Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Back Where We Started From ...
About The Textbook,
The Medium Is The Massage:
If I was going to give a test on the book, I wouldn't.
If I was going to share some supposed insights, I might. They might not, however, be all that insightful.
Doesn't matter.
What I ask you to do now
is
dip into the book a bit more,
here and there.
If certain passages, photos or whatever inspire a thought or two, I encourage you to post them on your blogs.
Meanwhile, please check out the links below and a few more in prior posts related to work by your classmates ...
McLuhan Meets The Net
Musical Interlude, With Dolphins
The Medium Is The Massage:
If I was going to give a test on the book, I wouldn't.
If I was going to share some supposed insights, I might. They might not, however, be all that insightful.
Doesn't matter.
What I ask you to do now
is
dip into the book a bit more,
here and there.
If certain passages, photos or whatever inspire a thought or two, I encourage you to post them on your blogs.
Meanwhile, please check out the links below and a few more in prior posts related to work by your classmates ...
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Couldn't Keep It To Myself / I'll Fly Away / Barbara Parsons
Re: guest in class,
Thurs., April 10, 2008
Barbara Parsons
CBS News Transcripts
May 9, 2004 Sunday
SHOW: 60 Minutes (7:00 PM ET) - CBS
Couldn't Keep It To Myself; Female inmates in Connecticut correctional facility find they're penalized by the state after having received acclaim for contributions to published writings
ANCHORS: STEVE KROFT
COULDN'T KEEP IT TO MYSELF
STEVE KROFT, co-host:
The book, "Couldn't Keep It To Myself," is an anthology of stories written by female inmates doing hard time in Connecticut's only maximum security prison for women. But the story of how this critically acclaimed book came to be, and what happened to the women who wrote it afterwards, is as interesting as the book itself. The women weren't profiting from their crimes; they didn't write about their crimes. They wrote about their lives and they did it so well, a few weeks ago, the literary organization Pen gave one of the imprisoned writers its most prestigious award. But what's truly amazing is the state of Connecticut's reaction, both to the publication of the book and to the award.
(Footage of bookstore and copies of book; photos of female inmates; Wally Lamb working at his computer; correctional facility; inmates; Lamb talking with inmates)
KROFT: (Voiceover) "Couldn't Keep It To Myself" hit bookstores 16 months ago. It was praised by the critics and enjoyed a modest commercial success, selling about 27,000 copies. The 10 inmates who wrote it had all committed serious crimes: Bonnie Foreshaw is serving 45 years without parole for first degree murder; Michelle Jessamy, 20 years for manslaughter; Carolyn Adams, five years for embezzlement. But every one of them has a story, a story that never would have been told if not for this man. Wally Lamb is the best-selling author of "She's Come Undone" and "I Know This Much Is True." Five years ago, he agreed to volunteer at the York Correctional Institution in Niantic, Connecticut, after a rash of suicides and cutbacks in educational and rehabilitative services. Lamb's weekly writing workshop quickly became one of the prison's few success stories.
Mr. WALLY LAMB: And what happened is they began to see that if they wrote, sooner or later they would get to the tough stuff, the stuff that they needed to write about.
I want you to listen to Brenda's piece with paper and pencil and...
(Footage of Lamb talking with inmates in workshop setting)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Not only did Lamb teach them a valuable skill, he encouraged the inmates to write about their most personal experiences, things they'd never told anyone, let alone put down on paper.
Unidentified Inmate: I wrote about the time I tried to commit suicide.
(Footage of female inmates; three former inmates walking down stairs)
KROFT: (Voiceover) We wanted to talk to some of the inmates who were taking part in the program but the prison doesn't allow on-camera interviews. So we tracked down three former inmates who'd been in the writing program before being released from prison: Robin Cullen, Tabatha Rowley and Nancy Whitely.
KROFT: What were you in for?
Ms. NANCY WHITELY: Credit card fraud.
Ms. TABATHA ROWLEY: Assault. Assault first.
Ms. ROBIN CULLEN: I had a DUI crash, and in that crash, my girlfriend died.
KROFT: So what was the York Correctional Institute like?
Ms. WHITELY: It looks nice, but you're at the mercy of guards who treat you however they feel like at that moment. In prison, you can--you can lay there, and it's all right with them if you just lay there. So if you want to do anything positive, if you want to learn or change or grow, you have to fight to do it.
(Footage of inmates sitting at tables)
KROFT: (Voiceover) But the writing program was worth fighting for, providing one of the few opportunities in the prison for growth and rehabilitation.
Ms. CULLEN: What I watched was transformation. I saw women that just, you know, they came in damaged, broken. And they--they just started to open up bloom into beautiful flowers, brand new people.
Mr. LAMB: I'm not a therapist, but I could see that there was therapeutic value in the writing. People's body language began to change, people's level of articulation.
(Footage of Lamb talking with Judith Regan)
KROFT: (Voiceover) After a few years, Lamb was so impressed with the women's progress he read one of the stories to Judith Regan, his editor at Harper Collins.
Mr. LAMB: And by the end of this piece, she had tears in her eyes. And she said to me, 'Maybe we could do a book.'
KROFT: Did any of you ever think that you would end up being published writers?
Ms. ROWLEY: No.
Ms. WHITELY: No.
Ms. CULLEN: We talked about doing a book and we were picturing this little paperback thing stapled or with one of those spirally bindl--binders.
Ms. WHITELY: Yes.
(Footage of copies of book; Whitely, Cullen and Rowley; Lamb working at computer)
KROFT: (Voiceover) But this was the real deal. Harper Collins bought the book for $75,000, to be split among the contributors. After all was said and done, each of the women would receive $5600 when they were released from prison. Lamb made sure that state and prison officials were notified about the book deal, hoping they would embrace this unlikely success story. But he didn't hear a word until a few days before the books reached the stores.
Instead of embracing the women for their accomplishment, the state of Connecticut decided to go after them with a vengeance. The attorney general invoked a vaguely worded law that allows the state to charge inmates for their own incarceration. And the state sued the women, not for the $5600 that they'd made on the book deal, but for $117 a day for every day they would spend in prison.
(Footage of copy of lien)
KROFT: (Voiceover) One inmate had a lien placed against her assets for $913,000. Another for $473,000. And to make things worse, the papers were served by uniformed sheriff's deputies.
Ms. CULLEN: And my first reaction when I see this guy with the badge is, somebody's coming to take me back to jail.
