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Nutty New York Nutty New York

Mighty_Emperor

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 18, 2002
Messages
19,408
So nutty they named it twice :p

Links:

http://www.weirdnj.com

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String of uncommon crimes draws nation's eyes to Syracuse



By WILLIAM KATES
Associated Press Writer

July 9, 2004, 8:19 PM EDT


SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- An old man hunts down young girls and women and keeps them as sex slaves in a secret underground bunker in his backyard. A father is convicted of raping his daughter, who later is found hanging dead from her bedpost by a dog leash.

A man kills his girlfriend and keeps her dead body in a rented storage shed for 14 years. A 5-year-old girl abducted off a city street while walking to a friend's house is later miraculously saved when a passer-by hears her muffled cries from underneath a tarp at an abandoned warehouse.

These aren't the story lines for this year's wave of Hollywood crime movies. It's a rundown of the sensational crimes discovered over the past several months in this usually peaceful upstate New York city.

And if that weren't enough, now the city may have a possible serial killer.

"Unusual crimes happen all the time in different places, but usually it's always some place else. I guess it's just our turn," said Onondaga County Sheriff Kevin Walsh, who could probably use an agent after his many recent appearances on national television about Syracuse's string of headline-grabbing crimes.

The recent rash of bizarre crimes began in April 2003 with the arrest of 68-year-old John Jamelske, a retired handyman who admitted keeping five women as sex slaves between 1988 and 2003 in a concrete bunker he built under the backyard of his suburban Syracuse home. The victims ranged in age from 14 to 53 and were held captive anywhere from two months to three years. Jamelske is serving 18 years in prison.

Jamelske's story was told to national audiences on "America's Most Wanted," "Dateline," "Good Morning America," and CNN.

In May _ even though Jamelske had been in prison for nearly 10 months _ his sordid saga was revisited by "Oprah."

Authorities were kept busy in the months that followed:

_In October, 2003, Timothy Lucie, a self-employed furniture salesman, was charged with raping his 11-year-old daughter, Valerie. After the sexual attack, the girl was found hanging in her bedroom in what police and prosecutors say was a suicide. Lucie was convicted in June and is serving 50 years in prison.

_In April, George Geddes was charged with second-degree murder in the slaying of his former girlfriend, Margaret Reome, who disappeared in February 1990. Geddes was charged after FBI agents and deputies found the woman's rotting body stuffed inside a container at a rental storage facility. Geddes, a twice-convicted thief, had rented the storage area since 1993 but violated his probation by failing to tell authorities about it.

_Also in April, A 5-year-old girl was kidnapped near her Syracuse home. A passer-by looking to buy industrial property found the girl 24 hours later, bound in duct tape and crying underneath a tarp at an abandoned warehouse outside the city. Her abductor remains at large even though the case was featured on "America's Most Wanted."

_In June, Nicholas Wiley, a convicted sex offender who was released from state prison in January, was charged with murdering two Syracuse women. Wiley told detectives there were more victims but police have not found any others, although they are investigating the disappearance of 18-year-old Tammy Passineau after Wiley mentioned her by her first name.

Senior Chief Assistant District Attorney Rick Trunfio downplayed the run of high-profile cases.

"Believe me, there are other cases just as bizarre that no one ever hears about because the media doesn't focus on them," said Trunfio.

"Syracuse is a pretty safe place, so when something happens here, something out of the ordinary, it's more likely to alarm and upset the public. People here haven't been hardened. They haven't become lackadaisical about crime. When something strange happens here, it gets everyone's attention," said Trunfio.

According to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, the rate of both overall crime dropped by 6.5 percent and violent crime fell 9 percent in Syracuse in 2003 from the previous year. Although numbers aren't available for 2004, Syracuse police spokesman Sgt. Tom Connellan said the trend has continued. The rate of decline was greater than the statewide drop of 3.5 percent for overall crime and 5.6 percent for violent crime.

"It is a random occurrence. There is no pattern. There is no explanation for these types of crimes," said William Pooler, an associate sociology professor at Syracuse University and the spouse of a federal appeals judge.

What's on the increase is the number of reality shows and series on television and cable that are devoted to crime, cops and courts, said Pooler, offering an off-the-cuff theory.

