I was just reading about a Queens case the NYPD’s Cold Case Squad recently solved where the murderer said he was sorry. Not surprisingly, the family did not accept the apology. Now, I wasn’t there, I don’t know the man, so I don’t know how genuine his apology was. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. I can understand how that might be immaterial to the family.

It’s just that I was recently posting online about this. I don’t think I have ever seen a murderer express genuine remorse. Except, I haven’t seen a lot of murderers. Maybe it happens.

I’d been googling Willie McGee. He was executed in 1951 in Mississippi for raping a white woman, although it was said that they were in a consensual relationship and she cried rape when he broke it off.

I was curious if the woman who accused him, Willamette Hawkins (aka Willette, sometimes Wilmetta) ever expressed remorse for what she had done. I fantasized calling her up, but she is dead now.

It made me wonder if anyone ever expresses remorse later. I was thinking mostly about civil rights because of my search. I specifically asked if anyone ever expressed regret later for spitting or jeering or screaming at the Little Rock Nine. Well, I just found this story on Vanity Fair about the woman in the famous Will Counts photograph (shown above). Hazel Bryan, the girl in the white dress, apologized later to Elizabeth.

It’s not murder, but this is an extremely interesting article. With a very depressing ending, mostly because of the other people who didn’t apologize and to this day don’t seem to think they have anything to apologize for. But I’m glad Hazel apologized. I’m for accepting apologies if they are genuine. If we don’t accept apologies it means we’re not accepting that people can become better people, and that’s like saying society will never change, never get better, so why bother? But again, when it’s someone you care for who is murdered, I can certainly understand feeling differently.

I was recently emailed about a web site called True Cop Stories. From the mission statement on the website:

“Sergeant S. is a twelve year law enforcement veteran. Like so many police officers and managers, he’s frustrated by the constant negative press hurled at the men and women who patrol the thin blue line. Most police officers work hard to keep you and yours safe. Why doesn’t anyone ever tell their stories? To that end, he created www.truecopstories.com, a site where real cops share real stories.

“These words come from the officers who patrol your neighborhoods, cities, and states. The tales they tell are funny, tragic, ironic, and heroic. They are all told by real cops, in their own words.”

I went to the site, and I must admit that after reading that mission statement I thought the stories would be … well, bad. Starting out with such a clear agenda like that, I was afraid the stories wouldn’t be anymore real, but instead, a white-wash. I read the first five or so and they were great!

I have to ask though, there’s one story, dated 8/29, where the writer/cop talks about the fact that no one in the crowd that was watching helped him catch the guy he was chasing. I’d be pissed at the people treating the situation like live TV too, but I always thought cops wouldn’t be happy if the public got involved. I assumed they would see it as interference instead of help. I’d like to think I’d help depending on the circumstances, (some cop is alone in a life threatening situation) but I don’t think I would have done anything in the situation he described. I also wouldn’t have laughed and cheered like the crowd did either.

This website is well worth visiting. I’d love to see him occasionally ask people to submit stories based on a specific theme or question.

A charge has been made in a case of Detective James Osorio’s that I posted about earlier in the year. Authorities in Montenegro are charging Smail Tulja for the murder of “Mary Beal, a 61-year-old Yugoslav immigrant who was reported missing in New York on Sept. 15, 1990. Three weeks later, her decapitated, dismembered body was found in two bags near the Brooklyn Navy Yard.” According the the article, “the country’s laws do not permit extradition of its citizens,” so they are going to try him there. Article here.

I was looking around for homicide statistics and was once again amazed at what you can find on the internet (thank you, Department of Defense).

Here are murder rates by country. We’re somewhere in the middle, and I was surprised to see Saudi Arabia at the bottom (but that, of course, is more about my ignorance about homicide outside the United States).

Here are murder rates by country going back to 1900!

And here is a link to the most recent crime reports from the FBI. Murder is up 0.3 percent.

A new database called NamUs.gov has just been launched by the U.S. Department of Justice. Combining two databases of missing persons and unidentified dead cases into one, it will be open to both law enforcement and the public and searchable.

From the website:

“When fully operational, NamUs will link these databases to provide a powerful tool for families, law enforcement agencies, medical examiners and coroners, victim advocates, and the general public. It will allow searches for matches between missing persons and unidentified human remains records. NamUs also will provide central access to information from other Web sites, State clearinghouses, and other important resources.”

Sad, but this could evolve into an incredible resource. Some may watch TV and think something like this is already ubiquitous but it’s not, except for largely volunteer efforts as far as I can tell (but this is not an area I’ve researched extensively).