KROFT: So the prison wanted you to pay them back for the time that you had spent in prison?
Ms. CULLEN: Yeah.
KROFT: How much?
Ms. CULLEN: My bill was, I believe, $139,000.
KROFT: Then you got one?
Ms. ROWLEY: Yes, I did. A bill for $143,000.
KROFT: Did you have $143,000?
Ms. ROWLEY: I've never had $143,000.
Ms. WHITELY: I say all the time, you know, if I'd known it was so expensive, I wouldn't have stayed so long, you know? But it's scary because I didn't know if they were going to take some of my pay.
Ms. ROWLEY: I feel the same way because I was told that they could take any asset you have.
(Footage of Blumenthal working in his office; correctional facility)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said he had no choice but to enforce the law, which allows the state to recovery room and board from any inmate who comes into money while he or she is in prison or after they leave it, whether through inheritance, lottery winnings, proceeds from their crimes or financial windfall.
If you look at the facts, this is a case where people were punished for doing well, right?
Mr. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: These women were punished for committing homicide, manslaughter, drug trafficking, fraud. The action against them was simply to vindicate the public interest in collecting cost of incarceration when prisoners have the means to pay for it.
KROFT: What made the Department of Corrections, or your office, believe that these women could afford to pay for their entire cost of their incarceration?
Mr. BLUMENTHAL: They were writing a book with a best selling, prize winning author. We felt that they might have the means to pay for incarceration.
KROFT: At the time that you filed the lawsuit, any investigation would have shown that they were getting $5,000 for this, and that the program itself was therapeutic and rehabilitative.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL: In this instance, the irony is that the folks who knew most about publishing and movies thought this book would be a huge hit, a best-seller.
Ms. ROWLEY: Seems like they're trying to make us feel bad about what we did, that we're still, you know, bad people. You wrote a book. So what? You know, you're still a criminal.
Ms. WHITELY: I didn't spend my whole life doing positive things, you know, so the first time I do something positive, instead of people saying, 'Great job, you know, you did something positive,' they come and bring you papers.
(Footage of Lamb signing books; Pen headquarters)
KROFT: (Voiceover) For more than a year, Wally Lamb and the lawyers at Harper Collins tried, to no avail, to convince the attorney general to drop or settle the lawsuits. Finally, the literary organization Pen, which takes up the causes of persecuted writers around the world, became involved, suggesting that one of the still-imprisoned writers be nominated for a major award.
Mr. LAMB: The women had exercised their free speech, and then been punished for it. I--I had wanted to nominate the women as a group, but the rules said no, you must nominate an individual.
Barbara, one of her...
(Footage of Lamb working with inmates)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Lamb decided on Barbara Parsons Lane, a former housewife who is serving 10 years on manslaughter charges for killing her husband after years of verbal, physical and emotional abuse. She entered the prison in 1996 under a suicide watch and for two years, could barely speak.
Ms. BARBARA PARSONS LANE: When she was in the hospital, how did she get there?
(Footage of Lamb working with inmates)
KROFT: (Voiceover) But through the writing program, she's became a model prisoner, not to mention an accomplished writer.
Mr. LAMB: She has found voice and not only has she found it but she has been willing to share that with other people.
(Footage of gala)
KROFT: (Voiceover) And a few weeks ago, at a New York gala featuring literary lions from around the world, Pen awarded Barbara Parsons Lane a $25,000 prize in absentia for fighting to safeguard the right to self-expression. The award was sponsored by AE Hotchner and Paul Newman, one of Connecticut's most celebrated residents. But the story was far from over.
Just days after it was announced that Lane had won the prestigious award for exercising her freedom of speech, the prison responded by suspending the writing program, confiscating all computer discs used in the writing program and removing all information about the writing program from the hard drives of prison's computers.
Mr. LAMB: I was beside myself. I mean, somebody wins a First Amendment award, a freedom of speech award, and you say--you say, delete the writing? I mean, it just--it was--it was incredible to me.
(Footage of copy of letter; Blumenthal working at desk)
KROFT: (Voiceover) At Pen's behest, and with a copy of a prison memorandum ordering the writing class suspended effective immediately and the confiscation of the inmates' writing, we began asking questions and ask for interviews. Almost immediately, Connecticut officials began back-pedaling. Attorney General Blumenthal, who hopes to become Governor Blumenthal, promised a full investigation.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL: Destruction of property, particularly written property, is totally unacceptable, and we are investigating.
KROFT: So you condemn the behavior if--if, in fact, it happened?
Mr. BLUMENTHAL: If there was destruction of files or writings or any prisoner property, I would condemn it and I would prosecute it.
(Footage of Theresa Lantz)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Theresa Lantz, the commissioner of Connecticut's Department of Correction, insisted she didn't know anything about it either, and now says that all of the inmates' writing that was deleted has since been recovered. She told us it was all a big misunderstanding.
Ms. THERESA LANTZ: We're very proud of the program, we're very appreciative of Wally Lamb's work and his volunteering to do this program for the last five years. I think it definitely has a rehabilitative impact.
KROFT: Why, After Barbara Parsons Lane won the Pen Award, why did the department try and shut down the program?
Ms. LANTZ: Well, it wasn't an attempt to shut down the program. There was no attempt by that staff or--or myself to shut down the program and terminate it, but basically to get everybody back together to talk about, you know, communication.
KROFT: So what we have here is a failure to communicate.
Ms. LANTZ: I think we definitely had a breakdown of communication, absolutely.
(Footage of gala)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Commissioner Lantz said the Pen Award had taken the prison by surprise because Wally Lamb never told them he had nominated Barbara Parsons Lane.
Ms. LANTZ: We don't like a lot of surprises. I'm going to admit that to you. And we want to make sure that we don't get surprised a lot.
KROFT: Wasn't this a pleasant surprise?
Ms. LANTZ: It was a surprise, nonetheless, because it was a very prestigious award. It created a sense of notoriety and/or prestige for the inmate. You want to make sure that, you know, that very thing is in place and that there's--that it doesn't create any issues or concerns.
KROFT: What kind of issues or concerns would it create for the prison?
Ms. LANTZ: Someone getting a notoriety and a--and a--and a high amount of an award, such as $25,000, we would just want to make sure that that individual wasn't in any way, shape, or form being compromised.
KROFT: Compromised in what way?
Ms. LANTZ: Her safety.
KROFT: Her safety?
Ms. LANTZ: Mm-hmm.
KROFT: So you were worried that other inmates might try and shake her down?
