'Beyond Reasonable Doubt'

by Dennis Gelbaum
http://www.beyondreasonabledoubtbook.com

This is the story Jason Warren hired me to tell - its got more twists and
turns that a double helix!

To get his hands on his family fortune, Jason Warren has to prove DNA
evidence convicting his stepfather of his mother's murder was wrong. With
the help of research scientist and DNA expert, Dr. Jennifer Neal and a team
of doctors and graduate students from the USCOM North American Research
Center at UC Berkeley, he sets out to challenge the International scientific
community and the American judicial system. Think about all those we have
found guilty solely on DNA evidence - think about all those we have set free
solely on DNA evidence? Think about it.

I brought in two experts - a retired FBI agent and a psychiatrist - to help

me through the process. They both warned me about Jason. We often disagreed
about what the truth was. I could not tell this story without them.

THE FIRST FIVE CHAPTERS

CHAPTER ONE

I was sitting at my desk, relaxing, daydreaming, and looking out the window. Our
neighbor's always annoying, white and brown cat had just passed by, not a care in
the world. She acted like she owned the place. Three squirrels were looking for
food. The fat one came up to the window and stared at me. I stared back, growled
and barked like a dog. He ran off, laughing at me. I remembered his brother, who
not long ago had caused a power failure on our street. The squirrel had obviously
climbed onto a transformer looking for food and touched a high voltage conductor
and a grounded portion of the transformer at the same time, electrocuting him. It
was funny at the time. Not so funny now.

The trees were bare. Winter had set in. There was a light dusting of fresh snow on
the lawn, covering the ice that had been there for weeks. The sky was blue, the
sort of blue you get on a cold, crisp winter day in the Northeast. A
photographer's dream shot. It's the kind of day you just want to spend in bed with
a bowl of fancy, whole cashews, a good book, the newspaper, your IPOD, your most
favorite person or dog. You know the kind of day I am describing. We all look
forward to just this kind of day with great anticipation. And when it does come
along, something always comes up and we never get to enjoy it. I woke up thinking
today was going to be that kind of day. I was totally prepared to do nothing. But,
something came up, as it always does. And my plans changed. So much for doing
nothing today.

I was in Key West the last time I enjoyed a day with absolutely nothing to do. I
was sitting in an outdoor café on Mallory Square, watching the sun setting into
the Gulf of Mexico. I had just finished a pound of peel and eat shrimp, twenty
large sweet and succulent Key West Pinks that were served with an incredible,
homemade, spicy cocktail sauce. My companion was enjoying Conch Fritters with her
Key Lime Pie Martini; Absolute Citron, Liquor 43, Lime Juice and fresh cream with
Graham Cracker Crust. We snuggled and people watched for what seemed like hours.
The street performers and their interaction with the tourists made for great
entertainment.

I love Key West. It is such a unique place and I could really appreciate why
Ernest Hemingway felt so at home in his house on Whitehead Street. Hemingway
would say, "It’s the best place I’ve ever been anytime, anywhere, flowers,
tamarind trees, guava trees, coconut palms..."
When I'm not sunset watching, you could usually find me at the Dennis Pharmacy
Luncheonette. It's said that Jimmy Buffet wrote "Cheeseburger in Paradise" at the
Dennis Pharmacy. They were best known for their wonderful conch chowder,
peccadillo and Cuban sandwiches. Along with the great food you could rub elbows
and chat with visiting celebrities and with the locals. Not to long ago, the
original Dennis closed and relocated in Bahama Village, at Henrietta's Art of
Baking, on Petronia Street. The location has changed but the food is still great.
Trust me, even though we don’t know each other that well, trust me. When in Key
West, visit the Dennis.

Although I tend to enjoy full service resorts when I can and when they are
available, staying at a local Bed and Breakfast just makes sense when visiting Key
West. My favorite, The Blue Parrot Inn, is an authentically historic Key West
House, located on Elizabeth Street. Each day starts with a simple, complimentary
poolside breakfast. Coffee, tea and juice are available every morning along with
English muffins, bagels with all the fixings and fresh pastries brought in each
morning from a local bakery. The gardens are exotic. The pool is heated. And two
cats, Mel and Truffles, protect the property and the guests. The Blue Parrot Inn
is truly a slice of heaven.

I read the letter from Jason over and over again. The letter was very compelling
and I was flattered that he had reached out to me and asked for my help. He wanted
me to help tell his story. He felt he had a lot left to say and it was time to say
it. He also knew that this was his time and that people would still be interested
because there were so many people still fascinated by everything that had
happened.

He had been offered tons of money to tell his story, on a variety of talk shows,
to magazines, newspapers, and even major motion picture studios had come a
knocking on his door, but he had refused. Now for some reason, he had decided it
was time to tell his side of the story. I thought most of it had already been
told. Not much time had passed since the trial had ended and Jason got all his
money from his mother's estate and the insurance policies. I couldn’t understand
what Jason thought he might accomplish by telling his story.

I was there in person for a lot of it and for what I missed, believe me when I
tell you, there was no shortage of information available on the internet, nightly
broadcasts, just about every where you looked. I wasn't sure there was much more
to tell or if there was anything left worth telling. I also wasn't sure if anyone
really cared about Jason and his story. I really didn’t care that much about it.
But I knew if I could find an interesting angle, twist, turn, reveal something
cool, maybe it might excite me and I could get you excited about it.

For Jason, it wasn't about the money anymore. He had plenty of money. More than
plenty. He didn't want to be exploited, nor did he want anyone else to benefit
from the telling of his story. He wanted to make sure that he told his story
before someone wrote an unauthorized biography or tried to tell the story without
his cooperation. He just wanted an opportunity to set the record straight. At
least that's what he said. I wasn't really sure of his true intentions. I also
wondered why he didn’t just go away. It would have been better for everyone if he
just disappeared. I mean really, aren’t you sick and tired of seeing OJ's face in
the news? C'mon, go and hide away in a cave somewhere. That was my best advice for
Jason. But he didn’t take any advice from me. In the end, or maybe right from the
start, as I said, I was flattered, sort of, to be asked to participate. I never
anticipated how deeply involved I was going to get. I never anticipated how this
project was going to change my life.
After reading my most recent book, "Something About Going Home", he said he was
touched in many ways, loved the poetry and the original illustrations by Christina
Qualiana. He especially liked the poem about my father and this one in particular:

A Confession
I remember the day, clearly.
It was not that long ago.
They said I had done it,
but I knew it was a lie.
They were searching for an easy way out.
And I was an easy way out.
They accused me of murder
killing my mother and father
my own parents who I loved very much.
How could they even think I did it?
Sure I was an easy way out
but this was absurd.
The evidence was less than circumstantial
but they were confident of a conviction.
How could they even think I did it?
They found no weapons
they found no bodies.
How could they even think I did it?
The police needed a conviction
the officer needed a promotion
the politician needed to win re-election.
Me, I needed a good lawyer.
How could they even think I did it?
The last time I saw my parents
was just before the time of the crime.
I was sure to give myself an alibi
or at least enough time to get one.
They will never find the weapons.
They will never find the bodies.
Me, I always liked the smell of gas, actually,
I’m a good conductor of electricity.
One could say it runs in the family.
How could they even think I did it?

Jason wanted to know more about where I was, emotionally, when I wrote this poem.
What was my motivation? What was my inspiration? What was I thinking? What was I
feeling? What provoked me to write what I did? When I was younger, I would read a
book, a short story or a poem and wonder how did the writer, the author, think
that stuff up? And I often wished I could have had the opportunity to chat with
the writer and learn more about their process. When an actor acts, you can see it
in their face, in the way their body moves in relationship to others. Their
performance goes way beyond the words. But a writer works alone, sitting in front
of a typewriter, a computer screen and keyboard or a blank piece of paper. I get
excited just participating in the thought process.

In my book of poetry, I provided insight into my inner thoughts that surrounded my

writing. I thought this was a very unique approach and a feature that provided the
reader with insight into me, the author, which they would otherwise never be
exposed to. I knew it made me vulnerable, but I was willing to expose myself for
the sake of selling a few more books. Although I thought it was a good and
original approach, it didn’t help sell any books. That was a big disappointment
for me. I was told it was difficult to sell poetry books. I was told that the
price of my book was too high. I wasn't willing to change anything. The poetry was
brilliant and the illustrations were fantastic. Really incredible! I convinced
myself that the most important thing I could do was to get it published. And I
did. I thought I knew better than everybody else. Obviously, I didn't. I don’t.

Here is what accompanied this poem: "There was a time I was going crazy. Self
destructive, and I didn't care who I hurt along the way. No self esteem. I felt
like dirt. I felt like I wasn't worthy of living. I felt alone. I felt tricked. I
felt cheated. I felt like I could hurt myself. I felt like I could hurt someone.
But no matter how bad it was, I went on and I'm not sure why!"

Jason said he often felt the same way. He was reaching out to me and trying to
connect on many levels. I am not that complicated of a person and I was receptive
to the idea of us working together. I was looking for another project, so his
timing could not have been more perfect.

Not that this defines me or qualifies me as a writer, but I do know how to put a
sentence or two together, maybe a few paragraphs too. But being an advertising
copywriter and a published author of poetry, I still didn't think I was really
qualified to write this story. I had taken a few journalism and introductory
writing courses while attending American University in Washington, D.C., but
nothing had really prepared me for this kind of exercise and journey. I didn’t
think I really had the right experience or skill set to do this properly or do it
justice, no pun intended. But I thought, why not give it a try. I figured if I
could get Jason to sit down in front of an audio recorder, he might 'write' the
entire book. The story is more than fascinating and it really tells itself. But
you can be the judge and the jury and the pun is intended.

I came along with no preconceived notions as to where we would go and how the
story would unfold. I was also open to the idea of reaching out to another writer,
with more, applicable experience, to help me put the story together in a form that
would make sense to everyone. Yes, I also thought it would be important to do that
to make the book as commercial as possible. The idea of course was to sell the
most books. I even toyed with the idea of contacting James Patterson, who I had
worked with (actually, worked for) briefly when I was a very junior copywriter at
J. Walter Thompson, a New York advertising agency. But I knew he wouldn't remember
me and between his book writing, TV series and movie deals, he was probably way to
busy. And to be honest, I have never read any of his books.

I had been good friends with Rickey, Jason's father. Rickey and I took Hebrew
lessons at a synagogue on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx and had our Bar Mitzvah
on the same day. I never told my mother that one day, when visiting Yankee
Stadium, I had run into my Rabbi and he was eating a non-kosher hot dog! With that
information, my Grandmother would have certainly questioned the validity of his
rabbinical credentials.

Rickey and I frequently sneaked into the Paradise Theater, one of the greatest
movie theaters ever, to watch the newest movies. I remember the cast iron seats
covered in red velour, goldfish ponds in the lobby, the night sky with twinkling
stars and slow moving clouds gliding by in the balcony, the intricate carvings on
the ceiling, the Baroque Italian garden, the sweeping staircase and the elegant
rest rooms on the upper floor. And the Paradise Theater, located in the Bronx,
wasn't just for films, stars like Bob Hope, Milton Berle, George Burns and many
others, performed on its stage and many Bronx high school and college students
received their diplomas there. I didn’t attend my high school graduation. I
graduated in January, not June, and rushed to start college. Looking back, that
was a mistake. They just keep coming.
We played softball at Harris Field, named after Father John Joseph Harris. Father
Harris, a native of Yonkers, NY, had dedicated much of his life to working with
youth. On June 8th, 1937, while on a field trip with a group of children at Bear
Mountain State Park, he died from a heart attack. Though Harris’s sojourn in the
borough was brief, he left such a strong impression in the Bronx that in 1940 the
City Council named this park in his honor. Harris Park, part of the Jerome Park
complex, was previously owned by Leonard Walter Jerome, the maternal grandfather
of Winston Churchill. He operated the Jerome Park Racetrack there from 1866 to
1889.

There were four baseball diamonds, two softball diamonds, fields for football and
other sports, and a sitting area. In 1961 the field house, with its lockers,
bathrooms, and showers, was opened. The park’s neighbors include Lehman College
to the south (originally built as Hunter College), the Bronx High School of
Science to the north and the subway yards of the Lexington Avenue Line of the
Interborough Rapid Transit.

I was a great third baseman and could hit the long ball. I practiced with my
friend Allan for hours at a time. Alan would hit me sharp, hard grounders and line
drives and I would field them all cleanly. I also pitched, but I really enjoyed
playing in the field. I pitched a no-hitter in junior high, one of the first no-
hitters on record and my coach, the school's choir teacher, didn’t even realize
what I had accomplished. The other team confirmed I had pitched the no-hitter and
the teams' coach said he would notify the Athletic Commission. I thought I would
get an award or something, but that never happened. I didn’t even keep the ball.
Two days later, in another game, I gave up eleven runs on nine hits to one of the
weakest teams in the league. That was embarrassing. I figured I only used up five
minutes of my fifteen minutes of fame.

Ricky was fast, one of the fastest kids I ever saw. He played centerfield and a
ball never got by him. He was a finesse player, hitting the ball where the other
team wasn't. He was always good for a single or double and often just kept running
towards third base. Never stopping to look where the ball was coming from. He just
ran and ran. He was fun to watch. Ricky was one of those kids that all the parents
liked. But that's because they didn’t know him, like the other kids did. Ricky was
a troublemaker and a real smart ass. He could sit on an ice cream and tell you if
it was chocolate or vanilla. But Ricky never got caught doing anything wrong.
Ricky was a good looking kid, and he knew it. People would always say that with
Ricky's good looks and charm, he could get away with murder.

After a softball game, no matter who won or lost, Ricky and I would lead the group
to Jahn's Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor (off of East Kingsbridge Road) and share
The Kitchen Sink, a dessert that had a little bit (more like a lot) of everything
including twenty flavors of ice cream and eleven toppings. The Kitchen Sink serves
eight, but to be honest, no matter how hard we tried, and we tried, no matter how
many there was of us and there were many, we were never able to finish The Kitchen
Sink.

I had my first ice cream soda at Jahn's. I had my first chocolate egg cream at The
Village Green on the Grand Concourse. And before I go any further, I have to tell
you about the chocolate egg cream. Despite its name, an egg cream contains
neither eggs nor cream. The basic ingredients are milk, seltzer, and chocolate
syrup. It is traditionally made in a small Coke-style glass. And true New Yorkers
insist that it is not a classic egg cream without Fox's U-Bet Chocolate Syrup.

I recently ordered a chocolate egg cream at the famous Carnegie Deli in NY and
noticed they were not making my chocolate egg cream with Fox's U-Bet Chocolate
Syrup. When I pointed that out to my server, he looked at me like I was crazy. I
was sure he spit in my chocolate egg cream when I wasn't looking. But I would
never know. He would never admit it, that's for sure. I didn't tip him very well.
And I was very disappointed in the chocolate egg cream.

In the early 1900s, Fox's U-Bet Chocolate Syrup was created. And according to the
cookbook called 'The Brooklyn Cookbook', by Lyn Stallworth and Rod Kennedy Jr.,
"You absolutely cannot make an egg cream without Fox's U-Bet." The cookbook refers
to Fox's grandson, David, for the story of the syrup's name: "The name 'U-Bet'
dates from the late-'20s, when Fox's grandfather got wildcatting fever and headed
to Texas to drill for oil. 'You bet' was a friendly term the oilmen used. His oil
venture a failure, he returned to the old firm, changing Fox's Chocolate Syrup to
Fox's U-Bet. He said, 'I came back broke but with a good name for the syrup,' his
grandson relates."

It is perfectly proper to gulp down an egg cream. In fact, an egg cream will lose
its white, foamy head (that's probably where the egg in the egg cream legend
originates from) and become flat if it is not enjoyed immediately. If you put a
scoop or two of ice cream in a chocolate egg cream, add some whipped cream and
place a cherry on top, you got yourself an ice cream soda. There was nothing I
enjoyed more. Of course, I had other favorites. When I was growing up in the
Bronx, lunch at the Village Green would include a cherry coke in a tall glass with
ice and a cheeseburger deluxe which came with crispy, French fries, Cole slaw and
a sour pickle.

Ricky and I had our first sexual experience with Evelyn, the daughter of my
apartment building's superintendent. We used to have sex with her in my apartment
before my mother got home from work. There was usually four or five of us taking
turns having sex with Evelyn and watching for my mother to come up the street.
When she was spotted, we knew we had to finish up and get out of the apartment. We
would run down the stairs as she was in the elevator heading up towards to the
fifth floor. This lasted about three months, until my mother caught on and one day
and sent the elevator up empty, as she waited for us in the lobby. When we burst
out of the staircase door and into the lobby, she stood there, motionless. She
didn't have to say a word, we knew she got us and she got us good. That was the
last I ever saw of Evelyn. I wrote my first short story about Evelyn, 'In The
Lion's Den', the 'Den' referred to me and I thought that was very clever. I shared
a copy of it with the guys and even got a copy to Evelyn. I heard she liked it.

Ricky and I liked Hope, but had a crush on her friend, Suzanne. I don’t think
either one of us ever got to her. I know I didn't and I'm pretty sure Ricky didn’t
either. I haven’t spoken to Ricky in decades. The last I heard he had moved to
South Florida and was a General Contractor, building million dollar homes on the
inter-coastal. He had always wanted to be a professional golfer, but I don’t think
he was ever good enough to make it on the tour. I had heard he was on his fifth
marriage. I have no idea what happened to Suzanne.

Jason's grandparents and my parents were best of friends. His grandmother and my
mother attended Evander Childs High School together in the Bronx. (Located at East
Gun Hill Road.) His grandfather and my father were in the service together. When
I moved out of the old neighborhood (181st Street and Creston Avenue) and into the
Riverdale section of the Bronx, (Johnson Avenue, just a few blocks south of the
Monument), we all sort of grew apart. And when my father died and Ricky didn't
show for the funeral, I sort of wrote him off. I needed my friends around and he
was too busy. He never even called. That hurt me for years and I have never
forgotten or forgiven many of those who did not attend. (Especially Robert and
Michael.) I never cared that much about Ira not showing up, but I always wondered
what ever happened to Rhonda?
I had followed the Ruth Warren/Hal Warren case, as most of us had. Everywhere you
looked, the story was front and center news. "Husband Brutally Kills Wife." It was
the lead-in story on every newscast. XM Radio covered the trial live -
exclusively. All the elements of a major feature film script were here, a horrific
crime complete with a range of strange, engaging characters and twisting
storylines. I was thinking Ridley Scott or Martin Scorsese would be perfect
candidates to direct the movie based on my book. Sure it's Jason's story. But it's
my book.

