Tag Archives: Homicide

DID VINCENT VAN GOGH REALLY COMMIT SUICIDE?

Dutch Post-Impressionism master, Vincent Van Gogh, was a phenomenal force who helped shape modern art culture. His influence ranks with Shakespeare in literature, Freud in psychology, and The Beatles in music. Van Gogh was also plagued with mental illness, suffered from depression, and was tormented by psychotic episodes. Conventional history records that Van Gogh died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1890 at the age of 37. However, an independent and objective look at the case facts arrives at an entirely different conclusion—Vincent Van Gogh was actually shot by someone else, and it was deliberately covered up.

This isn’t to say that Van Gogh was murdered as in a homicide case. As a former police investigator and coroner, I’m well familiar with death classifications. The civilized world has long used a universal death classification system with five categories. They are natural death, accidental death, death caused by wrongful actions by another human being which is a homicide ruling, self-caused death or suicide, and an undetermined death classification when the facts cannot be slotted into one conclusive spot.

I’m also familiar with gunshot wounds. Understanding how Vincent Van Gogh’s fatal wound happened is the key to determining if he intentionally shot himself, if he accidentally caused his own death, or if someone else pulled the trigger which killed Van Gogh. Before analyzing what’s known about the Van Gogh case facts, let’s take a quick look at who this truly remarkable man really was.

Vincent Willem Van Gogh was born in 1853 and died on July 29, 1890. During Van Gogh’s life, he produced over 2,000 paintings, drawings, and sketches. He completed most of these in his later years and was in his most-prolific phase when he suddenly died.

Van Gogh didn’t achieve fame or fortune during his life. He passed practically penniless. It was after death when the world discovered his genius and assessed his works of bright colors, bold strokes, and deep insight as some of the finest works ever to appear on the art scene. Today, an original Van Gogh is worth millions—some probably priceless.

Vincent Van Gogh achieved artistic saint status. It’s not just Van Gogh’s unbounded talent that supported his greatness. It’s also the mystique of the man and the martyrdom mushrooming from his untimely death that robbed the world of an artist—a starving artist and a man who lived on the fine line between genius and nut.

Most people know some of Van Gogh’s masterpieces. Wheatfield With Crows may have been his last painting. Café Terrace At Night, The Potato Eaters, Irises, Bedroom In Arles, The Olive Trees, and Vase With Fifteen Sunflowers are extraordinarily famous. So is The Starry Night. (I happen to have a hand-painted oil reproduction of Starry Night right on the wall in front of me as I write this, and my daughter has Café hanging in her home.)

Most people know the story of Vincent Van Gogh’s ear. It’s a true story, but the truth is he only cut part of his left ear off with a razor during a difficult episode with his on-again, off-again relationship with painter Paul Gauguin. The story goes on that Van Gogh gave his ear piece to a brothel lady, then he bandaged himself up and painted one of many self-portraits. I just looked at this portrait (Google makes Dutch Master shopping easy) and was struck by the image of his right side being bandaged. Then I realized Van Gogh painted selfies by looking in a mirror.

And most people know something about Vincent Van Gogh’s time in asylums. This is true, too, and he spent a good while of 1889 in Saint-Remy where he stared down on the town and painted The Starry Night from later memory. The celestial positions are uncannily accurate.

In late 1889, Van Gogh moved to a rooming house in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris. His painting production went into overdrive, and he was at the peak of his game. On July 27, 1890, Van Gogh left his room with his paints, canvas, and easel. He returned empty-handed with a bullet in his belly.

Vincent Van Gogh’s spirit left this world at 1:30 a.m. on July 29. He passed without medical intervention on his bed, and the medical cause was, most likely, exsanguination or internal bleeding. There was no autopsy, and Van Gogh was buried in a nearby churchyard the next day.

There are various ambiguous statements purported from Van Gogh. He did not admit to shooting himself or intentionally attempting to commit suicide. However, the record indicates he didn’t deny it. The record can also be interpreted that he covered up for someone else.

