COURT CALENDAR
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1997:
Allegedly violating people and animals
For about two months a group of
as many as 30 Kentucky youths purported to
drink their own blood and animal blood, calling
themselves The Vampire Clan. Police
identified but didn’t charge several of them
while investigating a break-in and mutilation
killings of two puppies at the animal shelter in
Murray, Kentucky. The apparent leader,
Sondra Gibson, was eventually arrested and
charged with trying to coerce a 14-year-old
boy into having sex with her as an initiation
rite, but by then The Vampire Clan was on a
rampage. Arrested in Baton Rouge on
November 29, in connection with the
November 24 bludgeon murders of Richard
Wendorf, 49, and his wife Naoma Ruth
Wendorf, 53, in their home at Eustis, Florida,
were their daughter Heather, 15; Roderick
Ferrell, 16, son of Gibson; Howard Scott
Anderson, 16; Sarah “Shea” Remington,
a.k.a. Charity Lynn Keesee, 16; and Dana
Cooper, 19. Ferrell and Anderson were also
charged with the shelter break-in.
Professional rodeo roper Brian
Tanner Adams, 21, of Queen Creek,
Arizona, was arrested on November 21 and
charged with attempted murder, suspicion of
kidnapping, reckless endangerment, resisting
arrest, and aggravated assault on a police officer,
for allegedly lassoing Jared Stark, 24,
around the neck, after losing a game of pool to
him, then chasing his car with a pickup truck,
eventually crashing into the car. Police said
Stark saved himself from decapitation by holding
the rope with both hands.
Former Maricopa County,
Arizona animal control officer Christopher
Stannard, 33, is charged with allegedly raping
at least two women by surreptitiously dosing
them first with potentially lethal amounts
of the animal paralytic ketamine. Police
believe there were other victims. Ketamine
has become subject of concern in similar cases
around the country; New York legislator
Owen Johnson recently proposed banning it.
Darrel J. Voeks, 46, of Siocton,
Wisconsin, on December 5 drew 10 years in
prison and 10 more on probation, on top of the
five years he’s already serving for parole violation,
and was ordered to pay restitution of
$90,000 to his former employer, pig farmer
Tom VanStraten, for having allegedly stolen
and sold more than 1,000 pigs. This was
Voeks’ third conviction of essentially the same
offense. Voeks told Outagamie County Circuit
Judge Dennis Luebke that he’d needed the
money to feed his family. Luebke reminded
him that prior testimony had established that
much of the money went to buy breast impants
for his favorite stripper, and a lot of the rest
went in tips to other strippers.
Sheriff’s deputies seeking evidence
in connection with the October 27 shooting
death of Larry Woodrow Smith, 17, of
Chiefland, Florida, found suspect Brad
Dixon, his grandmother Dorothea Trentwedel,
and his mother, Arlette Diamond, in a
garbage-strewn trailer home surrounded by
nearly 200 dead or starving animals, including
dogs, cats, and poultry. All three are now
charged with allegedly murdering Smith.
Former Long Island Pet Cemetery
owner Samuel Strauss, 75, of Boca Raton,
Florida, on December 6 drew three months in
jail, to be served at a West Palm Beach federal
halfway house, and a fine of $75,000 plus
$15,000 interest, for failing to pay an earlier
fine of $75,000 after he and his son Alan were
convicted in 1992 of 45 counts of mail fraud.
Strauss and son allegedly charged pet owners
for individual graves, but illegally buried animals
in mass graves. Strauss contended that he
hadn’t paid the original fine because after he
was put out of business, he was too poor.
Members of In Defense of Animals
on December 20 protested as too light fines of
$177.50 for “malicious mischief” and $57.50
for trespassing, levied against Robbie Lutts,
18, who on November 7 pleaded guilty at the
Lafayette County Justice Court in Oxford,
Mississippi to “the brutal assault and rape of a
small heifer,” according to IDA Mississippi
representative Doll Stanley. Lutts was accompanied
by a male juvenile, also charged, but
not named; the outcome of his case is
unknown. Lutts is additionally charged with
child molesting. “Just a year earlier,” Stanley
said, “an almost identical crime was committed
on the same farm. A larger heifer was sexually
assaulted and beaten to death. Semen
removed from the cow indicated there might
be as many as four to five assailants.”
Block back in court
MIAMI, Fla.––Matthew Block
and World Wide Primates, notorious in connection
with the 1990 Bangkok Six baby
orangutan smuggling case, are back in court
as defendants in a personal injury suit filed in
1993 by photographer and former monkey
owner Gregory Scorza, 41, of Key West,
Florida. Scorza bought what he thought was
a capuchin from a man in Fort Lauderdale via
a newspaper ad. The monkey was actually a
much-harder-to-handle macaque, who quickly
bit him. According to Scorza, he became
seriously ill, spending two weeks in a hospital,
where he endured “spinal taps and stuff.”
A veterinarian meanwhile noticed a
tattoo on the macaque and with the help of
the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish
Commission was able to trace him back to
Block, who apparently lost him in August
1992 during Hurricane Andrew. A Mr.
Gomez captured him and sold him to a Mr.
Martinez, who sold him to Scorza.
Reasoning that Block had been
negligent in allowing the macaque to escape,
Scorza sued Block. Broward Circuit Judge
Harry Hinckley threw the case out, but the
Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm
Beach ruled December 4 that it should have
been referred to a jury. Primarily a supplier
of primates to biomedical research, Block
served 13 months in jail for his role in arranging
the Bangkok Six transaction––and also
paid $25,000 damages to Shirley McGreal of
the International Primate Protection League,
as the penalty for hitting her with a frivolous
lawsuit while she was pursuing his prosecution
in the Bangkok Six case.
