Hill Country Holidays

December is pot-harvesting time in Mexico, which means the annual holiday influx of semi-trucks to local ranches with large barns and/or warehouses (especially the ones along side roads close to I-10) has begun and all manner of vehicles are paraded in front of our house (especially various types of trailers, buses, and RVs) because the dopers know I don't like it. Several times in the past, pickup trucks with open backs and clearly visible loads have been driven past me while I'm out walking my dog in the evening, but more commonly drugs are concealed in some sort of outrageous and/or unusual cargo: lawn ornaments, porta-potties, stock trailers, furniture, appliances, junk, etc. Watch for the most outrageous vehicles on the road--orange or purple trim, silly custom license plates, huge mudflaps with silly logos, etc. Also look on the major street corners for someone hanging around who looks unusual in some way (Tweety Bird hanging from their purse, weird shopping bag, CD case, etc.). No one ever seems to get arrested, except for the occasional Hispanic competitor; it always just seems to be business as usual around here, and it appears to be very big business indeed.

Meanwhile, my children and I see the toll unchecked drugs take on our community, especially in the schools. The local head of Child Protective Services was once quoted in the local paper as saying that drugs were rampant in our community, but no one seems to care enough to turn down the money they make from running loads or selling to tourists or to do anything about the usage problems. We are already running the risk of losing our entire younger generation to drugs and alcohol here, and it's a terrible thing to watch.

Mystery Man

Shown here is an excerpt from a letter I once received from the FBI asking me what I knew about a close associate of my ex-husband and his family. This letter, dated April 18, 2000, asked me to send this and other information to a San Antonio post office box address or to come to their San Antonio office in person. (I immediately mailed them the information they asked for.)

I first met this man and his family on Easter Sunday of 1991; I remember the date because it was a holiday and I was pregnant with my youngest child at the time. After church, my husband, my children, and I were invited to my brother-in-law's house to eat. When we got there, I was surprised to discover that my in-laws had brought along weekend house guests of theirs they'd never mentioned having. I was introduced to the man, his wife, and their child and told they were visiting from their home in California in order to look at some valuable property adjoining my in-laws' that had recently become available [another story] because they wanted to build a house and move here.

This couple aroused my curiosity right from the start. The man was very unusual-looking: extremely short in stature, long gray hair in a ponytail, considerably older than his wife, rather simply dressed, and reserved. His wife seemed his complete opposite: much younger, of average or slightly above-average height, well-dressed, loud/talkative, and exuding an air of wealth. I remember her telling me she was originally from somewhere in northern California but that they now lived in the L.A. area.

It was not at all like my in-laws to not mention having guests, especially ones who were potential neighbors, and I was even more confused when it became obvious that all the adults except me clearly knew each other very well already. I was told that the man owned a head-hunting agency for nurses and was moving to our town to bring in nurses for our local hospital and others in the area. I was also told that his wife was a former nurse herself. I can't remember if it was then or a few months later that the wife told me she was also pregnant.

This couple did purchase the property adjoining my in-laws', and they moved into the old farmhouse on the property and began having an enormous basement dug nearby for a very large new home they planned to build (despite my trying to warn them that the location they'd chosen was too low and would probably flood). I tried to befriend the wife and get our young children together to play, but to my dismay, it quickly became apparent that she was not at all friendly towards me and at times was downright rude. I decided this was simply her personality and tried to ignore it, but when it became apparent that she was using me as an unpaid babysitter (leaving her child at my house for increasingly long periods of time without telling me where she was going), I reluctantly gave up on any friendship with her. She was a close friend of my brother-in-law's wife, however; the two of them did thing together frequently, but I was not invited to join them.

There were a number of things about the husband that began to make me extremely uncomfortable about him as well. I quickly discovered that he always carried multiple cell phones and pagers that were constantly going off. Nearly every time I went to his house, there were big, burly bikers there I'd never seen before who met with the husband and never seemed to stay long.

Also, neighbors on the other side of this couple were raising large numbers of pit bulls. I had several very frightening encounters with these and couldn't understand how this couple could raise small children so close by.

Then the night I went into labor with my youngest and was having a very difficult time, this couple suddenly burst into my labor room--while the doctor was examining me! My doctor ordered them to leave immediately, but they said they were "on a hospital tour" and refused to go. The doctor then yelled at them to get out and threatened to call security and have them forcibly removed, at which point they finally left (laughing). After that incident, I no longer wanted anything to do with them, and the feeling must have been mutual, because I don't remember seeing them afterwards.

Later, I asked my brother-in-law's wife (who continued to be a good friend of theirs) for more information about this couple. She told me the husband had made a fortune in real estate and owned a good deal of valuable property in the Los Angeles area. She also said this man owned a large shopping mall in Norman, Oklahoma that was close to the university and extremely lucrative as a result. When I tried to ask why he'd come to our area, she became evasive and quickly changed the subject.

Meanwhile, as I'd feared, a heavy rainfall flooded the couple's huge future basement and they stopped work on their planned house. The wife had had her baby as well, and they began traveling extensively, especially to Germany and Florida. Eventually, they left here for good and moved to Germany. Later, they moved back to the U.S. and settled in the Orlando area. The family did make several short visits here, and twice my husband insisted we let them stay in our guesthouse. (As usual, they left their children with me and went off together somewhere.) They sent us a Christmas gift every year for several years, and my husband asked me to reciprocate, so I did. Shortly after my husband suddenly left in 1999, my brother-in-law and this man began developing much of the man's land here into subdivisions, and my ex- and his new wife lived in one of the houses there for a short time.

Like so many of my ex-husband's close associates, the mystery man was also a pilot, and he owned numerous planes. He also employed a foreign-born man who was a talented airplane and submarine mechanic with an extensive background and training to keep up his fleet. The mechanic became one of my ex-husband's closest friends, and he helped my ex- build an airplane from a kit down in our barn shortly before my ex- left. This mechanic eventually moved to Corpus Christi and later to Key West, FL. My ex-husband is still in close touch with both the mechanic and his employer, and he and/or his family visit with them regularly.

After my husband left in 1999 and I began finding frightening evidence and hearing persistent rumors of possible criminal activity, I contacted the FBI in San Antonio to tell them I wasn't involved and ask them what I should do. Eventually, I received their letter in reply that asked me for further information on several specific topics only, one of which being what I knew about this man. Years later, after 9/11 when I was remembering all of the things I've discussed previously in my "Middle Eastern Men" and other posts here, I also realized that this man had ties to a number of the same places being mentioned in connection with the hijackers: Norman, OK; South FL; and Germany. I also knew that my ex-husband was making regular trips to Las Vegas for some reason and that he and a friend from San Antonio sometimes made trips to Portland, Maine, supposedly "to eat lobster". I mentioned all of this when I contacted the FBI after 9/11, but because I never heard anything back again from them, I concluded it was all merely bizarre coincidences.

When I decided to start trying to file formal criminal complaints related to our case [see "My Story" below] at the end of 2007 and realized I would need to visit the FBI office and meet with an agent again, I brought along a copy of their letter to me regarding the mystery man just to see what would happen. While I was talking to an agent there (who would not give me his name and was not wearing any I.D. badge that I could see), I casually brought out the letter and left it sitting out on top of a stack of other documents. The results were pretty spectacular: the agent did a classic double-take when he spotted it, he kept staring at the letter, and it was clearly bothering him, although he never said anything about it to me. [If you don't believe me, go back and look at the tape of this interview.]

There may be one more postscript to this story as well; I'm not sure. Recently a man who does occasional repair work for me told me he'd once heard that Disney originally planned to build their "Animal Kingdom" theme park near Kerrville, TX and actually got pretty far along with the project, until a "blue norther" happened to blow in at the same time Disney officials were visiting. The company supposedly did more checking into our weather and discovered there were too many days here when the park would not be very pleasant for guests, so they abruptly shut down negotiations and moved the park to Orlando. While there have been rumors of a Disney park swirling around the San Antonio area for years, the specifics of this one made a lot of sense with regard to other things I already knew, such as the way my former father-in-law and his friends had been buying up property in the same area near I-10; the fact that the property that supposedly interested Disney (and other ranches in our area) had previously been used as a "camera safari" with exotic animals; the sudden fascination my former father-in-law had with the Disney company around the same time that involved several trips to Orlando; a sudden interest by other local "insider" families in making regular trips to Orlando; and the timing of the mystery man's sudden arrival and equally sudden departure here.

For a small amount of possible additional information about this man, please see the end of my 8/28/09 post entitled "Check Connections".

