When a Norfolk Southern railroad executive's son disappeared–– nobody noticed.

How often does it happen that an executive's son would disappear and police be unaware of the  corporate details and contact information?  My husband of 23 years, Gerard J. Sniffen, Jr.–– now my ex-husband–– was Assistant Vice President in charge of Communications and Signals for Norfolk Southern Corporation/Railroad in 1998 when our son disappeared.  He was entrusted with communications including computers, answering machines, telephones, and radios used by trainmen, executives and workers at all levels.  He was also in charge of signals at the crossings, and  employees involved with both divisions.  He dealt with vendors and suppliers in communications and signals, some of those included huge companies including Bell South, AT&T, Okonite and Motorola.  We enjoyed several golf tournaments compliments of vendors.  We spent a weekend in Chicago compliments of Motorola, enjoyed Bell South golf tourneys and my husband even attended the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Ga.   Before the "big job"–– the executive job, which came with its huge bonus and "golden parachute agreement" he had managed construction and track maintenance machinery for the same railroad.

My grandfather, Jasper S. Looney, had given Norfolk and Western Railroad 40 years of his life.  An artist by birth, and master craftsman, he was foreman of the Roanoke, Va. Car Shop. My grandfather  not only supplied leadership for his crew and was called upon to paint portraits and refinish furniture and desks for the offices of the railroad's highest executives.  When the railroad's merged forming Norfolk Southern, we were moved away from Roanoke and I had to leave my widowed grandmother and family behind.

Before I ever knew him, my husband had resigned from Norfolk and Western Railroad, having worked as a mechanic for locomotives. He had gone to work for Carter Machinery working with heavy Caterpillar machinery.  After we married, Norfolk and Western railroad called him back and offered him a management position.  My husband was in shock because, he said, "the railroad never calls you back after you quit."

After the initial separation Bell South could find me anywhere. I even got a crazy $999 offer through the mail. I later found that my husband's lawyer, Michael Broadbear of Atlanta was in with some of the communications executives, with some of the companies they were involved in, a Comradery Hunting Club to be precise.  I even got a fake Bell South bill in Kentucky, paid it and then was issued another.

With this one the first bill was paid in cash at a local store as I was advised, and then I received a second bill and was told I could pay it with a check at the local hardware store.  There in Kentucky my phones were often disconnected and I finally left Bell South opting for a more reliable company with higher rates.  I reported all the incidences in to the Federal Communications Commission knowing my husband and the fact that his position as AVP in charge of Communications with Norfolk Southern,  he and/orhis business associations may well be my problem.

To my knowledge there was never a consideration that our son's disappearance may be a kidnapping. In fact I hadn't known he was missing for several days before being told he was dead.  In the Cobb County, Georgia missing person police reports, there were no records of any railroad telephone numbers, office numbers, coordinator's phone numbers, nor any Norfolk Southern railroad contact information.  The police even waited nearly a week to question or notify me. They never questioned his brother or sister who lived in the same home.  It was absolutely bizarre.

There was no reference to the railroad at all, anywhere in any report.  Since most of my husband's waking time was spent at work or traveling, how could the police contact him when he did not provide them with a work or office cell phone number?  According to police records, he provided no cell, nor office telephone numbers, and no reference of to employment status.  There were only two home numbers shown on the police reports in involved counties: Georgia's Cobb and Coweta and  Baldwin Co. Alabama. Since he was seldom at home how could police have contacted him?

For years I have recalled the time my (ex-)husband got the "big job" as an A.V.P. and said, "You know with my Golden Parachute Agreement, I can commit a felony and still get all my benefits."  I remembering being shocked at the time he said it, and wondered why the ultra-conservative railroad  would ever create that kind of agreement.  Not so long before he went missing I had received a speeding ticket in Cobb County when returning from picking our son up from school. My husband said the railroad police had become involved and "taken care" of the speeding ticket. I thought at the time it was wrong.

I learned through family that when our son went missing my husband drove south on I-75 quite a ways searching for his car, while saying, "It's very important that I'm at work on time tomorrow."  In my opinion if a child was missing, even a 20 year old, and it was out of character,  a parent would not be  so concerned with work but with finding that child. My husband had always placed work before anything else.  Working for the railroad to him was serious business and the railroad was ultra conservative, a stressful environment even for a trailing spouse.

Had I known our son was missing I would have been making phone calls and searching myself, calling his friends, and questioning his brother and sister who lived there with him when he disappeared. I couldn't do that, because I had been ordered out of our home in a very nasty divorce and was not informed of his missing status for nearly a week.  I had no idea he was missing and then shortly thereafter I was told he was dead.

Most fathers would have taken off work to handle the situation and look for a missing son.  Looking back a person can often see things that weren't obvious at the time in the midst of the horrors.

The December before our son disappeared, we had dined and danced at the Annual Christmas Party hosted by Norfolk Southern Vice President of Engineering Phillip Ogden in downtown Atlanta.   Phil was my husband's boss, and at the party dressed up "cowboy style" in country music attire, to complement The Lawmen's music–– Phil dressed nearly the same as he had on the plane Birmingham private jet destined for St. Simons Island.  He was also the most powerful railroad executive residing in Atlanta with Norfolk Southern. My husband said once he couldn't understand how Phil Ogden was able to stay in Atlanta. "The other senior executives all live in Norfolk, stationed at the corporate headquarters."  For some reason Phil got his way with residing in Atlanta, and the exception didn't make sense, he'd thought.

A few years later when by destiny and a little encouragement I landed in Nicholasville, Kentucky I curiously found a small farm to rent right behind a little building with an old train out front called "R.J.Corman." I had no idea at the time that RJ Corman was actually a railroad, and not just a derailment clean-up service.  It was a few more years that I would discover that Phil Ogden was one of R.J. Corman's directors. It was an amazingly small world.   Ogden had planned to testify against me in court in a harassing phone call charge as did the late John W. Fox, Jr., VP Coal Sales, NSC.

I had contacted Kentucky Attorney General Greg Stumbo's office about all that I had suffered in Kentucky with stalking, sabotage, phone tapping and police harassment and spoken with a detective named Steve O'Daniel.  Mr. O'Daniel explained I may have been "brought to the state by one of those gangs who rob people."  They knew about gangs and one of the people I met named Rick O'Donnell had said he actually drove railroad gangs around to their job sites.  The gangs Mr. O'Daniel was speaking of were criminal gangs and not railroad gangs.