As for characters, except for me, there aren’t many likeable characters in this
story. (And that could be a problem for Hollywood.) I never intended to be a major
character. I'm just the storyteller. The conduit. The tour guide. The messenger.
And as far as the storyline goes, you can follow much of it without a problem, but
there are lots of holes, and no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to fill 'em.
And that's one of the biggest problems, challenges and opportunities I faced. How
do I tell this story in a way that answers all of the questions? Maybe I can?
Maybe I can't? Maybe no one will ever be able to figure it all out? Maybe we're
not supposed to figure it all out? And if we don't figure it all out, I might have
enough material left over for a sequel. Just so you know, if you are reading this,
I am already working on the sequel. It's very cool. I have complete access to
Senator Thayer and his staff. All I can reveal to you at this point is that this
man will not be denied what he believes is his, no matter what the cost.

Everyone wanted to know how a "sane" man, Hal Warren, could do this to a woman,
his wife, Ruth Warren, a woman he was supposed to be in love with? The
sensational, media covered trial or should I say media circus event became the
focus of our daily discussion opportunities; around the dinner table, the water
cooler, on the bus, the train, the plane, in the car and in bed. People who knew
me, would approach me, wanting to know the real dirt. They thought because I knew
Jason and the family, that I was connected. But I was just like everybody else, I
was mostly curious. Because of personal relationships, I had the ability to get
inside and see what was going on for myself. That proved to be a tremendous
advantage and probably got me invited to a few parties that I would not have
ordinarily been invited to. There were times when I was almost a celebrity just
because of my connection to Jason. I used people's perception of me to my
advantage, opening up doors along the way. And why not?

Photographs from the crime scene were everywhere, leaving nothing to the
imagination. Hundreds of video and audio clips were put on the Internet every day.
You can imagine the impact the Internet had in spreading the stories surrounding
this trial. It was truly amazing how the public could not get enough. This was the
hottest of stories. And like the OJ trial, everyone involved became a celebrity.
No matter how hard I tried, I could not stop from being caught up in the whirlwind
that was created by the trial. When I saw my picture in People Magazine I was
blown away.

Although he was often misquoted, Andy Warhol said it best, "in the future everyone
will be world famous for 15 minutes." Well, almost every participant who wanted
it, got his or her fifteen minutes (or more) of fame. From being a guest on
nationally syndicated talk shows to hosting their own, albeit short-lived talk
shows, I hadn't seen anything like this since the OJ trial. You do remember the OJ
trial, don't you? If you read OJ's new book, "If I Did It, Here's How It
Happened", I would prefer you not continue reading this book. Put it down. Give it
away. Throw it away. Just don’t read this book. You are not worthy.

Did Simpson kill his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman? I
was not there so I don’t know for sure. And I never saw video from a security
camera, heard testimony from an eyewitness or that OJ's fingerprints or DNA had
been found at the scene of the crime. There’s certainly a good chance Simpson may
well be the perpetrator of that ghastly double homicide. And I believe he did it.
But the glove didn’t fit so the jury didn't convict. I hate that line but I felt
compelled to repeat it here.

Like the OJ trial, the outcome of the Warren trial enraged many, pleased others
and left no one with any sense of real comfort or the feeling that justice had
been served. Similar to the emotions we all displayed and kept inside after the OJ
verdict was read, many of us felt as if something was wrong, went wrong and we
were powerless to do anything about it. There were those who believed that the
jury was right and regardless of any new "evidence", the right man, Hal Warren,
was convicted for killing his wife. The right man was going to spend the rest of
his life in prison. He got what he deserved.

Did OJ get what he deserved? Probably not. Most likely not. Did Hal Warren deserve
to go to jail for the murder of his wife? Probably not. Most likely not. I think
most definitely not. I'm going to be asking many obvious questions, not
surprisingly, not being asked by the media who covered this trial relentlessly.
I'm going to try to determine, once and for all, who did what and to whom and why.

Was Hal Warren framed for the murder of his wife? Up to this point, nothing I have
seen, heard or read comes close to supporting that theory. All though, I have
heard others talk about the possibility. And when they do, they always mention
Jason as the mastermind behind the framework. It's almost as if they want Jason to
be the mastermind. I'm not sure. Not yet anyway. Nothing I know about Jason makes
me think he is that smart, or that angry or that capable. I just don’t see it.
Maybe I am being naïve? It would make for a much better story if it turns out that
he did arrange for the murder of his mother to get his hands on the family
fortune. But it creeps me out to think that it's true.

I want to be clear about this, unlike my thoughts about OJ, I believe Hal Warren
did not commit the crime he was accused of committing. OJ got away with murder, a
double murder. Hal Warren did not get away with anything. Hal Warren wasn't guilty
of anything. He was married to Ruth Warren. He was not the biological father of
Ruth's son. Ricky was. I throw this out, only to ask the question, what did Ricky
have to gain if his ex-wife, Ruth Warren died? Did he have a motive to commit this
crime or help Jason commit the crime? Did he have access to the money? Could they
have done this together? Could someone I grew up with have committed such a
horrible act? Shit, now I am freaking myself out. I have got to find Ricky.

In most criminal prosecutions where DNA evidence is utilized, the DNA evidence
serves to corroborate, in a powerful manner, other circumstances pointing to the
guilt of the accused. But in Hal Warren's case, there was no other corroborating
evidence. No fingerprints were found at the crime scene. And that was very
strange. No one questioned this at anytime before or during the trial. He lived in
the house of the victim. He slept in the same bedroom as the victim. He used the
same bathroom as the victim. Is it possible that Hal Warren never missed the
toilet bowl? How come his fingerprints were not found anywhere near the victim? No
eyewitnesses saw Hal Warren commit the murder. No eyewitness saw Hal Warren
anywhere, for that matter, when the murder was taking place. This all becomes even
more important as this story unfolds. You might want to take notes. There will be
quizzes throughout the reading of this story.

I believed then, as I do now, that DNA evidence, without corroborating evidence,

(fingerprints and/or an eyewitness) is not sufficient evidence to convict and that
DNA evidence should not be used without other supporting evidence. I believe that
DNA evidence in itself is not proof of one's guilt or innocence. USCOM, the
world's leading authority on DNA would have us believe otherwise. What do you
think? What do you believe? I will help provide you with the information you need
to make your mind up. That's part of my responsibility, to you, throughout this
process.

In the end, Jason got what he wanted. He inherited hundreds of millions of dollars
from his mother's family estate. But at what cost? How many souls did he destroy
along the way? And was it worth it? I promised to keep an open mind, although I
had my doubts. But I did want to find out the truth. And I was prepared to do as
much research as I needed to do, to help provide me with a rock solid foundation
of truth and fact. I wasn't looking to write a non-fiction review of the case, but
I wanted to be clear on the facts and what part they played in the telling of this
story.

The truth always intrigued me. It was far more fascinating then a stack of lies. I
hope you will keep an open mind as we journey through and try to make sense of
this mess. I have read all the documents you will read throughout this book. Some
of them are boring and go on and on and on and you'll ask yourself why did I
include them all. I included them because Jason wanted me to read them and I
thought you should read them too. I thought if I had to read them, I would make
you read them. Jason believed they could help connect me to the story. I was never
able to connect all the dots. The stories were somewhat interesting but often
repetitive in content. I just thought they would make the book longer. I was so
thrilled when I hit two hundred and eighty pages. I was glad you would be getting
your money's worth.

As Jason left the courthouse, with his millions intact, the headlines referred to
his victory as "the dance of death". The lead story that night on NBC News, "As we
think about the impact on the new evidence that has come to light questioning the
reliability of DNA testing and the DNA evidence produced at the trial, we are
reminded that death lurks everywhere, everyday, just like in Holbein's 'dance of
death'. We have embraced the double helix and now find ourselves looking into the
crystal clear eyes of reasonable doubt. The controversy surrounding DNA is just
beginning."

The millions of dollars came to Jason with an even bigger price tag. Somewhere
along the way, the brutal murder of his mother, his father found guilty - commits
suicide - then declared innocent of committing the murder, all became secondary
issues. If you can believe it, the murder and suicide actually became non-issues.
Everyone was so infatuated with who Jason was, what Jason was up to, what Jason
might have done or did do or didn't do they lost focus on what was really
important. Two people had died. One was murdered. The other one committed suicide
while being in prison. Someone was responsible for all this. Was it Jason Warren?
Who else could it be?

Jason Warren was a really good-looking young man. He was often described as a real
man's man and a ladies man at the same time. He wore his blond hair, often sun
streaked, long. He was always naturally tan. He had a great smile, perfect skin
and wore his six foot two frame well. And no matter what time it was, he always
wore a five o'clock shadow. He was neat casual in his style and his uniform
consisted of a pair of Wrangler Jeans, a black corduroy shirt, purple POLO socks,
a pair of Bass loafers and Ray-Ban Aviator Metal II Sunglasses. Jason wore gas
permeable hard contact lenses to support his optical condition, Keriticonis, that
if not treated, could one day cause Jason to go blind. His right eye was worse
than his left eye. Jason never wore jewelry. He was a tennis player, once being
internationally ranked at number one hundred and forty four in the world. He also
played racquetball religiously and enjoyed white water rafting trips with friends.
He especially likes rafting down the Arkansas River in Colorado that provides
Class IV+ whitewater and travels through three unique canyons, Bighorn Canyon,
Brown's Canyon and the Royal Gorge. When you met Jason, you liked Jason. He
disarmed you with his charm.

What became important to those who played this human chess game, was how one could
play, no that is too simple of a word - lets try manipulate, twist, turn, stretch,
pulverize, pull and distort the system - that's a better description. Jason had
challenged the government in a huge way; the high priced experts, FBI profilers,
DNA researchers, analysts and labs, the judicial system, the political system and
he had won. None of us knew exactly what had happened, because at some point
during the process, near the end, all of a sudden, the news stopped coming.
Nothing. Not a word. It was as if someone pulled the plug, literally. Someone had
shut the door tight. Air tight. One second we were all talking about the case and
the next second, it was gone. A deal was struck. Silence was the payoff. Jason
disappeared. I was left to tidy everything up, wrap it and tie a nice bow around
it. I had still had so many questions. But when it was time for this to end. It
ended. Just like that. It ended. New chapter.

The only thing we did know for sure was that Senator Thayer was going to be the
next President of the United States and that USCOM was the biggest contributor to
his campaign. For just about everyone, it would be business as usual.

And for those of us who found ourselves connected throughout the trial and the
process, we were cut off. We were all like junkies in search of our next fix. I
had this feeling before, it was like when I needed to go to Harold's Deli in
Edison, NJ and order a brisket sandwich on rye, a potato knish and a really thick
chocolate shake. And I can't forget about their pickle bar, the world's largest
pickle bar. Incredible. Just incredible. Look, we all have those feelings, there
is no reason to make fun of mine. I would never make fun of yours. And I could.
But I won't. I don't know you well enough to make fun of you. Not yet.

Jason was no different than any of us. Wait a minute. That's really not true,
although he tried to make it seem that way. He was different than most of us,
thank god for that. Apparently, Jason wasn't quite finished. He hadn't had enough.
He was now on a new mission and had invited me along. I invited you along. That's
why were here together.

When Jason reached out to me, I thought, through my connections and networking
capabilities, maybe I could get a book deal out of it, a screenplay, an article in
the local newspaper? If nothing else, maybe I could find out the truth? What
really happened? That would be a fascinating story to tell and that's what really
interested me from the beginning. Now that would be cool. My friend Don had
written a book, and I figured if he could do it, I could do it. So, why not? Then
I thought, maybe I should be making a documentary of me writing this book? Maybe
not!

I told my mother I was writing a book with and about Jason and about the murder of
his mother. She was really pissed off. "I hope he is paying you a lot of money"
she remarked. I assured her, he was being very generous. She still wasn't happy
about my new assignment. "Be careful", she said. I thought that was odd. She
asked me if I had heard from Ricky and I told her I hadn't. I hung up the phone
and smiled. Although she was proud of my first book, she was never thrilled about
the content. It was a bit risqué for her. She liked the illustrations though. I
didn't know if she would feel any different about this book, so I decided to thank
her in the dedication page. Call it a little guilt trip, an insurance policy.
Sometimes you just have to do that for your mother, and for yourself.

Here's my favorite poem from my book:

As I sit here alone
I remember us sitting together
the wind blowing through our hair
the grains of sand
slipping through our fingertips
splashes of purple and blue
and the reddish hue from the setting sun
the cool breeze off the timid water
the absence of a crowd.
We were comfortable in each other's presence
sitting closely holding hands
enjoying subtle glances.
I wanted to kiss you
but I didn’t want to spoil anything
so I didn’t.
And I could have. And I should have.
But I didn’t want to spoil anything
so I didn’t!
And I could have. And I should have
But I didn’t want to spoil anything
so I didn’t!

And the accompanying story behind the poem: "Arthur introduced me to Brenda. She
was beautiful, sophisticated, intelligent and sensitive. I fell in love instantly.
I felt a connection with her soul the moment I looked into her eyes! We went to
the Santa Monica Pier to play games, walk on the beach, eat soft serve ice cream
and freshly sliced and fried potato chips. The connection was so strong it was
almost unbearable. Brenda made the first move and after watching the sun set over
the pacific, we went back to her house. The closeness we felt, the feelings we
experienced, the exploration of our bodies and our thoughts..."

I knew one thing, I wasn't going to let Jason manipulate me into doing or saying
anything I did not want to do or say. I was willing to go on this wild adventure,
but I had set up some conditions that were non-negotiable. The biggest one,
whatever came out of this exchange, I could and would tell it like it is, like it
was. The story I was going to tell was going to be the truth as I saw it. No spins
on the truth, just the truth, as I was about to uncover and reveal. The story told
exactly as it happened. I was going to examine every detail, do exhausting and
extensive research, evaluate every twist and turn, conduct interviews with the
players involved, travel the world and in the end, lose lots of sleep, eat some
great food, gain some weight and probably start to drink and smoke. Yeah, I was
really looking forward to this project - note the sarcasm.

There are a lot of questions to be asked and answered, for sure. There are lots of
details to review, all to be used to help clarify any misconceptions and close any
loose ends. And Jason had promised he would be available to answer any of my
questions, truthfully. We decided we would communicate on a regular basis through
emails, instant messaging, through our SKYPE accounts and if necessary, the
occasional cell phone call. We hadn’t set up a time or a schedule to meet in
person. That would come later.

Commercial break: Don't know what SKYPE is…"With Skype’s free software you can
chat away with free Skype-to-Skype calls and never worry about cost, time or
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http://www.skype.com/getconnected/ to learn more about SKYPE.

Jason and I would probably not meet up in person, until the story was complete and
the manuscript was ready to be presented to publishers. I promised to send Jason
fifteen to twenty pages at a time, not for his approval, but to make sure I had
not omitted any important facts. Jason, it appeared to me, was as concerned and as
committed as I was, about telling the truth. But I wasn't sure that his truth was
going to be the same as my truth. We did agree that whatever we did come up with
was going to put an end to the story, a period at the end of a sentence. I felt
this was a good plan and I was looking forward to setting the record straight. If
I got a movie deal out of it, so much the better. A friend asked me just the other
day, who would be playing me in the movie. Of course my first reaction was that I
would play myself. But then I realized that would never fly. Who then? Phillip
Seymour Hoffman of course. I would make sure to get a walk on part, just because.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman doesn’t look anything like me. But he is such a fantastic
actor and I would be crazy not to attach him to the project. If I really had my
way and could turn back the clock, I think Brian Dennehy in Blake Edwards' '10'.
Brian played Donald, the bartender. He doesn't look like me either, but I loved
him in that role. I see a lot of myself in him, and that character.

What I really hoped, was that I wasn't being played by an expert. I really wanted
to believe him. As I stated earlier, it was agreed that I had the final say about
content. And that was very important to me. If telling this story was going to
have any real impact, I had to have credibility and I felt I could only have that
if I had the final say. I didn't want anyone to challenge me in regards to what
was the truth and what wasn't the truth.

As I saw it, my biggest problem, was that I had to determine very early on who
Jason really was. If he was anything like the media had made him out to be, he was
a ruthless son of a bitch who probably didn’t deserve to live. At the least, he
should have been in jail for the rest of his life. Yeah, Senator Thayer made him a
deal which kept Jason out of jail, allowed Jason to keep his money and paved the
way for the Senator's race to the White House, but that didn’t change the facts.

And if just a little bit of what Jason, Jennifer Neal and Dennis and his team were
going to expose about DNA and USCOM was true, don’t you think we should all know
about it? I would like to know about it. And I'm sure every defense attorney and
prosecutor would like to know about it too. The difference is that I don’t have
anything to gain by telling you the truth or not telling you the truth. I have no
motive other than to write a great book about a story that will make a great
movie. That's it. I don’t care about anything else. If I believe Jason did it, I
will state that and prove it to you, if I can. If I believe Senator Thayer is
guilty of crimes that should prevent him from being the next president of the
United States, I will get in front of the media and say so. That's my plan.
CHAPTER TWO

I realized early on in the process that I could not do this alone. I reached out
to Larry Kramer, (through my sister), a forensic psychologist and Phillip
Kauffman, (through my friend Eric), a 25-year FBI veteran who ran the organized
crime unit out of Miami.

Larry Kramer attended John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University
of New York and Nova Southeastern University in Florida. His specialty is creating
psychological profiles of defendants. In this age of CSI and all the other popular
police-procedural shows on television, the field of forensic psychology is
enjoying a higher profile than it ever has before. This field, which uses the
skills of psychologists and applies them to issues relevant to the criminal
justice system, is always fascinating, sometimes frustrating, often challenging
and personally and professionally rewarding. From the analysis of testimony in
court proceedings to the examining of people accused of crimes who claim to suffer
from mental illness issues, forensic psychologists are some of the most important
players in today's legal system. Larry had an international reputation as an
expert in his field. And unlike most experts, Larry never accepted payment, beyond
the reimbursement of personal expenses, for his expert testimony.

Larry and I first met to discuss this opportunity in the backyard of his house in
Pompano Beach, Florida. He served up homemade Key Lime Pie, raspberry iced tea and
offered to barbecue some all beef, Hebrew National quarter pound hot dogs and
hamburgers. I was always up for a hot dog on the grill, so I graciously accepted.
Larry knew of my grilling reputation, so he asked me, pleaded with me to do the
grilling. I didn't know what the big deal was - we were talking about hot dogs and
hamburgers. But I agreed to be the chef for the day. I warmed up Heinz Vegetarian
Beans on the side burner. Got to have the beans with the dogs. Larry warmed up
sauerkraut in the microwave. Got to have the sauerkraut with the dogs. I would
toast the buns on the grill when the time was right. It was a typical, hot, sunny
day in South Florida. I noticed there was no boat at the dock at the end of his
property.

