Recently having visited Georgia, the changes over twelve years are incredible. Growth and construction was booming during the period, and I'd forgotten how genuine, friendly and kind the "little" people are. In shopping and speaking with everyday people, there's a prevailing mannerly kindness among workers and fellow shoppers, alike. These are people worthy of living within an honest system––a system they can trust to do the right thing. It's good for them, their children and grandchildren, that change is coming.
With all the horrors about Georgia's court system and stories of mothers fleeing the state, of families and children ripped apart and destroyed by the system, it's time for someone to demand accountability of those in power, and it's good to see the FBI has finally taken complaints seriously. They've formed a special team dedicated to corruption, and the people of Georgia would have fared better if the feds had taken the problem seriously and acted on it ten years ago. Many of those same people are in power and seem to stay in power, like in every other state.
My personal case is special because I lost a child in the midst of a horrifying Georgia divorce from a Norfolk Southern Railroad executive. My son disappeared in the midst of my false arrests and accusations brought about by the divorce. I was notified he turned up dead in Alabama but because of the Georgia arrests couldn't attend his funeral or burial or identify his body, so...
In Georgia, what happens when a person disappears and the body, when identified and autopsied in another state doesn't match the missing person? That's what happened in my case.
It's another loophole in the law, where the federal system isn't structured to investigate certain crimes that span several states. And it's open game for criminals who know exactly how to play their cards. Michael Jordan's father's body was dropped in South Carolina although he'd been murdered in N.C. Amy Frink's body was said to have been taken to S.C. and dropped, although she'd been murdered in N.C. Autopsies and investigations occurring in one state are often handled differently than in others, and when there are trials, and investigations, what happens? It's one of those slippery spots in the law that the federal system should some day address seriously, to close gaps that criminals can use to escape justice.
August brought news that the FBI is finally serious about investigating corruption in the state of Georgia. It was last year that Cobb County's Judge Nix resigned and Federal Judge Jack Camp did the same. Nix was playing Santa as the local lady lawyers sat on his lap at the annual Christmas parties. Any defendant in Nix's Cobb Court would only dream of such an opportunity. And among other things, Federal Judge Camp had problems with drugs and prostitutes.
I was told by my Atlanta attorney, Kenneth Schatten, that he, Judge Adele Grubbs, and Michael Broadbear, the opposing attorney in my divorce case, were laughing and joking about me at one of those Christmas parties. I had been forced to flee the state because of all the police harassment and false arrests to coerce me to sign the divorce papers. I had lived in and out of motels and been homeless and terrified for months. They thought this was funny?
It appears the upper crust in Georgia have a social club exclusive to those who are "in," and for those who aren't it can be a true and ongoing horror story. Even the Cobb County Commissioners were partying at the Norfolk Southern Railroad Christmas Party the Christmas before my horrors started and my son disappeared.
My personal experience was with Cobb County's divorce court and the legal tactics used in the Georgia "justice" system. I found myself thrown in jails, falsely accused, ridiculed, and even sent in shackles to a state hospital in the midst of my son's disappearance and reported death. One judge in Peach County, Laurens Lee, said if I would just sign my divorce papers my problems would disappear.
That's the way the system works in Georgia. It seems to be an "out for blood" win/lose system there, and you have the money to play. Some of the law firms are referred to as divorce mills.
My attorney, Kenneth Schatten said, "You'll never get the truth about what happened to your son because there's too much money against you." What that means, is that money buys justice, Or money conceals the truth, or both? It could also mean a lot of people got paid off - including him.
Schatten's said my son is alive and basically held hostage somewhere, dared to make contact with his mother or sister or brother, with the advice, "take your blog down off the internet, you're making "them" angry," as though there's some sort of dark criminal organization involved. He said we would be killed if my son should try and contact us.
I told him I would not take my blog down–– and in many instances guarantees by the First Amendment are the only avenues for justice or truth many of us have left. I told him to tell his contacts to go ahead and kill us all if that's what they plan, because I won't be intimidated anymore. I decided to stop running from them when I got to Kentucky.
It's important that the "legal tactics' as the GBI described these things are known. There are maneuvers used in Georgia in "civil" actions to destroy lives and coerce and intimidate, so this post is dedicated to some of those tactics and how the "GAME" of coercive justice is played in Georgia. If a person is ever thrown under a legal system, there will be little chance of recovery.
Out of hundreds of documents, these are just a few. Check back as I'll be adding more as time allows.
When I was continuously being harassed by police, arrested, and falsely accused I wrote to Senator Paul Coverdell thinking he might initiate an investigation into corruption within Cobb, Peach, and Houston counties. About a year later, Senator Coverdell passed away.
So then, Senator Coverdell contacted the head of the County Commission, Bill Byrne....
And then Dorothy Bishop got wind of the problem, and by that time surely I was the laughing stock of all of Cobb County's governmental offices, which surely prompted the jokes at the annual Christmas party.
So, I got a driver's license and found they'd made me an organ donor. So I went over to the DMV to make a correction and the lady said I'd have to pay $25.00 to get "organ donor" removed from my license. I began to get scared because I'd already been jailed and incarcerated under false charges and accusations, so why were they making me an organ donor?
In writing to the Governor the issue was addressed and they did investigate and acknowledged an "overcharge" which wasn't an overcharge, it was actually an illegal charge.
The records held by Mayes Ward have the body shipment details which covered shipment to Virginia and Georgia; and also the financial details as this funeral home handled arrangements with entities in two other states, but "Georgia Law" protects this information from being released to the mother.
As soon as I moved from Cobb County to a temporary residence in the Peach/Houston County area, a state trooper gave me a no-seat-belt ticket. It was illegal because I was not charged with any other violation; but there was nothing I could do but pay it. And after that all of the police harassment, false arrests, shackles, handcuffs and Georgia "legal" tactics began.
This is the warrant for harassing phone calls. Mr. Schatten said, "I heard the tapes. You didn't harass anybody." But what I believe caused the dismissal of all charges was my refusal to plead guilty and to appear only before a judge. I requested a jury trial, and knew I'd win if the jury was honest. The case against me after many months, plenty of worry, and lots of money - was dismissed.
This is the warrant where they came to the house and took me to the Emergency Room, then shackled me and handcuffed me and took me to Central State Hospital. There, the records (that I retrieved later) said, "Husband unknown, unable to pay." I gave them his office and home address and phone numbers, telling them he was a railroad executive and had full coverage health insurance on me. The bill was about $8000.00 as they'd refused to release me after 72 hours but retained me nearly 7 days. I didn't think I would be released at all, but was lucky to have thought to call the Mental Health Advocacy office. What was luckier was that I had taken the money with me, to be able to afford the call!! Note the date "error" in the filing.
Because of all of the arrests and incarcerations, costs of bail for all the arrests, the hospital incarceration, attorneys, travel, etc., I couldn't afford an attorney for the "criminal" charges, and Mr. Schatten had said he couldn't handle those because he wasn't "that kind" of attorney. So I applied for an indigent attorney. The person in the Macon office listed my jewelry at $10,000.00 which was absolutely untrue, but he must have also been in the appraisal business. Note he also could not spell my name properly––which is the way records get lost in these and so many other situations. They had planned this very well, knowing to continue badgering me with arrests and harassment would render me unable emotionally or financially to deal with whatever they might have planned next. And I began to live that way, in trying to anticipate exactly what their next strategy would be to further destroy my life and happiness.
Provocation to anger was one of their tools, and it was the way they set the stages for the traps. My husband had the perfect right to pack my belongings he'd had complete control of from the time he had me ordered out of the house. When I finally got my belongings, many were missing, some had been stomped and destroyed even before they were packed into boxes. A set of Franklin half dollars was missing the 1949S. A set of lamps was broken, a set of sheets missing a bottom. He knew well how to hit below the belt and was well schooled in exactly what he and his mistress had planned for me. Evil isn't a proper word to describe what these people did but, scheming evil is a better description.