Soon O'Daniel himself was in trouble with a Corvette purchase and I wasn't surprised. I had to wonder if he had become entangled with anyone with the railroad since Mr. Corman was a known collector of Corvettes.    One Kentucky man, Scott Robinette, who had spoken about Corman's Corvette collections and stories about some of Cormans activities was found dead not so long ago in a storage facility, apparently accidentally poisoned by carbon monoxide.   Corman colors were red and black like his trains, his planes and many of the barns painted across Kentucky including the farm I purchased.  Scott had told the stories of how the Corman railroad had been built in part with the proceeds gained from activities in the Bluegrass conspiracy - including drugs.  Was it true?
   I've realized so much looking back, like how silly it was to ask Kentucky for help.  It was so widely corrupt with its cash crop being marijuana there was an underground in the state nobody would even believe existed.  I hadn't known marijuana was so prevalent in the state, in fact, I had no idea.  When the rumors were that they'd found marijuana on John M. Montgomery's farm, it was kept quiet and the lessee of the farm was blamed.  The rumors were the crop was valued at $300K. I was threatened by a local grower that he was going to "put some" on my farm. So I realized "getting set up" was an ongoing possibility there.  I was double charged $1200 for state income tax there on one occasion, realizing my stalkers were able to pull strings just about anywhere in that state.   Very powerful.   They were planning on taking every penny I had and I knew it.  As one local said, "They bring women here and turn them into trash. I know one woman they brought here and she's living in a trailer park now."
  For all the single women who plan to live in Kentucky, before you relocate there learn to operate a gun. I couldn't have survived there without my rifles: a .20 gge and a .22, with a 15 clip.  Who would ever believe it?  I spread the word locally if anyone came to my home uninvited I would shoot through the door. It was a pretty rough place to live.  But of course, the rumors spread by my husband and his accomplices had the locals believing I was "crazy," so.... even so, nothing more dangerous than a "crazy" lady with a gun. Sometimes being labeled "crazy" was more valuable than I thought it could ever be.

A Long Island, N.Y. native, my husband's world seemed to center around coal and railroads. He had previously been engaged to a coal miner's daughter.  His Virginia Tech fraternity brothers were in businesses that flourished with coal, including the railroad, and Carter Machinery–– a caterpillar dealership.  Michael J. Quillen, one of his fraternity brothers had formed Alpha Natural Resources after having been born into the coal industry.  Mike and their close friend and fellow fraternity brother Titus A. "Buddy" Wilfore had both lived in coal country in Wise and Scott Counties, Virginia.  Buddy climbed the ladder at Carter Machinery and then moved to Atlanta to rise to the top of Yancey's Caterpillar Dealership.  His first wife had left her home in their divorce and relocated curiously to California.  All sorts of stories circulated regarding her exit and when I left Georgia, I wondered what the fraternity crowd would say about me.  A truck driver was rumored to be involved in her relocation and also years later with the disappearance of my son a truck driver was involved–– a common element I found very curious.

My husband had rounded a few of his "brothers" up to dine with us at a restaurant not long before he had the police order me out of our home.

Nearly a year later I had to come back to Cobb County with the ongoing false accusation charge regarding the harassing phone calls. Curiously, a British man landed directly across from me where I was eating lunch at Sports Authority.  He struck up a conversation moving closer. I explained I was probably going to jail. "If you do, I'll bail you out," he said. It was a good thing because at that point I had nobody else. Even my family had been turned against me. He explained he owned a Caterpillar dealership sympathizing with my situation with corruption that in his situation with his business he "couldn't keep drivers" because the "Cobb County police kept giving them tickets."  He went on to say he had been the lead guitarist in the Searcher's band, and that he lived in Alpharetta, and had several Porsches that he raced all over the world.  I've wondered since if he raced in Brazil because of the other Brazilian references in my story.  I asked him, "Do you know Buddy Wilfore?"  I had thought Yancey was the only Caterpillar dealership in the area, and Wilfore was very high on that Totem Pole.  He said he didn't know him and that's when I knew he was lying.  There is no way a Cat Dealer owner would not know every person in the area affiliated with the same company. He had been sent, and was a stalker. And he had his younger son with him, in fact had custody of both sons.  He was a part of the network that was conspiring wreck my life, take everything I had including my son, assets, animals, happiness and they thought they'd get my strength.  

One other fraternity guy, my husband's Tau Delta fraternity brother and old Virginia Tech friend, the late John W. "Bill" Fox, Jr. was Vice President of Coal Sales for Norfolk Southern and positioned in Roanoke, Virginia which was closer to coal country.  This was the only other occurrence I knew where senior execs were living outside of NS corporate headquarters of Norfolk, Va.

Tau Delta, a Virginia Tech fraternity, had two sectors back in the 1970's. One group was comprised of the drinker/partiers, who rose high on success levels with corporations and upper-crust connections.   One was said to be a Washington D.C. lobbyist.  The other sector was into hippie type lifestyles.  It was odd how they kept a quiet distance in the years after they'd left Virginia Tech and moved into their careers.  Yet when social gatherings occurred some from both sides would intermingle. There was a fraternity brother named "Bullwinkle" who was said to have been moving drugs with his eighteen-wheeler into Blacksburg, Va.

I had grown up with an assistant D.A. in  Roanoke, Virginia, Debbie (C aldwell) Bono who'd said, "Oh we know who 'Bullwinkle' is." I always wondered why he never was prosecuted.

At the 1997 Norfolk Southern Atlanta Christmas Party hosted by VP/Engineering Phil Ogden, several Cobb County, Georgia Commissioners were seated at one of the tables and someone came to point them out to me.  Also an elderly gentleman named "Itis", owner of a ballast company in Alabama, came over and said hello.  We had been treated by "Itis" on his private plane, flown out of Charlie Brown airport in Atlanta and arrived at St. Simons Island for couple days the summer before the party.  There we were treated at a spa and very nice visit at one of the resorts there. Mr. Ogden, Norfolk Southern's Vice President of Engineering, and his wife Cheryl were also passengers on the private airplane.  At that time Cheryl had expressed concern of Phil's retirement and his love for traveling. She didn't enjoy it as much. They had trouble in their marriage at the same time as us but their reconciliation had gone more smoothly.

At the Christmas party they held a broom dance, the railroad's own band "The Lawmen" played, and one of the employees came and danced with me after passing the broom, and said urgently, "Did you get what I sent to you?"  I didn't know who he was or what he was talking about, but he said he'd sent me a computer magazine through my husband.  It was odd, I thought. Why did he send me that?

All of this occurred Christmas before I was ordered out of our home.  The following Christmas Eve   railroaders would be attending our son's funeral, while his body was still being held somewhere in Alabama, released four days after the funeral. It is more bizarre looking back at the sequence of events during that period which are well-documented elsewhere in this blog.

My husband had confided that Mr. Ogden and his wife had separated and reconciled, just like us. He'd also said that one of Mr. Ogden's sons had been killed in a car accident.  Years later I tried to research the accident and couldn't find any evidence of it. I have thought since then perhaps he was thinking of Judge Adele Grubbs daughter instead. She had reportedly been killed Summer 1998 the same period of time all of these things were happening.

Our son, Gerard J. Sniffen, III, "Huey" had lived with his father during our first separation.  He had also been given the information needed to contact his father at Norfolk Southern through the railroad's systems at any time.  This is our son's notebook:

On October 13, 1998 my husband called from "The Forest" (Brosnan Forest, a S.C. Norfolk Southern railroad owned resort) with regrets that he had missed my birthday.  "I will be home Friday and we'll celebrate."  He had been at "The Forest" all week.

Three days later, on Friday, October 16, a knock at the front door was startling. It was time for his arrival but my husband never knocked at the door.  I opened the door to find two Cobb County, Georgia police officers who then ordered me to pack my bags and get out of the house. They even asked if I had a gun.   I had never owned a gun in my life, but several months later I would decide I'd best purchase one and prepare to protect myself.