What is fairly clear is the description of Vincent Van Gogh’s gunshot wound. There are conflicting locations, (chest, stomach, abdomen), but this is explainable from Dutch/French to English translations. It’s highly probable that one bullet entered the left side of Van Gogh’s mid-section and traversed his intestines in a left-to-right direction. There was no exit wound and no serious spinal damage as Van Gogh had walked home from the shooting scene, up the stairs, and to his room where he expired a day and a half later.

There was no firearm found and absolutely no history of Vincent Van Gogh ever owning or operating a gun. He was a painter. Not a hunter or soldier. (Note: There was a rusted revolver found in an Auver field in 1960 which was said to be the weapon. There is no proof that it was.)

There was no suicide note or any deathbed confession. Aside from being an artist, Van Gogh was a prolific writer who documented many thoughts as he progressed from mental sickness to physical health. In late July of 1890, Van Gogh’s writings showed him to be optimistic and with plans to paint as much as possible before an anticipated period of blackness returned. Two days before his death, Van Gogh placed a large art supply order.

Suicide, in Van Gogh’s case, wasn’t surfaced in the early years after his death. There were murmurs among the villagers that “some young boys may have accidentally shot” Van Gogh as he went about his work in a nearby field. There was no coroner’s inquiry or inquest, but there is documentation of a gendarme questioning Van Gogh if he intentionally shot himself to which Van Gogh allegedly replied, “I don’t know.”

The first strong suicide suggestion came in 1956 with Irving Stone’s novel and movie Lust For Life. It was a documentary that took liberty with Van Gogh’s life and times. It concluded Van Gogh was a troubled soul—a beautiful soul—who ended his life intentionally. The book and movie were bestselling blockbusters and cemented the suicide seed to an adorning public.

It became ingrained in lore and public acceptance that Vincent Van Gogh was a desponded psychotic who suddenly up and killed himself rather than continue a tormented existence of interpreting beauty in nature and people. It was the gospel, according to Van Gogh historians, who were comfortable with a suspicious explanation.

Other people weren’t. In 2011, two researchers took a good and hard look into Van Gogh’s life and death. They had full access to the Van Gogh Museum’s archives in Amsterdam and spent enormous time reviewing original material. They found a few things.

One was a 1957 interview with Rene Secretan who knew Van Gogh well. Secretan admitted to being one of the boys spoken about by the villagers who were involved in Van Gogh’s shooting. Rene Secretan, sixteen years old in 1890, told the interviewer he wanted to set the distorted record straight that was misrepresented in the book and movie.

The interview documents Rene Secretan as saying the handgun that shot Van Gogh was his, and that it was prone to accidentally misfiring. Secretan self-servingly denied being present when the accidental shooting happened, claiming he was back in Paris and not at his family’s summer home in Auvers. Secretan failed to identify those directly involved or exactly what circumstances unfolded.

The researchers, Pulitzer Prize winners Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith who co-wrote Van Gogh: The Life, found corroborating statements placing Van Gogh near the Secretan villa on the afternoon of the shooting. They also sourced a leading expert on firearms and gunshot wounds who refuted any chance of Van Gogh being able to discharge a firearm with his own hands that could have caused the wound in its documented location.

Dr. Vincent Di Maio (a 2012 key witness in the Florida trial of George Zimmerman who shot African-American youth Trayvon Martin in a neighborhood watch altercation) concluded that Van Gogh, who was right-handed, could not possibly have held a firearm as it had to be; therefore the shot had to have been fired by another party. Dr. Di Maio also commented on the lack of reported gunshot residue on Van Gogh’s hands and clothes. In 1890, most cartridges contained black powder which was filthy stuff when burned at close range.

Researchers Naifeh and Smith also took a deep dive into what they could find on Rene Secretan’s background. They painted him as a big kid—a thug and a bully who was well known to have picked on wimpy Van Gogh throughout the month of July 1890. Secretan came from a wealthy Paris family who summered at Auvers with their second home within walking distance of Van Gogh’s rooming house.

According to the researchers of Van Gogh: The Life, Rene Secretan had seen the Buffalo Bill Wild West show in Paris, and Secretan fancied himself as a cowboy character. Secretan fashioned a costume to go with his cocky role of a western gunfighter, and he acquired a revolver that was prone to malfunction. They documented incidents where Secretan would mock Van Gogh as he painted, play pranks on him, and supply alcohol to Van Gogh who couldn’t afford it.

