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June 16, 2010
Is System Tough Enough?
Devine
By Alicia Gallegos
Tribune Staff Writer
Source: news
Sunday,January 17, 2010
Edition: mich, , Page A1
It was 1 a.m. when a North Liberty police officer spotted a red Ford Explorer veering left across the center line where Indiana 23 meets Indiana 4.
The officer activated his lights and pulled the swerving SUV over near Leeper Road.
Officer Sean Stuart noticed the driver’s eyes were red and watery, according to police reports, and that he smelled of alcohol. Despite his appearance, the driver, Shawn P. Devine, told police he had not been drinking.
But according to reports, Devine proceeded to fail several sobriety tests, and a breath test later showed Devine had an alcohol level of 0.11 percent, above Indiana’s legal limit of 0.08 percent while driving.
Devine was arrested at the scene and booked into the St. Joseph County Jail. The date was Dec. 19, 2005.
It wasn’t Devine’s first time being accused of driving drunk, and it would not be his last.
In the 11 years his wallet held only an expired permit, Devine was arrested on multiple driving infractions and charged with drunken driving three times, despite his never having a valid license. His first DUI on record was in 2002 after he hit a parked car on a Mishawaka road.
But in any of the cases, the only time behind bars Devine would serve would be a handful of weekend reporting stints. The North Liberty case was eventually dismissed as part of a plea agreement in another DUI.
Some, such as Dave Beaty, South Bend Fraternal Order of Police president, believe Devine’s history is a classic example of a convicted criminal’s past never being taken seriously.
“They start to look at the justice system as a joke,” Beaty said of habitual offenders. “Ideally, in a better system, you give breaks for maybe first-time offenders. But you can’t do it the 10th time. That’s not working.”
Beaty and others, such as advocates with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, believe the court system is too soft on drunken drivers and that too often it takes causing a serious injury or even death for drivers to face stiffer penalties.
Devine is now charged in connection with last weekend’s death of Mishawaka Police Cpl. James Szuba, who was killed when Devine’s SUV plowed into his police cruiser during a pursuit. Tests showed Devine’s blood alcohol level was almost triple the legal limit.
Advocates say laws in Indiana need to be stricter and more done within courts to keep intoxicated residents from driving.
Court officials argue they only have so much discretion when it comes to the guidelines of Indiana law and a wide range of factors affect charging and sentencing decisions.
Meanwhile, legislation introduced just last week means a new mandated regulation for drunken drivers might be in the works.
What Indiana law says
Drunken driving laws and sentencing ranges in Indiana are by no means black and white.
Instead, statutes stretch far and wide when it comes to offense classification and possible penalties.
Some factors affecting the range include: the amount of alcohol in a person’s system; whether the person is showing signs of impairment; whether minors are in a vehicle, and, perhaps most notably, whether prior convictions exist.
The more convictions, the greater the chance of becoming a habitual traffic offender.
St. Joseph County deputy prosecutor Mark Roule explains that to receive a habitual designation, a person must have three major offenses in 10 years or 10 minor infractions within five years.
Majors include things like operating while intoxicated with a blood alcohol level of more than 0.08 or reckless driving.
The wide spectrum of classifications can sometimes be scary, says St. Joseph Superior Chief Judge Michael Scopelitis, considering the potentially devastating effect that drinking and driving can have in the community.
“The problem with this area of the law is that it’s fragmented depending on which elements you stick into it,” he said Friday. “They all have slightly different penalties, and those penalties change depending on what happens when you’re in that state” of intoxication.
Considerations such as whether a person caused injury or death have much higher potential consequences than driving drunk and causing property damage, according to Indiana law.
DUI-related offenses can be as low as a C misdemeanor, which is the lowest type of misdemeanor, or as high as a B felony.
That’s why, in theory, prior convictions generally make punishment for subsequent offenses that much heavier.
If, for instance, a person is convicted of a DUI and has a prior DUI conviction within the last five years, that second offense can be a D felony, which carries a maximum of three years in prison.
But in reality, a handful of convictions don’t always keep a repeat drunken driver off the road.
That was the case when Shawn Devine was finally stopped for his third drunken driving offense in March 2006.
Familiar face
After clocking Devine driving 50 miles an hour in a 30 mph zone, a St. Joseph County police officer stopped Devine on Ironwood Road near Topsfield Drive.
Devine failed sobriety tests in that 2006 traffic stop, according to court records, with his blood alcohol level testing at 0.13.
