend.
Devastated by the lack of police support, two weeks later, the Jacobsons asked psychic Dorothy Allison to help with the case.
Dorothy Allison asked the missing girl's parents what the numbers "2, 5, 6, 2" meant.
Susan's parents said that that was Susan's birthday, February 5th, 1962.
Dorothy then asked about the numbers "408 or 405".
It turns out that that is the time when Susan was born.
She asked what "Mar" meant and stated that she wanted to see Mar.
Dorothy then stated that Susan had been strangled by her boyfriend. The authorities refused to work with a psychic,
So Susan's father, Bill,  worked with the clues involving an abandoned car, letters "MAR" in red spray paint, the smell of oil, two sets of dual church steeples, two smoke stacks, swamps and marshes.
Dorothy said that she suspect it was Susan's boyfriend, Dempsey Hawkins.
Susan's parents continued searching until they found a place called "Downback".
It had an abandoned World War I ship yard, and they found a rock that had the letters "MAR" in red spray paint.
Susan's body was found two years later in two oil drums, from where a person could see two church steeples, two smoke stacks and an abandoned car. 
Susan had been strangled to death and placed in the oil drum, hence the smell of oil, and then thrown into a hole with a water-filled swamp below.
Dempsey Hawkins, Susan's boyfriend, was arrested, tried, and convicted of her murder, just as Dorothy predicted. 
In 2017, Dempsey Hawkins was paroled and deported from the United States.

Saturday, September 29, 2018

Mysteries That Were Solved By Psychics: Case #1 Maria Scott Bradley

Maria Scott Bradley
She was 27 years old when her body was discovered in New South Wales, at Australia's Triple Care Farm at Robertson, on October 3, 2003, seven months after she disappeared.
She had been wrapped in a quilt.She had been stabbed five different times, twice in the chest, twice in her abdomen and once in the back.
Her body was so badly decomposed that police could not determine if she had suffered any other injuries before she died.
Her body was found about 164 feet from Waratah Lodge at the farm.
Maria's blood was found on the wall near a light switch in the cottage and evidence of larger pools of blood were found, but because it had been cleaned, the blood could not positively be identified as hers.
Police were inundated with false leads and accused of not doing enough to find Maria because she was an Aboriginal prostitute.
Investigators had 29 different persons of interest, which was narrowed down to a man named Mark Brown.
Mark he moved to Queensland and killed himself before police could interrogate him.
When she disappeared, Mark Brown was the only person living in Waratah Lodge where her blood was found.
He was a worker at the Triple Care Farm, he also lived there.
Paula Black, Mark's former girlfriend, told the inquest Brown assaulted her on two occasions.
Triple Care Farm staff that Brown smoked marijuana and his colleague John Stuart said Brown cultivated plants in the bush not far from where Maria's body was found.
Four and a half years after her murder, constable Jeffery Little decided to contact psychic Debbie Malone.
Debbie's knowledge of the case was eerily accurate.
Debbie led police to a cabin at the farm, where Maria was killed and found a knife stuck in a drainpipe.
She told officers she felt like the murderer had walked through her as she entered the cabin and that could only happen if he was a ghost.
Later it was found out that Mark killed Maria on the March 2nd while he was on stress leave from work.

Jessica Chambers' Murder Retrial Day 5

Today in court, the prosecution rested it's case against Quinton Tellis for the murder of Jessica Chambers.
U.S. Department of Justice Analyst Paul Rowlett outlined for the jury how he used cellphone records to piece together the movements of 29-year-old defendant Quinton Tellis and the 19-year-old victim, Jessica Chambers, on the night she died.
Location data from several cellphones that showed Tellis was with Chambers the evening of her death, contradicting his previous claims that he was with his friend Michael Sanford.
Sanford took the stand and testified that he wasn't in town that day.
Prosecutors asked Sanford if Tellis was telling the truth when he said he was in Sanford's truck that night.
Sanford said he was 
"lying, because my truck was in Nashville."
The defense is scheduled to begin its closing arguments tomorrow.
The judge said he expected the trial to go to the jury later that day.

RETRIAL DAY 1
RETRIAL DAY 2
RETRIAL DAY 3
RETRIAL DAY 4
RETRIAL DAY 5
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
PART 4
PART 5

Sarah hasn't been seen since 1993.

