Billy Bob Thornton's Daughter Charged with Murder

June 30, 2009

"[She's] not moving, not reacting to anything…she's got vomit coming out of her mouth."

Those were some of the words believed spoken by the husband of actor Billy Bob Thornton's daughter, 29-year-old Amanda Brumfield, during a 911 call made on Oct. 3, 2008, in an attempt to get medical help for an injured child.  During the approximate seven-minute call, Brumfield can be heard administering CPR to the child while her husband received medical instructions from the 911 operator.

Brumfield, an unemployed bank loan officer, was booked into Florida's Orange County jail Wednesday, June 24, 2009, on charges of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter involving the death of an infant child left in her care last October.  Brumfield is Thornton's oldest daughter by his first wife, Melissa Parish.  Sources say that Thornton and Brumfield have not spoken to each other for years.

Brumfield purportedly told investigators that the 1-year-old female child, Olivia Garcia, Brumfield's godchild, had fallen out of a playpen and injured her head.  According to Brumfield's statement, Olivia had been on top of the playpen when she startled the child by calling out her name.  The child fell 28 inches—afterward, Brumfield said in her statement, Olivia's tongue was bleeding, which Brumfield said she cleaned with a paper towel.  She said that she then played with the child, painted her toenails, fed her fruit snacks and bananas, and that Olivia had seemed happy.  She told police that she then laid Olivia onto a sofa next to her and fell asleep.

Later, she claimed that she had been awakened by a telephone call.  When she went to return Olivia to her playpen, she noticed that her body was limp when she picked her up.  Police sources indicated that the 911 call for help was made some two and a half hours after the child had purportedly fallen.  The police, however, were not buying her account of what had happened.

"It might have been an accident," a police spokesperson said.  "But she had an obligation to get that child [some] care.  For two and a half hours she did not care for that child."

The autopsy on the little girl indicated that she had suffered a fractured skull and had brain injury due to blunt trauma.  Detectives said that Brumfield's account of what happened was not consistent with the child's injuries.

Brumfield's mother, Melissa Parish, told media sources that her daughter was a close friend of the child's mother, and could not have harmed the child and should not have been arrested.

"It's a very tragic situation," Parish said.  "She loved [Olivia] so much and [her death] just crushed her, just devastated her.  She was Olivia's godmother and the mother's best friend.  It's just a horrible situation and it's being made worse…exploding even more just because of who my ex-husband is."

Billy Bob's publicist, Arnold Robinson, explained to CNN that Thornton was estranged from his daughter and has not had any contact with her for a considerable time.  Robinson provided a written statement to the media which said:  "When informed about this situation, he [Thornton] commented that, 'Any time a baby's life is lost is an unimaginable tragedy and my heart goes out to the baby's family and loved ones.'"

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Photo Credits: Associated Press 

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Mystery of the Urine-filled Pop Cans

June 26, 2009

York, Nebraska, in case you have not heard of it, is a town of approximately 8,000 people located near the intersection of Highway 81, a north-south freeway that runs from South America to Canada, and Interstate 80, an east-west freeway that crosses the nation.  The town boasts a high quality of life and low cost of living, and relatively easy access to just about anywhere.  Crime has not been a significant problem, either.  However, for at least the past two months, local business owners have been finding urine-filled pop cans lying around in parking lots at their places of business, with used catheters sticking out of the cans' openings.  Since about April 2009, these bizarre discoveries have been made not only in business parking lots but in municipal parking lots and alleys behind stores as well, and no one, yet, has a clue to the identity of the culprit(s) of what the locals are calling "catheter crimes."
 
According to a representative from one local business, the catheters, urine and cans have been found somewhat regularly, sometimes three to four times a week, and people are becoming more concerned as time goes on.  Some are particularly concerned about the possible health hazards, in part because the catheters extending out of the cans look somewhat like fancy straws and people are worried that children will find them and use them as such.

