Tuesday, May 22, 2018

10 Gruesome Corpses Found in Dumps

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Two were crushed to death. A third was strangled. A fourth was stabbed to death. A fifth burned to death. A sixth may have suffocated. A seventh may have died as the result of an accident. An eighth may have been beaten to death. In some cases, the causes of death are undetermined. Some were adults. Others were teens. Still others were newborns. Regardless of their ages and of how they met their deaths, these 10 gruesome human corpses found in dumps show just how cheaply some people hold human life.

10 Two Crushed Men
 William Norris

Although no evidence suggests they knew each other, William J. Norris, 45, and Anthony D. Todd, 43, suffered the same fate. Having fallen asleep in Dumpsters, they were crushed to death after being loaded into garbage trucks. Two months apart, their bodies were found in the westside Leon County waste transfer station near Tallahassee, Florida. Although a local shelter provides hot meals and blankets, offering a safe place to sleep, Pastor Glenn Burns said some homeless people prefer to sleep in the woods or elsewhere.
Myron Henry was operating a front-end loader when he spied Norris' torso in the trash at the waste transfer station. Norris had suffered a broken right arm and head trauma. His alcohol level was .249 at the time of his death.
 
Anthony Todd

Todd's body was discovered by Perry Kalip, who, while loading trash onto trucks with a bulldozer, “saw legs sticking out of the trash pile.” The corpse's upper right arm was tattooed with the name “Todd,” which matched the name, Anthony Todd, on a credit/debit card found on his body. According to his sister, Todd had had a history of seizures. Police suspect he'd crawled into the Dumpster to avoid rainfall, had fallen asleep after having a seizure, and hadn't awakened when the garbage truck emptied the Dumpster. (LINK 1)
9 Mississippi Native

A child found the strangled body of native Mississippian William Bryan Glenn, 43, in a Cambodian garbage dump. The body was wrapped in a yellow duct-taped curtain. Glenn had left home on his motorcycle the day before his body was discovered on July 9, 2014. A graduate of the University of Mississippi, Glenn had been teaching abroad for 12 years, most recently in Cambodia.

Cambodian authorities said Glenn was wanted as a “criminal” in the United States. His wife, Nittaya, said Glenn was in a hurry to leave Cambodia for China. He'd visited the U. S. embassy in Phnom Phen on July 7, 2014, to update his passport, but it was confiscated. Witnesses who'd seen Glenn's body said it showed signs of his having been beaten and bound with shoelaces. (LINK 2)
8 College Student's Body

In April 2006, the body of The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) student John Fiocco, Jr., age 18, was found in the Tullytown Landfill in Tullytown, Pennsylvania. He'd been missing for a month. Neither the cause of death nor the circumstances related to Fiocco's disappearance have been determined, although his parents, John and Susan, arguing that their son was killed by an unidentified mentally ill TCNJ graduate after Fiocco returned to his dorm room following a night spent drinking, won a $425,000 wrongful death settlement in a lawsuit against the college and the state. His parents claimed the college's “lax security measures” contributed to their son's death. The state admitted to no “wrongdoing or liability,” TCNJ spokesman Matthew Golden said, but the settlement prevented “the continued expense of litigation.” (LINK 3)
7 Austintown Girl's Body

On June 25, 2014, the intact body of Gina Burger, age 16, was found in a Mercer County, Pennsylvania, landfill. Burger went missing after she'd gone, barefoot, to a neighbor's house in the Compass West Apartments to borrow some tea. Police arrested Ricki Williams IV, age 18, who lived in the same apartment complex. Burger had been held against her will and stabbed to death, before Williams and an accomplice put “her body in a portable playpen” and threw it “in a trash bin, which was picked up by Tri County Industries of Grove City, Pennsylvania, and then dumped in a waste facility there.”
Williams was charged with two counts of kidnapping, aggravated burglary, tampering with evidence, intimidation, and aggravated murder. Because he killed Burger while committing another felony, Williams faces the death penalty. Roneishia Johnson, 21, of Compass West, was charged with obstruction of justice, a third-degree felony, for helping Williams dispose of the victim's corpse. Police believe Williams carved the message “Kill Fo Fun” into a stairwell in the apartment complex. (LINK 4)
6 Teen's Body
Geanna Durham

Did Geanna Durham's mother, Reshawnda Laney Durham, kill her daughter when Geanna was 13 or 14 years old? Oklahoma City police are investigating this grim possibility.

