An Ice Cream Truck Abduction

Eleven year old Mikelle Biggs had been waiting for the ice cream truck with her younger sister, Kimber. Like most young children, Kimber had grown cold and lost her patience, and decided to go home. Upon arriving home, her mother had immedately sent her back out to tell Mikelle to come home too.

Kimber, in total, had only been gone 90 seconds, but in that short window of time, Mikelle was abducted. The rear wheel of the bike that Mikelle had been riding, still spinning, left behind. A neighbor with a criminal past had caught the eye of investigators, but not having enough evidence to charge him, they had to leave him alone. Less than a year later, this neighbor attacked and nearly murdered a nearby neighbor.

Is it possible he is the one responsible or Mikelle’s abduction or is it possible there is someone else who played a role in this and has eluded the authorities for more than twenty years?

Mikelle Biggs disapppeared on January 2, 1999. A tip in her disappearance was published on March 19, 2018.

A dollar bill in Wisconsin was the latest tip received that the Mesa detectives were investigating in Mikelle Biggs disappearance. The dollar bill was reported to the police on March 14, 2018 in Neenah, a town 9 miles southeast of Appleton.

There was a message written along the edges of the 2009 bill:

“My name is Mikel (sic) Biggs kidnapped From Mesa AZ I’m Alive.”

The note appeared to have been written in a child’s handwritting. Mikelle’s name was spelled wrong and “s” in “is” almost sits on its side while the “kel in the name is written in cursive. The Neenah Police Investigator Adam Streubel examined the bill and questioned the authenticity. He had noted that Mikelle’s first name was misspelled and suspected that it could have been just a senseless joke.

The detectives have said that they don’t dismiss any evidence that they find and that they follow up on any and all leads but that they don’t believe that this message was written by Mikelle. One of the lead detectives, Jerry Gissel, said evidence that that they found during their initial investigation showed that Mikelle was running away from somebody.

“It wasn’t somebody that she knew or wanted to be with. She dropped the bike, she was running toward home, she dropped quarters, and it was swift. And somebody grabbed her and, I believe, abducted her in a car and drove away with her,” Gisselll stated in an 2009 interview with ABC News.

Mikelle’s family believe her to be deceased and on the fifth anniversary of her disappearance they held a funeral for her with an empty casket. The family still believes that Dee Blalock, a convicted sex offender, who lived just two blocks away, and had spent the entire night in their garage, but are still suspicious of him, is responsible for her abduction. Blalock is currently serving a fifteen-and-a-half -year sentence in an Arizona prison for charges unrelated to Mikelle’s case.

HANNIBAL THE CANNIBAL

Hello my inquiring minds! Today I have for you a pretty interesting case. It involves a man named Robert Maudsley, an English serial killer. He killed four people, with three of those killings taking place in prison after he received a life sentence for murder.

If this sounds right up your alley and if you want to learn how he earned the nickname Hannibal the Cannibal continue reading….

Robert Maudsley was one of 12 children, born in Speke, Liverpool. He spent his early years in a Catholic orphanage in Crosby. His parents came and got him at the age of eight when he was then subject to routine physical abuse until social services eventually removed him from his parents care. He had later stated that as a child he was raped. Such early abuse had left deep psychological scars.

In the late 1960’s, when Maulsley was a teenager, he was a sex worker in London using his his income to support his drug addiction. After several suicide attempts, he was forced to seek psychiatric help. During one of these conversations with the doctors, he claimed to hear voices telling him to kill his parents. he is quoted as saying, “If I had killed my parents in 1970, none of these people would have died.”

MURDERS:

A man named John Farrell had picked up Maudsley in 1974, in Wood Green, London. Farrell picked up Maudsley for sex and showed him pictures of children he had sexually abused. Maudsley garrotted Farrell (form or strangulation by wire or metal). He then surrendered himself to the police, saying that he needed psychiatric care. Maudsley was found unfit to stand trial and was sent to Broadmoor Hospital.

In 1977 Maudsley and another resident, David Cheeseman, locked themselves in a cell with a third patient named David Francis who was a convicted child molester. Mauldsley and David Cheeseman tortured David Francis to death over a period of nine hours. After this incident, Mauldsley was convicted of manslaughter and sent to Wakefield Prison. He had disliked the transfer and made it clear he had wanted to return to Broadmoor. Maudsley was later sentenced to life imprisonment with recommendation that he never be released.