Middle Eastern Men

I find it strange that my ex-husband is leaving comments on my previous blogposts accusing me of having ties to the Middle East when he knows full well that I don't--and he most definitely does!

Many years ago when we were first dating and living in a big city while going to school, my ex- got a summer job with a major moving company and was assigned to a crew of Middle Eastern men. My ex- became good friends with these men and spent a great deal of time with them both on and off the job, but he would never introduce me to them (he said it was a "cultural issue") and talked more about things they'd all done together than any of them as individuals. After this job ended, I never heard much more about the moving men, which surprised me a little because my ex- had seemed so close to them and spent so much time with them. (I do remember him mentioning having run into a couple of them once or twice later.)

During the late 1970s, my ex-husband also had a former college roommate and close friend who lived in Saudi Arabia for a short time while on a job for a prominent Houston engineering firm. While there, he complained of having to endure very primitive living conditions, which I found surprising under the circumstances. This same friend, who has lived overseas for many years now, travels extensively on business, and has spent time in many different countries all over the world. However, he does own a ranch in Central Texas, as well as property in other countries besides the one in which he lives.

A year or so after we married, I remember my ex-husband asking me to go with him to a suburban area of the big city we lived in to meet his brother at a jewelry store to pick up a diamond for an engagement ring being made for his brother's girlfriend (his current wife). The jewelry store we went to was a small one I'd never heard of in a little strip mall. When we got there, my ex- told me to wait in the car because they'd only be a minute, and he and his brother went inside and met with the store owner, a Middle Eastern man I'd never seen before. Their meeting took more like 10 or 15 minutes, but when they came out, I got to see the diamond, which was very large and very beautiful. I also remember being told this same jeweler had sold my ex-'s father a very large and unusual diamond that had been made into a ring for his (my ex-'s) mother. (My own teeny little engagement ring from a major chain store paled in comparison!)

Years later, while I was married and living in my current house in Central Texas, my husband began inviting students doing various local internships to stay with us in a little guesthouse we have. A few of these students were Middle Eastern men (I never saw any women or children with them) who were all very quiet and kept mostly to themselves--except in the early evening, when they would often come over to the house, knock on the back door, and inquire whether my husband was home from work yet and if he would be able to take them flying in his small plane that evening. (My ex- is a pilot who files in his spare time.)

One of these men came back to stay with us more than once with different roommates. I no longer member his name, but I know I could recognize him if I saw him again, because his coloring and features were distinctive. On two separate occasions, a parcel was delivered for this man while he was gone for the day that I took out to him later. I remember that the packages were large yellow manila envelopes that were mailed from Houston and felt as if they contained bundles of cash, which made me uncomfortable handling them. When this man finally left for good, my children and I remember him bringing us a large tray of colorful pastries he said were from a Middle-Eastern bakery in Austin as a thank-you gift. We were particularly touched by this, both because it provided us with a rich cultural and educational experience, and also because it was rare for any of the students who stayed with us to thank us in any way.

Years later, after my divorce, I remembered that around the same time these men were staying with us, my ex-husband had come home one night and announced he'd been invited by the son of a business associate to spend a long weekend with him (the son) and his wife in Dallas. My ex- said his host was a pilot for American Airlines who'd invited him to fly up and try out a flight simulator owned by American, since he knew my ex- loved to fly and was interested in jets. In retrospect, I realized this trip had been rather sudden and that I hadn't actually known whether my ex- went alone or not.

By the time I finally recalled all this, it was after 9/11, at a time when things that had seemed so innocent before suddenly took on new potential meanings. Around the same time, I read a newspaper article about the death of one of Osama bin Laden's brothers in the crash of an ultralight aircraft that had occurred in our area. I also realized there were some other coincidences that could not be easily explained away.

Although I felt everything was probably okay, I decided I'd better let the FBI know about everything just to be sure, so I wrote them a letter. I never heard anything back, so I decided that meant everything had checked out okay.

Later on (in 2003 and 2004), another rather mysterious Middle Eastern man came to my attention, although I never actually met him. A woman who worked very closely for one of the private investigators who defrauded me (and may be related to him?) told me she had married a man from Iran? [I think this was the country she said, but I can't remember for sure] so he could obtain a green card and stay in the U.S. I remember being shocked when she told me this and even more shocked by how proud she seemed of having done it; when I mentioned that I was surprised she'd do something illegal, she just laughed, so I wasn't sure if she was being serious or not. (This same woman later tried to get me to go on a "free cruise" with her and got mad at me when I turned her down.)

Finally, since this is primarily a victims' blog, I will mention one additional fact that has struck me as odd for some time. There were four victims from San Antonio killed in the attack on the Pentagon, and all four of them were women.

What's The Buzz Revisited

This small article was published in this morning's issue of the San Antonio Express-News. Now go back and re-read my 11/24/09 blogpost entitled "What's The Buzz?" and consider the amazing coincidences--my firstborn and I got the number correct and everything!

Now please read the comments my ex-husband posted at the end of the above-mentioned blogpost. After doing that, I ask that you please also go back and re-read the piece I posted on 12/8/09 entitled "Texas As A Third World Country". By the time you finish it, you should be asking yourself some hard questions--whether this could be a national security issue, for example.

You should also know that last spring, my kids and I saw my ex-husband admitted to a restricted area at a NASA-sponsored event where he wasn't authorized to be and that security personnel allowed him to remain in this area for over an hour before a NASA official finally insisted that he leave.

The French Connection

One of the attorneys connected with our case seemed to be obsessed with France--many of her legal documents had stamps connected with France or Paris on them as the examples here show. She repeatedly refused to explain this to me, other than simply telling me she "liked France a lot". She also mentioned a number of times that she was an equestrian who owned horses; much later, I remembered that my cousin (the well-known equestrian mentioned in "My Story" at the beginning of this blog) used to work for a French multi-millionaire in upstate New York.

I do know of a number of prominent Texas attorneys with various ties to France, and my children have told me that my ex-husband's parents and aunt and uncle were visiting France on 9/11/01. (On that same day, my father, stepmother, and aunt and uncle happened to be in Scotland, and my ex-husband was in Alaska.)

Other people with various connections to our case have ties to other foreign countries that I also don't fully understand: Germany, China, Great Britain, the Czech. Republic, and more. My ex- owns a house in Canada (W. Coast) and travels there frequently. Many people from around here seem to own property overseas--far more than you might expect. I'm not sure if there's anything to all this or not, but at the very least, I find it interesting. Hopefully, someday someone can explain it all to me.

Texas As A Third World Country

Lately, living in Texas seems more like being in a third-world country than in the United States of America. Gov. Rick Perry treats the Texas National Guard and the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers and rangers like his own personal army, ordering them to the border on short notice for secret missions that are never explained publicly. (The helicopters that buzzed us on 11/23/09 as previously reported in my “What’s The Buzz?” blog posting may have belonged to the DPS. We have been buzzed at all hours by what look like military aircraft many times over the last ten years.) People write in to local newspapers complaining about being buzzed by drone aircraft; my children and I have also been victims of this, and it is very startling and frightening. Local ranches look like military fortresses. I have already discussed the situation with regard to illegal surveillance and millions of dollars worth of missing federal equipment (some of it expensive and sophisticated helicopter-mounted surveillance equipment); see my “Illegal Surveillance Summary” blogpost below. There are persistent rumors of billions of dollars being hidden by locals in offshore accounts and being laundered through real estate, banks, charities, businesses, and even schools.

Texas’ Republican senators insist on being able to choose appointees for important federal positions in Texas, and so far, President Obama does not seem either able or willing to stand up to them: for example, the apparent stand-off currently going on over an appointment to the position of U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Texas (our federal district). Texas State Senator John Whitworth (D, Houston) received a death threat from a convict on death row via a cell phone that had been smuggled into the prison; an investigation of this led to the discovery of so many smuggled-in phones and other contraband that it was considered easier to pursue legislation allowing the jamming of airwaves inside prisons than to try and keep contraband out.

Much of our personal (i.e., non-junk) mail arrives wide open, crudely taped or glued shut after having been opened, damp from having been steamed open, with parts of the contents deliberately pulled out [remember, they brag about lawbreaking here], with strange/goofy markings added, etc. One piece of mail I received from Diop Kamau had what looked like a pubic hair taped to the opening that had to have been added locally (because, from the way it was sticking up, it would not have been likely to survive in the mail). I have a stack over an inch thick of receipts for mail that was lost or stolen that the USPS and various private carriers have repeatedly refused to do anything about. If you input the tracking numbers on some of these, you will see tracking information that is absolute nonsense and was obviously made up by someone. Other tracking numbers from these receipts simply bring up a “No Record” message.

People here build secret rooms in their homes, stockpiling weapons and ammunition as discussed in my “Secret Rooms” blog previously. Separatism and survivalism are preached openly on the streets by “Patriots For Freedom” and others. Local churches have rooms full of computer equipment and heavy security, and only persons with the closest ties to my ex-husband’s family are allowed to handle church finances.

Court documents and official records of all kinds are filed without being properly notarized (ex.: our case), disappear and reappear (ex.: former Gillespie County Judge Jay Weinheimer’s case), etc. Corrupt judges are allowed to resign when caught so they can retain their pensions (ex.: Karl Prohl). Other judges (both current and retired) are simply never prosecuted for wrongdoing (ex.: our own case), despite overwhelming proof of involvement. I have heard D.A. Curry being called "Let 'Em Loose Bruce".

At any given time, approximately one-fourth of vehicles seen around here have clearly illegal license plates: no front plate; no back plate; no plates at all; plates illegally obscured by plastic, mud, scratches, large plate frames, etc.; “cover plates” that flip up or down over existing plates; temporary dealer plates that are often either outdated or on vehicles that are ancient; plates that belong on other vehicles (this one is particularly common!); plates that are expired; and plates that are clearly fake, either because they look crude or because they mimic a custom plate but contain a word or meaning that would normally be censured (ex.: a plate on an unmarked law enforcement pickup reading “GLOCK U”). A substantial percentage of vehicles also have illegally dark window tints. Parked at the local high schools, you will see more luxury vehicles than “bangers” (and you will also sometimes see assault rifles and hunting rifles on racks in the windows; in the past, I've reported these, and law enforcement does nothing).

STRATFOR has been quoted nationally as reporting that corrupt law enforcement is a major problem here, yet the U.S. Department of Justice refuses to do anything about it. Law enforcement officers buy and sell illegal substances (ex.: the DPS trooper from Boerne recently arrested for selling steroids), and some have clear symptoms and histories of personal substance abuse problems. My children and I have been tailgated by current and former law enforcement officers, often so aggressively that we are nearly bumped. In one case, we may have actually been bumped gently while stopping for a stop sign. In another case, after one of my children and I were harassed and frightened at night by a state trooper in a marked patrol car, I complained to the DPS, but of course nothing was done about it. I have personally heard persons with connections to local law enforcement talking about officers being stationed on top of local hills with special scopes “that can read license plates from distances of up to 5 miles away” in order to monitor vehicles. A new police substation downtown has a concrete-lined storage room and cooking facility located beneath it that city officials said in the local newspaper was for “parties”.

Then there are the homicides. Deaths are ruled suicides or accidents under the most outrageous circumstances: clear signs of torture (ex.: Phillip Shue), multiple gunshots (ex.: John Dillday), gunshots to the stomach by long-barrelled weapons (ex.: Preston Nelson; Kimberly Weirich barely survived this; her brother Matt barely survived a suspicious fall off a cliff in his underwear in near-freezing temperatures in Austrailia that he claims was an accident). Local police watch people burn to death (ex.: Sandy Smith) or drown (ex.: Courtney Foreman) and do nothing, gun people down in officer-involved shootings, are the last ones to see people alive (ex.: Theresa Vallado), arrive too quickly on the scene of homicides (ex.: Linda Muegge), and try to pass homicides off as accidents (ex.: Linda Muegge, Mary Rose Warburton, Trudy Harris). Murder victims are lured into certain counties before being killed (exs.: Norman Roark, Cassie Ann Hough) or are dumped in certain counties after being murdered (ex.: Yuhuai Yan). Law enforcement officers are often the only ones able to locate persons missing under suspicious circumstances (ex.: Tony Shans, supposedly drowned while fishing during a heavy rain storm and flooding). Pilots seem to be especially prone to dying under suspicious circumstances around here; we once lost 3 in a single day: Ronald and Helen DeLoof (plane crash) and Robert Wilson (found dead in a vehicle). Victims of suspicious deaths also seem to turn up on pilots’ property (ex.: William Watson, found dead on property owned by a pilot with very close personal ties to my ex-husband). People suddenly die shortly before they are to testify before grand juries (ex.: Cynthia Parker). Siblings all suddenly die (ex.: Sherman Klein, Stephen Klein, and Ellen Klein Russell). The latest trend in suspicious deaths around here is the use of fire, both in homes (ex.: Linda Muegge), with vehicles (ex.: Carla Saylor and Marietta McDonald), and with aircraft (exs. in a previous post), probably to destroy foreign DNA and other forensic evidence. Crime labs and medical examiners statewide are woefully inadequate or corrupt or both. (Gov. Perry fired the head of the statewide group that oversees medical examiners just as they were starting to investigate the possible innocence of a man executed for deaths ruled arson that appear to have actually been accidental.)

According to recent news reports, the Mexican city of Juarez, located directly across the border from El Paso, now averages 7 homicides per day, making it one of the deadliest cities in the world. Is this really what we want here? [Is this what we already have here??] I believe that to sit back and do nothing is the same thing as actively making the decision to let this happen.

Namedropping

A lot of well-known people live here or own property here or have other close ties to our area. The Bush Museum of the Pacific War is in Fredericksburg, and the Bush family has many ties here. (I once heard a local hospital official bragging that he used to routinely see “W” in the showers at a country club in Midland.) The LBJ Ranch is at Stonewall. Karl Rove lists his residence as Ingram (and votes there); Kinky Friedman also resides there. Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (ex-CIA) has a ranch between Kerrville and Fredericksburg. Business writer Roger Cameron has what looks like a fortress here. Well-known jewelry designer James Avery has his business and residence near Kerrville.

Over the years, I’ve also been told about many celebrities owning property here. George Strait has a ranch here. Patrick Swayze has/had an Arabian horse farm near Kerrville. Madeline Stowe and Brian Benben have a ranch here. Producer Lynda Obst has a ranch here; I remember my ex-husband telling me the local police chief’s former wife worked for her in some capacity. Robert and Shelly Duval own property here. I’ve been told that Kevin Costner and Jane Seymour own property here. Tommy Lee Jones (former Harvard suitemate of Al Gore and the inventors of the Internet) owns property nearby and used to sometimes phone my ex-husband on business. Sandra Bullock and Matthew McConaughey are well-known homeowners in Austin who come here frequently; they are said to particularly enjoy the scenic Willow City Loop area. Luckenbach, with its country music stars, is here. (One of the p.i.s working for Ed Hodges that the Texas DPS refuses to discipline, despite my providing them with absolute proof of wrongdoing, owns a ranch close to Luckenbach.) Bill Ham, whom I was told is a major music producer, who apparently always travels with bodyguards, and whose wife was supposedly murdered in Austin years ago, owns property very close to mine. Johnny Nicholas (whose son died under suspicious circumstances at Colorado School of Mines) lives here and has a restaurant here. CBS News reporter Lara Logan is involved in a local divorce that has attracted attention from the tabloids. This is only a partial list, by the way.

Then there are the many current and former state and federal officials and employees who either live here or own property here. A number of the families of LBJ’s former Secret Service agents that my ex-husband grew up with have retired here. Retired FBI and CIA agents live here. All or most of the highest-ranking Texas DPS officers and officials seem to have retired to this area—so many, in fact, that the Texas Rangers have been raising funds to build a museum here (but their charity recently received a very low rating from a watchdog group, according to the San Antonio Express-News). For some reason, the FBI and certain community leaders are currently pushing the building of an FBI gun range and weapons training facility near the Kerrville landfill, even though the construction of a similar facility by the FBI just south of San Antonio had recently been announced and the location of the proposed Kerrville facility is causing serious controversy there due to its proximity to the local high school and residential areas.

While I’ve admittedly only listed a sampling of names here, there is one name I can’t drop—because I don’t know it. Back in the 1980s, when I was married, I remember my former father-in-law complaining constantly and bitterly about a “wealthy Japanese businessman” who was repeatedly out-bidding him for local property when it came onto the real estate market. I was never told this man’s name, however, and eventually my ex-husband’s family stopped talking about him, so I assumed he probably was a victim of the Japanese financial recession. I do recall that the time period when this guy was buying up local property was the same time that my former father-in-law (an attorney) said he was helping many celebrities buy property here.

What's The Buzz?

Yesterday, a few minutes after one of my kids left to go back to school after coming home for lunch, one of my adult children and I were just finishing our own lunches when we were suddenly startled by a group of five, black, smallish, military-looking helicopters that came zooming past our kitchen window. These were flying single-file, in very close succession, fairly low, and came fairly close to our house (close enough to definitely get our attention!). We watched as all five (still in a line) turned directly over the gully just west of ours that is under so much heavy construction and then flew off in the general direction of the local airport. My kids and I have never seen anything like this before. [Coincidentally, the property the helicopters turned over is supposedly being developed by a pilot friend of my ex-husband's and his physician wife. I believe this property formerly belonged to one of the suspicious death victims described in the "My Story" blog below.]

Illegal Surveillance Summary

Copy of an ad published in the San Antonio Express-News

In Part I (posted here on 11/3/09), I documented the fact that a substantial amount of my own money was used without my knowledge to purchase sophisticated federal surveillance equipment. [Note: I can provide additional financial and other documents showing the money trail for this.]

In Part II (posted here on 11/7/09), I documented the fact that Diop Kamau of the Police Complaint Center had knowledge of sophisticated/expensive surveillance and other equipment installed on my property and that he repeatedly refused to provide me with information on either the type of equipment installed on my property or where it was located. I also documented the fact that an unlicensed investigator working for Kamau named Greg Slate (who may have ties to this area, has been described by Kamau on the internet as having access to and frequently using very sophisticated surveillance and computer equipment, and whom I allowed into my home at Kamau’s insistence before I knew all this) admitted to trespassing on my property remove some sort of equipment when I began to confront Kamau.

In Part III (posted here on 11/13/09), I documented serious threats made by Diop Kamau of an illegal invasion of our home by Greg Slate and local law enforcement officers to remove unspecified equipment immediately after I’d contacted a personal injury lawyer about a possible lawsuit. I also documented the fact that Diop Kamau himself mentioned that he had connections to my ex-husband and local law enforcement. Finally, I documented and discussed the failure of high-level state and federal law enforcement to do anything to help us, despite my repeated pleas that they do so. [There is considerable additional documentation of this posted at my other blog, http://kamaudocs.blogspot.com.]

In Part IV (posted here on 11/14/09), I documented the fact that a law enforcement investigator named Rob Jones, whom Kamau stated in Part II worked for him, somehow illegally obtained two pages of my private fax to the personal injury lawyer and brazenly emailed them back to me as a fake eFax just to let me know he had them. I also discussed the fact that Kamau had originally told me Jones was from Texas but later said Jones was from Kentucky, after which I realized Kamau and others might be trying to use Jones to explain away stamped markings on the backs of my cancelled checks to Kamau (shown in my 8/28/09 posting here entitled “Check Connections”) that potentially tied Kamau to my father (a known close associate of my ex-husband’s). [An additional potential link between Kamau and my ex-husband is posted on the kamaudocs site as “Kamau 51”.] Finally, I discussed the fact that I had also received an email I considered a death threat from Jones (shown here in my 10/3/09 post here entitled “Other Police Threats“) and rumors that Jones actually worked for our local D.A.

These documents are also posted at my kamaudocs blog, along with substantial additional documentation. In 2005, local first responders were in trouble over missing surveillance equipment., as reported by the San Antonio Express-News. I have previously discussed the fact that over $30 million worth of Homeland Security equipment has been reported as missing and that some of this is sophisticated surveillance equipment (see also my 6/19/09 post here entitled “Serious Concern”). The lifelong close friendship between my ex-husband, his family, and the local police chief has been documented numerous times on both of my blogs (see especially “Kamau 155” at the kamaudocs blog).

I believe all of this taken together shows that my ex-husband has conspired with multiple other persons, including law enforcement officers, to cruelly use my own money multiple times to purchase sophisticated surveillance and other equipment that was then illegally installed inside our home and vehicles and outside on our property and used to criminally stalk and harass us for years. Further, because my children and I have logged and documented in the past and continue to log and document serious incidents where numerous people (both known and unknown to us) clearly have detailed information regarding incidents and conversations taking place within the privacy of our home and vehicles, we believe this illegal surveillance is ongoing and is being provided to numerous others, including law enforcement.

In my kamaudocs blog mentioned above, I also document my numerous appeals to high-level state and federal law enforcement for relief from and prosecution of the illegal surveillance of us. You can see the U.S. Department of Justice’s shocking response posted below (my 9/20/09 post entitled “Response From DOJ“). Meanwhile, we have daily reminders that that the illegal surveillance of us continues unabated.

I don’t know how or when the U.S. became a secret police state where stalking, harassment, and illegal surveillance using federal law enforcement equipment for purposes of domestic abuse became acceptable to law enforcement and other with access to it; I only know that it has, since the DOJ and DHS clearly know all about it yet continue to refuse to do anything about it. Domestic violence czar Lynn Rosenthal has also been made aware of our situation, and she too continues to refuse to respond in any way to our requests for help and relief. (Is it any wonder prominent locals are suddenly writing frantic letters to the local newspaper asking the community to consider how they will be viewed historically in the future?)

There are very important things EVERY reader of this blog can (and should!) do to stop this. Contact your representatives in Congress to demand a full accounting for missing state and federal equipment that was paid for with taxpayer money, insist on proof that state and federal law enforcement and surveillance equipment is not being used for illegal purposes like stalking, harassment, and organized crime (especially drug trafficking), and make it clear that you expect the U.S. Department of Justice to fully and aggressively prosecute any and all criminal acts related to this. Send a short email to President Obama and Vice President Biden letting them know you are aware of the situation here and that it’s not acceptable. You can also contact media representatives and insist that they investigate the situation here and report it fully (see my 9/20/09 blog post here entitled “A Reporter Said“).

Finally, it goes without saying that persons with knowledge of criminal acts are required by law to report such acts to law enforcement in a timely manner or face possible prosecution themselves. The national FBI.gov website has a secure webform for submitting information that takes only a few minutes to fill out and submit, so there are no excuses for failing to report information on known illegal acts. Persons who knowingly access illegal surveillance should be especially concerned about this.

Illegal Surveillance, Part IV

After I faxed the personal injury lawyer and mass panic apparently erupted among Diop Kamau, local police, and my ex-husband as described in the previous post, two additional things happened: I received the email I believe was a death threat from Investigator Rob Jones as described in my 10/3/09 posting entitled “Other Police Threats”, and I received a second email, also from Jones, that is posted here.

This second email from Jones consisted of a page that appeared to be an eFax with two pages of documents attached to it. The eFax said it was from my correct, unlisted, phone/fax number—but I’ve never had an eFax account of any kind! (although at one point, p.i. Ed Hodges did try unsuccessfully to get me to set one up). Of even more serious concern was the fact that the two pages of documents attached to this were two pages from my private fax to the personal injury lawyer (discussed in the previous post) that I’d sent by regular fax. I’m absolutely positive about this because one of the pages has a handwritten notation I’d made on it right before I’d faxed it to the attorney.

I called eFax and verified that they had no account using my phone number, so the main emailed page has to be a fake eFax. There are only three possible ways I know of for Jones to have obtained the two pages attached to this email: either 1) the personal injury lawyer gave them to him without my knowledge or consent; 2) the lawyer provided them to someone else who sent them on to Jones, also without my knowledge or consent; or 3) someone illegally intercepted my fax. When I’d talked to agents at the San Antonio FBI office the previous summer after first confronting Diop Kamau (who told me Jones worked for him), one of the first things agents there said to me was that they were positive our phone and fax line was secure, which I remember thinking was odd, because they’d offered this information to me without my having asked for it.

My own personal opinion is that this email probably proves illegal interception of my private fax by law enforcement. In any case, I believe Jones brazenly emailed it back to me with the fake eFax just to let me know he had it because he and his associates were angry with me for having contacted the personal injury lawyer and filing a complaint with high-level state and federal law enforcement as shown by one of the attached pages. This email also reinforces the connection between Jones and Kamau, because as you can see, Jones sent Kamau a copy of it.

Diop Kamau originally told me that Rob Jones worked for him (Kamau) and was from Texas. Later, Kamau and others said Jones was from Kentucky, but I believe this may have been because Kamau and others were desperate to try and find a way to explain the Kentucky stamps on the back of my cancelled checks to Kamau as shown in my 8/28/09 “Check Connections” blog posting. (These stamps may actually link Kamau to my father, who lives in KY and has major ties to Philadelphia, the other location stamped on the check backs. The potential implications of this link are discussed earlier in my 6/29/09 “Family Business” post. My father is a known close associate of my ex-husband’s.)

I’ve heard rumors that Rob Jones actually works as an investigator for our local D.A., but no one will confirm this for me. (Am I surprised?!?) Note that I’ve been told repeatedly we need to go to this D.A.’s office both to file criminal complaints and to obtain various legal protections for both myself and my children. Also note that it’s this same D.A.’s office that is involved in the Shue, Dillday, and other notorious suspicious death cases.

Illegal Surveillance, Part III

After the series of events documented in my two previous blog posts concerning illegal surveillance, I realized I now had proof of the illegal surveillance my children and I had long suspected we were victims of. I went to the San Antonio FBI office and met with an agent there, but he was not particularly helpful. Another agent from there that I spoke with on the phone told me I needed to have someone from the Texas Department of Public Safety’s technical unit sweep our house and property for bugs, but when I called the DPS about this, I ran into a lot of run-arounds and stalling.

Eventually, I did speak with a DPS officer in their technical unit. He told me I needed to write a letter to the director, Col. Davis, requesting a sweep of our property because Col. Davis was the only person who could authorize this. The officer gave me Col. Davis’ mailing address, but I pointed out that we were in a hurry to get the sweep done and also that, based on past experiences, there was a high likelihood of my letter being stolen out of the mail, even if I sent I certified or registered. I asked for a number where I could fax my letter to Col. Davis instead, but this request was met with more stalling. I persisted, however, and eventually the officer from the technical unit called back and gave me what he said was the fax number for Col. Davis’ office. I quickly wrote a letter, faxed it, and asked for confirmation that it had been received, which I did receive. [Copies of these documents are posted on my Kamau blog, http://kamaudocs.blogspot.com, as Kamau 157, 158, and 159.]

When I received no response to my request for a bug sweep from Col. Davis’ office, I faxed both him and the San Antonio FBI sample documentation like that already posted here plus additional documentation and continued to beg both agencies to help us. However, despite my providing them with a great deal of proof that we were under illegal surveillance and desperately needed help from them, I did not receive a single response of any kind from law enforcement—not even a simple yes-or-no answer regarding the sweep I’d requested as instructed. In desperation, I also appealed to the U.S. DOJ for help, but they also refused to respond in any way. [My many requests for this help are also posted at the kamaudocs blog mentioned above.] I was particularly alarmed to discover that the former head of the DPS’s statewide criminal investigation branch had lived in a house owned by my ex-husband’s family.

At the same time, I began filing serious complaints with both law enforcement and consumer agencies. When my consumer complaints were upheld but law enforcement at all levels continued to ignore me, I realized we would probably need to file a major personal injury lawsuit in order to get the help we needed and were entitled to. I began researching personal injury lawyers in San Antonio and Austin. When one particular personal injury lawyer was recommended to me by several different sources, I put together some sample documentation plus a letter asking for his help, and late at night on 10/13/07, I faxed this to him.

This fax of mine to the personal injury lawyer seems to have unleashed an absolute torrent of panic among Diop Kamau, his associates Greg Slate and Rob Jones, the local police, and my ex-husband. The next day, around 3 PM, I happened to look outside and saw that the gate to our pasture was standing wide open, something that could not have happened accidentally. Before I could race down the hill to close it, our livestock ran out, and I watched in horror as they took off down the street. One of my children and I immediately ran after them, but I left another of my kids at home to stay by the phone, since I’d also called the police when I realized our animals were headed for a major highway.

The decision to leave one of the kids in our house turned out to be crucial, because it soon became apparent that two police officers and two neighbors closely associated with my ex-husband were following us, watching us closely, and trying to get us away from our house in various ways (and, significantly, none of them helped us retrieve our animals; they just watched us and made fun of us). Eventually, we got our animals back on our own (and I immediately purchased and installed new locks on our pasture gates!).

Early the next morning, someone woke us up by trying to send a fax twice—but nothing actually transmitted. Very early the next day, I received a bizarre harassing email from “Manop joo” that included a link I didn’t click on. I immediately forwarded copies of this to law enforcement.

Later the same day, I suddenly received an email from Diop Kamau, whom I had not heard from since the previous summer. His email, posted here, was in much larger type than his previous ones, contained libelous statements about me, made demands for additional money that sounded like attempted extortion, and contained orders that I allow unspecified persons into our home to retrieve “several cameras and wireless devices”. Significantly, in this email, Kamau also finally admitted to having conspired with my ex-husband and local police officers.

I replied to Kamau, as posted here, with a request that he provide me with a detailed invoice for the money he claimed I owed him. I also reminded him he’d missed two previous deadlines for providing me with a listing of all equipment installed on my property and where it was located. Finally, I made it clear that none of the people he’d mentioned were allowed on my property for any reason and that I was contacting state and federal law enforcement immediately to ask for protection (which I did, although they did not respond).

The next day, I received a second email from Kamau (also shown here) insisting on an illegal invasion of our home to retrieve “equipment” that would involve local police officers. As you can see by my reply, I made it clear that I would not allow this, and I again appealed to the DPS and FBI for help. This time, I received an email from an unknown FBI agent saying only that they “were aware of our situation”.

On 10/21/07, Kamau sent me the third threatening email shown here. This time he said that the following Monday morning (10/23/07), Greg Slate and the local police would be invading our home. Once again I replied that I would not allow this and that I was again requesting protection from high-level law enforcement. Late on 10/22/07, when I hadn’t heard anything back from the FBI or DPS, I called the San Antonio FBI office and spoke to the night clerk there. He told me to call back in the morning. He also told me to “just not let anyone in, not even the police.”

Thankfully, no one showed up at our house the next morning, but ever since then there have been so many attempted break-ins that my children and I have been forced to keep our house attended at all times (meaning we can’t do anything together as a family). We continue to see many signs that we are under constant illegal surveillance, and we continue to be openly stalked and harassed by local law enforcement as well.

In June of 2005, local first responders had been in trouble for missing equipment that had been purchased with Homeland Security grants; some of this was surveillance equipment. In October of 2008, WOAI in San Antonio reported over $20 million worth of Homeland Security equipment was missing, including very sophisticated and expensive surveillance equipment. They said they’d turned over documented proof of this to Rep. Lamar Smith, but no other information was ever given out about this. I continue to wonder if any of this is on my property. [If you’re skeptical about the possibility of federal equipment being used for purposes of stalking, I suggest you also refer back to my 9/20/09 posting on this blog.]

The Lady In The Bathtub

Note: I'm having to blog from a remote computer today because someone keeps taking down our home internet connection. (Could this possibly be related to what is known to be coming with regard to my blogs on illegal surveillance??)

During the many years I dated and was married to my ex-husband, I vaguely remember hearing him and his family and close friends discussing various suspicious deaths that had occurred in the area, but at the time I was not aware there might be anything unusual about these conversations (and I was often distracted by children), so I did not pay as much attention as I now wish I had. This has resulted in my having a great many "snippets" of memories about what I was told about these deaths, and some of them are more complete than others. The conversations about what I'm calling the story of the lady in the bathtub here fall somewhere in the middle: I remember slightly more, was told a little more than usual, and happen (because of where it took place) to have a little more concrete information than in a lot of the other cases that might be able to be confirmed.

A little background is necessary. Many years ago (either when my former husband and I were dating or had just married), my ex-'s family purchased a ranch at Flag Creek in Llano County, where they have close relatives. This ranch has a small wooden hunting cabin and an old one-story house made out of interesting rock on it. My ex-'s family usually rented out the ranch and both structures for hunting, but I believe they also sometimes leased the house out for longer periods. Besides the rock exterior, my other favorite feature of the house was the beautiful old claw-foot bathtub that looked like it was original to the house.

One weekend when the house and cabin weren't occupied, my former in-laws invited longtime friends from Houston up to hunt at this ranch, and we packed up our children and some food and drove out to spend the day eating and visiting with them. Sometime after lunch, my mother-in-law took me aside and asked me what I thought about the woman who had recently been found dead in the house's bathtub. I was horrified to hear this, and I told her I didn't know anything about it and wanted to know more. She told me that the dead woman was a girlfriend of a man they'd been renting the house to, that she'd been found dead under suspicious circumstances, and that her body had been taken to Austin for further examination. I remember being shocked to hear this, and I asked her why no one had told me about this before; she replied that she'd just assumed my husband had told me about it. She asked me if I thought the death was a homicide, and I remember telling her I did believe it sounded like murder. A little later, my former sister-in-law also brought up the subject of this death and also asked me for my opinion on whether it was a murder or not, which I remember thinking was a little odd. I remember telling her the lovely old bathtub in the house had now lost its charm for me and that I was glad to hear the death was being thoroughly investigated. I may also have been told that the woman's death involved antihistimines and alchohol or pills, but I can't remember about this for sure.

I never heard anything more about this death; even when I asked, no one seemed to know anything, and I don't remember seeing anything in the papers about it. Knowing what I know now, I'm hoping someone somewhere will look into this death further and somehow bring justice and/or some closure to the woman's loved ones.

Crime And "Punishment"

The people who commit blatant and repeated crimes against my children and me seem to have some sort of sick need to “punish” me each time I try to file a complaint, request help, blog about an incident, etc., and this has been going on for many years. The trespassing stuff recently blogged about here is a prime example of this, but, sadly, it’s just the tip of a very large iceberg indeed. For example, each time I send a faxed complaint or request for help, I receive at least one (and often more) prank faxes within the next 24 hours. These usually come in at awkward or inconvenient times, too: when we’re just sitting down to eat, when we’re in the bathroom, when we’re asleep, etc. Ditto for phone calls—each time I make one trying to help our situation, we soon receive at least one prank call of some sort (sometimes hang-up, sometimes “silly”, sometimes downright harassing; always logged and described in writing by us afterward). Ditto for harassing mail and emails I receive in response to requests I’ve made for help, some of which include threats, ridicule, unsolicited funeral or health plan information, and invitations for my ex-husband and his current wife to various prominent social functions I used to attend with my husband years ago sent to them by name at my address even though the senders are close associates and/or relatives of my ex- who are fully aware he hasn’t lived here in over 10 years.

Sometimes the “punishment” is personal, as happened last night when lifelong close associates of my ex- followed one of my kids and me into a restaurant. Often, the constant stalking, harassment, and “punishment” takes the form of people parading back and forth in front of our home in various costumes, disguises, or with various animals. (Because they know it makes our dog bark, the latter are especially common early in the morning, at which time they stand directly in front of our front door for up to 15 minutes at a time.) Other times, after I’ve complained to law enforcement about blatant drug-related crimes, we will be “punished” by having loads of dope paraded back and forth in front of our house—in one case, we even photographed 2 city employees transferring tan, shrink-wrapped bundles from the back of an official city truck to being tied underneath or behind the front bumper with thin black cord. When I complain to authorities or on this blog about the illegal surveillance we’re under, my ex- soon turns up on a bike just down the street or around the corner the next time I go somewhere.

This morning, the “punishment” took the form of either my ex-husband or someone who looks a great deal like him (it was hard to tell for certain because he was wearing a hard hat) and two associates waiting just our of sight from our front door at the far southeastern corner of my property. As soon as I started up the driveway with our dog to get the newspaper, these 3 men (all wearing hard hats and neon vests) came walking slowly towards me grinning. They remained in front of our house the entire time I was outside and then left when I sent back in.

I understand that abusers frequently use these kinds of illegal behaviors to try to dominate and control others, but our situation begs the question of why entire communities would stoop to these kinds of behaviors despite being fully aware they are wrong and criminal—AND why law enforcement, the media, and various professional organizations would knowingly cover these up. (Again, we are NOT the only victims of this stuff here by any means—look up, for ex., the letter written to the Kerrville Daily Times by Milton Maughan.) Is this what M. Scott Peck described as “group evil” in his famous book, People of the Lie? Or is it a manifestation of something even darker that is evidenced by the racist/Nazi graffiti my children tell me is openly written all over the restroom walls at school, the cross one of my children once witnessed being burned at a high school pep rally with school board officials in attendance (that I complained to the FBI about; of course they did nothing about it), the “Patriots For Freedom” public rallies which used to be advertised in the local newspaper that taught survival skills in case of catastrophic war openly on our street corners, and more?

As more and more of this stuff is being made public, it’s no wonder a few wise pillars of the community are starting to be concerned about how this area will end up being perceived historically (see my 10/26/09 blog). I will be coming back to this subject again later, because close family members of some of the “insiders” involved in all this stuff turn up in some very surprising places in state and federal government and within the military.

Trespassing, Continued

Today at lunchtime, one of my adult children came home to find a package containing something they'd ordered had been left by our back (kitchen) door. This is significant because in order for whoever left it to do this, they would have had to open a wooden gate in a high privacy fence and enter our backyard, something no mail or delivery person has ever done before. In fact, there was someone in our house all day, so if the mail carrier (USPS, in this case) was concerned about leaving it on our front porch, they could have easily rung the doorbell as they normally do. There was simply no reasonable excuse or reason for leaving the package where we found it, and someone clearly had to trespass to leave it where it was.

This is not our first serious incident with regard to mail delivery by any means. Indeed, much of our mail is delivered either wide open, damp from having been steamed, and/or opened and then crudely taped shut. In one memorable instance, a letter arrived having been opened and then glued shut again with what looked like white glue that had been applied so excessively that the letter inside was completely glued together as well! In another serious incident, a USPS mail carrier used a package containing something I'd ordered to try and get me to sign a mailing receipt for a package containing some kind of drugs or medications I knew nothing about and which weren't even addressed to me. (They were addressed to a business partner of my ex-husband's. The mail carrier tried to make me think I was signing for my package, but thankfully, I examined the card receipt first and then refused to sign it. I filed a complaint over this incident, but the USPS did nothing.)

No matter which carrier or delivery company is involved, the majority of our packages arrive with clear signs of having been illegally opened. Sometimes someone brazenly writes "Opened By Mistake" on these, but often they don't even bother. Also, I have a stack of mailing receipts over an inch thick for mail I've tried to send that has been lost or stolen (that USPS also refuses to do anything about).

Illegal Surveillance, Part II

In the fall of 2006, I hired Diop Kamau and his Police Complaint Center to help me deal with constant serious stalking and harassment problems my kids and I were having with local law enforcement (who are all close associates of my ex-husband; the local police chief is also a lifelong BFF of my ex-husband and his brother). My dealings with Kamau and various associates/employees of his are extensively documented at http://kamaudocs.blogspot.com.

By the end of June 2007, I was becoming suspicious of Kamau because he’d asked for and received large sums of money from me yet I had nothing tangible to show for this, and the harassment and stalking of us had become worse, not better. One day, as I was thumbing through an old local phone book, I discovered a listing for a “G. Slate” that I immediately realized might be for Greg Slate, an investigator Kamau had assigned to our case and sent to our home a couple of times. I realized that if Slate was local, he and Kamau had lied to me, and this would also tie them to my ex- and local law enforcement and mean I was being conned. I immediately sent Kamau a text message from my cell phone asking him if Greg Slate was from here.

What followed was a series of text messages exchanged between Diop Kamau, Greg Slate, and me, some of which are posted here. [For others, please see the blog mentioned above.] I quickly noticed Kamau was being evasive and was trying to reassure me while at the same time trying to find out exactly what I had and had not figured out.

Because my children and I continued to see and hear so many signs that locals knew things going on within the privacy of our home and vehicles, we had long suspected we were under illegal surveillance. Now, with the sudden realization that Kamau had conned me and was probably conspiring against me with my ex-husband [I remembered a previous incident from 2/07, also documented in the other blog, that potentially linked them as well], I became extremely concerned about all the money Kamau had charged me for surveillance equipment I’d never actually seen and the ways Kamau had persuaded me to allow Slate and another associate I’d known only as “Paul” [probably Paul Merryweather] access to various areas of our house such as our attic, basement, and computer.

As documented here, I quickly insisted Kamau furnish me with a complete and detailed history of all equipment his company had installed on our property and the exact locations of this equipment. Kamau at first agreed to furnish me with this list but then began insisting I let Greg Slate come onto my property and into my house to give it to me rather than faxing or emailing the list as I’d asked. When I continued to refuse to allow Slate on my property, Slate waited until I had just gotten into the swimming pool with my kids that night [how did he know??] and then blatantly trespassed on my property to remove an unknown device from a decorative item on our front porch and repeatedly honked his horn afterward so we’d know what he’d done. Kamau at first denied Slate had done this, but when I texted information about Slate’s car proving the kids and I had seen him, Slate himself texted me back to brag about what he’d done.

Diop Kamau then admitted there was some sort of expensive, high-tech. surveillance equipment hidden inside our home, and he continued to insist that I allow Greg Slate inside to retrieve it. I refused, and I quickly phoned the FBI in San Antonio to tell them I had reason to believe we were under illegal surveillance by local police. I asked for a thorough sweep of our property, both over the phone and then in person by going down to their offices and meeting with an agent, but they repeatedly refused to do anything and insisted I needed to request the sweep from the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Col. Davis, instead. I did this also (repeatedly), but the only response I received from them was that they’d received my original request. I eventually furnished both the TX DPS and the FBI with extensive documentation of the illegal surveillance we had every reason to believe we were under plus documentation of possible ties between my ex-husband, Kamau, and others related to our case, and I made repeated requests for a thorough sweep of our property by high-level law enforcement (including the U.S. DOJ), but they all refused to even provide me with a simple yes-or-no answer. When the Texas Rangers eventually advised me to file a criminal complaint locally, I was asked to meet with Dep. James Segner at his office; when I did so, he forced me to step over and around what appeared to be a large amount of surveillance equipment he had all over his floor (and laughed at me as I did so) and then proceeded to prove to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d had access to a private conversation I’d had with two of my children inside our house!

Important Note: As soon as I realized I’d been conned by Kamau, I began sending these text messages to my email address and printing them out, but because we’d suddenly begun having severe computer problems and also because I was in a hurry to get as many of them printed out as possible before they disappeared, I didn’t notice that they were printing out with the dates they’d been printed on them rather than the dates they’d been sent. As a result, I’ve had to use my memory to try and arrange them in order as best I can, and I freely admit that some are not in the correct order. However, I’m confident that what is posted here is as accurate a representation of what was sent when as possible and that even considered at random, these messages are incriminating.

Key: Initials in red indicate the sender of each text message. DK = Diop Kamau; M = me; GS = Greg Slate.

Trespassing

A couple of days ago, one of my adult children caught their grandfather driving onto our property. As soon as "Opa" realized he'd been spotted, he quickly backed out of our drive and sped off (heading in the same direction he'd been going before, so he wasn't just turning around).

My ex-husband and his family and friends have been warned repeatedly not to trespass on our property, but they do it all the time because they know law enforcement won't do anything and they seem to enjoy showing us and others that they can get away with it. Worse, "Opa" is an attorney who is well aware of the fact that he's breaking the law by coming onto our property.

Illegal Surveillance, Part I

On Oct. 11, 2005, I was surprised to receive a packet of documents I'd never seen before from the office of the Boerne lawyer I'd had to fire about a month earlier (when I discovered he'd been conning and misrepresenting me). These documents arrived completely scrambled, and it took me a full day to sort them and put them in order. After I'd done this, I discovered a number of chains of events I hadn't known about previously. These documents (and others not shown here) are from one of these and help document the following sequence of events that I now know occurred. (To understand where this fits in overall in our situation, please see the "My Sotry" post at the beginning of this blog.)

1) Private investigator Ed Hodges (and unknown others?) filed fraudulent trust documents that weren't properly notarized in my name at our local courthouse.

2) Shortly after these documents were filed, Hodges received a cryptic email from a "Mr. Henri" asking Hodges to put $5,000.00 into the CA bank account of a company called Technipol International Corp. [email shown here].

3) Person or persons unknown mailed something to my ex-husband by certified mail the day after Hodges received the above email.

4) The day after that, Hodges had me give him a check for a large sum of money he claimed I owed him.

5) Shortly after getting my money, Hodges used it to set up a new account with Merrill Lynch.

6) As soon as the Merrill Lynch account was set up, Hodges began sending urgent requests for Merrill Lynch to wire $5,000.00 to the Technipol account as requested by "Mr. Henri". Hodges was in such a hurry to make this wire transfer that he repeatedly got the account numbers wrong and had to keep redoing his requests.

7) Finally, as shown here, the $5,000.00 was transferred on 1/26/04.

Please note that I was completely unaware of any of this until I received the documents late in 2005, and for a long time after I did receive them, I was not sure what they meant.

Recently, I discovered that Technipol makes sophisticated surveillance equipment for the CIA, the Secret Service, and others. (Besides the local connections to LBJ's Secret Service agents, current Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurt, who owns a ranch nearby us, served as a CIA officer in Bolivia, the same country where my nephew once had a summer internship.) I never saw ANY of this equipment, but my children and I have certainly seen and heard many, many things that cannot be explained in any other way than that we are under full-time illegal surveillance somehow and that local police, my ex-husband and his family and friends, and others seem to have constant/ready access to this.

Insurance Matters #2

Shown here is a copy of a letter I received from my ex-husband after I'd started letting law enforcement know what I was finding out about our situation and had asked them for help. (Now go back and reread the 2 previous blogs plus "Joe and Connie" and "The Tale of the Two Doctors Cone", keeping in mind that after my first child was born, I became a stay-at-home mother.)

Related to Insurance Matters #1

There are some other things you should know that I now believe are related to the incident detailed in the previous post, although I did not connect them until many years later. (I now realize I was very trusting and naïve.)
Early in 1987, my husband came home late one evening while I was putting our toddler to bed. As I walked past him in the hallway, I asked him about his day, and he suddenly turned without saying a word and hit me so hard in my lower back that I fell against the wall. He’d never done anything like this before, and I was in shock. He immediately ran out the front door, and I heard him drive off, but he returned a few hours later and claimed to have been stressed out from working so much (he was gone much of the time now). He promised he’d never do anything like that gain, and I made it very clear to him that if he did, I would immediately end our marriage.
After this incident, my husband did seem to be making an effort to work less, although many different people were always calling him to come in for various reasons that seemed legitimate. Our second child was born healthy a few weeks later, and my husband seemed happy and proud.
Six weeks later, all was suddenly chaos in our lives when I discovered my husband was having an affair with a co-worker, that it had been going on since we’d moved back, and that the woman had now left her husband for mine. I immediately asked my husband to move out, which he did. Two days later, he was back at the front door saying he’d ended the affair and wanted to save our marriage. I insisted we have serious marriage counseling first, and he suggested a pastor in a neighboring town he’d heard was good.
We did start receiving counseling, but almost immediately the pastor insisted I consult a lawyer friend of his “for protection”; I assumed this was for financial reasons, since my husband had always been very controlling with our finances. I’d kept a separate checking account for myself and the children from my working days that my husband put money into each month, but the lawyer advised me to insist on also being given signature privileges on my husband’s business account. When I informed my husband of this, he became very angry and refused my request, so I told him our marriage was over and I’d be having my attorney file for divorce. My husband stormed out of the house, but he returned about 30 minutes later with the signature card for the account. He told me to sign it, even though he was clearly furious about this, and as he left to take the card back to the bank [one his family owns and runs], he threatened to kill me if I ever wrote a check off this account. After hearing his threat and seeing how angry and controlling he’d suddenly become, I decided I needed to end our marriage anyway, and I quickly met with the counselor and the lawyer about this. When my husband realized I was serious, however, he apparently met with the counselor on his own and convinced him he really did want to save our marriage, so the counselor and I met to discuss this and I made it clear that if counseling was to continue, my husband would need to completely end the affair and find us a larger, better place to live, since he was now making good money, the kids and I were “coming out of the walls”, and I was still nervous about the safety of the furnace [see below]. When presented with this, my husband declared his girlfriend couldn’t be replaced at his office and that he needed to build a bigger office before building or buying a new house because he’d recently taken on a partner. On my fifth wedding anniversary, I met with the lawyer to discuss filing for divorce.
Almost immediately after this, my husband’s girlfriend was suddenly found another job in San Antonio and replaced. My husband told me the affair really was over and that he’d checked his finances and decided he could afford to build both a house and an office at the same time, since his partner would also be contributing to the office. And my husband really did seem more serious about his roles as husband and father, working much less and taking a much more active role at home. I remained wary of the situation for a long time, but the changes did seem real and lasting as the years went by and life seemed good.
Twelve years later, I finally learned the truth, when my husband suddenly walked in one night and announced he was leaving for good and people around town finally started confessing the truth to me. Apparently, after his earlier girlfriend left, my husband began an affair with her replacement almost immediately that continued without my knowledge all those years, until she finally divorced her husband and gave him an ultimatum. (He is now married to the second girlfriend.) I was also finally told by someone close to his family that 12 years earlier they’d overheard a heated argument between my husband and his father in his father’s law office during which my former father-in-law threatened to disinherit my husband if he left me and the kids.
There are a number of other serious incidents from over the years that I now have reason to believe were also related to all this, but I’ll save them and their documentation for later postings.

