No Justice For Caylee Anthony.

On July 15th, 2008, at 10:36 p.m., a frantic call came into 9-1-1.

9-1-1 operator: "9-1-1 what's your emergency?"

Cindy Anthony: "I called a little bit ago to the deputy sheriff's and I've found out that my granddaughter has been taken -- she has been missing for a month. Her mother had finally admitted that she had been missing."

9-1-1 Operator: "What is the address you are calling from?"

Cindy Anthony: "We are talking about a 3-year-old little girl. My daughter finally admitted that the baby sitter stole her. I need to find her."

9-1-1 Operator: "Your daughter admitted that the baby is where?"

Cindy Anthony: "She said she took her a month ago and my daughter has been looking for her. I told you my daughter has been missing for a month and I just found her today. But I can't find my granddaughter. She just admitted to me that she's been trying to find her by herself. There is something wrong. I found my daughter's car today and it smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car."

911 Operator: "OK, what is the 3-year-old's name?"

Cindy Anthony: "Caylee, C-A-Y-L-E-E, Anthony."

911 Operator: "How long has she been missing for?"

Cindy Anthony: "I have not seen her since June 7th."

"Caylee was a bright toddler approaching her 3rd birthday. She could already count up to 45 in Spanish and knew her full name. She could also recite nursery rhymes and loved singing, You Are My Sunshine."

Caylee Marie Anthony was born on August 9th, 2005. She was very smart and articulate. She was also one of the sweetest girls. She was full of life and very well behaved.

According to her grandfather, George Anthony, Caylee was last seen June 16th, 2008.

Caylee left with her mother, Casey Anthony. Before they left, Casey had told Cindy and George that they were going to stay over at nanny, Zenaida Gonzalez's house. However, later that night, Casey was seen with her boyfriend, Tony Lazzaro, on a Blockbuster surveillance video and without Caylee.

On June 20th, Caylee went with Lazzaro to Fusion Night Club and entered a "hot body" contest.

On June 27th, Casey and Lazzaro went shopping at a local mall. Then later that night they both went to Fusion again.

On July 2nd, Casey got a tattoo that said "Bella Vita," which is Italian for "Beautiful Life."

Caylee's grandmother, Cindy Anthony, had been asking to see Caylee, but Casey kept making excuses. 

On July 3rd, Cindy showed up to Casey's work at Universal Studios and called her cellphone. 

"I'm here at Universal Studios. I want to pick up Caylee," said Cindy.

"We're in Jacksonville for awhile," replied Casey.

July 4th, Casey attended a 4th of July party and a fireworks show.

On July 13th, 2008, Cindy and George, found a notice from the post office for a certified letter affixed on their front door.

On July 15th, 2008, George picked up the certified letter from the post office and found that his daughter's car was in a tow yard.

When George picked up the car, both he and the tow yard attendant noted a strong smell, that of a decomposing body, coming from the trunk. When the trunk was opened, there was no human remains, just trash.

Cindy tracked Casey down. Casey sat on the floor of her boyfriend's apartment crying and told Cindy that Caylee had been gone for 31 days and that "Zanny" the nanny had taken her. That is when Cindy ran out and called 9-1-1.

On July 16th, at 3:30 a.m., Detective Yuri Melich of the Orange County Sheriff's Department arrived at the Anthony house bringing with him other detectives.

George, Cindy, along with Caylee's uncle, Lee Anthony, were trying to get Caylee's mother, Casey Anthony, to get more information about Caylee's whereabouts from Casey.

At 4:11 a.m. Melich sat down with a emotionless Casey to ask her some questions.

Melich: "I'm detective Melich with the Orange County Sheriff's Office. According to your statement back on June 9th, 2008, you took Casey to a babysitter's house.

Casey: "Yes."

Melich: "Who is this babysitter?"

Casey: "Her name is Zeniada Fernandez-Gonzalez."

Melich: "You are telling me tat Zeniada took your child without your permission and hasn't returned her."

Casey: "She's the last person that i've seen with my daughter, yes."

Melich: "Okay, what's the reason you didn't call the police before?"

Casey: "I think part of me was naive enough to think that i could handle this myself which obviously i couldn't. And... i was scared that something would happen to her if i did notify the authorities or got the media involved."

Melich: " And where was Zeniada's? Where did you drop her off?"

Casey: "The Sawgrass Apartments on Conway and Michigan."

Melich: "Do you remember the address?"

Casey: "I don't remember the address."

Melich: "Had you dropped off the child there before?"

Casey: "Yes."

Melich: "If you had to find the place would you be able to find it?"

Casey: "Most likely, yes. I think i'd remember the house."

Melich: "Would you be willing to drive with me to show me the apartment that you used to drop her off at?"

Casey: "Yes."

At 4:41 a.m., Casey first took detectives to North 301 Hillside Avenue. This turned out to be a dead end.

Then Casey took them to Sawgrass Apartments at 2859 South Conway Road.  When they arrived, Casey ended up pointing to an apartment that no one had lived in for over 3 months.

Last, Casey led detectives to 4273 East Michigan Street, which is a retirement home.

After taking detectives on a wild goose chase, they took her back home at 6:45 a.m.

Once back at the station, detectives begin contacting woman named Zeniada Gonzalez. It is found out that none of the woman had ever had any contact with Casey or Caylee.

At 7:30 a.m., Melich drove to Universal Studios Orlando Resort. Casey had told detectives that she currently worked there as an event coordinator. When Melich talked to Casey's employer, he found out that Casey had been fired and hadn't worked there for over two years.

At 9:30 a.m., Melich his supervisor, Sergeant John Allen, and told him about the wild goose chase and Casey lying about her employment. This is when Melich and Allen decided to go pick Casey up and take her to Universal Studios. They then traveled back to the Anthony house and picked Casey up, but they did not tell her that they were going to Universal Studios. Instead, they told her that they were going to take her to the sheriff's office to look at some photos of "Zanny the Nanny."

On the way to the sheriff's office, Allen and Melich suggested to Casey that they go to her work to see if they can find any clues there. Casey agreed. Once at Universal Studios, Allen and Melich as Casey argued with the security guard. The guard said that Casey doesn't work there, but Casey insisted that she does. Eventually, Casey, Melich and Allen are let in and they head to the HR building. As they walk, a very calm Casey waves to workers that seem confused. The trio turned down a hall that was a dead end. Casey turned around and finally confessed to detectives that she doesn't work there.

At 1:20 p.m., Allen and Melich decided to take Casey in to a conference room at the resort and question her.

Melich: "Everything that is coming out of your mouth is a lie. Everything. And unless we start getting the truth.. we're going to announce to possibilities with Caylee. Either you gave Caylee to someone and you don't want anyone to find out because you think you are a bad mom... or something happened to Caylee and she is buried somewhere or in a trash can somewhere and you had something to do with it. This needs to end."

Casey: "The truthful thing is that i have not seen my daughter. The last time that i saw her was on the 9th of June."

Melich: "And what happened to Caylee?" 

Casey: "I don't know."

Melich: "Sure you do."

