Ex-Maine State Police chief pleads guilty to sex assault, will serve 4 years
Andrew Demers Jr. is sentenced to five years in prison, with the final year suspended, on a charge of unlawful sexual contact.
Former Maine State Police Chief Andrew Demers Jr. wipes tears from
his eyes as a former police colleague testifies in the Cumberland
County Courthouse on Tuesday, about how Demers’ actions, sexually
assaulting a 4-year-old child, have tarnished the reputation of the
police force. Scott Dolan/Staff Writer
One of the mostly highly decorated police officers in Maine’s
history was sentenced Tuesday to four years in prison for sexually
assaulting a 4-year-old child.
Andrew Demers Jr., the former chief of the Maine State Police, broke
down sobbing at one point during his sentencing hearing at the
Cumberland County Courthouse, wiping tears from his eyes many times
after he entered a guilty plea to a felony charge of unlawful sexual
contact.
Additional Images
Former Maine State Police Chief Andrew Demers Jr. wipes tears from
his eyes as a former police colleague testifies in the Cumberland County
Courthouse on Tuesday, about how Demers’ actions, sexually assaulting a
4-year-old child, have tarnished the reputation of the police force. Scott Dolan/Staff Writer
Superior Court Justice Thomas Warren sentenced Demers to five years,
with the final year to be suspended while Demers serves a three-year
probation term. The judge also ordered Demers to pay $5,000 restitution
to pay for past and future counseling for the child.
Demers’ arrest on March 17 shocked the state’s law enforcement
community, many of whom had considered him a model officer. Demers is
the only officer in Maine history to be twice named the state police
Trooper of the Year and was named Legendary Trooper in 2003. He served
26 years with the state police and held the department’s top position
from 1987 to 1993, when he retired.
As Warren issued his sentence, he rejected a claim by Demers’
clinical psychologist that Demers’ actions were out of character and may
have been a result of neurological damage from post-traumatic stress
from decades of police service.
“Crimes like this come from a dark place within a person that are
often buried deep within and unknown,” Warren said at the end of the
three-hour hearing.
The courtroom was filled with Demers’ family members and supporters,
many of whom spoke on his behalf or submitted letters attesting to his
exemplary character.
At the side of the courtroom, the child’s parents sat silently near
Cumberland County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson, who prosecuted
the case and asked for a sentence of eight years.
Before he was arrested, Demers admitted to investigators to assaulting the child multiple times.
State police first received a tip about the alleged crimes on March
10 and referred the matter to the district attorney, who asked the
sheriff’s office to investigate.
Anderson said in her 34 years practicing criminal law, she has made
thousands of sentencing recommendations, but found Demers’ case to be
one of the hardest.
“This is not something I take lightly at all because Colonel Demers
was my hero, too,” Anderson said. But later she added, “There is no
evidence of diminished mental capacity. That’s why I say we have a child
molester here.”
Anderson read emotional letters from the parents of the victim, although they did not stand to address the court themselves.
“He took my little girl’s innocence from us,” the child’s mother wrote in the statement.
Demers’ attorney, Walter McKee, argued that his 74-year-old client
has already been punished seriously since his arrest, with a ruined
reputation and the heartache his actions have brought on his family.
“Andy is, by every single account, the last person that anyone ever
expected would be involved in an offense like this and this alone speaks
volumes about who Andy is, as he has lived his life in a way that is
the farthest cry from behavior at issue here than one can imagine,”
McKee wrote. “There are also very real, significant concerns about
Andy’s safety while incarcerated in the custody of the Department of
Corrections.”
The judge rejected McKee’s request that Demers be allowed to serve a
lesser sentence in the Cumberland County Jail instead of prison, but
allowed him a one-week delay before beginning his sentence on Nov. 11.
Demers broke down sobbing as his adult granddaughter spoke at the
hearing about how his actions have affected their family. He spoke
through tears as he stood to address the court, pulling a handkerchief
from his suit coat to wipe his eyes.
“Your Honor, since my arrest I have been torn and torn with shame,” Demers said.
He did not answer a reporter’s questions as he walked out of the courtroom afterward with family members.
Demers pleaded guilty as part of an agreement reached by McKee and
Anderson in which a more serious Class A felony charge of gross sexual
assault was dismissed. He could have faced up to 30 years on that
charge.
The District Attorney’s Office and McKee arranged for Demers to turn himself in at the county jail.
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The prisoner says he is tired of telling the story.
But there’s a court hearing on the horizon that could be his last
chance at a new trial. There are some things that he wants the public to
hear again.
Additional Photos
Thirty-year-old Dennis Dechaine of Bowdoinham is escorted to his
arraignment in the slaying of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry on July 12, 1988,
four days after his arrest. Dechaine has been in custody since. 1988 file photo/The Associated Press
Dennis Dechaine is seen at Maine State Prison in Thomaston in June
1992, about a month after filing a motion for a new trial. It was denied
in July. 1992 file photo/The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram
Accompanied by his attorney Steve Peterson, Dennis Dechaine listens
to a reporter’s questions during an interview at the Maine State Prison
in Warren on March 22. With a new appeal more than two decades after
his conviction in the death of Sarah Cherry, no other case has been
litigated in Maine’s court system for so long. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
So Dennis Dechaine answers the same questions the officers asked on
that summer night in the woods of Bowdoin in 1988. Did you take the
girl? Did you kill Sarah Cherry?
“I’m not the guy who did this,” Dechaine said during a March 22 interview at the Maine State Prison in Warren.
“Somebody, somewhere in their heart of hearts at the state level has to know this.
“It is a nightmare,” Dechaine said.
The Dechaine case occupies a unique position in Maine’s collective consciousness.
No other case has been litigated in Maine’s court system for so long – almost 22 years and counting.
Maine knows Dennis Dechaine, inmate No. 1725, as the farmer convicted
for one of the most shocking crimes in state history – the kidnapping,
torture and murder of 12-year-old Sarah Cherry. Most Mainers also know
that Dechaine, now 52, has maintained his innocence, and a large group
of backers has provided the emotional and financial support behind his
quest for a new trial.
In four appeals, state and federal judges have upheld the conviction and life sentence.
