Tag: unsolved mysteries

How Effective Are Police?

A 2020 paper published in the Alabama Law Review and written by Shima Baughman, professor of law at the University of Utah, puts paid to the illusion that cops solve crimes.

TV cops solve crimes. Real cops, not so much.

From the Abstract (emphasis added):

In recent years, the national conversation in criminal justice has centered on police. Are police using excessive force? Should they be monitored more closely? … The implied core question across these national debates is whether police are effective at their jobs. Yet we have not explored how effective police are or determined how best to measure police effectiveness.

This article endeavors to measure how effectively police perform at their core function — solving crime. The metric most commonly used to measure police effectiveness at crime solving is a “clearance rate”: the proportion of reported crimes for which police arrest a person and refer them for prosecution. But clearance rates are inadequate for many reasons, including the fact that they are highly manipulable. 

This Article therefore provides a set of new metrics that have never been used systematically to study police effectiveness — referred to as “criminal accountability” metrics. Criminal accountability examines the full course of a crime to determine whether police detect and ultimately resolve committed crime. Taking into account the prevalence and the number of crimes police solve, the proportion of crimes solved in America is dramatically lower than we realize. Only with a clearer conversation, rooted in accurate data about the effectiveness of the American police system, can we attempt a path toward increased criminal accountability and public safety.

She goes on to note that “the scholarly discussion has focused on how police are doing crime solving: With too much force? With the right monitoring? With proper technology? These discussions assume that police are solving crimes. The prior scholarship has also tackled police performance in specific arenas but has not examined how to measure whether police are effective at their jobs.”

The goal of the paper, then, is to answer the question, “What is the best way to determine police effectiveness?”

As the Abstract notes, using “clearance rates” is misleading. Clearance rate is defined as “the proportion of reported crime for which police arrest a person and refer them for prosecution.” Part of the problem with this metric is the amount of data it misses. For example:

How many individuals are victims of a crime but failed to report it to police? How often do police arrest the right people? Which crimes are police most likely to make arrests for? How many police clearances result in a conviction? How many crimes did police not make arrests for but resolved in other ways? None of this information is tracked [by the “clearance rate” metric].

The paper concludes that police, indeed, are remarkably ineffective at solving crime, their supposed primary function.

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Mysterious Antennas Are Appearing in Utah’s Hills and Officials Are Stumped

Strange antennas have appeared in the foothills around Salt Lake City and authorities have no idea what they are or who put them up.

As first reported by KSLTV 5 in Utah, people first began noticing the antennas a year ago. They’re simple machines made up of a LoRa fiberglass antenna, a locked battery pack, and a solar panel to power it. The Salt Lake City public lands department has been pulling them down as they find them, and told KSLTV that there have been as many as a dozen.

It’s illegal to place structures on public lands without permission and some of the antennas have appeared on steep peaks. In one instance, the removal of an antenna required a team of five people. Other antennas were found on land managed by the University of Utah and the Forest Service.

Tyler Fonarow, Salt Lake City’s recreational trails manager, told Motherboard that when the antennas were first noticed a year ago, “We didn’t really have the bandwidth to look into it or remove them,” he said.

Fonarow said that there were no identifying marks on the antennas and that they’d been bolted into the stone and required special tools to remove. “We honestly didn’t even open the box,” he said. “We just wanted it off the hill.”

“Our Trails team and Foothills rangers have found some unauthorized solar panel towers in the Foothills,” Salt Lake City Public Lands said in a post on Facebook. “If you have information about these towers or who they belong to, please call our office at (801) 972-7800 so we can return them back to their owner.”

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Why Was FBI Counter Intelligence Involved With The Seth Rich Case?

The stunning revelations from the Twitter files thanks to the work of Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger and Bari Weiss is providing irrefutable proof that the FBI was working to prevent the election of Donald Trump. When it comes to “Election Interference,” it was the FBI, not Russia.

The results released so far detail FBI giving direction to Twitter regarding the 2020 Presidential Campaign. I believe future releases will provide evidence that the FBI, along with the CIA, was working to destroy Donald Trump and prevent him from being elected.

One thing we know with certainty is that the FBI’s Washington Field Office was communicating via email and phone with the FBI Counter Intelligence division at FBI Headquarters about Seth Rich. The only reason the FBI Counter Intelligence division would be involved in any way with an alleged case of a routine murder following an attempted robbery of Seth Rich is because there was foreign involvement. The FBI is trying to bury that fact.

Why is the FBI stonewalling so furiously to keep its communications about Seth Rich and the alleged hack of the DNC by Russia secret? Because Russia did not hack the DNC. This is not my opinion. It is a conclusion of several cyber security professionals that flows from one very specific, easily tested claim made by the discredited Special Counsel, Robert Mueller –- i.e., that Guccifer 2.0 was a fictional identity created by Russian Military Intelligence, aka the GRU. If the GRU had concocted Guccifer 2.0, then the forensic evidence should show that this entity was operating from Russia or under the direct control of entities linked to the GRU.

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Human heart found in Tennessee salt pile, authorities say

A human heart was found in a salt pile at a Tennessee Department of Transportation facility, according to authorities.

Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis, a worker with the Tennessee Department of Transportation discovered the adult male human heart in a salt pile at the facility, which is located off Highway 70 East in Nashville.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has joined the investigation for examination and testing.

“At the request of 23rd Judicial District Attorney General Ray Crouch, TBI special agents are working along with deputies with the Humphreys County Sheriff’s Office, in investigating the discovery of a human heart in a TDOT salt facility in McEwen Thursday,” the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation noted in a statement. “An initial examination of the heart determined that it was that of an adult male. Additional DNA testing will be performed to try to determine its origin.”

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Murdered Delphi teens were intended victims of ‘botched’ child sex kidnap plot, cops believe – as investigators dig up DEAD CAT to match hairs found on girls to alleged killer’s pet

Murdered Delphi teenagers Liberty German and Abigail Williams were victims of a botched kidnapping plot hatched by members of a local pedophile ring.

This is just one of a host of disturbing new details and allegations that can be exclusively revealed by DailyMail.com – including gruesome details about how the girls died, and that police dug up the prime suspect’s dead cat, in an effort to match hairs found on their bodies.

The revelations come just two weeks after authorities released a redacted version of the probable cause affidavit that led to Richard Allen’s arrest.

Allen, 50, was charged on two counts of murder on October 28, five years after 14-year-old Libby and 13-year-old Abby were found dead in Delphi, Indiana, on February 13, 2017.  

DailyMail.com has learned that, shortly after his arrest, one of Allen’s neighbors recalled seeing police digging in his yard.

Now, DailyMail.com has been told they were digging up the family’s dead cat, whose hair proved a match for the samples found on one of the victims.

Carroll County Prosecutor Nicholas McLeland has openly stated that he believes ‘Allen is not the only actor involved in this.’ 

And while Allen has not been charged with kidnapping, prosecutors have alleged he attempted it.

Now sources close to the investigation have claimed that Allen was acting with at least two other men and was involved in a child sex ring.

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Online Sleuths Notice Figures Walking in Background of Video Taken Near Idaho Crime Scene

Eagle-eyed online observers noticed a detail that authorities may have missed in previously dismissed bodycam video, showing cops stopping suspected underage drinkers on the morning of the Idaho student murders. 

Multiple shadowy figures can be seen walking in the background of the footage, which was shot at around 3 a.m. on November 13, merely a 10th of a mile from the home where four University of Idaho students were murdered.

The students who were stopped by the officers were uninvolved in the crime, and investigators have said that the footage was of no evidentiary value to investigators, police have said. 

Online sleuths, however, have noticed several people walking in the vicinity of two houses down from the off-campus home where Madison Mogen, 21; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Ethan Chapin, 20; and his girlfriend Xana Kernodle, 20, were stabbed to death between 3 and 4 a.m. The bodycam clip is stamped at 3:12 a.m.

Local law enforcement and the FBI did not confirm if they had identified or interviewed the people captured walking in the videos, Fox News said. The news outlet made several inquiries about the images, but did not receive a response. 

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Reward for Tips on Unsolved Murders of Billionaire Toronto Couple Upped to $35M

Five years after the mysterious, unsolved double homicide of billionaire Toronto couple Barry and Honey Sherman, their son has added $25 million to the original $10 million offered for information leading to his parents’ killer.

“Closure will not be possible until those responsible for this evil act are brought to justice,” said Jonathon Sherman in a Dec. 12 statement to CBC News.