On the counter, opposite the microwave, was a picture of Larry enjoying a sunset
on his Smeraldo 37, a Cranchi Master Cruiser. I don’t know much about boats, but
I do know an expensive boat when I see one. And that boat looked very expensive.
Larry loved boats and being on the water. He didn’t like being in the water,
unless it was warm, at least eighty-four degrees warm. I wondered what happened to
his boat.

Larry was about fifty-five years old. He looked much older. The white hair didn’t
help. He enjoyed long walks on the beach and working out at the gym. He came from
a small family and didn't have many friends. I didn't find him to be overly
ambitious, mostly content and happy with his life. He had a nice, small house on
the inter-coastal with a private dock. No boat! There was something reassuring
about him. He was a nice guy. We just didn’t have much in common. I didn't see
myself hanging out with Larry. I wondered why he didn’t color his hair? If he had
a boat, I would hang out with him. That was shallow of me.

Larry was intrigued as I was about getting to work closely with Jason. We talked
about developing a strategy to get the two of them together, even if for short
periods of time. Larry promised to be available and work around my and Jason's
schedule. I was impressed and encouraged with the level of Larry's enthusiasm. I
wondered if he and my sister were having an affair. Maybe she knew what happened
to Larry's boat?

Larry knew it was important to determine just how compulsive and dangerous Jason
really was. And, by examining Jason's mind, Larry could determine if Jason was
capable of committing murder or of masterminding his mother's murder? Was Jason a
drug addict, an alcoholic, a man stricken with obsessive-compulsive disorder,
borderline personality disorder or any number of other mental problems about which
no one apparently knew anything about? Was the killing of his mother part of an
elaborate fantasy? Larry wanted to know who would play him in the movie.

I was convinced that Larry's evaluation of Jason would not only make for great
reading, but for great testimony in a new trial, if there were to be one. I agreed
to pay for Larry's expenses. I would reimburse him for his time from the profits
realized from this book and the movie. Larry was cool and willing to take the
risk. I knew that as long as he was involved, we had a really good shot at not
only writing a great book, but having the book made into a big time feature film.
As you read, think about whom you would cast in the various roles. At some point,
we will compare notes.

I found this on the Internet and I thought you might appreciate the reading.
(http://www.wcupa.edu/_ACADEMICS/sch_cas.psy/Career_Paths/Forensic/Career08.htm)
Forensic Psychology dates back to at least the turn of the twentieth century.
William Stern studied memory in 1901 by asking students to examine a picture for
forty-five seconds and then try to recall what was happening in it. He would see
how much the person could recall at various intervals after seeing the picture.
These experiments came before more contemporary research about the reliability of
eyewitness’s testimony in court. Stern concluded from his research that recall
memories are generally inaccurate; the more time between seeing the picture and
being asked to recall it, the more errors were made. People especially recalled
false information when the experimenter gave them a lead-in question such as, "Did
you see the man with the knife?" The person would answer, "yes," even if there was
no knife present. Lead-in questions are often used in police interrogations and in
questioning witnesses.
Hugo Munsterberg is often called the first forensic psychologist. He wrote a book
called On the Witness Stand. It was published in 1908, after the work of William
Stern. Other psychologists before this, such as Alfred Binet and Sigmund Freud,
had also constructed tests that could be used in judicial proceeding. They both
did studies suggesting that the time it takes for a person to answer a question
could be a factor in determining guilt or innocence.
In 1916, Lewis Terman, a Stanford psychologist, began to apply psychology to law
enforcement. He revised Alfred Binet's intelligence tests and formed the Stanford-
Binet intelligence test. These tests were used to assess the intelligence of
thirty applicants for the police and firefighting jobs in San Jose, CA. A few
years later, L. L. Thurstone used the same type of test in Detroit. Now, this type
of testing is used in most police departments in the country.
The application of psychology in law and law enforcement continued throughout the
1920's and 1930's. To this day, there is still a special interest in extending
psychology to police work. The demand for psychologists in the legal system has
grown considerably over the past several decades. Currently, almost 2,000
psychologists belong to the American Psychology-Law Society.
Eric and I had known each other for more than thirty years. We were not really
friends, until the last decade. We worked together at various times throughout our
careers, so we knew each other. And we knew a lot of the same people. Eric
recently left South Florida and headed to Los Angeles to start a new life, heading
in a new career direction. He gave up his business. Sold his home. And packed his
bags. His wife was going to join him once he got settled in a new place. For
someone Eric's age, this was a monumental decision. And for Eric, it was a
decision that was a long time coming. He knew it. He knew the timing was now or
never. He should have gone to LA directly from NY years ago. I should have done
the same. But I didn't. And I should have. Things would have been so different if
I had.

I was envious of Eric for many reasons. When he got divorced from his ex-wife, the
mother of his children, he fought for custody and won. When I got divorced from my
ex-wife, I wanted to fight for custody, but I never did. I gave up because I
didn’t want to fight anymore. The process exhausted me. The timing wasn't right. I
made a stupid decision, a decision that haunts me to this day. My ex-wife
destroyed my kids and their relationship with my family and me. I hate her for
what she did. I hate myself more, for what I didn't do. I didn’t fight enough for
my kids.

Although it was never confirmed, Eric told me he had heard that my ex-wife, had an
affair with someone I used to work with and knew very well. I never thought much
about it. But every once and awhile I would look at my oldest son and wonder, is
he really mine? I mean, biologically of course. He doesn’t look like me or anyone
else in my family. I know that is a terrible thing to think, but what if? What, if
one day he needs a kidney and I want to give him mine, and we aren't a match? That
would be a terrible, a horrible way to find out the truth. Wouldn’t it? I never
want to know. Nor do I question it.

When Eric suggested I meet Phillip Kaufman, I thought it was a spectacular idea.
Eric knew what I was getting myself into and he thought Phillip could be an asset
to the project. I also knew Eric would want to be involved if we were able to get
a movie deal out of the book. Eric hinted he would use his Hollywood contacts to
shop the book around, once it was completed. I thought that would be great and if
Eric was attached to the project in any way, that would be incentive enough for
him to use his professional and family contacts. His family was in the business.
They knew and had access to every body. And I wanted Eric involved. We had been
talking about producing movies together for years. So it all made perfect sense.

Supervisory Special Agent Phillip Kauffman reminded me of a combination of Peter

Falk's Columbo and Tony Shalub's Adrian Monk. And he looked like Peter Graves/Jim
Phelps from the TV series, Mission Impossible. For most of his career, he had
worked out of the Miami FBI office. For years, even after the show went off the
air, he tried the Miami Vice look, but it never worked for him. He was most
comfortable in Docker's Khaki pants, penny loafers, white socks and a short
sleeved yellow or light blue golf shirt. For the last ten years, almost every day,
he wore a Yankees baseball cap. He was true Yankee, growing up in the Bronx not
too far from Yankee Stadium. He married Cindy, his junior high school sweetheart
and they were together until she died a few years ago.

Agent Kauffman's last official undercover assignment was working at a Deerfield

Beach check-cashing and loan-sharking business run by Anthony "The Little Big Man"
Ferrara, reputed to be Bobby Gantinini's heir apparent as boss of the Gantinini
crime family.

Phillip expected that his last days at the Bureau would be spent reviewing the
cases he had worked; listening to every surveillance tape he ever made, every
covertly recorded discussion he had held with organized-crime figures and review
every report and memo he had ever submitted to his superiors. He expected a big
party, a complete 16 piece right-handed Callaway set of golf clubs and a paid
membership to play at the Blue Mountain Golf Course at the Doral Golf Resort in
Miami. He let everyone know how much he wanted the Big Bertha Ti Driver, Big
Bertha 3 wood and Big Bertha 5 wood. That's all he could talk about. But it didn't
work out that way.

Instead, Internal Affairs asked Phillip to stay on and work undercover on one last
case. The case lasted thirteen months and along the way, he exposed many of the
FBI's own flaws. The results of his investigation helped bring down six 'dirty'
agents who had been working undercover, accusing them of stealing money, using and
selling drugs and protecting crime family members from prosecution. At one point,
Phillip lied to a judge to spring a Mafia associate from prison in hopes he would
return the favor by providing some needed, inside information. He thought he was
helping to protect the man. Three days after his release, the man was killed by a
single gunshot to the back of his head. Phillip Kauffman's card was found inside
the man's mouth, whose tongue had been cut out. The investigation would affect
Phillip for the rest of his life.

Since retiring from the FBI, Phillip has spent most of his time as Captain of a 31
foot Luhr's sport fisherman boat for hire, offshore, reef, wreck and live bait
fishing, based out of Fort Lauderdale. The name of his boat is 'The Office'.
People would always ask where Phillip was, and the answer was always, "he's at the
office." Little did they know.

Phillip was very smart and entertaining. He loved to tell stories, long stories. I
knew he would be an invaluable tool, an asset to my efforts at understanding how
this all works within the world of the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, International
Police, TSA, USCOM and others. I also knew having Phillip involved, at any level,
would provide me with a sense of credibility. I determined early on how important
that really was. I was going to use Phillip as an editor, helping separate fact
from fiction. I was also going to use Phillip to open doors to people and places
that aren't usually open to people outside the 'agency'. And Phillip still had his
FBI security clearance and access to top secret documents. That was going to be
very helpful.

Phillip wanted to meet Jason, but I wasn't sure that was a good idea. I didn’t
want to spook Jason or overwhelm him with my team of experts. It was a timing
thing for me. But Phillip persisted and he promised to only talk about fishing and
the sea, nothing about the murder or the money. Eventually I gave in. Phillip said
he might sell Jason a boat. I never realized how much Jason liked being on the
ocean. Apparently, Phillip knew more about Jason than I did. I didn’t realize that
for quite some time.

Eric had first met Phillip at the Marco Island Resort on Florida's southwest
coast. The hotel is an unofficial refuge for federal crime-fighters, run by a
former FBI agent, and frequented by agents in need of relaxation. They immediately
became friends and Eric provided the introduction. I never asked Eric why he was
at the Resort. I really didn’t want to know. But I had my suspicions.

I explained to Phillip and Eric that I needed to have someone with experience from
the "inside" who I could trust to be honest with me and who could help me figure
out what really happened, how it happened, how it could happen and why it
happened. I wasn't looking for anyone to break any laws, have access to secret
files or anything that sexy. I just wanted to be able to ask someone who knew
better than I, if any of this made any sense. It's not the matter of is this all
believable or not, plausible or not? It happened. Buy why and how still needed to
be answered. Phillip agreed to help. Eric too. I wasn't sure of Phillip's
expectations. Or Eric's for that matter. We agreed to discuss it, their
compensation, in more detail as the project unfolded.

Soon after I agreed to take on this project, Jason sent me four medium size boxes
full of trial transcripts, depositions, personal notepads, books, newspaper
clippings, magazine articles, CD's, DVD's and VHS tapes. (Yes, people still use
VHS tapes.) Before we would speak for the first time since the trial ended, he
wanted me to read through the many documents he had prepared. It was more reading
than I had been assigned since I was a student at American. But the request made
sense. I wanted to better understand Jason. I needed to understand Jason. I wanted
to be able to separate the facts from fiction and completely understand and
appreciate, as Jason would later tell me, how he knew from the very beginning how
this would all turn out. And this information provided me with some real
background on the players. It was all really good stuff.

I was intrigued. I was suspicious. (You should be too.) I anticipated that I would
uncover something that would change everything. I was going to be the expert
witness in the next trial. Or maybe, as was my original plan, I was going to write
and direct a feature length film based on this story. I had my Academy Award
winning speech all written. It was just the right length so I could get it all in
before the music started and I had to get off the stage. They'll like me…they will
really like me. They are going to hate Jason's guts; some might even be a bit
envious of all that money. But why the fuck should I care?

Back to reality. Jason's sailing somewhere in the Caribbean while I am freezing my

ass off looking at my lawn covered with ice and snow and getting ready to go down
to the basement and finish up a few loads of laundry, before I head out to visit
my wife's family in Pennsylvania. Such is my reality and welcome to it. Please
feel free to share some of your reality along the way. I will leave some spaces
for your contributions. Hey, this is not just me telling you a story. You will be
expected to participate. I need you to think, to challenge me to prove to you that
what happened really happened, and what can we do with the knowledge we have
gained? Although this might be the end of Jason's story, it's only the beginning
of ours. That’s my motivation. Deal or no deal.

Between the white wash and the towels, I ran out of Tide detergent. I'm off to
Sam's Club. Magically a list appeared on the kitchen counter: Tide, French Roast
Coffee, Planter's Fancy Cashews, Strawberries, Blueberries, Bananas, Eggs, Bumble
Bee White Albacore Tuna Packed in Water, Victoria's Marinara Sauce, Tyson Frozen
Chicken Breasts, Charmin Ultra-Soft Toilet Paper, Bounty Paper Towels, Kendall
Jackson Chardonnay and BV Pinot Noir. I hated the parking lot at Sam's. It was
always so crowded and the people were always so rude. Everyone was in such a rush
and no matter how hard you tried to get in and out in a hurry, it never happened.
The fact that you could get a hot dog and a drink for a buck-fifty, was truly
amazing. And the pizza wasn't bad either. Probably the best meal deal in town.
CHAPTER THREE

I placed the first CD; they were clearly marked and numbered, into my iMac. I'm
running Version 10.4.11. My processor is a 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and with
Parallels, I can run Windows' Applications simultaneously with my Mac. I've got
more than 175 GB available. It's incredible. I love my computer. I really do. The
wireless mouse and keyboard are so cool. The large screen is fantastic and I could
go on and on about my computer, but I won't. If you don't have a Mac, well, that's
your problem. Anything else is inferior. I bought my first Apple computer, a
Macintosh LC in 1991 and I was instantly hooked. (I am laying the groundwork for
some product placement within the movie to help reduce the cost of the production.
I don’t drink Coke or Pepsi so it's going to be difficult to attach a soft drink
company. Maybe I can get Dr. Brown's to participate?)

Jason had meticulously categorized each document and listed them for me in a
Microsoft Excel document. I hate Excel documents almost as much as I hate Power
Point Presentations. The documents were color coded, dated, alphabetized and
neatly arranged in a master document with folders and subfolders that were easy to
follow. He obviously spent hours putting this together. I wondered why? I wondered
how he found the time to do this? Larry wanted to see the Excel document. I
emailed it to him. Phillip wanted to see the master list of documents. I emailed
it to him. I knew that together, they were going to help me figure Jason out.

The dates of the documents were important. Many of the documents were dated prior
to the trial, but there was a collection of articles provided that were clearly
dated post trial. These were provided as evidence that DNA results are being used
to convict those accused of crimes and free those who had been accused of
committing a crime, but who might be innocent. I hope that's not too confusing.
The real concern, and part of what Jason and I were going to be evaluating, was
how DNA was being used in cases where there was no other evidence, physical or
otherwise, linking someone to a crime. At this point, we're not even concerning
ourselves with how DNA evidence is collected or how police investigators often
mishandle evidence or contaminate crime scenes with their sloppy police work. None
of that matters in the telling of Jason's story. Not at this point.

On February 8th, 2008, the Associated Press reported that Patricia Cornwell was
donating one million dollars to a top criminal justice college for a new academy
to teach CSI techniques. The best-selling novelist said she's taking action
because she's appalled by what she's seen at crime scene investigations. "I've
seen cops walk through blood. I've seen them leave their own fingerprints on a
window. I've seen bloody clothing put in a plastic bag, instead of a paper bag, so
it decomposes." Her funding will help start the Crime Scene Academy at New York's
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, set to open fall 2008 with training in DNA
typing, fingerprint enhancement techniques, ballistics and forensic psychology.

Patricia Cornwell has written more than a dozen books featuring Dr. Kay Scarpetta,
a medical examiner. Her latest is "Book of the Dead." Praised for her meticulous
research, Cornwell blames television and movies for misleading the public on how
crimes are investigated. "It's like `Star Trek' compared to the real Air Force,"
she said.

Just for the record, I'm not Patricia Cornwell. I'm not Dr. Kay Scarpetta. I'm not
Barry Scheck. But I do know that the same kind of nonsense used by defense lawyers
to explain away evidence when it implicates their client is the same kind of
nonsense used by prosecutors to win their cases.

Jason Warren, Jennifer Neal, Dennis Goodman and his team from the University of
California, Berkeley, planned to level the playing field, once and for all. They
questioned DNA at its core and what they were all about to reveal is the scariest
part of this story. But I understood quickly and very early on that there was no
way Senator Thayer, USCOM or anyone else was going to allow them to attack DNA.
Phillip Kauffman was amazed it had gotten as far as it had before Senator Thayer
shut the door. He couldn’t even put into words what was at risk. Phillip wanted to
be part of this and he called me frequently, text messaged me, tracked me down in
my hotel room in San Francisco. He was relentless. He wanted to meet Jason. Larry
wanted to get into Jason's head.

At first, I thought the story I was going to be writing was about Jason and the
murder of his mother and all that money. But I soon realized that this story was
far more complicated. This story had much more depth to it and that there were
many characters involved in this story. Was I writing a mystery? I don’t know. A
thriller? Maybe. Was it fiction or non-fiction or a combination of both? Was this
going to be like Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, a compelling blend of history and page
turning suspense? Was Ron Howard going to direct the movie made from my book? Was
Tom Hanks going to play me in the movie version? I'm thinking he's too old to play
me. I'm not sure there is any way to describe this story. But I'm going to try to
tell it, in its entirety.

Jason also provided me with a document, "Links to On-line Resources, References

and Articles", which I thought would come in very handy during my research
efforts. I convinced myself this was going to be so easy, mostly thanks to Jason's
extraordinary efforts. I started to read through the materials and I decided to
share with you some of what I learned along the way. Maybe this material would
never make it into the screenplay, but I put it into the book, to help you better
understand the thought process for Jason and me. I figure the more I get you
involved, the better we will communicate. The more you believe, the easier it will
be for me. Jason took me on a very deliberate path. He wanted to expose me to
specific details and educate me when necessary. He was meticulous in his
preparation. I greatly appreciated his efforts.

I was getting very excited about the upcoming trips Jason had planned for me. I
checked to make sure my passport had not expired. It hadn't. So, I was good to go,
anywhere, anytime. I had a new, Bluefly carry on board sized suitcase that was
perfect for short trips. I hated to check in luggage and wait for it in the
baggage claim area at the airport. It was depressing to watch bag after bag,
crushed bag after crushed bag, go around and around and around, as people searched
for their bag, pulling, dragging, lifting. I hate the baggage claim area at the
airport. It was like you were being punished for going away or coming back from
somewhere. I am a carry on bag person. No checked baggage for me, ever.

