An old crime

[AmyW]

I can't find any links online to provide, but I will continue looking and post one if I come across it.

In October of 1990, a skeleton was found hanging from a tree in the Withlacoochee State Park in Pinellas, Florida. The body was eventually determined to be a thirty-two year old "drifter" named Randall Andrews. This was confirmed through dental identification.

The police had several suspects in custody. A man arrested on unrelated charges had telephoned his girlfriend and told her that he and three other men had hanged a man. She, in turn, told someone else, and that person told someone else, and it got back to the police eventually. The suspect said that the victim had accidentally stumbled onto a marijuana farm and he and the other men had beaten Randall Andrews before killing him.

Now my concern about the case is this:

If you and some "friends" were working a marijuana farm, would you have a noose readily available to you? Even if you were paranoid and worried that someone might find you, wouldn't it make more sense to have a gun on hand or even a knife? I find it odd that they'd have a noosed rope just laying around.

Does that seem unusual to anyone else?

The men were charged with Andrews' murder, but prosecutors were unable to get a grand jury to hand up an indictment. Without enough evidence of guilt to satisfy a jury, the suspects were not tried. In 2002, the men had still gotten away with murder. I haven't found any updates at the time of this posting.

SOURCE: Forensic Detective by Robert Mann
http://www.allenandunwin.com/shopping/ProductDetails.aspx?ISBN=9781741148862

[AmyW]

265 views and no opinions? :(

[Auntie Venom]

Not to sound sick here, but yes, I would have a noose.
Two reasons, guns are very loud and their purchase attracts unwanted attention.
The other reason. A lynching makes a larger point. If they left the body in the tree long enough for it to become skeletonized they were sending a message to any other people who might come sniffing around their business as to what would happen to them. You can be sure there were plenty of people who had heard about that body in the woods and were steering clear of Frick and Frack because of it. A shooting is pretty commonplace (more's the pity) and lacks the resonance of a hanging. If you look at "warning crimes" you will find a lot of inefficient, yet demonically creative methods of death that are meant not only to dispatch the victim but terrify and mark any witnesses or other nosey Parkers who may come along later.
I am not sure if that's what was in their minds, but that's what I'm thinking. They may have also wanted him to suffer more than a gun or knife murder would. And it's harder to survive a hanging. You can survive even the most egregious gunshot and stabbing type injuries. You're not going to live through a hanging if it lasts long enough. JMO, and yes I realize how psycho I sound. I'm really a nice girl, I promise!

[AmyW]

I have no doubt that you're nice and you have good points too! Thank you for replying to my thread. I guess you're right about the hanging being a more effective warning method, that didn't occur to me! Also, true, that if the body hung there that long, it was a message, not an oversight.

I look forward to future discussions with you on all of the threads. :beer:

[zeldaglutch]

Thank you for creating this post. I search for information about this crime occasionally and never find anything. His real name was John and he was my brother. I picked up Forensic Detectives last night and I am trying to contact Robert Mann.

I had to find closure in the face of John's killers getting away with what they did to him and what my family went through. I do not think that they had a noose hanging around in the park. I think they had him in one of their houses for a day or two. The forensic team searched for evidence in at least one house but too much time had passed. I did not know about the knives but I did know that they tortured him. I believe they tormented him by threatening to feed him to the alligators as they were taking him out to hang him.

We came pretty close to not ever knowing what happened to John. The weird thing about my finding this thread and about Forensic Detectives is that I performed the search this week because of the story about the Lake Istapoka alligator (http://neveryetmelted.com/?cat=521) I looked up the lake and knew it was very close to Withlacoochee.

I think Auntie Venom is right on the mark with her points about marking their territory and sending a message to others. I wonder if any of them are haunted by what they did.

Thanks again,
Laurie

[n.n]

265 views and no opinions? :(

I think that most people who read your post simply feel helpless facing such a horror-scenario.
Where would you start to comment?
I agree with "Auntie's" post, but I could never have stated the obvious so clearly as she did. I'd felt like violating John all over again. She stated her view very, very sensitively, and I commend her for that.

