Friday, July 11, 2014

Alive or Dead?



My son disappeared in the midst of a very nasty divorce.
His father at that time was an assistant vice president with Norfolk Southern Railroad.  We had been married 23 years.

How wrong can an autopsy report be?
The Alabama forensics report showed a male 2 inches shorter, 20 pounds lighter than my son. The autopsied body had three inch scars at each knee.  The scars indicate knee surgery.  My son never had any knee surgery at all, nor did he have any notable scars or surgeries anywhere on his body. Can Americans trust forensics reports?  It doesn't appear so in this case. 
  
The actual identification was made through fingerprints supplied to Alabama by Georgia. Some were faxed to and by authorities, others were identified and matched in an Alabama sheriff's office.    

Please help me solve the mystery
of the disappearance of my son.
In 1998 my son went missing.  

I am his mother and I was denied vital records from the funeral and burial reports by his father.
Because of the divorce circumstances and threat of arrest and further police harassment I was unable to attend any services. 

My son had no reason to commit suicide.
He had every reason to live as a gifted musician, singer songwriter known in Buckhead - Atlanta, Georgia and as a  deans list student at Kennesaw State University.


My son knew two things that would have been bad for his father in divorce court:
1.  He knew his his father had falsely accused me of attacking our daughter and lied to police.
2.  He had confided to me that his father had a girlfriend.
About 3 months after our son's burial, his father moved into his girlfriend's home, abandoning our daughter to live alone in our home to finish high school. There, they started a "consulting"  business together.

Police reports in Georgia and Alabama are highly suspicious. The investigations are obviously flawed.
Why did Cobb County wait for more than a week after his  disappearance to contact me, the mother? Why didn't they interview his brother and sister who lived in the same home?  The only (two) witnesses interviewed were names given by the father.  Why?
Alabama police recorded a forensics examiner being present when the she said they NEVER attend crime scenes and was not there.  The gun used was incapable of holding the number of bullets in the reports.  One report indicated red shells, another listed green shells. The report said shoulder length hair. My son never had shoulder length hair in his life, nor would he or had he ever been any kind of a thief, that was reported by Alabama.  

They obviously got the wrong guy.

Then I was told to drop my personal search "or else."
My attorney, Kenneth Schatten, in 2010 said, "Take down your blog. You're making these people angry.  Think of it this way, they have your son somewhere and they've told him if he contacts you, his brother or sister they're going to kill you all."  He added there is so much money involved I would never get to the truth.

Was he murdered as Mr. Schatten and P.I. Billy Carter initially suggested?
Mr. Schatten called me into his office impromptu on a Saturday in 1999.  P.I. Billy Carter was in his office. Schatten said he and Carter believed my husband murdered my son.  I told them I didn't believe it but later they wanted money to get information. If they believed it at that time, why didn't they contact police?
  

When his vehicle was found, both rear tires were flat.


Children in America go missing at an alarming rate 

- one child every 40 seconds


Sources:
U.S. Department of Justice https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/196465.pdf



National Center for Missing and Exploited Children http://www.missingkids.com/WhoWeAre



National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Throwaway Children (MISMART) https://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/nismart/04/






Please, help me find out what happened to my son.
I cannot rest until I know the truth. 

Thank you and Many Blessings to you for caring. 

_____________



A mountain of evidence proves Gerard J. Sniffen, III did not die in Baldwin County, Alabama 12/9/1998.

The First Amendment
Guardian of Truth, Protector & Advocate for All People
When all else fails, tell the truth.

This is the introduction to this blog. Detailed reports can be found by linking to the other post entries. For instance, for those interested in Baldwin County police reports, look out to the side and you will see the  link and listing there.  For Cobb County, the link is there, and so on....
___________________

"We believe your husband murdered your son."  - Attorney Kenneth Schatten with Private Detective Billy Carter, Atlanta 1999 
"There's too much money against you."  - Attorney Gatewood Galbraith, Kentucky, 2001
"To get our police records you will need a court order and subpoena."  Baldwin County Sheriff's Office, Alabama 2001 (John Garner, Huey Mack, Jr.)   (Coroner Huey Mack, Sr. said the same about funeral home records, 2008)  
"Your son is still alive. Go look close at the autopsy report and you'll see."  - Thomas G. Schlette, 2003   
 ".. in regards to the funeral arrangements for Mr. Gerard Joseph Sniffen, III ……  We contacted her ex-husband, Mr. Sniffen and asked if we could release this information to her. He said in no way were we to release any information to her regarding their son's death." -  Mayes Ward Dobbins Funeral Home, Marietta, Georgia, 2004
"Sheriff Huey Mack, however, said there are no other theories to pursue in the case, and there is no other story to find. As a deputy he was lead investigator in Sniffen's death." - Mobile Press Register, 2008
"You need to take down your blog. You're making them angry. Think of this way… maybe they have your son somewhere and they've told him if he tries to contact you or his siblings they'll kill you." - Attorney Kenneth Schatten, Atlanta, 2010
"You'll never get the truth about your son.  Do you know how much money is out there?'"
- Attorney Kenneth Schatten, Atlanta, 2010

_____________________

There were at least two reasons my son had to disappear from Georgia.  My husband had initiated our divorce and our son knew his father had a mistress.  My son also knew that his father had been dishonest with police to initiate the court order in a divorce.  To minimize his liabilities to protect his financial interests his son's testimony couldn't be allowed.  Looking back, this is what I believe happened to our son.  With his advice that I remove my blog from the internet, my Georgia  divorce attorney, Kenneth Schatten, in 2010, said they have my son somewhere and have told him "if he tries to contact you, his brother or sister, you will all be killed."  Those words confirmed my suspicions of the previous 12 years. My son wasn't dead - but removed from the situation, and existed somewhere probably with a new identity.

I believe it was also a way with which he could torment me, as the order to put me out of our home brought two Cobb County police to my front door as a "happy birthday" gift.  Two months later, he arranged our son's funeral for Christmas Eve, and for New Years, I found myself in Central State Hospital, being held illegally against my will.  After all that I endured following those incidents, I suspected none of this was coincidental. It appeared to be a plan that fell together.

