Monday, September 28, 2009

Current Events: Bob's Life and The Death of Diane Elizabeth Ward

James Robert ‘Bob’ Ward and Diane Elizabeth Ward were married in 1986.

Apparently, in 1997 James ‘Bob’ Ward founded a company called Land Resource. His business boomed and he became immensely successful. However, Ward’s company eventually failed, allegedly due to the housing crunch, and in 2008 he filed for bankruptcy. The bond company is suing Bob, claiming he moved monies he should have used to improve properties into trust funds for his children, paid off loans and bought luxury cars and bought a 4.3 million-dollar Florida home. The home is now in foreclosure.

September 21, this year, Bob Ward called 911 and allegedly said, ‘I just shot my wife - she’s dead.’ Diane Elizabeth Ward was found dead of a fatal gunshot wound to the head. A few days later, they charged Bob with second-degree murder in Diane’s death. Diane and Bob’s two children, Mallory and Sarah stand beside their father and the story that Diane committed suicide.

In a video from a jail house visit, Mallory jokes about his jumpsuit and he gives a thumbs-up as he dances and pretends to do a strip tease. Mallory giggles and dances with him while his sister-in-law Paula Saare laughs with him.


A little history on Bob Ward’s life:

During the late 70's, around 32 years ago, Janis Ward divorced her then husband, James Robert ‘Bob’ Ward, on claim of physical cruelty. Her claim was that he was dangerous and she asked for a restraining order to keep him from molesting or causing her physical harm. Allegedly, their later divorce papers do not mention these allegations. Janis died in a car wreck about 30 years ago.

A few years after the divorce of Bob and Janis Ward, Bob, then a loan executive, was in a relationship with a woman named Dianne. According to Dianne, although he was charming, he was also a jealous and possessive man and five years after their relationship began, she broke it off. Dianne intimated that he used drugs and drank and when he did she saw his darker side. After Bob’s arrest for murder of his second wife, Diane Elizabeth Ward, Dianne McClintock Callahan told a story of how in anger Bob had once punched a hole in a wall because he was late for a party. During one fit of jealous anger he hit her with a bedpost and pointed a gun at her. She ran to a neighbor for help. After she left him, Dianne said he had her arrested for stealing a dog he’d bought as a gift for her. Dianne talked about how years after the gun and bedpost incident, and just a few months before Diane died, he contacted her via email. She agreed to have lunch with him. During that lunch he apologized for his past actions, talked about his wife spending too much money and his legal difficulties with bankruptcy. Dianne, now a happily married woman said she had no interest in a new relationship with Bob.

Two years after Bob and Dianne broke up, Bob had married Diane Elizabeth and due to his future business ventures lived a life of luxury; Until, that is, the fateful events that happened inside the Florida mansion on September 21, 2009 where Bob allegedly claims Diane was trying to shoot herself.

I am giving a lot of thought to the question asked by Dianne McClintock Callahan: "So something happened with her, something happened with me and now the wife is dead," Callahan said. "Are you seeing a pattern here?"



http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/orl-bk-isleworth-country-club-murder-092309,0,6200567.story


http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/realestate/orl-isleworth-murder-background-092409,0,2042157.story


http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-isleworth-ward-death-092709,0,985559.story

Quote found in article allegedly quoting Dianne Callahan found on page 2- http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-isleworth-ward-death-092709,0,985559.story?page=2



Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Personal Entry: I Care

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“Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed.” Abraham Lincoln


I care about victims of domestic violence; they have seen and unseen bruises on their bodies; they walk around with sore or broken bones and sometimes make an excuse for their abusers. They blame themselves while living in fear of their spouse coming home, knowing he or she will find faults with the smallest of things. The abused person walks a thin thread; they hide in shadows of rooms and hallways while praying the abuser won’t notice them, that the abuser’s anger won’t rear its ugly head; praying he or she had a good day and no one from work caused them to be frustrated or made them have to go out their way to deal with a situation they didn’t like.

