White "Dually" Pickups

Shortly after my husband suddenly left us in June of 1999, my children and I began seeing him driving around town in a distinctive white dual-wheeled pickup truck that had a row of lights across the top. He would often pull out from a side street, either in front of us, where he would drive slowly for a few blocks, or behind us, where he would tailgate us with his headlights on briefly, before speeding off. Sometimes these behaviours would involve the same truck but with one of his close male friends driving. Often, there would be a very large unusual-looking red dog in the truck as well, usually in the bed, but sometimes in the front seat. My children said they asked their dad repeatedly about this truck and especially about the dog, but he always denied knowing anything about either one. This confused my kids to no end because there was no mistaking what we saw, which in fact seemed designed specifically to get our attention.

On Sept. 10, 2001 at around 5 PM, one of my children had a special practice over at the local high school that necessitated my picking them up at a time I was almost never at the school normally. I drove into the parking lot, my child hopped in, and I started to pull out. Before I could do so, however, a large white "dually" pickup truck drove past us. The driver was my former mother-in-law, and she first waved at us when she saw us but then apparently changed her mind, because she suddenly stopped waving and put her hand in front of her face to try and hide from us. She had passed by us very closely, however, and we were sure it was her.

My former mother-in-law stopped this truck at the curb a short distance in front of us in a location that was also somewhat hidden behind a building, and numerous people who'd been either standing around or waiting nearby in parked vehicles began walking up to her window. We saw her wave them off, and then we watched her move the truck away from us to the far end of the parking lot. She then stopped there and appeared to be watching us. My teenaged child asked me what their grandmother was doing, and I said I didn't know. We decided we'd better leave, but as we started out of the parking lot, we saw the white dually slowly pulling back to its original spot along the curb, and we saw all the people heading over to its driver's window again.

We didn't know of any normal reason why my former mother-in-law would be at the school at that hour, especially in a vehicle her family members had repeatedly denied knowing anything about. My child was especially confused because her grandparents and their grandmother's sister and her husband from Waco (who've been sail boating all over the Caribbean and up and down the East Coast for years with unknown means of financial support) had told my kids they were going to France on vacation, and my child thought they'd already left. (See "The French Connection" from 12/14/09 posted below.)

Since there were so many questions about what was going on, I suggested we be absolutely certain it was my former mother-in-law in the truck, so I circled around and then pulled right up next to her; there was no doubt whatsoever that it was her. We also saw continued groups of people going over to her window and then leaving quickly; at times there was even a line. We didn't have a camera with us, but we took down the vehicle's license number and a detailed vehicle description.

There were a number of things about this particular truck that we found surprising. Although it was similar, we did not believe it was the same dually we'd seen my ex-husband and his friends driving. This truck looked bigger--enormous, in fact. Also, this truck had a handicapped plate, while the other one did not. (At the time, we were not aware of any handicap of my former mother-in-law's, although I believe she now does have such a plate. Also, we both remarked about how difficult it would be for someone who was handicapped to climb up into a cab that was so high off the ground.) The most unique and instantly identifiable feature of this truck, however, were an enormous set of attached white mudflaps that said "Wonderful Wyoming" in huge purple letters.

Because this incident involved what looked like criminal behaviour to us (drug trafficking on school property) by someone with close ties to local law enforcement (lifelong family friend of the police chief and most of the officers), I reported it to the San Antonio FBI. I also asked my child not to discuss the incident with their grandmother or anyone else, but they said they were curious about what their grandmother would say and said they did ask her about it when she got back from France. They said their grandmother absolutely denied that it had been her and said that she knew nothing whatsoever about the truck. Since then, we've seen this truck a few more times under suspicious circumstances, including once when it was parked by the new police substation downtown and another time when it was parked in the driveway of a rent house owned by my ex-husband that the police chief was then living in.