You've got to appreciate this, if nothing else, Jason had figured it all out. From
every angle he knew what to expect. And he knew not only how to play the game but
how to play the game to win. Jason won, big time. I don’t think what happened was
right and I would never try to make Jason out to be anything other than what he
turned out to be. But, like him or not, and he's not a very likeable guy, he's
sailing on a brand new forty seven foot Catalina Yacht enjoying the kind of life
you and I only dream of. Sometimes the bad guys win. They don’t deserve to win.
But they sometimes do. And that's the truth. Jason's truth. Is he the type of
character books are written about or movies are based on? I hope so. That's me
talking selfishly. One of my goals is to get you to see the bigger picture.

You can go on the Internet and do your own research. It's all there. There is no
way I, Jason or anyone else could have made all this stuff up. Go ahead, put this
book down and Google "Freed by DNA Evidence". Or, you can just read on. Either
way, I know you'll be fascinated. If you can believe for a second, that DNA might
not be the perfect piece of the evidence puzzle (as we believed fingerprints were
for years…) that it is made out to be, than you might begin to wonder, to question
out loud, what if? C'mon. Say it out loud with me, what if? And that's the point.
It's a scary thought. We are letting people out of jail who have been convicted by
a jury of their peers for the crime they were accused of committing due to new DNA
evidence. And we're convicting others because of DNA evidence, sometimes DNA
evidence is the only evidence available and we are still convicting or freeing. No
fingerprints, No eyewitnesses. Nothing but DNA. But, what if DNA isn't…OK, I am
off on a tangent and way ahead of myself. I apologize. I will try to stay focused.
Just keep an open mind…what if? What if?

I would like you to read the first article Jason asked me to read. It appeared in
The Sunday Times on October 14th, 2007. The Sunday Times reviews DNA: The Secret
of Life by James D Watson with Andrew Berry. The article was written by Charlotte
Hunt-Grubbe. I have included it in its entirety. The article is long and there are
places in the article that are boring. The writer seems to go on a bit. So, why
put it into the book, so early on and take a chance of turning you off? Well, I
took a risk. If I was wrong about your ability to read through this and go
forward, then, I was wrong. I am willing to take that risk. I read this article as
if it was evidence in a trial.

Jason wants me to believe that there's something not right about Watson and his
groundbreaking genetics work. Jason thought it was important that I understood
what type of man Watson was and had become. He wanted me to question not only the
man's ethics, but the way he conducted himself with his peers in the laboratory.
Were Watson and Crick that smart? I don’t l know. But DNA is a major part of this
story, so why not read about the man credited with its discovery? I did. Now it's
your turn.

The Elementary DNA of Dr Watson

History will remember James Watson for the discovery of the double helix.
But his pronouncements are often highly controversial. His former protégée
examines the complex legacy of a Nobel laureate.

The names Watson and Crick, it has been said, have “joined Darwin and
Copernicus among the immortals”. The pair’s discovery of the structure of
DNA, in 1953, has been hailed by fellow Nobel laureates as the greatest
single scientific achievement of the 20th century. Today the only one
remaining of the two, Dr James Watson, 79, stands alone as “the godfather of DNA”.
When, sitting at a dinner in Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1996, this ageing
geneticist gingerly leant over to the guest by his side – the formidable
headmistress of a large girls’ boarding school – and said, “I’m looking for
some girls,” he was met with an appropriately cold stare. However, when he
explained he was in England to hand-pick two students, one male and one female, to
live in his Long Island home with him and his wife, Liz, and work as geneticists
for a year at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, it was an
opportunity too good to lose. The headmistress promptly replied: “Well,
funnily enough…”

It’s August and I am standing on the shimmering forecourt of the

laboratory’s towering neuroscience building. “You’re doing this for the
future of women in science,” my headmistress had impressed on me, 10 years
earlier, as I left to start my stint at the laboratory bench. Watson, she
said, had come over specifically to recruit a girl – a change from the
male-dominated programme to date. Glancing up, I see a familiar figure
pacing briskly over sun-drenched paving slabs towards me. At 79, Watson
looks remarkably unchanged, perhaps his scant wisps of hair a touch whiter and
gait a little less sure. “Ah, Charlotte,” he says enthusiastically and, pausing to
give me the wide, open-mouthed smile I remember well and fixing me with intense,
pale grey eyes, he presses my shoulders and plants a kiss firmly on both cheeks.

I am back in Long Island to discuss the geneticist’s latest and, he tells

me, final memoir, Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science. Hisearly
life and academic career, peppered with useful tips for “those on
their way up” as well as those “on the top who do not want their leadership
years to be an assemblage of opportunities gone astray”. And – as befits the
ultimate memoir of a forthright scientist – an inflammatory epilogue with eye-
popping theories that will, undoubtedly, leave ethicists choking with disbelief.
We are not alone, however. A rotund thirty-something man asks for a photograph,
puffing his chest and beaming proudly into the camera lens. Later, Watson tells me
that the visitor was a science reporter who confided he has a form of
schizophrenia.
The visitor’s trust is well founded. Standing just a few hundred metres from the
building, vast construction frameworks jut above the campus. This, Watson’s latest
project – an impressive $100m new-build – heralds a new era of genetics. It will
soon become Cold Spring Harbor’s platform forunravelling the genetic causes of
mental disorders such as autism and
schizophrenia. He is convinced that within 10 years “we will be able to
diagnose the problem of schizophrenia by looking at the patient’s DNA”.

James Watson, or Jim, as the majority of scientists call him at the lab, has
an energy that’s infectious, almost childlike. Born in Chicago in 1928 into
a family who believed in “books, birds, and the Democratic party”, his
outgoing character comes, he tells me, from his mother, the well-liked and
extrovert Margaret – a raven-haired beauty who worked enthusiastically for the
Democrats, the basement of their modest house doubling as a polling station at
election time. His father, James, worked for a correspondence school and was a
quiet, kind character who introduced his son to books and instigated a love of
biology with early-morning birding forays in the nearby park. Watson recalls that
he was conditioned to accept his father’s disdain for “any explanation that went
beyond the laws of reason and science”.

Caught up in the Depression of the 1930s, he slept in tiny attic rooms with
his younger sister, Betty, in the middle-class neighbourhood of South Shore,
playing evening games of “kick the can” and softball in bungalow-lined streets.
Skinny-framed and physically weak in his teens, his only
consolation from school bullies was his parents’ empathy, encouraging
constant trips to buy milk shakes to “fatten him up”. He recalls how a pupil
cheerfully told him how, given his social awkwardness, “none of my
classmates thought I would amount to much”.

In his picture-lined office, sitting beneath a rough paper sketch of a

twisting DNA helix, Watson leans back in his chair, excitedly discussing his book.
“Not being boring isn’t sufficient to be a success in this world, but
certainly,” he pauses, fixing me with a brilliant smile, “it helps.” He says
he hopes the book will encourage people to go into science and – tilting the cover
to the light points out a hidden “Other” between the words “Boring” and “People” –
“One, I’m a snob; the other, I’m a realist!” He giggles in delight.

Watson didn’t grow up thinking he was particularly gifted. “I never was one
of those boy geniuses who could do maths,” he admits. But he does remember his
teachers liked him, commenting that: “I must have had some spark that I didn’t
know I had myself.” At the extremely young age of 15, he was admitted to the
University of Chicago; his mother knew the head of admissions, he says, and “I
always thought I got in because they liked my mother”. For a brilliant but awkward
teenager, university was the break he needed. “A world where I might succeed using
my head – not based on personal popularity or physical stature – was all that
mattered to me,” he writes.

Watson prefers to eat at Winship’s, the chatty, down-to-earth laboratory bar

overlooking the harbour, named after my boss of the time, whom he describes as
having the “second loudest laugh I’ve ever heard after Francis Crick”. He mingles
enthusiastically, hands shoved deep in dark- red knee-length shorts, an orange
floppy sunhat perched on his head. He remembers, as I do, being seduced by the
informal and intelligent atmosphere of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, something he
first encountered as a 20-year-old biology graduate on a summer course. He says
that in these early days, molecular biology was a very small field and people
“didn’t know what DNA was”. He was under the spell of Max Delbrück, the
charismatic young German lab director who played tennis and wasn’t “stuffy”.

For Watson, the ability to socialise is a key skill, one he believes can
help propel you far beyond your peers. “Gossip is a fact of life also among
scientists. And if you are out of the loop of what’s new, you are working
with one hand tied behind your back.” The trait is clear among his staff,
who, chatting easily at the bar, have the “ungeeky” Watson touch. My
headmistress recalls the geneticist wanting a “bright but not very boffiny
candidate who had lots of other interests” and who, above all, was
“sociable”.

When Watson arrived in the Cavendish laboratory at Cambridge University as a 23-

year-old postdoc, thirsty for the truth about the genetic material in our cells,
his sociable American ways encountered Francis Crick’s “extraordinary
conversational ability”, and he was hooked. Suddenly it no longer mattered what
Delbrück thought: “It became what Francis thinks.” The pair freely discussed their
scientific findings with other researchers at Cambridge and King’s College London,
and Watson says this was essential to the pair’s ability to work out the detailed
structure of the DNA molecule.
But there was someone who seemed immune to Watson’s precocious intelligence and
eager collaboration: the acclaimed x-ray crystallographer Rosalind Frankin –
someone described by Watson and Franklin’s estranged research colleague Maurice
Wilkins, who shared the Nobel prize, as “hostile”. Whereas Watson admits to never
having a problem asking for advice, writing that it is better for someone to “know
my inadequacies than not to be able to go on to the next problem”. Franklin seemed
unwilling to risk criticism, reportedly preferring to work on DNA in isolation,
jealously guarding her results. Watson comments that “avoiding your competition
because you are afraid that you will reveal too much is a dangerous course”.

As he chews a melted-cheese sandwich and sips an iced coffee in the bar, he

reflects on his relationship with “Rosy”. “She was possibly somewhat Asperger’s,”
he says quietly, “because she didn’t seem to even want to look at people and would
hurry past them. I think she wasn’t good at knowing what other people thought and
so she would insult them. She had some terrible interviews with the Medical
Research Council and I think she cried afterwards. She was just awkward.” Then he
softens: “I tell people, instead of feeling angry at awkward people, you realise
it’s not their choice. It’s awful. And I think science selects for awkward people
because you think in dealing with ideas, you don’t have to deal with people. But
the moment you’re in science and you realise you can’t deal with other people,
you’re at an enormous disadvantage.”

It is hard to ignore the accusations that emerged around that time. In 1962,
Watson, Crick and Wilkins received the Nobel prize for physiology or medicine, but
by then Franklin – whose data was so crucial to the discovery – had died at the
age of 37, her life cut short by ovarian cancer. But when, in 1968, Watson wrote
an account of the DNA “race” in which he revealed that Wilkins had shown him
Franklin’s data without her knowledge, and compounded it by being derogatory about
her physical appearance, he was slammed by feminists riled by what they believed
was a blatant case of sexism.

Although the prize can only be shared by a maximum of three people in one
category – and Franklin’s input was readily acknowledged – they claimed her
contribution had been overshadowed. When, in an interview at the time, he was
asked why it mattered how a woman looked, he said: “Because it’s important” – a
statement surely grounded in the genteel influences of his early life, when
manners mattered, and being unkind “just wasn’t the way to behave”. And
occasionally, throughout the day, his “old-fashioned” ideals come through.

He describes Max Delbrück’s wife, Manny, as someone he liked

very much but “not the sort of wife he needed”, adding that she was a
terrible cook and would never have enjoyed the entertaining and fundraising that
comes with being a university president’s wife. He also refers more than once to
his disdain for women turning men into “girly men”, which means “men who don’t
have the courage to say anything – it’s absurd”.

Feminists are a constant source of trouble for him. I remember him turning
to me the day the headline “Abort babies with gay genes, says Nobel winner”
appeared in a British broadsheet 10 years ago. Eyes wild and voice
uncharacteristically strained, he asked: “What should I do about the press?”

He refers to the incident again at lunch. “It was a hypothetical thing,” he

explains. “If you could detect it pre-natally, could a woman abort a child
who was homosexual? I said they should have the right to, because most women want
to have grandchildren, period. We can’t do it, but it’s common sense. Anyways,” he
says, shaking his head wearily, “it was a bad day when that headline hit. I was
just arguing for the freedom of women to try and have the children they want, not
what is right or wrong.”

One former pupil, an eminent biologist and staunch feminist, is outraged at

his account of her in his book. He describes her as having “bolted from the
room” when the ex-Harvard University president Larry Summers gave his
infamous lecture suggesting that the low representation of tenured female
scientists at universities might stem from, among other causes, innate
differences between the sexes – an “unpopular, though by no means unfounded”
theory, Watson comments. “She can criticise men; men can criticise women,” he
says. “People criticise me all the time and you just take it. If you enter the
public arena then you’re subject to it.” On the subject of gender equality he
says, adamantly: “All I care about is great science.”

But he happily admits to appreciating a pretty smile or a well-dressed

physique. A love of things aesthetic is unmistakable – pictures, glass
sculptures and his elegant wife, Liz, 20 years his junior. He once said that
in the early days, “almost everything I ever did, even as a scientist, was
in the hope of meeting a pretty girl”. However, on the subject of science,
he seems impartial. He admits that Rosalind Franklin would have seen the
double helix first “had she seen fit to enter the model-building race and
been better able to interact with other scientists”, and makes a point of
mentioning that a former female student whose career he “certainly
encouraged” – who is now a high-powered biology professor – calls him “the first
real feminist for women in science”. As I sit with him, another former female
student is being derided for her poor personal hygiene. He jumps to her defence:
“No,” he shakes his head, dismissing it. “She was very intelligent.”

We drive in Watson’s silver-grey Volvo between tall sycamores and past the
laboratory basketball court – a favourite pastime for many of the staff,
fulfilling his rule to “exorcise intellectual blahs” by incorporating “plenty of
physical exertion to get outside your head regularly”. The road winds down to
Ballybung, the Watsons’ peach-coloured Palladian-style home perching on the edge
of Long Island Sound, which serves as a tranquil retreat from the bustling campus.

The lab is undoubtedly his second legacy. When he took on its directorship in 1967
at the age of 39, it was an ailing institution whose endowment was effectively
zero, but it stands today as one of the world’s foremost genetic research
institutes. Last year its budget stood at an impressive $115.4m. Success, he
believes, comes from having the right objectives: “Ones that are important and
which are achievable.” Is he proud of the achievement? “Yes, I always wanted
anything we did to be in the top five in the world. But I achieved it by
encouraging people and making people think that you’re good enough to do something
very good and make sure you don’t waste your life with unimportant objectives.” He
says Cold Spring Harbor couldn’t survive if the science was pedestrian: “It has to
be unusual or you die.”

When he took on the directorship, he split his time between Cold Spring
Harbor and his professorship at Harvard. At 39 he had been captivated by the
Radcliffe sophomore Elizabeth Lewis, the young assistant in his university
faculty. After a lightning romance, he memorably wrote a postcard to a close
friend saying: “19-year-old now mine.” As I wait in Ballybung’s homely kitchen,
Liz breezes in clutching a bunch of sunflowers to “brighten up the hall, because
they are so pretty”. A dark-haired beauty with wide-set eyes and a dazzling smile
that, says Watson, “would always make me feel good”; it seems clear her
intelligent and solid support contributes much to the laboratory’s success.

On late nights back from the lab, I would stumble over little presents and
notes on the stairs to our annexe – timely reminders from Liz not to forget
a drinks party that weekend. The Watsons, I soon discovered, never stop
working. The house was invariably crammed with rich benefactors and
potential donors. Unaware of funding concerns then, I find out that the new
buildings I saw earlier will need an additional $100m on top of the building
costs, to “attract researchers”. Jim is as blatantly direct about his
fundraising tactics as about everything else. He writes: “Nothing attracts
money like the quest for the cure for a terrible disease.”
But the quest for the root causes of mental illness is not driven only by a
lust for the truth. Of his two sons – Rufus, 37, and Duncan, 35 – Rufus
lives at home, seriously incapacitated by an ability to plan ahead. “Rufus
couldn’t really do his schoolwork,” Watson says. “Even though he was bright, he
could never write a term paper because he couldn’t really organise his thoughts.
He can handle one day and that’s all that he wants to think about.”

Rufus was first hospitalized at the time of the 1986 meeting on the human
genome. Watson realized that he would never really find out what was wrong with
him until he could isolate the genes. But, as more is uncovered about the causes
of schizophrenia, he wonders if he himself is to blame. “I worry that I was 42
with Rufus,” he says. “I read that the frequency of
schizophrenia goes up with the age of both parents.” This leads him to
expound his latest socio-biological theory, that “Viagra is fighting against
evolution” – because if evolution has selected for erectile-dysfunction
disorder, it is to prevent older men fathering children. He suggests that
“men should store sperm at 15 to be used if they want to be fathers at 80”.

He talks of the “horror and destruction” of life that can arise from having
a severely autistic child, and hopes that by diagnosing autism early, “we
might prevent some [autism-prone] families having subsequent children”. His mother
died young, at 57. He says her heart was weakened by rheumatic fever earlier in
her life, and that his father died of lung cancer. It was the quest to understand
the biology of cancer that ultimately lured him from his professorship at Harvard.
As the director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, he could preside over seasoned
professionals, focusing his efforts first on “recruiting scientists who cared as
much as I did about the biology of cancer, and then on finding the funding they
needed to make their ideas work”.

But what of the man himself? “I used to be three inches taller,” he says
conspiratorially. “I used to be almost 6ft 2in and now I think I’m barely
5ft 10 1/2in.” His voice drops to a whisper: “You get smaller.” The other
disconcerting thing for the geneticist is that, when they sequenced his DNA, he
hardly had anything left of his Ychromosome – an evolutionary phenomenon that
commonly occurs as men age. “I try not to think about it,” he chuckles.

Acutely conscious of his physical appearance in his youth, he still finds

looking at himself irksome. “The trouble is,” he says, as the photographer
shows him a picture, “I don’t like the ones that look like me.” His ideal
look? “Twenty-five,” he chuckles, “but I’d be satisfied with 35. A man, no
matter how old, wants to think of himself as no more than 35, and to look at a
wife who was 45… No! That would immediately tell you how old you are.”

As I sit on the plush tennis lawns of the nearby Piping Rock club, I am
aware – as Watson powers formidable forehands cross-court – that even during his
daily relaxation he is unfailingly competitive. “I play for tworeasons,” he tells
me. “To stay fit, and when occasionally I win a good point against a good player,
I feel good.”

