48 Hours Archives - Page 18 of 22 - Renee Ellory

Renee Ohlemacher

November 25, 2008/1 Comment/in 48 Hours, murder, unsolved crime/by Eyes for Lies

CBS 48 Hours profiled the case of Gary and Bernadette Ohlemacher this past Saturday. Renee Ohlemacher’s parents, Gary and Bernadette, were murdered in August of 2005. Police initially focused on Renee, but she was eventually cleared, and now the police are eyeballing the Ohlemacher’s mortgage broker, Ron Santiago. You can watch the full show online:

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Read moreWhen I watch Renee speak, I am immediately struck by a variety of oddities in a very short period of time. It does not bode well for Renee.

The first thing I notice right off the bat is that Renee is nervous, but that could be because it is the beginning of the interview, so I don’t put too much weight on that. Right after that, however, I find it odd how she refers to her mother as “…such a cool lady”. Her choice of words are distant and removed. If she said these words with other warm comments, I would discard the comment, but she doesn’t. This is the extent of her warm feelings. It makes a strong statement.
Renee also said about her mom”She loved my dad.” Notice how she is removed from this equation? She doesn’t say anything personal or affectionate toward her mom, or how her mom was affectionate towards her. This is a glimpse how Renee really feels about her parents.
Renee then says “My parents were probably the greatest parents ever.”
This struck me immediately. An alarm bell blared in my head. The word “probably” here is what I coined a “hedge word”. When people say things that they don’t mean, yet try to sound convincing, it is not uncommon for them to slip up — perhaps even subconsciously–and add a hedge word.

Are Renee’s parents kind of, sort of the best parents ever? She either believes it, or she doesn’t. It’s a half-baked statement, if you want my opinion.
“So many things stay in my mind from that morning,” says Renee.
Watch when she says this–watch her expression. She doesn’t shed a tear, or look sad as she supposedly thinks back to that horrible day. What does she do? She does what I would call a snicker. She starts to laugh, but then suppresses it. It’s not a microexpression or anything fleeting–it’s very obvious, and flat out haunting.

Think about a horrible time in your life. Now tell the story and snicker, geuninely. Can you do it? If you really felt horrible, scared, violated, or a victim in a vulnerable situation, I can be confident the one thing you would not do is snicker or laugh. When we remember painful memories, we remember the painful emotions, too. Emotions actually drive many of our memories.
Renee says “My mom was getting ready for work. I heard my mom scream. Dad yelled ‘What are you doing?'”
Several things are interesting about this. First, it suggest that Renee was actually awake before the gunshots went off, and she was awake enough to be listening to her parents — to know her mom was getting ready for work.

Isn’t that in contradiction to her saying that she woke-up to her mom’s screams? 48 Hours reports “Renee, 20 years old back in 2005, says she was sleeping when she was awakened by her mother’s screams.”

If you get startled in your sleep from a scream, are you going realize miraculously that your mom was already up and getting ready for work? Why doesn’t she talk about being disoriented and frightened after waking up to haunting screams?
Second, I find Greg Ohlemacher’s question “What are you doing?” odd. If the Ohlemacher’s were murdered by a stranger, would they respond like this? What if they knew the person but the person entered the house uninvited, do you think Greg Ohlemacher would respond with a simple “What are you doing?” If that person shot his wife, do you think he would say “What are you doing?”? What Renee is saying here doesn’t make sense to me.
Also notice how Renee doesn’t recollect her dad saying “What are you doing?” in a panicked tone? You would think she would have felt his dire state in his voice and reflected those emotions in her recollection. It’s strangely missing.
“Gunshots just went off,” says Renee. Notice the words “just”? Watch her expression again. When she says “gunshots”, there is a brief smile, or happy emotion that fleets across her face.
How come she is getting these emotions? It appears like classic duper’s delight to me. It makes absolutely no sense no matter how you slice it unless you plug this into the equation. Renee’s emotions are very inconsistent with the message she is trying to give us. Her words are not matching her emotions at all. There are gaping contradictions.
Renee says “It was just one thing after another happened and then, before you know it, there’s silence. My dog went silent. Everything went silent.”
Just one thing after another? Is there more than Renee is sharing with us? What else did she hear? What were these “things”?