It was during a mocking spat, the researchers surmise, that somehow Secretan’s revolver went off and struck Van Gogh in the abdomen. According to the theory, the boys fled, disposed of the weapon, and formed a pact of silence. If this was true, the question arises of why didn’t Vincent Van Gogh report the truth, and why has the suicide conclusion remained steadfast.

Naifeh and Smith address this in their book with this quote: When all this (accidental shooting theory) began to emerge from our research, a curator at the Van Gogh Museum predicted the fate that would befall such a blasphemy on the Van Gogh gospel. “I think it would be like Vincent to protect the boys and take the ‘accident’ as an unexpected way out of his burdened life,” he agreed in an e-mail. “But I think the biggest problem you’ll find after publishing your theory is that the suicide is more or less printed in the brains of past and present generations and has become a sort of self-evident truth. Vincent’s suicide has become the grand finale of the story of the martyr for art, it’s his crown of thorns.”

As an experienced cop and a coroner, I think Naifeh and Smith are on to something. There are two huge problems with a suicide conclusion in classifying Vincent Van Gogh’s death. One is the lack of an immediate suicide threat. The other is the gunshot nature.

I’ve probably seen fifty or more gunshot suicides. All but one were self-inflicted wounds to the head. The exception was a single case where the firearm was placed against the chest and the bullet blew apart the heart. I have never seen a suicide where the decedent shot themselves in the gut, and I’ve never heard of one.

Vincent Van Gogh didn’t leave a suicide note. He made no immediate suicide threats and, by all accounts, things were going well for the struggling artist. It makes no sense at all that Van Gogh would head out for a summer’s day, begin to paint, produce a gun from nowhere, shoot himself in the stomach from the most inconceivable position, then make it home—wounded—without finishing himself off with a second shot.

If I were the coroner ruling on Vincent Van Gogh’s death, I’d readily concur the cause of death was slow exsanguination resulting from a single gunshot wound to the abdomen. I’d have a harder time with the classification. Here, I’d have to use a process of elimination from the five categories—natural, homicide, accidental, suicide, or undetermined.

There is no possibility Van Gogh died of natural causes. He was shot, and that is clear. Was he murdered or otherwise shot intentionally? There is no evidence to support a homicide classification. Did the firearm go off accidentally? It certainly could have, and there is information to support that theory but not prove it.

Suicide? Not convincing. The available evidence does not meet the Beckon Test where coroners must establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the decedent intentionally took their own life. If the death circumstances do not fulfill the requirements of the Beckon Test, then a coroner is not entitled to register a suicide classification.

This only leaves undetermined. Coroners hate closing a file with an undetermined classification. It’s like they failed in their investigation.

Unfortunately, in Vincent Van Gogh’s case—from the facts as best as are known—there’s no other conclusion than officially rule “Undetermined”.

I’m no longer a coroner, though, so I’ll stick out my neck.

On the balance of probabilities, I find Vincent Van Gogh was accidentally shot, then sadly died from this unintended and terrible tragedy.

ON THE FLOOR — NEW BASED-ON-TRUE-CRIME BOOK BY GARRY RODGERS

Savage… Shocking… Senseless… Who would order two seniors to lie on the floor of their gun store, then cold-bloodedly execute these defenseless people with gunshots to the back of their heads? That was the fate of Berndt and Erika Lankenau in their business, Shooting Sports Supply, on Vancouver Island at Canada’s west coast. On The Floor is Book 5 in my ongoing Based-On-True-Crime Series. The other series books are In The Attic, Under The Ground, From The Shadows, and Beside The Road. Between The Bikers is now in the first-draft stage.

On The Floor takes you inside an actual double murder investigation with real police procedures. You’ll travel with the detective and forensic team as they meticulously examine a complex crime scene and you’ll follow a trail of clues that end in a massive confrontation with who committed this heinous crime.

This book comes with a warning: On The Floor is based on a true crime story. It’s not embellished or abbreviated. Explicit descriptions of the crime scenes, factual dialogue, real forensic procedures, and actual police investigation, interview, and interrogation techniques are portrayed. Some names, times, and locations have been changed for privacy concerns and commercial purposes. Here’s the Prologue along with the first two chapters.

On The Floor — Book 5 in the Based-On-True-Crime Series

**New Release — August 2020**

Prologue — Saturday, January 11th – 5:30 pm

“On the floor!”
Erika Lankenau and her husband, Berndt, stood in silent shock.
“Get on the floor! Facedown! On the floor!”
The owners of Shooting Sports Supply, a prominent Vancouver Island gun store, froze.
Erika’s mouth opened. No words came out.
Berndt Lankenau hesitantly raised his hands.  His empty palms faced forward.
“You heard it! Get on the fucking floor! Right fucking now!”
“Vat… vat is dis business?” sixty-nine-year-old Berndt asked in his German accent.
“Just do what you’re told and no one gets hurt.”
Erika, sixty-four, bent her knees. “Do as ve’re told, Berndt. Do as ve’re told.”
“Listen to her, old man. Get your face down on the fucking floor, or you’re dead.”
Berndt swallowed. He kept eye contact. Slowly, Berndt lowered to one knee and put his right hand on the hard floor. “Ve don’t vant no trouble.”
Erika lay in a prone position, face on the cold concrete with her left arm stretched ahead. Her right hand felt for Berndt.
Berndt also obeyed. His arms reached beyond his head and his face was on the floor.
“One… Two… Three.”
Ba-Bang! Bang!

Chapter One — Sunday, January 12th – 9:15 am

My cell toned. I looked at the call display. Oh… Oh… It’s Leaky and it’s Sunday morning.
“Hey, Jim.” I called him by his real name, Detective Staff Sergeant Jim Lewis. Not by his nickname, Leaky Lewis.
“Hope you have no plans for the day.” Leaky sounded serious, and he was.
“Nothing that important.” I did, but I knew this would trump what I was in the middle of.     “What’s up?”
Leaky paused, then told me, “Looks like we got two bodies in Shooting Sports Supply. They’re motionless. Facedown on the floor.”
I paused, too. I knew the business, including the owners, Berndt and Erika Lankenau. I also knew Ripley Rafter who worked with the Lankenaus. Ripley—everyone called him Rip—was a retired patrol sergeant from our department and a gun enthusiast, through and through.
“Uh-oh. What does it look like?” I felt like I’d just received a next-of-kin notification.
“I haven’t been there yet.” Leaky hadn’t. Leaky rarely went far from the office or his home because he suffered a chronic case of urinary drip.
“Who has the scene?” I was mentally preparing. My gut said this wasn’t good. And it wasn’t.
“Uniforms have it secured. No one’s been in yet. The placed is locked like a vault. Unless we get keys, we’ll have to cut our way in.”
I tried to picture it. I’d been in Shooting Sports Supply many times over the years that I served as a detective and Emergency Response Team marksman, or sniper as some call it. Shooting Sports Supply was the leading gun store in Nanaimo, a seaside city of a hundred thousand on the southeast side of Vancouver Island in British Columbia on Canada’s west coast. Nanaimo is right across from the City of Vancouver—one of the most exotic, erotic, and expensive places on the planet.
“How do you know… can you see them through the windows or something?” I envisioned standing outside Shooting Sports and looking through the bars behind the glass.
“That’s what I understand.” I knew Leaky nodded. He talked on the phone like he spoke in person. Leaky was an amicable guy and my supervisor at the Serious Crimes Section. He was junior to me in service but then, so was everyone else. I was the oldest on the detective squad and mulling retirement.
“So, is someone locating the keys, or a torch, or something?” I asked a logical question.
Leaky probably nodded again. “Yeah, Harry is tracking down the owners’ son. Our property index shows the primary contact as Mister and Missus Lankenau. They didn’t answer their phones, and there was no one home at their house. Speculation is it’s them dead on the floor.”
“Wait.” I processed this. “How do you know they’re dead?” Something wasn’t making sense.
“Well, ah… you can see through the window.” Leaky sounded slightly annoyed.
“I know you can see through a window, but how do you know there are two dead bodies?”
Leaky hesitated, then slightly chuckled. “Who’s on first… No. I haven’t been there myself. Harry has. She was in the office when the call came in reporting something suspicious inside. A uniform dropped by to check. The lights are on inside, but the doors are locked. He, the uniform, could see the shapes of two people lying face down about twenty-five feet ahead along the main aisle. So the Watch Commander called for Serious Crimes and Harry just happened to be in the office. Harry says it sure looks like two dead bodies to her, so she’s now on a mission to get in.”
Harry was my partner on the Serious Crimes Section. Her real name was Sheryl. Sheryl Henderson. Sheryl was a large lady with large hair and an even larger personality. We called her Harry after the Bigfoot on the movie Harry and the Hendersons.
“Okay.” I slowly got the picture. “So how did this start? Who first found it and called it in?”
I could hear Leaky sipping his coffee. I’d hinted Leaky should cut coffee out as it only made his incontinence worse.
Leaky continued. “From what I understand… and this is hearsay… a customer dropped by to see if Shooting Sports Supply was open, even though it’s Sunday. The front door was secured, but he was puzzled because the lights were on and it looked like they were open. He… the customer who I think is one of our reserve officers… don’t quote me. He rattled the door, tapped on the glass, and peered through the main window.”
“Okay.”
“So the customer takes a jolt when he sees the forms of two people that looked like they were facedown on the floor half-way down the aisle. At first, the guy thought they were dummies. Like, placed there as some sort of weird scarecrows in case someone planned a burglary. Then, he does a double-take and sees what looks like dried blood pools around their heads.”
“Uh… oh…” I pictured it.
“Yeah. Sure doesn’t sound like an accident or kinky double suicide to me.”
“No…”
“I think we got something nasty here. I want us getting inside as soon as possible. Also, I want to ass-cover with paramedics just in case there’s still life.”
“Doesn’t sound hopeful.”
When Leaky said dried blood around the head and face down on the floor, it hit home.
I feared they’d been executed in a robbery.