The victims are emotionally captive in their spouses’, their abusers darkness, victims of their environment. Sadly many - too many - feel alone, not knowing where to turn or where to go for help.

We cannot change the abusers’ nature!

I care about the abused child, the ones whose parents treat like an inanimate object that’s a possession not heard, only seen. The ones whose parent slides into their bed at night, those kicked, picked up and thrown against walls, onto furniture or on the ground. The child who lives with the pain of broken bones, the ones who live with both visible and invisible bruises they are scared to show, scared to talk about. The ones who don’t know who to trust because the ones they should trust are violent toward them. The ones violently yanked from their homes, off the streets, the school yards, in the stores and other places where they should be safe. I care.

I care that children and domestic violence victims are not safe because predators stalk the streets while the laws protect the abusers’ rights; I care that the children and domestic violence victims are second class to the abusers’ in the eyes of the laws. I care about all victims no matter their gender, race, economic status, or religious beliefs.

The time has come! The time to tell all the Aldermen, Members of Congress, District Attorneys, Governors, Judges, Mayors, Senators, and Town Council Members in every city, county, parish and town of this great free country that if they don’t care too, they will not get our vote in the future. The time has come to ask when they knock on our door asking for our vote what their stance on domestic violence and child abuse is; what they will do to help the victim, put the abused first. The time to tell all of them that if they don’t battle for laws to protect the victims, to help law enforcement deal with the violence of domestic abuse and child predators that they are not speaking for us. We voted for them to carry our voice, speak for us, and they are miserably failing us. The time has come to ask the President to stand up for victims; to stand on the floor of Congress and the floor of the Senate and demand a review of the laws surrounding domestic violence and child abuse; to tell the lawmakers he demands the victims’ rights heard and that to put victims’ rights first in their minds. Above all, that he demands protection laws written that will put the abused above the rights of their abusers! We cannot change an abuser’s nature!

Child predators will always be child predators, child abusers. They cannot change their nature! We cannot change who they are. The darkness is a volcano deep inside their heart and soul, sometimes the volcano is quiet and dormant but it is always there; its ashes the victims; its fire the rage. The time has come to keep child abusers under lock and key, to keep them off the streets walking in freedom! Likewise, the time has come to keep violent domestic abusers in jail, if they did it once they will do it again! We cannot change their nature! They live in darkness and that darkness is who they are inside, what they are. They are abusers!

The time has come to demand change. The time has come to make sure our children do not have to battle for their children’s rights against predators and abusive spouses. The battle is ours, for them, the ones presently abused and the future abused. The time has come to tell, to show, all the abused we care!

Giving abusers medicines and sending them to anger management and other counseling programs will not change the abusers’ nature!

Monday, August 31, 2009

Current Events: Upcoming Trials of Lemaricus Davidson and George Thomas

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The trial of Letalvis Cobbins is over; a jury gave Cobbins LWOP in August of 2009 but the State of Tennessee and Judge Baumgartner’s duties aren’t over. Today, August 31, the Judge is in Chattanooga, Hamilton CO, TN, presiding over a search for jurors in the case against George Thomas. Thomas is also a defendant in the Christian/Newsom murders and the State is seeking the death penalty.

George Thomas and Letalvis Cobbins, along with Cobbins’s girlfriend, Vanessa Coleman all was arrested the day after they discovered Channon’s body in a large trash can. According to Cobbins, Lemaricus Davidson, his brother, told Thomas he had to ‘prove’ himself. Perhaps like the days of old and the mafia ruling their paid killers, Thomas had to prove loyalty to Davidson. Perhaps Davidson had illusions of grandeur in his mind and thought himself the all-powerful one who could dish out orders of rape, torture and murder and have them carried out posthaste. I don’t know; I do know that Cobbins allegedly said both Davidson and Thomas left the house that fateful night that Chris Newsom was shot, burned and left where he lay on Cherry Street beside the railroad tracks. And I read that Vanessa made a statement Thomas had admitted the shooting of Chris Newsom to her.

