Loren Herzog is dead

Loren Herzog, who was convicted of the murders of Chevelle Wheeler, Cynthia Vanderheiden and two others, committed suicide on Monday.

In 2010, Herzog had been paroled and was required to keep curfew, wear a tracking bracelet and live on the grounds of the High Desert State Prison. He had a trailer there and was free to come and go at will during the daytime hours. He hung himself inside outside his trailer. This may have been prompted by a warning that his partner-in-crime, Wesley Shermantine, was planning to disclose the locations of their victims’ bodies.

I doubt many people will mourn him.

More ET entries

January 15, 1999: The Reçak Massacre, wherein some 40 to 45 Kosovo Albanians were shot to death. This was a very controversial event and remains so to this day, with some people claiming it was the merciless slaughter of unarmed civilians and others saying it was a military action against guerrillas. Because of the conflicting statements it was pretty hard for me to research and write. Regardless, it was what finally got NATO to get involved in the conflict in Yugoslavia.

January 17, 2006: Clarence Ray Allen, who was ultimately responsible for four murders, although he didn’t commit any of them himself. One of the homicides is a Charley Project case: 17-year-old Mary Sue Kitts, who disappeared in 1974. Allen was 76 by the time of his execution and in very poor health, and his attorneys said it would be cruel and unusual to execute a sick old man. The court of appeals rejected this argument and pointed out that it was Allen’s own fault that he was a sick old man on death row; he’d been 50 years old when he ordered the murders that would lead to his death sentence, and spent the next quarter-century trying to prolong his life with endless appeals.

More news in the Qua’mere Rogers disappearance

I’ve written before about the very strange disappearance of Qua’mere Rogers. His father, Damion Davis, claims he gave the boy away to a strange man sometime in July 2007, but we’ve only got Damion’s word on this and the man is a chronic liar who has lived under a zillion aliases and lied about his age, etc. Qua’mere’s mother was only in her mid-teens when he was born. She said Damion (whom she knew by another name) was very abusive and she left him in 2006, and never saw her son again.

After Qua’mere’s disappearance was finally reported in July 2009, Damion was charged with statutory rape of Qua’mere’s mother. His trial has been postponed just before it was supposed to start, however, since Damion has suddenly begun acting crazy.

Davis began ranting that Aloi, Cali and Smith [the judge, prosecutor and defense attorney] all were among the legions of extraterrestrials who have taken over the world.

He also accused Aloi of being God, claiming the judge and the prosecutor had been visiting him in his jail cell. Any missing children are the result of activity by extraterrestrials, Davis claimed.

“We need to get together as a human race and deal with the extraterrestrials,” he told Aloi.

Davis then went on to claim aliens are using Planned Parenthood facilities in Syracuse to clone babies and implant them in men to give birth. He also claimed he had been kidnapped by aliens, accounting for a 10-year time period when he was missing himself.

Several times, Aloi tried to interrupt, but Davis just continued his rant as he sat at the defense table beside Smith.

I would totally bet money that he’s faking it.

DNA tests performed in September proved that Damion was NOT Qua’mere’s father, after all, although both Damion and the boy’s mother thought he was. That isn’t going to stop the statutory rape prosecution, though.

The police think Qua’mere was probably murdered. There’s an article about his disappearance that ran just before Damion became “crazy.” It has some new information.

Patrick Alford’s dad shot, critically injured

We have all heard about Patrick Kennedy Alford Jr., who has been missing from his Brooklyn, NY foster home for two years less four days, but until today I had heard nothing of his father, Patrick Sr.

Patrick Sr. was shot during a home invasion at his apartment in Brooklyn. It was particularly nasty: Five men broke into the apartment in broad daylight and fired five shots, hitting Patrick Sr. in the head and the leg. He returned fire with his own gun. His two young children were inside the apartment and were, thank goodness, unharmed. The police are thinking it was drug-related: Patrick Sr. has 20 prior arrests, many of them for drug offenses, and there were 20 baggies of pot in his apartment.

He’s in critical condition. No word on whether they expect him to pull through or not. I suppose this case would probably have gotten no media attention at all were it not for Patrick Jr. being missing.

Articles:
New York Daily News
The Staten Island Advance

Sweet, articles on Debra Frost!

The 1984 disappearance of Debra Frost from Utah was one of those very frustrating disappearances for me, since I had almost no information on it. The only article I could find that referenced her disappearance was her father’s obituary; he died in 2005, aged only 58. I also found a comment on a blog from some relative of Debra’s, saying no one cared about her disappearance because she wasn’t a Mormon. Otherwise, nothing.

Well, today I found two detailed articles, both at KSL-TV (Article 1 and Article 2). They include pictures of Debra and a lot more information about her disappearance. It’s very intriguing:

Investigators say they received an anonymous tip about a year ago concerning the disappearance of Debra Frost who went missing on July 9, 1984. That tip lead them to Rock Springs, Wyo. where she had some sort of contact with police on July 21, 12 days after she was last seen, said Salt Lake Police Sgt. Josh Ashdown.

The nature of the contact with police is unknown, however, because police records from then have been purged, Ashdown said.

Debra’s 30-year-old sometime boyfriend, Fred Martinez, lived in Rock Springs. It’s unclear whether he actually had anything to do with her disappearance and the cops can’t ask him; he committed suicide in 1995. Apparently Debra was having problems at the time of her disappearance and may have been involved with drugs; she disappeared right before she was supposed to go stay with her mother and siblings in California to get away from her problems.

Her brother Frank lives in Minnesota and has been active in the search; no mention as to whether the other relatives are still alive. For their sake I hope something turns up, even if the news is bad.