A Sense of Justice

by Jack Davis

  Timmons remembered that at least one of the cases was a few years old. That was good; there would be a possibility that some of the evidence might have been lost or compromised.

  He’d make the prosecution show chain of custody for the entire time. Who knows, maybe some of the witnesses will have died.

  By now Timmons’s mind was jumbled and he was mentally exhausted. It wasn’t fun anymore. He just wanted Lublin to take a plea. Yeah, that’s it; a plea would be best for everyone involved.

  Although he knew he had to be offered a plea first, that shouldn’t be too difficult to arrange. He would have to figure out how to make the government realize the savings in taxpayer dollars by not going to trial. It would add up to a number of easy convictions for the US Attorney’s Office in what would surely be the highest-profile case they’d had in years, possibly ever. Everyone wins. For Timmons, this was as far down the defense strategy road as he would go for one day.

  From this point on, every time he would start to think strategically, he got diverted to the personal upside of the case. He would start planning his post-Lublin case life. He liked that. That was much more enjoyable than worrying about what the prosecution was going to do, and how he was supposed to counter it. Being famous, even in Central New York, was going to be great.

  75 | Jane Mansfield

  Syracuse, New York, 10/23/09, 2046 hours

  Jane Mansfield was an unfortunately named forty-seven-year-old reporter for the ABC news affiliate in Syracuse. Unlike her famous namesake, she was neither tall nor statuesque, nor particularly well-endowed.

  Mansfield had chosen a career that worshiped youth and good looks when she had both. What she lacked was introspection and foresight.

  The years had taken their toll. Unlike many in the industry who subjected themselves to procedures just short of torture to maintain a youthful appearance, Jane gave up on trying to look young and fit at some point in her mid-thirties. What she did have in common with most in her profession was that she had given everything to her job in her twenties and thirties. She had acquiesced to all the bad assignments and career moves. At least that is how she would explain it in later years to friends and colleagues who didn’t know any better. In actuality she had taken a grand total of two moves, and those had both been inside New York state. As she aged, she worked out less, ate and drank more, had less of a sex drive, and developed a who-gives-a-shit attitude.

  When the Lublin case came her way, Jane was jaded, eccentric, and had been around TV news long enough to be considered long in the tooth. She saw herself as a seasoned television professional.

  By the time Mansfield stood on Davis Timmons’s doorstep, decades had slipped by and she had been the anchor of the late local news in Syracuse for two years. She knew there would be no call from corporate asking her to co-host a national program or go overseas to do features that would run on the breezy morning news/talk shows. Those days had passed…or had they? I’m still young enough. I could get “re-noticed.” She had seen it happen to others in the past. With the right exposure, a good personal trainer, a nip here, a tuck there, there was still a possibility. But the first thing was to get back on corporate’s radar.

  The case involving an upstate native murdering multiple internet porn hosts just might be the break she needed. It was right in her backyard; now the important thing was for her to get an exclusive, then work it hard and pitch it to the suits on The Avenue of the Americas.

  She knew how to do it and who to do to get her story noticed. But first, she had to get Davis Timmons to agree. Realizing she was already behind the other stations in her effort, she felt her personal touch would more than make up for it. Jane unbuttoned the top buttons of her blouse and rang the bell.

  Getting Timmons to agree to an exclusive turned out to be easier than Mansfield anticipated. The attorney was arrogant, self-centered, a short-range thinker, and horny: a perfect combination. As they lay in bed later that evening, Mansfield was able to take the attorney’s regional gluttony and project it nationally.

  Sex sells, and in this instance, it sold in more ways than one. Mansfield was able to convince her new partner that “this story has legs.” She said it could be very big, but it had to be handled correctly. It couldn’t get too much press too soon or everyone would be beating down the door and it could implode.

  She was quick to point out that if it got too big too fast, it would certainly lead to other lawyers, maybe big-name lawyers, trying to get involved. She made Timmons believe that it would be better to have a slow simmer, take more time and make more money. It didn’t take much convincing to make the greedy lawyer trust that they needed to have everything covered, and probably be farther into the judicial aspects of the case, before they let it get too much attention.

  Mansfield lied when she told Timmons that within a couple of weeks, she could get him on the national news. She played it coy by saying she wasn’t sure about the morning shows, but certainly the evening news. Depending on certain aspects, the case “lent itself to 60-Minutes-type reporting like no case in the last ten years.”

  For her plan to work, Mansfield needed exclusivity. That meant keeping Timmons on the hook—she was willing to say, or do, whatever it took. She fed him what he wanted to hear and led him where he wanted to go. She said his case had everything a producer wanted: sex, the internet, and gruesome multiple murders. It would pull in all the key demographics. It was “a can’t miss…with the right guidance.”

  To convince him she was the right person to do the guiding, she practically gave him her resume verbally, and then just as importantly orally, starting on round two.

