Kentucky Barracuda: Parker Hardin French Subtitled: The Notorious Scoundrel and Delightful Rogue of Antebellum and Civil War America. The book is a Catch Me If You Can historical biography of an infamous rascal of the mid-19th Century, a quirky history featuring a crafty, charismatic, cunning, and charming Machiavellian. It is also a pathologically intriguing profile of a barracuda–con man, crook, hustler, and swindler.
Based on well-documented research the author reveals that: Parker Hardin French (1826-1878) was infamous in his time and well-known to political leaders, the press, and casual newspaper readers alike. Nonetheless, he was almost lost to history and relegated to a minor footnote. But through the 1850s, the Civil War, and into the 1870s he contributed far more to period history than previously documented. Parker H. French was certainly an adventurer and entrepreneur who engaged in elaborate, bold, and ambitious exploits but he was also a magnificent con-man. Those who followed his exploits were variously exasperated, captivated by his audacity and nervy cheek, or humored by his latest escapade. He was judged an incorrigible scoundrel, labeled a chronic megalomaniac, or peddled as a misunderstood victim of his enemies. Many believed him a hero; many just thought him insane.
While working on his genealogy, Joe found that his great-grandfather had been scammed as a member of…
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Using genetic genealogy, a nonprofit has helped identify a man who was found dead in Arizona 18 years ago.
Screengrab from DNA Doe Project’s Facebook page
Nearly two decades ago, a man was found dead in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, and with few clues to identify him, his case quickly went cold.
The man, who was believed to have fallen from a tall building, was found “in the area of Central Avenue and West Monroe Street” on Oct. 19, 2004, according to a news release from the nonprofit DNA Doe Project. The man was between 40 and 60 years old with blue eyes, gray hair and was missing many teeth.
One of the few clues investigators had to help identify the man was the surgical implant in his right ankle, the nonprofit said. However, after they could not trace the implant, the case went cold.
That is, until a handful of DNA Doe Project summer apprentices took up the case.
By tracing the man’s genetic family tree, DNA Doe Project’s…
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A 49-year-old father of four who was unmasked by new DNA techniques tearfully apologized Wednesday for committing rape during a home invasion in 1991.
Thomas Craig Brodie, whose crimes were revealed only after Canadian authorities resorted to a method known as investigative genetic genealogy, told a sentencing hearing in provincial court in Calgary that he is no longer the man that he was 30 years ago.
“I ask your forgiveness for the terrible things I did,” Mr. Brodie said, addressing a victim who was watching proceedings via videolink.
Provincial Court Judge A.A. Fradsham reserved his decision on how long Mr. Brodie will spend in prison. Prosecutors are pushing for a penitentiary sentence of up to seven years, though the defence is urging a shorter term.
The court was presented with contrasting pictures drawn of a man 30 years apart. The defence emphasized how Mr. Brodie, who was supported by his wife and children, is a loving family man. But the prosecution said he must be condemned for what he did in 1991, when he was an intoxicated 18-year-old who donned a disguise, broke into a house and repeatedly raped a 28-year-old woman.
“I would give almost anything to be able to take back that night,” Mr. Brodie told the court. He said he had always struggled with how he had hidden his dark past. “Many times over the years, as I got older, I thought about going to police and confessing to them what I had done. But I was scared.”
The Globe and Mail reported last month that…
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Police officers walk through the crowd in front of Parliament Hill, as truckers and supporters continue to protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates, on Feb. 6,LARS HAGBERG/Reuters
After nine days of noisy and chaotic disruption, Ottawa’s mayor declared a state of emergency as major cities across the country were hit over the weekend by protests opposed to vaccine mandates and other pandemic restrictions.
With no end in sight to the protests in the country’s capital, Ottawa police announced that they would begin arresting anyone who attempted to bring material aid, such as fuel, to the protesters, some of whom have set up camp in the city.
