Category Archives: #truecrimethursday

True Crime Thursday—Weird Animal Cases

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by Debbie Burke

Police Officers never know what they’ll find when they answer a call. Here’s a collection of unusual cases involving animals that I uncovered on Police1.com.

Florida law enforcement duties include occasional alligator wrangling. This body cam video from July 2025 shows an amazingly calm officer, Deputy Richardson of the St. John’s County Sheriff’s Department, responding to a gator allegedly trespassing in a resident’s pool. Notice how gently he tucks the gator’s tail into the back seat of his cruiser.

https://www.police1.com/animal-control/i-know-youre-mad-fla-deputy-removes-gator-from-pool-with-bare-hands-buckles-it-into-cruiser

Police1.com also posted a roundup of weird cases from 2023:

In May:

“Springfield, Colorado police found that a suspected drunk driver switched places with a dog before being contacted. ‘The dog does not face any charges and was let go with just a warning,’ said police.”

In July:

“An Oak Grove, Missouri police officer working the midnight shift took time out to help a raccoon whose head was stuck in a jar after a brief foot pursuit.”

 

August 2023 was an especially busy month for critter calls.

“Police in Norfolk, Nebraska, pulled over Howdy Doody, a Watusi bull known as a celebrity in northeast Nebraska, and his owner Lee Meyer while the bull was riding shotgun in an old police cruiser. Meyer was stopped for vision obstruction.”

From Colorado: 

“Douglas County, Colorado, sheriff deputy Lee Jazombek responded to the call of the distressed bear and met up with Colorado Parks and Wildlife officer Sean Dodd, who was already on the scene where a bear became trapped in a dumpster. The officers fashioned a ramp that allowed the bear to escape.”

A K9 shows his versatility in this situation.

“In New York, Carmel Police Department Officer Vincent DeSantola and his K9 Pietro responded to the report of 30 goats loose in the roadway. The dog, a German shepherd, lived up to his name by helping corral the goats who were quickly returned to their pen.”

On the subject of herding, an anonymous officer left the following comment that demonstrates dog cookies aren’t just for dogs:

“I ‘herded’ several loose pigs down a busy highway, into a residential area, back to where the pigs lived. I kept their interest in following me by offering them dog cookies, which I keep in my patrol car.”

Law enforcement sometimes uses special talents not usually associated with criminal apprehension, like voice impressions.

“A Pierce County, Washington deputy barked like a K-9, tricking teen car theft suspects into surrendering when they thought the dogs were on the way.”

And last but not least, people who own Golden Retrievers often joke the breed is so friendly they’d welcome a burglar breaking into their home. Here’s video proof:

“San Diego, California home surveillance video shows a burglar taking a bicycle from a garage and being confronted by the homeowner’s dog. The Golden Retriever approaches him as he exits the garage with the stolen bike where the crook stops to give the undisturbed dog belly rubs.”

 

 

Sorry, pup, you just flunked the entrance exam for guard dog school!

Thank you to Police1.com for permission to quote from their site.

~~~

Conference news: October 3-5, 2025, the Flathead River Writers Conference happens in Kalispell, Montana. This is the 35th year for the event which has earned an international reputation for friendliness, education, and inspiration. I’m teaching a Friday workshop on The Villain’s Journey and would love to meet TKZers in person. Hope you can join us! Details.

~~~

TKZers: do you have any critter crimes to report? Suspects are innocent until proven guilty.

True Crime Thursday – “Insider’s” Jury Duty Scam

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by Debbie Burke

Jury duty scams have been around for a couple of decades. Despite frequent warnings by law enforcement, the FBI, and consumer protection groups, jury duty scams continue to snare people. According to the FTC, last year they cost victims an estimated $790 million.

Scammers send an email or text message that looks as if it originates from a court. The notice claims you didn’t appear for jury duty as ordered.

Contacts are also made by phone with the caller claiming to be a U.S. Marshal. The caller ID appears genuine from a real court number. However, the number is spoofed.  

The email, text, or phone call threatens arrest unless you immediately pay a fine.

They demand payment by gift card, wire transfer, or other suspicious methods. 

All these payment forms have one thing in common: any money you send disappears into the scammer’s hands, untraceable and never to be recovered.  

Today’s True Crime Thursday case has a twist: the accused scammer sent the demand from inside a Georgia prison.

In January of this year, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Tampa, Florida, indicted Anthony Sanders  (AKA “Slanga”), 28, for conspiracy to commit wire fraud in the case of a Sarasota, Florida woman who was scammed out of more than $12,000 in a jury duty fraud. Also indicted was Sanders’ suspected accomplice, Marlita Andrews, 28, of Macon, Georgia.

According to the complaint, Sanders used an illegally-obtained cell phone to call the victim from inside the prison where he’s incarcerated. He purportedly claimed to be a U.S. Marshal and told the woman she needed to immediately pay a fine for missing jury duty or she would be arrested. He allegedly instructed her to go to a “Bonding Transition Center” and deposit $12,000 in cash to the machine.

Despite an official-sounding name, there is no such thing as a “bonding transition center.” The machine was in fact a bitcoin ATM used to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.

After the victim deposited the money, it was routed to a bitcoin wallet Andrews owned, then quickly transferred to other accounts and disappeared. 

Sanders reportedly instructed Andrews to buy pre-paid cell phones that were illegally smuggled by drone into the prison and directed her where to send the profits.  

The FTC warns that scammers sound convincing because they often know personal details about victims like date of birth, social security number, and home address.

Because of the epidemic of cyberhacking and identity theft, unfortunately our personal information is widely available on the dark web.

Courts use postal mail to make their initial contact about jury duty, NOT text or email. They may later communicate electronically but usually only after setting up a password-protected account. 