My husband had masterminded the marital separation and the investigation of his son's disappearance and death.  With the separation he provided Cobb County, Ga. police with untrue information to attain his goals, and with his son's disappearance, he provided police with two key witnesses whose names I had never heard before.  Although there were two grown siblings living in the house, neither was interviewed at all, nor was I, the mother, until a week after the disappearance when another police district realized the boy had a mother.  It was bizarre that the same police force that had ordered me out of the home, accused me of having a gun (which I had never owned one in my life,) would handle our son's disappearance investigation and not immediately question me when our son disappeared.

My husband's position as a powerful Norfolk Southern Railroad executive as Assistant Vice President in charge of Communications and Signals never appeared on any police report regarding our son's disappearance and subsequent reported death. Available police records show that his office telephone numbers and railroad contact numbers were never given to police during the two-week period of time our son was missing.  Had other executives known, had the railroad known, or had police known that this missing person was the child of an executive, would the handling of his investigations or search have been handled any differently?
Every railroad executive in the country would have been alarmed to know if even one railroad executive's son had mysteriously disappeared.  
The same Cobb County, Georgia police who had followed me through our home telling me to gather my things and accusing me of having a gun on October 16, 1998, were the police that investigated our son's disappearance.  During their investigation, they called me for an interview more than a week after our son had disappeared.   They were fully cooperative with the father, and they interviewed the witnesses the father provided. They did not interview the grown siblings who also lived in the home with our missing son.  Cobb County's police performance was surprising in this divorce, missing person and death case.

Our son's truthful testimony would have affected the ruling in divorce court.  He had known his father had a mistress.   She was a member of a family of affluent advertising executives in Atlanta.   Her former husband, Tom Tilinski, had been in the sailboat business with well-known sailing instructor,  Steven Colgate.  Nearly as soon as our daughter reached 18, my husband had moved into Dale Tilinski's home. They started a Georgia business there, "DT Consulting," and at the time although legally separated, we were still married.  Rumors were that Dale Tilinski was a computer programmer and had worked for both, the State of Georgia as well as Norfolk Southern Railroad.

If there were other things my son knew, he couldn't tell me the last time I saw him alive at Cobb County, Georgia divorce court, October 21, 1998.  My son came to me in the hallway and whispered, "Mom, I don't want to do this."  He was afraid, looking over his shoulder to be sure no one was listening. I said, "Don't worry, just go in the court room and tell the truth."  He continued, "I don't want to do this." He wanted to tell me more but there wasn't time and he was fearful of being overheard.  We never made it to the court room, and to this day I don't know why.  The next few months were a living nightmare that no one would believe could happen in the United States of America.

It would be more than a year before my divorce was final, January, 2000. By that time I had fled the state of Georgia in fear of more incarcerations and police harassment, and met with much the same police harassment in the state of Kentucky.  The power my husband accessed spanned state lines–– from Georgia to Alabama where our son was said to have died, and from Georgia to Kentucky where I had fled to find safe haven until the finality of the divorce.  Whether the powerful network was business, political, or underworld, the folks he had working to his favor was absolutely incredible.

This is my true, well-documented story of the struggle to survive a Georgia divorce and cope with incarcerations, false accusations, corruption, deception, betrayal and lies in the midst of the reported  death of my child.
With hopes of exposing criminal activity and someday gaining justice, and in finding my son, this blog's intention is that these things can never happen to another mother or father, family or child, court system or police department–– anywhere.
My son's body did not match the body found in Alabama.

The NCIC database information mentioned in both Cobb County, Ga. and Baldwin County, Al. is questionable and my son's records were removed even before a body known to be found.

The Forensics Examiner who signed the autopsy report, contrary to Alabama police reports, did not attend the scene.   Details of forensics are here.

The Baldwin County police stonewalled the mother's attempts to get police records.  Notes taken by the mother  in 2001 suggest Baldwin County police reports were misleading, even false.

A newspaper article was written in the Mobile Press-Register in cooperation where Alabama Sheriff Hoss Mack, who was investigating deputy in charge of my son's case, was featured.  The article was written to discredit and disparage the mother and son.

Courts, agencies, systems in several states were used against the mother to intimidate, silence, discredit, terrorize and destroy the mother's chances of ever gaining justice or unraveling the truth.

Georgia lawyers were involved and in many instances worked against the mother.

This case links to the infamous Fred Tokars case, with Private Detective, Billy Carter.

Police reports show that in Cobb County, Georgia; Baldwin County, Alabama; and Coweta County, Georgia, there was little or no cooperation among the entities and state agencies were either not involved or involved minimally.
____________________

My son's body did not match the Alabama Forensic's autopsy report which indicated two well-healed, 3-inch scars - one at each knee.  My son had no notable scars anywhere on his body.  Alabama police reports indicated a male with long, shoulder-length dark hair.  My son never had long hair in his life.   Records appeared and then disappeared 12/16/98 in Cobb County police records.  Fingerprints were the identifying factor, which, according to Alabama police reports, were given directly to Baldwin County Deputy Huey A. Mack, Jr. by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.  According to reports, investigating deputy Huey Mack and another officer together agreed in the Baldwin County sheriff's office on the John Doe fingerprint match and then later notified the A.B.I.

Because of a 1996 prior arrest, my son's fingerprints should have already been in the NCIC system and the unidentified body should have been identified within minutes of comparing fingerprints.

Georgia fingerprint identification card notes a male 5- ft., 10-inch white male, weighing 160 lbs.  Two years later, the Alabama Forensics Department recorded details of an unidentified 5-ft., 8-in. white male, weighing 144 lbs. These are just a few of the factors that prove something is very wrong in Alabama and Georgia in this case.

The "sawblade" tattoo at the base of the leg is recorded by Alabama forensics as six inches in diameter.  "Sawblade" had been my own words describing the tattoo on first notice, and so was it a coincidence that Alabama authorities used my same words to describe it?  The tattoo on my son's leg was not 6 inches in diameter, else it would have wrapped around his ankle in the front and back, which is yet another error found in Alabama Forensics reports.

The Alabama forensics report was written "first person" by Dr. Julia Goodin, who, in the report mentioned physically being present with Kevin Putnam at the crime scene.  She was director at the Mobile lab.   Deputies John Garner and Huey A. Mack, Jr. both mentioned Julia Goodin in reports as attending the crime scene. In a phone conversation with Julia Goodin, she advised me she did not perform the autopsy and she did not attend the crime scene. She explained that forensics employees do not attend crime scenes.  She said I may have trouble finding the woman who performed the autopsy because she no longer worked at the Alabama Forensics Department.

