Uncle John’s True Crime (6 page)

—Washington Post

GRANDMADAM

“Lindenwold, New Jersey, police made a surprising discovery when they busted the alleged madam of a prostitution ring. The woman running the show was an 80-year-old grandmother.

“Authorities arrested Vera Tursi last month during a sting operation to crack down on prostitution rings posing as legal escort services. Tursi admitted her role in the business, saying she took it over a few years ago from her daughter, who had died. Tursi said she needed money to subsidize her Social Security checks.

“Undercover police first began to wonder about the age of their suspect when they called the escort service as part of their sting operation. They said she seemed to have difficulty breathing.”

—CNN

Technically, the words “insane” and “insanity” are legal definitions, not medical terms
.

Like the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency has its own list of most-wanted fugitives...only these are environmental criminals
.

C
RIMINAL:
William Morgan

COMPANY:
Hydromet Environmental

STORY:
Morgan was CEO of this Illinois-based hazardous-waste management and disposal company. Other companies—attempting to responsibly dispose of their own toxic and chemical waste—paid Morgan’s company to do it for them. One problem: Hydromet wasn’t always equipped to safely or legally handle the waste. The EPA alleges that between 1995 and ’98, Morgan allowed his company to accept more than 3.8 million pounds of cyanide, arsenic, and lead. Instead of doing what they were hired to do, Morgan ordered his workers to either store the stuff in warehouses or dump it in municipal landfills, potentially exposing thousands of people to hazardous materials. After the waste was traced back to Hydromet, Morgan denied any involvement. He was indicted in 2006 for making false statements to the Illinois state EPA, illegal transportation of hazardous waste, and conspiracy. He fled to Canada, where he lived until his death in 2008.

CRIMINAL:
John Karyannides

COMPANY:
Sabine Transportation

STORY:
Karyannides, a Sabine VP, received an urgent call in 1999 from the crew of one of the company’s cargo ships. They were in the middle of the South China Sea carrying about a million pounds of wheat to aid in humanitarian efforts in Bangladesh, but a diesel fuel leak had contaminated their cargo, rendering it useless. What should they do? Karyannides’s answer: Dump all of the tainted wheat into the ocean. The company’s lawyers later claimed that the crew cleaned the wheat before dumping it overboard, which investigators ruled was “impossible,” given the limited equipment on board. Sabine was ordered to pay a $2 million fine; Karyannides, however, disappeared and is still at large. Among other charges he faces are illegal oil dumping and conspiracy. His last known whereabouts: Athens, Greece.

While in prison, serial killer John Wayne Gacy made over $100,000 from sales of his artwork
.

CRIMINAL:
Bhavesh Kamdar

COMPANY:
Industrial Site Services

STORY:
In 2001 Kamdar won a $12 million contract with the state of New York to replace underground storage tanks for oil and gasoline at police stations, prisons, and other public buildings. But by 2004 it had become all too evident to state officials that Kamdar’s tanks were prone to leaks. As a result, an unknown amount of groundwater in upstate New York had been contaminated. In addition, Kamdar overbilled the state by $1.1 million for contractual expenses that actually totalled only $59,000. With the investigation heating up, Kamdar fled to his home country of India but was arrested by an Interpol agent in 2006. If he’s ever extradited to the United States, he’ll stand trial on more than 30 charges, for which he could receive prison time and as much as $5.9 million in fines.

CRIMINAL:
Denis Feron

COMPANY:
Chemetco

STORY:
Illinois-based Chemetco, one of the nation’s largest copper processors, produced a
lot
of toxic industrial waste in its day-to-day operations of refining lead, zinc, and cadmium—which, in high concentrations, are deadly to humans and animals. Rather than dispose of it responsibly (or legally), Chemetco CEO Denis Feron ordered a secret pipe be built from the company’s smelting plant to Long Lake in Illinois. For a decade, from 1986 to ’96, that pipe dumped potentially fatal concentrations of waste into the lake. After the pipe was discovered, Feron was indicted for conspiring to violate the Clean Water Act but fled (reportedly) to Belgium before his trial began. If captured, Feron faces a five-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine. Chemetco, meanwhile, went bankrupt, and the facility is likely to become an EPA Superfund toxic cleanup site, meaning it’s one of the most polluted places in the United States. Feron remains at large.