NOW in my opinion, this man told them he needed psychiatric care. WHY on earth didn’t they keep him in a locked psychiatric facility under careful watch? Get this man the help he needed?

In 1978 Maudsley would kill two more fellow prisoners at Wakefield Prison in just one day. His first victim would be Salney Darwood, who was convicted of the manslaughter of his wife. Maudsley had invited Darwood into his cell, he then garrotted and stabbed him before hiding his body under his bed. He then tried to lure other prisoners into his cell, but they refused. He then prowled the wing hunting for a second victim, eventually cornering and stabbing a prisoner, William Roberts, to death, by hacking at Robert’s skull with a makeshift dagger and struck his head against the wall multiple times. Maudsley would then calmly walk into the wing office, place the dagger on the table and tell the officer that the next roll call would be two short.

In 1983, Maudsley was deemed too dangerous for a normal cell. The prison authorities built a two-cell unit in the basement of Wakefield Prison. Due to his history of violence, when he was outside of his cell he was escorted by at least four prison officers.

NOW ON TO WHY “HANNIBAL the CANNIBAL” : Initials reports had falsely stated that he ate part of the brain of one of the men he killed in prison, which earned him the nickname among the British press and “The Brain Eater” amongst other prisoners. However, the Press Complaints Commission records that national newspapers were subsequently advised that the allegations were utrue, according to the autopsy report.

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Why Was He Released?

As it so often goes for me, life happens and I had to put my blog and my book on hold. We had a family emergency; one of our little grandbabies had to go into the hospital and stay for a few days and that left me being momma, which I haven’t been to little kids in a long time. They are attention seekers, and when I tried to get some work done, it was Mimi, look at me.

I am back now, and the grandbabies are all fine and well; so, Voices, past, present, and future is going to bring to you the story of the most prolific serial killer, Samuel Little.

I ask you to PLEASE JOIN ME as we dive into his early life:

Born June 7, 1940, to a mother, he claimed, was a prostitute, in Reynolds, Georgia. Soon after his birth, his family moved to Lorain, Ohio, where he was mainly raised by his grandmother. Little had problems with discipline and achievement, and by his own account, he began having sexual fantasies about strangling women when he was just a child. He remembers this starting in kindergarten when he saw his teacher touch her neck; as a teenager, he collected true crime magazines depicting women being choked.

Little was convicted of breaking and entering into property in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1956, and was then held in an institution for juveninile offenders. He then moved to Florida to live with his mother in the late 1960’s, and by his own accounts, stated he worked at various times as a cemetary worker and an ambulance attendant. He then said he “began traveling more widely and had more run-ins with the law”, being arrested in eight states for crimes that included: driving under the influence, fraud, shoplifting, solicitation, armed robbery, aggravated assault, and rape. Little claimed that he took up boxing during his time in prison, referring to himself as a former prizefighter.

As you continue to read, see if you agree with me, that there is something wrong with the amount of times this man was arrested and only sentenced to a couple years and then released to only do something more dangerous and haneous to someone else and then then as you read the judicial system will fail again. He should have been sentenced to some kind of psychiatric treatment early on during his earlier incarcerations, but I know they didn’t do that then.

In 1961, Little was incarcerated for three years for breaking into a furniture store in Lorain and released in 1964. By 1975, Little had been arrested 26 times in 11 states for crimes includng theft, assault, attempted rape, fraud, and attacks on government officials.

In 1982, He was arrested in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and charged with MURDER of a 22-year old woman who had gone missing in September of that year. A grand jury had declined to indict him for her murder, however, while he was under investigaton, he was extradicted to Florida and tried for the murder of a 26-year old woman whose body was found in September 1982. A prosecution witness identified Little as a person who had spent time with the woman on the night before her disappearance, but due to mistrust of the witness’s testimony, Little was acquitted in January 1984.

Little then moved to California where he stayed in the vacinity of San Diego. In October 1984, he was arrested yet again, for kidnapping, beating, and strangling a 22-year-old woman who survived. One month later, Little was found, by police, in the back seat of his car, with an unconscious woman, also beaten and strangled, in the same location as the attempted murder. Little only served two and a half years in prison for both crimes.

I hope it’s not just me but something is wrong with that sentencing because:

In February 1987, Little immediately moved to Los Angeles and committed at least to additional murders when he was released.

Little was again arrested on September 5 2012 at a homeless shelter in Louisville Kentucky, and then extradicted to California to face a narcotics charge. Authorities used DNA testing and established that he was involved in the murders of three women. All three women were killed and later found on the streets of Los Angeles. Little was extradicted to Los Angeles where he was charged on January 7, 2013. A few months later, the police said Little was being investigated for the involvement in three dozen murders that were committed in the 1980’s, which until then had been undisclosed. The murder case in Mississippi, due to the connection, was reopened.. In total, Little was tested for the involvement in 93 murders of women committed in many of our United Stated.

I wish that after three strikes, the judicial system would have seen that this man was a problem and was going to get worse. Many lives could have been saved.

Little was found guilty on September 25, 2014 and before his death was serving a life sentence at the California State Prison, Los Angeles County. He later confessed to many more murders in hopes of a transfer.

I hope that you enjoyed my return article and will join me next time. Please support my blog and others by joining the conversation.

Was Divorce the Real Issue?

Voices, past, present, and future is going to take you into the life of Robert William Fisher. As I dive into the Most Wanted List, I am finding that more and more of these fugitives used to be or were part of the military or some version of the government. It brings up the question, in mind alone or maybe yours as well, that something happens in the mind of these people during their time in service that makes it hard, unusually hard, to cope with a normal life’s pressures. That their only recourse to troubles is what they were trained to do, elliminate the problem.

Robert William Fisher served in the United States Navy and then later worked as a firefighter and then in the medical field. For someone with this caliber of background it is hard to imagine the crimes he has committed against those he professed to love so much.

Fisher married Mary Fisher in 1987, and then they had two children, Bobby and Brittney. It is said they had a difficult family life. Fisher was described as being cruel and controlling towards his family, and on many occasions, he was reported as exhibiting disturbing and violent behavior. It is known that he was unfaithful to his wife at least once during their marriage. What is believed is that his own parents had divorced when he was 15, and that this was what had played the role in the difficulties that Fisher would later experience in his life.

On April 10, 2001 the Fisher family home exploded. Inside were Fisher’s wife and two children. Their throats had been slit and Mary had been shot in the back of her head. Robert Fisher and his wife’s car were missing. Fisher was named the one and only suspect in his family’s murders. Mary’s car would be discovered on April 20, in a forest near Payson, Arizona. On June 29, 2002 Robert Fisher would be named the 475th by the FBI on the Ten Most Wanted list and on November 3, 2021 he would be removed from this list, although he still remains a wanted fugitive.

As we take a look into Robert Fisher’s early life and what is believed to have played a part in the change in his psche to cause such haneous acts against his family, we find that his parents divorce may have been the trigger. For most, in the beginning a divorce is traumatic for children, but for Fisher, it had a lasting effect.

Robert Fisher was born April 13, 1961, in Brooklyn, New York to William Fisher, a banker, and mother Jan Howell. He has two sisters. His parents divorced in 1976, when he was 15, and after this , he and his sisters went to live with their father in Arizona. According to friends and relatives, the divorce had been turbulent and had a long-lasting effect on Fisher. He and his sisters attended Sahuaro High School in Tucson, Arizona, and Fisher’s friends from high school stated that he was “very bitter” about the divorce.

While Fisher worked at the Mayo Clinic Hospital, close to the time of the murders, he had reportedly spoke with co-workers about this parents’ separation, and confided in an associate that his life would have been different had his mother, Jan, not left the family.

Before the murders, Fisher had enlisted in the United States Navy and attempted to become part of the SEALS, but he was nont successful. He is said to be an avid outdoorsman, hunter, and fisherman. (again with the dating profile) Fisher later would become a firefighter in California, but later be forced to retire due to a back injury. Fisher would then move his family to Arizona and embark on a career in the medical field, where he worked as a surgical catheter technician, and respiratory therapist. He had been a surgical technician at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale at the time of these murders.

