Teachers are supposed to help your children grow and develop their learning skills and hone in on their talents and social skills. Not 61-year-old Third grade teacher Mark Berndt. His thirty-year experience at Miramonte Elementary School gave new meaning the word experience.

When I sent my only child to kindergarten on what was going to be the glorious first day, I followed the bus all the way to the school and my child said “Mom, geez did you have to go all the way to school? My friends from pre-school were yelling, ‘Hey! Isn’t that your mom?’”

I read this site often and well it has not made me less observant, less suspicious or less cautious. On the contrary, I am an overprotective bear. I distinctly remembered my third grade. It was the year I met my best friend. That friendship has now spanned decades. Therefore, when I found out that this man lived in the same city as her I had to find out if one of her or her immediate family’s children might have fallen prey to this monster.

Well lucky for her the school is located elsewhere from the city of Torrance where this man lived. If I could have notated the address I might have written the address here. Unfortunately, he does live in her city but is in jail on a $2.3 million dollar bond. (That is not going to get him out on a teacher’s salary.)

The children who however have attended the Miramonte Elementary School in Miramonte, California this year or the last thirty years probably were not so lucky. Miramonte Elementary School is in an unincorporated area of South Los Angeles. Miramonte serves a poor, mainly Hispanic neighborhood. More than half of its approximately 1,400 students are still learning English, according to the school’s website.

The perversion here is disgusting so WARNING; the weak stomach and weak hearted please adjust your reading material back to Bambi.

Mr. Berndt was fired a year ago until the investigation could be completed. Completed it was. It seems that Mr. Berndt had a sort of show and tell with the children blindfolded. And he took photos.

Berndt is seen in the photos submitted to authorities by alarmed and alert processing company employees. A statement from the sheriff’s department noted that “the photographs depicted girls with what appeared to be a blue plastic spoon, filled with an unknown clear/white liquid substance, up to their mouths as if they were going to ingest the substance.”

That liquid substance was, yep you guessed it, semen. Berndt allegedly told the children they would be playing “a game.”

Sheriff’s Lt. Carlos Marquez of the Special Victims Bureau said it was determined the children were given semen on a spoon or on a cookie. Investigators recovered a blue plastic spoon and empty container from the trash in the suspects classroom. The items tested positive for semen, and DNA proved it to be Mark Berndt’s according to the sheriff’s department.

None of the photos showed the students actually eating the semen, but Marquez said the children reported they did not like the taste.

It brought mind the movie Silence of the Lambs. Quoting James “Buffalo Bill” Gumb, “it puts the lotion on its skin” and Dr Hannibal Lecter, “I ate his liver with some Fava beans and rice and a nice Chianti.” By a raise of hands, how many out there think he tried other substances beside this? (I know you all raised your hands too!)

There were also photos of children with large live Madagascar-type cockroaches or otherwise called Hissing Cockroaches, on their faces and mouths.” Gross!

Mark Berndt is accused of felony molestation involving 23 children ages 7 to 10 years old between 2008 and 2010, according to sheriff’s investigators. The police department so far have located 26 victims and have interviewed 80 others, but remember he has been teaching 30 years and that is just one year’s worth. You do the math. They are hoping other step forward that have been victimized. These felonies include gagging, blindfolding and forced ingestion, just to mention a few.

Sheriff’s Special Victims Bureau detectives recovered another 250 additional photos from the film processing business. California has a law that requires film processors to turn in any suspected child abuse pictures. A note to the film processors: No that was not cough medicine and fake bugs for Hallowe’en you were seeing. In addition, the children were not depicting mimes for 3rd grade with tape over their mouths.

Police say they have also discovered a DVD depicting adult sexual “bondage,” which investigators say mirrored the bondage-type pictures of the children. The children were pictured with blindfolds and gags and Mr. Berndt had his hand over their mouths. The investigation began in October 2010 when Berndt turned in a role of 35-mm film to be processed, authorities said.

Finally! At least one of the processing companies did follow the law and turned in the photos to police in 2010. Another 100 photographs that were not turned in were found in his home by the police department. Naughty, naughty to the photo processors that did not turn him in. It might have saved some victims the torture and molestation they endured until someone did the right thing.

Another thing, imagine also you as a parent or brother and sister and what you would feel after the police had told you what had happened to your child and that it would be suggested that they be tested for sexual transmitted diseases? I feel like the only justice for criminals is to let the punishment FIT the crime. I mean really FIT it. A death for a death and rape for a rape etc. When you cannot fit it exactly then improvise. A child rape is like a brutal rape for the perpetrator daily until they are dead. I could go on and on if I had time. Taking a child’s innocence from them is so terrible. Like virginity, it will never be restored. If anyone deserves hell, this person does.

The Los Angeles Unified School District agreed last June to pay about $40,000 to settle its dismissal case against former Miramonte Elementary teacher Mark Berndt. The District had dismissed him on the grounds of unprofessional conduct, immoral conduct and evident unfitness for service. Berndt fought the dismissal. The District finally agreed to pay Berndt nearly $24,000 in backpay from the date of his suspension, allowing him to retain his lifetime health-benefits. He also received $16,000 to pay his legal fees. Subsequently Berndt resigned his teaching position.