On 12/11/08, a 35-year-old woman named Cathy Jo Haney was found dead in her vehicle along Hwy 16 between Fredericksburg and Kerrville. According to police reports published in the newspapers, Haney died from injuries she received when a large unsecured tire fell from the back of a white dual-wheeled pickup truck that had been described by witnesses. Both local and state police said they were looking for this truck, and they asked anyone with information to contact them.

Periodically, local police repeat this case in the media and continue to seek information on the truck and its owner. To any local "insider", however, these requests make little sense, since these are small towns where everyone knows exactly who drives what (especially the police!). The dead woman was found directly across from a business owned by a close relative of the partner of my ex-husband's divorce lawyer--whose own 19-year-old niece died suddenly and whose front windows were once sprayed with gunfire. Further, there have been a number of other suspicious deaths nearby. (See, for example, "The Oral Surgeon and the Pilot", 9/27/09, posted below.) Finally, Mrs. Haney died while on her way home from work. (See "Right On Schedule".) To me, the repeated requests by local law enforcement for information on the white "dually" seem more like warnings.

Ford Pickups

As far back as I can recall knowing my former husband and his family, I remember all of them being seemingly obsessed with transmission problems in Ford pickup trucks. Practically every time I went with any of them out to their family ranch, I also recall at least one of them mentioning something or other about Ford pickups accidentally slipping into reverse when left idling in park. (This was nearly always mentioned when someone stopped to get out and open a gate, for example.)

Gradually, I began to realize that often when one of them talked about this, they also mentioned local people who had died as a result of their Ford trucks slipping into gear like this. Unfortunately, at the time I had no reason to think anything of these stories, other than that they sounded tragic. Later in thinking back, however, I realized that these discussions had been fairly excessive and rather creepy.

I can't remember very many details of what I was told about these deaths. I do remember being told about a man from Mason dying this way while he was working cattle, but this was a long time ago and I was never told the man's name. I believe I was also told about another person being run over by their truck in Gillespie County somewhere, but I don't remember for sure. The incident I recall being told about most often concerned a man whom I was told got out of his Ford truck to open the main gate to his ranch. Supposedly when he got out, he saw his truck start to move backwards, and when he tried to reach inside to stop it, his clothing was somehow entangled in the door or wheels, causing him to suffocate. I was told that this last death occurred right next to the highway at the entrance to the man's ranch. The reason I remember more about this particular death is that I was told it happened at the entrance located directly across the highway from my ex-husband's family's ranch. (I believe this property was bought up by someone else after the owner died. It certainly sported a larger and much fancier entrance gate afterward.)

Important note: I was told about these deaths so many years ago that it's possible I may have confused the details, but I'm sure about the locations. Also, I don't ever remember seeing anything about any of these deaths in the newspapers or on the television news, but again, they happened a long time ago. If, however, what I was told was true, in retrospect there were too many of these deaths for such a small area and someone should look into this.

Comments On Comments

All but about 3 of the comments posted on this blog to date were written by my ex-husband--I'm very sure about this. Today, for some reason, my ex- posted 15 comments on my blog: 2 on one recent post that were added this afternoon and 13 others that were added, 1 per post, in less than an hour's time this evening. Of course they were the usual false statements, libel, and abuse he's been warned repeatedly to stop posting. I'm left wondering why the sudden attack--did he have a bad day and feel the need to take it out on me, or what?

There are some other important things to notice about my ex-'s comments here. For example, when someone (and it wasn't me!) pointed out that his comments sounded abusive, he immediately stopped writing them under his own name and began posting them anonymously. [See the end of "How To Steal Property..." posted 8/29/09, comment posted 9/3/09.]

In comments my ex- posted at the end of my "Death Connections" blogpost from 8/30/09 and my "Joe and Connie" blogpost from 10/25/09, he makes some bizarre statements concerning JFK's assassination. While these appear to be strange ramblings at first glance, the possibility exists that they might have important implications. I know that my ex-husband's father and grandfather were close business associates of LBJ's who helped Johnson expand his ranch at Stonewall using a combination of eminent domain and the LBJ Park (the park seized people's land using eminent domain and then sold it to LBJ). A prominent Texas historian has written extensively about his belief that LBJ masterminded the Kennedy assassination because he coveted the presidency; if this is true, it's possible that my ex-'s family might have a good deal of inside knowledge. [Looking into this might turn out to be extremely lucrative for the right investigator/s?? Note that my ex- often finds various thinly-veiled ways to brag about things he's done to me and our children in his comments.]