Ms. LANTZ: Well, that's always a possibility.
Ms. ROWLEY: I think that's a bunch of crap because--I mean, for one, I mean, we are--we came out with the book, OK? And people somehow think that we're getting all this money. There are women in prison that are part of the writers group. No one ever tried to do anything to them.
Ms. WHITELY: And if stuff like that's going on in their prison, maybe they should be doing some other stuff than worrying about the writing program.
Ms. ROWLEY: Uh-huh.
Ms. WHITELY: And secondly, how does closing the writing program stop people from asking Barbara Lane for money?
(Footage of Blumenthal holding a press conference)
KROFT: (Voiceover) A few days before our interview, Attorney General Blumenthal held a news conference to announce that the writing program had been reinstated, and the lawsuits seeking millions of dollars from the prison writers had been had been dropped after concluding that the money that the women had received from the book was minimal and had been earned through a rehabilitative program.
Ms. CULLEN: And now we're reading in the paper how proud they are of us. We're not feeling like they're proud of us. We're feeling like they're, you know, they're covering their butts.
KROFT: So you're saying that the Pen Award and the calls from 60 MINUTES and all of the--the really bad publicity didn't have anything to do with your decision to settle this lawsuit?
Mr. BLUMENTHAL: We knew we would face exactly the question that you've asked. 'Isn't it "60 MINUTES"?"Isn't it the Pen Award?' But my feeling was that we should do the right thing.
KROFT: In this case, the right thing requires each of the inmates who shared in the proceeds of the book to pay the state of Connecticut $500, not the hundreds of thousands of dollars the state had originally sought. And almost all of that money will go to the prison writing program, the same one the state tried to shut down.
Minister: Book Is A Much Needed Eye Opener
I'll Fly Away On Book TV
Making The Walls Transparent, Connecticut
Connecticut's Prison Gravy Train
Thurs., April 10, 2008
Barbara Parsons
CBS News Transcripts
May 9, 2004 Sunday
SHOW: 60 Minutes (7:00 PM ET) - CBS
Couldn't Keep It To Myself; Female inmates in Connecticut correctional facility find they're penalized by the state after having received acclaim for contributions to published writings
ANCHORS: STEVE KROFT
COULDN'T KEEP IT TO MYSELF
STEVE KROFT, co-host:
The book, "Couldn't Keep It To Myself," is an anthology of stories written by female inmates doing hard time in Connecticut's only maximum security prison for women. But the story of how this critically acclaimed book came to be, and what happened to the women who wrote it afterwards, is as interesting as the book itself. The women weren't profiting from their crimes; they didn't write about their crimes. They wrote about their lives and they did it so well, a few weeks ago, the literary organization Pen gave one of the imprisoned writers its most prestigious award. But what's truly amazing is the state of Connecticut's reaction, both to the publication of the book and to the award.
(Footage of bookstore and copies of book; photos of female inmates; Wally Lamb working at his computer; correctional facility; inmates; Lamb talking with inmates)
KROFT: (Voiceover) "Couldn't Keep It To Myself" hit bookstores 16 months ago. It was praised by the critics and enjoyed a modest commercial success, selling about 27,000 copies. The 10 inmates who wrote it had all committed serious crimes: Bonnie Foreshaw is serving 45 years without parole for first degree murder; Michelle Jessamy, 20 years for manslaughter; Carolyn Adams, five years for embezzlement. But every one of them has a story, a story that never would have been told if not for this man. Wally Lamb is the best-selling author of "She's Come Undone" and "I Know This Much Is True." Five years ago, he agreed to volunteer at the York Correctional Institution in Niantic, Connecticut, after a rash of suicides and cutbacks in educational and rehabilitative services. Lamb's weekly writing workshop quickly became one of the prison's few success stories.
Mr. WALLY LAMB: And what happened is they began to see that if they wrote, sooner or later they would get to the tough stuff, the stuff that they needed to write about.
I want you to listen to Brenda's piece with paper and pencil and...
(Footage of Lamb talking with inmates in workshop setting)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Not only did Lamb teach them a valuable skill, he encouraged the inmates to write about their most personal experiences, things they'd never told anyone, let alone put down on paper.
Unidentified Inmate: I wrote about the time I tried to commit suicide.
(Footage of female inmates; three former inmates walking down stairs)
KROFT: (Voiceover) We wanted to talk to some of the inmates who were taking part in the program but the prison doesn't allow on-camera interviews. So we tracked down three former inmates who'd been in the writing program before being released from prison: Robin Cullen, Tabatha Rowley and Nancy Whitely.
KROFT: What were you in for?
Ms. NANCY WHITELY: Credit card fraud.
Ms. TABATHA ROWLEY: Assault. Assault first.
Ms. ROBIN CULLEN: I had a DUI crash, and in that crash, my girlfriend died.
KROFT: So what was the York Correctional Institute like?
Ms. WHITELY: It looks nice, but you're at the mercy of guards who treat you however they feel like at that moment. In prison, you can--you can lay there, and it's all right with them if you just lay there. So if you want to do anything positive, if you want to learn or change or grow, you have to fight to do it.
(Footage of inmates sitting at tables)
KROFT: (Voiceover) But the writing program was worth fighting for, providing one of the few opportunities in the prison for growth and rehabilitation.
Ms. CULLEN: What I watched was transformation. I saw women that just, you know, they came in damaged, broken. And they--they just started to open up bloom into beautiful flowers, brand new people.
Mr. LAMB: I'm not a therapist, but I could see that there was therapeutic value in the writing. People's body language began to change, people's level of articulation.
(Footage of Lamb talking with Judith Regan)
KROFT: (Voiceover) After a few years, Lamb was so impressed with the women's progress he read one of the stories to Judith Regan, his editor at Harper Collins.
Mr. LAMB: And by the end of this piece, she had tears in her eyes. And she said to me, 'Maybe we could do a book.'
KROFT: Did any of you ever think that you would end up being published writers?
Ms. ROWLEY: No.
Ms. WHITELY: No.
Ms. CULLEN: We talked about doing a book and we were picturing this little paperback thing stapled or with one of those spirally bindl--binders.
Ms. WHITELY: Yes.
(Footage of copies of book; Whitely, Cullen and Rowley; Lamb working at computer)
KROFT: (Voiceover) But this was the real deal. Harper Collins bought the book for $75,000, to be split among the contributors. After all was said and done, each of the women would receive $5600 when they were released from prison. Lamb made sure that state and prison officials were notified about the book deal, hoping they would embrace this unlikely success story. But he didn't hear a word until a few days before the books reached the stores.
Instead of embracing the women for their accomplishment, the state of Connecticut decided to go after them with a vengeance. The attorney general invoked a vaguely worded law that allows the state to charge inmates for their own incarceration. And the state sued the women, not for the $5600 that they'd made on the book deal, but for $117 a day for every day they would spend in prison.
(Footage of copy of lien)
KROFT: (Voiceover) One inmate had a lien placed against her assets for $913,000. Another for $473,000. And to make things worse, the papers were served by uniformed sheriff's deputies.
Ms. CULLEN: And my first reaction when I see this guy with the badge is, somebody's coming to take me back to jail.
KROFT: So the prison wanted you to pay them back for the time that you had spent in prison?
Ms. CULLEN: Yeah.
KROFT: How much?
Ms. CULLEN: My bill was, I believe, $139,000.
KROFT: Then you got one?
Ms. ROWLEY: Yes, I did. A bill for $143,000.
KROFT: Did you have $143,000?
Ms. ROWLEY: I've never had $143,000.
Ms. WHITELY: I say all the time, you know, if I'd known it was so expensive, I wouldn't have stayed so long, you know? But it's scary because I didn't know if they were going to take some of my pay.
Ms. ROWLEY: I feel the same way because I was told that they could take any asset you have.
(Footage of Blumenthal working in his office; correctional facility)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said he had no choice but to enforce the law, which allows the state to recovery room and board from any inmate who comes into money while he or she is in prison or after they leave it, whether through inheritance, lottery winnings, proceeds from their crimes or financial windfall.
If you look at the facts, this is a case where people were punished for doing well, right?
Mr. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: These women were punished for committing homicide, manslaughter, drug trafficking, fraud. The action against them was simply to vindicate the public interest in collecting cost of incarceration when prisoners have the means to pay for it.
KROFT: What made the Department of Corrections, or your office, believe that these women could afford to pay for their entire cost of their incarceration?
Mr. BLUMENTHAL: They were writing a book with a best selling, prize winning author. We felt that they might have the means to pay for incarceration.
KROFT: At the time that you filed the lawsuit, any investigation would have shown that they were getting $5,000 for this, and that the program itself was therapeutic and rehabilitative.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL: In this instance, the irony is that the folks who knew most about publishing and movies thought this book would be a huge hit, a best-seller.
Ms. ROWLEY: Seems like they're trying to make us feel bad about what we did, that we're still, you know, bad people. You wrote a book. So what? You know, you're still a criminal.
Ms. WHITELY: I didn't spend my whole life doing positive things, you know, so the first time I do something positive, instead of people saying, 'Great job, you know, you did something positive,' they come and bring you papers.
(Footage of Lamb signing books; Pen headquarters)
KROFT: (Voiceover) For more than a year, Wally Lamb and the lawyers at Harper Collins tried, to no avail, to convince the attorney general to drop or settle the lawsuits. Finally, the literary organization Pen, which takes up the causes of persecuted writers around the world, became involved, suggesting that one of the still-imprisoned writers be nominated for a major award.
Mr. LAMB: The women had exercised their free speech, and then been punished for it. I--I had wanted to nominate the women as a group, but the rules said no, you must nominate an individual.
Barbara, one of her...
(Footage of Lamb working with inmates)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Lamb decided on Barbara Parsons Lane, a former housewife who is serving 10 years on manslaughter charges for killing her husband after years of verbal, physical and emotional abuse. She entered the prison in 1996 under a suicide watch and for two years, could barely speak.
Ms. BARBARA PARSONS LANE: When she was in the hospital, how did she get there?
(Footage of Lamb working with inmates)
KROFT: (Voiceover) But through the writing program, she's became a model prisoner, not to mention an accomplished writer.
Mr. LAMB: She has found voice and not only has she found it but she has been willing to share that with other people.
(Footage of gala)
KROFT: (Voiceover) And a few weeks ago, at a New York gala featuring literary lions from around the world, Pen awarded Barbara Parsons Lane a $25,000 prize in absentia for fighting to safeguard the right to self-expression. The award was sponsored by AE Hotchner and Paul Newman, one of Connecticut's most celebrated residents. But the story was far from over.
Just days after it was announced that Lane had won the prestigious award for exercising her freedom of speech, the prison responded by suspending the writing program, confiscating all computer discs used in the writing program and removing all information about the writing program from the hard drives of prison's computers.
Mr. LAMB: I was beside myself. I mean, somebody wins a First Amendment award, a freedom of speech award, and you say--you say, delete the writing? I mean, it just--it was--it was incredible to me.
(Footage of copy of letter; Blumenthal working at desk)
KROFT: (Voiceover) At Pen's behest, and with a copy of a prison memorandum ordering the writing class suspended effective immediately and the confiscation of the inmates' writing, we began asking questions and ask for interviews. Almost immediately, Connecticut officials began back-pedaling. Attorney General Blumenthal, who hopes to become Governor Blumenthal, promised a full investigation.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL: Destruction of property, particularly written property, is totally unacceptable, and we are investigating.
KROFT: So you condemn the behavior if--if, in fact, it happened?
Mr. BLUMENTHAL: If there was destruction of files or writings or any prisoner property, I would condemn it and I would prosecute it.
(Footage of Theresa Lantz)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Theresa Lantz, the commissioner of Connecticut's Department of Correction, insisted she didn't know anything about it either, and now says that all of the inmates' writing that was deleted has since been recovered. She told us it was all a big misunderstanding.
Ms. THERESA LANTZ: We're very proud of the program, we're very appreciative of Wally Lamb's work and his volunteering to do this program for the last five years. I think it definitely has a rehabilitative impact.
KROFT: Why, After Barbara Parsons Lane won the Pen Award, why did the department try and shut down the program?
Ms. LANTZ: Well, it wasn't an attempt to shut down the program. There was no attempt by that staff or--or myself to shut down the program and terminate it, but basically to get everybody back together to talk about, you know, communication.
KROFT: So what we have here is a failure to communicate.
Ms. LANTZ: I think we definitely had a breakdown of communication, absolutely.
(Footage of gala)
KROFT: (Voiceover) Commissioner Lantz said the Pen Award had taken the prison by surprise because Wally Lamb never told them he had nominated Barbara Parsons Lane.
Ms. LANTZ: We don't like a lot of surprises. I'm going to admit that to you. And we want to make sure that we don't get surprised a lot.
KROFT: Wasn't this a pleasant surprise?
Ms. LANTZ: It was a surprise, nonetheless, because it was a very prestigious award. It created a sense of notoriety and/or prestige for the inmate. You want to make sure that, you know, that very thing is in place and that there's--that it doesn't create any issues or concerns.
KROFT: What kind of issues or concerns would it create for the prison?
Ms. LANTZ: Someone getting a notoriety and a--and a--and a high amount of an award, such as $25,000, we would just want to make sure that that individual wasn't in any way, shape, or form being compromised.
KROFT: Compromised in what way?
Ms. LANTZ: Her safety.
KROFT: Her safety?
Ms. LANTZ: Mm-hmm.
KROFT: So you were worried that other inmates might try and shake her down?
Ms. LANTZ: Well, that's always a possibility.
Ms. ROWLEY: I think that's a bunch of crap because--I mean, for one, I mean, we are--we came out with the book, OK? And people somehow think that we're getting all this money. There are women in prison that are part of the writers group. No one ever tried to do anything to them.
Ms. WHITELY: And if stuff like that's going on in their prison, maybe they should be doing some other stuff than worrying about the writing program.
Ms. ROWLEY: Uh-huh.
Ms. WHITELY: And secondly, how does closing the writing program stop people from asking Barbara Lane for money?
(Footage of Blumenthal holding a press conference)
KROFT: (Voiceover) A few days before our interview, Attorney General Blumenthal held a news conference to announce that the writing program had been reinstated, and the lawsuits seeking millions of dollars from the prison writers had been had been dropped after concluding that the money that the women had received from the book was minimal and had been earned through a rehabilitative program.
Ms. CULLEN: And now we're reading in the paper how proud they are of us. We're not feeling like they're proud of us. We're feeling like they're, you know, they're covering their butts.
KROFT: So you're saying that the Pen Award and the calls from 60 MINUTES and all of the--the really bad publicity didn't have anything to do with your decision to settle this lawsuit?
Mr. BLUMENTHAL: We knew we would face exactly the question that you've asked. 'Isn't it "60 MINUTES"?"Isn't it the Pen Award?' But my feeling was that we should do the right thing.
KROFT: In this case, the right thing requires each of the inmates who shared in the proceeds of the book to pay the state of Connecticut $500, not the hundreds of thousands of dollars the state had originally sought. And almost all of that money will go to the prison writing program, the same one the state tried to shut down.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Cover-Ups In New London & Waterbury
Two Cases
Authorities
Did Not
Want To Solve
Monday, 3-24-08
Hi folks,
this follows material on the Smolinkski case in Waterbury
and essays on how to get information from cops, prosecutors
and others in the criminal world.
in both the Smolinski and Showalter cases,
authorities failed to act.
the discerning digger, aka reporter,
would want to find out why.
as you prepare to question Jan Smolinski, mother of missing person Billy Smolinski,
also take a look at the Showalter case in New London.
Later, Andy
in both cases, authorities eventually were forced to act by reporters...
Note: The following columns ran in 2000 in The Connecticut Law Tribune. They build on work published about 30 years ago in The Norwich Bulletin, The Hartford Courant and by United Press International.
Hit-And-Run Continues To Mock Justice
If Connecticut Chief State's Attorney John Bailey wants to bring closure to cold cases, here's one from New London that should top the list: The Showalter hit-and-run cover-up is a dark chapter in Connecticut history, a tale more appropriate for a Third World country.
And yet, only one thing bothers former New London County State's Attorney C. Robert Satti about the Showalter case: that it was investigated at all.
Satti, now retired, made the point again and again, most recently this year. Satti's complaint, made during the wake of the late state police Detective George Ryalls, was that Ryalls' obituary mentioned the suspect the prosecutor refused to pursue in the Showalter probe.
Kevin B. Showalter, a 20-year-old Mitchell College student, was killed at 11:12 p.m. on Christmas Eve 1973. He was changing a tire on a well-lit section of Pequot Avenue on the New London shoreline when he was struck and killed. His girlfriend, sitting only 6 feet away on a stone wall, claims she saw nothing.
Auto body putty from the death car disappeared after a tow truck driver gave it to New London police. The evidence file that was supposed to contain the putty was stuffed with bathroom tiles. The file that was supposed to contain headlight glass from the death car instead contained glass from three different headlights. State police and others suspected that, in order to throw legitimate investigators off the trail, the late young man's clothing was pounded on a different-colored car than the one that killed him.
The victim's mother, Lucille M. Showalter, tried to get a grand jury investigation of the cover-up. She was rebuffed repeatedly by the presiding judge, Angelo Santaniello who, it later became clear, was best friends with the leading suspect. Santaniello then referred Showalter to prosecutor Satti, who happened to be his former law partner. Satti refused to acknowledge registered letters from Mrs. Showalter pleading for a grand jury probe.
Satti did finally meet with Mrs. Showalter in 1978, after Judge Joseph Dannehy of Willimantic, acting as a one-man grand jury, named former New London Mayor Harvey N. Mallove as the probable driver of the hit-run vehicle. Satti called the three-hour meeting, in which he repeatedly told Mrs. Showalter that there never should have been a grand jury investigation under Dannehy.
Mallove held a good hand; he had the best legal muscle in New London County on his side. New London police would not question him for more than seven months, and then only in a perfunctory manner. They would say they inspected his cars, but they did not. Significantly, Mallove's Lincoln had been repaired, but it wasn't until state police took over the case four years after the accident that the fender was finally seized.
Santaniello would arrange for a coroner's inquest and put his niece in charge of typing the transcript. Only after two years of intense public pressure would the transcript be typed. But the inquest never issued a finding.
Santaniello tipped off Mallove that he was a suspect. The judge was also aware of what local police knew about the case. Mrs. Showalter memorialized the admissions in tape-recorded telephone conversations.
"I did talk to Harvey," Santaniello told Mrs. Showalter on Oct. 17, 1975, "and I said, `You're suspected.' As a matter of fact, at that time a police officer came to him on the same day or the next day, and told him you were making accusations about him and that he was a prime suspect." The day before, Mallove told Mrs. Showalter, "Judge Santaniello is of the opinion that you fingered me."
It was not until 1977 that state police, who took over the case at the behest of former Gov. Ella Grasso, formally named Mallove a suspect. Next week, I'll propose a means to solve the Showalter cover-up.
