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.

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.

In major cities across the United States, dead bodies sometimes go unclaimed… for decades.

In an effort to finally give some peace to these restless John and Jane Does, police departments have begun posting pictures of the dead online. It’s a fine line. The pics are sometimes gruesome (I refuse to look at the Milwaukee PD’s dead babies link). But putting the pictures out there may help solve some of the country’s coldest cases.

If you’re looking for missing persons, you might want to make sure they haven’t already been found here:

NamUs (country-wide search)

Milwaukee

Las Vegas

Betsy Aardsma

Ray Gricar is back in the news, again, six years after the Centre County DA vanished under mysterious circumstances weeks before his retirement — an unsolved case I covered in depth in my true crime collection: The Serial Killer’s Apprentice.

Seems Gricar was told that Jerry Sandusky was caught raping a child in the showers at Penn State way back in 1998 but, for some reason, did not file charges against him. Relatives say Gricar was beholden to no one and had no love for Penn State, and from what I know of the guy that’s my impression as well. Still, you have to wonder why he didn’t get this sicko back then.

You also have to wonder if this scandal has anything to do with his disappearance. When he disappeared, his old laptop computer was found in the Susquehanna. It’s hard drive had been removed. It was found later, but forensics have not been able to access the data it contained.

Another thing I uncovered when researching Gricar’s disappearance was his connection to the out-of-print sci-fi book, 20/20 Vision by Pamela West. Originally, the woman who wrote the book started out researching the unsolved murder of 22-year-old Betsy Aardsma,  who was stabbed once through the heart at the library at Penn State on November 28, 1969. She consulted with Gricar on the book. The author believed she had uncovered the identity of the man who did it. But Gricar told her not to publish it because the man was well regarded in the community and there was not yet enough evidence to charge him with the crime. Frustrated, she used her notes to construct the framework of her time-travel novel.

And oh, by the way, Gricar’s disappearance fifteen years later occurs on the SAME EXACT DAY as the death of the novel’s protagonist, who is murdered for what he knows.

For the first time, my presentation on the case can be viewed online.

The House on Primrose Lane

New information today on the strange case of the Man From Primrose Lane.

The West Akron hermit, who was often seen wearing mittens while shuffling down Merriman Road in the middle of July, was found shot to death inside his house in 2008. His fingers had been cut off and shredded in a blender.

Phil McIntyre, in a feature article for the Cleveland Independent, has discovered some new clues and possible motives, including the fact that the strange recluse was living under an assumed named and died with over $3 million in the bank.

Says McIntyre:

The P.I. had uncovered a decades-old crime. The Man from Primrose Lane had stolen a dead boy’s identity and had used it to lay low in Akron for at least thirty years. Perhaps this old crime had something to do with his murder.

Rapist, Killer, Coward.

In July, 1982, 11-year-old Krista Harrison was abducted from a park in Marshallville, Ohio. Her body was found a few days later on the side of a road in a neighboring county. Eventually, investigators charged an unassuming Akron public employee named Bob Buell, with the crime. They believed Buell was also responsible for the murders of two other girls: Tina Harmon and Debbie Smith. Buell was tried, convicted, and then put to death in 2002.

Years later, a box of Buell’s notes found their way to me. Buell claimed he was innocent of Krista’s murder even though there was overwhelming evidence against him. The information in the killer’s box, and long-forgotten Grand Jury testimony from a confidential informant, pointed to another suspect.

Based on this new information, the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department re-opened the Tina Harmon case, in 2009. Pushed by Harmon’s family, they finally tested Tina’s clothing. DNA was found. That DNA matched Bob Buell, proving he was the murderer that prosecutors always suspect him to be.

But, what of the other suspect?

A new look at police records and 20-year-old interviews proves this other man, who remains free, surely knew about Krista’s murder and likely participated in covering up the crime for Buell.

Join me as I present the true story of Krista’s murder and share the evidence with the public for the first time.

The presentation will take place at the public library in Green (4046 Massillon Rd. Uniontown, OH) on October 24 at 7 p.m. Seating is limited so come early!

Walter Jackson is a name we’re going to hear again.

Jackson was arrested Aug. 10 and charged with kidnapping and rape of an 18 year old woman, according to the Plain Dealer. He allegedly abducted the young woman at the corner of W. 58 and Madison. Got her in his van, bound her legs, gagged her mouth, handcuffed her and then sexually assaulted her while parked behind Don’s Lighthouse. Then he drove her East. She escaped the van at W. 46 and Train Ave., running naked from the vehicle. A quick-thinking witness followed Walter Jackson until police could pull him over.

This man appears to be an opportunist abductor. He was prepared. And he was calm enough to take this sort of action in broad daylight (it happened around 2 p.m.). This speaks to prior experience. I would not be surprised if he has done this before and gotten away with it.

Hopefully police are already running his DNA against unsolved cases. The proximity to the Amanda Berry,  Gina Dejesus, and Ashley Summers abductions is something I find quite interesting.

A check of Jackson’s criminal records shows he was last released from jail in 2000. I’m unsure when, exactly, he was in jail for other offenses. His address is listed as 4484 Dover Center Rd. North Olmsted, OH. His house is pictured above.

Who has more info on this creepy individual? You can send me off-the-record tips at becarriedaway@Hotmail.com

My first published book, detailing the investigation into the unsolved abduction and murder of Amy Mihaljevic, is finally available as an ebook for $9.99.

You can download it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble online, or iBooks.

After six years of searching for their missing prosecutor, who mysteriously vanished during a trip into town to look at antiques, Centre County officials declared Cleveland native Ray Gricar officially dead, reports PennLive.

I investigated the disappearance for The Free Times back in 2005 and it remains one of the creepiest stories I’ve ever worked on. There’s enough clues to point at suicide, murder, or walk-away, depending on how you read them. Lara Gricar, Ray’s adopted daughter, had petitioned the court to declare him dead so his assets could finally be distributed. Lara has long refused to speak to journalists and lives in Washington state.

Everyone reacts to tragedy differently, but if it was my family member, I’d be speaking to any reporter who called or knocked on my door. Why does she look so put-upon in this picture? It always weirds me out when family members act this way.