Retired investigators unravel homicide probes, local cases remain unsolved: David Wheelock

1-26-2014 New Hampshire:

Thirty five days have passed since a 48-year-old man was shot dead in his Keene home.

Little is known publicly about why David E. Wheelock died or who killed him at 170 Pearl St. Investigators with the N.H. Attorney General’s Office have released few details about the attack, other than to say they are investigating Wheelock’s death as a homicide.

Last year, the N.H. Attorney General’s Office investigated 25 new homicide cases, and solved all but three.

The Wheelock case is one that has yet to yield an arrest. Another local case is the homicide of Dustin C. Curtiss, 26, who died from multiple gunshot wounds in a family dispute that turned violent in his childhood home in Hinsdale in mid-October.

The two death investigations are ongoing.

As state authorities continue to probe them — and other unsolved homicides — retired Keene and N.H. State Police officers weigh in on the investigative process, its inherent challenges and how the results of an autopsy can provide new clues in a case.

On the scene

When police respond to the scene of a suspicious death, they are looking for anything that’s out of place, according to Hal G. Brown, a retired Keene police captain who is now deputy director of the Delaware Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. They will treat the area as a crime scene until proven otherwise, he said in a recent interview.

“One of the difficulties investigators face in all investigations is assumption. Assumption is the mother of all foul-ups,” Brown said.

A good investigator is thorough, and takes time to look for evidence that doesn’t jump out at first glance, said Russell B. Lamson, a part-time Goshen police officer and retired N.H. State Police sergeant.

Sheriff's Office releases identity of man found hanged in Seville; hanging victim was sexual predator

To many facts say this is not a suicide, so we will leave in this blog as a murder! Checked for further update in 2015, 2016; nothing found.

1-14-2014 Florida:

The Volusia County Sheriff's Office is investigating the death of 50-year-old Andrew C. Mayer in Seville. Mayer's body was found hanging from a tree Jan. 11. The Sheriff's Office reported Jan. 11 that the Major Case Unit was investigating Mayer's death; however, Mayer's name was not released at that time.

A call reporting the body came in at about 11:26 a.m. Jan. 11 from an unnamed acquaintance of Mayer's who said she found Mayer's body a couple of hundred yards into a wooded lot near the intersection of Lemon Road and Church Street in Seville.

An autopsy was completed Jan. 13, but the cause of death and other details have not yet been released.

A Beacon search revealed that an Andrew C. Mayer or Andrew Christopher Mayer, date of birth Nov. 7, 1963 — the same date of birth listed for the Andrew C. Mayer found hanged — is listed as a sexual predator by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and has an address of 316 Chipola Dr. in DeLand. The Department of Corrections website shows that Mayer was released from prison July 31, 2013. He had been convicted in 2001 of a sexual act of coercion by an adult on a child in a 2000 case in Charlotte.

Sheriff's Office spokesman Brandon Haught confirmed that the Andrew Christopher Mayer identified as a sexual predator is the same person as the Andrew C. Mayer found hanged.

MCSO: Lower Buckeye Jail inmate stabbed to death by cellmate

1-18-2014 Arizona:

An inmate at Lower Buckeye Jail was beaten and stabbed to death by his cellmate sometime around early Saturday morning, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

Nike Black, 20, is suspected of killing his cellmate John Klatt, 50, according to the sheriff’s office.

Detention officers around 7 a.m. Saturday morning found Klatt in his cell bleeding and not breathing, according to the sheriff’s office. He appeared to have been beaten and stabbed in the eye with a small pencil, according to the sheriff’s office. Efforts to save the inmate were unsuccessful.

Black was being questioned and expected to be charged in connection with Klatt’s death, according to the sheriff’s office.

Black and Klatt were minimum security inmates. Klatt had been in jail since September in connection with charges of sex crimes involving minors.

Demple Avenue homicide victim identified

1-23-2014 Ohio:

Dayton Police detectives are working today to sift through conflicting stories about what happened inside 1028 Demple Avenue Wednesday night where a man was shot and killed.

The victim has been identified as 21-year-old Jonathan Scott Rogers. He reportedly lived at that address with numerous other individuals.

Taylor Bailey, who lives two doors down and identified herself as a family friend, said she's known the Rogers most of her life and considers him her brother.

She said from what she's heard, the shooter was someone known the residents of the home who may have been trying to rob them.

Murder committed in prison is still an unjust tragedy

1-21-2014 New Jersey:

John J. Geoghan was a Catholic priest who molested nearly 150 boys over the course of 30 years. He was exiled from the Roman Catholic Church in 1998 in the face of numerous allegations, and was found guilty of indecent assault and battery in 2002 when a college student testified that he had been molested by Geoghan in a swimming pool at the Waltham Boys and Girls Club in 1991.

Because he was only found guilty of the one charge, Geoghan was sentenced to nine to 10 years in prison. On Feb. 23, 2004, Geoghan was murdered in his cell by Joseph L. Druce. “Justice” was served.