Normally, I do not look forward to anything happening on September 21 of any year. That date has been ingrained in my mind since I was a small child, and not for good reasons. But this year that is different because this year, jury selection in the Lemaricus Davidson trial is set to begin.

On September 1 they will give out over 900 questionnaires to potential jurors in the Davidson trial. His trial was set to go live September 21, 2009 but Judge Baumgartner stated he felt it’d be near two weeks for the jury selection process. Here’s hoping they go live with opening statements and witness testimony by Oct 1, 2009 with Davidson’s trial; Thomas’s trial, hopefully, will begin on schedule on October 28 and again, hopefully, the public will have an opportunity to view both trials live on local video feed.

If in fact these two did violate and kill Chris Newsom and participated or committed the crime of rape, torture and murder of Channon Christian then I hope they get the death penalty. Channon and Chris had a right to live and their rights were, in many ways, violated and denied.





http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=97386&catid=2

http://www.knoxnews.com/

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Current Events: Thoughts on Letalvis Cobbins's Verdict

I have watched many criminal trials in my life but I have to say the Christian/Newsom murder trial of Letalvis Cobbins is on my top ten lists of most horrific of 'adults killing adults' that I’ve watched. What the jurors and public heard was so tragically horrific that I do not believe I could write in a blog piece of what all took place the night Channon and Chris died. Therefore, I won’t say anything about the horror and terror Channon and Chris endured before Cobbins and his alleged co-killers took their lives.

This young person, Letalvis Cobbins, helped destroy so many lives with his vile, hideous actions. Not only did he help destroy Channon and Chris’s life but that of their parents and siblings and his family too. When his older sister was testifying for his behalf during the sentencing portion of the trial, my heart broke for her. She and her siblings lived a hard life of parental drug abuse, violence and pushed from this family member to the next. That the sisters love their brother is evident, and that they begged for this jury to save him is natural. Yet the cold fact is, Cobbins participated in kidnap, rape, and murder of two wonderful young people. Letalvis’s sisters bettered their life, and he could have also.

Letalvis did not have to follow his alleged co-conspirators in a night of rape and murder; he could have saved Channon. Letalvis, in a cowardly act, decided his personal safety (if what he said about Lemaricus saying he’d shoot him was true) meant more than her life. In fact, Letalvis did not have to follow his alleged conspirators from the car jacking scene to the house; he could’ve driven to the police station and told them what had happened and saved both Channon and Chris from the hideous nightmare they endured.

Cobbins deserved to go to prison for life, in fact he deserved the death penalty.

However, as much as I despise Letalvis Cobbins as a human being and his self-serving vile actions, I am, with mixed emotional hesitance, a little pleased the jury saved his life and decided life-without-parole; he will learn some hard lessons in prison. I say that I’m a little, very little pleased not for his sake, but for his siblings and other family members. They literally destroyed two lives on January 6, 2007, and two families are continually living with the heartache of their loss. The actions of Cobbins and his alleged co-conspirators impacted three families. One family can visit their family member in jail, hear his voice, his laughter and look into his eyes. Channon and Chris’s family will never hear their loved ones again, never hear their laughter or look into their eyes.

Channon’s family is living with guilt they shouldn’t have because they feel they let their daughter down and did not save her. My heart breaks for them; I want to take away that guilt; no way they could’ve known what she would endure when she last left them; no way could they have saved her. I pray the ‘if only’ doesn’t haunt them the rest of their life. I personally know that ‘if only’ vice; I’ve been there, lived it, and it’s emotionally draining and painful. Chris’s mom feels she let her son down because the jury did not give Cobbins a death sentence; she should not feel that emotion; law enforcement did get Cobbins, the justice system worked; they brought him before a jury to answer for his crimes, and due to the guilty verdict will never walk in freedom again. Mrs. Newsom found the strength to endure all the days and nights and meetings with police and prosecutors to fight for her son’s rights; when the battle became emotionally weary and physically draining, as I imagine it was, she looked deep inside and found the strength to keep fighting. She and Mr. Newsom along with the Christian family have battles to fight ahead of them with the three other trials on the docket; I have no doubt they all will find the emotional strength to stand in for their children and continue their battles for justice.