[n.n]

Not to sound sick here, but yes, I would have a noose.
Two reasons, guns are very loud and their purchase attracts unwanted attention.
The other reason. A lynching makes a larger point. If they left the body in the tree long enough for it to become skeletonized they were sending a message to any other people who might come sniffing around their business as to what would happen to them. You can be sure there were plenty of people who had heard about that body in the woods and were steering clear of Frick and Frack because of it. A shooting is pretty commonplace (more's the pity) and lacks the resonance of a hanging. If you look at "warning crimes" you will find a lot of inefficient, yet demonically creative methods of death that are meant not only to dispatch the victim but terrify and mark any witnesses or other nosey Parkers who may come along later.
I am not sure if that's what was in their minds, but that's what I'm thinking. They may have also wanted him to suffer more than a gun or knife murder would. And it's harder to survive a hanging. You can survive even the most egregious gunshot and stabbing type injuries. You're not going to live through a hanging if it lasts long enough. JMO, and yes I realize how psycho I sound. I'm really a nice girl, I promise!

I agree.

The way John was killed also strongly smacks of sadism. Especially, now that Laurie gave us more details.

[zeldaglutch]

John was having trouble with Psychosis. He was on his way back to Philly from California and never arrived. Evidently, he went to Florida where he had been living in an abandoned gas station bathroom. The police picked him up for vagrancy and held him in jail for a while. The police were feeding him because he was so very thin.

John disappeared at some point and he was the first person the police thought of when they found his skeleton. His mug shots are the pictures that the forensic anthropologists had to compare his computer enhanced skull to. They were able to contact my Dad through John's police records and they sent for his dental records.

I do not know how he found the pot farm. I do not know if they thought he was stealing or a narc. They grabbed him and brought him to a house. We believe they kept him a dog cage in the kitchen where they beat him and tortured him for a day or two. Then they took him out to the park and hung him.

It is my understanding that he sat on a shelf at Smithsonian waiting to be identified. Many remains wait to be identified at the Smithsonian. The Dahmer thing was unfolding at this time and brutal, gruesome murders were all over the news all day and all night long. I turned off the TV, the pictures were too vivid.

We had a memorial service in August because Florida would not release his remains. Finally in October they did release his remains and I tried so hard to catch a plane from Chicago to New York so I could be there when he was laid to rest. I could not get a flight out and I was so distraught. As it turned out a construction crew cut some communication lines and all three New York Airports were shut down. Even if I had gotten a seat I would not have made it there in time.

Years later I went to his grave. The date on his headstone was 1989. I never knew that they had determined a date until I saw it.

Several years later I was on a plane from Georgia to Chicago. I sat next to a woman and we began talking. I do not know how we got to this conversation but her brother-in-law was one the ADA's in the area and they had been talking about my brother's case that morning at breakfast before she got on the plane.

Since I read Forensic Detective I want to get his leather bracelet back. I wonder if Florida has a cold case box in storage somewhere. We all used to wear those leather bracelets; I knew immediately what Robert Mann was talking about in the book.

Laurie

[AmyW]

I think that most people who read your post simply feel helpless facing such a horror-scenario.
Where would you start to comment?
I agree with "Auntie's" post, but I could never have stated the obvious so clearly as she did. I'd felt like violating John all over again. She stated her view very, very sensitively, and I commend her for that.

Point taken. I didn't think about it that way.

Laurie, I'm so sorry for the loss of your brother. His story really disturbed me and I am glad that you weren't offended by me posting his story here. I hate that you weren't able to make it before they laid him to rest. Have you tried contacting the police in that area in hopes of getting the bracelet back?

[packy]

I'm sorry, Laurie. He hurts no more but hopefully they who did this have suffered big time.
Sombody talked once, maybe they'll talk again or come forward.

[zeldaglutch]

I am very grateful that you created this thread. I needed to know that the book was published and that there are still people that remember this terrible story. I will contact the detectives in Florida about the additional items I read about to see if I can get them back.

