Fahrenheit 9/11 Marine Killed In Combat + Myspace

I had something else planned for this post which I saved for another day since I picked up the San Francisco Chronicle today and read about Staff Sgt. Raymond J. Plouhar who appeared in Michael Moore's, Fahrenheit 9/11. Plouhar was recently killed in a roadside bombing in Iraq.

I did some quick searches on Icerocket and came up with this profile that matches Plouhar's (30 years-old, from Lake Orion, MI, Wife and two kids who live in Arizona). On it you will find links to his wife Leigha who has posted pics of her kids.

I still feel strongly against the war and I realize that Plouhar didn't really understand the full purpose of Moore's documentary (which I enjoyed) but I'm proud of solider's like this and I just want to say that I wish his family well. I don't know if there are any funds being started for his kids but I'll update this post when I hear/read anything.

Here is some more about Plouhar from his Myspace page:

RAYMOND's Blurbs About me:

i am 29 about to turn 30. i have a beautiful wife and 2 great kids both boys.
i am in the marines in the infantry and i am in Iraq at this time. i have been
in the marines for just over 9.5 years and on my 2nd trip to Iraq. you can call
me crazy but i like coming hear, some one has to do it plus i love what i do. i
like to go out and go bars, clubs are ok but i hate how fake most people are
when your there.

Who I'd like to meet:

as many people as i can for the short time we have.

Here is the last message I could find that Plouhar posted on Leigha's Myspace page:

2/8/2006 10:29 PM hay sweety, dont worry this iraq deployment will be over before you know it and i will be back in your arems once more. i love you and give the boys a big kiss for me

Obviously You Can't Interview A Dead Dude

I was sitting in my office yesterday Friday, cranking out some reports that had been floating around in folders with due dates that feel like they've been tattooed to my forehead. There is nothing like teetering on the edge of stressing out (just a wee bit) and having everyone and their mother trying to distract you without really meaning to...I think.

Let's see...I had offers to cut out after work on Friday to go drinking, grab dinner, there was constant badgering for not being interested in either, offers to go to a ball game, a party, endless talk about having kids and all the stress that they cause...I must say that working in an office with employees that have kids is the perfect birth control. Forget condoms and the pill...just stick a couple of our attorney/investigator parents in a room with you and let them regale you with their parenting horror stories and I guarantee you...no kids for as long as you work in the office.

I've seen murder books with less frightening shit than some of these parenting stories.

Ummm....what was I going to write about? Oh, yeah...

I REALLY just wanted to write my reports. I mean, I was totally in the zone, I had my I-Pod plugged into my radio, I had the calming classical music turned up....No, I'm not trying to sound like a pretentious asshole. The truth is I'm not a tremendous or very knowledgeable fan of Classical music but I'm learning to enjoy it AND I have found that listening to it while I'm writing reports is fantastic and really helps me focus my thoughts. Just a little "sumptin sumptin" for my fellow investigators...a report writing tip if you will.

Anyway, the point is that everytime I got into a good writing groove I was distracted by someone and if it wasn't someone, it was something....like the damn telephone. I really wanted to toss it out the friggin window but since my window doesn't open and my telephone is stuck in one spot I just had to imagine doing it (I think I imagined doing it about 5X). I had witnesses calling me asking if they really needed to come to court and then asking what would happen if they just didn't show up at an upcoming trial of the century. I asked all of them how they would feel if they had just a Bench Warrant with their name on it (they got the picture), I also had a murder client in jail who just likes to chat (I try talk to him about once a day for at least 15 minutes) but he kept calling (10X) for no reason than to fuck around with the phones or hear a friendly voice (I guess).

I also had the victim on a case that we had already gone to trial on, call me out of the blue last week.

Dealing with victims. Whew boy...it can be so unbelievably, fucking touchy sometimes.

I think that on almost ever investigation request I have received in the last five years, I have been asked or it has later been decided that I needed to make contact and interview the victim or victims family and friends (obviously you can't interview a dead dude).

I have a pretty good track record talking to victims and I have a million stories I could share about my experiences with victims on cases but I'll save some of those for another day.

The victim (Gloria, for this story) that called me on Friday was the victim of a DUI. Nobody was hurt or killed, but she and her family had about $6000.00 in property damage to their home. Gloria is a Spanish speaking woman in her mid 30's who lives with her husband and 15 year-old son, in a beat-up (but tidy) little house. Gloria and her husband are undocumented (Their son is a citizen) and they had owned this house for about 8 months. They had saved up for 5 years to buy it.