Casey: "I don't."

Melich: "You need to listen. Something happened to Caylee. She is either in a..."

Casey: "She's with someone else right now."

Melich: "No. She's either in a dumpster right now, she's buried somewhere, she's.. she's out there somewhere and her rotting body is starting to decompose because what you are telling us. No more lies. Tell us what happened to Caylee. Tells us what happened to Caylee."

Casey: "I dropped of Caylee.. and that's the last time i've seen her."

At some point, Casey's boyfriend, Tony Lazzaro, was interviewed as well. He told the detectives that he was going to leave and he was trying to let Casey down easy by saying, "i would never marry a woman who has a daughter."

At 3 p.m., Casey was arrested, which didn't seem to phase her. All she wanted to do was talk about how she wanted to be a personal trainer.  

After her arrested Casey called home.

Cindy: "Casey?"

Casey: "Mom."

Cindy: "Hey sweetie."

Casey: "Oh, I just saw your nice cameo on TV. You don't know what my involvement is in stuff?"

Cindy: "Casey..."

Casey: "Mom."

Cindy: "What?"

Casey: "No!"

Cindy: "I don't know what your involvement is, sweetheart. You, you're not telling me where she is at..."

Casey: "Because i don't fucking know where she is at, are you kidding me? Do me a favor, just tell me what Tony's number is. i don't want to talk to you right now, forget it. I just want to talk to Tony, get a little bit of..."

Family friend, Kristina: "Casey, your family is with you one-hundred percent.

Casey: "No they are not. That's bullshit because i just watched the fucking news and heard everything my mom said. Nobody in my own family is on my side."

Kristina: "Yes they are, nobody has said..."

Casey: "They just want Caylee back. That's all they're worried about right now."

The following day she was charged with giving false statements to law enforcement, child neglect, and obstruction of a criminal investigation and was denied bail. The judge said she Casey showed "woeful disregard for the welfare of her child."

After getting a search warrant detectives searched the Anthony family home and yard for any clues. Casey's car trunk was open and cadaver dogs signaled sign of human decomposition right away. Their handlers were almost knocked out by the smell.

At 5:45 p.m., Casey's car was submitted to the forensic's lab as evidence. Without having to open the car in any way, analysts  immediately smelled what they thought was human decomposition.

A strand of hair was recovered from the trunk of Casey's car which was microscopically similar to hair taken from Caylee's hairbrush. The strand showed hair roots form a dark band after death, which was consistent with hair from a dead body. This is called "root-banding,"

Another item that was taken from the house was the Anthony family's computer.

After a bond hearing on July 22nd, 2008, the judge set bail at $500,000.

On July 29th, 2008, Casey was offered a limited immunity deal by prosecutors regarding "the false statements given to law enforcement about locating her child", which was renewed on August 25, to expire August 28. She did not take it.

Sometime in July, 2008, Sgt. Kristin Brewer's K9 partner, Bones, signaled decomposition in the of the grandparents backyard during a search. During a second visit however, neither K9 partner was able to detect decomposition.Whatever had been in the yard was either moved or the odor dissipated.

Meter reader Roy Kronk called police about a suspicious object found in a forested area near the Anthony residence on three seperate occasions.

August 11th, 2008, he was directed by the sheriff's office to call the tip line, which he did, receiving no return call.

August 12, 2008, he again called the sheriff's office, eventually was met by two police officers and reported to them that he had seen what appeared to be a skull near a gray bag.

August 13, 2008, the officer conducted a short search and stated he did not see anything.

After one month of incarceration, she was released from the Orange County jail on August 21st, 2008. Her $500,000 bond was posted by the nephew of California bail bondsman Leonard Padilla in hopes that she would cooperate and Caylee would be found.

Casey had a bodyguard that was sent by the bondsman to make sure nothing happened to her and that she didn't do anything to herself. The body witnessed a confrontation between Casey and George. George had grabbed her and was choking her. George wanted the real story as to what happened to Caylee. Cindy got mad and threw George out of the house.

She was released again on, September 5th, 2008, on bail on all pending charges after being fitted with an electronic tracking device. This time her parents payed the $500,000.

Casey Anthony was indicted by a grand jury on charges of first degree murder, aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child, and four counts of providing false information to police, on October 14th, 2008.

She was later arrested and Judge John Jordan ordered that she be held without bond.

The charges of child neglect were dropped against Casey, on October 21, 2008. According to the State Attorney's Office " the evidence proved that the child was deceased," the State sought an indictment on the legally appropriate charges.

A forensic report by Arpad Vass of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory judged that results from an air sampling procedure performed in the trunk of Casey Anthony's car showed chemical compounds "consistent with a decompositional event", on October 24th, 2008. Human decomposition was not specified on the laboratory scale. Vass's group also stated there was chloroform in the car trunk.

Casey was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to all charges, on October 28th, 2008.

Kronk again called the police on, December 11th, 2008. The policed searched and found the remains of a child in a trash bag.

They recovered duct tape which was hanging from Caylee's hair and some tissue left on her skull.

More bones were found, over the next four days, in the wooded area near the spot where the remains initially had been discovered. 

There was also a Winnie the Pooh blanket found that matched the bedding in Caylee's room. And a laundry bin at the crime scene matched a bin found in the Anthony family garage.

Investigators looked through Anthony family photos and found Caylee wearing the same shirt as the body that was found.

Residue of a heart-shaped sticker found on duct tape over the mouth of the skull. The laboratory was not able to capture a heart-shape photographically after some duct tape was subjected to dye testing. The same kind of duct tape was found in the Anthony family home.

Medical examiner Jan Garavaglia confirmed on December 19th, 2008, that the remains found were those of Caylee Anthony.
The death was ruled a homicide and the cause of death listed as undetermined.

Prosecutors announced that they planned to seek the death penalty in the case, on April 13th, 2009.

On May 24, 2011, the trial began.

At the Orange County Courthouse, with Judge Belvin Perry presiding, the prosecution, said it was an intentional murder and sought the death penalty against Casey Anthony. They stated that Anthony used chloroform to render her daughter unconscious before putting duct tape over her nose and mouth to suffocate her.
Then left Caylee's body in the trunk of her car for a few days before disposing of it.

Casey was described as a party girl who killed her daughter to free herself from parental responsibility and enjoy her personal life.

The defense, in their opening statements, that Caylee drowned accidentally in the family's pool on June 16th, 2008. She was found by George Anthony, who told Casey she would spend the rest of her life in jail for child neglect and then proceeded to cover up Caylee's death. The defense alleged this was why Casey Anthony went on with her life and failed to report the incident for 31 days.

If things truly happened that way, i think they would have called 9-1-1. How did they know how long Caylee had been underwater for? Wouldn't they call to see if she could have been saved?

They also says that Casey had been sexually abused by George Anthony since she was eight years old and her brother Lee also had made advances toward her. That Casey had to lie about the abuse, so it became a habit to lie.

The defense also questioned whether the meter reader, Roy Kronk, had actually removed them from another location. 

