Somer Renee Thompson

The following is from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children:

Somer was last seen walking near her school on the afternoon of October 19, 2009. She was last seen with her hair in a ponytail tied with a red bow, wearing a maroon sweatsuit with a pink stripe, and a black tee shirt. She was carrying a purple Hannah Montana backpack and lunchbox.

A statewide Amber Alert has been issued for Somer.

Somer vanished not far from where Haleigh Cummings disappeared earlier this year. While there has been a great deal of public suspicion expressed towards Haleigh’s parents, there have been no arrests connected to the little girl’s disappearance.

According to the Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville), there has been a recent attempted child abduction in the area from which Somer Thompson vanished yesterday. From the Times-Union:

“The lady was trying to lure my daughter in, saying, “Your mother told me for you to get in the car so I can take you home,” the mother said. “My daughter said no. This other lady saw everything happen. She said they instantly drove off.”

You can follow links above for further information, but if you have information concerning the whereabouts of
Somer Renee Thompson, contact the Clay County Sheriff’s Office at 1-877-277-6911 or dial 911.

Stewart Nozette

In 1984, Stu Nozette spoke to the San Diego Evening Tribune about a NASA study regarding the possibility of building a colony on the Moon. “The conclusion is we could be doing this by 2010 on the moon, ” said Nozette. Later in the same article, Nozette repeated his belief that a base could be built by 2010 and said, “maybe even by 1995 you could have a small outpost … with three to six people…”

It’s October, 2009, and Stewart David Nozette, a 52-year-old MIT grad and former member of the White House National Space Council to the Executive Office of the President (specifically Bush 41), has left dreams or theories of a moon colony far behind. Nozette has been arrested for attempted espionage.

According this DOJ Arrest Warrant uploaded by Politico, Nozette allegedly wanted to give classified information to someone whom he believed was working for the Mossad. Nozette, like pedophiles who get busted for sexy chatting with what they think are 13-year-olds on the Web, forgot a good rule of thumb for folks seeking to do some kind of dirty deed that requires an extra dose of secrecy: he forgot that IT’S ALWAYS A COP. Or in this case, an undercover FBI agent.

What could make a legendary scientist like Nozette do something so stupid? Money? Infamy? Politics?

 The money he was supposedly seeking wasn’t major. From the Arrest Warrant:

There was, however, a note of cockiness, a kind of screw it attitude in quotes from Nozette in the document that made me wonder if it was more about some kind of cloak-and-dagger fantasy:

You can almost smell the cheap cigarettes and the sweatband from the inside of a dashing porkpie hat.

And what could Stu Nozette allegedly provide the “Mossad,” in this instance? Just one example, from the legal docs: “‘Answers’ provided by NOZETTE contained information classified as SECRET [...] which related to the national defense, in that it directly concerned classified aspects and mission capabilities of a prototype overhead collection system, which disclosure could negate the ability to support United States military and intelligence operations.”

A question that’s surely already being asked, though, given that Nozette’s alleged actions leading to his arrest began in January this year, is whether or not there might have been some political motive in Nozette’s alleged willingness to sell his country’s secrets to Israel (which, mind you, was never actually involved). This might be a good reason to suspect as much. It’s NewsMeat’s listing of Nozette’s campaign contributions between 1999 and 2007.

Nozette was clearly a Republican:

So it’s hard to not wonder if some political motivation may have played a part in such a highly-regarded scientist allegedly turning on his country – in favor of a friendly nation whose issues are often a cause celebre for American conservatives.

Politics may have no role in this case at all. It may be all about purely apolitical self-interest, in the end. But Nozette’s history of campaign contributions will be fodder for discussion in days to come, and the discussion will be anything but non-partisan, I can guarantee you that.

Press conference about the murders of the Gee family

National media has virtually ignored the murders of Raymond “Rick” Gee, his wife Ruth and their three children. The case is heating up, though, because the Bloomington Pantagraph reported today that FBI Behavioral Sciences has been called in to help investigate.

From the FBI’s website:

Research performed by the BSU.
The unit focuses on developing new and innovative investigative approaches and techniques to solve crimes by studying offenders and their behaviors and motivations, collectively known as Perpetrator-Motive Research Design. Some of this research is conducted in partnership with outside researchers and through interagency agreements with the Department of Justice and its Office of Justice Programs. Some current research initiatives include: global hostage-taking research and analysis project; homicide clearance; reliability and validity of official crime statistics; gangs and gang violence; emerging technologies and policing; future of law enforcement, guidelines for interviewing juveniles; countering terrorism; juvenile crime; and spirituality and the law.

