Hi Everyone:
We took last week off as previously indicated. We're back this week, (obviously) hopefully next week, and then our special edition on the first weekend of August. Then we'll have our season finale on August 13.
Hope everyone is having a good summer so far.
CRIME (Part I): The Gilgo Beach Murders suspect in custody...
On July 13, police arrested Rex Heuermann a 59 year old architect from Massapequa Park on suspicion that he committed a series of murders on Long Island, and dumped the bodies in various spots along Gilgo Beach. Heuerman was arrested near his midtown Manhattan office.
The murders were committed between 2007 and 2010. In 2020, new advances in DNA testing led forensic scientists to re-analyze hair that had been found on one of the victims. While that alone did not point to Heuermann, it narrowed down the field of suspects substantially.
2 years later, in March of 2022, detectives first identified Heuerman as a suspect. Witnesses had reported seeing a pickup truck near where the bodies were found and Heuermann had a Chevy Avalanche registered to him in 2010. They were also able to determine that Heuermann had made purchases near where calls from burner phones to the victims and their families had been made.
Now here is the most interesting part of how they nailed this guy...
This past January, detectives took a pizza box found in a garbage can outside Heuermann's office. They sent the crust of the pizza out to a lab in Suffolk County, who was able to link the DNA on file to Heuermann.
Now they did a ton of other test and analysis, the amount they did was unreal to be honest. There are some who are questioning why this took so long. From where I'm sitting it seems like they wanted to make sure every i was dotted and t was crossed. I believe everyone is innocent till proven guilty just like the constitution says, but the case against this guy looks air tight, what with all the evidence that was painstakingly gathered and analyzed.
Now in so many of these cops shows I've watched over the years, I can't tell you how many were solved based on a cigarette butt the perp was smoking right before they committed whatever heinous crime was the topic that week.
Now we get a case solved in part by someone who didn't like the crust on his pizza.
Not that I would ever dream of committing anything so heinous, for the obvious reason that I'm not a monster. But if they were to try to nail me for a crime, it wouldn't be off a cigarette butt cuz I find smoking disgusting. And I've never met a slice of pizza I didn't polish off crust and all. Years ago, they could have gone to Donovan's and collected all the empty Coors Light bottles I drank. But I digress.
Again, give the police all the kudo's in the world for their patience, their focus and their tenacity. Looks like they nailed the sick f-ck.
On the flip side of this...
CRIME (Part II) Manson Follower Freed
Leslie Van Houten, a former follower of Charles Manson, who participated in one of the gruesome murders carried out by the "family" was released on parole from a California prison on July 11th. Van Houten had been recommended for parole two other times, only to have governors Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsome reverse the decisions. Newsome's office released a statement saying that while he still disagreed with the decision to parole Van Houten he would "not pursue further action as efforts to further appeal are unlikely to succeed."
Van Houten was 19 On August 10, 1969, when she, along with several accomplices, broke into the house of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. and slaughtered the couple, stabbing them dozens of times. The night before, Sharon Tate, the pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski, was killed in similar fashion, along with 4 of her houseguests.
Now I'm all for people being rehabilitated and things like that, and I'm quite certain Van Houten, a month short of 74 years old, isn't going to go out and stab anyone, but I'm sorry, some crimes are just too awful to say, "Yeah I think they learned their lesson." I mean, these people weren't shot by a sniper where they never knew what hit them, they were tortured and sliced up in ways I can barely bring myself to imagine.
And few things spook me more than seeing pictures and/or video of Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins are they are being led to court in 1970*, smiling and laughing as if they are heading off to a Crosby, Stills and Nash concert. That makes the hair on my arm stand up.
I'm sure somewhere along the line she realized the severity of what she had done and felt regret for her actions. But as far as I'm concerned, they should have locked her up and thrown away the key. Nobody who participated in those murders should ever see the light of day again.
All right, let's do a book review to lighten up the mood here a bit, especially if you root for that team in da Bronx...
BOOK REVIEW: 1998 Yankees: The Inside Story of the Greatest Baseball Team Ever
By: Jack Curry
I was all in on the 1996 Yankees.
