Stories posted are written by National news Journalists, not by this blog. The Journalist's name and "Source" link follow each story. We add "Tags" based on facts from the article, which are used for later retrieval, if someone wants to see all stories by a tag (Click tag of choice). Tags are at the top of story.
This post documents the death of Faamamalu Casey mentioned at the end of this story.
While the article is about the death Thomas Craig who died in the van he has his own post elsewhere in the Murders blog, as does Nicolas Chaykovsky also mentioned at end of story.
12-11-2010 California:
While passing the Caltrain station earlier this week, one of the men we'd interviewed for our story on homeless sex offenders last year flagged us down. He'd said no one had seen Thomas Craig, another one of our sources in the story, for several weeks. Now the Ford Windstar that Craig slept in parked on Bluxome Street had been gathering parking tickets, and our informant speculated the worst: "I think he died in there. I told the fire department, but they just laughed it off."
The consequences of Jessica's Law have been sinister to Craig and others to say the least: Since the law mandates that sex offenders must live 2,000 feet away from a park or school, in San Francisco, their only option is to not have a residence at all. The parole department currently mandates that they remain homeless.
While the city mulls a change to how the law is enforced locally, the paroled offenders continue to sleep in vans parked in lots and alleys, in homeless drop-in centers, or in doorways. Law enforcement experts say the instability makes it more likely the sex offenders will re-offend. In Craig's case, he had been convicted of forced oral copulation with a minor, though he always insisted he'd been framed. He did tell us about how the sex offenders were no longer allowed to enter a program for parolees at Walden House since it was too close to a school.
The complications from Jessica's Law abound. Yet a man dying inside his van and lying undiscovered for weeks seemed to be taking the macabre circumstances up a notch.
We checked on the minivan various times this week and, yep, it had been pegged with three different tickets for parking during street cleaning since mid-November. On Wednesday, a pink notice that the city was going to tow the van appeared. The sheets that Craig usually hung inside for a modicum of privacy were still up. We knocked and there was no answer. The county jail said he wasn't in custody, and the medical examiner said they had no record of him.
Finally today, we met our informant at the Caltrain station again. "He died." But not in the van.
A call to the medical examiner cleared things up: Craig had checked into St. Francis Hospital.
on Nov. 14, saying he had lung cancer. His condition declined at the hospital until he died at 2 p.m. on Nov. 18, likely due to multiple organ failure from cancer.
This will be the third person made homeless by Jessica's Law to die that SF Weekly has learned of this year. First, Nicolas Chaykovsky died in February from a heart attack, with his case manager speculating it was living on the streets that did him in. Faamamalu Casey died of a heart attack on May 27, according to the medical examiner.
Craig's van, meanwhile, is still slated to be towed. Apparently a handful of the homeless guys stored their stuff in there. Since no one has a key, they're all going to lose their possessions now. "Can't inherit the car," our informant, who sleeps under a nearby highway, said with a wry chuckle. "He's gone. I hate to say it." ..Source.. by Lauren Smiley
This post documents the death of Thomas Craig who died in the van.
Now, note what the reporter says near end of article. Third death due to Jessica's Residency Law and mentions TWO other sex offender deaths; each of which has its own post in the murders blog.
12-11-2010 California:
While passing the Caltrain station earlier this week, one of the men we'd interviewed for our story on homeless sex offenders last year flagged us down. He'd said no one had seen Thomas Craig, another one of our sources in the story, for several weeks. Now the Ford Windstar that Craig slept in parked on Bluxome Street had been gathering parking tickets, and our informant speculated the worst: "I think he died in there. I told the fire department, but they just laughed it off."
The consequences of Jessica's Law have been sinister to Craig and others to say the least: Since the law mandates that sex offenders must live 2,000 feet away from a park or school, in San Francisco, their only option is to not have a residence at all. The parole department currently mandates that they remain homeless.
While the city mulls a change to how the law is enforced locally, the paroled offenders continue to sleep in vans parked in lots and alleys, in homeless drop-in centers, or in doorways. Law enforcement experts say the instability makes it more likely the sex offenders will re-offend. In Craig's case, he had been convicted of forced oral copulation with a minor, though he always insisted he'd been framed. He did tell us about how the sex offenders were no longer allowed to enter a program for parolees at Walden House since it was too close to a school.
The complications from Jessica's Law abound. Yet a man dying inside his van and lying undiscovered for weeks seemed to be taking the macabre circumstances up a notch.