Also, in his comments at the end of my blogposts from 12/9/09, 12/14/09, 12/17/09, and 1/18/10, my ex-husband falsely accuses me of having some sort of contacts in Yemen. At the time he first began posting these statements, I didn't know what to make of them, but after the Christmas "Underwear Bomber" attack and in light of things I've discussed previously within the blogs that just happen to be the ones with the Yemen-related comments, I have to wonder if my ex- could possibly have had some sort of inside knowledge about the attempted attack. It was not very reassuring to discover that when I confronted him about the fact that I know his brother makes numerous trips to somewhere in the Detroit area [see my 1/20/10 comment about this], the mention of Yemen by my ex- suddenly stopped. Once again, this seems to be an example of my ex- obliquely bragging about inside knowledge he had.

Besides finding someone to investigate all this, I wish a professional profiler would look at these comments and give me an opinion on them. Even I can tell abuse when I see it, but the sudden posting of so many comments in such a short period of time today makes me wonder if I should be immediately concerned. (Any kind of protective order is not an option. The local D.A. is a close associate of my ex-'s family, and the officer that sent me the emailed death threat is actually rumored to work for him. We would definitely need some sort of high-level protection.) Without any proper legal protection either, it's hard to know what to do.

The Governor's Tast Force [sic]

After I finally received the documents I'd asked for in an open records request for copies of everything the Texas DPS had concerning my case as discussed in my previous post, I began looking the pages over carefully. I immediately noticed many problems with them: they were incomplete (from the page numbers, pages were missing); the pages concerning the former DEA and FBI agents I'd filed complaints about were not signed by the investigator as the other pages were; many of the investigator's statements were inaccurate or misleading (and some were totally false); and in one place, my name was listed along with my ex-husband's address!

I also noticed the statement excerpted here about a "Governor's Tast Force" [sic] that I could potentially go to for help. Although the investigator states that he told me about this when he and a colleague came to my house and interviewed me after I'd filed my complaints, I have no memory of either of them mentioning this. I assumed he meant there was some sort of task force that investigated corrupt law enforcement, so I emailed Gov. Perry's office to see if I could talk to them.

A female staffer of the governor's soon called me, and she said she wasn't sure what I'd asked about, so I explained about this statement in the document and offered to fax her a copy. She gave me the fax number for Gov. Perry's office, and I immediately sent the page to her. After about an hour, she called me back and said no one in the governor's office knew what this task force was and that they couldn't help me.

Recently I have learned the governor does indeed have multiple task forces, some with known purposes and others said to be secretive. I still don't know exactly what task force the DPS investigator was referring to here (and he never returned my phone calls asking about it), but it seems clear at this point that, for whatever reason, my children and I won't be getting any help from it.

Revoked

I am posting these documents in response to a series of comments my ex-husband made on 1/18/2010 underneath my "Right On Schedule" blogposting below regarding the late Ed Hodges, one of the private investigators who defrauded me and committed other criminal acts against me. These are official documents from the Texas Department of Public Safety (TX DPS) that prove Ed Hodges lost his p.i. license as a result of formal complaints I filed with them against him. (I am the client referred to in the documents.)

