Category: True Crime

More Snapchat predators arrested

Last July, Kegan Kline of Peru, Indiana was sentenced to 40 years in prison on 25 counts ranging from child exploitation and possession of child pornography to obstruction of justice.  During the Kline investigation, it was revealed that he had communicated through social media with 14-year-old Liberty German of Delphi, Indiana in the days leading up to the murders of Liberty and her 13-year-old friend Abigail Williams in February of 2017.  According to 13WTHR, “Court documents show Kline saying he would talk to girls, even if they were under the age of 16, and that he found them on Instagram and then told them to message him on Snapchat.  Kline allegedly claimed to have received pictures from all of the girls he chatted with and had saved them.”  The investigation revealed Snapchat was Kegan Kline’s preferred platform for soliciting sexual abuse material from underage girls.  

As this blog has previously pointed out, Snapchat comes up time and again as the platform of choice among Indiana predators apprehended by state and federal law enforcement.  Undoubtedly, a little research would likely reveal that the Snapchat platform is quite popular among child predators outside the Hoosier state as well.  With that in mind, a reasonable person might assume that if a company’s product is routinely utilized for victimizing children, and if that company’s name keeps appearing in news item after news item as the go to platform for perverted criminal low-lifes, then that company might seek to eliminate the problem, if for no other reason than to quash the endless stream of bad publicity.  However, it’s hard to see where Snapchat is doing anything of the sort.

On November 11, Westfield, Indiana police arrested 20-year-old Benjamin Owen Rollo of Westfield and charged him with seven felony counts, including child molestation, sexual misconduct with a minor and possession of child pornography.  According to 13WTHR, Rollo “is accused of using a Snapchat account to pressure young girls into meeting up with him, or into sending explicit photos.”  

If you thought Snapchat alerted authorities to Rollo’s predatory behavior on its platform, you would be wrong.  The mother of a 12-year-old victim discovered the messages on her daughter’s phone and contacted Westfield police.

As 13WTHR reports, “The victim’s mother learned of the attack by confiscating her daughter’s cellphone, where she found messages between her daughter and friends about the attack. The victim told friends she snuck out with a friend to meet Rollo on July 22, 2022. Rollo allegedly drove to the friend’s home, then drove the victim and the friend to Grand Park. 

“When the victim asked where they were going, Rollo would not say.

“Rollo allegedly forced the 12-year-old in the back of a car during the attack. The victim deleted Rollo’s contact from her Snapchat in the hours after. 

“Through her Snapchat account, investigators found Rollo had dozens more victims throughout the area, and that he used his Snapchat account, ‘johnny.backer,’ to target young girls. 

“Police served a search warrant to his home in West Lafayette on Nov. 11, and he consented to a police interview.

“When asked about photos and images sent and received, specifically on Snapchat, Rollo advised he has asked young girls and teens for explicit images and has sent his own images, ‘15-20 times.’ Rollo also confirmed to police 12- and 13-year-old females are who he is attracted to. When asked further, he advised that he did not know, it is just ‘what he’s into.’

“His Snapchat account also revealed he raped a 14-year-old girl who he picked up in Carmel in December 2022. Multiple messages reportedly showed Rollo telling the girl what happened was not rape, and to please delete their interactions.

“Rollo confirmed the “johnny.backer” account was his secondary account, because he was not comfortable using his real name. While en route to the Hamilton County Jail, detectives asked Rollo how many images were on his phone of younger girls — he said well over 1,000 images.”

While it may be the case that Snapchat has no way of identifying the individual behind an anonymous account, and maybe they’re unable to determine in what area of the country the messages originate, surely the content of these messages should be cause for alarm and referral to federal authorities.  It seems likely that some of the victims probably used their real names and locations, would it not be possible for Snapchat to notify local police that there is a predator in their midst?  Rollo was able to determine that the girls he was messaging were local.  Why can’t Snapchat identify potentially criminal and predatory behavior and notify the appropriate law enforcement agencies?   

It would be nice if Rollo was the only serial Snapchat predator terrorizing tweens and teens in the Hoosier state.  Then everyone could breathe a sigh of relief that finally the Snapchat rapist was behind bars and everyone could feel safe again.

For immediate release, November 14, 2023, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Indiana:

“Jacob Glenn, 26, of Cicero, Indiana, has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of a child.

“According to court documents, Jacob Glenn used Snapchat to communicate with girls between 13- and 15-years-old, falsely claiming to be a teen boy and offering to purchase nicotine or vape pens in exchange for sex. Glenn’s Snapchat username, ‘theplugfogshyde’ was intended to indicate that he could obtain vape pens for others he met online.

“On two occasions in 2021, Glenn coerced and enticed a girl between 12- and 15-years-old, to sneak out of her home after midnight to get vapes from him, including on Christmas Eve. Glenn picked the child up and drove her to a nearby truck stop where he told her that he would not accept cash for the vapes. Instead, Glenn stated that they could work out a “deal” where she could pay him with sex. Glenn picked up the same child again on January 17, 2022, and coerced and enticed her to engage in sex acts in exchange for vape pens. He used his phone to record the sexual conduct he engaged in with the child and instructed her to not tell anyone about his abuse. Glenn later used Snapchat to send a copy of the child sexual abuse video to two other minor girls.

“Glenn engaged in a similar course of criminal conduct with another minor girl he met on Snapchat between December 2021 and January 2022. The second victim was less than 14-years-old. On January 9, 2022, after a conversation via Snapchat, Glenn picked the second victim up near her home, drove her to a nearby truck stop, and engaged in sexual conduct in exchange for vape pens. Glenn also attempted to convince a child who was a friend of the second victim to engage in sex in exchange for vapes, but they did not meet in person.

“A law enforcement review of Glenn’s Snapchat account found conversations between Glenn and multiple other girls between thirteen and fifteen years old. In some of these conversations, Glenn offered nicotine or alcohol in exchange for sex or nude images.”

Two serial Snapchat predators, who were practically neighbors, locked up within days of one another.  Surely now the children of Hamilton and Marion counties in Indiana can use Snapchat without being solicited for sex.  

For immediate release, October 19, 2023, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Indiana:

“Isaiah Austin, 21, of Indianapolis, Indiana, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to coercion and enticement of two minors while required to register as a sex offender, and illegally possessing a firearm.

“In February 2021, Marion County probation officers conducted a compliance visit on Austin at his home. During their search, officers located a cell phone which contained multiple images and videos of child sexual abuse, as well as images of Austin holding firearms. Officers also uncovered text and Snapchat messages between Austin and a 14-year-old girl, beginning in early January 2021, less than a month after he was released from custody. In these text and Snapchat messages, Austin detailed sexual acts he wanted to engage in with the child and instructed her to send him sexually explicit images of herself.”

So in one small geographic area of central Indiana, during a time span of just a few weeks in the fall of 2023, three men were either arrested or convicted of child sexual abuse and/or child exploitation, and they all utilized the social media platform Snapchat as a tool to facilitate their depraved, criminal deeds.  That’s without even mentioning another Westfield man who got 38 years for similar offenses made possible by the social media platform Kik.  Maybe central Indiana is just a hotbed of child predators, but it’s probably more likely that this is happening in hundreds, if not thousands, of communities around the country.  Setting aside the disturbing question of how there can be so many sexual deviants preying on American children, why is eliminating this threat not priority number one with Snapchat and other social media companies?     

In testimony Tuesday before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on social media and the teen mental health crisis, Arturo Bejar, formerly of Facebook and Instagram testified that a survey of 13-15-year-olds on Instagram revealed that 13% of respondents had received unwanted sexual advances in the last seven days.  The number is astounding.  In any seven day period, a teenager has about a one in eight chance of being approached by a predator on Instagram.  Given enough seven day cycles, it is a near certainty that a young person will receive unwanted sexual advances about every two months or so.  It should be clear to anyone that social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Kik are cesspools of child exploitation and predatory grooming.  Making these platforms safer for young people should be the top goal of executives at these companies above all other considerations.  If a skate park or an arcade or a coffee bar existed where every week kids had a one in eight chance of receiving unwanted sexual advances, that place would be shut down.  Social media companies should face the same threat.

The Vanishing Collectors

On Tuesday, October 9,1990, a meeting of the city council of Sedona, Arizona convened at 7:00 p.m.  After the meeting was called to order and the Pledge of Allegiance recited, a brief moment of silence was observed.  Next the roll was taken and the floor opened for public comment.  Second to approach the microphone was a clean-cut young gentleman who introduced himself as Ben Porterfield and informed the gathering that he had submitted an application for the position of City Magistrate.  According to the minutes of the meeting, Porterfield “advised he wanted to give the Council an opportunity to match a face with a resume and that he would be available after the meeting for questions.”

As Ben Porterfield took his seat for the duration of the meeting, it is not known if he questioned the decision to use an alias on his application.  Perhaps a man who aspires to administer the law for a municipality ought to do so under his real name.  This might hurt his chances of getting the job, he possibly thought, especially if they do a background check which was certain to be the case.  Also, he may have wondered if managing a trailer park counted as relevant experience for issuing warrants and reviewing matters of law.  No matter, Ben Porterfield, or whatever the young man’s name was, had a number of ongoing projects in various stages of development.  Whether or not he got the City Magistrate position was of little consequence.  