Even after the divorce, my medical records found their way back to his mistresse's house where he'd lived even before our divorce was final, and where he'd lived when he abandoned our daughter alone in an empty house to finish high school. My medical funds also went to his mistresse's address. It was incredible what this man was capable of doing that was "LEGAL" within the courts of Georgia, which was too menial for my divorce attorney to address.
Schatten stood back and let it all happen. Marietta attorneys, George Childs and Jim Knight had jumped ship just after my son's body had [supposedly] been buried.
It's a frightening place to live and work, knowing the Atlanta legal community, as has been written of in the Sara Tokars case, is "notoriously gossipy." More than one person has said, if you need an attorney in Georgia find one outside the state with the credentials and permits to practice there. Otherwise you'll be railroaded by the good 'ol boy system that operates there. Doesn't every honest Georgian and American hope these things aren't true?
This is the Peach County bond paper resulting from the Houston County landlord, Nell Stumpff's warrant against me. I hired Stan Martin, a local attorney, to tell me what I should do. He charged me $500 and said, "If you just keep quiet about it all of your problems will disappear." It was strange, because I told Martin I wanted my day in court against Nell. She was lying and had concocted the charges. Besides that she'd also lied to my family. But, the charges .... simply disappeared.
(It was weird when I got to Kentucky and found out that, like Nell's son, in Kentucky the drug dealers also set up drug operations on county lines. Walk across Hwy 41 from Nell's apartment and you would be stepping from Peach to Houston County, and be out of jurisdiction from Peach police. I was told Nell's apartment only had one water line that served at least three structures, which was illegal. Never was able to find out whether it was true.)
Terrified of what they might have planned for me next, I visited the Warner Robins police department and spoke with an officer there. Officer Whitten of the Warner Robins police department seemed to understand what I was experiencing better than I could put into words, and wrote it in a police report:
In contacting all of these entities that had detrimental records against me, that I'd tried to correct, this is one of the responses.
I left the state of Georgia anticipating more arrests and false accusations. But when the divorce was final, I came back thinking I'd build a home near my daughter. But as soon as I arrived, I'd been followed, and the Paulding County Animal Shelter showed up and said, "We got a call about your animals but they look just fine." I had my show dogs with me and the shelter inspected them. But two days later they came back when I was gone and confiscated them. I got my show dogs back and left the state.
Then later I got a threatening letter from the county law firm which happened to be former house speaker Glenn Richardson's law firm, that I had abused the animals. It was obvious I was not welcome in Georgia, and I wish Norfolk Southern Railroad had never transferred my family there.
Familiar with the "MERRY GO ROUND" Georgia calls "justice," this is another reject letter from state/local government: a letter from Cobb County's D.A. Pat Head. Corruption in this case has been localized to specific counties, yet the FBI directs you right back to internal affairs of the local governments who were part of the design, or they direct you to get another expensive lawyer that most victims can't afford, and who might be paid off. So it's just another merry-go-round, and corruption continues. The federal government has no system to stop it as the FBI is limited in what it investigates.
The GBI couldn't understand and couldn't have known at that time, that the Alabama autopsy report didn't match my son's body. All that happened to my family and children was planned and arranged in Georgia. And since my son had already had dealings in Roswell and his father had hired an expensive attorney there, there's no reason for me to believe the fingerprint story is legitimate. After all, they'd thrown me in jails and used Georgia police against me in other counties, all based on lies, and my husband had even told lies to my friends and family. He had bragged about paying off a judge in college, so with his money and power, there was no reason for me to believe anything he said or did after seeing what he was capable of doing to the mother of his children.
Contrary to the autopsy report below, my son had no scars whatsoever on his legs.
Just last summer Attorney Kenneth Schatten said, "They've got your son somewhere and they've told him if he tries to contact you or his brother or sister, they're going to kill you all." It was odd that Mr. Schatten would change the story from 1999 to this. In 1999 he'd said he believed my husband murdered our son. What the Georgia judges and courts didn't know is that my son knew two things: he knew his father had a mistress, and he knew his father had lied to the police. So with that knowledge, the boy had to disappear, one way or another, else his father would lose his case.
I had contacted the FBI in 2001, with a stack of documents to prove all the harassment and horrors I'd endured in Georgia. An agent there, Brian Blanchard in Louisville Kentucky where I had relocated said, "The railroad has lawyers you can't beat." My initial attorney, George Childs of Marietta, had said the opposing attorney in the divorce, Michael Broadbear, was a railroad accident attorney. Gordon Bennett, a criminal I met later said his brother was a railroad Vice President. My husband's fraternity brother was Vice President of Coal Sales for Norfolk Southern, and my husband was Assistant Vice President in charge of Communications and Signals.
Whomever was behind all of this, has had the power to keep it concealed, keep my son hidden and afraid, and to have me watched and monitored, and they've gotten away with it.
My problems didn't end in Georgia but continued in coal country, Kentucky where I'd fled to wait out the divorce. In Kentucky I found my Georgia problems had followed me. There, I had animals killed, was stalked, had my phone and billing tampered with more than once. I was double billed for state income tax, had tire slashed, home sabotage problems, and stalked and arrested and harassed by police there. My cobra railroad medical insurance was worthless because the diagnoses were in error or the doctors offices were incompetent in handling paper work. I was afraid to use medical insurance it at all because I didn't want "them" knowing my personal business.
Some people will say, "it's the CIA," and others will say it's the course of a person's every day life to have so many encounters with the law in a divorce. How many people could say that in a 40 day period they'd been falsely accused in two instances, arrested in three different county jails, forced by law into a state hospital, handcuffed, shackled, intimidated, and in the same 40 day period her son disappeared, died in one state, was memorialized in one state, and then buried in another?
Before my Georgia divorce I had one speeding ticket in Virginia, driving 10 miles over the speed limit because my 5-year-old was late for the dentist. In Georgia, within a short period of forty days my life was totally destroyed by their legal "justice" system and I'd lost a child.
One of the attending judges in one of the arrests, Laurens Lee of Peach County, Georgia said, "If you just sign your divorce papers all of your problems will disappear." I remember asking the judge, "If I don't sign them, do you think they'll kill my other children?"
What they were able to arrange in Georgia and Kentucky is absolutely beyond belief. I will never recover from the shock of knowing these things happen in the USA.
There are many lessons to this story but one lesson is while executives might easily divorce their wives, they don't so easily divorce their stock options. It isn't easy to get a divorce from another person, but divorcing a corporation is yet another story. These guys have every available means to "win" at their fingertips.
My ex-husband, as assistant vice president, had a special, private phone line designated just for me in fact, with the number's last four digits of my birthday. The interesting part is the extra phone expense couldn't be justified as we seldom spoke more than 5 minutes on any given day, via telephone or otherwise. He seldom spoke of work, but he did mention a few things, about the secret code language of the communications workers, and that he couldn't understand "how [CEO David] Goode was getting away with misrepresenting the financial status of the company." It was during the Conrail merger, when CSX was posed to take Conrail and NS interceded in 1996.
The Communications and Signals office was plush, in fact, the richest in the old Southern RR building in downtown Atlanta, I was told. Somehow, something just wasn't right about it all--the casino trips, overseas trips, fishing trips, and shows provided by vendors; the $60,000 yearly bonus for keeping the budget; the golden parachute even if one committed a crime; and the secrets. The upper organization was so serious and conservative it was frightening and stressful to be a part of. And what could warrant tight-lips and secret code languages as the communications workers had, when merely moving freight?
As Attorney Mr. Schatten had said, "There's too much money against you to get the truth about your son," he never said whose money it was. FBI Agent Brian Blanchard of Louisville had mentioned the railroad had lawyers I couldn't win against, but I couldn't believe the railroad as an entity would have an interest in destroying my life or the lives of my children. It had to be my ex, and revenge and his connections to a powerful underworld that could bring it about. One way or another I would be silenced. And if it hadn't been for the internet, I would have been.