The perpetrator in this case, by the way, may be driving a “Chevy S10 or Ford Ranger-type vehicle with gray primer paint” and chrome exhaust pipes extending from the truck bed. In other words, a distinctive-looking, fairly memorable vehicle.

The involvement of the BSU in this case as well as setting up a tipline may indicate police are struggling with that most troubling type of homicide, the random murder. While I haven’t been able to find any sign that the Logan County, IL sheriff’s dept. has called these murders random, signs are pointing that way.

That could mean there is a killer on the road. One that police fear may strike again.

Authorities do not fear, however, that the Gees’ relatives are in danger. They told the Pantagraph and others that there was no truth to a Chicago newspaper report that some of the Gee familys’ kin had been put in protective custody. Additionally, in the press conference in the video above, Sheriff Nichols stated that the family categorically were not shot to death.

If you think you know something about this tragedy, call the Logan County Sheriff’s tip line at (217) 732-3000.

The Bloomington, IL Pantagraph tells us today that a manhunt is on after 5 family members (were) killed in tiny, unincorporated Beason, Illinois. From the Pantagraph:

Searchers scoured the ditches and soybeans fields that border the small town of Beason on Tuesday as police vowed to find whoever killed five family members whose bodies were found Monday in their home on the northern edge of town.

Confirmed dead were Raymond “Rick” Gee, 46, his wife, Ruth Gee, 39, Justina Constant, 16, Dillen Constant, 14, and Austin Gee, 11.

The paper goes on to inform us that a toddler, age 3, was found alive at the scene and taken to a medical facility in Peoria.

According to Logan County Sheriff Steve Nichols, this was “a brutal homicide against an entire family.” His department, the Sheriff said to local media, is “determined to identify and arrest those responsible.”

The Logan County authorities aren’t fooling around here; they have taken an unusual step in this case – proactively informing local residents that they should be wary. Nichols told the media that whoever killed the Gee/Constant family is considered “armed and dangerous.”

This is In Cold Blood territory here – the middle of nowhere, a tiny town surrounded by soybean fields.

More details as they are available.

There is a major “scandal” unfolding in Kentucky involving the Republican scion of an old-school Republican family. In the end, it will probably have much more to do with personality disorders, family dysfunction and alcoholism than politics, but you can bet good money that the tragedy of Amanda Ross and her alleged killer, Steve Nunn, will be used as political fodder.

From WAVE 3 TV in Louisville, KY:

LOUISVILLE, KY(WAVE) -Former Kentucky lawmaker Steve Nunn remained at Bowling Green Medical Center Saturday night. The former Republican State Rep. faces six wanton endangerment charges for brandishing a gun while at his father’s gravesite.

Detectives found Nunn at the cemetery with self inflicted wounds hours after his ex-girlfriend, 29-year-old Amanda Ross was found dead outside her Lexington home…

Steve Nunn, age 56, was found with his wrists slit, not far from his parents’ gravesides.

 

Image via Wikipedia

 

Nunn’s father, Louis Nunn, was the governor of Kentucky in the late 60s and early 70s. He died from a heart attack in 2004 at the age of 79. 

Steve Nunn tried to follow in his father’s footsteps, in 2003. But Louis Nunn, then in his late 70s, wasn’t averse to total dick moves even at that late stage in life and he held a fund-raiser for his son’s opponent, Ernie Fletcher. Fletcher won the race.

Nunn had already made the news in Kentucky this year after he had to leave a position with the current governor’s administration in March. He’d assaulted his former fiancée – Amanda Ross. Court documents cited by the Louisville Courier-Journal indicated that Nunn, who’d been deputy secretary of the Health and Family Services Cabinet for just over a year at that point, had “punched Ross in the face four times and then grabbed her arms and pushed her against a wall during an argument.” The same documents said Nunn also “intentionally broke a lamp and threw a cup of bourbon at Ross.”

In August Nunn copped an Alford plea in the case. This meant he would not admit guilt, but the court probably had what it needed to convict him of the charge. He received community service and assessment and treatment of an alcohol addiction.

If Steve Nunn allegedly killing his former fiancée is used as political fodder in some way, articles like this one at Kentucky.com will not help. A few quotes:

Attorney Astrida Lemkins, who said she is a friend of Nunn’s and was co-counsel for Nunn during a court hearing about the domestic violence order, said the issuance of the order “caused all the problems.”

“It caused Steve Nunn to lose his job, reputation and drove him to slit his wrists,” she said.

“If there does turn out to be a relationship between the death of Amanda Ross and Steve Nunn, it is not because the DVO failed, but rather because the DVO was issued,” said Lemkins.