About the older brother, Lemaricus Davidson and his alleged actions the night of Channon and Chris’s death, I can’t say I want him to live; his trial is coming up next so I don’t know what I will feel except what I am now feeling - emotions that resemble hatred just from what I have heard in Letalvis’ trial. I feel total disgust for Letalvis, disgust for what he did and for what he didn’t do; disgust for his choice to take the road of criminal and not the road of a law abiding productive human being, but at this point my feelings for his older brother are on hold.


The trial of Letalvis Cobbins: http://www.wbir.com

Friday, August 14, 2009

Current Events: The Trial of Kathryn Nadal

The trial of Kathryn Nadal is in closing arguments today. Yesterday, an investigator said Kathryn said she heard her baby whimpering and she went into the room to find Shorty on the bed licking the baby's genitals. She said she pushed the dog from the bed and went to a neighbor for help. She claimed the dog was again on the bed when she returned. DNA testing under one of Shorty's nails was too small to retest but they couldn’t exclude the baby’s DNA. (I assume they tested it but all of it was used up in that one test). Other witnesses had said that no bloody paw prints were anywhere in the house. Oops. Dogs clean themselves. But in one article connected to the case, Mr. Dega, Kathryn's neighbor, stated he saw no paw prints either. I don't know if the dog could've cleaned himself that quickly - seems residual blood would still be on the dog the day of the mutilation. But six days later, I can see why they would discover none.

Sure seems it's a battle of the experts. Two testified for State and both said the small Dachshund could not have caused clean wounds such as the baby had. A defense expert says a dog of Shorty's size and breed could've made the injuries. No weapon with DNA was found in the home. However, they discovered kitchen shears in Kathryn's bathroom. The news site mentions nothing in the articles of the shears having DNA on them.

I can't see how (from what I've read) Kathryn could not have blood on her clothing. According to one doctor, the baby had a severed artery in its leg and due to that, one leg may be shorter than the other as he grows. I think that since Holden had a severed artery then it wouldn't take long for him to bleed to death . . . and the paramedic did testify the baby was very pale.

Maybe I keep wanting to know more because I just don't see how Kathryn had time to clean herself up, discard clothing (where they couldn't be found), clean the shears and go to a neighbor for help and Holden not have bled to death. I keep wondering exactly what the paramedics did to stop the bleeding. Did they move the skin, clip away any, or did any come off on the bandages they used? Did the doctor who first treated him? The information in the write-ups doesn't give enough evidence in my opinion for any decision (by me) on she did/she did not do it. So, I will delay the mention of I think she is guilty or not guilty until I know more about what was said in court. I will say her shooting up the night before this happened doesn’t give me any supportive thoughts for her and her motherly abilities.

I just pray this jury listened carefully to all the evidence and comes to a just verdict. I hope enough evidence was presented.

An Aunt of Holden's (the dad's sister) stated that while at the hospital, Kathryn kept telling her dad (the father's dad) 'Don't have me, I didn't do this.' (That have should be hate?)

I keep thinking back to another dog mutilation case where they sent both parents to prison and later the defense discovered pictures that weren't presented in court or shown to the defense and they proved beyond any doubt that the parents did not mutilate their daughter.
 
 
I also keep wishing this woman was innocent, and that she simply was not strong enough emotionally to deal with a baby with colic to stay off the drug habit. But I can’t say with surety that she is innocent of the charges. I’m not sure if she is found NG that she should have another baby either. I just don’t want to think a mother could do such horrific things to her flesh and blood, her 5-week-old baby. But, I do know if I had all the facts to ponder and debate in my mind, then I’d reach a non prejudice or bias decision that I could live within my heart and mind. And one I’d believe would give justice to all concerned here.

One thing I can say for sure, if this woman did this horrible thing to her little baby, I don’t think she needs to ever walk in freedom again.


http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=6964790