I moved to Warner Robins with my show dogs and had a friend, Nell Stumpff, there who could help me get a place to live.   Nell would turn out to be the worst type of "friend" anyone could have.  Later I'd realize she'd probably been working with my husband all-along after she began to have me incarcerated and telephone my family telling them lies. Nearly as soon as I had arrived in Warner Robins I was pulled over for a "no seat belt" violation. It was an illegal stop at the time, because in Georgia the stop had to be for some other violation with a seat belt citation being secondary.

Soon after I realized Nell Stumpff was no friend at all, and was working against me I became very frightened and moved elsewhere.  She had continuously showed up at the apartment uninvited and particularly curious about me and my business.  She had done the same thing to another tenant named Sandy Goldschmidt. Later I was told by a neighbor that Nell had investigated Sandy's finances and personal history. Nearly the same time I left Nell's surveillance and control at her rental apartment, our son disappeared from Cobb County, Georgia and reportedly was found dead in Baldwin County, Alabama nearly two weeks later.

Nell's son, Steve, was a drug dealer who lived behind the apartment with people coming in and out at all hours with loud trucks.  It was a frightening place to live.

I signed a lease with Michael Livingston to get away from them and their constant surveillance of the apartment.  Two days later my son was– reportedly dead.

It was odd that when our son's funeral was arranged and held on Christmas Eve at Mayes Ward Dobbins Funeral Home in Cobb County, I was unable to attend.  I was mainly frightened and suspicious knowing something was drastically wrong with the entire story regarding my son's disappearance and death.  There was a protective court order against me. I had been falsely accused and ordered to stay away from my daughter. I knew I would be arrested there if attended my son's funeral. These people were very serious about my destruction and they meant business.  My husband could not have done this alone, and had to have help.

He obviously had very powerful help in all he did. It was a conspiracy.  He wasn't that smart, that rich, that connected nor that powerful.

The former Warner Robins landlord, Nell Stumpff,  had joined forces against me, obviously colluded with my husband or his plans by calling my family members with lies, and even have me arrested on false felony charges which later miraculously disappeared.  I've never recovered from the shock of having felony charges and then have them disappear.

I had even told my lawyer, Stan Martin, "Please get this to court before a jury. I want my day in court against this woman!"

Yet he said, "Just keep quiet and it will disappear."

"I don't want it to disappear!" I told him.  But the charges vanished, amazingly.

Later Stan Martin was caught looking in the ceiling tiles of the late mayor of Warner Robins, Donald Walker, who had reportedly committed suicide.

What a mess I had been given to deal with.  Having been so alone and isolated all those years as a railroad wife I couldn't believe this was the "real world," and there were times I had to pinch myself to know I wasn't dreaming.

Nell had told my family I had "ice-picked" her stove, which was funny.  The woman, a stranger to me, Ms. Calhoun, who lived next door to the apartment bailed me out and put her HOME up for my bail. She knew Nell was lying. I hadn't ice-picked anything.  She said they had wanted Steve Stumpff out of the neighborhood because he was  a drug dealer.  I wasn't surprised.  There was a TON of activity in and out of his trailer, which was right behind that apartment I rented from his mother.

Nell owned a lot of property in Warner Robins and had some influence with some powerful people. She'd had a relationship ongoing with the man who owned the local private landing strip. He'd had a stroke and she had sat with him for a while.  Later I went to visit his son and warned him that I wouldn't trust Nell Stumpff with any member of my family after all she'd done to me.

I was placed in a state hospital based on her lies coupled with my husband's lies, ordered there 72 hours and detained for nearly a week. Had I not had the money to make phone calls I would still be there today. I was wise enough to phone the Georgia Mental Health Advocacy office and was released.  This was the week my son's body was ALLEGEDLY in Cobb County at Mayes Ward Dobbins funeral home.  I could have identified the body had I not been incarcerated by the state of Georgia.

It had all been worked out.  It was absolutely a conspiracy.  I had to leave Georgia knowing my husband's connections and tentacles  whether through the railroad, his family or his powerful  fraternity brothers reached far beyond that state.  My husband's tactics had broken my Virginia family ties and severed my support network.  Even as smart as he was, he couldn't have designed this plan alone.

The haggling in the divorce was over stock options which could absolutely NOT be divided, he had said.

In the Nell Stumpff arrest Peach County Judge Laurens Lee said, "If you will just sign your divorce papers all of your problems will go away."  I asked him at the time in the midst of one of my Georgia handcuff ordeals, "If I don't sign, do you think they'll kill my other children?"

Funny how all of those false charges to intimidate and frighten me disappeared but the memories of the arrests haven't and will never fade from the recurring nightmares I still experience from them.  This is America where these things aren't supposed to be happening.

It was a plan, and I would find out my intuition was absolutely right. I had been arrested more than once and would face more police harassment in Kentucky and ongoing for years.  In Jessamine county, home of RJ Corman, three police officers had swarmed my car and I had to blow in their instrument, count from 60 to 39 backwards, recite the alphabet from D to Q, walk a straight line, touch my nose with my index fingers, touch each finger to my thumb on both hands. I finally asked them if they wanted me to stand on my head and insert my finger in my navel.  It was harassment, but I was in a situation that I had to endure anything that was sent my way, keep my cool, and deal with it. Unbelievable these things could happen in the USA.

Later I was telling an African American waiter at a restaurant about the whole ordeal.  "Aw, man they were harassing you.  They can't do that."

Yes, they can.

They can't, I thought? Well, they did.  Thousands and thousands of dollars were spent in dealing with ongoing legal problems created with false accusations, threats, divorce, legal fees, running scared to death from the people in Georgia and their intimidation tactics and false arrests.  The damage to my health, assets, my remaining family and the remaining children's emotions are permanent and lasting. Nothing will ever remove the scars incurred with what these people in Georgia and Kentucky arranged for me and my family.

In the year 2000, I also had trouble with false diagnoses with my health issues in going to a Ky. emergency room with a tooth infection the insurance code came back as paranoid disorder so that  the railroad's blue cross  insurance would not pay.

My husband had pre-arranged the 1998 Central State Hospital institution and then lied to my family and encouraged them to have me put away.   He explained that I was "sick" and that he couldn't have me committed because of the pending divorce situation. He and the landlord called my brother and mother and convinced them to have me institutionalized.  When I went back to Central State to get the papers, they read, "Husband unknown, separated, unable to pay."  Later I received a bill for $8500.00 and went back to them and told them something like this,

"I am presently married to a Norfolk Southern railroad executive, Gerard J. Sniffen, Jr..  He has full medical coverage on our family. He arranged to have me put into your hospital. Here are his addresses, at home and at work.  Contact him for proper payment.

I couldn't trust anything.  The police were against me.  The law was against me, physicians were concocting false diagnoses, and I couldn't even trust my health insurance.  I was able to get free of the mental institution––not with the help of my vacationing attorney, George Childs, but by phoning the Georgia Advocacy Office for the Mentally Ill.  A nurse had quietly provided the tip and after the call, and almost a week of incarceration, I was able to believe I might not spend the rest of my life there.  I have wondered since if this is the same "legal" pattern they have used in Russia and other communistic-styled countries–– to silence dissidents or political enemies, etc.