Lemkins said Ross should have also been held accountable for her role in the domestic violence incident.

“Things are not black and white,” she said. “There’s a lot of gray in there.”

Eaton said the domestic violence case was deeply embarrassing to Nunn. “You could tell he was real concerned about his case and what people were thinking about him,” he said.

No matter how you slice it, the preceding shows a couple of overt – and frankly disgusting – instances of blaming the victim for her fate.

Guy Heinze Jr.

Guy Heinze Jr., the 22-year-old loser who was jailed shortly after the deaths of his family in a Brunswick, GA trailer park, has been arrested by Glynn County authorities and charged with 8 counts of first-degree murder. Police believe Heinze was responsible for the deaths of the following people:

• Russell D. Toler Sr., age 44
• Russell D. Toler Jr., 20
• Chrissy Toler, 22
• Michelle Toler, 15
• Michael Toler, 19
• Brenda Gail Falagan, 49
• Guy Heinze Sr., 45
• Joseph L. West, 30

A ninth, critically injured victim is still in a Savannah-area medical facility.

Heinze was arrested just about an hour and a half after his release on bond. He’d been incarcerated since reporting the deaths of his family and friends to 911 on August 29, 2009, charged with drug possession, lying to police and tampering with evidence.

Police chief Matt Doering never did refer to Heinze as a suspect, but it was clear from very early on in the investigation that he was a person-of-interest. If nothing else, his curiously flat and surly tone on the 911 call the morning the murders were reported was a bit of a giveaway.

Glynn County authorities will hold a press conference at 9 p.m. ET tonight.

Ashley Nicole Lilly

Ashley Nicole Lilly was tall and well-built, with endless legs and a winning, knowing smile. Shrewd intelligence glimmers in photos of Ashley – as if she was the girl who was always in on the joke.

Ashley was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on October 7, 1984. She later went to high school in Columbia, MO, where she was known for her skills on the basketball court.

After high school, this pretty midwestern girl, like many before her, succumbed to the lure of fame. She headed out to Los Angeles, California, where she intended to pursue a modeling career. Ashley eventually attended the Art Institute of Santa Monica and began the groundwork for a magazine titled TUHT.

TUHT stood for “The Undiscovered Hottie Takeover.”

Ashley’s dreams – her magazine, modeling - came to an end on August 21, 2009. That was the day Ashley Lilly was found dead in Garden Grove, California, not far from Disneyland. Ashley died in a room inside the Crowne Plaza Hotel, at 12021 Harbor Blvd.

Police said she was murdered.

Ashley Lilly’s death was tragic enough, but it also revealed that she had been leading a secret life, under another name.

Death revealed that the midwestern girl just 5 years from those Missouri high school basketball courts was also a sassy, confident escort who worked in Garden Grove, Orange County and Los Angeles.

Ashley Lilly, known to some as Queen Sugar.

On August 6, 2009, Queen Sugar posted an ad on BackPages.com. Titled “Come Get Your Sugar Fix… I’m Your

Queen Sugar

Addiction,” the ad was accompanied by several photos of a sexy young woman dressed in blue. It read:

Hey Fellas
I will be available for ANOTHER Day
That’s right…in the LAX Area!!!
I’ve Missed You…Come show me how much You’ve Missed Me
I’m 5′8″ (w/o heels)…138 lbs…Measurements of 36D-24-34
Give me a Call…310.237.2691
Can’t Wait To Meet :*
SWEET SPECIALS 0:)
100 for 20mins
120 for HHr SWEET SPECIAL
200 for HR SWEET SPECIAL
Outcalls Available in the LAX area +40

• Location: LAX….405 frwy

Sugar had reason to expect responses to her ad; on at least one website, she received nothing but glowing reviews:

“I didn’t have any references and Sugar was willing to see me. We met at a motel in Inglewood and she was very cool. She said she doesn’t work out and I wish I had her genes. We studied each other’s tats and she told me about the magazine she was putting together…”

“Contacted Sugar several months ago, but for what ever reason, we didn’t hook up. Big mistake. I’m so glad I made the effort this time around. Incall in Downey was easy to find. Standard two call system, then bam, I’m met at the door by this tall, beautiful young lady. Standing there in her pretty high heels she was absolutely stunning…”

“All I can say is what a nite, she is everything she says she is and more, very down to earth, easy to talk to and very smart. I will be returning!!!”

The reviews went back to 2006.