They defense didn't think that the body was there the whole time. They thought that it was place there just before it was found. If that was truly what happened, Casey could not have put the body there because she was in jail. If Caylee's body had been there the whole time, they brought up the question of why it wasn't discovered earlier. 

Caylee's body had been found only just over 17 feet from the road, but the are was packed with trees with vines growing on them. There was also very tall grass.

The defense also alleged that the police department's investigation was compromised by their desire to feed a media frenzy about a child's murder, rather than a drowning.

The defense also admitted, Casey lied about there being a nanny.

When the defense called George to the witness stand, he denied having sexually abused his daughter Casey. He also testified he did not smell anything resembling human decomposition in Casey's car when she visited him on June 24. He did smell something similar to human decomposition when he picked the car up on July 15.

Cindy testified that her comment, "like someone died", on the 911 recording was a "figure of speech".In some of the photos entered into evidence was one from the computer of Ricardo Morales, an ex-boyfriend of Casey Anthony, depicting a poster with the caption "Win her over with Chloroform".

Regarding the photo on the computer, Richardo said that the photo was on his Myspace page and that he had never discussed chloroform with Casey or searched for chloroform on the computer.

The word "chloroform" had been searched for one time on a computer Casey had access to. The website in question offered information on the use of chloroform in the 19th century.

When the prosecution called chief medical examiner Jan Garavaglia, said "We know by our observations that it's a red flag when a child has not been reported to authorities with injury, there's foul play. ... There is no child that should have duct tape on its face when it dies."

She also stated that the chloroform evidence found by investigators inside the trunk of Casey's car, testifying that even a small amount of chloroform would be sufficient to cause the death of a child.

Cindy testified that their family buried their pets in blankets and plastic bags, and would also use duct tape.

Dr. Werner Spitz was called by the defense to do a second autopsy.
He challenged Garavaglia's autopsy report saying it was a failure that Caylee's skull was not opened during her examination.

"You need to examine the whole body in an autopsy," he said.

He was not comfortable ruling the child's death a homicide.He testified that he believed the duct tape found on Caylee's skull was placed there after the body decomposed. He also suggested that if the tape was placed on the skin, there should have been DNA left on it. He stated, "the person who took this picture, the person who prepared this, put the hair there."

The prosecution alleged that only Casey could have conducted the search about Cloryphorm, because she was the only one home.

Cindy Anthony said despite what her work time sheet indicates, she was at home during these time periods because she left from work early during the days in question, she says that she did the search by accident.

Roy Kronk He said that he received $5,000 after the remains were identified, but denied that he told his son that finding the body would make him rich and famous. His son testified the next day, that his dad did make those claims.

On June 30, the defense called Krystal Holloway. She stated she had an affair with George. She told the defense that George Anthony had told her that Caylee's death was "an accident that snowballed out of control."

In his earlier testimony, George Anthony denied the affair with Holloway.

George had a second, secret cell phone.

Four hundred pieces of evidence were presented during the trial and officials released 700 pages of documents related to the Anthony investigation, in October 2009. Among these were records of Google searches of the terms "neck breaking" and "how to make chloroform" on a computer accessible to Casey which was presented by the prosecutors as evidence of a crime.

On July 3 and July 4, the closing arguments were heard. Before closing arguments, Judge Perry argued sexual abuse was not allowed since there was nothing to support the claim that George sexually abused Casey.

The prosecution, told the jury, "When you have a child, that child becomes your life. This case is about the clash between that responsibility, and the expectations that go with it, and the life that Casey Anthony wanted to have."

"That bag is Caylee's coffin," said the defense, holding up a photograph of the laundry bag, as Casey reacted with emotion.

They also said "No one makes an accident look like murder."

The defense stated "the strategy behind that is, if you hate her, if you think she's a lying, no-good slut, then you'll start to look at this evidence in a different light. I told you at the very beginning of this case that this was an accident that snowballed out of control... What made it unique is not what happened, but who it happened to."
They explained Casey Anthony's behavior as being the result of her dysfunctional family situation. The defense also said "The burden rests on the shoulders of my colleagues at the state attorney's office."

The prosecution rebutted with "My biggest fear is that common sense will be lost in all the rhetoric of the case. Responses to guilt are oh, so predictable," the prosecution stated. "What do guilty people do? They lie, they avoid, they run, they mislead... they divert attention away from themselves and they act like nothing is wrong. Whose life was better without Caylee?" the prosecution asked. "That's the only question you need to answer in considering why Caylee Marie Anthony was left on the side of the road dead." The prosecution then showed the jury a split-screen with a photo of Casey partying at a night club on one side and a close-up of the "Bella Vita" tattoo that she got weeks after Caylee died on the other.

Jury deliberations began on July 4. The jury found Casey not guilty of counts one through three regarding first-degree murder, aggravated manslaughter of a child, and aggravated child abuse, while finding her guilty on counts four through seven for providing false information to law enforcement, on July 5, 2011. 

Sentencing arguments were heard on July 7, 2011. Judge Perry sentenced Casey to one year in the county jail and $1,000 in fines for each of the four counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer, the maximum penalty prescribed by law. She received 1043 days credit for time served plus additional credit for good behavior. She filed a notice of appeal on July 15, 2011. She was released on July 17, 2011. A Florida appeals court reduced her convictions from four to two counts. 

Why was Casey found not guilty? Jurors later claim that none of them liked Casey Anthony at all and that she seems like a horrible person, but the prosecutors did not give them enough evidence to convict beyond a reasonable doubt. They also said that the prosecutors seemed to be arrogant and cold and that the only one that seemed to care was Casey's lead defense attorney, Jose Baez.

Jurors also said that Cindy seemed unbelievable, that she was under a lot of stress and not making sense and taking a lot of medication.
The Jurors say they are haunted by their decision and wish they had known more details about the case than they did. They wished they had more evidence at the time to put her away.

After the Trial.

Caylee's Law.

The unofficial name for bills proposed or passed in several U.S. states that make it a felony for a parent or legal guardian to fail to report a missing child, in cases where the parent knew or should have known that the child was possibly in danger.

Revealed in 2017, An internet search for ‘foolproof suffocation’ was made on the Anthony's home computer on the afternoon of Caylee’s disappearance at around 2:50 p.m. The search was done after George was almost at work and Casey was the only one at home. There was also records of Casey's cellphone being pinged at home and that she was also taking to her friends on Myspace around that time.

Also, on July 16, 2008, after the police had dropped of Casey, before they returned took take her to Universal Studios, all of Casey's search history was deleted from her computer, including the "foolproof suffocation."

In March 2017 interviews with associated press, Casey that she would not be “stupid” enough to have another child, and that she still sleeps well at night. She claimed to sleep with a picture of Caylee by her bed, and said that she doesn’t have a relationship with her father.

Casey's parents sat down for a special with A& E on May 29, 2018.
In the interview Cindy stated acknowledged many things Casey told her were lies.

George says he sees Casey’s lies as pathological, noting that this behavior started around her senior year of high school.

In 2017, former Circuit Judge Belvin Perry Jr., who presided the trial, theorized that Anthony may have killed Caylee accidentally when she was using chloroform to calm her. 

Jeff Ashton was the prosecuting attorney at Casey's trial. He thinks that Casey gave Caylee Chloroform or something to make Caylee's death merciful and then put duct tape on her and waited for her to die. That that is the only reason why she would put duct tape on Caylee's mouth. 

Ashton thinks that Casey got rid of Caylee's body on the way to her boyfriend's house.

What do you think happened?

I don't think that George had anything to do with Caylee's death or the disposal of her body. He is a former police officer and if he had been involved, i think he would have been smarter when disposing the body.

Sadly, i think that Casey murdered Caylee. I think that Caylee was getting in the way of her and her boyfriend relationship. i think that Caylee's body was in Casey's truck and that Casey left that garbage in there in hopes of tricking the cadaver dogs in the event that Caylee's body was found.

Rest In Peace Caylee

#NoJusticeForCaylee

Sibling Rivalry: John Wilkes Booth And Edwin Thomas Booth.

John Wilkes Booth and Edwin Thomas Booth were brothers born to actor Junius Brutus Booth, who was considered one of the great American Shakespearean actors of the 19th century. John and Edwin's mother was their father's mistress, Mary Ann Holmes.

As a boy, Booth was athletic and popular, and he became skilled at horsemanship and fencing. In school he was an indifferent student whom the headmaster described as "not deficient in intelligence, but disinclined to take advantage of the educational opportunities offered him. Each day he rode back and forth from farm to school, taking more interest in what happened along the way than in reaching his classes on time".

While attending the Milton Boarding School, John met a Gypsy fortune-teller who read his palm. She told him that he would have a grand but short life, doomed to die young and "meeting a bad end". 

Edwin was older than John and was Junius' favorite. In fact, Junius despised John so much that he wouldn't even let him be in photographs with the rest of the family. This established the brothers' rivalry, which Junius encouraged.

Edwin usually performed alongside his father and John aspired to follow in their footsteps.

By 1858, Edwin and John were the most famous actors in the world. Everyone loved Edwin. John, on the other hand, lacked Edwin's culture and grace and people had mixed feelings about him. Many people would say that he was the handsomest man in America and that he had an incredible memory. However, others would say that John was violent and a scene stealer.

When the civil war broke out, John was starring in Albany, New York. He was outspoken in his admiration for the South's secession, publicly calling it "heroic." Which infuriated local citizens who felt that John was committing treason and they wanted him banned from the theater. 

Abraham Lincoln was a big fan of Edwin and wanted him to perform at all government functions.

In 1863, Family friend John T. Ford opened 1,500-seat Ford's Theater on November 9th in Washington, D.C. John portrayed a Greek sculptor in costume, making marble statues come to life.  As Lincoln watched the play from his box John was said to have shaken his finger in Lincoln's direction as he delivered a line of dialogue. Lincoln's sister-in-law was sitting with him in the presidential box. She turned to him and said, "Mr. Lincoln, he looks as if he meant that for you." The President replied, "He does look pretty sharp at me, doesn't he?"

On November 25th, 1864, Booth performed for the only time with his brothers Edwin and Junius Jr. in a single engagement production of Julius Caesar at the Winter Garden Theater in New York. He played Mark Antony and his brother Edwin had the larger role of Brutus in a performance acclaimed as "the greatest theatrical event in New York history." This made John furious. Brutus was his favorite character. Not did Edwin take his role, everyone loved his brother's performance.

John abruptly decided to join the Richmond Grays, a volunteer militia of 1,500 men traveling to Charles Town for abolitionist leader John Brown's hanging, to guard against an attempt by abolitionists to rescue Brown from the gallows by force. 

Lincoln was elected president on November 6, 1860. On April 12th, 1861, the Civil War began, and eventually 11 Southern states seceded from the Union. 

In John's native Maryland, some of the slave holding portion of the population favored joining the Confederate States of America, but  Maryland legislature voted decisively against it. It also voted not to allow federal troops to pass south through the state by rail, and it requested that Lincoln remove the growing numbers of federal troops in Maryland. Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and imposed martial law in Baltimore and other portions of the state, ordering the imprisonment of many Maryland political leaders at Ft. McHenry and the stationing of Federal troops in Baltimore.  

John saw Lincoln's actions as unconstitutional and formulated a plan to kidnap him. The plot was to abduct Lincoln, bring him to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, and use him as a bargaining chip to secure the release of rebel prisoners.

On March 17th, 1865, John and his fellow conspirators hid along a country road in Washington, D.C. Lincoln was going to go to the matinee performance of a play at Campbell Hospital to benefit wounded soldiers. Lincoln had changed his plans and never showed. After the fall of Richmond and General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, John decided to kill Lincoln instead.

John and his conspirators plotted to not only kill Lincoln, but Grant, Secretary of State William Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson.

Ulysses S. Grant accepted Lincoln’s invitation to attend Ford’s Theater on the evening of April 14th, 1865. Grant backed out at the last minute, or he would have possibly been killed as well. George Atzerodt failed to follow through on his assignment to slay Johnson at his residence in the Kirkwood House hotel.

On the evening of April 14, 1865, five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army effectively ending the American Civil War, John entered the balcony at Ford's Theater and shot Lincoln in the head. In doing so, John broke his ankle. He then raised his knife in the air and yelled," Sic semper tyrannis". (Latin for "Thus always to tyrants," attributed to Brutus at Caesar's assassination.

Laura Keene, the actress, dashed into the Presidential box and had President’s head on her lap before the doctors arrived.

At the same time John shot Lincoln, Lewis Powell stormed Seward’s house and repeatedly stabbed him. Seward was already bedridden from a near fatal accident. Seward somehow survived the savage attack.

John escaped after shooting president. Lincoln did not immediately die from the gunshot wound and was brought to Peterson House, a house across the street from the theater. He passed away the next day in Peterson House. 

Within a few days of the assassination all the conspirators were arrested except John who was shot dead after he resisted arrest. In all, eight conspirators were tried for the assassination and four of them were sentenced to death by hanging. Three conspirators were handed life imprisonment and one was booked for six years.

Contrary to John Wilkes Booth’s expectations Lincoln's assassination did not trigger a confederate revival in war. After less than a month of Lincoln’s death, the civil war also reached its logical end with a thumping Union victory.

After Lincoln's assassination Edwin decided to write a letter to his friend John B. Murray. Addressed “To the People of the United States” and published in several major newspapers in June 1865, it consists of three somber, shame-laden paragraphs in which Edwin speaks of being “prostrated to the very earth by this dreadful event.” Also in the letter, Edwin announced his retirement from acting as a penance.

However, five months after Lincoln was assassinated Edwin returned to the stage and performed "Our American Cousin", which was the play during which Lincoln was murdered.

Watergate, Deep Throat And Tricky Dick.

The Watergate Scandal was one of the biggest scandals to rock the United States. It stemmed from the Nixon administration's subsequent attempts to cover up its involvement in the June 17th, 1972 failed break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Washington, D.C. Watergate Office Building.