Unsurprisingly, Ben Porterfield was passed over for the position of City Magistrate of Sedona, Arizona.  Months later, however, some who attended the city council meeting that night may have wished they’d taken a greater interest in the man at the microphone with the face and the resume.  Because Ben Porterfield was eventually going to become the subject of an arrest warrant, possibly issued by the newly appointed Sedona City Magistrate, and the target of a manhunt for absconding with an indeterminate quantity of Sedona residents’ precious bodily fluids.

Just a few months after the meeting, as the year drew to a close, concerned parents began presenting their teenage offspring at local medical clinics for examinations.  At the same time, the Sedona Police Department started receiving reports of a mysterious couple who were offering area teenagers ten dollars to draw a vial of their blood.  It took authorities a few weeks, but eventually they were able to zero in on a mobile home at the Windsong Trailer Park, located along U.S. 89A in west Sedona.  The trailer belonged to Benjamin and Sarah Porterfield, managers of the park.

Sedona Police Chief Bob Irish was at a loss to explain why these two individuals were collecting the blood samples.  “The possibilities of it are only limited by your imagination.  At this point, it is one of the most bizarre situations I have ever seen.”  At the time, it was thought that at least a dozen teens had allowed some of their blood to be extracted for money.  According to accounts, the teens were taken into a bathroom where a syringe was used to extract a sample of their blood.  “It looked okay to me,” said a 15-year-old who lived next door to the couple.  “They would unwrap each needle and put a brace on your arm and have you fill out a questionnaire.  You had to be 14 or over, and you could only give three times.  But the questions were really weird, like, ‘Did you use Clearasil…Are you on drugs or alcohol?’”  The young woman went on to reveal that her boyfriend and his friends had sold their blood numerous times to the couple and that the pair had taken more than 100 samples from at least 30 teen-agers.  Interviews with additional teens revealed the couple posed as representatives of the government and that the blood was needed for the testing of lasers.

Blood wasn’t the only thing the strange couple was collecting.  According to authorities, the pair had been collecting rent checks from Windsong residents and depositing them into their personal account.  This led to an arrest warrant being issued for a Benjamin and Sarah Birdsong on charges of child abuse, embezzlement, impersonating medical personnel, aggravated assault and operating a clinical laboratory without a license.  Apparently the age requirement and the questionnaire subjects were asked to fill out were insufficient to secure licensing for the couple’s blood drawing enterprise.  Investigators were also not entirely clear regarding the true identity of the individuals.  Chief Irish thought the couple’s names were possibly aliases and that they were known to have used the names Millett and Stewart when they lived in the Phoenix area.

On Monday, January 7, 1991, Sedona Police and an official from the Arizona Department of Health Services served a search warrant at the Camp Verde home of Benjamin and Sarah Porterfield.  The couple were not present at the time of the raid and had been last seen at the residence the previous Friday.  Items taken from the home by police included two handguns, two shotguns, a Mac-10 submachine gun with silencer, an IBM computer, a printer and computer storage disks – the standard items necessary to get a teen blood-buying business up and running.  Also taken in the raid were a book of satanic rituals, the Satanic Bible by Anton Lavey, photocopies, posters and banners containing occult logos and satanic imagery.  Satanism quickly moved to the top of the list of possible motives for the strange couple’s blood-buying activities.  “It seems to be the forerunner as far as theories,” said Chief Irish.  The chief further speculated the blood might be used as part of an “occult-type” ceremony, admitting that, “The worst-case scenario would be drinking it (the blood).” 

Meanwhile the search for the pair continued in earnest.  The couple owned two vehicles, a 1968 Ford pickup and a 1974 Volvo station wagon, that were now missing from the couple’s Camp Verde home.  Acting on a tip, authorities closed in on a motel in Mesa, Arizona, but missed capturing the pair by two hours.  Later, authorities admitted they could not confirm that the motel occupants were the fugitive couple.  Investigators now believed the actual identity of the pair to be Charles E. Stewart, 32, and Sharon M. Smythe, 23, who went by the aliases Benjamin and Sarah Porterfield while living in Sedona.  A number of town residents had encountered the couple, describing them as friendly but very private.  None interviewed were able to provide any worthwhile leads.  An 11-year-old neighbor of the Porterfield’s described how he was well treated by the couple who would buy parts for his bicycle and take him on camping trips.  He did admit, however, that they had some strange habits.  “I never saw any of that devil stuff.  But there was always weird, loud music in the middle of the night.  All the time, they would go camping in Boynton Canyon and then we would hear about animals that were sacrificed up there.”

Investigators continued to pore through materials seized from the couple’s home.  A computer specialist was called in to examine the contents of the Porterfield’s home computer.  At one point, the expert thought the couple may have booby-trapped the device to erase its contents if tampered with.  Eventually, however, the computer revealed little useful information about the Porterfield’s or their secret government research into blood lasers.  Occult experts brought in to examine the satanic materials concluded they showed nothing to indicate active occult involvement.  The elusive couple, who seemed to become more mysterious with every bit of information discovered about them, had seemingly vanished with potentially over a hundred vials of blood extracted from the town’s teen-age population, all while abandoning a cache of weapons and a computer.  Perhaps Chief Irish was wishing he’d introduced himself to Ben Porterfield when he had a chance.  “I remember at a City Council meeting, he went up to the microphone and said, ‘I’m Benjamin Porterfield, and I’m available to meet with you.’  He looked like a clean-cut, all-American kid,” Irish recounted.         

It should be noted that many residents and visitors to Sedona claim the city rests on a large energy vortex composed of a number of smaller vortices, the most significant of which is the Boynton Canyon vortex.  These swirling concentrations of energy are linked with any number of strange phenomena.  Perhaps a mystery couple collecting blood samples from local teens is a fairly mundane occurrence in an area where unexplained healing powers, strange spirits, ghostly hauntings, UFO activity, and Interdimensional Portals are part and parcel of the landscape.  And if two mysterious travelers conducting highly sensitive scientific research should suddenly be called to deliver their collection of samples back to their obscure corner of space and time, and if the pair of strangers should suddenly vanish through the interdimensional doorway from which they possibly emerged, perhaps it should come as no great surprise.

Another lost guru Part 4

MK-Ultra   

Adding to the barrage of allegations of drug use and drug trafficking coming from multiple sources aimed at the Church of Naturalism, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner reported the California State Franchise Tax Board was in the midst of a year-long investigation of the church at the time of the slayings.  The probe investigated allegations asserting drug customers wrote off their cocaine buys from the church as “donations” and subsequently claimed the transactions as tax deductions.  Anonymous sources alleged the cocaine buyers were able to purchase the drugs by check or credit card.  Reportedly, the church took both BankAmericard and Visa.  “They had one of those stamp-type machines like you see in a service station.  And they had all kinds of vouchers,” a source told the Herald Examiner.  Church secretary, Susan Shore, who claimed to be the sole surviving member of the Church of Naturalism, denied the allegations, claiming she had no knowledge of the tax board investigation.

People with stories to tell about the Church of Naturalism’s involvement in drug trafficking were seemingly coming out of the woodwork.  Missing from the narrative, however, were all the individuals they supposedly counseled, helped kick drug habits and trained for gainful employment.  Where were the recovering rock musicians, movie stars and sports celebrities with tales of how George Peters rescued them from the throes of drug addiction?  According to the Herald Examiner, their tax deductible donations, made in exchange for private “treatment,” involved “instruction in the use rather than abuse” of various drugs.  Indeed, one attendee at Church of Naturalism revelries told the Herald Examiner, “People spilled more coke on their shoes at one of George’s parties than they put up their noses anywhere else.”  

While surviving member Susan Shore attempted to put to rest rumors of drug use and narcotics trafficking, she dropped a bombshell of her own in the November 14, 1982 edition of the Herald Examiner.  In the article, Shore revealed that at the time of George Peters’ death the two had been working on a film about his involvement in the secret CIA program MK-Ultra.  “I was writing the story of his life prior to the founding of the church, when he was supposedly one of the people with whom the CIA was doing a lot of experimentation with drugs….The story involves espionage and experimentation with drugs to see how far you could make something go,”  Shore told the Herald Examiner.  “We were going to make a film that was going to expose what the government was doing back in the early 1960s.”

According to the Herald Examiner, Peters claimed he was a subject of LSD experiments while a member of the Navy in 1957.  He volunteered for these experiments and participated in two additional ones after he was discharged.  However, the newspaper conceded it could not verify if he ever served in the Navy.  

At least one of the experiments Peters described to his friends involved a program to abduct transients, drug them unconscious and deposit them at a new location.  The subject was then reprogrammed by Peters or another operative and given a new identity and life history, the Herald Examiner said.  

The Herald Examiner also reported that Peters had spoken of his connection to the MK-Ultra program during a July 1981 symposium at the University of California Santa Cruz where he delivered a talk titled The Social and Cultural Implications of Consciousness Research. 

As insane as the Herald Examiner’s account of Peters’ alleged involvement in secret experiments sounds, it pretty closely tracks with an experience he relates to his one-time ghostwriter, Lionel Rolfe, and also resembles the approach he would come to adopt as an LSD guru.  In Fat Man on the Left:  Four Decades in the Underground, Rolfe mentions that Peters had “an ‘enlightenment experience’ at the hands of the CIA” prior to reinventing himself as a guru.  Rolfe recounts a bizarre story Peters told him of an encounter with a mysterious man named David, who claimed to be an alien, but actually worked for the CIA.  David intended to use Peters as a subject in the CIA’s MK-Ultra program.  After drugging Peters, David relentlessly stalks him, trying to get Peters to give up the most intimate and closely held secrets of his life.  During these games of ‘Truth or Consequences,’ “Peters had to tell his life story over and over again, and if things didn’t mesh in a psychological profile, David would hassle him until he got what he wanted.”  Eventually, Peters confesses to David about a homosexual experience he had in high school.  The admission brought him great peace and caused him to have “a classic enlightenment experience.”

According to Peters’ former wife, Katherine Peters, it was this experience that led him to form the Church of Naturalism.  “‘George was so lonely and insecure when I met him that he felt he could only keep people around by buying their friendship,’” Katherine Peters told the Herald Examiner.  “All that changed, she said, when he recounted a homosexual affair at the age of 13 during a bizarre game of Truth or Consequences.”  

After the admission, Peters was transformed.  “I thought I could take over the world,” Peters wrote following the Truth or Consequences game.  “I thought I had the power and I knew what was right.  Then I thought of Hitler and remembered he thought he was right too….  So I thought of the sentence: ‘I will help anyone at anytime as long as it hurts no other.’  By this method, I could leave the world a better place than I had found it.”  This became the gospel of the Church of Naturalism.

Whether or not there was any truth to Peters’ account of being pursued by the shadowy David and forced to endure the Truth or Consequences game as a form of mind control programming, the story resembles in many respects the approach he would come to use in his life as a guru.  Additionally, whether or not he plucked transients off the streets at the direction of the CIA and gave them a new identity and purpose, it could be argued that as a guru this is more or less what he did.  The newspaper accounts at the time of his death could not confirm whether he had made any of his CIA claims prior to the MK-Ultra revelations in 1977, nor could they confirm whether he served in the Navy as he claimed.  However, a closer examination of the transformation of George Fitzpatrick to George Peters reveals that he almost certainly served in the Navy, and that the Navy did indeed conduct drug experiments.  Moreover, George Peters’ claims of being the subject of these experiments predates the MK-Ultra revelations by more than a decade.

Sources:

The Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Herald Examiner

The San Francisco Examiner

The Chicago Tribune

Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground by Lionel Rolfe  

Mind Styles, Life Styles by Nathaniel Lande

Another lost guru Part 3

Supernaturalism                  

Within days, neighbors’ insistence that the Church of Naturalism was involved with drugs was validated by the revelation that four of its members were arrested on narcotics charges in June of 1981.  An L.A. County Sheriff’s raid of the church compound yielded two ounces of cocaine, 350 Quaaludes, 66.5 grams of maijuana, nearly a gram of hashish and $3200 in cash. As the Los Angeles Times reported, despite the large quantity of drugs confiscated, “all charges were subsequently dropped because the district attorney’s office said the investigators did not find the drugs on the individuals.”  

I’m no narcotics investigator, but this seems like a rather odd reason for not pursuing charges.  At the time of the raid, sheriff’s detectives must have held some suspicions regarding the occupants of that location, and surely would have acquired some evidence or information that led to the raid in the first place.  The presence of large quantities of drugs discovered at the location would surely have confirmed these suspicions.  It seems strange then that no one was subsequently charged.  How common is it that, after conducting a drug raid and finding the illicit contraband, no one is charged because the possessors of that contraband didn’t have it directly on their person?  This seems highly unusual.  However, as we will come to find out, this was a pattern for George Peters and the Church of Naturalism, as he was arrested for drugs and subsequently freed without charges on a number of occasions.

At this point, investigators still maintained that robbery remained the motive for the murders, while conceding that drugs may have been a factor.  “It appears to us the primary motive was robbery.  But, remember, a person  can rob for drugs too,” Hollywood Division homicide Detective Richard Kuster told reporters.  “It’s obvious they were involved in drug traffic in one form or the other.”

Strange that a group that billed itself as offering drug counseling services, indeed that was purported to have counseled addicted rock musicians, also may have been involved in drug trafficking.  One ex-employee of the church told the Los Angeles Times that he had purchased marijuana from the group and later warned an employment agency not to place applicants with the church.  The owner of the agency confirmed the man’s account.  “At one point we heard something about that place we didn’t like and canceled the job orders,” the owner said.  One of the church’s subsidiaries, Mentor Media, subsequently tried to recruit through the agency but was also denied.    

Additional odd facts about the group began to emerge.  According to the Los Angeles Times, author Nathaniel Lande wrote in a 1976 book, Mind Styles, Life Styles that the Church of Naturalism offered a three stage divinity training.  The first stage, called “group grope,” involved groups of 5-10 members living together, working and contributing 80% of their income to the church for “samaritan services.”  The second stage, labeled “rural setting,” required members to remove from society and spend an hour each day in hot tubs receiving massages.  According to the book, this stage causes members to “develop deep, honest personal relationships.”  The final stage is called the “Death Judgment Experience.”  Here the church member isolates in a black box for 40 days.  “During the experience, the person loses his self-concept and relives the events of his life,” Landes says.  The purpose “is that if you can gain sufficient strength and stamina to be yourself by isolating yourself totally, you can operate in society much more effectively.”

In 1998, Lionel Rolfe wrote extensively about his time working as George Peters’ ghostwriter in the memoir, Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground.  In the book, Rolfe describes a much stranger and darker version of George Peters and the Church of Naturalism than members and acquaintances revealed at the time of Peters’ death.  “Into his and his church’s philosophy, Peters had put a lot of thought – some genuinely humanistic, it seemed to me.  But he also had potentially evil ideas.  I believe he considered himself an enlightened human being who wanted to help others.  The trouble, the evil, the weirdness entered his philosophy with his belief that he had supernatural powers … .  George claimed he could glow in the dark.  He didn’t do it for me, but he did tell me the story of how Mr. X once walked into the room where he was meditating, and Peters was ‘glowing.’  Later I learned that Peters’ witness, Mr. X, would not directly contradict the story….  About this time I started getting concerned about being Peters’ ghostwriter.  The more I became familiar with his thinking, the more I found the notion of being his ghost ill-advised, if not plain dangerous.  Peters wanted me to undergo one of his sensory deprivation experiences so I would have greater knowledge of what I was writing about.  I declined the opportunity.”  Smart move.

At the time of Peter’s death, the Los Angeles Times reported on a Church of Naturalism document that alluded to Peters’ alleged supernatural powers.  According to the document, “Peters claimed he could read others’ thoughts and move objects through mind control,” the Times reported.  The newspaper made no mention of the guru’s ability to glow in the dark.

Despite George Peters’ apparent abilities to transcend the physical constraints of this world, he was also a man who enjoyed the finest comforts and pleasures the material world could offer.  Shocking to no one, the man who considered himself a messiah had expensive tastes and eschewed monogamy.  “To watch him sitting on the sectional bed-sofa that filled half of his large bedroom as he viewed the wall-size television set was to see how much he loved his toys, and his comforts.  It was a grand bed, one that could accommodate a dozen people at a time, and probably had,” Rolfe wrote. 

“George was a hedonist.  He liked sex….  At the time of our acquaintance, Peters didn’t appear to be heavily into drugs himself, although he certainly liked to smoke good dope.  What he really liked, and was obsessed by, were the good things in life.”

That a self-styled messianic guru surrounded himself with life’s finer material possessions, that he partook of mind-altering substances, that he enjoyed frequent sex and the occasional orgy, that he claimed magical powers and exerted a level of mind control over his followers was not shocking for 1982 and mostly lifted straight out of the How To Be A Successful Guru handbook.  (Note: George Peters literally taught a guru class.  More on that later.) But George Peters’ fascination with drugs stretched back at least as far as the mid-sixties and possibly earlier.  Because while George Peters was seemingly pushing forms of mind control on his followers, a week after his death, one of his followers, Susan Shore, revealed to the Los Angeles Herald Examiner that Peters himself had been the subject of CIA drug experiments dating back to the 1950’s.       

Sources:

The Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Herald Examiner

The San Francisco Examiner

The Chicago Tribune

Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground by Lionel Rolfe  

Mind Styles, Life Styles by Nathaniel Lande

Another lost guru Part 2

Interviews

As morning broke on Saturday, November 6, 1982, residents of Woodstock Road, Los Angeles, California emerged from their homes eager to provide details regarding the mysterious group that occupied the fortress-like compound in their midst.  Despite denials from investigators, an almost unanimous assertion among neighbors of the Church of Naturalism Inc. was that the group was involved with drugs.  “We thought it was a drug factory,” said a 26-year-old neighbor named Kerry.  “It was too secretive to be a normal house.  We thought they were doing angel dust up there.” 

Another neighbor named Robin, who worked as a secretary for a television producer, also suspected the group was involved with drug trafficking.  “There was constant traffic at all hours, early morning and late at night, and they’d only stay a little while.  The strange thing was the flow of old beat up cars driven mainly by black men.  I always knew something weird was going on.”  Robin also revealed that she’d attended a costume party at one of the homes on the compound and had been introduced to the host who claimed to work in the mental health field. 

Despite the claims of neighbors, investigators continued to assert that no evidence pointed to a narcotics motive.  “We don’t have anything to show it’s drug related,” Detective Hank Petroski told reporters.  “We looked and found no drugs or drug paraphernalia.”  At least partially undercutting Petroski’s statement was a large sign that read “DRUGS” in mirrored letters visible inside the garage.

A nearby resident named Scott, who worked as a film editor, also spoke of frequent visitors to the property and the paranoid security personnel who guarded the compound.  He told reporters, whenever someone got too close to the front gate, security guards “popped out of the bushes” demanding, “What do you want?…They had a real defensive attitude.”  Neighbors reported they often heard gunshots on the property, which they assumed was target practice, and that muscular men could be seen lifting barbells.  “Everyone’s suspicious when there are locked gates and real defensive guards,” Scott added.  According to Scott, one of the estate’s servants revealed to him that the group “wanted to make a movie about cocaine.”  Indeed, the San Francisco Examiner reported that police sources claimed George Peters “was producing a film about cocaine at the time of his death,” and that Peters “was seen over the summer interviewing and filming participants of a Santa Monica conference on ‘Cocaine Today’….” 

As the weekend progressed, a dozen or so current and former members of the Church of Naturalism and employees started showing up at the group’s estate.  Most were reluctant to talk, but a few spoke fondly of their former friend, George Peters.  “George Peters had the gift of gab coupled with independence of thinking,” said Jay Friedheim, one of the church’s organizers from its early days.  “George always tried to take care of people on the fringe of society….We thought we were going to change the world.”  Peters former common law wife, Katherine Peters, who started the church with George after she met him in Chicago in the early sixties, said, “He was a father in a way.”  A woman named Susan Shore, who shared the rear house with Peters, revealed the church made income from a relationship counseling service called Loveline, a documentary film company called Mentor Media, computer programming and auto repair.  Friedheim indicated the compound’s heavy security was necessary because of the group’s work counseling drug addicts.  As one former church employee said, “They felt safe up here, away from the beaten path.” 

However, it would take less than 24 hours for the idealism to fade and for serious questions to arise about the happy band of altruists who just wanted to change the world from the fortified confines of their $5600 per month Laurel Canyon hideaway.  Despite detectives’ insistence to the contrary, Woodstock Road residents’ conviction that something fishy was going on at the Church of Naturalism’s secretive compound would prove accurate as revelations of previous drug arrests, allegations of strange beliefs and unorthodox practices and even charges of mind control began to spill out into the public.

Sources:

The Los Angeles Times

The San Francisco Examiner

The Chicago Tribune

Another lost guru Part 1

Crime Scene

As detectives made their way up the narrow winding lane, an abandoned Cadillac limousine was the first indication that something had gone terribly wrong in this Laurel Canyon neighborhood.  Hemmed in by thick brush on either side of the lane, the wrecked vehicle that now confronted them took up the better part of tiny Woodstock Road.  However, the vehicle’s damaged front end and shattered windshield didn’t appear related to the present location and position in which the vehicle came to rest.  The large caliber handgun that lay in pieces on the road next to the Cadillac also indicated that there was likely more to be discovered in this Mount Olympus neighborhood.  Strange scenes were nothing new to the detectives called to investigate crimes inside Laurel Canyon, an area of Los Angeles which had a peculiar knack for giving up its dead in a most bizarre and cruel fashion.   Only a year earlier, four people had been bludgeoned to death less than a mile away at the home of porn star John Holmes.  In 1969, the Tate murders occurred four miles away, with the slain bodies of other young women turning up along Mulholland Drive at around the same time.  With that in mind, investigators continued their ascent up Woodstock Road, stalked by a spirit of dread.  

About 1000 feet further on, detectives turned into a drive that led into a six acre private estate.  Across the drive lay a large wrought-iron gate, some 80 feet from where it had been ripped from its hinges, presumably by the damaged Cadillac they’d previously encountered.  The gate had once been attached to a six-foot fence that enclosed the property.  Topped with coiled razor wire, the security fence and spotlights gave the property the appearance of a heavily fortified compound, rather than an elegant residential estate.  Video cameras monitored the front gate and visitors had to press a buzzer to be admitted to the property.  There were two ranch-style homes, each with its own swimming pool, and a large statue of Buddha on the property.  Around 2:30 that morning, November 6, 1982, a security guard for the estate was alerted to a commotion, which hastened him to investigate.  After phoning the rear dwelling and receiving no answer, he ran to the home where he discovered a man lying dead in the living room, prompting him to immediately phone authorities.    

Inside the rear home, police discovered two badly beaten men dead from apparent gunshot wounds.  The second body was discovered in the bedroom.  Both were fully clothed and there appeared to have been a struggle.  Investigators were able to identify the victims as George Peters, 43, and James Henneberry, 31.  Investigator’s immediate assessment was that the two men were murdered during the course of a robbery, speculating that intruders accessed the property through an unlocked back gate.  Detectives learned the Cadillac was registered to the Church of Naturalism Inc., and that Peters served as chairman of the board and Henneberry the church treasurer.  

According to interviews with the security guard and a woman who shared the front house with Henneberry, Henneberry played pool until 2 a.m. when he walked over to the rear home where Peters resided to grab a cup of tea.  There Henneberry, presumably, interrupted a robbery in progress, struggled with intruders and was slain along with Peters.  The assailant or assailants then fled the scene by crashing the church’s limousine through the iron gate, abandoning the vehicle further down the road and possibly fleeing on foot. 

While the crime itself and the motive seemed fairly straight forward, the victims, the group they led and the location they occupied were shrouded in mystery.  And as interviews with neighbors and church members unfolded and facts emerged, the truth about the enigmatic George Peters and the Church of Naturalism he founded remained elusive.  Because, apart from the many things that remained unclear about George Peters, one thing that was clear was that his name was not George Peters.  He became George Peters when he left his old life behind and embarked on the life of a professional guru.  As gurus go, Peters had at one time shown some promise, attracting a fair amount of publicity and a modest following.  But unlike other more notable gurus whose ambitions led them to California, Peters’ project never really achieved full flourishing, and the circumstances of his death would call all of Peters’ ideals and ambitions into question.  

As George Peters lay there dead in his fortified, heavily guarded compound, the victim of a robbery gone horribly wrong, one could be forgiven for wondering whether the self-help guru occupation was genuine, or simply a persona he had constructed for himself to conceal other ambitions.  Indeed, to hear George Peters and his cohorts tell it, it is even possible the former LSD guru and Church of Naturalism founder could have been the invention of someone or something else altogether.  

Sources:

The Los Angeles Times

The San Francisco Examiner

The Chicago Tribune

The devil’s trailer Part 6

Aftermath

A day after his conviction was handed down, as a possible death sentence loomed on the horizon, and with the immensity of his situation weighing on him like a granite headstone, John Fryman shifted into panic mode.  “I can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that I didn’t do these things,” Fryman told Cincinnati television station WCPO-TV in a telephone interview.  “Her footprints were in the blood, not mine,” said Fryman as he desperately tried to pin the blame on Beverly Cox.  Fryman also hammered at his defense, questioning why neither he nor Cox was called to the witness stand.  Defense attorney Shiavone continued to stand by his client, but didn’t offer much in the way of alleviating Fryman’s mounting anxiety.  ”John is a very scared young man.  The electric chair, which he used to talk about so freely, is becoming a reality.  He’s confused, and I hope we can move on and save his life Tuesday,” Schiavone told reporters.

On the eve of Fryman’s sentencing, the grieving mother of Monica Lemen charged the convicted killer with playing mind games as he tried to shift the blame for Lemen’s murder onto Beverly Cox.  “He plays mind games.  People involved in psychology can get people in their confidence, and do things to people that are naive and not used to being around jailbirds.”  Patricia Lemen explained her daughter began receiving letters from Fryman in 1981 after she accompanied a friend to the Cincinnati Correctional Institution to visit the friend’s uncle.  Mrs. Lemen related how Fryman had threatened her daughter.  “She said Johnny drained the blood from an owl, and said to Monica, ‘I could do this to you…and spread your blood on the wall.’”  Patricia Lemen said she was not aware of the threats, or of Fryman’s involvement in satanism until after her daughter’s death.  The grieving mother was still trying to come to terms with the loss of her daughter.  “I feel like Monica went on a trip and didn’t come back.  But I know it’s permanent.”  Lamenting the life her daughter would never have, Mrs. Lemen described Monica as an “achiever, who wanted to get ahead by going to school for business administration and wanted to be all she could be.”

At John Fryman’s sentencing hearing on Tuesday, September 22, 1987, the only two people who really knew what took place at the mobile home on Sammy Drive in Fairfield, Ohio took the stand to deliver their testimony.  Beverly Cox, whose cooperation with investigators and prosecutors was instrumental in convicting John Fryman of aggravated murder, gave a tearful account of the horrific events of February 9th, 1987, and the personal struggles which led to her participation in those events.  According to Cox, on February 9th John Fryman told Cox he was going to bring Monica Lemen back to their trailer and kill her.  When the pair arrived, Cox hid in a bedroom closet, during which time she heard a gunshot.  Fryman told Cox to come out of the closet.  Monica Lemen lay dead in the “sorcery room” of the couple’s home, and Fryman told Cox, “Baby, you’ve got a dead body in the trailer.”  “He was all happy about it,” Cox testified.  The next day, Cox said, she held Lemen’s ankles while Fryman sawed off the legs to make it easier to remove the body from the trailer.  She also helped clean up the blood.  Cox said she assisted Fryman because she was afraid.  Cox’s testimony mostly mirrored the written confession Fryman gave police with a few extra details thrown in.  