Sarah Ann Norfleet
She was 18 at the time of her disappearance from Bountiful, Utah on June 20, 1993.
She was last seen when friends dropped her off at her Bountiful, Utah residence.
She went missing without taking any clothing or personal effects.
Sarah was not reported missing until September 3, 1993.
Richard L. Sattler is the only suspect in her disappearance.
He had worked as a church janitor in Bountiful, but quit the job around the time she disappeared.

In October 1993, when he was in jail in Nevada for unrelated charges of kidnapping and robbery, he was interviewed by investigators.
He said he knew nothing about Sarah's disappearance.
Her family believes there is foul play involved.
She had previously fractured her upper and lower jaw on both sides and she has surgical plates with pins.
She was born with a cleft palate and had it surgically repaired. Sarah has a scar on the center of her throat.
At the time of her disappearance she was 5'04" tall, 145 lbs, with brown hair and brown eyes.

Friday, September 28, 2018

A Tooele Mountain Man Is Missing.

Ryan(Ry) Jensen
He was 34 at the time he went missing on March, 13, 2007.
Ryan last had phone contact with a relative while at his residence in the vicinity of the 800 block of E. Tanglewood in Erda Utah.
He did not show up for work and missed an appointment the following day.
When his home was searched, the backdoor was wide open and his keys were in the door.
The only items found to be missing were a pair of binoculars and a .22 caliber handgun. 
His vehicles, horses and cellular phone were left behind.
Ryan was having personal and financial problems and was about to be served with divorce papers. 
He worked as a maintenance employee for the Granite School District.
He is an experienced hiker and trapper and has the skills to survive in the outdoors.
At the time of his disappearance he was 6'01" tall, 185 lbs, with brown hair and brown eyes.
He was wearing a tan Carhartt coat, a t-shirt, dark blue jeans, hiking boots, a baseball cap, and a sports watch with a black band on his left wrist.
He wears clear contact lenses and has capped teeth.
He has a strawberry birthmark on his buttocks, a horseshoe-shaped scar on the left side of his scalp, and surgical scars on his abdomen from an inguinal hernia operation.
Ryan has previously broken his hand.

Jessica Chambers' Murder Retrial Day 4

Interrogation videos, which were filmed in late 2015 and early 2016, showed  Quinton Tellis' calming that the burn marks on his body were from an accident he had while trying to jump over a fire pit.
In the videos he also repeatedly changing his story about Jessica Chambers’ final day on Dec. 6, 2014.
He insisted that he last saw Chambers earlier in the day when they were driving around with her friend.
When he was confronted with surveillance footage and cellular data that placed them together that night, he claimed that his final interaction with Chambers was when he gave her $10 in the afternoon for Taco Bell.
Tellis had also told investigators that he was in his friend Big Mike’s truck the afternoon Chambers was killed.
Prosecutors pointed out how he had lied about his alibi, that his friend Big Mike was in Nashville that day for a football game.
RETRIAL DAY 1
RETRIAL DAY 2
RETRIAL DAY 3
RETRIAL DAY 4
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
PART 4
PART 5
PART 6

Reed Went For A Walk With His Dogs And Never Returned.

Reed T. Jeppson
He was 15 years old when he went missing from Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday, October 11, 1964.
The Jeppson family had just returned home to 1951 Browning Avenue, after attending church.
Reed came into the kitchen while his sister was making dinner and opened cans of dog food. 
He then left the house to feed and walk his two German Short haired Pointer dogs.
He had told his sister that he would be back in a half an hour.
The last known sighting of Reed and his dogs was in front of the now defunct St. Mary of the Wasatch school, not far from the Jeppson home.
A tip was received which led police to search a gully near Clayton Middle School, about half a block from the Jeppson home. 
Cadaver dogs initially showed interest in a specific spot, and it was excavated, but the dogs eventually stopped indicating anything was there.
At the time of his disappearance he was 5'06" tall, 140 lbs, with blonde hair and blue eyes.
He had braces on his teeth and was wearing a white cotton knit shirt, a reversible parka with one side black and one side blue, blue Levi's jeans and sneakers.
His case remains unsolved.

Ronald Druce went missing from West Valley, Utah.

Ronald Howard Druce
He was 38 years old when he went missing from West Valley, Utah in May 20, 2002.
He would be 56 years old today.
At the time of his disappearance he was 5'7" tall, 140 lbs, with brown hair and brown eyes.

Joyce Lynn Yost's Body Was Never Found, Can You Help Find Her?

She was 39 years old when she went missing from South Ogden, Utah on August 10, 1985.
Her car was later found abandoned in the foothill’s east of town.
She disappeared two months after testifying against Douglas Anderson Lovell at his preliminary hearing. 
She had accused Lovell of kidnapping her in April 1985 and taking her to his home in Clearfield and raping her. 
In December 1985 Lovell was convicted of kidnapping and sexual assault based on her testimony from the preliminary hearing. 
He was sentenced to two terms of 15 years to life in prison.
He was long the prime suspect in Joyce's disappearance.
Investigators discovered that he'd twice hired friends from prison to murder her between the time of his arrest and the time of the preliminary hearing.
Lovell's wife agreed to wear a wire when she went to visit him in prison in 1991 and 1992. 
He made incriminating statements about Joyce's disappearance.
He said that he could get the death penalty for the crimes he had committed.
In 1993, on the day his murder trial was scheduled to begin, he pleaded guilty to Joyce's murder in a deal for prosecutors not to seek the death penalty.
He stated he broke into her apartment while she was sleeping and threatened her with a knife. 
She then pleaded for her life and promised to drop the sex assault case against him.
Then he drugged her with Valium, packed a suitcase of her belongings to make it look as if she'd left on her own.
He then took her to a canyon outside of town and strangled her. 
He said he buried her body in a shallow grave in the Ogden Valley, but her body was never found.
Since he could not provide the body, he was sentenced to death in August 1993
He attempted to withdraw his guilty plea weeks later.
In September 2010, the Utah Supreme Court overturned his conviction and death sentence.
In April 2015, Lovell was convicted of murder at trial, sentenced to death again and returned to death row.
Joyce was declared legally dead in 1992.
At the time of her disappearance she was 5'5" tall, 120 lbs, with strawberry blonde hair and hazel eyes.

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Jessica Chambers' Murder Retrial Day 3

Quinton Tellis, admitted to investigators that he wiped all communication with the Jessica from his phone days after her horrific murder in December 2014.
Jurors were brought today to the scene where her charred car was discovered, along with a half-dozen other locations relevant to the case.
RETRIAL DAY 1
RETRIAL DAY 2
RETRIAL DAY 3
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
PART 4

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

The Bohemian Cowboy

Raymond Dean Shurtz
He was 74 when he was last seen in Fillmore, Utah on November 26, 2005.
He was issued a citation for driving the wrong direction on the freeway. 
He was driving a green 1996 Ford Ranger pickup truck with Utah license plates numbered 334YFZ at the time. 
He has never been heard from again.
He was suffering from cancer, Alzheimers, internal bleeding, and dementia.
He was last seen wearing an orange cap with “Conoco” written on it, Levis, black jacket, a cowboy belt with a buckle and white tennis shoes. 
Raymond has a cyst on his right hand between the fingers.
He may be headed to Escalante, Utah, Boulder, Utah or to Arizona.
On December 1, 2005, his vehicle was located off Interstate 15 in the Valley of Fire State Park, near Las Vegas, Nevada.
There was no sign of him anywhere.
Witnesses reported seeing the vehicle at the same location on November 28, the day Shurtz was last seen. 
He may have gotten a ride.
At the time of his disappearance he was 6'4" tall, 130 lbs with grey hair and green eyes.
He wears wire-framed eyeglasses and an upper denture plate.

Steven Koecher, The Man Josh Powell Accused Of Running Away With His Wife, Is Still Missing.