Fisher would marry, Mary Cooper in 1987, and be described as a cruel and distant control freak toward his family. He and his wife would often fight about sex and money, (typical of marriage problems). Mary would take a job, and told friends this was a “security fund”. It was said that Fisher at one point had taken a garden hose, turned it on Mary because he perceived her to have spoken out of turn. Fisher had been embarrassed by his son’s lack of enthusiasm for hunting and fishing, and had once tried to teach Bobby and Brittany how to swim by throwing them off of a boat. Fisher’s hunting partner, Sandy Gillespie said, “They were crying, and Brittany was screaming, anad he pulled them back in the boat and he said, ‘Now there, how’s that?”

Robert Fisher would not allow his the walls of the house to be painted anything other than white, and only a small number of pictures would be allowed on the walls. Mary’s friend, Kimberly Sue Davidson, had told the police, “Several times Mary had special things, like quilts, she was not allowed to hang them up. She had to store them in the closet. And then he would continually tell her, isn’t it time you got rid of this stuff?”

Fisher tried to hold on to an image as a devoted family man, although Mary’s mother, Ginny Cooper, told the investigators theat, “Fisher didn’t socialize often with family because of a fear of getting too close to people and losing them.” Fisher’s own mother, Jan, stated that she was a “yes-sir” wife who did not stand up to Fisher’s father. She had also stated that she had seen similar dynamics early on in Fisher’s marriage to Mary and that she did speak about her concerns. A close friend of Fisher’s stated that his family, Mary and the kids, bore a striking resemblance to that of his childhood.

I think back to some things that happened in my childhood. We all have something that resembles a traumatic event. I am thankful that I didn’t take the things my mother imposed on me as a young child and do those things to my own children. I took what I had been through and chose not to let my own children ever live a life like I had to live. While my memories are still very vivid and cause depression at time, I broke that cycle. I only wish Fisher had done the same and spared the lives of his family and just walked away.

What bothers me is that friends and family had noticed Fisher exhibiting disturbing behavior when he was a young adult. He had been an outdoorsman and hunter and friends noticed his behavior on hunting trips and other outdoor activities. In one case, after he had killed and Elk, Fisher began smearing its blood on his face. On at least one occasion, Fisher had sneaked up behind a family that was picnicking and emptied his gun in the air.

The acts of this one man do not stop here. Fisher, in contrast to Mary, had been an active participant in the Scottsdale Baptist Church men’s ministry, but began to withdraw from the activities just a few months before the murders. In 1998, he had gone to the senior pastor for marital counseling. He had told co-workers of a one-night affair with a prostitute he met while at a massage parlor, fretting that Mary would find out that this was the cause of a urinary tract infection that had left him ill for several days in December of 2000. Some of his friends stated that in 1998, he spoke of committing suicide because he despaired over the condition of his marriage. Wade Rencsok, a former neighbor, stated, “They screamed constantly. Everyone heard it. You could hear it in the house next door, and you never really heard him scream, which is kind of weird. I mean, he had a way about him, but you never heard him scream. You always hheard his wife screaming, things like, ‘ You’re worthless. I could have done better than you. We should get a divorce.”

According to psychologists, an intense fear of loss is not unusual among individuals who were traumatized by divorce in adolescence. Mary had told several friends that she was going to divorce Fisher in the weeks before the murders. Fisher had told a hunting companion that he was renewing his commitment to his faith and his marriage because he “could not live without his family”, possibly hinting that he would consider suicide over divorce.

Investigators theorized that Fisher murdered his family because he felt threatened by Mary’s intention to divorce him, and did not want Brittney and Bobby to go through what he did as a child.

While I could continue with the theories about his possible suicide or the possibility that he used his hunting and survival skills to live in the woods for a time after the murders, I would rather turn attention to the fact that we all know someone with a disturbing mental condition or someone who struggles with depression. While I feel that if I had gotten treatment for depression as a child and dealt with my traumatic events, I could have been a more social person earlier on in life and succeeded just a bit more than I have now.

I urge you, help your friends, your family, to seek help if they are in need. Help the children of your community to overcome and be who they should be and who they can be.

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