I interviewed Gloria about a few days before trial was scheduled to go, making it very clear that I was an investigator with the Public Defender's office and NOT the Fiscal. When I was finished and was getting ready to leave, Gloria asked me if she would have to testify...I explained that the defense would NOT be calling her to court but if she received a subpoena from the Fiscal...she was required to appear.

I remember that she was very hesitant to speak with me (the interview was completed in Spanish) at first but I was able to get her to open up a bit, talking about what it felt like to be a homeowner and she said she loved it. She was very proud of her home and felt like a real American, to able to say she owned her own home with her husband. I was also able to guess from her accent that she was from Zacatecas and this really threw her off...she was surprised that a person like me would know about the people of Zacatecas and we ended up talking about Mexican politics for a bit. Gloria said that nobody from the DA's office had come to her home to talk to them or leave a subpoena..I was REALLY surprised. Gloria said that she and her husband were almost finished paying off a loan that had taken out to pay for the damages in the accident and they didn't want to be involved with the criminal case if they could avoid it. I told them I couldn't make any promises they wouldn't be subbed in the next few days...this wasn't my last contact with her.

Come the day of trial and who do I see sitting in the courthouse and 8:00am? Gloria. She looked lovely in a dress that she had made a few years back. I didn't have much time to talk with her but she said that she didn't know what to do. I told her to check in with the bailiff in the courtroom when it opened up and then just wait outside till she was called in.

I was in the courtroom when she was called up to the stand by the DA. I was shocked to see that the DA was not using an Spanish interpreter. It took about 15 minutes of the most awkward friggin questioning in courtroom history for her to even identify our client. The other 30 minutes of direct was also unbelievably awkward and i have to say that I felt so bad for her. She was super nervous when I talked to her in Spanish outside the courtroom but when she was on the stand trying to speak in broken English...it was heart-breaking! Needless to say, except for the sympathy factor her testimony ended up being favorable to the defense.

The jury was out for about a 2 hours. Not guilty on all counts.

A few weeks later is when I received the telephone call from Gloria. She said she was just calling to find out what had happened on the case. When I told her...she got upset. She wanted to know why I had made her come to court and make her look like a fool only to have the jury come back with not guilty verdict.

Oh what a memory some people have...I reminded her that my office DID NOT subpoena her to come to court. She said she thought that we did. Gloria went on to say that the day before trial a woman called her on her home phone explaining that if she didn't go to court, she and her husband would be arrested and deported if they did not have proper documentation. I asked again if she or ANYONE in her family had received a subpoena and she said no. The phone call is all they got. Hmmm...that explains why they didn't know she spoke Spanish and needed an interpreter.

She apologized for accusing me, and then asked if I had the number for the DA's office so she could make a complaint. I told her I had something even better. The name and DIRECT number to the DA who handled the case and the name and DIRECT number to his supervisor. I told her if anyone asked where she got their numbers she was free to give them MY name and direct line.

I must say that I was really horrified by the actions of the DA's office but not surprised. Can you believe the shit they do to people sometimes? Even the people that the State is supposed to be representing?

Pearls Before Public Defender Investigators

One of my favorite comics, Pearls Before Swine had a couple of good strips this week (I mean EVERYday they're good but these applied to blogging). Take a look at their archived strips.

I'm a big fan of the Zeeba's myself.

14 Year-Old Sues Myspace For Rape

I realize my last few posts have been all about Myspace, but I make no apologies. I still contend that it is a useful tool that we as investigator (and attorneys) need to embrace at least as much as law enforcement is doing, if not more.

That being said, we may see more changes down the road that affect the ways in which we can search myspace. As it stands now, anyone who changes the date of birth on their profile to read 14 years of age (or younger) can create a private (unsearchable) Myspace page. There are still ways to bring up cached images from their pages if they were ever public but it doesn't always work.

Here are one of the 30,000,000 reasons we may see changes (Thanks to Skelly at Arbitrary and Capricious for the heads-up):

A 14-year-old girl has filed a lawsuit against the popular Web site because she was sexually assaulted by an 19-year-old man she met on the site.

More later...

Alleged Sniper + Myspace + Angry Comment = Interesting Reading

Big news in California/Nevada (well, at least in my courthouse) is the sniper shooting of a Reno, Nevada family law judge earlier this week.