Pooler doesn't have any empirical evidence, only anecdotal, but he wondered if some criminals commit atrocities just to see if they can get their crimes dramatized on television. Jamelske's case was dramatized on episodes of "CSI," and "NYPD Blue."

"People want to be thrilled and titillated, and crime stories do both. And usually, if it's a strange or bizarre crime, the media latches on to it and keeps it going. Look at the Jamelske case. The guy's been in prison for months, but his story just keeps going and going," Pooler said.

Trunfio flat out rejected the idea.

"They're not thinking, `If I make this sensational, I'll get it on TV.' I doubt if many of them even watch programs like `Law and Order.' They always have other reasons for committing their crimes. Most are just evil," Trunfio said.

"Jamelske didn't even think what he was doing was a crime. He thought it was normal," he said.

Source
 
New York New York, the city so vile they had to warn you twice.


No shoving, I'm leaving, I'm leaving...
 
Yeh...

Bleh...Stories about kidanapped little girls always make me so angry.

:(

Only 18 years? There was a fourteen year old girl in there: this guy deserves life.

Aw, and why didjoo change your avatar, hedge? I thought the old one pretty comical :D
 
Must be like a real life 'Midsomer'.

Not that I would ever admit to watching Midsomer Murders...
 
Re: Yeh...

nickedoff12 said:
Aw, and why didjoo change your avatar, hedge? I thought the old one pretty comical :D

Thanks. I like to change it now and then. But the redneck w/shotgun will be back. Probably one of the best pictures of me ever taken....
 
Q&A: Mason Winfield

Author looks at local history through a paranormal lens

By GAIL NORHEIM
NEWS NIAGARA BUREAU
8/1/2004


LEWISTON - A ghost hunter and paranormal researcher, Mason Winfield spends more time in library basements than breaking into haunted houses.

His first book, "Shadows of the Western Door," is a look at the state of spirits in Western New York and includes old-fashioned ghost stories, unexplained archaeological material and the religious fever he believes inhabits Western New York. Winfield makes a living setting up ghost walks and giving talks on paranormal folklore. His latest project will introduce a ghost walk to Lewiston in mid-August, where he promises plenty of chilling tales, mystery and a different look at local history.

You just came back from a research trip to Saratoga Springs where you are also setting up a ghost walk. How does that work?

I do my research in four basic ways. Interviews, historical societies, libraries and old newspapers are very helpful.

Explain.

Very often when a reporter writes up a ghost story about a site, you've got just about all the details you need. I never stop there, but the article will always contain, in a nutshell, historical information.

How do you choose your sites, Lewiston for instance?

Lewiston was chosen because I was approached by the Lewiston Council for the Arts. They were just kicking around some ideas on something they wanted to work on, and I sort of bit. It was a plan I had for my company anyway. It was just five months ahead of schedule.

Tell me about your company.

My company is Haunted History Ghostwalks Inc., and right now we just do ghost walks, mostly in Western New York.

And what have you found in this area?

Well, Lewiston, for one thing, has got very interesting prehistory. There's some ancient mysteries here. There is the mysterious fortress called Kienuka. It was an ancient fortress, Seneca. There are debates on exactly where it was. My research is kind of in an early stage right now. I'm hoping I'll find a historian around here who can tell me with some conviction where the fortress was. It is, at its youngest, medieval.

Have you done interviews with the Senecas?

That's one of my first steps . . . to get any information I can from the Native Americans. They are a very spiritual people. They don't talk a lot about it all the time with outsiders, but they have wonderful traditions. Frankly, sometimes you get more accurate historical information from other sources, like archaeology, but what's passed on through the oral traditions is more valuable for my purposes.

What got you involved in paranormal studies?

Most American kids are interested in ghosts. I think a better question is why didn't I grow up?

OK. Why didn't you grow up and stop reading ghost stories?

Good question. I kept my interest, and I think there's some good you can do by reaffirming spirituality. In my way of looking at it, a lot of the ills in the planet are caused by people who are way too material. And by material I mean not only interested in money - because who isn't, you've just got to have that - but their philosophy is very material. In other words, they say, "Animals or the forest (don't) really have another level to (them) so I might as well just go burn the rain forest." So if people had the reverence for other people and the natural environment, which is one of the messages of real spirituality, there would be a lot less of the ills of the world. If you look at established academia and media, it's not very fashionable to claim a belief or even a serious interest in something that might be supernatural, paranormal, mystic or psychic.

