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 Brief Grief
By Paul Rieker
Reducing grief to the shortest period of time.
This NEW description of grief is created to cause
the possibility of change, in the shortest time, perhaps within 30 days.
Grief is:
An Initial Sensitizing Event (the death event or a prior death event)
The continuance of Ruminating Conversations, without end
Anger
Fear
Not feeling safe
Emotions of Anguish, Despair, Anger & Fear placed in our learning, without human language, while
transitioning into sleep. Regardless of personal experience &
different circumstances, the above description is universal in different measures for each person. Not everyone’s experience
is the same, but the above list is universal to every person. When each of these
components are addressed & the feeling of being safe is restored, grief can become brief. But,
those who categorize grief as a ‘process without specific interdictions’ do so because they haven't seen the above
components addressed quickly, universally, or accurately. Please consider the process
of an acorn growing to a mature oak tree. Germination, the growth of a sapling. Receiving sufficient light, water & nutrients.
Culminating in a large oak tree creating a new acorn. This process can be interrupted. It can be enhanced. It can be brought
to completion faster with positive intervention only IF:
we understand germination, photosynthesis, geotropism & the other aspects of tree growth &
mature reproduction of trees.
If we understand the emotional fixations of anger & fear, grief
can be made brief. We can understand the process of initial sensitizing events & how they create a learning of Anger /
Fear.
If we agree, emotions are learned & not genetic or chemically
created. If we understand that in learning an emotion & review of that emotion causes our increased ability & skill
to practice & participate in it, if we can understand these things, we can have the basis of changing grief, with new
tools.
The components of grief; anger, fear, despair & not feeling safe can
be changed. But, without this acknowledgment, it’s possible the focus of attention will not be re-directed to joy.
The focus on that bad feeling, unique to each person, may remain
the focus of attention.
Until the worst occurs, we don’t take action. This
is how I understand the worst is created.
The repressed memory is many times not
created in that moment of that 1st event. A repressed memory many times isn't the terrible event, but really a small event,
perhaps in itself an event of seemingly no consequence. (Yes, of course a repressed memory
can be a huge traumatic event which causes a repressed memory... but that huge event & the small events ARE the learnings
which accumulate anger & fear & cause the focus into the past & precludes the living in the NOW.)
The repressed memory is a 1st learning. Established by learning the emotions of Anger & or
Fear. It seems that a repressed memory is more the LEARNING to associate anger & fear over time, rather than the single
event in itself.
This learning is the beginning of the SORTING PROCESS which the
human mind uses for our incremental education. The sorting & comparison process makes future recall extremely fast.
But, this speed of recall, thru this sorting process comes with
a price.
The speed of the learning / sorting process includes the sorting of the
emotions of anger & fear. This is a cause of rumination, the incremental learning process.
My mother’s death, the moment that news came, didn't create my grief. That word in itself didn’t
create it. That word Mom. That word died. Many times in my life, I heard those words. Mom & died.
Said together, “Mom died.” Did not create my grief. My grief was created by what I did with those
words. How I felt after & how I made myself feel. How I expected to feel & how I created the outcome of those feelings
around that news.
How I expected to feel around that anniversary date, those words
even 5 years later. I created the 'expectation' to feel grief, before the anniversary date, even anticipating what I would
feel, before that day. I caused this to occur.
The initial sensitizing event is
NOT a bad feeling or debilitation when it occurs. This event appears to be a primer. The initial event is a point of learning.
This is an event, which can cause us to bring future emotions to anchor on that initial learning. This seems to be the human
learning process. Not only to make association with intellectual growth, but to make associations with emotional disappointments.
The human learning process isn't without emotion.
It
would appear the onset of grief, which is not in that single event itself, can become a real debilitation over time
thru the process of the continual opening & reviewing the event & other conversations like it.
“Like it” is the sorting process, the comparing of conversations
& events which cause us to learn anger & fear.
The repressed memory is an
accumulation of anger or fear or both, until such that the wrappers of anger & fear are so available, the emotions which
are accumulated makes one blind from intellectually knowing the cause of the emotional learning.
This is what I refer to as wrapping an event or thought or belief with the “wrappers of anger or fear”.
If one feels grief is a process without intervention: Consider today an individual who has broken
their arm. Do you expect an intervention which identifies where & how severe the break, the setting of the bones &
the repair of the associated tissue.
The immobilization of the arm until it heals… or the debilitation of an arm which no longer
functions as it normally did prior to the break?
Today, would one say "my grandfather
died of a stroke, and so should everyone else."? Or, should we say, "We know about heart disease and cholesterol, we know
about diet and exercise, we have medical interventions, today no one should have a stroke!"
Today,
unfortunately when someone uses the term GRIEF PROCESS, that implies no action, no outcome but the verbal implied action.
This maybe your 1st presentation of the components of grief, from an actionable
perspective.
Addressing the anger or fear embedded in the subconscious through the
emotional release work, is NOT what your grandmother did.
This is NEW information.
Reframing of the emotional fixations is a new concept which most are unfamiliar with. The continuance of growing wrappers
of anger and fear. The transition into sleep, with despair and other sad emotions cause the learning and rehearsal of those
emotions.
