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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

03/26/08 - The Mystery Of The Millionaire Murder Continues To Unfold


Massachusetts Man Accused Murder Will Appear In Court Later Today.

Driver's cousin turned over to Conn. authorities in slaying
Boston Globe - United States


A man charged in the death of a wealthy Greenwich developer was turned over to Connecticut authorities Tuesday. Leonard Trujillo, 21, appeared briefly ...


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A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press, must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the right of the people to know.

Murray I. Gurfein quotes



03/25/08 - Donations in Jeanette's memory should go to the Alzheimers Association. Leo P. Gallagher and Son, Greenwich, is in charge of arrangements.


JEANETTE McCARTNEY, a resident of Nathaniel Witherell in Greenwich ...


Asbury Park Press - Asbury Park,NJ


JEANETTE McCARTNEY, a resident of Nathaniel Witherell in Greenwich, Conn., since 2001, formerly of LAKEWOOD, died Thursday, March 20, at age 95. She was born Jan. 4, 1913, in New York City to James and Catherine Hanley Mills.

She was predeceased by her beloved husband, Walter; a son, James; and her siblings, Gertrude Kopman, Constance Morrison, Jack Kennedy, William Mills and Sister Mary William Mills. She is survived by her loving children, William McCartney, Walter McCartney, Kathleen Glenn and her husband Robert, Maureen Deck and her husband Ken, and Peter McCartney and his wife Maureen; 10 grandchildren; 14 great-grandchildren; and her devoted siblings, Tom Kennedy and Dorothy Nestler.

A Funeral Mass will be offered at 11 a.m. today at St. Paul's Church, Greenwich. Committal will be private. The family requests donations in Jeanette's memory to the Alzheimers Association. Leo P. Gallagher and Son, Greenwich, is in charge of arrangements.

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03/25/08 - 4,000 CT Home Owner's Lost Thier Homes In January And The Financial Egg Heads Are Still Wondering There's A Recession


Greenwich Business News Report:

Financial Market News

Wall street cries recession, data says slowdown
Daily Times - Lahore,Pakistan

... which has led to about two dozen auto plant shutdowns at GM,” noted Omair Sharif, a strategist at RBS Greenwich Capital in Greenwich, Connecticut. ...


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om

Frankly, despite my horror of the press, I'd love to rise from the grave every ten years or so and go buy a few newspapers.

Luis Buñuel quotes

(Spanish Film Director, 1900-1983)

03/25/08 - Beat The Press - Greenwich Time Web Master Puts News Website At Risk

STATIONSTOPS

THE GREENWICH TIME MIGHT BE HOSTING AN INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER HACKER CONFERENCE IN THE NEAR FUTURE

"This is especially true on a commercial website, because showing the default logo kind of symbolizes that either your webmaster doesn’t know what hes doing or just doesn’t care"

Greenwich Time, Stamford Advocate, Norwalk Advocate Love Their Sun ...

By Chris

(The Eagle Eyed And Insightful Administrator With Mad Skillz)

The Greenwich Time, Stamford Advocate, and Norwalk Advocate family of newspaper websites all still display the default Sun web server favicon.ico icon that came with their web servers.

What does this mean?

Well, look at the picture - the favicon.ico is the little picture that appears next to your url in a web browser. When you use a web server made by Sun Microsystems, it will have that default purple icon representing the Sun logo as default - you either have to remove it or replace it, which is usually one of the first things a webmaster will do. This is especially true on a commercial website, because showing the default logo kind of symbolizes that either your webmaster doesn’t know what hes doing or just doesn’t care.

Whats even more embarrassing is that this is an OLD Sun favicon.ico - they have since replaced it with a new one which reads ‘Sun’.

This was a great idea, because now when a webmaster sees that logo, he knows hes got to get it off of there.

I attended a web conference last week where there was much talk of ‘hippos’ in commercial web development. That is, in non-web companies, the person with the highest pay usually makes all the decisions, at the expense of informed decisions. I can imagine that there is a possibility that during an early web design meeting, some hippo at the Stamford Advocate said ‘lets keep it that way - I like purple!’.

Oh, and while they are at it, Stamford Advocate needs to fix their RSS Feeds and links - half the time I click on a link for the Stamford Advocate, I get a 404.

StationStops - http://www.stationstops.com


More From The Almost Amazing And Semi-Incredible Chris The Computer Wiz

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"Freedom of the press, or, to be more precise, the benefit of freedom of the press, belongs to everyone - to the citizen as well as the publisher... The crux is not the publisher's 'freedom to print'; it is, rather, the citizen's 'right to know.' "

Arthur Sulzburger
1990
American newspaper publisher

03/25/08 - Ridberg: "There is information we don't know, and I don't want people to think we have the whole story and are just letting it out in ...."


"I don't want people to think we have the story."

Then Why The Hell Are You Arresting People?

Judge Robin Pavia said that prosecutors will have to release the arrest warrant on or before April 3rd.

There had better be a some good evidence in there, because a jury is not going to send a guy to jail for life, because a shady boss asked your brother with to purchase a boat for him under your brother's name.

It's Not Carlos Trujillo's fault that his brother Jorge Trujillo was the first member of the family to work for Kissel. The Guy managed apartment buildings Kissel had purchased in New Jersey years ago. Jorges wife, Stella Trujillo, was Kissel's bookkeeper.

You send a guy to jail for life if your sister-in-law workered for a mental unstable swindler who cheated people out of millions.

Carlos was a flunky. He was a lowly driver to low life con artist. What are you going to give a guy the electric chair, because some maniac boss told you to go down and sell some jewelry to Terry Betteridge.

They are trying to make this sound like a murder for big bucks.
Carlos Trujillo was a working stiff. He was arrested while working at his limo job.

So far this looks like a weak case.