Mark Berndt has been charged with 23 counts of lewd conduct. He could face multiple life sentences if convicted. To read more, click here.

In this day and age it seems as though more times than none when we pick up a newspaper or turn on the nightly news that we hear of children being beaten/tortured/raped/murdered by parents,loved ones, or babysitters. It’s really heart breaking. So let me ask you, as a parent, what would you do if you found someone had hurt your child? Would you call the police or take matters into your own hands? What if you had already called the police previously and they did nothing but write their standard police report?

The father in this story is 29-year-old patent attorney from Fairfield, Connecticut named Jonathon Edington. To most people you ask about Mr. Edington he’s a well respected young family man that loves and cherishes his 2 year old daughter. Jonathon and his wife Christina had filed previous police reports involving their 59 year old neighbor, Barry James of walking around his 1st floor bedroom naked. Some of you might say, “That is Barry James’s business how he walks around his home,” but you see it’s adjacent to the toddler’s room. In fact the toddler saw Mr. James naked and that’s when her parent’s called police. Nothing was done except for the routine police report and the advice from the police to “put up mini-blinds and/or curtains.”

A short time later Christina, and her daughter were on an outing to Rhode Island to visit her family. At that time the child confided in her mother that she didn’t want to go home because she was scared of the neighbor Barry James. When the mother questioned the child about why she was scared the little girl told her, “Barry comes into my room at night and puts “it” (she pointed to the genitals) on my belly and my nose. He also makes noises that sound like hee-haw and it feels like I got rained on.” The horrified young mother then called and explained the allegations to her husband.

On 8-28-06, Mr. Edington, furious and in a “fit of rage” retrieved a kitchen knife, entered Mr. James’s room through a window and stabbed him 13 times in the chest, heart and hand, fatally wounding him. He then left, went home, called 911 and told the dispatcher to send an ambulance and police to the home because someone had been stabbed. When police arrived Jonathon was washing blood off his hands and the bloody knife was nearby.

In June 2007, Mr. Edington pled guilty of 1st degree manslaughter but in October 2007 the judge sentenced Jonathon to 12 years in prison and 5 years probation.

Barry James’ family still deny the molestation allegations and said that their son/brother had been killed for no reason at all. They’ve filed a $5,000,000 lawsuit against Mr. Edington and have filed a civil lawsuit against Mrs. Edington for telling her husband about the abuse in which he then killed the man. The family attorney, Richard Maahan Jr., has stated that he thought it was unlikely that a child as young as Edington’s daughter could make those statements. He also stated, “I have a granddaughter that age who I think is a bright and precocious child but even she couldn’t articulate these type of accusations.” Police have also said they can not prove the allegations of sexual abuse.

So I guess just because his granddaughter can not “articulate” things such as these that neither can this child huh?!? I have a hard time believing a child of this age could make up a story such as this.

So my questions to you, our faithful readers, are: Was Mr. Edington justified for killing Barry James? Were the local police at fault, to a degree, being as how they wouldn’t follow up on the claim Mr. James exposed himself to the child previously? Should Mr. James’ family be awarded monetary damages due to the death? Finally what would you do in this situation?

Thank you Tiffany for your contribution! Good job! To read about the civil case against Jonathon Edington read this article. No proof was ever found that Barry James was ever in the Edington home — no fingerprints, no DNA. Barry James needed help climbing stairs so climbing through a window was “improbable” according to police.

Amanda Taylor, 32, from Leighton Alabama was a beautiful, outgoing,loving mother to three children. She was a wonderful daughter/sister/aunt/cousin/and friend to many great people.

On October 17,2011 Mr. Lee, Amanda’s boyfriend picked her up from work but since he had to run errands he dropped Amanda off at Ron Weems’s home to use his computer. Ron and Amanda had known each other for years being as how Ron was once married to her sister and they had two children together.Because of this I’m pretty sure Amanda felt as though she could trust Ron. At around 3pm Mr. Lee returned to the Moss Avenue home to pick Amanda up, instead he saw Ashley Greenhill and Laquania Weems, Ron’s mother sitting on the porch. Ashley came out swinging a hatchet and told Mr. Lee that Amanda had assaulted Ron and then ran off and wasn’t welcome back. Being fearful for his life, Mr. Lee left.

Laurell Pruett, Ron’s current girlfriend, showed up to the home and Ron immediately pulled her inside the bathroom. Sweating, out of breath and without a shirt on Ron confessed he had just killed Amanda. So Laurell decided they should file a police report stating that Amanda Taylor had assaulted Ron, in order to cover their tracks. After all Ron had scratches on his arms and wrists. Little did the police know that those were wounds of a young woman fighting for her life and that her lifeless body was only miles away in the basement of Ron’s mother’s home. The law, as of now, states you can’t file a missing person report for an adult until after they’ve been missing for 48 hours. So on October 19,2001 Brandy Leeth reported her sister missing.

The local newspaper did one article about the missing young mother. The news didn’t even air it on television until Amanda’s father, Mr. Leeth, sent them an e-mail asking them to broadcast his missing daughter’s case. This man has even started a Facebook page asking for leads, making fliers and giving his phone number out in case people didn’t want to speak to investigators. This is a very strong man. He had absolutely no help from the media yet he still wouldn’t give up. In fact, Ron contacted him and told him that she was seen Amanda with a man in a nearby town knowing all along where she was. Mr. Leeth still hasn’t gave up. He is even trying to help other families who find themselves in the same situation he was in. That to me let’s me know that no matter what the tragedy is if you want you can turn it in to something positive.