If you receive an email, text, or phone call from someone claiming to be a marshal, verify the communication by going to the court’s official website. Do NOT click on links or attachments in the email or text. Report suspected fraud to law enforcement.

If convicted, Sanders and Andrews face up to 20 years in prison. At least Sanders won’t be inconvenienced by moving since he’s already there.

~~~

TKZers – have you or someone you know been targeted by the jury duty scam?

~~~

Book Binge Bundle Coming Soon! Books 1-3 in the Tawny Lindholm Thriller series will soon be available in a box set! Three full novels for only $7.99. A lotta thrills for a low price.

True Crime Thursday – PageTurner and Pig Butchering

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Public domain photo

by Debbie Burke

Scams that prey on writers’ hopes and dreams have been around for decades. Here at TKZ, we often talk about the barrage of emails, text messages, and phone calls from high-pressure con artists that promise your book is guaranteed to be a NYT bestseller AND a blockbuster film AND a streaming series…if only you pay them fees that range from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Between 2017 to 2024, an estimated 800 unwary, trusting writers paid more than $44 million to a particularly successful enterprise called PageTurner, Press and Media LLC with offices in Chula Vista, California.

In January 2025, three principals of PageTurner were indicted by the US Attorney’s Office, Southern District of California, with investigation assistance from the FBI and US Postal Inspectors.

Gemma Traya Austin, 58, of Chula Vista, Michael Cris Traya Sordilla, 32, the Philippines, and Bryan Navales Torosa, 34, the Philippines, were arrested and charged with multiple counts of Conspiracy to Commit Mail and Wire Fraud and Conspiracy to Launder Monetary Instruments. Potential penalties are 20 years in prison and fines up to $500,000 or twice the amount laundered.

All three defendants pled not guilty.

Additionally, PageTurner’s website has been shut down.

Back in 2023, the Authors Guild issued warnings based on numerous complaints made by writers who had paid PageTurner large amounts of money but received no value.

Since 2018, watchdog Victoria Strauss and Writer Beware had also been following complaints by victims. She tracked down various company names connected with PageTurner, including Innocentrix Philippines, “an umbrella group for a bumper crop of scams.”

“Pig-butchering” is a scam where victims are pressured to pay increasing fees as the scammers pass victims around among various related entities. Each additional entity requires more money for their supposed service. They claim to be liaisons with film producers and studios, or marketing specialists, or contacts to develop screenplays or “treatments” for film, etc.

Fraudsters fatten up their victims with repeated, escalating demands for payment before “butchering” them for a final big score.

In one horrific case, an author was pressured into spending more than $600,000 for bogus screen treatments, marketing, and PR programs.

The website of a Philippine beauty pageant includes this paragraph about one of the accused:

Michael Cris Traya Sordilla, commonly known as Mike Sordilla, serves as the current chairman of the Hiyas ng Pilipinas organization. A distinguished judge for numerous local and national pageants, Mike Sordilla is also a respected philanthropist, businessman, and socialite. Under his leadership, the organization has reached new heights, establishing itself as one of the most anticipated and celebrated pageant competitions in the country.

The “respected philanthropist” and his two cohorts have remained in custody since December 2024 because they’re considered flight risks. 

Adding insult to injury, a phony law firm is now soliciting victims of PageTurner to represent them for a $1200 free. This notice appears on Writer Beware:

SCAM ALERT: Authors are reporting calls from “US Literary Law Firm” offering “representation” for PageTurner victims for a fee of $1,200. This offer is fraudulent: there is no such law firm.

Because of the large dollar amounts and complexity of evidence in the PageTurner case, court dates have been delayed several times with the most recent update ordering a hearing on August 29, 2025.

If you or any writer you know has been victimized by PageTurner, the FBI issued this request:

If you believe you are a victim of the PageTurner scam, please contact the FBI at AuthorFraud@fbi.gov.

If you or someone you know is age 60 or older and has been a victim of financial fraud, help is available through the National Elder Fraud Hotline: 1-833 FRAUD-11 (1-833-372-8311). You can also report fraud to any local law enforcement agency or on the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.

Writers are especially vulnerable to scams by con artists who use hopes and dreams as psychological weapons to take advantage of them. When anyone solicits you out of the blue with lofty promises about the fame and success they can deliver for your book, the best practice is to hang up, block the number, and delete emails and texts.

