Tinker Air Force Base deaths: 17 people dead in 2023, military refuses to reveal causes

An Air Force base in Oklahoma is tight-lipped after 17 people have died since the beginning of 2023, with an advocate for military families saying she’d made inquiries about a possible rash of suicides. 

Officials for the Air Force and the base have refused to reveal the nature of the deaths, saying only that there were ‘various causes.’

DailyMail.com has reached out to the base for an explanation or names of the personnel who have died – but officials did not respond in time for this report. 

A number of the deaths are also still ‘under investigation,’ a spokesperson for the base said. A Military.com investigation suggested that ‘they had been informed of deaths connected to base this year including potential suicides.’ 

It’s not clear how many of the deaths were service members or what their role was at the base, which has over 30,000 personnel on site. 

Keep reading

The Strange Death Of Warren G. Harding

It was 100 years ago today – August 2, 1923 – when President Warren G. Harding suddenly died. He was in San Francisco, on the tail end of a cross-country promotional tour that had taken him as far as Alaska. It would have been an exhausting trip even for a younger man without a bum ticker. Then Harding contracted pneumonia along the way and, if that wasn’t enough, was laid low by some tainted seafood.

Any or all of these may have contributed to Harding’s demise. But no one knows exactly why or how Harding died when he did. The New York Times attributed the president’s sudden expiration to a “stroke of apoplexy.” Some have suggested heart failure. Others have joked that – battered by a landslide of scandal and humiliated by the corrupt schemes launched by the old friends he had raised to positions of power – Harding simply died of shame.

An autopsy might have helped quell rumors of foul play, but first lady Florence Harding refused to allow one.

There was one character in the mix who claimed he knew how Harding died. His name was Gaston B. Means and he claimed not only to know that the president was murdered, but also who did it. His assertions, to put it mildly, were suspect. But Means could spin a compelling yarn. And he was at one time credentialed. He not only had the badge of a special agent of the Justice Department, he had an office in the department.

Means persuaded no small number of Americans that Florence Harding was the killer. He claimed that she confided in him, confessing that she had poisoned her husband.

According to Means’ account (and it should be noted he was an inveterate liar), while he was a special agent for the federal government, Florence Harding tasked him with investigating her husband’s dalliances. Means claimed to have compiled a dossier detailing Warren’s affair with Nan Britton, a young Ohio woman. The Hardings had a knock-down, drag-out row over the child the president had fathered with Britton, Means claimed, adding that not long after that, the first lady took charge of giving her husband his meds.

Means would peddle the story for years, claiming the first lady was enraged that Harding fathered a child by a young woman, Nan Britton, smitten with the president. A notorious con-man, hustler and trickster, Means was also a special agent in the investigative agency that would morph into the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For those shocked that today’s FBI plays politics and seems to struggle to shoot straight, it’s worth remembering that the agency is in some part a legacy of Gaston B. Means. Which is to say, misinformation and disinformation are nothing new. A fabulist of the first order, Means’ fabrications were interlaced with enough detail drawn from actual events that he managed to convince many that his tales were true. Books such as Will Durant’s “The Story of Philosophy” and H.G. Wells’ “The Outline of History” were among the best-selling nonfiction books of 1930, but they didn’t come close to selling as many copies as Means’ memoir, “The Strange Death of President Harding.”

Keep reading

Mystery as Goldman Sachs analyst John Castic, 27, vanishes after ‘Zeds Dead’ concert at iconic NYC venue Brooklyn Mirage – weeks after another man was found dead after being turned away from site for ‘drinking alcohol’

A frantic search is underway for a missing Goldman Sachs analyst who was last seen in the early hours of Sunday leaving a Brooklyn nightclub.

John Castic, 27, from Chicago, told friends at the Brooklyn Mirage club he was getting an Uber home to his apartment in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

It remains unclear whether he ever called or took an Uber, but he never arrived home, and his friends raised the alarm on Sunday.

Castic graduated from DePaul University and begun working as a senior analyst at Goldman Sachs in August 2022.

Castic and his friends had been to see the Canadian electronic duo Zeds Dead.

His final photo, shared by a friend, shows him arriving at their front door at 9pm, before heading to the gig on the edge of Brooklyn’s neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Bushwick.

His friends say he left the venue at 2:30am.

One person on Reddit claimed that there had been crowds of unlicensed cab drivers hovering around the area, and speculated Castic could have got in one of their vehicles to try and get home.

