By Burl Barer

A decade after the killing of a Chino Hills man and the wounding of five people at a Jewish community center during a San Fernando Valley shooting spree, the convicted gunman has renounced his white-supremacist views while expressing "deep remorse."

"I feel a life based on hate is no life at all," Buford O'Neal Furrow Jr. wrote in a letter from the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., where he is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. "(Victims) probably will never forgive me, but I am truly sorry and deeply regret the pain I caused."

The concept of forgiveness is a difficult one, especially when contemplating horrid, hate based crimes such as those of Mr. Furrow, Jr. and others who succumbed to a life based on hate and dehumanization.

Professor Morton Winston, Department of Philosophy and Religion, The College of New Jersey, gave an address in 2003 on this topic, and I’m going to draw upon it today. In his talk, Winston recalled a true story related by the famous Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal. Professor Winston re-tells the story in this manner:

Before the war Wiesenthal was an architect in the town of Lemburg in Glacia. He held two engineering degrees. But because he was Jewish he was not allowed to practice his profession and like millions of others was arrested in 1943 and shipped off to the Mathhausen concentration camp. Because he was still young and healthy he was not immediately "liquidated" but instead was assigned to slave labor on the Eastern railway.

One day and he and his fellow slaves were being marched out to work, they passed through the town of Lemburg, where Wiesenthal had taken his architecture degree some years earlier. As he was passing by one of the school building a plump nurse in a white cap came up to him and asked him, "Are you a Jew?" He was surprised by the question, since it must have been obvious to her by his clothes that he was a Jewish slave laborer, but he answered in the affirmative and the nurse motioned to him to follow her. When they entered what had been his former school building, he saw that it had been turned into a military hospital for German soldiers. The nurse led him upstairs and into a room that contained only a white bed a nightstand and a ghostly figure wrapped in white bandages. From the bed he heard a voice saying "Please come nearer, I cannot speak loudly." So Wiesenthal approached the bed.

As he drew near he realized that the figure in the bandages was a severely wounded German soldier. He thought that this soldier would soon die because he could see grayish-yellow stains on the bandages that covered his head. The voice from the bandages said. "I have not much longer to live. I know my end is near." And then he said, "I am only twenty-two years old." With what little strength he had, the dying German soldier grasped Wiesenthal's hand, and drew him closer.

Then he said, "When the sister told me there was a Jewish work detail in town I asked her to fetch me a Jew."

"I must tell you about a horrible deed - I must tell you because you are a Jew."

"I was not born a murderer. My name is Karl and I come from Stuttgart. I joined the SS as a volunteer at age 21.And then I was sent to fight the Russians on the Eastern Front. As our unit advanced, we encountered many dead and dying Russian soldiers. At first I felt bad for them, but one of my comrades spat on a groaning form before he shot him and said 'No pity for Ivan.' So I became harder."

"Then one hot summer day we came to the town of Dnyepropetrovsk. The Russians had retreated in great haste, but there was left a group of people huddled together under guard in the town square. I was told that they were Jews. An order was given and we marched towards this group of 150 or so Jews, many of them were children staring at us with fearful eyes. A truck pulled up and some cans of gasoline were unloaded from it and taken into a house. They we were ordered to drive the Jews into the house. Another truck came up with more Jews, and they too were crammed into the house. "

At this point, Wiesenthal knew what was coming. He had heard about these things before, and did not want to hear about this kind of gruesome business again, and tried to leave. But the dying German SS man gripped his arm and continued.

"Once the doors were barricaded we received the order to remove the safety pins from our hand grenades and to throw them through the windows of the house. When the grenades exploded they began to hear screams, and we saw that flames were eating through the floors of the building. Behind the windows on the second floor I saw a man with a small child in his arms. Behind him was a woman. The man's coat was on fire. He put one hand over the child's eyes and he jumped from the window holding the child. Then the woman jumped. Perhaps they were already dead when they hit the pavement. But we were ordered to shoot them. I can still see the child. He had dark hair and dark eyes. I can never forget this - the image of this family haunts me to this day."

"But later, while fighting in the Crimea I was wounded by an artillery shell, and I was brought here to this place to die. I want to die in peace, and so I need …" And he paused to catch his breath. "I need to be forgiven for this. Lying here in this bed I have longed to tell a Jew about this incident and to beg his forgiveness."

After hearing this Wiesenthal was silent. The room was silent. After a few moments, Wiesenthal pulled him arm away and left the room without saying a word. He rejoined his work detail and later was marched back to their camp, past the German military cemetery on the outskirts of town in which each soldier's grave had a sunflower planted upon it, and thought to himself that the German soldier will be lucky because when he dies will have a sunflower planted over his grave, while Simon's own dead body will be dumped into a mass grave or to fed to the flames of the crematoria.

