Tres Letras Pozole = Tijuana Human Stew

CATEGORY: Drug Kingpin, Notoriety, Creativity

DIVISION: Modern Evil

EDITORIAL: In the Mexican Drug War, criminals earn respect and credibility with creative killing methods. Your status is based on your capacity to commit the most sadistic acts. Burning corpses, using acid, beheading victims. . . . this generation is setting a new standard for savagery. Leading the way is Teodoro Garcia Simental, a.k.a. "El Teo" or "Tres Letras".
















Mystery Man Blamed For Gruesome Tijuana Deaths

By Richard Marosi

Tijuana -- He is said to love the ladies, fast horses and dissolving enemies in lye.

Teodoro Garcia Simental is among the best known but least identifiable villains in Mexico's drug war, blamed for a trail of terror across Baja California.

His heavily armed hit men, authorities say, have been leaving the gruesome displays of charred and decapitated bodies across the city, signed with the moniker "Tres Letras," for the three letters in "Teo." And authorities believe he runs a network of hide-outs where kidnap victims are held in cages.

Yet thousands of police officers, soldiers, state and federal agents can't seem to find him.

Billboards showing Tijuana's most wanted kidnappers don't include Garcia's image, even though he is believed to be behind most of the gang war that has claimed more than 400 lives here since late September.

"That tells you that you don't want to be the one responsible for putting Teo's picture in public," said one U.S. law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "There's no future in it."

The alleged crime boss appears chubby-cheeked and sporting an ill-fitting tie and coat in his only published photograph, labeled as No. 27 on the FBI's narctip.com website. His photo bears no name, and he is listed as one of several dozen people sought for allegedly using false Mexican police identification in connection with slayings, kidnappings and other crimes.

Many police officers, prosecutors and ordinary citizens go silent when Teo's name is mentioned. What is known about him comes from the secret testimony of captured gunmen, narco-messages left with victims and anonymously written narcocorrido ballads sold at swap meets. "Pay attention, President [Felipe Calderon]. . . . In Tijuana, I rule," one song boasts. "We'll show you what a real war is like."

Mexican court documents and interviews with U.S. and Mexican authorities paint a portrait of Garcia as a vengeful crime boss who vows not to go down without a fight.

Garcia is said to be in his mid-30s -- even his date of birth is not known. He reportedly bets big on clandestine horse races at isolated ranches outside Ensenada. He hires people at $400 per week to guard kidnapping victims and to weld together the barrels of caustic chemicals used to dispose of some of his victims, according to documents and interviews. One Mexican law enforcement official said Garcia has killed people at parties, laughing at their stunned reactions.


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We Have Killers Walking Among Us

CATEGORY: Crime-Solving, Murder, How-To

DIVISION: Modern Evil

COMMENT: It couldn't be easier to get away with murder these days. Given the CSI perception of crime-solving, just follow these simple rules and you'll be able to slaughter with a smile on your face and a skip in your step: 1. Never know your victim, 2. Enter and leave the murder scene within seconds, 3. Act entirely at random.












More Murderers Are Getting Away With It

by KAREN HAWKINS

CHICAGO — Despite the rise of DNA fingerprinting and other "CSI"-style crime-fighting wizardry, more and more people in this country are getting away with murder. FBI figures reviewed by The Associated Press show that the homicide clearance rate, as detectives call it, dropped from 91 percent in 1963 _ the first year records were kept in the manner they are now _ to 61 percent in 2007.

Law enforcement officials say the chief reason is a rise in drug- and gang-related killings, which are often impersonal and anonymous, and thus harder to solve than slayings among family members or friends. As a result, police departments are carrying an ever-growing number of "cold-case" murders on their books.

"We have killers walking among us. We have killers living in our neighborhoods," said Howard Morton, executive director of Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons. "It is a clear threat to public safety to allow these murders to go unsolved."

The clearance rate is the number of homicides solved in a year, compared with the number of killings committed that year. The solved killings can include homicides committed in previous years.

The number of criminal homicides committed in the U.S. climbed from 4,566 in 1963 to 14,811 in 2007, according to the FBI. The clearance rate has been dropping pretty steadily over the past four decades, slipping under 80 percent in the early 1970s and below 70 percent in the late 1980s. In cities with populations over 1 million, the 2007 clearance rate was 59 percent, down from 89 percent in 1963.

Detectives say homicides generally become harder to solve as time goes by, as witnesses die and memories fade. Yet cold-case detectives say their units are often understaffed. And local police are getting less help for cold cases from Washington. Funding for the main federal program for such cases was cut 40 percent from 2005 to 2007.

Richard Walton, author of "Cold Case Homicides: Practical Investigative Techniques," attributed the falling clearance rate to a "significant change in crime patterns."

Many slayings nowadays are gang- and drug-related killings _ often, drive-by shootings that involve a burst of gunfire so indiscriminate that killer and victim don't know each other.

"And that makes it difficult for investigators," Walton said. "With the gangs and the drugs, we don't have that ability to establish motive, opportunity and means."


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What Evil Twins are Good For

CATEGORY: Twins, Evil, Crime

DIVISION: Modern Evil

EDITORIAL: Most of us invented friends or imaginary beings when we were children, but inventing an evil twin is just plain smart. What better way to deflect blame and responsibility than by pointing a finger at your sibling rival. Applied with psychiatric supervision, this could also have extraordinary therapeutic benefits.









Evil Twin Accused of Crafty Con

by Kate Eckman

CAPE CORAL: A Cape Coral man has been accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars. But when police started putting the pieces of the crime together, he claimed that they had it all wrong - it was his twin brother who committed the crimes.

Investigators told NBC2 the only difference between 57-year-old Anthony Calavano and Joseph Calavano, the man Anthony says is his twin brother, is one digit on their social security numbers.

But when detectives dug deeper, they discovered Joseph's number actually belongs to a New Jersey woman.

It seems Anthony and Joseph have more than a lot in common than a simple social security number. Officials with the Lee County Sheriff's Office Forensics Department checked the fingerprints of both men. They told NBC2 they're actually the same person.

Friday night, Anthony was out of jail on bond and we were able to speak to him over the phone.

When NBC2's Kate Eckman asked him if he was simply posing as two different people, he said that his attorney handles matters like that.

A few hours later, he called back to the NBC2 newsroom and said he would do the interview on the condition that we paid him for it.

We were able to ask him if we could talk to his so-called twin brother Joseph. He said that we could not and that he did not know his brother's phone number.

Police reports say Anthony Calavano turned himself in to police on grand theft charges.

Officers are accusing him of trying to take advantage of a divorce by taking out a loan in his ex-wife Ermalinda's name.

The arrest report says back in June, Ermalinda Calavano told police a home equity loan for nearly $100,000 had been taken out against her home without her knowledge.

Ermalinda told police she never signed the documents for the loan. Calavano later admitted he was the one who signed her name and said he did it right in front of a bank representative.

That Wachovia Bank loan coordinator told Cape police she did in fact notarize Ermalinda's signature without speaking to her or positively identifying her.

Wachovia Bank fraud investigators provided police with records from Anthony's account. About $21,000 had been drawn from the loan and placed into an account that only Anthony holds.

But Anthony says the bank made a mistake and the woman who processed the loan has been fired.

Aside from grand theft, Calavano could also face several other charges including forgery, criminal use of personal identification information, and applying for and obtaining a Florida driver's license number under the name of Joseph Calavano.