He was charged with two misdemeanors and two D felonies in the March 2006 case. At the time, Devine’s 2005 North Liberty case was still pending.
But before either case was resolved, Devine was caught driving again in September 2006.
According to court records, Devine was later charged in that case with disregarding a traffic device, driving while suspended, no license in possession, and no insurance.
Devine pleaded guilty to the first D felony count in the first 2006 case and, as part of a plea agreement with the prosecutor’s office, the three other counts were dismissed.
His pending 2005 DUI case was also dismissed by the state as part of the agreement. It’s unclear why the separate case was included in the 2006 agreement. The case file at the county courthouse has since been destroyed.
A spokeswoman for the St. Joseph County prosecutor’s office said Friday they no longer have the 2005 case in their records but have requested it from a microfilm department, which could take up to three days.
For Devine’s only felony case, St. Joseph Superior Judge Jerome Frese sentenced Devine to one year in prison but suspended it – meaning Devine did not actually have to go to prison – and to one year of probation. Devine also was ordered to serve four 9-a.m.-to-5-p.m. shifts at the county jail, according to court records.
The second 2006 case was also dismissed, although it’s also unclear why. No records other than documents indicating the dismissal took place in 2008 could be found at the courthouse.
Yet another overlapping case happened in 2007, when Devine was again arrested and charged with driving while suspended and littering.
In this case, Devine pleaded guilty and was assessed a $150 fine. Records are fuzzy on whether Devine was still on probation at the time of the incident and could have received jail time.
Like several other pieces of Devine’s record, the full 2007 case file could not be found at the courthouse.
St. Joseph County Prosecutor Michael Dvorak said Friday that he is looking into the dismissals and did not want to comment for this story until he has more information.
‘How many times?’
Beaty says Devine’s history and lack of serious repercussions is something officers see every day.
“It’s very frustrating,” Beaty said, adding it seems no motivation exists for chronic offenders to stop offending. “We find these (offenders) laugh about it.”
Beaty, who has been a police officer for 17 years, says frequently offenders such as drunken drivers are offered plea agreements and other counts are dismissed. He also doesn’t believe enough jail or prison time is imposed for repeat offenders.
“How many times does (an offender) need to get arrested before they stop giving him a break?” Beaty asked.
Frank Harris, a public policy representative with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, agrees that judges have too much leeway in Indiana when it comes to drunken driving sentences.
“Currently, the system is broken in Indiana,” Harris said in a phone interview. “The current law allows too much vagueness and ambiguity.”
Judge Scopelitis stressed that judges can sentence only along the guidelines of Indiana law and any maximum sentence given must have a good reason, as maximum sentences are regularly reversed by the Court of Appeals if valid rationales aren’t found.
“It is illegal to give a maximum sentence unless there’s a reason to give it,” Scopelitis said. “Refusal of a judge to exercise desecration, is in itself abuse of discretion.”
However, Scopelitis acknowledged he does have concerns about some areas of sentencing in St. Joseph County, including DUIs. The judge said he is in the process of poring over certain areas of misdemeanor sentencing and has formulated some opinions about certain trends he is seeing. He felt it would be inappropriate to give more details about those opinions, but said he might recommend changes in how some offenses are handled.
Scopelitis also believes that too often the courts are wrongly blamed: Sometimes, the court can do everything conceivable to an offender, such as impose jail time, revoke a license and order an alcohol treatment program, but the offender still reoffends.
“Whose fault is that?” Scopelitis asks. “We’re so much a society of blame. Let’s place the personal responsibility where it belongs: the person who drank and drove and hurt someone or killed someone.”
Scopelitis adds it seems perceptions on sentencing adequacy differs depending on who you are.
“The fact of the matter is that everyone wants people who break the law to be treated more harshly, until it’s your mother or father or brother,” he said. “Then they’re being treated ‘too harshly.’
“The correctness of the sentence is in the eye of the beholder.”
New proposal
Recently proposed legislation could mean drunken drivers would be forced to prove they’re not dangers to the community.
The legislation involves Ignition Interlocks, which are Breathalyzer-type devices built into vehicles and require a driver to blow into them before they are allowed to drive.
Right now, explains Harris with MADD, the legislation would affect only offenders who previously drove with a blood-alcohol level of 0.15 percent or more. To keep offenders from having a friend blow for them, the interlock system requires a second blow soon after the vehicle is rolling.