In additional shocking testimony, Cox detailed her fear of Fryman and the dark magic he exploited to exert power over her mind and possibly her soul.  Cox said she learned about satanism from Fryman who variously referred to himself as Todva the Crazy and the prince of evil.  She claimed Fryman had her under his influence, “I didn’t know if I was coming or going.”  According to her testimony, she became free of Fryman’s psychic control in April, two months following the murder.  “I see it all now.  I see what he’s done.  I don’t believe any of that stupid crap anymore,” Cox testified.  However, further testimony and Cox’s jailhouse letters to Fryman revealed the young woman’s struggles with evil forces go back much farther than her acquaintance with Todva the Crazy.  Cox testified that her interest in satanism, demons and black magic extended back to high school when she wrote a report on witchcraft.  She stated that her former husband was a satanist and his mother was a witch.  According to Beverly Cox, the devil had been stalking her family for hundreds of years.  In an April 16 letter to John Fryman, Cox wrote, “He tried to get my father, but could not, so he went after me.  This devil had me.  I was going to kill myself.”  She described to Fryman an exorcism or ritual that took place in the jail to free her of a demonic spirit that had “settled around her,” and seized control of her mind and soul.  “I was pounding the walls with my fists, pounding my head against the walls, pacing the floor.  My body went blue.  I could not stop shaking.  It was horrifying,” Cox wrote.  On the stand, Cox characterized that jail cell experience as a “demon or spirit in the room that was removed out.”  The blueness in her legs she attributed to poor circulation.  Cox said her parents, Victor and Francis Dawson of Cincinnati, came to the jail on April 4th with her confirmation Bible.  “Dad was telling me everything was going to be alright, that Johnny couldn’t do anything to me.  Dad started to read the Bible.  He said everything will be explained, evil and hell are all around us.”  According to Cox’s testimony, a priest, the Rev. Walter Sherman of Trinity Episcopal Church in Lawrenceburg, IN, accompanied Cox’s parents to the jail the day of the exorcism ritual, and jail records corroborated her testimony.  However, Rev. Sherman, who sat in the courtroom with the Dawsons, denied taking part in the ritual to reporters, and claimed not to have met the Dawsons until April 19. 

When it was Fryman’s turn to take the stand, he refused to take an oath, and proceeded to deliver an hour-long monologue in which he characterized Beverly Cox as a sinister femme-fatale that murdered Monica Lemen out of jealousy and skillfully cast the blame on him.  The only time Fryman expressed anything resembling regret was when he described dismembering Lemen’s dead body.  “I knew I couldn’t just carry her body out in broad daylight.  We ended up cutting her legs.  It’s something I can’t explain, it was totally irrational.”  Regarding his written confession, he called it “totally bogus” and said, “I had no reason to kill Monica Lemen.”  

While acknowledging he went by the satanic name Todva, Fryman denied an involvement in satanism, blaming Cox for his trailer’s devil themed decor.  “I catered to this woman’s madness,” Fryman said of Cox.  No word yet on whether HGTV has optioned “Sorcery Room,” a home improvement series in which Beverly Cox shows you how to take that old outdated spare bedroom and turn it into a modern, functional space for practicing occult magic.  Fryman also surprised the court by revealing a wicked swastika tattoo inside his lower lip.  He referred to the symbol as a “wheel of life” and claimed it was a good sign.  And in yet another instance of Fryman’s flair for the dramatic, he related a story Cox had told him about her visit to a psychic that seemed to foreshadow the tragic events.  “She (the psychic) said she and another person would be arm in arm with a mutilated body between them,” Fryman told the court.     

Despite not taking an oath prior to delivering his suspect testimony, and his lack of remorse and failure to take responsibility for the crimes, Fryman was ultimately spared the death penalty and given life in prison.  As for Beverly Cox, she got off with a jailhouse exorcism and time served in protective custody.  Cox also received $25 for every day she was in the Butler County Jail.  Immediately following her testimony, she took her $5300 and embarked for Germany to stay with her sister who was serving in the military there.  At some level, it does seem that Beverly Cox managed to elude justice in this case.  To what extent she was an innocent victim of the evil magician Todva, or a willing participant and advocate for the evil deeds committed by the pair, it will most likely never be known.    

Justice was swift in the severed legs case with slightly more than seven months elapsing between the commission of the crimes and the sentencing of John Fryman.  However, it took quite a bit longer for the justice system to make Little Cedar Grove Baptist Church whole again.  The headstone that John Fryman and Beverly Cox had stolen from the church for use as a satanic altar sat in the basement of the Butler County Courthouse for five years following the trial.  Stained by soot and candle wax, the headstone weighed 450 pounds and took four trusties of the Butler County Jail to move and load onto a truck for transport.  How Fryman and Cox were able to move the hefty slab of granite from the church to his trailer’s sorcery room is unknown.  Barring a levitation spell cast by Todva the Crazy, is it possible the pair had help from others within their magic circle?  

At the time of its theft, the headstone occupied a space leaning against a column inside the church.  The inscription on the stone read, “To the memory of Elizabeth, wife of William Tyner, who departed this life Aug. 2, 1810, age 36 years 3 days.”  The Rev. William Tyner was the church’s first minister.  According to the July 29, 1954 edition of the Brookville Democrat, it was the only headstone uncovered with the discovery of the burial ground and thirty other grave markers on the church site.  The headstone featured “the intricate engraving of willow tree, coffin and lamb as well as the delicate etching around the word ‘Sacred.’”  Apparently it was not so sacred that caretakers refrained from uprooting the ancient headstone and placing it inside the church.  

Whether or not the act of disturbing the burial ground produced a cosmic disturbance that would ultimately result in an unspeakable evil revealing itself at the Cedar Grove site is a matter for speculation.  However, historical events do not appear to rule out the possibility.  Regarding that previously mentioned earthquake that hastened the construction of Little Cedar Grove Baptist Church, E. A. Wood wrote in 1894 that “quite a number of the members of this church who had become careless as to matters spiritual, interpreted this violence as a visitation of the Almighty upon them on account of their sinfulness”.  Additionally, Wood reported that the fledgling congregation struggled mightily to keep Freemasons out of its midst, the baptists in those days being not so liberal “and very antagonistic to secret fraternities.”  Ultimately, however, the church’s leaders relented and restored membership to congregants who had refused to renounce Masonry.  It wasn’t long after this fateful decision that the congregation began to fade out of existence.  According to Wood, “The church continued to prosper until about 1850, when the Reaper began to gather the harvest and the members of the old church were gathered in.”  

If there was a spiritual struggle between those seeking the Lord’s favor and malevolent forces that sought to inflict destruction and despair on the Little Cedar Grove community, John Lee Fryman seemed eerily attuned to that conflict.  Despite possessing an education in the science of human behavior, and for a time showing a desire to use it to help others, Fryman instead chose to push further and explore the murky pathways that lay beyond the boundaries of scientific understanding.  There he saw something, something that led him to make an offering of the severed legs in order to, as he stated, “increase the power of that spot.”  Whether the devil made him do it, or he took it upon himself to curry favor with his dark master matters little.  It is a certainty that John Lee Fryman lost himself in a domain beyond his understanding and ability to control.  He wandered willingly down a dark path, which he could have turned back from at any time, but instead chose to follow the pull of black magic and mystery until he was gathered into its black abyss.

Sources:

The Cincinnati Enquirer

Dayton Daily News

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Star Press (Muncie, Indiana)

The Brookville Democrat

Franklin County Historical Society

The devil’s trailer Part 5

Trial

In the weeks leading up to his trial, John Fryman did little to help himself, mostly ignoring his lawyer while scheming ways to manipulate the court.  At a competency hearing on September 10, 1987, Fryman revealed to the court a plan to fake insanity.  “I was going to fake insanity,” Fryman told Butler County Common Pleas Court Judge John R. Moser.  “I am well aware of sociology and psychology and know how to do that.  Now I believe the facts will show that I don’t have to do that.  I think I can stand on the facts of the case without having to push things around.”  Undoubtedly thinking they’d dodged a bullet, the prosecution must have been relieved that Fryman had shelved his plan to “push things around” and manipulate the court into accepting his insanity.  

Nevertheless, the competency hearing continued with conflicting testimony coming from a number of experts who examined Fryman.  Psychiatrist Charles A. Feuss interviewed Fryman for an hour at the Butler County Jail and found the young man to be well oriented and able to talk about his case in a “clear and concise fashion.”  According to Feuss’s testimony, Fryman blamed the killing of Monica Lemen and the shooting of Tammy Sue Rose on his accomplice Beverly Cox.  Fryman also told Feuss that his attorney wants him to plead insanity, but that he doesn’t want to and doesn’t think he’s insane.  Dr. Donna Winter of the Butler County Forensic Center spoke to Fryman on three occasions and also found him competent to stand trial.  