Druce was serving a life-without-parole sentence for a 1998 murder. He had been picked up as a hitchhiker by 51-year-old George Rollo. After realizing Rollo was gay, Druce attacked him, stuffed him in the trunk of his own car, drove him to a wooded area and strangled him. Druce is a reputed member of the Aryan Nations neo-Nazi group.

Geoghan’s murder had been meticulously planned months in advance. At 11:48 a.m. on Feb. 23, 2004, all 22 cells on the block were opened for prisoners to return food trays to a common area. There were supposed to be two correctional officers on guard by the tray return area, but one of them was pulled off to escort another inmate to the nurse’s station.

Druce snuck into Geoghan’s cell and used a book, nail clipper, and toothbrush to jam the cell door so that it could not be opened electronically.

ALERT: Serial killer targeting registered sex offenders in New Hampshire

1-9-2014 New Hampshire:

There is a serial killer at large in Keene, New Hampshire. The killer is targeting individuals whose names and addresses appear on New Hampshire’s Registry of Criminal Offenders and whose residences are pinpointed on the Keene Police Department’s online “CrimeReports” map. This killer has struck twice in the past three months, killing one man and severely maiming another. Citizens for Criminal Justice Reform is asking the State of New Hampshire and the City of Keene to take immediate steps to prevent further tragedy by taking down the State’s online sex offender registry and the City of Keene’s crime map until the killer is apprehended.

At about 8:30 PM on the evening of October 24, 2013, Walter Field was brutally attacked after answering a knock on the door of his Westmoreland farmhouse. Field was beaten so severely that he will need reconstructive facial surgery. State Police Sgt. Shawn M. Skahan is quoted as saying the attacker made statements, overheard by Field’s brother, that led police to conclude that a neighbor, who is a registered sex offender, had been the intended target.

Then, at about 9:30 PM on December 22, David Wheelock was murdered in the kitchen of his Keene home. He was shot to death in his wheelchair after answering a knock at his door. David was listed on New Hampshire’s sex offender registry.

These are not the first New Hampshire citizens targeted because of the State’s decision to disseminate their personal information via the web. Nine years ago Lawrence Trant stabbed a registrant in Concord, left him for dead, and tried to burn two apartment buildings with seven former sex offenders among the tenants. Police found a printout of the State’s sex offender registry in Trant’s apartment, marked up like a hit list. Stephen Marshall of Nova Scotia killed two registrants in Maine in 2006. Like Trant, he found them online. Evidence suggested Marshall had targeted New Hampshire registrants as well.

Across the nation, at least 20 other sex offenders have been murdered precisely because the assailants found them on the registry and, according to published news articles, more than 400 other people convicted or accused of sex offenses have been slain in the past decade, some possibly targeted as registrants.

Experience in Maine, Washington State, and here in New Hampshire shows assailants who target individuals solely because of their listing on a sex offender registry have multiple victims. We at Citizens for Criminal Justice Reform believe that the State of New Hampshire must take responsibility for the safety of the citizens whose personal information it chooses to disseminate via the Department of Safety’s official website. The State of Maine temporarily took down its registry during Marshall’s killing spree to protect those individuals listed on it.

Until this killer is apprehended, we ask New Hampshire to do likewise – take down the online Registry of Criminal Offenders. We also ask the City of Keene to remove its online “CrimeReports” map for the same duration. We believe failure to do so makes the City and State complicit in any further assaults on registrants, their families and their neighbors. ..Source.. by Citizens for Criminal Justice Reform – New Hampshire (CCJR-NH) Press Release

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Call or contact the following people with your concerns:

Department of Safety
Commissioner John Barthelmes and Assistant Commissioner Earl Sweeney
33 Hazen Drive
Concord, NH 03305
Commissioner’s Office: 603-223-3889
john.barthelmes@dos.nh.gov
Assistant Commissioner’s Office: 603-223-3888
earl.sweeney@dos.nh.gov

Keene Police Chief
Kenneth J. Meola
400 Marlboro Rd, Keene, NH 03431
Phone: (603) 357-9813
Fax: (603) 283-5670

You can use the links below to find contact information for your State Senator and Legislator
Senate Roster: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/Senate/members/wml.aspx
Find your Legislator: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/members/housemembers.html

Man killed by police in Selah standoff was a sex offender

1-5-2014 Washington:

SELAH, Wash. — Investigators on Saturday were still trying to piece together what led a man to open fire on police before he was killed in a shootout Friday, and whether he was involved in thefts that led sheriff’s deputies to search the rural Selah property where he died.

A woman who identified herself as the man’s stepsister told the Yakima Herald-Republic that Jesse J. Humphrey probably fired upon officers because he feared he would be arrested and sent back to prison.

The woman, Kassi Fishnick, said Humphrey was a convicted sex offender who had failed to register with law enforcement.

“My brother thought he was wanted for not being registered,” she said.

Investigators spent Saturday combing the rural property — a couple of run-down trailers surrounded by a weedy field located at 431-435 S. Rushmore Road — collecting evidence. Chief Civil Deputy Bob Udell of the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office said investigators, led by the Washington State Patrol, would return today to inspect and collect evidence inside the trailers and the motor home in which Humphrey was killed.