According to Reshawnda, Geanna's father took her to live with him in Florida, but he denied her claim, saying he hasn't seen Geanna since she was 18 months old. The girl has been missing since at least February 2, 2015. A witness said he found a body inside a chest while cleaning out a locker in a storage facility owned by Reshawnda's landlord, Ray Pelfrey. The trunk's owner told Pelfrey to throw the trunk away. Discarded, the chest was collected from a Dumpster and taken to the landfill. When he complied with the owner's instructions, Pelfrey didn't know the chest contained a body, he said. Police cleared Pelfrey of helping to conceal the victim's body. (LINK 5)
After the remains were identified as Geanna's, further charges were expected in the case. (LINK 6)
5 Burnt Body
In September, 2016, an unidentified middle-age man's burnt body was found among cotton wastes inside a corporation's slaughterhouse in Vellalore, India. The corpse exhibited no external injuries other than the burns that covered 80 percent of the body. According to “unconfirmed reports,” the legs were “tied.” In an attempt to identify the remains, police consulted closed-circuit television footage “recorded at nearby places.” For now, authorities registered the man's death as “unnatural” and said they'd change the designation should it be determined that the man was murdered. (LINK 7)
4 Irwindale Remains

Dirt dumped by a truck driver included human remains. The body, that of a man in his 20s or 30s, was likely that of a “transient who climbed into the empty dump truck” while it was parked in Los Angeles. Sheriff's homicide detective Lt. John Corina suggested the man was buried in the truck when dirt was dumped into the vehicle's trailer. “Once you're in the bottom of that trailer, no one will hear you,” Corina said. The driver dumped the load into the Manning Pike site's quarry in Irwindale, California, on August 27, 2016. The transient climbed into the trailer on August 25 or 26. The dirt, which originated at “a Metro rail project site at 1st and Alameda streets . . . was picked up around 7:45 a.m.” Police suspect the death was accidental, rather than homicidal, in nature. (LINK 8)
3 Newborns' Bodies

On December 18, 2016, Isaiah, who gave only his first name, was on his way home from church, he said, when a gathering of onlookers attracted his attention. In a rubbish dump, a newborn's body was being devoured by a dog. Some present claimed the baby had been abandoned alive. The dump is located near Gwallameji, a suburb of Bauchi, the Bauchi State capital. Bystanders dug a shallow grave at the site and buried the baby's body. Reporters' calls to the local police were “fruitless” in obtaining further details. (LINK 9)

In a similar incident, attracted by flies and an unpleasant odor coming from a dump, residents of Gwallameji, Nigeria, were shocked and outraged to find the body of a newborn male and a placenta “wrapped in a soiled cloth.” Hassan Ibrahim, a community leader, contacted the police. Ibrahim believes the woman who perpetrated the crime came from “a far place” and called upon locals to “be more vigilant” concerning pregnant women whose babies mysteriously disappear. He said that, five years earlier, a woman who'd given birth elsewhere abandoned her baby in the same dump. She was later arrested. (LINK 10)
In yet a third incident, in August 2016, a week-old baby's body was found in a garbage dump under the Anto Bridge in Keffi Town, Nasarawa State. No further details were provided, other than the statement that “dumping of unwanted children is quickly becoming a norm, with some going as far as to kill these children in the most brutal ways.” (LINK 11)

2 Girl Missing for 49 Years

In 1967, when she was four years old, Teala Patricia Thompson disappeared after leaving her Homewood neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her parents reported her missing, but police were unable to locate the girl. Now, 49 years after her disappearance, her body has been found in an unmarked grave in a potter's field next to the Westmoreland County Prison in Greensburg. Pennsylvania State Trooper Brian Gross, assigned the case in October 2014, followed a lead that suggested Thompson's body might have been dumped in a landfill in Salem Township, Pennsylvania. A court had ordered the body interred in the potter's field. Police obtained DNA samples from the body and from Thompson's relatives, and lab tests proved the girl's remains were those of Thompson. Although Thompson's killer has not been identified, it's believed he may have worked at a cleaners in the victim's neighborhood. (LINK 12)

