Reprinted from Women in Crime Ink

By Cathy Scott

As the 13th anniversary approaches of rapper Tupac Shakur’s murder in a drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip at age 25, the media come out in droves to cover it. TV news magazines started weeks ago on their pieces. All want to help solve the crime.

In the many years since Tupac’s murder, much has happened. To wit, Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Biggie Smalls) was killed six months later. Biggie’s murder, like Tupac’s, has not been solved. In the aftermath, others have died as well. Orlando Anderson, a Southside Crips gang member out of Compton, long believed to be the shooter in the Tupac case, was cut down in a shootout. Also dead are Jerry Bonds and Bobby Finch, who were named by Compton police as the gang members riding inside the white Cadillac with Anderson when Tupac was shot.

Reprinted from True Crime Book Reviews

The Rough Guide to True Crime  is the complete compilation of crime’s most notorious villains, heinous acts and shocking misdemeanors. The Rough Guide to True Crime provides an unusually wide coverage of crime’s most preposterous occurrences and heinous acts; combining in-depth accounts of the most infamous to the lesser known crimes, from conmen to cybercrime, with “at-a-glance” fact files throughout. From the Moors murders and Harold Shipman, to the murder of 2pac , this guide illuminates the psychology in play behind the most intriguing crimes in history, from the absurd to the appalling.
Written by award-winning journalist and author Cathy Scott , features include extensive black-and-white still photographs, feature profile boxes by forensic expert Professor Louis B Schlesinger explaining the psychology of serial killers, hit men, burglars and various types of murderers. Lesser violations provide a lighter touch, including Paris Hilton’s traffic transgressions and Winona Ryder’s shoplifting fetish. The Rough Guide to True Crime explores the best of the haunting genre of True Crime, thrilling the armchair voyeur and amateur criminologist alike.
The Rough Guide to True Crime (Rough Guide Reference)
Country: US & UK
Format: Softcover
Author: Rough Guides; Cathy Scott
Publisher: Rough Guides Limited
ISBN: 9781858283852
Publication date: August 31, 2009
Pages: 336

Reprinted from Women In Crime Ink blog:

Body of writer positively identified

According to CarolineLive news, a father and son fishing along the Pee Dee River about two miles south of the U.S. Highway 76 bridge discovered the body in the water about 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 15. 

It’s ironic — and at the same time eerie — that Hudson’s last whereabouts has become a crime scene. Detectives looking into Hudson’s disappearance all no doubt had met him personally over the years as Hudson conducted his own investigations into various cases. The Sun News, based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, reported that Hudson, who was 56, “has profiled some of the area’s most infamous homicides.”

It’s true. Hudson was the author of Dance of Death, the story of Kimberly Renee Poole, a North Carolina woman who was convicted of getting her boyfriend, John Frazier, to shoot her husband in 1998 while the couple walked on the beach in celebration of their third wedding anniversary.

Hudson also wrote Die, Grandpa, Die about Christopher Pittman, a 12-year-old boy convicted of murdering his grandparents in 2001.  His last two books, released in 2007 and 2008, include All I Want To Do is Kill about the Holly Harvey case where she and boyfriend killed her grandparents because they ordered her to stop seeing him. The second was Kiss and Kill, about Rick Pulley, a highly a youth pastor and music director at his River of Life Church in Virginia, and the mysterious disappearance of his wife.

Hudson authored two more books with writer Billy Hills. They were An Hour To Kill, about the 1991 rape and murder of a Conway teenager Crystal Todd, considered at the time Horry County’s most gruesome crime, and A Reason To Live, the story of Pawleys Island resident Wanda Summers, who survived the killing spree of two men in February 1979.

Hudson was a member of a true-crime online forum, of which I’m a member, but he had not been active since 2007. I never met him, but I feel like I knew him. We were, after all, fellow crime sleuths.

Rest in peace, William Dale Hudson. You and your investigative work will be missed.

http://www.abajournal.com/news/blogger_outs_fictional_twitter_lawyers/

Reprinted, courtesy of Law.com Legal Blog Watch
(Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on July 31, 2009 at 11:29 AM)

Among the lawyers flocking to contribute their tweets to the microblogging site Twitter are the two name partners in the law firm Bitcher & Prickman, Beatrice Bitcher and Richard Prickman. Those who follow their tweets may well have raised an eyebrow or two over some of what they say there.