Assistant pleads not guilty to Kissel's murder


Greenwich Time - Staff Writer

The personal assistant of slain real estate developer Andrew Kissel pleaded not guilty in a Stamford courthouse yesterday to conspiring to kill his boss almost two years ago, while police stayed mum on a possible motive for the slaying....

More Information:

03/25/08 - Ridberg: “I’m such a TV-driven guy. I know you want to have it all mapped out and have a ‘Law and Order’ episode.”


03/25/08 - Greenwich Police Chief David Ridberg Gets Caught Mis-leading To The Press In The Andrew Kissel Murder


03/24/08 - Media Frenzy - Lindy Urso said he believes his client has been charged because he was “the easiest suspect.”

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"In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils that it creates.."

Alexis de TOCQUEVILLE
French politician and writer (1805-1859)



03/25/08 - Michael O'Dougherty, who represented Trujillo at a hearing said Leonard Trujillo does not yet have an attorney for the murder charge.


Carlos Trujillo and Leonard Trujillo

"He seemed reconciled to returning to Connecticut," said attorney Michael O'Dougherty, who represented Trujillo on the fugitive from justice charge. "He said he wanted to resolve it as soon as possible."

Driver's cousin due in court in Greenwich slaying

Newsday - Long Island,NY

WORCESTER, Mass. - A Worcester man charged in the death of a wealthy Greenwich developer was turned over to Connecticut authorities Tuesday.

Leonard Trujillo, 21, appeared briefly Tuesday in Worcester District Court, then left with three Greenwich, Conn., detectives who were to bring him to Connecticut to face murder and conspiracy to commit murder charges in the death of Andrew Kissel.

Kissel, 46, was found stabbed to death in his Greenwich mansion in 2006, just days before he was to plead guilty in a multimillion-dollar fraud case.

Trujillo's cousin, Carlos Trujillo, 47, was Kissel's longtime driver. Carlos Trujillo, who was arrested during a traffic stop in Stratford, Conn., on Friday, pleaded not guilty in Stamford Superior Court on Monday to one count of conspiracy to commit murder. His attorney says Trujillo has maintained his innocence. Police have not commented on a possible motive for the crime.
...


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"It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper."

Jerry SEINFELD
American comedian and actor (1955-)


03/25/08 - Ruff Back Room Republican Politics In Gentile Greenwich


"If I didn't want to go, I wouldn't go," said Musca, a fifth-generation and lifelong town resident. "I'm not going out hostile. I'm going out on a good note and looking forward to my retirement."

Musca leaving registrar of voters


Veronica Baron Musca is calling it quits after 12 1/2 years as the town's Republican registrar of voters, an elected post ...

...
Musca replaced Chris Thurlow after her resigination in July 1996, five months before the end of Thurlow's term. She had been planning to primary the incumbent and received the endorsement of the RTC Executive Committee, prompting Thurlow to quit.

Musca's announcement comes two years after she averted a primary challenge of her own from fellow Republican Fred DeCaro III, who party leaders persuaded to withdraw from the race and serve as deputy registrar. At the time, Musca pledged that the campaign would be her last.

Musca, who turns 65 in October, said in an interview yesterday that she was retiring on her own terms and looking forward to spending more time training German shepherds....

...
DeCaro, 37, has already reached out to RTC members to get their support for the nomination and said he wants to help residents get better acclimated to new voting technology, make the process more accessible and recruit more poll workers, including students.

"I'd like to see us work closer with the schools to recruit more younger poll workers," said DeCaro, who pointed out that he has attended countless training sessions as deputy registrar and is certified by the state as an election moderator....

....
the machines have improved the counting process, Musca said there will always be a human element in elections.

"It's like driving a car. If the driver behind the car can't drive, then the car's no good, right?" Musca said.

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"La liberté de la presse ne s'use que quand on ne s'en sert pas." (The freedom of the press is never used up / worn out except when you don't use it).

Le CANARD ENCHAINÉ
The motto of this current French satirical magazine


02/25/08 - "After the death of Mrs. (Ann) Skakel in 1973, Ethel Jones really was the one who ran the Skakel household,"


Martha Moxley, 15,
was bludgeoned to death in a
wealthy Greenwich neighborhood.


Former Skakel staffer unlikely to be called


A longtime Skakel family servant who was a member of the household the night Martha Moxley was killed may never be called as a witness in the murder trial of Michael Skakel.

Although Ethel Jones, a resident of Columbus, Ga., claimed in a recent interview that Skakel "didn't do it," the lead prosecutor in Skakel's trial said recently he would like to know why Skakel's defense does not appear intent on calling Jones as a witness -- even though her name appears on the defense's witness list.

"(Jones) was approached (by prosecution investigators) in the early 1990s, but she didn't really have anything to offer," State's Attorney Jonathan Benedict said. "But then again, (Skakel's older brother,... Tommy) was the focus of the investigation at the time."....

Please See...

03/24/08 - His former clients include infamous Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel, who was convicted of the 1975 murder of Greenwich, CT teen Martha Moxley



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"Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one."

A.J. LIEBLING


03/25/08 - Ridberg: “I’m such a TV-driven guy. I know you want to have it all mapped out and have a ‘Law and Order’ episode.”


Carlos Trujillo, center, stands with his attorney, right, and his interpreter, left, while pleading not guilty Monday in Stamford Superior Court at his arraignment hearing in connection to the 2006 Greenwich murder of Andrew Kissell. (GEORGE RUHE / AP / March 24, 2008)

Police Reveal Few Details of Arrest in 2006 Killing
New York Times, United States

By ALISON LEIGH COWAN

In 2006, Mr. Kissel was on house arrest when he was found dead in his large home on Dairy Road. His estranged wife had just packed up much of the house and ...

...
The police in Greenwich declined to discuss their latest theory of the case, or what led them to charge the driver, someone they had long believed was the last person to see Mr. Kissel alive.

