Najah Is A Mother Of Five Is Missing And Her Kids Want Her To Come Home.

Najah Ferrell is a 30 year-old mother of 5 who went missing on March 15th. She has two biological sons and three foster children who are waiting for her to come home. She was last seen by her fiance, her two sons and three foster children at their Avon home around 3 a.m. on March 15 when she headed to her new job at a Panera sandwich shop in Indianapolis. Investigators discovered that Ferrell never arrived to work that morning and her black Nissan Altima was found about two miles from the Panera. Her items were found along Interstate 465. 

Najah's mother, Paula Gholson, was crying when she said,

"She's not here. 

She's not here and I want her. 

She's coming home. 

She's coming home. 

She has to.

 Her boys are so close to her."

Najah is 5 feet 4 inches and has black hair and brown eyes.

Authorities are saying her disappearance is suspicious.

Anyone with information on Ferrell’s whereabouts is urged to contact the Hendricks County Communications Center at 317-839-8700 or Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-TIPS.

America's Most Famous Outlaw:Jesse James.

Jesse Woodson James was born on September 5th, 1847 in Kearney, Missouri. He was the 3rd of 4 children born to Zerelda Cole and Reverend Robert James. Jesse was both popular in the community and outwardly religious. Many people thought that he was going to end up a Reverend like his father.

Robert traveled to California during the Gold Rush to minister to those searching for gold. That is where he died when Jesse was three years old.

Zerelda remarried, first to Benjamin Simms, then in 1855 to a doctor named Reuben Samuel.

The Jameses owned a hundred-acre farm where they used slave labor to grow hemp and raise sheep. In the summer of 1863, the James farm was brutally attacked by Union soldiers.

Jesse was 16 when he and his brother Frank became Confederate guerrilla soldiers, riding alongside William Quantrill and “Bloody Bill” Anderson.

In the summer of 1864, James was shot in the chest during a guerrilla raid.  However, sometime later, he was well enough to be part of an eighty-man raid on Centralia, Missouri. Led by “Bloody Bill,” the guerrillas terrorized the town and murdered twenty-two unarmed Union soldiers in what is called the Centralia Massacre.  That same day, at the Battle of Centralia, the guerrillas killed and horribly mutilated over a hundred soldiers in the Thirty-ninth Missouri Infantry, U.S. Volunteers. James took credit for killing their Union commander, Major Andrew “Ave” Johnston.

At the end of the Civil War, Jesse James was shot by Union cavalrymen as he attempted to surrender. His cousin, Zerelda “Zee” Mimms, nursed him back to health. Once well, Jesse began his career as an outlaw.

Supposedly, Jesse and Frank started committing crimes supposedly out of revenge for the poor treatment that they are their family, and other Southern sympathizers received from Union soldiers during the Civil War. They began robbing trains, stagecoaches and banks that were owned or operated by a Northern institution.

Jesse sought personal recognition and publicity by writing letters to the press.

From 1860 to 1882, the James Gang was the most feared band of outlaws in American history. They responsible for more than 20 bank and train robberies and the murders of countless individuals who stood in their way. They stole an estimated $200,000. They were popular in Missouri for actively trying to further the Confederate cause.

On December 7, 1869, the gang robbed the Gallatin, Missouri, bank. Jesse asked to change a $100 bill, and thinking that the banker was responsible for the death of Bloody Bill, shot the man in the heart. Local newspapers labeled the actions vicious and bloodthirsty and called for the gang’s capture. From that robbery to the end of their careers, members of the James Gang had a price on their heads, dead or alive.

On April 24th, 1874, Jesse married his longtime sweetheart and first cousin, Zerelda, and had four children, but only two survived. Both James brothers were known as good family men who loved their wives and spent time with their children, but they still continued their life of crime.

Though protected by their community, they were always on the move. Even after other members of the gang had been killed, and their friends the Youngers had been sent to prison for 25 years, in 1879, the James brothers planned one more robbery with Charlie and Bob Ford. Unbeknownst to them, Governor Crittenden of Missouri had put together a reward fund so large that the Fords had turned traitor to earn it.

After breakfast on April 3, 1882, Jesse turned to straighten a picture on a wall of his home, and Bob shot Jesse in the back of the head. Jesse died instantly at age 34. People in Missouri considered it a cowardly assassination. Within three months, Frank surrendered to Crittenden. The juries would not convict on the meager evidence, so Frank resumed a quiet life.