Queen Sugar gave the same phone number in all of her ads: 310-237-2691. That number could be found in the domain registration info for Tuhtslive.com, the URL Ashley Lilly purchased for her magazine:

Lilly, Ashley
Pink Diamond Entertainment
834 victor ave #7
inglewood, 90302
United Arab Emirates
(310) 237-2691

It is easy for people to assume a lot of things about escorts: that they are troubled, on drugs, at their wits’ ends, that they have somehow been forced into the lives they lead, that they are victims – of the men with whom they have steady relationships and the men who use their services. Those assumptions might also lead to questioning the appropriateness of publishing clear evidence that Ashley Lilly was also the successful escort known as Queen Sugar. After all, these standard-issue assumptions about sex workers are sometimes grounded in reality.

Sometimes, but not always.

Ashley Lilly was an independent woman and she clearly had plans and goals. She was heading somewhere. She was serious enough about Tuhts Magazine to purchase the Tuhts URL, and she had a MySpace account for Tuhts as well:

MySpace.com/Tuhtssugar.

She had last logged into the account on August 12. Text on the page described in part Ashley’s goals for “The Undercover Hottie Takeover”:

TUHT is a Magazine that is designed to be a marketing tool for NEW talent to showcase their skills. TUHT is a print form of advertisement for unknown, “Undiscovered”, people such as; Models, Photographers, Hairstylist and Make-up Artist. I guess you can say TUHT is THE REALITY PRINT in a way. The type of modeling used in TUHT is Implied Nudity, done very tasteful and classy. The talent in the magazine is not of those that you have seen or experience in today’s music video, commercial nor magazine. Yet after each issue Sugar, The founder, will leave you wondering, “Where have these girls been all my life?”. The wait is over…It’s The Takeover!!!

Ashley Lilly also had a Twitter account:

http://twitter.com/Tuhtsqueen.

More than some other elements of her Web presence, Ashley’s Twitter account seems, in many ways, haunted. An automated horoscope tweet delivered via Twitter-linked web service still posts Ashley’s horoscope (Scorpio) each day around 5 a.m.

Prior to Ashley’s death, however, she made plenty of tweets of her own, and they often reflected an outgoing, spunky personality:

Nothin makes me happier…ummmmmmmmmmmm a nice juicy stake…I’m such a fat ass…but I don’t care
8:13 PM Aug 10th from API

What up twitterville…how y’all feel’n…Sugar’s n the build’n…I’m feel’n real saucey 2day…I’ve miss’d y’all…imma get back on it tho
7:05 PM Aug 10th from API

#itsuckswhen ur move’n up in the world & ur life long friends have Cement Boots on…
1:25 PM Aug 1st from web

A couple of Ashley Lilly’s Twitter posts, however, may have hinted at some strangeness in her life. Strangeness that, no matter how in charge and enlightened she was, could have been related to her work:

#itsuckswhen u change ur # cus some weirdo wont stop call’n u…then they stay email’n u
1:31 PM Aug 1st from web

[...] I’m move’n 2 OC 4rm LA…move’n where I got nosey neighbors…ppl who gone tell me when I got ppl lerk’n
9:59 PM Aug 16th from API

Was Ashley being stalked, perhaps? There’s no way to know at the moment, if you rely on your usual news sources: the last time anyone wrote an article about her murder was August 23rd. That was when the Orange County Register published the first evidence that Lilly might have been an escort.

An oversight? Police blackout of information? Perhaps. But there is also this: on August 16, Jasmine Fiore’s name hit the news. Fiore, who was found nude and mutilated inside a suitcase, had some things in common with Ashley Lilly. Both women were beautiful. Both had ambitions above and beyond making a living with their bodies. Jasmine Fiore looked like a Barbie Doll, and the man who killed her, then committed suicide in Canada on August 23rd, looked a bit like a debauched Ken Doll. Fiore’s killer, Ryan Alexander Jenkins, was also a reality TV star. The reality TV element made attention to the story understandable – even Sugar – Ashley – tweeted about enjoying one of the shows on which Jenkins had been a contestant.

We know what happened to Jasmine Fiore, and we know who killed her. The story has essentially ended.

The murder of Ashley Lilly remains unsolved.

In spite of the way so many may view what Ashley Lilly did for a living, it seems like she was anything but a victim. She was in full control and going somewhere. Until August 21, that is.

Then she became a victim twice over – of her killer, and of a news cycle that sometimes seems scripted long before stories even break.

What happened to Queen Sugar? No one seems to know.

So the least we can do is shine a little light on this darkest of moments and remember the woman for both sides of her persona. Former high school basketball player Ashley Nicole Lilly and her alter ego, Queen Sugar, deserve no less.

Benjamin allegedly decided to do something about it.