That evening in the camp, Wiesenthal recounted this strange incident to his comrades. One of them said merely. "It is good that he will die. One less Nazi." But another, his friend Josek, said that he had done the right thing in not forgiving the dying SS soldier because he had no right to do so. "What people have done to you yourself, you can, if you like, forgive and forget. But it would have been a terrible sin to forgive this man for causing the suffering of others. You are in no position to forgive him"

But Wiesenthal replied: "Perhaps you are right. But this fellow showed deep and genuine remorse and repentance, he did not try to excuse himself for what he had done. And he realized that he had no more time to repent and make amends for his crimes. He was raised as a Christian. He was not raised to be a murderer. The Nazi's made him into one."

The next day when Wiesenthal was sent out to work again the same nurse came to him and asked that he follow her. He was dreading another visit to the dying SS soldier’s room, but instead she took him to another room, opened a closet and gave him a package. She said "The soldier you spoke with yesterday died last night. Before he died he told me to give you this package containing his possessions." Wiesenthal refused to take it. He told the nurse to send it all to the soldier's mother, whose address was on the package.

Wiesenthal survived. His camp was liberated by American troops in May of 1945. After the war, he went to visit the mother of the dying SS soldier that had offered him his confession. He saw the package that he had refused to take. But he did not tell the woman what her dying son had told him about what he had done to the Jews of the village of Dnyepropetrosk. He again remained silent.

At the end of this story Wiesenthal asks us to consider his moral dilemma. Was it wrong for him to remain silent and refuse to ease the last moments of a repentant Nazi? What about the silence of the Germans and Poles who said nothing as they watched their Jewish neighbors being led away to be slaughtered? The crux of the matter, he says, is the question of forgiveness. He asks that you who have now heard this story place yourself mentally in his situation and ask yourself, "What would I have done?"

Winston provided no “correct answer,” and neither did Wiesenthal. Winston ended his presentation by mentioning one of the most famous psychology experiments of all time. They even made a TV movie out of this.

Stanley Milgram attempted to see how likely it was that people could be induced to obey authority in defiance of their own consciences. His subjects were American college students. The subjects were told that they were taking part in a study of learning. One student posed as the learner (but was really an actor working for Milgram), while the real student subject was given a button to push and was told that he was to push it whenever the "learner" made a mistake. The subject was told that by pushing the button he would give the learner an electric shock. Participants were led to believe that the experimenter, by moving different switches could increase the level of the electric shock that would be deliver to the "learner" when the subject pressed the button. The learner was strapped to a chair in the next room and acted as if he was being shocked when the subject pressed the button. There were 30 switches ranging from 15 to 450 volts. At 75 volts the learner grunted' at 120 he began to protest, and 150 he demanded to be released from the experiment,. At 285 volts the learner began to scream and shriek. And this screaming and shrieking continued up the to maximum level of 450 volts with the switch that was marked Danger - Severe shock 450 volts.

Milgram found that of his 40 subjects, 26 continued all the way up to the last shock level on the generator. Sometimes they hesitated, but the experimenter just firmly told them to continue, and most of them did, even though the "learner" was screaming in agony. This was at Yale. Not believing the results of Milgram's study, another psychology professor, David Rosenhan repeated the experiment at Princeton. 80% of his subjects were fully obedient. There was, however, one student in Rosenhan's study who refused to give even the first shock. His name was Ronald Ridenhour. A few years later, when Ridenhour was in Vietnam, he was the one who blew the whistle on the American soldiers who murdered innocent civilians in the village of My Lai.

“Ridenhour proved that it is possible,” said Professor Winston, “to build up and strengthen our moral defenses and to guard ourselves against the tendencies that lead us to dehumanize others, to obey authorities that give illegal orders, and to stop up our ears to screams, and harden our hearts to the suffering of others. Humans do not have to be cruel to one another. We can and do learn to love one another.”

And yes, forgive.

By Burl Barer

If James Bond were real, the real "M" would be Dame Stella Rimington.

The former head of MI5 has, since stepping down, made outspoken attacks on the Government’s erosion of civil liberties, and warned that a culture of fear could lead to a police state. She warns that the Governments of the UK and the USA are doing the terrorists' work for them.

According to Rimington, the Government is "frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state."

"We at ABC are as guilty as any other media outlet," the network admitted in 2007, acknowledging its role in fear-mongering, "[and] the reason we scare people is simple: fear gets your eyeballs. For broadcast media, eyeballs equal ratings."

The pay-off for broadcasters, talk show hosts, and, yes, true crime writers is increased revenue. The pay off for the viewers, listeners and readers, however, is not so pleasant. This culture of fear not only distorts people's perceptions of life, but it manifests itself in laws and social policies far more dangerous than any of the overblown threats manufactured to get ratings or garner political support.

With the FBI confirming that they have never found a single al Qaeda terrorist cell in the United States, the "easier sell" for fear is the myth of the innumerable sexual predators prowling the Internet, and those damn "incurable" sex offenders going after your kids.

Most sexually abused children are not victims of convicted sex offenders nor Internet prowlers, and most sex offenders do not re-offend once released. This information is rarely mentioned by journalists more interested in sounding alarms than objective analysis.