Chapter Two — Sunday, January 12th – 10:05 am

I pulled my unmarked Explorer into the Shooting Sports Supply parking lot. It was a small strip mall in a light industrial area of central Nanaimo, across from the main Golf & Country Club. The complex had mixed-use businesses surrounding the gun store that ranged from a fireplace dealer to a karate school.
There was a small group mustered outside the front door. They were adjacent to a large, freestanding electric sign that bore the triple-S logo set in a circle and designed to represent a telescopic sight with crosshairs. Two marked police cars sat without their emergencies flashing, and two uniformed officers stood with their hands in their pockets. I recognized both, but I was lost for their names. Our department now exceeded one hundred and eighty sworn officers. Then, we employed a host of civilians in support roles.
I recognized another guy dressed in combat pants with a duty vest overtop of his issue jacket. He was Matt Halfyard, an understudy with the Forensic Identification Section. We called Matt Eighteen Inches.
I also recognized a reserve officer who’d been with our force for a long time. Randy Mellow shuffled from foot to foot and kept blowing on his hands. I didn’t know if he was trying to warm himself or if he was shaken up.
I didn’t blame him for wanting warmth. Even though the Nanaimo area of Vancouver Island has the mildest climate in Canada, the winter months are wet and chilly. The low temperature especially affected me as I suffered from Reynaud’s Syndrome. That’s a hereditary condition where I lost feeling in my fingers and toes when the mercury dropped below 40 Fahrenheit. Fortunately, my wife had bought me a pair of electric mitts, and I wasn’t afraid to wear them.
“What does it look like, Matt?” That was my standard opening line.
Matt also looked cold. He’d already recorded the outdoor scene temperature. It was 36 degrees, slightly above freezing, and it wouldn’t get much warmer for a few days yet. The overnight rain had stopped, but the clouds hung low. A haze shrouded the golf course across the street. It looked… ghostly.
“This is nasty. Real nasty.” Matt pulled no punches. “I’ve called Cheryl to attend. I think this scene is over my head.” Matt referred to Sergeant Cheryl Hunter, our senior forensic examiner. She was also Matt’s tutor and mentor.
“What’s happening with keys to get in?” I hadn’t talked to Harry yet. I phoned her, but she didn’t answer. That wasn’t unusual. I also didn’t leave a voice message for Harry because her greeting quite annoyed me.
“We’re waiting for Sheryl Henderson,” Matt said. “She couldn’t find the gun store owners… I think obviously… and their son, their next-of-kin, is listed as a contact person in case of an emergency. His name is Mike… Mike Lankenau and Sheryl can’t track him down either. We might have to call a locksmith.”
“Let’s hold off on that.” I shook my head. “I don’t want anyone involved with the scene more than absolutely necessary.”
One of the uniforms gave me a sideways look.
“Naw.” I shook my head. “That doesn’t include you guys. We need perimeter security, and we’ll have to clear the building before any scene exam starts. Tell you what. You two can start with a walk around the site. See if anyone is around and if they saw or heard anything. Also, look for unusual stuff. You know… something discarded from the scene, like in the dumpsters.”
The two uniforms spread out. One started a clockwise trip through the complex. The other went counterclockwise.
I turned to Randy. “I take it you found them. Has anyone taken a statement from you yet?”
“Yes. I reported it.” Randy nodded. “And no. No statement yet.” He shook his head.
“All right.” I motioned to my vehicle. “While we’re waiting to get the building open, jump in my Explorer and I’ll turn a recorder on.” I also turned on the heat which pleased both of us. This is what he told me:

——

“Okay, my name is Randy Mellow and I’m a reserve police officer with the Nanaimo department. I also work in my day job as a security systems technician. Just after nine a.m. this morning, I stopped by Shooting Sports Supply. I know it’s Sunday, but Berndt and Erika often stay open weekends. I left a rifle here to get a new scope mounted and… and I wanted to see if it was ready so I could go to the range and sight it in.
“First thing I noticed was the lights were on so I thought Great. They’re open. So I went up and pulled on the door and it was locked. That’s funny, I thought. I could also hear noise coming from inside like a loud radio playing.
“So I looked in the front window… I had to shield the glare… but I didn’t see anyone. I rapped on the glass and called out… loud… to get over the radio but no one answered. I gave it a few minutes and a few more knocks because I thought they might be in the back. In the gunsmithing shop. Not the retail area.
“Then I realized something was wrong. Like real wrong. They stood out… the bodies on the floor. At first, I thought they were a couple of dummies or mannequins as some kind of a joke or to scare off anyone trying to break in. Then I realized they were real… real people.”

——

Randy stopped. He caught his breath, swallowed, and carried on.
“I called it in to 911 and I waited here to give a statement. I knew I’d have to.”
“Describe what you saw.” I gave him a prompt.
“They were… they are… side by side lying on the floor with their faces down in the main aisle… about twenty or twenty-five feet in from the front door. I know it’s Berndt and Erika. I can tell from their looks and their clothes. I know… knew… them well. A lot of officers do… did.” Randy choked up.
“It’s okay. Go on.”
“Anyway… Erika is lying to the left. Berndt is lying beside her to the right. Their heads are facing away from the door… what direction is that… I guess kind of south.”
“Please describe their condition.”
He swallowed and continued. “To me, there’s no question they’re dead. No question. They’re in a facedown position on that cold concrete floor and are motionless. There is also…”
He halted. I thought he was going to break down, but he sniffed and went on.
“Please excuse me. Berndt and Erika are… were… my friends. They’re friends to a lot of us on the force. You, too, I imagine.”
Randy was right. The Lankenaus weren’t close friends of mine, but I certainly knew them from going in their gun store over the years. I was also friends with Rip Rafter and he hadn’t been located. I feared Rip might also be dead on the floor in the back.
He went on. “You can see brown staining on the… on the floor underneath them. To me, it looks like… dried bloodstains.”