1 Missing Concertgoer

The body of Cory Bannon, 22, of Fremont, Ohio, was found in a dump truck in the Lorain County Landfill on July 22, 2014. He'd been missing since going to a country music concert on July 18, 2014. The driver had returned from a Cleveland route, and, as the truck's trash was dumped, a worker saw Barron's body and notified police. His identity was confirmed by identification and a concert ticket found on the body. Police detected no “obvious signs of injury,” but did not examine the entire body. (LINK 13)

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10 Sexy Vacation Destinations

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Art galleries and museums have recently discovered what advertisers have always known: sex sells. Since Adam and Eve first discovered they were naked, men and women have been obsessed with sex—and not only with sex itself, but also with art and artifacts related to sex.
It's high time, some enterprising investors, curators, and builders have decided, that they get in on action that has hitherto been the province mostly of prostitutes and pornographers. Under the guise of offering education, art, history, and just plain fun, museums and theme parks have been opening, plan to open, or, in some cases, once planned to open, their doors to the public, inviting them to leer at and handle artworks and artifacts or otherwise interact with exhibits, attractions, and rides as varied and delightful as the human imagination itself.
The next time we consider traveling abroad or taking a road trip at home, we might want to include one or more of these ten sexy vacation destinations.
10 Museum of Sex


Daniel Gluck's (LINK 1) Museum of Sex opened in New York City in 2002. (LINK 2) Boasting over 15,000 artifacts and special exhibits, (LINK 3) it offers something for everyone: a boob bounce house, statues devoted to “the sex life of animals,” nude paintings, illustrated sex manuals, a kinesthetic campground, stag films devoted to a variety of fetishes, and much more, including a research library, a media library, and, of course, a gift shop. (LINK 4)

9 Museum of Eroticism
What would Paris be without a sex museum? This city, famous the world over for romance, has such a museum (of course!). Alain Plumey and Joseph Khalifa's Museum of Eroticism opened in 1997, in Paris' red-light district, Pigalle. The seven-floor museum is home to 2,000 works of erotic art, viewed by 17,000 visitors per year. The two lower floors are devoted to ancient fertility artifacts, the third floor to prostitution and brothels. “More contemporary and 'western'” artifacts are displayed on the upper floors, and the two top floors house "revolving exhibits." (LINK 5) 

The museum features naughty paintings, risque wooden sculptures, “chairs” equipped “with revolving tongues,” sassy hand-cranked “wire sculptures” capable of sexy moves, and doll houses into which salacious visitors may leer with impunity. A silent film also plays: “Polisson et Galipettes,” a compilation of one-reel silent films made to get brothel patrons into the mood. (LINK 6)

Sacred, contemporary, and popular erotic art from Africa, America, Asia, Europe, and Oceania is on display, and the museum showcases the work of international artists. (LINK 7)

8 Venustempel Sexmuseum
Not to be outdone by New York or Paris, Amsterdam is home to Venustempel. In fact, having opened in 1985, it's the oldest museum of its kind in the world. Like other sex museums, it claims to be educational: it offers a tour of sex through history. (LINK 8)

Venus herself—or a statue of her, anyway—greets visitors at the door. Inside, three floors present “galleries and halls named after historical figures in eroticism.” On the ground floor, there's Casanova Gallery, Marquis de Sade Hall, and Fanny Hill Street. The first floor features Valentino Gallery, Catharina the Great Hall, Oscar Wilde Hall, and Madame Pompadiour Hall. The second floor houses Vargas Hall. (LINK 9)

7 Sex Machines Museum
Prague's Sex Machines Museum showcases 200 devices intended to enhance erotic pleasure. Articulated mannequins model many of these appliances, and signs explain the equipment's designs and functions. Lingerie and undies are also on display, an art gallery illustrates intimate behavior, and a small theater continuously plays adult films produced during the Roaring Twenties. (LINK 10)