FUTURE BUSINESS LEADERS OF AMERICA
Will it always be a mystery as to how and why Viet Nam occurred? It seemed the poor boys were sent to war, to the front line combat and to endure incredible losses and tragedies. All the while the "select" in the selective service system seemed to live a padded existence, with open opportunities for and after college and futures painted for success. Who made those decisions and did the conscientious ones, the young Americans with morals and integrity get spent at the unwinnable foreign war while less desirable or devious ones stayed behind-- schooled to run the country and shape its laws and financial system?
My ex-husband used to brag at the Virginia Tech fraternity brother gatherings about the time he paid off the Martinsville, Virginia judge while in college facing a DUI record. It was easy, he said. All you have to do is get a good, strong hometown lawyer. That was the key to it: to be sure the lawyer was "old blood," from local family heritage, and well-heeled in the town. Because that is the lawyer that could get things done.
In Martinsville, with the DUI charge, the lawyer had lead him over to the judge's office, then the threesome walked to the bank. There, the judge nodded to the teller his approval of the out-of-town check, and the teller handed the $500 cash back. Back at the judge's office, the judge took the cash, and then tore up the entire file in my ex-husband's presence. Everybody was happy.
While boys were being killed overseas, these guys were having a blast partying in college and formed life-long friendships, and some would become powerful business relationships. They'd laugh over drinks years later about how they stole and butchered a cow in the fraternity house basement so they could save money on food. And they were particularly happy that the N&W railroad CEO, Bob Claytor liked Virginia Tech graduates for the railroad - particularly at merger time.
For what Mr. Schatten said about there being too much money against me, that would block the truth regarding my son, the money could have come from many directions. The questions are whether and how much money changed hands to have all the incarcerations and intimidations arranged to keep me at a disadvantage while they arranged his disappearance.
I remember asking my former Georgia landlord, Nell Stumpff, "How does somebody go about paying off somebody? What's the approach tactic?" And she said, "Well, you go in to your lawyer and say, 'What can we do about this problem?'"
Besides being musicians, "The Lawmen," Norfolk Southern's Atlanta railroad police play music and fix speeding tickets, too. It was a 20-hour drive each weekend my son wanted to come home from Camden Military Academy. On Friday's I'd leave driving 5 hours from Cobb County to pick him up in Camden, S.C., and 5 more to bring him home. And on Sunday I'd drive the long 10 hours to get him back to school. After we had been transferred to Georgia, the drive was considerably greater than it had been when we'd lived in Charlotte. He spent the last three years of high school at Camden. On one trip, the trip back, I was driving a short-cut home on Burnt Hickory Road having failed to make the bathroom pit-stop I should have made. In a rush it was dark and a daughter at home alone, and I was speeding 10 miles more than the speed limit which was 35 mph. I honestly believed the speed limit was actually 45. There was a 35 mph speed trap there, I discovered later after driving back to the area to discover the sign, so to better understand the speeding ticket.
The miraculous part of it is that the charges and ticket simply disappeared, just like Nell Stumpff's felony charges against me had disappeared. My husband, who was Assistant Vice President of Communications and Signals for Norfolk Southern Railroad, explained that the railroad's police had "taken care" of the ticket. I remember thinking everyone should be lucky enough to be married to a railroad executive. And later, I wondered how other former railroad spouses had fared in their divorces and whether their health was holding up and their children still alive.
Today I went to Cobb County court house to get some records, and stopped to look up to see whether there was a trace of that speeding ticket. There wasn't even a trace. I had flashbacks when I got to the Marietta Square, wondering whether the driver's window of my car would be doused with hot, sugared coffee as I drove, as it had been in 1999 when I was summonsed to the court. And I wondered whether a guy in dark glasses driving a Lincoln would try and clip me and intimidate me as I turned at the stoplight.
Nothing bad happened. In fact, I couldn't have been greeted by more accommodating, efficient people.
I've always wondered who paid the $8000.00 Central State Hospital bill when they had me court ordered there for 72 hours observation, and detained me for nearly a week through New Years 1999 just after my son's Cobb County funeral service. I was released from Central State Hospital after contacting the Mental Health Advocacy office and explaining my problems to them, and after my release, I went back to the hospital and requested copies of all the records. It was strange they had written, "spouse unknown" on the records, that I had no medical insurance of record, and later slapped me with an $8,000 bill. I remember telling them I was very much married to a Norfolk Southern Railroad executive, gave them his name, his office and home addresses and phone numbers, and assured them that he had full coverage medical insurance on me, and insurance should take care of the tab. Funny I never heard another word about the "tab."
(In Georgia "incurable mental illness" means an instant and easy divorce, and apparently, at least in my case, the diagnosis can be arranged.)
They tried to discourage me from getting the hospital records although I'd made a long trip, I remember saying to the clerks, "If it takes a 2 hours, two days, two weeks, or two years, I'm going to get a motel room and wait for those records." I had the records in about 2 hours. In Peach County with Nell Stumpff's arrest, the jailer had tried to withhold records as well, like the Baldwin County, Alabama Sheriff's department had done with my son's police records.
Later, in Kentucky all kinds of medical billing and diagnostic problems popped up with my NS insurance. So leaving Georgia didn't end my problems by any means.
After the visit to Cobb County's court today, the thing to figure out now is how the State Court could have handled a Superior Court issue with the dismissed harassing phone call charges. Tune in for the next chapter.
There were several social fraternities at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia in the 60's & 70's. One was Tau Delta, to which the father of my children, Gerry Sniffen, belonged. We married late and so I hadn't been a part of the original college day crowd. But many of the guys and their families kept contact and in touch socially for the years of their lives that followed.
I was so sad to hear that J.W.(Bill) Fox, Jr. died last week. Retired from Norfolk Southern, he was the best of the crowd, with a heart of gold, warm personality, and a great love for his friends. Bill was always happy and successful, good natured and compassionate. His railroad career lead him from the railroad's department of transportation to his highest spot, Sr. VP Coal Sales, with Norfolk Southern Railway. I remember when Bill's father, who had been V.P. of Labor and Law for Norfolk and Western Railroad, died. It's sad to know Bill died much like my own Dad in 1962 at the age of 39. A sudden shock is very difficult for families to bear.
Other Tau Delt fraternity brothers had professions that complimented the railroad, heavy equipment and coal industries, including Mike Quillen, an extremely successful coal executive with connections to many coal companies interests in several states besides being a director for NC based Martin Merietta. Bill Fox had been a director with Quillen's most recent company Alpha Natural Resources. Titus "Buddy" Wilfore, another "Delt" and close friend was an executive with a Norton, coal-country Virginia Caterpillar dealership, and then later moved up with a Atlanta Caterpillar dealership; John Jones, another brother became an executive with a huge power company, and John Skelton, a Virginia real estate executive. One of the brothers was a lobbyist in Washington, DC and there were many other successes that came from Virginia Tech's Tau Delta Fraternity. They stayed close through the years and Bill kept many members of the Tech fraternity group in touch.
Robert and Graham Claytor were from my hometown, and the Claytor Lake area, an area of SW Virginia where Virginia Tech was located. They were railroad execs, CEO's from the WWII Era. Graham had been Jimmy Carter's Secretary of the Navy, and had been closely associated with the late and former governor of Kentucky, Happy Chandler. Their father had been a VP at the power company. Claytor Lake was named after them. Folks at Delt said the brass at Norfolk & Western liked placing Tech grads in special railroad slots. I had always wondered whether Graham Claytor knew my Dad, a pilot, an Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, and of the same hometown and era. They surely knew of his father, my grandfather, foreman of the car shop, who was choice with his artistry in refinishing the desks of the high level executives with his personal touch.
My former husband of 23 years, native New Yorker, Gerry Sniffen relocated to Virginia and lost his New York accent at Virginia Tech. He rose from a managerial position with a Caterpillar dealership to become assistant vice president of communications and signals for Norfolk Southern railway. He had first planned to marry a coal miner's daughter but then found me, part of a long time railroad family. His railroad boss, Phil Ogden, former VP Engineering Norfolk Southern, affiliated with Okonite of NJ, is said to have once lived in Somerset, Kentucky and is board director now for RJ Corman Railroad in Nicholasville, Kentucky.
