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.

Statistically Speaking

Voices of the present and the future wants to offer you a little insight into the statistics of serial killers. According to research (via Discover; and Radford University’s Mike Aamodt), there are fewer serial killers on the prowl since the dawn of the new century. If we look at the 1980’s we were at a high point with almost 770, that we know of, that we operating across the U.S. during the decade. That number dropped during the 1990’s and yet again in the 2000’s, and by 2016, there had been only about 100 that had popped up in the prior decade. So, this has to be some good news for some of you who may suffer from regular nightmares that may involve being stalked or attacked by a serial killer. You can rest at ease, at least a little.

I want to offer you a few theories that police have put out there that may explain just what may be going on. It involves things like the advances in investigative methods and forensic science, a higher chance of getting caught, and being linked definintively to more crimes, there is stricter sentencing. There are also factors like cell phones and an increased connectivity between parents and children that make picking out victims a little more difficult these days. It is possible that our young kids and teens who have the potential to grow up to become serial killers are instead seeking help they need first.

We can’t say there aren’t any serial killers out there, because ther are, as well as new ones popping up. In addition to the ones who have managed to elude police and capture for a long time.

LET’S TAKE A LOOK AT WHO A FEW OF THEM ARE:

WE HAVE THE I-70 KILLER, who between April 8 and May 7, 1992, shot and killed six people along the stretch of I-70. There were striking similarities between these victims. Five of them were women and the police believe the sixth was mistaken for woman when the killer saw his long pony tail. All were brunettes, and all were employees at stores just off the highway. They were also all killed with a .22 caliber bullet. There had been no sexual assault, no major thefts, and witnesses were able to give a description of a man seen entering the stores before the murders. The spring of 2022 marks the 30-year anniversary of the still-unsolved murders.

WE ALSO HAVE THE EASTBOUND STRANGLER. On November 20, 2006, the bodies of four women had been beaten and neatly discarded behind the Golden Key Motel in a Subur outside of Atlantic City. The women had been fully clothed, except for their shoes and socks, and they had been positioned face down in a line behind the motel. They all had been strangled. This killer is still out there and a $25,000 reward has been issued for information leading to the killers arrest.

WE MOVE ON TO THE WEST MESA MURDERS. These murders stated back in 2001, when women started going missing more often than usual. Almost a decade late, on February 2, 2009, a woman came across a human bone, leading to a crime scene no one could imagine. Eleven victims of the “West Mesa Bone Collector” wouldn’t be identified for another 11 years. Eleven women and one child were found and identified. The West Mesa Bone Collector’s idenity still remains a mystery and the investigation is still ongoing. There is a $100,000 reward being offered for information about the killer.

There are many more as you will soon learn if you continue reading my blog. I urg you to follow the conversation and subscribe or leave a comment. Thank you to all my followers!

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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Is That My Neighbor?

Voices, past, present, and future continues its deep dive into some of the most horrifying criminals at large who just so happen to have made it to the FBI’s most wanted list. JOIN ME!

Let’s take a look at William Bradford Bishop Jr., a former United States Foreign Service officer who is a fugitive from justice since he ALLEGEDLY killed his wife, mother, and his three sons in 1976. On April 10, 2014, he was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List. At the age of 81, on June 27, 2018 he would be removed from this list, making room for another dangerous fugitive, although, Bishop is still being activiely pursued by the FBI.

If we were to look into the Psychology of Bishop, at first glance we would find no triggers for his behavior that other middle class families also endure. The Washington Post, in 1977, published an article that stated, ” There was no evidence of infidelity, or financial or job related problems.” Bishop had been passed over for a promotion, but there was no history of work-related issues. This just happened to be the first glitch in the storybook tale. His career had caused him some marital tension. Being unhappy at his desk job, and interested in another foreign posting, caused his wife, Annette to be reluctant, as she was just starting her study of Art at the University of Maryland. This was despite Bishop’s desire for her to remain a stay-at-home mom.

