New lead’ in girl’s murder

10-year-old Holly Piirainen went missing in Hampdon County, Massachusetts 18 years ago.

Massive police searches and a leaflet campaign for the missing girl followed, hunters found her remains 2 months later. No arrests have ever been made in connection with the case.

Hampden County District Attorney Mark G. Mastroianni will convene a press conference Tuesday to discuss the unsolved 1993 homicide of 10-year-old Holly Piirainen.

He will update the public on the status of the investigation, including recent forensic findings that have resulted in new investigative leads for the case.

“We’re very hopeful that this is what they need, what they finally need,” Holly’s father, Rick Piirainen, told the Herald yesterday. “We had met with them earlier this year, hoping they could put some pressure on to reinvigorate the case. It’s been 18 years already.”

UPDATE:

Investigators named David Pouliot, a Vietnam veteran who worked for a juvenile detention center, as a ‘person of interest’ in the disappearance of 10-year-old Holly Piirainen. Pouliot died in 2003. Investigators apparently found forensic evidence to link him to the crime, using modern techniques.

References Boston Herald, Telegram

Suomeksi

 

 

 

 

Mistrial Declared In Eileen Adams Case

Eileen Adams, 14 old Ohio schoolgirl, was supposed to go to her sister’s west Toledo home after school on December 18 of 1967 – but she never got off the bus.

Eileen Adams

A month and a half later, two Michigan brothers found a rolled up rug tied up with a lamp cord in a field.

She had a three inch nail drilled in the back of her heard and cord wrapped around her neck.

An autopsy concluded Adams had been strangled.

Case went cold pretty soon and lingered in police files for decades.

Until 1981 when Robert Bowman’s ex wife went to police and said Bowman killed Adams and she was a witness:

She said she heard some noise in the basement, she opened a wooden door and was stunned to find a naked young girl tied-up and ‘hanging like Jesus’. Her arms were outstretched and she had tape covering her mouth.

Ms Bowman said she knew the girl was alive because: ‘I looked in her eyes.’

‘I was horrified, I was screaming, I was shaking,’ she added. ‘I didn’t know what to think.’.

Victim’s was found hogtied with telephone cables and with a nail driven in her head

(crime scene photo/Daily Mail)

Officers found Bowman in Florida living in a shell of a burned out building. Inside the burned out building, officers found Bowman had suspended a Spider man doll from the ceiling upside down with string binding the dolls ankles. The string was also wrapped around the doll’s neck and down its back.

There was also a Ken doll that had a nail in the back of his head. Bowman lived with roaches, rats, and snakes which he named and treated like pets.

However prosecutor said there was not enough evidence to charge him.

In 2006, police reopened the case again at the request of Adams’ parents. This time, detectives tested for DNA, also victim’s body was exhumed.

Robert Bowman was arrested and charged with murder. At the time he had been living under a tarp in the desert in California.

Bowman went on trial in August 2011. Experts testified during the trial about DNA found on the victim’s clothing. According to testimony, the random likelihood that the DNA would be found in the general population was 1 in 4.15 million. Bowman’s ex-wife was a prosecution key witness. She stated that she was afraid of Bowman who threatened to kill her and their newborn daughter if she told anyone.

After about 2 days of deliberations jury was unable to reach a verdict and mistrial was declared. Jurors voted 10-2 vote to convict, Toledoblade reported.

Robert Bowman, now 75 year old, in court. Wtol.com

A gag order has been issued in the case preventing attorneys from discussing the previous trial or any future plans. Judge Gene Zmuda set an Aug. 29 pretrial.

Bowman remains charged with murder in the first degree and was returned to the jail after the mistrial was declared. If convicted on the charge, he faces up to life in prison.

UPDATE Bowman was found guilty of murder in the  first degree and was sentenced to life in prison Friday, October 28, 2011. Bowman said he intended to appeal the conviction.

Toledoblade.com

Daily Mail

Whatever Happened To Madeleine McCann

The new book written by Criminal Profiler Pat Brown called ‘Profile Of The Disappearance Of Madeleine McCann’ is certainly worth reading. By the way her book was pulled by Amazon.uk after McCann lawyers contacted them and threatened to sue them for slander. McCann continue to silence their critics.

I have not read newly released book by Kate McCann called ‘Madeleine’and probably never will.

Kate McCann, the mother of missing girl, refused to answer police questions simply because she didn’t like them. There is no reason to believe she is would be more forthcoming now, revealing anything significant in her book tha would help to solve the case. There are many inconsistancies in their story as also pointed out by Pat Brown.

Pat Brown in her book offers one possible theory what may have happened to Madeleine. And the McCanns don’t look good. But it’s possible something much more sinister was going on.

Intitially Kate and Gerry came across as carefree but still down to earth people. They left their children unattended in a hotel room, in a foreign country because they thought it was safe. Most people wouldn’t even leave their toddlers alone at home. Furthermore at previous night they were warned reportedly by hotel staff that an intruder was reported at the very same hotel complex, but they still had no reason to worry, leaving patio doors unlocked. Well, they could not say the doors were locked, because it would contradict their abduction theory. There was no sign of forced entry and the police found no evidence of an intruder. They also refused nanny, although a person upstairs complained about Maddie crying at previous night.

So there are red flags everywhere.

They never physically searched Madeleine. They never asked Portuguese police to re-open investigation which is suspended now. Such behaviour is typical in missing children cases were parents are involved. Their pals are all more or less oddbolls, perhaps Jane Tanner most suspicious, she is obviously a liar. She is the one who allegedly spotted the abductor, later saying it was likely Robert Murat who snatched the child. She thought she recognized him. Myrat is a British man living in Portugal.

Many have wondered why Kate came up with an abduction theory right away, she claimed Maddie was unable to leave the apartment alone but failed to give an explanation, why. All the drama – Gerry’s rage, Kate’s agony, hitting and banging walls (per Fiona Payne), right after they found Maddie was ‘taken’ sounds strange. She could have wandered away, she was almost 4 years old. And they were overdoing it, in an effort to put on a show.

Both Kate and Gerry were named suspects – arguidos – in their daughter’s disappearance/death, but they were later cleared because there was not enough evidence to prosecute.

Kate and Gerry McCann blame everything between heaven and earth, they damn Portuguese police, British and Portuguese press, former lead investigator Goncalo Amaral etc but hardly ever admit any responsibility for Madeleine’s fate. Meanwhile they probably go out jogging, sucking their lollipops, making media appearances to promote their fund and book.

So give them a buck or two but don’t’ ask what happened to Madeleine McCann.

7-year-old Illinois girl Maria Ridulph was abducted and killed in 1957.

 

7-year-old Illinois girl Maria Ridulph was abducted and killed in 1957.

Is there finally a break in the case?

She was last seen playing with a friend near her home in Sycamore, about 50 miles west of Chicago. Mushroom hunters found Maria’s remains five months later in a wooded area about 100 miles from her hometown.

Now a former police officer 71 rear old John Tessier, now believed to be known as Jack Daniel McCullough has been arrested in the 1957 murder of an Illinois girl. But he says he has an “iron-clad alibi” and had nothing to do with her disappearance or death.

In the early 1980s, McCullough lost his job with the Milton police department in Washington state after he was accused of sexually abusing a runaway in her early teens. He pleaded guilty in 1983 to unlawfully communicating with a minor.

The 71-year-old was arrested in Seattle last week after investigators said new evidence undermined that alibi. A police affidavit says his high school girlfriend recently discovered his train ticket to Chicago, but it was unused.Jack Daniel McCullough told The Associated Press in a jailhouse interview Thursday night that he wants justice to be done for 7-year-old Maria Ridulph. He says that he had traveled to Chicago for military medical exams that day – as he has always maintained.

McCullough tells the AP there’s a good reason it was unused – he never used it. He says his stepfather gave him a ride, and that archived military records from that day should exonerate him.

However military records a former police officer insists would help exonerate him burned in a 1973 archives fire that destroyed millions of military personnel records.

Suspect is being held in the King County Jail on a fugitive charge pending efforts to extradite him back to Illinois.

At a news conference Tuesday a short walk from where Ridulph disappeared 54 years ago, DeKalb County State’s Attorney Clay Campbell repeatedly declined to offer details about the case. He said McCullough could be extradited to Illinois within weeks, though a trial could be months away.

`This is a very, very cold case,” Campbell said. “I am well aware of the precarious nature of prosecuting a case you cannot prove, but we are confident that Mr. McCullough killed Maria Ridulph.”

Huffington Post

Daily mail: British police ‘developed evidence’ against McCanns, WikiLeaks cable claims

Last updated at 5:50 AM on 14th December 2010

The parents of Madeleine McCann had evidence against them ‘developed’ by British police as they were investigated by Portuguese authorities over the disappearance of their daughter, a senior official has claimed.

The UK’s ambassador to Portugal, Alexander Wykeham Ellis, told his American counterpart that police in Britain were working with Portuguese officers to build a case against the McCanns. He made the claims on September 21, 2007, according to secret diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks.

The cable does not specify what evidence British police are alleged to have gathered, or whether UK investigators were involved in the decision to formally name the McCanns as suspects.

Full article Daily Mail