![]() to publish the Unabomber’s “manifesto”-a rambling thirty-five-thousand-word declaration of the perpetrator’s philosophy. ![]() ![]() Fitzgerald had successfully urged the F.B.I. Fitzgerald brought the field to prominence in 1996 with his work in the case of the Unabomber, who had sent a series of letter bombs to professors over several years. In preparing his testimony, Leonard consulted with his frequent partner, James Fitzgerald, a retired F.B.I. Toward the end of the trial, prosecutors asked for the testimony of Robert Leonard, a practitioner of one of the lesser-known subspecialties: forensic linguistics. They could tell the jury that Coleman had purchased a can of red spray paint months before, but they couldn’t link Coleman to the can used in the crime. At the trial, experts could show that some of the threatening e-mails had been sent from Coleman’s computer, but they couldn’t prove that it hadn’t been hacked. The modern science of forensics has spawned numerous specialties and subspecialties, including forensic branches of dentistry, anthropology, sculpting, and even entomology (interpreting the presence of certain insects to fix the time of death). At the trial last spring, nearly forty witnesses and evidentiary specialists took the stand. His DNA was not found anywhere that would connect him directly to the crime. Still, Coleman maintained his innocence, and the evidence against him was circumstantial. In February, Sheri had told a friend that she was afraid of her husband and “said that if anything happened to her, Chris did it,” the friend testified. Meyer maintained a strict no-divorce policy among her employees, in keeping with her understanding of Scripture. And if Coleman had left Sheri he would have risked losing his salary of a hundred thousand dollars a year. A long trail of text messages on his phone made it clear that he was having an affair with a cocktail waitress. The police quickly came to suspect Coleman himself. ![]() A back window was open, suggesting that someone had entered the house out of view of the camera. Red graffiti-“Fuck you” and “U have paid!”-was scrawled on the walls and on the sheets of the beds in which Sheri, Gavin, and Garret lay strangled to death. Afterward, when he called his wife and got no answer, he asked his neighbor the policeman to check on her. On May 5th, Coleman left his home early to work out at the gym. One note to Sheri read “Fuck you! Deny your God publicly or else!” Another read “Time is running out for you and your family.” Initially, the threats focussed on Meyer, warning that if she didn’t quit preaching she’d pay the price, but the stalker soon turned his wrath on Coleman and his family. He worked as the security chief for Joyce Meyer, whose cable television program, “Enjoying Everyday Life,” is at the center of an evangelical empire estimated to be worth more than a hundred million dollars a year it includes a radio program, self-help and children’s books, CDs, podcasts, overseas missions, and motivational conventions. Coleman asked his neighbor across the street, a police officer, to train a security camera on the front of his house.Ĭoleman understood surveillance better than most. He had been receiving death threats from an online stalker, and the e-mails had begun to mention his wife, Sheri, and his sons, Garret and Gavin, who were nine and eleven. In the early weeks of 2009, Chris Cole man began telling friends and associates in Columbia, Illinois, that he was worried about the safety of his family. A suspect’s conversations and writings can be analyzed for patterns and peculiarities.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |