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Overheard at the dinner table on Thanksgiving Day:

“Hey, Mom, this stuffing’s great!”

“Why, thank you, son.”

“So how did you get the turkey to swallow it?”

*******

May you and yours have a blessed and refreshing day. In that spirit I offer this prayer:

Almighty God, giver of all good things, we thank you for the natural majesty and beauty of this nation. They restore us, though we often destroy them. Humble us that we may be made right in your name.

Amen.

While growing up in Klamath, I played in the dirt and mud, got my butt whipped with a belt, razor-strop, or a switch that I had to select, started my school day at MKS with the ‘Pledge of Allegiance,’ used paper bags to cover my school books, had an enforced bedtime, and rode in the bed of Dad’s pick-up truck.  I played in Hunter and High Prairie Creek and the Klamath River, swam in the Pacific Ocean at DeMartin’s Beach, rode my bicycle, skated and skateboarded without a helmet or knee and elbow pads up and down Redwood Drive and around Azalea Drive, hung out in the sun without protection, returned glass milk and soda bottles, so they could be sent back to the plant to be washed, sterilized, refilled, and used again.

As a kid, I watched ‘MAS*H,’ ‘The Waltons,’ ‘All in the Family,’ ‘Hee Haw,’ ‘The Wonderful World of Disney’ and the first few years of ‘SNL,’ had a crush on Twiggy, Marie Osmond, and Kate Jackson, and only watched cartoons, like ‘The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour,’ ‘Johnny Quest,’ ‘Flintstones,’ and ‘The Rocky-Bullwinkle Show,’ on Saturday mornings, and only one TV with only three TV channels (KEET, KIEM, and KVIQ,) and no remote.

I also recorded my favorite music onto cassettes, from KPOD and KRED during the day, KRAK and KEX at night, and a record player with speeds 33-1/3, 45, and 78 rpm on it.

Often my parents sent me to Woodland Villa to buy their cigarettes, which means I lived in a home with second-hand smoke, and by age nine I was washing my sister’s diaper because we didn’t have the throw-away kind, hanging them on the line outside to dry. I was also given the chore of washing and folding all my family’s clothing.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Mom taught me to blend and stir stuff by hand, using a manual hand mixer, how to cook dinner, and how to set a proper table by her standards. Later she taught me how to sew and iron.

Back in the day, we packaged fragile items to mail by wadding up old newspapers to cushion them. I also had to use a push mower to cut the lawn, I drank from the garden hose, and later played Hide-and-Seek, Freeze-Tag, Kick-the-Can, Red Rover, Hop Scotch, Simon Says, Jacks, ‘Jarts,’ (those large metal yard darts,) while staying outside all day long, only having to be home by the time the sun went down and the vapor street lamps buzzed on.

I didn’t go to summer camp every year, but we did make ice cream, using rock salt, every summer.

No one wore seat belts in the back seat and I sat in the middle of the front seat of the car and truck, in Dad’s lap as a little boy, while manning the steering wheel. I also played on metal slides, hung upside down on the jungle gym and bailed out of the swings, scaled fences, climbed trees, played in the woods, jumped off the roof, and owned a B-B gun (and never put my eye out.)

Adam and I also jumped on our bunk bed until it collapsed; we ate unwrapped candy given to us by people at the bank, the insurance office, or some stores in Crescent City and left to wait in the car for what felt like hours while our parents shopped for groceries at Kacy’s, Jerricks or Pacific Market. I also made and drank stove-top percolated coffee before I was nine, was a latch-key kid before it became a concern, and remember pull-tabs (ever cut your foot after stepping on one down by the river in the Klamath Glen?) and beer and soda steel cans.

As gross, stupid, silly, or nostalgic as it sounds, I picked my nose, flicked my boogers, tried cutting my hair when no one was looking, and shaved my face without permission, then thought I had committed suicide when I splashed on a handful of Old Spice on my freshly nicked face. I sang into my toothbrush, used a pay-phone, paying a dime for that call, bought my comic books at Woodland Villa, searched the Squeeze Boxes record bin for bargains, paid a penny at the bubble-gum machine in the Ben Franklin 5 & Dime, ate all the Halloween candy I collected, dreamed of being an astronaut, policeman, fireman, and a hero, wrote in cursive, used a No. 2 pencil and filled in the bubbles on a Scranton test and thought I was special when I was given a hand calculator for Christmas.

There was a time when I played table football with a folded paper triangle, avoided stepping on sidewalk cracks, blew milk bubbles, shot rubber bands at my brother and sisters, let the dog lick my face, used sticks as swords, rocks, and pine-cones as hand-grenades and fingers as guns, played combat fighting the Germans, built forts in the woods, the backyard and in the house and climbed trees to the top. I also wrote on my skin, my jeans, and my shoes, worked on my bicycle with Dad’s tools, used a paper map and a compass and our home had a dictionary, a set of encyclopedias, an atlas, and the family bible.

I didn’t have a personal computer, a cell phone, or 24-hour TV and I have to say — my childhood was frickin’ fantastic!

There was all sorts of commotion going on Sunday morning in our neighborhood. Mary and I were awakened first by sirens and then the heavy thump of a low flying helicopter.

Evidently, a man armed with a rifle, called the Sparks Police saying he was suicidal. They located Robert Brunsvold near Spanish Springs High School, jus’ off Eagle Canyon, but when they tried to talk with him, he drove into the hills behind the school.

Authorities decided did not follow him. Instead they called in the Washoe County Sheriff’s Raven helicopter, which was able to find the  Brunsvold.

Raven personnel were able to get the license plate from Brunsvold’s vehicle, which lead to his identity. Once they knew who he was, they were able to get his cell phone number and talk to him.

For over six-hours as they talked, he shot at rocks, trees and his vehicle, prompting Sparks Police call in the Reno Police SWAT team. Eventually, they were able to convince Brunsvold to give up.

He was arrested and charged with obstructing with a firearm, and possession of a firearm while intoxicated. Brunsvold, a 10-year veteran of the Washoe County Sheriff’s Department, has been placed on admin leave.

Also, I saw a large, black unmarked vehicle, much like a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle, that left me wondering what its purpose could be, and no one would tell me. It was parked in the lot across from the high school at Shaw Middle School. (Perhaps a modern version of the ‘Black Mariah?’)

It’s stuff like this that make me worry about our civil liberties and how fast they can be taken from us and how we’ll never know who ‘they’ are.

Obviously, President Barack Obama doesn’t care about the four-million immigrants waiting to get into the U.S. legally. And now, we do have a broken immigration system.

On the evening of 104^th Anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, Obama said he would use his executive power to damage the U.S. through so-called ‘immigration reform,’ by blocking deportations of parents of U.S. citizens or legal residents.  This action reportedly affects some five-million illegal’s living in this nation.

He did this despite a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, finding 48 percent of Americans disapproved of his taking executive action, while 38 percent approve it. Among Latinos, only 43 percent approve, while 37 percent oppose.

Republicans argue that his actions are unconstitutional.  Obama echoed this himself, casting doubt on what he could do without Congress’ consent.

Last November, he said, “If I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress, then I would do so. But we’re also a nation of laws, that’s part of our tradition. And so, the easy way out is to try to yell and pretend that I can do something by violating our laws.”

Two months earlier Obama opined: “We’re not going to have them operate under a cloud, under a shadow. But if we start broadening that, then essentially I would be ignoring the law in a way that I think would be very difficult to defend legally. So that’s not an option.”

And in February of 2013, he complained: “This is something I’ve struggled with throughout my presidency. The problem is that I’m the president of the United States; I’m not the emperor of the United States. My job is to execute laws that are passed.”

Following Thursday’s prime-time speech, Obama headed for Senator Harry Reid’s stomping-grounds of Las Vegas, Nevada, where he signed his immigration order during a press event at Del Sol High School, where he spoke two years ago, claiming he wanted Congress to reform the immigration system. Incidentally, the Pew Research Center reports Nevada has the highest proportion of illegal immigrants in the U.S. at 7.6 percent.

What’s really hiding in the shadows is the news that the U.S. Labor Department granted $1.4 million dollars to Mexico to help enforce its ‘Federal Labor Law Reform of 2012.’ The grant is specifically focused on combating gender discrimination, forced pregnancy testing, sexual harassment, and discrimination based on sexual orientation.

And where are the Republicans – who said they’d fight Obama’s actions ‘tooth and nail,’ – on holiday through Thanksgiving weekend.

Without a peaceful settlement by November 27th, Superintendent Odeneal requested Major John Green, commanding officer at Fort Klamath, to provide enough troops to force Captain Jack to move back to the reservation. The next day, Captain James Jackson, commanding 40 troops, left Fort Klamath for Captain Jack’s camp on Lost River.

The troops, reinforced by citizens from Linkville, which is now Klamath Falls, Oregon and by a band of militiamen under ‘Jump Off Joe’ McAlester (also recorded as McAlister) arrived in Captain Jack’s camp on Lost River about a mile above Emigrant Crossing, now Merrill, Oregon, by the 29th. Wishing to avoid a fight, Captain Jack agreed to go to the reservation, but the situation became tense when Jackson demanded the Modoc chief to disarm.

Captain Jack had never fought the Army and though alarmed, he finally agreed to put down his weapons. The rest of the warriors followed suit.

However an argument between a Modoc namedScarfaced Charley and Company B, 1st Cavalry’s Lt. Frazier Boutelle, erupted. The two pulled their revolvers and shot at each other, both missing.

This caused the Modoc to retrieve their weapons and a short battle was fought before the Modoc escaped towards the California border. After driving the rest of the Modoc out of camp, Jackson ordered his troops to retreat and await reinforcements.

‘Jump Off Joe’ and his militia, however pressed the attack against the Modoc. The casualties in this short battle included one Army soldier killed and seven wounded, and two Modoc killed and three wounded.

Another larger band of Modoc, this one under the leadership of Hooker Jim, retreated to the Lava Beds south of Tule Lake. Over the next two days they attacked and killed 18 settlers along the way.

Learning of this, ‘Jump Off Joe’ went in pursuit. But while surveying a dry creek bed on the afternoon of December 3rd, the Modoc warriors ambushed them,  killing all 23 militia members of his command.

Eighteen days later, a Modoc party, scouting from the Stronghold, attacked an ammunition wagon at Land’s Ranch. By January 15th, 1873, the U. S. Army had 400 troops in the field near the Lava Beds.

The largest number of troops were at Van Bromer’s ranch, twelve miles west of the Stronghold. Troops were also stationed at Land’s ranch, ten miles east of the Stronghold.

Col. Frank Wheaton was in command of all troops, including regular army as well as volunteer companies from California and Oregon. The following day, Capt. Reuben Bernard’s men attacked Captain Jack’s Stronghold two miles to the west.

When the attack failed, Bernard withdrew his men by way of Hospital Rock back to Land’s Ranch.

During the next few weeks, the Army moved ever closer to the Stronghold in preparation for another attack. On April 6th, five companies commanded by Maj. Edwin Mason, 21st Infantry, camped at Hospital Rock.

On April 11th, 1st Lieutenant’s William Sherwood and William Boyle walked a half mile beyond the Hospital Rock fortifications carrying a truce flag. The Modoc’s fired on them, mortally wounding Sherwood, who died several days later at the crude field hospital that gave Hospital Rock its name.

Boyle escaped without injury, barely making it back to the safety of his camp.

The following day, the Modoc’s then fired on pickets stationed west of Hospital Rock, forcing them to withdraw. By April 14th, Mason advanced his men from Hospital Rock at night for the second attack on the stronghold.

Two days later, the Army occupied the stronghold — but that would soon change.

The Reno-Sparks NAACP wants the Nevada State Assembly Republican Caucus to vacate its recent election of Sparks Assemblyman Ira Hansen as speaker after ‘questionable’ comments attributed to him appeared in a Reno paper. The Reno News & Review’s Dennis Myer, who was Nevada’s chief deputy secretary of state under Democrat Governor Bob Miller from 1987 to 1988, unearthed some old columns Hansen wrote for the Daily Sparks Tribune years ago.

“The Democratic coalition would split asunder if the NAACP & co. actually promoted what black Americans truly desire—educational choice. The shrewd and calculating [black] ’leaders’ are willing to sacrifice the children of their own race to gratify their lust for power and position,” wrote Hansen in one column. “The relationship of Negroes and Democrats is truly a master-slave relationship, with the benevolent master knowing what’s best for his simple minded (sic) darkies. For American blacks, being denied choice and forced to attend the failing and inferior government school system is a form of involuntary servitude. Let’s call it what it truly is—educational slavery.”

Hansen has since capitulated and apologized: “I am deeply sorry that comments I have made in the past have offended many Nevadans. It is unfortunate that these comments, made almost 20 years ago as a newspaper columnist and talk radio host, have been taken out of context and are being portrayed as intentionally hurtful and disrespectful. These comments were meant to be purposely provocative in various political, cultural and religious views. I have the utmost respect for all people without regard to race, gender, religious or political beliefs.”

Even Nevada’s Republican Junior Senator Dean Heller is weighing in: “Assemblyman Hansen’s past comments and positions on race, religion, and gender that have recently been reported give me great concern,” Heller said in a prepared statement. “These comments were insensitive, wrong, and extremely offensive and insulting. Statements like these do not have a place in public discourse.”

Heller has obviously dipped too many times into Washington D.C.’s ‘political punch.’ He says these sort of comments have no “place in public discourse,’ but it is okay to debate the Second Amendment as he publicly supported in April 2013.

Unfortunately, such capitulations and apologies are never enough for those ruled by mob-mentality. They are now seeking a way to use his “I’m sorry,” against him.

Hansen wrote the truth – and it hurts, because it is and always has been the Democratic Party that has kept the Black man and woman on the dole, beginning with the Republican Civil Rights Act of 1866 and Democratic President Andrew Johnson veto. Congress passed the bill a second time, followed by Johnson’s second vetoed, but a two-thirds majority in each house overcame the veto and the bill became law.

Two years later, Congress reenacted the 1866 Civil Rights Act as Section 18 of the Enforcement Act of 1870. Also known as the First Ku Klux Klan Act, or Force Act, it empowered the President with the authority to enforce the first section of the Fifteenth Amendment.