However, Dr. Robert H. Fisher, director of the Butler County Forensic Center, disagreed with his colleagues, finding Fryman extremely agitated during interviews, and unable to comprehend his relationship to the charges against him.  Fisher testified that Fryman suspected his attorney, F. Joseph Schiavone, was “part of a system of maneuvers against him designed to make Beverly Cox heroic and innocent while he is thrown to the wolves for crimes he denies committing.”  The alleged conspiracy also included listening devices in his cell, CIA involvement and an impostor posing as his attorney.  Responding to the injustices committed against him, Fryman told Dr. Fisher he (Fryman) would “lead the way to the electric chair.”  

Picking up on Dr. Fisher’s testimony, Fryman’s attorney argued, “The man is totally confused, judge.  When a man’s on trial for his life, he doesn’t spend seven months misleading his defense attorney and saying he will lead the way to the electric chair.  He is not competent.  He needs hospitalization.”  

In the end, Judge Moser was unconvinced by arguments for Fryman’s incompetence.  Ordering the trial to proceed, the Judge stated, “He may be different.  He may be strange.  He may be unusual.  But different, strange and unusual (do not) mean he’s not competent to stand trial.” 

The following day, a suppression of evidence hearing was held to determine if statements made by Fryman to authorities following his arrest would be admissible at trial.  While in Indiana State Police custody in Connersville, Fryman admitted to shooting Monica Lemen but claimed it was an accident.  Fairfield Police Sergeant Eddie Roberts testified Fryman told police that Monica Lemen entered the “sorcery room” located in the rear of his mobile home.  There she began reading an inscription Fryman had written on the closet door.  Fryman said he then picked up a .25 caliber handgun that was laying on the altar, and, as he inserted the clip, the gun discharged.  Cincinnati police specialist Carey Rowland testified that when Fryman was asked about the inscription, Fryman told Rowland “demons did it through him,” and Fryman admitted that he often saw demons.  At a later date, Fryman admitted to Cincinnati homicide detective Robert Hennekes, “I probably made a mistake telling you guys all this.  I should have acted crazy,” Hennekes told the court.  Additionally, Fryman also gave authorities a written statement implicating himself in the Fairfield gas station robbery and the shooting of Tammy Sue Rose.  

As in the competency hearing, Fryman’s attorney F.Joseph Schiavone made little headway with Judge Moser.  A motion to suppress Fryman’s statements to authorities was denied, and a motion for a 30-day continuance also ran into a brick wall.  Pleading for the continuance, Schiavone argued that his client had only begun to cooperate, and that he needed more time to prepare an adequate defense.  “This is a complex case with a lot of witnesses and hundreds of pieces of evidence.  We find ourselves on the eve of trial with only three days for this defendant to bring me up to date,” Schiavone argued.  However, an unyielding Judge Moser was not persuaded, asserting that Fryman’s refusal to cooperate with his lawyer was his choice.  “I don’t think the court can allow a defendant to control the trial docket by changing his strategy,” the judge said.  With that, Judge Moser set jury selection to begin the following Monday morning at 9:00 a.m.

The trial got underway Monday, September 14, with jury selection lasting a mere two hours, leaving enough time on the first day for the 12 jurors to tour the crime scene.  As it turns out, the trailer had three rooms painted all black.  Additionally, the living room was adorned with statues of a witch, a winged black cat and several black candles.  Pictures of unicorns added a lighter touch to the home’s mostly unforgiving dark interiors.  From the ‘sorcery room,’ where the murder was alleged to have taken place, an inverted cross, a silver chalice, a knife and a ram’s head had been confiscated by police along with the headstone ‘altar’ and the closet door that contained the inscription Monica Lemen had allegedly been reciting when she was shot. 

At the close of the first day, defense attorney F. Joseph Schiavone met with reporters outside the courtroom to make a preemptive case to the press on his client’s behalf.  In his remarks, Schiavone described Fryman’s earlier admissions of responsibility in the death of Monica Lemen as an effort to protect his then-girlfriend Beverly Cox.  According to Schiavone, when Fryman was arrested, he admitted to accidentally shooting Lemen to Indiana authorities because he believed Cox was pregnant and he hoped to get a light sentence so he could be quickly reunited with Cox and their baby.  Regarding a later statement to police where Fryman copped to premeditated murder, Schiavone said that Fryman believed Cox was being sexually abused in jail and he made the statement hoping she would be freed.  “He read the law on capital punishment and tailor-made his statement to fit it, all to protect Beverly,” Schiavone said.  With opening statements set for the following day, Schiavone seemed to be making a desperate attempt to gain sympathy for his client, promoting a “protect Beverly” rationale for the confessions while preparing to transition the following day to a “blame Beverly” defense. 

During opening statements on Tuesday, Butler County Prosecutor John Holcomb did not shy away from allegations of satanism and black magic as being factors in the slaying of Monica Lemen, even as detectives had previously tried to downplay the angle.  Addressing the court, Holcomb said John Lee Fryman was motivated by “a mixture of anger, the occult, black magic and satanism…John Fryman arrived at the conclusion in his mind that he would kill Monica Lemen, and lured her to his trailer…John Fryman took Monica Lemen to what he called his sorcery room…and had her read a satanic incantation that was painted on the door.  While she was doing that he shot her in the back of the head with a .25 automatic.”  Holcomb told the court the pair had been pen pals when Fryman was serving time for robbery in the Lebanon Correctional Facility.  On the day of the murder, Fryman lured Lemen to his trailer on the pretense of helping her cash some stolen checks.  Holcomb assured the court that when jurors hear the evidence, they’ll conclude Fryman “deserves only to die” in the electric chair.   

In his opening statement, Fryman attorney F. Joseph Schiavone launched headlong into a “blame Beverly” defense.  According to Schiavone’s version of events, on February 9 John Fryman left Lemen and Cox alone together at his mobile home while he went to Middletown to buy marijuana.  While away, Beverly Cox killed Lemen out of jealousy because both women loved Fryman.  When Fryman returned, he found Monica Lemen dead in his living room.  “Beverly Cox was hysterical.  All she kept saying was it was an accident.  Blood was on the floor,” Schiavone said.  Fryman responded by saying, “Don’t worry.  I’ll take care of everything.”

Interestingly, the prosecution and defense not only differ in regards to who pulled the trigger, but also as to where the actual killing took place.  The prosecution contends the shooting occurred in the “sorcery room,” while the defense seems to assert that Lemen was killed in the living room.  Descriptions of the mobile home indicate that these are two different rooms with the ‘sorcery room’ located in the rear of the trailer.  From newspaper accounts, there is no mention of the location of the killing being a point of contention at trial, and all accounts have investigators pointing to the “sorcery room” as the location of the actual shooting.  If the two rooms are the same room, then the point is irrelevant.  But if the defense is describing a different location for the commission of the murder from the generally accepted one, then it seems like a pretty bone-headed maneuver that could be easily discredited.

Nevertheless, Schiavone pressed ahead with the defense assertion that Beverly Cox was also responsible for the shooting of gas station attendant Tammy Sue Rose.  According to Schiavone, two days following the Lemen shooting, John Fryman was pumping gas at the Clark Service station when Beverly Cox entered the station.  Fryman said he heard two “pops,” and when Cox returned to the car she “had a smile on her face and money from the gas station.”  If we are to believe the defense account, it seems like everytime the hapless John Fryman lets his girlfriend out of his sight for even a few minutes, she goes off and shoots somebody.

While the defense mostly portrayed Fryman as an unwitting accomplice to the remorseless, trigger-happy psychopath, Beverly Cox, it did concede that Fryman sawed off Lemen’s legs the day following the shooting to make it easier to remove the body from the trailer.  Concluding his opening remarks, Schiavone related a touching account of Fryman’s boundless love and devotion to the murderous Cox.  Having received letters from Cox describing ongoing sexual abuse while in jail, Fryman decided to take the fall to protect the woman he loved.  “He said bring me a Quarter Pounder and a Coke and I’ll make a statement.  The Quarter Pounder was given to the woman he loved, it wasn’t for him.  And so was the confession,” Schiavone told the court.  One can only imagine the tears that were shed in the courtroom that day upon hearing this heartwarming tale.

Among the witnesses called that day was Lemen’s live-in boyfriend Dennis Whitt who testified that he last saw Lemen on February 9.  Whitt said Lemen received a phone call from Fryman who arranged to pick her up.  Whitt testified Lemen had become fearful of Fryman following a confrontation in December at Fryman’s trailer.  “She said he threatened to kill her and write her name in blood on the wall,” Whitt said.  Witnesses also testified that Fryman had helped Beverly Cox acquire a gun for $45 because she was fearful of her ex-husband.  It was the same gun found in Cox’s purse when the pair were arrested.

When day three of the trial got underway, the jury was presented with a courtroom reconstruction of the satanic altar discovered in the trailer of John Fryman.  Fairfield Police Officer Ed Roberts testified that the items were confiscated following a search of Fryman’s trailer.  The altar consisted of a tombstone that sat atop a wooden frame, topped by two black candles, a bell, a chalice, a book of black magic, a butcher knife and ram’s skull.  It was revealed the previous day that the tombstone came from the same Indiana churchyard where Monica Lemen’s severed legs were discovered.  The saw that was used to sever Lemen’s legs was placed underneath the altar.  Additionally, the sorcery room’s closet door from which Monica Lemen allegedly “read a satanic incantation” as John Fryman shot her was displayed for the court.  On the door in Runes language was written an “Invocation to Satan” which when translated read:  “In the name of Satan, the Ruler of the earth, the King of the world, I command the forces of Darkness.…Come forth and answer to your names by manifesting my desires!”  

