Saturday, January 30, 2010

stuffed 7.stu.3 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Hadden raced downstairs to the kitchen and got some plastic trash bags. He ran out to his truck and got some rags and an old Navy duffel bag. He was back upstairs in seconds. Hadden stuffed Michele into a plastic bag and then inside the duffel bag. He fell to his knees, mopping up the blood as if he was swabbing the deck on one of the aircraft carriers he had served on. Everything that had blood on it was stuffed into the trash sacks.

His cleanup looked pretty good to his eyes. Nothing seemed out of place. Nobody would know what had just happened. Hadden threw the body and the bags into the back of his truck. He had to be at his chef's job at the nearby Chevy Chase country club in 20 minutes. Being late would be noticed.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

etched 33.etc.002 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

uch has been made of the way young Harold Shipman dealt with his mother's final months — justifiably so. Because his behavior then closely paralleled that of Shipman the serial killer. Every day after classes, he would hurry home, make Vera a cup of tea and chat with her — probably about his day at school. She counted the minutes as she waited, and found great solace in his company.

For his part, this is likely where Shipman learned the endearing bedside manner he would adopt later in his practice as a family physician. Toward the end, Vera experienced severe pain. But, because pumps to self-administer painkillers did not exist at that time, Vera's sole relief from the agony of cancer came with the family physician.

No doubt young Harold watched in fascination as his mother's distress miraculously subsided whenever the family doctor injected her with morphine. As the disease progressed, the already trim Ms. Shipman grew thinner and frailer until, on June 21st 1963, the cancer claimed her life.

Vera's death left her son with a tremendous sense of loss. After all, his mother was the one who made him feel special, above the rest. Significantly, her passing left him with an indelible image — the patient with a cup of tea nearby, finding sweet relief in morphine.

Etched upon the 17-year-old's mind, it was a scene he would re-create hundreds of times in the future.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

concluded 55.con.0004 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

"The Ghostbusters" task force discovered some of the most promising evidence during their investigation. One of the most startling clues was the revelation of one similarity, all of the murders occurred within 3 1/2 miles of one another. This led investigators to believe that the BTK strangler only felt comfortable killing in areas that were familiar to him.

During the fall of 1984, one of the task force investigators took the February 10, 1978 BTK letter to Xerox headquarters in Syracuse, New York. There a lab technician concluded that the letter was a fifth-generation copy of the original, which would make it virtually impossible to trace. In addition, the technician went on to state that the machine used to generate the copy was located at the Wichita State University library.