Does he ever reflect on his achievements? “I don’t think back much. I’m still
thinking can we find the genes for mental disease while I’m still mentally alive,
and will we have stopped cancer in 10 years, and… will my tennis serve improve?”
We are waiting at a red light on the way back from tennis and, for Watson, a
meeting with a potential sponsor. I remember that while I was thrilled when a
sheet of familiar laboratory paper landed on my desk a few months ago, asking if I
would like to interview him for his new book, I was wary of the ethical content.
“If I believe something then I’ll say it,” the scientist says. “I figure,
generally, at least half the time I am reflecting common sense, which is not a
lie.”

Back in 1990, the journal Science commented: “To many in the scientific
community, Watson has long been something of a wild man, and his colleagues tend
to hold their collective breath whenever he veers from the script.” When, in 2000,
he left an audience reeling by suggesting a link between skin colour and sex drive
– hypothesising that dark-skinned people have stronger libidos – some journalists
suggested he had “opened a transatlantic rift”.

American scientists accused him of “trading on past successes to promote

opinions that have little scientific basis”. British academics countered
that subjects should not be off limits because they are politically
incorrect. Susan Greenfield, director of the Royal Institution, said that
“nothing should stop you ascertaining the scientific truth; science must be
free of concerns about gender and race”.

He says that he is “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all
our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as
ours – whereas all the testing says not really”, and I know that this “hot potato”
is going to be difficult to address. His hope is that
everyone is equal, but he counters that “people who have to deal with black
employees find this not true”. He says that you should not discriminate on the
basis of colour, because “there are many people of colour who are very talented,
but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level”. He writes
that “there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of
peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved
identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal
heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so”.

When asked how long it might take for the key genes in affecting differences in
human intelligence to be found, his “back-of-the-envelope answer” is 15 years.
However, he wonders if even 10 years will pass. In his mission to make children
more DNA-literate, the geneticist explains that he has opened a DNA learning
centre on the borders of Harlem in New York. He is also recruiting minorities at
the lab and, he tells me, has just accepted a blackgirl “but,” he comments,
“there’s no one to recruit.”

Watson will no doubt enthusiastically counter the inevitable criticisms that

will arise. He once commented to a fellow scientist – perhaps optimistically
– that “the time was surely not far off when academia would have no choice but to
hand political correctness back to the politicians”. Even after a year at the lab,
I am still unnerved by his devil-may-care compulsion to say what he believes.
Critics may see his acceptance of “softer-science” studies – that attempt to link
IQ with specific genes, but remove society and other factors from the equation –
as a dangerously flippant approach to a complex issue. His comments, however,
although seemingly unguarded, are always calculated. Not maliciously, but with the
mischievous air of a great mind hoping to be challenged. I ask him how he placates
those he offends. “I try to use humour or whatever I can to indicate that I
understand other people having other views,” he explains.

As I motor back to New York, I reflect on a man who – at nearly 80 – is, and will
remain, an immensely powerful and revered force in science. I wonder whether it’s
possible, as his desire to shock seems so strong, that a fear of boring people
really does play on his mind. Perhaps the best description of the man is from the
driver. “Dr Watson’s so kind and still very young at heart,” he drawls as we leave
the campus behind. “He’s got a lot of curiosity about everything and he’s always
working. But to him it isn’t work: it’s a challenge to the mind. And if he runs
into a problem, it’s fun time.”
Congratulations. You made it through the article. That's good. Now we can move on.
But before we do, I want you to think about Watson. Try to picture him in the lab.
Try to imagine that one of his female assistants points out to him, in front of
others, that he had made a mistake. She points out that what he believes is an
accurate reproduction of an earlier test, was in fact flawed. She accuses Watson
of not only manipulating the test, but of fabricating the documents to reflect the
test results based on what Watson wanted and expected them to be, but not what
they truly were. She claimed the test results had been written before the tests
were even completed. And she claimed that what she and her team had accomplished
and discovered was what he was about to report on. What would Watson have done?
How would he have responded to this outrageous criticism and accusation?

Lets be clear. I have done considerable research, more than one hundred hours
worth, on Watson. He was a brilliant man, perhaps a bit eccentric. But there is no
evidence that what Jennifer Neal claimed to have happened actually happened. At
least nothing that I could find would substantiate her story. But there is also
nothing I could find that would completely negate her story. As hard as I tried to
find other witnesses, there aren't any who can or who are willing to discuss
Jennifer Neal or her accusations against Watson.

At times, it was even difficult to verify Jennifer Neal's participation or even

her existence. But for Jason's story to make sense at all, we have to assume that
what Jennifer Neal has said could be the truth. And we also have to believe that
Jennifer Neal is who she says she is. I have no reason to believe otherwise.
Phillip is working on his end to gather up as much background information on
Jennifer Neal as he can find. He told me it wouldn’t be too difficult to put the
pieces together, especially if someone had decided to prevent that from actually
happening. Instead of looking for documents everywhere, he was focusing on
retrieving her personal files from the FBI, CIA and Secret Service. It wouldn’t
take him long. I was anxious to see what he was going to uncover.

If Jennifer Neal is who she says she is, she could/would provide us with
incredible insight. If what happened in Watson's lab happened the way Jennifer
Neal said it happened, well, I'm not sure what to do with that information, yet.
But Jennifer Neal is important to Jason and that makes her story important to this
story.

Who is Jennifer Neal and why is she important to this story? I will explain more
about the connection as we go on. But from what I have learned so far, Jason
believes Jennifer Neal can provide expert testimony that would support his
theories about the reliability of DNA and DNA testing. And, it also appears that
what she has to say could be of interest to Senator Thayer, USCOM and the research
team at the University of California in Berkeley. What she has to say could have
worldwide implications within the scientific and judicial communities.

Think about this. Why would Jennifer Neal make up this sensational story, if it
isn't true? What does she have to gain by trying to discredit Watson? And what is
her connection with Jason? Why is she helping him? What does she have to gain by
helping Jason? She had disappeared for years. Now, to come out, go public with her
accusations and for what? How much could Jason be paying her? How much do expert
witnesses cost?
And, I have to ask these two question now. Is Jennifer Neal who she says she is?
Did Jennifer Neal work as Rosalind Franklin's research assistant, as she claimed
she did? Stay tuned.
CHAPTER FOUR

I have taken much of what you are about to read from the documents Jason provided
me. Be open-minded. Be skeptical. And remember, we are in this together. You have
got to read carefully and allow yourself to soak up the concept. Be a sponge. If
they lied about DNA from the very beginning, if they were fundamentally wrong in
their discovery and in the results they presented to the worldwide scientific
community, then we have created a monster so big, it is eating up our judicial
system and is spitting out criminals by the hundreds.

The distinguished American judge and law professor, Richard Posner, wrote about
the truth finding capabilities of the American criminal justice system (Times of
London Literary Supplement, Feb. 7, 1999), "It has become commonplace that an
innocent person has a better chance of acquittal in a European than in an American
court, and a guilty person, a better chance of acquittal in an American than in a
European court". I'm not sure if this is important to our story, but I thought it
was a very interesting quote. I would also like to you consider that the actual
number of wrongful convictions in American courts are shamefully overlooked by
many prosecutors.

There is no doubt that Jason was onto to something huge. There is also no doubt
that he used his instincts, connections and knowledge to acquire the money. He
gambled that the government would not allow the information he claimed he had
discovered about DNA to become public. They could not allow it. So, they made an
agreement, a deal. That's the beginning of the story for me. What did Jason really
find out? Was he bluffing or did he really have the goods? And were his hands free
of his mother's blood. I will always remember the significance of her murder
throughout this journey. I will not let you or anyone else forget what actually
happened.

What I find so interesting, is that this is only one part of a story that has many
parts, many chapters, many starts and many finishes. Never forget, and I won't let
you, that someone committed a violent, senseless brutal crime against another
human being. Killing a wonderful, loving, smart, inspirational woman that did not
deserve to die. She was butchered to death. Stabbed more than one hundred and
fifty times by an attacker using a Holbein dagger. Drained of life, one drop of
blood at a time. She suffered at the hand of a merciless killer. She cried out
till the very end. I can't even imagine what she went through. I won’t even
attempt to soften the blow or try to paint a somewhat palatable picture.

And if her killer (s) was set free or wrongfully identified and convicted because
of DNA evidence, you should be as furious as I am. My goal is to find the truth -
first, who really committed the murder and second, what did Jason (Dennis and his
team included) really uncover in regards to the reliability of the DNA science?
And of course, I want to know and reveal to you, how Jason was involved and how he
might have played us all.

Along the way, I want to uncover how deep Senator Thayer's relationship with USCOM
was and how much of Senator Thayer USCOM owned. This is a man who could be the
next president of the United States. I want to know who this man really is and did
he sell his soul to USCOM for the Presidency? At what cost? How much money does
absolute power cost? If there was a cover up, who else was involved? How many
others were on the USCOM payroll? How many others participated in this cover up
that has lasted for decades?

I needed Phillip's help putting the pieces together. I needed access to

information and Phillip promised to take me there. He gently reminded me to be
careful. He let me know I was playing against a team that doesn’t lose or back
down from a fight. He asked me if I had what it took to fight the fight. I wasn't
sure. I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I just wanted the
information to prove that the story I was telling was true. This was Jason's fight
all along. Not mine. I was just writing the final act, the last scene before the
credits would roll. I'm all about riding off into the sunset. I just want to
finish the book and make my movie.

In recent years, DNA evidence has exonerated more than 200 people in the United
States convicted of violent crimes, including 12 who had been on death row. In
most of those cases, the cause of their wrongful conviction was mistaken
identification by a victim or eyewitness. Standard police procedure encourages
witnesses to identify suspects through the use of photographs and lineups. This
process relies on the assumption of precise visual memory. But through exposure to
video, composite sketches, mug shots, Polaroid's and lineups, eyewitness memory
can change; victims may think they recognize a face, but it will not necessarily
be the face they saw during the commission of the crime.

I watched this on one of the DVD's Jason provided. The video quality was crappy,
but the audio was perfect. I didn’t recognize the CNN on-camera talent, but there
was a graphic on the bottom third of the screen. ANDERSON COOPER

"Most of us probably weren't aware of DNA analysis before the O.J. Simpson trial
back in the mid-1990s, but the process of DNA fingerprinting -- analyzing a
person's unique genetic makeup -- has actually been around since the mid-'80s. In
that decade, it was first used to convict and exonerate defendants in sexual
assault cases. Since then, slowly -- very slowly -- DNA evidence has gained
acceptance in the legal system."

Well, there you have it. DNA evidence has gained acceptance in the legal system.
And USCOM makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year from its more than eighty
DNA testing facilities worldwide. Nine out ten paternity tests are conducted by
USCOM. USCOM experts testify at more than ninety-five percent of trials throughout
the world. Senator Thayer heads a Senate Committee that has awarded Federal
contracts to USCOM worth more than one hundred and fifty billion dollars! Senator
Thayer is said to be worth more than eighty five million dollars. Do you see where
I am going with all this? Where does it stop? Where does it start? How did Jason
know how far he could push Senator Thayer before the Senator would give him what
he wanted? How did Jason know what he needed to do and how hard he needed to push
to take USCOM to their limits?

Below are some of the articles Jason provided. I checked, and they are all
available on the Internet. For your information, there are many more articles
available. I could add another couple of hundred pages to this book if I included
them all, so if you are inclined to do additional research on your own, please
take a break now and come back when you are ready. This is the interactive part of
the process that I spoke about earlier. Take your time, I will be right here
waiting for your return.

The articles appear in the order I removed them from the folder Jason provided.
I'm not sure why they are in this order, and neither Phillip nor Larry could
provide any insight or shed any light on the subject. The articles are interesting
in that they help us appreciate what's going on in our judicial system. We all
believe that DNA evidence, and sometimes, often, DNA evidence alone is enough to
convict or free someone of a crime. At one time, we believed the same about
fingerprint evidence. But we don’t anymore. If Jason, Jennifer and Dennis' team at
UC Berkeley are correct, it means DNA results cannot be 100% accurate. That means
we are convicting and setting free those who might be guilty, those who might be
innocent. USCOM claims that DNA testing is 100% accurate 100% of the time.

Jason claims the DNA evidence that convicted his father also matches the DNA
profile of someone else, the real killer. How is that possible? Was the evidence
compromised in any way? Were DNA samples mixed prior to testing? What are we
missing? Was DNA evidence planted at the crime scene? If it was, why? How? By
whom? This goes to answer the question everyone wants answered, Did Jason Warren
frame his father for the murder of his mother?" And if he did, how did he do it?
And if he did, who committed the crime? And why?

Bernard Saliman recently committed suicide and left a note in which he stated the
following, "I killed Kathy Strand. When I was released from prison three months
ago, I walked out of the only home I ever knew. I had no place to go. I have had
the urge to kill again. But I am tired. The lawyer who got me out, won my appeal
due to the introduction of DNA evidence which proved that I could not have
committed the murder of which I was accused and convicted of. But the DNA evidence
was wrong. I killed Kathy Strand and Margaret Carson."

The DNA of another man, Bruce Parker, who committed a similar crime, matched the
DNA found at the Strand crime scene. Parker admitted killing Kathy Strand and even
though he could not provide any details to the crime that matched existing
evidence, he was convicted of her murder and the murder of three others. He was
sentenced to the death penalty. No one was ever convicted of killing Margaret
Carson. She has been missing for more than ten years. Bruce Parker and Bernard
Saliman had the same attorney, Michael Esposito. A witness recently came forward
and testified that she saw Bernard Saliman having sex with Kathy Strand the same
evening Bruce Parker claimed to have had sex with Kathy and killed her. She was
also represented by Mr. Esposito, who is planning an appeal on behalf of his
client, Bruce Parker.

I asked Phillip Kaufman to check into the background of Mr. Esposito. He promised
he would.

Read on.

Bernard Webster
Wrongfully held 20 years, Md. man freed
Imprisoned for rape that DNA shows he did not commit
By Stephanie Hanes
Baltimore-Sun Staff
November 7, 2002

A Baltimore man who has spent 20 years in prison for a rape that DNA tests show he
did not commit is scheduled to walk free today after a hearing in Baltimore County
Circuit Court, the first person to be exonerated under Maryland's new DNA law.
Bernard Webster was 19 when a 47-year-old schoolteacher identified him as the man
who broke into her Towson home and raped her.

Webster is 40 now, without relatives, a job or a home outside the limestone walls
of the Maryland Correctional Institution in Hagerstown. "His life basically ended
when he was 19 years old," said Cynthia Boersma, an attorney in the Maryland
public defender's office.

The DNA law, which took effect in 2001, allows judges to order DNA testing for
people serving sentences for murder and rape when that testing could prove their
innocence. Webster will be the third person in Maryland - the 115th nationwide -
to have a conviction overturned by DNA evidence, according to the Innocence
Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City, a nonprofit
legal clinic that seeks to identify and free people who have been wrongly
convicted.

Michele Nethercott, who runs the Maryland public defender's Innocence Project,
which has the same mission as the New York clinic, began working on Webster's case
in 2000 when the Baltimore man asked the public defender's office for help in
proving his innocence. Webster had made that request of the office regularly since
his 1983 conviction, according to the public defenders, but there was little the
attorneys could do until the advent of DNA testing.

In 2001, as Nethercott was looking into the case, Webster filed his own petition
for a DNA test. Although the Baltimore County state's attorney's asked the court
to deny that motion, Judge Christian Kahl allowed Webster to go forward, citing
the new statute.

Meanwhile, Nethercott's work on the case brought her to the pathology department
at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center. There, she found three slides of
potential DNA evidence preserved from the July 6, 1982, sexual assault evaluation
of the victim. The attack had taken place that afternoon, soon after the Towson
woman, now 67, came home to her ground-floor apartment across the street from
Towson University. She had spent the afternoon lying in the sun with friends, she
told the jury.

A man in the closet in her apartment, she said, she heard a rustling noise coming
from the bedroom. She said she assumed it was her husband. But when she walked
into the bedroom, a black man jumped out of the closet. "There was sort of a
frozen moment, and I think that he was standing, he may have been standing on this
yellow, this little yellow suitcase that's in my closet," she told the jury in
1983. "And he lunged at me, and then I screamed."

She told the jury the man put what he said was a gun to her back, wrapped a robe
around her head, forced her onto the bed and raped her. He threatened to kill her
if she did not stop trembling. The man then left the apartment. The woman's
husband came home some minutes later, and they called the police.

Webster became a suspect in the crime because the Baltimore County police had
arrested him months earlier at the Loyola Federal Building in Towson for the theft
of a pocketbook, according to court papers. As detectives continued their
investigation, they found evidence they said connected Webster to the rape,
including a key found in a pair of pants left by the assailant under the victim's
bed. They said the key fit the lock on Webster's apartment.

Defense attorneys said the key did not fit, and presented two witnesses at
Webster's trial that said they saw Webster playing basketball that day miles away
from the rape scene. Also at the trial, the defense raised questions after a
police forensics lab technician testified that Webster's blood matched that found
on a bedspread, contradicting an earlier report that said otherwise. She blamed
the discrepancy on a typographical error.

Other witnesses: But two people who worked at the Towsontown Boulevard apartment
complex where the rape occurred said Webster was the man they had seen around the
building that day. And the victim picked Webster out of a photo lineup as her
attacker.
In October, Nethercott received results of DNA testing on the hospital slides.
They showed the semen could not have come from Webster. Last week, the state's
attorney's office got the results of its own testing, which also confirmed
Webster's innocence. The victim said yesterday that she was upset and did not want
to talk to a reporter. "You can't imagine it, you just can't," she said. The Sun
does not identify victims of sexual assault.

Mistaken identity: Assistant State's Attorney John Cox, who heads the office's sex
offense division, said the woman has told him she was confident in her
identification. "I cannot say I have convinced her of his innocence," he said.
Mistakes in witness identifications, especially when it is a cross-racial
identification, are common, defense attorneys said.

Aliza Kaplan, deputy director of the Innocence Project at Cardozo, said there were
mistakes in victim witness identifications in about 70 percent of her group's
cases. "Usually the victim is doing the best job he or she can do, but it happens
over and over," she said. In Webster's case, Nethercott said, there is no
indication of any prosecutorial misconduct.

But that raises another question, especially in Baltimore County, defense

attorneys said. "Baltimore County is responsible for Maryland's death row
population," Boersma said. "Here you have a case where things worked as they're
intended to work, and they still got the wrong guy. There are implications as to
whether we can trust the way the death penalty works."

