James Riva claimed to hear the voice of a vampire in April, 1980, before he shot his grandmother four times with bullets that he had painted gold.  He then tried to drink her blood from the wound in order to get eternal life.  Finally, he set her corpse on fire.  Carol Page documents his tale and includes her interview with Riva in Bloodlust: Conversations with Real Vampires.

To some degree, he claimed, it was self defense, because he was convinced she was drinking his blood while he was asleep.  He believed that everyone was a vampire and that he needed to become like them. The secret, he was told by imaginary voices, was to kill someone and drink the blood.  Afterward, Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
the vampires would throw a party for him.

Fascinated with vampires since the age of 13, he drew pictures of violent acts and began to eat things with a blood-like consistency.  He killed animals, including a horse (he says), to drink their blood.  He also punched a friend in the nose and tried to spear another in order to get blood from them, and claimed that he had attacked strangers to get it, but didn’t want to kill anyone.  He kept an ax by his bedroom door and once told a psychiatrist he was going to kill his father.

Riva told a psychiatrist about the voices warning him to watch out for vampires.  They said that he had to drink blood.  He decided that his grandmother was using an ice pick at night to get his blood—although she was in a wheelchair.  He also believed that she was poisoning his food.  On the day that he killed her, he felt he was going to die.

A jury returned a verdict of second degree murder, with a life term. He stopped drinking blood in prison, he said, because he couldn’t get enough and he thought his body, used to human tissue consumption, was metabolizing his.

At a parole hearing on August 4, 2009, Riva told the parole board and the weeping members of his family that he was sorry. “The name penitentiary came from the word penitent — and you learn how to be penitent in prison.” For the last 29 years, he said, he has been in therapy and on medication and no he longer believes he is a vampire, nor does he have the compulsion to torture animals. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
He even converted to Islam.

The parole board and his family were not as convinced of his remorse, but rather were concerned that his ability to premeditatedly and horribly murder someone who cared for him made him capable of doing that to anyone. In addition, he has become fixated on his claim that his mother abused him as a child and has sent letters to her from prison demanding that she confess to having tortured and threatened him with drowning as a child. Prison officials do not trust him to take his medication, since he went off it once and attacked a guard he thought was sneaking into his cell at night and draining his spinal fluid.

Aug. 6, 2008: A Fort Wayne, Ind., police officer, on her routine patrol, observed a naked man through a front window, standing fully exposed to the street. The officer called for backup and entered the home where she found the man, identified as Ronald Miller, sodomizing himself with a claw hammer and motor oil. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
According to neighbors, Miller, who had been convicted of public nudity in the past, exposed himself to the neighborhood on a regular basis.

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Sources differ on whether or not Virginia was invited to the party on September 5, 1921 or crashed it along with her manager, Al Semnacher, and a woman accompanying them named Bambina Maude Delmont. Delmont had had many run-ins with the police. She had been charged with extortion, bigamy, fraud, and racketeering. In Frame-Up, Edmonds writes that Delmont was “a professional correspondent: a woman hired to provide compromising pictures to use in divorce cases or for more unscrupulous purposes such as blackmail.” Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Seeing Rappe and Delmont, Arbuckle is said to have voiced concern. Their bad reputations, he feared, might cause police to raid the party.

Several other people attended the party at one point or another. One was a nightgown salesman named Ira Fortlois who was friends with Fischbach. Actresses Zey Prevon and Alice Blake also showed up.

The party had a lot of catered food and snacks, bootleg booze, and dancing to the music playing on the Victrola. As is usual at such gatherings, there was joking and laughter, flirting and storytelling. At one point, Delmont put on Lowell Sherman’s pajamas; at another the two of them went into his room.

Arbuckle decided to leave the party at about 3 p.m. to drive a friend of his, Mae Taub, into town. Ironically, Taub was the daughter-in-law of Billy Sunday, a fiery evangelist who strongly supported Prohibition, but she did not seem to mind being in a place where illegal liquor was flowing freely.

The comedian went to his adjoining bedroom to change clothes. Exactly what happened after that would become a matter of fierce dispute.

According to the story Arbuckle gave and to which he stuck, he entered the bathroom to find poor Rappe lying in a dead faint on the floor. He picked her up and placed her on a bed.

“Water,” the sick woman requested in a weak voice.

Arbuckle brought a glass of cold water to her. Thinking she was probably just suffering the ill effects of too much drinking, the comedian left the room to dress himself for his ride.