——

Harry drove up. She was in her personal vehicle—a brand new silver-gray Range Rover. I finished recording Randy Mellow’s statement and got out. Harry got out, too.
“No luck with the goddam keys.” Harry shook her head. “I think the only fucking way we’ll get in there is a locksmith. Cutting the bars and smashing the glass sounds a little harsh. Especially since they’re already toast. Have you seen them?”
“No, I haven’t.” I knew I had plenty of time to do that. “What about Rip Rafter?”
Harry slurped from her stainless steel Starbucks mug. “I phoned there and then drove over. No one’s home, but Rip’s truck is gone. So is his boat. I think the old fucker’s gone fishing.”
That was a relief. I also didn’t see Rip’s truck in the Shooting Sports Supply lot, but the Lankenaus’ Jeep Cherokee was here. Locked up.
“And you can’t find the son… Mike Lankenau?” This concerned me. I knew a bit about the Lankenau family history, and some of it wasn’t smooth.
“Nope.” Harry slurped again. “He’s not answering the phone number we have on file, and there’s no one home at the address we have for him. But… that doesn’t mean either one is current. You know how accurate our contact system is, eh?”
I nodded. “And you went by Berndt and Erika’s place?”
“Yeah. It’s as dead as they are.”
“Okay. A locksmith it is.”
I Googled Gallazin Locksmiths, got their emergency number, and made a call.

——

Harry and I waited in my Explorer. We kept Randy Mellow at the scene. I had him stay out front of Shooting Sports and keep watch for any unexpected, although highly unlikely, movement inside. The two uniforms were still dumpster diving, and Matt Halfyard wandered around taking exterior photos and video.
It was Harry who said it.
“Don’t you find it strange these people are locked inside their own store? Like, that’s a manual deadbolt on the front door. It doesn’t lock automatically. Whoever did this had to have locked the door from the outside when they left and took off with their fucking keys.”

You can read the rest of On The Floor at Amazon, Kobo or Nook.

 

 

HAS MADELEINE MCCANN’S MURDERER FINALLY BEEN CAUGHT?

On May 3rd, 2007 three-year-old Madeleine (Maddy) McCann disappeared from her family’s holiday apartment in Portugal. Her body has never been found, and all information suggests the British toddler was abducted and murdered. The McCann missing persons case became one of the highest-profile criminal investigations of all time. Now, German police have a man in custody who they believe is the killer. In fact, they say they have irrefutable evidence.

The suspect has not yet been charged with Maddy McCann’s murder. That requires evidence that’s admissible under Portuguese Law—Portugal being the country where the crime took place and the authority having jurisdiction to prosecute the case. Before looking at who the suspect is and what evidence connects him to the crime, let’s review the facts of this tragic case.

Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, took their three children on a week-long vacation to a holiday resort at Praia da Luz in the Algarve recreational region of southern Portugal. Here, they rented a two-bedroom villa or apartment which had a ground floor, courtyard entrance. With Maddy and her parents were the other McCann children, a pair of two-year-old twins. The McCann family was also with a group of friends from the UK. In total, there were seven adults and eight children.

During the week, the adults of the group would have late-evening dinners after the small children were put to bed. They took turns of periodic checks on the sleeping kids until they returned from the courtyard’s outdoor tapas dining area which was 160 feet or 55 meters from the McCann apartment. For the first few nights, everything was fine and there was no reason for anyone to be concerned about the children’s safety.

At 10:00 pm, Kate McCann took her turn to check on the children. She discovered the courtyard door was open when it should have been shut. Kate went inside and into the bedroom where Maddy and the twins slept. The twins were fine, but Maddy was gone.

Kate McCann frantically searched the small apartment that consisted of a combined living/dining/kitchen area and a separate bedroom that the adults used. Maddy was nowhere to be found. Kate rushed to the door and screamed across the courtyard that her little girl was missing.

The group of friends began searching the immediate area and other apartments. The resort staff, including their security detail, combed the complex. Not a trace of Madeleine McCann showed up. It was after 11:00 pm when they notified the local police.

The local officers searched throughout the night. At 2:00 am, they brought in two patrol dogs and by 8:00 am four more search and rescue dogs arrived. The search expanded outside of the resort complex to take in local streets, alleys, buildings, and the beach along the waterfront. Absolutely no trace of Madeleine McCann was found.

Hindsight being what it is, the local police did not treat the McCann’s apartment as a crime scene. That occurred the next day when a higher authority from Portimao took over the investigation. The “golden hours” immediately following the abduction were lost. It was nearly a day later when Maddy’s description was broadcast, roadblocks established, and a proper scene examination was done.