We checked on the minivan various times this week and, yep, it had been pegged with three different tickets for parking during street cleaning since mid-November. On Wednesday, a pink notice that the city was going to tow the van appeared. The sheets that Craig usually hung inside for a modicum of privacy were still up. We knocked and there was no answer. The county jail said he wasn't in custody, and the medical examiner said they had no record of him.
Finally today, we met our informant at the Caltrain station again. "He died." But not in the van.
A call to the medical examiner cleared things up: Craig had checked into St. Francis Hospital.
on Nov. 14, saying he had lung cancer. His condition declined at the hospital until he died at 2 p.m. on Nov. 18, likely due to multiple organ failure from cancer.
This will be the third person made homeless by Jessica's Law to die that SF Weekly has learned of this year. First, Nicolas Chaykovsky died in February from a heart attack, with his case manager speculating it was living on the streets that did him in. Faamamalu Casey died of a heart attack on May 27, according to the medical examiner.
Craig's van, meanwhile, is still slated to be towed. Apparently a handful of the homeless guys stored their stuff in there. Since no one has a key, they're all going to lose their possessions now. "Can't inherit the car," our informant, who sleeps under a nearby highway, said with a wry chuckle. "He's gone. I hate to say it." ..Source.. by Lauren Smiley
Note that, only in the picture of this man, do they tell the real reason why he died: Malnutrition. Obviously because California sex offender residency laws forced him into homelessness.
5-28-2010 California:
SANTA ANA – Someone found the nude and grease-smeared body between a trailer and a wall next to some auto parts at a Cadillac dealership on north Bush Street early in the morning of Sept. 23, 1974.
An autopsy revealed that Frances E. Esqueda, 54, had been strangled with her own slip.
Santa Ana homicide detectives in 1974 called the slaying "a crime of opportunity," believing that Esqueda might have been accosted by chance as she walked near McLean Cadillac to her home on Cypress Avenue.
Detectives at the time could not determine if she was the victim of a robbery, and said only the killer knew if she was carrying a purse at the time she was attacked.
They questioned 25 to 30 people back in 1974, according to news accounts, but never made an arrest.
But this month, Santa Ana P.D. cold case detectives believed that after 35 years, they were finally close on the heels of Esqueda's killer.
In February, detectives Louie Martinez and Domingo Cabrera submitted items of evidence recovered from the crime scene to the Orange County Crime Lab for analysis.
Forensic scientist Heather Williams was then able to isolate foreign DNA from blood found on Esqueda's slip: apparently, she had fought for her life and had drawn blood from her killer.
That DNA was then compared with known samples in the California Attorney General's database.
In mid-May, the detectives heard they had a hit: the DNA that detectives had preserved in 1974 was matched in 2010 to an ex-convict named Gerald Gay Kifer.
Carbrera soon learned that Kifer was a known sexual predator who had been a transient most of his life, who had arrests dating back to 1963, and who had served at least two terms in prison for sexual offenses.
He also found out that Kifer had been a registered sex offender who might have been living in the Santa Ana area at the time Esqueda was accosted and murdered.
The detectives had identified their murder suspect, now they had to find him.
It didn't take long.
Official records revealed that Kifer died of unknown causes in Los Angeles County on June 11, 2007. He was about 69 years old.
That news was bittersweet for the two detectives.
"There would have been nothing more pleasurable than to slap the 'cuffs on him and bring him to justice," Martinez said.
Santa Ana police Sgt. Robert Wooding said the case was solved by a combination of the tenacity of the detectives in his office and the passion of the forensic experts with the crime lab.
"Who would have thought at the time that evidence saved so long ago could lead to the solving of a case 35 years later?" Wooding said.
On Tuesday, Martinez and Cabrera drove up to a residence in Orange to tell some of Esqueda's surviving relatives what had happened to their beloved aunt. Her two brothers, including Manuel Esqueda, for whom a school is named after in Santa Ana, are dead, but several nieces and nephews still live in Orange County.
"It was really good to hear from the detectives and to know that they had solved this case," said nephew Joe Esqueda, 71. "This gives everyone in the family peace of mind."
He said his aunt's murder happened so long ago that everyone had almost completely forgotten about it.
"My uncle and my dad never talked about it much," Joe Esqueda said. "It was too painful. We were aware that something violent had happened, but it was kept secret from us as far as the details were concerned."
He said his aunt was born in Kansas, but migrated to Orange County with the rest of her family. She was a co-owner in two little family stores with her mother.
"She was a good person, strong-willed and independent," Joe Esqueda said.
Even though the person who committed this crime has already passed on, it was still good to hear," he added.