Before i go on about the scandal, i need to pause for a moment and tell you a little bit about Robert Woodward.

Bob was born in Geneva, Illinois and raised in Wheaton. His father was a lawyer who later became chief judge of the 18th Judicial Circuit Court. Bob's parents divorced when he was twelve, and he and his brother and sister were raised by their father.  Bob enrolled in Yale College with a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps  scholarship and studied history and English literature. He received his B.A. degree in 1965 and began a five-year tour of duty in the United States Navy. During his service in the Navy, Bob served aboard the USS Wright, and was one of two officers assigned to move or handle nuclear launch codes the Wright carried.

After being discharged as a lieutenant in August 1970, Bob wondered what he was going to do. His father wanted him to follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer, but Bob wasn't sure if that is what he wanted to do. That is when he remembered some advice that he was once was given by Deputy director of the FBI, Mark Felt, about sticking with the truth. After thinking about Felt's advice, Bob elected not to attend Harvard Law School, even though he had already been admitted. Instead, he applied for a job as a reporter for The Washington Post while taking graduate courses in Shakespeare and international relations at George Washington University. Harry M. Rosenfeld, the Post's metropolitan editor, gave him a two-week trial but did not hire him because of his lack of journalistic experience. After a year at the Montgomery Sentinel, a weekly newspaper in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, Woodward was hired as a Post reporter in 1971.

OK, now back to 1972. On June 17th of that year, 5 men were arrested for breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Initially, it was assumed that it was just a simple burglary that went wrong. 

Carl Bernstein and Robert Woodward were both reporters for the Washington Post and were assigned to report on the botched burglary. As Bob sat in court and listened as the judge asked the burglars who they worked for, one of them answered that it was the CIA. This gave Bob the idea to contact his mentor, Mark Felt.

Felt was a distinguished looking man with perfectly combed gray hair who had commanding presence. He was born in Twin Falls, Idaho. His father was a carpenter and building contractor. His paternal grandfather was a Free Will Baptist minister. Through his maternal grandfather, Felt was descended from Revolutionary War general Nicholas Herkimer of New York.

Felt attended the University of Idaho in Moscow where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1935.

Felt then went to Washington, D.C., to work in the office of Democratic U.S. Senator James P. Pope. In 1938, Felt married Audrey Robinson, whom he had known when they were students at the University of Idaho. She had come to Washington to work at the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

Felt stayed on with Pope's successor in the Senate, David Worth Clark (D-Idaho). He attended the George Washington University Law School at night, earning his law degree in 1940, and was admitted to the District of Columbia Bar in 1941.

Felt then took a position at the Federal Trade Commission. He was assigned to investigate whether a toilet paper brand, called "Red Cross", was misleading consumers into thinking it was endorsed by the American Red Cross. Felt wrote in his memoir:

My research, which required days of travel and hundreds of interviews, produced two definite conclusions:

1. Most people did use toilet tissue.

2. Most people did not appreciate being asked about it.

That was when I started looking for other employment.

He applied for a job with the FBI in November 1941 and was accepted.

After completing 16 weeks of training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and FBI Headquarters in Washington, Felt was assigned to Texas, spending three months each in the field offices in Houston and San Antonio. He returned to FBI Headquarters, where he was assigned to the Espionage Section of the Domestic Intelligence Division, tracking down spies and saboteurs during World War II. He worked on the Major Case Desk where, under Felt's direction, German agent Helmut Goldschmidt, codename "Peasant", handlers thought that he had made his way to the United States and was giving sending them back Allied plans. But he was really in custody in England and so the Germans were fed disinformation.

After the war, Felt was assigned to the Seattle field office. After two years of general work, he spent two years as a firearms instructor and was promoted from agent to supervisor. Felt also oversaw the completion of background checks of workers at the Hanford plutonium plant near Richland, Washington. In 1954 Felt returned briefly to Washington as an inspector's aide. Two months later, he was sent to New Orleans as Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge of the field office. When he was transferred to Los Angeles fifteen months later, he held the same rank there.

In 1956, Felt was transferred to Salt Lake City and promoted to Special Agent-in-Charge. The Salt Lake City office included Nevada within its purview, and Felt oversaw some of the Bureau's earliest investigations into organized crime, assessing the mob's operations in the Reno and Las Vegas casinos. In February 1958, Felt was assigned to Kansas City, Missouri where he directed further investigations of organized crime. 

Felt returned to Washington, D.C., in September 1962. As assistant to the bureau's assistant director in charge of the Training Division, Felt helped oversee the FBI Academy. In November 1964, he was promoted to an Assistant Director of the Bureau, as Chief Inspector of the Bureau and Head of the Inspection Division. This division oversaw compliance with Bureau regulations and conducted internal investigations.

On July 1, 1971, Felt was promoted by Hoover to Deputy Associate Director and began assisting Hoover's right-hand man, Associate Director Clyde Tolson because Tolson was in failing health and unable to carry out his duties. Felt was also was tasked to rein in William C. Sullivan's domestic spying operations, as Sullivan had been engaged in secret unofficial work for the White House. 

Hoover died on May 2nd, 1972. Tolson was in charge until the next day when Nixon appointed L. Patrick Gray III as Acting FBI Director. Tolson resigned and Felt became Associate Director. On the day of Hoover's death, Hoover's secretary began destroying his files. However, she did secretly turn over twelve boxes of the "Official/Confidential" files to Felt. These contained 167 files and 17,750 pages, many of them containing derogatory information about individuals whom Hoover had investigated. He used this information as power over them. Felt stored the files in his office.

Now, back to Watergate. As the whole thing happened, Felt saw everything compiled on the case before it was given to Gray. And when Bob called Felt, he was more than willing to help, but refused to talk to him over the phone about it. So, wanting his involvement to remain secret, Felt told Bob that on page twenty of the New York Times newspaper, that Bob received at his door everyday, Felt would draw a little clock indicating what time he wanted to meet. When Bob wanted to meet Felt, he would move his potted plant that he kept on his balcony of his house. And that their meeting place would be an underground parking garage in Virginia.

Bob met Felt at the parking garage and asked him how the burglars might be connected to the CIA. Felt told him to do the work, that it was all right in front of him, but to be careful.

Bob couldn't divulge Felt as his source, so he initially referred to him as "My Friend" and then as "Deep Background." Post editor Howard Simons then tagged Felt as "Deep Throat", after the widely known porno film Deep Throat, which was popular at the time.

Bob and Carl Bernstein found out that the burglars had entered the office to repair bugs that they had installed into the office nearly a week earlier and that the so-called burglars were some how connected to the White House and were given the task to spy on the Democrats. One of the was named Jim McCord Jr. and was the security officer for Richard Nixon's Committee to Reelect the President.  

Nixon, who was named after Richard the Lionheart, was born in Yorba Linda, California, in a house that was built by his father. He was raised in he the Quaker faith and  refrained from alcohol, dancing, and swearing. Nixon was a descendant of the early American settler Thomas Cornell, who was also an ancestor of Ezra Cornell, the founder of Cornell University, as well as of Jimmy Carter and Bill Gates.