But he will get at least one more shot.
Sometime this fall, a judge is expected to decide whether Dechaine
should get a new trial based primarily on a microscopic fragment of
unidentified male DNA extracted from Sarah Cherry’s clipped thumbnail.
His lawyers must convince Superior Court Justice Carl O. Bradford –
who presided at the 1989 trial – that the jury likely would have
acquitted Dechaine if they had known about the thumbnail evidence. The
lawyers also will ask Bradford to consider two forensic reports
suggesting Dechaine could not have committed the crime. The hearing is
tentatively set for September.
“We only get one shot at getting this right,” said attorney Steve
Peterson of Rockport, who has worked on the case since 2003 and has been
Dechaine’s lead defense lawyer since the fall of 2007.
“It’s his last, best chance,” Peterson said.
William Stokes, head of the Criminal Division at the state’s Attorney
General’s Office, will argue that Dechaine does not deserve a new
trial. The only mystery, as far as Stokes is concerned, is why the case
has not been closed for good.
“When you have been given so many opportunities to make your case,
and you haven’t done it, there’s that point where the family of the
victim should get some finality,” Stokes said. AN INCOMPARABLE CASE
The coming court battle was made possible by a state law enacted in
2001, and revised in 2006 at the urging of Dechaine’s supporters. The
law allows prisoners to seek new trials based on DNA evidence.
Only a handful of prisoners have filed motions based on the law, and
Dechaine’s motion would be the first to go before a judge if the hearing
takes place as scheduled.
“In terms of public interest, there have been no other cases that
compare to the Dechaine case. Never. Not even close,” said prominent
Augusta defense lawyer Walt McKee, who is not involved.
“Everybody has got their own take on the case,” McKee said. “The
first school of thought is that he had a trial with excellent lawyers on
each side, the jury ruled, and how long do we have to go through this.
On the other hand, there’s the thought that the jury didn’t hear some
information that we now have, so let’s put it in front of a new jury and
let them decide.”
The stakes are high. An advocacy group called Trial and Error,
composed largely of Dechaine’s family and friends, have raised and spent
more than $200,000 on lobbying to change the state law regarding DNA
appeals, DNA testing, private investigators, a website and the
production and distribution of DVDs about the case.
The state, meanwhile, has spent thousands of dollars on Dechaine’s
court-appointed lawyers, court time and the prosecutors who have
contested Dechaine’s appeals. At least $10,000, including for the
estimated cost of more than 200 hours of staff time, also has been spent
by the state crime lab for DNA testing.
“We do not keep a running tab on any case, but this case has consumed
literally thousands of hours of attorney time and law enforcement time
as well as the lab and the court. So it’s a lot of money, certainly tens
of thousands,” Stokes said.
The case has attracted the attention of some high-profile consultants.
The Innocence Project, a New York-based nonprofit organization
dedicated to the exoneration of convicts through DNA testing, has been
involved in the case since the early 1990s. One of the organization’s
staff lawers, Alba Morales, is helping Peterson. Lawyers Barry Scheck
and Peter Neufeld, who created the Innocence Project in 1992, became
famous for their work on the O.J. Simpson “dream team” that won an
acquittal for the former football star in 1995.
Another member of the Simpson team, famed defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey, also has entered the Dechaine fray.
Bailey, who has business ties in Maine and is moving to Yarmouth this
month, heard about the case from another attorney. Bailey met with
Dechaine at the prison in April 2009. At Bailey’s request, two
nationally recognized forensic pathologists reviewed some of the
evidence and gave their opinions that Dechaine could not have committed
the crime.
“This was a strong circumstantial case put on by the state, but it is
possible that someone could have set him up,” Bailey said. “The
inflammatory nature of the crime makes it rife for opportunity to go
astray because the public wants someone to pay.”
Dechaine said that the prosecution’s desire to make an arrest and
assure the public that the killer was behind bars denied him a full and
fair investigation.
“I have forced it so far to the back of my mind that I don’t like to
think about it anymore,” he said while sitting in one of the visitation
rooms at the state prison in Warren. “I don’t like to think about all of
the events that led to my wrongful conviction … It took a lot of, well,
pounding square pegs into round holes to do what was done to me.” HEALTH SCARE, CRIMINAL PROBE
Lawyers on both sides will be watching Dechaine’s health as the
hearing date approaches, because of an incident that took place at the
prison in early April.
On the morning of April 5, two weeks after he was interviewed for
this story, Dechaine was found unconscious in his cell, with an
extremely low pulse rate and blood pressure. He was taken by helicopter
to a Portland hospital, where doctors inserted a tube to help him
breathe. Dechaine was speaking and walking again within a few days. He
was returned to the prison on April 21.
Don Dechaine, a brother who lives in Madawaska, said Dennis Dechaine
apparently ingested an unknown medication that nearly killed him. The
family does not know what the medication was, how it got into Dechaine’s
system or how it was administered.
“There are a lot of questions we don’t have the answers to,” Don
Dechaine said. He said he spoke to his brother on the telephone last
week, and he sounded good. Dennis does not appear to have any lasting
problems, such as brain damage.
The Maine Department of Corrections investigated the circumstances
surrounding the emergency, and passed on the results of their probe to
Knox County District Attorney Geoff Rushlau.
Rushlau and Denise Lord, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, declined to comment on details of the investigation.
“The matter is being reviewed for possible criminal charges,” Rushlau said last week.
Peterson, Dechaine’s lawyer, said any criminal charge arising from
the April 5 incident would be dealt with separately from the DNA appeal.
“It will not affect that hearing at all,” Peterson said. VICTIM’S FAMILY SEEKS CLOSURE
Sarah Cherry’s family members hope Dechaine’s motion for a new trial
will be denied and they will be afforded the closure they have been
seeking since Sarah was kidnapped while babysitting on July 6, 1988.
Searchers found her body in nearby woods two days later. Sarah had
been bound, gagged and sexually assaulted with sticks. She had been
stabbed about a dozen times, and was strangled to death with a scarf.
“It’s not right that he should be allowed to go on with this forever,
to keep coming back to the courts time and time again,” said Peg
Cherry, Sarah’s maternal grandmother.