If an offender is caught driving without the ordered device, it’s an automatic felony, Harris says. Although MADD is advocating the new legislation, Harris says the group would rather see the devices be implemented to all first-time offenders regardless of alcohol level. Indiana is one of 47 states that already use Ignition Interlocks as a sentence condition, but they are not mandated. Scopelitis says ignition interlocks can currently be ordered for offenders with prior alcohol-related convictions as part of a probationary license.
Although the judge worries about how the cost of the devices would be met, he believes the newly introduced legislation is a good idea.
“This is a national crisis,” he said. “I’m not just talking about alcohol, but also about drugs (and driving).
“Imagine how many lives that could save.”
Staff writer Alicia Gallegos: agallegos@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6368
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Can Sex Offenders Be Cured?
Lindsey
From the South Bend Tribune
Can sex offenders be cured? By Alicia Gallegos Tribune Staff Writer Source: news |
SOUTH BEND
Despite a disturbing criminal past, friends and family believed Michael Lindsey had made significant strides in the decades he spent behind bars.
For more than 20 years, the man was a model prisoner, espousing deep religious beliefs, completing law courses and assisting other inmates with criminal cases.
Upon his initial release, officials say the man complied with all parole regulations, fulfilled treatment requirements and was holding down a full-time job and adjusting well to married life.
“I thought if anybody in the world can make it on release, it would be Mike,” said prison minister Tim Blakley, who has known Lindsey for almost 10 years.
But just months after being allowed back into society, Lindsey did more than just violate his parole. He led authorities on a frenzied chase across county lines after three attempted abductions and one kidnapping.
Perspectives differ on what led to Lindsey’s breakdown and subsequent crime spree.
Some believe he was never truly rehabilitated from his past sexual deviance and was a ticking time bomb.
But others, including Lindsey himself, say it was the overwhelming pressure to re-acclimate into society and a lack of preparation that fueled his failure. Debate also exists about whether the motivation for his latest offenses was sexual.
Although not a segment of society for which most residents feel sympathy, the reality is that 10,000 to 20,000 sex offenders are released back into the general population each year, according to a report by the Center for Sex Offender Management, a U.S. Dept. of Justice project.
Making sure sex offenders are prepared to enter society properly rehabilitated greatly reduces recidivism and enhances overall public safety, says the report.
But experts argue about how prepared sex offenders are when the cell door opens and whether enough re-entry programs are available.
In the case of Michael Lindsey, a long-term prisoner with the darkest of pasts, the question becomes: Was his future doomed from the start?
Low risk for re-offending
Jan Lindsey met her husband in 2001 while he was incarcerated at the Correctional Industrial facility in Pendleton, Ind.
The relationship started innocently when the two began writing letters, Jan Lindsey said during a recent phone interview.
Jan was doing ministry work at the time, she said, and had been asked by a pastor whether she would correspond with several inmates, including Lindsey.
Right away, she knew he was different, she said. He was extremely educated and positive, never asking the woman for money, as other inmates did. The letters continued for years until the friendship turned romantic. They married several years later at the prison.
Jan knew about Lindsey’s past.
The now-48-year-old man was in prison for rape and child molesting out of Elkhart County and was completing a sentence of 50 years, of which he served half for good behavior. The two cases in which Lindsey was convicted involved a woman and a 13-year-old girl abducted at knifepoint.
“I knew what he did before was terrible,” Jan Lindsey said. “(But) that wasn’t who he was anymore.”
Jan asked a prison psychologist about Lindsey and said the doctor told her he had shown true remorse for his actions and was considered “low risk” for re-offending.
She believed him. So did Blakley, who also sent Lindsey letters and felt the man was “1 billion percent rehabilitated,” he said.
While in prison, Lindsey had taken therapy classes, his wife said. He also completed Sex Offender Management and Monitoring.
All sex offenders in the state must complete SOMM before being released, according to Adam Deming, psychologist and executive director of SOMM.
The time and length of the program depends on the sex offender and his or her level of risk, says Deming, but much of the treatment focuses on cognitive behavior therapy, accountability, and formulating a relapse prevention plan.
Individual Indiana prisons do not have the program available, but inmates are sent to the New Castle facility when treatment is deemed necessary and room is available.
But even with the required prison programs, Jan Lindsey says, her husband was missing something when he was finally paroled in 2008.
Changes in 25 years
The world he entered upon his release was very different that the one he left 25 years earlier, Lindsey said in a shaking voice during his recent sentencing.
At first, he felt he could adjust and do well, he said, but his confidence soon started to waiver.
“It really started to overwhelm me,” he said during sentencing. “I didn’t know how to get gas, how to order food. I started wondering if I should even be out.”