Emad Salem Warned The FBI That There Was Going To Be An Attack In New York City.

Emad Salem is a former Egyptian military officer turned FBI informant that was place among Muslim protesters. He became the bodyguard for Sheik Abdul Rahman, a radical Muslim cleric. 

Salem had befriended Ramzi Yousef and his group of plotters in 1991, meeting them at El Sayyid Nosair's trial. During his time as an FBI informant, Salem recorded hours of telephone conversations with his FBI handlers. Salem repeatedly warned the FBI that the Muslim group was planning to carry off a catastrophic bombing in New York City. Before the bombing, Salem offered to  substitute a harmless powder the FBI spurned his offer.

At 12:17 p.m. on Friday, February 26th, 1993 the 110 story World Trade Center's North Tower was attacked. The tower was allegedly built to withstand hurricane winds and even a full fueled jet collision. 

Ramzi Yousef and Eyad Ismoil parked a Ryder van into the public parking garage beneath the World Trade Center on the underground B-2 level. Yousef ignited the 20-foot fuse, and fled. 

Twelve minutes later, at 12:17 p.m., the 1,200-pound bomb exploded, opening a 98 ft wide hole through four sub levels of concrete. The bomb instantly cut off the World Trade Center's main electrical power line, knocking out the emergency lighting system. People were trapped in elevators and smoked turned the hallways black as the smoke to rose to the 93rd floor of both towers, including through the stairwells, and the elevators in the World Trade Center Towers 1 & 2. This made evacuation difficult. 

Initially it was thought that it was a fire or that a transformer in the basement blew. As rescue efforts were underway, the FBI was scouring the scene to find the cause of this destruction and devastation. 

The streets were buckling and the Vista Hotel, which rested between the two towers, sustained tremendous amount of damage. The FBI was assisting in the search and rescue efforts.  

When they made their way to the basement debris and concrete were scattered over 100 yards in all directions. There were demolished cars and fires that were started from spilled gasoline. There also dead bodies trapped underneath concrete. It was beginning to look to investigators that something sinister was afoot. That this was a criminal explosion.

The next day inter-agency teams got a better view of the destruction. The floor of the B-2 level of the garage had collapsed sending cars from three parking levels down several stories down to the very bottom of the building. They made their way to the blast zone, where the damage was so extensive there was no evidence of what caused the explosion. The floors were completely blown away, leaving a five story crater.

Two days after the attack investigators processing the crime scene spotted a piece of charred twisted steel that was theorized coming from the vehicle that encased the bomb. 

Investigators also found a VIN number that led them to a Ryder truck rental by Mohammed A. Salameh, one of Yousef's co-conspirators. Salameh had reported the van stolen and repeatedly returns to try to get his deposit back. When he returned the last time, on March 4, 1993, authorities arrested him.

A tip also came in leading them to a storage locker rented by Salameh, which contained ingredients to make explosives and explosive paraphernalia. There was a payphone near the storage lockers that authorities acquired records for. 

This led investigators to Nidal Ayyad. Nidal Ayyad was a chemical engineer and a week after the arrest of Salameh, authorities discovered that Ayyad was calling around trying to purchase more chemicals. Ayyad was arrested at his home in New Jersey on March 10th, 1993. Allied Chemical, the place at which Ayyad worked, was searched and his computer was seized. A deleted letter claiming credit for the bombing was retrieved from  his computer from the Liberation Army 5th Battalion. The letter claimed that it was in retaliation for the United States support of Israel. An almost identical copy of the letter had been sent to a newspaper. There was also a second letter on his computer that he hadn't had sent, claiming there was going to be another attack.

All of this led to an apartment in New Jersey, rented by Salameh and Ramzi Yousef, that turned out to be where the bomb was made. 

More tips came in, several people said they saw Mahmud Abouhalima with Salameh and Yousef on several occasions. Agents then started focusing their attention on Abouhalima. His red hair earned him the nickname Mahmud the Red. After the bombing Abouhalima fled the country. He was associated with 
El Sayyid Nosair and Sheik Abdul Rahman. Egyptian authorities contacted the FBI saying that they had Abouhalima who had been arrested and detained in Cairo for conspiring against the Egyptian president. Agents flew to Egypt and took him into custody. On the plain ride to the United States, Abouhalima talked to the FBI agents. He said that he and Yousef met in Afghanistan at a secret camp for the Mujahideen Muslim freedom fighters, which is a training ground for international terrorists.

Ramsey Yousef was a known international terrorist and an expert with explosives. And with all the interviews and evidence they had collected so far in their investigation, agents now believed he was the mastermind behind the attack. The FBI began searching for Yousef and learned that he had fled the country on the night of the bombing. While the search for Yousef was underway, agents were digging into Yousef's past.

Ramzi Yousef, was born as Abdul Basit Mahmoud Abdul Karim in Kuwait. He spent time with Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Yousef's uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed Ali Fadden, who later was considered the principal architect of the September 11th attacks, gave him advice and tips over the phone, and funded his co-conspirator Mohammed Salameh.

Yousef arrived illegally in the United States on September 1st, 1992, traveling with Ahmed Ajaj from Pakistan. 

Ajaj tried to enter with a forged Swedish passport, though it had been altered  raising the suspicions among INS officials at John F. Kennedy 

International Airport. When officials put Ajaj through secondary inspection, they discovered bomb-making instructions and other materials in his luggage, and arrested him. The name Abu Barra, an alias of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, appeared in the manuals. Yousef tried to enter with a false Iraqi passport, claiming political asylum. Yousef was allowed into the United States, and was given a hearing date.

While in custody Ajaj kept in contact with his conspirators and actually was trying to assist them with carrying out the attack. FBI agents questioned him. Even though he said very little, he was arrested and charged for his part in the bombing.

Authorities decided to bring all the conspirators they had in custody to trial while continuing to search for the other bombers. September 1993, the trial for Salameh, Ayyad, Abouhalima and Ajaj began in federal court in New York City. By this time the "bomb factory", the World Trade Center and the storage facility had been processed. 70 percent of the van that carried the bomb had been found. Tons of evidence had been collected. The federal prosecution presented how the defendants carried out the attack on the World Trade Center. 

Soon after Yousef arrived in the United States he moved in with Salameh and became friends on their mutual hatred of Israel and their disdain for the United States support of the Israeli government. This is when they chose the World Trade Center to vent out their frustrations on.

At the time, the World Trade Center Buildings 1 and 2, were the tallest buildings in the world, rising a quarter mile above the pavement. The World Trade Center Complex included the Vista Hotel as well as numerous underground shopping areas and subway lines. There were also five parking levels that contained more businesses. The terrorists decided the most damage would occur if they placed the bomb in the garage.

Receipts showed that in November of 1992, Yousef an alias to buy chemicals. Throughout the winter he ordered even more as he worked out the plan of attack. The chemicals were delivered to the storage locker that Yousef and Salameh had rented. Yousef wanted the manuals that Ajaj had on him when he was arrested and devised a three way calling system in attempts to hide the fact that he was keeping in contact with Ajaj.

One day Yousef and Salameh were in a car accident, putting Yousef in the hospital. Yousef made several calls from his hospital room to chemical companies. While Yousef was in the hospital, Salameh, Ayyad and Abouhalima went drove into the Pennsylvania woods to test out a prototype of their bomb. The bomb needed more power so Ayyad attempted to purchase compressed hydrogen gas.

On February 16th Ayyad rented a car to scout the World Trade Center. Salameh's fingerprints were found on the steering wheel and on the parking ticket for the B-2 level. A sketch was found that Ayyad had made of the floor plan.

Four days before the attack, Eyad Ismoil arrived in New York from Dallas to help finished the bomb. He ended up being the one who drove the Ryder van into the garage.

On February 23rd is when Salameh rented the Ryder van.

The conspirators returned one more time to the World Trade Center, this time with Ismoil. This is when they decided exactly where they were going to put the bomb. There was another ticket backing this up.

Ayyad finally acquired the compressed hydrogen that were delivered to the storage locker.

On February 25th, at the apartment they put their bomb together and loaded it in the van. They drove to the storage shed to add the hydrogen to their deadly concoction. Yousef and Ismoil then drove the van to a hotel in Manhattan. There was hotel records showing Ismoil's reservation. This is when Salameh reports the van stolen from his home in New Jersey. Salameh did this because needed the deposit back to help purchase a ticket out of the country.

The next day, Yousef and Ismoil drove the van to the World Trade Center.

The trial lasted 6 months. The jury heard from over 200 witnesses and reviewed 10,000 pages of testimony.  In February of 1994, Salameh, Ayyad, Abouhalima and Ajaj were found guilty on 38 counts. 