Peg and her husband, Bud Cherry, live in Lisbon Falls, a short drive
from the small town of Bowdoin, where Sarah lived with her mother and
stepfather, Debbie and Chris Crosman.
Peg Cherry displays elementary school photographs of Sarah on
cabinets. From her tidy living room, the 77-year-old grandmother can see
where Sarah and her cousins used to play games of soccer, softball or
tag.
Sarah would have been 34 years old on May 5.
Chris and Debbie Crosman declined to comment for this story because
they say they still have difficulty discussing it more than two decades
after their daughter’s murder.
Many family members, including Peg Cherry, attended the trial in
March 1989 at Knox County Superior Court in Rockland. Cherry has been in
regular contact with prosecutors before and since. And no matter what
Dechaine or his supporters say, she is certain he committed the crime.
“The evidence is overwhelming. There is no other answer,” she said.
“He thought he was going to hoodwink everybody. Here is this pretty
boy, really clean-cut, and he wants you to believe there’s no way he
could do it.
“Well, looks can be deceiving.” THE STATE’S POSITION
“No question, this was a circumstantial case, but sometimes that can
be even more powerful than direct evidence,” said William Stokes, the
state prosecutor who inherited the Dechaine case from his predecessors
in 1995.
Stokes said the state had more evidence against Dechaine than it does in many murder cases: • A notebook and receipt from Dechaine’s truck were found in the driveway of the home where Sarah had been baby-sitting. • Dechaine was seen walking out of the woods in the general area where Sarah’s body was later found. • His truck was found 450 feet from the site. • The scarf used to strangle Sarah and the rope binding her wrists had come from Dechaine’s truck. • Two detectives and two corrections officers
testified that Dechaine made incriminating statements on the day of his
arrest, including, “It must be somebody else inside of me.”
Dechaine’s testimony at the trial also was a key piece of evidence, Stokes said.
Dechaine said he went into the woods on the afternoon of July 6 to
inject drugs, and got lost at some point. In an interview with the
state’s chief psychologist after the arrest in 1988, Dechaine said his
history of drug use began with marijuana around the age of 13, and he
had occasionally used various drugs, including cocaine and amphetamines,
since that time.
During cross-examination at his trial, Dechaine conceded that his
memory of the afternoon of July 6 was not as sharp as it might have been
if he had not been using the drugs. But he insisted that he was not in
an altered state of consciousness, and that he never saw Sarah Cherry
that day. Dechaine believes another man took the items from his truck
and used them to frame him.
Stokes takes offense at the accusations made by some of Dechaine’s
supporters, who claim that he and others within the Attorney General’s
Office have worked to protect the police and to hide and distort
evidence pointing away from Dechaine.
“They have their point of view,” Stokes said. “They are entitled to
their point of view. What I do have a problem with is the personal
attacks.”
Stokes, an Augusta city councilor who also has served on the school
board, said people sometimes ask him whether Trial and Error, the
advocacy group that backs Dechaine, might be right in proclaiming his
innocence.
“They’re not trying to offend me, but I look at them and say, ‘Do you
really think I would fight and use my skills in the courtroom to keep
someone in prison who I believe to be innocent?’ ” Stokes said.
“Consider the accusations that have been made, that we are basically
conspiring to conceal evidence to keep a man we know is innocent in
prison,” he said. “That is personally very offensive to me, and I’m sure
it’s offensive to everyone else who bears the brunt of it.” WAITING AND HOPING, ON BOTH SIDES
At the Maine State Prison, Dechaine awaits the upcoming hearing with
“reserved hope.” There are some questions about his case that Dechaine
wants the public to consider.
He noted that police never found physical evidence, not a hair, fiber
or drop of blood, connecting him and Sarah Cherry. Investigators never
found the knife used to stab Sarah, or her missing panties.
When the police dog tracked from Dechaine’s truck into the woods, the
dog took investigators on a few indirect routes, but did not lead to
Sarah’s body. Also, the dog did not find a scent of Sarah in Dechaine’s
truck, and that information was not provided to his lawyers before the
trial.
“Had I abducted Sarah Cherry while in a complete stupor, which is
what would have been required here, evidence of her presence in my
vehicle would have been undeniable,” Dechaine said. “Had I abducted
Sarah Cherry in a complete stupor and killed her in the way that she was
killed, I would have been covered in blood.”
Dechaine said he would not have pushed for DNA testing of all the
evidence, ever since the beginning of the case, if he had anything to
hide.
More than anything, though, Dechaine said his own personality
demonstrates that he was not capable of committing the acts that were
perpetrated on the 12-year-old victim.
“I dare anybody to find a single incidence of violence in my life — ever,” he said. “It’s not in my being. It’s not who I am.”
Peg Cherry says that claim of innocence has a hollow ring, in light
of all the evidence against Dechaine. It defies common sense, Cherry
said, to believe that anyone other than Dechaine could have been the one
who killed her granddaughter.
In Lisbon Falls, Peg and Bud Cherry go about their own routines,
supported by their community. They try not to get worked up by the
actions of Dechaine’s supporters.
Occasionally the phone rings and it is Bill Stokes, keeping them posted on a process that Peg Cherry describes as tiring.
“With each of these appeals, we keep thinking that it’s going to be the last one, and then it isn’t,” she said.
Whenever Dechaine’s pending motion goes to court, Cherry intends to be there.
“They’re not going to get rid of us,” she said. “As long as I can
physically get in there, I will — to my dying breath. And she is worth
it.”
DALLAS (AP) — The lone U.S. Ebola patient is in critical condition, the Dallas hospital that has been treating him reported Saturday.
Candace White, a spokeswoman for Texas Health Resources, which operates Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas where Thomas Eric Duncan is being treated, issued a six-word news release saying, "Mr. Duncan is in critical condition."
She provided no further details about his condition and didn't immediately respond to emails and phone calls. The hospital previously said Duncan was being kept in isolation and that his condition was serious but stable.
Duncan traveled from disease-ravaged Liberia to Dallas last month before he began showing symptoms of the disease. He was treated and released from the hospital before returning two days later in an ambulance and being diagnosed with Ebola.