On November 7, 2011 Ashley Greenhill, the hatchet swinging stripper, went to the police station and told detectives she had overheard Ron telling Laurell “not to worry they’ll never find her body and if they do it will be already decayed.” Ashley said she was afraid of Weems and moved out of his home. Don’t give Ashley too much credit yet though.

This story has some crazy twists maybe it’s time to explain them now. After Ron and his ex-wife divorced he started dating Laurell Pruett, from Huntsville Alabama who already had two children. Both were disabled and neither were in Laurell’s care but instead in the care of the department of human resources. Ron and Laurell started dating but described it as an open relationship. Shortly thereafter, Laurell got pregnant by Ron but that didn’t slow them down any. Instead they decided to bring another woman into their relationship, for the both of them. Evidently Ron is not just a gigalo but he’s also fertile-Myrtle because this other “lady” also got pregnant. She was a lot smarter than Laurell though….she got away. Just before she gave birth to their triplets. At the time the time the crime was committed Laurell and Ron were still together but Laurell was living else where and had a girlfriend whom she called “wifey.” Their daughter was living with Ron and his mother.

Ashley Greenhill of Florence, Alabama is a mother of two and already has a long rap sheet. Back in 2008, Ashley’s 2 year old son,who lived with her parents, came to visit with her but when she took him back the next day her parents noticed the child has bite marks all over his body and scratches to his back and extremities. Her parents immediately went to the police and she was arrested for felony child abuse since she was already out on bond for burglary,theft of property, criminal mischief, and receiving stolen property her bond was revoked. She took a plea deal and went to drug rehab. Thank goodness her parents were smart enough to go to the police then to take up for her.

I should also tell you all that Ron, Laurell, Ashley, Fox and many many more(you’ll see when the supporters show up) have formed a clown gang. Yes that’s right a clown gang. They call themselves the Juggalos(men members) and juggalettes(female members) they get together, paint their faces like clowns, carry hatchets, and listen to a band called ICP. Let me just say….I do not think in any way what so ever that them listening to ICP had anything to do with this murder. It’s just a part of the story that I must entail. In the fall 2011 Ashley began living with Ron, Laquania, and Laurell and Ron’s child at the Moss avenue home. Although Laurell and Ashley were friends they shared the same man, sexually. Matthew Fox, 21, Florence, didn’t know any of the people involved except for Ashley and I bet he wish hadn’t had met her or any of the others now.

A few days after Ashley met with detectives to tell them about Laurell and Ron’s conversation she met with them once again. She told detectives that Ron said “he dropped her on a road with tall grass on each side of the road near Leighton Alabama.” After driving around for a little bit Ashley told them to stop at Gnatt Pond Road in Muscle Shoals Alabama. While detectives closely watched, Ashley went into some brush and came out and told detectives it looked as if something had been drug through there but she didn’t see anything.

Police returned to the same spot this time without Ashley and they went to the same spot she had. This time they found hair and immediately called in the cadaver dogs. Now let me just tell you all that here in North Alabama we have 100,000s of acres of pasture,fields, and woods. Just about everywhere you look is exactly what Ron Weems had explained. How in the world could she just go to the exact spot unless, of course, she hadn’t already been there?

The next day on 12-3-11 the police and cadaver dogs went to Gnatt pond where they found Amanda’s skull, and several bones, some broken, some cut. They then searched the Moss Avenue resident and found Amanda’s blood on the wall and floor in the basement. The next day, Stacy Young contacted the police and told them that Ron and Laurell had set some stuff on fire in her yard the day after Amanda came up missing. When police searched the fire pit they found Amanda’s necklace, 4 earrings, some clothing and other items.

Laurell was the first of the suspects to be interviewed and she sang like a bird. She admitted that they had burned the stuff. She said it was a pair of pants, 2 shirts, a plastic bag of articles, and a plastic ice cream bucket. Pruett also said that after they had filed the assault report on Amanda that they had went back to the house where she saw Amanda’s body laying face up, her pants and panties were removed, she was purple and had a ligature mark around her neck, the nylon strap was lying next to her.

At around 10:30-11pm Fox and Ashley showed up to help their fellow clown fans. Fox made the suggestion that Ron cut off Amanda’s fingers and toes to conceal her identity. Weems got a kitchen knife and started cutting her fingers and toes off, he would drop each one in the plastic ice cream bucket. I guess it was just too much for Ashley and Laurell because they went upstairs to smoke some weed and take Valiums. Also let me tell you both Laquania and Laurell’s daughter were there at the time. How could Laquania Weems not know what was going on in her own home? At approximately 1am Fox helped Weems load Amanda’s body into Ron’s Honda Accord. Then Fox went home. Ron left and about 2 hours later he returned to the house and told Laurell that he had disposed of her body near Leighton and busted her teeth out a hammer. They then went to bed. How oh how does someone go to sleep after all of that?