There are some important things to note here. The TX DPS never notified me that Ed Hodges' licenses had been revoked; I discovered this fact accidentally when I did some internet checking on 12/27/06 and came across the page from the DPS website shown here. When I still had not received any notification from the DPS a few months later, I filed an open records request asking for copies of all documents related to my complaints. An official with the DPS told me I had to send my request for these documents plus a postal money order for the copying costs by certified mail, but when I did this, the USPS and the DPS both tried to tell me my letter had been lost. Then when I received the green receipt card back in the mail, I noticed certain irregularities on it. When I started looking into these, I suddenly got a call from the DPS saying they'd fax me the documents. This "Order of Revocation" was one of the documents I received in the fax from the DPS. I was shocked that I'd never been notified about how my complaint had been resolved, and I was even more shocked by serious problems I found in many of the other documents I was sent in the same fax concerning other private investigators I'd also filed serious and well-documented complaints against.

As far as I know, Ed Hodges was the only p.i. ever disciplined in any way by the DPS in my case, and he was never investigated or charged with any criminal wrongdoing, even though he and others clearly committed multiple serious criminal acts. [See many of my earlier postings here.] I'm fairly sure that even Hodges was only disciplined after I'd contacted numerous major consumer rights organizations, crime victim advocates, and media representatives about what had been done to us.

My ex-'s 1/18/2010 comments about Hodges not only make no sense in light of what I have extensive documented proof of; they don't even agree with some of my ex-'s other comments in which he makes fun of me for having been victimized by Hodges and others. I have been told by several locals that Ed Hodges was actually related to my former father-in-law's law partner and that Hodges was also related to a local woman who graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and serves as officer-in-charge of the CENTROM Intelligence Support Center--New Orleans in support of Counter-Terrorism Targeting and Analysis.

Right On Schedule

One of the first things private investigator Ed Hodges did after I hired him in 2003 was to ask me for extensive details of our daily schedules and routines as documented here. When I discovered in 2005 that Hodges had forged my initials on a clearly manipulated trust document that was filed without even being properly notarized, I realized Hodges and others had used the information I'd innocently provided them with to set up numerous harassing and frightening incidents, one of which is documented here in an excerpt from a 10/3/03 letter I wrote to a friend.

More recently, I have realized there are strong connections between local victims' well-known daily routines and their deaths. In Boerne, Col. Phillip Shue and 216th District Probation Officer Beth Hicks were both waylaid while on their way to work and brutally murdered. Fredericksburg resident Linda Muegge was killed in her home on the one day of the week when she was known to work there alone. Norman Roark of Kerrville was sent to an appointment to lay carpet at a location in Harper when he was murdered. [Note: All of these victims had head trauma.] Tom McRae of Granbury was found dead on the side of the highway next to a motorcycle at a time when he was known to be on his way to Fredericksburg for important meetings regarding a controversial proposed "Main Street Live" entertainment project he was trying to develop. (A similar project, "Rockbox", later opened in a different building that is connected with another victim who suddenly turned up dead on the side of the road under suspicious circumstances, a man found shot to death who is also connected to my own case, and a former county judge.) There are many other examples like these from our area.

I have also remembered that around the same time I received this email from Hodges wanting details of my schedule, he and his associates were all insisting I drive up to Dallas by myself--not to meet with them, but because they insisted I "needed a vacation" and should come up to shop, go to concerts, etc. Besides insisting that I come alone, they also insisted I drive up Hwy. 281 instead of the interstate, which I remember thinking was add. (I repeatedly refused to do this because I didn't want to leave my children and didn't want to spend the time or money.)

Now go back and read my 10/27/09, 10/28/09, and 10/30/09 blog posts below.

The G-Man Down The Road

The former FBI agent working as a private investigator and certified fraud investigator who defrauded me in 2005 (see my 9/16/09 post entitled "They Said") once insisted that I meet with him in his home in a nice subdivision just off I-10 near Boerne. (Much later, a DPS senior investigator told me p.i.s are not supposed to do this.) At his house, I met his wife, whom he said worked for him, as did their adult children.

While I was there, the former FBI agent showed me his gun and badge, which were in a glass case. Nearly, I noticed a distinctive framed art print that appeared to be either very similar or identical to one I'd remembered seeing on the wall of the FBI agent who lived next door to my father and stepmother (see "The G-Man Next Door" below). I was surprised to see a copy of this print in Texas, because I associated the artist (who has a very distinctive style and was a friend of my late mother's) more with the state my father lives in.

