How well do any of us really know our friends? I’m sure most of us would like to think we know them very well especially if they’ve been around your family for years. Let me start my telling all of you that this is a gut wrenching story and it’s very close to my heart because it happened only about 15 miles from my home. I have gotten to know the victim’s family and they are very good people that should not be going through something like this.
To the left there is Michael Plumadore. He’s a real “stand up guy” if you ignore his assault charges and criminal record that stretch from Florida up to North Carolina, but Michael was in Fort Wayne, Indiana turning over a new leaf, and serving as a baby sitter for three young girls while their father slept before his third shift job and their mother worked through a bad Flu.
In my home, Sunday mornings are a hectic, chaotic and usually a boisterous time as everyone is up, trying to bathe, eat, dress and get out the door so that we can get to Mass without walking in late. I know that in some circles, arriving late is the fashionable thing to do, but I believe it is in really bad form to walk into Mass 20 minutes late, especially since no one in my troop has the ability to achieve this endeavor QUIETLY. There is nothing like having several hundred people turn around and stare at you while your Priest says, “Go on, we’ll wait.”
But for a lot of families, Sunday morning is a time to sleep in, rest, recuperate and recharge from the previous week and try to prepare for the upcoming one. Unfortunately for one Franklin County, Alabama family, their Sunday morning was started when Jesus Christ himself appeared and woke them up.
Charles Eugene Timms, 65, (ain’t he a peach girls? He just sets your nose hair on fire he’s so fine) of Gun Town, MS (you just can’t make this shit up) broke into the family’s home proclaiming that he was Jesus Christ and he was there to have sex with the homeowner’s wife and daughter, so hand them over (“We’ve come for your daughter Chuck”).
The photograph to the left is of Anthony Sowell. Over twenty years ago, Mr. Sowell here was arrested for the attempted rape of a 34-year old woman.
At the time, the woman was pregnant (three months in), and was charged with kidnapping, attempted rape (for which he was charged and served fifteen years in prison), and rape. He got out of prison five years ago.
That was supposedly the end of Sowell. You know, since prison is supposed to change people, supposed to make them better. He worked at a factory, quit, collected unemployment, and made a living selling scrap metal. Typical convict behavior.
Until September of 2009.
John Violette has been described by his friends and family, as a great man. A fun, laid back surfer dude type of guy, with a winning personality who made friends easily. He was a family man, a church going man, the devoted husband of his wife Amber and a doting father to their daughter Katlin. Life was good for John. He had a steady job working for Lowe’s Home Improvement, a lovely home, a caring wife, and a beautiful 4 year old little girl.So what could ever cause a man like this to snap and commit an act of unspeakable horror? Perhaps years and years of untreated schizophrenia.
On Friday, January 23rd, 2009, a three-judge panel in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Common Pleas Court determined that 23-year-old Amber Hill suffered from a severe mental disorder when she drowned her two daughters on October 1st, 2007.
“The court concludes she did not know the wrongfulness of her horrific acts,” said Judge John Sutula.
She’ll stay in jail, where’s she’s been since the night of the murders, until a hearing to decide whether she should be committed to a State Mental Institution. The date of the hearing hasn’t been set yet.
Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mark Mahoney said the state believed Hill should be hospitalized.
“We will argue she is a danger to herself and others and that she be committed to a psychiatric institution,” he said.
This is José Gutierrez Sanchez. In many ways, José is a typical young 27-year-old American male. He enjoys a good pickup game of B-Ball, and what can be better than a few ice cold beers after the game? This scenario of competition and male bonding has probably been going on since man became civilized. The group broke up in the late evening, and Jose’ returned home to his apartment, where his 2 month old daughter and her mother resided with him.
After a quick shower, Sanchez went into the Bedroom to lie down on the bed. A few minutes later his girlfriend came into the room and placed the baby down next to him and left for a few minutes. 15 minutes later she returned and saw the baby lying in a pool of blood in the middle of the bed. She began screaming, “My Baby! My Baby! Jose’ Sanchez jumped up and split the apartment like his ass was on fire and his head was catching.
Christopher Lee McCuin’s girlfriend.
It’s what’s for dinner.
25-year-old Christopher Lee McCuin here, who worked as a sheetrock hauler for a while, might look completely normal in his preppy little sweater there, actually isn’t.
Normal.
Not at all.
According to one of his neighbors, Christopher Lee McCuin would:
…stand in the roadway and wouldn’t let people pass and he would talk to himself – he was always acting crazy.
Well, maybe Christopher McCuin wasn’t acting.
Christopher McCuin was certainly known to the authorities, if not for his eccentric behavior. He had a history of violence – which most recently involved being charged with evading arrest and retaliation on the 9th of November, 2007. Looking at his criminal background history, he also had charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon as well as driving while intoxicated. In 2003, Christopher McCuin was sentenced to three years in prison for the aggravated assault charge.