Since Laurell testified Ron admitted to it as well except he said Amanda tried to hit him with a concrete block so he just killed her in self defense. Yeah right!! Because of the confessions all three were arrested(police report). Ron and Fox were charged with murder and abuse of a corpse, Fox also got hindering prosecution. Laurell was charged with murder and hindering prosecution. They are all still in jail on $500,000 bond. The reason they say they murdered her was for a child support check she supposedly stole…Laurell received it in the mail on October 19,2011. And of course when the defense have nothing else they always say they have some kind of mental illness. This case is no different they said Ron was bi-polar and that played a major role in the crime.

So what is Ashley being charged with? Nothing, Nadda, Zip….yet anyways. I totally understand that they wouldn’t have found her when they did without Ashley’s help but that should give her a “get out of jail for murder card” In fact Fox would’ve never met Ron or Laurell had it not been for Ashley. Mr. Lee was lied to and threatened by none other that Ashley Greenhill. I just hope she gets charged just as harsh as the others. Personally I believe Ashley, Ron,Laurell, Fox, and Laquania all deserve to be charged. Laquania should be charged with hindering prosecution if nothing else.

Now I’m asking everyone to please, please sign this petition for the Amanda Alert. It would allow people to report their adult loved one missing as soon as you realize they are missing. Although, I realize this probably wouldn’t have saved Amanda’s life it might would have sent the police to Ron’s home while the body was still in the basement and the family wouldn’t have had to live in agony for almost two months.

Please help Mr. Leeth pass this law, remember it could be you, your family member or friend. Thanks in advance,my dear friends.

http://www.change.org/petitions/amanda-alert-for-missing-adults

This article comes from Tiffany, and it was a doozy. She researched it and I went through it and searched high and low for anything she might have missed. I’m pleased to say I really didn’t find much. Please give me a hand congratulating her. Thanks also to Shoalanda Speaks, a blog that’s been out front with this and has been an invaluable resource.

http://www.whnt.com/news/shoals/whnt-weems-faces-judge-investigator-takes-stand-in-hearing-20120103,0,4952565.story

There’s been a brief hiatus while we sort through things and help Max and Admin get back into the swing of things. 

To that end, Cleo and I,  and I’m hoping a few others are going to jump in and become contributors. 

We hope we’ll be able to pick back up where we left off and get some of the old and new readers and writers activated and involved.

To that end, if you’re interested, post a quick comment, leave your actual email address in the hidden field of your comment and we’ll open up communications. 

That all aside, Cleo has a baker’s dozen of stories we’ll be working through over the next few weeks and I have a couple, any requests?

When I first wrote up the Diane Schuler tragedy back in July of 2009, the facts were still coming in. I tried to keep every up to the minute with frequent updates, but it was impossible to catch every development when it happened.

Fortunately for this website, one of our regulars, FuzzyWuzzy, became admittedly obsessed with finding the truth behind all the bullshit that came out of the Schuler and Hance family camps concerning the head-on collision that claimed the lives of Diane and 7 innocent victims. He posted several comments stating his findings, and they were good – very, very good.

Because the Schuler and Hance families have worked so hard to confuse the issue as to what really happened the day in July, Fuzzy debunked just about every lie they told, and also came up with some very interesting theories about Diane’s thinking. He also didn’t have many nice things to say about Diane’s husband Daniel. I can safely say that I probably read 95% of the articles and official documents released on this case, and Fuzzy’s article here is hands down the most complete, thorough, and well written piece I’ve seen on the Diane Schuler tragedy.

But perhaps he may have gotten a little too close to the truth, because Fuzzy posted the same comments he posted on PYSIH on several other websites. He informed me the other day that those comments were being suddenly and systematically removed from most of the websites other than PYSIH. I found that a bit curious.

So, to more prominently display his work on our website, and to make sure people who want to read what he found out will be able to do so, I asked FuzzyWuzzy to consolidate all his comments into one article that I could publish on our front page. This is the result of all his hard work.

Please read this, you won’t be disappointed. Some of the author’s conclusions are pure conjecture – he states this clearly in a couple of places – but most of what he concludes is backed up with solid facts that can’t be made to disappear. Unlike those comments FuzzyWuzzy made on certain other websites, websites that don’t seem to hold the First Amendment in any kind of regard

-Max The Cat

The Diane Schuler tragedy on the Taconic in July 2009 has been out of the news for a while now. However, the innocent victims of her actions have recently filed a civil suit since the Westchester County DA declined to follow through on the case to examine the ‘strong fragrance of criminality’ noted by the victims lawyers. There is much to this story that has not been revealed, and the public has a right to know what kind of crazy people are driving our roads. There will never be closure for the victims, or for the many people who were affected by this story.

Since I drive the same route where this accident took place, I can’t get it out of my mind, seeing that spot week after week and trying to make sense of it. So much information was released by the media, the police reports, the surveillance video etc… that I could not help but look at it all in detail and try to make sense of it for myself.

Here is what I have come up with, much of it is based on the facts presented, much of it I have obviously inferred, but after many hours of consideration, I think my story is a reasonably plausible explanation for something so outrageous that it almost defies the human mind to comprehend.