"We know who did it, and he is in the hands of God," Joe Esqueda said. "His judgment didn't come in this world but it will certainly hit him in the next." ..Source.. by LARRY WELBORN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Despite the police comments there is no doubt this man died because of California's residency laws! This was confirmed by a Newspaper Reporter.
3-15-2010 California:
According to the state's sex offender registry, Nicholas Chaykovsky has been in violation of registration requirements since Sunday. He has a decent excuse. He's dead.
Chaykovsky died at age 61 last month after suffering a heart attack. And though the San Francisco Police Department sex offender unit explicitly informed the Department of Justice about his demise, the DOJ hasn't deleted Chaykovsky's profile from the Megan's Law Web site yet. So, as seen above, Chaykovsky is still caught up in the red tape of the state's byzantine sex offender laws, even from the great beyond.
Chaykovsky was featured as "Mr. C." in our December story on how Jessica's Law forces nearly all sex offenders paroled to San Francisco into homeless, since they are forbidden from having an address within 200 feet of a park or school. Last month, the California Supreme Court upheld the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's practice of forcing all San Francisco sex offenders paroled after the law's passage in Nov. 2006 into de facto homelessness, while punting objections about the law's overall constitutionality back to the lower courts to sort out.
The San Francisco Medical Examiner ruled Chaykovsky died from a heart attack stemming from heart disease and an infection brought about by a suicide attempt 12 years ago. (Official cause of death: "suicide.") But Chaykovsky's case managers and acquaintances say it was the constant stress of being homeless that "killed him."
"Basically, he wasn't used to the street," says Ron Sanders, his case manager at the Transitions Clinic, a city program for parolees run out of Southeast Health Center. "He had almost three years left living [homeless on parole]; there's no way he would have made it. When something like that happens to you, if you don't have the desire to live, you're not going to make it. He didn't have any fight in him."
Like the dozens of other sex offenders living in RVs, vans, or simply sleeping on the street, the 61-year-old Chaykovsky had spent many nights in a chair at the drop-in center at a homeless shelter on Bryant Street. (CDCR rules consider signing up for a bed at a homeless shelter as establishing a residence, while just falling asleep in a chair at the drop-in center is not.)
Another homeless sex offender wrote an e-mail to the Weekly, stating Chaykovsky "was always too timid to take a bed [at the homeless shelter] and risk a parole violation ... i can't help wonder whether 'sleeping' in chairs for almost 5 months caused his attack by sheer stress or deep-vein thrombosis .... his pathetic passing angers and depresses me while I'm struggling against the same pernicious pressures." (In the December story, SF Weekly agreed to withhold Chaykovsky's name and didn't print photos of his face due to his concerns about his own safety. Since his death is a matter of public record and his safety is no longer an issue, SF Weekly has decided to release his name.)
Inspector Jim Serna of the SFPD sex offender unit says the claims that extenuating circumstances of Chakkovsky's Kafka-esque existence killed him are unjustified. Since the death was ruled a "suicide," the inspector says Jessica's Law cannot be blamed.
"I wouldn't see any correlation between that at all," Serna says. He says the police find out that registered sex offenders die all the time. "It's usually age. Most of the guys who die [while on the sex offender registration] aren't affected by Jessica's Law because they've been off parole for a while."
Note the recognition that, Jessica's Law is a factor in causing deaths!
San Francisco parole supervisor Armel Farnsworth said among the sex offenders affected by Jessica's Law, "I can't recall anyone who's had their parole terminated in such a manner." Farnsworth, too, said Chaykovsky had other health problems. "He was rather rotund."
... ... ... ... After being caught, he attempted suicide twice -- once via shooting himself in the mouth, which deformed his face, and once from drinking a glass of antifreeze. He served nine years in state prison before making parole in October.
In a December interview, Chaykovsky said he expected to live about another 15 years, and wanted to follow his parole rules to the letter in order to avoid going back to prison. Asked about whether he was happy he survived his suicide attempts he said, "I'm kind of in-between. I'm hoping things will work out."
Chaykovsky had his share of medical problems after the suicide attempt and a massive weight-gain in prison. He said he had some short-term memory loss, and had broken tear ducts. While walking around the city, he had to stop often due to exhuastion and frequent heartburn-like chest pains. Both of Chaykovsky's older brothers died while he was in prison. Sanders recalled that Chaykovsky said his brothers had died of heart attacks, and Chaykovsky had made an appointment to get his own heart checked out at the clinic.
He never made it to the appointment. Billie Percy is a a case manager at the Northern California Service League, which runs a drop-in center for parolees where Chaykovsky spent many of his days. She says his eye had swollen up with fluid in the days before his heart attack. Before heading to the hospital for help in mid-February, Chaykovsky talked to her about how he had shot himself in the mouth years ago when the police arrived at his house to arrest him.