On Sunday evening, police stepped up their attempt to choke off the protest’s supplies by removing fuel tankers from a support centre set up by demonstrators in a baseball-stadium parking lot in Ottawa’s east end. Two people in that area were arrested for mischief, adding to the more than 60 criminal cases opened since protests began, most of which involve allegations of mischief, theft, property damage or hate crimes, the department said in a press release Sunday evening.
Mayor Jim Watson said the emergency declaration would allow greater flexibility for the city and businesses to provide essential services for residents and more easily purchase equipment required by front-line workers and first responders.
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“Declaring a state of emergency reflects the serious danger and threat to the safety and security of residents posed by the ongoing demonstrations and highlights the need for support from other jurisdictions and levels of government,” he said in a statement.
In Toronto, officers, police SUVs and municipal buses blocked all vehicular traffic into Queen’s Park Circle and nearby hospitals, forcing protesters to enter the grounds of the provincial legislature by foot and cluster in a park. The protests abated Saturday night, but police kept certain roads closed Sunday to try to minimize further disruptions.
Meanwhile, in Vancouver, counter-protesting cyclists briefly stopped a convoy from entering the city’s downtown before it occupied an intersection in the main shopping district.
Police in Edmonton estimated that a protest around the Alberta legislature included as many as 2,000 vehicles. And RCMP in that province said Sunday that they continue to engage in traffic enforcement at a protest in Coutts, where demonstrators are partly blockading a critical border crossing, leaving one traffic lane open in each direction.
In Quebec City, dozens of trucks and thousands of protesters gathered at the provincial legislature, where “free hugs” were offered by some demonstrators who said they were unvaccinated. A smaller group returned Sunday, before police ordered them to disperse the fourth day of protests in the city by 5 p.m.
And in Winnipeg, a man is in custody after allegedly driving his vehicle into a group of protesters outside Manitoba’s provincial legislature Friday night. Winnipeg Police Constable Rob Carver said in a news conference that the man hit four people, and that it doesn’t appear that the accused was participating in the protest, or that he was motivated by it. The man is facing charges, including assault with a weapon and dangerous operation of a conveyance.
In Ottawa, there is increasing frustration among residents, and the mayor said the situation is out of control. The protests have seen trucks block streets and their occupants blow their horns through the day and into the night. There have been reports of confrontations, some physical, with members of the public.
Police said they were issuing tickets to hold protesters accountable, with citations for such offences as driving a motor vehicle on a sidewalk and stunt driving. Police also said they were working with Canadian, U.S. and international security agencies to investigate e-mail-based threats to public officials.
Heading into the weekend, police in the city announced a “surge and contain” strategy, sending 150 officers, some uniformed and others in plain clothes, to protect central Ottawa neighbourhoods.
“Demonstrators exhibited extremely disruptive and unlawful behaviour, which presented risks to public safety and unacceptable distress for Ottawa residents,” police said in a statement.
Since Saturday, police said they had issued more than 450 tickets for various offences.
On Sunday, shortly before the municipal state of emergency was declared, four main protest organizers described Ottawa’s approach to their demonstration to date as a lot of bluffing and posturing.
At a hotel-room news conference that barred reporters from large media outlets, the quartet did say that the enforcement had now escalated to the point where they must find workarounds to powering their encampment, because police are targeting people carrying even small jerry cans of fuel.
Tom Quiggin, a self-described “intelligence officer” for the demonstration, said protesters don’t want a physical confrontation with the authorities, but the organizers said they are willing to get arrested for their beliefs.
“What I could tell would happen if there was a physical attack? I’d suspect you’d see thousands of people come to Ottawa bringing trucks, farm equipment, whatever saying ‘no,’ ” Mr. Quiggin said, according to a livestream of the conference posted on social media.
Still, relations with police have been cordial throughout their time in the capital, he said, noting that “90 to 95 per cent” of interactions with officers have been “super positive.”
A day earlier, Police Chief Peter Sloly characterized his force as frazzled at a special meeting of the Ottawa Police Services Board, noting that every available Ottawa police officer was currently working, either on the protests or other duties elsewhere in the city.
“This is an unprecedented situation, but we have learned from our experience and, yes, our mistakes and we’re committed to doing better,” he said. “However, the strains on our officers and the strains on our organization are showing,” he said.