Police arrived at the Hilburn residence some time after 7 p.m. last Thursday to find Benjamin’s father dead. Byron Hilburn, age 42, had been shot to death. Police think Benjamin used his own rifle to kill his dad.

Benjamin Hilburn is only 10. He has a 6-year-old sister who may have witnessed the murder of their father.

There were warning signs. Hints, at least, that something might be going on inside the home. The New Mexico Children, Youth and Family Services Department sent investigators to the Hilburn residence some 7 times in the past few years. The CYFD says they never found any evidence of abuse. Since Benjamin is now in their custody and may have murdered his father (a bullet to the back of Byron Hilburn’s head), the CFYD is, naturally, reviewing the case.

A neighbor boy interviewed by a local TV station went to school with Benjamin. He seemed to connect the crime with his view of Benjamin as a boy who was friendless, alone at school.

Benjamin Hilburn is undergoing psychiatric evaluation. If he is found guilty of 1st-degree murder, he could simply get one year of probation. He could be incarcerated until he turns 21.

The story of a boy who may have stood behind his father and pulled the trigger on his own gun – a CFYD worker told one press outlet that shooting was “a family sport” – is the sort of thing that could be politicized. People who have trouble with the way others use guns could use it as a football. Ardent supporters of the 2nd amendment would find a way a way to defend the right, citing this as an anomaly.

But it isn’t about anyone’s politics, in the end. Or at least, it shouldn’t be. No, it will be about that 6-year-old sister who may have been standing there when her brother, for reasons real or imagined, took the matter into his own small hands.

Christ Holy Sanctified Church, where Carol Daniels was killed

No one likes to admit they are interested in murder. I was, for years, uncomfortable as hell with the fact that I liked to read true crime books. But eventually I realized that it’s just human to be intrigued with the worst we can do with one another. After all, in a sense, I’d inherited my interest in true crime accounts from my mother, who is a gentle, kind person and loving mom.

It is human to find yourself fascinated – and frequently, haunted – with the most inhuman behaviors.

The horrific death of Anadarko, OK pastor Carol Daniels may be one of the most haunting crimes I’ve encountered in recent years. Rev. Daniels’s murder is rendered all the more awful by details of the crime only recently released to the Oklahoma press. Somehow, the monstrousness of what happened to this committed, 61-year-old woman of God is emphasized by evidence that a cool, precise hand was behind the dramatic staging of the crime. From NewsOK.com:

Sources confirmed that Daniels’ bloodied corpse appeared to have been left in the form of a cross with both arms outstretched to the sides. Sources also said investigators were disturbed by two other facts at the crime scene:

• The killer took Daniels’ clothes, perhaps to hide evidence or as a grisly trophy.

• The killer methodically took time to spray a dissolving chemical around the body in an apparent effort to destroy any DNA evidence.

Rev. Daniels was found just after noon on August 23, 2009. She came to Christ Holy Sanctified Church in Anadarko each Sunday. Even though there was no resident congregation, Carol Daniels persisted with her mission – if someone did chance to come, she would be there to pray with them.

An autopsy revealed that Carol Daniels fought with her final Sunday visitor, but in the end she died from multiple slashing wounds. She was, in fact, almost decapitated. In addition to the other odd details outlined by NewsOK.com, Carol Daniels’s hair was burned.

The Oklahoman interviewed experienced profiler Brent Turvey about the crime. Turvey sounded a cautionary note about suspecting some kind of serial killer might be at work:

“It’s either one of two things,” Turvey explained. “It could have been deliberate. They’re in a church; they put her in this position, perhaps a defiant way of saying, ‘Screw you and your God. Look how your God didn’t help you.’

“Or it was not at all deliberate, and her body just fell that way. It’s highly common to find a nude body lying on the ground with their arms outstretched like a cross. In fact, it happens all the time [...]“

While it is refreshing and rather rare for a behavioral analyst like Turvey to approach the question of the motivation behind this sort of bizarre murder with something like common sense (another profiler might try to talk up the serial angle, perhaps to keep their own name in the news – happens all the time with behavioral analysts who aren’t attached to the feds – and occasionally with some who are), there is still this - less than a week after Rev. Daniels was murdered, Oklahoma law enforcement warned other pastors to be on the lookout.

Brent Turvey’s thoughts about this strange and gruesome crime are a welcome dose of common sense from a practitioner of an art that can produce a lot of ridiculous, nonsensical bullshit, but the authorities tasked with actually investigating what happened to Rev. Daniels on her last Sunday saw fit to caution other men and women of God that they should, after all, look over their shoulders for a while. I imagine that after that meeting, the pastors went home and did something no one needed to prompt them to do: pray.