The only promise you can count on from them is that they will financially butcher you.

~~~

Con artists, scammers, and fraudsters are among bad guys and bad gals featured in Debbie Burke’s new writing craft book, The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate.

Sales links:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Apple Books

Kobo

True Crime Thursday – Black Widows

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Before we get into today’s True Crime Thursday post, I received an email from another friend of Joe Hartlaub’s who just learned of Joe’s passing. Justin L. Murphy asked me to include his tribute message to Joe. Justin’s words:

Could you please add these comments to the memorial post for Joe Hartlaub on KillZone blog earlier this month? I was late in learning of his passing — only discovering so last night after no email responses in the last couple of weeks.

As writers, Joe Hartlaub and I became close over the years and exchanged many emails. He not only recommended me for a short story contest (which I didn’t win), but was there for me when my grandmother passed several years ago. This is a tough one.

I last received an email from him May 28th, only to discover he died the next day. It’s sad we didn’t get to talk further. In one of our last emails, he discussed learning how to play “When The Saints Go Marching In” on the piano as well as his past playing guitar in local bands. We both mentioned our love for cooking Zatarain’s and his past trips to New Orleans. As well as his love for music from Memphis and Mississippi. He also called me “an observant fellow” and sent me hilarious articles on women getting too close to Bison at Yellowstone, being mauled and trampled as a result.

One of the last things he told me “You and your family have had more than your fair share of challenges, but reading between the lines of your accounts of daily living, I take the sense that you mom is strong, wonderful person and she has two terrific sons. The three of you help and love each other. That is more than many, many people have. Stay the course and thanks for being my friend.” He sent this to me after checking on us and asking “Are you OK?” when a storm hit a nearby area. My response in the subject line was, “For a tender hearted Catholic lawyer who cares”. To clarify, I’m a disabled adult with Cerebral Palsy who helps care for an Autistic adult brother.

He also relayed having chest pains and that his ex-girlfriend was dying from cancer. Joe remained in touch with her, but was having difficulty. As well as having chest pains and would be getting medical exams. Yet was overjoyed over his granddaughter’s graduation. In his couple of emails, he concluded “Love to you and your family” and “Thx Brother”.

I love you too, Joe. Thanks for all you shared with me and I wish you still were here.

 

Photo credit: Chuck Evans CCA 2.5 generic

by Debbie Burke

In a 1911 poem, Rudyard Kipling wrote:

“The female of the species is more deadly than the male.”

That seems to hold true with the female black widow spider. After she mates with a male, she sometimes eats him. Here’s Wikipedia’s explanation:

The prevalence of sexual cannibalism, a behaviour in which the female eats the male after mating, has inspired the common name “widow spiders”.[11] This behaviour may promote the survival odds of the offspring;[12] however, females of some species only rarely show this behaviour, and much of the documented evidence for sexual cannibalism has been observed in laboratory cages where the males could not escape. Male black widow spiders tend to select their mates by determining if the female has eaten already to avoid being eaten themselves.

The term “black widow” has come to mean a woman who kills her mate.

Praying Mantis – public domain

Although the praying mantis also engages in sexual cannibalism, “black widow” sounds scarier, doesn’t it?

In 2013, a 25-year-old man named Cody Johnson married 22-year-old Jordan Graham in Kalispell, Montana. Eight days later, he disappeared.

As early as the day after the wedding, Graham had second thoughts about the marriage which she expressed to friends.

Johnson’s friends had also been concerned because he was deeply in love with Graham but his devotion didn’t seem to be reciprocated.

When Johnson didn’t show up for work, a search was launched. He was last reported in Glacier National Park, recorded on a security cam in a car with Graham. She claimed they had driven to the Big Bend on Going to the Sun Road where a steep cliff drops off sharply to the valley hundreds of feet below. There, she said, friends of Johnson’s had arrived in a different vehicle, and he had left with them.

Because the park is on federal land, various agencies including the FBI investigated the case. They questioned Graham multiple times. Each time, she offered a different excuse for why Johnson had disappeared.

Going to the Sun Road, Glacier National Park, Montana – public domain

Her behavior was suspicious, sometimes giggling and other times withdrawn. While searchers risked their lives on steep dangerous mountainsides, she exchanged texts with friends about dance moves.

She soon produced an email purportedly written by a friend of Johnson’s who claimed Johnson was dead and to give up the search. It didn’t take long for investigators to trace the email to a computer at the home of Graham’s parents.

Johnson’s battered, broken body was found at the bottom of the cliffs below the Big Bend. Because the terrain was so treacherous, specialized lift equipment was required to recover the body.

Graham was charged with first and second-degree murder.

During her 2014 trial, she pleaded not guilty. The evidence against her was significant but not beyond a reasonable doubt. Her attorney characterized her as “child-like” apparently a bid to convince the judge she didn’t understand consequences of actions.

For several days, Graham continued to protest her innocence. Then right after the defense rested, Graham stunned the court and changed her plea to guilty.

She admitted driving with Johnson to the Big Bend where they got out of the car and argued at the edge of the cliff. She said she didn’t think people would believe her about an accidental fall so she gave various excuses for his disappearance.

Under questioning by the judge, she finally admitted that, when Johnson had turned his back on her to look out at the view, she used both hands to push him over the side.

The judge doubted her remorse and sentenced her to 30 years in prison.

TKZers: Kipling seemed to be correct in this case. What do you think of his opinion?

~~~

 

My new book The Villain’s Journey – How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate features stories about dangerous Black Widows and Femme Fatales from fiction and real life. To learn more, please click on the book cover.

True Crime Thursday – Unsolved Murders Linked to Freeway Killer, Now 80

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Photo credit – John Snape Wikimedia.com CCA SA 3.0

by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

From 1972 to 1983 in southern California, bodies of young male hitchhikers were being dumped near freeways, on beaches, and in parking lots. Many had lethal levels of alcohol and drugs in their systems, and had been tortured, mutilated, sexually assaulted, and strangled.

The so-called “Freeway Killer” eluded law enforcement because of the difficulty of linking the murders with no witnesses and little evidence.

In 1977, Patrick Kearney turned himself into the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office and confessed to more than 30 murders. He was given 21 life sentences. The public breathed a sigh of relief that the Freeway Killer had been stopped.

But murders continued.

In 1980, William Bonin was arrested when police found him inside his van, raping a handcuffed 17-year-old runaway boy. A scrapbook detailing numerous murders was found in his glovebox. Blood and other evidence led to a confession to more than 20 murders, some with the help of accomplices.

Despite multiple prior convictions for sexual assaults on minor boys, Bonin had repeatedly been released from custody. At those times he was deemed no longer a risk to society.

At trial, he was convicted of 10 murders and sentenced to death. Another trial in a different jurisdiction resulted in conviction and death sentences for four additional murders. Again, the public was relieved that the Freeway Killer had been caught.

But murders continued.

In 1983, California Highway Patrol officers pulled over a car for driving erratically. Randy Steven Kraft stumbled out with a bottle of beer and his pants unzipped.