Two witnesses surfaced who reported seeing a man carrying a little girl near the complex around 10:00 pm on May 3rd. This has been widely reported over the years and both sightings (known as the Tanner and Smith sightings) seem conclusively ruled out or eliminated. However, they did create an avenue of focus by the Portuguese police that became narrow-minded and off-track.

The Madeleine McCann case became an instant media frenzy. It’s best described as a circus and it occurred just when social media platforms took off. The British Tabloids fueled the flames of speculation which were carried around the world by emerging SM sites like MSN and a thing called Facebook.

It wasn’t long before the McCann parents became prime suspects. There wasn’t a lick of evidence to support that suspicion and no logical reason why they would harm their daughter. Although it was absurd, the Portuguese police applied arguido status to Kate and Gerry McCann and implicated that they had done something to harm Maddy by accident and were conspiring to cover it up.

This baseless accusation escalated quickly. The renowned British agency, Scotland Yard, commenced their investigation into Madeleine McCann’s disappearance. Their common-sense approach relieved the heat on the McCann family and influenced the authorities in Portugal to drop the arguido rule.

However, the damage was done. The family’s reputation suffered immensely, especially after the lead investigator on the Portuguese side published a book accusing Maddy’s parents of this heinous crime. That ended in a lengthy lawsuit and served no purpose in finding out what really happened to Madeleine McCann.

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In June 2020, the public prosecutor in Braunschweig, Germany ordered an inquiry into the McCann abduction and murder. The prosecutor said what all credible people involved in the investigation believed—Maddy was dead and had been killed shortly after she was snatched by a pedophile sex offender. The German authorities had someone in mind, and that someone was already in their custody.

The current and prime suspect for murdering Madeleine McCann is 43-year-old Christian Brückner. He is serving a seven-year sentence for rape at a German prison and has been previously convicted of sex crimes on children. It seems, however, that Christian Brückner has been on the police radar for Maddy’s murder for the past seven years.

The German authorities state Brückner was near the crime scene on the night Madeleine McCann vanished. He was living in a Volkswagen van on the beach below the resort and was well-known to certain resort staff. Allegedly, Christian Brückner left the area when the search started and sold his passenger vehicle, a Jaguar, to another party who re-registered it the following day.

It seems the police theory is that Brückner was somehow assisted by a resort staff member. It’s not clear from released information if that was to help him burglarize the apartment(s) or specifically for a sexually-deviant purpose. At the heart of this is a phone record connection between Christian Brückner and the unnamed staff member that took place shortly before Maddy’s abduction.

Has Madeleine McCann’s murderer finally been caught? He may have been caught and in jail on other matters, but he hasn’t been charged or convicted of this offense yet. Although the German police publicly claim they have “irrefutable” evidence, they haven’t disclosed what it is. That, possibly, is because it’s not legally admissible evidence.

Experienced homicide investigators know that solving a murder depends on four factors:

1. There is physical evidence left at the crime scene that links the perpetrator.

2. The perpetrator took something from the scene that links them to the crime.

3. Someone saw the perpetrator at or near the scene when the crime occurred.

4. The perpetrator admits to committing the crime by confessing or otherwise.

In the Madeleine McCann case, there doesn’t appear to be any physical or forensic evidence in the apartment or anywhere in the vicinity that identifies who abducted this innocent little girl. There may have been some trace evidence like fingerprints, footwear impressions, or DNA material deposited but it’s too late for that. That investigation avenue is closed.

The perpetrator certainly did take something from the scene. That was Maddy. However, her body has never been discovered, and where she is only the killer likely knows. So far, he hasn’t said anything or her remains would have been located.

There are no known eyewitnesses to seeing Maddy being snatched. The two famous sightings are not credible evidence. In fact, neither witness ever said they could identify the man they say was carrying a little girl.

If Christian Brückner is Maddy’s murderer, will he confess? That’s anyone’s guess, and it’s certain that skilled interrogators have taken a run at him. Time might tell.

But, there’s two possibilities that might break the case open. That’s if Christian Brückner was working with an accomplice—then that person may agree to cooperate and testify as to the truth about what really happened. Or, if the “irrefutable” evidence leads them to what’s left of Maddy’s remains.

If so, maybe Madeleine McCann’s murderer has finally been caught.