When he went back to the bedroom, he saw that Virginia had rolled off the bed. She was lying on the floor, moaning and writhing. He helped her back onto the bed, then left for a bucket of ice. The ice would serve a dual purpose, Arbuckle believed: it would calm the woman down if she was really hysterical but it would also show whether or not she was faking. Buster Keaton had told his friend that one can discern a faked fainting or hysterical fit by holding ice against the suspected person’s thigh. According to Edmonds’ book, Arbuckle placed the ice on Virginia’s thigh. Yallop’s volume has him putting it directly on her vulva. In either case, it did no good.

Delmont came into the room. She saw Arbuckle placing an ice cube on the sick woman’s thigh. The two discussed Virginia’s distress. Both thought she was merely drunk.

Then Virginia began tearing at her clothes and screaming. The sounds caused other partygoers, Zey Prevon and Alice Blake, to rush in. Still believing that Virginia was just soused or deliberately making a scene, an aggravated Arbuckle told them, “Shut her up! Get her out of here. She makes too much noise.”

Fischbach went into the room, and seeing Arbuckle putting ice on the semiconscious woman, teased him that he was still able to do something raunchy despite the burn on his backside and leg. “Having fun with her?” he asked.

The comedian was in no mood for jokes and snapped at Fischbach.

Suddenly Virginia began screaming. “Stay away from me! I don’t want you near me!” she shouted at Arbuckle. Then she turned to Delmont and said words that would damn the entertainer, “What did he do to me, Maudie? Roscoe did this to me.”

The bathtub had been filled with cold water and Virginia was placed in the tub. Time in the water seemed to have a calming effect on the distressed woman. Fischbach and Arbuckle helped her out of it and escorted her to room 1227. Delmont went into the room with them. Arbuckle phoned the hotel manager and hotel doctor. The latter was not available but another physician, Dr. Olav Kaarboe, came to the room and took a look at Virginia. His diagnosis was that she was simply drunk.

With Virginia lying in bed, the party continued. There was more drinking and dancing and the sort of flirting and acting silly that usually characterizes where alcohol is served.

Later, Arbuckle took off for the delayed trip with Mae Taub. He dropped Taub off at her requested destination. After he returned, the hotel physician, Dr. Arthur Beardslee, arrived to take a look at poor Virginia. He gave her a shot of morphine and Virginia drifted off to sleep for the night.

The next day, Dr. Beardslee again treated Virginia with morphine. He also catheterized her because Delmont told him the sick woman had not urinated in many hours.

Later, Delmont called Dr. Melville Rumwell, a man she knew well enough to call “Rummy.” When the doctor arrived, Delmont told him, as she had previously told Beardslee, that Virginia took sick after a drunken Roscoe Arbuckle dragged her into a room and raped her or at least tried to. Rumwell found no evidence of rape but treated the girl for pain and trouble urinating.

Tuesday afternoon, Arbuckle checked out of the hotel.

A couple days later, a feverish Virginia Rappe was finally taken to a hospital. She died there on Friday, September 9, of peritonitis, an acute infection that was, in her case, caused by a ruptured bladder. Why that bladder ruptured would become a matter of great dispute and the most serious importance.

Authorities would allege that Rappe’s bladder tore because the overweight comedian sexually assaulted her. Rumors swirled around that he had also raped her with an instrument like a Coca-Cola bottle or a champagne bottle. However, these rumors were undoubtedly false. No such attack was even alleged in court.

The newspapers were filled with headlines about the sexual horror Roscoe supposedly perpetrated against young Rappe. It was Hollywood’s first major scandal although it would, of course, by no means be its last.

Newspapers, led by William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner, had a field day. Yellow journalism was at its peak and readers were regaled with stories about Arbuckle’s supposedly debauched private life and his alleged cruelty to the deceased Virginia Rappe. Hearst once bragged, to Arbuckle’s good friend Buster Keaton, that the Examiner had sold more newspapers because of the Arbuckle case than the sinking of the Lusitania.

Two gay porn actors were charged with murdering rival porn executive Bryan Kocis in an alleged scheme to work with Every Poolboy’s Dream actor Sean Lockhart (pictured), known in the adult entertainment industry as Brent Corrigan. Police believe Harlow Cuadra and Joseph Kerekes tricked Kocis into meeting with them on January 24, 2007, then slashed Kocis’ throat, stabbed him 28 times and burned his body and home to conceal the crime. Cuadra and Kocis were extradited to Pennsylvania on   Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
July 17, 2007, and Kerekes pleaded guilty to the crime in December 2008. Harlow was tried in early 2009 and convicted in March. Both were sentenced to life in prison.