Virginia Tech is where these guys had a fraternity house, some of them lived, and partied. The fraternity was mostly a party crowd, but had a branch that was involved in drugs. The stories told later were of how they stole a cow and actually butchered it in the basement for food, filled the basement with sand and had a beach party, got caught lighting farts, and of course the familiar story of bribing a judge. There were all kinds of stories. They had a lot of fun.
Now these guys, several of them are some of the most successful businessmen that Virginia Tech produced. They had older fraternity brothers who were powerful and connected.
It's a small world.
Of all these Tau Delta, and railroad related success stories it saddens me most to see the first to go is Bill Fox.
He was the best.
R.I.P.
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This blog is written to unravel the truth regarding Gerard J. Sniffen, III, a very gifted musician who at age 20, disappeared in 1998 last seen by his mother in a Cobb County, Georgia divorce court.
Two months later he was reported dead in Alabama. While his mother was being arrested and harassed by police during the divorce action, with false accusations, his memorial service was held in Georgia, and his burial services in Virginia. The autopsy and police reports did not match his true body identification in that police reports indicated shoulder length hair, and forensics reports indicated 3-in scars at each knee indicating knee surgery. Gerard J. Sniffen, III had neither.
Attorney Kenneth H. Schatten of Atlanta advised her just last summer, 2010, that there was so much money against Gerry's mother, she would never discover the truth of what really happened to her son, Gerard J. Sniffen, III. He advised her to stop writing her story on the internet. He said, "Think of it this way, maybe they have your son somewhere and they've told him if he tries to contact you or his brother or sister, they'll kill you."
It was odd that Kentucky attorney Gatewood Galbraith said nearly the same thing. "You don't have any lawsuits. There's too much money against you," he said.
And Louisville FBI agent, Brian Blanchard, said, "The railroad has lawyers you can't beat."
Since when is a divorce involving a corporation? So the question is, when a person gets a divorce, do they divorce the spouse's corporation, as well? Do they divorce the spouse's fraternity brothers?
This blog about a mother, former railroad corporate wife of 23 years, and former political cartoonist and artist who refuses to live her life or allow her remaining children to live under death threats, oppression or intimidation.
It's about persecutions including false arrests, multiple incarcerations, continuing police harassment, intimidation and stalking.
It is about her successes in the world of the American Kennel Club where she produced two champions to later endure their offspring killed at her home. It's about...
..... her attempt to help solve the murder of Amy Frink of Shallotte, NC whose reported death was similar to the subsequent reported death and disappearance of her own son.
..... legal tactics used by attorneys, sloppy investigating and stonewalling of Baldwin County, Alabama police regarding her child's disappearance.
.....her attempt to find justice
It's a story that has questioned the justice system, and exposed the tactics used to destroy and render a person to poverty, completely alone and helpless.
It attempts to unravel a network of those who have worked together to keep the truth concealed, and some who tried to expose it. Besides Schlette there are several other musical connections mentioned within the blog.
This blog is about the determination to survive, the refusal to live under the oppression of conspiring criminals, persistent stalkers, and to unravel the truth and insure that other Americans can never be silenced, persecuted or intimidated to endure similar circumstances in a country as great as ours.
It is also about investigating the justice system and how deaths and investigations are handled and it's about correcting the system for the sake of so many people whose tragic stories have been buried within it.
Gerry's mother was told by two attorneys, Attorney Kenneth Schatten of Georgia, and Gatewood Galbraith of Kentucky there was too much money working against her. Mr. Schatten emphasized that she would absolutely never get the truth because of the huge amount of money that was able to keep the true story concealed.
The questions are, how and why would anyone with great wealth keep a child from his mother and siblings? What is an attorney's responsibility to his client? Is it a lawyer's responsibility to report to police crime, conspiracy or murder if he suspects it in his case?
If anyone can offer information please leave a comment or email fm_looney@yahoo.com
2010 proved costly for North Carolina with the discovery of ongoing corruption in its state crime lab. More than 200 criminal cases have been found as tainted by faulty evidence involving the State Bureau of Investigation's crime lab. Folks have been freed from prison after having spent years there based on tainted evidence or opinion. Three whose cases were in question have already been executed.
The Raleigh News & Observer has an ongoing series of articles with the stories of those imprisoned here. When a news organization unravels and exposes corruption it performs as the fourth branch of government many consider the media to be. It is encouraging to know there are news organizations that will suffer the present times to create a more respectable and credible future, particularly in the court system.
AMY FRINK & GERARD J. SNIFFEN, III - similarities
The case of Amy Frink, in 1992, was one that probably won't be reexamined. Her disappearance was similar to my son's. In 1998, about eight months after I tipped off the Brunwick County, NC authorities giving them new information to help them solve her murder, my own son disappeared, and like Amy, died in an adjacent state.
The cases were similar in that both were last known calling from a phone booth in their home states. Both were initially reported to have died in adjacent states, Amy in South Carolina and my son in Alabama. Both suffered disfiguring, bloody deaths. In neither instance did the mother identify the child's body.
With my son's case, Baldwin County, Alabama officers stonewalled my access to police records for several years. When I was able to obtain them, police records along with forensics reports proved the body identification was in error. Two shotgun shells at the scene denote murder and not suicide.
With Amy's case, initially she was reported to have been killed in South Carolina. Later it was determined she had been killed in North Carolina and her body had been moved across state lines and disposed of in South Carolina justifying a South Caroline autopsy and South Carolina investigations. But the killing having occurred in N.C. justified the N.C. trial in which two of five suspects were sent to prison and have since been released. The same investigator, Detective Bill Knowles, who investigated the famous Crystal Todd murder, was involved with the Amy Frink case.
I spoke with the state crime lab just this summer and asked what they might have evidence of with the Frink murder because it had straddled lines like my son's death, and the only thing I figured would have been her car. According to my son she'd been driving a Subaru Brat, and it was reddish in color. Amy had driven him back to the house rental at Ocean Isle Beach a few weeks before we received the newspaper regarding her death. We vacationed there often and Amy had known my son for more than a year, even having written him letters back in Matthews, NC where we'd lived.
According to newspaper reports, the car had been used to drive over her body after she had been killed. It was a horrible story and when my son gave me information he'd withheld believing he knew who had murdered her, I was compelled as a mother with deepest sympathy for Amy's family to notify police. It was my duty as a good citizen and as a mother to try and help solve the murder.
I had no idea tipping off police would lead to the loss of my own son, and that i would be stalked, suffer harassment by police in two states, and live in terror for so many years after.
When Baldwin County discovered my blog I was approached by Jillian Kramer, a journalist at the Mobile Press Register for an interview. The interview was short via telephone, but the article was published between Christmas and New Years, months later, filled with errors and omissions. It was obvious Ms. Kramer did no homework, as is proven in my post to address her errors. She had said she would "hit the ground and research," but was obviously writing the article for Sheriff Hoss Mack, who was in 1998, with John Garner, deputy that investigated the crime scene.
Just now there is the case in Baldwin County of a Mobile Commissioner, Steve Nodine accused of murdering Angel Downs. The first trial was ruled a mistrial. The investigation was inferior. The defense is attempting to prove Ms. Downs committed suicide. Baldwin County sheriff department was involved with the investigation.
I have been contacted through my blog by many folks, several in Baldwin County, Alabama who are upset and afraid for their experiences with the law enforcement community, and reports of inappropriate behavior among higher authorities in the county. I've been given stories of bribery, gifts, and even possible drug trafficking involvement by members of the department. In one instance a person has been intimidated to keep quiet for what he knows. There are people there afraid for their lives in exposing certain information regarding police corruption.
Just this past summer my Atlanta attorney, Kenneth H. Schatten advised me to stop writing my story on the internet. He said I was making people angry. And he said there was so much money against me I'd never get the truth. He also said, "Think of it this way. Maybe they have your son somewhere and they've told him if he tries to contact you or his brother or sister, they'll kill you all.
If good people have criminal organizations, media and police against them, who will advocate for them, and what chance does the country or any community have of coming clean?
I tipped off Brunswick authorities about Amy Frink's murder, and within a couple years I had more than 40 brushes with the law, police, courts, false arrests, ineffective lawyers and a nasty divorce to add to the stress. Before attempting to help solve the Frink murder, I had one speeding ticket in my life- ticketed for driving 10 miles over the speed limit. Is it safeer for good American citizens to suffer in silence and avoid helping solve crimes? Had I kept quiet about the Frink murder, my own son might still be near and the course of my life would have been drastically different than the ongoing tribulations of false arrest, harassment and false accusations I've endured.
The dead greyhounds, the incarceration and death of former officer Patrick Swiney, the recent train-track death of former Baldwin County deputy Mike Malone, and now with Angel Down's death, will her family ever be sure of what happened or who the killer was?
Baldwin County Sheriff's Department is also where Don Siegelman lost his race for governor. Something happened the night of the vote count in the basement of the sheriff's department that gave the governor's seat to present governor Bob Riley. It wasn't long before Don Siegelman was in prison in what has been sensationalized as one of the most noteworthy political prosecutions in American History.
Strange as Angel Down's family is connected to Warner Robins, Georgia, that's exactly where I was living temporarily and being falsely arrested and harassed by Georgia police when I received the news about my son's suicide in Baldwin County. So what's the connection? Are the two areas connected in criminal ways the media can't unravel?
In 1998, my son allegedly died there, too. And Baldwin County deputy Hoss Mack, and John Garner did everything they could do to prevent me from getting the police records.
WHY?
And now, Hoss Mack is sheriff, and his father, the long-time Baldwin County coroner passed away just last year.
Why did Journalist Jillian Kramer of the Mobile Press Register write a slanted and cruel story with so many false statements about my son's disappearance and alleged death?
What's really going on in Baldwin County, Alabama?
There is something desperately wrong with police investigations, and reporting in Baldwin County. With the Angel Downs death and the attempt to find suicide as a cause, news accounts indicate her hair may have been positioned, her body moved, initially unreported bruises were on her body and more.
The CBS account and some local reporting, which shows conflicts and confusion in evidence regarding her death, which can result in a permanent unfair acquittal or wrongful conviction.
My son, Gerard J. Sniffen, III, reportedly died in Baldwin County of a shotgun blast to the head ruled suicide, in 1998. His body was released by the state of Alabama after his memorial service had been held at Mayes Ward-Dobbins Funeral Home in Cobb County, Georgia. I was unable to attend any services because of circumstances created by his father and Atlanta lawyers in our divorce.
My Atlanta attorney, Kenneth Schatten, initially said he believed my husband murdered my son. He also stated in a letter that Private Detective Billy Carter had been over to Baldwin County, Alabama, talked to some of the police and knew more about situation but that I should not involve the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
I was lead to believe investigating Deputy Huey "Hoss" Mack that John Garner was sheriff. The police records relating to the "suicide" were withheld from me for several years with Mack and Garner saying I would need a subpoena and lawyer to get them. There was a runaround as whether the A.B.I. investigated, one saying they didn't and another saying they did. It was incredible. By chance, I discovered James B. "Jimmy" Johnson was actually sheriff.
I wasn't able to get my son's police records until 2004, and they were swiftly delivered by Sheriff Johnson when I contacted him directly.
The records indicated the deceased had shoulder length hair. My son never had shoulder length hair. There were shotgun shells discharged from the gun indicating murder instead of suicide.
I have tried now for years to unravel the mystery with little cooperation and plenty of stonewalling. Even the mortuary records held by Hoss Mack's father, Huey Mack, Sr, who was coroner at the time and owned the funeral home, required a subpoena and court order.
I haven't been able to get funeral records from Cobb County, Georgia's funeral home, Mayes Ward Dobbins funeral home.
The investigating deputy's (Hoss Mack) father, Baldwin County Coroner Huey Mack, Sr. died last year and was succeeded by another man, Mr. Small, who died within three months. Another, Mr. Vinson took Small's place and had been with the coroner's office for 16 years even during the time my son is said to have died.
There was more conflicting information in the forensics reports which can be seen at one of my blog posts indicating, that contrary to Hoss Mack's information given to the media, the body tagged as my son did not have alcohol in the body. Forensics reports indicated three-inch scars at each knee indicating knee surgery, or serious injury and my son had neither. Please see the links below.
I was advised that Mr. Huey Mack, Sr. had a powerful position at the State Forensics crime lab for many years although I have not been able to verify the information.
2008, I was contacted by Mobile Press Register journalist, Jillian Kramer after she found a blog where I had posted my story. She interviewed me by phone in the summer of 2008 wanting to write an article, and I told her I hoped she would allow me to proof the story and notify me before it was published.
Instead, she published the story without any warning or announcement during the Christmas holidays more than six months later. I was never allowed to correct any errors before her story went public.
The story she wrote was filled with errors and slanted to the police department with the sheriff Hoss Mack portraying my young son as less than the respectable boy he had been raised to be.
It was horrible.
The article misstated his age. The autopsy showed there was no alcohol in the body while Ms. Kramer reported via Hoss Mack he'd taken swigs of whiskey. And as I told Ms. Kramer there were no scars on his legs or knees of any kind, while the autopsy report showed 3-inch scars, one at each knee.
My son was not a thief, and from an affluent family, his father was Assistant Vice President in charge of Communications and Signals for Norfolk Southern Railroad.
Ms. Kramer had assured me she was going to "hit the ground and do research" before she wrote the article. She apparently did none, other than speak with the deputy (now sheriff, Huey "Hoss" Mack) who was the main investigator on the scene.
The Atlanta Attorney, Kenneth Schatten also just this past summer said I should stop trying to uncover the truth, stop blogging about it on the internet, I am making "them" angry and because "they" might have my son somewhere "they've" told him if he tries to contact me, his brother or sister, they'll kill us.
He suggestion indicates a criminal organization may have arranged the entire situation, and Mr. Schatten says there is "too much money" against me to ever get the truth. He won't name names.
So, if it wasn't my son who died in Baldwin County 12/9/1998, then who did?
And why did Hoss Mack and John Garner stonewall my access to the police records? And why did Coroner Mack's office say I would need a subpoena and court order to get the mortuary records?
It's important that Americans are able to trust their police departments if they are worthy of trust. The question is whether Baldwin County police have the skills or integrity to carry out a proper investigation in any event.
Just last year Baldwin County, Alabama Deputy and Detective Mike Malone was killed on the railroad tracks. Even before Sheriff Hoss Mack got the autopsy records, he reported to the press the deputy's death scene was scattered with beer cans. It was a disrespectful and unprofessional action by Mack, and I question the man's ability to have respect for families and to properly report or withhold crime scene evidence to the media until getting the facts with a thorough investigation.
Americans should be grateful to the media as it tactfully delivers truth to the American people including the exposure of incompetent or dishonest police organizations.
The death of Baldwin County Deputy Mike Malone
Ms. Kramer's article:
My Response to Ms. Kramer's article:
The Baldwin County Angel Down's murder
UPDATE:
It's being reported former District Attorney David Whetstone might be involved in a new trial for Nodine. I had written to Mr. Whetstone and received a quick answer after giving him legitimate reasons my son's death should be investigated.
Since that time, through this blog, I've been given information of other deaths in Baldwin County of question: Mr. Boyette, an elderly gentleman who died of snake bites; a man found dead in his car near the scene of my son's incident, shotgun blast to the face; a young African American man found hanging in a house ruled suicide but suspected otherwise by the family; among others. Was Mr. Whetstone the district attorney when these things happened?