Inside the car officers found the body of a Marine with his pants pulled down. He’d been strangled and sexually assaulted. In the trunk they found a binder with more than 60 coded entries that corresponded to murders Kraft had apparently committed. Evidence also included Polaroids of strangled, bound young men who appeared unconscious or dead.

This Freeway Killer was additionally dubbed the Scorecard Killer because of the binder full of notations about his victims.

Although Kraft never confessed, the evidence against him was overwhelming. He appeared to enjoy the attention at trial and his case dragged on for many months, costing $10 million, the costliest criminal case in Orange County at the time. He was convicted of 16 murders and sentenced to death. Additional murders in Oregon and Michigan were linked to him since he had traveled for work to those states when more bodies, violated in similar ways, had been found.

Kraft is now 80 and back in the news because DNA finally identified the remains of a body found near I-5 in Oregon back in 1980.

Larry Eugene Parks was a 30-year-old Vietnam veteran at the time of his death. His family had lost touch with him. Another dead man, Marine Corporal Michael O’Fallon, had been found in a nearby location a day before. Investigators believed the two murders were connected but couldn’t prove it and the cases went cold.

According to a USA Today story from  May 12, 2025:

Last year, an Orange County Sheriff’s Department investigator contacted the Oregon State Police’s cold case unit, offering to help identify Parks’ remains with the use of forensic genealogy. Possible family members were contacted and submitted DNA samples for comparison, leading to Parks’ definitive identification.

Similarly, in October 2023, Orange County investigators used the technology to identity Michael Ray Schlicht of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, whose body was found in 1974 in unincorporated Laguna Hills, now the city of Aliso Viejo, California. Detectives are likewise working to determine whether Kraft is linked to Schlicht’s death.

This L.A. Times article from November, 2023 describes Schlicht’s identification also by forensic DNA.

Per this May 9, 2025 AP story, Oregon State Police spokesperson Kyle Kennedy says about Parks:

“There’s some evidence that we’re processing to determine that link [to Randy Kraft],” Kennedy said. “We are very confident that we have the correct person of interest.”

In the 1970s and 80s, three different serial murderers, each called the Freeway Killer, terrorized California.

Patrick Kearney, 85, remains incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, CA.

William Bonin was executed by lethal injection in 1996.

Randy Kraft, 80, received a death sentence that was not carried out. The last execution in California happened in 2006. Kraft remains in prison at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.

~~~

Thank you to TKZ regular Kathy Ferguson who brought the story to my attention.

~~~

Serial killers are covered in Debbie Burke’s new book The Villain’s Journey – How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate. 

Publication date July 13, 2025.

Preorder link

True Crime Thursday – Cybercrime Then and Now

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by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Cybercrime continues to expand globally with costs estimated to reach more than $10 trillion. That’s trillion with a T.

At the turn of this century, cyberattacks affected relatively few individuals. From 2001 to 2017, statistical charts showed a gradual increase. Between 2018 and 2020, cybercrime numbers shot up like a rocket. Since then, the rise maintains a nearly vertical trajectory.

Take a look at this chart by Statistica.com.

According to Keepnetlabs.com, cyberattacks occur every 39 seconds, with ransomware incidents happening every 11 seconds.

I first wrote about cybercrime, hackers, and deepfakes back in 2019, imagining how AI could be misused in the future. Early on, attacks were often pranks, like that naked guy who crashes a Zoom meeting.

During Covid, people were stuck home with nothing to do. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Cybercrime blossomed into a major industry. Since then, with AI advances, it’s exploded beyond all imagination. I’ve written about various forms here, here, and here.  

Here are four updates on cyberscams:

  1. Social media cloning continues to be a growing problem, according to attorney Steve Weisman who writes the great informational site, Scamicide.

Almost a decade ago, cloning happened to me on Facebook. I’d developed a small but loyal following on FB, including readers from all over the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and Japan. Then someone cloned my identity. At the time I didn’t even know what the term “cloning” meant.

Cloning is a process by which a bad actor takes over your social media handle, creates a new account using your same name, information, photo, etc. and pretends to be you. They usually send out new friend “requests” to your contacts. Anyone who accepts the request is now caught in the bad actor’s web.

My FB friends received strange messages supposedly from me. I learned about it after several emailed me, asking if I was in Spain and needed bail money. Uh, no. When I tried to access my account, it was blocked. Nor could I contact FB for help. A brilliant astrophysicist friend figured out what happened and contacted them on my behalf.

Many hours of work later, things were back to normal, with newly adjusted stringent privacy settings. But why did fixing the problem require help from a friend with a Harvard PhD?

Some months later, my account was cloned again. At that point, I decided if FB’s security was that lax, and reporting a problem was so difficult, I didn’t need the headaches. I closed my account, unfortunately losing contact with valued readers.

Back then, FB was reluctant to acknowledge the problem and made it nearly impossible to report. I figured maybe my case was an unusual occurrence.

Wrong.

Now, according to Steve, FB/Meta admits to “as many as 60 million phony cloned Facebook accounts including hundreds of its founder Mark Zuckerberg.”

Cloning happens across all social media platforms, and is especially pervasive when they’re interconnected with each other, like FB and Instagram. Criminals are happy to exploit any opportunity to reach thousands, if not millions, of people with a few clicks. Cloning is only one of many ways they victimize users of social media. That topic could fill up a whole ‘nother post.

2. Smishing scams – According to Steve Weisman’s new post, smishing is defined as:

…Text messages that lure you into clicking on links or providing personal information in response to a text message from what appears to be a trusted source, such as a company with which you do business.

Steve’s post says the FTC warns of a huge uptick in smishing that cost $470 million in the past year. Text messages often appear to come from Amazon, FedEx, USPS, Cash App, Netflix, banks, etc.