Bitcher posted this, for example: “I’m giving Edward, an associate, choice. 1. Work on brief all weekend. 2. Be my weekend servant. He’s thinking.” Soon after came this: “Associate chose being my servant over working on brief. Damn. Knows how to get partnership track, after all.” As for Prickman, here is a recent tweet of his: “Law and morality go hand in hand. And money? Morality…Money. Both begin ‘Mo’ and end with ‘y.’”

Frankly, given what some lawyers post on Twitter, neither Bitcher nor Prickman stood out as exceedingly outrageous. In fact, Bitcher’s tweets prompted another tweeter to invite her to join an online networking site, the Professional Women’s Network of Southern California, which she readily did. As for Prickman, he found himself in an exchange of tweets with none other than lawyer-turned-celebrity Star Jones.

But something seemed not right about these two Twittering lawyers to journalist and true crime author Cathy Scott. When she first started to follow Bitcher, Scott wrote on her blog, “I thought her name was a little odd, but that was about it. She had a lively banter going on with her tweets. Her avatar looked like a cartoon rendition of her photo.”

The more Scott followed Bitcher, however, the more suspicious she became. When she also found out about Prickman, she looked into this firm of Bitcher & Prickman. What she found was a cartoon, Bitcher & Prickman, drawn by lawyer and cartoonist Charles Pugsley Fincher. “Now, it seems, they’d jumped off the cartoon page and into Twitterland, where they were — and still are — being taken seriously some of the time,” Scott wrote. “I’d been snookered, at least for a tweet or two.”

So Scott outed the lawyers for the cartoons they were, posting a tweet, “Meet & enjoy comic characters @BeatriceBitcher, her law partner @RichardPrickman & their creator @LawComix.” When that was seen by legal blogger Victoria Pynchon, who had exchanged tweets with Bitcher, she tweeted, “I’m tweeting 2 a cartoon character — someone slap a 72 hour hold on me!” Bitcher tweeted back, “Sometimes, dear Victoria, fantasy is more real. 24-hour hold…DENIED.”

One blogger who caught on to the comic nature of these two twitterers was Lynne Devenny of Practical Paralegalism. Devenny particularly likes Prickman’s pandering to his paralegal, at least since the paralegal discovered romantic e-mails between him and Sarah Palin.

A funny thing just happened in the world of Twitter. Reality and fantasy crossed over.

I was watching the tweets of new twitterer BeatriceBitcher, whose profile says she’s a lawyer. I thought her name was a little odd, but that was about it. She had a lively banter going on with her tweets. Her avatar looked like a cartoon rendition of her photo. So I followed her. I follow a variety of people, including authors, writers, freelancers, agents and lots of animal rights people (yup, I love animals, keep up with the issues and try to help in any way I can). And I also follow some attorneys.

Beatrice got into a legal discussion with Victoria Pynchon (@vpynchon on Twitter), an attorney mediator-arbitrator. They were short discussion topics, of course, because the tweets are only allowed a maximum length of 140 characters. I looked to see who was followed by this Beatrice Bitcher person (notice I used the word “person”). One was Richard Prickman, listed as Beatrice’s law partner at Prickman & Bitcher. OK, it has to be a hoax, I thought to myself. But what was it, really?

I went to what I thought was the Web site for the law firm Prickman & Bitcher and this is what I read, in part “Bitcher & Prickman is a weekly law comic strip. These female and male partners are from the dark side of law. They rag on associates about billing and make plans to buy city commissioners.”

Now, it seems, they’d jumped off the cartoon page and into Twitterland, where they were–and still are–being taken seriously some of the time. I’d been snookered, at least for a tweet or two.

I tweeted something to the pair about being “comic characters.” Beatrice responded with, “Ha. I’d expect a crime writer to come down on the side of truth and justice. You have exposed Beatrice’s denial. Caution.” I responded, “”It’s the skeptic in me — and the reporter.” Beatrice added, “And I thought women stuck together.”

My answer? “We do. Do fictional cartoon characters stick together too? (Or are you based on a true character?)”

And so, Beatrice Bitcher was outed and exposed on Twitter for the cartoon character she is. A little while later, I wrote a post that said, “Meet & enjoy comic characters @BeatriceBitcher, her law partner @RichardPrickman & their creator @LawComix.”

When Victoria Pynchon also realized Beatrice wasn’t real, this is what Vickie posted on Twitter: “I’m tweeting 2 a cartoon character – someone slap a 72 hour hold on me!”

Beatrice responded with this: “Sometimes, dear Victoria, fantasy is more real. 24-hour hold…DENIED.”

It’s a novel idea, taking a comic strip to Twitter and passing off the characters as real-life lawyers. And it’s no doubt a first for Twitter. Clearly, Charles Fincher, Esq., the person behind Beatrice and Richard (or “Dick,” as Beatrice fondly refers to him), is enjoying himself. He not only pulled it off; he’s gaining a wide readership for his already-popular LawComix cartoons, bringing his characters to life on the pages of Twitter.

In this case, Beatrice is right; fantasy sometimes does seem more real.

Cartoons, above, by LawComix.

What killed Michael Jackson? That’s the $500 million question.

Somewhere in between news reports, statements by Michael Jackson’s cardiologist and witness accounts lies the truth of what caused the singer’s sudden cardiac arrest inside his rented Bel Air estate more than a week ago.

If 50-year-old Jackson had taken the powerful anesthetic Diprivan, which was found in his home, then someone had to have given it to him. It’s a drip drug, typically administered intravenously in a hospital setting and closely monitored by anesthesiologists. When dripping, the patient immediately goes into unconsciousness. When it’s not dripping, the patient wakes up. But because it doesn’t take much to put a patient to sleep and to prevent overdoses, someone has to be there to monitor heart rate, oxygen intake, that sort of thing.

Pay close attention to the statements made by both Dr. Conrad Murray, who was with Jackson in his mansion at the time of his death, and Murray’s attorney, Edward Chernoff. First, Murray denied injecting or prescribing Jackson with the powerful painkiller Demerol, a sedative reported as being at Jackson’s home at the time of his death. “Dr. Murray has never prescribed nor administered Demerol to Michael Jackson,” Chernoff told The Associated Press. “Not ever. Not that day. … Not Oxycontin [either] for that matter.” He didn’t say anything about Diprivan.

Chernoff said that 20 to 25 minutes had elapsed before Murray, a live-in cardiologist for Jackson, ran downstairs to notify staff to call 911. On June 29, the Los Angeles Police Department released this statement to ET about their interview with Dr. Murray: But Rev. Jesse Jackson has said publicly that it was more like 50 minutes.

“Dr. Conrad Murray, the physician who was with Michael Jackson at the time of his collapse, voluntarily contacted the Los Angeles Police Department. Detectives assigned to Robbery-Homicide Division met with Dr. Murray and conducted an extensive interview. Dr. Murray was cooperative and provided information which will aid the investigation.”

Something killed Jackson, who was shown on videotape 48 hours before his death singing, dancing, and looking strong. And while the coroner’s office has yet to determine the cause of death, the evidence now known appears to point to an overdose.

Diprivan was found in Jackson’s home and removed by investigators as evidence. “Numerous bottles” of Diprivan without labels were found at the mansion, the Los Angeles Times reported. The narcotic is widely used in operating rooms to induce unconsciousness.

Is that what also happened this time with Jackson? The American Society of Anesthesiologists said in a statement, after Jackson’s death, that Diprivan “should never be used outside of a controlled and monitored medical setting,” Also, the statement said, the drug is “meant only for use in a medical setting by professionals trained in the provision of general anesthesia.”

Jackson was last seen at a rehearsal the night before at 12:30 a.m. Sometime between then and 12:30 p.m. the next day–over a 12-hour period–something happened. Jesse Jackson, who spent time at the Jackson family home in Encino, Calif., made another good point, telling reporters, “There is a concern about what happened the last 12 hours of Michael’s life.”

Three months earlier, as relayed to the media by registered nurse Cherilyn Lee, said that Jackson, who suffered from insomnia, asked her in a phone conversation how he could get the drug and who he could get to administer it. She told Jackson it was dangerous and could kill him. He told her no, that he’d had it before and it was safe. It was the only thing, he told her, that worked for him.

In fact, Jackson suffered from such a severe case of insomnia that in the mid-1990s, during the pop icon’s HIStory tour, Jackson traveled with private anesthesiologist Dr. Neil Ratner, who regularly helped “take down” Jackson and “bring him back up” during the pop icon’s HIStory tour, CNN reported. As previously reported and by his own admission, the then-personal doctor for Jackson intraveneously gave Jackson an anesthetic. The doctor reportedly said, “I’d take him down at night and bring him out of it in the morning.”

Four days before Jackson’s death, Lee received what she described to The Associated Press as a “frantic” phone call from a member of Jackson’s staff.

“He called and was very frantic and said, ‘Michael needs to see you right away,’ ” Lee told the AP. “I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ And I could hear Michael in the background [saying], ‘One side of my body is hot, it’s hot, and one side of my body is cold, it’s very cold.’”

“At that point, I knew that somebody had given him something that hit the central nervous system,” she continued. “He was in trouble Sunday and he was crying out.”

The 911 emergency call made while Murray, who had a practice in Las Vegas, Nevada, prior to taking on Jackson as his sole patient, was performing CPR contradicts what Michael Jackson’s doctor said on TV and in print. First, the doctor’s attorney said CPR was administred while Jackson was lying on his bed.

In a taped conversation released to the public, the 911 operator told a security guard at the house to get Jackson on the floor after the guard told the operator that Jackson was being administered CPR on a bed and that it wasn’t working. Later, however, Murray’s attorney, speaking on behalf of the doctor, changed what he’d said earlier and instead said Dr. Murray had adminsitered CPR while Jackson was on the floor.

Dr. Murray’s car, a silver BMW registered in Murray’s sister’s name, was towed from outside Jackson’s Los Angeles home. “The car was impounded,” Amanda Betat, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department, told ABC News. “One reason it was impounded was because it may contain medication or evidence that could assist the coroner in determining the cause of death.”

Law enforcement sources also told ABC that Jackson was addicted to Oxycontin and received it and Demerol in daily doses. The cause of death might not be known for a few weeks, pending additional toxicology, neuropathology and pulmonary tests ordered by the Los Angeles medical examiner, who performed the first autopsy, with an outside examiner performing a second autopsy for the Jackson family.

Now that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is involved in the investigation, we should all know soon enough what caused Jackson’s sudden death on June 25 and if anyone will be held accountable.

In the meantime, law enforcement officials continue to comb through medical records to learn who supplied and administered the anesthesia Probofol and other drugs to Michael Jackson.

Photos, by AFP, of Michael Jackson’s Hollywood Star on Sunset Boulevard and Craig Harvey, Chief Investigator from the Department of the Coroner for Los Angeles County, as he arrives at the Holmby Hills home of music legend Michael Jackson. Photo of ambulance an exclusive by TMZ staff.

By Cathy Scott

An interesting twist in a sensational but aging Las Vegas criminal case has reared its ugly head. And I, for one, am not buying it.

Rick Tabish, who was twice tried (convicted, then acquitted) for the 1998 overdose death of casino mogul Ted Binion, is in prison serving time for three related charges in the case. The prosecutors couldn’t nab Tabish for murder. (Binion had died of a self-induced drug overdose after buying 12 pieces of tar heroin and also filling a prescription for Xanax, then drug binging for a couple of days; six months after Binion’s death Tabish and Binion’s live-in girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, were charged with murder.)

Tabish, along with co-defendant Murphy, while acquitted of murder in 2004, after the Nevada Supreme Court earlier overturned the conviction, was found guilty in connection with unearthing a fortune of Binion’s silver from a vault in the desert floor in nearby Pahrump, Nev. Murphy was released and given time served. But Tabish was handed down consecutive sentences and is still in a Nevada prison after serving close to nine years. Since the second trial, Tabish has gone before the parole board three times but was denied each time–until last January when, after his fourth appearance, the parole board changed one of Tabish’s convictions to a concurrent sentence, meaning he could released as early as mid-2010.

It was rumored that because the legal and law enforcement communities in Southern Nevada couldn’t get Tabish on murder charges, they’d keep him in prison as long as they could. So far, it’s been working–until the recent parole board hearing.

Now, coincidentally and seemingly out of the blue, a prison inmate–a member, no less, of the Aryan Warrior white supremacist gang–on May 20 testified in exchange for a lighter sentence during a trial (unrelated to Rick Tabish) that Tabish provided him with information about new inmates and with personal information, including home addresses, for law enforcement officers. And Tabish’s reward for allegedly providing the information? The gang member claimed that he provided Tabish with protection inside the medium-security prison.

Now, call me a skeptic, but I don’t believe in coincidences. And I don’t trust inmates who deliver salacious details for prosecutors in exchange for less prison time.

Tabish has access to the Internet for his job inside the walls of the prison 30 miles north of Las Vegas, where he was incarcerated until he recently was relocated to northern Nevada. But it’s near impossible to get home addresses of cops, and certainly not via the Internet, let alone difficult to then hand them over to gang members without prison corrections officers knowing what’s going on. It’s even harder to believe that the computers used by inmates are not monitored to see what sites are being accessed. It’s all an enormous pill to swallow.

Still, before you know it, the district attorney’s office might be handing down charges based solely on rewarded testimony of a prison gang member against Tabish, who, according to the prison, has a clean inmate record. To be certain, this latest twist is definitely worthy of following.