On May 24th, the judge charged each conspirator with 240 years each without the possibility of parole. A year in prison for each year of life they had deprived the victims.

Ramzi Yousef and Eyad Ismoil were still on the loose. Agents learned that Yousef was involved in several terrorist plots to bring down commercial airliners throughout the world.

On February 1995 Yousef was apprehended in Pakistan and turned over to the FBI. Yousef said that the World Trade Center was the greatest symbol for the United States finance and imperialism. He said he wanted to topple one of the towers into the other and kill thousands of people. He also said that this was only the beginning.

In June of 1995, Ismoil was discovered in Jordan and turned over to the United States for trial.

In January of 1998, Yousef and Ismoil were on trial together and received the same sentence as the others. The judged called Yousef the Apostle of evil and deemed that he would serve the remainder of his life in solitary confinement.

Six people were killed, five Port Authority employees and a businessman whose car was in the parking garage. 

John DiGiovanni was 45 years old and born in Brooklyn. He lived in Valley Stream, Long Island, with his mother. He was known for his meticulousness, John detailed his car with a toothbrush. He worked as an East Coast sales manager for Kerr Chemicals. Heading to a sales call on Feb. 26, 1993, John pulled his car into the World Trade Center’s underground parking garage just before a bomb was detonated there.

Robert "Bob" Kirkpatrick was 61 years old and Senior Structural Maintenance Supervisor of the World Trade Center. He was a master craftsman, plumber, carpenter, locksmith, and mechanic. There wasn't anything he couldn't build or repair. A few minutes with Bob and you felt you knew him. He made you feel relaxed and he made you laugh. Bob was always available to give advice and lend a helping hand. He lived with his wife in Suffern, New York.

Stephen Knapp was 47 years old and Chief Maintenance Supervisor in the Mechanical Section of the World Trade Center. He lived in Stanton Island, New York. He loved his family, friends and fishing. He would often be seen playing with his kids and their friends and he would be having just as good a time as them. Stephen enjoyed his job and if he got calls in the middle of the night, he knew the Trade Center so well he would be able to answer the questions in his sleep. He enjoyed life.  His grandchildren will grow up with happy, fun-filled stories of the grandfather they will never get to meet.

Bill Macko he was 57 years old and the General Maintenance Supervisor of the Mechanical Section of The World Trade Center. He was from Bayonne, New Jersey. He was a husband, grandfather, great Grandfather, a builder, a fisherman, a mechanic, a cook, and most of all a Great Dad.

Wilfredo Mercado he was 37 years old and a receiving agent for Windows on the World restaurant. He was born in Lima, Peru, and lived in East New York, Brooklyn, with his wife, Olga, and their two daughters. Wilfredo worked two jobs at the World Trade Center: weekdays as Windows on the World’s purchasing agent and weekends as a security guard. On Feb. 26, 1993, he was receiving food deliveries in the complex’s basement when a bomb exploded in the nearby parking garage.

Monica Rodriguez Smith was 35 years old and was seven months pregnant with her first child, Eddie. She was born on January 4, 1958 in Ecuador and came to the United States as a teenager with her parents and four brothers. She got a job right out of college working at the World Trade Center for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. She worked in the Operations Department as an administrator. Monica worked there for 11 years and never missed a day of work. The Port Authority gave her an award for achieving this very milestone shortly before she was killed. She loved her job and the people she worked with there. She got married on August 31, 1990 and moved into the house in Seaford, Long Island. Monica was a vivacious, outgoing person who was full of energy, she was the life of the party. At the same time, she was a natural mom to the people around her. February 26, 1993 was going to be her last day of work before going on maternity leave and she was in the World Trade Center to train the person who would be her replacement.

Additionally, 1,042 people were injured, most during the evacuation that followed the blast. 

Did you know that if the van had been parked a few feet closer to one of the pillars, it could have collapsed an entire tower of the Trade Center, killing tens of thousands?

In October 2001 in a PBS interview, former CIA Director James Woolsey claimed that Ramzi Yousef worked for Iraqi intelligence. He suggested that there was evidence of this brought up by the grand jury trial and that the Justice Department "brushed it aside".

He also said that Abdul Rahman Yasin is tied to Iraq and the FBI knew where he was and wouldn't even attempt to have him extradited. 