Baltimore County State's Attorney Sandy A. O'Connor agreed that the case might
affect the way people feel about the death penalty. But she said the DNA evidence
used to exonerate defendants in old cases is now available during trial, thus
preventing wrongful convictions such as Webster's. "We now have that level of
forensics, and juries insist upon it," she said. Webster's conviction is the
second to be overturned in Baltimore County because of DNA evidence.

Death row inmate Kirk Bloodsworth was exonerated in 1993 after DNA testing showed
he could not have committed the murder and rape he was convicted of in 1985.

Where to now? As of last night, Nethercott and Patrick Kent, the other attorney
working on Webster's case, were still trying to figure out where Webster would be
able to sleep tonight. Webster, who has a 10th-grade education, was taken away
from his biological mother when he was 3. His foster mother died while he was in
prison. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison but because of good behavior
credits he was to be released in February. Webster had little training in prison
and was never granted parole, in part, his attorneys said, because he refused to
admit his guilt. He is not entitled to any compensation from the state for his
time in prison, his lawyers said. "It's bittersweet, for sure," Nethercott said.

DNA Evidence Frees 3 Men In 1984 Murder of L.I. Girl

By ELISSA GOOTMAN
The New York Times
June 12, 2003

When 16-year-old Theresa Fusco was found raped and strangled near the roller-
skating rink where she worked, ripples of anxiety spread across Long Island. Not
only was the crime horrific, but it took place around the same time that two other
teenage girls vanished from places nearby.

A few months later, in 1985, prosecutors charged three men in their 20's and 30's,
who were later convicted of raping and murdering Theresa and sentenced to more
than 30 years in prison.
From the beginning, the men insisted they were innocent, saying the case had been
based on a coerced confession and unreliable testimony by fellow inmates. When the
men's lawyers contended in the 1990's that early DNA tests had eliminated all
three as suspects, a judge sided with prosecutors, saying the tests were not
reliable enough to overturn the convictions.

But today, prosecutors joined defense lawyers in asking a judge to do just that,
based on new DNA evidence showing that semen found on the girl's body was from
another man. In a Nassau County courtroom here packed with the men's relatives,
Judge Victor M. Ort agreed.

The three men, dressed in business clothes, were then handcuffed and returned to
the Nassau County jail in East Meadow. Shortly before 8 tonight, they were each
released on a $300,000 bond, into a knot of television cameras and the arms of
relatives who had stood by them. ''I've been put in hell for 18 years,'' said one
of the men, Dennis Halstead, 48. ''This is my heaven.''

But the men's ultimate fate is still uncertain. The Nassau district attorney,
Denis Dillon, stopped short of proclaiming their innocence and said he was still
considering ordering retrials for Mr. Halstead and his two co-defendants, John
Kogut, 39, and John Restivo, 44.

''We're finding at this stage that they didn't get a fair trial,'' Mr. Dillon said
at a news conference. ''We can't say at this stage that they didn't do the
crime.'' He said a new investigation was under way to determine if a killer was
still at large.

The men's lawyers, and their relatives, said the new DNA evidence was a clear sign
that the three had no hand in the rape and murder.

''We don't believe that there is any credible evidence at this point linking them
to the crime, and we think this DNA evidence is really very powerful proof of
innocence,'' said Barry C. Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project at the
Cardozo School of Law, which uses DNA technology to help free the wrongly
convicted. The group has been involved in this case for a decade, he said, and it
represented Mr. Restivo today.

A telephone call to the home of Theresa Fusco's mother was not returned today. On
Dec. 5, 1984, Theresa's body was found in a wooded area near the parking lot of
Hot Skates, the roller rink where she had last been seen nearly a month earlier,
in her hometown, Lynbrook. The case drew widespread attention, in part because it
was not unique.

Kelly Morrissey, 15, a friend of Theresa's from Lynbrook, disappeared in June

1984, when she was last seen headed for a video game parlor. In March 1985,
Jacqueline Martarella, 19, whose body was later found, disappeared in Oceanside.
Neither case has been solved.

That same month, the police arrested Mr. Kogut, 21, a landscaper, in the killing
of Theresa Fusco. Mr. Kogut had a record of petty crime but was getting his life
back on track, and had recently become engaged, said his lawyer, Terry A. Maroney.

After more than 18 hours of interrogation and sleep deprivation, Ms. Maroney said,
Mr. Kogut gave a videotaped confession saying that near the roller rink, Theresa
had voluntarily gotten into a van with him, Mr. Restivo and Mr. Halstead, a 30-
year-old father of five who owned an aluminum siding business. The three men had
worked occasionally for a moving company that Mr. Restivo's family owned, lawyers
said.
Mr. Kogut, in the confession, said the four had driven to a nearby cemetery. Mr.
Restivo and Mr. Halstead raped Theresa, he said, and persuaded him to strangle
her. They dumped the body near Hot Skates, he said.

Mr. Kogut recanted the confession, but prosecutors used it and the testimony of
several inmates who were in jail with the defendants to build a case that two
juries found convincing. All three men proclaimed their innocence at trial and
filed appeals. About a decade ago, the Centurion Ministries in Princeton, N.J.,
which represents people wrongly convicted of crimes, took on the case. The
Innocence Project also got involved.

In the early 1990's, Mr. Scheck said, three sets of DNA tests were conducted,
comparing semen taken from Theresa's body and preserved on a slide with the DNA of
the three men. Two of the tests eliminated all three men as sources of the semen,
Mr. Scheck said, but one test did not exclude all three, so a judge ruled that the
results could not be trusted.

Then, about two years ago, the slide was analyzed using a more advanced DNA
technique, called Short Tandem Repeat. That test indicated that the DNA belonged
to a man other than the three in prison. ''The significance of that finding was
huge,'' Ms. Maroney said.

Lawyers for the men and investigators in the district attorney's office redoubled
their efforts. This year, they made a crucial discovery: a previously untested
vaginal swab, which had not been known to exist. The swab yielded a DNA profile
identical to the one lifted from the slide. ''That was really what turned the
corner in terms of our negotiations with the district attorney's office,'' Ms.
Maroney said.

In prison, Mr. Halstead became a grandfather to four. Two of his children moved to
Florida, saying the memories in Nassau were just too painful. One daughter
married, but one waited until the day her father could walk her down the aisle.
Mr. Restivo's mother, Frida, recently widowed when he was arrested, spent nearly
20 years preparing packages of candy and tuna. Mr. Kogut married his fiancée,
Lisa, in prison. The relationship faltered when the situation became too
difficult, but now, Ms. Kogut said, they plan to try to make it work. ''You're not
going to get those years back,'' she said today. ''It's like starting all over
again.''

A Convict Freed By DNA Evidence Tries to Find a Life

By Ann Zimmerman
Wall Street Journal
October 30, 2007

Michael Anthony Williams took a road trip through the Southeast recently, looking
for a place that felt like home. For more than half his 43 years, Mr. Williams had
lived in the infamously tough Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. He had been
convicted of raping and beating his school tutor when he was 16 years old. Only
his family believed him when he said he was innocent.

DNA testing finally exonerated him, and he was released in March 2005. But since
then, Mr. Williams has lived in a different kind of prison. After 24 years of
estrangement, he says his six brothers and sisters want nothing to do with him. He
has little education, no job skills and few friends. "It's been lonely," he says.
"Very lonely."

Mr. Williams is one of a growing number of convicts -- more than 200 so far -- who
have been freed from prison after DNA testing proved them innocent. After years of
fighting to clear their names, they're emerging into a changed world, with not
much help to find their way. A 2003 study of 60 exonerees imprisoned an average of
12 years by Lola Vollen, founder of the Life After Exoneration Program in
Berkeley, Calif., found that nearly half suffer from depression, anxiety disorder
or some form of post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Exonerees are like torture victims or political prisoners, given the

psychological trauma they've suffered," says Vanessa Potkin, a staff attorney with
the Innocence Project, a New York nonprofit organization that used DNA to help
clear Mr. Williams. Ms. Potkin says, "Michael is one of the harshest cases,
because he was so young and his prison experience so horrendous, but he also
represents the challenges and obstacles shared by many exonerees."

To be sure, some of their problems are common to anyone, guilty or innocent,

confronting the world after serving a long prison sentence. But experts say the
issues are often worse for exonerees, who have the added emotional and
psychological burdens of having been wrongly locked away, as well as having
comparatively fewer services available to them when they are released.

The Innocence Project and other groups' efforts to help inmates after they've been
freed have been hampered by a shortage of both programs and funds.

Twenty-two states currently compensate the wrongly convicted. The funding varies
from $20,000 total to $50,000 a year for every year of incarceration. Advocates
argue that much more than money is needed. Exonerees need help with housing and
health care, and access to education, life skills and job training so that they
can become self-sufficient.

Mr. Williams had to persuade a Louisiana state representative to write a bill on

his behalf to appropriate funds for his compensation. He was finally paid $150,000
this past summer -- about $6,300 a year for each year of his imprisonment.

Mr. Williams was just a high-school sophomore when he was tried as an adult for
the rape of his 22-year-old tutor. The woman's head was covered during the attack,
but she testified that she recognized the teenager by his voice. Despite a lack of
physical evidence, Mr. Williams was convicted and sentenced to life without
parole.

When he arrived at Angola, he says, a guard shackled him to the cell door and left
it open, exposing him to attacks from other inmates. As he spoke, his fingers
traced a scar on his elbow, left when he attempted to fend off an inmate who came
at him with an ice pick.

Mr. Williams was just another convict claiming innocence until 1995, when he
learned about DNA testing by watching the O.J. Simpson murder trial on a prison
television. Tests conducted by three different labs determined that the semen
collected from the rape victim in Mr. Williams's case could not have come from
him. The man who actually attacked her has not been found.

When Mr. Williams was freed, he had nowhere to go. Ms. Potkin tracked down several
of his siblings, but after 24 years, they barely knew him, and refused to take
him.
Guilty or Damage. "When you are in prison for as long as I was, people either
think you must be guilty or at least damaged," says Mr. Williams. He didn't know
how to drive. He had never used a cellphone, or left a message on an answering
machine, or typed on a computer. He says that what surprised him most was the
automatic flush toilets at Wal-Mart.
Even adjusting to the sounds of his new world was difficult. He says that being
locked up all those years had made his hearing particularly sensitive. "In prison,
your ears are your eyes," he says. "You know everyone's footsteps." Even now, he
can't get used to sleeping in the dark, and has to leave the lights on.

The Innocence Project finally tracked down a younger sister, Kay Jackson, an Army
surgical technician in Virginia. She felt she owed it to Mr. Williams to let him
live with her and her teenage daughter and fiancé, a retired Marine. But it was
tougher than she had expected. "He was a 43-year-old man trapped in a 17-year-old
brain," she says.

The smart, mischievous boy she remembered had become a distrustful, awkward, self-
absorbed man. He was angry, unemployed, and passed his days shopping and eating
fast food. His habit of taking long showers and sleeping with the TV on ran up her
utility bills, she says, but he resented it when she complained. He says he
offered to pay.

Trouble Conforming. Mr. Williams went back to Baton Rouge but returned to Virginia
within a few months. He had a series of jobs -- unloading trucks, stocking shelves
at Target, laying tar on roadways -- but he had trouble conforming to rules, and
none of the jobs lasted long. Mr. Williams offers different reasons for losing the
jobs. While laying road tar, Mr. Williams, who weighs 300 pounds and has high
blood pressure, says he suffered heat stroke.

Between jobs, Mr. Williams liked to sit in a lounge chair in front of his sister's
house, where he became a magnet for neighborhood kids who loved to hear his prison
stories. The local homeowner's association sent out a letter forbidding
"loitering" in the neighborhood. He left for good about a year ago.

Mr. Williams still hasn't been able to find steady work here. He used $27,000 of
his state compensation to buy a new car -- a Toyota Camry with a V6 engine and
twin exhaust. He invested some of the remaining money in an annuity and is living
on the rest.

Two weeks ago, he lost most of his possessions when his electric oven caught fire
and ruined his apartment. The next day, Mr. Williams got hugs and sympathy from
fellow parishioners at the nondenominational Miracle Place Church in nearby Baker,
La., which was started by a former drug dealer. Regulars include several Angola
inmates, a former prison guard and the local police chief.

Community of Exonerees. In a few weeks, Mr. Williams will return to Atlanta to

look for a place to live. There, he hopes to join a small community of other
exonerees he met through the Innocence Project.

Mr. Williams believes that with a little more help, he could make a better life
for himself. "If I could go to school for computers. And get a place of my own,"
he says defiantly, sitting in a lawn chair outside his charred apartment. "If I
could see a future...."

Convicted killer freed on DNA evidence

By Jennifer Dobner
Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City)
Nov 10, 2004

Wearing a grin on his face and a brown sweater borrowed from his attorney, Bruce
Dallas Goodman walked out of the Utah State Prison on Tuesday, some 19 years after
he was convicted for murder.
DNA evidence tests placed two other men at the scene of the 1984 rape and murder
of Goodman's then-girlfriend, 21-year-old Sherry Ann Fales Williams, whose body
was found near I-15 in Beaver County. "I'm just glad it's over, you know what I
mean?" Goodman, 54, said to reporters waiting outside the warden's office in a
drizzle of rain.

Despite the smile, Goodman seemed as if he was struggling to comprehend his

freedom. He looked at the ground and shook his head from side to side in
disbelief, before slipping away from the cameras to a waiting pickup truck. "I'm
outta here, I'll talk to you later," he said.

His attorney, Jensie Anderson, who is president of the Rocky Mountain Innocence
Center and worked more than two years on Goodman's case, articulated it better:
"This is a man who has been in prison for nearly two decades for a crime he didn't
commit," Anderson said. "He's overwhelmed." But not necessarily innocent,
prosecutors say.

The Utah Attorney General's Office and the Beaver County prosecutors agreed DNA
tests were compelling enough to reconsider Goodman's conviction and probably
presented a significant challenge if the case were retried. The presence of DNA
evidence would likely create enough reasonable doubt in the eyes of a jury, Beaver
County prosecutor Von Christiansen said.

"They all watch CSI, right? And then I have this horrible burden now of not being
able to put him at the crime scene," said Christiansen, who had five days to
respond to the request for a 5th District Court judge to sign the order releasing
Goodman.

And although some of the evidence used in Goodman's case was circumstantial, a
judge still found witness statements to be credible and Goodman's alibi
questionable, Christiansen said. "(The release) is frustrating to me in the sense
that there is all this other evidence that is still uncontradicted," he said.

Deputy Utah Attorney General Erin Riley said that while DNA evidence is an
important tool, Goodman's release leaves many questions about Williams' murder
unanswered.

"I still wonder exactly what happened, because we don't know," she said. "The DNA
is great science, but it can only tell you about scientific things. It leaves me
with an uncomfortable feeling that this case may not be completely resolved. If
Mr. Goodman didn't really do it, then someone else out there is a murderer and we
don't know who they are." Nor does Goodman, Anderson said. "He claims he had
nothing to do with it. He was nowhere near the scene of the crime, and the last
time he had seen the victim was actually many days before she was killed,"
Anderson said. "So . . . he would have no idea who was actually involved."

While in prison, Goodman, who had been handed a sentence of five years to life for
first-degree felony murder, had several meetings with the Utah Board of Pardons
and Parole -- the last in 2000 -- but was never awarded a date for parole,
Department of Corrections spokesman Jack Ford said. His next scheduled hearing
with the board would not have been until 2010, Ford said.

All along, Goodman maintained his innocence and, according to Anderson, sought the
help of other attorneys. In 1988, he lost an appeal of his case to the Utah
Supreme Court.

The DNA tests excluding Goodman from the scene of the crime were returned in
September after more than two years of working on the case, Anderson said.

Goodman left prison in a sweater lent to him by Josh Bowland, an Innocence Center
staff attorney, a pair of new khaki pants that were creased from being folded and
white tennis shoes. Department of Corrections officials said he was given a check
for a little more than $100, money he had in his prison account. "He said he wants
to have a Jack Daniels" and a cigarette, his attorneys said.

Bowland said Goodman had several friends from out of state who traveled to Utah to
greet him upon his release. Anderson said Goodman also has several adult children
he hopes to see again. It's likely Goodman will make plans to leave the state, she
added.

"His attitude is remarkably good," Anderson said. "He certainly has some anger and
some bitterness, but it's a case of a remarkable individual who has really taken
this and, you could say, made the best of it."

Christiansen said he regretted not being able to locate members of Williams'

family to tell them that the man convicted in her killing was being set free. A
victim's advocate from the AG's office tried for months to locate someone, but was
unsuccessful, Riley said.

Chad Heins Released from Prison-Freed by DNA Evidence

Edited by Gary Detman, Nightside EP
First Coast News
December 4th, 2007

JACKSONVILLE, FL (AP) -- A 33-year-old man walked out of jail Tuesday after being
cleared of murdering his sister-in-law 13 years ago, and prosecutors decided he
should not be retried because his DNA did not match crime scene evidence. Chad
Heins wore a Green Bay Packers shirt as he hugged his lawyers in the jail lobby
after being freed. His conviction was tossed this year after a group that helps
the wrongly convicted secured the DNA testing.

"It (the system) didn't work in the beginning, but it worked at the end," said
Heins, surrounded by reporters as he left the Duval County Jail. "I made it one
day at a time and watched my back. I just want to go home to my family and get out
of the state of Florida." Heins planned to fly home to Nekoosa, Wis., as soon as
he could get a flight, his lawyers said. Attorney Robert Link said his client did
not plan to sue the state for serving 13 years of a life sentence for Tina Heins'
murder. Link said he did not blame the state for convicting an innocent man and
fighting his release until Tuesday.

"I don't have evidence this case was brought in bad faith," he said. "I could not
prove that in court. What we have is a change in technology over the last 11 or 12
years. If we had the same technology available 13 years ago, I seriously doubt
that state would have ever charged him. The state wanted to make sure that the
person convicted of this horrible murder was not responsible," he said.

In a brief court appearance earlier Tuesday, Assistant State Attorney Melissa

Williamson Nelson told Circuit Judge L. Page Haddock of prosecutors' decision.
Heins was required to sign a document that he would waive a speedy trial and the
statute of limitations if the state found new evidence and decided to charge him
again. Heins had been scheduled for a new trial this month, but it was delayed
with the release of even more evidence that seemed to clear him of Tina Heins'
murder in 1994.

The newest evidence was semen from an unidentified man that matched foreign
strands of hair on Tina Heins' body. She was stabbed 27 times in the Mayport
apartment she shared with Chad Heins and her husband, Jerry Heins. Jerry Heins was
aboard a Navy ship at the time of the killing. Chad Heins said he had been out
drinking and was asleep when the crime occurred. He awoke to find three small
fires burning in the apartment and his sister-in-law dead.