Of the 48 supposed murders, Browne had provided information in 19, and even with those, much in his accounts was vague. He had been considered a viable suspect in only seven more, but in these he’d provided solid details. Of the nine supposed victims in Colorado, he’d supplied information in only two cases. The first person he said he had killed was male, Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire a soldier in South Korea in 1970. That case could not be verified.

Robert Charles Browne during his service in the Army

There were a number of unsolved homicides in the areas Browne claimed as his killing ground, and many families hoped for closure about their missing or murdered loved ones. Detectives in different jurisdictions looked into their case files to try to determine if Browne could be their man. They were well aware that he might have read news accounts about their victims and could then report names, dates, and other items to falsely link him, if he so chose. They knew well enough to be careful not to feed him more.

Wanda Faye Hudson

One potential victim was Katherine Jean Hayes, whose remains had been discovered in Winn Parish, La., in 1981, six months after she had disappeared from a restaurant. Another woman, Wanda Hudson, had been murdered in 1983 in her apartment, where Browne had worked as a handyman. He said he’d attacked her with a screwdriver. Faye Self had gone missing from the same apartment complex in 1983. Browne claimed he killed her in her apartment and then took her body out to the Red River, dumping it. He made the same claim about another woman from Louisiana, unnamed because the authorities were unable to corroborate it: Browne’s details were too vague.

Katherine Jean Hayes

The same was reported about a few other cases that Browne claimed. During interviews, he was unable to give sufficient detail to assist significantly. More than one officer expressed reservations about Browne’s grandiose claims, but Browne frequently clammed up and refused to say any more. He was the one in the driver’s seat.

Browne wrote a letter in 2002 in which he hinted that he might have kidnapped someone to hold her in a concealed chamber, but then he had been incarcerated. Since he could not get to her to feed her, she presumably died. Would he then be held responsible? If so, then “three should be added to the nine.”

He followed this with a letter the year after in which he stated he did not know why he was writing these letters. “I am trying to get my affairs in order,” he wrote. “To do so, I need to contact many sources of which I don’t even know who they are.” He mentioned that the sanitation companies “do a great job of disposal” and claimed that “None ever got away; never gave the opportunity. If you’re going to do it, just do it.” He stated that he found women untrustworthy and that what generally triggered a murder was “disgust with the person.” He viewed women as cheating whores and users, although it was never made clear why he had taken such a dim view.

As months passed without much progress, many people began to question whether Browne was the killer he claimed or more of a con man. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire  Not all cheerleaders perform on the field; some rally at protests. Radical Cheerleaders, an activist group that fights bombs with pompoms, gathered in Boston on Sept. 13, 2003, to protest the World Trade Organization’s fifth annual Ministerial Meeting. At the rally, the group of mostly women cheered, “Hey girl, f— shit up. Revolution and nothing, but we deserve what we need, not table scraps from corporate greed!” Several members of the Radical Cheerleaders were arrested that afternoon for stepping outside the protest area and in front of a police cruiser.

Pretty twenty-three-year-old Sandra Renee Murphy blew into Las Vegas in 1995 from California with a purse full of money, a suitcase, and little else.  As happens all too often in this gambling Mecca of glitz and glamour, Murphy found herself broke and hard-pressed for cash before her first weekend in Sin City was up.  That was when she started hanging out at Cheetah’s, a topless club, on the advice of a friend who told her that she might find work there.  She did, and that’s where she met fifty-two-year-old multimillionaire playboy Lonnie “Ted” Binion, casino executive of and heir to Binion’s Horseshoe Casino and Hotel.

Murphy was an eye-catcher, a head-turner, who had learned as a teenager that sex appeal and fast-talking go farther and produce faster cash than a suit and a college education.  Having hung out with club frequenters since she was old enough to get into such establishments, she naturally fit in with the clientele and employees at Cheetah’s.  Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire  She knew that many of the dancers from Southern California would go to Las Vegas a few days every month to dance because they could make a lot more money in Vegas—sometimes thousands in a single weekend.  Murphy reasoned, correctly, that she could do the same.