Insurance Matters #1

Sample year-end statements from policies that first turned up in my mail in Nov. 2001

My divorce from my ex-husband was finalized in February of 2001. In November of 2001, three letters regarding the accounts shown here suddenly arrived in my mail. Each of the three account letters contained an old mailing address for me: two had the address of a house my husband and I had owned and lived in in Houston when we were first married, and the third listed the address of a house we’d rented for awhile when we first moved back to the Texas Hill Country town where my husband was born and raised. The letters each said the same thing: that account information sent to the old addresses had been returned to the company; the company had received information that my current address might be the correct one; and if so, would I please fill out forms verifying my information and identity. I did fill out the forms and return them, and shortly afterwards, I received a small check from each account (~$30-$50 each). I had no idea what these accounts were, and I tried calling the company several times for information only to either be placed on “terminal hold” or disconnected each time. I then tried asking first my accountant and then a financial advisor to explain them to me, and both of them said they thought they were insurance policies of some sort. I then tried writing the company and asking them to send me more information on the accounts or to have someone call me about them, but no one ever responded. (I still receive a small check from each of them every year, and I still have almost no information about these accounts—can anyone help me with this?)
Much later, I happened to remember a line from my divorce decree stating that I was awarded all life insurance policies we’d owned that were on me and my ex-husband was awarded all policies that were on him. I began to wonder if these had been life insurance policies taken out on me without my knowledge. I also realized that if these were indeed policies on my life, they dated from around the time of something very suspicious and frightening that had happened.
In order to explain this, I need to go back to the time when my husband and I first moved back to the Hill Country, in June of 1986. We rented a small house at first to give us time to decide what we wanted to do and also to make certain my husband’s new business would support us in a small town. By this time, we had a toddler, and soon after we’d settled into the rent house, I discovered I was pregnant again.
During my first pregnancy, I’d had a lot of trouble with morning sickness, and this time around proved to be the same. I remember really looking forward to the fall, when I expected relief from both the summer heat and the nausea. Alas, this was not to be—as the weather got cooler, my sickness got worse instead of better. I started having other symptoms, too: terrible headaches during which I could hear my pulse beating in my ears (which I’d never experienced before), more severe vomiting, and shortness of breath. Because the symptoms were always worse in the morning, I assumed the morning sickness was more severe this time. My toddler seemed increasingly fussy and irritable as well.
Thanksgiving week of 1986 brought with it the first really cold weather of the season, which meant that the heater in our little rent house was now running during the daytime as well as at night. Both my toddler and I began to be quite ill, and I wondered if we had the flu, but we went to my in-laws’ for Thanksgiving dinner and felt better. I also remember being relieved that my husband wasn’t sick, since he was working so much both day and night (especially at night).
The next morning, my toddler and I woke up very ill, and because my husband had said he had to work again and was gone, it was very hard for me to manage. My husband came home around noon and said we were invited to friends’ for dinner; I told him I didn’t know if we could manage it, but I dragged my child and myself to the car and off we went. To my pleasant surprise, we began feeling a lot better after we’d been there a little while, and we had a good time.
As soon as we got home, my husband got a phone call and said he had to go back to work. My toddler and I were worn out, so we both went to bed early. Once the sun went down that night, so did the temperature, and I remember that it got very cold. I climbed into bed thankful to be cozy and warm and feeling better.
I woke up a few hours later extremely nauseated and with a severe headache that pounded in my ears. I also felt as if I couldn’t breathe, and even though I wanted nothing more than to sleep, I couldn’t because it felt as if I was suffocating. My husband was still gone, and I remember lying there for what seemed like hours trying to decide what I should do. Finally, in desperation, I went into the living room and tried to sleep sitting propped up on the sofa, since it seemed easier to breathe that way, but my head was hurting so much and my breathing was so labored that sleep was impossible.
I have no idea how long I lay there, but as the sun was coming up, my husband walked in the front door. He was startled to see me on the sofa and asked what was wrong, and I told him I was sick. He asked if I needed anything, and I told him no. After that, he went into the bedroom, and I heard him get into bed. I knew he was probably exhausted from having worked all night.
I was still too miserable to sleep, so in desperation, I got a medical book down from the shelf and forced my eyes to focus enough to start looking up my symptoms. I have no idea how long I looked at the book—15 minutes? 20? 30? All I can remember is suddenly realizing I had all the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning and almost at the same time remembering feeling better at my in-laws’ and our friends’ house and worse at home. I also suddenly realized that my toddler was screaming about their head hurting; I had no idea how long this had been going on because my mind was so “foggy”. I remember somehow stumbling into our bedroom, and I definitely remember seeing my husband stretched out on top of the bed, still in his work clothes, wide awake and staring up at the ceiling. I remember blurting out to him that we were being poisoned and needed to get out of the house immediately, and I remember him telling me I was sick and needed to rest. I was certain I was right, though, and I remember insisting that we needed to leave (and I vaguely remember our toddler screaming in the background). My husband continued to insist that I rest, and I remember telling him that I was too ill to lift our child out of the crib and that if he didn’t do it, I was going to go outside in my nightgown and start screaming and yelling to the neighbors that we were being poisoned. As soon as I threatened to do this and headed for the door, my husband jumped up off the bed, got our child, helped us both to the car, and drove us over to his parents’ house.
I have no memory of arriving at my in-laws’ house, but somehow I wound up inside, sitting in their rocking chair, rocking my child, who was still screaming and crying about their head hurting. I think I must have been drifting in and out of consciousness, because I vaguely remember my in-laws and my husband arguing in the next room. I must have frightened my mother-in-law badly, because she was insisting on calling a doctor, which the med did not want to do. In the end, she did call one, and my husband also talked with him. Then my husband and his mother came in and told me the doctor wanted me to meet him at the E.R. and let him check me out because I was pregnant. I refused to leave my toddler, and my mother-in-law insisted on taking over the rocking duties.
I have no memory of going to the hospital; all I remember is suddenly realizing I was on an exam table in the E.R. The doctor came in, and I blurted out something about carbon monoxide poisoning in our house (that was probably only semi-coherent). The doctor said there was a blood test for it, and he drew some of my blood and took it off for testing. I remember that after he left, my husband turned to me and said, “What if you’re wrong?”; I remember telling him I was positive I was right. He then left the room, and I don’t remember him coming back (but I’m not sure about this).
I have no idea how long I lay there on the exam table; I think I must have finally fallen asleep. Eventually the doctor returned and said my blood test had come back as positive for carbon monoxide poisoning (~23%, from blood drawn about 2 hours after I left our house). He said he wanted me to spend a night in the hospital on oxygen as a precaution because of my unborn child, but he tole me we should both be fine. I asked about treating my toddler as well, but he said my child was doing fine and wouldn’t need treatment. After that, I was quickly wheeled up to a private room, provide with an oxygen mask, and given a shot of something my doctor insisted was safe for the baby to relieve the pain in my head and let me sleep.
I woke up again hours later to find our landlord standing by my bed looking very frightened, and I remember having to take off the oxygen mask to talk to him, which he was concerned about. I assured him I was feeling much better but did not want to return to the house unless I was sure whatever had caused our problems was found and completely fixed. He said he’d had someone from the gas company come out as soon as he heard what had happened, that they’d found the source of the leak, and that it was already fixed. Shortly after he left, the public relations lady from the hospital came in briefly and asked me if it was okay if my name was left off the list of hospital admissions that was published every week in the local newspaper at the time; I think I mumbled, “Fine,” and went back to sleep.
The next day, Sunday, I came home and rested most of the day and felt better than I had in months. The next morning (Monday), being curious, I called the gas company and asked to talk to the technician who’d handled the call to our house. I was surprised when this man insisted on coming to the house to talk to me instead of just speaking with me over the phone, and he soon showed up at my front door.
The tech. told me my mother-in-law was at the house when he arrived which, by the time he told me, was about 4 hours after we’d left. The tech. said the doors and most of the windows of our house were open, so he was surprised when his testing apparatus “turned completely black” as soon as he walked inside. He said he found the door to our gas furnace wide open and that when he checked our attic, he found someone had nailed a board over the furnace vent. He assured me he’d fixed both problems and checked out our heating system thoroughly. I asked him why someone would have boarded up the attic vent, and he suggested I talk to our landlord. I asked my husband to do this, and he later said the landlord felt it must have been done by the previous tenant who had probably seen what he thought was a hole in the attic and had boarded it by mistake. The gas company tech. told me my toddler and I had been extremely lucky to have escaped in time, and I agreed.
In an eerie coincidence, my ex-husband’s father apparently had his own close call with carbon monoxide poisoning many years ago. According to the story the family told me, he was invited to go hunting with five other prominent local men in West Texas but had to cancel at the last minute. Four of the five men were found dead in a trailer during the trip. The fifth, a local doctor, had supposedly warned them the heater they were using wasn’t safe and had spent the night in a tent instead. One of the victims was Dr. Spiva, a local dentist, who was the father of both a girl who died (supposedly during surgery) at age 4 and another daughter, Debbie, who became the infamous Dr. Debbie Spiva of Texas Monthly fame.