Which of these deaths made it to the D.A's office? Do those files simply stay in the sheriff's department to be withheld from family members?
I have also received information that indicates former associates of the law enforcement community live in fear of death or retaliation, and have been intimidated in Baldwin County. Considering the death of Deputy Mike Malone the stories aren't easy to ignore.
This masterpiece was drawn by Gordon Bennett of Kentucky. He showed up in Warner Robins, Georgia, home of a huge Air Force base, during the time I'd been harassed, falsely arrested, falsely accused and suffering all forms of dirty legal tactics while being told my son had mysteriously killed himself in Alabama.
Gordon Bennett was the bad guy type bragging the big guns, the one who would help me find out what happened to my son, while he was doing his Bluegrass mob job. He said his Kentucky brother worked for the railroad. He bragged about being mafia referring to himself as a Highwayman. Even if he didn't help unravel the network, I figured he'd leave enough clues that I could find the trail with the answers - if I didn't get killed first. Gordon said, "Everything I buy is black." His old Nissan suv was black with a red pin-stripe and he'd asked if I wanted it.
"Why would I want it? I have my own car," I replied.
It's when he said, "That truck's got enough C-4 to blow up this whole air force base."
It's when I began to wonder who had staged this whole event and how Gordon was connected to the people who had abducted my son and concocted the story about his Alabama death. I knew the truth would eventually surface exposing a vast conspiracy spanning several states. Affluent people connected will wish they'd never been drawn into the good 'ole boy network, nor conned by high-level-liars and criminals.
Who sent Gordon? I found out more along the way. He'd said I should read "The Bluegrass Conspiracy." After my 1999 arrival in Kentucky it wasn't long to find corruption there as was the same in Georgia. And it wasn't going away any time soon no matter what authority I contacted, at state or local levels. Gordon was obviously protected by authorities and so were the stalking gang networks I'd encounter later. The state was rigged to allow the destruction of certain people skillfully. I'm surely not the first baited to the Kentucky trap of destruction, and probably won't be the last.
There would be no justice for my cause, but I hoped to live long enough to at least write about it. God did grant me that wish.
In 1998, in Georgia, I knew as soon as I'd received word my son was dead something wasn't right. I'd been in Warner Robins, Georgia for about two months and during that time had been given a "no seat belt" ticket for no other reason; and been arrested in three jails, court ordered to a state hospital, and harassed by police. In the midst of all that, I'd been told my son was dead. It was more than most people could endure. The police and criminals had started working on me there, obviously wanting me finished off in another state. It would prove to be a nasty divorce from the 23 year marriage to a railroad executive. The harassment and arrests coincided with my husband's petition for divorce.
A hippie type man had shown up at the door in Warner Robins asking for $1.75 to fix a flat tire just before the phone call came that my son had killed himself. I'd learn later both tires on the vehicle my son was driving had been slashed. Another man had shown up at the door named Buchanan. He had an earring in his ear and said he had gold records and was working with handicapped children. It was odd the man showed up at random, and after that musicians and thugs would be following me around from then on. I've figured since the musicians were doing a job. Buchanan said I didn't need the cops, I needed the mafia. I told him thanks for the advice but I didn't think so.
My missing son was also a musician, so gifted he had auditioned for a one-man-show at Kennesaw State University. He was writing and singing his own songs, playing guitar and keyboard.
As it tuned out, I had both, the cops and criminals as enemies in both states, Kentucky and Georgia. My son was said to have died in Alabama, and forensics and police records prove his identity was mistaken. Since criminals and cops were stalking, someone at very high levels was pulling stings to make it happen.
Had my son called from the Newnan truck stop payphone and returned to the car he'd be frantic and afraid to find the tires slashed. Someone was obviously waiting for him as the car was found sitting on the highway as he left it. The picture I received from Baldwin County sheriff's department nearly six years later after persisting beyond the stonewalling investigating Alabama deputy Hoss Mack, showed a "dead," tattooed leg that was actually alive, Why the green sheets for a dead body? If it was a dead leg, it wasn't my son's. My powerful, well-connected railroad executive husband, his mistress, and his lawyer and others involved had 18 months to arrange all of this, and reading Ludlam and Grisham conspiracy novels was his favorite passtime. His mistress's brothers were connected to the music world with their Daytona surf board business.
The person murdered in Baldwin County was said to be a 144 lb. thief, drunk, pot-head with shoulder length hair who'd had knee surgery some time in his life. None of this matched my son's description or character. Because two shot gun shells were discharged at the scene, it wasn't suicide but most probably an execution of a drug rat, or mule, well planned. The dead person was wearing a Crenshaw Machine Shop shirt and women's sweat pants. The clothing said to be my son's had been lain neatly folded just beside the door. It was a set-up. The whole thing had been planned. A person who's out of his mind contemplating suicide, swigging whiskey and smoking pot doesn't take his clothing off and neatly fold them, then change into someone else's, even women's clothing.
Mr. Crenshaw who owned the trailer, never returned my call seeking information, and I wasn't surprised.
Quality Quarters was the Richmond, Ky. motel Gordon Bennett had suggested. It was owned at that time by a lawyer/preacher in Harrodsburg, Kentucky named Michael Conover. Conover also owned the Shoney's restaurant beside it. In that area were New York Life, Ray D'Sloover Realty and CBS Employment, who employed a boy named Jonathan Rudy Hoskins to work at Quality Quarters. Later I'd find Mr. Conover at the funeral of Leroy Mills, along with some others associated with the sale of the farm I bought, including the late Elmer Begley, aka "Elmer Fudd." I'd also find later that Leroy Mills had some relatives named Hoskins as well. 2005, a fire in Knox County killed two children and sent their severely burned father to the hospital. Was this the same Hoskins?
Mr. Conover, a prominent Harrodsburg attorney, was probably the prominent attorney Leroy's brother, Denver Mills had mentioned he wanted a painting of, with himself and his brother, the three of them riding black horses. How did he know I was an artist? I had given Denver the price and it was apparently more than he wanted to pay. Mr. Conover owns Eagles Nest farm, near Denver Mills new home, where even the governor of Kentucky goes to ride horses.
Leroy died when he crashed his truck, and Elmer Begley was in the passenger seat having said to me before the accident he was a "hit man." Begley also said, "I killed a federal judge in Texas." He also said he and Denver Mills shared the same alias name: Bill Sutton. Leroy'd been to my house two weeks before he died, Begley saying, "Leroy wants to meet you." Then Begley showed me the secret handshake so I would be able to greet Leroy properly. Leroy came in and asked for a drink and he swallowed about 8 ounces of Early Times in one gulp, chased it with a diet coke. Slamming the coke can on the table he said, "You're not crazy are you?"
"Well no, not last I looked."
Two weeks later Leroy was dead. But before he died I was lucky he gave me a Z-pack of prescription antibiotics for strep-throat I'd contracted somehow. He'd cut his foot and didn't need them. I didn't even have to go to the doctor out here in the country. I hadn't had strep throat for years, even when the kids got sick. Because I'd found hypodermic needles and a bottle of hospital glucose under the kitchen cabinet after I took possession of the house, I wondered if the house I'd just bought wasn't contaminated. The former owner's wife had worked in the Harrodsburg hospital lab.
The farm had been purchased on a land contract deal with Senator Dan Kelly representing the seller. The deal was shady up to the bank financing where the bank never inspected the property and loan officer nearly recorded the deed for $25,000 cash less than the price paid. Attorney David Taylor spoke up and said, "Falsification of a deed carries 1-5 years in the federal penitentiary." I still have a dispute where a neighbor has erroneously fenced 3-1/2 acres after losing the suit for a septic tank listed by Linda Wil son realty as "private septic" but was non existent.
I'd wondered who sent Gordon and how, if it was true, he'd gotten C4 explosives. He said he'd been in stone work, and had actually been making Ten Commandment tablets and selling them. He said the creations were so much in demand he couldn't keep up with the orders. I thought it ironic a self proclaimed murderer and "highwayman" would be selling religious artifacts. But he was committed to his cause indicated by his drawing above, with perhaps a slight distortion of his own persona and religious purpose. He even knew where Jimmy Hoffa's body was buried, he'd said.
