| To: PatP who wrote (873) | 12/23/2000 11:51:19 PM | | From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell | | | | Re: 3/7/97 - Charlotte Observer: Rush to Judgment
I was alerted to a very similar high-profile murder investigation in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the local police zoned in on one person and totally ignored what many consider overwhelming evidence of who the real killer was (including a tip by his brother-in-law less than 24 hours after the murder). And what evidence that may have been at the crime scene the police likely destroyed through botched testing procedures. If nothing else, it shows the mentality a police force can develop when they perceive that admitting a grievous error will destroy their credibility rather than enhance it.
- Jeff
=====
Rush to Judgment
Nearly seven years after the murder of his wife Kim Thomas, Dr. Ed Friedland's ongoing battle to clear his name continues
BY JERRY KLEIN
Editor's Note: Several attempts were made to contact Charlotte police for comments on numerous assertions made in this article. By deadline, no one had returned Jerry Klein's calls.
UPDATE -- Friday, March 7, 1997
Creative Loafing has learned that attorneys for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department filed papers yesterday (Thursday, March 6) with the court asking for sanctions to be placed on Dr. Ed Friedland and his attorney, David Rudolf of Chapel Hill, alleging that they are in violation of a protective order in the ongoing investigation into the murder of Friedland's wife, Kim Thomas, in July of 1990.
According to police spokesperson Keith Bridges, "With Dr. Friedland and his attorney talking as freely as they apparently are, we have asked for these sanctions because we feel this is not something anyone is supposed to be talking about. That's what the protective order is for, and if we can't talk about it, we don't feel anyone else should be talking about it either."
Reports indicate that the request for sanctions from the court includes allegations that Dr. Friedland's appearance on the Jerry Klein show on WBT-AM, scheduled for this coming Monday night at 8pm, will, according to a source who asked not to be named, "compromise an ongoing investigation."
Dr. Friedland, in response to the filing, said, "The police are trying to keep me from exercising my First Amendment right to free speech." -- Jerry Klein
He came up to me in the grocery store late one evening about a year ago, and introduced himself as "Ed." A little above average in height, slim, with an angular face and dark features, he said he wanted to talk about something I'd been discussing the night before on the radio. This is a relatively common occurrence for me these days, but there was something different about this encounter, something just a little bit odd in his demeanor. Something furtive, cautious.
He said something like, "You've probably heard about me," but it didn't register until after I was already on the way back home. He was Ed Friedland, the doctor who'd killed his wife, Kim Thomas, in the summer of 1990 -- or at least almost everybody in town assumed he did. Including me. And it felt more than a little strange to think that we'd just had a friendly little chat in the breakfast cereal aisle.
I thought about him all night. He didn't seem like a man who had slashed his wife's throat and left her lying in a pool of blood on the floor of their home for more than 14 hours, with her hands cuffed behind her back, while he went to do his doctor work for the day -- leaving their adopted infant son unattended, crying in his crib in the next room.
Eventually, though, my brief encounter with Friedland faded away. Then last fall, at Friedland's request, I began to look into the case. I talked to him, then to his attorney Dave Rudolf of Chapel Hill, and I've read a mountain of documentation, much of it coming from the investigations prior to Friedland's criminal trial; some of it never having been publicly disclosed before now.
At times I've felt as if I was reading a Kafka novel. Only this is real life -- Ed Friedland's life. A nightmare. From the earliest moments after Friedland found his wife's body, evidence appears to have been grossly mishandled by investigators with little or no homicide case experience, focusing on a man for whom there seems to be no concrete evidence of guilt. Meanwhile, as was reported a year and a half ago in a four-part series by Elizabeth Leland in the Charlotte Observer, a mountain of leads, tips, eyewitness assertions and other evidence against a different man -- much of it available to the police from the earliest hours of the investigation -- appears to have been largely ignored or dismissed, with little or no rational justification.
This isn't a fugitive's quest, a wild goose chase for a mysterious one-armed man. There is an overwhelming evidentiary case pointing directly to one person. Not to Ed Friedland, but to a man with a long criminal history named Marion Gales.
Friedland's quest to clear his name and regain his reputation goes on. He has filed a wrongful death civil suit against Marion Gales, which his attorney hopes will come to trial next September.
Friedland and Rudolf made available to me parts of the evidence and testimony that's been gathered as they prepare for the civil trial. Much more, including depositions taken from numerous Charlotte Police Department investigators who've been involved with the case, remains sealed by court order, at the request of the police.
After reading the evidence and the testimony made public so far, what comes into focus is a picture of a police force understaffed and poorly trained, with inadequate co-ordination of its investigative efforts and a capacity for irrational conclusions -- and of prosecutors left in the dark about critical facts known to the police.
Maybe I wouldn't have been so inclined three years ago to accept such a tale of bungling and injustice. But after what we've all learned from the OJ Simpson case about the underside of our legal system; after questions have been raised as to the operation of the Charlotte Police Department Homicide investigative unit -- why did it take them years to figure out Henry Wallace was a serial killer? -- and after watching what law enforcement, and the media, did to Richard Jewell, falsely accused of last summer's Olympic bombing -- Friedland's nightmare seems to be all too real. And it's lasted six-and-a-half years.
The most disturbing aspect of this case, as I've read those reports which have thus far been released, is the picture of the police investigation in deciding to focus on, and pursue charges, against Friedland. It's important to note that the police have admitted that at no time has Marion Gales ever been officially ruled out as a suspect in the case -- even when Friedland was indicted for murder.