With the tooth ache "paranoia" diagnosis, I called the railroad's blue cross office in Atlanta and they said I would have to get the University of Kentucky Hospital to change the diagnosis regarding the tooth and they refused. I still have the letters. They were going to make me insane any way they could to make my story appear as a delusion.  Worst I was going broke, fast.  Insurance refunds were being sent back to my husband and he was keeping them. He even kept my wedding bands.  I drove our car for 6 months during the separation unaware the car insurance, still in his control, had lapsed.

The conspiracy had crossed state lines from Georgia to Alabama where my son allegedly died and then to Kentucky.  I nearly couldn't believe it. I will always believe it was part of the plan so that they could keep the entire illegal activities and falsification of my son's death and false accusations against me, covered up.  As long as everyone was convinced I was "crazy" or "looney," then how could they ever know the truth?  Without documentation there was no way anybody would believe a word I said.

And how could a person fight a situation that spanned states? To get lawyers in each state involved would break a person financially, and normal people would not have the means or training to know where to begin.

My saving grace was that I had the wisdom to gather and save all the documents, arrest records, correspondence records and everything needed to prove every word of my story. The courage to publish it came later because for years I was fearful for my family, remaining children, animals and my own life.  I had written to many authorities hoping to get help and all declined save Senator Coverdell who tried to help.  A year later he was dead.

Having been a housewife and mother all those years and so isolated and alone, having been shipped around for his job and career, I had no idea how cruel people could be.  I believed these things happened only in movies and tv stories being so incredibly naive.

Kenneth Schatten said, "Your husband is the coldest man I've ever talked to in my life."  Maybe that's why the railroad used him to negotiate with labor, I've always thought.

If Schatten only knew how I'd lived all those years, alone and on a shoestring budget.  There was no extravagance, and most vacations were spent on his fishing boat, unless they were paid for by railroad vendors.  Two of our children were prone to seasickness but every vacation was spent at the ocean with his boat.  Life was not centered on the family but on one person. The world revolved around that one railroad executive and the family was secondary in his life.   We made him look good.

It was almost funny when at the divorce trial, Cobb County, Georgia Judge Adele Grubbs made a snide comment in divorce court saying something sympathetic like, "I know it must have been difficult living with her, Mr. Sniffen."  If she only knew the truth, I'd thought.   Obviously she'd been supplied with "inside" information that wasn't exactly truthful.

The stories about our son's Cobb County, Georgia at Mayes Ward Dobbins Funeral home: at the funeral the attendees were "all suits" and from what I was told apparently it was a railroad affair. I recalled from my childhood that railroad employees were always attending funerals.  It was very important.  My Norfolk and Western grandfather, Jasper S. Looney, foreman of the Roanoke Car Shops, had given the Norfolk and Western Railroad 40 years of his life–– having never missed a day's work.  I was impressed at the time the importance funeral attendance played in everyday railroad life.  My grandfather was gifted and talented in music and art, but in Roanoke, Virginia the only way to make a good living at that time was with the railroad.  My grandfather was a perfectionist and when an executive needed a desk to be refinished, or a portrait painted, he was there for them.  I recall attending retirement parties with my grandparents after my Dad had died.

My Grandfather had struggled to breathe the last years of his life and vowed to walk me down the marital aisle before he breathed his last breath.  His oxygen-starved body had supported him, his lips a purplish blue color, yet he made it down the aisle nearly 23 years before the disappearance of this great grandson.  His diagnosis had been congestive heart failure with the hospital curiously removing a "cyst" just over his lung right before he collapsed and died at the hospital.  My grandmother had commented that the small bandage on his chest was from the cyst removal. I asked her why they bothered with surgery procedures knowing he was going to die.  It didn't make sense.  Why would insurance pay for it, I wondered.  My grandparents had complete trust in their doctor, Dr. Bondurant at Lewis Gale Hospital, who was in the railroad family. His father had been a railroad executive.

My own mother didn't attend our son's funeral in 1999, nor did much of our family. We had been removed from family and old friends years earlier with railroad transfers––first to Charlotte, then to Atlanta.  I was alienated from my own family by a husband who didn't want to pay elevated phone bills. There was nothing left in our lives but the railroad and their vendors who entertained us incredibly.  "How is your family?" The vendors would ask at a dinner they paid for.  I wondered why they cared.  They didn't, but it was profitable––and polite for them to ask.

Word traveled back Mayes Ward Dobbins Funeral Home in Cobb County, Georgia even displayed a photograph of me along with our son at the "funeral" they called a memorial service.  I never gave them permission to do that.   Perhaps they were burying both of us in a way. They had, after all, made me an organ donor without my permission on a driver's license and then charged me $25.00 to get it removed.

And I found later that our son's body wasn't even at the Marietta, Georgia funeral.  It was, according to records, still in the Mobile, Alabama Morgue, or at Detective-now-Sheriff Hoss Mack's father's funeral home in Baldwin County, Alabama.

The Alabama detective in charge of the investigation (Huey "Hoss" Mack, Jr.) soon became Sheriff.  His father, Huey Mack Sr., was Coroner and in charge of body storage. Both father and son had said I would need a "subpoena and court order" to obtain any of my son's death records.

How could a funeral be held with a body still in another state? It didn't make sense.  It was odd that the detective in charge of the investigation father was coroner and owned the funeral home where the body had been stored. This was  a "tight" little group, I had thought to myself more than once.

The Cobb funeral home would not even let me have copies of the records either.

In the midst of a very nasty executive divorce, our son disappeared from Cobb County, Georgia and reportedly was found dead in Baldwin County, Alabama nearly two weeks later.  And nobody at the railroad was upset that maybe their son might disappear, because it was apparently kept very quiet.

The main problem with the tale regarding my son was the body did not match the autopsy report.  The Alabama  autopsy report indicated two well-healed, identical three-inch scars–– one found on each knee.   Gerard J. Sniffen, III had no scars on his legs nor his body, had never had knee surgery, nor any accident that would cause such scars.

There were other questionable issues which included a police report describing a long-haired victim when our son never had shoulder length hair in his life.

Identifying finger-print cards supplied from the State of Georgia did not match the victim found on the autopsy table.  An 18-year-old arrested named Gerard J. Sniffen, III in Georgia for a marijuana violation was 5-ft. 10-inches tall and weighed 160 lb.  The victim on the slab in Mobile, Alabama measured 5-ft., 8-inches and weighed 144 lbs.

And according to Alabama Forensics files, a document explains they destroyed the blood drop (DNA)  card after a year. A call to state forensics there will tell you, "We keep those indefinitely." With the entities involved in this mess, you have to pick and choose which information given you want to believe.

This entire post is devoted to the misidentification details.

My second divorce attorney was Kenneth Schatten of Atlanta.  He said there was too much money against me to ever hope to get the truth regarding my son.  Mr. Schatten was a good attorney in the beginning.  Later he withheld my alimony and told me to remove my blog from the internet.  "You're making them angry," he said, and "they've got your son somewhere and told him if he tries to contact you or his brother or sister, they're going to kill you."  Who was "they?" He said, "There's too much money against you. You're never going to get the truth."