*
*
*

“The biggest corporation, like the humblest private citizen, must be held to strict compliance with the will of the people.”

—
Theodore Roosevelt

After Japan’s biggest bank heist ($5.4 million), the bank got a thank-you note from the robbers
.

We first ran this mysterious story in our 1999 edition
, Uncle John’s Absolutely Absorbing Bathroom
. In subsequent years, a new piece of evidence has been uncovered that may finally reveal the culprits responsible for one of the most-talked-about unsolved disappearances in American history
.

J
UDGE JOSEPH CRATER

Claim to Fame:
Newly appointed justice of the New York Supreme Court—a shoo-in to win reelection in November, and a potential appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court

Disappearance:
Crater and his wife were vacationing in Maine on August 3, 1930, when he received a phone call from New York City. Clearly disturbed, he announced to her that he had to go “straighten those fellows out.” Then he left for New York.

Crater was apparently taking a break from business when, on the evening of August 6, he bought a ticket for a show and arranged to pick it up at the box office. Then he went to Billy Haas’s restaurant, where he ran into friends and joined them for dinner. Later, he took a cab to the theater, waving from the taxi as it disappeared. Someone
did
pick up the theater ticket...but no one knows if it was Crater—he was never seen again. Nine days later, his wife notified the police, and a massive manhunt began.

What Happened: Police searched Crater’s apartment and found nothing suspicious. They offered rewards for information...but not even the taxi driver came forward. Even after interviewing 300 people—resulting in 2,000 pages of testimony—they still had no clues to his whereabouts.

But as the investigation continued, police—and the public—were astonished to see Crater’s carefully constructed facade unravel. It turned out, for example, that he’d kept a number of mistresses and had often been seen on the town with showgirls. More surprising however, was his involvement in graft, fraud, and political payoffs. Crater was a player in two major scandals, which came to light after he vanished. It also seemed
as though he’d be implicated in the Ewald Scandal, which involved paying for a city appointment; there was even evidence that Crater had paid for his
own
appointment to the bench.

Of the 8,000 or so cases filed with the Supreme Court each year, only about 150 are heard
.

Crater’s fate was hotly debated by the public. Some were sure he was murdered by gangster associates. Others—noting that the judge had removed files containing potentially incriminating evidence from his office just before he disappeared—speculated that political cronies had killed him to shut him up. Or maybe a mistress who’d been blackmailing him had done it. Then again, perhaps the judge had committed suicide rather than watch his career crumble because of scandal. Whoever was responsible, and whatever happened to the body, it was assumed Crater was dead.

Postmortem:
Crater’s wife suffered a nervous breakdown and didn’t return to their New York apartment until January 1931. There, she found an envelope in the top drawer of her dresser. It contained $6,690 in cash, the judge’s will, written five years before (leaving his entire estate to her), and a three-page penciled note that listed everyone who owed the judge money. It closed with the words, “Am very weary. Love, Joe.” The police department had searched the apartment thoroughly, and had kept a 24-hour guard on it since the disappearance—so no one could imagine how or when the envelope had gotten there. But it gave rise to another possibility: Crater had intentionally disappeared.

Nothing more came of it. In July 1937, Judge Joseph Force Crater was declared legally dead, and his wife collected on his life insurance. By then, New York’s police commissioner believed that “Crater’s disappearance was premeditated.” The famous file 13595 remains open to this day—no trace of Crater or his body have ever been found.

Update:
In 2005, after 91-year-old Stella Ferrucci-Good died in Queens, her daughter found an envelope marked “Do not open until my death.” Inside was a letter that implicated the cabbie who picked up Crater as well as his brother, a crooked cop. The letter claimed that they merely wanted to “rough him up,” but Crater fought back and was killed. He was buried underneath the boardwalk on Coney Island, where the New York Aquarium is now located. Five skeletons
were
found there in the 1950s, but then they were piled on top of thousands of others in unmarked mass graves on Hart Island. Because it would be nearly impossible to test all of the bones to get a match for Judge Crater, the case remains open.