A few exhibits are self-explanatory, perhaps. The golden female figure astride a spinning wheel affixed with tongue-like protuberances speaks for itself. Ancient Greek prostitutes wore special shoes, on the soles of which were inscribed the come-hither suggestion, “Follow my steps.” In other instances, visitors are likely to benefit from the explanations accompanying the artifacts on display. An anti-masturbation penis ring activates, one display's text explains, when its wearer becomes excited. An alarm sounds in his parents' bedroom, so they can then rescue their wayward son from the terrible effects of self-abuse. (LINK 11)

6 Icelandic Phallological Museum

A museum dedicated to penises? Impossible!
Not in Reykjavik, Iceland.
The Icelandic Phallological Museum is home to over 200 penises or “penis parts.” There is at least one of each of Iceland's land and sea mammals. There are specimens from whales, seals, walruses, and a polar bear. Four men have also willed their own members to the museum, when they no longer have need of them. A store sells “souvenirs,” including “designer condoms” and “willy warmers.” (LINK 12)

Sigurður Hjartarson, the museum's founder began his unusual collection after he received a pizzle, or bull's penis, to use as a whip to use to drive the animals he tended. In 1974, he was working in Akranes, as a headmaster, and the teachers in his employ, who worked at a “whale station” during the summers, presented him with numerous whale's penises. He opened the museum in 1997 with 62 specimens. The museum was relocated twice, once to Húsavík and then back to Reykjavik, this time for good. Now, the founder's son, Hjörtur Gísli Sigurðsson, is the museum's curator. (LINK 13)

A penis-shaped sign out front identifies the museum. Inside, the penises await, displayed in jars, mounted on walls, and exhibited on shelves. One specimen, that of an elephant, doesn't so much hang on a wall as through it, astounding visitors with its sheer length and girth. (LINK 14) Scrotum lights (lamps made of bull and ram scrotum skins) are also likely to raise a few eyebrows. (LINK 15)
The items are cataloged, with notes concerning their identities, sources, manner of acquisition, dimensions, donors, and other relevant data. Concerning some specimens, the catalog contains curious anecdotes of folklore as well. One note reads, "Shrunk testicles from the ill-famed cat that used to dig itself into the churchyard of Thingmuli in East-Iceland and eat corpses during the first half of the 19th century. The eye-glances of this cat were fatal to all creatures." (LINK 16)

5 Penises of Bhutan

More penises are on display in Bhutan. Painted on the exteriors of houses, restaurants, and shops throughout the village, these mighty portraits are the legacy of phallic worship. The phallus (a representation, in a painting, in a sculpture, or in some other medium) was believed to induce fertility. In addition, it was also considered a potent protective charm, or talisman, able to deflect evil spirits or change them into “protective deities.” (LINK 17) (Local legend claims Bhutan's saint Lama Drupka Kinley, “the Divine Madman,” hit demons over the head with his penis in order to subdue them, and several wooden penises are kept on display in nearby Chimi Lhakhang monastery.) (LINK 18) In addition to promoting fertility and protecting people against demons, the penises prevent family squabbles, some say. (LINK 19)

Although the previous generation sometimes finds the penises embarrassing, their children embrace them as part of their cultural heritage, and some filmmakers among the younger generation are making documentaries about the penises. (LINK 20)

Painted in various pastels (pink seems to be a favorite), the erect, disembodied penises, equipped with testicles, seem to float or fly, and they are often adorned with blue, pink, or green ribbons. Some are vertical, others upright. Some appear to ejaculate, but their emissions look more like vapor or confetti than they do semen. (LINK 21)

4 Garden of Eden
No, we're not talking about the Biblical Garden of Eden. This one's in Taiwan—or it will be, if it's actually built. The Taiwanese version is supposed to be built in Yunlin County, near the island's Southwest Coast National Scenic Area. If so, it should be “scenic,” all right. (LINK 22)

Park administrator Cheng Rong-fong said the project's only a twinkle in the developer's eye at this point. Whether its exhibits are actually erected depends on whether the local government gets on board with the proposal for the “educational” park. (LINK 23)

The Garden of Eden would be modeled on other erotic parks, such as Jeju's Love Land in South Korea and Vigeland Park in Oslo, Norway. Some of its attractions would focus on “sex positions, unusual sex lives, and sex toys.” (LINK 24)

3 Erotikaland
Piracicaba, Brazil, may also become home to a sex park, Erotikaland. At a cost of $80 million, its developer, Mauro Morata, will build a “7-D cinema” equipped with “vibrating seats,” a sex toys gift shop, a museum with exhibits concerning “the history of sexuality, instruction concerning proper condom use, “erotic games,” erotic sculptures, a swimming pool for nudists, a “sex playground,” penis-shaped bumper cars, a maze, a Ferris wheel with private booths, and, for those with an appetite for them, “aphrodisiac snacks.” The admission price is stiff, though, and only those who are 18 or older will be allowed into the park. (LINK 25)

2 Amora
For tourists who are interested in sex ed, London's Amora may be just the ticket. The attraction, which bills itself as “The Academy of Sex and Relationships,” provides “hands-on” instruction regarding “sex and relationships,” including such topics as flirting, locating milady's G spot, and otherwise “improving sexual technique.” Many of the exhibits are interactive, including the Spankometer. Catering to a British specialty, Amora offers a female statue with an ample bare bottom on which visitors may practice their paddle swings, receiving immediate feedback, via of the meter, concerning the effectiveness of their efforts. (LINK 26)

1 Love Land

Probably the sexiest vacation destination is South Korea's sex theme park, Love Land. The park isn't for the prudish. Its statues are graphic, showing a variety of sexual acts, some of them rather unlikely, indeed. One sculpture celebrates a bronze threesome involved in oral sex that only acrobats could perform. (LINK 27)

There are many other attractions—140 of them are sculptures of men and women in various sexual positions. One of these, a statue of a horizontal erection, doubles as a bench on which several of the park's guests can ride, as if mounted on a horse (or sorts). The name of the statue is recorded, in both Korean and English, as “Horse riding.” (LINK 28)

A huge female figure lies on her back (seemingly in mid air), head down and long hair flowing, as she pleasures herself with one hand while cupping her left breast with the other, heedless, in her ecstasy, of passersby. (LINK 29)
Four male figures stand behind urinals. Three have working spigots in place of genitals, for guests who might want to turn on the waterworks. The fourth, a middle-age man with a mirror in his pot belly, identifies the exhibit's name: “Tap Water.” (LINK 30)

Nothing is as flattering as imitation, perhaps, nor as welcome, if the imitation brings the same level of success as that which is enjoyed by the original. Such seems to be the reasoning of Taiwan's tourist board, who plan to build a Taiwanese sex theme park, Romantic Boulevard, modeled on South Korea's Love Land. There will be nude statues of men and women and of animals “in sexual positions,” but also arches shaped like Valentine's hearts and glass wedding chapels. There will be something for everyone—unless disgruntled locals persuade officials not to construct the park. (LINK 31)

However, we can strike another Love Land off our lists. The one in Chongqing, China, was demolished even before its opening day. When photos of its exhibits hit the Internet, public ridicule was enough to embarrass local officials. Many Chinese, apparently, are squeamish, or at least ambiguous, about pornography, and they do not appear to have welcomed the jeers Internet exposure brought them. (LINK 32)

One of the would-be Chinese Love Land's first casualties was the lower half of a giant female figure wearing only a red G-string. Her legs straddled the park's entrance, until she was carted away. Other planned exhibits were never built at all: nude sculptures, gigantic genitals, a gallery of lewd photographs, and facilities for sex “workshops.” (LINK 33)

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10 Dirty Secrets of US States

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

The United States has plenty of big, dark secrets, but we don't usually think of the individual states as having them. Nevertheless, many of them do and, in their own ways, theirs are as mysterious or as macabre as those of the country itself. From secret agents to animal abuse, from a sterilization program to environmental contamination, from the suppression of reports of disease to the disparagement of state police, these 10 dirty secrets of US states are, by turns, bizarre, shocking, deplorable, and alarming, but always intriguing.

10 Alaska's Secret Agents



In a secret memorandum dated September 6, 1951, the US Air Force notified FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover about Project Washtub, an operation in which the federal government would train ordinary Alaskan citizens to become secret agents. Comprised of fishermen, “bush pilots,” trappers, and other individuals, the cadre of “citizen-agents” would subsist on supplies hidden at various locations around the state.

“In hiding,” the agents would relay intelligence concerning the movement of Russian troops who might drop bombs and paratroopers into Alaska during the Cold War Era. Recruiters offered “retainer fees of up to $3,000 a year” (over $30,393 in today's dollars), and the amount would double after the invasion began.

In October 1954, a coded message arrived in Anchorage, sent by an anonymous person in Fairbanks. FBI code breakers were unable to crack the code, but they determined the mysterious communication was a “practice message” from one of Alaska's Washtub agents. (LINK 1)-

9 California's Secret Sterilization Program

 

Between 2006 and 2010, 150 women in the state's correctional facilities were sterilized without informed consent, and more had been subjected to tubal ligation procedures from 1997 onward. Although it cost the state almost $150,000 to sterilize female inmates between 1997 and 2010, a Bay Area physician contended the cost was cheap compared to the amount the state would “save in welfare paying for . . . unwanted children” as the women “procreated more.”

On September 27, 2014, California's Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill forbidding the involuntary sterilization of prison inmates. The bill's author, Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, said “pressuring” female inmates to agree to sterilization “without informed consent” constituted a “human rights” violation. (LINK 2)

8 Florida's Suppression of Tuberculosis Epidemic



In 2012, Florida health officials suppressed news about the worst outbreak of tuberculosis it had investigated in two decades. The disease spread from Jacksonville to Miami. Not only was the public kept in the dark about the epidemic, but state legislators also were not notified. Victims were mostly “poor black men.” Three thousand people may have been infected by the disease by having made contact with individuals in “homeless shelters, a mental health clinic, and Jacksonville area jails.”

Worse yet, in 2008, health officials also suppressed information about an outbreak of the same strain of tuberculosis among residents of an “assisted-living home.” The fact that “only two-thirds of the active cases were directly linked to Jacksonville's homeless and mentally ill” indicated the disease had entered the “general population,” and the strain of tuberculosis could become resistant to antibiotics. (LINK 3)

7 Maryland's Secret Highway Statistic



As Buarque de Macedo, 52, made a left turn at an intersection of the four-lane state road he and his family were traveling on their way to watch a school play, a BMW traveling 115 miles per hour in a 45-mile-per-hour zone broadsided their Chevy Volt. The BMW's driver, Ogulcan Atakoglu, 20, killed de Macedo, his 53-year-old wife, and their 18-year-old son. Only the de Macedo's 15-year-old daughter survived, although she suffered “substantial injuries.”

The horrific crash underscored the need for the type of statistics Richard Boltuck had sought from Maryland for eight years. He believed a left-turn traffic light was warranted at the intersection near his residence in Bethesda, Maryland, but the state disagreed. To challenge its determination, Boltuck and some neighbors requested statistics about the intersection. Maryland officials stonewalled them, citing “a little-known provision of federal law” allowing the state to deny such requests.

A Maryland administrative law judge backed the state, afraid someone might use the statistics Boltuck and his neighbors requested to “sue the state for failing to fix the intersection.” Despite the eight years of legal wrangling and the judge's decision, Maryland officials finally did release some of the statistics, although they were incomplete. In addition, bowing to public pressure, Maryland officials ultimately agreed to install a flashing light at the intersection, although, to date, they have failed to do so. (LINK 4)

6 Texas' Secret Explosive Storage Sites

After a fertilizer plant in west Texas exploded in 2013, killing 15, Texans requested information from their state about the locations of other “dangerous chemicals” stored in the region, only to learn this information was no longer available. Previously, the Texas Department of State Health Services had provided the data, but now it refused to do so.



No one knew of the policy change until a television news affiliate requested information from the state about an ammonia nitrate fire at an Athens, Texas, storage site and were told they couldn't have it. In refusing the request, officials cited Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's ruling that such information is “confidential” because its release could jeopardize security.

Critics said the public would benefit if such information were released, rather than suppressed. Sean Moulton, of the Center for Effective Government, argued, “Deciding where they might live, where they send their kids to school, where they work” is important to Texans, and “this kind of information needs to be in the public hands so they can make the most informed decisions.” (LINK 5)

5 New York's Secret Police Misconduct


Although Jo'Anna Bird had a protective order against her ex-boyfriend, Leonardo Valdez-Cruz, police failed to enforce it properly. As a result, Valdez-Cruz first tortured and then killed Bird. The night before a news conference at which Bird's attorney planned to discuss a report on the misconduct of the police, Nassau County Attorney John Ciampoli “demanded the report be sealed at the behest of the Police Benevolent Association,” leaving no way for Bird's attorney to challenge the officers' conduct. According to Ciampoli, he'd had no choice in ordering the document to be sealed. A 1976 law required police personnel records be kept secret, even in investigations of alleged misconduct.