Lindsey had hoped to find work as a paralegal when he was released, but he was not allowed. He also applied for several re-entry programs, he said, but was not accepted.
Instead, he found work at a factory, working an exhausting third shift, says his wife. The couple also had housing issues, as Jan’s home was not suitable for sex offender requirements, and the two had to move.
Stress started to consume Lindsey, Blakley said, and he was not getting along well with his boss at work.
But his marriage was thriving, Jan Lindsey said, adding that her husband was always good to her, making dinner and mowing the lawn. But Lindsey hated having to make so many decisions, she said.
“Life is so fast out here,” Jan Lindsey says. “It’s so slow for them in there. How do you prepare someone for something like that?”
Before leaving prison, Lindsey did complete a re-entry component of SOMM. Prisoners are introduced to the re-entry aspect about nine months before release, according to Deming.
The transitional program helps prisoners review possible housing and employment options as well as addresses parole stipulations they will face, Deming says.
But aside from the nine-month re-entry program, few community transitional programs, halfway houses or community re-entry facilities even consider taking sex offenders.
According to Greg Cress with South Bend Community Re-Entry, specific DOC criteria prevents sex offenders from being allowed into his program.
Traditionally, lower level offenders are eligible for the local re-entry program about nine months before release. The program addresses life skills, substance abuse and job readiness.
A recent addition also now allows prisoners to attend 18 to 24 months before release.
“Some offenders need a little more time,” Cress said. “The longer you’ve been institutionalized, the more difficulties you’re going to have coming out.”
Cress says that at one time, sex offenders were allowed in the program, but that was 20 years ago. Because of the risk to the community, corrections officials generally want sex offenders to serve their entire sentences before being around civilians.
At the St. Joseph County DuComb Center, it’s possible to accept some types of sex offenders, but that doesn’t happen frequently, says interim Program Manager Dave Nickerson.
And Doug Huyvaert with the South Bend Parole Office says parole officers do not send sex offenders to community transitional programs.
“I do not know of any cases in my district,” he said.
Eight months later
Treatment continued for Lindsey on the outside.
He was going to weekly treatment sessions and receiving regular assessments, Huyvaert says, adding there were no red flags in his file until the day Lindsey missed a meeting.
The date was Feb. 24.
Lindsey had been out of prison just eight months.
Later, Lindsey would insist that missing work the night before made him fear he would violate his parole. He says he was overwhelmed, and only wanted a vehicle to run away.
He first confronted a Mishawaka woman with a screwdriver and demanded her car. She screamed, and Lindsey ran away. The man later abducted a 19-year-old woman at knifepoint and drove with her to White County, before leaving her in a field.
Police later arrested Lindsey in Jasper County after a third abduction attempt.
Authorities previously said Lindsey never physically or sexually harmed the 19-year-old woman, and charges to the contrary were never filed.
But a deputy prosecutor said during sentencing that it was untrue that nothing of a sexual nature happened.
The now-20-year-old woman said Lindsey straddled her at one point and forced her to take off her tights before changing his mind and letting her go. Lindsey admitted in court that he thought about doing something sexual, but then came to his senses.
‘Doesn’t cure an illness’
St. Joseph County Superior Court Judge Jerome Frese sees hundreds of sex offense cases come through his courtroom each year and says the crimes can be some of the most heinous.
Frese could not comment specifically on the Lindsey case but spoke generally about sex offenders and treatment resources while incarcerated.
Frese spoke highly of the SOMM program but argued re-entry and treatment services should start early in prison time. “The problem is that, ironically, they don’t give it to someone until their release date,” he said. “What happens is that it’s eight to 10 years before (a person) is allowed to qualify for that program.”
Deming, however, believes the program and services offered by the DOC gives inmates the necessary tools to succeed in society. The re-entry component of the SOMM program is highly effective, he says, adding that in three years, inmates who complete the program have shown only a 1 percent rate of returning to prison with a new sex crime.
But Jan Lindsey wishes more had been done for her husband to prepare him for life in society. She does not believe his recent crimes were sexually motivated.
At the very least, she believes, if Lindsey had had a mentor when released, it would have helped.
The woman once envisioned growing old with her husband, she said, but knows now that can’t happen. Lindsey pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the Mishawaka offenses and six more years in Jasper County.
He remains at the St. Joseph County Jail awaiting transport to prison.
Jan Lindsey said she has not yet filed for divorce but knows she must move on.
Meanwhile, the family of his now-20-year-old victim says Lindsey should have never been back in society.
