grierson 93.gri.0002 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Grierson’s Raid was a Union cavalry raid during the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. It ran from April 17 to May 2, 1863, as a diversion from Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant‘s main attack plan on Vicksburg, Mississippi.^[1][2]

Up until this time in the war, Confederate cavalry commanders such as Nathan Bedford Forrest, John Hunt Morgan, and J.E.B. Stuart had ridden circles around the Union (literally, in Stuart’s case; see the Peninsula Campaign), and it was time to out-do the Confederates in cavalry expeditions. The task fell to Col. Benjamin Grierson, a former music teacher who, oddly, hated horses after being kicked in the head by one as a child. Grierson’s cavalry brigade consisted of the 6th and 7th Illinois and 2nd Iowa Cavalry regiments.

Grierson and his 1,700 horse troopers rode over six hundred miles through hostile territory (from southern Tennessee, through the state of Mississippi and to Union-held Baton Rouge, Louisiana), over routes no Union soldier had traveled before. They tore up railroads and burned crossties, freed slaves, burned Confederate storehouses, destroyed locomotives and commissary stores, ripped up bridges and trestles, burned buildings, and inflicted ten times the casualties they received, all while detachments of his troops made feints confusing the Confederates as to his actual whereabouts and direction. Total casualties for Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire  Brigade were three killed, seven wounded, and nine missing. Five sick and wounded men were left behind along the route, too ill to continue.

Confederate Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton, commander of the Vicksburg garrison, was short on cavalry and could do nothing to Grierson. An entire division of Pemberton’s soldiers was tied up defending the Vicksburg-Jackson railroad from the evasive Grierson, and consequently did nothing to stop Grant’s landing on the east bank of the Mississippi below the city. The premier Confederate cavalry commander, Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, was off chasing another Union raider named Col. Abel Streight in Alabama, and did nothing to stop Grierson.

While Streight’s Raid failed, occupying Forrest probably ensured the success of Grierson’s Raid. Although many Confederates other than Forrest pursued Grierson vigorously across the state, all they gained was mass confusion. Grierson and his troopers ultimately pulled in to Baton Rouge, Louisiana; combined with Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman‘s feint northeast of Vicksburg (the Battle of Snyder’s Bluff), the befuddled Confederates did not oppose Grant’s landing on the east side of the Mississippi.

answered 2.ans.002 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

On July 9, 2002, David Berkowitz’s first parole hearing was conducted at the place of Berkowitz’s incarceration, Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, N.Y.  David Berkowitz, 49, attended this hearing, but had chosen not to attend the hearing that had been scheduled a month earlier.  Commissioner Irene Platt asked him why he didn’t attend in June, but did in July.

“I had a lot of anxiety,” Berkowitz answered, “and I thought it would be best for the families that I not come at all and I after a lot of soul searching and a lot of praying I just decided it would be best to just come and face you and apologize. I’m not seeking parole.  I don’t feel that I deserve parole.”

Commissioner Platt asked him why he felt that he didn’t deserve parole.  Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire  Berkowitz responded, “Well, for the crimes that were committed and people that are suffering today because of my actions. I know they have a lot of pain and hurt that will probably never go awayI wish that I can go back and change the past. I can’t, so I have to I came to terms with this and realize that I’m here in prison.”

Commissioner Platt stated that she wanted to continue with the hearing, unless he had an objection.

Berkowitz had mixed feelings. He was very concerned about the media, “I was hoping that after this was over with, after the 25-year mark and the media says all that they can possibly say, that everybody, myself, my family, the victims’ families can all get on with their lives.”

Commissioner Platt asked him what “attracted you to their whereabouts and your need to kill them?”

Berkowitz replied, “Ma’am, I’m sorry.  I don’t know. I don’t understand what happened.It was a nightmare. I was tormented in my mind and in my spirit.  My life was out of control at that time and I have nothing but regret for what happened.”

“What was this torment,” she probed.

“It was just my mind was not focused right. I thought I was a soldier for the devil and all kinds of crazy thingsI had things like the satanic bible that I was reading.  I just got stupid ideas out of it. I’m not pushing the blame on anything. I take full responsibility, but I just at the time things got twisted.”