When Friedland was finally charged, the essence of their case -- there is absolutely no physical evidence to incriminate him -- was their contention that he had a motive, and that he acted suspiciously in hiring a lawyer to represent him, several weeks after the murder. But Friedland didn't hire a lawyer until he had first voluntarily given the police several opportunities to question him, even after he had already been told he was a suspect.
They've focused on several things they thought were "strange." For instance, Friedland called his office on the way to work that morning and pushed back his scheduled appointments, something the police found suspicious. But they apparently never checked to find out whether that was a common, almost everyday occurrence -- which it was.
They've mentioned as significant that the couple's dog's bedding had been moved from one room to another. (The police presumably reasoned that no thief or killer would bother to do that, which means Friedland must have. But why?) Even if this was a significant event, there's no evidence that the bedding was removed on the day of the murder.
There are serious questions as to whether the crime scene was contaminated from the beginning of the investigation. Specifically, investigators used a luminol test to reveal footprints and handprints in dried blood instead of waiting until a luma-lite test had first been performed to locate hair and fiber. The luminol test is known to scatter or disperse any hair and fiber, thus meaning that the crime scene was changed significantly, leaving investigators unable to collect possibly valuable hair or fiber evidence. This is important because police have said that Gales, who is black, is a less likely suspect because of the fact that no Negroid hair was found at the scene.
There is a crime scene photograph which is clearly a "docksider" shoeprint impression, in dried blood, which means that none of those involved in the investigation left that imprint. (The blood had dried by the time she was found, more than 12 hours after the murder.) But it took Rudolf's experts to point out that, in that same photograph, there is the distinct impression of a second, different shoe, a fact the police completely missed. Could there have been two people present when Kim was killed?
At the time of the murder, the Homicide unit had only eight investigators assigned to it. Today, there are 22 to handle essentially the same work load. Because of that shortage of manpower, individuals with limited experience were pulled in to help interview witnesses and track down leads. Some of the men initially assigned to the case -- it's hard to determine exactly who was in charge at any particular moment -- had virtually no specific training in homicide investigations.
And there was, at best, only a haphazard shell of a system to pull together the voluminous information that came from informants, friends and relatives of Thomas, Friedland, and Gale, much of it available almost immediately after the murder. Police would interview someone, hand-write some notes on a legal pad, and then, in effect, drop them in an "in box," or a file, assuming something would be done with it. Besides relatively casual conversations among those involved, there is no evidence that there was any systematic process to "staff" the case. There was never, apparently, any specific sit-down meeting, chaired by someone in charge, in which everyone would share leads, thoughts or hunches. They thought they had their man -- Friedland -- and virtually nothing seemed to sway them from that focus, regardless of how much information came in pointing to Marion Gales. And there was plenty of that, which will be detailed a bit further along in this story.
Take the handcuffs which bound Kim Thomas, for example. No one, it appears, ever tried to track down the lead concerning handcuffs Gales admitted buying at a local Army/Navy store, until after the criminal charges against Friedland had already been dropped. And only after Rudolf gave them the information from the store's owner, gathered by Rudolf's investigator, Ron Guerrette -- that the store had once sold handcuffs essentially identical to those found binding Kim Thomas. But all that officer did, in July of 1995 -- after publication of the Observer series -- was to go to the store where Gales said he'd purchased his handcuffs, and interview a clerk, who hadn't worked there very long, and who was unable to give him anything concrete to go on. Rather than asking the owner, or at least pursuing this important evidence, he just dropped it.
Or take the information given by several fellow inmates of Gales', who, with no promise of special favors for themselves, contacted those involved with the case to say Gales told them he killed Kim. Rather than treating that information delicately -- no prisoner wants to be labelled an informant -- police investigators apparently went to Gales first, telling him about the report. Not surprisingly, that informant has, since then, refused to discuss the allegations any further.
Friedland has always said he'd left their home that morning at around 7:30, and that Kim was alive when he left. The police attempted to refute that, in proceeding to trial, by offering the opinion of forensic expert Dr. Michael Baden, who came to greater public attention by his testimony in the OJ Simpson criminal trial.
In an unusual move, Charlotte police went outside their normal channels -- bypassing local and state forensic experts -- to get a letter from Baden saying that, using a physical test of a certain compound found in the human eye, it was "far more likely" that Kim had been killed before Friedland left for work, rather than later that day. It appears to have been largely on that opinion that prosecutors moved on to a trial. But Baden's opinion was specifically contradicted as baseless and vague by North Carolina experts. One said there was no way he'd ever sign his name to the letter containing Baden's conclusions. Baden, in pre-trial hearings, stated that he couldn't say, within a reasonable degree of medical certainty, when the death had occurred. The judge refused to allow Baden's testimony to be included. Six days later, charges against Friedland were dropped.
It gets worse. During the criminal case pre-trial hearings in March of 1995, it became clear that the prosecutor had never been told by the police about the evidence pointing to Marion Gales. The prosecutor may have never even heard his name! When that was revealed in court, the prosecutors voluntarily dropped the charges. In some legal circles, this is considered to be a characteristic practice of the Charlotte Police. Since exculpatory evidence -- information gathered in the course of an investigation that points away from the defendant -- must be revealed by the prosecution prior to going to a trial, the police simply don't tell the District Attorney's office about anything that doesn't "fit."
Further, there seems to have been considerable confusion among the police who've been involved over the years with this case, as to who had actually been assigned as the lead investigator. No one seems to want to take responsibility. In fact, it's been re-assigned several times, and re-investigated -- with hints that no one ever seriously considered Gales a viable suspect. Even now, the same people who appear to have mishandled this case from the beginning are the ones charged with continuing the investigation.
But that investigation would have died a long time ago, if Friedland hadn't chosen to continue to try to clear his name. Police have consistently dragged their feet in releasing notes, tapes, evidence, etc., to Dave Rudolf, and, even then, the case has moved forward only at Friedland's expense.
One example: the police never did any DNA testing on blood found at the scene. Only in October of 1995, five years after the murder, did they finally take a blood sample from Marion Gales. Even then, those samples weren't sent to the FBI for another three months. As late as July, 1996, the police were still fighting Friedland's attempts to have the samples released to him for his own testing -- which he has to pay for himself. Finally, when ordered to by the court, the police handed over the samples. In addition, human hairs, not matching Ed or Kim, were found at the scene -- but they've never been tested for a match with Gales. And, to this day, the police still insist on keeping other evidence sealed from public scrutiny.
The police continue to say they're still investigating. But little or nothing seems to happen without pushing from Friedland and his attorney or media attention. Why? It seems apparent that someone, at least, in the Charlotte Police Department knows there's a real possibility that huge mistakes were made, from the first instance of the investigation -- and it's safe to say the officials are afraid that, before this is all over, they could be sued by Friedland -- both as institutions, and personally. With that in mind, what incentive do the investigators have to proceed, if one day they find conclusive proof that Friedland was wrongly targeted?
By indicting Friedland in 1994, the possibility of ever charging Gales with Kim's murder was severely compromised. Having charged one man -- just that one factor -- may, in fact, forever establish reasonable doubt about someone else's guilt, in the minds of a jury.
A Shock To The City
I remember the feeling I'd had that Saturday morning, July 28, 1990, as I drove around the bend on Wendover Road and saw the yellow tape strangely wrapped around the trees, while a patrol car sat parked on the street just beside the wooded lot.
You couldn't see the house, but right behind the wooded area was a nice, upper-middle class neighborhood, where Kim Thomas had been found dead the night before in her Churchill Road home. I'd driven around that curve on Wendover a thousand times. Across the street was the Grier Heights neighborhood -- poor, rundown, and rough, an area where Mecklenburg County had years before built its Social Services Department, the Mental Health Center, and other human services buildings, which stuck out like sore thumbs among the poor housing. Driving to work at Mental Health in the 70s and early 80s, I'd often seen the neighborhood's residents hanging out, sometimes fighting with each other. It was common to see a police car parked on one of Grier Heights's narrow, curbless streets. But just a few hundred feet away, with the four lanes of Wendover as the only physical separation, a twirling blue light and yellow tape couldn't have been more out of place.
The news of the murder was a shock to the city. Women especially were stunned; candlelight memorial services were held and "how-to-protect-yourself" seminars organized. Almost immediately, suspicion fell on Friedland, and the police did little or nothing to discourage that notion, before finally confirming it a few months later. There were stories floating around that Friedland had been having an affair, and that police wondered if he'd killed his wife because he might be afraid she wouldn't give him a divorce without a fight over money. The story began to be mentioned outside of Charlotte; even the tabloid TV program Hard Copy got into the act. No one else was ever mentioned publicly as a possible suspect. We were told Ed Friedland was cold, manipulative. Friends who had never considered him as the potential killer suddenly changed their minds and began to shun him. Kim's family, his in-laws, were convinced that he was their daughter's murderer.
Friedland, though, wasn't charged with her murder for almost four years. By then he'd become a pariah in town, but he'd also re-married -- not to the woman he'd been having an affair with -- and the new couple had started having kids of their own. But the sky finally fell in when a grand jury indicted Friedland on July 11, 1994. Television news coverage showed him being led away in handcuffs. Shortly thereafter, he was forced to resign from, and sell his interest in, his medical practice.
By the time the prosecutors dropped the charges, more than seven months later, in March of 1995, everyone thought Ed Friedland had gotten away with murder; that the police simply hadn't been able to put together enough evidence to convict him. He couldn't find a job in his specialty, and, although he was free, the police never cleared him. To this day, as far as the police are concerned, Ed Friedland is a major suspect in the butchering of his wife.
I'd always thought Friedland had beaten the rap. Except for a few momentary doubts, in the summer of 1995, when I read Elizabeth Leland's Charlotte Observer series, in which she included information about another possible suspect, Marion Gales, which made me question, for the first time, if this was as cut-and-dried a case as I'd always thought.
Ed Friedland and his second wife, Lisa, live in a large, upper-middle class house in an affluent Charlotte neighborhood, with his wife Lisa and their five children, ranging in age from one to eight years old. The oldest is Lisa's, from her first marriage. Ed and Kim's adopted son, the one who'd been left crying in his crib, is now seven.
Kim Thomas had been only 32 years old when she was murdered, but she'd begun to make a name for herself in her four years in town. She'd become a leader of the local chapter of the National Organization for Women, and a vocal supporter of abortion rights; she and her friend Nancy Verruto had written A Charlotte Child: A Guide for the Pregnant Woman. An article in the Charlotte Observer on September 3, 1989, described her as representative of, "a new breed of NOW activist -- less militant, more comfortable being a wife and mother, and interested in women's issues at the grassroots level."
Friedland, a kidney specialist, had set up his own practice, Carolina Nephrology Associates, and they seemed to be doing well, a bright, attractive young couple. The only hang-up was kids; Kim couldn't become pregnant, even after three operations, fertility drugs and in vitro fertilization, so they'd adopted an infant boy, less than a year before she was killed.
Friedland admits, though, that the couple had problems with their relationship. He doesn't deny that he'd been having an affair. He even admits he and his wife had used cocaine for a time, years before, while living in Miami -- something they'd discontinued upon moving to Charlotte. But there had never been any sign, their friends initially thought, of a potential for the type of crime of which he's been accused.
