Gilgo Beach killer hunt slowed by infighting between prosecutors and police

“The previously unreported infighting between prosecutors and detectives illustrates how official missteps fueled years of false turns and dysfunction as the infamous killing spree remained unsolved.”

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This is so tragic and maddening on so many levels, not the least of which is that suspect Rex Heuermann continued to contact sex workers while this clusterfuck of an investigation dragged on for over a decade, and he probably continued to kill.

Here are a few contrasts between the Gilgo Beach investigation and the OCCK investigation.

While the police and prosecutors clashed in the Gilgo Beach investigation, at least they interacted! L. Brooks Patterson and Richard Thompson washed their hands of the OCCK investigation, beginning to back down and skulk away soon after Kristine Mihelich’s body was found, and certainly after my brother was abducted and murdered. The various prosecutors over the years were actually involved in the Gilgo Beach case, even as it turned cold. (Can’t give a pass to the two prosecutors who helped cover up Police Chief James Burke’s beating a shackled suspect who stole Burke’s sex toys and porn from his truck during the height of the investigation, however.)

Heuermann’s arrest “came quickly” after a new district attorney took office last year. He assigned a task force from four law enforcement agencies, who conducted a comprehensive review of every item of evidence and information in this investigation. What must that be like?? What the literal fuck?

How much must Patterson and Thompson enjoyed the keystone cop action going on between the local Oakland County PDs and the Michigan State Police? Did the prosecutor ever step in and demand that all of the agencies share information (here’s looking at you, Oakland County Sheriff’s Department–then and now)? The history of the prosecutor’s office in the OCCK case is the definition of lack of leadership (and that’s the best that can be said of it). Patterson was all too happy to let this case twist in the wind at the MSP and his successors continued to look the other way. It defies legitimate explanation.

Patterson was never held to account. He and his chief deputy simply waited it out, knowing the killings were stopped, and then they moved on in their careers and their lives. When you damage so many people, is your own life damaged? Or do you just keep climbing to the top of the next dog pile? The four OCCK victims mattered not in the face of the reputations of these pigs.

Have you ever done something so terrible, so heinous, that for the rest of your unindicted, unexamined life you tell yourself and your version of a god that you will do right in the future, you will make up for this horrible error in judgment, this lapse in ethics, this criminality, every single day of your life? Or do you just give up after a time; fuck it, what’s done is done?

I wonder what that must be like. It might drive a man to heavy drink. Or radical and cruel religious views. Either way, it’s not enough. It’s sickening to even think about.

Opinion: Bills would empower survivors of U-M’s Dr. Robert Anderson

Legislation would give survivors a new one-year window for legal action and limit immunity for universities.
— Read on www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2021/11/29/opinion-bills-would-empower-survivors-u-ms-dr-robert-anderson/8769041002/

Violating oath of office and obstructing police

I was driving last Wednesday when I heard the news that the three white Georgia men who chased, cornered and killed Ahmaud Arbery were found guilty of felony murder and malice murder (the “youngster” in the group of “citizen arresters”). I felt relief wash over me and a lessening of the stomach and headache I had off and on since that POS, vigilante, man-child Kyle Rittenhouse got acquitted in Wisconsin on November 19, after having his hand held every step of the way by a joke of a judge.

When I read about the verdict online I was reminded that the first prosecutor on the case, Jackie Johnson, has been indicted for violating her oath of office in this case. https://reason.com/2021/11/24/ahmaud-arbery-alleged-murderers-almost-escaped-charges-prosecutorial-misconduct-jackie-johnson-george-barnhill/printer/. In fact, last Wednesday morning former Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney Johnson turned herself at the Glynn County jail and was then released on her own recognizance. She had been indicted a week prior on a felony charge of violating her oath of office and a misdemeanor count of obstructing police. The indictment alleges she used her position to discourage police from making arrests in the killing of 25-year-old Arbery.

https://mynbc15.com/news/nation-world/ex-prosecutor-charged-in-ahmaud-arbery-case-booked-at-jail:

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office is prosecuting Johnson. Carr sought the misconduct investigation last year, saying the first outside prosecutor he appointed to handle the case had been recommended by Johnson, who never disclosed that she had already asked that prosecutor to advise police in the immediate aftermath of Arbery’s killing.

That outside prosecutor, Waycross Judicial Circuit District Attorney George Barnhill, later recused himself — but not before sending a letter to Glynn police advising that he believed the shooting of Arbery was justified.

Johnson lost reelection last year and blamed controversy over Arbery’s death for her defeat.

In early September I posted about this prosecutor and press about how “historic” it is to have someone even look at the dirty dealings of prosecutors because it is so rare. https://catherinebroad.blog/2021/09/03/. Lack of any oversight of these powerful and sometimes corrupt people, the rarity that another agency will step in and put a stop to prosecutorial abuses, as well as the comfort of bullshit immunity doctrines, means people like Jackie Johnson feel pretty comfortable showing racists favorable treatment (especially if one of them had been an investigator in her office) and mistreating victims’ family members. Had the video taken by one of the convicted defendants in this case not surfaced, you can be sure these three good old boys would have been home eating turkey and all the fixins on Thursday.

I can think of 10 different ways L. Brooks Patterson violated his oath of office and interfered in the investigation in the OCCK case, beginning in late January 1977. There are a few of you complicit enablers who are still walking this earth and know the details. Jessica Cooper took it upon herself to help keep this story hidden. She and her complicit enablers therefore have just as much to lose if the truth bubbles to the surface. These violations are, as described in the reason.com article, an affront to basic liberty. They must be revealed.

In a strange but somewhat similar case, an ex-FBI agent and filmmakers discovered public corruption in LA County in the “unsolved” murder of Brooklyn rapper Notorious B.I.G. https://nypost.com/2021/05/29/ex-fbi-agent-biggie-filmmakers-sealed-court-docs-reveal-killer/ (“The alleged cover-up ‘was the biggest miscarriage of justice in my 20-year career at the FBI,’ said [the ex-FBI agent]. ‘I had evidence that LAPD officers were involved and I was shut down by the LAPD and city attorneys inside Los Angeles.'”).

Keep an eye on the Georgia AG’s case against ex-prosecutor Johnson. Losing an election appears to be the least of her worries. It should not take a viral video of a murder to out a dirty prosecutor. But then again, you folks in Oakland County still worship at the trough created by ex-prosecutor and county executive he-man Patterson. There is no viral video. Just four dead kids and scores of others who were victimized by pedophiles this law and order prosecutor’s office did not dare investigate after Chris Busch walked free.