On Dec. 15, 2017, the bodies of Barry Sherman, 75, and his wife Honey, 70, who were among Canada’s wealthiest couples, were found by a realtor touring their mansion that was listed for sale at the time. They were found strangled and strangely posed in their mansion at 50 Colony Road. Active in the Toronto Jewish community, they were well-known philanthropists who gave millions of dollars to hospitals, universities, and Jewish organizations.

The Shermans were last seen alive on the evening of Dec. 13, 2017. The murders were believed to have taken place shortly after. Police said that there was no sign of forced entry and little DNA evidence, and that both died of “ligature neck compression.”

To date, police have not arrested any suspects. One year ago, Toronto Police released a short, 22-second video clip of a suspect who was captured on video walking on the sidewalk near the Shermans’ mansion on Dec. 13, 2017.

Police have reportedly conducted at least 250 witness interviews, received 1,255 tips from the public, and obtained 41 warrants since the start of the investigation.

Barry Sherman, with a net worth estimated at between $5 billion and $10 billion, was the founder of pharmaceutical giant Apotex, the largest manufacturer of generic drugs in Canada, and the only company that produces hydroxychloroquine, the controversial drug some medical experts used to treat COVID-19. During the pandemic, some countries added the product to their treatment protocols, according to a statement made by Apotex on March 20, 2020.

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168 NAZCA GEOGLYPHS IDENTIFIED IN PERU

YAMAGATA UNIVERSITY, WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PERUVIAN ARCHAEOLOGISTS, HAVE IDENTIFIED 168 NAZCA GEOGLYPHS IN THE NASCA PAMPA AND SURROUNDING AREA.

The researchers conducted field surveys using high-resolution aerial photography and drone images, leading to the discovery of 168 geoglyphs that date from between 100 BC and AD 300.

This adds to 190 geoglyphs previously discovered between 2004 and 2018, that led to the creation of an archaeological park in the Aja area in 2017 by the Peruvian Ministry of Culture.

The new geoglyphs depict images of humans, camelids, birds, orcas, felines, and snakes, which were created by removing black stones from the surface of the earth to expose a white sandy surface beneath.

Current research suggests that there are two types of geoglyphs: a linear type and a relief type. Of the geoglyphs discovered in the study, only five are linear, while 163 are relief type, measuring less than 10 metres in diameter and mainly distributed along ancient trails.

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Researchers Suggest Newfound MH370 Debris Reveals Possible ‘Criminal Intent’

Researchers trying to solve the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 say that newly recovered debris from the lost aircraft suggests that there may have been “criminal intent” behind the plane’s peculiar disappearance. The intriguing assertion was reportedly put forward by engineer Richard Godfrey and investigator Blaine Gibson, who collect wreckage from the Boeing 777 that infamously went missing back in February of 2014. Last month, the pair acquired a particularly compelling piece of the airliner’s landing gear that, previously unbeknownst to them, had been found by a fisherman in Madagascar five years ago and, upon examining the debris, the duo believe that it provides a critical clue regarding MH370’s final moments.

Detailing their findings in a new report, they indicate that the object is a relatively small metal flap, known as a trunnion door, which is opened when an airliner is in the process of landing. This piece, they observe, features a significant “level of damage with fractures on all sides” that were inflicted with “extreme force.” The nature of the markings found on the flap led the pair to conclude that “the landing gear was highly likely extended on impact.” Chillingly, the duo theorize that whoever was in control of the plane at the time intentionally did this with a particularly nefarious outcome in mind.

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FBI Reveals It Has More Information on Deceased DNC Staffer Seth Rich

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is fighting tooth and nail to withhold data from laptops of slain DNC staff member Seth Rich.

Rich may have been the conduit for Hillary Clinton emails published by WikiLeaks in 2016, according to journalist Sy Hersh. The journalist said an FBI source informed him in 2017 Rich’s laptop contained evidence he leaked the emails.

The truth of that claim is germane because the Biden administration is desperately trying to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from Britain. Assange angered U.S. government officials with many leaks of classified documents that portrayed officials in a bad light. Among the leaks were, of course, the damning emails of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, whom Donald Trump defeated in 2016.

U.S. government officials have long maintained Russian hackers were the source of the leaked Clinton emails published by WikiLeaks. That argument would be erased like a sandcastle at the beach in a rising tide if Hersh’s report is corroborated by evidence in FBI possession.

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