Health officials said Saturday that they are currently monitoring about 50 people for signs of the deadly disease who may have had contact with Duncan, including nine who are believed to be at a higher risk. Thus far none have shown symptoms. Among those being monitored are people who rode in the ambulance that transported Duncan back to the hospital before his diagnosis, said Dr. Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On Friday, a hazardous-materials crew decontaminated the Dallas apartment where Duncan was staying when he got sick during his visit. The family who lived there was moved to a private home in a gated community, where they are being carefully monitored. The city had been having trouble finding a place that would take in Louise Troh, originally from Liberia, her 13-year-old son and two nephews.
"No one wants this family," said Sana Syed, a Dallas city spokeswoman.
The decontamination team collected bed sheets, towels and a mattress used by Duncan before he was hospitalized, as well as a suitcase and other personal items of his, officials said. The materials were sealed in industrial barrels that were to be stored in trucks until they can be hauled away for permanent disposal.
The first Ebola diagnosis in the U.S. has raised concerns about whether the disease that has killed 3,400 people in West Africa could spread in the U.S. Federal health officials say they are confident they can keep it in check.
The virus that causes Ebola is not airborne and can only be spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids — blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen — of an infected person who is showing symptoms.
Duncan arrived in Dallas on Sept. 20 and fell ill a few days later. After an initial visit to the emergency room at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, he was sent home, even though he told a nurse he had been in disease-ravaged West Africa. He returned to the hospital two days later, last Sunday, and has been kept in isolation ever since.
The hospital issued a news release late Friday saying that the doctor who initially treated and released did have access to Duncan's travel history, after all. It said Thursday that a flaw in the electronic health records systems led to separate physician and nursing workflows, and that Duncan's travel history hadn't been available to that doctor.
UPDATE 10-10-14
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Washington (AFP) - A Texas health care worker who treated an Ebola victim has tested positive for the deadly tropical fever, dealing a blow to the worldwide battle to stem the outbreak.
More than 4,000 people have died of Ebola in seven countries since the start of the year, according to the World Health Organization, and the epidemic appears to be outpacing efforts to fight it.
If preliminary test results are confirmed, the Texas patient would be the second person diagnosed with the illness and apparently the first to contract it on US soil, a day after US airports began screening travelers from epidemic-hit west Africa.
"We knew a second case could be a reality, and we've been preparing for this possibility," said Dr David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services.
"We are broadening our team in Dallas and working with extreme diligence to prevent further spread."
The health care worker from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas reported a low-grade fever Friday night and was isolated and referred for testing, Texas health services said in a statement early Sunday. They did not further identify the worker nor detail how exposure to the virus occurred.
Health care workers wait for the arrival of a possible Ebola patient at the Texas Health Presbyteria …
The hospital had treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who died on Wednesday. Duncan was believed to have been infected with Ebola before he left Liberia and boarded a plane to visit family in Texas.
The latest Texas case underlines United Nations fears and growing concerns in the United States about Ebola, for which there is no vaccine or widely available treatment. "The virus is far ahead of us and every day the situation gets worse," the head of the United Nations' emergency Ebola mission, Anthony Banbury, told UN leaders after a tour of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the nations worst affected by the worst-ever outbreak of the disease. Passengers from the three countries arriving at John F Kennedy International Airport in New York will have their temperatures taken and be screened for signs of illness and answer questions about possible exposure, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. "Exit screening might not find every person with Ebola, however, it does not have to be perfect to help reduce the spread of Ebola," the CDC said in a statement. Four other major US airports are to start similar checks next week.
The Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan is said to have died …
The CDC has predicted the number of cases globally could mount in a worst-case scenario to 1.4 million by January, unless strong measures are taken to contain the disease.
- Nurse's condition improves -
In Spain, attention remained focused on 44-year-old Teresa Romero, the Madrid nurse who became the first person to get infected with the haemorrhagic fever outside of Africa.
Her condition had "improved in the night. She is conscious and talks from time to time when she is in a good mood," a hospital source told AFP.
Romero's brother confirmed that his sister was improving.
People hold candles during a a prayer vigil and memorial at Wilshire Baptist Church for Thomas Eric …
"She no longer has a fever, it appears that while remaining seriously ill she's getting better and moving forward, She's still in a serious but stable condition and this gives us hope," Jose-Ramon Romero told private television channel La Sexta.
Teresa Romero is thought to have contracted the disease in late September in a Madrid hospital while caring for a Spanish missionary infected with Ebola in Africa who later died.
Fifteen other people, mostly hospital staff as well as Romero's husband, are under observation at the Carlos III hospital where Romero is being treated. The hospital said none of them were showing any symptoms.
- 'Not all Africa' -
The WHO reported 4,033 people have died from Ebola as of October 8 out of a total of 8,399 registered cases in seven countries.
Ebola causes fever, diarrhea, vomiting and in some cases internal and external bleeding. It is spread by contact and the exchange of bodily fluids.
The sharp rise in deaths came as the UN said aid pledges to fight the epidemic have fallen well short of the $1 billion (800 million euros) needed.
IMF chief Christine Lagarde pleaded on Saturday for the world to remember that not all of Africa had been hit with Ebola.
With Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia already seeing their economies crumble because of the disease, Lagarde emphasized: "We should be very careful not to terrify the planet in respect of the whole of Africa."
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Maine owner of slain dog says justice hasn’t been done
The resignation of the Louisiana police officer who shot his pet ‘was half the battle,’ the man says.
The Maine man whose dog was shot and killed by a Louisiana police
officer says he’s pleased the officer resigned this week, but he said
justice still has not been done.
click image to enlarge
A traveling musician from Portland
says a police officer killed his dog Arzy in a Louisiana newspaper’s
parking lot April 28. The officer has resigned.
The resignation of Sulphur, Louisiana, police Officer Brian
Thierbach “was half the battle,” said Brandon Carpenter, 28, who is
originally from Portland. “There was no reason for him to do what he
did.”
Carpenter, an occasional musician, and a friend have been
traveling around the country for much of this year, largely by hopping
freight trains. They arrived in Sulphur in late April and got into the
back of an empty box truck to get out of the rain.
