Saturday, January 30, 2010

estranged 22.est.002 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

"It's page one in the handbook," said Detective Mike Garvey, the first cop to speak with Carl Dorr. And the more they looked at Carl Dorr, the more he looked like their man. After all, hadn't he threatened his wife, saying he would abduct their daughter just three months before? Hadn't he and Dorothy been battling over the kid for years? Wasn't Carl the last to see her alive? They went right at him, asking him to take a polygraph the very next day. When the polygraph examiner, a local fire marshal, told them that Carl might know more about Michele's whereabouts than he was telling them, the cops thought they had their man.

"It was good cop, bad cop," Carl later said. "They were right in my face, telling me I had failed the polygraph exam and that it had been 24 hours and they knew she was dead. 'We're going to find her,' they said, 'When we do, we're coming to get you.'"

His estranged wife told the cops she thought he had done it too. She gave them an extra motive. Her estranged husband was trying to get out of paying her $400 a month in child support. Carl Dorr was caught inside a nightmare. When he told the police that he loved his daughter, they didn't believe him. He took a second lie detector test and passed easily. In an attempt to prove his innocence, he underwent hypnosis and took sodium pentothal, the so-called truth serum. None of this convinced the cops. But then Carl may have been his own worst enemy. He snapped, and in a psychotic episode told a psychiatrist that he had abducted and killed his daughter.

"I started hallucinating," he recalled. "I couldn't take the pressure. My brain was soup."

In his altered mental state he began to believe that people on television shows were talking about him. He looked behind the set and when he didn't see anything, he thought the police were altering his reception.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

center 44.cen.8321 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Today, it is unlikely Harold Shipman would be allowed to handle drugs unsupervised, given his previous track record. Nonetheless, within two years, he was back in business as a general practitioner.

He was accepted into the Donneybrook Medical Center in Hyde in the north of England. How readily he was accepted demonstrates his absolute self-confidence — and his ability to convince his peers of his sincerity.

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire of the Center explained "His approach was that I have had this problem, this conviction for abuse of pethidine. I have undergone treatment. I am now clean. All I can ask you to do is to trust me on that issue and to watch me."

Perhaps he was not watched carefully enough.

Again, he played the role of a dedicated, hardworking and community-minded doctor. He gained his patients' absolute trust and earned his colleagues' respect.

Some of those who worked under him have told of his sarcastic and abusive nature, but he was skilled at masking his patronizing attitude in front of those he chose to impress. As for any signs of addiction, there were no blackouts as before, and no indication of drug abuse.

In Hyde, Harold Shipman was home free — and free to kill.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

theories 33.the.0003 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Although the two-year investigation ended without an arrest, the knowledge gained and some of the samples collected formed the of the basis for the work of the squad.

''We tried a hundred thousand theories," now retired Lt. Al Stewart said. "We checked house numbers, the victims' length of residency, the phases of the moon, we read books, looking for arcane connections to mythology, witchcraft and demonology."

On Oct. 31, 1987, the body of 15-year-old Shannon Olson was found dumped in a pond in an industrial area, partially disrobed and stabbed numerous times. Her hands and feet were bound. The murder sparked off an outbreak of letters to the police and media suggesting the BTK Strangler committed the crime.

On Dec. 31, 1987, Mary Fager, the married mother of two daughters, returned to her Wichita home after spending 2 1/2 days out of town. Upon entering her house, she discovered her husband, Phillip Fager, dead; he had been shot twice in the back. Her two daughters, 16-year-old Kelli and 10-year-old Sherri, were both found strangled in the hot tub situated in the basement of the home. Sherri's hands and feet were bound with black electrical tape, which later washed loose. Kelli Fager was nude.