Would you have a child transition into sleep with despair? Would you view
those facial expressions, see that child reduce his or her respiration and heart rate…drift to sleep in REM dreaming
and learning. How do you expect that learning to be present the next day?
And, how
would you expect that emotion of despair to present itself? Depression? Grief? Fear? We typically do not admit to these mechanisms,
which cause grief to be established.
The transitioning into sleep, learning despair
and anguish, anger and most of all fear is the primary learnings contributing to not only grief but to other emotional fixations.
These learnings of emotion are accomplished without human language. Therefore, if implanted without language, do you expect
language to address those non-language learnings?
Do we actually expect language
to break these wrappers of anger and fear?
If the learning of grief is without human
language, the healing of grief must become the ‘reverse’ of this process. Reversing of the grief lesson may have
to be accomplished without intellectual learning. With emotional learning. The healing of grief comes with the emotional release
and breaking the wrappers of anger and fear.
This breaking of anger, fear, despair
which is learned while transitioning to sleep is addressed in deepest relaxation, where heart rate and respiration are reduced,
similar to sleep.
During this time of reduced respiration, when REM occurs the therapeutic
application of the following can occur.
The lesson I learned in the healing of grief
comes through:
-
Abreaction Emotional release
-
Desensitization No longer a point of emotional focus
-
Emotional Reframing Believe the best, emotionally
This is because Grief is based upon:
-
Multiple More than one
-
Compounded Interleaved & can't stand alone
-
Emotional If Logic based, could be fixed with a spreadsheet
-
Fixations Totally fixed, unmovable.
The above is established & re-enforced thru:
-
Negotiation Bringing the points to focus
-
Agreement Agree to focus on these aspects
-
Expectation The future will hold the aspects of the agreement
Essentially, grief is the negotiation to feel fear &/or anger associated
with an event. It's the agreement to accept that negotiation & it leads to the EXPECTATION the next time that thought
/ memory / experience is reviewed, the agreed emotion will live.
Unfortunately, we
have not learned to expect joy over despair. And for some reason, unknown to me, we don’t accumulate joy in the same
way we accumulate anger/fear. It is unfortunate that those people who have become so deeply despaired have the expectation
that despair will continue.
Could it be now in your joy to understand grief could
be shortened to 30 days? Would you like to make this possible with me?
If you have seen
this:
Then you know brief grief is possible.
If you have not seen this:
What
is the reason you have not seen grief become brief?
The oak tree story describes
a process, but… Grief is not perceived as the individual components which can be positively changed in a short period
of time. I practice resolving the fear, which is created due to grief... resolution of ruminating conversations, helping the
individual feel safe again. But, without this acknowledgment of positive change, addressing each individual’s needs
may NEVER have a personal resolution, neither briefly or in decades.
Grief can live for decades, or shorten one’s life. Grief can strip one's ability to love those who deserve that person's
joy.
Identifying the individual’s impasse and encourage the shift to occur
in the shortest period of time. It is unfortunate; most people feel this is impossible –and I have heard many say this
is impossible only because they have not seen it.
Healing in a brief time can be
everyone’s prayer and achievement.
I hope I’ve inspired you to demand
Brief Grief to be a daily occurrence.
The practice of these techniques is for JOY
and LOVE and FORGIVENESS to live. That person can move out of the stuckness, perhaps even lengthening their life.
Perhaps the focus on joy can occur, with these techniques. These techniques are not magic. When
they are seen in demonstration and shared in teaching, these techniques can be learned and practiced.
Yes, that person who passed, they wouldn’t want you to be in grief for even one minute, would they? So,
perhaps in this statement, you can take the hand of everyone you know living today, and tell that person, son, daughter, mother,
father, wife, husband, tell them, they should NOT be in grief when your passing occurs. And, once you hear your words to those
people who are dear to you, recognize the fact, that person who you are currently in grief for, wants you to live with the
joyous memory of them, feeling love and the memories of their smile.
This process
doesn't ignore or eliminate the memory of love. Brief grief can bring love into focus. The process of Brief Grief allows the
choice to no longer focus on the anger, fear, despair & helplessness, which many can't seem to shake.
The agreement you had with that person the day you met, that meeting could have held the word, JOY.
The sense of joy can return, while the pain is extinguished. This is available & the option
to use these techniques reside in the individual’s choice. Would you like to choose the memory of love & the feeling
of joy?
source: selfgrowth.com
Griffin was 'big-hearted kid,' anguished
McHale recalls
By Pat Borzi
For The Inquirer
MINNEAPOLIS - Not quite 30 seconds
into a conference call discussing the death of Eddie Griffin, Kevin McHale's voice began to crack from emotion. For the next 15 minutes, McHale, the Minnesota Timberwolves' vice president of basketball operations, spoke of Griffin with
the despair one feels over the loss of someone who couldn't be reached, or saved.
"I had no idea how much I
was pulling for him until it hit me yesterday," McHale said of Griffin, 25, who was killed in a fiery collision with a train
Friday in Houston. Griffin played his final 3 NBA seasons for Minnesota & McHale worked with Griffin almost every day
in practice when the Timberwolves were at home.
"Eddie had a lot of different things
that happened to him," McHale said. "I know everybody is responsible for their own lives & what happens to them. Eddie was a big-hearted kid, so easy to pull for. It's such a sad,
sad waste, a tragic end to a life."
McHale said Griffin, who had
been treated for alcohol abuse, was drinking again when the Timberwolves released him on March 13, 2 months after the NBA suspended him for 5 games for
violating the league's substance-abuse policy.
By then Griffin had played
his way deep onto the Timberwolves' bench. He played only 13 games, none after Dec. 13 & averaged 1.4 points & 1.9
rebounds per game. McHale said Griffin had asked for his release so he could return home to Houston & seek treatment with
John Lucas, the former 76er's coach who had counseled the former Roman Catholic High School star before.
"Eddie could have helped the team,"
McHale said. "He was cycling down into a bad, bad spot. In one of our conversations, he said to me, 'I've got to go. It's
not working for me here.' He felt he would have better success with John Lucas."
McHale, who said alcoholism runs in his family, said Griffin turned to alcohol when things didn't go well in his life. Griffin never played consistently
enough to maintain a regular spot in then-coach Dwane Casey's rotation, repeating a failing that dogged his NBA career. McHale
tried to talk Griffin thru such times, with little success.
"Eddie's coping skills weren't where they needed to be," McHale said.
In addition, McHale said,
the Timberwolves' medical staff prescribed Griffin an oral alcohol-abuse deterrent drug called Antabuse, which makes patients
violently ill if they drink.
"Eddie was a very easy guy to be
around & he really tried," McHale said of the two-time Inquirer scholastic player of the year. "It didn't work.
It's sad, man. It's just sad. I feel bad he wasn't able to get his life in order enough to enjoy it."
Griffin, a first-round draft
pick in 2001, signed with the Timberwolves in October 2004 after a failed stint in Houston & a brief stop in New Jersey
marred by more off-the-court problems. Griffin played well enough in 2004-05 (7.5 points,
6.5 rebounds) to win a 3 year contract extension.
But the good times didn't last.
Griffin lost playing time as the 2005-06 season went along. In March 2006, he crashed his Cadillac Escalade into a parked
car outside a convenience store & a video surveillance camera caught Griffin saying he was drunk.
The owner of the car sued
Griffin & the City of Minneapolis because police didn't charge him with drunken driving. The suit is scheduled to go to
trial next June, according to Michael Padden, attorney for the car's owner.
"It's tragic when someone
dies before his time," Padden said. "I thought it was inevitable that this guy would kill someone driving. It's strange & ironic, that he ended up killing himself."
Anguished Cries In a Place of Silence
By LYNN SHERR
Published: August 18, 2002
IT was smaller than I'd imagined,
a black iron portal of human dimensions rather than the monstrous symbol of terror it has become. But the cynical words arching
overhead, ''ARBEIT MACHT FREI,'' or ''Work Makes You Free,'' transported me directly into the footsteps of those who had once
shuffled into Auschwitz with no hope of leaving alive.
Our guide pointed to the handmade
sign: ''Look at the 'B' in ''ARBEIT,'' he said. ''It's upside down. A prisoner's rebellion - a sign of resistance.'' It was
one of the only moments of triumph for the next 5 1/2 hours.
I had come to Auschwitz to
pay my respects, to touch the horror I'd been spared only because my grandparents left Poland when the tyrant was the Czar,
not Hitler. I went home convinced that everyone ought to visit. To feel. To bear witness. To preserve the lesson.
The death camp known during
World War II as Konzentrationslager Auschwitz I is today Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, a sprawling monument to Nazi depravity
& global neglect in southern Poland.
This complex was the largest
of the lagers, ultimately encompassing a chain of sub-camps & was responsible for the systematic murders of nearly 1.5
million people, almost all Jews, from the day it opened in June 1940 until the Soviet liberation in January 1945.
Now it's less a tourist
spot than a pilgrimage site for an estimated half a million visitors a year. Poles, Americans & Germans are the
most numerous; many visitors are Jews, looking for traces of lost relatives or, like me, for a moment to mourn.
Groups of German schoolchildren
also come, to help maintain the museum by cutting the grass & doing other odd jobs as volunteers. ''It's very hard for
the German kids,'' the museum's Polish deputy director, Krystyna Oleska, told me in an interview before my tour.
I started my trip in Krakow,
where my companions hired a car & driver for the 45-minute drive southwest, mostly on the well-maintained A-4 toll road
thru gentle hills & past small brick houses.
The ordinariness was jarring:
taking a taxi to a concentration camp on a gorgeous, warm day last August. But when we passed the first set of railroad tracks,
my blood ran cold. That was how prisoners arrived 60 years ago.
In fact, the camp was built
here precisely because of the conjunction of major railroad lines in the town of Oswiecim, which the Third Reich renamed Auschwitz
after occupying Poland in 1939.
My first impression
of the camp itself was its vastness - nearly 50 acres of barracks, barbed wire, watch towers & a crematorium, all still
menacing despite decades of abandonment.
I fell uncharacteristically silent.
And I wasn't the only one. There were several large groups there when I visited - Japanese tourists & French boy scouts
among them. Few were laughing or posing.
Instead, we proceeded along
the neat rows of barracks, or blocks, with their exhibits on camp life. And death. The blocks themselves are red brick, two-story
buildings, each designed to house 700 prisoners.
In reality, each held up to
2,000, crammed so tight on concrete floors that at night, according to our guide, ''when one turned, all had to turn.'' The
toilets were lidless & doorless; the sinks, long troughs.
This was where the lucky
ones lived, or rather existed, while they worked in the fields or factories nearby.
I thought of the words of Primo Levi, the Italian chemist & writer who spent nearly a year here: ''It isn't possible to
sink lower than this; no human condition is more miserable than this, nor could it conceivably be so.''
One display shows the variety
of tattoos used at Auschwitz, the only camp to use them; another, the train tickets the Nazis sold (yes,
sold) to prisoners for their trip to the camp. An immense array of prison cards (häftlingskarten)
listed not only a person's name & usual statistics, but also the shape of his or her face (including
eyes, nose, ears, teeth & lips) & the reason for the arrest.
One poor soul's offense was
''helping Jews''; another's, ''listening to foreign radio station.''
The Nazi compulsion to document
atrocities is stunning, the deceit infuriating. Death records for Russian prisoners of war - exterminated for being soldiers, not Jews - are recorded in black
ink with a steady hand, noting precisely the time of execution: 8 p.m., 8:05, 8:10, 8:45.
One book records the names
of 22,000 Gypsy victims, including their children born at Auschwitz. A postcard to the Red Cross from a Czech Jew - forced
to write in German - reads: ''I am in good health, I feel good.''
And then there is the hair.
On the second floor of Block 4, in a case some 20 yards long, are layer after layer of braids & tresses & curls, all
gone gray now but once blond & brown & black & auburn.
The hair weighs more than 2
tons, less than 1/3 of what the Allied troops originally found. Hair was sold to be woven into textiles; gold
fillings from teeth went to the German treasury.
Each display was more dreadful
than the last, but the one that hit me hardest was the suitcases: a room-length mound of leather & cardboard valises once
packed with the illusion that the owners were headed for a place where they could use their belongings.
Names & statistics were
carefully lettered outside with what looked like white shoe polish: ''L. Bermann, 26.12.1886, Hamburg.'' As if poor Mr. Bermann
ever would see his bag, or his world, again.
''Sometimes visitors say,
'That's my father,' '' our guide told me. I scanned the mass of lost hopes & stopped short at a brown leather valise,
with the name ''Petr Eisler, KIND,'' meaning child. Petr's birth date was two days from my own.
As we were led from building
to building along the wide, deceptively tranquil roads of the camp on this gloriously sunny day, I recognized the incongruities.
The lawn was too lush
(''If there had been grass, the starving prisoners would have eaten it,'' our guide said)
& it was peaceful. The crematorium, with its tracks for the smooth delivery of bodies to ovens, has been restored. There
is no shortage of grisly reminders, like Block 11 with its one-foot-square ''standing cell'' & its suffocating starvation
cell, torturous punishment for disobedient prison laborers.
A placard points out
that Jakob Rosenzweig spent 5 nights here because he was ''talking during work.'' Still, it's tidy - put in order - after
all, a museum. ''Auschwitz has a certain progression,'' explained one of my companions, a rabbi based in Warsaw, ushering
me back into the taxi after 3 hours for the next part of our visit. ''But Birkenau gets right away to the bones.''
Birkenau is shorthand for
KL Auschwitz II, built as an expansion to the main camp in 1941 in the nearby village of Brzezinka, a quick, two-mile drive.
Birkenau is where it all began
& ended; where you stepped out of your boxcar & faced a lineup of storm troopers & snarling dogs & where one
man would decide whether you lived temporarily or died immediately. It was called the Selection. You've no doubt seen the
photographs - the ones with the Nazi officer pointing to the right (forced labor) or left (gas chamber), taking lives &
splitting families. It's where Sophie had to make her unbearable choice.
I walked down the tracks in
utter silence. This camp, nearly 10 times the size of Auschwitz, has largely been left as it was, an eerie ghost town spread
across an immense field with the remains of 4 gas chambers & crematoriums & a sickeningly efficient reception area
called the sauna, where prisoners chosen for forced labor were shaved, stripped & hosed down.
There are also rows
of squalid barracks - one-story structures originally designed as stables, with 52 rings for horses still on the wall. They
housed up to 1,000 humans each.
Here the toilets were buckets,
the beds triple-tiered shelves where the people were stacked like goods in a warehouse. Finally I understood the photographs
of the liberation: this is where the men, or women, lay staring out at their rescuers, human cordwood too feeble to move.
The ovens they'd escaped are
not intact. Unlike the restoration at Auschwitz, some are in clumps, ruins left by the SS when they blew them up in an attempt
to destroy all evidence before retreating. Another was partly destroyed by Jewish prisoners, who somehow managed to marshal
the strength of the powerless during a 1944 revolt. An enlarged photograph by the rubble puts it back together.
Even the ground at Birkenau
is authentic - so thoroughly saturated with the remains of the prisoners' bodies, I was warned to be careful where I walked.
''The ashes were dumped in the pond,'' I was told, ''but in fact the ashes are all around here.''
I heard about
visitors who found bits of bones in the soil sticking up near the footpaths.
Finally, at the far end of
the grounds, we reached the memorial - a line of plaques unveiled in 1967 with the same message in 19 languages. It reads
in part:
''Forever let this place be
a cry of despair and a warning to humanity.''