The more I read about this case, the clearer it gets; it was a murder/suicide. The official story put out by her family is that ‘something medical had to have happened’. That the toxicology report saying she was drunk and high on pot is wrong. That she never drank. But the evidence is not there, and in fact has been disputed by family members who said she smoked pot regularly and her husband who publicly said she never drank, but told the police she drank the weekend of the crash.

I, and every other sane person, disagrees with the absurd theories put forth so far, Anbesol, stroke, toothache, bump on the leg…. etc. This is not the ‘mommy’s a secret addict’ story like the media has perpetuated to no end, she was uniquely crazy and suicidal and had to know what she was doing. Those people know what happened and have been protecting themselves since the brother first called the police and sugar-coated the situation as ‘a possible medical emergency’ and the husband only can say ’she was sober when she left..” so its not my fault. The husband hired shark lawyer Dominic Barbera and Tom Ruskin, convicted felon private investigator to defend Diane’s image to the public.

Private investigator Thomas Ruskin, 55, of CMP Protective & Security Group of Manhattan, was an NYPD detective until he was indicted in 1996 in Louisiana on a 12-count federal indictment, charging him with several felonies, including conspiring “to defraud various commercial airlines,” according to federal court documents.

After being put on modified duty, he retired from the NYPD in March 1999, a police spokesman said. Two months later, he pleaded guilty to a single federal count of conspiracy in Louisiana, a felony.

-Max

By way of background told by those involved, Diane Schuler, her husband Danny and their 2 small children went camping with Diane’s brother’s 3 children at their camper that was set up in a campsite in Sullivan County NY. The story goes that Danny went to the campsite on Thursday morning for a day or two of solitary fishing, just him and his dog. Diane worked Thursday and Friday, then packed up her kids, drove from eastern Long Island to Floral Park NY to pick up the other three kids and drive her brothers minivan to the camp site on Friday evening. None of the witness reports say anyone saw Diane at the campsite, but the owner said she saw them leave around 9:30 Sunday morning for the 140 or so mile trip back home.

They left a campsite in separate vehicles, with Diane taking all 5 kids under the age of 9 while Danny took the dog. Diane stopped at McDonald’s around 10 am, then stopped for gas around 10:45, then hit the highway to drop off her brothers kids and then pick up her car and continue home with her kids. The story did not pan out the way it was supposed to.

Here’s how it went.

At the first stop at McDonald’s, Diane was caught on video apparently (it has not been released) having a discussion with the cashier and then the manager trying to get Chicken Selects during breakfast since they do not serve them at that hour, eating and letting the kids play on the playground. She convinced them to make them. Maybe she argued with them at McDonald’s to get her kids their last favorite meal and let them play in the playground there since she was gearing up for the fatal ride. Was it premeditated? She fed the kids, got her OJ mixer to go. The McDonald’s employees told police she did not seem intoxicated.

Later, her defenders used the Chicken Selects defense and state the McDonald’s employees determined she was not drunk. Like no drunk person has ever successfully ordered at McDonald’s apparently. Of course; there is no chance the McDonald’s employee’s, especially a manager, will admit anything suggesting they allowed an intoxicated person to leave their premises with 5 children in a vehicle. So there is zero value in any statement made by these employees, they were not under oath, plus they were interviewed by a convicted felon (Tom Ruskin) and the statement is not consistent with the official police report which does not mention any manager interaction or special orders etc… They have every possible reason to lie to cover their liability.

Think about it, why has there been no crazy Dominic Barbera theory that she got sick after eating at McDonald’s? With all the crazy theories they have put out there you would think this would be on the top of the list. So is there some conspiracy between the McDonald’s employees and the Schuler’s. If they thought she was drunk at McDonald’s, and made a scene requiring a manager to intervene (which was not in the police report) and then they gave her what she wanted and got rid of her, that implicates them, if they say she was drunk, it also implicates Danny who said she was not drunk ½ hour prior. This is just not a reliable account as both parties stand to lose if they make any admission she was impaired.

The next video is of Diane at a gas station where she pulls in, pumps her gas, then walks into the store where she takes 8 steps in and back out, pausing for a second to ask the clerk something. This clerk declined being interviewed by police, but did speak to Tom Ruskin and apparently stated she was sober. But the video shows he did not even look up as she walked in, plus she is wearing sunglasses the whole time.

I watched the gas station video a couple of times, first, she walks in and out of the place in about 10 seconds, the guy doesn’t even look up as she enters and the exchange seen can’t be more than on second as she asks something as she walks out the door and gets in the van where she sits for a few minutes, possibly dumping vodka into the OJ from McDonald’s?

If anything the video shows her as a reckless driver. She drives like a maniac. She peels out from the pumps at a much higher rate of speed than other cars in the video, whips around 180 degrees past the other pumps on the wrong side, (if someone had been pulling up she would have hit them head on) then she flies out the entrance, staying to the left side of the entrance (IN) where oncoming cars would be coming in to the station, then you can see her zooming out into oncoming traffic lane on the wrong side of the exit to make her left turn across the lane of oncoming traffic! The only thing this video ‘proves’ is that drunk or sober, she is a terror on the road and a menace

It looks like she peeled out of that gas station with a death wish. She drove like a maniac until she was numb enough to not care. She must have told her brother and sister in law something in those phone calls that sealed her fate, she left the phone and with it all hope of being stopped or saved, she drove up the Saw Mill to the Taconic, turned around and came back to end it all. Was she not confused, but rather building up her nerve.

Many witness reports from the police detail her crazed ride down Route 17 and onto the New York State Thruway, where she tailgated, honked, flashed her brights, passed cars on the shoulder, stopped at least twice to be sick by the side of the road, drove on the grass at the Ramapo Rest Area.

The next stop was just over the Tappan Zee Bridge, where the crux of the ending of the story seems to have developed. One of her brother’s kids, Emma, called home scared, talking about the slurred speech of Diane. Several phone calls later with her brother and sister in law, something happened.

She got out of the car and left the phone by the side of the road to eliminate the distraction. The phone probably got dumped because the kids kept calling home. I think this is where her plan was crystallized. Something came out in those calls that she could not live with. She knew they were coming to look for her as her brother told her to stay there, he was coming to get her. As soon as the kids told the brother what the road signs said, she went in the opposite direction, north, up the Saw Mill so they would be looking in the wrong place. She was not confused, she was still making premeditated decisions to carry out the plan.

Then she told her brother she was on Southern State Parkway on Long Island, come on, no matter how drunk you are you can tell the difference between the 2 mile long Tappan Zee toll bridge soaring over the Hudson and Southern State pkwy. She had gone through the toll literally 30 seconds before making the call. She didn’t crash into the toll booth and was able to pull over to the pull off on the right shoulder. The 4 or 5 right hand toll lanes there are all cash only, since they claim they checked the time on her EZpass, that means she probably went through tolls on the left and had to navigate across at least 5 lanes of toll plaza traffic to the pull off without hitting anything.

The details of these phone calls are the key. But I am afraid the brother is not telling the whole story about the phone calls with Diane. Both of them talked to her, but I really think it was the kids that called 1st, then Warren called back and got her on the phone. The content of this call is the key to her mindset. I really doubt she said she wasn’t feeling well and had tunnel vision, etc…if she was slurring and calling her brother Warren by her husband Danny’s name, she was out of it and not going to be describing her symptoms like that. I think they are putting words in her mouth.

What was said that made her get out of the van and put the phone on the divider? What made her drive away in the opposite direction they would have thought she was going in to look for her?

She hung up on Warren, left the phone and took off in the opposite direction fully aware of what she was doing and she wouldn’t be distracted by his repeated calls her phone picked up as missed calls. So why didn’t he call the police right away?

Instead, he drove all the way to Westchester looking for her and then stopped at the police station. It was his wife Jackie who called the police from home after Warren left. In the police calls when they were looking for her, they never mention the vision, or confusion problems, he only describes it a possible medical emergency. The cops were probably looking for someone stopped by the side of the road when they should have put out an APB for a crazy confused driver menacing the population of the roads.

Tapes of phone calls to the police were released. Where they are attempting to track her cell phone. But it was too late, an hour had passed since the last phone contact with Diane, and by the time Warren arrived at the Police station, Danny was home already and everyone else was already dead. Another thing I noticed on the tapes of the brother at the police station is that when they are discussing the cell phone they mention that the voice mail says “Diane Hance” not Schuler even though the phone was registered under the name Diane Schuler and they were married for 6 or 7 years (according to the New York Magazine article, Danny didn’t even know how long they were married).

From this, a picture emerges that Danny went there on early Thursday, had a nice relaxing time by himself, while Diane had to work Thursday and Friday, then get her kids ready and packed up, drive to Floral Park, pick up the other kids, drive to the campground and take care of everyone. Even her brother and sister-in-law were having a weekend to themselves, but she was stuck with all 5 kids and a clueless husband.

They drank Friday night at the campground he says. Then Saturday Danny says they went to bed at 11:30 and he got up at 5. So, likely Danny crashes out, Diane has insomnia (as her family has stated she suffered from and smoked pot to fall asleep), so she stays up drinking and smoking all night. He gets up at 5 and goes fishing, leaving her to wake up the kids, pack up and get all the kids in the car to take them out for breakfast and then drive them home, drop off the kids in Floral Park then drive out to Suffolk while Danny and the dog went off in the pickup truck merrily oblivious. They supposedly leave together, but he doesn’t stop at the McDonald’s with her to help with the kids or anything, he keeps going, he doesn’t follow her, or take his son, or any of the kids. She then has to stop for gas too where she is probably looking for Tylenol since she is hung over. But her sister in law said she didn’t believe in medicine, so why was she looking for Tylenol?

In the police report, the brother then says this was the first season they camped at that campsite, so how does the owner say she knows them for years? And Danny says they have been going there for years. The brother is very vague with the times the kids called (‘sometime in the late morning”). Wouldn’t it have been tormenting enough so he would have looked at those call times over and over trying to figure it all out minute by minute? He and his wife had to know what was up, they both talked to a trashed Diane Schuler and had to know she was wasted. The kids were crying in the background. In the police report Danny says the brother called him and said there was an accident, but the police tapes have Warren talking to Danny before the crash trying to get information on the phone bill..etc. so they could track her.