This led to the Civil Rights Act of 1875, sometimes called Enforcement Act or Force Act, which guaranteed Black men equal treatment in public areas, public transportation, and prohibited exclusion from jury service. However, the Supreme Court decided the act was unconstitutional in 1883.

It would be another 82-year before another civil rights law would pass Congress.

The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 ensured all Americans could exercise their right to vote. Democratic Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a segregationist, filibustered the bill for over 24-hours while trying to keep the bill from becoming law.

Three-years later, The Civil Rights Act of 1960 passed, establishing federal inspection of local voter registration polls and introduced penalties for anyone who obstructed someone’s attempt to register to vote. Senate Democrats again did their best to keep the bill from becoming law.

This same pattern continued with the passage Civil Rights act of 1964, for which the party took credit, despite a 57-day filibuster by West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who got into politics as a recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan. Since then the Black community’s been told time-and-again that it is the Democratic Party that cares for their well-being.

Unfortunately, this is not true, as the party cares only about ‘minority’ votes and political power. To this day, operatives within the Progressive Democrat party are agitating not for civil liberty, but rather social justice, which is the politically correct way of saying, ‘redistribution of wealth, opportunity, and privilege.’

These agitators include the likes of Presidential advisor and MSNBC host Al Sharpton, Texas Congresswoman Sheila Lee Jackson and Maryland’s Congressman Elijah Cummings. Of course, no-one from the NAACP has yet to call on these individuals to step down from their duly elected posts.

UPDATE 11/23/2014: Hansen has stepped down as Nevada Assembly Speaker-elect.

Bill Cosby is an outspoken Democrat. But over the past several years, Cosby has railed against ‘entitled’ Americans for their ‘thuggish’ behavior and for remaining uneducated.

Cosby — since the 60s — has been telling the truth about society, through the lens of humor.  But now he’s on the Progressive ‘hit list’ of political correctness, for calling out his own ‘people,’ suffering through a series of seemingly endless rape allegations.

Furthermore, these allegations are breaking along political lines.  Progressives have automatically labeled Bill Cosby a “serial rapist,” while Conservatives see the allegations as part of a media effort to control the black vote by targeting popular black people who are at odds with the ‘black community.’

All this attention came after comedian Hannibal Buress told the audience to “Google Cosby,’ then went on to call Cosby a rapist during a performance Philadelphia. Buress admits that he hates Cosby after the elder comedian said, “Pull your pants up, black people.”

Buress is talking about a speech Cosby gave to the NAACP in May 2004 commemorating the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education that desegregated schools. During the speech, Cosby said the black community could not continue to blame whites for their social problems.

Cosby also criticized black women for having children with multiple partners, black parent’s spending money on sneakers instead of Hooked on Phonics, adding, “We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don’t know a damned thing about Africa.”

Incidentally, Buress’ online stand-up bits have gained in viewership since making his provocative statements. Meanwhile, the ‘Cos’ has been subjected to the cancellation of shows, reruns and appearances — as well as castigation — in the past few weeks.

Yesiree, there ain’t nothin’ like a good old-fashioned Internet lynch mob to keep the rife-rafe in line.

The idea of writing this day feels more like an act of procrastination. It comes from having a number of ideas on the brain and an inability to sort through them, to see which might be most appealing to waste ink over.

There are many political ruminations I could consider, but they are like chicken scat on an egg farm and I don’t feel like dirtying my spirit any further than necessary. Worse yet is the fact that though numerous, they all have the same outcome.

Perhaps another day.

Recently I read two stories from my dear friend, Jeanie French. They were tales of both having been a child, long ago, and being an adult for years since.

Both returned me to where I’d like to be — at least on paper — sharing memories more than opinion, love and not anger at the current insanity of this world. That is if I am to presume it is the world gone mad and not myself.

Further, I have misplaced my ability to make an impression. The idealist in me has wandered away — exploiting neither his imagination and forsaking his mind — filling the dangerous blank page with trivial musings.

Perhaps another day — jus’ not this day.

Bill Schultz of Grass Valley passed away on November 27, 2013, in Reno, Nevada. He was born on May 19, 1933, in Salmon, Idaho, and grew up in Wells, Nevada.

He was also the father of murder victim Tiffany Paige Schultz, the first of six women killed by Cleophus Prince Jr., better known as the ‘The Clairemont Killer.’ The 21-year-old San Diego State University student and exotic dancer was stabbed nearly 50 times on January 12, 1990.

The investigation into Tiffany’s death began as a ‘routine call’ for patrol officers to look into the report of a ‘woman down.’ The reporting party had found her in his bedroom covered in blood.

Once inside the apartment, officers could see Tiffany as she lay on her back, legs spread apart and her arms out on each side and elbows bent. It appeared she had been posed.

They could tell she had been stabbed multiple times in the upper part of her chest. She was clad in only her black bikini bottoms.

An autopsy showed she had been stabbed six times in the neck and another 20 times in the right breast. Her left breast was found to have been stabbed 10 times, with 11 more wounds found on her right thigh and severe bruising to her face.

Earlier that morning Tiffany was spotted sunbathing just inside the door of her apartment on the second floor of the Canyon Ridge complex. Neighbors would later report that between 11 that morning and one in the afternoon, they heard loud noises from her apartment.

The police found no sign of forced entry, although there was a blood smear on a doorknob, and despite the vicious attack, Tiffany was not sexually assaulted. The officers believed the killer had left by way of the balcony, jumping from the second floor to the ground.

On Tiffany’s hand, they’d found strands of hair and lifted some skin cells for genetic testing.

At first, investigators suspected Tiffany’s boyfriend, who was arrested and questioned. But with no evidence to hold him, he was released and later dropped as a suspect.

However, since Tiffany worked part-time as an exotic dancer, investigators thought someone may have followed her home. No one yet realized that this was the first of several such assaults in the area.

Janene Weinhold lived on the second floor of the Buena Vista Gardens apartment complex. She and her female roommate were students at the University of California, San Diego.

On February 16, Janene drove her roommate to work around nine in the morning, with plans to pick her up later that afternoon. But Janene failed to show up.

Around 11:30, a neighbor who lived below Janene saw a black man sitting on the stairs. Not long afterward, she heard loud noises in Janene’s apartment overhead.

It was not until around eight that night the roommate made it home. She found Janene’s body on the floor of her bedroom, naked except for her bra, and immediately called the police.

One leg was spread and there were multiple stab wounds to her chest. Over the right breast was a small cluster of deep wounds.

When they searched the apartment, they found blood on the door handle and a bloodstained knife in the kitchen sink, with the tip bent. The murder weapon belonged to the occupants.

Because there was no sign of forced entry, investigators believe Janene had either invited her attacker in or he had knocked and then pushed his way in when she answered the door.  Janene had been sexually assaulted, so a semen sample was sent to the lab for DNA analysis.

Semen was also collected from Janene’s jogging outfit, the carpet, and the bedspread.

A month passed and another woman reported a disturbing incident in the same apartment complex. Anna Cotalessa-Ritchie also lived on the second floor. On March 25, around noon, she left her apartment to walk to a nearby store.

On her way there, she saw a black man standing at a bus stop, but as she returned, she noticed he was no longer there. Assuming a bus had come by and picked him up, she returned home.

Then she saw him again, coming toward her.

He passed her and she hurried home. As she rushed up the steps, she heard a noise at the bottom of the steps.

When she looked over the railing, she realized the man from the bus stop had followed her. He looked up at her and then bent down to tie his shoe.

She saw he was faking because both of his shoes were already tied, so she went into her apartment and locked the door. She never saw or heard the man again.

Eighteen-year-old Holly Tarr lived in Michigan, but she was visiting her brother at the Buena Vista Gardens apartment complex that April with her friend, Tammy. It was her spring break and she and Tammy had decided to spend it in California.

Late on the morning of April 3, they played tennis in the recreation area and then went to lie out at the pool.  There they noticed a black male watching them from inside the complex athletic room.

Around noon, Holly returned alone to the apartment to take a shower. Tammy, though stayed at the pool for another ten more minutes.

Once at the apartment door, she heard Holly scream and found the door locked. She also heard the telephone ringing inside the apartment, but no one answered.

Concerned because there was no answer, Tammy went to a neighbor for help, who called the maintenance man. He used his master key but found the chain on, so he was forced to break it.

As he entered the apartment, he was confronted by a man with a ‘white bag’ covering his head and a knife in his hand. Both Tammy and the maintenance man let the man run by them, thus avoiding being attacked themselves.

Tammy found Holly, still alive and gasping. She had been stabbed once through the chest. The wound was so severe that Holly died before emergency crews arrived.

Needless to say, the police were called immediately.

They found Holly’s legs spread, wearing only panties and a bra.

Officers quickly located several key pieces of evidence. This included a shoe print of a Nike Air Jordan which didn’t match any from Holly’s brother’s closet.

A bloody impression from a knife was lifted from the door jamb, and a T-shirt and blood-stained knife were found dumped in a parking lot outside. The knife had come from the apartment and blood on the shirt would prove to be from Holly.

Tammy also told investigators that an opal ring Holly had worn that morning was gone from her finger.

Using Tammy’s description, officers checked the sign-in sheet of the weight room. Both girls’ names were on it, as was Holly’s brother and one more name: C. Prince.

They soon learned his full name: Cleophus Prince, Jr.

Within a day, police located Prince and asked him about his presence at the apartment complex. He said that he’d worked out until around noon and then went back to his apartment to get ready for work.

He claimed he had left at ten minutes before two in the afternoon. He also refused to be fingerprinted, and since there was no definite evidence against him, the police couldn’t arrest him.

Police also learned Prince shared an apartment with Robert and Robin Romo. He had told them that he’d been on a date with a woman, adding that he had raped her afterward.

When Robin told him about the recent murder at the Buena Vista Gardens complex, he said he had seen the victim at the pool that morning. Shortly afterward, Prince moved out.

After that, no one was killed in the Buena Vista Gardens complex.

Profilers from Quantico were brought in to help the task force. They viewed the crimes as high risk for the offender since they were perpetrated during the middle of the day when other residents could have spotted him and believed the killer was familiar with the apartment complex, perhaps living there.

The FBI knew the killer could enter apartments and slip out without being detected, though the Tarr case didn’t fit this profile, so he might have a record for breaking and entering. They also predicted Prince had approached or accosted other women in the same area, before the start of the murders.

They added that the murders were possibly the result of a stressful incident in the killer’s life. Profilers also told the task force they should publicize the list of traits, along with the chance that the offender’s behavior would have changed somewhat since the first murder, which included things like greater substance abuse or secrecy.

People who knew him might recognize his involvement from behavioral clues and his absence during the times of the murders, and provide helpful information. Since he’d been spotted at this apartment complex, Douglas suggested he’d move on and find victims elsewhere.

What profilers anticipated during the first few months of the murder spree proved to be correct, as three more victims turned up in the next several months at two separate scenes. While unfortunately, the killer had succeeded three more times, it provided more of a basis for analysis.

The attacks didn’t stop; they changed location.

It was early afternoon May 2, when a woman named Leslie H. was out on the beach near a home she was visiting. She walked back to the house and saw an African-American man standing at the door.

She asked what he wanted and he told her he’d once lived in the house. Then he walked away.

As she went inside, the man pushed his way in after her. He covered her mouth as they struggled, but she managed to get away.

She ran from the house, screaming, and he followed her. When he realized he couldn’t catch her, he ran away.

Less than three weeks later, a man entered the home of Elissa Keller, who lived with her eighteen-year-old daughter at the Top of the Hill apartment complex. The daughter was away, but she spoke with her mother on the evening of May 20.

When Elissa failed to show up at work the next morning or answer the phone, the daughter went to see if she was all right. She found her mother in the bedroom, dead, under a blanket.

The coroner found that Elissa had been stabbed, leaving a cluster of nine wounds on her chest. She had also been beaten in the face, as well as choked

Her blood-stained underwear lay next to her body, turned inside out.

Investigators believed that the intruder had entered through a window left partly open, leaving scuff marks and a shoe print on the floor nearby. Bloody marks on the bathroom counter bore a strange pattern as well, which served to help make a match if a suspect were developed.

It was the same pattern they had seen at several earlier murder/rape scenes.

The daughter also reported that her mother wore a ring adorned with a gold nugget and that it was missing. Police put out the word to pawn shops, hoping it would turn up.

Later that summer, at the same complex, an apartment was burglarized, and money was taken, both in the form of American and Italian currency. However, before that occurred, there was another murder, this time in a private home in the San Diego neighborhood of Universal City.

Pamela Clarkson left home around eight in the morning of September 13, to go to the Family Fitness Center on Miramar Road. Her husband left shortly afterward, but their daughter, eighteen-year-old Amber, was still in bed.

A neighbor later told police, she heard Amber having words with someone inside the home. The other voice belonged to a man.

She heard Amber cry out, but then nothing more, so there seemed little reason to be alarmed. Pamela drove in around 11.

Later in the day, when Pamela failed to show up for work and a phone call to the home was answered, a colleague decided to go over to find out if Pamela was all right. It was this woman who came across her body in the entryway of the home.

Pamela was on her back, nude, with her arms spread out at 90-degree angles to her body. She had been repeatedly stabbed, with eleven deep wounds to the upper left chest area.

From blood trails on the floor, it appeared that she had been stabbed elsewhere and dragged to this location. Near her head lay a bloody knife.

The woman called the police, and they discovered the second victim Amber.

She lay on the floor in an adjacent bedroom. Her breasts were exposed, and she, too, had eleven wounds in a cluster to her upper chest.

Blood from her wounds had also been smeared onto her torso. Another knife lay on the bathroom floor.

A search inside Pamela’s purse revealed that money had been taken. Her wedding ring was gone as well.

Police found a screen removed from a dining room window and the sliding door with marks on it that appeared to have been made by a tool. There were also shoe prints from a male athletic shoe under the dining room window.

While not initially linked to the other murders, it didn’t take long for detectives to tie the string of stabbings together.

Around this time, Prince told friends he was dating an older white woman, a massage therapist. He had a wedding ring he said was hers, and he added that he was having sex with the woman’s daughter as well.

He told the same story to the foreman at the job where he was working. Prince even offered the foreman and a coworker several pieces of jewelry.

It would later be learned that he was taking a sixteen-year-old boy with him as he committed burglaries in the area. He would put socks on, jimmy the door locks with a credit card, then take a knife from the kitchen if he needed it.

Prince often followed women from the gym where he had a membership, learning where they lived. He’d watch their homes for the chance to enter and take something.

The teen did not know about Prince’s other activities.

Several people saw Prince motoring away from apartments he had burglarized, driving an older model bluish-gray vehicle with a noisy muffler. The police soon traced it to someone who came to the Family Fitness Center on Miramar Road.

They asked employees to tell them the next time they spotted a car of this description. They hit the jackpot on February 4, 1991, when an employee called to say a man had just driven a 1982 Chevy Cavalier through the parking lot.

That driver was sitting there in his car when officers arrived fifteen minutes later. Officers searched his car and found black leather gloves and wool gloves, along with a steak knife with an eight-inch blade and two folding knives of different sizes.

He had once been listed as a member of the fitness center but had canceled his membership. He had no business being in the parking lot, although people at the club said they had seen him there multiple times.

He gave a reason for his presence there that failed to check out, so they placed him under arrest. It was Cleophus Prince Jr.

Police took fingerprints and a blood sample, questioned Prince, and released him. It would take several weeks to get results, and they had nothing with which to detain him.

Prince quickly left the state, to visit his mother in Birmingham, Alabama. He would soon get himself into trouble there.

He had just been arrested on March 1 for a burglary where he took money from a cash register at a dance club and had been released on bond. Unfortunately, three hours later, the Birmingham police learned about San Diego’s interest in him.

They contacted Prince’s bondsman, who then alerted Prince to turn himself in. Surprisingly, he came in, accompanied by his parents.

As this was unfolding, Prince’s biological samples were sent to Cellmark Diagnostic, a DNA analysis center in Maryland. Along with them went samples and items from some of the crime scenes.

Three weeks later, the police learned that there was a match between Prince and the semen samples from the Weinhold rape/murder. It was time to make an arrest.

When officers went to Prince’s last known address, which turned out to be next door to the building where the fourth victim was killed, they learned he was gone. Nevertheless, they searched the apartment, turning up an opal ring that matched the description of the one removed from Holly Tarr when she was stabbed.

They learned only 63 such rings had been manufactured and none had been distributed in California. They also got a tip on where he’d gone and alerted the police in Birmingham.

He was detained for extradition to California.

At the time, police had linked only five of the murders to him. But a background check soon showed he had lived at the Buena Vista Garden apartments during the times of those murders and that he had been dating a woman who lived near Universal City at the time of those two murders.

Furthermore, the shoes Prince owned matched several of the footprint impressions found at the scenes. Following searches turned up the ring that matched missing from Elissa Keller.

She was added to the victim list.

However, DNA evidence was lacking in some of the cases, so the task force met again with profilers at Quantico and they went over the evidence in all six cases. FBI profilers, who were already working on the case, were asked to help with providing proof with evidence and psychology that the six cases were related.

The victims all fit a similar type: white and physically fit. Most had been brunette and four were between 18 and 21.

The killer had entered each residence via an unlocked door or window, all of them had been stabbed, and five were killed around the same time of day. All were left face-up on the floor of their homes, nude or mostly nude.

Three lived in the same apartment complex and three used the same fitness center. Jewelry was removed from three of the victims, but most telling was the way the deepest stab wounds had been concentrated in the chest area, revealing a focused and controlled rage. Only Holly Tarr had a single wound, but that crime had been interrupted.

In five of the cases, the knife used was from the residence.

The profilers, used information about the race of the victims, their geographic location, the used in entering their homes, the use of a knife, the time at which the murders generally occurred, and the tight circle of puncture wounds left on the chest area. The results indicated there were no other crimes, aside from these six, anywhere near this area, and none around the country with this particular type of wounding pattern.

What was odd for the FBI profilers was having a black serial killer, especially one who crosses racial lines, murdering white women.

Those who knew Prince claimed he was obsessed with sex and often bragged about his relationships with white women. Yet there was no evidence that he’d had any trouble with a white woman that might have made him angry enough to kill.

Investigators learned his father, Cleophus Prince, Sr., had a criminal record. He’d served time in prison for second-degree murder (which he told reporters had been done in self-defense,) and had been arrested after he got out for rape, later reduced to assault.

So, Prince had a role model.

However, both of his parents insisted that the police had the wrong man. Their son, they said, was not capable of murder, let alone serial murder.

They were certain he was being framed. In fact, he had shown no anxiety at all, the police had admitted, during the hour and a half he’d been questioned upon his initial arrest.

Prince’s attorney, Roger Appell, claimed that Prince looked nothing like the composite drawing made from a woman who’d been accosted by a man police believed was also the killer. But the claim that he was the first known serial killer to have crossed racial lines, in the hope of showing the improbability of the situation, was not true.

The trial began in the summer of 1993, but not without some problems. Apparently, Prince is a non-secretor, meaning he fails to secrete a blood enzyme in his biological fluids that is present in 75 percent of the male population.

Since the tests did not pick it up, the semen analysis from Prince’s second murder victim, Janene Weinhold, mistakenly showed the offender’s blood type was ‘O.’

Prince, however, is type ‘A.’ It took a year to discover and correct the mistake.

As investigators learned more about Prince, they learned he had never had a brush with the law. He completed high school and joined the Navy in 1987, being stationed at the Miramar Naval Air Station.

After being dishonorably discharged for stealing, Prince got a job but was soon laid off, so he turned to burglary. He enlisted some accomplices, and they donned socks to go in and rob homes without leaving fingerprints.

When prosecutor Daniel Lamborn requested that both Douglas and Ankrom take part in the trial, the court conducted a lengthy pre-trial hearing about their qualifications. Douglas was going to take the stand to provide background about the profiling analysis, while Ankrom would specifically address the series of Clairemont-area crimes.

Defense attorneys protested that they were not psychologists and should not be allowed to make any psychological assessments. The court concluded that the witnesses’ experience and training failed to qualify them to express an opinion about the perpetrator’s probable state of mind, so that aspect of their testimony was excluded.

However, the court accepted that they had enough training and experience in crime scene investigation to testify about analyzing the scenes. It was also deemed probable that the jury would not have the requisite knowledge to understand such concepts as “signature analysis” and linking similar crime scenes, so using an expert to explain it was acceptable; however, because it bordered on psychological motive, they were not allowed to actually use the word, “signature.”

In the end, the prosecution decided to use only Ankrom, since he had been more extensively involved in the case.

When Special Agent Ankrom took the stand, he testified that all six victims had been slain by the same person; his judgment was based on the commonality of the wound pattern and his experience with other such series of crimes. This included recounting the particular details that linked the cases.

Under cross-examination by Barton Sheela, Prince’s attorney, got Ankrom to admit he did not get information involving knife attacks on area women who had survived. He also did not get information on murders in other neighborhoods.

There was an unsolved homicide of a white woman stabbed in her home in the San Diego area, committed after Prince was arrested, and Ankrom had not investigated the crime.

Also, Prince’s roommate testified about a night when Prince came back, with fresh blood on his jeans, to the apartment they shared. He gave a story that he’d gotten into a fight with his girlfriend.

However, he’d often bragged about his burglaries and said he’d stabbed some people to death. He recalled Prince talking about stabbing them in the heart.

They had lived next door to the building where Elissa Keller was murdered. This person had even been involved in some of the burglaries, and he testified about wearing socks on their hands.

He also recalled the woman’s jewelry that Prince had in his possession.

As for profiling, an offender’s method of committing a crime can show certain aspects of his personality. However, there’s also the behavior not necessary to accomplish the crime; a signature.

Prince’s signature is piquerism

He enjoyed stabbing and gouging with a sharp instrument. He aimed at the heart and left breast, stabbing deeply many times. He was stimulated by violence and the knife became a substitute for penile penetration.

Prince was characterized as a sadist, having sunk the knife in slowly, with satisfaction. In fact, he stabbed his victims to the depth of an erect penis.

Sheela pointed out the eyewitnesses who could not identify Prince as the man they’d seen in the vicinity of the murders. In most of the cases, he said, there was no physical evidence against his client. He described the many differences among the crimes, insisting that they could not be viewed as a whole.

In closing, Lamborn made the case that Prince was a sexual pervert who enjoyed watching blood flow from women’s breasts, and Lamborn emphasized the brutal similarities between the crimes. Then it went to the jury.

The jurors deliberated nine days before they returned a verdict on July 13, 1993. Prince was found guilty of murdering not only Tiffany, but also Janene Weinhold, Holly Tarr, Pamela Clark, Amber Clark, and Elissa Keller, as well as twenty burglaries and a number of other charges.

The special circumstance of ‘multiple murder’ was sufficient grounds for giving him the death penalty. He is on death row at San Quentin.

In May 2007, the California Supreme Court upheld his death sentence; in a 159-page ruling, they dismissed the legal briefs Prince’s attorneys had presented. He can appeal this ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Tiffany’s mother, Ramona Saunders, of Auburn, passed away September 13, 2013, at her home following a long battle with cancer. She was born in 1931 to the late Denzil and Gladys Bronson in San Francisco, California.

As for Tiffany, she is buried in the Loney-Sanford Ranch Cemetery near Grass Valley, California.

Stop looking to others for happiness.
If you’re not happy with who you are on the inside, you won’t be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either.
You have to create stability in your own life first before you can share it with someone else.