Father and Sons

The town of Lexingtion, Missouri has been shocked by a case of sexual abuse committed by five members of the same family. It is alleged that a father, Burrell Edward Mohler, and his five sons were molesting and abusing his grandchildren for a period of several years. The eldest Mohler is now in his late 70’s and the majority of the crimes against these children were committed in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The five family members were arrested and charged after one of the granddaughters, who is now 26 years old, came forward and told police about the sexual abuse she faced when she was younger. She was molested and raped from an early age, until the age of eleven when she became pregnant and was forced to have an abortion.

The young lady described how her grandfather, father, and uncles staged weddings for her and her sisters to one of the males. These fake weddings, in which the young girls were made to dress in ornate clothing and wear flowers in their hair, were then proceeded by the ‘groom’ taking whoever was the ‘bride’ in the ceremony into the family barn, where they would then be raped. The family owned and lived on a farm, and at times the sexual abuse included bestiality involving dogs or other animals that were on their property. Police are currently searching the yard for jars with messages inside of them that the girls wrote and buried, recounting their experiences. Parents and other adults told them to do this so that they can forget any bad memories that they may have, sort of like a coping mechanism.

As if this story isn’t tragic and strange enough, there is still more to it. First off, these five men are very active in their local church, with three of them actually being lay ministers. How people so deeply religious can perform such disgusting acts is incomprehensible. Further into this horridness, police now believe that there are bodies of children buried around the farm. Officials say that they believe one or more people were killed on the farm and that evidence points to them being buried somewhere on the farm.

The men were charged with fourteen felonies total, but who knows what may come up out of the ground to add to the list. It is still unknown whether other family members had an idea about the sexual abuse that was going on with the men and the young children, but when an eleven year old girl turns up pregnant, you must have some clue that things aren’t right. Authorities are asking all other abuse sufferers to step forward at this point.

Beltway Sniper Executed

It has been slightly over seven years since Washington D.C. and the surrounding area was being terrorized by an unknown killer, armed with a sniper rifle and a hatred for mankind. John Allen Muhammad and his accomplice, a juvenile by the name of Lee Boyd Malvo, murdered more than ten innocent citizens between September 5th and October 23rd in 2002. On October 24th, their spree finally came to an end when they were arrested by police. The two were found sleeping in their car, and upon a search by the officers, a rifle and bipod were found. Ballistic tests then linked the rifle to the murders, and a criminal case began. Muhammad was sentenced to death, while Malvo was sentenced to life in prison without parole since he was still a minor at the time. On Tuesday night, John Allen Muhammad was put to death by lethal injection for his crimes.

Muhammad had served in the Louisiana National Guard for seven years before enlisting as active duty in the Army, where he became an expert with the M16 rifle. He then used the skills that he obtained from all those years of service to discreetly take lives, usually from the Chevrolet Caprice that he and Malvo were using to cruise the entire Washington Metropolitan area. Muhammad has stated that he was inspired by Osama bin Laden and the September 11th attacks, and that his acts were part of a jihad. In the original trial, Malvo stated that he had pulled the trigger in every single murder so that Muhammad would not have to face the death penalty but that did not have much of an effect on the judge or the jury. After some years passed, Malvo revealed that he had been untruthful in the past and that Muhammad had in fact been the shooter in many of the killings.

The death of John Allen Muhammad was witnessed by several people, including the families of the victims and attorneys that were involved with the case. The families had mixed feelings as a whole, with one family member feeling angry that Lee Boyd Malvo was not receiving the death penalty along with Muhammad. Some were able to forgive, and some were not, but no one could definitively say that they felt closure about the entire incident. It may be difficult for families to feel as though justice has been served when the crimes were so senseless to begin with. Muhammad obviously was mentally unstable, and maintained his innocence throughout the entire seven years since he had been caught, even though evidence proved otherwise.

Throughout the killings, he even left Tarot cards at the scene of the crime and he and Malvo made calls to police, taunting them on a few occasions. It was almost as if they wanted to get caught. Malvo is still currently serving six consecutive life sentences, but has been calling families to apologize for his role in the murders.

Mayor Sheila Dixon

Democratic Mayor Sheila Dixon was charged on twelve counts this past January and is getting ready to head into court on Thursday, November 12th. The crimes that she has been indicted for include perjury, misconduct, theft, and fraudulent misappropriations. When police searched her home after obtaining a warrant for search and seizure, they found several expensive gifts such as fur coats and it was apparent that the amount of money that she had been spending did not match the amount she had been earning. All of the charges that Dixon is facing seems to come about from the embezzlement and wrongful use of a number of gift cards that had been originally intended for use by the less fortunate.

Sheila Dixon had quite a remarkable career before these accusations surfaced. She is the first woman to ever serve as Mayor of Baltimore, and only the third African American to do so as well. She was also the first African American woman to serve as President of the Baltimore City Council. Dixon had graduated from Towson University as well as a Master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University. All of these are extraordinary feats and Dixon had been quite a role model for both African Americans and women, as well as an avid churchgoer and trustee at the Bethel A.M.E. Church. All of her accomplishments and boards she has served on makes it all the more unfortunate that she would be involved in a scandal of this nature.

What is especially interesting about this case is that the State Prosecutor, Robert Rohrbaugh, has enlisted a trial consultant to help with jury selection. There is a great deal of racial tension in Baltimore, so this may not be as crazy of an idea as many believe it to be. Rohrbaugh has not had a significant amount of experience in dealing with Baltimore juries, so getting consultant Ronald Matlon to provide assistance could be a great strategic move for the prosecution. In this type of case it is important that the jury not have any bias, and Malton will be helping to assure that. Dixon’s defense attorney, Arnold Weiner, will not be using a trial consultant for jury selection.

At this point, all that is left is for Dixon and her defense to plea her case. The evidence is in no way stacked in her favor, so it is going to take quite a bit of work to prove her innocence. The jury is likely to be objective due to Ronald Matlon’s consultancy, and the facts will be speaking for themselves. Any jury members that may have had preconceived notions have hopefully been weeded out in the selection process, and we will be able to find out more about Sheila Dixon and Baltimore’s future on Thursday.