Back at the east-end protester support centre, a main tent sheltered rows of tables and a fully equipped kitchen that was serving pizza for lunch on Sunday. Other tables were filled with food, toiletries and other supplies. Portable generators provided electricity.
Tents were fully stocked with food, toiletries and other necessities that organizers said had been donated by supporters. So much material arrived that organizers temporarily stopped accepting such donations.
There were portable toilets and three portable saunas sometimes used for meetings. The support centre offered refuelling services that appeared to consist of wagons filled with jerry cans. Both diesel and gasoline are available. There was also space for rigs to park.
Some truckers who formed the core of the protest slept in their cabs; others, including voluntary supporters, used hotels or home rentals. Some had been put up in the homes of people in the area. A shuttle service connected protesters to homes and business in the region, allowing access to showers, washrooms and laundry.
Chris Barber, one of the protest’s core organizers, preached non-violence on social media Sunday afternoon as he raised concerns about reports that a trailer full of rubble was sitting in downtown Ottawa. He asked supporters who come across it to hide the rocks with a tarp, intimating that “higher powers at play right now” may want these potential projectiles used to turn the occupation violent.
“Don’t play into the hands of this stuff, guys, this is exactly what they want,” he said Sunday on the TikTok video platform. “The only way out of this with the government right now is for us to turn it into a Jan. 6-style insurrection – we’ve made them look so stupid right now, so stupid – so please don’t play into that.
“We have gotten so far, we don’t want it tainted by anything silly right now.”
With reports from John Ibbitson in Ottawa and The Canadian Press
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A border marker is shown just outside of Emerson, Man., on Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. American investigators believe the deaths of four people are linked to a larger human smuggling operation.JOHN WOODS/The Canadian Press
Two adults, a baby and a teenaged boy are dead and two other people are seriously injured after apparently trying to walk south across the Manitoba border into the United States in extreme winter conditions, through an area that has become notorious for frequent and treacherous illegal border crossings.
A Florida man has been charged in the United States in relation to the case, though not specifically in connection with the deaths, and RCMP say the investigation is ongoing in Canada.
“We are very concerned that this crossing may have been facilitated in some way and that these individuals, including an infant, were left in the middle of a blizzard when the weather hovered around minus 35 degrees centigrade,” said Manitoba RCMP Assistant Commissioner Jane MacLatchy. She described the situation as tragic and infuriating.
According to information in a criminal complaint against Steve Shand, who is from Deltona, Fla., American border patrol officers pulled over a white, 15-person van on a rural road on the U.S. side of the border, just south of Emerson, Man., on Wednesday morning. The officers were acting based on a tip from the driver of a snow removal vehicle, who had helped get the van out of a snowy ditch in blizzard conditions.
The document says Mr. Shand, a 47-year-old Jamaican-born American citizen, was the driver of the van, and that he had told the snowplow operator he wastravelling to Winnipeg to visit friends. With him were two people from India who had allegedly entered the U.S. illegally. There were also rental agreements for the car and a cache of snacks.
Mr. Shand is facing a charge of transporting the two undocumented people in the van, and is being held in custody until a hearing on Jan. 24.
The criminal complaint says that while the American officers were taking Mr. Shand and his passengers to a border patrol station, officers saw five people walking on the road in the extreme cold in the isolated rural area. Most of the group were wearing identical black winterwear, including black parkas, balaclavas and lined rubber boots.
The document says the people spoke Gujarati, a language from Western India, and most of them had little or no ability to communicate in English. One of the men told officers the group had been dropped off in Canada, had been walking for over 11 hours, and were expecting to be picked up by someone on the U.S. side of the border.
Officials have not said whether they believe Mr. Shand was the one who was supposed to pick the group up, but the charging document says American authorities suspect him of being part of a larger human smuggling operation.
The man who spoke to officers was carrying a backpack that contained baby clothes, a diaper and toys. He told authorities they belonged to a family of four that was also walking across the border but had become separated from the group overnight.