State Attorney Harry Shorstein said DNA evidence was behind the decision not to
retry the man convicted of first-degree murder, but he declined to discuss
specifics. "The State's analysis conducted thus far indicates that the dismissal
of charges against this defendant is appropriate at this time," Shorstein said in
a statement. When the state's announcement was made, two lawyers for the group
that helps the wrongly convicted, the Innocence Project, pumped their fists in
court.

Project lawyer Jennifer Greenberg said nine people in Florida and 210 in the
United States have been cleared through DNA evidence by the Innocence Project.

"Incarceration for the innocent is like being a prisoner of war or a torture

victim," she said. "He always told the truth about what happened and was
heartbroken over the death of his sister-in-law, who was his best friend."

Man freed by DNA awarded $15.5M in Il.

By Michael Tarm
Associated Press Writer
December 20, 2007

CHICAGO—A man who spent months in jail after being accused of sexually assaulting
and drowning his 3-year-old daughter before DNA evidence cleared him was awarded,
with his wife, $15.5 million Thursday.

The couple's attorney had argued in a federal lawsuit against Will County that
sheriff's deputies fabricated evidence and accused detectives of arresting Kevin
Fox even though they knew he didn't kill his daughter, Riley. Hikers found Riley's
body in a creek four miles from her Wilmington home on June 6, 2004; the case
remains unsolved.

Kevin Fox and his wife, Melissa, wiped tears from their eyes and hugged their
attorney after the verdict was read in a federal courtroom in downtown Chicago.
"Everybody should be happy about this verdict," the couple's attorney Kathleen
Zellner said. "They tried to ruin these people's lives and they didn't succeed."

The couple sued four sheriff's detectives, the estate of a fifth detective and the
county. An appeal is planned, said Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow in a
written statement.

Glasgow, who was not the prosecutor at the time of Fox's interrogation, said the
jury was not allowed to hear "critical evidence" on the reasons for Fox's arrest.
He said the county had made motions for a mistrial. "It has always been our
contention that the sheriff's deputies acted properly during the interview of
Kevin Fox and that they had probable cause to arrest him," Glasgow said.

The lawsuit alleged detectives subjected Kevin Fox to threats, lies and promises
of a deal during a 14 1/2-hour overnight interrogation in which he implicated
himself in the killing. Kevin Fox testified that he lost hope during the
interrogation and gave a false story when promised leniency. Detectives denied the
couple's claims and insisted Kevin Fox's statements were made voluntarily.
Fox spent eight months in custody charged with first-degree murder and criminal
sexual assault. Charges were dropped, and he was released in June 2005 after tests
on DNA from a rape kit showed no link to him. In the civil case, jurors agreed
Will County authorities violated Kevin Fox's civil rights. But they sided with
defendants in rejecting claims of a conspiracy. The jury, which began deliberating
Tuesday morning, awarded $9.3 million to Kevin Fox and $6.2 million to Melissa
Fox. Zellner had asked the jury for a total of $44 million.

Kevin Fox, 30, told reporters the wait for the jury's verdict was nerve-racking.
"It's over now, and it feels great," he said. "They found that I wasn't in the
wrong, that I did everything right."

Lodi man freed by DNA evidence gets $1 million

By The Record
January 05, 2007

Peter Rose, a former Lodi resident whose rape conviction was overturned in 2005
after DNA evidence failed to link him to the crime, has settled his false-
imprisonment lawsuit against state and local agencies for $1 million.

Rose, 38, spent 10 years in state prisons after his 1995 conviction for raping a
13-year-old girl in a Lodi alley. But students at a San Francisco law school
convinced a county judge to order Rose freed from Ione’s Mule Creek State Prison
in February 2005 after he was cleared through new DNA tests.

The settlement still needs the blessing of U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell
Jr. If approved, it would end the federal lawsuit Rose and his children filed in
November 2005 against Lodi, two former Lodi police officers, San Joaquin County, a
county prosecutor, the state Department of Justice and a state crime lab
technician.

Lodi would pay $625,000, the state $275,000 and the county $100,000 under the
settlement, Lodi Deputy City Attorney Janice Magdich said. Lodi will pay $500,000
from city funds with insurance covering the remaining $125,000. The city also will
pay roughly $75,000 for its attorneys’ fees, she said.

Magdich said a third of the $1 million will go to Rose’s attorneys, with $444,444
going to Rose and the other $222,222 divided among his three children. Mark Merin,
an attorney for Rose, could not be reached for comment Friday, but Magdich said
the settlement is “an excellent result” for the public agencies based on much
larger jury awards in similar cases that have gone to trial.

Rose originally sought $8 million for himself and his children from the state
Justice Department’s crime lab for failing to properly analyze evidence and an
unspecified amount from other defendants. He accused former Lodi police Officers
Matt Foster and Ernie Nies and Deputy District Attorney Kevin Mayo of coercing
false statements from the alleged victim and suppressing evidence exonerating
Rose, who now lives in Point Arena.

Rose last year received $328,200 from the state through a victims compensation
fund, or $100 for each day of imprisonment.

DNA exonerations reaches 200, and questions for justice system

The Associated Press
Published on April 24th, 2007

DNA evidence cleared its 200th person Monday, another milestone for a technology
that has not only reversed convictions but has also prompted a more critical look
at flaws in the justice system from crime lab work to the way arson cases are
investigated.

The details of the latest exoneration are typically nightmarish: Jerry Miller
served 25 years for a rape conviction and had already been paroled when DNA tests
showed he could not have been the man who attacked a woman in a Chicago parking
garage.

What's also troubling is how common these exonerations have become since the first
reversal in 1989. It took 13 years to reach the first 100 DNA exonerations, but
just five to double that number. For prosecutors and judges, as well as defense
attorneys, the exonerations raise a larger question: How many others, innocent of
their crimes, are behind bars?

Advocates for extensive changes in the way cases are investigated and prosecuted
see the 200 as the tip of a huge iceberg and use the word "epidemic."

Prosecutors bristle at the characterization. They agree that a single person

wrongly convicted is an injustice that can't be tolerated, but see the problems as
few, far between and fixable. Still, while there is deep disagreement on the scope
of the problem, there is a growing common ground that the justice system has flaws
that need to be fixed. "We like to believe that the jury spoke the truth, that's
what the verdict means. That it's pretty much a foolproof system. We know that's
not true now," says I. Beverly Lake Jr.

Lake is not someone wronged by the system, he is the retired chief justice of
North Carolina's supreme court, someone who spent most of his life working to
uphold it. In the past few years, he has also become a crucial player behind one
of the nation's most ambitious efforts to undo wrongful convictions.

While other states have set up study commissions to examine what went wrong in
miscarriage-of-justice cases, North Carolina goes far beyond that. Its commission
has the power to actually reopen cases of people now in prison who claim
innocence, look at evidence and leap over the procedural appeals process by
sending a case to a panel of judges, who could overturn convictions.

The Innocence Inquiry Commission, modeled after a panel in Britain, is only now in
its starting weeks. And it reaches beyond the limitations of DNA.

Though TV crime shows make DNA seem the answer to all cases, it offers the
possibility of certainty in a few kinds of crimes like rape, or perhaps a murder
when the criminal struggled with the victim and left behind skin or blood evidence
that can be tested for genetic material.

But the flaws that exonerations have revealed are common to any number of criminal
prosecutions: mistaken eyewitnesses, forensic experts who draw the wrong
conclusions, jailhouse informants, hair and blood analysis, misguided arson
investigations, fingerprint analysis. In Miller's case, parking attendants who
chased the rapist away later identified Miller as the criminal.

Academics and scientists are studying forensic practices that have long been
accepted without question. Legal experts, like Lake, are looking at when it may be
wise to leap over procedural hurdles that are designed to make it tough to
challenge a verdict. Police are rethinking lineups, interrogations, informants.

"We know there are thousands of factually innocent people languishing in prison,"
said Peter Neufeld, a co-founder of The Innocence Project, the New York-based
legal advocacy group that took on Miller's case. "But the overwhelming majority of
violent crime doesn't have any biological evidence to test.

"There needs to be, if you will, a revolution in criminal justice to ensure that
the other forensic disciplines are as valid and robust as DNA," he said. "There is
a tendency on the part of people who are entrenched in the system not to want to
lift that rock up." Neufeld said their nearly two decades of work shows widespread
mistakes by law enforcement and huge racial disparities, with blacks much more
likely to be wrongly convicted.

The National District Attorneys Association now supports the concept that DNA
evidence should be allowed at any point, regardless of whether it's procedurally
barred or not, according to Joshua Marquis, district attorney in Clatsop County,
Ore.

But he is skeptical of critics' claims of widespread wrongful convictions, and

says 200 out of millions of cases over the past 18 years must be seen as an
incredibly small percentage. And he questions critics' motives.
"You can't trust forensics. You can't trust confessions, false and coerced. Can't
trust eyewitnesses, false and flawed. Can't trust police. It doesn't leave us very
much, does it?" he said. "What do they hope to gain from that? ... You'll have a
system instead of turning one out of 10 guilty people loose, instead will be
turning four or five out of 10 guilty people loose."

In Cook County, where Jerry Miller had his ankle bracelet removed Monday and
declared "I want to get on with my life, start a life, have a life" _ the state
attorney's office has set up a special DNA unit to re-examine cases with credible
claims of innocence.

"I don't ever want to send a guy to the joint who didn't do it, ever. I don't have
anyone with me that does," said Robert Milan, a top official in the county
prosecutor's office. After a series of wrongful convictions, he studied what went
wrong, and now teaches prosecutors nationwide how to guard against false
confessions. "It's made me do a 180, and anybody with any common sense has done a
180," Milan said. "It's like turning a light on in a dark room."

I can provide you with more articles and maybe if I can fit them in or if I find
them to be relevant or supportive to the story, I will. But for now, you have a
good idea as to what is happening out there in the real world. DNA evidence is
being used to set free those wrongfully accused and convict those who committed
the crime they were accused of committing. But what if DNA evidence is not as
perfect as we are being led to believe? What if we are letting real criminals
free? What if we are convicting innocent people based on DNA evidence that is
incorrect? If this is true, imagine what the impact will be on our lives.

This has got to come to light eventually and then whom will we blame? What do we
do? We're not going to be able to go back in time and change everything we just
undid? We're not going to be able to go into the communities and re-arrest those
we have let free. How do we protect ourselves? How do you protect yourself? And
how do we prevent others from using this information to their benefit? I don’t
have the answer. And I'm not sure that anyone really does. What I'm sure about is
that we have had the opportunity to challenge DNA and we didn't.
CHAPTER FIVE

I looked through the box marked, #1/London, and started reading from the
highlighted materials. Inside an envelop marked "Trip to London #1", I found a
first class voucher for a British Airways flight departing Newark Liberty
International Airport and flying nonstop to London's Heathrow Airport. Jason had
also provided me with pre-paid accommodations at The Athenaeum Hotel and
Apartments, an independent, privately owned, family-run hotel, located in the
heart of London. I thought this was all very extravagant but Jason had told me
that money was no object. It didn't matter whose money it was, it just felt like I
was taking advantage and that didn't feel right to me. I also wanted to make sure
that Jason never felt that he had bought me, that he owned me in any way that
might compromise me telling the story. But I wasn't going to complain. He had
millions of dollars. And I was going to be on an expense account. That's the best
way to travel, for sure. Who could complain about spending someone else's
Money? Who would listen to a complaint about me spending someone else's money?

I read over the itinerary Jason had prepared, places to visit, restaurants to eat
in, and a complete schedule broken down to fifteen-minute segments. He had laid it
out so I walked the walk and followed along as he told the story to me. He was to
be my tour guide as I am to be yours. He had prepared a multi-media presentation
that would take me through the story. I could ask questions along the way and
Jason would forward me answers. It was a bit strange, but I thought it would all
be OK and work out in the end. And I didn’t really have anything to compare this
experience to. So, I just decided to go for it. Lets see what happens I kept
telling myself.

Larry thought this was Jason's way of controlling me and controlling how I got the
information download. And by avoiding personal contact, I wouldn't be able to feel
Jason out or learn from his body language when he was telling the truth or
possibly lying. Phillip had given me some real tips about how to read someone. He
said that we can all learn how to be "perceptive" or "intuitive" about other
people, referring to our ability to read another person's body language and to
compare those cues with verbal signals. In other words, when we say that we have a
"hunch" or "gut feeling" that someone has told us a lie, we usually mean that
their body language and their spoken words don't agree. I was anxious to see Jason
in action. I thought of myself as being very "perceptive" so I was convinced I
could spot the contradictions between Jason's words and his body language. I
looked forward to meeting up with Jason.

Phillip told me that the FBI trained its agents on a technique known as "cold
reading," which can produce an accuracy of around 80 percent when "reading" a
person you've never met. This is simply a process based on the careful observation
of body-language signals plus an understanding of human nature and a knowledge of
probability statistics. It's a technique practiced by psychics, tarot-card
readers, astrologists, and palm readers to gather information about a client.
Phillip said, "It all boils down to the reader's ability to decode a person's
reactions to statements made and to questions asked, and by information gathered
from simple observation about a person's appearance. I promised Phillip I would
pack my tarot cards and crystal ball so I would be prepared to meet up with Jason.
Phillip suggested I carry a FLIP camera and provide him with the video so he
could get a good read on Jason. Larry thought that would be helpful too. Phillip
and Larry both want to meet Jason. So did I.

Jason's brother Ricky, would always remind me, like the Moody Blues' song, "all we
were was dust in the wind." I'm not really sure what that means or how it applies
here, I just wanted to share that with you. I knew if things got too complicated,
I would just say so and Jason would understand. So far, he was more than
accommodating. I didn’t trust him one hundred percent, but I was willing to
listen. I was willing to be convinced.

I found another envelope, "Trip To London #2." Inside, I found twenty-one, one-
hundred dollar bills and a Platinum American Express Card with my name on the
card. Jason had thought of everything. I wondered if there was any significance to
the number of bills or the total amount. I made a note to ask Jason about it. I
spotted another envelope, "Trip to London #3. Open this on the flight." I cheated
and looked inside and found an audio CD and pictures of the places I was scheduled
to visit while in London.
Jason had really thought of everything. I closed the envelope and looked around -
just in case someone was watching me. I don’t know why I did that or what I was
expecting to find. And I know it was a weird thing to do. But you know, a lot of
what's going on here is weird.

I was excited and a bit nervous and yes, a bit scared too. You know it's funny,
but I really didn't have any expectations at this point. I still wasn't sure what
Jason was up to. I wasn't sure if there was really a story here or not. I had
heard all the rumors, just like you did. But there were still so many unanswered
questions. Maybe the answer was just a few sentences long, why write an entire
book about it? You might be asking yourself that same question right now.At least
we know the movie will be shorter than the book. It always is.

The biggest problem for me, and for you, is that unlike most books, there is no
hero. No character you're gonna like, root for, cheer for, get up and applaud for.
That concerns me. I know I have to find a way to engage you in this story, in this
adventure. It won’t be easy. As I have stated before, Jason is not a likeable guy.
In fact, he's ruthless. He has no morals. He is not a nice person. There are
others you will meet. But each one of them is not a person I would want to
associate with. I might be interested in chatting with them, but that would be it.
These people fuck with other people's lives without regards for anyone or
anything. I'm hoping that together, we can make sense of this story.

It blows me away to think that Jason framed his father for the murder of his
mother so he could get his hands on his mother's fortune. And then when he learned
he couldn't get the money because of his father's conviction, he had to get the
conviction over turned by convincing the court that the DNA evidence (evidence
that Jason might have actually placed at the crime scene) that convicted his
father in the first place, was wrong. And then there is the powerful Senator
Thayer and the even more powerful USCOM as adversaries, well, you can see this is
going to be one incredible story.

And there you have it. That is the story we are telling. All wrapped up in three
sentences, one paragraph. I can see this on the inside cover of the book. I can
see this as the bait to get the major studios interested in making a film about
this story. Yeah, it's all there. I can see it now.

This is what I got so far. Truth or not, it’s just where I'm thinking. Jason
planned everything to get his hands on his mother's fortune. He got rid of his
stepfather, to make sure he had no claim to the money. Jason doesn't know this is
what I am thinking. If he did, I am sure we would have had a problem. Phillip
warned me not to be alone with Jason. Larry confirmed it could be dangerous,
especially if I accused Jason of being the mastermind behind the murder.
Now, the rest of the story is yet to unfold.

I packed lightly, two pair of nicely faded and worn Wrangler jeans, four shirts,
one pair of shoes, one pair of new, Reebok Classic Tennis sneakers, two purple,
Russell sweatshirts, Hanes underwear, white sweat socks with a cushioned heel and
toe, colored cotton Polo socks and a variety of personal hygiene stuff.

The rules about what you can bring on board when you fly are simple - all liquids,
gels and aerosols must be in three-ounce or smaller containers. Larger containers
that are half-full or toothpaste tubes rolled up are not allowed. Each container
must be three ounces or smaller. All liquids, gels and aerosols must be placed in
a single, quart-size, zip-top, clear plastic bag. Gallon size bags or bags that
are not zip-top such as fold-over sandwich bags are not allowed. Each traveler can
use only one, quart-size, zip-top, clear plastic bag.

When they made it a rule that you had to use a Ziploc bag, I was elated. I love
Ziploc bags. I use them for everything. My entire family uses Ziploc bags. Finally
the rest of the world would see it my mother's way, everything should go into a
Ziploc bag. I should have bought stock in the SC Johnson Company after 9/11. Did
you?

I purchased small sizes of Edge shaving cream, Herbal Essence shampoo and
conditioner, Listerine mouthwash, Boston contact lens cleaner, wetting drops and
Ban Classic Wide Ball Original Scent deodorant. I took my razor, not knowing if it
would be confiscated at security. I figured if there was anything I needed along
the way, I could just pick it up in London.

I packed my Canon digital camera, Panasonic audio recorder, battery re-charger,

IPod and re-charger, IBook and re-charger and the re-charger for my Blackberry -
all to help me keep records of my trip and experiences. I couldn’t believe all the
different chargers I had to take with me. But each device took a different
charger. What a waste of suitcase space. What a waste of our resources. Someone
has to fix this problem. There should be one charger to charge all devices. Don’t
you agree? My mobile office was adding extra weight and bulk to my bag, but it was
all necessary stuff.

My flight to London left Newark Liberty International Airport at 6:45AM. The limo
was at my front door at 4:00AM. I got in the backseat and settled in for the
thirty-five minute trip to the airport. Joe, the driver, offered me a newspaper,
apologizing that it was from the previous day. I thanked him, placed the newspaper
on the empty seat next to me and stared out the window. I confirmed with Joe that
I needed to go to Terminal C, where most international flights departed.