Steven Thell Koecher
He was 30 years old when he was last seen leaving his St. George home December 12, 2009.
The following day, he spoke to two friends on his cellular phone telling them he was in Las Vegas, Nevada.
He offered to turn around to cover a church meeting for one of his friends, but his friend said not to bother. 
He has never been heard from again.
On December 14, his white 2003 Chevrolet Cavalier was found abandoned in a cul-de-sac in the 2600 block of Savannah Springs Avenue in Henderson, Nevada.
A video surveillance camera in the area showed him parking the car and leaving it there on December 13. 
He walked down the sidewalk, crossed the street and walked out of the frame. 
He was alone and didn't appear to be disoriented.
It appeared as if he had a destination in mind.
Koecher's shaving kit, coats, pillows and blankets were inside the vehicle, as well as Christmas gifts he'd purchased a few days before.
His cellular phone, wallet, passport and driver's license were missing. 
His laptop computer and cellular phone charger were left behind at home. 
His car had half a tank of gas when he left it.
Five hours after Koecher left his car, his cellular phone signal was picked up at a tower several miles away near Arroyo Grande Boulevard and American Pacific Drive.
Two hours after that, the signal was picked up in a subdivision near Sunset Drive and Stephanie Street.
Someone checked his voice mail  early the next day.
The signal was picked up at U.S. 95 and Russell Road where it stayed until two days later and then was lost.
Koecher is originally from Amarillo, Texas and graduated from Amarillo High School in 1998.
He went on to graduate from the University of Utah.
He had been living in Salt Lake City, Utah and working for the online division of the Salt Lake Tribune.
Then he quit his job and moved to St. George in April 2009 where he was having trouble finding a job and may have gone to Las Vegas to seek employment.
Koecher is a devout Mormon and 
did not drink alcohol or use drugs, as per his religious beliefs.
There was some speculation that Koecher's disappearance was connected to the December 2009 disappearance of Susan Powell.
Koecher was about the same age as Powell, and disappeared from the same state at approximately the same time, investigators looked into the possibility that their disappearances were linked.
Authorities could find no connection between the disappearances and no evidence that the two of them knew each other.
Koecher's parents stated there is no indication that he committed suicide or planned to walk out of his life.
Authorities can't find any evidence of foul play. 
He was having financial problems at the time of his disappearance due to his unemployment, but his loved ones don't know what could have caused him to vanish. 
His father died in February 2011, suddenly of natural causes.
At the time of his disappearance he was 6'0" tall, 180 lbs, with Strawberry Blonde and Blue.

He told his friends he was going to California and has never been heard from since.

Michael Marsh

He was 17 when he went missing from Tooele, Utah on February 21, 2006.He told his friends he was going to take a bus to California.
At the time of his disappearance he was 6'1" tall, 205 lbs, with blonde/brown hair and blue eyes.
He might be wearing glasses.

Jessica Chambers' Murder Retrial Day 2

Sherry Flowers testified today that on Dec, 6, 2014, the night that Jessica Chambers was fatally burned, she picked up a man near the location where Chambers' keys were found.
She agrees with a prosecutor that she didn't know who she picked up, but prosecutors seek to connect the ride to Chambers' death.
Flowers said she gave the man, who she never identified in court as being Tellis, a ride to the area of Tellis' sister's house. 
They are suggesting it was the right time for Tellis to travel away from Chambers' burning car.
Of course the defense disputes the timing.


A possible attempt to intimidate Flowers led to a pursuit by local law enforcement as the trial was still in progress.
It was confirmed that local authorities made a "traffic stop" involving an individual who may have been watching witness her as she left the Panola County Courthouse following her testimony.
A number of officers, already in the courthouse for the trial, left quickly in pursuit of someone on a motorcycle just after Flowers had completed her testimony and left.
Flowers did not testify in Tellis' first trial last October.
Court officers also removed at least one person from the courtroom Wednesday.
Last October's first trial, ended in a mistrial. 
A member of the media was found in contempt of court during the first trial for photographing jurors. 
Chambers' death was a homicide from soot and smoke inhalation and thermal injuries.
DAY 1 OF RETRIAL
RETRIAL DAY2
PART 1
PART2
PART 3
PART 4
PART 5

Retrial Of The Jessica Chambers' Murder Case Begins

The first day's testimony focused on emergency workers' reports that Jessica Chambers told them an "Eric" had attacked her.
Prosecutors tried to plant doubts about what Chambers really could say with severe burns.
They had a speech pathologist to say that Chambers would have lost her ability to speak clearly within minutes of being burned.
The testimony of speech pathologist Carolyn Wiles Higdon stated that Chambers could have made sounds, but wouldn't have been able to control them or pronounce consonants with a swollen tongue and charred lips.
That it would have been impossible for her to say "Eric."
Some of the volunteer firefighters and paramedics couldn't understand what Chambers was saying or didn't hear. 
Six did testify however, that they heard her say Eric, identifying words and short sentences even though Chambers was speaking in a quiet, abnormally low voice they described as breathy or raspy.
They said she came out of the woods shuffling like a zombie.
Investigators focused on Quinton Tellis after he changed his story and admitted he had been with Chambers later on the Saturday of her death.
Prosecutors said cellphone locations, video, DNA on a keychain and Tellis' statements link him to Chambers' death. 
A new witness may testify that she picked up Tellis that night near where Chambers was burned. 
Tellis is currently serving a prison sentence in Mississippi on an unrelated burglary charge and also faces another murder indictment in the 2015 stabbing death of Meing-Chen Hsiao in Monroe, Louisiana.
RETRIAL DAY 1
PART 1
 PART 2
PART 3
PART 4
PART 5

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Did Kiera's Boyfriend Kill her and then dump her body?