Showalter Cover-Up Is New London's Shame
New London, where I grew up and began working in the 1960s and '70s, was a dirty little city with character.
It had a restaurant called the Hygienic that was everything but. There were at least a couple bars where the cops couldn't do anything, except maybe a little business.
The top pimp in town never went to jail until he was about 60 and a certain court official retired.
New London will always be the city that tried to cover up the Christmas Eve 1973 hit-and-run death of Kevin B. Showalter. It's been doing a pretty good job for nearly 27 years, but the onion is beginning to peel.
The local daily newspaper admitted -- in its official history published this year -- that it did a shoddy job on the Showalter case. Specifically, The Day admitted its failure to explore the relationship between a former mayor and a top judge, and their influence on the course of the criminal investigation. That's a beginning.
Political and police corruption goes back a couple generations in New London. By the 1970s, New London police were widely known to be involved in the selling of women, dope and refrigerators, among other things. A federal grand jury took note. But as with the Showalter case, there were these little problems with the evidence.
A jewelry store owner and former city mayor multi-millionaire Harvey Mallove was the prime suspect in the hit-and-run death of Showalter, a student at Mitchell College. Showalter's date that night, Christmas Eve 1973, said she saw nothing from her vantage point six feet away, sitting on a stone wall under a streetlight on a residential street as a young man changed the tire of her car.
Harvey was everybody's pal. He would take kids to the Super Bowl, then, down the road, get them jobs as cops. He was friends with bums in the street and bums in high political office. He was wired. The standing joke among reporters became: Harvey's a great guy to have a beer with, just don't change your tire if he's driving by.
"I didn't kill the kid in any way, shape or form," Harvey told me many times. As mayor, Harvey helped hire a few police chiefs. His best friend was the administrative judge for the county; that was the judge who controlled the early stages of the investigation, specifically a coroner's inquest that never issued a finding.
State police followed up a report that Mallove's best friend, County Administrative Judge Angelo G. Santaniello, was with Mallove on Christmas Eve 1973. Santaniello reportedly was No. 11 on a guest list for a party at the home of his political mentor, the late state Sen. Peter Mariani. The Mariani party was one of two Mallove attended that night.
Santaniello told reporters he never went out on Christmas Eve.
Another state judge, Joseph F. Dannehy, conducted two grand jury investigations. In 1978, Dannehy named Mallove as the probable driver of the hit-run vehicle, but said evidence that might have ensured conviction was either mishandled or destroyed.
Mallove died a few years ago with this legacy. Others still have time to come clean and tell the truth about the cover-up. Mrs. Showalter tried unsuccessfully to have Satti, Santaniello and others prosecuted for hindrance of prosecution (CGS Section 53a-166) warning of impending discovery, providing means of avoiding discovery, preventing discovery by deception. Because a conspiracy to hinder prosecution is an ongoing crime, those with information could tell Chief State's Attorney John Bailey, who has begun an initiative to solve some of the state's cold homicide cases.
Isn't it time? No one kept the system honest when it counted, though some tried. Most stood by as the system that was supposed to protect the victim and his family betrayed them all.
Where is the conscience of the community?
Cold Case On Ice Forever
One way to deflect attention from a suspect is to get investigators involved in meaningless, time-consuming tasks. Another way is to create a bogus suspect who is then exposed as such, causing a belief that the case is just too hazy to pursue.
Both of these devices were used repeatedly in the cover-up of the Showalter hit-run case in New London. Whether this was happenstance, indifference, incompetence or malfeasance, the result was the same. The system failed.
And now, it seems, the truth will remain buried forever.
Judge Joseph F. Dannehy, the grand juror who investigated the case, wrote in his finding of fact: "After December 25, 1973, the New London Police Department did virtually nothing to solve the hit-run death of Kevin B. Showalter." The accident occurred the night before.
Local police and court officials, however, were pro-active in another sense. Their actions served to protect the assailant.
For example, New London police claimed it would cost as much as $1,200 to trace vehicles using data from the state Motor Vehicle Department. The motor vehicle department declared there was no such charge.
Nevertheless, New London police spent their time hand-sorting local motor vehicle cards. They looked for a green Chrysler. That was likely a false lead; state police said paint particles found on the victim's clothing did not come from the car that killed him.
Former Mayor Harvey Mallove began meeting informally with police and court officials as early as Dec. 25, 1973. Mallove wanted to know what the police knew.
The only lead after two and a half years was quashed by then New London Common Pleas Court Prosecutor Harold Dean in May 1976. The lead was a letter of confession written by a Somers prison inmate to the victim's mother, Lucille Showalter.
"I told Harold how important that was to me," Mallove, the prime suspect, confided to an associate. He also acknowledged discussing the purported confession with his best friend, the presiding judge for the county, Angelo Santaniello.
The author of the letter was known to be connected with "fences," or purveyors of stolen goods in the New London area. State police arrested him for harassment of Mrs. Showalter. Two state troopers met with Dean for an hour. They told him the letter contained possibly significant information. State police also believed they could connect the dots in New London between the letter writer and the powers-that-be. Did he owe some favors? Was he paid? Police knew the author had no liability for the accident; he was actually in Florida at the time of the hit-run.
Dean nolled and dismissed the case without telling the troopers or Mallove. Soon thereafter, state police listed the killing of Showalter as "closed pending further development." Upon learning of Dean's action, Chief State's Attorney Joseph Gormley remarked he had "no idea" why the lead, "which very well could have led to something," resulted in a dead end. The case would remain closed for six months, until Gov. Ella Grasso brought the matter to Justice John Cotter.
Was there criminal activity connected with the Showalter cover-up? It appears we will never know for certain. Dannehy named Mallove as the probable driver, noting that evidence which might have ensured conviction was destroyed. The Chief State's Attorney's Office reviewed aspects of the case this fall after a series of columns appeared in The Law Tribune. However, the statute of limitations for the most likely potential charge, conspiracy to hinder prosecution of motor vehicle misconduct, has expired. This shameful case, it appears, is destined to stay on ice forever.
-
Smolinski case, ongoing, Waterbury:
Link To Major Development
&
CBS Without A Trace
Friday, Sept. 14, 2007
BILLY SMOLINSKI
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/31/earlyshow/main1458699.shtml
We first told you about Billy Smolinski a year ago. He disappeared from his Waterbury, Conn. home in August, 2004 after breaking up with his girlfriend.
CBS News Correspondent Bianca Solorzano got an update from investigators, and the missing man's family.