"There's been some overreaction to the new technology, especially when it comes to the danger that strangers represent," said Janis Wolak, a sociologist at the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

Ask the average TV news watcher if sex assaults on teens is on the rise, and they will certainly assume the answer is yes, and that the increase is due in part to the Internet. FACT: Sex assaults on teens fell 52 percent from 1993 to 2005, according to the Justice Department's National Crime Victimization Survey, the best measure of U.S. crime trends.

Bottom line: "Driving kids to the mall, and leaving them there for two hours," says Wolak, is far more risky than having them wander around the Internet.

Now, let's take on those scary sex offenders who have been released to live among us. According to the Justice Department, sex offenders are in fact less likely to re-offend than other criminals. The study of nearly 10,000 men convicted of rape, sexual assault, and child molestation found that sex offenders had a re-arrest rate 25 percent lower than for all other criminals.

While the abduction, rape, and killing of children by strangers is very, very rare, such incidents receive a lot of media coverage, leading the public to overestimate how common these cases are. The vast majority of crimes against children are committed not by released sex offenders, but instead by the victim's own family, church clergy, and family friends. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, "based on what we know about those who harm children, the danger to children is greater from someone they or their family knows than from a stranger." If lawmakers and the public are serious about wanting to protect children, they should not be misled by "stranger danger" myths and instead focus on the much larger threat inside the home.

No discussion of this American culture of fear would be complete without mentioning the "real" threat of a terrorist attack. You know about those terrorist cells, right? You saw them in a made-for-tv movie. You also saw brain eating zombies in the movies, but you are not about to shred the Bill of Rights because of brain eating zombies.

WHAT IS THE REAL THREAT OF A TERRORIST ATTACK?
Sooner or later, someone would actually take the time and effort to figure that out. Professor John Mueller, a prestigious political science expert, and Chair of National Security at Ohio State University, did the calculations:

If terrorists were able to get past each of the 25 or more hurdles involved in assembling and deploying a nuclear weapon in the United States -- granting them a 50-50 chance of success at each stage -- their ultimate chance of success approaches something like one in a billion. "It becomes very close to an impossibility,'' says Mueller.

Assessing all the vulnerable points in American society -- from its shopping malls to trains and any place where large numbers of people assemble -- he suggests that the risk of trouble in any one place is infinitesimal.

"Since 9/11, some two million foreigners have been admitted to the United States legally and many others, of course, have entered illegally," he said, "Even if border security has been so effective that 90 percent of al Qaeda’s operatives have been turned away or deterred from entering the United States, some should have made it in -- and some of those, it seems reasonable to suggest, would have been picked up by law enforcement by now. The lack of attacks inside the United States combined with the inability of the FBI to find any potential attackers suggests that the terrorists are either not trying very hard or are far less clever and capable than usually depicted."

So, if the terrorist threat to the United States by al Qaeda is "overblown," what the hell is going on? This takes us back to Dame Rimminton's warning, and the "culture of fear."

The purpose of terrorists is to scare you. Politicians want to scare you to get votes and support. Media outlets want to scare you to get ratings. I don't want to make you paranoid, but we are all out to get you. Yes, YOU. This is all about YOU.

I know you are reading this. Your name is on a list. Your bank account number is on all your checks, or didn't you notice that? The telephone number of your business is in a big book with color coded pages, and there is a special agency of the United States Government that keeps track of every cent you ever earned, and it knows your Social Security number! Be afraid. Be very afraid. However, if you buy all my books, you can sleep at night knowing that one more champion of justice didn't go to bed hungry. After all, if you can't trust a true crime writer, who can you trust?

By Burl Barer

One of the tragic aspects of writing true crime is that there is no shortage of cases, criminals, or victims. Up in the Seattle area, there was a shoot-out in the Southcenter Mall. Who has a gun fight in a mall? Or a Toys-R-Us? It is insane. A shopping mall isn’t exactly a wild west saloon where whiskey fueled gunfighters lose their judgment and their lives in stupid shootouts.

Shootouts and lynchings were often “Western Justice.” There were no appeal processes in the wild west. Individuals short changed by “the system” back then were too dead to bemoan the pathetic papaucity of justice.

In the United States of America, the goals and processes of the “Criminal Justice System” have mutated over time. The current concept in America is that the criminal justice system is the means by which society enforces the “standards of conduct necessary to protect individuals and the community.” This system is comprised of Three C’s: Cops, Courts, and Corrections. In theory, these three operate within the rule of law.

Right. Sometimes yes; sometimes no. Evidence planting, perjured testimony, paid (ie bribed) informers/witnesses, and backroom deals can put the innocent away or the criminal free. Anytime someone goes out on a limb in pursuit of truth and justice, I applaud. Sometimes it is a lost cause, other times it is found justice. Hence I derive delight from the concept behind “Justice Interrupted.”

Justice Interrupted works to provide justice for those whose lives have been interrupted by rape, murder, sexual predators of children, strange and unexplained disappearances, domestic violence, and cold cases yet to be solved. Sadly, you will find ,more missing links at the their official web site than at the Natural History Museum in London.

