Lansing, MI Serial Killer: Citizens Agree – Give us Evidence!

There’s a new article this morning in the Lansing State Journal has an article expressing the same thoughts/sentiments as me and my close friends here in Lansing have been feeling. Check it out HERE.

I wrote a post about a week ago that you can visit HERE, regarding the discrepancies in the sketch. Some of the people in the LSJ message boards are throwing the fit of all fits regarding the sketch and saying that we are all nuts. My question to those people is: Do you guys blindly follow, never stopping to ask WHY you are told to believe something? Expand your brain cells. Extra caution can’t hurt here. I’m pleased that you have so much faith in our system that you’ll take their orders to “breathe easy”, but I don’t share it with you. I’m not “breathing easy”, and I’m not going to believe something without evidence or even a spoken reason just because our officials say to.

In any other serial murder case where the suspect’s been arrested, what do you hear? “So and so was caught red-handed with murder weapon”, “DNA matches So and So in Serial Killer case”, SOMETHING. The point here is they’ve given us nothing to go on to cause us to believe they’ve got the right guy. Instead, they’ve left us to speculate with the only evidence we have, which is a witness account, sketched in a composite drawing by one of our 7 Michigan State Police Forensic Artists.

Those artists are phenomenal. I know one of them personally. I’ve worked with her on other cases before. If you get a chance, Google Sarah Foster, Michigan State Police and see what comes up. You’ll even find comparisons between drawing/actual suspect for some of the cases if you look hard enough.

If it turns out the evidence is overwhelming in this case and Matthew Macon is the guy, awesome. I’m all for tearing him apart and placing him in the harshest conditions Michigan has to offer. But, let us not try him for his past crimes. He’s served his time for those. Let’s concentrate on whether or not he really is the person on a blitz style serial murder spree. Because if he’s not, then our actual killer – is out there, very intelligently keeping his cool, and laughing his tush off at the incompetence and blind faith.

66′ Shooting leads to an Interesting Set of Circumstances

This is a very, very interesting story of the split decisions we make, and how they can effect us for the whole rest of our lives. I thought about re-telling the story with my cynical twist, but JoAnn Loviglio does a spectacular job of telling you already. Why re-invent the wheel? Check out her story HERE and then come back for discussion…

What do we think of this? Personally, I guess I’d want to meet this fella that originally shot Officer Walter T. Barclay. Because to get a feel for whether or not William J. Barnes deserves to rot in prison for the rest of his life for something he’s spent an awful lot of time in prison for already, I’d need to get to know the man. Is he a different person? JoAnn doesn’t seem to think so, really. She tells us in her story that he had several escape attempts and spent a lot of his time in solitary confinement. That doesn’t really lend credence to him learning the error of his ways and show us his awesome rehabilitation efforts.

For those who didn’t go read, the basic gist of the story is this: (before I tell you, I really recommend you go read it. It’s a very interesting and complex story of which you will not get all the details here) Officer Barclay responded to a burglary call in 1966. At that call, Barnes shot him and paralyzed him. Barnes went to prison and served his time for attempted murder. He was paroled and violated, paroled and violated, and never really seemed to care one way or the other how his actions effect any one else.

But, Walter died on August 19th this year. And, as a result, one excited little prosecutor has filed murder charges against William Barnes. Joann’s article states that Prosecutor Abraham said, “I support and applaud people who turn their lives around, but that doesn’t mean I forgive them for what they do and just write it off.”

I’m having a tough time forming an opinion on this. On one hand, I feel like the man served his time, and while it’s a terrible tragedy that Walter suffered throughout his life, that Brown served the time.

You get one or the other. You can’t get attempted murder AND murder charges. If you kill someone, you don’t get additionally slammed with attempted murder, right? There seems to be something wrong here. If they do truly follow through with this and they get a conviction for murder, I would think that at the very least he’d get time served for the attempted murder conviction.

But, what’s time served on a life sentence? That is exactly what he’ll get if convicted. That time served is, as my late mother would say “About as useful as tits on a boar hog”.

So, is this convict, who’s served his time, and is working his minimum wage job and doing what he’s got to do to get by…is he worth fighting for? Because this is one of those cases to watch. If this overzealous prosecutor gets away with these charges, then this will be one that’s going to be used as reference in the future. It will be a bit of history that will rear it’s ugly head anytime someone pisses off the right person in the prosecutors chair for years to come.

And, what do the victims families think in this case? Are they for putting this guy away?

I guess, I question really, who this guy is as a person. I want to know what he’s about. Because it seems awfully harsh to let a man think he’s served his time and is free and clear on a crime committed 41 years ago, only to bring them back again. Link the evidence all you want to our victim’s death. But, I just feel like this is wrong.

What say you?

Michigan Serial Killer: Matthew Macon

Just for good measure, I found another picture of alleged serial killer, Matthew Macon, the suspect Lansing police have taken into custody. Again, please compare the two real pictures, the newest (on the right) was taken last year.

3 Eyes for 6 Eyes

To listen to Will and Nikki in the Morning’s interview/discussion about this very blog entry, please go here: www.blogtalkradio.com/willgriffithshow  If you go into the site, click on the Archives tab, you’ll find it is the August 28th edition of the show.