Nixon quoted a saying of Eisenhower to describe his boyhood: "We were poor, but the glory of it was we didn't know it". The Nixon family ranch failed in 1922, and the family moved to Whittier, California where Nixon's father opened a grocery store and gas station. Nixon's younger brother Arthur died in 1925 at the age of seven after a short illness. Nixon was twelve years old when a spot was found on his lung. With a family history of tuberculosis, he was forbidden to play sports. Eventually, the spot was found to be scar tissue from an early bout of pneumonia.

Nixon's older brother Harold fell ill of tuberculosis. His parents believed that attending Whittier High School had caused  Harold to live a dissolute lifestyle before he became sick, so they sent Nixon to the larger Fullerton Union High School. Nixon received excellent grades. Later, he lived with an aunt in Fullerton during the week so he would have to take the hour long bus ride to and from the high school. Nixon played junior varsity football, and seldom missed a practice, even though he was rarely used in games. He was a great debater, winning a number of championships.

At the start of his junior year in September 1928, Nixon's parents permitted him to transfer to Whittier High School where he suffered his first election defeat when he lost his bid for student body president. Nixon often rose at 4 a.m., to drive the family truck into Los Angeles and purchase vegetables at the market. He then drove to the store to wash and display them before going to school. Nixon's mother took Harold to Arizona in the hopes of improving his health and the demands on Nixon increased, causing him to give up football. Nevertheless, Nixon graduated from Whittier High third in his class of 207 students.

Nixon was offered a tuition grant to attend Harvard University but he was needed at the store. He remained in his hometown and attended Whittier College with his expenses covered by a bequest from his maternal grandfather. Nixon played for the basketball team. He also was on the football, but he was a substitute because he was deemed to small to play. Whittier had literary societies and the only one for men, the Franklins, snubbed Nixon because he wasn't from a prominent family. Nixon responded by helping to found a new society, the Orthogonian Society. In addition to the society, schoolwork, and work at the store, Nixon also became a champion debater and gained a reputation as a hard worker. In 1933, he became engaged to Ola Florence Welch, daughter of the Whittier police chief, but the two broke up 2 years later. 

Nixon graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in history, and received a full scholarship to attend Duke University School of Law. Nixon was elected president of the Duke Bar Association, inducted into the Order of the Coif, and graduated third in his class in June 1937.

After graduating from Duke, Richard moved back home and began practicing law. 

In January 1938 Nixon was cast in the Whittier Community Players production of The Dark Tower. There he played opposite a high school teacher named Thelma "Pat" Ryan. Nixon fell in love with Pat at first sight, but Pat didn't feel the same way and turned him down several times before agreeing to a date. They dated for two years before she assented to his proposal and they were married.

In January 1942 Nixon and Pat moved to Washington, D.C., where Nixon took a job at the Office of Price Administration and was assigned to the tire rationing division, where he was tasked with replying to correspondence. He did not enjoy the role, and four months later applied to join the United States Navy. His application was successful, and he was appointed a lieutenant junior grade in the U.S Naval Reserve on June 15th. Nixon rose to the rank of Lieutenant Commander before leaving the Navy in 1946.

Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946. When in the House, he was a member of House Un-American Activities Commission, a group of Congressmen that tried to expose people in the United States who might have been Communists.

In Congress, Nixon supported the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947, a federal law that monitors the activities and power of labor unions, and he served on the Education and Labor Committee. He was part of the Herter Committee, which went to Europe to report on the need for U.S. foreign aid.  Advocacy by Herter Committee members, including Nixon, led to congressional passage of the Marshall Plan.

By May 1948, Nixon had co-sponsored a "Mundt–Nixon Bill" to implement "a new approach to the complicated problem of internal communist subversion ... It provided for registration of all Communist Party members and required a statement of the source of all printed and broadcast material issued by organizations that were found to be Communist fronts." He served as floor manager for the Republican Party. On May 19th, 1948, the bill passed the House by 319 to 58, but later it failed to pass the Senate.

Nixon first gained national attention in August 1948, when his persistence as a HUAC member helped break the Alger Hiss spy case. In 1948, Nixon successfully cross-filed as a candidate in his district, winning both major party primaries, and was comfortably reelected.

In 1949, Nixon began to consider running for the United States Senate against the Democratic incumbent. He was later elected a Senator in 1950 after running a controversial campaign against Helen Gahagan Douglas. During this campaign, Nixon was first called "Tricky Dick" by his opponents for his campaign tactics.

In the Senate, Nixon took a prominent position in opposing global communism. Nixon also criticized President Harry S. Truman's handling of the Korean War. He supported statehood for Alaska and Hawaii, voted in favor of civil rights for minorities, and supported federal disaster relief for India and Yugoslavia. He voted against price controls and other monetary restrictions, benefits for illegal immigrants, and public power.

In the 1952 presidential election, Dwight D. Eisenhower selected Nixon to be vice-president. People accused him of receiving illegal money contributions to his campaign and some people wanted Eisenhower to pick a different vice president, but Eisenhower still kept Nixon. Nixon after the accusations made a speech on television saying that the only gift he had received, but which he would not give back was "a little cocker spaniel dog ... sent all the way from Texas. And our little girl—Tricia, the 6-year-old—named it Checkers." The speech prompted a huge public outpouring of support for Nixon.

The Republican Party decided to keep Nixon as their vice-presidential candidate and when Eisenhower won the election. During his vice-presidency, Nixon attended Cabinet and National Security Council meetings and chaired them when Eisenhower was absent. 

The Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress in the 1954 elections. These losses caused Nixon to contemplate leaving politics once he had served out his term. On September 24th, 1955, President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack and was unable to perform his duties for six weeks. Nixon acted in Eisenhower's stead during this period. 

Nixon sought a second term, but Eisenhower proposed that Nixon not run for reelection in order to give him administrative experience before a 1960 presidential run and instead become a Cabinet officer in a second Eisenhower administration. Nixon believed such an action would destroy his political career. Although no Republican was opposing Eisenhower, Nixon received a substantial number of write-in votes against the President in the 1956 New Hampshire primary election. In late April, the President announced that Nixon would again be his running mate.  Eisenhower and Nixon were reelected by a comfortable margin in the November 1956 election.

In early 1957, Nixon undertook a trip to Africa. On his return, he helped shepherd the Civil Rights Act of 1957 through Congress.  Nixon then advised the President to sign the bill, which he did. Eisenhower suffered a mild stroke in November 1957, and Nixon gave a press conference, assuring the nation that the Cabinet was functioning well as a team during Eisenhower's brief illness.

On April 27th, 1958, Nixon and his wife embarked on a goodwill tour of South America. When the Nixon party reached Lima, Peru,  he was met with student demonstrations. Nixon went to the historical campus of National University of San Marcos, got out of his car to confront the students, and stayed until forced back into the car by a volley of thrown objects. At his hotel, Nixon faced another mob, and one demonstrator spat on him. In Caracas, Venezuela, Nixon and his wife were spat on by anti-American demonstrators and their limousine was attacked by a pipe-wielding mob. Nixon claimed there was "absolute proof that [the protesters] were directed and controlled by a central Communist conspiracy." 