Smolinsksi was 31 when he vanished.
He had just returned from a trip to Florida with his girlfriend. The next night, he told his sister that his girlfriend was having an affair with a local politician. They argued and broke up.
Smolinski's sister, Paula Bell recalls that, "I said, 'Well, what are you going to do" And he just said, 'What am I going to do?'"
Authorities say Smolinski was last seen at his home. His next-door neighbor says he asked him to watch his dog for a few days, because he was headed north to look at a car he wanted to buy. His truck was found in his driveway, his keys and wallet were under his front seat.
That, says Solorzano, is where Smolinski's trail ends.
The FBI calls it a difficult case.
"Essentially," says Special Agent Bill Aldenberg, "the man just disappeared off the face of the Earth."
He says there's been no sign of Smolinski but, "There are suspects, based on tips and based on interviews and based on investigations that we've conducted."
The bureau was tipped off and, in the spring, searched in Shelton, about 20 miles from Waterbury. Agensts looked for evidence near several homes, dug up a driveway, and also searched near a river, but found nothing.
The Smolinskis, Solorzano points out, have never stopped searching.
They posted thousands of missing person flyers but, in a strange twist, found Smolinski's ex-girlfriend tearing them down.
At the time, local police say, she was not a suspect.
Authorities
Did Not
Want To Solve
Monday, 3-24-08
Hi folks,
this follows material on the Smolinkski case in Waterbury
and essays on how to get information from cops, prosecutors
and others in the criminal world.
in both the Smolinski and Showalter cases,
authorities failed to act.
the discerning digger, aka reporter,
would want to find out why.
as you prepare to question Jan Smolinski, mother of missing person Billy Smolinski,
also take a look at the Showalter case in New London.
Later, Andy
in both cases, authorities eventually were forced to act by reporters...
Note: The following columns ran in 2000 in The Connecticut Law Tribune. They build on work published about 30 years ago in The Norwich Bulletin, The Hartford Courant and by United Press International.
Hit-And-Run Continues To Mock Justice
If Connecticut Chief State's Attorney John Bailey wants to bring closure to cold cases, here's one from New London that should top the list: The Showalter hit-and-run cover-up is a dark chapter in Connecticut history, a tale more appropriate for a Third World country.
And yet, only one thing bothers former New London County State's Attorney C. Robert Satti about the Showalter case: that it was investigated at all.
Satti, now retired, made the point again and again, most recently this year. Satti's complaint, made during the wake of the late state police Detective George Ryalls, was that Ryalls' obituary mentioned the suspect the prosecutor refused to pursue in the Showalter probe.
Kevin B. Showalter, a 20-year-old Mitchell College student, was killed at 11:12 p.m. on Christmas Eve 1973. He was changing a tire on a well-lit section of Pequot Avenue on the New London shoreline when he was struck and killed. His girlfriend, sitting only 6 feet away on a stone wall, claims she saw nothing.
Auto body putty from the death car disappeared after a tow truck driver gave it to New London police. The evidence file that was supposed to contain the putty was stuffed with bathroom tiles. The file that was supposed to contain headlight glass from the death car instead contained glass from three different headlights. State police and others suspected that, in order to throw legitimate investigators off the trail, the late young man's clothing was pounded on a different-colored car than the one that killed him.
The victim's mother, Lucille M. Showalter, tried to get a grand jury investigation of the cover-up. She was rebuffed repeatedly by the presiding judge, Angelo Santaniello who, it later became clear, was best friends with the leading suspect. Santaniello then referred Showalter to prosecutor Satti, who happened to be his former law partner. Satti refused to acknowledge registered letters from Mrs. Showalter pleading for a grand jury probe.
Satti did finally meet with Mrs. Showalter in 1978, after Judge Joseph Dannehy of Willimantic, acting as a one-man grand jury, named former New London Mayor Harvey N. Mallove as the probable driver of the hit-run vehicle. Satti called the three-hour meeting, in which he repeatedly told Mrs. Showalter that there never should have been a grand jury investigation under Dannehy.
Mallove held a good hand; he had the best legal muscle in New London County on his side. New London police would not question him for more than seven months, and then only in a perfunctory manner. They would say they inspected his cars, but they did not. Significantly, Mallove's Lincoln had been repaired, but it wasn't until state police took over the case four years after the accident that the fender was finally seized.
Santaniello would arrange for a coroner's inquest and put his niece in charge of typing the transcript. Only after two years of intense public pressure would the transcript be typed. But the inquest never issued a finding.
Santaniello tipped off Mallove that he was a suspect. The judge was also aware of what local police knew about the case. Mrs. Showalter memorialized the admissions in tape-recorded telephone conversations.
"I did talk to Harvey," Santaniello told Mrs. Showalter on Oct. 17, 1975, "and I said, `You're suspected.' As a matter of fact, at that time a police officer came to him on the same day or the next day, and told him you were making accusations about him and that he was a prime suspect." The day before, Mallove told Mrs. Showalter, "Judge Santaniello is of the opinion that you fingered me."
It was not until 1977 that state police, who took over the case at the behest of former Gov. Ella Grasso, formally named Mallove a suspect. Next week, I'll propose a means to solve the Showalter cover-up.
Showalter Cover-Up Is New London's Shame
New London, where I grew up and began working in the 1960s and '70s, was a dirty little city with character.
It had a restaurant called the Hygienic that was everything but. There were at least a couple bars where the cops couldn't do anything, except maybe a little business.
The top pimp in town never went to jail until he was about 60 and a certain court official retired.
New London will always be the city that tried to cover up the Christmas Eve 1973 hit-and-run death of Kevin B. Showalter. It's been doing a pretty good job for nearly 27 years, but the onion is beginning to peel.
The local daily newspaper admitted -- in its official history published this year -- that it did a shoddy job on the Showalter case. Specifically, The Day admitted its failure to explore the relationship between a former mayor and a top judge, and their influence on the course of the criminal investigation. That's a beginning.
Political and police corruption goes back a couple generations in New London. By the 1970s, New London police were widely known to be involved in the selling of women, dope and refrigerators, among other things. A federal grand jury took note. But as with the Showalter case, there were these little problems with the evidence.
A jewelry store owner and former city mayor multi-millionaire Harvey Mallove was the prime suspect in the hit-and-run death of Showalter, a student at Mitchell College. Showalter's date that night, Christmas Eve 1973, said she saw nothing from her vantage point six feet away, sitting on a stone wall under a streetlight on a residential street as a young man changed the tire of her car.