Sources had agreed that the Bishop’s had experienced some financial difficulties, but there had been some disagreement as to the severity of it. The Post reported in 1986, that the issues were “mild” and “familiar to most upwardly mobile families.” An FBI Criminal Profiler described them as “Nothing terribly unusual for people in their thirties living in that kind of neighborhood.” Bethesda Magazine, 2013, reported that the IRS had been auditing the family’s taxes due to some financial troubles, though the existence of the audit has not been confirmed by the IRS or the FBI.

The profile that the FBI put together of Bishop was that: he is an avid outdoorsman, who enjoys camping and hiking, the report also states that he has a pilot’s license from when he was stationed in Africa. He enjoys riding motorcycles and working out on weekly basis. (Sounds like your average dating profile until you look into his psyche)

At the time leading to the murders, he was afflicted with both depression and insomnia, taking Serax for these conditions. (I’m not familiar with the medication, but I think we all suffer from these conditions from time to time). He is fond of dogs, and enjoys a Scotch Whiskey from time to time, along with spicy fooods and peanuts. (I guess they have to go into depth when putting together a profile to catch their criminal) The profile also listed that he has a vertical scar on his lower back from surgery, a cleft chin, and a facial mole on his left cheek. (The FBI left no small detail undiscovered)

At the time he vanished, the FBI believed he had his father’s Smith & Wesson M&P .38 Special Revolver, (it also lists the serial number C981967), along with his Yale class ring. He may have taken his diplomatic passport with him, his being the only one missing at the time the murders were discovered. Bishop had approximately one week of advance time before the authorities began too look for him. They suggested he could have traveled on this diplomatic passport. A FBI Special Agent, Steve Vogt, stated in 2014 that neither Bishop’s wallet nor passport have ever been found. They also speculated Bishop may have had intelligence training in the 1960’s, which could have helped him evade detection in 1976. (The amount of training military, special forces, intelligence agencies, etc. receive, scares me to the level that they can evade and get away with crimes and acts of violence against humanity)

There have been numerous sightings of Bishop since 1976. Some have been in various European countries, including Italy, Belgium, England, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. They have three most credible sightings that were noted by the United States Marshals Service:

• A Swedish woman, in 1978, stated that she had collaborated with Bishop while on a business trip in Ethiopia. She reported she had spotted him twice in a public park in Stockholm during a span of one week. She also stated, she was “absolutely certain” the man was Bishop. She said she did not contact the police, because at the time she had not realized yet, that he was wanted for murder in the U.S.
• Sometimes our features are so distinct that they cannot be denied, which in January of 1979 is what happened. A former State Departmen colleague reportedly saw him in a restroom in Sorrento, Italy. The colleague stated that when he greeted Bishop, a bearded man, eye-to-eye, asking: “Hey, you’re Brad Bishop, aren’t you?” the man responded in a distinct American accent, “Oh no”, and then fled.
• Again on September 19,1994, a neighbor who had known Bishop and his family in Bethesda, while she was on a platform on a Basil train on vacation, had spotted him from only a few feet away. She described him as “well groomed” and also stated that he was getting into a car.

In 2010, the authorities had believed that Bishop was living in Switzerland, Italy or elswhwer in Europe, or possibly even California. They believed he may have even worked as a teacher or became involved in criminal activities.. The autorities also revealed that before the murders Bishop had been corresponding with a federal prison inmate, Albert Kenneth Bankson, who was in the United Stated Penitentiary, in Marion, Illinois. Why or How is still unknown. Bankston died in 1983, ten years before law enforcement discovered his connection to Bishop.

In 2014, the authorities stated that Bishop was probably living in plain sight in the U.S. and was avoiding discovery by avoidin arrest. Being arrested would enable the law enforcement to run his fingerprints and catch him.

In March 2021, a woman who had been adopted came forward claiming that she found out through a DNA testing service, Bishop was her biological father. The FBI confirmed she was indeed his biological daughter.

Why are these cases so important and why do I bring them to you? It’s because these murderers, fugitives, criminals, with extensive backgrounds and training, walk among us. They look and act just like anyone we see in the store, could even be our neighbors. While we go about our days, the deaths of Bishop’s family still goes without justice for their lives taken.

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