The alleged shooter (Darren Mack) is still on the loose and of course...here is his Myspace webpage!!!

West Sacramento Drug Bust Courtesy Of A Snitch...And Myspace

In case you just read Skelly's post regarding the West Sacramento, California drug bust of some kid who posted pictures of himself and some green bud AND you're curious about his Myspace page...keep reading.

I figured I would post Rajneel's Myspace page so everyone could check it out for themselves. It looks like it's been cleaned up quite a bit but there is still a pic of a marijuana leaf. I'm curious if anyone can figure out how to find a cache of the website with the original pics the Yolo County Narcotics Taskforce got all worked up about.

Yeah, I never said Californian's were the sharpest tools in the shed.

MORE Bumper Nuts!

Ahhh, the simple joy of Bumper Nuts. You know, testicles for your truck? Oh, you mean you didn't read my post from a few weeks back? Here it is in all of it's glory to catch you up on it.

Thanks to Skelly at Arbitrary & Capricious, I now see that there are other people out there who have seen the truck balls and thought the same exact thing...

A few years ago, I was a young Public Defender in Reno. One day, as I was driving to Carson City, I got stuck for about 30 miles behind a truck with testicles. Soon I would see more and more road nuts, and realize that this was a disturbing trend. For the last five years, I've been on the hunt for a photo of this elusive beast, but I never had my camera at the ready. Today, however, I was locked and loaded, and I bagged me a truck!

Good stuff.

More Myspace Investigation Examples

I was reading this article about the father of one of the Marines, who led the squad that is now being investigated for the killing of unarmed civilians in Haditha (Iraq) and it got me thinking about using it as another example of the possibilities of using Myspace as an investigation tool.

Now before you read on, I just want everyone to know that I'm not casting judgement on anyone involved in the above story, I'm just using the information from the story (The Haditha story made the cover of Newsweek last week). I'm using it ONLY as an example.

Again, for those of you who are reading this and are more knowledgable in the ways of Myspace I just want to remind you that this is for those investigators/attorney's that are NOT familiar with it. So take it easy and I'll work in some more advanced techniques later.

Okay, now remembering that not everyone has a Myspace account, you just can't assume that they don't. I admit that the Myspace researching techniques I have used for the last few months have yielded great results for me in mostly cases involving younger victims/witnesses/clients, and you may not be as successful using it in cases with older targets.

After reading the story, we obviously know that the squad leader is named Frank D. Wuterich and he is from Meriden, CT. We also know he is in the Marines, soooo...if we decided that we wanted to know more about Wuterich, we would start with the most basic search possible. Now, we want to be as general as possible in our search terms but not too general...check this out.

Using the search terms (in Google): Frank+Meriden+Marine+Myspace, we get a good number of results.

Take a look at the third listing down (see graphic above). Seems like a good possibility, The result matches the description (age, name, hometown, and Oceanside is where Camp Pendleton is located). You'll notice that when you click on it...you get this page telling you, Invalid Friend ID.This user has either cancelled their membership, or their account has been deleted.

Crud. Obviously this is not what we are looking for so, then we click on the magical Cached section of the results, we get this page:

Well, well, well, looks like we may have found our target. My guess is that Wuterich's page was recently deleted and at the time of this writing, his wife's page has had all their pictures taken off her own personal page (although you can still see their small wedding photo on Frank's cached page):

His wife has an interesting quote in her bio:

"I am a mom of two beautiful girls ... and although it may sound corny I married the man of my dreams. Frank is an amazing husband and an awesome and wonderful father. He is also our hero as he returned home, this April from an HONORABLE tour of duty in Iraq..."

I'm guessing the capitalized HONORABLE is a not so subtle message to those that stumble upon her page that Wuterich is innocent of any wrong doing. After reading the many news stories myself, I'm hoping for their families sake that she's right.

Note: I'm hoping everyone understands that I'm not walking them through an entire background investigation. This just opens more doors for you to examine. Myspace pages can be as simple as a name with no photographs to complete photo albums of families, work, and school history, and even their close friends.

It's obviously not the ultimate tool for an investigator but it should greatly supplement existing resources for defense investigators that will ultimately benefit the people that matter the most...our clients!

Just Pissing In A Bowl Of Cheerios

Note: This post was actually done offline yesterday but for some reason, Blogger was glitchy all day and I couldn't post it, SO here it is now...in all it's posted glory. Okay, not so much.