My initial attempts to get police records about my son's death were stonewalled by Baldwin County deputies, Huey A. Mack, Jr. and John Garner.  I was told I would have to "get a court order and subpoena" to get my son's police records. I was told the same thing by the Coroner, with regards to the funeral home and body storage records.  The Coroner, Huey A. Mack, Sr. was  Huey A. Mack, Jr., the investigating deputy in charge's,  father.

During the week-long period of time my son's body was in storage at Mayes Ward Dobbins Funeral Home in Georgia, I was arrested and incarcerated by Georgia agencies and held against my will. It was that time I could have identified the body and I believe that's why they used Georgia systems to have me arrested with charges that later disappeared or were dismissed.

The car was found on I-85 four days after my son's disappearance and a search managed by Coweta County, Georgia police. The car was processed with two flat rear tires.  How could that happen? Were the tires checked to see how it happened?   According to Alabama police reports the father went and found the vehicle the day after his son disappeared. If that was so, why did it take Coweta County police four days to find the car?

In none of the police reports was it recorded to contact the father at work, nor on his cell phone which was provided by the railroad.  The only numbers given to officers were home telephone numbers.  During the week, he was home and awake between 6:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.  The fact that the father was an Assistant Vice President for Norfolk Southern Railroad or a railroad employee was never mentioned.  Did he miss any work?  Did his co-workers know his son was missing?  Could his son have been abducted?  Would all railroad and corporate executives be concerned to know an executive's son was found with flat tires and sat on interstate for four days without police finding it?

Gerard J. Sniffen, III records were entered into the Cobb County, Georgia records on 12/9/98 when he was reported missing by his father.  The records indicate his file disappeared from Cobb County, Georgia police computers on 12/16/1998 - by "mistake."  On 12/21/1998 fingerprints provided by the G.B.I were examined by Alabama officers and it was determined that the John Doe was a match with my son.

The Cobb County police appear to have been directed by the father, who gave them the names of witnesses Mary Rose, and D.J. Call. He gave them the name of the Bell South employee who would trace the call, and who they should contact with the subpoena. He also gave them the name of the banker to contact to subpoena bank statements.  He did not give them the names of two siblings, ages 23 and 17 who lived in the same home as the victim. He did not give them the name or contact information for the mother, who Cobb County police and courts had ordered out of the home two months earlier, also at his request.

On 12/21/98,  after hearing the news from relatives, I contacted Cobb County police to verify my son was dead, and they knew nothing about it.  In fact that's when they discovered the records were missing from the computers.
______________________


Like a caring husband, my husband, Gerard J. Sniffen, Jr.  had phoned that October 1998 week saying, "I will be home Friday and we'll celebrate your birthday."   He was being apologetic that he had to work on my birthday. Traveling quite often, and giving the railroad sometimes more than 12 hours per day of his at-home time, this particular week he was at Brosnan Forest, a railroad-owned resort in South Carolina. The railroad treated him well. Vendors entertained him generously, and he was able to meet celebrities and enjoy many very fine trips, free sports tickets, dinners and perks.

When a knock came at the door that Friday, it wasn't my husband with any birthday gift.   Instead, the Cobb County, Georgia police entered our home, followed me around our home saying I should pack my bags and even asked if I had a gun.  It was bizarre and quite shocking.  I had never owned a gun in my life, but I had purchased him one years before for Christmas for hunting outings with his old fraternity brother friends.

This was my "Happy Birthday" present.

Christmas that same year, 1998, would be worst.  On Christmas Eve, a memorial service was held for our son and I didn't attend knowing my husband was behaving erratically, and had the temporary order intact.

My son had disappeared December 8, 1998, notifying his father from a phone booth at a convenience store that he had a flat tire and was in distress.  About two weeks after he'd disappeared, I was told my son's dead body was identified in Alabama.  I was kept away from the family (and funeral) by the Cobb County temporary order.

Something was very wrong and I had known it immediately. I was so sure of it that on the day before his funeral I drove to Alabama to make a positive identification and was told the Mobile morgue had closed at 5:00 p.m.  I must have known the body had remained in Alabama, even though the funeral would be in Marietta, Georgia the next day.  Several things had happened that weren't standard in the loss of a child that increased suspicions and interrupted my ability to sleep.

Later, after I'd fled the state of Georgia for fear of further problems, I settled and began to try and put the pieces of the puzzle together.  Alabama police refused to give me police reports and it was 6 years, 2004, on discovering inadvertently that neither Huey A, Mack, Jr. nor John Garner who had monopolized the investigation, was sheriff in charge.  James B. Johnson was sheriff and when I spoke with him directly I had the papers within a week.

I initially was told by Baldwin County authorities John Garner and Huey A. Mack, Jr. I could only get the reports with a "court order and subpoena."  Later, the coroner, Huey A. Mack, Sr. who owned Mack Funeral Home, and who was father of the investigating deputy, Hoss Mack said the same thing about the funeral home records.

I had contacted the G.B.I., even the Governor of Georgia, and the GBI responded that my problems were in Alabama.  Yet Alabama was unwilling to supply me with the records and in fact one officer, John Garner, who along with the Coroner's son, Huey Mack, Jr. who wrote most of the reports was extraordinarily rude.  Why?



Red flags kept popping up, one after another, and I knew if I could uncover what they done,  I would eventually find out exactly what they did with my son.   It wasn't about money, or winning. It was about truth and the fact that these people had gotten away with things that were unheard of in the U.S.A.  Only in Hollywood movies or a mystery novel could these events actually happen.  And inasmuch as my opponents would whisper I was a poor, grieving, even insane mother who refused to accept the truth, I had documents proving otherwise.
I am not a writer, have no desire nor talents to create such an incredible story, but my determination to expose it as fraud, conspiracy, corruption and lies is beyond measure. 
On a Saturday, Spring 1999, I was called to rush to the office of my attorney, Kenneth Schatten, in Atlanta and meet a private detective present named Billy Carter.  Together, Schatten stated they  believed my husband murdered our son.  I didn't believe it and told them so. I believed my husband had him moved out of the country and faked his death. He had mentioned getting passports for both the younger children (ages 17 and 20) just a few months before and my son had information that could have destroyed my husband's divorce plans.