Kiera Bergman's body was found Monday, September 3rd at 3 p.m. by a biker, near State Route 85 and Hazen Road.
Her boyfriend, Jon-Christopher Clark, was arrested earlier this month after her body was found.
He is accused of killer her and dumping her body.
Jon-Christopher pled not guilty on Friday, September 23.
He is been held in a Maricopa County jail on $1 million bond.
His next court hearing is scheduled for Oct. 17.

Monday, September 24, 2018

Do You Think Patty Hearst Was Brainwashed?

Patricia "Patty" Campbell Hearst
She was born February 20th, 1954 in San Francisco, California to Randolph Apperson Hearst and Catherine Wood Campbell.
Patty is the granddaughter of American publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst.
On February 4, 1974, 19-year-old Hearst was kidnapped from her Berkeley, California, apartment by a domestic American terrorist group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army.
She was beaten and lost consciousness during the abduction.
Shots were fired from a machine gun during the incident. 
Her kidnapping was partly because she lived close to the SLA hideout. 
Another reason was to leverage the Hearst family's political influence to free two SLA members arrested for the killing of Oakland's first black superintendent, Marcus Foster. 
Since this seemed not to be working, the SLA demanded that the Patty's family distribute $70 worth of food to every needy Californian.
The estimated cost would have been $400 million. 
Patty's father took out a loan and arranged the immediate donation of $2 million worth of food to the poor of the Bay Area. 
Chaos erupted in the distribution process and the SLA refused to release her.
She was in a closet blindfolded with her hands tied for a week.
Supposedly, during this time DeFreeze, the leader of the SLA, repeatedly threatened her with death.
She was let out for meals blindfolded and began to join in the political discussions.
Hearst was confined in the closet for weeks, after which Patty claims that DeFreeze told her that the war council had decided or was thinking about killing her or her staying with them.
That she better start thinking about that as a possibility.
Patty said 
"I accommodated my thoughts to coincide with theirs." 
She said she wanted to stay and fight with the SLA  and the blindfold was removed.
She was given lessons on her duties, especially weapons drills.
Angela Atwood told Hearst that the others thought she should know what sexual freedom was like in the unit.
Patty was then raped by William "Willie" Wolfe, and later by DeFreeze.

On April 3, 1974, she assumed the name "Tania".
On April 15, 1974, she was recorded on surveillance video wielding an M1 carbine on her hip while robbing the Sunset District branch of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco.
Two men were shot and wounded.
United States Attorney General William B. Saxbe said Patty was a "common criminal" and "not a reluctant participant".
The FBI agent heading the investigation had said SLA members were photographed pointing guns at Hearst during the robbery.
On May 16, 1974, a store manager at Mel's Sporting Goods in Inglewood, California, observed a minor theft by William Harris who had been shopping with Emily Harris, while Patty waited across the road in a van. 
The manager  and a female employee followed Harris out and confronted him instigating a scuffle. 
During this, one of Harris' wrists was restrained, and his pistol fell out of his waistband.
Patty, discharged the entire magazine of an automatic carbine into the overhead storefront.
This caused the manager to dive behind a light post.
He tried to shoot back with the pistol, but Patty, who was now firing single shots with another weapon, brought her fire closer, blasting fragments around him.
Patty and the Harrises hijacked two cars, abducting the owners. One, a young man, found Hearst very personable and at the trial he testified to her having discussed the effectiveness of cyanide-tipped bullets, and repeatedly asking if he was okay.