  Part Sixteen

  76 | It’s a Twister

  October – November 2009

  If the case was likened to a tornado, wide and slow at the top where it started, gradually narrowing and picking up speed until it reached the ground and became irresistible; Lublin’s arraignment was halfway down the funnel. The twister touched down within two weeks of the first court date and immediately started carving its path of destruction.

  The “MILF Killer” case, or simply the “MILF Murders” as it came to be known in the national and international media, also had an uncanny symmetry. Lublin had been identified and arrested through an unconnected series of events, and later the case would end in the same way.

  No one initially working the case knew its magnitude or the personalities involved on the periphery, and without that, they couldn’t foresee how these would be used by the media.

  No one could predict it would spark a national debate and get picked up as a lead story in Rolling Stone. The story’s author used the premise that it was only because the victims worked in a profession that the Judeo-Christian establishment saw as sinful that the crimes never received any prioritization and had gone unnoticed for so long.

  The article compared the case to the Green River Killer case in the Pacific Northwest, pointing out how many victims that case had claimed. That there was a multi-state task force assigned to the Green River case very early on was not mentioned. So, while there was never any real proof of the claims and some of the facts contradicted the overall theme of the article, it made for a compelling story and pulled together the standard alliance of liberals (East Coast, West Coast and university), the feminists, and of course, the ACLU. All of whom had been without a really good cause to rally around since the last Republican administration. While this cause wasn’t ideal, it would do in a non-election year.

  The non-election year aspect was another factor that worked in the defense’s favor and could not have been foreseen. Dennis “Dusty” Rhodes, the third-term congressman from the area around Henderson, Nevada, was killed in a car accident early in the year. The loss caused a special election for his open seat, one of only two in the nation during that cycle. The lack of other political news forced the national media to focus on what would have normally been a fly-over district in a normal election. As it was, the media was going through off-year wit
hdrawal with regard to politics. The methadone was the campaign for Nevada’s third congressional district.

  With the surprising national focus on the small state race, the candidates and issues received more scrutiny than normal. The candidates, being politicians, lapped up the media attention and played to the crowd every chance they got. That helped Lublin’s case gained significant national attention.

  The sex industry workers of Nevada, and their union, who had long felt the police discriminated against them as victims, latched onto the “Porn Site Killer” case—as they referred to it—as a prime example of their plight. That most people involved in home porn had nothing to do with the professional porn industry didn’t seem to bother anyone and was generally ignored.

  As usual the media didn’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.

  The leaders of the small union decided that before they would throw their weight behind any of the candidates, they wanted to know their views on the topic in general and the case in particular.

  Initially they sent letters to the candidates’ campaign offices asking for their positions. When they didn’t get a response from two of the three, they took the opportunity in a debate to ask the candidates on camera.

  The Republican and Democratic candidates, knowing they did not want to offend the powerful police unions, demurred. They said that while they thought it was a tragedy, they didn’t think law enforcement had shown any bias.

  The Libertarian candidate, with no chance at getting the support from any of the police unions, figured a response would get him a few extra votes and set him apart from his opponents. He decided to speak out on the issue and use it on and off as a differentiator in speeches until the election.

  The media attention generated in Nevada started a chain reaction that ultimately eliminated critical evidence and two key witnesses.

  Media Coverage; Chain Reaction

  With the accusations raised in the Rolling Stone article, and the mention of the case in the Congressional debate, Mansfield was in business. She couldn’t have scripted a better opening. She made the most of her opportunity.

  Her initial hook was focused on the length of time the killings had gone on without any law enforcement agency tying them together. She used all the well-known serial killer sagas to make her point. She pointed out that while the Green River Killer and the BTK serial murderer had not been caught for years, law enforcement at least recognized the connections between the crimes. There were officers and agents working the cases and searching nationally. Task forces had been set up and media had drawn attention to the crimes. There were coordinated efforts to bring the criminals to justice. The MILF Murders had gone on for years without anyone other than local law enforcement even cataloging them, let alone looking at them as a series of related killings.

  As expected, the rest of the media outlets jumped on the story. Most of the reports were content with reiterating the facts that were already known. The killings were salacious enough without any embellishment. The story sold without any real work, let alone investigative journalism.

  Within a few weeks, coroners’ photos had surfaced from the Savannah killings, and crime scene photos from a killing in Tulsa had been posted on the web. While Mansfield would have liked to have released the photos herself so she could have timed it slightly better, it still brought her story back to the front page.

  As important, the website featuring the photos had over a million hits that week.

  Each new facet brought another round of appearances for Mansfield, or her and Timmons, on the news talk show circuit.

  After a few days of sensationalism, a number of radio talk shows and evening media magazines looked at the sex industry aspect of the case. They had segments, or “hard-hitting stories,” trying to determine whether the victim’s activities had in any way affected how the case was handled. The stories played especially well in the major media markets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, and, of course, Las Vegas. While no one in the media actually cared about the victims, let alone any potential discrepancies in investigative resources, it held the public’s attention, and that was what mattered.