A new twist is: 

Making matters worse, scammers are able to use bots to send thousands of smishing text messages in a matter of seconds and while many phones have anti-spam filters to recognize repetitive text patterns used by scammers, scammers are able to use AI to create slight variations of their smishing text messages to avoid detection.

 

Every week, I receive smishing messages supposedly from my bank, warning of suspicious activity in my account. 

Phony messages from Fedex and the post office claim there’s a problem with a delivery and tell you to click on this link. Don’t do it!

And speaking of the post office…

3. Account hacking – Here’s a weird crime twist that recently happened to me.

For years, I’ve used usps.com to preprint and prepay postage for priority mail labels. During extended absences from home, I preprint labels for the friend who forwards first class mail to us once a week at a Florida address.

Around the 2024 holidays, our forwarded mail didn’t arrive in Florida. Tracking showed a circuitous route that ended with the vague message “in transit.” We visited the local Florida post office. The clerk said a bin of mail had gone missing. “It happens all the time. It’ll eventually turn up.”

How reassuring since our envelope contained bills that needed to be paid now.

After more trips to the post office, we learned the envelope had been “returned to sender” to our address in Montana.

What???

The mailing label was totally correct since it had been officially printed by the post office. So why wasn’t it delivered?

Meanwhile, our friend sent another batch of mail to Florida using another preprinted label. But when I checked tracking, it showed that envelope had been delivered to an address in Maryland.

What???

Back to the Florida post office. The same helpful clerk ran the tracking number through his computer. Yup, his also showed delivery to Maryland. Then he disappeared in the back processing room. Fifteen minutes later, he came out with our envelope. Even though tracking showed delivery to Maryland, here it was in Florida where it was supposed to be.

Something smelled fishy.

Since our friend in Montana still had several preprinted labels that had not been used, I checked the tracking numbers for those. Incredibly, all showed as already delivered to addresses around the country—New York, Georgia, California, etc.

What???

Back to the post office to show this evidence to the same long-suffering clerk (who was now our new best pal). He called fraud/security and dug deeper. After nearly an hour of research, he suspected someone had hacked into our usps.com account. He recommended changing the password, which I did.

Fortunately, no one had accessed the VISA card I used to pay for the postage.

The plot thickens.

Turns out this is a regular racket. Clever thieves hack into usps.com user accounts, and steal labels that have already been paid for but not yet used. They reprint the labels with the same tracking bar code but a different address. They then use those fraudulent labels to ship merchandise (usually stolen) to customers of their own shady businesses.

Selling stolen merchandise and shipping it with stolen postage equals zero expenses and 100% profit for crooked operators. Our post office pal gave the thieves a grudging compliment: “These guys are very good.”

A clear case of postal fraud, likely an inside job. Most of the bogus labels had been routed through the post office’s Bethesda, MD distribution center. If I were a detective, I’d start my investigation in Bethesda. Hint, hint.

Did fraud/security ever follow up? Dunno. Our PO pal never heard another word. Will anyone ever get caught or prosecuted? Unlikely.The advantage for cybercriminals is they are nearly impossible to track. 

4. Impersonation scams – For years, scammers have posed as government agencies and law enforcement. They contact victims by phone, email, text, or social media with bogus claims you owe fines and/or back taxes that must be paid immediately or else you’ll be arrested. But because they are such generous, caring folks, they’ll make your problem go away if you pay them with cryptocurrency, gift cards, wire transfers, or other untraceable funds. 

This morning, I received a public service announcement from the FBI warning of scammers who pose as representatives of the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) who claim they recovered money you’d been previously scammed out of. They will return that lost money to you…you guessed it…for a fee, payable by cryptocurrency, gift cards, wire transfers, or other untraceable funds. 

Yup, the cybercrime situation has gotten so out of control that the FBI’s IC3 division has to issue PSAs about their own department being impersonated. Talk about irony.

Back in 2000, we wondered IF we might ever be victims of this mysterious new method of crime.

Now it’s a certainty and the only question is WHEN? 

A sad fact of life in the 21st century.

~~~

Now that I’ve spoiled your day, it’s your turn, TKZers.

Share your personal experience with cybercrime. Any brilliant suggestions to block criminals? Do you have favorite security software?

~~~

Coming July 2025! Debbie Burke’s new writing craft guide:

The Villian’s Journey ~ How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate

For more details, please click here. No, this link won’t ask for cryptocurrency, gift crads, or wire transfers!

True Crime Thursday – Innocent Behind Bars

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by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Since 2008, Buggz Ironman-Whitecow has been in a Montana prison for a homicide he did not commit. Racism against Native-Americans led to his arrest and prosecution. Evidence that should have cleared him was withheld or falsified as wrongdoers scrambled to cover up the truth.

Buggz had one stroke of good luck: he is represented by attorney Phyllis Quatman, a dogged advocate determined to free him.

Phyllis is my good friend and critique partner. I asked her to write a guest post about this case that is a true crime within the justice system.

Note: the crime scene photos are graphic and disturbing. For that reason they are not included in this post. They are available to view at this link.

Here’s Phyllis’s story:

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

For 35 years, I’ve been an attorney who worked both as a prosecutor and defense lawyer. Evidence is the Holy Grail in criminal law and carries the day. A single photograph taken at a 2006 homicide scene is clear evidence that proves the innocence of my Native-American client, Buggz Ironman-Whitecow. Yet Buggz has been in prison since 2008.

Why?

I became his defense counsel five years after his 2008 conviction. My original job was to seek post-conviction relief for the excessive sentence of 65 years in a homicide with no pre-meditation and weak, questionable evidence. But investigation of that evidence led to a shocking conclusion that official negligence and misconduct had been covered up.