"And the first thing that really jumps out at you is that Yasin, the other sophisticated plotter besides Ramzi Yousef, is an Iraqi-American who fled to Iraq, had conversations with the FBI from Iraq, as far as we know, still lives in Iraq. 

Now, I don't think the United States government has ever asked for his extradition."

Woolesy also claims that, 

"It's entirely possible for Yousef to have been involved with an intelligence service as well, maybe, with bin Laden's organization."

Woolsey was asked,

"Other than Mr. Yasin, who goes to Iraq, and the suspicion that Ramzi Yousef may be connected to a state intelligence operation, what else is there that makes you say that Saddam may be involved in this?"

Woolsey answered, 

"Well, it depends what you mean by 'this.' If 'this' is terrorism against the United States, I think it's pretty clear that we have him dead to rights on trying to assassinate former President Bush in the spring of 1993.

President Clinton believed that.

That's why he launched the 24 cruise missiles at the empty building in the middle of the night in the summer of 1993, after Saddam tried to assassinate former President Bush and the bomb didn't go off.

The CIA looked into the forensics of the bomb and told President Clinton that it was an Iraqi government bomb. 

He then asked the FBI to double-check and sent an FBI forensics team over; they did the same thing. 

We both said, 'Yes, this is an Iraqi government plot.' That was the occasion for the launching of the cruise missiles against the empty [Iraqi security service] building in the middle of the night.

Now, I think that anybody who's looked at the 1993 plot to try to assassinate former President Bush believes that it was an Iraqi government plot. 

I don't think that President Clinton's response was anywhere nearly as forceful as that terrible plan of Saddam's that happily didn't come off."

Yasin is the only participant in the first attempt to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993 who was never caught. He was born in the United States and soon after his birth his family moved back to Iraq. 

Soon following investigation of the attack on February 26, 1993, Yasin was picked up by the FBI on March 4, 1993, the same day as the arrest of Mohammed A. Salameh, in a sweep of sites associated with Salameh. Yasin was found in the apartment in Jersey City, New Jersey, that he was sharing with his mother.

Yasin was taken to New Jersey FBI where he was reportedly very cooperative. Agents had Yasin retrace where and how the WTC bomb had been built in New York and New Jersey.

Yasin said he was released after giving agents names and addresses, and went to Iraq. 

Yasin's current whereabouts are known.

The Andromeda and the Milky Way Galaxies are going to collide and we're sending helicopters to Mars.

The Andromeda is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth. It is one of the few galaxies that can be seen from earth without a telescope. It is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. The Andromeda Galaxy is approaching the Milky Way at approximately 100 to 140 kilometers per second and in approximately 4.5 billion years they are expected to collide. The Andromeda Galaxy has at least one super massive black hole hidden at it's core.  The fate of the Earth and the Solar System in the event of a collision is currently unknown. Before the galaxies merge, there is a chance that the Solar System could be ejected from the Milky Way or join the Andromeda Galaxy.

Mars has been testing helicopters that they plan to send to Mars next year. NASA's mars helicopter successfully completed a series of flight tests that were performed on Earth. It is set to touch down on Mars as early as 2021.

Did you know that sunsets on Mars are blue instead of red? The heavy dust particles from the planet block out most of the sun's light. Blue light pushes better through the atmosphere.

The Mystery Of The Missing Single Mom

Patricia Ann Adkins had an infectious laugh, loved the outdoors and she was a good and loving mother. She was born on May 4th,1972.

She was a 29 year old single mother in 2001 and working as a shift supervisor at an automotive plant in Marysville, Ohio, and was up for a big promotion. It was June 21st, Patricia took her animals to a local kennel for the weekend and her daughter to her sister's. Patricia was last seen clocking out of the auto plant that she worked in, just after midnight. She had told her family and friends that she was going to Canada for the weekend with her secret boyfriend. Supposedly she climbed into the bed of his pickup truck and hide underneath the cover so she wouldn't be seen by the boyfriend's passenger. The truck pulled away and Patricia was never seen again.

Patricia's best friend and co-worker, Heidi Knight, said that everyone like Patricia. She also said that Patricia was very fond of one of her co-workers in particular and that he worked on the assembly line there. Patricia and this man spent a lot of time together on the job and love blossomed. There was just one problem with that, this man was married and that's why he was Patricia's secret boyfriend.