I am also perplexed by the words ‘before you know it.” Usually people bearing witness to a horrific nightmare don’t say ‘before you know it’. Time usually stands still or moves painfully slow. Is Renee telling us time went really quickly for her during this nightmare? What does that tell us?
Renee talks about what she was going to do now that she heard the gun shots. She says “Grab my cell phone, went to my closest.” She also doesn’t use pronouns which can be a hot spot to deception. Also notice how she says “grab” instead of “grabbed”? People usually remember things in past tense. They don’t talk in present tense (grab) and past tense (went) when recollecting a memory. They stay in past tense consistently.
People who are deceptive, however, who didn’t actually do what they say often confuse the two. This is notable and unusual.

This is 8 notable points in 1:34 seconds into the show
I find Renee’s word choices on the 911 call interesting too. First she says totally emotionless, “I just dialed 911.” “Please God…cannot be happening.”
She ‘just” called 911? Notice, too, the lack of pronoun usage again? It’s another red flag to add to the pile.
The fact that Renee did not call 911 immediately is also a red flag for me. If you think there is an intruder, a robber, a burglar, or a stranger in your house killing your parents, wouldn’t you fear for your own life? How come Renee did not have fear the killer or killers might come get her?
If you thought someone was in the house to kill your family, would you really risk pushing seven digits instead of three digits to get help — if you feared for your safety? Dialing any phone in a silent house can be loud and noticable. It could easily lure a killer or killers into your room or a closet–especially if they are looking for you. How come Renee was so sure the killer or killers were gone and not looking for her or downstairs robbing the house?
Notice she didn’t whisper on the 911 call, or keep her voice super low out of fear? Why not? Renee appears to have felt totally secure to sit in her closet and dial other people and talk without a whisper — even when she did finally call 911. It speaks volumes.
Why did Renee call her mom’s co-worker before she called 911? Were they in cohoots or something? It definitely raises my eyebrows. Renee’s mom had talked to Mike Allen 23 times in the month leading up to her death, as well as the night before. Why was Renee calling him? Mike Allen according to 48 Hours also showed up at the crime scene “very quickly”. It’s interesting to say the least.
Renee continues “My dad was just lying on the floor. My mom was in her bath towel.”
Is Renee recollecting this as a memory? Her behavior seems to support this. It’s part of her story of that morning yet a few minutes later she tells us the police escorted her out of the house, she asked if her parents were okay, and then she found out about her parents being deceased. See #18. Does that make any sense? Did Renee see them dead before she was told they were dead? Has she admitted to this?

Notice here that she acts like she is crying, but there are no tears?
“I felt like that morning was the end of my life.” Notice the smirk again?
That’s all in the first 1:58 seconds into 48 Hours.
The fact that Renee’s entire family stands as one in suspicion of Renee I think also speaks volumes. Their recollection her behavior is indeed perplexing. For Renee to be waving hi to friends and to be texting during the service clearly shows a woman without boundaries. And for her to be out BMW shopping shows she wasn’t too upset about her mother’s death, or worried about coping without them.
Erin Moriarty asks, “Why not 911?” and Renee says, “Yeah…ah…because I thought that you could get through faster or something, for some reason. I didn’t know what to do. I was in a world of shock.”
Does this make any sense? It’s total nonsense.

Clearly, by Renee’s behavior here, we can see this question took her by surprise. She didn’t seem prepared to answer Moriarty’s question which is a red flag. She seems to be thinking as she speaks. When people are honest, they don’t have to be prepared. They don’t have to think. They just speak from the heart.
Erin Moriarty asks “When did you realize your parents were dead?” Renee says “Well they escorted me out of the house and they went upstairs. I asked one of the cops, are they okay? Are they fine?”
Did they escort her out of the closet? If so, this brings up two points. Why does Renee have this memory of her parents gunned down in number 14 above if she was escorted out of the closet by the cops? If she saw a picture later or went into the house later, why isn’t that part of her memory and story she is telling us? Why isn’t it in chronological order? People when they recollect things usually tell them in logical order.

Second, this is proof that Renee had total disregard for her parents life. If she didn’t know they were dead or injured at this point, how could she not summons help on the spot and express urgency on the 911 call? Hearing gunshots doesn’t mean her parents had died yet – even if they were hit with bullets. It’s like she gave up–which normal people don’t do. Normal people hang on to every shred of hope — even against all odds that maybe, if they get help, the people will survive–regardless of what happened. But Renee seems to have held no hope.

Had Renee told us she found her parents dead bodies, and needed time to cope, perhaps it would make more sense, but I don’t believe this is the story. Correct me if I am wrong.
I also find it inconsistent how Renee says that she was shocked about Ron Santiago being named a suspect. 48 Hours writes “It does sound a little far fetched, even to Renee. ” She made some comments supporting disbelief as well.
Yet at the end of the show she changes her tune and says “”What bugs me is that he’s still living a normal life. He’s got a family. I don’t get to have laughs with my mom, I don’t have a home. I don’t have somebody to go back to.” Why does Renee now believe he is guilty? What suddenly changed her mind? It’s rather inconsistent and perplexing.

Also notice when she says the last sentence she acts like she is crying again, but there are no tears.

I’m going to stop here. Do I think Renee killed her parents? I cannot say. Could she have let someone else in the house that morning, perhaps telling her parents that she was going to do something with someone else, and that person pulled the trigger? It’s entirely plausible, but if you want my opinion, Renee knows a lot more than she is telling us. I don’t trust a word out her mouth.

48 Hours: The Mortgage and The Murder

November 23, 2008/in 48 Hours, murder, unsolved crime/by Eyes for Lies

Did you see 48 Hours last night? If not, you can watch the full show here.

Check back for my analysis. I will sharing with you what I see in the next few days. Feel free to share what you see below.

48 Hours: Karen Tipton Case

November 13, 2008/in 48 Hours, murder/by Eyes for Lies

This weekend on Saturday night is a must see TV show: Truth on Trial by 48 Hours.

(CBS) In March 1999, Karen Tipton, a mother of two and the wife of psychiatrist Dr. David Tipton, was found stabbed 28 times in her Decatur, Ala. home. And for the last nine years Daniel Wade Moore, who was convicted of the crime, has been at the center of an unprecedented legal battle, one that has his life hanging in the balance.

…Karen Tipton’s tragic murder has left many victims in its wake – two children forced to grow up without their mother, a husband who mourns his wife, a mother who stands by her son in his fight for freedom and Daniel Wade Moore who may be a casualty of the justice system.

I wrote about this case on my blog nearly three years ago to the day, and what I saw gave me great pause. I have written several posts about this case, taken polls and even heard from Juror #2 in the trail of Daniel Wade Moore (for Karen Tipton’s murder). Click on a label below to read all my posts on the topic.

Dr. Timothy Stryker

October 30, 2008/3 Comments/in 48 Hours, homicide/by Eyes for Lies

This weekend 48 Hours profiled the story of Dr. Linda Goudey, and Dr. Timothy Stryker. The two doctors dated in the early ’90s, but in October of 1993, Goudey ended up dead in the hospital parking lot found in wrapped in a blanket, face down in the backseat of her car. The cause of death: manual strangulation.

Read moreCriminally, no one to date has been held accountable for Goudey’s homicide, but that didn’t stop Goudey’s family from going after Stryker in a wrongful death civil lawsuit. They believed Styker was responsible for their daughter’s death. In June of 2006, a jury found Stryker responsible for Goudey’s death civilly, and awarded her family 15.1 million dollars.

I think most people will see through Dr. Timothy Stryker’s facade simply because Stryker attempted to clear his involvement by getting a man by the name of Craig Pizzano to come forward to share “new” information in the case — more than a decade after the crime.

On the night Goudey disappeared, Pizzano says he saw Goudey and another man in her Saab in the hosptial parking lot, and that other man looked nothing like Stryker. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to dissect the insanity of the story Stryker and Pizzano told, and the police thankfully uncovered the lie.

First, if Pizzano was genuine, why would he ever call Styker? Why would he bother looking up a man he doesn’t know to tell him he saw Dr. Goudey with another man? Wouldn’t most people just call the police directly? It’s much easier, quicker and safe to do.

Second, the timing of Pizzano’s claim is ridiculous. After more than a decade, this man decides to come forward, a man who was just a passerby? Oops, he remembers something now, all of the sudden, something totally irrelevant to his life a decade later? It’s ridiculous.

Pizzano in another amazing feat also recalled how tall the guy was and even what his approximate weight was even though this unknown guy was sitting in a car at night in the dark. Isn’t that just over-the-top? And Pizzano says he looked nothing like Stryker to boot. How convenient.

Also, how many people would think the car sitting next to you in the middle of the night with occupants would likely have a condom, motivating you to get out in the dark and knock on a stranger’s car window to ask for one? Anyone? It’s laughingly hilarious, and an obvious lie just by looking the story alone.

But even knowing that, I think Styker gives us many classic clues that do not support honesty.

Styker’s speech is very notable to me. He talks in a higher pitch (or tone?) than normal. It’s slight but instantly notable. I call it the “nice guy facade”. He talks more gentle, more soft and airy, more sweet and innocent than what I suspect his natural voice is. And sure enough, 48 Hours shows clips of Stryker talking to a patient and/or a nurse, and you can hear the difference immediately. The rate of his speech also changes when he is talking to people at the hospital. Why does he feel he has to put on an act on 48 Hours, if he is innocent?
When Stryker spoke in this abnormal way, I also kept getting flashes of Hans Reiser in my head. Reiser used the same approach with his voice. These highly intelligent men seemed to be arrogant enough to think they can fool us by falsifying a sweet, gentle demeanor. It then hit me that both Reiser and Stryker were very successful men who courted very successful women –women who were both well regarded OB-GYNs. You can’t help but notice the irony of it. Were both men feeling out-of-control that they couldn’t keep these highly-driven women in their lives?
Stryker lacks genuine emotion much like Reiser did, too. They show us fake smiles, but nothing genuine in sadness, anger or joy. It’s strangely missing.
You have to plug into this equation that Stryker is a practicing doctor who has been considered a suspect to a murder for 15 years. He also has a judgment against him for 15 million dollars. For any innocent person, this would cause incredible anger and feelings of injustice if they are innocent, yet we see none of this with Stryker. It’s very notable. Instead we see Mr. Nice Guy. I’m not buying it.
Also, we don’t see any genuine feelings of sadness or concern for what happened to Dr. Goudey. Instead, he tells us how he called her a “pea brain”. Yes, Mr. Sweet and Innocent, the gentleman, called her a pea brain. Do you see the inconsistency? It further supports that Goudey’s friend, Lisa Zolot, who called Stryker controlling, rigid, and self-centered was honest, and Stryker is not. This further supports the facade theory.
When Stykers current wife of 14 years, Micael, spoke in his defense and said he he was not abusive or violent, I did not believe her. She was in denial, if you ask me. She also gives a notable shrug of doubt with her lips just after she finishes her claim of Stryker’s character. Try to say something you fervently believe and make a doubt expression (curl your lip down and out). It’s very hard if not impossible to do.
Notice in court, too, that she cries really hard when the judgment comes down civilly. If your husband was innocent, would you sob in sadness, or be outraged and angry?
I also found Stryker’s sister Jean’s story unusual as well when she said her mother told Stryker to go on vacation because he was being harrassed. Stryker missed Goudey memorial service. What mother would advise her son to do that? What man who loved his girlfriend would do that? I’ve italicized the words that are flags for me in what Jean said below.
“He did mainly because my mother told him to. Yeah, my mother told him to go on vacation because he was talking with her, you know, about all of the harassment he was getting. She’s like, ‘Tim, you need to just go on this vacation.’ ‘Cause I thought it was not such a great idea.”

I always find it interesting when people answer their own question like Jean did here, “Yeah, my mother told him to go…” Was she trying to convince herself, or us?

I suspect Jean didn’t think it was a great idea, but I don’t believe it had anything to do with Stryker’s mother.

Unfortunately, 48 Hours wouldn’t let me rewind segments, and note the online segment time markers so I could give them to you. That is a total bummer. I hope they change that in the future.

Review of Suicide Note in Kari Baker Case

May 26, 2008/in 48 Hours/by Eyes for Lies

When I read Kari’s suicide note (shown in the post below) for the very first time, I was immediately struck by how short the note was, the lack of an explanation as to why she was committing suicide, the lack of feelings that would normally be expressed by a woman, and the statement “I just want to sleep for a while”.

The statement “I just want to sleep for a while” is a statement that you might hear if someone is in denial, or can’t face the consequences of what they are considering doing. It is something someone might say to another if they are contemplating suicide, but can’t face it, or say it.

If one is in denial about committing suicide, and acts on an impulse to kill themselves (like jump over a bridge), you won’t find a suicide note left behind because in their denial they wouldn’t be able to sit down, and write their good-byes.

Read moreBut if one leaves a note, we can be sure the person was well thought out in their decision to leave us, and had accepted the outcome, and there was no denial. With that, I would expect direct verbiage in a suicide note that the person is finished, doesn’t want to go on, doesn’t want to live anymore in some form or fashion. I would not expect a person to write a denial statement like we see in Kari’s note. One who commits suicide doesn’t go to “sleep for a while“. To me, these words suggest a big contradiction in behavior that is not logical given the circumstances.

Furthermore, if Kari wrote a suicide note, which would indicate she wasn’t in denial, other people besides Matt should have seen signs of her being despondent. But oddly, this is absent as well. By all other people’s accounts, Kari was happy and optimistic on the day she supposedly committed suicide. The pieces of this puzzle aren’t matching up.

Now imagine if someone were to do the unthinkable and kill someone, and wants to cover it up with a fake suicide note, then the statement about going to sleep for a while would make sense. They wouldn’t want to write the word suicide or death, and they would be in denial about what they were actually doing (murder), so they would likely write something to sanitize the situation.

I also found the statement “I love you Matt–I am sorry for the past few weeks” an odd statement, and a red flag as well. Someone truly suffering, and wanting to die would likely explain why they are sorry–if they chose to say I’m sorry. They wouldn’t give a generic apology like this. They would want to get it off their chest, and explain why they are sorry, or why they acted the way they did.

Furthermore, women as a whole are usually robust when it comes to expressing their feelings, written or verbal. Men, on the other hand, are not usually not. Men, on average, say things quickly and to the point. Women usually elaborate, think, clarify, restate, mull over their thoughts, and with that, I would expect to see some of that in a suicide note. I would speculate that when a woman decides to commit suicide and write a note, she typically writes a long(er) note that may ramble about her pain–whatever that pain is.

Clearly, here if you had to guess which sex wrote this, you would guess a man by the lack of emotional expression, and the lack of words.

I decided to see what research says about suicide notes because I am not an expert in them by any means. While I understand people, I don’t know much about suicide notes so I looked and found this:

Police investigation records of all suicide cases in 1992 (n = 769) and the suicide notes that had been left (224 notes for 154 subjects) were examined. Note-leavers were characterized as young females, of non-widowed marital status, with no history of previous suicide attempts, no previous psychiatric illness, and with religious beliefs. Suicide notes written by young people were longer, rich in emotions, and often begging for forgiveness. Suicide notes written by the elderly were shorter, contained specific instructions, and were less emotional. A significant proportion of note-leavers did mention their difficulties. Suicide notes may serve some explanatory purpose and may have a therapeutic role in helping the surviving relatives to understand the suicide. A knowledge of the messages contained within suicide notes could be useful for suicide prevention programmes. The significance of suicide notes is best understood within the context of the occurrence of suicides.

Clearly, when I read this and I saw the word guilt, I couldn’t agree more. That makes sense! Guilt would be expressed, and there is absolutely no guilt expressed in the letter that is typed by “Kari”. You would think Kari would have had a lot of guilt for not saying good-bye to her parents, and to her daughters, especially her daughters.

If Kari felt she had to be with Kassidy, wouldn’t she have to make it “right” with her two daughters who are still alive and left behind? Wouldn’t she have said more to them than what is seen in these letters?

It defies logic to think a mother would abandon two healthy children who need her to be with another daughter in heaven, and I think we all agree any mother who felt compelled to do so would leave a long goodbye explaining why to help her daughters’ cope. Yet there is nothing for Kari’s daughters in this note.

The fact that there is no guilt whatsoever in this note is a red flag. But if someone were to fake a suicide note, guilt is one emotion they would never think to feel, is it?

Also, there were pens found on the nightstand. This is weird. If Kari were to have had a pen at her bedside, why wouldn’t she have signed the note? It makes absolutely no sense. But if someone else wrote the note, they might grab a pen to sign it and then realize last minute, they can’t actually do it. That would make sense, wouldn’t it?

When we add up the pieces to this puzzle, it clearly is painting one and only one picture that Kari didn’t write this note, and that someone else did.