Well, the big news with me is that I just received an e-mail notifying me that my signed copy of David Feige's, Indefensible has been shipped! I may have posted a comment on another site (A certain Blonde Justice) earlier this week indicating that I was bummed that I hadn't received my very own signed copy yet.

I wasn't really seriously complaining or anything but I was disappointed that I couldn't get my hands on it right away. I was surprised to receive an email this morning from Mr. Feige saying how sorry he was that the copy hadn't been sent yet, then I received the confirmation that it had been sent immediately afterward. I felt like a jackass for sounding like a whiner, but that's nothing new to anyone that reads this blog.

The events above really got me seriously thinking about something. If little ole me commenting on another blawggers site about not receiving my personalized copy of a certain authors book, got me a copy of my book AND an email from the Author in the very same week...then it would be safe to assume that should I happen to complain to the folks over at People Magazine that movie star, Ms. Penelope Cruz is avoiding my telephone calls after her break-up with that naked, bongo playing chump...I should not only get my calls returned from her hotness, but maybe also a brief visit to my home.

I should probably vacuum and dust the place before she comes over.

Seriously.

Okay, now that I'm done dreaming, I did want to add that I conducted a little check at Amazon to see how Indefensible was doing and it seems to be doing quite well! The reviews on most Blawgs I read are very positive and even the reviews at Amazon are for the most part positive although there are a few commenters who clearly have some bones to pick with Feige that have nothing to do with his book. Actually, there are apparently some people who feel that the Bronx Defenders somehow pissed their daily bowl of Cheerios and they have it out for Feige and the court system in NY. I don't really think the review section is any place for stuff like that, but whatever.

I was particularly amused by one very positive comment by reviewer, Read That, here is an excerpt:

I should confess upfront that I'm a lawyer, but I work for "big law" rather than as public defender. So I have a bias towards books about the law. This book is a well paced, interesting read about the courts in NY. It's a very entertaining book with great characters. And after all, isn't that what you want in a book.

Just for the record, am I the only person who thinks the author looks like Nick Tortellini, Carla's husband on the television show "Cheers"?

He is actually referring to Nick Tortelli, who was played by a great actor, Mr. Dan Hedaya. Here is a side by side comparison of the two:

I have never met either Hedaya or Feige but I'm not seeing the resemblance in the side by side comparison. Anyone else?

Myspace As An Investigation Tool

Seeing as that I'm exactly 1 ENTIRE MONTH behind Skelly at Arbitrary and Capricious on this subject, I'd better make this good...so let's get on with this.

I have a PDI friend here in California that I share investigation techniques with on occassion and earlier this week we had a huge discussion on the ethical/legal implications of using Myspace.com, Blogger, and every other personal blog creator out there as an investigation tool.

I told him I had been having a lot of success recently using Myspace to collect background information on several key witnesses and even a victim on a few cases I had been assigned in the last 6 months. He said he did not find the sites useful or easy to use, he felt that it was infringing on the individual's privacy, and he felt it was leaning towards unethical using information culled from a personal (Adult or Juvenile's) website.

I told him he was an idiot.

Nahh, of course I didn't tell him that. I DID tell him that I didn't think he was doing his client's or attorney's any favors by not conducting a thorough background investigation. I think he would have preferred if I had called him an idiot. I know I would have, if the situation was reversed.

I realize that one of the main limitations on conducting a background investigation on a witness/victim is...time. If you work in a Public Defender's office, I can guarantee that you don't have enough of it BUT it is well worth the time when you get some positive hits on your subject.

I gave the Unthorough Investigator at little hands-on tutorial while he was sitting next to me at my computer. I like to practice my web backgrounds by using information from recent news stories (usually something juicy)...it's something I like to do at least once every couple of days just to see how fast I can get a hit on something.

Unthorough picked this artice from the San Jose Mercury News on Anne Ichord (32 years-old), a teacher from Woodland, California who is accused of shagging a student at Pioneer High School. Here is where the fun begins:

Obviously, we can only go on information from the article, so after reading it, and deciding on the specific search terms I was going to use, I went to Google and Myspace doing direct searches on Ichord/Sex then narrowing them down with Woodland/Pioneer:

Ichord is a coach and teacher at the school so her name was referenced several times in students Myspace sites and blogs, and newspaper stories prior to the accusations. Basically I was bookmarking individual myspace websites that referenced Pioneer High School and each site generally has a list of friends that you can use for additional searches later down the road.