On page 10 of the police report, a witness describes traveling north on the Taconic at 1:15 pm and being cut off by the minivan ALSO TRAVELING NORTH getting on the Taconic from the Saw Mill Parkway. This is right where the crash happened, about 200 yards north of the Saw Mill/Taconic merge. This means she went up the Taconic past the crash site, then turned around and got back on the same exit ramp in the wrong direction. She scouted the route! Probably saw a perfect spot to end it all and headed back down the road heading south knowing what was going to happen and where, there is a blind curve with a hill right at the crash site, no chance for the unwitting accessory to the crime to react evasively. There are two (2) turnarounds in that stretch of road, plus a lot of wide grass median and shoulder to change your mind if you wanted to.

Also, the husbands story about the vodka being his is total BS. He drinks beer, very few men drink vodka as their drink of choice, especially when they are beer drinkers. Vodka is a chick drink. And if it takes you 9 months to drink 1.75 liters of vodka, why are you carrying it around, why is it that important? The story about the vodka bottle is an example of the deep denial. That bottle costs 25 dollars, how frugal are they that they claim they carried the same bottle for a year? Sorry, but if you have a couple of drinks a week, that bottle is going to last 2 months tops. And who is going to go camping for the weekend and have one tiny little drink, then bring it home? So, that means they drink it at home too, so how could it last that long? Just doesn’t make sense. If the vodka meant that little to them why carry it around? They guy was sort of a cop, doesn’t he know it’s illegal to carry open containers? Oh, right, he said he didn’t pack it, so she did, without his knowledge.

A quote from the Steve Fishman article in New York Magazine (click here to view the entire article):

I want to know if Danny feels guilty in some general way, for inattention or absence or anything. “Absolutely not,” Danny says.

Wow. How can someone have no feelings of guilt at all? It is incomprehensible. Not even guilty for not following her down the road? For not calling her when she didn’t show up? He was home before they even crashed. I can’t possibly imagine not second-guessing every minute of that day and being overcome with guilt? Come on, guilt is one of the most basic human emotions there is, even when you have no control over a situation it is there. Is it possible this man has no emotions whatsoever? All he has lamented over is the loss of his wife and child, he never even mentions the 3 relatives, or 3 strangers that lost their lives.

The Fishman story told how Diane cut her mother out of her life completely since the age of 9, pretending she did not exist due to her choice to leave the family, even though the other siblings and her father did not shut her out and her mother has said she reached out to her for a relationship, stating it was Diane’s choice to keep her away. That is a huge thing to hold inside for 27 years. I do think this is the elemental key to the whole story.

The public photos released of her wedding are telling, how could she, or anyone there, not be thinking about her mother, who was not invited. How do you go through your wedding day holding that inside? Since it was her wedding day, everyone else had to suck it up and it was all about her and not mentioning the obvious absence of the mother, the rest of the family would have invited her to such an event. So she is controlling the social situation completely, holding everyone hostage to her demons. Then having children and depriving them of their grandmother, and vice-versa.

This pattern of controlling social situations and punishing people who love you most due to perceived transgressions only makes me believe the murder/suicide theory more. Did she punish her husband and brother for something we will never know about? I am on the side of the victims who feel there is much more to the story. On the one hand they say she is frugal, that’s why they carried the same bottle of vodka around for almost a year.

The NY Magazine article says she was compulsive shopper however, buying a $300 purse for her sister in law on the spur of the moment, going out for milk and coming back with a Jeep, or grocery shopping and coming home with a plasma TV. This sounds like someone with an impulse problem to me, not a frugal one. There is much more in that story and I recommend it for background as it is the only source of information on the dynamics of these peoples lives.

So what caused the rage that led to this act? There was a 17-second call dialed from Diane’s phone to a guy in Oyster Bay, only 10 minutes from where she works, that morning. I won’t put his name here, but it is in the press where he was interviewed after the police talked to him. All he said to the press was that it was “weird”. Interestingly his last name is one letter off from her brother’s last name. How coincidental that a random wrong number would go so close to home. Since it was one of the kids making the calls, maybe they accidentally dialed a contact or recent call? I mean who actually dials numbers on their cell phone, especially when you have called that person at least 3 times in the past 2 hours. You just go to the contact or the recent calls. So that number had to be in the phone.

The precipitating event is still a mystery, but there are many clues. Something came out in those phone calls that sealed everyones fate. Did the kids overhear something she couldn’t let them reveal? Did she decide to punish her husband and brother for something, like finding out some secret? For challenging her for her behavior? For giving her an ultimatum?

In conclusion, since there are really no plausible medical conditions that make you randomly drive on the wrong side of the road, disputing the intoxication option leaves only premeditated murder suicide. So which is it? They can’t have it both ways. The truth must be revealed or we all must live with the fear that this could happen to any one of us for no reason? The victims deserve the truth and the secrets Diane kept can’t be kept or we are all enabling her, even in death.

The Photographs Are, From Top to Bottom:

01. Diane Schuler
02. Accident Scene
03. Accident Scene
04. The Hance Family – The children are, from left to right, Alyson Hance, 7, Katie Hance, 5, and Emma Hance, 9. All three girls died in the crash.
05. Guy Bastardi, 49. Victim.
06. Tom Ruskin, private eye and convicted felon.
07. Michael Bastardi, 81. Victim
08. Daniel Longo, 74. Victim.
09. Map of the crash scene
10. The Schuler Family. The children are Bryan, 5 at the time of the crash, who survived, and Erin, 2, who did not.
11. An unidentified 11-year-old girl at the funeral of the three Hance sisters. This picture broke my heart.