The Mets had been bad for most of the 90's. There had been no post season baseball in NY since the Mets disastrous loss to the Dodgers in the 1988 NLCS.** The Yanks would have made the post-season in 1994 except for the strike, and they had squeaked into the playoffs in 1995, only to loss a heartbreaking 5 game series to the Mariners.
When the Yanks beat the Rangers to advance to the 1996 ALCS, I was totally on board. And when they beat the hated Braves in the 1996 World Series I was over the moon. It wasn't quite the same feeling I had two years before, when the Rangers ended their 54 year Stanley Cup drought and I stayed out all night partying (on a Tuesday, oh the joys of my college years) but it was awesome just the same.
By 1998 though, the shine was off the apple. I still rooted for the Yanks, but it wasn't the same. The Mets choked away a wild card spot and that had left a bad taste in my mouth. The Yanks winning their first World Series since 1978 was fun, but this was now, well, not so much.
That being said, this look back at that Yankee season, by a guy who was there for all of it, Jack Curry, was a lot more fun than having lived through it. I won't spoil it for you, but I'll share a couple of things I found interesting..
1) We all know David Wells was hungover when he pitched his perfect game. You wanna talk about things that make my blood boil, how many times Tom Seaver, who was as disciplined and focused as anyone who ever pitched, came close to a no-hitter, only to have this fat boozehound pitch one after partying the night away in Manhattan. What I didn't know was that his drinking companion that night was none other than former SNL cast member and current Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon. I have to admit, I thought that was pretty cool.
2) The Yankees opened up the 1998 season in Anaheim against the Angels. Before that, there were scheduled to play San Diego State in an exhibition game. For reasons I don't quite understand, (Curry tries to explain it but I don't get it) the plane wasn't allowed to make two stops in the United States. In order for the Yanks to get to San Diego, they had to fly to Tijuana and take a bus to san Diego. The story of that trip is one you have to read to believe.
I really enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. It reminded me again yes I'm a Met fan first, but I really do love the game of baseball. Plus, there were some games I remember clearly. They went into detail about the game El Duque pitched against the Indians, Game 4 of the ALCS. They had lost Game 2 on Chuck Knoblach's bone headed play in the field, and lost Game 3 6-1 in Cleveland. For the first time, the Yanks were facing adversity. El Duque tossed a shutout in Game 4 and the Yanks didn't lose another game that year.
Woodsy and I watched Knoblach's play at a bar near Grand Central. I watched the El Duque game at the Mug Shot Saloon on Third avenue, after a particularly rough day working at an OTB in Ridgewood, right on the border of Bushwick. That fall of 1998 wasn't a great time in my life, but reading about those games brought back some of the good times I had back then.
4.5 Auggies.
TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS: Crappy Commute in Connecticut
A tractor trailer that was carrying human waste caused a multi vehicle accident on I-95 near Bridgeport, Connecticut last Monday night.
The driver was arrested by Connecticut state troopers because they believed the driver was aware that the truck was leaking and continued on anyway.
The driver's name (I $h-t you not) is Shaky Joseph of Waterbury CT. The leak of the human waste caused multiple vehicles to skid out and crash, including the two arresting cops, and a motorcycle rider who was taken to the hospital with minor injuries and stinky clothes. The reports said he was treated, I'm hoping he was also showered, and released.
All told, 10 vehicles were involved in this $h-t, the cops cruisers were wrecked when another truck skidded into them, but the cops were uninjured as they were helping others involved. The only injuries reoprted were that of the guy on the motorcycle, otherwise I wouldn't be making light of it as much as I am.
Couple of things here... I'm never going to knock anyone responsible for taking care of getting rid of our crap. that's one of those "Someone's gotta do it" gigs that I suspect the majority of us aren't interested in. But if I in charge of hiring the drivers, I might hesitate to hire someone named Shaky to transport the poop from here to there. Fidgety maybe, Cranky probably, but not Shaky.
Shaky was arrested and charged with reckless driving, reckless endangerment and failure to secure a load. Or in this case multiple loads.
I'm here all week folks. Don't forget to tip your bartenders.
That's all we got for this week.
Stay Safe
and Have a Great Week
*Krenwinkel has a parole hearing scheduled in November. Atkins died in jail 2009. Manson died in jail in 2017.
** Mike Vaccaro did a special in the Post a couple weeks ago about the 1988 Mets. 35 years later that still stings.
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