Several times during this and subsequent meetings with this man, he mentioned that his wife had been a high school classmate of a very prominent San Antonio attorney. (I later learned this attorney is a major criminal defense lawyer.) The former agent also told me (but always verbally, never in writing) on several different occasions that another former classmate of his wife's had been an FBI agent and colleague of his but, like him, had retired and become a private investigator. However, he described this former colleague as a "rogue agent" [his exact words] who'd gotten mixed up with a criminal known as "Murph The Surf" who had murdered a woman in Florida. He and the former DEA agent-turned-p.i. who'd recommended I hire him told me on several occasions they had reason to believe my ex-husband was somehow involved with these criminals, but they would not give me any proof or additional information on this, and I didn't know whether to believe them or not.

Also during this and subsequent meetings with the retired agent, he mentioned that he and his wife were involved in some sort of prison ministry that involved regularly visiting inmates on behalf of their church. I'm not familiar with the particular church they belonged to, but over the years, I've noticed that many of the churches here whose finances are handled only by very close associates of my former father-in-law also have these prison ministries. (They have extensive ongoing missionary projects in Mexico and Central America as well that involve frequent member trips to these countries.)

The final thing I need to mention for now about my meetings with this former FBI agent is that twice when I met with him, he was wearing a t-shirt identical to two owned by one of my children. These shirts were very distinctive, and both times I mentioned to the agent that one of my kids owned the same shirt. He just laughed it off as coincidence at the time, but a few weeks after I fired him (see "My Story" at the beginning of this blog), both of these shirts suddenly turned up together in my offspring's overnight bag upon returning from visitation with their dad, and they said they did not know how the shirts got in there. I have been forced to conclude that the ex-agent deliberately wore my child's shirts while meeting with me as a sick joke.

After I accidentally discovered this man was not really working for me and fired him, I began to have serious and repeated problems with him stalking and harassing me (that I have kept records of). One of these incidents occurred while I was driving to San Antonio on I-10 to meet with a lawyer who'd been recommended to me by the State Bar of Texas' referral service. As I passed the entrance ramp located closest to the former agent's house, he suddenly pulled up behind me and began tailgating me extremely aggressively. After doing this for several minutes, he changed lanes, drove right up beside me until he was sure I recognized him, grinned and waved, and then sped off; I saw him exit the freeway at the next off-ramp. (My meeting with the lawyer that day did not go well, especially after I accidentally discovered he was a close friend of the son of my ex-husband's divorce lawyer while I was there.) [I have discovered serious conflict of interest problems with every single lawyer I've been referred to by the state bar.]

All this happened in 2005, but I still sometimes see this man, his wife, or people in his vehicles who appear to be his family members, following and harassing me occasionally, and I have documented incidences of seeing him or his vehicle/s parked outside office buildings owned by my ex- and his family. Although I filed an extremely serious and well-documented complaint against him with the p.i. licensing bureau, the DPS refused to discipline him in any way; in fact, a DPS investigator lied to me over the phone by telling me he could find no record of this man's ever having worked for the FBI. (The tape I made of this phone call has been tampered with.) Even after I complained in person to a San Antonio FBI agent that on one occasion the guy had been following me so closely that I believe his car bumper touched mine when I stopped at a stop sign near my home, nothing was ever done about him.

Big Brother Reprise

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott recently released an opinion that no medical treatment, testing, or evaluation is required before someone is transported to a mental health facility. He issued this ruling at the request of Kerr County law enforcement officials, who claim it takes up too much of their time to have patients properly evaluated before they are committed to the new mental health facility that I previously discussed in some detail in "Issues of Commitment".

Previous news reports had mentioned conflicts between local law enforcement officers wanting to just drop patients off at this facility and Hill Country MHMR officials who were insisting patients needed to be thoroughly evaluated first. This new ruling by the AG means people can be involuntarily committed without even undergoing basic medical examinations and blood tests--how Orwellian is that? If you live in the area served by this facility and are not concerned, you should be.