When someone
saw the pair and called police, Thierbach arrived and arrested Carpenter
and his traveling companion, Logan Laliberte, originally from Auburn,
for trespassing. After they were handcuffed, Carpenter said, Thierbach
went to search their belongings, which were next to where Carpenter’s
dog, Arzy, was leashed.
Thierbach claimed that Arzy nipped at his
foot and he shot the Newfoundland, lab and golden retriever mix.
However, an independent witness said the dog didn’t attack the officer.
The
Sulphur police chief said in a news release this week that an
investigation determined that Thierbach had violated department policies
on the use of force, personal conduct and behavior, but the officer
resigned from the force before disciplinary action was taken.
Calls to the Sulphur Police Department were not returned Friday.
Carpenter
said he saw Arzy’s body at a Louisiana funeral home Friday for the
first time since the April 28 incident, and he said his dog was shot
between the eyes. Arzy will be cremated this weekend, he said.
Carpenter
said he has a local attorney who has been pushing for a criminal
investigation of Thierbach by the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Carpenter said no one from that department has asked to interview him
yet and he hasn’t heard from any local officials or police about the
shooting.
The trespassing charges against Laliberte and him are still in place, he said.
Carpenter
has since rented an apartment in Louisiana and begins work as a roofer
Saturday. He said he intends to stay there to continue pushing for
criminal charges against Thierbach and to testify at the trial if the
former officer is charged.
Carpenter said he respects most police officers, but Thierbach “needs to feel the repercussions of his actions.”
First of all , Robin Williams you will be missed, I feel so sorry that im in my own depressive mode AND think of ending it my self, im just learning this year just last month, people with money have problems too, we love you, may you now get the rest you deserve!! R.I.P
The Oscar-winning actor and comedian Robin Williams died Monday in California. He was 63.
"At this time, the Sheriff's Office Coroner Division suspects the death
to be a suicide due to asphyxia, but a comprehensive investigation must
be completed before a final determination is made," the Marin County
Coroner said in a statement. "A forensic examination is currently
scheduled for August 12, 2014 with subsequent toxicology testing to be
conducted."
"Robin Williams passed away this morning," the actor's rep Mara Buxbaum
added in a statement to ABC News. "He has been battling severe
depression of late. This is a tragic and sudden loss."
Robin Williams' Best Roles
Born in Chicago, Williams discovered his passion for acting in high
school, before moving to New York City to study at Juilliard alongside
Christopher Reeve.
A few years later, he also began doing stand-up comedy and working in
television, before landing a star-making guest role as alien Mork in
"Happy Days." In 1978, he was given his own spin-off series, "Mork &
Mindy," for which he won a Golden Globe.
SLIDESHOW: Robin Williams' Best Roles
Robin Williams, in the Moment
Robin Williams Checks Into Rehab
Robin Williams Reprising His Role in 'Mrs. Doubtfire' Sequel
Around that time, Williams suffered a great loss: His friend, John
Belushi, died of a drug overdose in 1982, prompting Williams, who had
struggled with alcoholism and cocaine abuse, to quit, cold turkey.
(Williams also said that the birth of his son in 1983 made him rethink
things: "You realize, OK, now you have this responsibility, and [I]
dealt with it," he told Nightline in 2011.)
He would go on to make two trips to rehab, once in 2006, and again this
past July, which his rep told ABC News was "the opportunity to fine-tune
and focus on his continued commitment, of which he remains extremely
proud."
"It's [addiction] -- not caused by anything, it's just there," Williams
told "Good Morning America" in 2006. "It waits. It lays in wait for the
time when you think, 'It's fine now, I'm OK.' Then, the next thing you
know, it's not OK. Then you realize, 'Where am I? I didn't realize I was
in Cleveland.'"
Celebrities React to Death of Robin Williams on Twitter
Meanwhile, Williams discovered a passion for film in the '80s. With that
came a litany of awards, including a Golden Globe for his role in the
1988 film, "Good Morning, Vietnam," a Golden Globe for his 1993 film,
"Mrs. Doubtfire," and a Screen Actors Guild Award for 1996's, "The
Birdcage." In 1998, after three nominations, he won his first Oscar for
his role in "Good Will Hunting."
"This might be the one time I'm speechless!" he quipped while accepting the honor.
President Obama said in a statement on the actor's passing: "Robin
Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a
professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between. But he was
one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up
touching every element of the human spirit. He made us laugh. He made us
cry. He gave his immeasurable talent freely and generously to those who
needed it most – from our troops stationed abroad to the marginalized
on our own streets."
Williams also had a rich personal life. In 1978, he married his first
wife, Valerie Velardi, with whom he had one son, Zachary, now 31. He and
Verlardi divorced in 1988, and the next year, he married Marsha Garces,
who had previously been a nanny to Zachary. He and Garces, from whom he
split in 2008, had two children, Zelda, now 25, and Cody, 23. Williams
married his third wife, graphic designer Susan Schenider, in 2011.
Recently, Williams had been hard at work. He starred in the CBS series,
"The Crazy Ones" and he recently finished filming several film projects,
including "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb." He also recently
celebrated a birthday and, in his last Instagram post, wished his
daughter a happy 25th.
"#tbt and Happy Birthday to Ms. Zelda Rae Williams!" he wrote. "Quarter
of a century old today but always my baby girl. Happy Birthday
@zeldawilliams Love you!"
Robin Williams: 'I was shameful, did stuff that caused disgust – that's hard to recover from'
His
new film, World's Greatest Dad, is a glorious return to form. But a
mournful Robin Williams would rather talk about his battle with drugs
and alcohol – and recovering from heart surgery
In the normal order of things, an interview with a Hollywood actor
observes the form of a transaction. The actor wants to promote their
film, and ideally talk about little else – least of all anything of a
personal nature. The newspaper is mildly interested in the new film, but
hopes they can be tempted to talk about other matters – best of all
their private life. Sometimes the agreement is explicit, but most of the
time it is mutually understood, and so the interview tends to proceed
rather like a polite dance, with each party manoeuvring in its own
interests. On this occasion, however, the convention appears to have
been turned on its head.