“That fact that he did what he did tells me he was not reformed,” the victim’s mother said.
Her husband says he has compassion for Lindsey’s sickness and that he has prayed for him, but he also holds much anger.
“I think he’s a very sick person,” the dad said. “Putting someone away for 25 years doesn’t cure an illness.”
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A year after double fatality, remaining sibling carries on
Zach Triplet leaves work on a recent day
By Alicia Gallegos
Tribune Staff Writer
Source: news
Monday,September 8, 2008
Edition: mich, , Page A1
BREMEN
It’s quittin’ time, and Zach Triplet finishes wiping clean his toolbox in the tractor garage before climbing into his black Ford 350 and starting down the road.
The 28-year-old cracks the window and lights a cigarette just as he launches into an animated story about his brother, Zane, and the truck the teenager used to drive.
Zach bought a 1979 Ford for his little brother, he explains. Together, the brothers had bodywork done on it, installed new parts and were almost finished with a new paint job.
The gift was for all the times Zane helped Zach on the farm and all those tractor projects as a team.
Today, the truck sits inside their grandparents’ barn, untouched.
“We’re about to sell it,” Zach says, shaking his head. “Nobody wants to drive it anymore.”
A year has now passed since Zane and little sister Zoie were both killed.The two died when their minivan crossed the center line on U.S. 6 near Bremen and collided head-on with an RV.
Zane was 17. Zoie was 8.
Zach spends a lot of time alone now, he says, driving and trying to sort through an endless stream of thoughts.
Like Zane’s old pickup, a million sights and sounds a day remind Zach of his brother and sister. Last fall, he tried to take his brother’s truck out to check crops, but eventually he left the truck parked.
“Every time we get in,” Zach says, “I look over and expect him to open the door and get in the passenger seat.”
Life-altering accident
That Saturday afternoon in July started like any other, with Zane and Zoie both gone to a golf outing in Rochester.
After playing their respective games, the two hopped back in the family’s minivan and stopped at Burger King for lunch before heading home.
A few miles from home, Zane crossed the centerline on U.S. 6 for an unknown reason, colliding with the recreational vehicle.
Zoie was pronounced dead at the scene. Zane died later at the hospital.
No one in the motor home was seriously injured.
Zach and his parents say they don’t waste time on the maddening question: What went wrong?
Seat belts were on, family members say, and the day was clear.
“I just don’t see how I’m going to be angry at someone,” dad Tony Triplet says. “It’s called an accident for a reason. If you get
in that direction, it can suck you in.”
At the Triplets’ Bremen home, just south of New Road on Miami Highway, the couple sit outside on their back patio and speak about their children.
“For us it was right away empty nest syndrome,” remembers Tony Triplet.
“How quiet it was,” wife Sherri adds. “It was like all of a sudden, no one was here.”
Shortly after their children’s deaths,Tony remembers how a friend pulled the couple aside and told them the tragedy would
either pull them closer or tear them apart.
But, the Triplets say, they can’t imagine surviving without the other.
“We’re lucky we have each other,”Tony says.
“There’s times when I’m the strong one, and there’s times he’s the strong one,” Sherri chimes in.
Tony says they worry about their oldest son.
“He has some questions about why he’s here, they’re there,” Tony says.
Three peas in a pod
As Zach drives down the highway, he is quick with an anecdote about his siblings, pride mixing with amusement in his eyes.
Zane was the prankster, great at sports, but a slacker when it came to early mornings. Zoie was fearless, determined to do everything her brothers did, a rising softball player and best friend to a cow named Bubba.
Every Saturday morning, the three Triplet children would ride together to a small restaurant just south of Mishawaka for breakfast.
Over coffee at the Woodland Inn — heavy on the cream and sugar for Zoie — the siblings would talk, laugh and tease each
other. With Zach around, Zoie knew she could rib her middle brother a little more and get away with it.
Zach is a vault of humorous stories about his siblings but rarely talks about himself, unless asked. He pauses when the subject turns somber, collecting his thoughts before speaking.
Since his siblings’ deaths, he’s become more a loner, he says.
The tractor repairman usually spends a combined 80 hours a week working. After a full day, he drives either to his aunt’s farm or to his grandparents’ home in Bremen to help with whatever they need.
Working more makes his life feel fuller, he says, although he can never quiet his wandering mind.
“The wheels are always turning in my mind,” Zach says. “Depending on the day, it can be good or bad.”