John Dillinger once escaped from prison using a piece of wood shaped like a gun
.

Many of our Canadian readers have sent us items about life in the Great White North...including some strange
Canadian laws. Here are a few examples
.

In Canada, it’s illegal to jump from a flying airplane without a parachute.

In Nova Scotia, you’re not allowed to water the lawn when it is raining.

In Toronto, it’s illegal to drag a dead horse along Yonge Street on Sunday.

A maritime law in Canada specifies that two vessels cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

In Quebec, margarine must be a different color from butter.

The city of Guelph, Ontario, is classified as a “no-pee zone.”

In Montreal, you may not park a car in such a way that it is blocking your own driveway.

It’s illegal to ride a Toronto streetcar on Sunday if you’ve been eating garlic.

In Alberta, wooden logs may not be painted.

It is illegal to kill a Sasquatch in British Columbia.

An Etobicoke, Ontario, by-law states that no more than 3.5 inches of water is allowed in a bathtub.

In Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, you can only buy liquor with a doctor’s prescription.

Burnaby, B.C., has a 10 p.m. curfew—for dogs.

An anti-noise ordinance in Ottawa makes it illegal for bees to buzz.

Pedestrians on Toronto sidewalks must give a hand signal before turning.

In Vancouver, BC, it’s illegal to ride a tricycle over 10 mph.

It is illegal to sell antifreeze to Indians in Quebec.

Tightrope walking over the main streets of Halifax is prohibited. (Side streets are okay.)

According to one study, if Sherlock Holmes were real, his IQ would be about 190
.

Sure, committing crimes looks all glamorous and fun on the screen, but try it in real life and the result is often two thumbs down
.

M
ONKEY SEE:
In the 1971 film
The Godfather
, Corleone family henchmen intimidate a Hollywood mogul by killing his prize racehorse and sticking the horse’s head in his bed.

MONKEY DO:
In 1997 two New York crooks decided to use a similar method to intimidate a witness scheduled to testify against them. On the morning of the trial, the witness found an unwelcome surprise on his doorstep. “We wanted to leave a cow’s head,” admitted one of the crooks, “because his wife is from India, and they consider cows sacred.” Unable to find a cow’s head in Brooklyn, they went to butcher and got a goat head. “We figured it was close enough.” It wasn’t. They both went to prison.

MONKEY SEE:
On an episode of
MacGyver
, MacGyver rubs his nose on some buttons so he can later determine which ones were pressed (because the oils from his nose were smudged). He figures out the secret code.

MONKEY DO:
An employee at a Bangkok hotel tried the same tactic with guests’ safety deposit boxes. He was caught and sent to prison.

MONKEY SEE:
In 1996, 17-year-old Steve Barone of Royal Palm Beach, Florida, was
really
into
Pulp Fiction
,
Reservoir Dogs
, and
Goodfellas
.

MONKEY DO:
After he was caught while trying to rob a gun store, Barone claimed at his trial that he’d been taken over by another personality—a combination of the “wise guys” from those three crime movies. The judge rejected the “
Pulp Fiction
defense,” as the press called it, and sentenced “Mr. Vincent Vega Henry Hill White” to four years in prison.

MONKEY SEE:
The
Nancy Drew
books chronicle the adventures of a teenage detective who must often think quickly to get out of danger.

MONKEY DO:
An 11-year-old Michigan girl was kidnapped and thrown into the trunk of her car. Instead of panicking, she asked herself, “What would Nancy Drew do?” She then found a toolbox, pried the trunk open, ran to a phone booth, and called the cops. The kidnappers were arrested.

A human body decomposes four times faster in water than on land
.

Don’t be a swindler and cheat your way out of these crime word origins. It would be downright taboo
.