This Week

This week

The Donald strongly encourages Russia to Hack Hillary Clinton

The Donald strongly encourages Russia to Hack Hillary Clinton

Trump implies that he is open to a new hack as long as it benefits his campaign

While watching the news conference I was so shocked by what I heard that I almost dropped my cup of coffee and what’s worse is that I didn’t care. If you know me, you know my relationship with coffee and the not caring over spilled coffee….

For the first time in history a presidential candidate is actively encouraging a foreign power to commit espionage...the first time in history.   

Don’t get me wrong, I rather enjoy the antics of the Donald. He is a much needed refreshing break from, well anyone in office currently, I can’t however be excited about his remarks today during his news conference in Florida today.

Donald is well known for saying things that might be a wee bit inappropriate but today was a little over that wee bit part.

During his news conference Donald stated “Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press…”

He went on to insinuate that he feels they most likely already have the 30,000 missing emails and that he’d like to see them.

Some are now accusing him of being disloyal to America over his remarks. I don’t feel that he is disloyal, I do feel that he lacks the full understanding of what his statements mean, could potentially cause and how it will affect all of America should anyone try to take him up on his suggestion.

More importantly perhaps, while most don’t trust Hillary, is this the guy you want running our nation? Someone pisses him off and he encourages a foreign nation to take some type of action against that individual then later says that he really didn’t mean what he said?

Wars have been started over much less, in this day and age as violent as our world can be, is it really a time to mince words?

This comes on the heels of the recent hack on the Democratic National Committee, a hack that most believe Russia is behind in an attempt to influence the outcome of our upcoming presidential election.

Steven Cheung, the Donald’s rapid response director suggested that the Donald simply meant that if Russia or anyone had those 30,000 missing emails that they turn them over to the FBI.

Trump also later tweeted “if Russia or any other country or person has Hillary Clinton's 33,000 illegally deleted emails, perhaps they should share them with the FBI!"

As for the FBI, I can’t imagine what James Comey and his team thought upon initially hearing the words that came out of the Donald’s mouth, it had to have come as a little bit of a shock initially.

The reality is that Hillary has a long list of haters people that would love to see the woman fall off of a cliff and disappear, out of those haters, do gooders, or great hackers someone although it was not the Donald’s intention, might try to hack Hillary or the FBI, DOJ etc.

And if someone does in fact have her emails already as the Donald suggests, I doubt they would turn them over at this point in time. If let’s say Russian hackers do in fact have them, it would serve no purpose to turn them over at the moment.

The bigger question is, did the Donald break any laws through his very publicized initial request? Did he commit treason as some are now suggesting?

Perhaps not, but what if it turns out that his words do in fact inspire someone? Through his very suggestion, he did put our nation's security at risk. No American citizen not one who were to make comments like the Donald did today would be out walking around tonight without first having a little sit down with law enforcement.

In May of 2015, Newsweek published an article about Russia’s greatest weapon being it’s hackers. Are we ready to face that reality as a nation? I personally do not believe that we are yet, I also don’t believe that we or our presidential candidates should try to incite Russia or it’s hackers to hack a fellow candidate because through that we open the door to so much more.

Cristal M Clark

@thecrimeshop

IOS users can find The Crime Shop on Apple News

Russia behind Democratic party email leak

Russia behind Democratic party email leak

Vladimir Putin ordered it....or did he? Does it matter?

At least that is what they are theorizing today. The leak was known about at least a month ago but no one seemed too worried about it.

The hack and subsequent release of emails is being investigated by the FBI and I am sure other agencies,  were released by activist group WikiLeaks over the weekend. They appeared to show favoritism within the DNC for none other than Hillary Clinton over U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who ran a neck and neck race for the nomination for the Nov. 8 election.

The committee by the way is supposed to be neutral so the release of the emails forced chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a congresswoman from Florida, to resign.

If you find that upsetting take this into account: it is widely believed that Russia hacked emails from both the Democratic and Republican campaigns back in 2008 and didn’t do anything with the intel they obtained then.

According to an official who is involved with the investigation: “the classified information collected on the hack so far indicated beyond a reasonable doubt that it originated in Russia."

So going back to the hacks in 08, I am fairly certain that our US officials figured Russia wouldn’t do anything with the intel they had hacked this time. Besides, did anyone see the documentary Stuxnet?

If you did, remember that so called woman in the documentary who claimed to have worked for US intelligence and how she described what folks at the NSA dressed like? Wearing a cape to work, building with Lego's, playing with toys etc? I mean was this at a daycare or the actual NSA?

The reason I bring it up is because does anyone think any nation who outpaces us in the cyber world employs, had or has individuals who show up dressed like a fucking 5 year old in cape heading to daycare?

Officials now believe that the information obtained was released so as to influence this year’s election. It is unclear if Vladimir Putin directed the attack, regardless it is a very progressive move and serves as a valuable lesson here.

That lesson being, Russia is yet another country who outpaces the US in cyberspace. Second, ever hear that saying “Fool me once, shame on you, Fool me twice shame on me?”

How could Russia have hacked us twice during two different election years?

Representative Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives intelligence committee was quoted as saying “That foreign actors may be trying to influence our election let alone a powerful adversary like Russia,  should concern all Americans of any party."

My question to Adam would be, why?

The hackers gave the American public what it has been asking our elected leaders for so that we can actually make an educated decision about who we elect to lead our nation, serve in congress etc.

The committee as it turns out is not so neutral so, not so honest so that begs the question, can they be trusted to lead our nation? It’s a matter of the truth being known, I tend to feel that the hackers did the right thing by the American public, the American voter by giving us what we asked our own leaders to give us. Honesty.

The hackers, whoever they are basically did the same thing the Democrats did, they tried to influence the outcome of the election. 

Hence it is my belief the hackers have a much better understanding of the American public than our own leaders do. Honesty goes a long way even if someone was caught doing the wrong thing. Why continue to lie or hide it from the nation?

Cristal M Clark

@thecrimeshop

IOS users can find The Crime Shop on Apple News

French filmmaker found murdered in Ireland

French filmmaker found murdered in Ireland

Sophie Toscan du Plantier, murdered on the night of  December 23, 1996  near Toormore, Schull, County Cork, Ireland, beaten to death outside of her holiday home.

Sophie was a French film producer and the wife of fellow film producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier.

The number one and prime suspect in the case was and has always been one Ian Bailey, arrested twice for her murder but has yet to be convicted of actually murdering Sophie. Her case brought about a highly sought after extradition by the French police to extradite and question Mr. Ian Bailey.

A French magistrate issued a European Arrest Warrant for Ian in February of 2010, which of course Ian filed an appeal to. In March of 2012 an Irish court upheld the appeal stating the French actually had no intention of actually charging Ian. The Irish court also felt that the European Arrest Warrant prohibited surrendering Ian to France because the alleged offence occurred outside French territory.

Ian later filed civil actions against the Irish police which he subsequently lost.

Regardless of so much media attention being paid to Ian as the prime suspect, he alas was not the only suspect in the murder of Sophie Toscan du Plantier.

On 1/11/97 Marie Farrell, who with her husband owns a craft and ice cream shop west of Cork Village telephoned the Brandon Garda Station using a public phone box in Cork city to tell them that she saw a man by Kealfadda Bridge around 3am the night Sophie was murdered.

The intriguing thing about the call was that Marie did not use her real name. When she made the call she used the alias Fiona.

On 1/20/97 Chief Noel Smith of the West Cork Division issued a public appeal on Crimeline asking “Fiona” to contact them regarding her telephone call.

In return for that public appeal, Marie Farrell called the Brandon Garda Station again on 1/21/97, still using the alias “Fiona,” using a public phone box located in Leap which is west of Cork.

Then on 1/24/97, Marie Farrell made yet a third phone call still using the alias “Fiona” to tell gardia that she will not call into the Brandon Garda station to meet with investigators like they had requested.

But her mistake this time? She failed to make the call from a public phone box. She made it from her home which police traced in kind.

By all accounts Marie Farrell seems to be one of those individuals that relishes in gaining attention, she likes it, thrives on it and somehow manages to interject herself into situations having nothing to do with her all for the sole purpose of being sought after in some way.

She later accused a  Garda Sergeant Maurice Walsh exposed himself to her in the ladies toilets of Schull golf club while asking wasn’t fitting up Mr Bailey a turn on was made for the purpose of discrediting Sergeant Walsh.

She exhibits some mental instabilities, disturbing yes but, not entirely illegal, yet just enough to mislead police at times. It is not her direct intent to screw up or with an investigation. Her motives are deeply tied to her mental instabilities and are purely for personal gain.  

It was not until 2/4/1997 that investigators received a real, solid lead in the case, on that day Malachi Reid told investigators that he had previously gotten a ride home from Ian Bailey. During the ride together, Ian confessed that he had murdered Sophie telling Malachi that he “went up there with a rock and bashed her fucking brains out.”

2/10/97 Ian Bailey is arrested at his home on suspicions that he murdered Sophie Toscan du Plantier, he is held and questioned, but was later released without being charged with anything.

Ian was freelance journalist who happened to mysteriously end up being one of the first individuals on the scene of her murder. He says to report on it, others say differently.

