TIME Magazine Charleston Shooting Cover Story. On the night of June 1. Charleston. Survivors and families tell their stories of faith and forgiveness. By David Von Drehle With Jay Newton- Small and Maya Rhodan. A Kind Of Murder MoviePlucking a few events out of the vastness of the world and declaring them to be the news of the day is a mysterious and complicated project. Sometimes what’s news. Your murder mystery party stories. We love hearing your stories about our murder mystery games! Here's a selection of stories – if you've enjoyed one of our games. Its not just coincidence that there’s been a bombing in the US and we have a story about “Top Ten Ways Islamic Law forbids Terrorism”. A Kind Of Murder CastPhotographs By Deana Lawson for TIME. He did not kiss her goodbye that day. Anthony and Myra Thompson never let much time pass without sharing an affectionate touch or warm embrace. This was one reason for their resilient marriage. Another was mutual respect: they trusted and believed in each other enough to speak honestly. When she thought he was being prideful, she said so: . They shared interests too, and the pastimes they did not share, they cheerfully tolerated. They shared a strong Christian faith that was the foundation of their lives. Anthony answered a midlife calling to become a priest in the Reformed Episcopal Church. Later, Myra felt the Lord. Anthony hoped that he could persuade her to leave the African Methodist Episcopal Church, but he soon realized she was too loyal. So he was content to enjoy the hours they spent discussing Scripture and commiserating over the often wayward, headstrong creatures they were given to shepherd. That day (the day he did not kiss her goodbye) was a humid day in June when Myra asked Anthony to review her Bible. Myra, too, was radiant that day. After that frozen moment, Anthony had something to do in another room of the house. When Myra called out that it was time for her to leave for church, he shouted back to her: Wait. But before he could return, Anthony heard the door close and she was gone. From a report by Detective Eric Tuttle of the Charleston police department: . I tried to speak with the gentleman, who said that his wife, Myra Thompson . I advised him that he would not be able to enter the church at this time and that the situation was very fluid. Perhaps he would have talked about these things four months ago, when summer was coming down thick and sweaty over Charleston and that day was still a jagged wound. But the air is soft with the melancholy of autumn now, the pain is more of a vise and less of a dagger, and what he chooses to remember. But you probably know that already, because the man- made catastrophe at Emanuel is among the most sorrowful and powerful stories in recent memory. At a time when the violent deaths of African Americans were triggering protests and even rioting from Missouri to Maryland. It happened suddenly, but not every survivor was on board. For some it was too soon; for others, too simple. Even so, within 3. The brief televised hearing electrified the country.
President Obama was swept up by the feeling during his eulogy for slain Emanuel pastor the Rev. Clementa Pinckney and shifted into song: . Yet there are all kinds of stories, including true and tragic and momentous ones like this. But a story so freighted with shock and pain doesn. The dead are still dead, and sleepless nights of sorrow drag on. Loss is an aching void. And anger abides, even if the frank acknowledgment of it is now off script. In the wake of the murders, families have split over the question of forgiveness. Church members have felt abandoned by their congregation. Hairline fissures in a wide network of relationships have burst under the pressures of sudden fame and grinding grief. And as the months have passed, the survivors of Emanuel and others in Charleston have continued to search for the meaning of this story, through a process that is intensely personal and sometimes uncomfortably public. At the heart of that struggle are two complicated subjects: history and forgiveness. The murders at Emanuel must be fitted into the long and tangled history of race relations, racial violence and oppression that stem from America. The accused killer, who published a manifesto of white supremacy before setting out on his hateful mission, made sure of that. At the same time, the forgiveness expressed by some surviving family members left as many questions as it answered. Can murder be forgiven, and if so, who has that power? Must it be earned or given freely? Who benefits from forgiveness? And why do we forgive at all? Is it a way of remembering, or of forgetting? In Charleston, survivors projected magnanimity and peace to the world. But feelings of outrage and demands for justice are every bit as real and long. Understanding what happened in the remarkable days after that act of evil requires a hard, relentless reckoning with all that has been lost and suffered. Remembering the Emanuel 9from left: The Rev. Daniel Simmons, Cynthia Graham Hurd, Ethel Lance, The Rev. Depayne Middleton- Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Myra Thompson, The Rev. Sharonda Singleton, Susie Jackson and The Rev. Clementa Pinckney; The Emanuel victims are honored during a vigil at Metropolitan AME Church in Washington on June 1. The situation was fluid that night. The call to 9. 11 was logged 4. A man was shooting people inside Mother Emanuel. Polly Sheppard, the frightened caller, was in the room with the gunman, and she described his gray shirt, dark jeans and tan Timberland boots. She stayed on the line for more than 1. Inside were eight dead bodies and one barely breathing. There were five survivors who were physically unhurt. Immediately amid the chaos, there were rumors and unfounded reports. At a nearby gas station, police collared and questioned a suspicious man. Inside a townhouse, a sleeping couple was rousted from bed on an anonymous tip. Every car on every bridge leaving the peninsula was looked at as it passed, while still more cops raced through the streets of Charleston in search of what turned out to be the wrong make and model dark sedan. Very fluid. A police dog went sniffing for the perpetrator. A false bomb threat came in over the phone. A detective scrambled in search of a church secretary who knew the code to unlock the room where the security cameras were operated. The person who was clinging to life when police arrived died at the hospital. Eight victims became nine. Hours went by seeming like ages to the families sequestered in a nearby hotel. They prayed and sang hymns and tried to hope. Finally, long after midnight, family members were taken aside to provide identifying details. Investigators compared the details to photos of the dead. The picture of Myra Thompson, 5. Her home on Rutledge Avenue was a showcase of fresh flowers, white furniture and glimmering hardwood floors, buffed and waxed to perfection. In the dining room, formal dinnerware. Her son, Kevin Singleton, would later recall the time that he complained to his mother that young Theo Huxtable of The Cosby Show never had to clean his room with Pledge. Her father was not part of her life. Her mother, an alcoholic, . Myra ended up a few feet away in the home of her friends and neighbors the Coakleys. They introduced her to Emanuel, and in return she was loyal to the church for life. Myra worked her way through college as a single mother and had a failed first marriage before she wed Anthony Thompson, a gentle man with a warm, round face. For many years, she was an eighth- grade teacher in Charleston, offering disadvantaged students the gift of caring and respect. But while she went to church, her husband says, Myra was one of those people who hear the word of God but resist letting it take root. This is a description he borrows from the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Mark. Mark 4: that was the lesson Myra had so painstakingly prepared. She wanted to review it one more time before she left for church that day. It recounts a parable told by Jesus of a farmer who scatters seed, and some fall on hard ground, some on rocky soil, some amid thorns. By the time she died, Myra had become good soil, in whom the seed of God. She was one of those who . She was that person who does the thankless jobs to keep a place like Emanuel running. She hosted holiday meals to reunite her brothers and sisters into the warm and intact family they had not always been. She encouraged Anthony to become a mentor for a boy so deprived that he had never learned to speak. And Myra became the mother that the boy had never known. God gave Myra four spiritual gifts, says her husband: . Almost 6. 0, with her children grown and her future as a minister in hand, it was as if a new life was opening for Myra Thompson. But just as suddenly as a person walks through a door, it was over. There was no arguing with the police photograph. Elsewhere during that awful night, the father and the uncle of Dylann Storm Roof, 2. They immediately recognized the young man in the gray shirt, dark jeans and tan boots. They phoned the police. By morning, the whole country knew Roof. A sharp- eyed driver spotted him behind the wheel of his Hyundai sedan in Shelby, N. C., approximately 2. Roof was arrested without incident and waived extradition. A . 4. 5- caliber handgun was found in the backseat. Shortly before the rampage he apparently posted his manifesto online, and while FBI agents interrogated the accused killer, the airwaves filled with Roof. He wore jailhouse stripes and manacles as he stood in a holding cell with two armed guards behind him. Ordinarily, a bond hearing is a routine affair. It was obvious that Roof would not go free. But Judge Gosnell has been known to stray from routine. He once drove to the jail in the middle of the night to conduct a bond hearing that sprung a fellow judge arrested for driving under the influence. On this day, Gosnell opened with a brief speech. There are victims on this young man. No one would have ever thrown them into the whirlwind of events that they have been thrown into. Once, he lectured a young offender with a snippet of tired folk wisdom that divided the world into . Gosnell later allowed that his remark was . What he heard from the bench appalled him. And then the judge says, Don. I was like, How dare he? Does he not know what these people have lost? No one had prepared for this, but when the judge called the name of Ethel Lance, her daughter Nadine Collier made her way to the front of the room. Nadine and Ethel were best friends. Death of Caylee Anthony - Wikipedia. Death of Caylee Anthony. Memorial near where Caylee Anthony's remains were found. Date. Last reported seen June 1. Reported missing July 1. Remains found December 1. Location. Orlando, Florida, United States. Suspect(s)Casey Anthony. Found not guilty July 5, 2. Caylee Marie Anthony (August 9, 2. On July 1. 5, 2. 00. Cindy, who said she had not seen Caylee for 3. Casey's car smelled like a dead body had been inside it. Cindy said Casey had given varied explanations as to Caylee's whereabouts before finally telling her that she had not seen Caylee for weeks. The prosecution sought the death penalty. The defense team, led by Jose Baez, countered that the child had drowned accidentally in the family's swimming pool on June 1. George Anthony disposed of the body. The defense contended that Casey lied about this and other issues because of a dysfunctional upbringing, which they said included sexual abuse by her father. The defense did not present evidence as to how Caylee died, nor evidence that Casey was sexually abused as a child. On July 5, 2. 01. Casey not guilty of first- degree murder, aggravated child abuse, and aggravated manslaughter of a child, but guilty of four misdemeanor counts of providing false information to a law enforcement officer. A Florida appeals court overturned two of the misdemeanor convictions on January 2. Some complained that the jury misunderstood the meaning of reasonable doubt. At other times, she said Caylee was with a nanny, who Casey identified by the name of Zenaida . George Anthony picked up the certified letter from the post office on July 1. Both later stated that they believed the odor to be that of a decomposing body. Sounding distraught, Cindy said: . I found my daughter's car today and it smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car. Although Casey had talked about her, Zanny had never been seen by Casey's family or friends, and in fact there was no nanny. Investigators brought Casey to Universal Studios on July 1. Caylee was reported missing, and asked her to show them her office. Casey led police around for a while before admitting that she had been fired years before. The judge denied bail, saying Casey had shown . On the second instance, he again called the sheriff's office, eventually was met by two police officers and reported to them that he had seen what appeared to be a skull near a gray bag. On December 1. 1, 2. Kronk again called the police. They searched and found the remains of a child in a trash bag. Jan Garavaglia confirmed that the remains found were those of Caylee Anthony. The death was ruled a homicide and the cause of death listed as undetermined. She was later arrested. Arpad Vass of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory judged that results from an air sampling procedure (called LIBS) performed in the trunk of Casey Anthony's car showed chemical compounds . Vass' research group considers typical of decomposition. Investigators stated that the trunk smelled strongly of human decomposition. The process has not been affirmed by a Daubert Test in the courts. Vass' group also stated there was chloroform in the car trunk. Assistant State Attorneys Frank George and Jeff Ashton completed the prosecution team. Cheney Mason, Dorothy Clay Sims, and Ann Finnell served as co- counsel. Jurors were brought from Pinellas County to Orlando. The trial took six weeks, during which time the jury was sequestered to avoid influence from information available outside the courtroom. In the opening statements, lead prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick described the story of the disappearance of Caylee Anthony day- by- day. Baez argued this is why Casey Anthony went on with her life and failed to report the incident for 3. He alleged that it was the habit of a lifetime for Casey to hide her pain and pretend nothing was wrong because she had been sexually abused by George Anthony since she was eight years old and her brother Lee also had made advances toward her. She told the jury the test had come back negative. Bradley expressed his belief that . Under cross- examination by the defense, Bradley agreed there were two individual accounts on the desktop and that there was no way to know who actually performed the searches. During cross- examination, Baez argued that the dog's search records were . Kristin Brewer also testified that her K9 partner, Bones, signaled decomposition in the backyard during a search in July 2. However, neither K9 partner was able to detect decomposition during a second visit to the Anthony home. Brewer explained that this was because whatever had been in the yard was either moved or the odor dissipated. Jan Garavaglia, who testified that she determined Caylee's manner of death to be homicide, but listed it as . Garavaglia took into account the physical evidence present on the remains she examined, as well as all the available information on the way they were found and what she had been told by the authorities, before arriving at her determination. There is no child that should have duct tape on . Judge Perry, after a short recess to review, ruled that the video could be shown to the jury. The animation featured a picture of Caylee Anthony taken alongside Casey Anthony, superimposed with an image of Caylee's decomposed skull, and another with a strip of duct tape that was recovered with her remains. The images were slowly brought together showing that the duct tape could have covered her nose and mouth. Fontaine examined three pieces of duct tape found on Caylee's remains for fingerprints, and said she did not find fingerprints but did not expect to, given the months the tape and the remains had been outdoors and exposed to the elements, stressing that any oil or sweat from a person's fingertips would have long since deteriorated. Though Fontaine showed the findings to her supervisor, she did not initially try to photograph the heart- shaped adhesive, explaining, . The chief investigator for the medical examiner stated that the original placement of the duct tape was unclear and it could have shifted positions as he collected the remains. Werner Spitz, who performed a second autopsy on Caylee after Garavaglia and challenged Garavaglia's autopsy report. He called her autopsy . Spitz stated that he was not allowed to attend Garavaglia's initial autopsy on Caylee's remains, and that, from his own follow- up autopsy, he was not comfortable ruling the child's death a homicide. He said he could not determine what Caylee Anthony's manner of death was, but said that there was no indication to him that she was murdered. Additionally, Spitz testified that he believed the duct tape found on Caylee's skull was placed there after the body decomposed, opining that if tape was placed on the skin, there should have been DNA left on it, and suggested that someone may have staged some of the crime scene photos. When asked by Ashton during cross- examination, . I can tell you some horror stories about that. The prosecution alleged that only Casey Anthony could have conducted this search and the others because she was the only one home at the time. When asked by prosecutors how she could have made the Internet searches when employment records show she was at work, Cindy Anthony said despite what her work time sheet indicates, she was at home during these time periods because she left from work early during the days in question. Kevin Stenger of the Sheriff's Office the weekend of June 2. Orlando at his own expense to show them. The motion states the defense received a privileged communication from their client which caused them to believe . Anthony is not competent to aid and assist in her own defense. Ken Furton, a professor of chemistry at Florida International University, stated that there is no consensus in the field on what chemicals are typical of human decomposition. The search was videotaped, but nothing was found. I need you in my life. In her initial report, Holloway reported George Anthony saying, . The defense rested its case on June 3. A police computer analyst testified someone had purposely searched online for . Anthropology professor Dr. Michael Warren from the University of Florida was recalled to rebut a defense witness on the need to open a skull during an autopsy. The lead detective stated that there were no phone calls between Cindy and George Anthony during the week of June 1. However, he told the defense he did not know that George had a second cell phone. This case is about the clash between that responsibility, and the expectations that go with it, and the life that Casey Anthony wanted to have. He emphasized how Anthony . Anthony repeatedly told police that Caylee was with the nanny that she specifically identified as Zenaida Fernandez- Gonzalez. Police, however, were never able to find the nanny. Authorities did find a woman named Zenaida Fernandez- Gonzalez, but she denied ever meeting the Anthonys. He further criticized the defense's theory that Caylee drowned in the Anthony pool and that Casey and George Anthony panicked upon finding the child's body and covered up her death. He advised jurors to use their common sense when deciding on a verdict. He told the jury that the prosecution wanted them to see stains and insects that did not really exist, that they had not proven that the stains in Anthony's car trunk were caused by Caylee's decomposing body, rather than from a trash bag found there. He added that the prosecutors tried to make his client look like a promiscuous liar because their evidence was weak. He stressed that there were no child safety locks in the home and that both of Casey Anthony's parents, George and Cindy Anthony, testified that Caylee could get out of the house easily. Although Cindy Anthony testified that Caylee could not put the ladder on the side of the pool and climb up, Baez alleged that Cindy Anthony may have left the ladder up the night before. What made it unique is not what happened, but who it happened to.
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