Even so, a review of the record makes it startlingly clear, in what appears to be a real "rush to judgment," that the investigators who first worked on the case focused intensively on Friedland as the target of their suspicions. In fact, police early on told reporters, according to the Charlotte Observer, that "the crime apparently was not committed by someone who would strike again and called a meeting to calm worried neighbors." They made that assertion while in possession of numerous leads pointing towards Gales, a man with a violent criminal record.
A History Of Violence
Here are the allegations against Marion Gales, compiled from various police interviews and court records:
A longtime resident of Grier Heights, Gales had an extensive history of criminal activity, violence and drug abuse.
In 1979, he'd made an unforced entry into the home of another Churchill Road woman and shot her. He'd gone to jail for that offense. But that wasn't the only time he'd broken into houses, especially in that neighborhood. Friends, relatives and acquaintances have testified that he'd broken into more than 20 homes, there and elsewhere, in the first half of 1990 alone. His methodology seemed to include getting to know his targets first, both the layout of the house and area, as well as the residents, often by offering to do yardwork for them. At times, he would even steal from their homes while the owners were outside.
He stole from his friends and relatives, too, and once set his sister's boyfriend's house on fire after breaking in. In the weeks prior to Kim's murder, Gales had been hanging around her Churchill Road neighborhood doing odd jobs. Gales had a drug problem, and had reportedly escalated to injecting cocaine. His friends and relatives were worried about him, describing him as "acting crazy." They thought he'd gotten too far into the coke, that he'd "never been this bad before." In fact, when he was arrested less than a month after the murder, for stealing a truck from a Charlotte company, he'd been carrying a syringe. At various times, Gales has denied, and then later confirmed, his cocaine use.
Gales had a long history of violent acts against women. He once tried to strangle and drown a girlfriend, then raped her twice. He beat another girlfriend so badly her face was unrecognizable by her parents; he broke her ribs and put her in the hospital for a week. He'd raped and beaten one of his own sisters and beaten two others, striking one in the face and grabbing her about the neck. He'd used a knife, a pliers, and a gun as weapons. He's admitted assaulting seven different women. He'd been charged with assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon. He's described himself as having a bad temper, especially when high. Gales has denied carrying and using a knife with a 6-to-8-inch blade -- consistent with the weapon used to kill Thomas -- although one former girlfriend says he did carry such a knife. Kim Thomas had been found handcuffed. The handcuffs Gales has admitted he owned are the same type as those found on Thomas -- the same type links, finish, lock, markings, and country of origin.
In the weeks prior to the murder, Gales had, according to various witnesses, become acquainted with Thomas, doing odd jobs around the house -- although he's denied ever having met her. One of Kim's best friends, who early on identified a photograph of Gales, told police that Gales had once come walking through the woods behind Kim's home -- from the direction of Grier Heights. The friend described an occasion where Gales came to the door of Kim's house, where he could watch the direction she took to her office, where she went to get cash to pay him for his work. Later, the police would find that her office had clearly been searched by the killer. Gales apparently had lots of cash the day after the killing, offering his brother-in-law $500 to drive him out of the area that evening.
At 5:30am, on the morning of the murder, Gales knocked on the door of a neighbor of Ed and Kim's, apparently high on drugs, claiming to be an undercover police officer, trying to get the homeowner to come out of the house. He was identified by that neighbor as having a disfigured jaw, the result of a gunshot wound. He was wearing, according to that neighbor and others, a red shirt and tan pants, and was wearing "docksider" shoes -- consistent with a shoeprint found in Kim's house. He was seen that morning wearing gloves; there was a gloved handprint found in Thomas' office. Later that day, he stole clothes from his brother-in-law, who described him as "acting strange, worried, and tore-up," and wearing the same type of clothing described by Thomas' neighbor.
On the evening of the murder, Gales was identified by friends and relatives as having scratches and blood on him. Later, Gales left the Grier Heights area to stay for several weeks in another part of Charlotte across town.
There is much more. Too much to be fully recounted here. Gales' photograph was identified by friends and neighbors of Thomas; his brother-in-law called the police, less than 24 hours after the murder, to tell them he thought Marion had killed her. Other friends and relatives suspected his involvement within days after the murder. And Gales has no alibi for the time period of the killing. The circumstantial evidence goes on and on.
Listen In
If Ed Friedland killed his wife, and has gotten away with it -- why wouldn't he just drop all of this and go away? If you were guilty, would you continue to push for investigations, at great emotional and financial expense, when there was a possibility something might point back at you? Would you take that risk?
Friedland has been unable to find employment in his specialty since leaving his practice in 1994 -- virtually anywhere in the country. He's a marked man, and has been forced to commute each week to Charleston, SC, where he works Monday through Friday at a clinic as a staff physician, while his wife stays home to care for their children. He wants his life back.
Maybe soon, he'll get it. Rudolf is tenacious in his efforts to pursue Marion Gales as well as questions involving the police handling of the investigation. Depositions in Friedland's civil suit against Gales have continued to be taken as recently as two weeks ago. Last week, Rudolf went to depose Gales in prison, but Gales refused to say anything. He says he's hiring a lawyer.
And so I continue to ask myself, over and over, whether I'm missing something, whether Ed Friedland has managed to con me -- but I just don't see it. It would be easy to resort to some kind of journalistic shield of detachment, of impartiality, to qualify my remarks. But, after reviewing mounds and mounds of documentation -- I can't do that. Put plainly, I started out believing Ed Friedland was a murderer who'd gotten away, but I don't anymore.