The most important link tonight, however, I will gladly share. It’s the link to the live Justice Interrupted radio show airing at 8pm Pacific, 10pm Central, and 11pm Eastern. Tonights guest is ...yes, Burl Barer, author of MOM SAID KILL and the blog you are reading right this minute.

What will we talk about? Hopefully, MOM SAID KILL. In these trying ecomonic times, we purveyors of true crime books need all the ooomph we can get. I’m not referring to the bottle of Scotch issued with every typewriter or word processor purchased by a professional writer.

That is the stereotypical image—introspective author hunched over the keyboard, chain smoking, gulping down booze, popping pills and filling a syringe with God knows what.

Too often writers work alone at home, in a publisher's cubicle or cabin retreat. In those environs, it is easy to succumb to the deadly combination of isolation and addiction. While it is not all doom and gloom for writers who enjoy a drink or other recreational products, there are many writers whose lives are threatened by the inability to quit alcoholic drinking and serious substance abuse. Few writers have health insurance. The romantic image of the booze swilling author, or the high-as-a kite Gonzo Journalist fades against the sad reality of an author on the way to his personal Overlook Hotel experience.

I’m proud to announce that despite my shamefull lack of experience when it comes to drinking, I’ve been asked by Robert Downey Sr., Leonard Buschell, Vernon Scott, and Renee Echt to serve on the advisory board of Writers in Treatment, a new non profit organization that provides free inpatient recovery for up to sixty days at the finest and most reputable facillities for individuals 18 and over who earn 25% of their income from writing. Even if they have insurance, they are still eligible for full compassionate non-judgemental assistance.

For those who read rather than write, Writers in Treatment publishes a book every year of donated short stories, essays, screenplays, poems and non-fiction by some of the best writers in the world, including contribuors to In Cold Blog. This collection will be available from Amazon.com and other outlets, and all proceeds will benefit W.I.T. Writers In Treatment also sponsors creative writing workshops conducted by well known writers, poets, playwrights and memoirists.

Well, that’s my public service announcement for today. You can even see me give a short video howdy on the Writers In Treatment web site!

So, loyal fans and folks who stumbled here by accident, keep true crime on your reading list but out of your real life. Crime is serious business, and is best left to trained professionals. In conclusion: “When thinking outloud is outlawed, only outlaws will think outloud.”

My forthcoming book MOM SAID KILL, deals with a manipulative mother and troubled teens. Coming out in October, here is a glimpse of plot and subject matter. This is the prologue...you have to get through that before Chapter One. I'll give you a head start.

Prologue

On Saturday April 7th, 2001, Jeffrey Grote received the type of flattering invitation millions of 17-year-old boys get every year. A pretty 13-year-old blond sent her best friend across the roller skating rink to tell Grote, "my friend Heather thinks you’re cute." Grote introduced himself, the two skated together a few times, she gave him her phone number, and he promised to call.

The next day, true to his word, Jeff invited Heather to go bowling. She accepted the invitation. A few hours later, Heather Opel and Jeff Grote had sex in her younger brother’s bedroom.
When the sweat drenched and sexually satiated teens emerged from the bedroom, they found Heather’s mother, Barbara Opel, waiting for them. Heather asked if Jeff could spend the night, and sleep with her in the same bed. Mrs. Opel had no objection. Grote lingered on past the second day, ingratiating himself to the mother while penetrating the daughter.

As would any concerned parent, Mrs. Opel wanted to "have words" with her daughter’s suitor. Barbara Opel sat Jeff down for a serious chat. The topic wasn’t safe sex. It was murder.
Barbara Opel, live-in caregiver for 89-year-old Alzheimer’s afflicted and wheelchair bound Evelyn Heimann, asked Jeffrey Grote to help kill her employer, Evelyn’s son, Jerry Heimann. Heather, she explained, was already committed to the project.

The crime’s justification, according to Mrs. Opel, was that Heimann was cruel to Heather. That was a lie. Heimann, in truth, was exceptionally kind and generous to Barbara and her three children – Heather, 13, Derek, 11, and Tiffany, age 7.

"Barbara Opel nagged me to find someone to kill her boss," said Grote. "That’s all she talked about – hiring people to kill Jerry Heimann. At first I refused, but changed my mind when she promised to buy me a car and give my friends some cash. She said if we got rid of Jerry Heimann, we could get our hands on $40,000 he had in his bank account."

As for young Heather, her rationalization for killing Mr. Heimann was in perfect consonance with her emotional maturity. "I want a new bike," said Heather. "Mom says that if I help kill Jerry, I can have one."

Less than one week after Jeff Grote met Heather Opel, on the night of Friday the 13th, Jerry Heimann was savagely attacked in his own home by a rag-tag gang of teens and children, some as young as eleven. Seven year old Tiffany helped clean up the blood, and dutifully put pieces of the victim’s shattered scull in the trash.