Police had surrounded their main base on May 17, 1974, six SLA members inside died in a gunfight.
Patty and the Harrises bought a car blocks away while the siege was going on, but it broke down.
They walked a few hundred yards from the car and hid in a crawlspace under a residential building. 
They spent the next two weeks in San Francisco flophouses disguised as derelicts.
Emily Harris was sent to a Berkeley rally called to commemorate the deaths of Angela Atwood and other founding members of the SLA who'd perished during the police siege. 
Atwood's acquaintance, Kathy Soliah, was among the radicals at the rally.
Soliah introduced the three fugitives to Jack Scott.
He was a radical athletics coach who had been asking for an interview with the SLA. 
During a car ride to a rural hideout, Scott claimed he offered Patty a ride to anywhere she wanted and she refused, almost insulted.
She wanted to go where her "friends" were going.

Patty helped make improvised explosive devices in two unsuccessful attempts to kill policemen during August 1975.
She was the getaway car driver for the robbery in which Myrna Opsahl, was shot dead by a masked Emily Harris, creating a potential for felony murder charges against Patty, and making her a possible witness against Harris for a capital offense.
On September 18, 1975, she was arrested in a San Francisco apartment with Wendy Yoshimura, another SLA member.
While being booked into jail, she listed her occupation as "Urban Guerilla" and asked her attorney to relay the following message: 
"Tell everybody that I'm smiling, that I feel free and strong and I send my greetings and love to all the sisters and brothers out there."
Marked money found in the apartment when she was arrested. This linked Patty to the SLA armed robbery of Crocker National Bank in Carmichael, California. 
Patty Hearst was described by Dr. Margaret Singer  as "a low-IQ, low-affect zombie".
Shortly after her arrest, her IQ was measured as 112, whereas it had previously been 130.
There were huge gaps in her memory from before her entrance into the SLA.
She was smoking heavily and had nightmares.
Securing an acquittal on the basis of brainwashing would be completely unprecedented.
Louis Jolyon West was appointed by the court in his capacity as a brainwashing expert.
After the trial, he wrote a newspaper article asking President Carter to release her from prison.
Patty claimed that she talked to psychiatrist,  Robert Jay Lifton  and that he pronounced her as a "classic case" which met all the psychological criteria of a coerced prisoner of war.
And that if she had reacted differently, that he said that would have been suspect.
After a few weeks, Patty disavowed her SLA alliance.

On March 20, 1976, Patty Hearst was convicted of bank robbery and using a firearm during the commission of a felony and given the maximum sentence possible of 35 years' imprisonment pending a reduction at final sentence hearing.
During final sentencing she was given seven years imprisonment.
During her time in prison she suffered a collapsed lung in prison  and underwent emergency surgery.

This prevented her from appearing to testify against the Harrises on eleven state charges which she was also arraigned for.
Patty was being held in solitary confinement for security reasons and in November 1976, was granted bail for an appeal, on condition she was protected on bond. 
Dozens of bodyguards were hired by her father.
Superior Court judge Talbot Callister gave her probation on the sporting goods store charge when she pleaded no contest.

Her bail was revoked in May 1978 when appeals failed and the Supreme Court declined to hear her case.
This time the  prison took no special security measures for Patty's safety until there was a dead rat found on her bunk the day William and Emily Harris were arraigned for her abduction. 
The Harrises were convicted on a simple kidnapping charge and were released after serving a total eight years each. 
In the weeks before he was murdered in Jonestown, Guyana, Representative Leo Ryan was collecting signatures for Patty's  release.
He had mentioned his own Synanon mass death threats, comparisons to Manson, and questions of the Patty's case. 
Western actor John Wayne spoke after the Jonestown cult deaths, said it was odd that people had accepted the fact that Jim Jones had brainwashed 900 human beings into mass suicide, but would not accept that a group like the SLA could have brainwashed a kidnapped teenage girl.
President Jimmy Carter commuted her federal sentence to the 22 months.
Patty was freed eight months before she would have had a parole hearing in 1979.
Her release was under stringent conditions and she remained on probation for the state sentence on the sporting goods store plea.
She recovered full rights when President Bill Clinton granted her a pardon on January 20, 2001.

Sunday, September 23, 2018

The September 11th Attacks. Part 4. United Airlines Flight 93

At 9:28 a.m. Flights 11 and 175 had already crashed into the World Trade Center and Flight 77 was within 9 minutes of striking the Pentagon. 

First Officer LeRoy Homer, of United 93, managed to transmit to the ground, shouting amid sounds of violence,
"Mayday! 
Mayday! 
Get out!" 

