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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"I Checked to See If He was a Little Bit Alive"

CATEGORY: Murder, 8-year-old, Family

DIVISION: Modern Evil

EDITORIAL: A young and very real 'Michael Myers in the making' describes matter-of-factly finding his dead dad, who he murdered, after school - and a nation is shocked. We're just surprised that he's the only elementary-aged killer out there. Maybe there could be more like him with freer access to guns earlier in the child development cycle.















8 Year Old Murder Suspect will be Released from Custody with Restrictions

By Dan Marries/KOLD News 13

The eyes of the country are focused on the small town of St. John, Arizona. Home to 3,500 people, residents remain in shock two weeks after an 8 year old boy allegedly shot and killed his dad and another man. On Wednesday, Nov. 19th under heavy security, the boy was in Apache County Superior Court where a judge granted him a two day release.

Prior to the hearing deputies used a blanket to shield the boy as he was shuffled into court. What was expected to be a half hour hearing ended up lasting more than two hours. Reporter Donna Rossi from our sister station in Phoenix was in the courtroom, "we saw him walk in and he had a long sleeve blue shirt and dark pants. He looks like a 8 year old that's the bottom line, however, something looked completely out of place, he had on leg shackles and you could hear them shuffling as he walked to the defense table."

Over the objection of prosecutors, the judge will allow the boy to be released from a juvenile detention facility for two days so he can spend Thanksgiving with his mom but there are stipulations as explained by Betty Smith Apache County Superior Court Administrator, " there's to be no cable TV, no video games were included in those limits he placed." The judge also ordered there to be no knives or guns in the house.

A lot was said about the release of the video by the Apache County Attorney's Office on November 18th in which police questioned the boy for an hour. The judge ordered no more video or audio will be given to the media. From now on it will only be transcripts released. Rossi says the boy was fidgety during today's hearing, playing with his face and putting his arm around his mom at times, "at one point, he turned to some of the people in the front row who walked into the courtroom with his mother and he smiled at them, not a huge smile and then he mouthed the words, 'love you."

How Much Peanut Butter to Cover a Dead Body

CATEGORY: Murder, Peanut Butter, Condiments

DIVISION: Modern Evil

NOTE: Corporeal condiments vary depending on whether a body is living or not. Popular live body spices include chocolate, cinnamon or cloves, while dead bodies do better with a lye-based rub [to quicken degradation]. Slathering your murder victim with peanut butter is a new one for us though - but duly noted, we will put it to the test in our labs.












MURDERER'S GOOEY PEANUT BUTTER PLOY

By REUVEN BLAU and ERIN CALABRESE

Slain Long Island teacher Leah Walsh's allegedly homicidal husband slathered peanut butter on her body before dumping her in a ditch in the hope that wild animals would get rid of the evidence, sources told The Post.

The heinous revelation comes as waitress Donna Lepore, 24, admitted she had an affair with Walsh's husband, William Walsh.

When Leah's naked body was discovered Oct. 29, say Nassau County law-enforcement and medical-examiner sources, she was slathered in peanut butter.

The grisly method of disposal was only partially effective, said sources. The corpse was found by a worker from the North Hills Country Club in a wooded area about 50 feet from the westbound Long Island Expressway.

Detectives are looking into whether accused killer William had help in preparing the body for disposal and dumping it, a source said.

Cops say William, 29, confessed to strangling his wife during a 3 a.m. fight Oct. 26 over his infidelities. He dumped her body, set things up to appear like she had been abducted, and made emotional pleas for her return, investigators said.

Lepore, a steakhouse waitress, says she had an affair with William but broke things off a year ago.

"Just because I had a past with him doesn't mean I know anything," she told The Post.