The secret boyfriend also had a side business, an auto shop, that Patricia sometimes would take her car to to get fixed. Patricia was loaning her secret boyfriend money, because he said he couldn't leave his wife until he had enough money so he was sure he wouldn't lose his business. She ended up loaning him $90,000 in cash. Shortly before she went missing, Patricia had given her boyfriend a strict deadline for paying her back the money.

When Patricia didn't return for a family barbecue her family began to worry and started calling her house and left messages on her answering machine. The next day Patricia's sister, Marsha, called the secret boyfriend's house, pretending to be a potential customer. The wife answered and informed the sister that he wasn't there. The sister then called again hours later, this time the boyfriend answered. He denied even knowing Patricia, let alone going away with her for the weekend. 

Marsha and her best friend Heidi went to Patricia's house to see what they could find. In Patricia's closet was several money bands. After the house search Marsha calls the boyfriend again, this time in the middle of the night, and his wife answers the phone. Marsha informed the wife about her husband's affair with Patricia and about their supposed weekend together. The wife is very calm and hands the phone to her husband. Marsha asks the boyfriend if he killed Patricia, he calmly says that he just worked with her, that was all.

It turned out that a lot co-workers of Patricia's knew about the relationship that Patricia was having with the married man.

Not believing the boyfriend's lies, Marsha called the sheriff and reported Patricia missing on July 8th. There was no activity on Patricia's credit cards or cell phone. The authorities are considering foul play being involved in Patricia's disappearance.

When questioned by authorities, The boyfriend  said he and Patricia had no plans to go on vacation together, he had never had an affair with her and he only knew her slightly. He and his friend said they left the plant together on June 29, drove 30 miles in the direction of their hometown of Canton, Ohio, stopped at a Burger King restaurant, waited 45 minutes in the drive-through line, got their food and went home. The boyfriend's wife backed up their story, saying her husband arrived home at 2:30 a.m., the usual time, and that she didn't know anything about an affair. The Burger King manager, however, said they were never busy in the early hours of the morning and no one would have had to wait 45 minutes in the drive-through to get their food. The manager said that the wait time that night was 15 minutes tops.

The boyfriend gave authorities to search his property. They brought in cadaver dogs that alerted to extra, fresh concrete poured outside the barn, which was the boyfriend's shop. Authorities brought in a backhoe to dig everything up and found nothing. They did find items in the boyfriend's house that Patricia gave to him as gifts. When investigators searched the boyfriend's truck, they found Patricia's cat's hairs and a spot of blood. He also had a new truck bed cover. Investigators won't release the results of the blood test or any other evidence they may have found.What they didn't find was what the boyfriend did with the money that Patricia allegedly gave him.

The boyfriend agreed to a polygraph, which he failed. After he failed the polygraph he quit his job at the plant.

The only person of interest in Patricia's disappearance is the boyfriend and investigators believe that she was murdered.

Patricia never came back to pick up her daughter or her animals and she didn't make to her scheduled hair appointment.

Patricia would be 46 years old now. At the time of her disappearance she was 5'8, 120 pounds, blonde hair and hazel eyes.  She was wearing steeled-toed sneakers and an all-white Honda work uniform consisting of pants and a long-sleeved shirt with two red outlined patches on the upper chest; one of the patches says "Patti" and the other says "Honda of America."  She had a small teal-colored duffle bag, a maroon coin pouch and a key chain with her Honda identification card with her. Her navel and ears were pierced. Her nickname is Patti. She has a tattoo of a flower design on her lower middle back; the design is of three orchids colored blue, green, purple and peach with leaves, arranged horizontally across her back. She had corrective laser surgery to her eyes.

If you have any information, no matter how small, please call

Marysville Police Department 937-642-3900
Union County Sheriff's Department 937-644-5010

The Disappearance And Murder Of Caylee Anthony

He Was In Search For The Elixir Of Life

When Ying Zheng was 13 he changed his name to Qin Shi Huang and became China's first emperor.  He was the founder of the Qin Dynasty and put an end to the warring states, unifying China.

He had a vast network of roads and canals built throughout the country, which helped improve trade and travel.

He had the Great Wall of China built in an attempt to keep out invaders.