I didn't have the money and they knew it. They knew the Cobb County courts had not settled the divorce.  Yet in 2006 I hired Carter to see what information he had collected. He kept my $5500 and it's what I expected.  He delivered nothing other than the fact that two bullets were seldom discharged in a suicide case.  So he did know something.

Five years later I would learn that Billy Carter was a business partner of the infamous Frederic Tokars, and stood federal trial in the notorious Cobb County Fred Tokars case.  Atlanta Attorney Fred Tokars had laundered drug money and hidden money for wealthy men who were preparing to divorce their wives. He also was convicted of contract murder of his wife, when Sara Tokars was shot point-blank in the head with a shotgun in front of her two young sons.  Carter had been Tokar's friend, a business partner in involved businesses, and his detective.

My husband knew given the opportunity I would get to the bottom of what he had done.  He knew I didn't give up easily and wasn't one to compromise.  I believe it's the reason I was falsely arrested, and accused and jailed just after the funeral when the location of the body was supposedly in Marietta, Ga.  My December 23, 1998 trip to Mobile, Alabama proved that I wasn't buying his story of faxed identification photographs and a father so distraught over a missing son he couldn't miss a day's work.  When they released the body in Alabama 12/28/1998, they conveniently had me jailed in Cobb County, Georgia, and when I surprisingly posted cash bail, then was committed to a state hospital, even held 3 days beyond the court order.  My release on 1/6/1999 was perfect, as his flight to move the body from Atlanta to Virginia was 1/7/1999. My release wouldn't, at that point, cause any trouble.

And my incarcerations coincided with the body release and storage in Cobb County.  Locked away in a state hospital there was no way I could identify our son's dead body before the actual burial.



My landlord, Nell Stumpff, who had pretended to be a friend, had another warrant she could act on should I try and make any more moves. They were pros at using the State of Georgia and its systems to fulfill their criminal plans.  I have always believed Nell Stumpff colluded with my husband.  Without proper justice and investigations, I may never know the truth.

Nell Stumpff was very powerful with the  North Carolina based American Kennel Club, and had bred Cairn Terriers for many years.  I was showing Wire Fox Terriers and through Chow Chow breeder and N.C. neighbor, Walter L. "Bud" Samples is how I met Nell.

Cobb County police had participated in the temporary order when they ordered me out of the house 10/16/1998. They had investigated my son's disappearance 12/8/1998 - 12/21/1998, and nearly (I believe intentionally) omitted my insight from the investigation altogether.  Had George Childs, my attorney at that point in time, not spoken with Coweta County police, I wonder whether Cobb County would have interviewed me at all.  Then they had arrested me and put me in jail 12/28/1998 the day the body was released in Alabama by Judge Lyn Stuart.

The arrests were frightening and intimidating.  I admit I was scared to death.  Angry and confused, living Murphy's Law daily, I had trouble sleeping every night.  What would they do next? I wondered. I had been married to a man for 23 years I hadn't known at all.  False arrests, false insanity diagnoses, ridicule and bullying, and illegal involuntary hospital incarcerations only happened in Communist countries.

Because the harassment was ongoing in Georgia, eventually I left the state after being told by an arresting Magistrate Judge, Laurens Lee of Peach County, "If you will just sign your divorce papers your problems will disappear."  I knew then no good would come to me in the state of Georgia.  I had already been arrested and incarcerated in four counties: Peach, Cobb, Houston, Baldwin and by 2000 when the harassment continued, I could add Paulding County to the list of bad places.

All of the charges against me would later be dismissed. A false felony charge brought against me by landlord, Nell Stumpff, miraculously disappeared.

Within a period of 39 days in Georgia, 12/9/1998 to 1/16/1999, I had been told my son was dead, his death, funeral and burial spanned three states. Between 12/28/1998 and 1/6/1999 I was incarcerated in three jails and a state hospital.  During that 9 day period, the body was released by an Alabama judge and said to be moved to Atlanta and then to Virginia for burial.  Because of my incarcerations and the distances of the death and burial, and because of the temporary order knowing my husband's intentions, I was never able to identify his body.

These are notes taken by me in 2001 and Coroner Huey Mack, Sr. kindly gave me the airline flight numbers and body movement over the telephone.  A few years later, he was less cooperative when asked to supply the funeral home, body storage records, spewing the same statements as I had heard from the Baldwin County police, "I'll have to have a subpoena and a court order."



My Happy Birthday present in 1998 was being ordered to the streets.  My Merry Christmas gift that year was a funeral for my son at Mayes Ward Dobbins Funeral Home in Marietta, Georgia.  Oddly, the  memorial service was held in Georgia on Christmas Eve while the body was still somewhere in Alabama to be released by Judge Lyn Stuart four days after the Georgia funeral.

This is the story, focusing mainly on all the documents that prove the story.

I have been called "crazy" suffered all manner of rejection, harassment from police and others, even rejection and alienation from my own family.  The Baldwin County investigating deputy-in-charge, Hoss Mack, the coroner's son who is now sheriff participated in an obviously slanted, partially untruthful and very distasteful article about my inability to accept my son's death.  I have had slashed tires, my animals killed, sabotage to my property. I've been robbed, and lost most of my divorce settlement money in trying to get to the bottom of it while trying to survive and find a home.  I have been up against both, criminals and law enforcement in many instances have been against me.

In Kentucky after  purchasing a farm I found the terror, stalking and harassment was not going to stop.




My family finally realized they were wrong and recently my mother said, "You didn't have a chance. He is a railroad executive and your words meant nothing."  Still, police records show that my husband never once mentioned the railroad nor his position. There were no phone numbers for the railroad office, nor did he give law enforcement officers his railroad provided cell phone number.

He had mentioned to one family member that he HAD to be at work the next day, and on time the night his son had disappeared.  In the two weeks of his son's missing status, the hours he could have been contacted by police were slim, because if in town, he was ALWAYS home and awake 3 hours each night - between 6:00 and 9:30.

I have record that my son was linked to the railroad coordinator system in that he had their telephone number in case he needed to contact his father.   Yet when he went missing it appears the railroad was unaware.


________________

In 2004 I was contacted by a man named Tommy Schlette who insisted that my son was still alive. He said I should go look at the autopsy report very closely - a task difficult for any mother. When I did I discovered a phrase regarding two 3 inch, well-healed scars at each knee.  Tommy responded surprisingly quickly, saying, "See? I told you so. Did your son ever have knee surgery?"  I must have thought for a week trying to imagine ways a person could have identical scars on each knee but Tommy seemed to know immediately.
In 2006, according to his landlord, Deb Rickard, Tommy Schlette's decomposed body was found behind the home he was renting in Grant, Florida. She explained the cause of death was possibly an overdose. She gave me the name of a detective "if I knew anything", and because of my experiences with Brunswick County officials in N.C.; Peach County, Georgia; Houston County, Georgia; Cobb County, Georgia; Baldwin County, Georgia; Paulding County, Georgia; Baldwin County, Alabama;  and the ongoing horrors of Kentucky, I decided it would be safe not to avoid law enforcement.
Law enforcement seemed to be working for my opponents and from my perspective my stalkers were both, police and criminals. 
_______________

Summer, 2010 my Atlanta divorce attorney, Kenneth Schatten, began to withhold my alimony checks and told me to remove my blog from the internet. He said I was "making people angry." I asked him who and he would not say. He said, "Think of it this way they have your son somewhere and they've told him if he tries to contact you or his brother or sister they're going to kill all of you."

I told my attorney to tell them to please come ahead and do what they will, because I was no longer going to live with fear and intimidation.  He continued to say there was so much money against me in keeping all of this covered up that I will never, ever get the truth.

In 2000, a Lexington, Kentucky attorney, Gatewood Galbraith, had also said there was "too much money" against me.
__________________

Below is a chart that details the storage and movement of my son's body from Alabama to Georgia to Virginia, and the situation I was dealing with in Georgia.  I had driven to Alabama to identify the body and was told the morgue was closed at 5:00 p.m.. I was afraid to stay in a motel alone so drove home, as I have always suspected organized crime is involved.  Note, Baldwin sheriff deputies had stonewalled my attempts to get records, the father has stonewalled attempts to get funeral home records.


I had received information that Mayes Ward Dobbins Funeral Home in Marietta, Georgia coordinated  the movement of the body, shipment, funeral, burial arrangements and also handled the financial and  billing for entities in Georgia, Alabama and Virginia. Because of that, through an attorney I had requested copies of their records and was denied.  I still feel I have a right to the records because I was still married to my husband at that time. Marital assets had not been divided and so whatever money payment made to the funeral home was partially mine. I have a legal right to those records. I was married to his father when the event occurred, joint finances paid the bill, and he is my son.

I also realized that I would eventually be in poverty if I continued to hire people to fight the battle in three states, and I believe this was also a part of the plan.  We have a justice system where quite often, money wins above all else.




The truth is this:   Georgia state law requires a 30-day waiting period before uncontested divorces become final, but a judge may grant an immediate divorce after finding circumstances such as spousal abuse, incurable mental illness or adultery.   After the attempt at "incurable mental illness" failed, thirty days in my case became 15 months living in terror in and out of the streets, and from all I've read, I was one of the lucky ones. Some of these divorcees suffer for years.  The full settlement took six months longer.

I knew the day I was ordered out of my home that my husband was a criminal who had lied to police.  Each day became more frightening at what he was capable of doing.  In 2004, I visited a psychiatrist in Kentucky, Dr. Kathleen Riggs, who advised me that my husband was an extremely dangerous man. She confirmed there was nothing wrong with me at all, only that I had an obsession "OCD" for the truth regarding my son, that any concerned parent would have under the circumstances. She said it she were in my place she would be in Alabama, speaking to the Alabama coroner.  She also suggested organized crime may be involved.


I corresponded in vain with many in power for help. 
 Senator Paul Coverdell is the only real help I found and a year later he was dead.


















..


To be continued.....


Musical Warner Robins and Kentucky

I wasn't in the Houston, Peach County area of Georgia long before the police began their harassment.  I understood it was a law in Georgia that a person had to be pulled over for a something other than seat belt violation to actually get a citation. My case was an exception. I asked the officer about it and he gave me the ticket anyway.  From then on the Warner Robins area would be a nightmare with police and other locals.

It was this area where musicians began to show up.  My son, Gerry, was an extremely gifted musician in the Atlanta area. He played keyboard and guitar, sang, wrote and composed his own music. He had been playing in Buckhead where folks were donating money to him. He was growing in popularity there.  Both the boys were gifted musicians, yet the older said he could never achieve the level of success in music as his little brother.  Later I would discover that his father's mistress whom he later married had a son who was involved with management of the Black Crowes music group in Georgia.  Music seemed to encompass the situation in many ways.

Georgia was a horror story, but Kentucky would be worse, I'd find. 


I was missing a necklace from landlord, Nell Stumph's Peach County (Fort Valley) rental apartment and reported it to police.  The Peach County police came and wrote up the report. Later I was arrested by that same department compliments of Nell Stumpff in a felony charge that later miraculously disappeared.  It was difficult to get records from them to later, hopefully if I could survive, prove my story.

The Peach County magistrate's offce didn't have my arrest records, so I went to the jail to get them. The jailer said it would "be a while" before she could get the records.   Would it take two hours or two days? I asked her if her filing system was that bad.  I asked her to come and let the receptionist hear her tell me she couldn't provide my records.  Soon the receptionist at the jail said, "Go to the Magistrate's office and get your records." I went  back to the Magistrate's office, and the door was open and there was a person standing there with the records with his arm extended. It was quite a run-around.

Same thing had happened when I went back to Central State Hospital to get those incarceration, medical and billing records. I had been ordered there for 72 hours yet detained nearly 7 days against my will. They were resistant in giving me my records and I told them I was willing to rent a motel room for however long it would take to get them and was prepared to wait indefinitely.  I had all of the records within two hours.

A woman named Sandy Goldschmidt who had bred and shown dogs including Chow Chows. She had rented Nell Stumpff's apartment before I arrived and had moved to the area from Jacksonville, Fl.    She had been involved with a veterinarian there who was also into scuba diving, like my husband.  We had that in common which, to me, scuba diving was a curiosity.  My husband had tried every way he could to encourage me to take the lessons and I continuously declined.

The apartment stood in a field that was several acres.    In the same field, behind the apartment hidden in the woods was a trailer also owned by Nell.  I was later told the property had at one time been a dump area.

An elderly dog breeder from North Carolina, Walter S. "Bud" Samples had moved down to Nell's to live in the hidden trailer.  Bud had been my neighbor when we lived in Matthews, NC (1988-1993)  and was separated and estranged from his wife.  He had taught me much about showing and breeding dogs and was known for his World Champion Chow Chows.  It was through him that I had met Nell Stumpff and Dorothea Carvelas, both of Georgia.

Bud said Nell had granted him use of the trailer as his home in exchange for his construction expertise on the construction of the apartment-kennel and for helping her with her show dog grooming and care.

According to a neighbor (Betty Jo Calhoun)  who lived near the apartment, Sandy Goldschmidt had said she was with Nell Stumpff when Bud Samples collapsed and died on Nell's property.  The story from Betty Jo was that Nell had waited about 10 minutes while Bud lay on the ground before picking up her cell phone to dial "911."  She had given him ample time to die before calling for help.

Things became scary for me at the apartment. Nell was constantly at the door.  Steve, her son who had moved into the trailer after Bud died, had friends in and out all hours of the night. Nell Stumpff  insisted that I keep a gate at the road locked with a lock that had a dial combination.  I didn't want the gate to be locked because I lived there and it was difficult for me to operate it at night when I couldn't see the numbers. She insisted.  There was also a secret entrance to the area through an adjacent brick house that she also owned.  I was later told by a neighbor that brick house was also sharing a water supply with the apartment.

Things became sketchy and with Steve's friends' traffic in and out all hours of the night it became frightening. They were driving large trucks and gunning their engines just under my window as they proceeded back to Steve's trailer.   There was plenty of exhaust fumes coming into the windows.  I also was suspicious that they were monitoring my activity as I saw a blue light in the light receptacle when the apartment was completely dark.  Also, I turned on the fan in the bathroom and white powder dust covered the room as though someone hadn't used the fan since the apartment had been drywalled.  Red Georgia clay mud mixed in with the water was in the pipes when I turned on the bathtub faucet.

Steve Stumpff,  Nell's son, was rumored to be a local drug dealer. One neighbor later said they wanted him out of the area.
Nell had said she put a pan of ammonia into the apartment oven to "loosen the dirt on the sides" as though she was explaining why it was there.  I told her I would get the pan out and tried my best to get her to stop showing up uninvited so much at the apartment. She was bothering me because she continuously visited.  She would ask things like "What happened to your wrist?" I had scratched it caring for the dogs.  It was none of her business.  And the dogs were acting as though they were poisoned, fighting like crazy.

Finally when I got around to removing the pan I noticed it was stuck, and couldn't imagine what it was hung on. It was a broiler pan - the kind that comes with the oven - and she had put the ammonia in the drip pan. Closely inspecting it, I realized it was stuck inside the oven because there was a wire that went through the hole on the end of the pan and was wrapped around the top broiler heating element. The oven wasn't even dirty. It didn't appear to have ever been used, and I wondered why she had imagined it was. I had a mother-in-law like that who imagined dirt, so I figured Nell may be "one of those." But why did she attach the pan to the heating element? It had a green jelly like substance in the pan and I thought that if this was ammonia it must have been there a long time because it was no longer liquid but a gel.  I removed the pan and washed it out.

Later when I  told my attorney, George Childs, about the ammonia pan he asked "Did you get a picture of it?" I said, "No" because I hadn't even thought about it.  Later I wondered why he asked that question.

She had finished the apartment with Bud Sample's expertise, which sat atop kennel runs. It was strange that she had put solid metal on the ceiling of the kennel.  I had never seen a metal ceiling in an unfinished type basement type situation before.

Nell had me go with her to three dog shows while there, one in Augusta and one was in Birmingham and another in Knoxville.  Her son, Steve had cared for my dogs while I was gone.

After things began to get spooky, I started sneaking out of her apartment by opening a window and crawling out. After I saw the blue light, the powder from the fan and the mud in the bathtub and with Steve's friends in and out all hours, forced to keep a gate locked (why?)  living there was pretty creepy.   I figured if they had the doors monitored they wouldn't have had the windows monitored as well. I felt I was being closely watched because Nell was being way too curious.

Nell's preoccupation with dropping in caused concern.  Later when I heard how Bud Samples died, I got very, very frightened.  I had also heard Nell had a boyfriend named "Jim" who owned a local, private landing strip. He had a stroke and Nell used to kindly go and sit with him as he lay paralyzed.  I was also told that Nell Stumpff had "every drug known to man" and her house.  She had bragged she'd spent 12 years in Dachau, Germany with her US Army husband.  It got even creepier as time went on and information flowed.

She kept my $600 deposit when I decided to get out of that situation for my own safety.The lawyer cost $500 and I'd paid her ample rent. It was an expensive endeavor that nearly got me a criminal record. She was working with my husband, obviously.

While I was moving out of the apartment with the help of Darrel Calhoun, Nell and her son,  Steve were downstairs stealing my belongings.  I reported those things stolen to the Peach County sheriff but it did no good. They didn't do anything about it and I was the one who would eventually end up in jail.


After I moved out I went to Jim's son and told him that I wouldn't let Nell sit with anybody in my family and he should probably keep an eye on his dad.  I then rented a house from Michael Living ston.

Landlord Nell Stump took a warrant out against me on December 7, 1998, the same day I signed a lease with Michael Livingston.  She lost control of me and my situation that day, and she knew it.




My son disappeared on December 8, 1998.

I rented the house at 622 Miller Drive. There a litter of puppies was poisoned.  The vet believed it was old venison meat that caused it. I had no venison but had put the pups outside that day in a temporary pen to get some sunlight and fresh air.  That's when they got sick.

Soon after I moved there, a long-haired guy knocked at my door one night and asked for $1.75.

  "I have a flat tire and I need "$1.75," he said.  I handed him $2.00 and told him to keep the change.  It was odd, I thought, a very small amount of money for a flat tire and why did he specifically knock at my door? I needed friends and no more enemies, so $2.00 was little to spare. Later I thought about it........ it was really odd.

I have thought about that for years and it was about the same time my son had disappeared.

My husband had a dispute with my mother when Little Gerry was born over $175.00.  My husband was so angry in that argument he never got over it because it nearly had put a price on that baby boy's head.  It was odd that same number, "$1.75" in a smaller increment was mentioned at the same time that my son disappeared from a car that had two flat tires.  

A neighbor across the street was a musician who had plenty of metal and tattoos on his face and body.  He had dark hair and dark skin. His wife or girlfriend had shoulder length hair that was so blonde it was almost white.   I thought I saw her again in Harrodsburg, Kentucky a couple of years later with the enduring Kentucky marijuana-growing drug gang. It was the hair that was similar and I've thought so man times, it may well have been the same girl–– and the same crowd.

One day a man walked up to my door at Miller Drive and knocked, and I looked out to see a nice looking guy.  He had a gold earring in his ear and a clean "beatle" style cut.  He looked clean-cut and wanted to chat about the guy across the street. He said his name was Buchanan and that he was a musician and had a gold record.  The guy across the street was his friend.  He said he cared for "handicapped" kids in his profession.

Later as he was leaving and after hearing all I'd been through with my divorce situation he mentioned that I didn't need the cops I needed the mafia to get help in my situation. He said, "They can roll up a newspaper and walk in front of you, blow in it and the powder you inhale will give you a heart attack." I think this man was sent to interview me and try and find out what kind of person I was.  I also suspected since he was quite possibly a part of the network that was involved in my son's abduction.

It wouldn't be long until Gordon Bennett of Kentucky would show up. Kentucky had a pretty incredible musical network I'd discover later.

The people who lived next door on Miller Drive had a limo in their driveway with the name "Nelson" on the front tag. They were an African American family and very good and kind people. Once when my landlord Michael Livingston refused to fix the broken air conditioning they wanted me to come and stay with them because the temperature outside was near 100 degrees.

It was a local teenager who lived nearby that Gordon Benn ett in July 1999 had tried to deal with later on in driving the loaded u-haul truck to Kentucky.  Gordon had talked me into going to Kentucky to await the divorce. I knew I had to get out of the state of Georgia and Gordon showed up and I am certain he was sent there.   I figured at the time after all I'd been through everything I was encountering had been prearranged.  If Gordon was sent, I planned to find out by whom and find out what he knew because he just might know where my boy was.  And if this was the network, I could gather information.

My family had been turned against me with lies from my husband and Nell Stumpff, the landlord. I couldn't go home.  I've wondered since who was to be the guardian for me as I stay strapped in a state hospital as for the $1/2 million someone would control. Rumors floated through the family and I didn't need any more betrayals from someone I once trusted.  And they didn't need organized crime sitting on their doorstep.

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

Gordon had offered a local Warner Robins teenager a pound of pot, all the "white pussy" he and a friend could dream of, $100 for each and a bus ticket back home.  The high school kid  declined explaining his parents would be angry because they he had to finish summer school.  I acted as though I hadn't heard the proposition and looked the other way.

I knew I was in trouble. Gordon Bennett of Lexington, Kentucky boasted I should read the book "The Bluegrass Conspiracy."  He had presented the deal but at that point I was in too deep to back away, committed to run with the truck already rented and loaded.   Gordon bragged he had "Brought down the Fayette County, Kentucky sheriff," and later I found the news accounts about the former Sheriff, Lones Taulbee indicating Gordon's involvement and criminal record.  Gordon's felon testimony had helped remove the sheriff. What was this world coming to? Now a few years later, Gordon was a self-proclaimed "highwayman for the mafia" and offering dope and sex to teenagers.  He had also said, while enroute that he had C-4 explosives in his truck, "enough to blow up this entire (Warner Robins) air force base."

The Georgia cops and entire governmental system were pitted against me and they had the keys to institutions, having already tried to lock me away permanently in a state hospital, and convict me for a felony I hadn't committed.  They had made me an organ donor against my will.  At least if I ran I might have a chance to get out of this mess, get the divorce finalized, and use any assets to unravel the network I was up against. With the harassment I was enduring in Georgia, I didn't see any other choices other than to get out of Georgia as fast as I could.

Having never believed the fictitious, flawed stories about my missing son's disappearance and suicide, I hoped to find him.  That would require the freedom and money to survive and fight.  I couldn't go to Virginia because my husband and landlord, Nell Stumpff, had managed to lie to my family to the point they were going to become wealthy guardians.  I couldn't trust them, my lawyers, my friends, the law, or anybody else.



I knew enough to believe it having read the papers they'd signed to put me away and read the legal verbage written by his lawyer, Michael Broadbear.  The only way I could get to the bottom of the dirty Georgia deeds was to be free and maybe I could find a way to do it while living elsewhere, even if I had to run with the Devil Himself.

Gordon had said, "Oh you will meet Loretta Lynn in Kentucky. I will take you over to eat fried chicken at her house."  Maybe not so coincidentally it wasn't long until I met the uncle of the Montgomery brothers, James E. Lay.  He invited me to his lake house in Stanford, and pointed to a camera. Later I would find out that the Montgomery brothers, particularly Eddie, were quite good friends with R.J. Corman.  Rick had helped finance Eddie's restaurant in Harrodsburg that eventually folded.  Odd that I met with the family of very famous Nashville people so quickly.  I was taken to "The Grapevine" bar owned by the Gentry family, and John Michael Mon tgomery owned a farm in the same county where I eventually purchased a farm.  Small world!



There were a lot of country music types in Kentucky. In Nicholasville at the Corner Pocket, there were even look-alikes for folks like Travis Tritt.  Not being a particularly big fan of country music, I knew I would at least have to learn to appreciate it.

Later I was approached on the internet by other musicians as I wrote about the loss of my child–– one Tommy Do yle of NY who said his kids were at Asbury College, Ky. He had a band in NY - "the Evil Rock Band," something like that.  He bragged his band played in the movie, "Pot Luck" about marijuana.  He tried to get me to move away from my farm in  Ky to a condo he said he'd rent me in Fl.  He'd also offered me a job singing at the American Legion in NYC where his band played.  Because of that, I knew to be cautious. The only experience I had as a pretty bad singer was at karaoke.  And from that offer, I figured I was being watched locally where I sang.

I had also been offered a drummer position by John Michael Montgomery's uncle, James Lay of Kentucky. I knew something was rigged then.  I'd never played drums professionally in my life.  So what was going on?  The Montgomerys were supposedly "in" with Rick Corman of RJ Corman Railroad.  Rick had invested in Eddie's Harrodsburg restaurant. Rick also was apparently tight with my husband's boss at the railroad, Phil Ogden, who became a director of RJ Corman.  Coincidentally a Nicholasville farm came available to rent when I was desperate to find a place for me and my dogs. If I walked across the street I would be at RJ Corman's headquarters.

I had never heard of Corman before. His was a small railroad, but obviously in my story, a very important one.  Ogden had loved music, particularly country and loved wearing a cowboy hat.  He'd worn one on the private plane to St. Simons Island not so long before my troubles began.  An Alabama ballast company owner named "Idis" provided the jet for the trip.

Ogden had Canadian connections and he also loved to travel extensively according to Cheryl, his wife. Mike Broadbear, the Atlanta attorney my husband had hired, also had Canadian connections. Broadbear was in with communications people including Randy New who was a CEO for Bell South.  Small world. Atlanta based Phil Ogden being Vice President of Engineering had construction and communications for the entire corporation under him. He was  an extremely powerful man with the demeanor of a small town Southern redneck.  I used to wonder how he got the high level job because of it. I used to wonder how my husband kept his because he was one of the most unliked and unadmired men I have ever known.  He didn't seem to care that he was unpopular, either.

It is still humorous to me, when I think of how stupid they must have thought I was.  How could they think a nearly 50 year old housewife with no experience could be a singer or drummer for a band?  When they made the offers,  I had the same vision of myself as when my husband kept insisting I take scuba diving lessons–– hospitalized in intensive care.

My missing son was a musician too.  Pretty talented. Did they know it?  Both of my boys had played, hung out and worked at the Guitar Center in Marietta. The younger one was writing, composing, singing and playing his own instruments in Buckhead at some of the bars.  They were both talented in music as was my grandfather, father and brother.  The younger was exceptional and had everything to live for.  It's another reason besides all the evidence, I'm sure he didn't commit suicide.

Landlord Nell Stumpff's son, Stephen Stumpff.
It was definitely a drug gang in Warner Robins with Steve Stumpff after I found his record it was confirmed.  Cops, my landlord and my husband were apparently involved with the harassment and false accusations and arrests I endured there.  I was told my husband had visited Judge Spires prior to my incarceration to make the arrangements.  But his name wasn't on the committal papers, because it couldn't be because of the pending divorce. He had carefully explained this to my brother.  He used my brother, lied to him, to my mother, and to my son.

I believe he and Nell were colluding and conspired together, as both contacted my brother and mother  via telephone with awful tales to convince them I had to be put away.  Nell had told my family I had "ice picked" her stove which was a lie.  They both enticed my brother and son help them take care of a bad situation.  The whole thing was lies.  Later when I told Betty Jo Calhoun about it she couldn't believe Nell had done what she did and Ms. Calhoun put her home up to bail me out of jail.  Betty Jo laughed about the stove, she lived next door. She hadn't seen anything ice-picked and knew it was lies.  And she didn't like Nell or Steve and wanted Steve out of the neighborhood, but she didn't need or want any trouble.

I had to respect that.  She was a good person who didn't need any kind of retribution from criminals.  Drug dealers always belong to criminal organizations.  It's a fact of life and this organization has been around a long, long time–– particularly if it involves the players in the Bluegrass conspiracy.

When I returned to Georgia for the harassing phone call charge yet another musician showed up and began a conversation at the restaurant.  He said he had been "lead guitarist for the Searchers Band." Wow! I thought, how lucky could I be to meet somebody like that by chance?  This was in 1999.   I explained the  criminal charge and he offered to bail me out if I happened to be jailed. He was British, had a British accent and said he drove Porsches in competition all over the world.  He confided that he "owned a Caterpillar dealership" in Georgia and had a lot of trouble with the corrupt Cobb County police. They continued to put his drivers in jail.  It was bad for his business. The only person I knew who was involved with Caterpillar in Georgia was my husband's fraternity brother, Buddy Wilfore, who worked for Yancey.  "Maybe it's your competition that's arranging this," I said to him.

Looking back I realize this musician was probably a part of the network.  He was accompanied by his young son, which indicated he'd won custody in his own divorce.   Time and circumstances lead me to believe he was a part of the larger, affluent network I was up against.  Drugs and criminal organization was involved–– and so were musicians.

How could one person survive any of this? How could a housewife who had little to no street smarts and no connections or support system fight them?  They knew the odds were stacked to their favor because they planned it that way.  And they had plenty of money for the battles.

My only objective day-to-day was to survive.  As long as I was still alive, I was winning with the chance of eventually, maybe someday, unraveling their network and exposing it.  Days turned to weeks, then to months and to years.

Eighteen years later with all the fighting, still no real answers or lawful assistance, even with all the documentation that proves incredible corruption, and criminal activities –– even conspiracy.  I was able to prove to my family they had been used, played for fools.  My brother has since died and to be honest the only good thing is that he never found out how badly he had been used and played for a fool.  He didn't need to be hurt any more than he had been because when he signed those papers, he no longer had a sister and he knew it.

They tore what little family I had left, totally apart with what they did.  None of us will ever fully recover from it.

Eighteen years ago is still like yesterday. I relive the arrests, the false accusations, handcuffs, jailers faces, dead dogs–– all those memories of horror and shock live in the front of my mind each day.  I see my son's smile and his face, remember his laughter knowing someday I'll know the truth about his circumstances.

The emotion is still there of having to bear the deceit, betrayal and lies of a man I had trusted for 23 years and of a landlord who pretended to be a friend.  I would never have believed the level of evil had existed in our home for 23 years or that a woman who pretended to be a good friend could be a deceitful, betraying liar with a smile on her face.

I was conned and knew I was up against criminals the day I backed my car out of the garage when ordered by the Cobb County police in 1998.  But I am alive, sane and am proud to have survived and will continue to fight with the only weapons I have available - all that I have gathered along the way, the names, faces, places, incidents, documents, business cards, telephone numbers, pages and pages of documentation:

The truth.


To be continued...