The victim was Lloyd “Lucky” Kvelstad, a poor white transient who, during a winter night when the temperature dropped to seven degrees, joined a group of Native Americans in a Havre, Montana ‘flop house’. Although the house had no heat, it served as a hangout for local substance abusers. A great deal of alcohol was consumed, and a fight broke out among several people there. .

At trial in 2008, prosecutors alleged Buggz had caused Lucky’s death during the fight.

At 1:20 a.m. on November 25, 2006, police and EMTs arrived on scene. Lucky was lying on the floor, face down, with head injuries. At trial, they admitted they never treated Lucky, never rolled him over, never tried to revive him, or even listen for breath. They announced he was dead and left.

The pathologist who performed Lucky’s autopsy testified the head injuries were not serious enough to have killed him. The pathologist also could not find a cause of death to a medical certainty.

Metadata on crime scene photos showed his body’s location and position were not the same as initial witnesses had stated and their diagrams showed. He had moved two feet forward after first responders left. This detail proved key.

Around 4:25 a.m., police video shows the officers rolling Lucky over. His body shows no lividity, no rigor mortis, and fresh urine on his thigh. One officer commented on the urine and the other officer said, “I wonder if this guy … didn’t die right away?” The video suddenly cuts away.

That last officer wrote in his report and testified that at 4:45 a.m. he bagged Lucky’s head with a brown paper bag and taped it around Lucky’s neck. He left the scene to go to the police department, then returned to the scene. At 5:15 a.m., someone called for the coroner. At 6 a.m., the coroner arrived and found … no lividity, little if any rigor mortis, and that Lucky’s arms were warm to the touch. He stated there was no bag on Lucky’s head which is how he could describe Lucky’s facial injuries.

Photo 42 was among 100 crime scene photos the prosecution had produced on a discovery CD back in January 2007.

Photo 42 provided my first clue that Buggz was innocent.

According to the police, it represents the first picture taken of Lucky at the crime scene and ostensibly depicts exactly how and where the officers found him just after 1:20 in the morning.

Metadata on that CD revealed suspicious discrepancies:

(1) While the police and EMTs arrived on scene around 1:20 a.m., no crime scene photos were taken until Photo 42 was shot at 3:47 a.m., more than two hours after those first responders arrived;

(2) Of those 100 photos, somebody duplicated eight of them, renamed them, and scattered those 16 replicas into the 100 disseminated to the defense just after the homicide;

(3) Somebody also added 23 photos at the beginning of that discovery CD, and the metadata showed they were taken between 9:18 and 9:38 a.m., more than nine hours after the police came on scene;

(4) Those 23 photos were a different size than the others and taken with a different camera.

In other words, all 100 photos on that discovery CD had been rearranged, renamed, or altered.

What happened to the ones that should have been there, like photos of Lucky lying in situ in his original position at 1:20 a.m., or ones an officer wrote he took at 2:38 a.m. in the kitchen?

Missing.

Photo 42 shows Lucky lying in a different location and position, the key detail noted above.

Years later when I took over Buggz’s case, Photo 42 triggered an alarm in my lawyer brain.

Dr. Gordon Giesbrecht, our renowned expert witness, concluded that Lucky was not dead when the cops left him alone on the floor, but likely hypothermic and drunk. That explained their inability to detect a pulse. He posited that Lucky arrived at his location in Photo 42 either because someone moved him there, or because he crawled forward two feet over a two-hour period. Since everyone agreed that no one moved or touched Lucky, and witnesses at the time swore Lucky was lying prone where they described and drew in their diagrams, it seemed like Photo 42 proved Lucky moved after the police and EMTs left him for dead.

Add to that the condition of his body on the crime scene video at 4:30 a.m. and the coroner’s findings at 6 a.m., and it seems clear Lucky didn’t die until much later than the 12:30 a.m. time of death the police alleged.

Indeed, Dr. Giesbrecht concluded that Lucky, had he been warmed up and treated, would have lived. But by failing to treat him, the EMTs and cops were negligent at best. When they inexplicably bagged his head at 4:45 a.m., they caused his death from hypoxia, or lack of oxygen.

Could their own exposure to civil and criminal liability cause these officers and EMTs to fabricate evidence from a crime scene and enact a massive coverup to divert attention away from their own guilt and toward Buggz Ironman-Whitecow?

I’ve spent the last 12 years, trying to get that damning evidence of a coverup before an unbiased judge. But that’s easier said than done. Montana is a large state with a small population where, in the legal and law enforcement world, everyone knows everyone. Officers and prosecutors involved in Buggz’s original homicide trial in 2008 moved up to higher positions of influence. Three became judges. The Attorney General at the time became Chief Justice on the Montana Supreme Court.

My repeated motions and requests for a new trial to present this evidence have been denied or ignored.

Meanwhile, Buggz has languished in prison for 18 years, yet has not lost faith that his innocence will be proved.

Thwarted by the legal system, I wrote the true crime memoir, Innocent Behind Bars-The True Story of Buggz Ironman-Whitecow, and created a website, The Free Buggz Project. All evidence is laid out in the website, including photos, crime scene video, trial and hearing transcripts, case files, and more.

My goal is to generate sufficient public interest and outcry that Buggz will receive a new trial. I invite you to review the evidence for yourself. If you conclude, as I did, that Lucky Kvelstad was not murdered by Buggz but died due to negligence and official misconduct, I ask your help in contacting independent agencies and courts to reverse this injustice.

Attorney Phyllis Quatman

Book sales link: Innocent Behind Bars-The True Story of Buggz Ironman-Whitecow.