Robin Williams's new film, World's Greatest Dad,
is brilliant. Having starred in a lot of unspeakably sentimental dross
in recent years, here he is at last in something clever and thoughtful; a
dark, slightly weird comedy that touches on all sorts of interesting
themes that I'm hoping he'll talk about. Williams, however, has other
plans. It is almost impossible to get anything coherent out of him about
the film, or any of the issues it raises. He is vague, tangential and
at times more or less incomprehensible – until the conversation turns to
more personal matters, at which point he becomes lucid and forthcoming.
What Williams really wants to talk about, it turns out, is his relapse
into alcoholism, his rehab and his open-heart surgery.
Unfortunately, it takes me some time to cotton on to this, so I keep asking questions about World's Greatest Dad.
Williams plays Lance, a failed writer, failed teacher and single father
of perhaps the most irredeemably dislikable teenager ever to appear on
screen. His son Kyle is addicted to hardcore internet pornography and is
almost universally loathed – until he accidentally dies. His father
fakes a suicide note, and when it is leaked, the school magazine
reprints the letter, its poignancy prompting a posthumous revision of
everyone's former low opinion of the boy. Soon a juggernaut of confected
grief is roaring out of control.
Unable to resist the allure of
his new popularity, Lance proceeds to fake a whole journal, passing it
off as his son's and fuelling the insatiable hunger for loss. A bidding
war breaks out between publishing houses, the journal becomes a
bestselling book, and Lance winds up on a daytime TV show, like a
pseudo celebrity, peddling his mythical son's tragedy to the nation.
The
film is a devastatingly funny indictment of the modern grief industry,
but when I ask Williams if he thinks it's getting worse, he says mildly,
"Well, I think people want it. In a weird way, it's trying to keep hope
alive." So does he not share the film's judgment on mawkish
sentimentality? "Well, you just try and keep it in perspective; you have
to remember the best and the worst." It seems as if he's about to
engage with the question – "In America they really do mythologise people
when they die," he agrees – but then he veers off at a tangent, putting
on Ronald Reagan's voice but talking about the ex-president in the
third person: "Maybe he was kind of lovable, but you realised half way
through his administration he really didn't know where he was."
I wonder if Williams had experienced a little bit of the film's theme himself, when his great friend Christopher Reeve died. Was it hard, I ask, to see fans mourning Superman, when to Williams he was a real person, a real friend?
"He
was a friend," Williams says solemnly. "And also knowing him,
especially after the accident and everything he went through – it was a
weird thing." What was it like, I try again, to grieve privately for a
public figure? "Well, it's a whole different game," he says, but then
starts talking about the death of Reeve's wife a year later. "It happens
all the time, I know, but I know their kids, they're amazing, and to
see them go through so much loss in one year – that's tough."
I
ask about the media's role in the manufacturing of grief, but instead he
recalls a talkshow he saw where a man confessed to adultery before a
female studio audience. "Idiot. Why don't you just go bobbing for
piranha? These women are screaming 'You bastard!', but the idea of being
on TV overrode everything." He adopts a southern redneck accent: "'Ah'm
on TV, y'all.' You're a schmuck, why would you do that?" Then the
accent again: "Ah'm on tee-vee, ah'm gonna be fay-mous.' Yeah, for all
of five minutes, big time."
We're not making much headway on the
grief industry, so I try internet porn. Williams's three children have
grown up through the internet age, so I'm curious about his views on
its impact on adolescents. "It's just like – there's everything you
could ever think about online." But what does Williams actually think
about it; is it liberating and a good thing, or corrupting and a bad
thing? "It's an old thing," he shrugs. "Look at the walls of Pompeii.
That's what got the internet started." Then he starts talking rather
boringly about iPhones, and how it's now possible to do video-conference
calls on a mobile.
My worry beforehand had been that Williams
would be too wildly manic to make much sense. When he appeared on the
Jonathan Ross show earlier this summer, he'd been vintage Williams –
hyperactive to the point of deranged, ricocheting between voices,
riffing off his internal dialogues. Off-camera, however, he is a
different kettle of fish. His bearing is intensely Zen and almost
mournful, and when he's not putting on voices he speaks in a low,
tremulous baritone – as if on the verge of tears – that would work very
well if he were delivering a funeral eulogy. He seems gentle and kind –
even tender – but the overwhelming impression is one of sadness.
Even
the detours into dialogue feel more like a reflex than irrepressible
comic passion, and the freakish articulacy showcased in Good Morning Vietnam
has gone. Quite often when he opens his mouth a slur of unrelated words
come out, like a dozen different false starts tangled together, from
which an actual sentence eventually finds its way out. For example,
"So/Now/And then/Well/It/I – Sometimes I used to work just to work."
It's like trying to tune into a long-wave radio station.
I find
myself wondering if alcohol abuse might have something to do with it.
Williams used to be a big-drinking cocaine addict, but quit both before
the birth of his eldest son in 1983, and stayed sober for 20 years. On
location in Alaska in 2003, however, he started drinking again. He
brings this up himself, and the minute he does he becomes more engaged.
"I
was in a small town where it's not the edge of the world, but you can
see it from there, and then I thought: drinking. I just thought, hey,
maybe drinking will help. Because I felt alone and afraid. It was that
thing of working so much, and going fuck, maybe that will help. And it
was the worst thing in the world." What did he feel like when he had his
first drink? "You feel warm and kind of wonderful. And then the next
thing you know, it's a problem, and you're isolated."
Some have suggested it was Reeve's death
that turned him back to drink. "No," he says quietly, "it's more
selfish than that. It's just literally being afraid. And you think, oh,
this will ease the fear. And it doesn't." What was he afraid of?
"Everything. It's just a general all-round arggghhh. It's fearfulness
and anxiety."
He didn't take up cocaine again, because "I knew
that would kill me". I'd have thought it would be a case of in for a
penny – "In for a gram?" he smiles. "No. Cocaine – paranoid and
impotent, what fun. There was no bit of me thinking, ooh, let's go back
to that. Useless conversations until midnight, waking up at dawn feeling
like a vampire on a day pass. No."
