January 2007 - Posts
This (live) blog was meant to coincide with Tuesday's broadcast.
by Chris Hansen, Dateline Correspondent
7:54 p.m.
We've just come off of an eye-opening investigation in Petaluma, Calif. and are now in Long Beach, Ca. Once again we tried to set up the house so that my confrontations with the potential predators would be outside on the back patio. The weather cooperated. The sound of jets taking off and landing at two nearby airports did not.
Plan B, as you're about to see, is to set up a bar and stool inside the house. As a location, Long Beach was perfect: easy to get to and surrounded by several major metropolitan areas, but inside the house we're a bit cramped, so much so that a few guys actually spot some of our crew and try to make a run for it. CONTINUED >>
by Meade Jorgensen, Dateline producer
When I was asked to work on the “To Catch a Predator” project, I didn’t know what to expect.
I flew into Long Beach a couple of days before the shoot was supposed to start. When I got to the undercover house, I was amazed by the amount of work that still had to be done.
Mitchell Wagenberg and his team of “Street Visions” technicians were scurrying all over the place. They were wiring up fifteen hidden cameras, and just as many microphones to get ready for the first “visitor.”
As they always do, the “Street Visions” guys got it together in time. The “Perverted Justice” decoys were chatting with men on line and our live decoy actors were ready. Along with Chris Hansen and more than 20 people crammed into the house… I waited for our first visitor.
CONTINUED >>
by Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent
Some of the screen names are as frightening as the conversations the potential predators are having with the young teens they think they’re talking to online. A 29-year old unemployed computer technician is using the name "can_I_rape_you_" in a sexually charged conversation with a girl who told him she was 13. In graphic detail, he lists the sex acts he wants to perform with the girl. When she types back that it sounds like some of them could be painful the man responds "ya, but it’s a good pain ya know."
Of course the girl is really a decoy with the online watchdog group Perverted Justice which has again teamed up with Dateline for another "To Catch A Predator" investigation-- this time in Long Beach, Ca.
The potential predator, Michael Warrecker later tells the decoy: "I like rape" but, then explains that he doesn’t really want to rape the girl "just rough sex…I’d want you to resist and pretend that you don’t like it and stuff." He also tells her: "I might want to cut you a little…suck on your blood lol."
Later, when he shows up at our undercover house for his date, I confront him and he tells me he was just coming to "hang out." That excuse, however, does not explain the scary movie, video camera, and lubricant he brought with him. Warrecker has since pleaded no contest to charges of an attempted lewd act on a child. He received credit for 120 days time served in jail, has to take sex offender classes and has to register as a lifetime sex offender. Any violation and he could face four years in prison.
Warrecker is one of 38 men arrested in the Long Beach investigation, our eighth. CONTINUED >>
Click here for some preview video clips on some of the men that are going to be featured in Tuesday's 'To Catch a Predator' report.
Mike Warrecker sips a drink as he is being interviewed by Chris Hansen; Paul Clemente hides inside his T-shirt -- and mentions "Dateline" as soon as he sees Chris.
Most shocking is Michael Seibert: he had already shown up in a previous Dateline sting. He arrived at the Long Beach home not too long after a court date related to the previous arrest.
Warrecker plead "no contest" on one count of attempted lewd act on a child. Clemente and Seibert have both pled not guilty.
An all-new 'To Catch a Predator' investigation in Long Beach, California, premieres Tuesday, Jan. 30, 8 p.m.
Update: Last August, Dateline brought you a report on Dean Schwartzmiller -- a man police believe is the worst sexual predator of our time.
Despite seven arrests, four convictions (two overturned on appeal), and an outright acquittal, Schwartzmiller remained free until last May. This time investigators found something new: spiral bound notebooks with what appear to be coded entries, believed to be a ledger recording thousands of assaults.
During his trial, Schwartzmiller acted as his own attorney, telling jurors he was innocent and maligned by a society that doesn't accept men who love boys.
Today, he was sentenced to 150 years in prison.
The judge in the case says that despite his legal savvy in getting previous charges dropped, he now will spend the rest of his days filing appeals from a prison cell.
This blog entry is excerpted from Edie Magnus' entry on May 2005.
by Edie Magnus
I am always fascinated with people who bravely make an unpopular choice based on principle. Given the response she’s gotten from the world at large even before having her story appear on "Dateline, "I imagine that Liz Seccuro’s choice may prove to be an unpopular one. But she has her reasons, which she puts forth powerfully and persuasively in our forthcoming report. Liz is — by virtue of what has happened to her in her life – a crusader. And she’s one of the most effective and interesting people we’ve had the pleasure to meet. I am certain of only one thing with this story: one way or the other, you will likely have an opinion about her. She is a woman about whom almost no one can remain neutral.
As our airdate approached Liz was once again on edge. How would she “appear,” she wanted to know. How were we portraying her? Were people going to like her – or think she was nuts? Even if I could have answered her (we don’t show our pieces to subjects prior to broadcast) -- I had no answers anyway. This is one of those interesting moments when whatever you as a viewer bring to it will determine what you think of her. For an hour on prime time television we let her make her case – and she sure makes it well. Liz made a choice to seek justice for an act allegedly committed against her long ago. She could have let it go, but she didn’t. Hopefully, as you watch, you’ll consider the question we pose at the very beginning of the story: What Would You Do?
"Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" airs Dateline Saturday, January 27, 8 p.m.
Editor's note: Since the May broadcast, two weeks before his court date, William Beebe spoke out and made a public admission, saying he "crossed a line in the standards of conduct with Liz Seccuro." He added that he "regretted that conduct immediately afterwards and since." He struck a deal and pled guilty to one count of aggravated sexual battery. Under the agreement, the state recommended Beebe serve two years in prison, perhaps even less if he cooperates in a new investigation that touches on some of Liz’s unresolved fears that she addressed with Beebe in an email exchange— that he wasn't the only attacker.
While Beebe initially told her that he remembers being the only man present, it turns out that Liz’s foggy recollection may have been right after all. In court, the prosecutor said that new evidence suggests that Liz may have been sexually assaulted that night — not just by Beebe — but by others at the fraternity party.
Now she once again has to wait for justice to take its course.
by Dennis Murphy, Dateline correspondent
"Would you like fries with that?"
"Window or aisle?"
We all have questions that seem to come with our jobs. Mine often is: "Did you kill, your wife (or husband)?"
It's odd. I know it and the question echoes in my head whenever I ask it, usually in the green-walled tank of a state prison or county jail, the one-time accused, by then the convicted, denying to me, as they had in court, that they would ever think of doing such a thing--murdering their spouse.
The woman sitting across from me in a red jumpsuit on this occasion is Piper Rountree. She's a mother of three in her late 40's, easy smile, smart eyes. Piper looks for all the world like the suburban mom she once was, wondering whether she has time to gas up the SUV before picking up the girls at piano lessons.
But this is a state prison for women in Virginia and so I ask Piper my occupational question.
CONTINUED >>
by Maite Amorebieta, Dateline assistant producer
Welcome to the age of cell phone forensics.
More and more it seems cell phone evidence is being used in criminal trials. And in the Piper Rountree case, it was key.
Often, cell phone records are used in court to establish people's movements. How? Well, what most people forget, with all that these devices do these days, is that cell phones are really just two-way radios, albeit sophisticated ones.
Cell phones are constantly communicating with a network, sending pings to the nearest transmission tower, which allows your calls to be routed correctly.
CONTINUED >>
by Lee Kamlet, Dateline producer
As a child growing up in Colorado, I could only imagine what it would be like to live in New York. The Empire State Building, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty were all magical places I could only dream about. The hustle and bustle of the city, hailing a cab or riding the subway, seemed like a foreign existence. I never thought it would become part of my everyday life. But like many people, I was drawn to the city, to its energy and its possibilities. And so it was with another transplant to the city: Kendra Webdale.
In 1997, Kendra left her hometown in upstate to move to New York City. She worked at a recording studio, and loved to spend time sitting outside, just watching people. Her warmth comes through in the many pictures and home videos her family shared with us.
Kendra Webdale
Her family said Kendra would never turn away from a stranger. That proved to be true, in the most tragic of ways. On a damp, dreary day in January 1999, Kendra crossed paths with another New Yorker, a stranger named Andrew Goldstein. Kendra had made a last-minute decision to defy the rain, and take the subway to meet some friends. Andrew was going to take the same train home. Witnesses say Andrew stepped up to Kendra and asked the time. Then, just as the train pulled into the station, he stood behind Kendra, and with what one person called impeccable timing, shoved Kendra in front of the train. She died on the tracks.
The horrific story stunned not only New Yorkers, but the entire nation. What could have prompted someone to push a total stranger in front of the fast-moving train?
To find the answer, Dateline spent 10 months investigating the story. We learned that Andrew Goldstein had quite a history. CONTINUED >>
by Mary Zdanowicz, executive director of Treatment Advocacy Center, cross-posted from the TAC blog January 3, 2007
Eight years ago, Kendra Webdale, a vibrant, beautiful young woman was pushed to her death from a subway platform in New York City by a man with schizophrenia, who man had a documented history of assaults and failing to follow prescribed medication regimens.
In addition to mourning Kendra, today is a day to remember some other random victims of the violence that is sometimes a result of untreated mental illness ... and the families who have, like the Webdales, opened their hearts to try to help others.
CONTINUED >>
Everyone knows politics can be a dangerous game -- sometimes, even deadly. So when Kathy Augustine, a powerful and controversial Nevada politician died under suspicious circumstances, rumors flew about possible enemies she'd made in the halls of power.
But could it be that her killer was someone a lot closer to home? Politics may make strange, and even treacherous, bedfellows... but so do some marriages. Was that the case here?
Tonight, Dateline Correspondent Hoda Kotb reports on "Til Death Do Us Part: A Shot in the Dark?"
Click on the image to watch her video blog with senior producer Tim Uehlinger.
Airs Tuesday, Jan. 16, 8 p.m. on NBC.
CONTINUED >>
A woman who came up with a brilliant and dangerous plan. The victim was her twin sister. And to catch the killer, she pretended to be her sister —dressing like her, talking like her, taking over her very identity. It was a dangerous journey for this woman. Because soon, her life would be at risk, too. Keith Morrison writes about Dateline Saturday. This report previously aired in April 2005 and repeats Saturday, January 13, 8 p.m. Click here for the transcript.
by Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent
There is a thick line of grassy hills that forces Highway 5 to Bob and Weave at 4,000 feet on its way up to Bakersfield from Los Angeles. You are leaving Southern California, the hills tell you, physically and culturally. Then down you glide onto a flat, flat plain and often through a thick grey-brown soup those last 30 miles straight as a ruler across the bottom end of California's central valley. Bakersfield feels like heartland, solid and hardworking, in so many ways different than LA.
And so are its stories.
You couldn't dream up a story like the Seabolt twins, Theresa and Lisa, who were as different from each other as L.A. is from Bakersfield. It was like that line from the movie "Capote," said Theresa: "I walked out the front door and Lisa walked out the back."
CONTINUED >>
by Charmaine Lewis, associate producer
I learned of Joy Risker’s gruesome death at the hands of Sean Goff, her polygamous “husband” in the course of researching an unrelated murder case in the Superior Court of San Diego in April 2006. That story involved an Internet “escort”, a B- television actor, their May-December romance and his duct-taped body stuffed into a suitcase.
As the prosecutor discussed the horrible details of that suitcase murder, he asked me if I had heard of the “bigamy murder.” I had not, so he suggested that I meet with his fellow prosecutor, Mr. Matthew Greco, whose case it was.
Here I have to say that, in spite of my journalistic zeal, I had to fight the initial urge to beat a hasty retreat from San Diego. It was Friday, and almost noon. If I met with Mr. Greco, the prospect for an easy afternoon commute back to Los Angeles was out the window. As always, zeal trumped traffic, and as it turned out, it was time well spent.
Initially Mr. Greco, seemed wary about discussing the case. This was his first murder case to go to trial (he’d settled other cases out of court). He didn’t want to tell me too much for fear of jeopardizing his case. But he said enough that I filled up several legal pad pages with furiously scrawled notes. The details, as you have come to know by now were almost unreal. Who could have imagined: a pair of wives (and for a brief time a third wife), missing teeth and fingertips, and two sets of children.
CONTINUED >>
by Charmaine Lewis, associate producer
The San Diego Superior Court and the San Diego District Attorney are not strangers to television. The reality franchise of the long-running Law and Order Series on NBC, "Law & Order: Crime and Punishment" was filmed there.
The trial of Sean Goff took place in Department 56, the courtroom of Judge Robert F. O'Neill. Judge O'Neill was very open to the idea of the trial being filmed, as long as we respected the rules of the court, did not disrupt the proceedings or interfere with the defendant's right to a fair trial. Naturally, we were not allowed to film the jury.
CONTINUED >>
Here are the most-clicked Dateline stories of 2006, according to Web page views:
- Money due you: Check for unclaimed property
- Unseen danger in bagged salads
- How safe is your grocery store?
- 'To Catch a Predator' section
- Michael Schiavo’s side of the story
- A defiant Britney Spears takes on the tabloids (Matt Lauer interview)
- TMI! How teens post too much info on MySpace, social networking sites
- Photos: Ann Curry interviews Angelina Jolie in Namibia
- For the love of Laci: Sharon Rocha on love, loss and justice
- MySpace invader
And if you missed it last Saturday, here's a look back at some of the most interesting and controversial people you met on Dateline in 2006. It includes the "credit roll" -- the names of the hardworking men and women who make Dateline happen.
by Chris Hansen, Dateline Correspondent
LOWER HERRING LAKE, MICHIGAN-- I’d been to this scenic part of northern Michigan many times over the years. Not as a reporter, but for vacations when my dad and I would catch salmon and trout from Lake Michigan. As a young man, I sailed with friends every summer on the same lake. For the last 10 years or so I’ve returned with my family from the east coast every other summer so that my kids can spend time with their cousins on the beautiful beaches here. The small water front towns that make up Benzie County stay busy in the summer but are not overrun with tourists. Saloons serve fried perch and planked whitefish, two local specialties. I very much like recharging my batteries here. It’s about the last place you’d expect to be following leads in a story about addiction, betrayal and ultimately it was alleged, murder. CONTINUED >>