A man and woman from the group were taken to hospital with frostbite. The woman stopped breathing several times during transport and later had to be moved to another hospital to have her hand partially amputated.
Assistant Commissioner MacLatchy said RCMP were contacted about the missing people by American authorities at 9:23 a.m. on Wednesday.Officers from the Integrated Border Enforcement Team, the Major Crime unitand area detachments immediately began searching the vast terrain north of the border for the family.
The region was under an extreme cold warning at the time, with deep snow and a northern wind ripping across the southern Manitoba grain fields. Temperatures were around -35 degrees, dropping into the -40s with the wind chill.
At about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, RCMP officers found the bodies of an adult man, an adult woman and an infant on the Canadian side of the border, about 10 kilometres away from the town of Emerson. The body of another male, believed to be a youth in his mid-teens, was located after that.
“We don’t know any specifics as to when they were actually trying to make the crossing, but the assumption was it was dark, it was nighttime,” said Assistant Commissioner MacLatchy. “So blowing snow, dark, freezing cold. Very disorienting, I have no doubt. It’s just a very dangerous situation.”
The four victims found in Manitoba are believed to have died from cold exposure, but autopsies are being completed to confirm their identities and causes of death. Officers continued searching the area, but RCMP confirmed on Thursday afternoon that a grid search had been completed, and that they believe there were no other victims.
Dave Carlson, the reeve of Emerson-Franklin, which incorporates both the town of Emerson and the rural area around it, said he was in shock to learn of the deaths.
“I was in disbelief that this has happened,” Mr. Carlson said. “It’s been a while since we’ve had any real cross-border issues, and to have something like this happen, it’s tragic and it’s heartbreaking. And it’s a little bit frustrating, too, because it’s something that’s preventable.”
The Emerson crossing has been an ongoing concern in recent years, and many people have been seriously injured trying to make the trek across the border in extreme winter temperatures.
Previously known cases have all involved asylum seekers travelling north into Canada. Mr. Carlson noted that this situation, in which people were travelling south into the U.S., was unusual.
In late 2016, two men from Ghana lost their fingers to frostbite while attempting to make the crossing, and in 2018 a man from Togo suffered severe frostbite making the same trek. In March 2019, a pregnant woman who had walked across the border called 911 and was rescued by local firefighters while trapped in deep snow and in apparent labour. That same year, a woman’s body was found on the U.S. side of the crossing. She is believed to have perished during the trip.
“This kind of takes it to another level, with this many people that didn’t make it,” Mr. Carlson said. “It’s really tough.”
Deputy Patrick Klegstad with the Kittson County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota said the weather has been so cold it “takes your breath away,” and that there are no trees or shelter near the border, only quiet and inaccessible farm roads.
The criminal complaint document says border officials were aware of two previous incidents believed to be related to human smuggling in the area last month. In one of the cases, a backpack with a price tag in rupees was found at what was believed to be a drop-off spot.
“I am saddened there was loss of life, and the fact a small child died makes it even more difficult. Our hearts go out to the families and loved ones,” Grand Forks Sector Chief Patrol Agent Anthony S. Good said, in a written statement released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“Anyone thinking of crossing the border illegally in these treacherous conditions should not do it,” he said. “Smugglers only care about the money they are going to make and have zero regard for lives lost.”
Speaking before the American charges were announced, Assistant Commissioner MacLatchy said RCMP know criminal organizations have been part of such crossings in the past, and that Canadian charges are possible. She said the investigation is still in its early stages, and she stressed that people should not attempt to cross the border in Manitoba.
“And you should not listen to anyone who tells you that they can get to that destination safely, because they just can’t,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how good your winter clothing is. It doesn’t matter how short a distance you think you have to go. You can imagine yourself in the dark in blizzard conditions and blowing snow at 40 below getting disoriented. And without shelter, you will not survive. And unfortunately, that’s what happened here. It’s terribly tragic, and upsetting for everyone involved.”
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_fitted.png "Using genetic genealogy, a nonprofit has helped identify a man who was found dead in Arizona 18 years ago.")