That thought was echoed in
my introductory conversation with Krystyna Olesky, the deputy director who has worked there for 20 years. Yes, she told me,
it is difficult ''but someone has to do it.'' Why? ''Because of all of those who died here.''
She described the staff efforts
to catalog prison records into a new database, to shore up the crumbling buildings, to repair the damage from acid rain, paid
for mostly by international contributions organized by the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation.
''This is an extraordinary cemetery,
the scene of a crime,'' she told me. ''We could flatten everything, let the grass grow & we would have in some sense fulfilled
that need to commemorate. But history teaches us. The maintenance of historical knowledge is our obligation. This must never
happen again.''
I left feeling drained &
shaken but curiously satisfied. I had wanted to see Auschwitz with my own eyes, not because I doubted its existence or expected
to make sense of it, but to make it part of my life.
''No one who has not experienced
the event will ever be able to understand it,''
wrote Elie Wiesel, the Nobelist
who survived Auschwitz. Primo Levi described winter in Auschwitz, when an icicle he'd broken off was snatched away.
''Why?'' he asked his tormentor,
who replied, ''There is no why here.''
How to get there; arranging tours
Auschwitz is 47 miles southwest of Krakow. Trains and buses
travel there frequently; or you can rent a car or take a taxi. Guides are available but required only for large groups. A
free shuttle links Auschwitz and Birkenau. At the camp, all signs at the camp are in English as well as Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish.
The Auschwitz Jewish Center is in the village of Oswiecim, with
its newly restored synagogue. Oswiecim once had more than a dozen other synagogues, all destroyed during the war. The charming
museum (www.auschwitz-muzeum.oswiecim.pl) evokes better times. One survivor is quoted as saying that when the Nazis came,
''Jewish life stopped -- like in midair. It just stopped.''
In Poland, the center is at Centrum Zydowskie w Oswiecimiu,
Plac Ks. Jana Skarbka 3, Oswiecim 32-600, (48-33) 844-7002, fax (48-33) 844-7003. In New York, the Auschwitz Jewish Center
Foundation is reachable by telephone (212) 575-1050; fax 575-1051; ajcf.org.
Correction: September 15, 2002, Sunday A
listing of travel information on Aug. 18 with an article about Auschwitz placed a Web address erroneously in an unrelated
paragraph. The address -- www.auschwitz-muzeum.oswiecim.pl -- should have appeared with the reference to the Auschwitz-Birkenau
camp museum. (The Auschwitz Jewish Center museum is at www.ajcf.org.)
source: click here
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Husband's anguished screams re-enacted at murder trial
'No, Pamela! No, no, please! No!' prominent lawyer cried
By Lisa Sweetingham
MARTINEZ, California (CourtTV) - Gothic
imagery, dark poetry & an obsession with cult murders filled the mind of a former Boy Scout who is accused of brutally
killing the wife of a prominent criminal defense attorney, prosecutors told a jury Thursday.
"It wasn't Goth, it wasn't
even death, it was murder," prosecutor Harold Jewett said, describing writings & drawings that investigators found in
a search of defendant Scott Dyleski's bedroom.
Dyleski, 17, has pleaded not
guilty to the murder of Pamela Vitale, a mother of 2 & former Bay Area high-tech executive who was married to attorney
Daniel Horowitz.
Dyleski is also charged with
the special circumstance of murder during a burglary.
Dyleski disguised himself
in a black ski mask, gloves & trench coat before allegedly entering Vitale's home & making a surprise attack on his
neighbor, shortly after 10 a.m. on October 15, 2005.
Victim fought back
"She fought as valiantly as she could
but the attack continued," Jewett said.
Vitale, 52, suffered 26 "devastating"
head wounds that led to bleeding in her brain, he said. But after she was dead from her head injuries, the attack continued.
Vitale was stabbed so viciously
in her abdomen, Jewett said, that her intestines were exposed. And then the killer carved a symbol into her back.
"Mr. Dyleski was big into
symbols. He signs his name & puts his symbol on his artwork," Jewett said.
The prosecutor drew a symbol
on a white piece of butcher paper that allegedly represented the signature Dyleski carved into Vitale's back, an H-shaped
symbol with an extended T-bar.
Family in courtroom
Vitale's children, Marisa
& Mario, sat in the front row, quietly crying & holding each other. Horowitz sat 2 rows back with his sister &
had a pained look on his face as he shook his head.
Dyleski wore a crisp, white
dress shirt, tan khakis & a gold tie Thursday. His mid-neck-length black hair was slicked back into a hard shell.
During pretrial hearings in
March the defendant was engrossed in his writings on a yellow legal pad, barely looking up at witnesses. But during opening
statements Thursday he watched the prosecutor's every move & listened intently.
Vitale & Horowitz had
been married almost 11 years when she was killed. They lived in a trailer on their 12-acre hilltop property while Vitale oversaw
construction of their dream home: A European-style mansion with a vineyard.
Jewett described how Horowitz
discovered the horrific crime scene after coming home from a long day of working on a case.
"He knew something was wrong
because he saw blood smears," Jewett said. "And then he opened the door & saw his wife."
Body by door
Vitale's body was in a fetal
position near the front door, a pool of blood around her head.
"'No, Pamela! No, no, please! No!'"
Jewett screamed as he re-enacted for jurors the sounds of Horowitz's cries as later described by neighbors who called 911.
"Over & over again, his voice echoing down the canyon," the prosecutor said.
Jewett told the jury that
he planned to call some 40 witnesses. They include Dyleski's best friend, his girlfriend & his mother - a reluctant witness
who agreed to cooperate in exchange for escaping prosecution herself after she destroyed clothes, notes & other evidence.
Prosecutors also plan to offer
the jury about 100 exhibits, including DNA evidence, bloody clothing, footprints, glove prints, fingerprints & the dark
journal writings & drawings found in Dyleski's room.
Jurors will begin hearing
testimony on Monday.
Dyleski faces a maximum sentence
of life in prison without parole if he is convicted.
source: click here
Kate McCann: From anguished parent, to grieving mother, to suspect
Saturday, September 08, 2007
By Ian Herbert
If Kate McCann were seeking
some consolation this week, as she began preparing to return home from the Portuguese resort that'll define the rest of her
life, then perhaps it was the belief that no catastrophe could ever come close to what she has experienced in the place where
her family arrived for a week's peace & sunshine, 138 days ago.
But, in a single, breathtaking
moment yesterday, the world learnt there were to be no such certainties for the mother of Madeleine McCann. Shortly before
11am, Mrs McCann's spokeswoman, Justine McGuinness, revealed that the 39-year-old GP was being made an arguida – official
suspect – in the case.
And then she uttered the 6
short words which will be inconceivable to some who have followed this case & a confirmation of long-held suspicions to
others. "Kate fears she will be charged," Ms McGuinness said.
There was to be more –
much more – all day. Firm facts which seemed all the more extraordinary because of the utter absence of solid detail
of any kind in this case since Madeleine vanished from apartment 5A at the Ocean Club in the white-washed resort of Praia
da Luz, on the last night of the family's beach holiday in May.
There was even an extraordinary
suggestion last night that Mrs McCann had been offered a deal: to confess to killing Madeleine accidentally, in return for
a lenient 2-year sentence.
Late last night, Mr McCann,
was also named as a suspect. As he left the police station by the same door his wife had exited 24 hours earlier, the couple’s
lawyer said: "Today Kate & Gerry have both been declared arguidos with no bail conditions & no charges have been brought
against them – the investigation continues.”
Detectives put it to Mrs McCann,
during 10 hours of questioning late on Thursday, that Madeleine's blood had been found in a silver Renault Scenic she hired
with her husband Gerry, 25 days after Madeleine went missing, Ms McGuiness disclosed.
Within an hour of that revelation,
Mrs McCann was back at the police station from which she had emerged, palpably worn from 11 hours of questioning, at about
1am. There were cheers & some unmistakeable boos.
And then, as the millions
absorbed by this story held their breath & she faced 22 "difficult questions" relating to the case, Mrs McCann's sister-in-law
simply telephoned Sky TV to relate the conversation she had just concluded with her brother, Gerry. "They're suggesting Kate
has killed Madeleine & then kept the body & got rid of it," said Philomena McCann, who reported that Mr McCann was
currently "lying down" , exhausted.
She also disclosed details
of the "deal". If this were a film script, it would have been torn up for its lack of realism.
Mrs McCann left Portimao police
station after 5 more hours of questions yesterday afternoon, minutes after her husband had arrived to face his own interview.
Mrs McCann hadn't been charged last night, despite her own fears & suggestions from the couple's lawyer, Carlos Pinto
de Abreu, that she might be.
The developments of the day
led Mr McCann to use the website which has been the focus of the couple's extraordinary, global campaign to find their daughter,
to declare their innocence.
"Anyone who knows anything
about the 3rd May knows that Kate is completely innocent," said Mr McCann. " We will fight this all the way & we will
not stop looking for Madeleine" .
Mr McCann's capacity to sit
down & compose any kind of message was remarkable, considering the chaos engulfing him. He would have known that a police
interview awaited him & that if the hire car made his wife a source of suspicion, then the same might go for him.
But not once since the evening
Madeleine vanished has he allowed events to overwhelm him.
For a time, while the couple
embarked on their international crusade to find their daughter, Mrs McCann pledged she could never return to their home in
Rothley, Leicestershire, until Madeleine was found.
But there has been a gradually
acceptance in their language of late that the girl might not be found & before preparing to leave this week, they actually
declared their media campaign was to be scaled down.
The forensic investigation
has continued apace, though. Portugal's Policia Judiciaria (PJ) has gradually become more willing to accept advice from the
Leicestershire Constabulary, the McCanns' local force & last month, British forensic officers undertook a sweep of the
McCanns' apartment & the silver Scenic in which the couple have been seen transporting their twins, Sean & Amelie.
DNA samples, along with some
of Kate McCann's clothes & a bible of hers which they took, have been under examination at the Forensic Science Service
(FSS) in Birmingham, with the results being delivered to Portuguese officers via Leicestershire police.
The outcome of these tests
have been a source of fierce speculation in the Portuguese press, resulting in a glut of stories raising suspicions about
the McCanns which have surfaced around the 100-day anniversary of her disappearance, last month.
The main story at that time
surrounded the discovery of dried blood on the wall of the McCanns' apartment with suggestions that it had, somehow, been
" wiped clean". There was also reportedly evidence that British sniffer dogs had stopped at the scent of someone who might
have died in the apartment.
The apartment inquiry came
to nothing. The source of the blood turned out to be a man who injured himself while staying at the two-bedroom apartment
after Madeleine disappeared.
While attention in Portugal
focused on the apartment, the presence of bloodstains in the hire car seemed to pass by many involved in the case –
including the Portuguese police officers who have leaked their various theories to the nation's papers.
On 11 August, Mundo Real reported
that the McCanns might have "moved a dead body 5 weeks later in their hired Renault Scenic car." There have also been fleeting
mentions, amid the many colourful hypotheses in the Portuguese papers, of British sniffer dogs picking up scents in the Scenic's
boot & the "strong scent of a corpse " on the vehicle's keys.
But amid the welter of accusations
being bandied around, those seemed insignificant.
The FSS refused yesterday
to discuss the significance of evidence that has been passed to Portugal but a trickle of DNA results have certainly been
arriving there since the "blood on the wall" evidence, with information relating to the car possibly reaching officers on
Wednesday or Thursday.
Olegario Sousa, the spokesman
for the PJ inquiry, said on Wednesday that he was "very satisfied" with a new batch of results that had arrived.
Disclosures by the McCann
family (rather than any utterances by the PJ on the subject) suggested the car is a crucial line of inquiry. So, if traces
of Madeleine's blood have been found, how serious are the implications for Kate McCann?
Mark Williams-Thomas, a former
detective & child-protection expert, said there were many objections to a theory that a car hired 5 weeks after Madeleine's
disappearance might offer evidence to implicate Mrs McCann or her husband.
Any attempt to move Madeleine's
body, in the Scenic or by some other means, would bring an extraordinary risk of detection, considering the intense round-the-clock
scrutiny the McCanns have been under throughout their time in Portugal.
To leave blood deposits by
doing so would suggest that Madeleine hadn't been concealed in any way & simply laid in the car. Again, highly unlikely.
The 5-week delay raises further questions. It would be far more unlikely to find blood deposits after that time – following
Madeleine's death the blood would have long since dried up.
That said, statistics show
it's right & proper than the couple should be under scrutiny in this case – 90% of murders in this country are domestic
& just 6% of abducted children are removed by paedophiles or someone unknown to them.
But Mr Williams-Thomas argued
that Mrs McCann's palpable grief after her daughter's disappearance made it inconceivable that she might have had a hand in
her death.
"It would have been simply
impossible to conduct herself as she has, in the knowledge that she had committed such a crime," he said. "It would have taken
one hour at maximum to get rid of a body.
The adrenalin
& emotions would have made detection inevitable."
So how did any blood get there?
Cross-contamination is one possibility, says Mr Williams-Thomas, since forensic officers were seen searching the flat without
protective uniforms. The new developments raise many more questions.
Gerry McCann told his sister
that police believe Madeleine was killed " accidentally" & removed. How can they possibly know that until a body is located?
Why, as Ms McGuinness has
indicated, was Mrs McCann asked no questions yesterday which related to the night of 3 May.
Of one detail there is more
certainty. DNA also found on Mrs McCann's clothing can't possibly implicate her, as it's highly likely that such traces of
her daughter would be there. Perhaps, in the details of yesterday's extraordinary developments, there's also a conceivable
theory that the blood in the car is a red herring, designed perhaps to antagonize the McCanns & flush out a loose statement
from either.
Or otherwise, to lull other
suspects into a false sense of security? With the investigation apparently fizzling out it could have been one last throw
of the dice for the habitually eccentric Portuguese police operation.
Friends & family have
rallied around the McCanns. Kate McCann's mother, Susan Healey, described the situation as "ludicrous", while her brother-in-law,
John McCann, dismissed as "crazy" any suggestion she could have been involved in Madeleine's death.
But, whatever succor Mrs McCann
might have felt at the prospect of a return to Britain – & its calm familiarity – dissolved last night. Just
as she & her husband were forced to jettison their return flight to the Midlands on 4 May, so it'll be tomorrow. The bags
are being unpacked & in the short term at least, the McCanns will not be coming home.
The evidence
Aside from leaks to the Portuguese
press, apparently by local police sources, little hard evidence has emerged in the case. Last night, speculation was surrounding
allegations that blood samples had been found in the McCanns' car (which could, of course,
have come from anything from a nosebleed to a cut finger), amid claims of a forensic breakthrough, the details
of which have yet to emerge.
British sniffer dogs were
brought in to analyze other traces found in the McCanns' apartment, as tests were being performed at the Forensic Science
Service in Birmingham on evidence, thought to be traces of blood, found at the apartment where Madeleine disappeared on 3
May.
The revelation sparked an
international media frenzy which didn't abate even when it was suggested that they came from a previous guest.
The Portuguese law
Under Portuguese law the legal
status of arguido permits the police to treat someone as a formal suspect, placing under an obligation to answer specific
questions. There is no equivalent in English law but it could be said to be the preliminary stage before arrest when someone
is still "helping police with their inquiries".
An arguido, or arguida if
the suspect is a woman, has the right to remain silent & the right to be represented by a lawyer. Anyone who is subject
to a police investigation can ask for arguido status which in Portugal is considered a common course of action & doesn't
denote guilt.
It also means that the police
can ask a judge to place restrictions on the suspect's movement & require them to surrender their passport or reside at
a fixed address. Where there is a real concern that an arguido might abscond the judge can ask for a substantial surety.
But where there's little risk
of the suspect fleeing the country the police can ask the suspect to sign a residence & identity contract.
If the police believe they have sufficient evidence to support a criminal case then the suspect will be arrested. Criminal charges normally follow
swiftly.
The investigation
The 11-hour questioning of
Kate McCann appears a controversial move by the police, who friends of the McCanns believe have been reveling in the attention.
But it's possible that – with the McCanns talking of leaving Portugal soon – police wanted one last,
long attempt to question the pair.
If they were slow off the
mark, the police learnt to speed up as a symbiotic relationship developed between them & the press. They fed off each
other over stories, spurring the other on in a void of information.
The initial media pressure may have helped kickstart the search. By 8 May, police were saying they had investigated 350 suspicious incidents but still
had no idea about the whereabouts of Madeleine, leaving the media to fill the information gap.
In early August, a fleeting glimmer of hope emerged when the case switched to Belgium, where a "highly credible" witness said she was " 100% sure" she saw Madeleine
at a service-station near the Dutch border.
Belgian police issued a photo-fit
and carried out DNA tests, but the girl was proved not to be Madeleine.
By the end of last month the
Portuguese press was reporting that the investigation was focusing on the McCanns, amid claims – repeated in the UK
– that their phone calls & emails were being monitored.
The father
Madeleine's father, a consultant
cardiologist from Leicestershire, last saw his daughter at 9.30pm on the night of her disappearance as one of the parents
rotating check-ups on their children while they dined in a nearby tapas restaurant with friends.
Gerry McCann also walked a
fine line throughout the case, both using the media – he recently addressed the Edinburgh Fringe – & condemning
it for its intrusion into his family's lives.
Last night, before he was
named as a suspect, Madeleine's father expressed outrage at the Portuguese police's handling of the case & said he &
his wife would "fight this to the end" after his wife was named as an official suspect.
Like Mrs McCann, her husband
has experienced the metamorphosis from victim to figure of suspicion in the eyes of the press & in early August was forced to defend their position & reiterate their belief that Madeleine was still alive.
"We're not naïve," he said, sitting beside his wife in a television interview. "We expect the same thoroughness & to be treated the same way as anyone else who has been in & around this. And we wouldn't
expect it any other way. The same high levels will be applied to us as would be applied to anybody else & that's only right
& proper."
The media
By the time news emerged overnight
on 3 May that a little girl had gone missing in a Portuguese resort favored by middle-class holidaymakers, the British media
were already acting as the outriders of the investigation.
Leading criticisms of the
local police, journalists leapt on the claims of Gill Renwick, a family friend, when she called GMTV alleging that police
activity had wrapped up at 3am, leaving ports & borders uninformed. So began an acrimonious stand-off between the Portuguese
authorities & an increasingly rampant UK media pack.
Throughout the summer their
appetite for wild speculation was to remain undiminished despite a real lack of hard, new information.
As the media spotlight came
back to Madeleine's parents, the McCanns' anger boiled over & they threatened a libel action against a famous Portuguese reporter.
The friends
By Madeleine's 4th birthday
on 12 May, the McCanns' international campaign to keep the search alive had taken off, with the footballers Cristiano Ronaldo
& David Beckham making appeals for information, while Sir Richard Branson & J K Rowling contributed to rewards now
totalling £2.5m. Mr & Mrs McCann launched a website, findmadeleine. com, which would get more than 170 million hits.
The parents initially pledged
to stay in Portugal. Eventually, the McCanns took their campaign around Europe, traveling to Spain, Berlin and Amsterdam.
The tour reached a climax at the Vatican, where they were hosted by the British ambassador, Francis Campbell, who had negotiated
a meeting with the Pope at short notice.
On 30 May, Mrs McCann was
seen trembling in images broadcast around the world as Pope Benedict blessed a picture of Madeleine.
Throughout, the campaign has been supported
by the McCanns' friends, who have remained loyal, stayed in Portugal to be available for the investigation & for the large
part, kept silent.
That changed on 8 August when one friend, Rachel Oldfield, who dined with the McCanns on the night of Madeleine's disappearance, hit out
at " smears" from the police. "They're throwing mud at us & we aren't able to defend ourselves," said Mrs Oldfield, 34, who, along with others, had been questioned.
The suspects
Police had been struggling
for leads until Robert Murat, 33, a British expatriate, was questioned. The media immediately invoked memories of Ian Huntley,
the Soham murderer, who – like Murat – had engaged with journalists, claiming he was translating for police.
His mother maintained he was
with her when Madeleine went missing, but police named him as the only official suspect, even after searches of his home failed to find evidence. One possible suspect was said to be Urs Hans Von Aesch, 67, a suspected paedophile from Switzerland linked
to another missing 5 year-old. But he shot himself in the
forest where belongings of the Swiss girl were found.
source: click here
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