I said, "There's not that much money in the world," and Schatten said, "Are you kidding? Do you know how much money is out there?"

It was incredible and I knew my husband couldn't have that much money but once these people had gotten away with what they'd done surely they'd pay anything they could to keep it all covered up.

Jim Knight and later his partner, George Childs, who curiously took over my case, had been my original attorneys during the disappearance and then as soon as my son was supposedly in the ground and I had escaped all the Georgia incarcerations, George Childs, contrary to Knight's wishes, abruptly dropped my case. I knew he wanted out because it was getting so nasty with all of the arrests and death.  But he clearly took the "other side" when he gave his reason as "harassing phone calls" on my part.  It was obvious when he was on vacation and unavailable during my state hospital incarceration, that he was not on my side.

So often through all of this I have thought to myself, "If you can't trust your family that's one thing.  If you can't trust your attorney, then what's left?"

Free speech was all I had left. Hence, the blog. I knew someday if I could survive it all all I may have left was the story, but the story may set myself and my family free from these horrors.

I couldn't imagine who had the massive amount of money that Kenneth Shatten had referred to. My husband's successful friends in the Virginia Tech Tau Delta fraternity were quite wealthy and had taken an interest in our separation.  My husband's father, who had curiously pronounced his death saying, "I don't want to live anymore, take care of your mother," the same year as our son's disappearance had been traditionally secretive about finances and appeared to be a man of middle class means.  And then there was the railroad that I couldn't believe would ever get caught up in something like this.  There were vendors that had taken quite a liking to my husband but that was because he was buying their goods.

In the midst of the fake harassing phone call charges that my husband brought against me, I was advised that my husband's co-workers at Norfolk Southern, his fraternity brother the late John W. Fox, Jr., Vice President for Coal sales and my husband's boss, Phillip Ogden, Vice President of Engineering were both planning to testify against me in the court.  I requested a jury trial and curiously those charges soon disappeared as well.

Steve Tobias, the head of Norfolk Southern had become angry at a Stock Holder's meeting when one of my distant cousins had approached him mentioning my divorce.  He also had mentioned illegal dumping in Maryland and Mr. Tobias had become so angry he'd gone to my husband asking who this man was. I can honestly say I had nothing to do with Bob Kirby's activity–– none at all. I have no idea why he did this or had any interest in any of it.

Railroad vendors were among the wealthiest of my husband's associations, including Plasser American who gave us a nearly free trip to Austria and Germany where we "ate where Nixon ate and slept where he slept," according to one of the Austrians.  Joseph Neuhofer and his wife Betty were our hosts and in Germany I dined with "the richest woman in Europe" who wasn't the Queen. She owned Plasser American.  Later Jim and Patty Higgenbottem and Al Coppola of Okonite were entertaining us on gambling boats and trips, dinners, etc.  My husband with the business he steered to their companies, of course added to their profits.

With all the horrors, not one vendor's gift was worth all that I have suffered.  I have been intent to have remained alive and sane through all I have endured and will surely continue to endure.  I am most thankful to the creators of our United States Constitution and my ability to document this story protected by First Amendment rights with hopes that these horrible things cannot be done to any other woman, child, nor mother nor man or father, nor trailing spouse anywhere–– not ever.

...to be continued


8-23-2020

So many years later I discovered so much I had been afraid to question those early years of the divorce.  Gordon Bennett had said I should read the book, “Bluegrass Conspiracy,” and with that I figured maybe his group must be the gang that was stalking me.  It was definitely railroad connected as Rick O’Donnell, of Nicholasville, Ky.,  one of my stalkers bragged he’d been a driver for “railroad gangs.”  By that time I had learned to go along and stay alive. It didn’t matter if all that “half-million dollars” my husband had whined and bragged about losing went to street people, as long as I could outlive him and the devils who had schemed my destruction.
   I came to find out that Randy New who headed Bell South was also a business partner in a Hunting Club with my ex-husband’s attorney, Michael Broadbear.  My ex-husband was tight with Bell South because of the $millions the railroad had in telecommunications business.  Was this Bell South Randy New the same man as Michael Broadbear’s hunting buddy?  Then I came to find that my ex’s new wife had a niece that had married into a New family.  “Wow! What a coincidence,” I thought.  Next thing that happened Cobb County got a sheriff surnamed “New,” and I thought it was a rare name to be so common in my own tragic story.

    I haven’t told the horrors that happened in Kentucky in full detail because to be honest, I’m scared.  I have a son and grandson who live there.  I have a daughter and grandson who still live in Georgia.  Since Mr. Schatten (my former attorney) said my son is where “they’ve told him if he tries to contact you, your son, or daughter they’re going to kill all of you”,  I’ve had to be very careful about what I write. 

  In Kentucky they were so intent on giving me a DUI the Jessamine County/state police pulled me over while I was driving back from the lake on route 127.  They said “somebody called” and said I was swerving.  Then they told me to get out of the car.  I was told these things.  

1./ Touch index finger to your nose (both hands)

2./ Recite from  d to q in the alphabet

3./ Count from 39 backward

4./ walk a straight line

5./ I had to blow in a breathilizer and passed all their tests

I later told a black guy at the restaurant about it.  He said, “Aw, man they were harassing you!  That isn’t legal!  If you pass one of their tests they’re supposed to let you go!”

Well they did let me go but it wasn’t over.  They were intent to finish me off in Kentucky and they finally got me on a DUI.  With the breathilizer I asked what the reading was.  They said theirs was pass or fail, “and you failed” .. Anderson County, Kentucky. There were no numerical readings.  It had obviously been arranged.  I wasn’t even black but a railroad executive’s soon to be ex (or dead) wife.

  ..... to be continued....

Controlling Mom. Tommy Schlette & "Your Son is Still Alive."

A Criminal Conspiracy?

Powerful false arrests, false accusations, derogatory incidences involving my husband, an assistant vice president for Norfolk Southern Railroad, lowered my chances for being taken seriously or getting any help from authorities.  The arrests and accusations were insurance to lower the chances that my husband's activities would ever be investigated. 

Ten years later, shady inaccurate journalism created with the help of the investigating deputy (now sheriff) helped legitimize fraudulent tale.  Alabama's Sheriff Hoss Mack was deputy-in-charge when my son disappeared. His father was coroner.  Now he's either a dirty sheriff or one with a bad memory and inaccurate facts regarding the dead.  His reports listed Dr. Julia Goodin as attending the death scene and she denied it saying,

"It isn't our job to attend crime scenes."

Below is what I endured before, during and after my Georgia divorce.  In the midst of my son's disappearance, and between 1998 and 2000 I had counted my experiences of more than 40 incidences with police, arrests, courts, warrants, and "the law."  Any and every chance my husband had, he called the police. Even when I went to gather my belongings he called both, Acworth and Cobb County police for no reason, but to make them believe I was misbehaving.  Phoning the police and telling them lies was a part of his strategy, and it worked.  He had a game plan and apparently, a good coach.