I think he's innocent. And I think he's been horribly treated by investigators -- I use that word guardedly -- who don't seem to have been able to see the plain truth in front of them, who've needed Dave Rudolf to show them, logically and in great detail, what should have been obvious from Day One.
Next Monday night, at 8pm, Ed Friedland will be my guest on WBT radio for his first live broadcast interview. You'll get to hear his story, in greater detail than is possible here, as I have -- from his own mouth. I know it's hard to give up impressions we've all shared, judgments we've all rendered, about this case, for years.
But we owe it to him, finally, to listen. And the police and other law enforcement officials around here owe him the effort -- the courage -- to own up to their mistakes. I don't think there was anything intentionally done of harm to Friedland, but that doesn't excuse a gross injustice. It's time, I think, for the police to clear his name, once and for all. It's the least they, and we, can do. After six-and-a-half years.
Jerry Klein's talk-show on 1110AM WBT (99.3FM) airs Monday-Friday, 8-11pm, and Sunday 9-11pm. Check out Jerry's Internet web-site at: jerryk.com
Copyright 1997 Creative Loafing Charlotte, Inc. - web@creativeloafing.com |
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| To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (875) | 12/24/2000 1:37:17 AM | | From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell | | | | Re: Follow-up to Kim Thomas murder
Kim Thomas was murdered on July 27th, 1990. Ed Friedland, the victim's husband, was labeled the prime suspect from the start. Friedland always maintained his innocence and undertook his own investigation to find the real killer. Four years later, in 1994, he was finally indicted for it, but prosecutors dismissed the charge in 1995 for lack of evidence. In March of 1995 Friedland finally learned of Marion Gales, against whom, on March 29, 1996, Friedland filed and won a wrongful-death suit and was awarded $8.6 million by the jury. Gales asked for and was granted a judgment notwithstanding the jury verdict (JNOV), the judge ruling the statute of limitations had long since expired. On Dec. 29, 1998, the Court of Appeals of North Carolina reversed the opinion on the grounds Gales actively and deliberately concealed facts that would have led to his discovery as the killer (see rmwflaw.com. Friedland then sued the city of Charlotte and four police investigators, claiming they botched the investigation, maligned him and ignored Gales who had a history of area break-ins. The case is expected to go to trial next year. In May of 1998 the murder was featured on NBC's Dateline. Despite the jury finding against Gales, the Thomas murder is still officially listed as unsolved.
- Jeff |
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| To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (874) | 1/15/2001 7:58:27 PM | | From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell | | | | Re: 1/15/01 - NH Register: City police coverup still a mystery
City police coverup still a mystery
William Kaempffer, Register Staff January 15, 2001
NEW HAVEN — Despite two lengthy investigations, motive remains a mystery in the case of evidence hidden from another police department as a murder remained unsolved.
Neither a state grand jury nor internal police probe found answers to the key question: Why would a top detective here abruptly halt a probe and withhold the identity of a possible suspect?
Last month, Judge Carmen Elisa Espinosa, the one-person grand jury, reported a six-month probe and 57 witnesses failed to reveal a reason. Her probe led to the arrest of police Capt. Brian Sullivan, the former head of detectives.
And last week, police internal affairs investigators also reported they didn’t discover why the alleged cover-up occurred.
"We don’t know the motive," said police Chief Melvin H. Wearing.
But Wearing said that it could have been as simple as one police officer stonewalling an investigation out of personal animosity.
Wearing said he believed the entire episode could have stemmed from a personal dislike between Sullivan and his counterpart in North Haven, Capt. Thomas Habib.
"It was no more than that," Wearing speculated last week.
Another theory inside the police department was examined by internal affairs.
According to the police probe, the Internal Values and Ethics unit examined a rumored link between the 1994 murder of a New Haven police lieutenant’s son and the 1996 murder of Philip Cusick, the case in which police allegedly hid evidence.
The theory maintains that the suspected killer in the Cusick case was protected by police because of informant ties to New Haven Lt. William L. White.
The lieutenant’s son, Tyler White, was murdered in Bridgeport with another man, Arosmo Diaz, in 1994 in a gang-related shooting. Diaz was believed to have been an informant for White.
The possible suspect in the Cusick killing is Diaz’s half-brother.
Internal affairs investigated whether Diaz’s alleged ties with Lt. White may have led police to protect the Cusick suspect.
Capt. Bryan Kearney and Lt. John Minardi, both of internal affairs, said they reviewed New Haven informant files to look for connections. They did not find Diaz, his half-brother or the man who named the half-brother as a suspect in the Cusick killing as registered informants with the department.
Kearney and Minardi also checked New Haven and Bridgeport files on the White/Diaz double murder looking for "common elements."
According to the internal report, the investigators found the name of the possible suspect in the Cusick murder in a New Haven police report about the Bridgeport murder.
They also spoke with the FBI and learned that the possible suspect in the Cusick murder had not been a police informant in the White/Diaz slayings.
In the end, Kearney reported they could neither prove or disprove the theory.
"We did not find any concrete evidence to establish a link between the two cases or anything that suggested wrongdoing by Lieutenant White," Kearney wrote.
Kearney later wrote in the report that "we can not establish a connection between the two cases or substantiate the rumors at this time."
Cusick was killed in November 1996, some two years after White and Diaz died.
Police believe Cusick died in a soured drug deal in New Haven but his body was dropped outside his parents’ home in North Haven.
©New Haven Register 2001
zwire.com |
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| To: ecommerceman who wrote (878) | 1/24/2001 10:06:54 PM | | From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell | | | | Re: 1/24/01 - Hartford Courant: Suspect In Yale Death Sues Courant For Libel
Suspect In Yale Death Sues Courant For Libel
The Hartford Courant
January 24, 2001
A former Yale University faculty member who has been identified by police as a suspect in the stabbing death of a student has accused The Courant of publishing false statements about him, in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
James Van de Velde, who has not been charged in the 1998 slaying of Yale senior Suzanne Jovin, accused the newspaper of printing "false, defamatory and malicious" information concerning his conduct with two local television reporters.
The article disputed by Van de Velde, published Jan. 13, 1999, said both television reporters complained about him to the New Haven police. In the lawsuit, filed in Hartford Superior Court, Van de Velde called the newspaper's reporting on the television reporters "libelous."
"We believe the story was accurate," Clifford Teutsch, the Courant's managing editor, said Tuesday.
Van de Velde's lawyer, David T. Grudberg of New Haven, could not be reached for comment. Van de Velde now lives in Virginia.
Van de Velde, who was Jovin's senior essay adviser, maintains his innocence.
ctnow.com |
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| To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (879) | 1/25/2001 9:25:37 AM | | From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell | | | | Re: 1/25/01 - NH Register (front page headline): Ex-Yale lecturer sues Quinnipiac
Ex-Yale lecturer sues Quinnipiac
Walter Kita, Register Staff January 25, 2001
[picture]
Van de Velde
NEW HAVEN — A former Yale instructor identified as a suspect in the slaying of one of his students is suing Quinnipiac University for defamation, claiming the school wrongfully dismissed him from a master’s degree program soon after news reports linked him to the case.
James R. Van de Velde alleges that Quinnipiac officials made "false, defamatory and malicious" statements about him to reporters in their explanations for his dismissal from the school’s broadcast journalism program.
The suit does not specify the amount of financial damages being sought. It was filed Wednesday in Superior Court.
Quinnipiac has cited academic reasons for its decision, but Van de Velde and his attorney, David Grudberg, maintain the dismissal was prompted by negative publicity stemming from a police investigation into the murder of Yale senior Suzanne Jovin. The case drew international media attention.
Wednesday’s suit comes one day after Van de Velde and Grudberg notified the Hartford Courant of their intent to sue the paper for libel stemming from a Jan. 13, 1999, story related to the Jovin case.
"Today, I begin my effort to hold certain Connecticut institutions and individuals accountable for their misconduct, slander and false statements," Van de Velde said Wednesday in a statement issued through Grudberg’s office.
Van de Velde has not been charged and continues to deny any involvement in Jovin’s killing.
Van de Velde was an instructor in Yale’s political science department and was Jovin’s thesis adviser at the time of her death.
She was stabbed to death in the city’s East Rock neighborhood Dec. 4, 1998.
In January 1999, police named Van de Velde as belonging to a "pool of suspects" in the case. No other suspects were named. Soon after, Yale relieved him of his teaching duties, saying his presence in the classroom would be a "major distraction" to students.
Yale did not renew his contract for the fall 1999 semester.
"Over the last 24 months I have learned a great deal about the conduct of the administrations of Yale and Quinnipiac universities and how I became embroiled in the investigation," Van de Velde’s statement reads. "Today, I hold officials at Quinnipiac University accountable for their libel and extending the insinuation that I could have been responsible for the murder of my student."
His suit against Quinnipiac alleges that as a result of the Hamden school’s actions he has "suffered loss of employment and employment opportunity" as well as "pain, anxiety and mental anguish and humiliation."
Van de Velde lives in Virginia, according to the suit. Grudberg would not comment on Van de Velde’s employment status.
Quinnipiac’s director of public relations, John Morgan, refused to comment on the matter Wednesday.
Morgan is one of the Quinnipiac officials named in the suit. The others are school President John Lahey, journalism Professor Paul Steinle and Lynne Bushnell, the school’s vice president for communications.
Van de Velde began taking classes in Quinnipiac’s master’s program in broadcast journalism in September 1998, just as he was preparing to begin teaching international diplomacy at Yale.
Steinle sent him a dismissal notification on Dec. 10, one day after the Register reported that a Yale faculty member had emerged as a suspect in the Jovin slaying.
The story did not name Van de Velde. Print and television news media subsequently reported that police had questioned him for several hours in connection with the case.
Soon after Yale relieved him of his teaching duties in January 1999, the Register reported on Quinnipiac’s decision to oust Van de Velde from the broadcast journalism program. The Jan. 15 story quoted a source as saying that Van de Velde’s failure to complete two internships was the impetus for the move. Those are the same reasons Steinle cited in his December letter to Van de Velde, according to the suit.
Van de Velde maintains he completed all the course requirements.
"The January 15th false statements (by the source) were a pretext attempting to justify Quinnipiac’s suspension of (Van de Velde) after he was publicly linked to a high profile murder investigation," the lawsuit reads.
The separate lawsuit against the Courant was filed over a Jan. 13, 1999, report that two female television reporters had complained to New Haven police that he was harassing them. The women had met Van de Velde while he worked internships at two stations prior to the Jovin slaying.
The suit accuses the Courant of printing "false, defamatory and malicious" information.
"We believe the story was accurate," said Clifford Teutsch, the newspaper’s managing editor.
In a separate statement issued Wednesday Van de Velde criticized the New Haven police department for its handling of the Jovin case.
Van de Velde called the police department’s investigation "atrocious." The Associated Press contributed to this story.