While driving a limousine in Stratford, Conn., on Friday night, Mr. Trujillo, 47, was pulled over and arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit murder. The arrest warrant remains sealed. His cousin, Leonard Trujillo, 21, was arrested over the weekend in Worcester, Mass., on charges of being a fugitive in connection with the stabbing. He is being extradited as a co-defendant to Connecticut, where he will face additional charges of murder and conspiracy, the police said.

“This case is not over,” said the Greenwich police chief, David Ridberg, at a news conference on Monday morning. “The investigation remains open, and we have a lot more work to do.”

Deflecting reporters’ requests for possible motives and an account of the killing, Chief Ridberg said, “I know everybody wants a story, and it’s a good story, and when the warrant is unsealed, you’ll have it.”

“I hate to say no comment,” he said....

...A court-appointed interpreter translated the proceedings in Spanish for Mr. Trujillo, a native of Colombia. He was being held on $1 million bond and was due back in court on April 3. The judge said that prosecutors will have to release the arrest warrant by then or file a motion objecting to the unsealing.

Outside the courthouse, Mr. Urso said that his client was “adamant he had nothing to do with it.”

Later, he complained that the police had failed to follow other leads while his client “has been scrutinized and followed and his phones have been tapped,” and everyone close to him had been pressured by authorities “to tell them what they want to hear.”....

...That policy remains the subject of pending litigation in federal court. The insurance company, Northwestern Mutual Life, has sued Mr. Kissel’s widow, Hayley Wolff Kissel, in an effort to rescind the policy because it contends that Mr. Kissel obtained the policy through fraud by failing to disclose problems like his drug habit, which the police and others have confirmed.

Mrs. Kissel, who was divorcing Mr. Kissel at the time of his death, has countersued, contending that the company must honor the policy because the broker “had full knowledge of the accuracy of all statements made in the application.”

On Monday, Chief Ridberg did not rule out a murder-for-hire scheme orchestrated by Mr. Kissel to benefit his survivors. Even so, he said, the killer would be guilty of a homicide. “It’s not an affirmative defense,” he said.

Chief Ridberg added that the arrests were part of a joint effort by his department and 25 other law enforcement agencies, including federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents and the U.S. Army’s military police in South Carolina.

For More Information Please see...

03/25/08 - Greenwich Police Chief David Ridberg Gets Caught Mis-leading To The Press In The Andrew Kissel Murder


03/24/08 - Media Frenzy - Lindy Urso said he believes his client has been charged because he was “the easiest suspect.”


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"Let it be impressed upon your minds, let it be instilled into your children, that the liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights."

JUNIUS
English political author, known only by the signature Junius
Wrote various letters to the London Public Advertiser from Jan., 1769, to Jan., 1772



03/25/08 - Carlos Trujillo was interviewed twice by police without an attorney present. He voluntarily gave his DNA and fingerprints


Carlos Trujillo is escorted out of the courtroom in handcuffs Monday at Stamford Superior Court. (GEORGE RUHE / AP / March 24, 2008)

Suspects' Family Linked To Slain Man's Finances
Hartford Courant, United States

Ever since furniture movers discovered the body of real estate developer Andrew Kissel bound to a chair in his Greenwich home in 2006, police focused much of their murder investigation on the last person to see him alive, family chauffeur Carlos Trujillo.

As they probed further into Kissel's relationship with Trujillo and the driver's family members, they uncovered a series of financial transactions that led them to believe Kissel, days away from pleading guilty to federal fraud charges when he was stabbed multiple times, had used Trujillo and his family to hide his dwindling financial assets from creditors and his estranged wife.

What police were not saying Monday is how the tangled financial web led them to charge Carlos Trujillo, 47, and his cousin, Leonard Trujillo, 21, in connection with Kissel's murder....

...Sources familiar with the investigation say Kissel's financial dealings with Carlos Trujillo and his family started in 2005, when Kissel provided Carlos' brother Jorge with $250,000 to purchase a boat for him under Jorge's name. Jorge Trujillo was the first member of the family to work for Kissel. He managed apartment buildings Kissel had purchased in New Jersey years ago. His wife, Stella Trujillo, was Kissel's bookkeeper.

Kissel, 46 at the time of his death, backed out of the boat deal when he discovered that federal authorities were investigating him for falsifying documents to get millions in loans from several banks.

Sources close to the investigation say authorities are investigating whether Jorge Trujillo ever returned the money or whether, with assistance from other family members, transferred the money to the family's native Columbia.

Authorities also discovered other transactions between Kissel and the Trujillos. Kissel provided Carlos Trujillo with jewelry, some of which belonged to his wife, to sell. Trujillo's lawyer, Lindy R. Urso, said Trujillo did not profit from selling the jewelry for Kissel...

...Urso said his client told police that he left Kissel alone that night and drove to Queens, N.Y., to visit relatives before returning home the next morning. Urso said that "EZ Pass" highway records reflect when Trujillo returned from Queens but do not provide a time frame for when he went to New York.

Greenwich police aggressively questioned members of the Trujillo family in Queens about the alibi. In August 2006, Trujillo's nephew, Jose Montealegre, was arrested by federal immigration officials and deported because, Urso said, he refused to cooperate with the investigation.

"Over the last two years, the police have systematically sought to pressure every person in and around Carlos' family to the point that they even had his nephew deported," Urso said. "It may well be that in Leonard they finally found someone who could be compromised. All I know is Carlos is continuing to maintain that he's 100 percent innocent. He's prepared to have that proven in court."

Urso said police had questioned Carlos Trujillo about whether Kissel had given Carlos money to hire someone to kill him so that his family could collect a $15 million life insurance policy.

Ridberg didn't completely dismiss the suicide-for-hire theory at a press conference on Monday....

Contact Dave Altimari at daltimar@courant.com.

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"Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose."

Eric Arthur Blair or George ORWELL
British novelist and essayist (1903-195

03/25/08 - Girl Money! is an interactive workshop designed for girls 6 to 9 years old that enhances their financial competence and confidence


Girls Inc. program teaches young girls about managing money

This spring, Girls Incorporated of Southwestern Connecticut will be offering several complimentary workshops to girls in Fairfield County. Girls Incorporated is a national non-profit youth organization dedicated to inspiring all girls to be strong, smart and bold.

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"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure."

--Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823


03/25/08 - "My closest friends are like, 'You're still into that stuff? What's the deal with that?' " said Lucy Frisch, 17, a junior who is ....


Teens preach alcohol restraint

Members of the Greenwich High School Outreach Club typically don't drink and they don't have a reputation for staying out all night to party. But as a group, they are committed to addressing underage drinking problems, a cause that sometimes doesn't make sense to their friends.

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"Journalists must seek and speak the truth, for we are the voice of the voiceless millions."

Razia BHATTI
1994
Pakistani journalist

03/25/08 - A new member will be elected to fill the two-year term expiring in January 2010.


Greenwich RTM District 7 to elect new members
Greenwich Post - Greenwich,CT

District 7/North Center members of the Representative Town Meeting will hold an election Thursday, April 10, at 7:45 pm in the Hayton Room of Town Hall. ...

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"A free press can of course be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom it will never be anything but bad."

Albert CAMUS
Resistance, Rebellion and Death
French-Algerian author (1913-1960)



03/25/08 - "It seems to have been working out well and will work out even better when they expand it,"


Airport parking lot may expand

A short-term lot for drivers waiting for arriving passengers at Westchester County Airport has become such a convenient alternative that transportation officials said they plan to double the number of spaces from 24 to 48.

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"Freedom of the press is perhaps the freedom that has suffered the most from the gradual degradation of the idea of liberty."

Albert CAMUS
French-Algerian author (1913-1960)

03/25/08 - This year’s competition will highlight several top-notch jazz ensembles representing approximately 15 different bands from the tri-state


John Yoon conducts the Greenwich High School Jazz band.

Greenwich High School to hold jazz festival School to team up with ...

Greenwich Post - Greenwich,CT

The 23rd annual Greenwich High School Regional Jazz Festival will be held Saturday, March 29, in the school’s Student Center on Hillside Road. ...


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"Limiting the freedom of news 'just a little bit' is in the same category with the classic example 'a little bit pregnant'."

Robert Anson HEINLEIN
A Rabble in Arms
American science fiction writer (1907-88)



03/25/08 - "There was black smoke," Freddy said. "We all ran out."


Laundry fire displaces residents

Freddy Heredia Jr. and his friend had the day off from school yesterday and were watching television in his home when the 17-year-olds first smelled smoke. Hours later, Freddy, his family and a dozen other residents living in a six-unit Byram apartment house at 143 Pine St. were displaced from their home because of fire, officials said.

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To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves."

Claude Adrien HELVÉTIUS
French philosopher (1715–71)



03/25/08 - Greenwich Police Chief David Ridberg Gets Caught Mis-leading To The Press In The Andrew Kissel Murder



There were Inconsistancies In Greenwich Police Chief David Ridberg's Statements early on....


First Greenwich Police Chief David Ridberg Said The Silly-Suicide-For-Hire Theroy Was Not Considered.



Two arrested in Kissel slaying


Martin B. Cassidy - Greenwich Time

March 23, 2008

Ridberg yesterday emphasize that police never considered a suicide-for-hire theory
.


"That was something that was put out by other parties in the case," Ridberg said.

Then Dozens Of Press Clippings Were Pulled Out Of Reporter's Files Showing That The Police Did Consider The Silly-Suicide-For-Hire Theory.

Judge holds purse strings in Kissel case

Martin B. Cassidy - Greenwich Time

Aug 22, 2006

Lindy Urso, the attorney for [Andrew M. Kissel]'s driver, Carlos Trujillo, said that police continue to investigate his client in connection with the murder. Police have questioned Trujillo based on a theory that Kissel might have plotted his own murder so his wife and children would receive the hefty life insurance policy.

Kissel driver: I should've kept quiet

Martin B. Cassidy - Greenwich Time

Sep 7, 2006

Police viewed his recent trip to Colombia and an arrangement in which he sold jewelry on behalf of Kissel as suspicious, supporting a theory that [Carlos Trujillo] had a role in a Kissel scheme to have himself killed so his family could collect on an enormous life insurance policy, Trujillo said.

Now Greenwich Police Chief David Ridberg Admits That The Police Department Did Consider The Silly-Suicide-For-Hire Theroy


Driver arrested, pleads not guilty to Kissel murder

Greenwich Post, CT


March 24, 2008


...Chief Ridberg neither dismissed nor accepted that possibility, but confirmed the police investigated that view. He said the department’s research showed there had been only two cases nationwide where such a scenario had happened and called it “an extremely rare form of homicide.”

We never said that we believed that it was [suicide for hire] and we never said that we didn’t believe,” Chief Ridberg said..... If it ends up being the case, that’s fine. If it ends up not being the case, that’s fine too. We’re more into discerning the facts of the case.”
This so-called murder case is going to have a lot of twists and turns. because...

It looks like this so-called murder case and Greenwich Police Cheif David "Flip Flop" Ridberg are appearently not aready for prime time.

"From the git go, I mean, he's, ah, he was, ah, close to Andrew Kissel, ah, you know, he ah, the information we had....", Police Chief David Ridberg stammered at a press conference that he had called.

God, I hope this guy doesn't keep embarrassing the Town of Greenwich on cable television.

Prosecutors May End Up With Egg On There Face And National Cable TV Channels Will Be There To Catch Every Single Moment.

Was pressure used to get false statements?

What was the motive?

Where is the weapon?

Can the police follow the money?

Did the 21 year old cousin have some legal troubles that caused him to tell police what they wanted to hear.

This 21 year old cousin had better be a damn good witness, with no ulterior motives or skeletons in his closet.