  The next turn in the course of the flood that Mansfield had started was the attack on the FBI.

  Her initial news story had asked the question: who was to blame for the case going unrecognized for so long? Her next piece looked more closely at that aspect of the case and led viewer to a conclusion and a scapegoat.

  Mansfield praised the Secret Service for finally investigating the cases thoroughly enough to catch the madman. She pointed out that the Service did have national jurisdiction over computer crimes, not homicides. She deflected the blame away from the local jurisdictions by explaining, “They didn’t have the resources or jurisdiction to go after a national killer.”

  Then, starting with Ruby Ridge and Waco, Mansfield reopened every FBI mistake she could find. There was no attempt to bunch similar cases together, nor was there any mention of the many successes against terrorism and organized crime. What did matter was getting the public to think a certain way. Mitigating facts weren’t included; the piece was never intended to be objective. It had the desired effect on the intended audience…and then some.

  The FBI started coming under scrutiny and received additional media attention. Mansfield did more radio and TV interviews, and with all the buzz she generated, the next step was as predictable as day following night. Congress got involved.

  Mansfield was asked to testify before an oversight committee as an expert witness. It was the crown jewel in her career, and she felt vindicated for all her hard work, even if she felt the CSPAN cameras were not at all flattering.

  The “Hill FBI Haters,” who would take any opportunity to besmirch former director Hoover’s agency, jumped at the opportunity. It started with RFIs, or requests for information, to the Bureau. Then, when the media attention grew and there were more opportunities to be on camera other than CSPAN, more calls were made.

  The FBI Director and his senior staff were summoned for special hearings in both the House and the Senate. Everyone wanted to know how the premier law enforcement agency in the world could have let the killings go on for so long without knowing about it.

  Critics decided to use the opportunity to show their base they were still anti-FBI. They postured, pontificated, and posed questions about whether the billions being spent on the Bureau could be better used by local law enforcement. Their inquiries, more in the form of statements, rambled on for minutes and made it difficult to discern the actual question.

  After the first day of hearings, congressmen using the Capitol as a backdrop told reporters they were going to get to the bottom of “the breakdown in information sharing that allowed so many heinous crimes, so similar in nature, to go unconnected for a decade.”

  They wondered out loud, in time for the national news, “How can we be sure there are no other such cases going on that we’re not aware of?”

  The theme was always the same: the FBI was to blame for the case continuing as long as it did. After a while it seemed to some that the FBI was an “accessory after the fact.”

  Through it all, FBI Director Stevenson maintained his composure and answered all the questions, no matter how derogatory or inflammatory. He realized that while he had to take his lumps in public, people were working behind the scenes to shore up the Bureau’s reputation.

  Those people were his Congressional and Public Affairs programs, and they were hard at work well before Director Stevenson ever set foot in a hearing room.

  The FBI’s Congressional and Public Affairs programs rival any private PR firms in the world. Staffed by seasoned agents who exemplify professionalism, they are assigned to all the important congressional committees.

  They’d developed relationships with not only key members, but more importantly, key staffers. They had insight into any significant cases the Bureau was working, and any cases that might bring media attention.

  While the B
ureau personnel on the Hill realized they had to wait until after the hearings concluded to be aggressive publicly, they worked their friends in the halls of Congress from the very start.

  The FBI’s public campaign started the Sunday after the last session of hearings.

  To show solidarity and to somewhat dispute the lack-of-information-sharing charge, the FBI director’s first public appearance was with the director of the Secret Service.

  The joint appearance on a Sunday morning news show was well rehearsed and the two rival organizations came off as Batman and Robin, or Batman and Superman, depending on which agency rep was asked.

  The directors answered questions, deferred to each other throughout the interview, and bantered with the host. Both sets of senior staff and public affairs experts couldn’t have been more pleased. They even suggested additional appearances. They knew everyone watching would now have the impression that two of the nation’s most prestigious law enforcement agencies were working hand-in-glove to keep all citizens safe.

  One person watching that Sunday was actually shocked, but not by the cooperation between the two agencies.

  77 | A History of Violence

  Nassau, Bahamas 11/16/09

  In the Bahamas, neither Kingston Prince nor Bobby Muelens put the MILF Murders together with the arrest of Alvaro Lopez. That was until Prince heard the FBI Director use the Secret Service arrest of a suspect in the Bahamas as an example of some of the cooperation between the feds and local law enforcement.

  Prince called his partner immediately to tell him about the comment. Both worried that this type of publicity and notoriety might bring their interrogation of the prisoner under additional scrutiny. Thirty minutes later the two were at a beachfront bar discussing the problem over a beer.

  Prince told Muelens that he’d gotten a call from a New York lawyer regarding a case the week before. Since he had never heard of the name on the case, he hadn’t called the lawyer back, but now he remembered the name of the case was Lublin.