At the end of the short hearing, Commissioner Platt suggested that Berkowitz had not developed much of an understanding of the motivations of his crimes. Berkowitz answered, “Ma’am, in all honesty I really haven’t. I still struggle with coming to grips with the things of the past.  There are still issues that I have to deal with. I’m not there yet.”

Not surprisingly, parole was formally denied. Although the panel recognized his good behavior, his activities in helping other inmates and his role as a chaplain’s clerk, his completion of a 2-year degree from the state university, and his successful completion of other prison rehabilitation programs, and his expression of remorse for his crimes, “the extraordinary pain, suffering and anger that you have inflicted on the families and the community at large continues. Discretionary release at this time would deprecate the seriousness of these atrocious crimes and diminish respect for the law.”

Berkowitz’s next parole hearing will be in 24 months in June, 2004.

Berkowitz’s first years in prison were filled with conflict. He was a disciplinary problem. However, after his conversion to Christianity, his attitude changed dramatically and the disciplinary problems went away.  Many people are skeptical of the dramatic embrace of religion, but in the final analysis it really doesn’t matter whether people believe Berkowitz or not.  Berkowitz is smart enough to understand that he is never getting out of prison and has learned to adjust to the realities of that life.

Is his new Christian persona really a hoax to deceive the parole board into someday granting him parole? I don’t think so because he knows that parole is beyond his reach. His religious beliefs have provided him a spiritually comforting and socially-acceptable lifestyle in an environment where few comforts are normally found. While Berkowitz was not technically insane when he committed murder, he was a very troubled and emotionally unstable personality. Now that he is middle aged, off the hallucinogenic drugs and, possibly, taking more therapeutic medications for his mental state, he is trying to overcome the freakish image that he had created for himself as a young man.

Berkowitz is a long way from normal and always has been. It appears as though he understands this fact and is trying to do the best he can to straighten himself out. He has the rest of his life to work on it in prison, where, he realizes, that he definitely belongs.

another 99.ano.9992 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

As expected, the phantom reappeared. On April 17, 1977, two young lovers sat kissing in their parked car near the Hutchinson River Parkway, not far from where Donna Lauria had been murdered the previous year. Eighteen-year-old Valentina Suriani, an aspiring actress and model, sat in the car with her twenty-year-old boyfriend Alexander Esau, a tow truck operator.

At 3 A.M. that Sunday, another car pulled up along side them. Its driver shot each of them twice. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Valentina died immediately and Alexander a bit later at the hospital. This was just what the police department had been fearing — the next inevitable attack in the series of the .44 caliber murders. This psycho who would keep on killing until he could be found among the millions of men who fit his description.

But — this time there was something different: the killer’s letter left at the scene of the murders addressed to Captain Borrelli. The letter in which the killer gave the police his “name” — the Son of Sam.  Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

months 7.mon.32 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

What they missed in the apartment bedroom was the body of Tony Hughes, whose decomposing corpse had lain for three days on the bed.

What they missed was the blond man immediately strangling the Asian boy and having sex with his corpse.

What they missed were the photos that the blond man took of the dead boy, the subsequent dismemberment of his body, and the cleaning of his skull to be kept as a trophy.

 

Jeff Dahmer, mugshot

 

What they missed was the opportunity to take the name of Jeffrey Dahmer off the ID that the man gave them and run a background check, which would have told them than the calm, well-spoken man was a convicted child molester who was still on probation.

The story didn’t stop there. The two girls who the police ignored went back home to Sandra Smith’s mother, Glenda Cleveland, 36, the woman who lived next to the Oxford Apartments which Jeffrey Dahmer called home. Later, Cleveland called up the officers to find out what happened to the Asian boy. She asked how old the child was. “It wasn’t a child. It was an adult,” the officer said.

 

Glenda Cleveland

 

When she continued to ask questions, he told her: “Ma’am, I can’t make it any more clear. It’s all taken care of. He’s with his boyfriend and in his boyfriend’s apartment…It’s as positive as I can be…I can’t do anything about somebody’s sexual preferences in life.”

A couple of days later, Cleveland called the officers back  Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire after she read a newspaper article about the disappearance of a Laotian boy named Konerak Sinthasomphone, who looked like the boy that had seen trying to escape from Jeff Dahmer. They never sent anybody to talk with her.

Cleveland even tried contacting the Milwaukee office of the FBI, but nothing came of it.

That is, until a couple of months later on Monday, July 22, 1991, when all hell broke loose.