“I worry about everything. I worry about how long my grandfathers will still be here. I worry about if I’ll ever get married.
“(I wonder),‘How would life have been different if the kids were still here?’”
Empty chairs
On a recent Saturday morning, Zach is planted in his spot at the Woodland Inn, the morning breakfast crowd having just
cleared out.
It was a long while before Zach could go back to the Woodland Inn without Zane and Zoie.
“For me, it was kinda weird. I was the oldest, I was the one who did everything first …” his voice trails off. “When an older
person dies, you feel sorry for those they left behind. But when a young person dies, you feel sorry for the young person who
didn’t get to fulfill their life.”
While his grandparents have since sought out a support group in Plymouth and his dad had some one-on-one counseling at one time, Zach shakes his head when asked whether he ever considers such a group.
He just deals with things on his own, he answers.
Zach drops into the Woodland twice a month now, catching up with old friends and neighbors.
“It never gets better,” he says, “it just gets easier. A year ago there was such sorrow of the loss. Things didn’t seem right.
“Every day you have memories. Why even concentrate on the negative? There are so many positive ones.”
The day Zach and Zane were told a baby sister was coming. The time Zoie fell asleep on the tractor seat. The trip where Zach
convinced Zane he was really adopted from Poland.
When the oldest brother reflects on his siblings and his life, these are the memories he concentrates on now. These are the
moments he tries to remember.
A shared tombstone
Where Zane and Zoie are buried is less than a mile from the Triplets’ home. The small grove of graves is just off Miami,
surrounded by fields of soybeans.
Grandma and Grandpa Dutoi originally planned to rest in the plots Zane and Zoie now share. The single black limestone grave marker sits next to their great-grandparents’, engraved with both children’s names.
“It’s country,” Marilyn Dutoi says of the cemetery. “It’s what they were. They were born here and lived here their whole lives.”
Although she wasn’t sure at first, having the spot so close is comforting, Sherri says.
“I don’t think there’s a more appropriate place,” Zach adds. “That’s how it should be.”
The family also agrees that it’s fitting that the two children share a tombstone, considering they were so close.
“I really don’t think Zane could’ve lived knowing he drove the car and she died,” Marilyn says, shaking her head. “He loved her so much.”
Zach nods firmly, his hands in his pockets as he stares at the ground. “I don’t think he could’ve handled it,” he says.
“So,” his grandma finishes with tears in her eyes. “They’re better off together.”
While his mom and grandma reminisce, Zach’s gaze moves behind them, beyond the busy road and up toward the bulbous
clouds and light blue sky.
After a second, he nudges his mother and stares across the street as he whispers, “Mom, do you see that? Is that a rainbow?”
Sherri turns along with her mother. A smile lights up her tear-streaked face.
It is, in fact, a faint half-rainbow, hanging above the road even without the slightest hint of rain in the sky. Zach laughs; he just wanted to make sure he wasn’t going crazy.
And just a moment later, almost as soon as Zach spotted it, the rainbow fades, its colors fading somewhere above.
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Can I go home now?
Nicholas Rice
By Alicia Gallegos
Tribune Staff Writer
Thursday,February 23, 2006
Edition: MICH, Section: nation, Page A1
Fifth of six parts
Out of nowhere, an unfamiliar voice was echoing down the corridor of Jail Ward 1.
“We were like, ‘What in the world?'” remembers former inmate Jeremy Miller.
His silent, immobile neighbor was talking.
“Out of the blue that day, he seemed normal,” Miller says. “He just opened his mouth.”
Nicholas Rice was known inside the jail as the naked inmate. He usually lay on his bottom bunk under a blanket, never speaking and rarely leaving his cell. He wouldn’t shower, and he usually refused to eat.
But on Dec. 17, 2004, he suddenly started a conversation with another inmate who stopped by his door.
Earlier that week, Nicholas had also surprised jail staff when he unexpectedly looked up and asked, “Can I go home now?”
The 22-year-old inmate had been in the Elkhart County Jail for more than a year, accused of trying to rob a bank. But a judge had recently ordered Nicholas’ admission to a state psychiatric hospital.
Other inmates had tried for so long to persuade Nicholas to say something. When he finally did, they had no idea why. Miller had some coffee that day and offered some to his neighbor. Nicholas actually took a sip and then agreed with Miller that it was too strong.
Miller would later regret that he fell asleep during his hour out of his cell that day; he had meant to converse again with his quiet neighbor.
Maybe he could have talked to Nicholas one more time.
