Dateline: Who Killed Nancy Pfister?

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What a tale a life can weave. Nancy Pfister was a privileged woman, and lead a life of no apology. She was who she was, she felt worthy and had no problem putting people where she believed they belong whether they truly belonged there or not.  It did not seem to matter to to Nancy at all. She was going to tell you her feelings–like it or lump it. She was known to boss people around as if she were a higher being. And so it is ironic that she ended up being silence in murder.  Someone gave her an ultimate opinion that she would be no longer.  You have to be careful how you treat people as any wise person will tell you.

So who killed Nancy Pfister? If you watched Dateline this past weekend, the story goes in circles from blaming the renters of Nancy’s place, the Stylers, to pointing the finger at and retracting the finger to Nancy’s friend, Kathy Carpenter.

In the end, the doctor, William Styler, who rented Nancy’s place with his wife Nancy, confessed to the murder. But I will tell you that his confession was a complete lie. There was nothing believable in it. His story was actually laughable.  Could William Styler kill Nancy?  I believe yes, it is plausible (anyone can kill someone laying in bed with a hammer), but I don’t believe he did it.  William Styler really showed his true colors by playing the “poor aging man” game, though, going from walking to suddenly needing a wheelchair.

When I listened to and watched Kathy Carpenter, she made it clear, too, on multiple occasions, that she knew way more than she was telling us. She slips up several times saying things an uninvolved person would not say. Keith Morrison does a great job at asking Kathy why she wants “forgiveness” from Nancy’s Pfister’s daugher. Hello! The fact that Kathy “saw” things at the crime scene that aren’t logical, and that she just had to open that closet makes no logical sense. Who would assume when someone isn’t in their room that they are locked in a closet?  So Kathy was there, and did see Nancy covered in blood without question. She knew where the injuries were.

As for Nancy Styler, I don’t believe her either.  She is a cold woman to say the least.

William Styler shows some compassion or desire to do good by his wife, by confessing to the crime, and bargaining to set her free. And Kathy on her own doesn’t hit me as the type to commit murder outright. She wants “forgiveness”. Both the actions of Kathy and William so some level of compassion.  Kathy is also the type who is highly influenced by other people, and weak in character.

The one who hits me most capable in all of this is Nancy Styler.

I have to wonder if Nancy Styler and Nancy Pfister got into it. These two were two very head-strong women who wouldn’t easily compromise or come to a peaceful resolution, and both where likely to hold grudges and get viciously angry. I wonder if an argument ensued, and perhaps Kathy showed up, was called, or came by, and things went wrong.  Maybe Nancy Pfister stormed off and went to bed with ear-plugs in place, and got something she never saw coming…

I believe all three people Nancy, Kathy and William know exactly what happened and I suspect the mastermind was Nancy.

Stairway to Heaven (Oahu)

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Last year, I went to Hawaii for business and I unexpectedly fell in love. Having traveled to the South Pacific before (Fiji, the Cook Islands and Australia), I incorrectly assumed the congested state of Hawaii would be a turn-off for me. When I landed in Honolulu over 20 years ago at 6 a.m., the traffic was so congested, it was at a crawl for miles up the mountains that I made a mental note–skip Hawaii. I figured it would be too built up for my tastes, too touristy, and wouldn’t hold a candle to the Cook Islands. But when I got an opportunity to go on business, I had to explore it.

My trip to Hawaii truly topped all of the places I have been including the South Pacific and the Great Barrier Reef. I was blown away. It was the like South Pacific on steroids. I kid you not!

Hawaii is truly magical and stole my heart on every level possible, and I have a strong need to get back there again–more permanently. I don’t know that I will be able to make it happen, but the dream lives on.

While driving back and forth to do training on the island of Oahu, I happen to spot these stairs going up the most incredible steep incline on the jagged mountains as I drove on the highway. I wondered what on earth is it for, and who would in their right mind climb it?

The stairs are known as the Haiku Stairs or “The Stairway to Heaven”. It turns out the stairs are illegal to hike right now and there is a guard posted to prevent people from climbing them. You can read more about it here.

I accidentally ran into this video the other day, and I was captivated by this video on many levels.  The video truly captures the stunning beauty of Oahu.  And I was truly amazed by the climber in the video.

I was most amazed by what is missing when I look at the climber as he climbs over 3,000 stairs straight up.

Do you know what it is?

(Recommendation: If you have a big computer screen, you must play this video on it. A tablet or phone won’t do this video justice)

Introverts and Extroverts

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While this column focuses a lot on deception and spotting lies, I am also endlessly interested in human behavior. I do not believe you can be good at spotting liars if you only focus on lies. And so many people make that mistake. If you want to be good at spotting lies–very good–you need to understand the truth, too. And the only way to understand the truth is to understand people at a detailed level. With that, it means understanding all different types of people.

One type of personality that comes to mind is introverts.

Introverts are a very misunderstood segment of our population. We typically think of them as socially-awkward, isolated, shy, loners, and that’s quite an inaccurate perception. Out of all the introverts I see, that description of “shy” aspect actually fits with a very small minority of them. Most introverts are actually smart, engaging and interesting people.

Read this article which details introverts in a way that may change your thinking.

From my experience, introverts are “introverted” because they often see more than the extroverts, and are more easily overwhelmed with the information they process. When you see two people interacting, an introvert will see the pain in the interaction that an extrovert often misses. Dealing with that information can be challenging and often causes information overload. Yet on the positive to extroverts, they seem to push through situations and achieving things when introverts are stifled by emotional overload.  So there are pluses and minuses to both sides!

I feel I can relate to both introverts and extroverts. Neither description fits me, so I feel I am more of an ambivert (a blend of both).  With that, I relate to both sides, though I tend slightly more towards introversion.  Yet I love speaking in front of a large audience (yes, I can say that now after doing it for several years)!  I get exhilarated by the energy of other people in positive situations.

So, which are you?  Take a test here to see. It’s 81 questions — so plan to give it some time. I ironically scored 55 out of 100 — right smack in the middle, as predicted!

By the way, to my loyal reader base, I can tell by watching you for years now that I have many more introverts than extroverts who follow me.  Who knew?

 

Europol: First Online Murder to Happen in 2014

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I saw the strangest story on MSN the other day, “First online murder to occur by end of 2014, Europol warns“.

I was perplexed. I scratched my head as I wondered what in the world are they talking about. Go ahead, and read the article. It’s rather chilling!  It’s like the stuff of science-fiction becoming reality!

If this surprises you, I have to ask have you heard of Stuxnet? It was a computer worm that was used to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear plants. NOVA had a special on it, “The Rise of the Hackers“, that was absolutely spellbinding. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.

Mario Casciaro Innocent?

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ABC featured the story of Brian Carrick, a grocery store clerk who went missing in the small town of Johnsburg, Illinois. The story takes a bunch of twists and turns, and eventually 12 years after Brian’s disappearance, the grocery store owner’s son, Mario Casciaro, gets charged with the murder and locked up for 26 years.

I will go through the list of characters to share with you who I believe and who I don’t.

I don’t believe what Shane Lamb told the truth to prosecutors the first time about Mario’s involvement. I believe Shane truly has remorse for telling that story.

With regards to Mario Casciaro, I don’t believe him when he says he was just selling his friends some of “his stash” and that it wasn’t a criminal enterprise. I do believe Mario was probably a small operation, but it seems clear from the testimony that he and Brian were selling pot, and that it was criminal. There is no evidence that Mario was involved in the murder, but the stakes in this case for Mario are no longer high.

What does it mean when the stakes are no longer high? With Mario, he is paying the ultimate price for whatever happened. If he was involved, let’s say, there is nothing to lose now by lying. Instead, he would have everything to gain. With that, there is no pressure on him if he does lie, which would cause the clues to leak. With that, I am extremely careful to say that I cannot judge a man behind bars for lying without testimony or video of him talking about it before he was locked up. This is critical because I have seen very guilty people speak from behind bars and sound innocent, because the pressure that caused clues to leak was gone!

However, there does not seem to be any evidence leading to Mario in this murder, and the evidence we do have, as Kathleen Zellner has pointed out, leads to Rob Render. Kathleen Zellner is an amazing attorney and I have full faith in her to get to the truth.

As for Rob Render, his interview was definitely odd and I did not believe him. He seemed to say anything in hopes of getting the police to leave him alone. He was extremely nervous, too, and I wonder if that came and went during the interview process, or was constant. That would reveal more information.

What I don’t understand from the show, however, is about the blood evidence. How could there be a lot of blood from a violent attack and no one see it that night when they closed up the store? Or early the next morning? Jerry Casciaro, Mario’s father, saw some reddish water and says he thought it was Hawaiian punch. Did the Casciaro’s call the police immediately? If not, why? I’m curious about this. We never heard.

I honestly need more information on this case to fully understand what happened, but I don’t believe Shane told the truth when Mario was convicted. And I’d like to see more of Mario, if there is any depositions or whatnot of him, prior to or during trial, to get to the truth in this matter. I am curious if the Casciaro’s knew that something went down, and wanted it to go away because it might be bad for business.