Author, researcher and comedy writer, Dawna Kaufmann writes true crime books with Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, the world's best-known medical examiner. In the first half, she updated her work on some of the most high profile criminal cases of recent decades including OJ Simpson, Scott Peterson, and Jon-Benet Ramsey. Peterson was convicted of killing his pregnant wife Laci and unborn son Conner, on Christmas eve 2002. It's believed that Peterson, who's now on death row in California, dumped her body, weighed down by anchors, into San Francisco Bay. Four months later, gases in Laci's body exploded, and part of her body and unborn baby were expelled, and floated ashore. They were then examined in an autopsy by Dr. Wecht, Kaufmann reported.
Regarding the Jon-Benet case, she believes that it was not her brother that was culpable but someone who had been abusing and assaulting her on a regular basis. In the OJ murder trial, Kaufmann suggested that one of the cops had tried to frame him, even though Simpson was already guilty, and this ruined the prosecution's case. She also talked about the Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock, theorizing that since he shot at two fuel tanks which serviced Janet Airlines (a clandestine airline run by the US Air Force for Area 51 employees), his attack may have been an ISIS-inspired hit against US military concerns.
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One of the world's leading cryptozoologists, Loren Coleman, is the founder and director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. In the latter half, he discussed his latest work-- a companion to the late John Keel's The Mothman Prophecies (1975), which investigated the sightings of a strange winged creature and became popularized in the 2002 movie of the same name. Starting in the fall of 1966, there were reports of a frightening 6-7-ft. tall creature in Point Pleasant, WV that could suddenly take flight. Seen by some 200 witnesses, it had incredible glowing red eyes, he detailed, that appeared to be coming from the central part of its body like a giant owl.
The sightings, Keel postulated, seemed to be a harbinger of doom, and indeed in 1967, there was a collapse of the Silver Bridge in which 46 people died. The bridge connected Point Pleasant to a town across the Ohio River. Like the 'curse' associated with the film Poltergeist, the film Mothman Prophecies also had a string of illness and bad luck associated with it, said Coleman, including the death of the director's wife, the executive producer, and a number of others who were under the age of 50. There have been recent sightings in Chicago of a Mothman-like creature, and Coleman reported that some are wondering if an awful event is in store for the Windy City. He also spoke about Bigfoot, and his Cryptozoology Museum which now has some 10,000 pieces in its collection.
Illustration above by Ethan Kocak.
News segment guests: Peter Pry, Andre Eggelletion, Steve Kates