The local media is somewhat intimidated by Ridberg and the Greenwich Police Department, but the national media doesn't give a tinkers damn about them.

Soon The National Media Will Start Talking About The Screwed Up Martha Moxley Murder Case and Greenwich's other unsolved murder of poor little 13 year old Matthew Margolies.

Matthew's Story:

The narrow winding streets of the Pemberwick section of Greenwich (Connecticut) are a far cry from the leafy back roads, expansive lawns, and stately multi-floored homes that have come to characterize this well-to-do community. The neighborhood would never be mistaken for the more moneyed sections of town such as Round Hill Road, Rock Ridge, or Belle Haven.

The residents of Pemberwick fondly refer to it as "The Valley". In the Valley the homes are modest, rarely exceeding one story. The yards are small but neat, and vinyl siding seems to be the exterior of choice here. It is a community that seems to be proud of the fact that it is a pocket of working class people set amidst the conspicuously wealthy.

The Byram River is the defining geographic identity of Pemberwick. It is not much of a river, a meandering stream would be a more apt description. Until it empties into the Long Island Sound, where it widens to river-like proportions and divides Connecticut and New York in the process, it is a shallow winding ribbon of water that few outsiders in the hunt of sport or adventure bother with. Matthew Margolies, age 13, born and raised in Pemberwick, was an avid fisherman that loved this un-remarkable river nonetheless. Matthew was a regular angler on the muddy waters that coursed through peoples backyards in Pemberwick and the nearby Glenville section of town.

That last Friday of the month was a day off for Maryann Margolies, having just completed a double shift at the hospital the day before. Her kids had stayed over at her mothers house the previous evening. She drove over early on Friday morning. Matthew and his older sister Stacey were still asleep. She looked in on Matthew and remembers how he had looked so peaceful. Maryann elected not to awaken her youngest just to accompany her on her errands. She left a note that she would call later.

Arising that morning, the soon to be 8th grader at Western Junior High grabbed one of his favorite fishing rods and set out like so many other times before to idle away the waning days of Summer casting for trout in the suburban waterway.

Back in 1984 residents of the Valley would be hard pressed to come up with anyone who was more intimate with the secrets of the Byram River than the young Margolies boy. He knew every twist and turn, and more importantly every prime fishing hole. A son of a single mother, a nurse who drew long hours at a skilled nursing facility in Stamford, Matthew would spend his time exploring the modest wonders of the Byram River with his beloved grandfather George Miazga. But on the eve of the holiday weekend Matthew was no longer able to share his appreciation of the river with his maternal grandfather. He had died just two weeks before, succumbing to a long and painful illness that the young boy had been witness to.

As of late, when working, his mother would often entrust her sons well being to her recently widowed mother. Still Maryann Margolies put a lot of trust in her son. He was a good kid - bright, responsible, polite, and loving. Matthew always asked permission before making any plans to fish or a play date with some neighborhood friend. His mother would say later that today you might call Matthew a "latchkey child" but back in 1984 no one would think twice about letting their child play unsupervised. After all, this was Greenwich, Connecticut and not the mean streets of an inner city. Kids were supposed to be safe here.

At around 5PM Maryann Margolies drove over to her mothers house to pick up her son to bring him home for dinner. Mrs. Miazga had taken Stacey to an appointment. Matthew was not there and that worried her. She waited until her mother and daughter returned to see if Matthew had accompanied them. He had not. At around 7PM, with no word or sign of Matthew, Maryann knew that something was drastically wrong. She called the police.

A Greenwich youth division officer along with a few neighbors of the Margolies and Miazgas fanned out across the area of Byram River. Concerned phone calls were made to the homes of Matthew's friends inquiring if they knew his whereabouts. No one had seen or heard from the boy.

On Saturday the search intensified. More police were assigned to the dragnet and the volunteer firemen pitched in. The boys father, who was now living in the Dallas area, was called. He had not been contacted by his son. On Sunday the FBI was notified of his disappearance and Maryann Margolies made an emotional appeal in the local newspaper, The Greenwich Time, for help in finding her son. Police divers began to make underwater forays in the murky waters for what they hoped they would never find - young Matthew's body.

On Monday, September 2nd Maryann and her boyfriend Jim (later to become her husband) decided to look around for themselves in the area near Pemberwick Road just above the Glenville Civic Center around Hawthorne Street. She remembered just days before that her son had asked her about what was up there. His interest in the area had mystified her. She asked him why he was curious about the terrain that rose sharply to a secluded neighborhood of Glenville. He had replied that he was just curious. She asked him if anyone had approached him about going up there. Matthew said no. If he wanted to see it, Maryann told him, she would happily take him there otherwise he was not to go up there. He shrugged it off and the subject was dropped. But Maryann was troubled by Matthew's interest in the remote spot. Now, days later she was there looking for some sign of her son.

Near the dead end of Hawthorne Street in a rock strewn dump area frequented by neighborhood kids and adjacent to the wooded area above Pemberwick Road Maryann and Jim detected a foul, overpowering odor. They did not investigate any further. She notified the police of the suspicious smell upon returning home figuring the residents of the neighborhood must have complained about it as well. The police said the odor was probably just discarded fish offal from anglers on the nearby river. But being an accomplished fisherman herself Maryann remembers the stench was certainly no gutted fish, nor was it a skunk. The police did not search the area for two more days.

Fred Lambert had just returned from a trip to Virginia when he had heard of the search for the lost boy. A life long resident of Greenwich and a volunteer fire policeman who had experience in searches he took it upon himself to look up in the area that was across the street from where he worked. The Mill, his place of employment, was an old felt producing mill that had been converted into a collection of chic shops, offices, and a restaurant and was less than a mile up the road from where Matthew was last seen. The wooded hills that he climbed were just below Hawthorne and Greenway Streets. Lambert walked through the deserted dump area then followed the densely forested path. Almost immediately he saw a single sneaker, a black and white checkered one. He knew from reports the missing boy was described as wearing just such footwear when he was last seen. Lambert immediately ran down the hill and marked the spot with a bicycle tire he had found along the trail and hung it on a telephone pole on Pemberwick Road, then he dashed off to call the police.

At 4PM, September 5th , five days after the initial report of the missing boy two youth division officers appeared on the scene and Lambert took them up to the area where he had discovered the sneaker. The two officers commenced searching the steep rocky and wooded terrain. Lambert remembers stepping back and leaning against a tree when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. Looking closer he saw that it was a small foot poking up through the leaves. Lambert remembers his heart sank and a wave of nausea swept over him. He managed to call out in a shaken voice to the two officers, "Guys, he's over here." The 38-year old father of a daughter Matthew's age trotted down the hill leaving the two officers with the grim task of uncovering the diminutive body that laid in the makeshift grave.

atthew Margolies had been dead for some time. There were multiple stab wounds on his torso. An autopsy performed by Dr. H. Wayne Carver, the states deputy medical examiner, determined he had died of the stab wounds and traumatic asphyxiation. Traumatic asphyxiation occurs when a sudden or severe compression of the chest or upper abdomen results in death by preventing a person from breathing. It was to become a telltale clue that still has not been resolved some 15 years later.

The autopsy -according to the Greenwich Police - also determined that there were no signs that the boy had been sexually molested. His athletic shorts, along with his sneakers, were found near his body but he still had his underpants on. Many have speculated that this indicates the body may have been dragged down or up the wooded embankment but the police have insisted the boy was killed where he was found. A 10-inch kitchen boning knife was also found near the body several days later. Other than declaring it the weapon used to inflict the wounds on Matthew Margolies, the Greenwich Police Department (GPD) claims to know nothing more about it having spent hundreds of hours trying to track it down. Matthew's fishing rod was no where to be found.

The GPD rarely handled this type of a crime. It had been nine years since they investigated the last homicide - the notorious Martha Moxley murder. The results would be the same. No arrests, no indictments, no convictions.

As in the Moxley case there was some crucial mistakes made by the GPD. In 1986 Police Chief Thomas Keegan over the protests of his detective division commissioned outside consultant Vernon J. Geberth, a former lieutenant commander in the New York City Police Department, to determine how the GPD handled the Margolies homicide investigation. The report was kept secret until a Freedom of Information suit brought by The Greenwich Time forced the town to release it in 1992. There were significant sections that had been blacked out on the order of Superior Court Judge Harold Dean who allowed the police to withhold that information since the GPD claimed making it public would "harm the Margolies investigation".

It was revealed, however, that there was a "clear lack of effective coordination in the early stages of the investigation". No detective had been assigned to check into the missing person report, even though it was a small boy. That oversight may have cost the department a chance of cracking the case early. Geberth added that by the time the body was found "the investigative arm of the Greenwich Police Department had, in effect, lost six days of crucial informational interviews and neighborhood canvasses, which would later prove to be significant to the homicide investigation.

This fact is even harder to reconcile after present Police Chief Peter Robbins admitted in a recent interview with this reporter that the GPD suspected "foul play" 24 to 48 hours after the initial missing persons report. Still, no detective was assigned to the case early on. It also has been learned that after the body was found only one detective assigned to the case actually viewed the crime scene.

Geberth also criticized then Captain William Andersen, head of the investigation, for not delegating more authority to subordinates. The department was praised, nonetheless, for conducting a "diligent, professional investigation." But recently discovered facts concerning the case would seem to challenge that ultimate pat on the back for a job well done.

One week after finding Matthew Margolies' body the GPD revealed that they had located the missing fishing pole. By all reports Matthew was last seen in possession of that rod the day he disappeared and was presumably killed. In a prepared statement the GPD Chief Keegan (the lead detective in the Moxley case back in 1975) said that the rod "had been sold by Matthew to a friend." The police would not identify the "friend" who had bought the rod. In the interview with Chief Robbins (who was a lieutenant detective working on the Margolies case in ’84) the finding of the rod had no significance and they were satisfied that the holder of the rod was not a material witness or a suspect in the homicide case.

Maryann Margolies, also in a recent interview with this reporter, would not comment about the fishing rod indicating that she had received either police or legal advice concerning the matter. However, she did say that Matthew would never have willingly parted with that fishing rod since it was gift from his grandfather and that the finding of the rod in the possession of another was "significant". If indeed Matthew was carrying that rod at 5PM on August 31st, 1984 the person who was later found in possession of it was the last person to see him alive.

It has been learned that the investigation has centered on three to five individuals who fit the profile provided by the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia. In the interview Chief Robbins said that his department executed three search warrants on the basis of the profile, the first ever such search warrant granted by a Connecticut judge. Robbins said no new evidence was turned up due, no doubt, to the elapsed time since the commission of the crime. Robbins would not add for the record to the description of the suspect described only as a "white male" - a description that fits nearly half of all the residents of Pemberwick and Glenville.

The chief of the 162 man force said in the interview that, "We know what happened at the crime scene." He clarified the "we" as being the perpetrator and the police investigators, and that releasing any more information on what has been learned by forensics, the psychological profile, the DNA results, and interviews would compromise their case. Yet, in the Greenwich Police chiefs own words the Margolies homicide is a "cold case".

Will the Matthew Margolies homicide ever be solved? There are indications, profoundly mysterious and troubling, that justice and some kind of closure is attainable.

One of the suspects, it has been learned, is an especially logical choice for being the perpetrator of this heinous crime. The suspect was a known bully with a history of trouble making. Matthew's body was found directly behind the suspects house, practically in his backyard. A former neighbor (who wishes to remain anonymous) claims the suspect threatened his own son using a knife similar to the one that killed Matthew Margolies just weeks before the murder. The suspect and a handful of friends often terrorized the neighborhood. Had Matthew crossed paths with these toughs in the woods that his mother had forbidden him to explore? Was this slight, gangly boy bullied? Had they demanded his fishing rod and did he resist? Traumatic asphyxiation, the telltale clue. Was Matthew thrown to the ground and pounced upon, his shorts pulled off to humiliate him, his chest so compressed that he could not breathe? Did his assailant(s) panic? Was the knife produced for the coup de grace or for some ritualistic bonding?

A second teenage suspect, also with a criminal history and a friend of the first suspect, was a resident of a Port Chester neighborhood not far from Matthew's house. Prior to the finding of the body a Port Chester policeman contacted the detective division of the Port Chester Police Department (PCPD) inquiring about a homicide in Greenwich which they were unaware of at that time. When the body did turn up the detectives were naturally suspicious especially since the policeman's son had a criminal record and was known to frequent the Byram River to fish. One PCPD detective who was interviewed said, "We always knew this kid was heading to bigger and more serious things."

The detective approached the teenager unofficially and learned from him that he had known Matthew Margolies and had often fished with him. The suspect and the father agreed to a meeting with a Greenwich detective but the boy never showed up. Eventually the boy and his father agreed that he would take a polygraph. On the day the lie detecting test was to be administered the suspect was no where to be found and the father informed the detectives that they would no longer cooperate. According to the now retired PCPD detective the suspect later joined the military, was dismissed because of a criminal offense and is now doing time in a state penitentiary. The retired detective said the GPD never followed up on the investigation of the suspect after his refusal of the polygraph.

Matthew Margolies was last seen alive in the late afternoon of August 31st almost a mile from where his body was found. No one reported seeing him walk along Pemberwick Road on any of the side streets on that bright sunny Summer afternoon. Perhaps he was not seen along those roads because he never traversed them by foot. Maryann Margolies says on the day of her sons disappearance suspicious fresh tire marks were found in front of her mothers house on Morgan Avenue which is just a short distance from the intersection of Comly Avenue and Pemberwick Road. A kid just showing off and laying some rubber, or was it a car whose cargo demanded a speedy exit? Maryann Margolies says the GPD discounted the importance of the tire marks, and to her knowledge never pursued the matter. Suspect number one had a car at his disposal.

Chillingly provocative questions that only the murderer and the police seem able to answer.

After 15 years the loss of her only son to such horrible circumstances is an everyday reality for Maryann Margolies. She still lives in the same home on Pilgrim Drive with her husband Jim. The troubling possibility that some one in her neighborhood brutally murdered her defenseless child is a pain that is compounded by the belief that there are individuals who know who that person is and they are protecting him for whatever reason. Just the thought of that brings tears to the eyes of the now 54-year old grandmother.

Maryann Margolies has been reassured by police investigators that the murder of her only son was probably not a premeditated crime and that the person or persons responsible for it would never repeat it. But as the mother of the murdered child said:

"How can anyone confidently say that. I feel that if someone has done something like this once what's to prevent them from repeating this under the same set of circumstances. People have to wake up in this community and realize this is not Apple pie, USA. Bad things happen here just like anywhere else and people have to be alert and attuned to that. Maybe I can be blamed for using poor judgment but at the time I believed a 13-year old boy could be left to fish in his own backyard in Greenwich, Connecticut. Well, obviously I was wrong. And if it wasn't safe then, what makes it more safe now?"

Matthew never lived to see his mother happily remarried, or see his sister married and have children of her own. He is painfully missed at all family get-togethers and holidays. His mother fondly remembers that he was just getting interested in girls and began paying a little more attention to his appearance. Maryann smiles when she remembers how she would catch the pre-pubescent preening in front of the mirror.

Maryann no longer drives up the section of Pemberwick Road where Matthew's body was found. The memories of those days 15 years ago are still an open wound. No one but those who have experienced what she has can ever appreciate the tremendous grief she lives with. Yet through all the pain and suffering she has experienced as a result of her sons murder she would be go through the painful loss all over again just to have those 13 years of Matthew's life that was so intertwined with her own back again.

There is a memorial plaque on the small bridge that spans the Byram River over a dammed portion in Glenville that he was so fond of fishing. It reads:

"Matthew Margolies, An Excellent Angler, And Now With God, 1971-1984".

It is a modest testament to a life of unfulfilled dreams.

Note: This narrative was by Kevin F. McMurry

After The National Press Looks Into The Unsolved Mathew Margolies Case. They Will Probably Start Looking At Other Screwed Up Greenwich Murder Investigations.

The National Media Might Even Start Asking Questions Like....

"Why doesn't anyone ever write about the Klein murder?"
"The 1975 Greenwich, CT murder case
still draws scrutiny"


Seven months and two days after Martha Moxley was found bludgeoned to death, the bodies of Joanne Kim Klein, 30, and her maid Martha Lema, 28, were found at their Perkins Road house on the night of June 2, 1976. They had each been shot twice in the head, execution-style, with a 9-millimeter handgun.

A former fashion model turned photographer, Kim Klein had at one time been married to a reputed Chicago mobster and was said to be close to the infamous late gangster Sam Giancana (the two died within weeks of each other). Her maid, Lema, was rumored to have ties to a drug smuggling ring.

After the discovery of the two women's bodies, police questioned Kim Klein's former husband, James Klein, who lived in Manhattan at the time. According to police, Klein said that he had visited his ex-wife several hours before the bodies were found, but that the former couple had gotten into an argument and he had left.

n September of the same year, James Klein was arrested and charged with the two murders. He was freed on bail in November, only to die four months later, allegedly by suicide in his Manhattan apartment on Feb. 7, 1977. He was 38. An empty bottle of pills was found near his body and his death was ruled to be caused by an overdose of barbiturates. Multiple suicide notes, in which Klein lashed out angrily at the Greenwich Police Department and the prosecutors office for his arrest and indictment, were found near the body.

The Greenwich police have ruled the case closed. "Her husband was arrested," Chief Peter Robbins explained Tuesday. But in the minds of some, "case closed" does not mean "solved completely."