Cheetahs Club (Gary C. King)

It was only a few nights after Sandy started working at Cheetah’s that fifty-three-year-old moon-faced Ted Binion walked into the club with a friend, mobster Herbert “Fat Herbie” Blitzstein, and a fellow gaming executive.  His favorite haunts were topless joints, and he frequently conducted business at such establishments. Cheetah’s, Club Paradise, and the Olympic Garden were among his favorites.  On this particular evening, however, Ted was at a low point in his life, more than half-drunk and depressed over marital problems and ongoing troubles with the state gaming control commission over his gaming license.  Because of his drug and alcohol problems and known associations with Herbie Blitzstein, Binion had so many stipulations attached to his gaming license that he feared that his lucrative career in the casino business was nearly over.  Binion particularly enjoyed Cheetah’s because he had prior success at picking up female dancers there who sometimes went home with him, and he figured that spending the evening there might cheer him up.  The girls who worked there loved Ted Binion.  Known for his generosity, it wasn’t unusual for him to tip the girls $500.00 or more on any given evening.  It was no wonder that some of them would spend the night with him.

Sandy Murphy (AP)

Sandy Murphy sat at the table next to Binion’s that evening, and was telling all of her troubles to “Nick the Kick,” one of Cheetah’s bouncers.  Ted overheard part of her conversation about how her boyfriend had recently dumped her for an aerobics trainer, and he quickly became interested in her because it appeared that they shared something in common.

Sandy was introduced to the customers that evening as “The Irish Venus.”  Ted was immediately taken by her good looks, and it wasn’t long before Sandy was sharing a booth with Ted at his invitation.  Ted was a steadfast party animal who seemed to live for the Las Vegas nightlife, and often wouldn’t go home until he’d spent the pocketful of cash that he always carried with him.  This particular night would be no different for the millionaire playboy in the twenty-four hour city that he loved.

Sandy Murphy had no idea who Ted Binion was.  She was not particularly impressed by him, but she might have been had she known that he was the son of audacious casino legend Benny Binion.  Nonetheless he was friendly, and a paying customer, so she remained with him and humored him as he drank Absolut vodka on into the night.  Obviously attracted to “The Irish Venus,” Binion tried his best to impress Sandy.  At one point he attempted to push a wad of cash that amounted to about $1,700.00 into her hand, but ended up insulting her instead.  Furious, even though she desperately needed the money, she threw it back into his face.  Ted stuffed the money back into his pocket and left.  He commented later to friends and family members that he had been impressed by this woman’s actions because, he thought, he had found someone who was not interested in him only for his money.  Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire Most women would have taken the cash, he said, but not Sandy.  Their meet

After freezing completely, the frozen lipid cake is placed on a vacuum pump and lyophilized until dry (1-3 days depending on volume). Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire  The thickness of the lipid cake should be no more than the diameter of the container being used for lyophilization.Dry lipid films or cakes can be removed from the vacuum pump, the container close tightly and taped, and stored frozen until ready to hydrate. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Dear Emil,

After the glorious February revolution and Belgium’s stillborn March revolution, I came back here last week. I wrote to Mother asking for money so that within a few days I could return to Germany where we are starting up the [Neue] Rheinische Zeitung again. Mother is now very anxious to see me back in Germany, partly because she believes that there might again be some Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire shooting here in the course of which I could get hurt, partly because she wants me to return anyway. However she also says in her letter:

‘How I can he expected to send you the money, I really don’t know, since a few days ago Fould notified Father that he was doing no more business, and since several good bills sent him by Father came back and were protested. Write and tell me, then, how I can be expected to let you have the money.’

The simplest thing would be for you to send me 20 pounds in banknotes, these being highly regarded here, and at once arrange with my old man to reimburse you. In this way I shall get my money quickly and be able to leave, whereas I would otherwise be stuck here for another week before getting money from Barmen, let alone Engelskirchen. I am therefore writing to Barmen this very day for them to repay you the £20, and I would ask you to arrange matters in the way I have just said, since bills are no longer any good.

You can send half of the bisected banknotes to me today, addressed to 19ter rue de la Victoire, Paris, and the remainder next day to Mlle Félicité André, same street and No. This will foil letter thieves.

Here things are going very well,^[209] i.e. the bourgeoisie, who were beaten on 24 February and 17 March, are once more raising their heads and railing horribly against the Republic. But the only result of this will be that a thunderstorm quite unlike anything they have known before will very soon break over them. If the fellows persist in their insolence, some of them will very soon be strung up by the people. In the provisional government they have a certain party, namely Lamartine, the soft-soaper, whose life will also soon be forfeit. The workers here, 200,000-300,000 strong, will hear of no one but Ledru-Rollin, and they are right. He is the most resolute and radical of all. Flocon, too, is very good; I’ve been to see him once or twice and am about to do so again; he’s a thoroughly honest fellow.

We have nothing to do with the great crusade which is departing from here to set up the German republic by force of arms. ^[210]

My kindest regards to Marie [Blank] and the little ones and reply by return.  Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire