Check out Dark Minds on ID!

Did everyone catch the premiere of Dark Minds on Investigative Discovery last Wednesday? If not, make sure you Tivo it.

The idea is brilliant– a true crime author re-examines cold cases across the country with the help of a convicted serial killer (whose identity remains a mystery). The author in question is M. William Phelps, a cool dude I’ve talked with a few times since he was in Akron covering the murder of Jeff Zack and its connection to Cyndy George, wife of Tangiers owner Ed George, in his book If Looks Could Kill.

On Feb 8, they profile the Babysitter serial killer of 1970′s Detroit. Interested to see if they bring up Ted Lamborgine.

 

Drugged Chloroform May Have Led to Rosemary Vinci’s Death

Rosemary Vinci

According to an article in yesterday’s Plain Dealer, Jimmy Dimora joked that Rosemary Vinci may have been murdered to keep her from talking to the feds about corruption within the Cuyahoga County government. The judge overseeing Dimora’s criminal trial will not let prosecutors tell jurors about this, saying, “There are no allegations that Vinci was murdered, and it would be unduly prejudicial to the defendants to interject allegations of such criminal activity into the case.”

No allegations from former coroner Frank Miller, who preformed Vinci’s autopsy, maybe. But the state’s leading expert in autopsies–the guy who trains the best coroners in Ohio–begs to differ.

As I reported for Cleveland Scene way back in 2009, Dr Charles Hitchcock, the director of Division of Autopsy Services at Ohio State University reviewed Vinci’s autopsy and discovered that there were traces of Carisoprodol in Vinci’s blood when she died.

A powerful muscle relaxant also known as Soma, the drug is soluble in alcohol and chloroform – a chemical that, on its own, can cause cardiac arrhythmia when inhaled. Close friend Emily Lipovan says that Vinci had taken painkillers in 2007 after breaking her ankle, but had stopped More than a year before. She had never mentioned taking Soma, and Lipovan found no prescription bottles in the apartment when she cleaned it out. Nor were prescription bottles mentioned in the police or coroner’s reports.

There remain a lot of questions about Vinci’s death. And it deserves a closer look by pathologists that are not so beholden to county politics.

Missing: Tara Calico

A reader sent me some information about this disturbing cold case from New Mexico.

On the morning of September 20, 1988, 19 year old Tara Calico vanished during a routine bike ride near the town of Belen. Calico and the bike she was riding have never been found, although her mother located part of her walkman about nineteen miles away. Witnesses reported a strange truck with a handmade shell in the area.

However, this case may not actually be unsolved.

In, 2008, Valencia County Sheriff Rene Rivera, who apparently has a set of brass balls, sent out a press release calling the local prosecutor a coward for not pursuing charges against the boys (now men) who killed Calico. Rivera believes younger classmates of Calico accidentally bumped their vehicle into her while she was riding the bike, an accident that quickly escalated into a murder/coverup to avoid getting into trouble. The parents, he says, were involved in the coverup.

Sometimes prosecutors lose sight of real justice and concentrate more on win/loss records. The prosecutor refuses to move forward without a body, because it’s harder to get a conviction without one. Meanwhile, Calico’s killers remain free.