***
Miller was reading in his bunk about 3 the next morning when he heard what sounded like water running and then a gurgling noise coming from Nicholas’ cell next door. It sounded as if he were throwing up.
Then came an abrupt thud, he says, as if the inmate had fallen.
Miller called out to Nicholas, asking him if he was OK, but the inmate didn’t respond.
The deep gurgling noise started again, Miller says. The other inmates heard it, too, and someone asked whether they should alert the guards.
But Nicholas was always making incoherent noises. The inmates decided he was fine.
***
Close to 5 a.m., a nurse was passing out medications in Ward 1 when she heard an officer yell from downstairs, “Nurse, you need to get down here now!”
She rushed toward Cell 5A where the officer stood, and she saw an inmate lying face down in a pool of blood.
His skin was blue, one officer reported, and his eyes were bulging from their sockets. A red froth flowed from his mouth.
The nurse checked his vital signs. No pulse. No respiration.
She and an officer rolled the inmate onto his back and started chest compressions, she would report later. Behind their bars, inmates watched as their neighbor in 5A was taken out by paramedics.
An officer escorted medics as they loaded the inmate into an ambulance. He watched as medics pushed the stretcher into an emergency room filled with medical staff and shut the door.
The officer stood outside until someone told him the news, and then he called the jail captain.
Nicholas Rice was dead.
***
Rick Rice was shaving that morning when he heard a knock.
He remembers peeking out the entryway of his bathroom and seeing that his front door was slightly ajar, two uniformed men standing behind it.
“What is a cop doing here?” he wondered.
Then he saw the word “chaplain” on the coat of one of the men. He slammed his hand angrily against the brown paneled wall by his door.
He just knew.
***
Diane and her husband were sleeping when she took the call from Rick.
Nicholas was dead.
“Louie, get up,” she remembers saying. “Get dressed. We have to go to the hospital. I have to see my son.”
They rushed to the hospital and were directed into the right room.
There was Nicholas. Her oldest boy, lying on a bed with a blanket pulled over his head.
Diane lifted the blanket to look at him. “I don’t know if that was good or bad,” she says now.
He was thin, she remembers, but her son didn’t look hurt.
Instead of shopping for Christmas presents the week of Dec. 20, 2004, Rick and Diane were planning their son’s memorial service.
“Cause of inmate’s death unclear,” a Tribune headline read on Dec. 21.
Reporters were told it appeared Nicholas died of natural causes and no foul play was involved. No method of suicide was found, jail Capt. Brad Rogers was quoted as saying, and a preliminary coroner’s report revealed no anatomical signs indicating a cause of death.
“He had no injuries,” Elkhart Coroner Jeff Landrum said.
An Elkhart County autopsy was ongoing, and toxicology tests were under way.
But it was hard to trust anyone, Rick says, especially county officials who were supposed to take care of his son.
In phone conversations between Rick and Landrum, the coroner kept referring to a recent hospital visit Nicholas had made before his death.
Rick was confused. He knew about an incident where Nicholas had cut his neck with a razor blade, but Landrum seemed to be talking about another time.
It wasn’t until months later that he came across a hospital form indicating his son had been treated for dehydration and malnourishment on Oct. 5. An emergency detention form clearly stated a doctor’s worry that Nicholas might die.
“My name is on the file,” Rick says angrily. “Why didn’t someone contact me?”
After Nicholas’ memorial service, Rick and Diane decided to send his body for a private autopsy in Michigan. They heard about Werner Spitz, a renowned pathologist, who might be able to help them.
But like determining his sanity in life, experts would disagree on what caused Nicholas Rice’s death.
Coming Friday: Why did Nicholas die?
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Who is Madison?
From the South Bend Tribune
Who is ‘Madison’? By Alicia Gallegos Tribune Staff Writer Source: news |
SOUTH BEND — At nightfall, a motorist driving U.S. 31 in either direction would pass several well-lit streets and fluorescent signs before crossing the intersection of Madison Road.
A narrow, two-lane street jutting west of the highway, Madison is about three miles south of Ireland Road, close to four miles north of New Road, and just about as dark as can be. The road seems to be the perfect place for a vehicle to travel without being seen, taking the driver toward an empty field lined in shadowy woods.
The pasture is overgrown with thick brush, an ideal place to hide something — say, for instance, a dead body.
Although the concealed crypt may sound like the setting for a horror film, it was in this very spot 11 years ago this month that the bones of a young woman were discovered.
The mystery of “Madison,” nicknamed after the road she was found near, has never been solved. Over the years, the case has been passed through a chain of investigators, come close to a series of conclusions, but repeatedly hit a wall of dead ends.