©New Haven Register 2001
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| To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (880) | 1/25/2001 9:33:32 AM | | From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell | | | | Re: 1/25/01 - YDN (front page lead story): Van de Velde files defamation suits; Hartford paper among defendents
Published Thursday, January 25, 2001
Van de Velde files defamation suits
Hartford paper among defendents
BY ANDREW PACIOREK
YDN Staff Reporter
Former Yale lecturer James Van de Velde '82 is separately suing the Hartford Courant and Quinnipiac University for allegedly making defamatory statements about him subsequent to the 1998 murder of Suzanne Jovin '99.
More lawsuits may be on the way. Van de Velde has repeatedly said he intends to sue both Yale and the New Haven Police Department, although neither he nor his lawyer, David Grudberg '82, would comment on the possibility of further suits Wednesday.
"Today, I begin my effort to hold certain Connecticut institutions and individuals accountable for their misconduct, slander and false statements, which wrongly propelled my name into the Suzanne Jovin murder investigation," Van de Velde said in a written statement.
Van de Velde is the only suspect in the Jovin case whom New Haven police have named. He has never been charged in connection with the murder.
The Courant suit concerns a Jan. 13, 1999, front-page article in which the newspaper, citing an unnamed source, reported that two television news reporters had filed complaints about Van de Velde with the New Haven Police Department.
One of the two reporters complained because Van de Velde had harassed her after she broke off a "fledgling relationship," the Courant reported, citing a police source.
But Van de Velde said Wednesday the Courant's reporting was false, defamatory and malicious and called it "slander." Moreover, he said the Courant neither sought his comment on the harassment issue nor confirmed the supposed complaints with the two women thought to have made them.
"The journalists of the Hartford Courant either wrote utterly false information to defame and slander me, information which they should have known to be false, or they were manipulated by a New Haven police officer who was bent on insinuating my guilt in the Suzanne Jovin murder case by feeding misinformation to gullible journalists," Van de Velde said.
The Courant, however, is standing by the article.
"We believe the story was accurate," Courant Managing Editor Clifford Teutsch said. He declined to elaborate or comment further on the lawsuit.
If Teutsch's belief is wrong, the paper could be in trouble.
"If [the report] is not true, it's very likely actionable libel," Quinnipiac Law School professor William Dunlap said.
The basis for the Quinnipiac lawsuit is considerably more complicated. Van de Velde was working towards a master's degree in broadcast journalism and taking a class at the university when Jovin was murdered Dec. 4, 1998.
After Van de Velde's name appeared as a suspect in local newspapers, the head of the Quinnipiac program, Paul Steinle, sent Van de Velde a letter suspending him, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says the letter based the suspension on the circumstances surrounding two internships held by Van de Velde with local television stations. But Van de Velde said the information regarding the internships was false and said he informed Steinle so.
About a month later, Jan. 15, 1999, a report in the New Haven Register cited "sources" in revealing the substance of the letter, which was "an academic record required to be kept confidential under federal law." The lawsuit maintains the only way the Register could have obtained the information is if Steinle or some other Quinnipiac officer had leaked it.
Because the information was false, the lawsuit says, its revelation to the press was an act of defamation.
In addition, Quinnipiac spokeswoman Lynn Bushnell told the New York Times Jan. 28, 1999, that Quinnipiac dismissed Van de Velde for "academic reasons." Van de Velde said he had an "excellent academic reputation" that was ruined by Bushnell's false statement, another alleged act of defamation.
John Morgan, Quinnipiac's director of public relations and a defendant named in the lawsuit, declined to comment on behalf of the university on any subject related to the lawsuit.
"The reason they decline to tell you why I was dismissed is because they made up reasons to kick me out of their program, then refused to allow me to follow the school's procedures to appeal the suspension," Van de Velde told the Yale Daily News last night in an e-mail. "Their behavior was outrageous."
Shortly after Quinnipiac terminated his enrollment, Yale College Dean Richard Brodhead relieved Van de Velde of his teaching responsibilities in the Political Science Department for the spring semester. Yale also declined to renew his one-year lecturer's contract at the end of the term.
Van de Velde has said he plans to sue Yale and the NHPD and has repeatedly denounced both.
"The conduct of the New Haven police in the Jovin case has been atrocious," Van de Velde said. "It is astounding how little which has been published and insinuated is remotely true. The community allows such misconduct to stand at its own peril."
Through spokeswoman Judith Mongillo, New Haven Police Chief Melvin H. Wearing declined to comment Wednesday on the Courant suit or the NHPD's role in providing facts to the newspaper.
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| To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (881) | 1/25/2001 9:38:36 AM | | From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell | | | | Re: 1/25/01 - (YDN Editorial): James Van de Velde takes on the press
THE NEWS' VIEW
James Van de Velde takes on the press
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Published 1/25/01
The two-year long saga that began when former Yale lecturer James Van de Velde was publically named a suspect in the murder of Suzanne Jovin '99 has sorely tested the media's standards and two universities' principles. This week, a handful of journalists and public relations officers who helped frame Van de Velde's public record in the last 25 months are facing down accusations of libel and defamation in cases that could have a chilling effect on the local media and how they gather information.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in New Haven Superior Court, lawyers for Van de Velde accuse communications staffers at Quinnipiac University, where Van de Velde was enrolled in a master's program in 1998, of defaming him by allegedly releasing the contents of a private letter to the New Haven Register terminating his enrollment after he became a suspect. The lawsuit also accuses a Quinnipiac officer of defamation for a quote attributed to her in the New York Times. In a second lawsuit, Van de Velde accuses The Hartford Courant, the state's largest newspaper, of libel for publishing "false, defamatory and malicious" information concerning his conduct with two local television reporters.