Police initially refused to raise the alarm, they said, because he did not have any known mental health issues, but by Monday evening had assigned a detective to the case.

On Tuesday a group of his friends plan on meeting outside the club and scouring the area.

Keep reading

Tafari Campbell paddle boarding death riddle: Cops left call log reporting Obama private chef’s drowning BLANK and said it came from 2 miles away – as they refuse to reveal who he was with on the water

Martha’s Vineyard police left the reason for the 911 call reporting Obama private chef Tafari Campbell’s drowning blank in official logs from the night of the accident, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Tafari, 45, fell into the water on Sunday night while paddle boarding on Great Edgartown Pond. He was not on the water alone, but police refuse to name the person he was with. 

At 7.46pm, a 911 call was made to report that he had fallen in and could not make it back to the surface. 

That call is noted in Edgartown Police Department’s logs, but the reason behind it is left noticeably blank. The reason for every other call for that night is given. 

The origin of the call is also listed as Wilson’s Landing – a paddle board launch site, some two miles from the Obamas’ house on Turkeyland Cove, where Massachusetts State Police say the first call came from. 

Edgartown police chief Bruce McNamee told DailyMail.com that the call log is generated by the Dukes County Sheriff’s Office. 

He could only speculate on why the reason for the call is left blank, saying it may be because the caller from Obama’s property didn’t dial 911, which automatically generates location data, and instead made a direct call to a business line.

He also said the address was listed as Wilson’s Landing because that was the public launch used as the command post. 

At the time the call came in, authorities didn’t know where the drowning occurred so used the staging site for the incident location, he chief said.

The property boasts a private beach from which a paddle board can be easily launched. At the time of the drowning, Barack and Michelle were out of the house. 

It’s unclear if Sasha and Malia – who were also in town – were at home, or out with friends or their parents. 

At 11.40pm, another 911 call was made from a neighbors’ house to report an elderly woman falling down the stairs. 

Chief McNamee said it was entirely unrelated to the accident on the water.  

The Obamas’ office did not respond to requests to clarify who was in the house when Campbell’s accident occurred. 

Keep reading

Missing millionaire crypto influencer found dismembered in suitcase

Police have launched a murder investigation after the dismembered remains of missing millionaire Fernando Pérez Algaba, 41, were discovered by a group of children in Argentina over the weekend.

The grisly case came to light after the kids found a red suitcase filled with body parts while playing by a stream in the town of Ingeniero Budge, Buenos Aires Province, on Sunday, Jam Press reported.

The children’s parents notified the Buenos Aires police, who inspected the package and reportedly found the victim’s legs and forearm inside, discovering another whole arm in the stream.

On Wednesday, authorities discovered the missing head and torso, El País reported.

The body parts were cleanly amputated, suggesting the work of a professional, local media reported.

Meanwhile, a subsequent autopsy revealed that the victim had been shot three times before the dismemberment.

Keep reading

3 US Marines found dead inside car at North Carolina gas station near Camp Lejeune

Three U.S. Marines were found dead inside a parked car at a gas station in a coastal North Carolina community over the weekend, authorities said.

The Pender County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were responding to a report of a missing person when they found the three Marines at about 9 a.m. Sunday at a Speedway convenience store on U.S. 17 in Hampstead, about 30 miles south of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.

Their causes of death weren’t immediately clear. The Pender County Sheriff’s Office said it was investigating further.

“There does not appear to have ever been any threat to members of the community,” the sheriff’s office said.

Keep reading

Medical examiner to perform toxicology test on Tafari Campbell, Obamas’ private chef, after Martha’s Vineyard drowning

Medical examiners are expected to undertake a toxicology report on the body of a former White House sous chef who drowned while paddle boarding at the former Presidents $12million Martha’s Vineyard property.

An autopsy is expected to take place today after Tafari Campbell, 45, was found dead on Monday by divers after going missing in Edgartown Great Pond, Massachusetts, that backs on to the Obama’s sprawling estate.

DailyMail.com understands that a toxicology analysis will take place as part of the investigation, which sources say is usual in a drowning.

Martha’s Vineyard residents have been quick to reflect on the dangers of the pond, with one paddle boarder telling DailyMail.com that you often think the beach is closer than it is in the private area close to the Obama’s property.

Campbell had been paddle boarding with another person at around 7.40pm on Sunday, with witnesses saying he was dressed in all black and not wearing a life preserver.

Keep reading

Body found in search for black male paddleboarder, 43, who drowned in pond on Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard estate: 911 call was made from ex-President’s $12M property last night

Divers have found the body of a paddleboarder who went missing in the water off Martha’s Vineyard – that backs on to Barack Obama’s sprawling $12million estate.

The 43-year-old vanished on Sunday evening while he was out with another paddleboarder on Edgartown Great Pond, Massachusetts, and emergency crews were dispatched to Obama’s residence. 

Witnesses told cops the man went underwater and then briefly reappeared as he struggled to stay afloat, before submerging again around 7.46pm. 

A massive joint-agency search resumed Monday morning for the African American male who was last seen wearing all black without a lifejacket, MV Times reported.

His paddle board and hat were recovered Sunday – and his body was found in the eight-foot-deep waters approximately 100 feet away from shore at 10am Monday. 

The dispatch address for the incident came from Obama’s Martha’s waterfront Vineyard home. It is unclear if the former president, 61, is currently staying at the estate. 

Keep reading

‘Accidental’ death of Rolling Stones guitarist called into question by witness statement

After Brian Jones was found dead in his swimming pool in 1969, the authorities quickly decided that the Rolling Stones star had drowned accidentally.

But questions have lingered over the case in the years since, and now a previously unseen witness statement has cast renewed doubt on the police investigation.

Jones was found dead at his home in Hartfield, East Sussex on July 2 1969, just a few weeks after it was announced he was leaving the Rolling Stones. He was 27 years old.

Five days later, the coroner recorded a verdict of death by misadventure, saying Jones drowned “whilst under the influence of alcohol and drugs”.

Two weeks after Jones died, Joan Fitzsimons, 29, was brutally attacked. A local cab driver, she had been at Jones’s house on the night he died and was a girlfriend of Frank Thorogood, a builder-cum-minder for Jones who was allegedly a suspect in the fatal drowning.

Before the attack, she had told friends in a pub that she was planning on telling the true story of Jones’s death to the national newspapers.

In the witness statement, given to officers investigating the assault on Fitzsimons, her brother, John Russell, described how she was “frightened” of Thorogood and that she believed there was more to Jones’s death than the official verdict.

Sussex Police denied there was any link between the attack on Fitzsimons and Jones’s death.

Just before 10pm on July 26 1969, Fitzsimons was found unconscious in the back of her lime-green Ford Zephyr, four miles outside Chichester, blinded in both eyes, with a fractured skull and three of her front teeth missing.

The statement that Russell gave to Sussex Police on July 30 1969 was placed inside the National Archives, with an order that it remain closed until 2041, but has now been released under a Freedom of Information request.

Keep reading

Man found dead nearly 6 hours after running from Fuquay-Varina police officer

Melvis Harris and her family are desperate for answers to her son’s death. She doesn’t understand how Bryan Harris, who she calls BJ, ended up dead.

“They wouldn’t let us come in here and see my child. My baby boy,” she said Thursday evening inside her Fuquay – Varina home

The 36-year-old father of three died six hours after an interaction with Fuquay-Varina Police. It all started shortly before midnight, on Wednesday. Officers said they attempted a traffic stop after Harris who was seen leaving a Citgo Gas Station pulled in front of a truck nearly causing an accident.

Police said Harris didn’t stop for officers until he made it to his parent’s home on Fayetteville Street, less than a mile away. His father Terry Harris said he was outside when Harris showed up. “He got out and he ran and police pulled up and run behind and he went and called for the canine,” Harris recalled.

Police said Harris jumped from an embankment behind his parents’ home. Officers called in Holly Springs K-9 to help search. The police chief, Brandon Medina said after an hour and a half they called off the search.”BJ laid out there he told me that he laid out there in the woods all night long to five o’clock this morning,” continued Terry Harris.

That’s when his parents said their son showed up on their doorsteps. An hour later he wasn’t breathing. “He just kept saying I’m hurting, I’m hurting. The time he took a sip of that cold water. He went out here, hit the floor and his eyes rolled back. And she started hollering and then crying. And she said Terry he ain’t breathing.”

The family said something happened to their son once he made it over the embankment and they believe officers were behind it. They walked us to the bottom of that embankment directly behind the house pointing out what they believe to be blood stains.

“It looked like they’ve been fighting and so my concern, my question would be did they beat my son and leave him for dead,” asked Terry Harris.

But the Fuquay-Varina Police Chief Brandon Medina who watched the body camera video denies those allegations.

Keep reading