On a steamy Saturday night, July 22, 1933, two married couples played bridge in the screened-in sunroom of a mansion near downtown. It was after 11:30 p.m., the game starting to wind down, when two armed men — one toting a submachine gun — burst in through the unlatched screen door. One of the women […]
fbi
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FBI Code 98
No matter, really; I loved it all the same, so much so that I wish it had birthed a series of big-screen outings. (Instead, the idea eventually was rejiggered (sort of) into the long-running Efrem Zimbalist TV show, The FBI, and that doesn’t count.) Directed by Leslie H. Martinson (1966’s Batman: The Movie), the black-and-white, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
13 Eerie
At least not at first. Six forensic-science students are boated and then bussed into a body farm adjacent to the 13 Eerie Strait Penitentiary for a “Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team” exercise. It’s a field exam to test their wits and skills for FBI readiness, with corpses placed carefully around the island grounds. The plan […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Imposter
Nicknamed “The Chameleon” by the press, Bourdin is known for having assumed untold hundreds of identities; Bart Layton’s film wisely chooses to focus on just one of those cases. Luckily, it’s a doozy — one so unbelievable, you wouldn’t believe it without the proof. In 1994, in San Antonio, Texas, a 13-year-old boy named Nicholas […]
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A closer look
Robin Howard died June 23 from pneumonia caused by blunt force trauma to the chest. The manner of death was ruled a homicide by the state medical examiner. The 54-year-old Howard was arrested on June 19 after officers attempted to initiate a traffic stop, at which point Howard allegedly led them on a short vehicle […]
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‘Bucket list bandit’ kicked
In a move showing keen criminal brilliance, the alleged bank robber believed by the FBI to be the “Bucket List Bandit” went to the last place anyone would suspect a person with substantial funds and only four months left to live would be visiting: Oklahoma. Michael Eugene Brewster of Pensacola, Fla., was arrested Sept. 13 […]
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Patriot acts
Before the end of that nine-day standoff, Weaver’s wife and son would be killed along with a deputy U.S. marshal. And the repercussions of the siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, would help fuel the anti-government militia movement of the 1990s. Now, the nation and Oklahoma are seeing a resurgence of the so-called patriot movement beyond […]
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Crimes of exploitation
She has to do this because even if the gun against her head isn’t visible, she knows it’s there. Somewhere in the darkness watching is the man she once thought was her boyfriend, or once thought to be the cute boy she chatted with online and decided to meet, or was someone who had promised […]
Posted inNews
Crimes of exploitation
She has to do this because even if the gun against her head isn’t visible, she knows it’s there. Somewhere in the darkness watching is the man she once thought was her boyfriend, or once thought to be the cute boy she chatted with online and decided to meet, or was someone who had promised […]
Posted inNews
Human network
Despite a 2004 FBI-led sting operation, dubbed “Stormy Nights,” which rescued 23 young people from forced prostitution at truck stops in Oklahoma, sexual slavery is far from eradicated either in Oklahoma or nationwide, said Mark Elam (pictured), executive director of Oklahomans Against the Trafficking of Humans (OATH) and associate pastor at Lifechanger Church in Claremore. […]