The same law has protected New York police from investigations of many other incidents of alleged serious misconduct, including police brandishing a gun in a Farmington bar, the shooting of a cab driver in Huntington by intoxicated off-duty officers, the shooting of a Selden man in his home, and a Nassau police officer's spending his shifts at his mistress' home, sleeping there between sessions of sex. In effect, the law allows New York police to engage in serious misconduct without fear of discipline or punishment, either by their own departments or by local or state courts. (LINK 6) 

4 Pennsylvania's Secret Plants 
Restaurants and foreign governments are among the black market customers seeking to buy Pennsylvania's rare plants. To frustrate would-be thieves, Bedford County lists the sought-after species only as “unnamed due to special protection.” Hidden in eight secret locations throughout the state, the plants are very valuable, and a few are nearly extinct. Among them are rare orchids and ginseng.


Ginseng is most wanted. It grows in the state's Appalachian Mountains and is cultivated in “forested farmlands.” Although state law prohibits ginseng's removal from the forested farmlands, thieves harvest it, nevertheless, often trespassing on private property to steal it from farmlands. Part of the problem is that theft is not punished severely or even adequately. Poachers are usually fined $25, despite having stolen thousands of dollars' worth of ginseng. (LINK 7)

3 Vermont's Secret Police Disparagement

Vermont's disparagement of its own state police isn't intentional. It's the result of the state's naive trust in its prison inmates, or, as officials prefer to put it, a failure of “quality control at the Vermont Correctional Industries Print Shop in St. Alban.” As a result, among the standard images of cow, evergreen tree, snowy mountains, river, and “three unidentifiable creatures” somewhat resembling a cross between bear cubs and chipmunks, the state seal, used as an emblem on police cars, features the image of a pig. The term “pig” has long been used as a derogatory reference to police. In the inmates' version of the seal, the pig is a pink silhouette appearing as one of the cow's spots.


In 2008, an inmate at the Northwest State Correctional Facility accessed the file containing the image of the state seal and changed one of the spots on the cow to resemble a porcine shape. Unaware of the prank, the state police ordered 16 decals bearing the seal, each at a cost of $780. Sixty of the modified seals are thought to have been made. Although the state had an unintentional role in the prank, the altered seals were a state secret for the simple reason that Vermont officials didn't know about it until it was too late. (LINK 8)

 2 Wyoming's Secret Bovine Fecal Contamination




Fed up with cows defecating in Wyoming's streams and rivers, a group of non-profit volunteers, members of the Western Watershed Project, began to measure and report cattle contamination in the form of “manure pathogens” to the state, which can limit cows from roaming particular areas of public lands. The volunteers' work displeased ranchers, because, to reach federal land on which cows sometimes graze, the volunteers have to trespass on the ranchers' property.

As a result of the ranchers' complaints, Wyoming passed an anti-trespassing law, making non-government organizations' collection of “environmental data on behalf of the government” illegal. Now, neither the members of the Western Watershed Project nor any other non-government group can photograph, sample, measure, or even take notes on bovine fecal contaminants or any other form of environmental pollution. Critics contend the law is really intended to suppress evidence about the cows' contamination of the state's waterways and say it's so vague that showing someone a picture taken in Yellowstone National Park might constitute a crime. (LINK 9) 

 1 Idaho's Secret Animal Abuse



An Idaho law against interference with agricultural production imposes a possible sentence of a year in jail and a $5,000 fine for the surreptitious filming of farm animal abuse. Critics believe the law is designed to suppress recordings of mistreatment such as that which vegetarian and animal-rights groups videotaped in 2012, when they caught Bettencourt Dairy employees “beating, stomping and sexually abusing cows.” (10)


 LINK 1: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/31/us-trained-alaskans-as-secret-stay-behind-agents.html

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