I was still getting too many hits and not enough background info so I switched over to my new favorite tool: Icerocket.com. Icerocket is great in that you can do very specific searches without have to screw around with a lot of Boolean search terms, you can search directly on Myspace or Blogs (I did email them to ask what blogs were covered in their searches...all they would say is, "We try to cover everything." Yup, at least they responded to me email) and in all fairness their Blog and Myspace searches are friggin fantastic!

Anyhoot, here is what an Icerocket search using the terms Ichord and Sex revealed:

Ahaaaa! Now let's take it a step further and look at the blog it's referenced in, in it's entirety:

Now we have the possible name of the alleged victim (now 18 years-old and remember...this is NOT confirmed info!) that has never been named in any newspaper or press conference (I've blurred his name out as you can see, but you'll be able to get it yourselves if you do the same searches I did). After I went through some of the bookmarked webpages of students from the school I had saved earlier, I found that one of the pages belonged to the possible victim's sister and she placed at least one photograph of the victim (her brother) on her site.

Obviously none of this information has been confirmed but the great part of it all is that it gives you more than just one starting point and direction to go in your investigation. These blogs usually give you more than one potential friends/enemy to contact for the info you are looking for.

I realize that this all seems pretty simple...and it is, BUT you need to know where to look and what terms to use in order to get what you're looking for as quickly and accurately as possible.

There are a million places to give you more detailed info on how to conduct better online searches, so I'll just direct you to them if that's what you're looking for. In the next few days I'll follow up with another post on setting up Myspace accounts for use in your investigations.

Public Defender v. District Attorney - Round 1

Using Icerocket.Com (one of my new favorite search tools) I did a "Trend Analysis" of two search terms: Public Defender and District Attorney.

Guess who was more popular? Yeah, we lose on the "model good looks" AND the popularity battle.

Damn it all!

Love, Life, And NO Toilet Talk

Life is not going too badly for me.

I have a great job, I look forward to going to the office every time I wake up (even if it's 3 in the morning), I have great friends, and made some new ones recently that I hope to get to know better. My family is healthy in heart and mind...We're still recovering from recent losses...but like I've said before, life goes on for the living.

Financially, I've never been in a better position than I am now and it can only get better. Working for a Public Defender office gave me a lot of stability that I've decided is very important to me. I actually have a pension and 457 retirement plan for gawds sake! 6 years ago, I would have laughed at the idea of planning for the future but now I can't imagine not having one.

In the years before I fell into my PDI position, I worked for private investigation firms pimping out my services as a defense investigator. I scrapped for work but only if the case fit into what I felt was worthy of my time. I would work for clients that didn't have the money to pay me, but because I liked them I would take their cases.

The private world for me meant I was living paycheck to paycheck, where some months I was able to bill out $7,500.00 but I would have to sock it all away for the two months of non-paying clients and barely scraping by. I lived some weeks eating bean and cheese burrito's with a lunch of top ramen noodles because I was saving my money for gas money and the copying of court files. Although I was happy investigator with the work, I was more poor than most of my clients. My dad would always ask me when I was going to get a real job and I would always yell at him, this is a real job!

I was a good investigator but a fucking horrible businessman. The PD's office came along at the right time and I'm certain that it saved my life. So like I was saying, life is not going too badly for me...for the most part.

The Love part of my life is something that is less easy to talk about or even think about.

I've had a friend for the last few years that I only just realized, I'm madly in love with. I have only said the whole, I love you thing (and meaning it)...maybe twice in my life and this person is someone that has changed the way I look at everything and I can imagine telling her I love her every day of my life. As always, I can't go into too much detail of my involvement with her and there are a whole lot of issues that don't make it easy to just say, Let's be together! She knows how I feel and one of the main things keeping us from moving forward is distance between the two of us.

Unfortunately, for us, the distance thing won't change anytime in the near future and I sometimes wonder if it's a sign (do I really believe in signs?) that we just aren't meant to be together. I've found limited success in seeing other people...mostly because I end up comparing everyone to the person I really want to be with.

I'm in the position of now having to decide, do I somehow try and reign in my emotions for this woman I care immensely about and just try to be more open to the possibility that there might be someone else out there for me or do I just sit back and hold out hope that the right opportunity will come around for the both of us to be together? Hmmm? Yeah, I know, I can't expect anyone to really have the answer I'm looking for, the truth is I already know the answer but it's too pathetic to put into words.

I wish I could just roll some dice and stick with the outcome, whatever it might be.