A number of details emerged regarding the numerous confessions John Fryman made to authorities in the months following his arrest.  In a written statement to police, Fryman admitted killing Lemen because she insulted him by bringing another magician to his trailer to kill him.  Fryman further confessed that for two weeks he told Beverly Cox he intended to kill Lemen, adding that Cox hid in a closet when Lemen came to the trailer.  Fryman wrote that it was his idea to cut off Lemen’s legs and that Cox helped him.  “Bev cut the jeans away.  I cut her flesh with the butcher knife on the altar, and her bone with the wood saw under the altar.”  In his statement, Fryman also revealed that he placed Monica Lemen’s deceased body in a dumpster, and that he chose the Indiana churchyard to leave the legs because it was a place where he practiced “magic.”  “I drove to Indiana.  I went to the church, as it was a place I practiced magic.  By throwing the legs there, I increased the power of that spot,” Fryman stated.  Fryman’s written statement also included an admission that he shot Fairfield gas station attendant Tammy Sue Rose in the face and stole $175 from the cash register while Beverly Cox waited in their car.  

It was a damning statement, which may as well have been written in cold blood.  Defense attorney Schiavone’s attempts to deflect blame onto Beverly Cox were of little merit against his client’s own words.  As Prosecutor Holcomb told reporters after the court had recessed for the day, “(Fryman) confessed five or six different ways.  What more do we need?  I think all the elements are there.”  Fryman’s own statements were so damning that Holcomb felt no need to call Beverly Cox to the stand unless needed to rebut Fryman’s testimony.  But that wouldn’t happen, because the following day the defense rested without calling Fryman or any other witnesses.  “He has no obligation to take the stand and be abused by the prosecutor.  They haven’t proved anything against him,” Schiavone told reporters.  Despite defense efforts to argue that Fryman’s statement came about as a result of pressure applied by Cox through a series of letters written to Fryman in the months since their arrest, Fryman did concede that the part about cutting off Lemen’s legs was true and pleaded guilty to gross abuse of a corpse. 

Closing statements got underway on Friday, September 18, 1987.  Prosecutor Holcomb continued to hammer on Fryman’s multiple confessions as proof he committed the crimes and the budding sorcerer’s involvement with black magic as the motive.  “In his own words he said it’s a perfect statement to put him in the electric chair – and it is….Being an admitted so-called magician, he would have had to do the killing to increase his powers.  You see, it makes sense that he did it; it doesn’t make any sense that Cox did it.”  Holcomb also cast doubt on the defense claim that Fryman took the blame out of love for Beverly Cox.  “Why does he want to take the blame for her if she has immunity?  He should be putting the blame on her because she’s going to go free anyway.”  Finally, in an act of biblical drama worthy of the great Charlton Heston, Holcomb held up the Holy Bible and delivered his closing remarks:  “He went against that ancient law, ‘Thou shall have no other gods before me.’  Moderation in dealing with wickedness only adds foolishness to the crime.  Find him guilty as charged.”

It was pretty much curtains for the defense after that bit of theater.  According to Schiavone’s closing statements, the motive boiled down to two jealous females battling for the affections of a promising young magician who owned a pretty wicked trailer.  “The devil didn’t make this man do this.  What made this happen was Beverly Cox’s jealousy of Monica.  It was a female rivalry….  Beverly Cox sits 200 yards away from this witness stand laughing because she pulled it off–she pulled off her little trick….  (She) has made a fool of the state of Ohio.  Don’t let her make a fool of this jury.”

The jury deliberated 6½ hours before returning a verdict of guilty of aggravated murder while committing felony kidnapping.  That specification made Fryman eligible for the death penalty.  Additionally, Fryman was convicted for attempted murder and aggravated robbery, stemming from the gas station holdup and shooting of Tammy Sue Rose.  A sentencing hearing was set for the following Tuesday with Judge Moser presiding.  In remarks to reporters, defense attorney Schiavone did not take issue with the outcome.  “Naturally, we’re very disappointed.  It was an uphill battle.  Unfortunately, John insisted on confessing at almost every juncture in this case.”  For his part, prosecutor Holcomb voiced what many must have been thinking.  “I think the guy earned it, he deserved it and he got it.  This is a bizarre business.  The evidence shows this man worked at being evil.”  

That John Fryman worked at being evil, there could be little doubt.  The practitioner of black magic who maintained a sorcery room in his home was clearly trying to increase his stature in the world of the dark arts.  But there was also the earnest college student who was only a few credits short of completing his degree, and the attentive care home worker who received positive reviews from supervisors.  Could he have pursued a different path?  One former acquaintance of Fryman’s described him as someone who didn’t stand out in any way.  And maybe that was the problem.  Perhaps his embrace of black magic stemmed from a desire to be noticed, to be taken seriously, to increase his power and stature, and to be feared.  Playing it straight relegated him to a life of obscurity, but immersing himself in the world of dark spirits garnered him prestige and a small following, conferring on him the designation of Todva the Magician.

Sources:

The Cincinnati Enquirer

Dayton Daily News

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Star Press (Muncie, Indiana)

The Brookville Democrat

Franklin County Historical Society

The devil’s trailer Part 4

Arrest 

Even after the brutal slaying and dismemberment of Monica Lemen, it seemed John Fryman had not had enough of doing the devil’s business.  On February 11, 1987, only a few days after killing Lemen, Fryman and his accomplice, Beverly Cox, shot a gas station attendant during a stick-up of the Clark Oil Co., 3660 Dixie Highway, Fairfield.  Although the victim, Tammy Sue Rose of Fairfield, would survive the shooting, she would have no recollection of the attack and require months of physical therapy to recover.  John Fryman was on quite a roll.  The young man who had studied sociology and psychology while in prison, and was only three credits short of graduating college, had fully committed himself to a path of blood and mayhem.  “He was a person that does not stand out in any way.  A very quiet person,” said a spokesperson for the college he attended.  It now seemed the unassuming young man was making an effort to stand out.  The big question is why now and why choose such a grisly course of action? 

It would be some time before investigators would connect the gas station robbery with the severed legs discovery.  In the meantime, detectives learned that Fryman was issuing threats through intermediaries to his former associates.  According to Middletown Police Chief Russell Dwyer, John Fryman, Monica Lemen and two unidentified men had paid a visit to a Middletown, Ohio couple the previous month.  While the nature of that visit was not revealed, the couple did say that, after the discovery of the severed legs, they were threatened by one of the two unidentified men.  “The couple said the man told them he had been in contact with John Fryman and he indicated they should be afraid of him.  The man told them in the same conversation that Fryman had talked of the occult and black magic,” said Chief Dwyer.  

It isn’t difficult to imagine that an interest in the occult and demonology could have been what bound this group together.  Family members and friends of both Fryman and Lemen agreed that the two shared an interest in the occult.  That knowledge coupled with the revelation that Fryman circulated black magic threats to group members, could lead one to conclude that this was a group dabbling in dark occult practices. Did Fryman enjoy some kind of power or status within the group?  Did the quiet young man who went almost entirely unnoticed in the everyday world feel emboldened by the dark forces inhabiting his spiritual one? 

On Thursday, February 19, John Lee Fryman and Beverly V. Cox were arrested at around 4 p.m. along U.S. 40 outside of Richmond, Indiana.  Fryman was wanted for questioning in the disappearance of Monica Lemen, and Cox was carrying a .22 revolver in her purse for which she had no license.  The gun would later be identified as a match to the weapon used to shoot Tammy Sue Rose.  The pair were picked up by an Indiana Conservation Officer and a Wayne County (Indiana) Sheriff’s Deputy, who had been told to be on the lookout for Fryman’s 1980 Ford Pinto station wagon.  

Fryman and Cox were taken into custody and questioned by authorities in Indiana.  The morning after their arrest, Indiana State Police Detective Reginald Brewer testified in Wayne County Superior Court that the pair had admitted killing Monica Lemen during interviews with state police Thursday evening.  A source familiar with the hearing, none other than presiding Judge Harry H. Holtsclaw, told The Indianapolis Star, “They (Indiana State Police detectives) intimated they had confessions, and the car was used for transportation of the body parts.”  The judge granted the ISP request to search the Pinto, and Fryman was held on a charge of aggravated murder while Cox was charged with complicity to aggravated murder.  According to “an informed source,” Monica Lemen “was shot in the head at the mobile home in Fairfield.”  No word on whether the informed source was the honorable Judge Holtsclaw.  With that, the devil worshiping duo promptly waived extradition from Indiana and were transferred to the Butler County Jail in Hamilton, Ohio.  