The question at the heart of the suits is, of course, the law and whether it was broken in either case; but there is also the unique relationship between reporters and their sources, actual or alleged. Both lawsuits -- which refer to sources unnamed by Van de Velde's attorneys or the newspapers in the cases -- appear to be troubling attempts to smoke out the identities of confidential sources, a prospect that if carried out would impinge on a relationship vital to the operation of a free press. The lawsuit against Quinnipiac is particularly startling because it threatens to interpose a court between a local news reporter and protected sources while seeking compensation for the alleged destruction of a suspect's reputation.
The public story of Van de Velde's last two years, meticulously chronicled in papers throughout Connecticut and the nation, raises serious and legitimate legal questions. A trial that attempts to reveal the identities of media sources in the case is likely to raise questions of equal gravity.
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| To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (882) | 1/25/2001 9:45:53 AM | | From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell | | | | Re: 1/25/01 - AP/Hartford Courant: Van De Velde Sues Quinnipiac University
CONNECTICUT » APWIRE
Van De Velde Sues Quinnipiac University
Associated Press
January 25, 2001
NEW HAVEN Conn. (AP)- A second libel lawsuit, this time against Quinnipiac University, has been filed by a former Yale instructor who had been labeled a suspect in the killing of one of his students.
The lawsuit filed in Superior Court by James R. Van de Velde Wednesday claims the school wrongfully dismissed him from a masters degree program soon after news reports linked him to the case.
The lawsuit claims Quinnipiac officials made "false, defamatory and malicious" statements about Van de Velde in their explanations for his dismissal from the school's broadcast journalism program.
The Quinnipiac suit was filed a day after Van de Velde sued the Hartford Courant over a Jan. 13, 1999, report that two female television reporters had complained to New Haven police that he was harassing them. The women had met Van de Velde while he worked internships at two stations prior to the Jovin slaying.
The suit accuses the Courant of printing "false, defamatory and malicious" information.
"We believe the story was accurate," said Clifford Teutsch, the newspaper's managing editor. sought.
Quinnipiac has cited academic reasons for its decision, but Van de Velde and his attorney, David Grudberg, maintain the dismissal was prompted by negative publicity stemming from a police investigation into the murder of Yale senior Suzanne Jovin.
New Haven police have said Van de Velde was in "a pool of suspects" in the Dec. 4, 1998, death of senior Suzanne Jovin, but he has never been charged.
Van de Velde, who was Jovin's senior thesis adviser, has maintained his innocence.
"Today, I begin my effort to hold certain Connecticut institutions and individuals accountable for their misconduct, slander and false statements," Van de Velde said Wednesday in a statement issued through Grudberg's office.
Quinnipiac's director of public relations, John Morgan, refused to comment on the matter Wednesday.
AP-ES-01-25-01 0803EST
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| To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (883) | 1/25/2001 1:26:25 PM | | From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell | | | | Re: 1/24/01 - AP/WTNH: Statement of James Van de Velde; Van de Velde sues Courant for libel; Former Yale instructor files second libel lawsuit
Statement of James Van de Velde
January 24, 2001
In their January 13, 1999, front page article, the journalists of the Hartford Courant either wrote utterly false information to defame and slander me, information which they should have known to be false, or they were manipulated by a New Haven police officer who was bent on insinuating my guilt in the Suzanne Jovin murder case by feeding misinformation to gullible journalists. Neither Mr. Altimeri or Mr. Weiss asked to see copies of complaints against me (they could not have, since there are none), nor did they solicit my comment on their story, nor did they confirm the complaints with the alleged complainants.
It is sad that New Haven Police Chief Melvin Wearing denounces his own officers when they act as whistle blowers for cases of police misconduct but remained silent when subordinates fed false information and innuendo to the Connecticut and national press to insinuate my possible guilt in the murder of my student, Suzanne Jovin, and to cover up New Haven Police incompetence.
The conduct of the New Haven Police in the Jovin case has been atrocious. It is astounding how little which has been published and insinuated is remotely true. The community allows such misconduct to stand at its own peril.
wtnh.com
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Van de Velde sues Courant for libel
(AP/WTNH, Jan. 24, 2001 5:10 PM) _ The Hartford Courant is being sued for libel by a former Yale University instructor who was identified as a suspect in the 1998 slaying of a Yale student.
New Haven police have said that James Van de Velde was in a pool of suspects in the death of Suzanne Jovin. But authorities haven't charged Van de Velde or anyone else.
Van de Velde, who was Jovin's senior thesis adviser, says he's innocent.
"It is astounding how little which has been published and insinuated is remotely true," Van de Velde said in a statement e-mailed to News Channel 8 and other media organizations in Connecticut.
His lawsuit was filed over a January 1999 report in the Courant that two female television reporters had complained to New Haven police that they were being harassed by Van de Velde.
Van de Velde claims the Courant printed false, defamatory and malicious information.
The Courant says the story was accurate.
wtnh.com
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Former Yale instructor files second libel lawsuit
(New Haven-AP, Jan. 25, 2001 7:15 AM) _ A second libel lawsuit in as many days has been filed by a former Yale instructor who had been labeled a suspect in the killing of one of his students.
James Van de Velde is suing Quinnipiac University, claiming the school wrongfully dismissed him from a masters degree program soon after news reports linked him to the case.
The lawsuit claims Quinnipiac officials made "false, defamatory and malicious" statements about him in their explanations for his dismissal from the schools broadcast journalism program.
The lawsuit yesterday comes a day after Van de Velde filed suit against the Hartford Courant for libel stemming from a January 1999 story.
Van de Velde has not been charged and continues to deny any involvement in Jovin's killing.
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