Harvey was everybody's pal. He would take kids to the Super Bowl, then, down the road, get them jobs as cops. He was friends with bums in the street and bums in high political office. He was wired. The standing joke among reporters became: Harvey's a great guy to have a beer with, just don't change your tire if he's driving by.
"I didn't kill the kid in any way, shape or form," Harvey told me many times. As mayor, Harvey helped hire a few police chiefs. His best friend was the administrative judge for the county; that was the judge who controlled the early stages of the investigation, specifically a coroner's inquest that never issued a finding.
State police followed up a report that Mallove's best friend, County Administrative Judge Angelo G. Santaniello, was with Mallove on Christmas Eve 1973. Santaniello reportedly was No. 11 on a guest list for a party at the home of his political mentor, the late state Sen. Peter Mariani. The Mariani party was one of two Mallove attended that night.
Santaniello told reporters he never went out on Christmas Eve.
Another state judge, Joseph F. Dannehy, conducted two grand jury investigations. In 1978, Dannehy named Mallove as the probable driver of the hit-run vehicle, but said evidence that might have ensured conviction was either mishandled or destroyed.
Mallove died a few years ago with this legacy. Others still have time to come clean and tell the truth about the cover-up. Mrs. Showalter tried unsuccessfully to have Satti, Santaniello and others prosecuted for hindrance of prosecution (CGS Section 53a-166) warning of impending discovery, providing means of avoiding discovery, preventing discovery by deception. Because a conspiracy to hinder prosecution is an ongoing crime, those with information could tell Chief State's Attorney John Bailey, who has begun an initiative to solve some of the state's cold homicide cases.
Isn't it time? No one kept the system honest when it counted, though some tried. Most stood by as the system that was supposed to protect the victim and his family betrayed them all.
Where is the conscience of the community?
Cold Case On Ice Forever
One way to deflect attention from a suspect is to get investigators involved in meaningless, time-consuming tasks. Another way is to create a bogus suspect who is then exposed as such, causing a belief that the case is just too hazy to pursue.
Both of these devices were used repeatedly in the cover-up of the Showalter hit-run case in New London. Whether this was happenstance, indifference, incompetence or malfeasance, the result was the same. The system failed.
And now, it seems, the truth will remain buried forever.
Judge Joseph F. Dannehy, the grand juror who investigated the case, wrote in his finding of fact: "After December 25, 1973, the New London Police Department did virtually nothing to solve the hit-run death of Kevin B. Showalter." The accident occurred the night before.
Local police and court officials, however, were pro-active in another sense. Their actions served to protect the assailant.
For example, New London police claimed it would cost as much as $1,200 to trace vehicles using data from the state Motor Vehicle Department. The motor vehicle department declared there was no such charge.
Nevertheless, New London police spent their time hand-sorting local motor vehicle cards. They looked for a green Chrysler. That was likely a false lead; state police said paint particles found on the victim's clothing did not come from the car that killed him.
Former Mayor Harvey Mallove began meeting informally with police and court officials as early as Dec. 25, 1973. Mallove wanted to know what the police knew.
The only lead after two and a half years was quashed by then New London Common Pleas Court Prosecutor Harold Dean in May 1976. The lead was a letter of confession written by a Somers prison inmate to the victim's mother, Lucille Showalter.
"I told Harold how important that was to me," Mallove, the prime suspect, confided to an associate. He also acknowledged discussing the purported confession with his best friend, the presiding judge for the county, Angelo Santaniello.
The author of the letter was known to be connected with "fences," or purveyors of stolen goods in the New London area. State police arrested him for harassment of Mrs. Showalter. Two state troopers met with Dean for an hour. They told him the letter contained possibly significant information. State police also believed they could connect the dots in New London between the letter writer and the powers-that-be. Did he owe some favors? Was he paid? Police knew the author had no liability for the accident; he was actually in Florida at the time of the hit-run.
Dean nolled and dismissed the case without telling the troopers or Mallove. Soon thereafter, state police listed the killing of Showalter as "closed pending further development." Upon learning of Dean's action, Chief State's Attorney Joseph Gormley remarked he had "no idea" why the lead, "which very well could have led to something," resulted in a dead end. The case would remain closed for six months, until Gov. Ella Grasso brought the matter to Justice John Cotter.
Was there criminal activity connected with the Showalter cover-up? It appears we will never know for certain. Dannehy named Mallove as the probable driver, noting that evidence which might have ensured conviction was destroyed. The Chief State's Attorney's Office reviewed aspects of the case this fall after a series of columns appeared in The Law Tribune. However, the statute of limitations for the most likely potential charge, conspiracy to hinder prosecution of motor vehicle misconduct, has expired. This shameful case, it appears, is destined to stay on ice forever.
-
Smolinski case, ongoing, Waterbury:
&
Friday, Sept. 14, 2007
BILLY SMOLINSKI
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/31/earlyshow/main1458699.shtml
We first told you about Billy Smolinski a year ago. He disappeared from his Waterbury, Conn. home in August, 2004 after breaking up with his girlfriend.
CBS News Correspondent Bianca Solorzano got an update from investigators, and the missing man's family.
Smolinsksi was 31 when he vanished.
He had just returned from a trip to Florida with his girlfriend. The next night, he told his sister that his girlfriend was having an affair with a local politician. They argued and broke up.
Smolinski's sister, Paula Bell recalls that, "I said, 'Well, what are you going to do" And he just said, 'What am I going to do?'"
Authorities say Smolinski was last seen at his home. His next-door neighbor says he asked him to watch his dog for a few days, because he was headed north to look at a car he wanted to buy. His truck was found in his driveway, his keys and wallet were under his front seat.
That, says Solorzano, is where Smolinski's trail ends.
The FBI calls it a difficult case.
"Essentially," says Special Agent Bill Aldenberg, "the man just disappeared off the face of the Earth."
He says there's been no sign of Smolinski but, "There are suspects, based on tips and based on interviews and based on investigations that we've conducted."
The bureau was tipped off and, in the spring, searched in Shelton, about 20 miles from Waterbury. Agensts looked for evidence near several homes, dug up a driveway, and also searched near a river, but found nothing.
The Smolinskis, Solorzano points out, have never stopped searching.
They posted thousands of missing person flyers but, in a strange twist, found Smolinski's ex-girlfriend tearing them down.
At the time, local police say, she was not a suspect.
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