"This is disgusting and we're sick of finding them," one business representative said.  "This has to stop…we have called the police about it, but it just keeps happening and something needs to be done.  Other business people in this area have also been finding them in the alleys behind their stores and we know another business…has been finding them in their parking lot.  This is enough."

The business representative further stated that she had concerns over the grossness of the situation, and also "because this is a serious health hazard.  Kids run through this parking lot all the time and we'd hate to have them pick it up, thinking it's a pop with a straw hanging out of it.  This is disgusting."

The fact that the catheters are short, like oversized straws, and extended from the openings of pop cans instead of being attached to plastic bags, as they typically would be if they were being used in a healthcare setting, only added to the mystery.

Another businessperson said that she "cannot even begin to fathom what on earth is going on out here or why this is happening.  But it needs to end and it needs to end now….It's a big problem, and it's gross."

"Maybe it's a situation in which someone has a need for a catheter and they are disposing of it improperly," York Police Chief Don Klug said.  "Whatever reason, this needs to be used and handled appropriately."

Chief Klug said that he only knew about one occurrence in which someone had reported it to the police.  He added that if it had been reported more than one time, he was not aware of it.

For now, this bizarre string of crimes remains a mystery.  Perhaps DNA analysis, if it has not already been done, could shed more light on the identity of the perpetrator(s).

Photo Credit: Freeimages.co.uk

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Gary Michael Hilton Update

June 18, 2009

Gary Michael Hilton, who is around 62-years-old by now, is back in the criminal spotlight as a result of cops in Ormond Beach, Florida who are attempting to find a DNA link between the convicted killer and a South Daytona man, 27-year-old Michael Scot Louis, whose legs and torso were found on December 6, 2008 in black plastic bags along the banks of the Tomoka River within the boundaries of Tomoka State Park.  Police said that Louis had been decapitated, a Hilton trademark, but his head has not been found.

Hilton, readers will recall, was convicted in Georgia of killing hiker Meredith Emerson, 24, a young woman who had the bad fortune of encountering Hilton while hiking with her dog on New Year's Day 2008 on Blood Mountain in a Georgia state park.  Later that same month Hilton led Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents to the location where he had left Emerson's remains, dismembered and decapitated.  He is currently serving a life sentence in Georgia after pleading guilty to her murder.

Hilton has also been accused of killing Cheryl Dunlap, 46, a Sunday school teacher whose decapitated body was found on December 16, 2007 in Florida's Apalachicola National Forest, near Tallahassee.  He was indicted by a Leon County grand jury on charges of murder, kidnapping and two counts of grand theft in connection with her death and is awaiting trial.  According to Leon County Sheriff's Department Major Mike Wood, detectives realized that Hilton was in the area around the time that Dunlap disappeared on December 1, 2007 because he had encountered a forest service employee who checked his vehicle's license plate number with a law enforcement database-and it came up clean.

Hilton was also discussed as a potential suspect in North Carolina in the deaths of John Bryant, 80, and his wife, Irene, 84, who disappeared on October 21, 2007 while hiking in the Pisgah National Forest.  Their remains were eventually found, separately.

Now, in June 2009, Ormond Beach investigators have named Hilton as a person of interest in the Michael Scot Louis case.  According to Sergeant Jaime Gogarty, head of the Ormond Beach Police Department's Criminal Investigations Division, investigators there are hopeful that DNA evidence will link Louis to his killer.  Police officials believe that Hilton may have killed four other people, possibly more.  According to Gogarty, investigators are always on the lookout for cases where similarities exist, and as such compare notes with each other.

"We're certainly hoping it's him," Gogarty said.  "He was in the area, possibly Ocala, around the time of the crime."

In the meantime, investigators are awaiting the results of DNA testing being done in California to see if it leads to Hilton or to someone else. 

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Update on Suspected Serial Killer Gary Michael Hilton

Photo Credit: Police file photo

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