Now homicide detective Sgt. Tom Cameron, who has been working on the death for almost a decade, is hoping that a new forensic sketch will help revive Madison’s case.
A recently developed DNA database and a growing world of Internet resources focusing on missing people also are tools advancing Cameron’s efforts.
Although the strange location of the woman’s body and other signs indicate foul play, investigators know that before they
can figure out how Madison died, they must first answer the question that has proved baffling: Who is she?
A grisly discovery
The sun was shining on Dec. 29, 1996, when Ed Walton and his buddies Steve and Joe went hunting off Madison Road.
The men were shooting at clay pigeons, Walton remembered recently, when one of the men walked over to what he believed was a heap of firewood and spotted a pile of human bones.
“There’s a skeleton over here!” Walton remembered his friend shouting. “I said, ‘Don’t touch it, damn it!’ ”
The group rushed to a nearby farmhouse owned by Bob Krusinski and called 911. A swarm of St. Joseph County officers were soon at the scene.
Krusinski, who owns 220 acres in the area including the land where the body was discovered, said recently that he had dragged a tractor over that part of the pasture for years.
Krusinski
“I never thought nothing of it,” he said. “It was just a bunch of shrubs at that time.”
It’s mostly hunters who roam the field to catch deer, wild turkey and pheasants, said longtime Madison Road resident Violet Dudley.
“I was surprised that she had been there long enough to turn to bones and nobody noticed,” Dudley said.
Examiners estimated the body had been in the field for about 18 months.
Not a shred of clothing was found on the bones or anywhere nearby. Even after a year and a half, Cameron said that if the woman had been clothed, evidence of a remaining button or a fiber of clothing would have been found.
“There’s absolutely nothing there,” he said. “There’s no clothing and only one strand of brown hair.”
A forensic anthropologist in Michigan was able to determine that the skeleton was that of a white female, likely between the ages of 20 and 35. Further estimates put Madison between 5-foot-3 and 5-foot-7 inches tall.
No trauma was discovered on the body, according to Cameron, adding that the throat bone, called the hyoid, was also intact, ruling out strangulation.
“It’s a cold case of an unknown death,” he said.
The highway to Madison
Eleven years ago, the Citgo gas station that now sits at the intersection of Madison and U.S. 31 was a grocery store and owned then by longtime resident Larry Ross.
Back then, Ross owned all of the properties near the intersection, said his son, Joe Ross, including the restaurant next door now called Stacie’s diner, which was then a doughnut shop.
What hasn’t changed is the busy highway that sends cars, trucks and semi-trailers whizzing past the edge of Madison Road on any given night.
“It’s the link,” says Ross, who works at his father’s U.S. 31 business, Country Gardens Nursery Landscaping.
Ross calls the highway “crazy” for the number of crashes that have happened on it, but he explains that with its access to so many major destinations, “everybody” travels the road.
“This is the main route to Indy, Rochester, all of them,” Ross says. “I think they call it one of the main arteries of South Bend.”
Not only locally, but U.S. 31 is also an easy channel from one side of the country to the other, Cameron says, considering the highway runs into the Indiana Toll Road.The scope means Madison could have come from anywhere.
The search has sent former investigators and Cameron dipping into the files of thousands of missing persons cases across the nation, trying to find a match.
In the last year alone, Cameron has spent close to 200 hours sifting through charts, calling outside police departments, talking to families and looking at online resources.
“I’m playing with this when I’m not working on what happened this weekend,” he says. “I have piles of stuff that needs to be done.”
The investigator regularly returns to the findings of the forensic anthropologist, whose report of Madison’s description just doesn’t add up to her death going unnoticed.
Puzzling traits
A study of Madison’s mouth by pathologists in 1996 revealed that the woman had excellent hygiene, according to past reports.
Further examinations determined the woman had never had a broken bone, was “fit” and seemed to be in good general health.
The conditions mean the victim was not likely homeless or a runaway, Cameron said, and would usually be easily connected to a family.
But there’s an even stranger piece of the identification puzzle that has had detectives scratching their heads to this day. It’s an uncommon biological trait discovered on the body that is so rare, it’s shared by less than 10 percent of the population.
It would seem that this clue to Madison’s identity would mean that someone, somewhere, would recognize who she is. Wouldn’t it?
Coming Monday: Sketching a skeleton
Staff writer Alicia Gallegos: agallegos@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6368
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June 15, 2010
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