There was very little traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike, so the ride to the
airport was without incident. We traveled a familiar route, one that I had
traveled many times before. The ride to the airport cost fifty-five dollars plus
the tip. I had a coupon for ten dollars off. I charged sixty-five dollars to my
American Express card. Joe thanked me and asked me if wanted him to pick me up
upon my return. I told him I didn’t know when that would be, but I would call him
when I was coming home and arrange for the pick up. I realized that was a stupid
thing to say. I just told the driver of the limo that I was going to be out of
town for a while and that my house was going to be empty. Why didn’t I just give
him the keys and tell him to take whatever he wanted from the house? I felt like
an idiot.

I had printed out my boarding pass at home, so I headed right for security check
in. The line wasn't very long and it was moving quickly. I took my laptop out of
my bag, took my shoes off, took my belt off, emptied my pockets and walked through
the metal detector. No alarm went off. I was good to go. I collected my stuff,
repacked my bag, put my shoes back on and headed to gate number one hundred twenty
one. I had plenty of time.

On my way to the gate, I stopped at the Garden State Diner, a 50's style diner and
one of my favorite airport dining destinations. They're used to people having to
move quickly in and out, so service is fast and efficient. Sometimes it's quiet.
Sometimes it's packed. The food is good for an airport establishment and the
atmosphere is fun. I ordered a three-egg omelet, with bacon and Swiss cheese,
sliced tomatoes instead of the hash browns and no toast. Since I have been on my
diet, I don't eat bread or potatoes anymore. I really don’t miss either.
Occasionally, I will have a piece of bread, but I really don't eat potatoes. I do
enjoy onion rings however. And I haven’t given up ice cream. I discovered Edy's
Slow Churned Rich and Creamy Ice Cream with one half the fat and one third fewer
calories than regular ice cream and I have to tell you, it is fantastic ice cream.
I really can’t tell the difference between this light ice cream and regular ice
cream. I love their chocolate chip. The chocolate, neopolitan and even the vanilla
are marvelous. The strawberry ice cream could use more strawberries. It's light
ice cream, so, I eat twice as much. What a deal.

The flight left from Newark on time. The airplane was about half full. First class
was very comfortable, the soft leather reclining seats, footrest, pillow, blanket
and the attention from the flight attendants made it all very pleasant. I had an
aisle seat. The man in the window seat introduced himself as Willy Hunter. He had
bad breath and looked like he hadn’t washed his hair in days. A young woman, who
looked like an actress or singer, was sitting on the aisle opposite me. We smiled
at each other and as the lights dimmed, we said goodnight.

I wish I could tell you that our eyes met and we instantly felt a connection, that
we had wonderful conversation, sharing great stories about our families and
friends and although we just met, we shared intimate stories about our personal
lives and our previous lovers. We laughed at each other's stories. She had a
fantastic bright, white, perfect smile, sharp, crystal blue eyes and short,
reddish hair. Her complexion was fabulous and perfect. The few freckles she had
were placed perfectly to highlight her high cheekbones. She was a stunning woman.

She asked me to sit next to her and share her blanket. I did. We began to
playfully fondle each other and then she started to work on my belt buckle, open
my pants and pull down my zipper. I reached for her and my hand gracefully moved
over her breast. Her nipples were hard and huge, at least a half an inch long. Her
hand slipped inside my jeans. I was as hard as a rock. The flight attendant, who
looked like my ex-wife, came up to us and asked us to control ourselves. She
smiled at us and asked us to be quiet. "Keep it down and try not bother any of the
other passengers who are trying to sleep", she said. She giggled as she walked
towards the business section of the plane leaving us to fondle each other, albeit
quietly.

But I can't tell you any of this, because it never happened. I fell asleep almost
immediately upon takeoff and slept most of the way to London. I had to wipe the
drool off my cheek a few times. That was annoying and embarrassing. And once when
I went to the bathroom, I was sure the couple in the bathroom next to me, were
joining the mile high club. Lucky bastard. Willy Hunter slept through the entire
flight. Lucky bastard.

I walked through the airport and headed to the passenger pick up area. It was all
very civilized and arranged quite nicely. Great signage. It was just what you
would expect to find in London. Jason had arranged for a driver to pick me up, who
would also be my tour guide during my visit to London. Phillip was very nice.
About thirty-five years old. Five-feet ten inches tall. About one hundred and
eighty five pounds, give or take a few. He was quite handsome. He knew why I was
in London. He knew Jason, having spent time with Jason when he previously visited.
Jason told me that Phillip did not like to be called Phil, but I forgot, until
Phillip reminded me that he preferred Phillip to Phil. Phil was too American for
him. He was Phillip, not Phil. I made myself a mental note, not to call Phillip
Phil. Now I had two Phillips' in my life.

Phillip presented me a copy of the itinerary Jason had provided him. I compared it
to the copy I had and they were identical. I don’t know why I did that. I guess I
was just busting Phil's balls. Yes, I called him Phil, not Phillip. Phillip asked
me if I wanted to go by the hotel, check in and do whatever, or just get started.
I thought we should get started. There was a lot to see and do and not a lot of
time. I wasn't on vacation. I was here to gather up additional information and
details that I needed for my book. "I think Leicester Square is our first stop,
isn't that right?" Phillip agreed and off we went. Phillip turned to me and
reminded me to play the Audio CD Jason had prepared. It was labeled, London Trip
Audio CD#1. I felt a little like Bond, James Bond.

"Leicester Square is between Piccadilly and Covent Garden, just north of Trafalgar
Square. On a good day, it's a huge meeting place for the world, where multi -
million pound movies vie with nickel and dime street theatre for attention. On a
bad day? A loud, brash, sweaty mass of seething humanity looking for quick fix
kicks. It's spelt funny, but it's pronounced Lester. The Square is named after
Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester, who purchased four acres, 1.6 hectares of
land in St. Martin's Field in 1630. By 1635, he had built himself a large house,
known as Leicester House, at the northern end of it. The area in front of the
house was then enclosed, thus depriving the inhabitants of St. Martin's Parish of
their right to use the previously common land. The parishioners appealed to King
Charles I for assistance, and he appointed three members of the Privy Council to
arbitrate. Lord Leicester was ordered to keep part of his land, which thereafter
was known as Leicester Field and later as Leicester Square, open for use by the
parishioners."

"Next stop, Tower Bridge", Phillip declared. I didn't really hear him, but the
voice on the CD asked me to pause the CD until we reached our next destination,
Tower Bridge. "Will we have the time to stop and walk around or are we going to be
driving straight through?", I asked. "You're the boss, whatever you want to do, we
can do", Phillip said. "As long as we stay on schedule", he added. Jason wanted to
make sure we stayed on schedule. I wasn't sure why.

I hit the pause button, re-starting the recording. "The Tower Bridge, named after
its two impressive towers, is one of London's best known landmarks. This Victorian
Bridge is now more than 100 years old. Designed by Wolfe Barry and Horace Jones,
and completed in 1894, the middle of the bridge can be raised to permit large
vessels to pass under the Tower Bridge. It used to be raised about 50 times a day,
but nowadays it is only raised 4 to 5 times a week."

"The bridge is 60 meters, a hundred and ninety seven feet long and its towers rise
to a height of 43 meters. From the top of the towers, you have a great view of the
center of London. At another time, you might want to visit the inside of the
tower, where you can observe the original mechanism used to raise the bridge.
Please pause the CD. Next stop, St. Paul's Cathedral."

I paused the CD. "Phillip, can we stop for a few moments?", I asked. "Lets get to
the Cathedral and then we can stop. Give you a chance to stretch your legs a bit",
Phillip answered. I sat back and tried to relax. I was sort of enjoying this bit
of sightseeing, but it was weird not getting out of the car to actually see the
sights. I also didn't really understand what Jason's intentions were. Why did he
think it was important for me to go sightseeing? What was the point? I figured I
just had to go along for the ride and that it would all make sense to me at some
point. Larry was working on Jason's profile and said that this was significant. He
didn’t elaborate. Phillip Kauffman was convinced that this was Jason's way of
having me share with his experiences. These were the places Jason had visited when
he was in London. We were bonding. Larry agreed. I thought it was all a bit weird.
But I did feel like Bond, James Bond.

I listened to the next chapter as were stopped in front of St. Paul's Cathedral.
"St Paul’s is the cathedral of the Diocese of London. The Cathedral dedicated to
St Paul, has overlooked the City of London since 604AD and is a constant reminder
to this great commercial centre of the importance of the spiritual side of life."

"The current Cathedral, the fourth to occupy this site, was designed by the court
architect Sir Christopher Wren and built between 1675 and 1710 after its
predecessor was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. Its architectural and
artistic importance reflect the determination of the five monarchs who oversaw its
building that London’s leading church should be as beautiful and imposing as their
private palaces."

"Since the first service took place here in 1697. Wren's masterpiece has been
where people and events of overwhelming importance to the country have been
celebrated, mourned and commemorated."

"Important services have included the funerals of Lord Nelson, the Duke of
Wellington and Sir Winston Churchill; Jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria;
peace services marking the end of the First and Second World Wars; the launch of
the Festival of Britain; the Service of Remembrance and Commemoration for the 11th
of September 2001: the 80th and 100th birthdays of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen
Mother; the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, to Lady Diana Spencer and, most
recently, the thanksgiving services for both the Golden Jubilee and the 80th
Birthday of Her Majesty the Queen."

"Over the centuries, St Paul’s has changed to reflect shifting tastes and
attitudes. Decoration has been added and removed, services have been updated,
different areas have been put to new uses. Today, the history of the nation is
written in the carved stone of its pillars and arches and is celebrated in its
works of art and monuments."

Special note to all you history buffs, check out www.stpauls.co.uk/ for more
details and descriptions.

"Dennis, if you are hungry, we can get something to eat at our next stop", Phillip
asked. "Sure, that sounds great. I am a little tired and a lot hungry. Never say
no to a good meal." Phillip agreed and we headed towards Canary Wharf. I started
the audio CD…"Canary Wharf is a large business and shopping development in London,
located on the Isle of Dogs in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, centered on
the old West India Docks in the London Docklands." Jason had booked me a table at
Gaucho's located at 289 Westferry Circus. Phillip knew exactly where it was.
"Phillip will stay with the car. Enjoy your first meal in London. If Allison is
your server, you will be a lucky man."

Jason made a good choice. Gaucho's is a nice place. If privacy is what you were
after, the low light and intimate atmosphere make it easy for one to hide out. I
imagined Jason sitting in the corner table, conducting business. Once seated, the
service was slick and very smooth! The menu was easy to follow. The waitress,
Alison, was very helpful and she obviously knew what was good and not so good. If
she knew Jason, she made no mention of him or the connection between us. She
guided me through the menu as I made my selections.

Every thing was served deliciously hot and arrived relatively quickly. The
starters were amazing, the fillet steak was absolutely yummy, every mouthful
accompanied by a moan of pleasure. Great succulent, tasty, fresh steak! I am a
carnivore through and through and this place is perfect. I enjoyed side dishes of
hand cut chips, pure de papas (mashed potato), grilled vegetables and choclo (corn
on the cob). I had one fork full of the potatoes. I simply could not resist. I
gave in to the temptation. My only regret was that I was enjoying this incredible
meal alone.

I was treated really well by the staff, people were friendly, polite and helpful.
The restroom was clean. I took Alison's advice and ordered Gaucho's most famous
dessert, whipped ice cream and whiskey. It was astonishing - even for someone who
doesn't drink! I don’t drink. I also tried the Flan con Dulce de Leche, a typical
Argentine specialty, which did not disappoint. Did I mention I don’t drink?
Mostly, I don't drink wine. It puts me to sleep. I don't drink beer. I don’t know
why anyone drinks beer. I do enjoy Romana Sambuca (an Italian aniseed-flavored,
usually colorless liqueur) and I like B52's; 1 part Kahlua, 1 part Bailey's Irish
Cream and 1 part Grand Marnier layered in a shot glass. Never stirred. I drink
them like water. Did I mention I don’t drink? Did I mention I love dessert?
Especially ice cream.

My review of Gaucho - Derived from the original Argentinean 'Gaucho' tradition of

cooking, this is place where customers can feast on succulent free-range meats,
cut and cooked in true Argentinean style, in full view of other diners. The meats
are cooked on an Assado - an open concave grill heated by lava rocks - which is a
main feature of the restaurant. The restaurant is by no means cheap, but
definitely worth the price and even the wait to be seated. And the view of the
Thames ain't bad either. Go to Gaucho. Two thumbs up - way up.

I made a note in my pad to thank Jason for dinner. We were on our way to The
Athenaeum, passing Buckingham Palace along the way. I turned the Audio CD on.
"Besides being the official London residence of The Queen, Buckingham Palace is
also the busy administrative headquarters of the monarchy and has probably the
most famous and easily recognizable façade of any building in the world." I
thought the White House was more immediately identifiable. But I guess I am a bit
prejudiced, being an American.

"The Palace is a working building and the centerpiece of Britain's constitutional

monarchy. It houses the offices of those who support the day-to-day activities and
duties of The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh and their immediate family. The
Palace is also the venue for great Royal ceremonies, State Visits and
Investitures, all of which are organized by the Royal Household."

"Although Buckingham Palace is furnished and decorated with priceless works of art
that form part of the Royal collection, one of the major art collections in the
world today, it is not an art gallery and nor is it a museum. Its State Rooms form
the nucleus of the working Palace and are used regularly by The Queen and members
of the Royal family for official and State entertaining. Buckingham Palace is one
of the world's most familiar buildings and more than 50,000 people visit the
Palace each year as guests to banquets, lunches, dinners, receptions and the Royal
Garden Parties."

"Since 1660, Household Troops have guarded the Sovereign and the Royal Palaces.
The Queen's Guard usually consists of Foot Guards in full-dress uniform of red
tunics and bearskins."
"The Changing of the Guard takes place in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace at
11.30 every day in summer, every other day in winter, and lasts about 45 minutes.
The New Guard marches to the Palace from Wellington Barracks with a Guards band,
the Old Guard hands over in a ceremony during which the sentries are changed and
then returns to barracks. The New Guard then marches to St James's Palace leaving
the detachment at Buckingham Palace."

I turned off the Audio CD. "We should be at your hotel in just a few minutes."
Phillip informed me. "Great, I am exhausted. It's been a very long day." I
responded. But Phillip was on the cell phone, so he didn't hear me. I wondered if
he was reporting back to Jason.

We arrived at The Athenaeum and were warmly greeted by a smiling, friendly staff.
"Have a restful sleep. We've got a few more stops tomorrow before we get to the
studio. Will you be ready at 9:00AM?" Phillip asked. I told him I was a bit
overwhelmed with all of the sightseeing and wouldn’t mind if we skipped the rest
of the tour and went directly to the studio. Phillip quickly pointed out that
Jason had been very specific about the itinerary. Windsor Castle, St. James Place
and Shakespeare's Globe were our final three destinations. I told Phillip I would
be ready by 9:00AM as he requested. I thanked him for being so accommodating and
he drove off as I turned to walk inside the hotel.

As everything in London, (all of Europe actually), The Athenaeum has great

history. I wanted to share some of it with you, so I copied and pasted this brief
history off of their website:

In Ancient Greece, the word Athenaeum referred to buildings dedicated to Athena,

the goddess of wisdom, and in particular to a temple in Athens where poets,
philosophers, and orators gathered to read and discuss their work. Over the
centuries the term also has applied to numerous academies and learned societies.
Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Moore established the most famous of these, The
Athenaeum of London, in 1824. Members included individuals known for their
scientific or literary attainments, artists of eminence in all classes of the fine
arts, and noblemen and gentlemen distinguished as Liberal patrons of science,
literature, or the arts.

As early as 1921, George Ellery Hale, renowned astronomer, Caltech trustee, and
director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, envisioned an Athenaeum in Pasadena
modeled after the club in London. Hale had already spurred intellectual life in
the region by bringing former MIT President Arthur A. Noyes and physicist Robert
A. Millikan to Caltech. Together this trio positioned the California Institute of
Technology as a world-class center for teaching and research in engineering and
science. During the 1920s, cultural life also blossomed around two other centers
of scholarship in Southern California--the Mount Wilson Observatory and the
Huntington Library and Art Gallery.

The three institutions were legally independent, but a friendly association and
spirit of cooperation flourished among their permanent staffs and visiting
scholars. Hale believed that the club he envisioned would further stimulate
friendship and the exchange of ideas among lovers of science, art, and literature.

In 1929, Mr. and Mrs. Allan C. Balch, who strongly supported Hale's idea,
presented the Institute with a gift of stocks to establish the club. Those stocks
were converted to $500,000 in cash just before the stock market crash. Thus, at a
time when many institutions were short of money, Caltech was able to house the
Athenaeum in a magnificent new building, furnished with antiques, and embellished
with lovely Mediterranean-style landscaping and tennis courts. The building was
designed by Gordon B. Kaufmann, built by William C. Crowell, and landscaped by
Florence Yoch and Lucile Council.

The first formal dinner was held in February 1931, when Albert Einstein arrived
for a two-month sojourn at Caltech. Three Nobel Prize winners, Albert Einstein,
Robert A. Millikan, and A. A. Michelson, attended that dinner. Portraits of Hale,
Noyes, Millikan, the Balches, and Caltech's past presidents hang in various rooms
throughout The Athenaeum.

Jason had booked me in The Einstein Suite, magnificent, warm, cozy, lots of
natural wood paneling, a working wood burning fireplace, beautifully decorated
with old world charm, soft, pastel color palette, historical artwork and
thoughtfully selected and placed "stuff". I've slept in more comfortable beds, but
the overall experience was incredible. If only these walls could speak, the
stories they could tell. I arranged for a wake up call at 6:30AM. I turned the TV
on for some company and did a little channel surfing. I soon found a soft porn
channel and watched four girls running on the beach naked. I slept like a baby,
dreaming about the four girls, naked on the beach and me. I get the concept of
women naked on the beach. But men, I just don’t get it. Breasts bouncing up and
down, I get. It's a beautiful thing. A penis and balls bouncing up and down, I
just don’t want to see. And it's got to hurt.

I remember being in St. Martin and walking on the beach. A man accompanied by two
women was walking towards me. They were all naked. I was not. The women were
beautiful and naked. The man was not attractive and he was naked too. But he was
proud. He walked with his arms around each of the women, showing them off and
letting everyone know they were with him. I silently prayed that the women weren't
his daughters. I noticed that everyone was looking at them and wondering the same
thing I was. How the fuck did this guy get these women? My vote for naked beaches,
tits yes, balls no.