The crew made another transmission.
"Mayday! 
Mayday! 
Get out of here! 
Mayday! 
Get out of here!"
The flight dropped 685 feet in half a minute.
Then the hijackers managed to stabilize the aircraft. 
Officials believe that at 9:28 a.m., the hijackers assaulted the cockpit and moved the passengers to the rear of the plane at the same time.
Flight 93 had only four hijackers.
Many passengers were saying in phone calls that they saw only three hijackers.
The 9/11 Commission believed Jarrah remained seated until the crew were overpowered and passengers were moved to the back of the aircraft and then took over the flight controls out of sight of the passengers.
Captain Jason Dahl and First Officer LeRoy Homer survived the initial attack and were still alive after the hijackers took over the plane. 
Dahl and Homer took actions to interfere with the hijackers.
They disengaged the autopilot just before the hijackers took over in order to prevent them from aiming the plane at Washington, D.C.
They also switched the output of the pilots' microphones from the cabin address speakers to the radio transmitter so that Jarrah's attempts to communicate with the passengers would instead be heard by air traffic controllers.
Dahl stayed in the cockpit alone with the hijacker-pilot, injured but not dead,
Homer was knocked unconscious and dragged from the cockpit.
Ziad Jarrah was identified as the pilot and is heard calling another hijacker "Saeed", indicating that Saeed al-Ghamdi, was helping Jarrah with the controls.
The final 30 minutes of Flight 93 at 9:31 a.m. Jarrah announced,
"Ladies and gentlemen: here the captain. 
Please sit down, keep remaining seating. 
We have a bomb on board. 
So sit."
 The controller understood the transmission, but responded, 
"Calling Cleveland center, you're unreadable. 
Say again, slowly."
A woman, presumably first-class flight attendant Debbie Welsh, is heard being held captive in the background and is heard struggling with the hijackers and pleading, 
"Please, please, don't hurt me".
Since Jarrah couldn't engage the autopilot, he turned the plane and headed east at 9:35 a.m.
The aircraft ascended to 40,700 feet and air traffic controllers immediately moved several aircraft out of Flight 93's flight path.
The woman in the cockpit is heard to say,
 "I don't want to die, I don't want to die!"
And then it is speculated that she was killed or otherwise silenced.
Then one of the hijackers said in Arabic, 
"Everything is fine. 
I finished."
At 9:39 a.m., air traffic controllers overheard Jarrah say,
"Here's the captain: I would like to tell you all to remain seated. 
We have a bomb aboard, and we are going back to the airport, and we have our demands. 
So please remain quiet."
Passengers and crew began making phone calls to officials and family members starting at 9:30 a.m.
Tom Burnett made several phone calls to his wife beginning at 9:30 a.m. explaining that the plane had been hijacked by men claiming to have a bomb. 
He also said that a passenger had been stabbed with a knife and that he believed the bomb threat was a ruse to control the passengers.
His wife informed him of the attacks on the World Trade Center and he replied that the hijackers were 
"talking about crashing this plane. ... Oh my God. It's a suicide mission." 
He asked her for information about the attack and told the others nearby what she was saying.
He ended his last call by saying, 
"Don't worry, we're going to do something."
An unknown flight attendant attempted to contact the United Airlines maintenance facility at 9:32 a.m., lasting 95 seconds, but was not received.
Flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw called the maintenance facility at 9:35 a.m. and reported the flight had been hijacked by men with knives who were in the cabin and flight deck.
They had stabbed another flight attendant, possibly Debbie Welsh.
Mark Bingham called his mother at 9:37 a.m., reporting that the plane had been hijacked by three men who claimed to have a bomb.
Jeremy Glick called his wife at 9:37 a.m. to tell her the flight was hijacked by three dark-skinned men who looked "Iranian", wearing red bandannas and wielding knives.
He stayed on the phone until the end of the flight.
He reported that the passengers voted whether to "rush" the hijackers.
The transponder got turned off, but the Cleveland controller continued to monitor the flight on primary radar.
Joseph DeLuca called his father at 9:43 a.m., to inform him the flight had been hijacked.
Todd Beamer attempted to call his wife at 9:43 a.m., but was routed to GTE phone operator Lisa D. Jefferson.
He told the operator that the flight was hijacked and that two people who he thought were the pilots were on the floor dead or dying. 
Stating one of the hijackers had a red belt with what looked to be a bomb strapped to his waist.
The hijackers veered the plane sharply south,  and Beamer  exclaimed, 
"We're going down! We're going down!"
Dahl continued to struggle in the cockpit, refusing to allow a hijacker to engage the autopilot.
Linda Gronlund called her sister, 9:46 a.m. and left her a message saying there were men with a bomb.
Flight attendant CeeCee Lyles called her husband at 9:47 a.m., leaving him a message saying the plane had been hijacked.
Marion Britton called her friend, at 9:49 a.m. saying that
"We're gonna. They're gonna kill us, you know, We're gonna die.'"
Flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw called her husband at 9:50 a.m. and told him she was preparing scalding water to throw at the hijackers.
Passenger Lauren Grandcolas called her husband twice.
He missed both of her calls. 
Honor Elizabeth Wainio called her stepmother at 9:53 a.m. ending the conversation by saying, 
"I have to go. They're breaking into the cockpit. I love you."
Bradshaw, on the phone with her husband, said 
"Everyone is running up to first class. I've got to go. Bye."
Beamer told Jefferson that the group was planning to "jump on" the hijackers and fly the plane into the ground before the hijackers' plan could be followed through.
He then recited the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm with Jefferson, prompting others to join in.
Beamer told Jefferson, 
"If I don't make it, please call my family and let them know how much I love them." 
Then Beamer said,
"Are you ready? 
Okay. Let's roll." 
The passengers were forcing their way into the cockpit as Jarrah began to roll the airplane left and right to knock the passengers off balance.
At 9:59 a.m. Jarrah pitched the nose of the airplane up and down.
The cockpit voice recorder captured the sounds of crashing, screaming, the shattering of glass and plates and shouts of pain or distress from a hijacker outside the cockpit.
A passenger cried, 
"In the cockpit. If we don't, we'll die" 
Another passenger, yelled, 
"Roll it!"
The passengers used the food cart as a battering ram against the cockpit door.
 Jarrah asked another hijacker, 
"Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?" 
The other hijacker responded, 
"Yes, put it in it, and pull it down."
 The passengers continued their assault and at 10:02 a.m.
 A male passenger yelled, 
"Turn it up!" 
A second later, a hijacker said, 
"Pull it down! Pull it down!" 
At 10:02 a.m., Jarrah pleaded, 
"Hey! Hey!
 Give it to me!" 
The airplane plummeted into a nosedive and then  rolled upside down.
The aircraft picked up speed, and the hijackers inside the cockpit are heard yelling 
"No!" 
over the sound of breaking glass. 
The final words heard spoken were a calm voice in English saying, "Pull it up."
The plane then crashed into an empty field in Stonycreek, Pennsylvania, fragmenting violently.
The 9/11 Commission Report concluded that "the hijackers remained at the controls but must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them."
Many of the passengers' family members, believe that the passengers breached the cockpit and killed at least one of the hijackers guarding the cockpit door.