The following Blog was written by Tori, our PYSIH On The Spot Reporter. Tori attended Stacey Marie Barker’s Preliminary Hearing on Tuesday, July 21st, then wrote this report on the proceedings.

Hi Everyone

I wish I had not went today, it was horrible sitting through hearing all that shit! Sorry for cussing but I wanted to put my fists into Stacey Barker head so bad, I cried hearing the Coroner, the detectives and the Sheriff’s Deputies.

This Bitch was as usual non emotional except when the coroner or detective said something she didn’t like then she sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes and bitched to her Public Defender…anything but tears!

Her hair was a rats nest so someone must have stolen her brush..hair down almost covering her face.

Family was there, the father Anthony and his mom were there also. Uncle Nick or should I say Nicole?? and his partner were there along with Brendon and some aunts.

Nick has a flare for fashion…his attire was a Lavender Dress shirt, Grey slacks and white Saturday Night Fever shoes. His partner was all up on him, touching and putting his head on NB shoulder. How touching! And, girls and Max, I’VE GOT THE PIXS TO PROVE IT!

OK, Max come clean now, you know more then you let on!!! tell us how you know..LOL

We were right about A LOT OF THINGS!

To start…..

Stacey Barker AND Brendon were out until about 2 or 3 am on St.Patty’s day at Coaches or some other bar and grill, the detective could not remember the name Stacey Barker told her (Judge Chung did not want to hear the 2 hour tape interview) Stacey Barker’s mom was watching Emma.

Stacey Barker got up the at her regular time and got dressed like she was going to work, went to Brendon’s house where they slept most of the day and other things, watched TV and then went to Pollo Loco for lunch then she redressed in her work clothes and goes home like she worked all day!

She feeds Emma dinner. Real dinner – a Lunchable! Her and her mom get into a fight because mom feels Stacey is spending more time with Brendon and not Emma, so mom tells her that she is not going to watch Emma anymore for her to go party only for work! Stacey the little bitch gets pissed off and tells bro that she is taking Emma to the park, in reality she is heading to Leigh Barker to see if Anthony (Emma’s dad) will give her more support money for Emma. He shakes his head so I think she was just trying to get him to take Emma, I guess the answer was no!!!

Back to the AV, the freeways are all packed, stop and go traffic, Emma is getting restless at the length of the drive, Stacey Barker gives her a purse to play with and it has a empty zip lock baggie in it (I always carry a empty baggie don’t any of you?) and Emma puts it in her mouth.

Stacey Barker notices it and starts to play peek a boo with beautiful Emma, putting a blanket over her face. While the baggie is still in her mouth, she put her hand over Emma’s mouth and nose and held it there for 2 to 3 minutes. Emma was trying to get bitches hand off her face pulling at her arm with one hand at first then struggling pulling at her arm with both hands…then EMMA’S LITTLE HANDS JUST FELL LIMP (hearing this the whole family was crying even Brendon..Anthony and his mother were sobbing..and I cried too).

She removed the blanket and Emma’s head is slumped to the side and the baggie is still in her mouth, she drives another 45 minutes with Emma dead in the car seat with the baggie in her mouth, finds the offramp for Roxford and rids herself of Emma, takes the baggie out of her mouth, drives for 15 minutes and throws the baggie out the window, goes to the park and ride and fakes the rest.

She was in her bra and panties only and had 2 cuts on her forehead. She told detectives that she does not know if she made it to the park or not, everything is fuzzy! And oh HER HEAD HURTS. She said this a number of times. Also her brother Leigh and Brendon were at the park and ride before the sheriff was.

When the sheriff arrives all she does is complain about HER HEAD..SHE MENTIONS EMMA 1 OR 2 TIMES ONLY! B I T C H……

Truth is Brendon did not want a ready made family, he claims to be single and loving his life with no kids to hold him down, that is what he told Detectives

OK Emma was allergic to Peanuts so the Dr. gave her Dimeatapp(?) Wellllll, she had 2x the dose for her age (she had not eaten peanuts that day!) she also had white rock type material in her belly (Stacey Barker states was a piece of granola bar, right!) Blood in both nostrils among other things they found hairs on her vagina (coroner did not elaborate on what kind of hairs), blanket material on her face and grass and dirt on her back!

They are going to continue in Monday! they will show pictures of Emma’s dead body and autopsy pictures, I caught a peek at them when the Deputy District Attorney was looking at them….Just horrible, made me sick to see them.

I will be back on Monday for Emma………. please excuse any misspellings I was typing fast and if you have any questions I will answer them if I can, it was 3 hours long so there is more but sometimes my memory needs to be jogged.

Court ended at 4:30 and I couldn’t wait to tell you all……. I will check back later

Well done Tori. We are very lucky to have you. I’m going to try and give your reports a prominent place on PYSIH, because this is an important story and it’s rare when we get such a close look at the Justice System in action. Thanks for you hard work and dedication.