Adorable, intelligent, charming, and affable, Heather Opel was a brilliant student and an accomplished sports star at Evergreen Middle School. She was the kind of girl you could hold up as a role model if it she hadn’t murdered an innocent and defenseless man, stabbing him repeatedly with a butcher knife while her best friend, Marriam Oliver, also a bright and promising youngster, bashed his head in with a baseball bat.

"Heimann was not only beaten with baseball bats and fists," recalled Sgt. Boyd Bryant of the Everett Police department, "but also repeatedly stabbed and slashed with kitchen knives."
"This wasn’t the first plot Barbara Opel hatched to kill her boss," explained Snohomish County Deputy Prosecutor Chris Dickinson, "it was just the first one that resulted in one death and several destroyed lives – not the least of which is that of her own daughter, the gifted and talented Heather Opel."


Heather Opel was born to Bill and Barbara Opel on Sept. 22, 1987. Within a year, neighbors in a Mill Creek apartment complained Barbara Opel was screaming at her baby. One anonymous caller said "the level of violent screaming is escalating and recently one of the neighbors has heard slaps to the baby." Child Protective Services workers visiting the apartment reported the baby was clean, and no evidence of abuse found.

The complaints continued, and neighbors reported the children were left unsupervised. Even Opel’s landlord called CPS, stating, "the mother has been yelling at Heather since the child was 3 months old."

"Heather’s environment was non-stop violence, both in language and behavior," commented a local social worker. "That little girl has been in counseling on and off since she was five or six years old."

Barbara was married for seven years to the father of Heather and Derek. She claimed that her husband, Bill Opel, was physically abusive. He accused her of the same. According to statements given by Barbara Opel, her husband forced Heather to drink Tabasco sauce for not going to the bathroom when told, hit the child with a pan, and locked the kids in a room as punishment.
Barbara obtained a series of restraining orders against William Opel before and after their 1991 divorce. When eleven year old Derek Opel was interviewed by a psychologist, the boy couldn't remember his father's name. He did recall, however, that the man broke his nose when he was five.

Barbara’s alleged behavior towards her offspring is equally distressing. Court records show the children were left alone for hours at a time as toddlers. A Child Protective Services report tells of an instance where little Derek tried running away from his mother. "She caught him and hit him and dragged him by the hair. It was reported that Derek was yelling `Don’t hit me mommy!"
There's no indication that CPS tried to remove the children from their mother's custody, but every indication that CPS continually offered parenting classes and stress management training to the Opel family – offers which Barbara Opel always refused.

Barbara Opel herself may have suffered abuse in her early life, and her mother, according to court documents, "has mental health issues of her own," and was investigated on allegations that she abused Barbara’s children.

Allegations of mistreatment and abuse were rampant. The bitter divorce between Barbara and Bill Opel was described by a consulting psychologist as "an active battle ground, and Barbara Opel's subsequent relationship was yet another minefield."

Explosive anger and top-volume tirades taught little Heather the importance of sidestepping anything that triggered her mother’s volatile emotions. Blessed with high intelligence, the child adapted to her scream-filled and chaotic environment. Heather quickly learned and internalized her life’s #1 Rule: Always Mind Your Mother.

"Heather is such a good kid," said a former school teammate, "But her mom always had like this big control over her. I mean, you’re supposed to do what your mom says, but when your mom tells you to murder somebody, maybe it’s time to not be so obedient, you know?"

"Heather’s allegiance to her mother was her downfall," said her father. "If her Mom says do it, Heather does it. Heather does not question mom." Everyone, however, questioned Barbara Opel’s constant screaming at her children -- screaming that reduced Heather to tears.

"I couldn't believe it," said Lane Erickson, a Verizon computer network engineer who coached for a Boys and Girls Club ball team in Everett. "Heather was the only girl on the boys’ team, and she was the best player by far. The only problem was that the mom would yell and scream at her, and Heather would start crying."

"Barbara Opel was so overbearing and out of control," confirmed William Tri, the coach of Heather’s baseball team, "that I made her one of my assistant coaches so I could control her from the dugout."

Known as "The Screaming Bitch from Hell," Barbara Opel’s foul mouth was well known in three neighborhoods. People who lived near her describe Barbara Opel as a woman who constantly screamed at her children. She grew up in Bothell, according to her ex-husband, and moved frequently. Court records show she was evicted at least three times for not paying rent.
"She was a lady I would never forget in my entire life," said Chris Perry, 25, who lived across the street from her for a couple of years. Barbara Opel had previously lived next door to Perry's best friend, Megan Slaker.

"I was dismayed when the woman moved into her neighborhood. She was just so mean," Perry said, "screaming at her kids all the time, all hours of the night. You would never hear her lovingly talking to her children."

"I wanted them to feel some love," said Slaker. "Opel's kids were often locked out of the house, so I would let them help me do yard work. She just didn't want them in the house, I guess," she said. "You feel compassion for children who you don't think are getting the love and attention they need."

Opel and her brood suddenly vanished from Perry's and Slaker's neighborhood in the middle of the night, during an eviction process. Candy Ochs, whose son was a classmate of Barbara Opel's 13-year- old daughter at Everett's View Ridge Elementary, said the woman used to say mean, derogatory things to children.

Barbara Opel denied Heather any contact with her father – a father who, despite any admitted character defects, promptly and regularly paid child support.

"In the seven years I’ve gone without seeing my 13-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son, I’ve never stopped thinking about them," said Bill Opel. "But I gave up on their mother years ago."
Barbara Opel refused to stick to the custody agreement after she and Bill Opel divorced in 1991, keeping the children from him for years. According to court records, prosecutors charged her with custodial interference in 1997 for not letting her ex-husband see the children. As an analysis of the case indicated low probability of conviction, prosecutors dropped the charges.

"Finally," Bill Opel says, "I stopped trying and moved to Wenatchee with my current wife and children. "I’ve just been writing my child-support checks and hoping they go to a good cause. I guess they didn’t."

"Barbara Opel wanted that money," said Prosecutor Dickenson. "She solicited near strangers to carry out her plan and, in the end, swayed a group of teens from broken homes to do her bidding. She took them in," he said, "partied with them, gave them a place to hang out. By meeting Grote, Barbara hit the jackpot because he was willing to actually follow through and commit murder. All together, we have uncovered four distinct plots by Barbara Opel to murder Jerry Heimann."

Wednesday April 18th, 2001
2:30 p.m.

"This is a matter of life or death,"

Mary Kay Standish, intake worker at Child Protective Services, urged the woman on the phone to stay calm.

"Barbra Opel is trying to murder her spouse by poisoning him," insisted the caller.

"How do you know this," asked Standish.

"She told my husband."

"When?"

"When she asked my husband to kill him."

"Call the Everett Police Department immediately." said Standish after securing the alleged victim’s address, "and tell them everything."

"I’ll tell them everything except my name," said the woman. "I’m scared that if Opel finds out, she’ll kill me too."

The woman, as directed, called the Everett Police Department and spoke to Sgt. Grassi. Consistent with her previous call to Standish, the woman refused to reveal her name. That wasn’t necessary. The Everett Police Department has Caller I.D. Grassi directed Detectives Callaghan and Phillips to determine the origin of the anonymous call, and interview the caller in depth.

"I found the name of the person for whom the telephone number is issued," recalled Detective Jimmy Phillips. " A computer records check revealed the number belonged to Johan Folden of Standwood, Washington. We drove to the Folden residence where we met Mrs. Folden and her daughter, Terrica Goudeau. It was Goudeau who admitted that she called Sgt. Grassi."

"I called," Mrs. Goudeau explained, "because of information that I heard from my husband, Henry. He’s been visiting his ex-girlfriend, Barbara Opel, who works as a live-in caretaker for a man's sickly and elderly mother. About two weeks ago Henry spent the night at Barbara’s. He said it was because he'd had a couple beers and didn't want to drive home after drinking. While he was there, she asked Henry to kill the guy she works for, and she promised him five thousand dollars before and five thousand more afterwards if Henry would kill the guy."

When Mrs. Goudeau first revealed the nefarious plot to Sgt. Peter Grassi of the Everett Police Department, Mary Kay Standish had already reported the call to her supervisor, James Mead. He, in turn, called in Gary Bright, an Adult Protective Services investigative social worker assigned to Home and Community Service for the State of Washington, Department of Social and Health Services.

"Adult Protective Services is a branch of home community services," explains Bright, "and our agency investigates allegations or concerns of or neglect of vulnerable adults. With the exception of issues around picking up children or having an ability to take somebody into custody, we don't have those custodial rights to incarcerate somebody or put them in a facility without their will or against their will. We get reports on a daily basis from the community, from mandated reporters, regarding concerns of abuse and neglect of the elderly, or people over the age of 18, who are classified as developmentally delayed in some way, and we respond to those reports. Of course, we have policies and procedures regarding how we handle complaints of abuse and neglect. We have a tip line that people can call in with concerns about people who are being neglected or abused. It’s called 1-800-END-HARM. Some people identify themselves when they call; other tips are anonymous. Both types of tips, identified people and anonymous tips, are investigated by our agency, and that is exactly what transpired when that call came in about Mr. Heimann. Mead asked me to call 911," confirmed Bright "and requested a welfare check on an alleged poisoning of a man in North Everett. I made the initial call, and then called to tell them that I was on my way to the residence to personally investigate, and they could call me on my cell phone."

Bright found the home dark and quiet. On the front porch was a bundle of blankets held down with a brick. When his repeated knocks received no answer, he requested information from a friendly neighbor woman. "After I went to the front door to see if anybody would answer, and nobody answered," Bright explained, "I went to a neighbor who was next-door, asked them if they knew anything about the people living in that home. The neighbor told me that somebody had moved out and had taken a U-Haul filled with belongings, and there were some children involved. And the person, the older gentleman who was living there, drove a maroon sports car."