I found myself afraid not only of authorities but of stalking criminal gangs and lived in total fear for years. I was afraid to go to sleep at nights and afraid of what I might find if I awakened each day.  I believe it was all a part of the plan of terror initiated in Georgia and carried out in other states.  My main goal was to endure the harassment, get free of each trap whether arrest or incarceration, stay sane, healthy and alive for as long as I could.

The continuing legal and police problems spanned beyond 2000 in Kentucky after I had fled the state of Georgia in fear.  Before 1998, my "criminal record" was one speeding ticket.  I was driving ten miles over the speed limit, late for a child's dentist appointment.

With my divorce, my husband learned that he could successfully use state and local agencies to accomplish his goals.  I believe that fact coupled with his power, family and fraternity connections and connections as a Norfolk Southern executive and his ability to be dishonest with authorities in distorting the truth has been the secrets behind his success.

For all of his discrediting, there was no way I could convince authorities that I was telling the truth, no way I could get them to realize something was desperately wrong with my son's disappearance.  It seemed to be a very well planned strategy - and powerfully executed.

Instead I was getting cited for a campfire violation in Kentucky, picked up for P.I., cited for animal abuse in Georgia, accused of damaging landlord's property, accused of harassing phone calls.

I had been a successful breeder of champion Wire Fox Terriers, had been named Golf Mom for Harrison High School golf team and had been a successful, supportive corporate wife and mother for 23 years.  In 1998 with my divorce everything changed, and my world was painted black. After fleeing Georgia's false accusations and arrests literally in fear for my life, I sought haven for a while in Kentucky and remained there where my dogs began to be killed.  A litter had been poisoned in Warner Robins, and the death continued.  It was enough trauma to lose a child under such suspicious circumstances, but losing the animals was so very painful.   They hadn't done anything to anybody and to this day I have nightmares about them.

The list went on, but when it was time for my divorce trial I had less than 24 hours notice to be in Georgia.  My husband  knew where I was in Kentucky then, and every minute and had the connections to have the law breathing down my neck no matter where I went.  How did they do it?  How did they know where I was?  How did they know when to arrange the divorce trial when they knew it was a most difficult time for me to attend?  How did they arrange for a different judge than the one appointed to seat the trial?

Dishonesty with Authorities &  Friends

His first false representation to police and court authorities was when he told them I had attacked my daughter. It was untrue, but it was his means for having me ordered out of the home. Our son, who had witnessed an incident, knew it was untrue and his honest testimony would have foiled his father's plans.

Another example, when I finally was able to go to Georgia to retrieve my belongings he had removed several pieces and placed them in a rear room of the house away from the rest. When I mentioned those were mine, and proceeded to get the list made by the courts he went straight to the phone and called Cobb County police. I nearly had to laugh when they refused to come.  So when they didn't, he phoned Acworth police. There was no cause whatsoever for the police to be telephoned, but it had been a part of his game for two years, and it had worked quite well.

My family was told untruths by my husband and my landlord Nell Stumpff to have me incarcerated in a state hospital.  Later an old friend from N.C. tried to contact me and my husband told another lie saying my brother had moved me to another hospital when actually, I had been released.  I believe my husband's motive was to distance me from any support network I might have that could help me survive his tactics and the finalization of the divorce.

Terror and Intimidation

In the midst of my divorce troubles my animals were being killed, I was terrorized, falsely arrested and ran out of the state of Georgia, my tires slashed in Kentucky, brake lines cut, and the U.S. mail seemed  to deliver bad news.    I lived in constant fear, not for myself but also for my  two other grown children who had survived it thus far.  I was afraid they would use them to intimidate or punish me further whether in gaining information or in adversely affecting their lives and happiness.  The stress finally took its toll on my health by 2006. Eight years after the plan had been initiated for destruction,  I was diagnosed with  cancer –– and even more determined to survive it and get to the bottom of my problems before I died.

With that diagnosis came my first blog and the diagnosis and surgeries actually took me beyond fears  of publishing the story and naming names.   With the blog's exposure of the facts, the documents, the names–– and the truth as best I could tell it, my days of terror began to subside.

I had spoken with police, written politicians and community leaders. I had contacted the Justice Department in Washington D.C.  Nothing helped and nobody seemed interested.  With that it was obvious the only way I would ever expose these tactics, and hope to get any resolution to the disappearance of my son was to go public with the story.

Because two lawyers had said there was "too much money" against me, it was a coverup and money had purchased the players.   One attorney went so far as to say I and my two remaining children would be killed if my son, who is in hiding and living under threats, came forward.

It angered me more than words will ever express.  I would rather die than live in fear.  If this is a First Class Country then our Justice System should not allow Third World Tactics to be practiced at the
convenience of those who can afford to purchase it.

In 2003, a man named Tommy Schlette, who said he was connected to Sicilians in New Jersey, told me my son was still alive. He'd said he had once moved illegal fireworks across state lines for Sicilians.  At some point in New Jersey he had been selling perfumes.  For 3 years Tommy continued his convincing story that my son was still alive, via telephone until 2006.  Then, according to his landlord, Deb Rickard, Tommy's badly decomposed body was found behind her home she was renting to him in Grant, Fl.  Tommy had contacted me through the internet after seeing my posts, and was trying to get me to stop posting the information publicly.  Tommy must have known about the scars on the victim's legs, and encouraged me to look closer at the autopsy report.  "See?" he said, "I told you it wasn't your son who died."  He went on to ask the question, "Did your son ever have knee surgery?"

Finding the line in the autopsy report where two identical three inch scars were on the body was surprising and baffling. How in the world would someone have identical injuries on each knee? Tommy seemed to know immediately that the body's knee scars were the result of surgery.

Tommy said he'd actually met my son and spoken with him. He said he was being kept at a biker hideout somewhere.  He would say no more other than his source for the info was named "Tony."

Before he passed away Tommy's life went awry and I was very worried about him.  He said he had nowhere to go and was being evicted from the house he lived in.  A man had moved in and built a house next door and he'd become acquaintances with him.  He said he had met a woman - a truck driver's wife who "had long black hair and was part Cherokee Indian."  Tommy had been jailed. He had contacted the suicide hotline and was incarcerated for observation for 72 hours. He also mentioned that he golfed with Mark Foley.  It was not long after Tommy passed away that Congressman Foley's name was common knowledge.  When he said he golfed, I knew something was wrong but had no idea who Mark Foley was at that time.  Tommy had hurt his shoulder severely in an accident in the Navy.  He'd never mentioned golf at all before that statement.  A shoulder injury could greatly affect a golf swing so I wondered exactly what he was trying to tell me, if anything at all.

All we ever did was chat on the phone. I had never met Tommy in person but did recognize that he seemed to be very interested in music and had a band named "Remember When" when he was younger.  Later I discovered he had never sung with The Duprees, and it was the only story I could verify that he had told that was actually untrue. The other tales panned out to be honest.

Weeks before he died Tommy spoke of a man surnamed "Crocker" who had offered him a cabin, a  place to live. He also spoke of having been taken inside a limousine and beaten with baseball bats, told by the captors to keep his mouth shut.

My main purpose was to find out more about what Tommy knew about my son's disappearance. Tommy said he'd seen and met my son.  When Tommy passed away his landlord, Deb said she thought I was his girlfriend. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The woman Tommy was planning to marry was to be released from prison.  He spoke of her more than once.

Tommy at some point lived in the same home town as my former father in law, Gerard J. Sniffen, Sr. was born.  They were both in Floral Park on Long Island in N.Y. I suspect both may have been native to the area.

Tommy had encouraged me to contact an attorney who would "take on" bigger cases and he mentioned Attorney Willie Gary of Stuart, Florida. Tommy had met him as he was a security guard at the airport where Gary landed his plane. I contacted Mr. Gary and sent him documents and his firm refused my case.   It was surprising a few years later to find that my divorce attorney, Kenneth Schatten, was handling Mr. Gary's paternity suit in Atlanta.

______

In 2008, ten years after my son's disappearance, the Mobile Press Register newspaper had decided to write a story about this, and featured Baldwin County Sheriff Hoss Mack, who had been the chief deputy in charge of  my son's "suicide" investigation.  The story was an insult to honest journalism and investigative reporting.  In 2010, my (now former) attorney, Kenneth Schatten said "they have your son somewhere and they've told him if he tries to contact you, his brother or sister they're going to kill all of you."  Schatten was telling me to "take down your blog" because, he said, "You're making 'them' angry."

Them? Who's they?  He wouldn't answer.  But he told me the people have "so much money you're never going to get the truth."  I told him nobody has that much money that they could pay off so many people. He said, "Are you kidding? Do you know how much money is OUT THERE?"

The Silencing Arrests and Intimidation

Temporary Order:
I do not have a copy of the Cobb County, Georgia temporary order for when I was ordered out of my home and followed around my home told to pack my bags by Cobb County police on 10/16/1998.  I was accused of having abused my daughter, which was untrue.  My missing son knew his father had lied to police regarding my daughter.

On being ordered out of my home, I moved to the Warner Robins, Georgia area where a so-called  friend had an apartment/kennel so I could have a place to keep my show dogs. (wire fox terriers)   Looking back, I heavily suspect that "friend" in the dog world, Nell Stumpff, was colluding with my husband and his associates.  An older dog-show friend, Bud Samples, had also rented a place from Nell and collapsed and died on her property while she watched.  I was told she watched him lie on the ground for 5-10 minutes before she picked up the cell phone to dial "911."  I was also told she entered the residence and removed his belongings, moved a boat he owned and fencing before his wife could get there to retrieve his belongings.

The stories of Nell and my own experience began to wear on my nerves and I knew I had to leave her control for my own safety.  She had commented she'd left a pan of ammonia in the oven to "soften the dirt on the sides" so it would  make it easier to clean. When I'd gone to take the pan out, I found the pan was attached to the heating element above it with a wire. I had to detach the wire to remove the pan and clean out the green, jelly-like substance that must have been dried, jelly-like ammonia, I thought.

Later I told my attorney, George C. Childs about it and he asked, "Did you get a picture of it?"  Of course not. But later some people had said if I would have cooked a Thanksgiving turkey, the pan would have exploded. I wondered why the ceiling of the kennel beneath the apartment was covered with metal, and will always wonder why such an expensive ceiling was installed in an apartment by such a cheap skinflint as Nell Stumpff. It was strange to see Nell's former husband, Colonel George Stumpff, who was remarried and living in Florida, come back to her home, visit with her whispering on the front porch. They had words quietly, but he never entered her home.  I couldn't imagine at the time what kind of business they might have together. Their children were grown.  It was rumored their divorce occurred because of tax troubles.

The first sign of police harassment was when I was stopped by an officer in the Houston County  territory for "no seat belt." The law at that time as I understood it required that a person could not be stopped only for that offense, but the person could be ticketed only if after stopped, it was found the person was without a seat belt. In my situation, the officer pulled me over for no other reason and gave me a ticket. That is when I began to realize the "law" was not on my side, even though I was innocent. Later the law would be chasing me down so often I left Georgia suspecting I would eventually be framed and incarcerated long term if I didn't flee the state.

The second incident was when Nell Stumpff's son continued to have frequent night time traffick in and out of the apartment all hours of the night. Steve was a known drug dealer in the area.  I was missing a necklace and reported it to police.

Becoming afraid of the constant traffic of incoming criminals, and because my dogs began to act as though they were drugged, and because Nell Stumpff would not stop dropping in with frequent uninvited visits, I sensed danger and decided to move away as quickly as possible. While I was moving furniture out upstairs, she and her son were in the kennel beneath the apartment. I discovered later belongings were missing from the kennel area and reported them missing to Peach County police.

NOTE: the officer wrote "from outside the apartment." She should have written, "from the apartment" because I was also renting the kennel beneath the apartment and the belongings were inside the rented kennel/apartment building.

I signed a lease with Michael Livingston of "Livingston Properties" in Warner Robins on 12/7/1998.  (Two days later my son disappeared in Cobb County, GA)

When I wrote my rent check to Livingston Properties, Michael Livingston forged my initials to make the check payable to him personally.  The whole town seemed to be criminal and housed a huge United States Air Force Base to boot. It was a frightening place to live.   I have since read that Angel Down's family is from that same area of Georgia and wondered if there were any other connections between there and Baldwin County that may shed more light on these cases.  Angel Downs Baldwin County, Alabama death was questionable, in whether it would be ruled suicide or homicide.

After moving into the Livington rental, I learned that my son had disappeared and supposedly killed himself in Alabama. In absolute shock, I drove over to Mobile, Alabama on December 23, the day before they were holding a funeral for him in Cobb County, hoping to identify his body.  There had been so many criminals involved in my situation thus far, I didn't believe a word from anyone.  I didn't believe the story about my son then, and never will.  When I arrived in Mobile, and was told via telephone that the morgue had already closed at 5:00 p.m., I had a sinking feeling that was also untrue. In every story I had seen on TV, morgues stayed open late and were attached to hospitals. I decided it would be unsafe for me to stay anywhere, in any motel alone in Mobile, Alabama and returned to Warner Robins in an 18 hour round-trip drive.  I suspected organized crime was involved and I felt staying anywhere alone would invite more danger.

Georgia's incarcerations prevented the Mother's identification of the boy's body.

12/28/1998 the body was moved from Alabama to Cobb County, Georgia, where it was said to have been stored, and 1/7/1999 the body was said to be shipped from Cobb County, Georgia to Virginia for burial.  During that period of time, I was jailed by Cobb County police and incarcerated in a Georgia State Hospital. 

I didn't attend my son's memorial service because of the temporary order and I knew at that point that my husband was capable of anything, and a very dangerous person determined to destroy me before the divorce was finalized.  I was later told they had photographs for both of us there, myself and my late son,  as though I was also being memorialized. 

While the memorial service was held in Cobb County, records prove the body was actually still in Alabama.  Only in one other instance had I attended a funeral without a body present: my father-in-law, Gerard J. Sniffen, Sr., who passed away January 1998 after announcing he "didn't want to live anymore," giving my husband instructions, "Gerry, take care of your mother."  To the best of my knowledge, his ashes have never been buried.

  

I later tried to retrieve the funeral home records and they refused to deliver them. The reason I wanted them is because they handled all of the arrangements, body shipments and financial payments with the funeral homes (Alabama storage and Virginia burial) in two other states.  I wanted the information for family records and investigative reasons.

We were still married when this business transaction occurred so there should not have been any question to deliver the records to me. 

Note: my former mother-in-law, Frances Sniffen is on the warrant against me.  She had given my son $500-750.00 just before he disappeared. It was out of character for her to give the grandchildren money outside of birthday or Christmas. It was never done except this one time.  

With my son's disappearance, and all of the police harassment, intuition told me to carry plenty of cash and so I went to the bank and got some cash and carried it in my bra where it would be safe. It was one of the miracles that helped me fight these people, because the  Cobb County, Ga. jail couldn't detain me when I paid the $2200 cash bond outright.  I believe they had planned to detain me longer, because their bondsmen wouldn't answer the phone.   

When the first few Cobb County bondsmen didn't answer the phone, I realized it it had probably been  rigged so that I wouldn't get out of jail.  They knew in Georgia I had nobody to call. All of my family and friends were in Virginia.  I carefully and discreetly removed twenty-two $100 bills from my bra and walked over to the jailers, tossed the cash on the jailer's counter and said,  "Here!  I'm bailing my own self out!"

When released, I was given back my belongings but not my pocket change.   There were no quarters and I asked the jailers if they had change for a dollar for a call to a taxi.  The Cobb County jailers coldly said, "We don't make change."  

My response, "So, it's 3:00 a.m., and I will have to walk about three miles to the nearest convenience store to get a phone and change to call a taxi.  Let me ask you this, is there any chance there's a hit-man planted out there on the road?"   They were silent, and from then on, I knew I was dealing with corruption at very high levels.

When "Plan A" to keep me at the jail fell through, then they used "Plan B" and had me involuntarily committed to the state hospital during the week period I could have identified my son's body. 

The quarter trick was used at the State Hospital, as well.  In Georgia, if you didn't have the cash, you had no way to contact the "outside" for help. It is extremely frightening and it was at that point I didn't consider the USA a fair democracy anymore.  At the state hospital, you could make calls with a quarter to call collect, or you could use a telephone credit card.  If you had no money, no credit card, and nobody to accept a collect call (like a state agency or attorney) then you had no way to get help to get out.  There was a woman there who had been incarcerated in that horrific place 14 years earlier in her divorce in Georgia, a state where "incurable mental illness" allows an instant divorce.  The Central State Hospital story she told is like a dark horror film from Nazi Germany or Communist Russia.

The court order was only for 72 hours but they doctors at Central State Hospital refused to release me for nearly a week.  Although I had been a model prisoner, ate, slept, showered and was cooperative except for refusing medication, I left with an $8500 bill, papers said I had no medical insurance, that my husband was unknown, and with a diagnosis of "paranoid schizophrenia."  They based the schizophrenia diagnosis on my "delusions" that I was a political cartoonist and that my daughter was a golfer.  (see below**)

The reported death of my son was suspect from the beginning, as was the announced death of his paternal grandfather 10 months earlier.   The Christmas Eve funeral made it more suspect after I had been ordered out of my house two months earlier in October as a "Happy Birthday" present.  When I drove to Mobile day before the funeral to be told the morgue was closed, and when they initially said the body would be cremated, I knew they were planning to cover up what they had done.  An exhumation would prove their lies. My son wasn't dead, and his father had read enough Grisham and Ludlam novels to try and pull something like this off.

Below are the papers where I was ordered by the state of Georgia to be detained and examined for 72 hours in the Central State Hospital, Milledgeville, Ga.  Even though I was a model patient,  I refused all medications and they refused to release me after 72 hours and held me the entire week. The next day after I was released, the body was said to have been flown to Virginia.

Note the name misspelled "Sniffin" and the date is 1999 instead of 1998

Note: the name is spelled "Luony" so my record could easily be lost.   I returned shortly after my release and retrieved all records to find my husband's name and the fact that I had full medical insurance was not recorded. I was later sent a bill for $8,000.00 and gave the hospital his name and addresses both at home and at work.

At some point when she discovered I was moving, the same day I signed the lease with Michael Livingston, Nell Stumpff had filed a warrant against me, accusing me of felony damage to her apartment.  Needless to say I never recovered my $600 downpayment for the rental of the nightmare apartment I was to live in until my divorce was final.

I didn't learn of the warrant until January, 1999, at which time I hired Stan Martin, a local Warner Robins attorney. I told him I wanted a jury trial against Nell Stumpff. Her accusations were false and she was not an honest person. Instead, he said if I would be quiet, the charges would disappear.  I told him I wanted my day in court against her, and I wanted a jury to hear the entire case.  Interestingly in January, 1999 after hiring Martin being advised by Martin to turn myself in, Judge Laurens Lee, while in the process of my arrest said, "If you will just sign your divorce papers all of your problems will disappear." I was shocked to know this is how divorce operates in Georgia.

Needless to say, I never got my day in court against Nell Stumpff. The false felony charges Nell Stumpff had created simply disappeared.

______________

I was made an organ donor at the Warner Robins, GA DMV office without my knowledge or permission. When I went to correct the error, the agent said I would have to pay $25.00 cash to have it changed.  I paid the cash and then wrote to the governor that there were some serious problems in his state. The governor had the incident investigated and returned my money. So how often do they make these mistakes? And had I disappeared  like my son had disappeared, would a story have been told that my body had been donated?  Nobody knows how frightening it is to be arrested, handcuffed, shackled by the state, police, tossed into a state hospital where they can virtually throw away the key, and then made an organ donor against your will.

It's like something out of a Grisham novel, but it's really happening.

**DELUSIONS?

**My daughter twice, placed 3rd in the state of Georgia, Girl's Golf Class 5-A Competition.  In fact I had been asked to head the parents group for golf at the high school. Between 1988 and 1992, I created more than 100 editorial cartoons published in the Enquirer Journal Newspaper, Monroe, NC., using my maiden name, "Looney."

"Delusions?" I am a freelance artist and between 1988 and 1992 created and contributed more than 100  editorial cartoons to the Enquirer Journal Newspaper of Monroe, NC,  and a couple other N.C. Newspapers.

RELOCATION TO KENTUCKY

My bright welcome to Kentucky began with being stalked at the campgrounds.  I had show dogs with me, my divorce had not been finalized and the only affordable way for me to live and take care of my animals was by camping.  The police harassment continued, even with federal authorities. 

The man who had told me Kentucky was a wonderful place to live, Gordon Bennett, had recommended Quality Quarters Inn in Richmond, Ky which was reasonably priced, and had a Shoney's next door. Both establishments at the time were owned by a Harrodsburg attorney, Michael Conover.  There I was arrested by his managers whom I have been told, were his sons.

As my dogs were being killed on my farm in Kentucky I had three trespassers arrestd, and seeking help from Kentucky police was of little help.  They appeared to have no interest in addressing the local criminal organization.

To be continued.....