Former Greenwich police detective Stephen Carroll investigated the Klein case with his partner James Lunney, shortly before Carroll's retirement in 1977. In an interview Tuesday, Carroll cited the pairs experience working the Moxley case as a reason why the two were assigned to the Klein murder. When local authorities discovered James Klein was in Florida at the time a warrant was issued for his arrest, the two flew down and took him into custody in Pompano Beach.

"There was all kinds of inferences," Carroll said, in reference to clues or rumors about the killing apart from James Klein's involvement. But Carroll added that he did not do follow up work on any of these clues or rumors. "If Jim Lunney or [then-captain of detectives] Tom Keegan did, I'm not aware of that," he said.

Because talk existed of the killing being linked to organized crime, especially due to Kim Klein's alleged former associations in Chicago, Carroll said, "I think [Lunney and I] asked if we could go [to Chicago] -- the answer was no."

Through neutron activation tests on James Klein's hands after the murder, Carroll said the Greenwich police detected a substance which might have been linked to the 9-millimeter used in the killing.

"He either had fired the weapon or handled the bullets," Carroll said. He added that the trace substance detected on Klein's hands was "faint."

Asked if he believed the late James Klein killed his former wife, Carroll replied, "You know, that's a very good question. I really don't think so." But according to Carroll's theory, this belief does not exonerate James Klein from all responsibility for the crime. The former detective believes that Klein was present in the bedroom when his ex-wife was shot to death.

"It was our feeling that somebody else killed her," Carroll said. He also added that "I'm not sure if it was [James Klein's] orders. There was some connotations of drugs in the house." He added that the whole scene seemed "very much like a mob hit."

"We felt [Klein] was the one who scooped up the shells, but he missed one," Carroll said.

That one 9-mm shell was found on the bedspread -- the same bedspread which bore Kim Klein, lying flat on her back, with her knees hanging off the bed and her feet almost touching the floor, according to Carroll. The maid, said to have been found in the bathroom, was likely shot dead to silence her future testimony to investigators, Carroll added.

But if James Klein did not shoot his wife, at least one murderer has not been brought to justice to this day. And the murderer might have had a whole organization behind him or her on the day the two young women were killed.

Eerily enough, Carroll also ties together Kim Klein's murder to the reported suicide of her former husband months later while he was out on bail.

"I don't know that he did take his own life," Carroll said, pointing out the organized crime factor, even the possibility that the suicide notes were forced or forged. Carroll added that to his knowledge, handwriting tests were never performed on the letters.

"I think the individuals responsible were under some pressure that he might talk," Carroll said. And of the suicide note: "Anybody can tell you what you write in a note," the former detective remarked.

"I think he was told `Jim, it'd be a good idea if you took these pills.'"

Dumas', former editor of the now-defunct Greenwich News, refers to the Klein murder as "a fascinating case" "The police consider that one solved, but a lot of people seem to differ," he said. Fishing out a recollection of the case, Dumas said of Kim Klein, "She was very afraid in the last weeks of her life and afraid of her husband."

In June of 1976, the late James Klein's family demanded $20 million in damages from the town of Greenwich, citing civil rights violations, malicious prosecution, wrongful death, false arrest and false imprisonment among other grounds. According to Carroll, no settlement was ever reached and the town never paid any amount to the Klein family. But a book, "Rape of the Blindfolded Lady," written by James Klein's sister Carole Raft, was published several years later. In the account, James Klein is portrayed as an unfortunate victim.

Former Los Angeles police detective and Moxley case book author Mark Fuhrman said Tuesday that while investigating the Moxley case, beginning in 1997, he and his associate Stephen Weeks had also reviewed the Klein case and found the department's lack of evidence "shocking," considering James Klein's arrest.

"I'm not saying that [James Klein] didn't do it, but what they had down wasn't enough," Fuhrman said.

"The Klein case was not a clean case," he continued. "The evidence that I saw that Greenwich was using and holding Klein without bail was ridiculous." (Actually Klein was originally being held on $250,000 bail, an amount he could not post.) Fuhrman also questioned the necessity of local authorities in originally sealing the warrant for James Klein's arrest (it was later unsealed).

The prosecution's case, Fuhrman contended, contained "no eyewitnesses, no one could put him at the scene of the crime."

He continued, "The Klein case stunk when I read what I read about it. If you're going to charge somebody with murder, you have to connect them to the crime scene at the time of the murder. You've got to corroborate it through some piece of evidence."

And as for neutron tests on the hands, Fuhrman said, "there's a lot of things that can transfer that," citing fertilizer as an example. Fuhrman also pointed out the possibility of a neutron test coming back positive if a subject owns a gun. James Klein is said to have owned three.

"The only time [those tests are] brought into court is when they're 100 percent positive and the [reading] was so high," Fuhrman said, contradicting the "faint" reading described by Carroll.

After no arrest in Martha Moxley's murder, seven months earlier, Fuhrman contended that the Klein case was a "must solve" for the Greenwich Police Department. Asked if that would explain why an arrest might be made with supposedly so little evidence, Fuhrman replied, "Well, Tom Keegan's your key; he screwed up the Moxley case."

Keegan, the captain of Greenwich police detectives at the time of the Moxley and Klein murders and later Greenwich police chief, could not be reached at his home in Myrtle Beach, S.C. where he serves in the state House of Representatives.

Even if James Klein is proven innocent, Carroll says he's skeptical any other participants in the crime can be brought to justice.

"I doubt it -- it's like one of those things that happen in the city quite often and [the perpetrator's] never found," he said.

Note: This narrative was by Peter Moore

==============================
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When is a flip-flop not a flip flop?
When it’s someone from YOUR party who you like who’s doing it (then it’s a thoughtful reconsideration of a past position).

When is a flip-flop a flip flop?
When someone from the OTHER party is doing it (then it’s sleazy politics as usual).


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