During a recent discussion in the IBC chatroom during our very own Dan Cottrell’s Scam Buster’s show on www.blogtalkradio.com/ibc, I got into a rather heated debate with some fellow chatters over the death penalty. Those people that were engaged in the debate with me, well at least most of them, were adamantly against the death penalty. They were also mostly from countries outside the US.

I find this interesting because growing up in the US, you always hear about all the death and injustices of other countries, as if they condone such things over “there”. I’m seeing as I’ve matured into an adult and have stopped to question some of what we are taught on a regular basis, that really that’s not the case. Sure, you have your canings and hand choppings in some countries, but far and wide, I’m finding that the death penalty, or capital punishment if we’re being politically correct is more prevalent in the United States than anywhere else on Earth.

And, let’s be honest. Ron White hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that if the rest of the country has normal rates for executing executions, well, Texas has installed an express lane.

This week, there are three executions taking place in the state of Texas. I thought I would outline their crimes, name their victims and give my opinion on each of the individual cases. As I sit to write this, I’ve only briefly looked over their cases, and haven’t studied them in depth. This is more of an “off the cuff” discussion of sorts.

I’d like to preface their cases by saying that I think that certain cases require certain action. Child rapists/murderers in my world should be handed over to the parents of the slain children. Put them in a room together for a good ten minutes, and the problem corrects itself. Serial rapists and/or murderers…same plan. Victims families already have no control, and while I’m sure it’s not considered polite to seek retribution, and won’t make the victim come back, it sure gets rid of some of that negative energy that you are bombarded with when someone close to you is ripped from your life. You’re mad. Actually, mad doesn’t even begin to cover it. But when you learn it was premeditated, that someone actually planned out the torture of your child, your sister, your friend, or your wife…the anger can consume you. It indefinitely changes who you are as a person, and it causes any innocence that is within you to break in two. These people don’t just kill their victims. They kill off parts of us as family members, or as people who care about the lives that they are wiping away that are similarly irreplaceable.

That being said, you have to understand that you also have accidental killings, the rage killings and the “heat of the moment” killings. I don’t necessarily believe that all of those require the death penalty. Texas disagrees. So, without further ado, our executions of the week…

Daroyce Lamont Mosley: At the ripe old age of 19, in 1995 Mosley and another accomplice walked into Katie’s Lounge, and killed 4 people. It is believed that Mosley shot all of the victims, with help from the accomplice for one of them. The brutal facts of the crime are this: 53 yr. old Patricia Slack-Colter, 44 yr. old Duane R. Colter, 68 yr. old Luva Congleton and 54 yr. old Alvin Waller were lined up and shot execution style in the back of the head. All of this was to obtain a cash box from the bar, which they fled with. That cash box contained a whopping $308.00.

Daroyce Lamont Mosley will be executed by lethal injection on August 28, 2007 (today).

My opinion on this…was it necessary to execute each one of those people? Was the $308.00 worth it? That type of killing is merciless, cold and without remorse. If he’s sorry now, it’s because he’s going to die. Not what he did to those people. I’m good with this one. He should die for what he did.

John Amador:At 18 years old, in 1994, a mere year after being released from prison after serving a three year term for murdering someone else John Amador and his 16 year old cousin hailed a taxi cab, had the driver, 32 year old Reza Ayari and a friend of Reza’s, Esther Garza drive to a remote location and then shot them both. Reza Ayari died that night. Esther didn’t. Fortunately, she survived and was able to point out the suspects later. Amador and his 16 year old cousin rifled through the pockets of the victims, left them there to die and stole the cab.

My thoughts…a year. He was ON PAROLE for murder for crying out loud. He’s being executed on August 29, 2007 (Wednesday). Since it’s apparent he didn’t learn the first time after snuffing out someones life and killed someone else, with the intent to actually kill two a year after being released from prison, you won’t see any remorse or guilt from me for watching our system work on this one either. Buh-bye.

Kenneth Foster: Again, 19 years old at the time the crime was committed. 1996, Kenneth Foster approached 25 yr. old Michael T. Lahood Jr. with 3 other accomplices. The Black Deciples Gang Members (Foster and his buddies) demanded Lahood’s car keys and money. When Lahood told them no, accomplice Mauricio Brown pulled a gun and shot Lahood in the face, killing him. Foster drove the getaway car, taking him and the accomplices to safety.

Execution Date: August 30, 2007 (Thursday).

Thoughts…here’s the one I have the problem with. Foster didn’t pull the trigger. Yes, he’s a moron. Yes, he’s a jerk. Yes, the potential exists for him to be horrible person. But, he didn’t pull the trigger. He was present for the murder, but he didn’t kill the guy. Life in prison with the possibility of parole, maybe. Killing him for a murder he didn’t actually commit doesn’t make much sense to me. I like to think with a few years, and some knowledge and perhaps a swift kick in the butt from someone who gave a crap…Foster’s life could’ve been very different. But, basically, he’s being killed Thursday for the decisions in his life leading up to a single event that defined it, but in the end had very little control over. This is the case, and there are many more like it that causes me (and probably a majority of the rest of the world) to question if our system really works, and leaves a bunch of room for capital punishment abolishers world wide to scream in protest.

I guess if we could stick to eliminating and executing the black and white cases…the ones where there is enough proof, actual physical proof to sink the miserable idiot, then let’s do it. Get rid of them. But the ones that there is a lot of room for question – those ones, like Foster’s, I think just puts the blood on the hands of the State.