Kelly Leverknight, a local resident, said 
"I heard the plane going over and I went out the front door and I saw the plane going down. 
It was headed toward the school, which panicked me, because all three of my kids were there. 
Then you heard the explosion and felt the blast and saw the fire and smoke."
Eric Peterson, looked up when he heard the plane, 
"It was low enough, I thought you could probably count the rivets. You could see more of the roof of the plane than you could the belly. It was on its side. 
There was a great explosion and you could see the flames.
 It was a massive, massive explosion. 
Flames and then smoke and then a massive, massive mushroom cloud."
The crash knocked out the electricity and phones.
Val McClatchey grabbed her camera and took the only known picture of the smoke cloud from the explosion.
The first responders arrived after 10:06 a.m.
Most of the aircraft wreckage was found near the impact crater.
Investigators found very light debris scattered up to eight miles  from the impact point in New Baltimore.
Other tiny aircraft fragments were found 1.5 miles  away at Indian Lake.
All human remains were found within a 70-acre area surrounding the impact point.
In examining the wreckage, the only human body that could be seen was part of a backbone.
Later there were found and identified 1,500 pieces of human remains, or eight percent of the total.
The rest of the remains were consumed by the impact.
Four victims were identified by September 22 and eleven by September 24.
Another was identified by September 29.
Thirty-four passengers were identified by October 27.
All the people on board the flight were identified by December 21. Human remains were so tiny, that investigators could not determine whether any victims were dead before the plane crashed. 
Investigators also found a knife concealed in a cigarette lighter. On September 13 the flight data recorder was located and the cockpit. 
The voice recorder was found the following day, buried 25 feet  below the crater.