Gordon had a friend, Bobby New comb of Berea who'd said someone had messed with his friend. He'd asked them to stop and when they didn't he blew up the guy's car. "It's easy. All you have to do is fill a coke bottle with gas, stuff a rag in it and light it, toss it in the car. The car blows up."
Gordon had said he'd killed a man. Someone had videotaped the man assaulting a boy sexually and some people with bags over their heads had stood over Gordon talking as he sat in a chair. "You don't know who they are," he said of the men. But then he said he got his shotgun, went to the man's house and knocked. When the man answered, he blew him away. He said the men with covered faces had said some people didn't deserve a trial, didn't deserve a lawyer or jail.
He'd taken me to Halls-on-the-River, a restaurant mentioned in the Bluegrass Conspiracy as near where Melanie Flynn had disappeared. He'd also taken me to Banana's restaurant in Richmond rumored to be run by the South Carolina mob. I sensed at both places and some others, I was being viewed by someone unknown. Who was behind it all? At Banana's a woman sat quietly with her purse on the bar and Gordon said she had a pistol in it. She was apparently his watchdog.
Besides being a highway man, stone layer in cement, and formerly in cocaine, Gordon indicated he was also involved with pot. Gordon had access to everything it seemed, and later when I heard about young Kentucky girls being shipped to work whore houses in Anderson, South Carolina, and the Lakota mother lured with two pre-teen children, nothing I'd later find surprised me.
Cocaine people had landed on my musician sons just before my problems began, and Gordon admitted he'd been involved with cocaine before and been sent to prison for it. I figured it was all the same network, particularly after finding out the Mobile, AL forensics examiner was from Kentucky as well. They all span the south, grouped together probably known as the larger, "Dixie Mafia." And with all the Southern Presidents in the last 40 years, they've maintained their power as well.
I've come to believe the drug networks and syndicates supply the street workers and pawns for those in higher positions of authority. These guys are the armies affluent people use to take care of their problems. These do the dirty wok for mob dons, politicians, lawyers and corporate execs through connections. It's how they make their living and someone at the top of their food chain steers their course. It's like Begley said, "We do favors for Chicago, and they do favors for us." Begley had said his own organization went into Texas, Florida, to North Carolina and up into New York. His was "the Bluegrass." Others call it Hillbilly, Cornbread, or Dixie. It's all the same, just branches of a larger organization.
If affluent, and powerful people weren't involved with and making use of these criminal organizations they wouldn't exist. It was odd he mentioned Chicago. It was one of my railroad executive husband's most frequent destinations. His employer at that time, Norfolk Southern railroad has a hub there, and Motorola was one of his most favored vendors. My husband of 23 years was in charge of communications and signals for the railroads, and it's amazing how much trouble I had with my phones after he had the Georgia police order me to the streets based on lies. My "dead" son knew about those lies, and he also knew about the mistress, which was a good reason to get him out of the way for the pending divorce trial.
Gordon said he had a real, live lion. Why? I'd thought since it surely was for feeding body parts, he being the first person I'd heard mention a person being made into fish food. He also said he'd seen people get skinned alive. When we arrived in Kentucky stories were everywhere, and they weren't pretty. But why the C4?
Later I talked to my friend former Senator Clayton Loflin in North Carolina and he asked, "Are you over there with the Unibomber in Kentucky?"
"Maybe."
Curiosity sent me to Panama City in 2008 to talk to John Caylor. He had written an account that his father, police chief of Enterprise, Alabama, was involved with the Vanpac bombings that killed Judge Vance. It was an underground organization that had arranged it, and not Walter Moody who took the rap. John was also knowledgeable about stinger missiles having been stolen by some good ole' boys in Panama City from a Navy ship and an extremist organization in Montana that was particularly dangerous. Did these same underground organizations stretch to Kentucky? Ironically Caylor had a man helping him with some chores from Kentucky. Where did he find this guy? At the Hope Center. Lexington, Kentucky has one of those, too.
And Caylor had decided to run for public office as Panama City's court clerk. He had been in some trouble trying to access public records which seems to be a dilemma many Americans face today. It bothered John that government wasn't operating the way it was supposed to. Public records shouldn't be kept secret. I had been stonewalled by sheriff's deputy Hoss Mack and John Garner in Alabama for nearly four years when attempting to get the records of my own son's death. I was told I would have to get a lawyer and subpoena to get my son's police records. My attempts to get the Georgia funeral records have also been denied. What are they trying to cover up?
While Caylor was running for office, any chance he had at winning was quickly destroyed when a man named Mathew Caylor came to Panama City and murdered a little girl named Melinda Hinson. She'd been brought to Panama City from Henderson, Kentucky by her mother. Henderson, Kentucky is another area that shows up in the book, Bluegrass Conspiracy. Tracking Matthew Caylor he appears to have had links to Tempe, Arizona and Bradley Bryant had a business address there as well. Such a rare, and baffling coincidence for John Caylor! His campaign was lost before the election. He never had a chance to win.
And John, like myself, got into a mess he couldn't get out of, couldn't resolve with the help of law enforcement, but still has a great love for his country and hope for the little children who shouldn't grow up with criminals, corruption, drugs and crime on every corner. It's a "tight spot" to be in, like in George Clooney's movie, "Oh, Brother." Not so comical in real life, John, myself and many others live in a place called fear for trying to do the right thing, finding out too late that power often stonewalls truth. All that's left is the pen, because there are no lawyers daring enough to risk their own lives or careers to take the cases.
The underground organizations seemed to fit together, and then just recently I've found that Fred Tokars, a former Atlanta prosecutor involved in cocaine, who had his wife contract murdered is now in the government's witness protection program. Tokars, in a Tempe, Arizona prison, had gotten the goods on another mail-bomber, named Ortloff and helped the government solve another murder.
With that article came the revelation that Tom Thurman, FBI bomb expert in the investigations of Oklahoma City, Beirut bombings, Vanpac, Lockerbie, and more was also involved with the Ortloff investigation. Thurman now works at Eastern Kentucky University after having left the FBI. Some accounts suggest his investigations weren't of the quality required by the FBI.
My question is, having heard Gordon Bennett's tales, and strongly suspecting he had inside knowledge of the Atlanta Stock Market shootings, knowing his preoccupation with explosives and his position as "highwayman," what's going on in Kentucky and in the South? Is there some form of organized underground involved with subversive activities funded by drugs running around with C4, trafficking humans and destroying people's lives?
It's pretty obvious the organization is entrenched and a permanent part of American life. It's been ongoing and operative since the 1970's at least.
One thing was for sure. The Criminal Justice Training Center, division of the Kentucky State Police was not interested in my story, 2001 when I paid them a visit. Having taken a stack of papers to them outlining the players in the criminal organization I'd gathered thus far, Detective Jude said, "I'm going to look at these and then if I don't need them, I'm going to throw them in the garbage." When I called back, he'd retired. When I delivered information to the FBI in Louisville, November 2001, they did nothing but said later via phone, "The railroad has lawyers you can't beat." Numerous attempts to get police help from authorities help did no good.
The railroad? So my executive former husband and his position at Norfolk Southern was somehow involved in all this? Later I'd find that my husband's boss was a director at RJ Corman Railroad Company. RJ Corman has been implicated on the internet as being involved with the people of the Bluegrass Conspiracy from the beginnings. But is it really true?
One could dream there might be an underground, ongoing investigation in to all of this and find some faith in law enforcement, but even with the Patriot Act and Homeland Security, nothing was ever done. There was, according to two lawyers and some others, just too much money against me to hope for any relief.
Just this past summer, my Atlanta lawyer, Kenneth Schatten said I'd never get the truth, and have apparently spent the past 12 years of my life and assets fighting for it. He basically said money rules everything in this country and there's too much money against me to ever hope to find out what happened to my son.