In July 1959 President Eisenhower sent Nixon to the Soviet Union for the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, during which he had a debate with the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. They were both arguing that their country was better.

In 1960 Nixon launched his first campaign for President of the United States. In the first ever televised presidential debate in history, Nixon's performance in the debate was perceived to be mediocre and he narrowly lost the election.

There were charges of voter fraud in Texas and Illinois, both states won by Kennedy. Nixon refused to consider contesting the election, feeling a lengthy controversy would diminish the United States in the eyes of the world and the uncertainty would hurt U.S. interests. At the end of his term of office as vice president in January 1961, Nixon and his family returned to California, where he practiced law and wrote a bestselling book, Six Crises, which included coverage of the Hiss case, Eisenhower's heart attack, and the Fund Crisis, which had been resolved by the Checkers speech.

In 1962, Nixon lost the election for governor of California to Pat Brown. After losing, Nixon said "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore", leading many experts to say that Nixon's political career was over.

In 1963 the Nixon family traveled to Europe, where Nixon gave press conferences and met with leaders of the countries he visited. The family moved to New York City, where Nixon became a senior partner in the leading law firm Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie & Alexander. When announcing his California campaign, Nixon had pledged not to run for president in 1964.

At the end of 1967, Nixon planned to run for president a second time.

After the Tet Offensive was launched in January 1968, President Johnson withdrew as a candidate in March. In June, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated just moments after his victory in the California primary. Nixon's main opposition was Michigan Governor George Romney. Nixon secured the nomination on the first ballot. He selected Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew as his running mate.

Nixon's Democratic opponent in the general election was Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Throughout the campaign, Nixon portrayed himself as a figure of stability during a period of national unrest and upheaval. He appealed to what he later called the "silent majority" of socially conservative Americans who disliked the hippie counterculture and the anti-war demonstrators.

Nixon waged a prominent television advertising campaign and stressed that the crime rate was too high, and attacked what he perceived as a surrender by the Democrats of the United States' nuclear superiority. Nixon promised "peace with honor" in the Vietnam War and proclaimed that "new leadership will end the war and win the peace in the Pacific".

In 1968, Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey and Nixon was inaugurated as president on January 20th, 1969. In his inaugural address, which received almost uniformly positive reviews, Nixon remarked that "the greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker."

When Nixon took office, about 300 American soldiers were dying each week in Vietnam, and the war was broadly unpopular in the United States, with ongoing violent protests against the war. Nixon had concluded that the Vietnam War could not be won and he was determined to end the war quickly. He slowly began withdrawing U.S. troops, so that the South Vietnamese troops could take over the fighting by themselves. Nixon secretly bombed many enemy targets in Cambodia and North Vietnam while bringing home the American troops, to make it easier for South Vietnam to win. When his spreading the bombing to Cambodia and Laos became known in 1970, it caused larger protests than ever in America, including at Kent State and even in Washington, DC, where more than 12,000 were arrested in May 1971 at the peak of the protests. Partly because of the amount of opposition, Nixon sped up troop withdrawal and ended the draft.

Nixon began a policy called "detente" which reduced tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. The two countries would get along and sign treaties that would limit the production of nuclear weapons between both sides. Nixon traveled to communist China and established a very good relationship with them. Before that, there was almost no relationship between the United States and China. It opened up the door for decades of trade in the future, which is why many items in the United States were made in China. 

Nixon entered his name on the New Hampshire primary ballot on January 5, 1972, effectively announcing his candidacy for reelection. 

Fast forward to June and back to Bob and Bernstein's investigation in to what was going on with the break in at Watergate.

A diary was found which had the contact number of E Howard Hunt, who was an intelligence agent and a member of the White House plumbers, which was a secret team of agents working at the behest of the White House. It turned out that Hunt along G Gordon Liddy were the brains behind the first break in and that there were many agents responsible for spying on the Democrats. A check meant for Richard Nixon's reelection campaign was traced to the bank account of one of the burglars. This led to the conclusion that the campaign funds were being used to fund these illegal activities. 

Nixon wanted to stop the leaks and find who "Deep throat" was. Felt volunteered to head up a task force to investigate to which Nixon agreed. Haldeman later initially suspected lower-level FBI agents, including Angelo Lano, of speaking to the Post. But eventually he began to suspect Felt and told the president about his suspicions.

Haldeman also said that he had spoken to White House counsel John W. Dean about punishing Felt, but Dean said Felt had committed no crime and could not be prosecuted.

James McCord sent a letter to the trial judge naming other people who were part of this conspiracy. With more and more evidence being unearthed, it was soon clear that Richard Nixon was personally involved in the scandal along with several members from his administration. It was also discovered that many of the conversations regarding the conspiracy took place in the Oval Office and these conversations were taped. Initially, Nixon denied the presence of the tapes, but due to US Supreme Court order, he was forced to hand over the tapes containing the damning conversations. However, some important conversations from these tapes were missing.

On November 17th, 1973, during a televised question-and-answer session Nixon said, "People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook. I've earned everything I've got."

The US Congress was forced to begin the process of impeachment against Richard Nixon. However, before the culmination of the process, Nixon resigned on 9th August 1974. While Nixon himself did not serve any prison time, many of his aides were found guilty by the Grand Jury.

Things That Happened This Week in History

March
22nd

1622 – Jamestown massacre: Algonquians kill 347 English settlers around Jamestown, Virginia.

1943 – The entire village of Khatyn, present-day Republic of Belarus, is burnt alive by Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118. 

1972 – The United States Congress sends the Equal Rights Amendment to the states for ratification. 

1995 – Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returns to earth after setting a record of 438 days in space.

23rd

1775 – Patrick Henry delivers his speech – "Give me liberty, or give me death!" – at St. John's Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia.

1945 - Battle of Okinawa: US Navy ships bomb the Japanese island of Okinawa in preparation for the Allied invasion; it would become the largest battle of the Pacific War in World War II

1806 – After traveling through the Louisiana Purchase and reaching the Pacific Ocean, explorers Lewis and Clark and their "Corps of Discovery" begin their arduous journey home.

1983 – Strategic Defense Initiative: President Ronald Reagan makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles.


24th
1837 Canada gives its black citizens the right to vote

1882 German scientist Robert Koch discovers and describes the tubercle bacillus which causes tuberculosis ( Mycobacterium tuberculosis)

1944 – 76 Allied prisoners of war begin breaking out of the German camp Stalag Luft III.

1958 – Rock 'n' roll teen idol Elvis Presley is drafted in the U.S. Army.


25th
31 1st Easter, according to calendar-maker Dionysius Exiguus

1948 – The first successful tornado forecast predicts that a tornado will strike Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma. 

1960 1st guided missile launched from nuclear powered sub (Halibut)

1965 – Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King Jr. successfully complete their 4-day 50-mile march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama.