Bright looked for the maroon sports car behind the house, but found no vehicles. He was knocking on the front door one more time when his cell phone rang. "It was the Everett Police Department," said Bright. "They told me that there wouldn’t be a police officer dispatched because they can’t force their way into someone’s home simply because of a phone call. I decided to come back the next day."

Gary Bright drove away. It was several hours before anyone found the demented old woman in the blood stained wheelchair.

Juvenile crime in America has dropped approximately 40% since 1994, yet two-thirds of Americans believe that juvenile crime is rising. In the ten-year period between 1982 and 1992, total youth crime increased by less than one half of one percent.

Voters and legislators across the country, of whom 82% derive their assessment of youth crime severity from news stories, are approving increasingly punitive measures to address this imaginary increase in youth crime. Policies advocated as a direct result of consistent media misinformation ignore the utility of youth development, prevention, intervention, and rehabilitation – the founding principles of America’s Juvenile Justice system.

A media analysis of news coverage of juvenile justice generated over a 15-month period from January 1, 1999, to March 21, 2000, and involving over 1,500 articles, including news articles, op-eds, editorials, and letters-to-the-editor, were collected by searching through five major California newspapers. Also analyzed were wire stories with datelines originating in these same cities. Numerous articles republished by the five newspapers, but originating from national sources such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, were also captured. The Data Center in Oakland, California performed a major portion of the data collection.

The study was funded by Open Society Institutes's Center on Crime, Community and Culture, with additional funding was provided by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Unitarian-Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock.

Of 817 articles where youth were perpetrators of crimes, advocates for youth were quoted less than 14 percent of the time, whereas law enforcement was quoted 43 percent of the time. Prosecutors and judges were quoted 31 percent of the time. Politicians were quoted 16 percent of the time. The people most affected by crime coverage, youth portrayed as perpetrators in news stories, were quoted less than 8 percent of the time.

This study identified the common policy story themes running through the media coverage of the public policy debate on juvenile justice, and also identified the messages (sound bites, direct quotes, and indirect quotes) from advocates that promoted these themes.

Despite the FBI’s confirmation that juvenile crime was at a 15-year low, the notion that youth crime was “out of control,” “increasingly violent,” and “worse now than forty years ago” dominated the news stories.

Factual information to the contrary, reporters most often did not question these assertions. When journalists did reference the recent FBI reports regarding the decrease in juvenile crime, incarceration proponents predicted a juvenile crime wave around the corner. Even then, journalists failed to point out that previous predictions had not materialized (see for example “Juvenile Arrests in U.S. Decline” Los Angeles Times, 10/18/99).

Running throughout news stories, the study noted, is the stereotype of the “super predator youth.” According to the study, “This theme was also driven by the failure of journalists to examine whether harsher penalties lead to lower juvenile crime rates and whether harsher penalties are more effective at lowering crime than other strategies.”

Of the 1536 stories on juvenile justice and youth crimes, only 46 articles or 3 percent even mentioned alternatives to incarceration. The assertion that the juvenile justice system “does not work” was prevalent in coverage. Moreover, the juvenile justice system was described as a failure because it is too “lenient” and “outdated.”

Proponents of harsher penalties frequently and consistently claimed that rehabilitation has either failed or should not be available to young people who commit violent crimes or drug crimes. “Journalists did not examine the impact of incarceration on youth,” the study noted, “whether rehabilitation works for young people, or what effect incarceration without rehabilitation has on the reduction of youth crime.”

A typical quote came from former California Governor Pete Wilson, who spoke of voters “voting to retake California’s neighborhoods, schools, and businesses from vicious street gangs who for too long have hidden behind a lenient and outdated juvenile justice system.” (“Authorities Fear Fallout, but Weigh Options,” Los Angeles Times, 3/14/2000)

In addition, almost none of the stories describing failures in the juvenile justice system studied systemic or institutional reasons for recidivism, or youth crime in general. The portrayal of rehabilitation strategies as failures, and incarceration strategies as successful, went unchallenged by journalists.

These prevailing attitudes and public policy, primarily based upon media promulgated misinformation, has resulted in not only an historic increase in the incarceration of children, but also the execution of young people. Since 1992, International law has prohibited the use of capital punishment against those who were under 18 at the time of a crime. The United States signed and ratified this International Covenant, but “reserved the right” to execute children and those who committed crimes while they were under 18.

The United States executed a total of 13 juvenile offenders since reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976, and 10 of those executions occurred during the 1990s. Only four other countries are known to have executed juvenile offenders during this decade: Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The US executed more juvenile offenders than the other four countries combined.

Despite worldwide protests, on February 4th, 1999, the State of Oklahoma executed Sean Sellers, diagnosed with extreme mental illness, for crimes committed when he was a 15-years old. His execution marked the first time in 40 years that the United States executed someone for crimes committed below the age of 17.

The case of Sean Sellers was the subject of documentaries on A&E and MSNBC, in addition to many foreign network programs. He garnered the support of Amnesty International, various religious groups world wide, and counted among his supporters Bianca Jagger and Desmond TuTu.