Schatten said, "Think of it this way. Maybe they've got your son somewhere and they've told him if he tries to contact you or his brother or sister, they're going to kill you all."
It wasn't something that made me shiver. I've been living in terror now for 12 years even on the streets and in my own home following his shoddy representation in Cobb County court. So why would he believe he could terrorize me further than all I'd already suffered? And who is "THEY?" It's funny neither he nor Lexington Attorney Gatewood Galbraith were willing to name names.
So when Gordon Bennett said the Mafia runs the Government, was he was telling the truth, after all?
I am not the only former wife and mother to flee the state of Georgia to Kentucky. Another has taken an AK-47 bullet over her head through her kitchen window. Another has run to a northern state and continued to be stalked and monitored. Elmer Begley explained his Kentucky organization best.
"We run from here, up into New York, down to Florida and over into Texas. If Chicago needs something done, we do it. If we need something done in Chicago, they do it. Same for Atlanta."
The group is mentioned as connected in Venice, Florida, an apparent drug hub for many years. Naples and the gulf coast is a favorite for prominent Kentuckians and their summer homes.
Like so many of the street runners, and highwaymen types in this area, Begley died a few years ago. Had it not been for him, I wouldn't have survived. For some strange reason he told me so many things. Somewhere in his soul was a haunting guilt for his life, the choices he'd made, and desire to make things right. He'd taken me to meet a woman who was brain damaged from "breathin' too many of them [meth] fumes." I was moved emotionally with Begley's protection and advice. Whether I could live beyond any of this was still a mystery but Begley gave me the tools to know what I was up against. He knew he'd found a person he could trust with these words:
"I ain't never met nobody like you. You're honest. I just ain't never met nobody like that before."
1998, trying to be a good citizen, I gave Brunswick, NC authorities information I believed could help them solve the 1992 murder of Amy Frink. My son had known her the summers we'd vacationed at Ocean Isle Beach. A year later my own son was dead with many similar circumstances as Amy, and Gordon Bennett was knocking on my door. Since then the Sheriff of Brunswick Co. has gone to prison and research shows the police departments and criminals in both places, Brunswick, NC and Baldwin County, AL where my son allegedly killed himself have histories in illegal drugs. And the timeline of the Bluegrass Conspiracy seems to tie it all together.
Tommy Schlette of Stuart, Florida died in Melbourne, 2006, according to his landlord, Deb Rickard. She suggested I call a certain Florida police detective with any information. Tommy had told me my son was still alive and had inside information about it. His brother said Tommy's body had decomposed beyond recognition and that he didn't overdose as Rickard had said, because his prescription pills were all still in tact. I didn't call the detective, because I was afraid it might bring even more trouble than I already had. Tommy had Arizona connections, too.
It just goes on and on.
UPDATE:
Gordon Bennett had first shown up at a makeshift restaurant/bar outside of Warner Robins, Georgia that bore the sign, "Hog's Breath." I had stopped in for curiosity, as my husband had taken me to Hog's Breath Saloon just before he had me ordered out of the house based on lies. But the Hog's Breath we'd visited was in Key West, Florida. This Georgia version was a little shabby building on a back road. I was curious. I went in and there was little inside to speak of save a couple pool tables and a bar. Gordon Bennett came in and sat right beside me.
This is a very important link. The bar was established about 3 months before Bennett showed up, March 1999, by a Byron, Ga. attorney named Robert J. Aromatorio. It was in business about 3 years. What an odd name, I thought. Searching the name Aromatorio, I found it heavily concentrated in western Pennsylvania where the Senator is Jake Corman, apparently a relative of R.J. Corman of R.J.Corman Railroad in Kentucky. R. J. Corman donated thousands of dollars to the senator's campaign.
In one instance, 2002, Pennsylvania Senator Corman extended congratulations to Jon Aromatorio. It appears Aromatorio is a prominent Pennsylvania family. Corman had admitted to the public of his involvement with marijuana in the 1980s and was voted in regardless.
R.J.Corman of Kentucky also donated thousands to Tom Ridge who was Governor of Pennsylvania and became the first Homeland Security advisor under George W. Bush.
So from Western Pennsylvania besides the Aromatorio and Jake Corman connection, there are several links: first is Mike Kemp, a dog handler and groomer who had shown my dogs in Philadelphia at an international show. There was so much interest in my dogs an international photographer came and asked if they could put the pictures she took of them in a European magazine.
Second is Tom Tilinski whose ex-wife moved in with, started a business with and then, after our divorce, married my ex-husband. Tom had been in the business of nuclear waste disposal until September 11, 2001 during which time he was working for Steve Colgate in the sailboat business in Fort Myers, Florida. Steve Colgate is a native New Yorker and the Colgate toothpaste heir. Tom had attended the Hershey School in Pennsylvania, and Tom Ridge has been on the board of the Hershey Company. Tom Tilinski's son is said to have been a manager for the "Black Crowes" southern rock band, with original members from Cobb County, Georgia and the drummer, Gorman from Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Kentucky's Gorman is associated with the cellular, communications industry as my husband was assistant vice president of communications and signals for Norfolk Southern; and with attorney J. Marshall Hughes, a Republican leader who had been indicted under Governor Fletcher, and who also has business interests in Florida including Key West.
Third is my neighbor here in Kentucky since his 2004 arrival, Val Lambert, who acquires his race horses from western Pennsylvania. Val says he has a sister who runs six bars in New Orleans, three gay and three straight. When I'd told him I had a sick cat he was anxious to tell me if I needed anything killed he could do it. "It's easy," he said, "all you gotta do it put a bullet between it's eyes." Val moved into the area from Ohio.
The real curiosity is R.J. Corman. His business interests and political connections appear to be massive. R.J. Corman, according to one post, made the bulk of his money off Katrina. Having had a railroad in coal country I would have thought the bulk of his profit would have come from Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia Coal mines.
My ex-husband's former boss, Phil Ogden, formerly Vice President of Engineering, Norfolk Southern Railroad is an acting and working director for his company.
Knowing now Gordon Bennett was a stalker, and had actually stalked me the day he landed beside me at Hog's Breath, and having experienced so many horrors since living in Cobb County, Georgia, and in Kentucky, I've lived a very quiet life to avoid more horrors and encounters with "the stalking network." The people who have decided to control my life have done a great job.
But one thing the solitude allows is a person to observe and research. I felt I haven't made a move when I haven't been stalked but it was after I left Kentucky and went to Virginia, living safely at my mother's house, that I gained the courage to publish the links, documentation and connections with this blog. It's when I began to feel relief, slowly, but realizing I've gained ground against the evil ones involved in this. Sunlight scares them away.
Just like cockroaches, they don't like to be discovered.
A most odd encounter was in 2008, working a NASCAR concession stand for a charity in Richmond, Virginia, when a man showed up at our stand and said, "I'm a cop from Pennsylvania! We like you people down South because 'yall hate niggers just like we do!"
All of us Virginians working the stand were dumbfounded and quiet. We glanced at each other wondering where this "cop" came from and why any person would blurt out such a comment publicly, and in front of so many complete strangers. "Is this what cops are made of in Pennsylvania?" I thought to myself.
I kept it in my mind along with the other memories, determined that someday before I died, I'd unravel the Pennsylvania connection and mysteries. There had to be a Pennsylvania connection somewhere.
Then an elderly man, James Robinette, appeared in Virginia in three stores I visited within two weeks. He'd grown up in the coal mine area of Virginia saying his father had been a judge there; was a writer for the Tampa Tribune, connected in Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee, and his brother was connected to the mafia. A perfect stranger, he initiated conversations and after a while, advised me I should stop writing my blog, "I'm going to steal your story," he said. I told him to go ahead, I wasn't in it for the money, I had lost a child and lived a nightmare no American should have to endure and I was going to be sure with my blog, that no other American would have to endure the same circumstances.
The puzzle pieces keep falling nicely in place.