26th
1812 Earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale destroys 90% of Caracas, Venezuela and kills an estimated 15,000–20,000 people

1942 First "Eichmann transport" to Auschwitz & Birkenau concentration camps

1953 Dr Jonas Salk announces vaccine to prevent polio 

1966 Large-scale anti-Vietnam War protests take place in the United States, including in New York, Washington D.C. and Chicago

27th
1866 – President of the United States of America Andrew Johnson vetoes the Civil Rights Act of 1866. His veto is overridden by Congress and the bill passes into law on April 9.

1914 1st successful non-direct blood transfusion is performed by Dr. Albert Hustin in Brussels 

1915 – Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States is put in quarantine for the second time, where she would remain for the rest of her life.

1964 – The Good Friday earthquake, the most powerful earthquake recorded in North American history at a magnitude of 9.2 strikes Southcentral Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage.


28th
1939 Spanish Civil War ends, Madrid falls to Francisco Franco

1946 Cold War: The United States State Department releases the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, outlining a plan for the international control of nuclear power.

Was Cole Thomas Murdered Because He Didn't Want To Be Involved In A Drug Deal?

Christopher Cole Thomas

Cole, as he liked to be called, was funny. He was also very ambitious and when he had his mind set on something he would get it done. Cole would do anything for anyone. He was very close to his family who said that he gave the best hugs.

In high school, Cole was an honor student and had a scholarship to the University of Florida, which he used following graduation. He also had a on again off again girlfriend named Gabrielle. 

Things seemed to be going good for 22-year-old Cole, and even though he was close to finishing college, he decided to drop out and head to Minnesota with his friend Steven to work as a apprentice electrician. This greatly concerned his parents Chris and Kathy Thomas, but they supported him nonetheless.

Being very family oriented, Cole kept in close contact with his family over the phone. On the Sunday before Thanksgiving of 2016, he called his aunt Darla. That would be the last time any of his family would hear his voice.

Cole sent his last text to his dad on Thanksgiving day, telling his dad that he loved him and to have a good day. His dad text him back and told him he loved him too.

Unbeknownst to his family, on that Thanksgiving day, Cole allegedly volunteered to drive some of his co-workers on a over 1,000 mile trip from Pine Island, Minnesota to Durham, North Carolina. Two of the guys that Cole was traveling with he had only known for two weeks.

Later that night, a surveillance camera from a convenience store in Mount Olive, North Carolina, recorded Cole shopping at 11:30 p.m.

Three days later, Gabrielle claimed that she received a Facebook message from a friend of her and Cole's stating that "Cole is missing and we think he is dead." And that he never made it to North Carolina.

Gabrielle quickly called Cole's mother, Kathy, about the friend's ominous call. Kathy told a shaken Gabrielle that she didn't believe the friend and that she didn't feel as though Cole was dead. Moments later, Kathy received another call, this time from the Benson police telling her that Cole was registered as a missing person. Benson is roughly 30 miles from the convenience store where Cole was last seen.

When Cole's father got home from work, they broke the news to him that Cole apparently went missing between 1 and 3 in the morning, on the day after Thanksgiving. 

Cole's parents rushed right away, 500 miles on a Holiday weekend, to North Carolina to help search for their son. They arrived at the Benson police station at about 3 a.m. There was a Sargent on duty who let them in. The Sargent then called one of the guys that Cole had been on the trip with. The guy claimed that they had told police that Cole had a panic attack, jumped out of the vehicle and took off. He said that they waited a while for Cole, but he never came back, so they left.

The story that the guys, that were the last to see Cole, told police didn't make sense to his family. And over time, that story kept changing.

One of the last people to see Cole alive was his co-worker named Jeremy. Supposedly, Cole and Jeremy were traveling with another co-worker named Julian. They were on their way to Julian's house when they had stopped off at the convenience store. Jeremy told Cole's dad that they made a stop to someone else's house after they left the store because Julian was going to purchase drugs.

Julian had a criminal history which involved drug trafficking of meth. He also wasn't very cooperative when Cole's dad, Chris, tried to ask him questions.

Jeremy told Chris that Cole didn't want to have anything to do with the drug deal that night, but went anyway. He said that all three of them were stripped searched to make sure that they weren't wearing a wire or carrying a weapon. Jeremy said that once the deal was done, they left and that is when Cole freaked out. He then told Chris that Cole thought someone was following them and that made Jeremy afraid that they were going to get caught. Jeremy said he grabbed the drugs from Julian and threw them out the window. 

Cole was driving erratically and then pulled over at the intersection of North Elm and East Morgan streets in Benson. He got out of the vehicle and Jeremy got out as well and tried to calm him down.

A surveillance photo captured what is thought to be Cole and Jeremy walking down a street in Benson around 1 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving.

Jeremy then told Chris that they kept walking until they arrived at a church. He then said that Cole had to use the bathroom and while he was doing that Jeremy went around to the back of the church and got down on his hands and knees and prayed. When Chris asked him why prayed, Jeremy said, "Cuz i threw the dope out the window and this ain't good people."

When Jeremy was done praying, he went back around to the front of he church, but couldn't find Cole. He thought that maybe Cole went back to the vehicle, so he started walking back. After walking for around 5 minutes, Jeremy said he heard what sounded like two gunshots.

When Jeremy got about a block from the vehicle, he said that Julian saw him and asked him, "Where the hell ya'll been? If my boys woulda seen ya out here in this neighborhood it wouldn't have been good. And there wouldn't have been nothin i could do about it."

Cole's phone was tracked to several locations before the trail ended in Mount Olive.
The police used ATVs and K9s to search a wooded area in Benson, but found nothing.

Julian Valles Jr, Jeremy Brian Carpenter, Rudolfo DeLeon Jr., and Anthony Riddell James, were identified as suspects in the case and arrested. Charges against the four have since been dropped, but investigators continue to keep their eyes on them.

Cole's family enlisted the help of private investigator David Marshburn to him them find him. He thinks two of the men, previously arrested, were not involved in Cole's, but the other two were ­— and one of them was set up to take the fall.

Marshburn said one of the suspects has opened up about the case and family members want to make it very clear, they are aware of what happened. They were told that Julian allegedly hatched a plan to tell authorities that Cole had run off after a drug deal with the men. Julian then allegedly called DeLeon and James to come to Benson after Cole, Julian and Jeremy had bought methamphetamine from DeLeon in Wayne County because Cole had thrown the drugs away. When all five met up in Benson, "decisions were made" that led to Cole's death.

At the time of his disappearance Cole was 6 foot 1, 230 pounds, with brown/blonde hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing a light blue shirt, black long sleeve undershirt, black pants, dark colored (Hurly) shoes and a blue and white ball cap.

This case remains under active investigation by both the Benson Police department and the SBI. A $17,000 reward is still being offered to anyone who has information that could solve this case.

Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the Benson Police Department at 919-894-2091 or by email at crimeline@bensonpd.org, or the SBI at 919-779-8188, or 1-800-334-3000 after business hours.

https://www.facebook.com/findcolethomas/