Sean Sellers was born in California on 18 May 1969 to a 16-year-old mother and an unstable alcoholic father, who were divorced when Sean was three or four years old. His mother, Vonda, then married Paul Bellofatto, a kind and respected war hero who was raising his own daughter and son from a previous marriage.

An intelligent child, Sean performed well at school, but became more and more emotionally disturbed and detached from reality as he approached adolescence. . Sellers began hearing voices in his head at about age six, often criticizing him. At the time he thought all people heard such voices. For years he displayed extremely paranoid behavior. He would fix threads to doors and brush the nap of the rug in one direction before he would leave his bedroom, in order to see if anyone entered the room. He was subject to extreme mood swings, sometimes euphoric, other times suicidal.

By age 15, he was storing vials of his blood in the refrigerator, some of which he drank at school. He would perform acts of self-mutilation, such as putting sharp objects into his scalp. He became involved with drugs, taking amphetamines in order to stay awake and carry out his versions of so-called Satanic rituals.

He dreamed often of killing and mutilating people, including his own parents. Then, in March of 1986, after going three days without sleep, young Sean Sellers shot his mother and stepfather as they slept in their bed.

The brutal murder of her father and stepmother by her younger stepbrother traumatized eighteen- year-old Noelle Bellofatto. About to graduate high-school, she was further shocked to discover that six months before the killing of Vonda and Paul Bellofatto, Sean Sellers murdered a shop clerk named Robert Paul Bower at the Circle K convenience store in Oklahoma City.

While Noelle struggled to maintain her own sanity and sense of purpose, Sean Sellers was tried for all three murders. In the absence of any forensic evidence linking him to either crime, Sean Sellers’ best friend, Richard Howard, who was with him at the time of Robert Bower’s murder, provided the prosecution’s main evidence.

Howard was also initially charged with first-degree murder, but the state dismissed the charge and recommended that he be given a five-year suspended sentence in exchange for testimony against his friend. Howard claimed that Sean Sellers had said that he killed Robert Bower because he "wanted to see what it feels like to kill somebody." Howard then testified that in the early hours of 5 March 1986, Sean Sellers had come to his house and told him that he had killed his parents.

Sellers' public defender was provided with only $750 to spend on any expert witnesses' fees, as well as their travel costs, expenses and lodging. Exactly one year following the murders , March 1987, Dr Dorothy Lewis, a professor of psychiatry, examined Sean Sellers. She found him to be chronically psychotic, exhibiting symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia and other major mood disorders. She described how he was in poor touch with reality at times and was overwhelmed by fantasy.

The state of Oklahoma has a legal procedure that calls for post-trial consideration of newly discovered evidence under certain standards. According to Sellers' attorney, Steve Presson, Sellers' case overwhelmingly met those standards. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) refused to consider the evidence.

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals was shocked at OCCA's refusal, and wrote that OCCA made several errors in Sellers' case. However, due to the limited nature of federal habeas corpus relief, the Tenth Circuit Court would not intervene. The Tenth Circuit Court did issue what amounted to an invitation for executive clemency and for the state courts to reconsider Sellers' case in light of the MPD and the mistakes the state courts made.

On January 27, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 5-0 to deny clemency to Sean Sellers. The hearing was held in the chapel of the Jackie Brannon Correctional Center (JBCC) in McAlester, Oklahoma.

Dianna Craun, one of the jurors who sentenced Sellers to death, spoke on his behalf at the clemency hearing. She said that the jury was given two choices of sentencing: a life sentence (with the possibility of parole) or the death penalty. (Oklahoma now has a third alternative - life without parole.)

Craun and the other jurors thought that a life sentence would mean that Sean would serve 7-15 years in prison, and that this sentence was too lenient for the murders. She stated that since Oklahoma had not executed anyone for 20 years at the time of the trial, the jurors did not honestly expect that Sean would ever be executed. They thought that the only way to ensure a long prison sentence for him was to choose the death penalty. If clemency had been granted, Sellers' sentence would have been converted to life without the possibility of parole.

Craun also stated that if the jury had been aware of Sean's mental illness, it would have changed the sentence he was given. As soon as the testimony in the clemency hearing was over and Sellers' was taken from the chapel, all five Board members voted to deny clemency

Sellers’ family and siblings never spoke to the media, or granted interviews until his clemency hearing. “I had to endure years of seeing his face and hearing his versions of what he had done,” said his stepsister, Noelle. “I finally spoke to state media before his clemency hearing to save the respect of my father, step mother and Robert Bower the store clerk.”

"Reach out to God and he will hear you. Let him touch your hearts. Don't hate all your lives," Sean Sellers, 29, said before he was executed by injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

The Washington Post, January 25, 1999, offered a well-balanced report, first offering a statement opposing his execution from the Death Penalty Information Center, followed by counter commentary by Sellers step-siblings who portrayed him as a self-serving psychopath. National Public Radio aired death row interviews with Sellers leading up to his final hours.