The G-Man Next Door

My father and stepmother, who live in another state, used to live next door to an FBI agent and his wife. As I've discussed previously in this blog, after my husband suddenly left in 1999, I began having problems with my folks, and in the summer of 2004, I discovered to my shock that they were actually close associates of my ex-husband and his family after I told my father and stepmother that I'd talked to the FBI in San Antonio and they threatened to have me killed.

I mention the FBI agent who used to live next door to them because back when I was still married and (I thought) on good terms with them, my folks came here for one of their visits (they take a lot of long car trips) and were staying with us for a few days. One afternoon, my father and stepmother suddenly announced they'd had a call from the agent who lived next to them and his wife saying they just happened to be traveling nearby in their RV and wanted to see if they could spend the night parked in our driveway. Of course we told them yes, and when I mentioned I'd need to run to the store for more groceries for dinner that night, my husband said he'd take us all out for dinner at a local restaurant instead.

The FBI agent and his wife arrived later that afternoon, and he, my husband, and my father all decided to go somewhere (I was not told where) for a drink before dinner; I don't believe the agent's wife and my stepmother went along, but I don't know for sure because I was busy getting my children fed and a sitter lined up on short notice. I do remember that the men were gone for about an hour or so and then came back and took us all to the restaurant, where we had a very nice meal together and got to know the couple a little. It was very obvious during dinner that the agent's wife and my stepmother were very good friends, and we heard a little about their trip in the RV. I asked them to stay longer, but the agent and his wife insisted they needed to leave early the next morning. They also refused to stay inside our house when I tried to invite them, saying they had a sick dog and needed to stay in the RV.

The dinner with the agent and his wife had been very pleasant with nothing out of the ordinary that I ever noticed, so I was extremely surprised when my father and stepmother told me a few months later that this FBI agent had suddenly left his wife very shortly after they'd returned home from this trip and that the couple was getting a divorce. The wife ended up keeping the house next door to my folks and continued to be extremely close to my stepmother. I was told that the FBI agent had been transferred to a neighboring state and had remarried. His ex-wife also married again, this time to a retired minister who also liked to take lots of long driving trips. The two neighboring wives always watched each other's homes carefully whenever the other was out of town.

In retrospect, I wonder why this agent and his wife just happened to turn up so suddenly on our doorstep at a time when my folks also just happened to be visiting, where everyone went without me before dinner, and if there might be any possible connection to their marriage ending so soon after they were here. Before I was forced to break off all contact with my dad and stepmother after they threatened me, I tried asking them about this. Instead of answering my questions, they wanted to know why I was asking about the couple.

Shooting Range/s

There's an ongoing controversy in Kerrville, TX right now over a new shooting range the San Antonio FBI office is proposing to build there. The FBI is offering the City of Kerrville $1.3 million to build them a proposed FBI "Firearm Training Facility" they say would also be made available to local law enforcement officers for training.

Sounds good, so why all the fuss? For starters, the FBI money would only be used for construction of this facility; the city would then be charged with operating it, and the FBI is asking for a 25-year contract, meaning local taxpayers would be responsible for the bills from this facility for years to come.

Also, the proposed location for this facility is inside the city limits of Kerrville, adjacent to the local high school, and very close to subdivisions, businesses, and churches. Residents have voiced serious concerns about noise (the facility would be open 7 days a week until 10 PM), safety because of stray bullets, and resulting reductions in property values. The city paid an engineering firm $24,000 to conduct a preliminary study for the facility--but the company they hired for this apparently has no expertise in gun range design.

But wait, there's more--the Kerrville area already has a world-class shooting facility! The Hill Country Shooting Sport Center is a top-notch local non-profit shooting range that has hosted official pre-Olympic competitive events. The HCSSC is located out in the county, well away from surrounding development, yet is not far from town (and may even be closer to I-10). The Kerrville Police Department currently uses this facility for training at a cost to them of $3,000 per year.

However, the strangest aspect of this whole affair by far is the fact that the San Antonio FBI is currently building a $2.5 million state-of-the-art gun range near San Antonio. Why would they suddenly need two such facilities, with the proposed Kerrville one being over an hour away from their office?

None of this makes any sense, so there has to be more to the whole affair than what's being given out. Local taxpayers and property owners appear to be the potential victims here. It should be noted that Boerne was approached first about this project and turned it down.

Big Brother

On August 8, 2005, my children and I photographed this man who'd been sitting in this vehicle watching our house and pretending to read a newspaper for at least 30 minutes in the afternoon heat (and probably much longer). We did not recognize him, and he had no legitimate reason to be there. As soon as he saw he was being photographed, he left, but then we discovered that a blond woman in a white sedan (for which we also have the plate number) was parked just on the other side of our property and was also watching our house. She also drove off immediately when she realized we'd spotted her.

On Sept. 2, 2005, this same man followed one of my kids and me into the parking lot of our bank when I went to cash a check. This time he was driving a red Ford pickup (which we can also provide the plate number for). He parked while we went through the drive-through lane but did not get out; he sat in the truck pretending to read a newspaper as before, and he also used it to try and hide his face from us as he'd done before.

On Sept. 5, 2005, this same man turned up on the same flight as us when we flew home from another state after taking one of the kids to college there. (He was in first class; we were in coach. I can provide the airline information and flight number from this flight.) This time, the man pretended to read a book instead, but at least in the waiting area, he did not seem to be turning any pages.

Despite my repeatedly asking the former FBI agent and former DEA agent who were supposedly working for me as private investigators when this man first turned up at our house for information on who the man was and where he was from, they both absolutely refused to tell me anything about him. (It was shortly after we took these photographs that I had to fire these investigators for other reasons.)

Then at one of the local high school football games this fall (2009), this man and a buddy suddenly walked up into the bleachers, sat down behind me, and began harassing me in various ways. They stayed there for a short time (until they were certain I'd both seen and heard them) and then left.

Blessings

Over the holidays, I've been blessed to be able to spend time with my kids. What has NOT been a blessing is our being awakened at 7 AM every weekday morning that is not an actual holiday by loud noises from heavy equipment repeatedly opening up the street in front of our house--work that seems to end magically when everyone inside our home finally gets up. Of course, we have never been notified about any of this work or its purpose by the city or anyone else, and although it often causes the street to be blocked off, we are never given any notification of affected access.

Our city and county seen to be especially well-blessed with equipment and assets for an area of our size. Although ours is a small town, we have an enormous complex of expensive buildings and equipment located over near our local high school that exists in addition to the main city and county buildings elsewhere. We even have some lovely custom-painted ambulances (as well as the regular kind), and our police have new SUVs and pickups as well as the normal patrol cars. I once sat down and listed all of the publicly-owned property and assets here that I could think of just out of curiosity, and I was shocked enough by the end result to wonder if some taxpayers might also be victims (since some clearly pay a lot more than others here; I have more information on this).

After considering the matter further, however, I wondered if the local riches might instead be related to something else. In the summer of 2002, my children and I both watched and filmed two city employees who pulled up in front of our front door in a marked city truck, parked, got out, and proceeded to move sausage-shaped bundles shrink-wrapped in tan-colored plastic from the bed of the truck to the front, where we watched them being tied behind and under the front bumper with thin black cord or rope.

When I later told the local p.i. who recommended I hire Ed Hodges (see "My Story" at the beginning of this blog) that I had a videotape of this, he insisted I give him the tape so he could "turn it over to the proper law enforcement authorities". Once I realized these people had conned me, I assumed this video had been destroyed, but I do still have a couple of grainy still photographs one of my kids took with their camera while I was filming. After this incident, we began to notice many, many other instances of suspicious behaviour by local public employees.