I guess what's accepted in those areas is very limited.

At one time it would have been unfashionable to be materialistic. The whole society believed in witches and the occult, and the whole idea of the supernatural was so real that it was perfectly normal to have human sacrifices. So you can go too far either way, and I think we have just gotten a little bit out of balance. And I also believe that this is a real subject that is very interesting, and there are things we discover through an objective analysis of psychic phenomena and the paranormal industry that are very enlightening but don't necessarily validate the wildest claims. Just because there are interesting observations about the UFO phenomena or Big Foot, it doesn't mean there really are interplanetary spacecraft or there really is this big hairy man running around. I think the Buffalo Bills would be very interested in talking to this individual if he can be brought in and taught a couple of plays.

What does it mean?

What does this add up to? It adds up to a point that people tend to report psychic phenomena about similar places in the earth, similar buildings similar spots.

Like legends.

Yeah, legends tend to gravitate to certain places, and I study the types of places. You very often can find an elaborate correlation. It may suggest that there are energy places and that these affect people. They make people say things, they make people think they see things. You find it all over the world. Western New York is a real generator of religions. We have crazy religious phenomena. Never forget that two successful modern religions, the Church of Mormon and Spiritualism, started in Western New York.

Why do you think this is?

Some places just seem to have juice. And when people hang out there, they think they see things. Maybe they do. I'm not them, I don't know. I don't see much, so maybe they don't.

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20040801/1032582.asp
 
Long Island's weird attractions

A new book compiles wacky places and strange tales that, to some of us, seem like typical Long Island

BY SPENCER RUMSEY
STAFF WRITER

January 4, 2006

Sometimes it's hard to know what's really weird if you're so used to living in a weird place that it all feels normal to you. That's when you need another pair of eyes to see the strangeness that you may take for granted.

Of course, it works the other way, too: What you think is unusual might be just ho-hum ordinary to somebody else. For example, consider Satan worship. More than 20 years ago, Northport (yes, that quaint Cow Harbor village lined with antique shops and churches) became notorious nationwide for being the haunt of the Acid King, otherwise known as Ricky Kasso, who allegedly dug up graves and stole body parts in his spare time, which he apparently had too much of. In the summer of 1984, he was charged with murdering a guy who refused to "say he loves Satan." It didn't help that the victim kept insisting he loved his mother.

What seemed especially weird about the case to some was that Kasso had gone around town writing graffiti extolling the Dark Lord but misspelling his name as "Satin." To others that wasn't weird; it was typical Long Island.

So you can see why a book like "Weird New York: Your Travel Guide to New York's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets" (Sterling, $19.95) can help set things straight. It's the latest offering in the "Weird U.S." series.

What's weird, in this case, is that the author, Chris Gethard, is from New Jersey. Apparently he's an expert in weirdness: He helped write "Weird New Jersey" and that seminal work, "Weird U.S." Here, Gethard searched the Empire State from the shores of the East River to Lake George for the odd and the offbeat. He also tracked down hard-to-believe tales that make us feel a little bit creepy.

The results could feed our pride. Long Islanders may take the Big Duck for granted, but in this book the 10-ton white bird now roosting in Hampton Bays is regarded as "one of the finest remaining examples of mimetic roadside architecture." On the other hand, the Indian standing tall at the gates of Riverhead Raceway garners a different judgment: "This statue strangely seems to be giving a solemn and serious Nazi salute." Who knew?

As Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman, the series creators, point out, this is the stuff you wished you learned in school. (Or maybe you did, but you weren't allowed to talk about it in class.) What follows is a very partial list of weirdness found on Long Island.

In Huntington, two roads south of Jericho Turnpike have been linked with strange doings: Mount Misery Road and Sweet Hollow Road. Supposedly, somewhere near there an insane asylum burned down centuries ago, unleashing troubled souls to light the night, figures such as the Lady in White, seen flitting through the trees in her hospital gown.

Another weird tale circulating from Colonial times (with updated versions) concerns Mary's Grave, an elusive resting place, indeed. It's claimed to be in Head of the Harbor, St. James, Huntington, Port Jefferson, Centereach, Sayville, Amityville (that place has enough horrors, doesn't it?), and Smithtown, to name a few locales. Was Mary a witch? A widow? A spurned lover? An ax-murderer? Nobody knows for sure. If you do find the grave, you'll be lucky to tell the tale.

Some of the weirdest stuff to happen on Long Island may have occurred in the subterranean depths of Camp Hero in Montauk. There, beneath an abandoned Air Force radar facility, a top-secret military installation was supposed to be performing experiments in teleportation and other psycho-kinetic technologies of the paranormal from the 1940s to 1983, when one study involving a psychic named Duncan Cameron went "horribly wrong" and the place was destroyed. Or was it? Some say it's still in use. Weird, huh?

Who on Long Island remembers Albania's King Zog I? The self-proclaimed monarch's grandiose dreams in 1951 to "establish a kingdom" for himself and his "exiled countrymen" on Knollwood, a 600-acre estate in Muttontown, turned to naught. He fell ill in Europe before he could realize his goal and never lived at Knollwood himself. But rumors remain of buried treasure in the woods and the ruins.

Speaking of asylums, Kings Park Psychiatric Center, which started as the Kings Park Lunatic Asylum in Nissequogue during the 1800s, supposedly has been the scene of many ghost appearances- and the source of inexplicable screams in the night - ever since. Not to mention unexplained banging sounds heard echoing through the empty wards.

According to "eye- witnesses," there was a rather unusual house in North Massapequa known for its devil worshippers - of which, according to the book, Long Island has many. The telltale signs were the black-painted sidewalks, the coffin carriage in the yard, its dark velvet curtains and the red candles in the windows, whose number would vary depending on how many people were crazy enough to be with you in the car as you "slowly drove by the house." But that's small potatoes compared to the mark of Satan left at the Oxford House, which once stood on Shelter Island. There the devil supposedly left hoofprints "burned" into the side porch. Fortunately (or not, depending on your predilection for such things), that house has been torn down.

Have you heard about the not-so-lovely Lady of the Lake? Ronkonkoma, that is. "This body of water is said to be the home of a vengeful spirit that claims one male life per year," writes Gethard. The spiteful spirit was supposedly an Indian princess forever tormented by unrequited love. Another tale is more geological: that the lake is bottomless, and bodies of people who drowned there supposedly have turned up in the Sound and the East River.

And next door ...

If somebody told you to meet them at the Fountain of the Planet of the Apes, would you know where to go? You might think that place is out of this world, but you'd be wrong. It's in Queens, near the wildlife center and Terrace on the Park. The fountain was built as part of the 1964 World's Fair but got its science-fiction moniker from former Parks Commissioner Henry Stern, who altered its original name, Fountain of the Planets, in honor of this "great movie."

Coney Island is well known for unusual attractions, particularly along its boardwalk, but don't overlook a 45-foot submarine rusting in Coney Island Creek near the Home Depot. The story is that Jerry Bianco, a local guy without much nautical background, must have had a bit of Capt. Nemo in him because he built this old sub to help raise the Andrea Doria, an Italian cruise ship that sank off New England in 1956. Why he bothered is unclear. Anyway, with much fanfare, Bianco launched the Quester 1 in 1971, but it promptly flipped over and sank. Then a storm in 1975 washed it onshore, where it lies to this day.

Source

The book:

Weird New York: Your Travel Guide to New York's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets
www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/14027 ... ntmagaz-21
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1402733 ... enantmc-20
 
Posted: January 06, 2006
by: Tom Wanamaker / Indian Country Today


'Oneida Iroquois Folklore, Myth and History: New York Oral Narrative from the Notes of H.E. Allen and Others,' by Anthony Wonderley

In the decades surrounding the turn of the 20th century, Indian tribes faced serious threats to their very survival. The Dawes Act took away reservation homelands, while the boarding school movement sabotaged tribal languages, culture and memories. Children grew up foreign to their heritage; and as knowledgeable elders died off, Native languages and lifeways moved closer to extinction. Poverty and pessimism became the rule rather than the exception in many Indian communities.

Today, many tribes have earnestly embarked on efforts to recapture their cultures, relearn their ancient languages and restore pride in their heritage. Such projects are indeed laudable in trying to regain such vast and sometimes irreplaceable losses. Every so often, one of those ''irreplaceable'' losses becomes a gem of a find.

In the course of his work as historian for the Oneida Indian Nation of New York, Anthony Wonderley spent a great deal of time in libraries, museums and other such archival repositories. While working at the nearby Hamilton College Library in early 2001, he happened across a typewritten manuscript from 1948 containing a cultural treasure trove.

Compiled by a non-Indian scholar named Hope Emily Allen, the document retold dozens of Oneida folktales collected from two of her Oneida friends in the early 1900s. This find spurred the writing of Wonderley's remarkable and informative book, ''Oneida Iroquois Folklore, Myth and History: New York Oral Narrative from the Notes of H.E. Allen and Others.'' As its title suggests, this must-read volume preserves aspects of Oneida Indian culture that may otherwise have been lost to history.

''I think the Oneida story is well worth telling and should be known,'' Wonderley said during a recent interview. He added that many people in and around the Oneida homelands in upstate New York believe that the Oneida people have lost their identity. ''But they stayed and constituted a distinct community that has stayed in place and never left.''

Employing Allen's manuscripts and a vast array of other sources, Wonderley recreated Oneida oral tradition as it existed between 1880 and 1925. As it was for all Indian peoples, these years were ones of great loss for the Oneidas. After significant numbers of their tribe emigrated to Wisconsin and Ontario, the remaining Oneidas struggled to persevere in two small communities in their ancestral homeland, south of the present-day city of Oneida, N.Y.

Although tribal members often worked for and interacted with their non-Indian neighbors, they carefully guarded their rich storytelling heritage. The interest and care taken by Allen to record and preserve these valuable examples of oral narrative is an incredible gift to present and future students of Oneida and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) folklore.

Writing in an easily readable style, Wonderley draws readers into a magical world of flying heads, stone giants and little people. He retells the stories of how the bear lost his tail and how the chipmunk got his stripes, among many others. Also included are dozens of illustrations of Oneida pottery, pipes, combs and wampum.

Wonderley offers a detailed analysis of the Oneida stories, not only finding aspects of similarity with tales from Wyandot and Huron lore but also pointing out the uniquely Iroquoian characteristics they contain. He noted how certain tales have evolved over the years, and pointed out influences that may have come from European storytellers like the Brothers Grimm.

While folklore can be useful and important to a people in many ways, the story of Polly Cooper, the Oneida woman who brought food to Gen. George Washington's starving troops at Valley Forge in 1777, proved quite practical. The Oneidas used this story in an early land claim case to help prove the nation's long-lasting and special relationship with the U.S. government.

In 1916, attempts by non-Indians to illegally acquire the last parcel of communally held land, a 32-acre plot known today as ''the territory,'' led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling (United States v. Boylan) that said the Oneida people retained ''aboriginal title to the soil'' of that small tract of land. This victory also bestowed federal recognition upon the Oneida Nation.

Wonderley writes in his final chapter that the Cooper story ''was articulated in characteristically Oneida fashion - the mythopoeic language of storytellers uncomfortable in formal English expression and ill-at-ease in an alien and often hostile courtroom setting ... [The Oneidas] dusted off a tradition and offered it to the world. In the context of the concern created by Boylan, the old legend of Polly Cooper became salient.''

''Oneida Iroquois Folklore, Myth and History'' will surely appeal to readers on several levels. As the first major study of Iroquois folklore in decades, Wonderley's book offers much for the scholar interested in the passage of ancient folklore through the oral tradition to the present. Likewise, the historian interested in a story of cultural perseverance in the face of hostile governments and neighbors, and the casual reader looking for fantastic tales of Indian children and grandmothers, forest animals and supernatural beings, will both enjoy this wonderful book.

-------------
''Oneida Iroquois Folklore, Myth and History'' is published by Syracuse University Press. For more information, visit www.syracuseuniversitypress.syr.edu or call (315) 443-5534.

www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096412250
 
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