Website link: freebuggzproject.com

Read more about author Phyllis Quatman.

~~~

Thank you, Phyllis!

TKZers, Phyllis is happy to answer questions in the comments.

True Crime Thursday: Dogs Who Solved Murders

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In 19th century Spain, a Seville butcher named Juan went on hunting trips with his godfather, Marquez, every Saturday. The two normally returned on Monday.

One November morning, Juan came back alone. Marquez’s wife asked about her husband, but believed Juan when he said they’d separated during the hunt and thought Marquez had beat him home.

“He must be coming back any time now,” he said.

With the day bleeding into night and still no sight of Marquez, his wife grew concerned. That evening, his dog, Como tu, returned alone. Como tu and Marquez were inseparable. So, the wife asked his faithful companion about his father’s whereabouts. Agitated, the dog grabbed her dress in his teeth and tried to drag her out of the house.

Why the wife paid no attention to Como tu’s strange behavior was anyone’s guess. Instead, she thought maybe Marquez went to visit Juan. In a desperate attempt to find him, she and Como tu went to his house. When Juan answered the door, Como tu dove for his throat. It wasn’t normal behavior. The dog never had a problem with Juan before.

After the wife pulled Como tu off Juan, he falsely claimed the dog must have rabies and should be shot, but she decided to go to the police station instead. Como tu was good as gold at the police station, until Juan arrived. The moment Como tu heard his voice, he turned aggressive. At first, the police commissioner thought Juan might’ve abused Como tu. When the wife told the story of her missing husband, she included the dog’s strange behavior.

Two days later, she took the dog for a walk in the area where her husband had gone hunting. At a cliff that overlooked the river where folks customarily threw garbage and dead animals (*cringe*), Como tu again tugged her dress, howled, then pulled her toward the cliff’s edge. Because of the stench of garbage — and despite Como tu’s best efforts — they headed home.

As they passed the butcher shop, Como tu barged in, leaped up on a table, and again tried to attack Juan.

More than a little suspicious now, Marquez’s wife returned to the police station and told an officer what happened with the dog. The police officer said nothing at the time. However, the following morning, he went to the cliff with four pall bearers and saw Juan and two other men at the bottom, tearing bloody clothes off a corpse.

The officer arrested all three men.

Officials ID’d the body as Marquez. The officer found entry wounds from a full load of buckshot to the face and left side of the head. The back of the skull had more damage, most likely crushed by the butt of a shotgun. The two accomplices confessed. Juan had offered money to help him remove the bloody clothes and toss the body into the river.

With no way out, Juan confessed to killing his godfather after a fight over who shot a specific partridge. As the fight intensified, both hunters loaded their shotguns and threatened each other. Angry and drunk, Juan claimed to fire at Marquez to disable him, but he finished the job by caving in the back of his skull with the butt of his shotgun.

The court found no evidence of premeditation and some evidence to support self-defense. Thus, Juan received five years in the galleys while the two accomplices got six months in prison for trying to cover up the murder.

If it weren’t for Como tu, Marquez’s wife would never have known what happened to her husband.

ANOTHER FURRY HERO

white labradoodle like Titan

A case made national headlines when a loyal Labradoodle named Titan helped solve the murder of his twenty-six-year-old mom, Mandy Rose Reynolds, who was shot and burned beyond recognition in a field in Robinson, Texas.

Police found the charred remains on April 5, 2023. Titan barked frantically and refused to leave the area. He also evaded capture.

Even after the coroner removed Reynold’s body the following morning, a good Samaritan found Titan sitting in the same spot and called Robinson Animal Control, who scanned the dog for a microchip. That led to the owner’s name: Mandy Rose Reynolds.

Now with a starting point for the investigation, the medical examiner identified the remains as Mandy Reynolds through her dental records. The official record shows she died from a gunshot wound to the head, and a .380 bullet was recovered from her remains.

Robinson police then learned Mandy Reynolds resided in San Marcos, Texas. San Marcos police were contacted and went to her home but found it empty, with all her possessions removed and her black Honda Accord missing.

A license plate database revealed the car was somewhere in Wichita.

On April 8, 2023, Wichita police spotted the vehicle. The pursuit lasted almost thirty minutes and reached speeds of over 100 mph.

The Accord crashed into another vehicle, and Derek Daigneault — Mandy Rose Reynolds’ cousin— fled the scene and “hid on a shelf behind canned goods” at a local grocery store. Police found a .380 handgun on the driver’s side floorboard.

Meanwhile, back in Robinson, police determined the body had been burned in a large plastic storage container, along with a fired .380 shell casing.

Surveillance video from a Walmart in San Marcos showed Daigneault buying an identical storage container, a shovel, and a gas can on the morning of April 4, 2023. Video evidence also showed him leaving the store in Mandy Reynolds’ car, with Titan sticking his head out the window.

The Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab confirmed the bullet and shell casing were both fired by the handgun found in Daigneault’s possession. The court sentenced Daigneault to life in prison.

“The keys to this case were a heroic and loyal dog named Titan and extraordinary cooperation between law enforcement agencies in multiple jurisdictions and states. That combination has delivered justice for Mandy and safety from a violent and dangerous criminal,” Assistant District Attorneys Ryan Calvert and Alyssa Killin said in a statement.

As for Titan, Mandy Rose Reynolds’ best friend adopted the dog days after her murder. “He is doing great!”

Do you know of an animal who solved a crime? Tell us about it.

True Crime Thursday – Thanksgiving Reading

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by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Thanksgiving turkey

Happy Thanksgiving to Kill Zone friends!

While you’re waiting for the bird to roast, how about reading a book with Thanksgiving as the centerpiece?

After all, it’s a True Crime not to read!

Here’s a list of holiday-themed books compiled by the Memorial Hall Library in Andover, MA. Some are mysteries, some are histories. Some are older, some more recent.

Thanksgiving Night-A Novel, Richard Bausch, Harper Perennial, 2007. The tagline sounds promising: “Will Butterfield can’t believe it. His 75-year-old mother is threatening to jump off the roof. Again.” But reviews are mixed.

Billy Lynn’s Long Half Time Walk, Ben Fountain, Ecco, 2012. This book juxtaposes war, sports, and social commentary. It won the National Book Critic’s Award and became a film in 2016.

This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiiving, David J. Silverman, Bloosmbury, 2019. Historian Silverman reexamines Thanksgiving from the Native perspective.

Turkey Trot Murder, Leslie Meier, Kensington Cozies, 2017. The 24th book in the long running Lucy Stone mystery series, featuring a small-town newspaper reporter.

Strangers at the Feast, Jennifer Vanderbes, Scribner, 2010. A novel about the colliding worlds of suburban privilege and urban poverty.

Mayflower Lives: Pilgrims in a New World and the Early American Experience, Martine J. Whittock, Pegasus Books, 2019. Commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower landing.

Thanksgiving, Janet Evanovich, Harper Collins, 2009. A romantic classic originally published in the 1980s.

The Cat Who Talked Turkey, Lilian Jackson Braun, Berkley Reprint, 2004. From the venerable cozy series featuring felines that solve murders.

An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, Roxanne Dungar-Ortiz, Beacon Press, 2014. Recipient of the National Book Award. A “bottoms up history” describing effects of colonization on the Native population.

The Ghost at the Table, Suzanne Berne, Algonquin, 2007. A novel about conflict among siblings over their mother’s suspicious death 25 years before.

The Accidental Tourist, Anne Tyler, Vintage Reprints, 2002. A classic originally published in 1985 and made into a 1988 Oscar-winning film with Geena Davis.

A Great and Godly Adventure, Godfrey Hodgson, Lume Books, 2017 (original publication PublicAffairs, 2006). History focused on the pilgrims’ mission to spread religion to the new world.

The Ice Storm, Rick Moody, Back Bay Books, 2002. A grim satiric novel about two affluent suburban families whose dysfunction comes to a head during the turbulent era of Watergate and the Vietnam war. Later made into a 1997 film.

A Catered Thanksgiving (Mystery with Recipes), Isis Crawford, Kensington, 2010. A turkey blows up, killing a wealthy patriarch whose heirs are worried about being cut out of his will.

Thanksgiving-The Biography of an American Holiday, James W. Baker, University of New Hampshire Press, 2009. A cultural, historical analysis of Thanksgiving.

The Thanksgiving Visitor, Truman Capote, Knopf Books for Young Readers, 1996. An illustrated, read-aloud story for ages 6-12.

~~~

Photo credit: Dennis Wilkinson on Flickr

Today I give thanks to the fascinating folks I’ve met here at TKZ. I’m grateful to share thoughts and experiences, and appreciate the ongoing writing education generously offered by my smart, insightful TKZ colleagues!

Wishing you and your family a day of blessings, good food, and good reading!

~~~

P.S. Tomorrow, 11/29/24, I’ll be at an international Zoom Book Launch party, hosted by UK author Yvonne Battle-Felton. Authors from the US and UK will introduce our new books. I’ll read from Fruit of the Poisonous Tree. You’re all invited!

Zoom link: https://bit.ly/booklaunch2024autumnedition

The time is 8-10 pm GMT. Here’s a link to convert to your time zone: https://greenwichmeantime.com/time-gadgets/time-zone-converter/

I’d love to “meet” TKZers if you can attend!.

True Crime Thursday – No Honor Among Thieves

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Photo credit: dolldreamer

by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Book piracy is a widespread, growing problem that cuts into authors’ already-dwindling incomes. Back in 2020, I wrote about book piracy.

In a recent ironic twist, an ebook piracy site was hacked, per a July, 2024 Scamicide post by attorney Steve Weisman.

Yup, the pirates got pirated.

The site itself Z-Lib didn’t suffer as much as the 10 million users of the site who had their information stolen. Steve’s post reports the theft of:

…usernames, email addresses and passwords, the stolen data also included Bitcoin and Monero cryptocurrency wallet addresses for the nearly ten million people affected.

Z-Library was a major site funded by donations that offered free access to copyrighted works including pirated material. In 2022, the FBI temporarily shut down Z-Library.

According to blog.acer.com:

Z-Library, the shadow library project that provided access to millions of textbooks, novels, journal articles, and magazines was shut down in November 2022 when U.S. authorities seized a number of the organization’s domain names. Despite the efforts of law enforcement, the project never fully went away. Z-Lib even staged an official comeback in early 2023 by working around the previous domain name issues. However, the project has been disrupted again by further FBI domain seizures.

In other words, if law enforcement seizes pirate domain names, just register new domain names and go underground on the dark web.

Are Z-Library, Z-Lib, and its clones legal?

In this article, DOIT Software says:

It is illegal in many jurisdictions since it offers pirated content and violates copyright regulations. Users are encouraged to consider the ethical implications of accessing content from platforms like Z-Library, which often involves the distribution of copyrighted materials without proper authorization.

The clone site Z-Lib charged to access its shadow library, meaning users entered their personal and financial information. That valuable cache of info made a tempting target for other thieves who hacked in and stole it.

That raises an interesting philosophical discussion: If thieves steal from other thieves, is it a crime? Or poetic justice?

Are there degrees of guilt? How would you rank these perpetrators?

  1. Pirate sites that steal copyrighted works from authors;
  2. Users who pay pirate sites;
  3. Hackers that stole from the pirate site and its users? 

TKZers, the floor is yours.

I’m traveling today and won’t be able to respond to comments until later.