I found Robert Mann and emailed him. I wanted to thank him for helping us get my brother home. He has done a lot to help people become reunited with their family members at great personal sacrifice. I am very grateful to him too.

Thanks to everyone for their support,
Laurie

:rose: :rose:
one for Inge and one for Amy

[AmyW]

The story of your brother touched me and bothered me tremendously, thus the reason I posted it. I'm glad you found this site and my post, as it seems to have helped! Feel free to keep this going or private message me if you ever feel like talking about it. God bless you and I wish you the very best of luck with the detectives.

:rose:

[zeldaglutch]

I am not sure why I am posting this to the thread. I had a huge anxiety attack after receiving this response back from the author who was the forensic anthropologist that identified John and determined that he was tortured and murdered. His response is nothing earth shattering and was perhaps a let down in my new quest for closure in this matter. His response to me appears below this, first is what I emailed to him. Hopefully, I can move past it place again and back into healthier waters.

Laurie

Hi Bob,

My name is Laurie. My brother is the subject of the chapter "A Florida Hanging" in your collaborative book Forensic Detective. I emailed a request to Random House to be forwarded to you but I am sure it will never get anywhere, you may prefer it that way.

I wanted to thank you for helping us put my brother to rest. I found your book by accident through a thread on a Web site. Although I am reliving our nightmare, finding out what happened and memorializing my brother has helped to stop some of the mental images of the torture and suffering my brother endured before he died. The reality and the story of his murder are
brutal and the visualizations are incessant factors in my life.

The torment will never truly be gone and we have had to find mechanisms to help us cope with the reality. My brother's murder haunted both of my parents until their deaths. My sisters and I struggle to lead normal lives and have faith that Divine Retribution will ensure that my brother's killers will ultimately pay for what they have done.

You and I have some parallels in our lives. I am also a high school drop out that returned to school for a higher education in my adult life. I have spent many years in healthcare. For the last ten years I have been helping families through some of their toughest times with their loved ones on life support, perhaps to my own detriment. If I have helped someone just a little bit it helps me a little bit too. I wanted you to know that you helped me. I know where my brother is now and he is not suffering anymore.

Thank you for the work that you do and for the families you have helped.

Laurie McKeown

Hi Laurie,

Thank you for your kind words and support. I know you and your family must have suffered tremendously at your brother's loss. One of the reasons I wrote the book was my strong belief that no death should go unnoticed and that putting these "stories" down in print helps others understand the magnitude of a loss - every life is precious and every death affects many,
many people.

I would like to thank you as well for helping me better understand life and life's losses. As a relatively new author, I've learned that writing about
someone else's losses is never an easy thing to do. I hope we did your brother justice by memorializing him in our book and I will never forget your words of kindness. Please do keep in touch.

Kindest regards,
Bob

:rose: For all of us who need a rose.

[AmyW]

I'm so glad you got a response back, and what a nice one it was. I'm sorry about your anxiety attack and hope you're feeling better physically.

:rose:

[VeXis]

I came across this post from a google search. This story is in the book I am reading now "Forensic Detective: How I Cracked the World's Toughest Cases" by Robert Mann, Ph.D. Its a really good book. :read:

Sorry I posted this before I read the entire thread! Im sorry to hear about what happened!

[Serial Killer X]

It Realisticly Isn't That Hard To Buy a Gun It's Just The One's That Are Hard To Trace That Are Rare. It's Called a Silencer But It's Quite Rare To Have One Of Them. I Think Why They Didn't Have a Gun Is Either Because They Thought It Would Be To Loud And Attract Way To Much Attention. Or They Were Small Time Criminal's Just Looking To Make Some Cash And They Didn't Know Where To Buy a Gun. A Knife Would Of Been A Better Weapon But It Leave's Quite A Lot Of Evidence When You Stab Someone. A Noose Is A Good Weapon Because It's Relatively Hard To Get Any Evidence, Also The Cop's Could Decide It Was Suicide. These Criminal's Could Of Been Making An Example To Everyone Else That They Mean Business Or Not To Stumble Onto There "Farm" They Got Caught Because Of There Stupidity, I Do Feel Sorry For The Victim.