He was a tyrant and introduced a common school of thought, called Legalism. This system required the Chinese people to follow the laws that the emperor decreed or be punished. The emperor ordered the destruction of the vast majority of printed books and scrolls, since they used other languages or advocated different points of view. Hundreds of people who were found to have banned books were burned as well. He also outlawed most forms of religion requiring people to be loyal and obedient only to the government

The emperor had many assassination attempts on his life. He was also getting older and wanted to live forever, so he made it his mission to find the Elixir of Life. He visited a supposedly sacred island, Zhifu Island, three times, searching for the legendary elixir.  He pursued other means of immortality as well, including taking mercury pills. 

He died in 210 B.C. from an overdose of mercury at age 49. 

His body was laid to rest in a city-sized mausoleum guarded by the life-sized Terracotta Army, which he had built before his death.

The empire collapsed only three years after his death.

Spies Like Us: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were spies for the Soviet Union. They were caught, convicted and executed for their betrayal to the United States.

Julius Rosenberg was born on May 12, 1918, in New York City to Harry Harris Rosenberg and Sophie Rosenberg, Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. His parents worked in the shops of the Lower East Side, as Julius attended Seward Park High School. He became interested in politics at an early age, participating in City College of New York's chapter of the Young Communist League. He graduated from City College in 1939 with a degree in electrical engineering. That same year, he married Ethel Greenglass and became a member of the Communist Party.

Ethel Greenglass was born on September 25, 1915, as the oldest child of Barney and Tessie Greenglass, a Jewish family in Manhattan, New York City. She stared out as an aspiring actress and singer, but eventually took a secretarial job at a shipping company. She became involved in labor disputes and joined the Young Communist League, where she met Julius in 1936. They married in 1939 and together they had two sons, Michael and Robert.

In 1940 Julius Rosenberg joined the Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where he worked as an engineer-inspector until 1945. He was fired when the US Army discovered his previous membership in the Communist Party. It was also around this time that he began working as a spy for the Soviet Union. Julius was originally recruited to spy for the interior ministry of the Soviet Union, NKVD, on Labor Day 1942 by former spymaster Semyon Semyonov. 

Julius provided thousands of classified reports from Emerson Radio. He procured information on how to make a proximity fuse, which is an electronic detonator that allows the weapon to explode when it comes within a preset distance of its target. He gave this information to his Soviet handler Alexander Feklisov in late 1944. The fuse was used in a weapon that shot down a U-2 spy plane in 1960 with the plane's pilot, Francis Gary Powers, being captured by the Soviets.

He also supplied thousands of documents from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, including a complete set of design and production drawings for Lockheed's P-80 Shooting Star, which was the first jet fighter used operationally by the United States Army Air Forces.

He recruited sympathetic individuals into NKVD service. Julius reportedly convinced his brother-in-law, David Greenglass, to gather information for the Soviets. David was a member of the U.S. Army, and was stationed at a base in Los Alamos, New Mexico, He was assigned to work on the Manhattan Project, which focused on the development of the atomic bomb.

In February 1944, Julius recruited Manhattan Project engineer, Russell McNutt, who worked on designs for the plants at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. McNutt's employment provided access to secrets about processes for manufacturing weapons-grade uranium.

In 1949, the Soviets detonated their first atomic bomb, this sent the U.S. government on a crusade to find out who had provided the Soviets with the knowledge on how to make the catastrophic weapon.

Even though the U.S. army broke the code Soviets used to send messages, some of which revealed Julius, code name "Liberal" was working with them, he wasn't the first to be caught. His brother-in-law David was and he informed the authorities about Julius activities. He initially left out his sister, Ethel's, involvement. 

On June 17, 1950, Julius Rosenberg was arrested on suspicion of espionage. A few weeks later, On August 11, 1950, Ethel was arrested after testifying before a grand jury.

On March 6, 1951, proclaiming their innocence, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's trial began. The prosecution's primary witness was David Greenglass. He said that he turned over a sketch to Julius Rosenberg of the cross-section of an implosion-type atom bomb also called the "Fat Man". This was the nuclear bomb that was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki by the United States on 9 August 1945. David also testified that his sister Ethel,  typed notes containing US nuclear secrets in the Rosenberg apartment in September 1945. When asked about their involvement in the Communist Party or their activities with its members, both Julius and Ethel plead the fifth.

On March 29, 1951, Julius and Ethel were both convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. And on April 5th, the couple was sentenced to death under what is now 18 US Code 794 under section 2 of the Espionage Act of 1917. This code  prohibits transmitting or attempting to transmit to a foreign government information "relating to the national defense." 

The presiding judge, Irving Kaufman, noted that he held the Rosenbergs responsible for espionage and that he considered their crime worse than murder. He stated,

“I consider your crime worse than murder ... 

I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb has already caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason. 

Indeed, by your betrayal, you undoubtedly have altered the course of history to the disadvantage of our country. 

No one can say that we do not live in a constant state of tension. 

We have evidence of your treachery all around us every day for the civilian defense activities throughout the nation are aimed at preparing us for an atom bomb attack."

Julius claimed they were framed.

A series of appeals delayed Julius' and Ethel's execution for more than two years. They also had supporters who requested clemency for the couple from presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Both presidents denied to issue a pardon.

The Rosenbergs were transferred to New York State's Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York, for execution. On the night of June 19, 1953, Julius Rosenberg was executed, he died after the first electric shock. Minutes later, his wife died in the same electric chair, however, it didn't go as smoothly with her execution. After she was given the normal course of three electric shocks, attendants removed the strapping and other equipment. When doctor's checked Ethel, they determined that her heart was still beating, so they gave her two more electric shocks. Eyewitnesses reported that smoke rose from her head.

I think they should have just let her live if the first round didn't kill her.

They were the only two American civilians to be executed for espionage-related activity during the Cold War

On June 21st, 500 people attended their funeral in a Jewish cemetery in Brooklyn, while some 10,000 stood outside in the sweltering heat. The night before an all night vigil was held for the couple.

Julius and Ethel's sons, Michael and Robert Meerpool, spent years trying to prove their parents innocence. They and many others believed that Julius and Ethel were victims of the Cold War paranoia going on at the time. But with Rosenberg's college friend, Morton Sobell's, public confesssion in 2008, where he admitted that he had been a spy for the Soviet Union and his detailing of some Julius illicit activities, Michael and Robert concede that their father was a spy. However, they both still believe that their mother was innocent.

In 2015, Michael and Robert called on then US President Barack Obama’s administration to acknowledge that Ethel Rosenberg's conviction and execution was wrongful and issue a proclamation to exonerate her.

Also in 2015, the 100th anniversary of Ethel's birth, 11 members of the New York City Council issued a proclamation stating that "the government wrongfully executed Ethel Rosenberg," and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer officially recognized, "the injustice suffered by Ethel Rosenberg and her family," and declared it, "Ethel Rosenberg Day of Justice in the Borough of Manhattan."

In March 2016, Michael and Robert launched a petition campaign calling on President Obama and US Attorney General Loretta Lynch to formally exonerate Ethel Rosenberg.

As of yet, no US administration has taken action.

President Trump Was Claiming He Was Trying To End The War On Coal.

Last year at this time, President Trump signed "The Energy Independence Executive Order", which suspended more than half a dozen measures enacted by former President Obama. When Obama was president he argued that climate change was "real and cannot be ignored". 

Among those measures that was rescinded is the Clean Power Plan, which required states to slash carbon emissions. The Trump administration said that scrapping the plan would put people to work and reduce America's reliance on imported fuel.

Well i'm all for our country being self-sufficient, why not promote solar energy and other resources that are better for our environment? Instead of letting big companies do whatever they want?

There is also less restrictive rules on methane emissions from the oil and gas industry and more freedom to sell coal leases from federal lands.

Does Trump believe in climate change? Does he even care? Well back in 2015 he said that it was a "Hoax".

Diana's Husband Made His first Appearance In Court In This Week On Charges Of Her Murder.

Lynn Keel was in court this last Tuesday and his being charged with first degree murder. He made no statements, but did request a court-appointed attorney. 

Lynn's second wife's, Diana's, body was found in a wooded area, not far from the home they shared with their 10 year old son. Initially, Lynn told investigators that he left his wife home alone while he ran some errands before she disappeared. Since he was the last person that saw her, he was considered a person of interest and questioned by investigators. He then disappeared for at least two days before he was found last weekend in Arizona.

Authorities are certain they have a strong case against Lynn.

Although there is no official cause of death yet, it appears that she has been stabbed.

Diana's murder has led investigators to re-examine Lynn's first wife's death, but her case hasn't been officially reopened yet.

Lynn Keel’s next hearing is scheduled for April 11.

Diana's Body Was Found On Tuesday, Now Police Her Looking Into The Death Of Her Husband's First Wife As Well.

Diana Keel Was And Lost Then Found, Now Her Husband Is One Of The Persons Of Interests In Her Death