"He went on to say he was so remorseful for what he had done," Percy said, "and he said he wished his life could have been different. ...It was really like, man, did he know this was going to happen? I know I was the last person he had a conversation with."
Suffering from his eye condition, Chaykovsky got a ride to General Hospital from another parolee. While in the emergency room, he had a heart attack. Sanders says Chaykovsky was put on life support, but never regained consciousness. General Hospital officials called Sanders on Feb. 18th to say they were awaiting permission from the state to take Chaykovsky off life support. Sanders called Chaykovsky's social worker on the 19th and found out he had died while still on life support the night before. (General Hospital will not release details about his medical care, but the Medical Examiner says his time of death was 6:00 p.m. on Feb. 18.)
Percy says Chaykovsky's remains were cremated by the state. No funeral service was held...Source.. Lauren Smiley
Better Off Dead?
3-31-2010 California:
Did Jessica's Law kill a homeless sex offender?
Earlier this month, Nicholas Chaykovsky failed to reregister with the police as a transient sex offender. He had a decent excuse.
He died.
Chaykovsky died on Feb. 18 at age 61. He was featured as "Mr. C" in our Dec. 30 cover story, "Perverting Justice," on how Jessica's Law forces nearly all sex offenders paroled to San Francisco into homelessness, because they are forbidden to live within 200 feet of a park or school.
The San Francisco Medical Examiner declared that Chaykovsky suffered a heart attack stemming from heart disease, and had an infection related to injuries from a suicide attempt 12 years ago.
But Chaykovsky's case managers and acquaintances say it was the constant stress of being homeless that killed him.
"Basically, he wasn't used to the street," said Ron Sanders, his case manager at the Transitions Clinic, a city program for parolees run from the Southeast Health Center. "He had almost three years left living [homeless on parole]; there's no way he would have made it. ... He didn't have any fight in him."
Chaykovsky was arrested in 1998 after making a videotape of a nude, 8-year-old girl, and was eventually convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child and producing obscene material of a child. After being caught, he attempted suicide twice — he first shot himself in the mouth, which deformed his face, and later drank a glass of antifreeze. He served nine years in state prison before making parole in October.
Last month, the California Supreme Court upheld the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's practice of forcing all San Francisco sex offenders paroled after the passage of Jessica's Law in November 2006 into de facto homelessness, while punting objections about the law's overall constitutionality back to the lower courts.
In a December interview, Chaykovsky said he expected to live about another 15 years, and wanted to follow his parole rules to the letter in order to avoid going back to prison. Asked about whether he was happy he survived his suicide attempts, he said, "I'm kind of in between. I'm hoping things will work out."
Obviously, they didn't.
Billie Percy, a case manager at the Northern California Service League who knew Chaykovsky, said his remains were cremated by the state. No funeral service was held. ..Source.. by Lauren Smiley
1-30-2009:Seeearlier stories. Died because of a ill conceived law that protects no one. Given that there has not been a single crime reported nationwide, occurring in a protected place (school, etc.) caused by a registered sex offender residing within the proscribed distance of that protected place, this is a testament to the short sightedness of lawmakers.
Consider this, if the missions accepted him to sleep for the night, placing him within the proscribed distance to the prohibited places, those prohibited places would not even have any children in them at that time he would be sleeping. Clearly the laws protect no one:
1-30-2009 Michigan:
Thomas Pauli was found dead Jan. 26
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - Grand Rapids homeless advocates say a man found dead in the snow had been frustrated because he could not find a place to stay.
A business owner found the body of Thomas Pauli, 52, next to the old A to Z Radiator shop in the 600 block of S. Division Ave. on Jan. 26. Pauli was crouched in a kneeling position. The medical examiner says the autopsy was inconclusive, though evidence showed Pauli might have froze to death. Police say foul play was not involved.
Officials at Degage Ministries, a mission that offers myriad programs for people in need, say they believe Pauli was unable to get into a shelter because he is on the Michigan Sex Offender Registry.
State law "prohibits convicted sex offenders from residing, working or loitering within a student safety zone which is defined as the area that lies 1,000 feet or less from school property."
That law makes the Guiding Light Mission on Grand Rapids' Division Avenue off limits because Catholic Central High School is nearby. The Guiding Light Mission, however, is refusing to say whether it had been forced to turn Thomas Pauli away. Shelter officials told 24 Hour News 8 they do not keep record of the people they turn away. But The Guiding Light did confirm that it refuses shelter to two to three people a month because of the state law regarding sex offenders. Pauli was convicted in 1991 of second-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a child under the age of 13 in Grand Traverse County. Lori King, a supervisor at the Degage Life Enrichment Center, said Pauli was an intelligent, quiet and gentle man who had struggled with alcohol and drug addiction. She also said Pauli had gone through rehab and once told her he wanted to go back to school. "He voiced how hard it was for him to find housing, to find employment, just to be accepted back into society, like he had a big X on his head and nobody was going to give him a chance," King told 24 Hour News 8. "I was nauseated to think about him outside freezing. I knew why he was outside. Enraged is putting it lightly." Target 8 did a special investigation into the law designed to protect children, which unintentionally isolates convicted sex offenders. This makes it difficult for police to track their whereabouts and even harder for people on the Michigan Sex Offender Registry to get another shot. "They're upholding the law, but that causes such a hardship for people in our community. People who've done their time but still have the stigma attached to them," said Marge Palmerlee, executive director of Degage Ministries. "There needs to be an exemption for homeless shelters or we're going to have more tragedies," said homeless advocate Don Tack. It's a problem Target 8 looked into nearly three years ago. At the time, even the Grand Rapids Police Department was concerned that some sex offenders were hard to find because of the law -- homeless with no address. It's as if the law keeping them from living near schools defeated the other law requiring them to register so police know where they are. "We've had conversations with political folks about the need to amend this and didn't really get anywhere in the past," said Tack. Tack thinks Pauli's death might renew interest in amending the law. There are alreadysome exemptions built into the Michigan Sex Offender Registry law allowing patients in mental health facilities, for example, to live within those 1,000-foot school safety zones as they are known. ..News Source.. by Henry Erb and Jessica Leffler -------------------------------------------------------------- MI- UPDATE- Death of homeless sex offender in Grand Rapids poses questions1-29-2009 Michigan: So is this what it finally takes for us to hear the muffled cries of the homeless -- an ex-con dead in the snow because it's against the law for a sex offender to huddle up at either of two Grand Rapids missions? Thomas Pauli didn't choose to die alone in the cold. He apparently froze to death because of a crime he committed nearly 20 years ago, and a law that's dogged him ever since his release from prison. In the days prior to the discovery of his body Monday morning at a recycling operation in the 600 block of South Division Avenue, he reportedly attempted to score a bed at either or both the Guiding Light Mission and Mel Trotter Ministries, just blocks away. But officials at both facilities reluctantly acknowledge they would have turned him away because registered sex offenders can't reside for even one night within 1,000 feet of a school, in this case, Catholic Central High. Never mind that school isn't in session during the hours a guy like Pauli would have been snoozing away on a warm cot. Or that ex-cons -- or anyone else -- are more likely a threat to a neighborhood when they have nowhere to go. When they are desperate.
Weather information for Grand Rapids for January 2009 (Added by eAdvocate)
The problem is compounded by the fact that both missions are too near a pair of public parks, and that Mel Trotter houses women and children. All those elements also render the missions lawfully unable to accept offenders. The missions aren't to blame. They risk fines or even being shut down if they don't comply with the law.
--Given that there is nothing in registration law which would fine or cause them to be shut down, what law or other authority are they speaking of? If there is anyone who knows of their authority (laws) please contact eAdvocate@yahoo.com
But it's a law that needs changing. And we need to re-examine our collective level of commitment to a part of society that, to most of us, matters least. Asks Bill Shaffer, an officer with Guiding Light, "How do we treat the unlovable?" "I couldn't sleep last night thinking about Thomas Pauli freezing to death outside," said a tearful Marge Palmerlee, executive director at Degage Ministries, which cares for folks like Pauli who live and frequent the Heartside area on downtown's fringe. "Who can sleep at night, thinking of these people outside. It's just unbelievable." No, it's not. I'll bet that even before readers got to my fourth paragraph, some were thinking that Thomas Pierrie Pauli, who was born on Christmas Eve 52 years ago, got what he deserved. OK, so he spent time in the joint. Big whup. A sex offender should pay forever. Maybe so. I know too many people -- people close to me -- who have been victims of sexual assaults. In Pauli's case, he was convicted in Grand Traverse County in 1991 of second-degree criminal sexual conduct against a person younger than 13. Of the 5 to 15 years to which he was sentenced, he served more than 11. Not exactly a slap on the wrist. His wife divorced him two years into his stint. After his release in 2003, he eventually ended up at an address on Leonard Street NE. But he wandered from there and ended up roaming Heartside's gritty domain. He checked in and out of Project Rehab. On Dec. 30, he was booked for failing to register his address with authorities. He got 16 days for that misdemeanor and was freed Jan. 14.
--Note: At least he was warm in jail for those two weeks. If one thinks about it, and reviews the temperature chart for January, it is likely he PURPOSELY "Failed to Register" so that he had a place to stay where it was warm.
Sometime during the past two weeks, he tried to bed down at either or both missions, according to Palmerlee, who knows of two people saying they saw Pauli standing in lines. "A patron told me they'd seen him in Mel Trotter's line not long ago," added Lori King, life enrichment center supervisor at Degage. Officials at both missions cannot confirm Pauli tried to get in, but they also can't rule it out, because they don't track applicants who are refused admission, only those who make it across the threshold. Either way, they said it breaks their hearts to know they have to abide by a law that puts men in life-or-death situations. "Ethically, it feels like we're responsible," said Bill Merchut, in charge of programs at Mel Trotter. "But we have to follow the law. "These men and women are clearly 'The Scarlet Letter' folks of our day. "I've had (sex offenders) say, 'Where can I go?' and I stand there with my mouth open and I have no answer." There aren't many options for men seeking overnight shelter outside of the two missions. In a perfect world, there would be a homeless shelter located where it could accept sex offenders. Maybe a place like the former Greyhound bus station, Merchut said. Or perhaps the former site of a corrections center on Wealthy Street SW near the Grand River. But any solution will require a monstrous coalition. And money. Don Lamse was the gentleman who found Pauli about 10 a.m. Monday in a parking area adjacent to the auto recycling operation he manages on South Division. The victim was beside a '93 or '94 GMC conversion van. Lamse, 70, walked over and tried to rouse him. "Hey, hey," Lamse remembers saying. "Something like that." Pauli was bent into a crouching position, knees and hands on the ground. He wore no gloves. "I tried to nudge him a bit while I was talking to him, and he felt pretty stiff." Lamse said he found it odd that Pauli didn't crawl into any one of several unlocked vehicles, the van included. "He could have gone inside and had some shelter if he'd just opened a door.
--With no gloves and a temperature of -3 degrees, would anyone's hands work to pull on metal objects (doors, likely jammed from accidents) to gain access to the inside of the vehicle.
He added, "That's not a nice way for anybody to die." ..News Source.. by Tom Rademacher | The Grand Rapids Press -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michigan Registered Sex Offender Killed by State Sex Offender Residency Law1-28-2009 Michigan:Man found dead in cold was turned away from shelters in past because he was sex offender GRAND RAPIDS -- A man found dead on the streets Monday had tried in recent weeks to gain admittance to at least one of two Heartside missions, but was denied a bed because he is a registered sex offender. Officials say its possible Thomas Pauli might be alive today except for a state law prohibiting him from establishing a residence even for one night within 1,000 feet of a school, in this case, Catholic Central High, also located in the Heartside district. "It's heartbreaking. I have a hard time even talking about it," said Marge Palmerlee, executive director at Degage Ministries. Palmerlee said she had talked to at least two people who told her Pauli had tried earlier this month to secure a bed at one or both missions. Bill Merchut of Mel Trotter and Bill Shaffer of Guiding Light agreed that Pauli may have tried to gain entrance, but that their missions risk fines and loss of license if they admit sex offenders. They do not track everyone who applies for a bed, only those who are admitted, so while they were sure Pauli had not been admitted, they couldn't be sure if he had tried.
--Note: Tracking those admitted and not tracking those not addmitted are different functions. Think about this, in order to reject someone (i.e., a sex offender) there has to be a procedure to CHECK a person applying for admittance, and there has to be a person assigned to that function. Notice how they skirted checking with persons assigned to that function, they most definitely would remember if they rejected someone because they were a registered sex offender. Why? Further, nothing in sex offender registration laws addresses "fines or loss of license" so what law are they speaking of?
They both decried a system where there are no exceptions to the so-called Megan's Law, which sets boundaries and restrictions for those on the list. "We have to follow the law, but ethically, it feels like were responsible," said Merchut. Added Shaffer, "These men and women are clearly 'The Scarlet Letter' folks of our day. And where do they go? I have no answer." Pauli, 52, served 11 years in prison for a 1991 conviction in Grand Traverse County for second-degree criminal sexual conduct, state records show. He was released in 2003 and was required to register as a sex offender. Results of an autopsy are not yet available. ..Source.. by The Grand Rapids Press ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Grand Rapids man found dead was turned away from shelters based on CSC conviction GRAND RAPIDS(WZZM)- The man found dead on South Division Avenue may not have been able to find a place to stay. A business owner found Thomas Pauli's body Monday morning. Rob Munger, Executive Director of Guiding Light Mission says they have refused Pauli a place to stay in the past because he is a convicted sex offender. Munger says he does not know whether Pauli asked to stay at Guiding Light the night that he died. Pauli was convicted of 2nd Degree Criminal Sexual conduct with a person under 13 years old in Grand Traverse County. Munger says under state law all missions must turn away convicted sex offenders. Toxicology tests were inconclusive as to what caused Pauli's death. Temperatures the night he died did get down to zero. ..Source.. by Jessica Puchala and Chris Fleszar ------------------------------------------------------------------------ How do we protect at-risk populations from cold? To those who knew him, Thomas Pauli was an educated man, a quiet, gentle person who loved to read. So it's unclear why the 52-year-old man, who recently completed a rehab program, died on the streets in the cold. His body was discovered Monday in the snow inside a fenced auto salvage business, huddled near the wheel of a car in the 600 block of South Division Avenue. Pauli was among eight Michigan men and women -- four of them senior citizens -- found dead in the cold since Jan. 17. ..Source.. by The Grand Rapids Press -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8th Mich. Resident Dies From Harsh Weather A Grand Rapids man is the eighth person in nine days to be found dead in the Michigan cold. The body of 52-year-old Thomas Pauli was found this week in the snow at an auto salvage business in Grand Rapids. Investigators are trying to determine the cause of death, but it doesn't appear to be suspicious. The eight victims were found dead in the cold between Jan. 17 and Jan. 26, when Pauli's body was discovered. Four were older than 80. The Grand Rapids Press reports seven of the eight victims were found outside. Many apparently fell on their own property and couldn't get up. Ninety-three-year-old Marvin Schur froze to death inside his Bay City home just days after the municipal power company restricted his use of electricity because of unpaid bills. ..Source.. by ClickOnDetroit
A man with Huntington's Disease is at the heart of this case. More info: "Huntington's Disease The Granddaddy of Them All" by Louise Wilkinson. According to the Americans w/Disabilities Act, the law must make reasonable accommodations, here it refused to do so which resulted in his death!
2-25-2008 Delaware
DOVER — A 22-year-old Huntington's disease victim who was denied a bed in a state health care facility because he was a registered sex offender choked to death today at a Dover mental health clinic.
Family members said they were told that Joseph Heverin, 22, whose muscle control had deteriorated to the point where he often fell and had to be put in a wheelchair, choked to death on a sandwich at Dover Behavioral Health Systems.
"He was dead when he got to the hospital," said Heverin's brother, Paul Vrem.
Vrem said he learned of his brother's death after driving to Dover Behavioral to pick him up for a dental appointment.
"They told me that he had choked on a grilled cheese sandwich and that they were administering CPR," Vrem said.
William Weaver, chief operating officer of Dover Behavioral Health Systems, and other clinic officials did not immediately return telephone messages seeking comment.
Colin Faulkner, director of public safety for Kent County, said paramedics were dispatched to Dover Behavioral Health shortly before 12:30 p.m. in response to a report of a person choking.
"It would appear that he went into cardiac arrest, full arrest, as the result of an unresolved choking incident," Faulkner said.
Jay Lynch, a spokesman for the state Department of Health and Social Services, confirmed Heverin's death.
Heverin's mother, Dianne Vrem, said Dover Behavioral officials kept family members in a waiting room until Heverin had been taken away by ambulance, and that Kent General officials also refused her request to be with her son.
"I just wanted to hold him and let him know that his mom was there," she said.
A spokeswoman for Kent General did not immediately return a telephone message this afternoon.
Last week, Heverin was the subject of an Associated Press article describing the bureaucratic limbo in which his criminal past and his disease — an incurable, degenerative neurological disorder that also killed his father and other family members — had left him.
Officials at Dover Behavioral, a short-stay psychiatric facility where Heverin had been admitted last summer for treatment of depression, had sought and received court permission to discharge him, arguing that he is not mentally ill. He remained at the facility as his guardianship case worked its way through the court system.
Even though a court declared Heverin "a disabled person" who was "unable to act in his own best interest," health and social service officials refused to place him in state-run long-term care facility. They argued that he was neither developmentally disabled nor mentally ill.
The primary reason for their opposition, however, was that Heverin was a registered sex offender. He had twice been convicted of unlawful sexual contact, incidents that his supporters believe stemmed from the effects of Huntington's disease, a hereditary disorder that has been linked with inappropriate sexual behavior.
Dover Behavioral officials said they had tried repeatedly for more than a year to find placement options for Heverin, but no facility was willing to take him.
Kristopher Starr, an attorney appointed as a fact-finder in Heverin's guardianship case, submitted a report earlier this month excoriating state officials for refusing to place Heverin in a skilled nursing facility, at least not until he is "bedridden."
"They finally got what they wanted; they won't have to deal with the problem anymore," Paul Vrem said Monday. ..more.. by RANDALL CHASE, Associated Press Ailing sex offender in bureaucratic dilemma 2-19-2008 Delaware
DOVER -- The Huntington's disease that killed his grandmother, his father and several other members of his family is now slowly eating away at Joseph Heverin's life.
Heverin, 22, gets around at Dover Behavioral Health System, where he was admitted last summer for treatment for depression, in a wheelchair. His movements, according to a court-appointed observer, are "spastic, and at most times, uncoordinated."
"Joe falls frequently -- our X-ray company knows him by name," DBHS Chief Operating Officer William Weaver wrote last month to Heverin's public guardian.
Dover Behavioral, a short-stay psychiatric facility, has sought and received court permission to discharge Heverin, arguing that he is not mentally ill.
If discharged, however, Heverin could wind up on the streets.
Even though a court has declared Heverin "a disabled person" who is "unable to act in his own best interest," health and social service officials are unwilling to place him in a state-run long-term care facility. They contend that he is neither developmentally disabled nor mentally ill.
The overriding problem, however, is that Heverin is a registered sex offender.
He has twice been convicted of unlawful sexual contact, incidents that his supporters believe stem from the effects of Huntington's disease, which has been linked with inappropriate sexual behavior.
"An individual who is a registered sex offender, who is mobile, presents significant issues," said Department of Health and Social Services Secretary Vincent Meconi.
DHSS officials say they have tried repeatedly for more than a year to find placement options for Heverin, but that no facility is willing to take him, even though there is no law prohibiting public or private health facilities from accepting sex offenders for treatment.
"There's no law that prevents us from taking him, and there's no law that compels us to take him," said state Public Health Director Dr. Jaime Rivera.
Heverin's mother, Dianne Vrem, has sought help from state lawmakers, to no avail.
"He's at the point now where he needs a structured environment," said Vrem, who was appointed co-guardian of her son last year but said she is no longer able to meet his needs at home.
Home, at one point, was a recreational vehicle parked in Vrem's yard, in which Heverin lived for a year until Kent County officials ordered it removed.
Appeals to the state Department of Justice to have Heverin's name removed from the sex offender registry, in the hope of ending what one attorney described as "an unfortunate medical stalemate," also have gone nowhere.
"From what I have seen, most people who are on the sex offender registry suffer negative consequences as a result of being on it," state prosecutor Richard Andrews wrote last year in a response to a legislative plea for help. "He is unfortunately a recidivist offender."
State law allows for offenders to be reclassified or removed from the registry under certain conditions, including the passage of at least 10 years since sentencing. But the Justice Department said the law does not allow for Heverin to be removed from the registry.
Even if Heverin were somehow removed from the registry, he still likely would be barred from the Delaware Hospital for the Chronically Ill, which has treated Huntington's patients in the past.
Rivera said DHCI would deny admission to a person deemed to be a danger to himself or others.
"The thing that is most problematic to us is that he's a mobile, convicted sex offender," Rivera said. "If he can get around, if he can move himself around in a wheelchair, I think we would consider him mobile."
Kristopher Starr, an attorney appointed as a fact-finder in Heverin's guardianship case, excoriated DHSS and Rivera for refusing to place Heverin in a skilled nursing facility, at least not until he is "bedridden."
"Such a position from a state physician, a per se government actor, is disquieting," Starr wrote in a letter to the Court of Chancery.
A University of Maryland doctor who has worked with Heverin contested Rivera's statement that Heverin is a threat.
"I ... do not feel that he is at risk for re-offending with inappropriate sexual behavior," wrote Dr. Karen Anderson, a professor of psychiatry and neurology and director of the University of Maryland's Huntington's Disease Clinic.
Anderson concluded that, in addition to moderate to severe Huntington's, Heverin suffered from dementia and major depression, which was in partial remission but included anxiety about his placement issues.
Robert M. Stein, a psychologist and founder of the Center for Neurobehavioral Health in Lancaster, Pa., said the behavioral problems associated with Huntington's disease usually manifest themselves before the physical problems. "He's probably going to die within about 10 years," Stein said. "He's on a steadily downward course." ..more.. by RANDALL CHASE, Associated Press