True, often times a killer will in fact revisit his victim, after the crime just to observe for his own selfish satisfaction.

Who was Sophie and why would anyone want her dead?

It later came to surface that Sophie led what some call a complex and secret life, for no one really knew her. She had also taken a lover which many believe her husband in fact knew about.

A French Artist by the name of Bruno Carbonnet had been her lover for well over a year. He describes her as both tough and fragile, an enigmatic and sophisticated woman with a “complicated” private life.

As you can imagine the “complicated” part of her life gave investigators more to digest in terms of who murdered her. Her lover was on the list of what some say is at least 10 suspects.

To further muddy the waters and cast doubt on investigators here, sometime around October 2010  former state prosecutor, Eamon Barnes claimed a garda tried to put pressure on his office in 1998 to bring a charge against Bailey.  

In all, the document that Eamon released in 2011 indicated that even drugs were offered to witnesses in an effort to implicate Ian as the murderer. It would seem that investigators decided to look at evidence that would only lead them back to Ian, that includes making up evidence had they not found any actual evidence that would point to Ian as the murderer.

Ian was on of the first on the scene because he lived nearby Sophie’s home in Cork.

Whatr is known is that Sophie was beaten to death with a block after having run from her killer. What is not clear is whether or not she knew her killer and willingly let him into her home for some time and at some point tried to flee him and was caught in the very spot her body was found in.

An actual time of death had never been established because her body was not examined by the state pathologist until the day after it had been discovered.

Some of her fingers had been broken, she had lacerations all over her arms, strips of her torn pj’s were found on barbed wire, and her face had been smashed in. Interestingly, hair and skin found beneath her nails only proved to be her own.

Blood that was found on the doorstep was never identified.

Sometimes appearances are grand in nature, what it appears to be, it is not.

Several  months after the murder, a bottle of wine was found in bushes near a sidewalk close to Sophie’s home. It was a rather expensive bottle of French wine which was unopened. According to one detective, it would have cost £60 or £70 at the time and had been in those bushes for quite some time. None of the local off-licences stocked it but it was for sale in airport duty-free shops.

One source close to the investigation said that, at the time, alcohol was often stolen from the drinks cabinets of empty holiday homes so someone could have broken into her home the night she was murdered or prior to that, maybe headed back to her home for more loot?

The smashing in of her face however is very violent. It says a lot about the killer and what he was either running from or trying to hide.

Ian for instance and forgive me for being rather blunt, Ian lacks the sophistication to commit such a crime. He is sloven in appearance which means that while he is strong enough to smash a woman’s face in, he isn’t quite up to par with having had to run after someone, then in turn fight them off as he attacked them. He is careless and clumsy, more buffoonish if you will. He would have undoubtedly left evidence of some kind behind that would have more directly tied him to the murder.

I lean towards Sophie not knowing her killer. She had no idea who it was, I also doubt that her killer went to her home for the sole purpose of killing her. I suspect that it was a robbery gone wrong.

The robber had been breaking into homes for quite some time and knew how not to leave evidence, cover his tracks if you will.  

Killers show up with props, this guy used a block that was at the property prior to him. He never intentionally planned to murder anyone that night. She caught him and both of them panicked, she ran and he gave chase.

Rather than knock her out, as more of an afterthought to the crime, he murdered her thus leaving no witness to describe him to authorities. Something many career criminals fear very much. Being known to a witness is just as good as being known to law enforcement so in an effort to both deter detection and prosecution they will just kill a witness who in turn becomes the victim of circumstance.

What more than likely happened to Sophie was that she happened upon the crime of someone robbing her, she fled, was caught by the robber who then turned brutal killer so that he would not be caught. She did not know her killer as the evidence clearly shows. The evidence also shows quite clearly, that the suspect knows how to cover his tracks, his intention all along was not to get caught.

Too much time was wasted on Ian

Malachi gave a statement that implicated Ian in the murder of Sophie. While Milachi’s statement may not be a lie, Ian still did not murder Sophie. I myself have been known to bait someone when seeking information. It could very well be that Ian in fact baited Malachi in an attempt to gain information about the crime or something else he had been working on. And that also, does not make Ian any more the killer than the neighbor who found Sophie’s body that morning.

Whatever the case, the killer is still unknown to investigators because so much time had been wasted on Ian as the killer.

It is a fact that this killer did time at some point for burglary or robbery. He is good at not getting caught because of that, so his time in prison was not kind to him or he simply has too much to lose if he goes back to prison.

That is the very reason for Sophie’s murder. The question is, can investigators go back and solve it with the little evidence they have that doesn’t point to Ian?

Cristal M Clark

@thecrimeshop

IOS users can find The Crime Shop on Apple News