It only took a week of
drinking before he knew he was in trouble, though. "For that first week
you lie to yourself, and tell yourself you can stop, and then your body
kicks back and says, no, stop later. And then it took about three years,
and finally you do stop."
It wasn't, he says, fun while it
lasted, but three years sounds like a long time not to be having fun.
"That's right. Most of the time you just realise you've started to do
embarrassing things." He recalls drinking at a charity auction hosted by
Sharon Stone at Cannes: "And I realised I was pretty baked, and I look
out and I see all of a sudden a wall of paparazzi. And I go, 'Oh well, I
guess it's out now'."
In the end it was a family intervention
that put him into residential rehab. I wonder if he was "Robin Williams"
in rehab, and he agrees. "Yeah, you start off initially riffing, and
kind of being real funny. But the weird thing is, how can you do a comic
turn without betraying the precepts of group therapy? Eventually you
shed it."
Williams still attends AA meetings at least once a week –
"Have to. It's good to go" – and I suspect this accounts for a fair bit
of his Zen solemnity. At times it verges on sentimental: he asks if I
have children, and when I tell him I have a baby son he nods gravely,
as if I've just shared. "Congrats. Good luck. It's a pretty wonderful
thing." But it may well be down to the open-heart surgery he underwent
early last year, when surgeons replaced his aortic valve with one from a
pig.
"Oh, God, you find yourself getting emotional. It breaks
through your barrier, you've literally cracked the armour. And you've
got no choice, it literally breaks you open. And you feel really
mortal." Does the intimation of mortality live with him still?
"Totally." Is it a blessing? "Totally."
He takes everything, he
says, more slowly now. His second marriage, to a film producer, ended in
2008 – largely because of his drinking, even though by then he was
sober. "You know, I was shameful, and you do stuff that causes disgust,
and that's hard to recover from. You can say, 'I forgive you' and all
that stuff, but it's not the same as recovering from it. It's not coming
back."
The couple had been together for 19 years, and have a son
and a daughter, both now grown up; he has another son from his first
marriage to an actress in the late 70s. Williams is now with a graphic
designer, whom he met shortly before his heart surgery, and they live
together in San Francisco. "But we're taking it slow. I don't know,
maybe some day we'll marry, but there's no rush. I just want to take it
easy now. This is good news. It's the whole thing of taking it slow.
And it's so much better."
Williams thinks he used to be a fairly
classic workaholic, but at 59 is now taking it slow professionally too.
"In one two-year period I made eight movies. At one point the joke was
that there's a movie out without you in it. You have this idea
that you'd better keep working otherwise people will forget. And that
was dangerous. And then you realise, no, actually if you take a break
people might be more interested in you. Now, after the heart surgery,
I'll take it slow."
Williams has been nothing if not prolific.
After first finding fame in the late 70s as a kooky space alien in the
sitcom Mork and Mindy, he became better known as a standup comedian, but
his astonishing performance in Good Morning Vietnam earned him an Oscar
nomination in 1988, with two more in the following five years, for Dead Poets' Society and The Fisher King. Mrs Doubtfire, in which he dragged up to play a nanny, brought wider mainstream success, and in 1998 Good Will Hunting
finally won him an Oscar. In recent years, however, he has made an
awful lot of what would politely be described as less critically
acclaimed films.
Some of them have been downright awful; schmaltzy
family comedies drenched in maudlin sentiment, such as the unwatchably
saccharine Patch Adams or, even worse, Old Dogs.
When I ask why he made them, he says: "Well, I've had a lot of people
tell me they watched Old Dogs with their kids and had a good time." It
didn't offend his sense of integrity? "No, it paid the bills. Sometimes
you have to make a movie to make money." He didn't mistake them, he
adds, for intelligent scripts: "You know what you're getting into,
totally. You know they're going to make it goofy. And that's OK."
Like
many people, I had always been confused by Williams's film choices. The
sharpness of his early standup just seemed so incompatible with the
sentimentality of his worst movies, and if, as Williams claims, Old Dogs
simply paid the bills, he must have one very high-maintenance
lifestyle. When I watched World's Greatest Dad
I just assumed it echoed his own sensibility more accurately than all
the other rubbish he has made. But actually, having met him, I'm not
sure it does. I don't know whether it was rehab or heart surgery, but he
seems to have arrived at a place where sentimentality can sit quite
easily.
I ask if he feels happier now, and he says softly, "I
think so. And not afraid to be unhappy. That's OK too. And then you can
be like, all is good. And that is the thing, that is the gift."
World's Greatest Dad is released on 24 September
San Rafael, Calif. — Investigators here said today Oscar-winning actor Robin Williams's
death was a suicide by hanging: He was found dead in his bedroom,
clothed, slightly suspended in a seated position with a leather belt
around his neck, with one end wedged between a closet door and door
frame.
At a press conference, Lt. Keith Boyd, assistant chief deputy coroner for Marin County, Calif., said he was cold to the touch and rigor mortis had already set in.
Williams
was found by his personal assistant, who broke in to his room Monday
morning when he failed to respond to knocks. She was distraught in the
911 call and indicated Williams' death was a suicide by hanging.
Williams'
wife last saw him at about 10:30 pm the night before; she left the
house Monday around 10:30 am thinking he was still asleep in his room.
Neighbor Sandy Kleinman said yesterday that she saw his wife go out with the dog for a walk "in the morning."
Boyd
said some superficial cuts were found on the inside of Williams' left
wrist, and a pocket knife was found nearby. It is being tested to
determine if residue on the knife is blood and if it is Williams' blood.
"The
preliminary, and I again say preliminary, result of the forensic
examination reveals supporting signs that Mr Williams life ended from
asphyxia due to hanging," Boyd said.
Boyd
would not say whether a suicide note was found. Nor would he discuss
medications; toxicology reports won't be available for several weeks, he
said. But he did say Williams had recently sought treatment for
depression.
Boyd said today's forensic examination, conducted by the Marin County Sheriff's Office
chief forensic pathologist, "did not reveal any injuries indicating
that Williams had been in a struggle or any altercation" prior to death.
The
body is no longer in the county's custody but Boyd would not discuss
funeral arrangements, saying they were up to the family. So far, the
family, including Williams' widow, has pleaded for privacy.
His
family has not released any information about a funeral but late Tuesday
asked that in lieu of flowers donations be made to these charities: St Jude Children's Research Hospital, Challenged Athletes, Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, Muhammad Ali Parkinson Foundation, and the USO.
That's going to be difficult given the worldwide interest in the story. Already, mourners are turning up on the quiet bayside street in Tiburon where Williams lived.
Such as fans Sabrina Hahnlein, 55, and her daughter Kathryn, 23, of San Diego, who found their way to his home to leave a bouquet of flowers and pay their respects. They loved Williams work so much they named their two dogs after his first big breakthrough: Mork and Mindy.
Oscar-winning actor and comedian Robin Williams was found dead at 63
Monday of an apparent suicide. In his four decades in Hollywood he left
an indelible mark on pop culture.
VPC
The star was
found dead at his home in Tiburon, Calif. Monday, leaving Hollywood and
the comedian's many fans in a state of shock. Williams, 63, was found
unconscious and not breathing at approximately noon local time, and was
pronounced dead shortly after.
Williams' daughter, Zelda, 25, who is shown as a baby in the final post on the actor's Instagram account, tweeted early Tuesday morning, "I love you. I miss you. I'll try to keep looking up."
His
wife, Susan Schneider, issued a brief statement on Monday: "This
morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one
of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly
heartbroken."
The shock from Williams' death continued to reverberate throughout the culture, even the world. Some fans reacted today with touching tributes.
Boston fans chalked tributes and the words that Williams spoke in Good Will Hunting around the bench where he and Matt Damon
filmed a scene for the movie, creating a singular memorial. Chalk
footprints of where Williams sat were drawn on the bench, right above
famous quotes from the movie, such as "Your move, chief."
At Los Angeles' Laugh Factory on Sunset Boulevard, the marquee read: "Robin Williams Rest In Peace Make God Laugh."
Many of Williams' co-stars and Hollywood contemporaries expressed their shock and grief, too, via statements and social media.
One constant theme: No matter his demons, Williams was a good guy — warm, sweet, generous, compassionate, humane.
Stage superstar Nathan Lane, who co-starred with Williams in the film The Birdcage, said Williams once made him laugh so hard he cried, and on Monday he cried again at the thought that he was gone.
"What
I will always remember about Robin, perhaps even more than his comic
genius, extraordinary talent and astounding intellect, was his huge
heart — his tremendous kindness, generosity, and compassion as an acting
partner, colleague, and fellow traveler in a difficult world," Lane
said in a statement.
On Monday, President Obama paid tribute. Today, Secretary of State John Kerry praised Williams' "extraordinary zest."
"Robin
wasn't just a huge creative genius, but a caring, involved citizen,"
Kerry said in a statement. "I'll always be grateful for his personal
friendship and his support for the causes that we both cared about
deeply."
Alan Alda, in a tribute published on TIME.com, called Williams a "Niagara of wit," adding that his death made him want to do something.
"I
hope it makes us all want to do something," Alda wrote."While the whole
country, and much of the world, feels this moment of sadness at his
death, can we turn the loss of this artist we loved so much into
something that pushes back against the ravages of despair?"
"I feel stunned and so sad about Robin," his Mrs. Doubtfire co-star Sally Field told Entertainment Tonight
in a statement. "I'm sad for the world of comedy. And so very sad for
his family. And I'm sad for Robin. He always lit up when he was able to
make people laugh, and he made them laugh his whole life long ...
tirelessly. He was one of a kind. There will not be another. Please God,
let him now rest in peace."
On the Today show Tuesday morning, Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton called Williams a "genius."
"His
gift ... was genius. Geniuses can do things we have to learn to do. ...
You can teach craft, you can teach technique. You can't teach genius.
He had genius."
AJ
Polis leaves a flower outside a home in Boulder, Colo., alongside a
placard and photo of the late actor Robin Williams on Aug. 11. Williams
played Mork from Ork in the television series "Mork & Mindy." (Photo: Brennan Linsley, AP)
Steve Martin tweeted, "I could not be more stunned by the loss of Robin Williams, mensch, great talent, acting partner, genuine soul."
Sarah Michelle Gellar, who starred with Williams on CBS' The Crazy Ones, remembers her co-star as a friend who became family.
"My life is a better place because I knew Robin Williams," she told People.
"To my children he was Uncle Robin, to everyone he worked with, he was
the best boss anyone had ever known, and to me he was not just an
inspiration but he was the father I had always dreamed of having. There
are not enough adjectives to describe the light he was, to anyone that
ever had the pleasure to meet him. I will miss him every day, but I know
the memory of him will live on. And to his family, I thank them for
letting us know him and seeing the joy they brought him. Us crazy ones
love you."
Meryl Streep, interviewed by Matt Lauer on Today, called Williams a "generous soul."
"It's hard to imagine unstoppable energy stopped," she said.
The family of the late Superman actor Christopher Reeve, who was Williams' roommate at Juilliard
in the early 1970s, recalled that Williams helped Reeve cope after he
was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident in 1995. Reeve died in 2004.
"After
our father's accident, Robin's visit to his hospital room was the first
time that Dad truly laughed," the family said in a statement to People. "Dad later said, 'My old friend had helped me know that somehow I was going to be okay.' "
Robin Williams
Actor
Robin McLaurin Williams was an American actor, stand-up comedian, film producer, and screenwriter. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork & Mindy, Williams went on to ... Wikipedia
Born: July 21, 1951, Chicago, IL
Died: August 11, 2014, Tiburon, CA
Children: Zelda Rae Williams, Cody Alan Williams, Zachary Pym Williams
Spouse: Susan Schneider (m. 2011–2014), Marsha Garces (m. 1989–2010), Valerie Velardi (m. 1978–1988)
Awards: Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, More
Family
First of all , Robin Williams you will be missed, I feel so sorry that im in my own depressive mode AND think of ending it my self, im just learning this year just last month, people with money have problems too, we love you, may you now get the rest you deserve!! R.I.P