Naturally, of pressing concern to investigators in Ohio was the location of the rest of the remains of Monica Lemen.  Based on information provided by the suspects, authorities undertook a massive search of a Colerain Township, Ohio landfill.  According to Fairfield Police Chief John Rednour, the legs were severed “as a matter of logistics.”  The corpse was too large to fit in John Fryman’s Ford Pinto station wagon, so the legs were removed and the torso deposited in a dumpster owned by Rumpke Waste Inc.  The dumpster had since been emptied, but authorities were able to determine that the refuse had been deposited in the landfill near Cincinnati.  With the aid of landfill employees, police were able to locate the area of the landfill where the dumpster’s contents had been deposited.  For days, police and refuse workers sifted through trash in search of the body.  Backhoes scooped up yards of waste to be spread out and examined.  Searchers periodically checked the dates on discarded newspapers to make sure they were searching through refuse that corresponded to the date the dumpster was emptied.  After three days of searching “daylight to dusk,” frustrated investigators halted their efforts.  “It was just too massive,” said Fairfield City Manager Robert Gerhardt, who added that all involved felt bad that they couldn’t locate Lemen’s remains for the sake of the family.

On Tuesday, February 24, Fryman and Cox were arraigned in Fairfield Municipal Court with Judge James E. Walsh presiding.  Fryman was charged with aggravated murder and Cox with complicity to aggravated murder.  In a document filed with the court, police said Fryman admitted killing Monica Lemen and Cox admitted helping him.  The judge ordered a preliminary hearing for the following Friday to determine whether the case would be bound over to a Butler County grand jury.  Investigators confirmed their belief that Monica Lemen died of a gunshot wound to the head, reiterating their contention that she was not killed as part of a satanic ritual.  

On Friday, February 27, Beverly Cox testified for three hours in front of a special session of the Butler County grand jury.  In exchange for that testimony, and contingent upon her testifying at Fryman’s trial, Cox was granted “transactional immunity,” according to her attorney Ronald Craft.  “What that means is that she will not be prosecuted on the offense of complicity to aggravated murder,” Craft said.  The following Monday an indictment was filed in the Butler County Common Pleas Court charging John Fryman with aggravated murder and gross abuse of a corpse.  The murder charge included specifications of kidnapping and use of a firearm, opening the door for a potential death penalty sentence should he face conviction.  The indictment charged that Fryman “with prior calculation and design” killed Lemen and “did treat the human corpse of Monica Lemen in a way that would outrage reasonable community sensibilities.”  

Prosecutor John Holcomb seemed satisfied with Beverly Cox’s cooperation, and in remarks to reporters stated she had no involvement in the actual murder.  “Her testimony against the defendant was vital.  Our study of the evidence showed that Beverly Cox was present when the events occurred, but wasn’t a party to it in that she was hiding in the closet.”  Nevertheless, Cox remained held in the Butler County jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond to ensure her testimony in the upcoming trial.  “What she was probably more guilty of than anything would be an obstruction of justice type charge,” Holcomb continued.  “We thought it was in the interest of justice to have her tell her story of what really happened.  It will all come out at the trial.”  Fishing for shocking details, reporters asked if allegations of devil worship had been discussed during Cox’s testimony.  Holding his satan cards close to his chest, the sly prosecutor simply smiled and said, “Does a bear live in the woods?”

Perhaps sensing he was being sold down the river Styx, a desperate John Fryman attempted to clear the air regarding the allegations that were piling up against him.  In a telephone interview with the Cincinnati Post, Fryman claimed Indiana police had coerced a confession out of him.  Describing the interrogation following his capture, Fryman said he “refused to talk to them until they jumped in my face and decided they wanted to bruise me up slightly.  Then I just kind of nodded my head to everything they said.”  Fryman also maintained that “extenuating circumstances” led to the death of Monica Lemen, and that the full story was not being told.  “There’s a lot of things that haven’t been said.  There’s a lot of things involved that nobody seems to be following up on.”  What those “things” were, Fryman didn’t elaborate.  However, Fryman did address the allegations of satanism.  “All the satanism thing they blew all up, all the evidence they supposedly have – they don’t have anything.”  

While maintaining that charges of satanism had been blown out of proportion, Fryman freely admitted to more than just a passing interest in the occult.  “I am involved with the occult.  I think everybody knows that.  You don’t have a room like that in your trailer if you’re not.  But I wasn’t involved in it to the extent they’re saying.”  Fryman also implicated Monica Lemen as a fellow occult practitioner, saying she had recently brought over friends interested in deviant forms of the occult and satanism.  Regardless of the extent of his occult dabblings, Fryman’s protestations accomplished little in shifting the blame away from himself.  Commenting on Fryman’s charges of police coercion and abuse, Fairfield Police Chief Gary Rednour referred to the allegations as a “bunch of baloney.”  

Sources:

The Cincinnati Enquirer

Dayton Daily News

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Star Press (Muncie, Indiana)

The Brookville Democrat

Franklin County Historical Society

The devil’s trailer Part 3

Sorcery room

Interviews with Monica Lemen’s family and friends led investigators to a mobile home in Fairfield, Ohio.  Based on these interviews, detectives put a search warrant together and served the warrant on Wednesday, February 18 at a residence located in the Debbie Mobile Home Park, 124 Sammy Drive.  The trailer belonged to John Fryman, 24, who, according to Lemen’s friends, had been seen in the company of the young woman.  It was reported by those who knew the pair that the two shared an interest in the occult.  Police serving the warrant were taken aback at the scene they discovered.  “In one of the bedrooms, the walls, the ceilings, the floor, everything is painted black,” Fairfield Police Detective Eddie Roberts told reporters.  “He’s got a table made like a podium and on top of the podium is a granite headstone.  There are all kinds of black candles.  There’s a name on the headstone and it’s a legitimate headstone.”  Roberts also noted that satanic literature was found in the trailer.  Investigators discovered red stains that had been smeared on the floor of the room, a room they described as a satanic worship area.  Detectives speculated the stains could be blood and that an effort had been made to clean up the area.  Hoping to determine whether a crime had been committed at the location, evidence gathered at the scene was sent to the Hamilton County Forensics Lab for testing.  Other items seized during the search included a ceramic goat’s head, nine figurines, a book of magic and an animal’s jawbone.  Police searched for a circular power saw but were unable to find one.  They did, however, retrieve a butcher knife, a handsaw and a hacksaw.  

Investigators were adamant in their belief that Monica Lemen was not killed as part of a satanic ritual.  But there can be no doubt that occult involvement on the part of both Lemen and Fryman is what led friends and family members to suspect Fryman, and formed much of the basis for the search of his trailer.  According to the search warrant application, a friend of Lemen’s said Lemen told her Fryman had threatened to kill Lemen the previous November after a satanic rite performed in his mobile home.  The application states Lemen told the friend she “witnessed (Fryman) kill an owl during a satanic ritual in which he drained the blood on a sacrificial altar.  When Monica protested, he stated he could kill her, dismember her and paint the walls with her blood if she ever made him mad.  Monica told (the friend) that if anything ever happened to her John Fryman would be responsible.”  The search warrant application also stated that Fryman’s parents told police their son was a devil worshiper.

Despite this information, investigators continued to deny a link between Fryman’s apparent occult interests and the death of Monica Lemen.  “We’re not going to guess on motives.  There’s no evidence that any satanic ritual was involved in this homicide,” said Lt. William Fletcher, chief of the Cincinnati police homicide squad.  However, behind the denials to the press, investigators were taking seriously the apparent connections to the occult.  Officials in Indiana, where the severed legs were discovered, had been investigating occult activity in the area for the previous two years.  Reports of mutilated animals in fields, dead animals hung upside down in trees and pentagrams painted on road signs had been given by local conservation officers among others, according to Fayette County Sheriff George Zimmerman.  However, investigation into the incidents failed to make any connection to satanists.  “We’ve been doing some checking, but we haven’t been able to put our finger on anything,” said Zimmerman.  “We can’t find out where they’re having meetings.”  Additionally, investigators interviewed a parapsychologist and demonology researcher to see if any connections could be drawn between the severed legs and the items discovered in Fryman’s trailer.  Parapsychologist and witchcraft researcher Tim Patrie was skeptical that the trailer was home to “a dedicated satanist,” but rather the occupant probably had an interest in demonology.  “A lot of people claim to be devil worshippers, but they don’t know what they’re doing.  You’re not going to find a true satanic church in a trailer court,” said Patrie.  Patrie did say, however, that he believed a true coven of 13 satanists was operating in the area where the legs were discovered, adding that the satanists tend to practice their rituals in remote areas away from their homes and mark their territory with satanic symbols on road signs.            

Even as Fryman eluded authorities, a clearer picture was beginning to develop concerning the strange occupant of 124 Sammy Drive.  Neighbors at the Debbie Mobile Home Park described Fryman and his live-in girlfriend, Beverly Cox, as friendly and approachable, but hadn’t seen the pair for a week and had never noticed anything unusual at the location.  According to police, Fryman’s parents were divorced and the young man “floated around Cincinnati,” staying with one or the other parent.  “We think he attended Mount Healthy High School, but quit,” said Detective Roberts.  Reporters learned that Fryman had worked as an orderly at Cottingham Retirement Community in Sharonville, but walked off the job the previous November.  “He was always very attentive to residents’ needs,” said the executive director.  But Fryman also had a troubled past.  Until May 1986, he had resided at the Lebanon Correctional Facility where he served a five to fifteen year sentence for three counts of robbery.  He was paroled after just three years.  Lebanon visitation records show that Fryman was mostly visited by family members.  However, one other individual signed in five times to chat with the budding occultist.  That person was Monica Lemen.

Sources:

The Cincinnati Enquirer

Dayton Daily News

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis News

The Star Press (Muncie, Indiana)

The Brookville Democrat

Franklin County Historical Society