One of the cases I wrote about involved a child, 14-year-old Christine Ann Diefenbach, who was murdered on Sunday, February 7, 1988. I can see why cases involving children get to detectives more. It’s simply unendurable.

While researching this case I spent some time on the Parents of Murdered Children (POMC) website. They have online forums where families can talk to each other. Coping with Anniversaries is one of the most active forums. At the time I wrote the book, a forum called Forgive the Murderer? was even more active, but the Anniversary discussion has since overtaken it. The Mother’s Grief topic had four times as many responses at the Father’s Grief topic, but now it has ten. Of course that’s a cultural reflection and not indicative of a father’s grief, which also includes an enormous amount of guilt. They are the protectors.

The POMC website contains a link to a particularly moving article about the subject called, A Grief Like No Other by Eric Schlosser. I recommend this article highly to anyone who is going through this, or is interested in learning more about the subject, and particularly to law enforcement, who must repeatedly face these families. They also feel like they are the protectors. Cold cases involving children are hard for everyone.

History of Capital Punishment in New York.

1778-1887: hanging
1888-1964: electrocution
1965-1973: no death penalty
1974-1977: electrocution
1978-1994: no death penalty
1995-present: lethal injection

(Except, isn’t it in limbo somehow now?)

From the Bureau of Justice website:

In 2005, 60 persons in 16 States were executed — 19 in Texas; 5 each in Indiana, Missouri, and North Carolina; 4 each in Ohio, Alabama, and Oklahoma; 3 each in Georgia, and South Carolina; 2 in California; and 1 each in Connecticut, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, and Mississippi.

Of persons executed in 2005:

– 41 were white
– 19 were black

Fifty-nine men and one woman were executed in 2005.
Lethal injection accounted for all of the executions.
Thirty-eight States and the Federal government in 2005 had capital statutes.

The map was courtesy of http://encarta.msn.com.

(Forgive me, I feel I must out myself. As strongly as I feel that murderers must be caught and imprisoned, I am against capital punishment. Even though, I too, think that some people should not be on the planet.)

These are my notes from a dig at a golf course. One of the Cold Case CIs (criminal informant) told them they’d find a body at this golf course.

“There’s two K9 dogs, a dozen guys, a couple of trailers, a grill is set up to feed everyone a meal, an investigator for the DA is here. We’ve gone pretty far into the course to start looking for the body, but Vito says he’d be amazed if they find a body here. ‘They’re lazy pricks,’ he says. Murderers usually don’t make much of an effort, they don’t carry bodies far, or dig their graves too deep. There’s the fairly constant pop of golf balls being hit on the fairway [later one will hit and break the back windshield of the guy who brought the ground penetrating radar machine].

The cadaver dog Storm is into the dig, he keeps getting excited, his handler says, ‘Easy.’ To me he says, ‘You don’t want them scratching one of them. Bomb Squad dogs sit down when they find something [smart]. Cadaver dogs go mental.’“

When I was first researching this book I spent a few weeks down at the Municipal Library reading NYPD’s Annual Reports going all the way back. I wrote down various facts that stood out for me, like this, which I did not put in the book:

From the 1887 Annual Report: 71 fetuses found, 82 dead infants found, 34 still-born children found, 246 people drowned, 11 human bones found.

I mean good God. You can see how that might stand out. I’m not sure what is meant by “found.” On the street? I guess it could mean anywhere. Anyway, harsh times. And I’m guessing there were a lot more drownings back then because people actually swam in the Hudson and East Rivers.