ISDP June, 2012: The Great American Songbook

By’n by Hard Times comes a knocking at the door, 
Then my old Kentucky Home, good night!

At around 6:00 p.m. Friday evening, Kentucky State Police executed a search warrant on a barn in Hustonville. 

“We got a tip from the property owner around 3:00 this afternoon,” explains Kentucky State Police Trooper Paul Blanton. “The home owner told us a few weeks back he smelled a foul odor coming from the barn but thought that it was a dead animal. When he found out about Thomas Hager, the man accused of shooting and killing two people in Danville on Monday he got suspicious.”

Sure enough, a “body was found in the basement of the barn hidden underneath a pile of trash bags.”


If I can make it there,
I’ll make it anywhere . . .

Police are investigating the beating death of a 75-year-old Bronx man who was found with an obscene message scrawled on his stomach, law enforcement sources tell NBC 4 New York. 

Law enforcement sources say Joe Fischer’s body was found by a neighbor who smelled a foul odor and went to check on him. She has keys to his apartment and hadn’t seen him in several days so was concerned about his welfare, law enforcement sources said. When the neighbor went into Fischer’s apartment, she found him lying dead on the kitchen floor. On his stomach, someone had scrawled the message “Who’s b---- now” in red lipstick, according to multiple reports.

I’d be safe and warm,
If I was in L.A.

In late May, LAist ran an initial report about the bodies of two women found in a Los Angeles apartment.

The LAPD were alerted to a potential issue when neighbors reported smelling a foul odor coming from the unit. The women were in their 30s, said coroner’s Assistant Chief Ed Winter.

Whoops! Initial reports are often wrong. Make that a woman and her son.

Los Angeles police have arrested the boyfriend of a woman whose body was found decomposing alongside the corpse of her son in South Los Angeles earlier this week. 

Ishamel Imran Townsend, 41, of Los Angeles was booked Tuesday on suspicion of killing his live-in girlfriend, Penelipha Carter, 39, and her 11-year-old son, Crestsalin Carter, police said. Officers found the Carters’ corpses in their apartment . . . Monday afternoon. Neighbors had called authorities complaining of a foul odor coming from the apartment. They said no one had seen the woman or her son in several days.

One day after the Los Angeles incident, there was another in San Bernardino:

A neighbor notified police at 9 a.m. that a suspicious odor was coming from the back of the home . . . .Officers investigated and found a five-foot hole dug in the backyard. Pieces of wood and debris were covering the body of a man who had been dead at least several days, [Sgt. Gary] Robertson said.

In the KABC version, it was the landlord who noticed the foul odor:

Police on Tuesday found a decomposing body in a hole behind a San Bernardino home after the owner reported a foul odor. The owner of the rental property was checking the property and called police, who arrived around 9 a.m.

Then there’s this:

Residents said they weren’t surprised by the situation, describing the home as a “drug house” and the block as crime-ridden. 

“This neighborhood, a lot of those things happen,” one nearby resident said. “There was people going in and out all day, all night,” another neighbor said of the home. Several neighbors said they heard gunshots from the house last weekend, but no one had called the police.

Call the police, why bother? Well, the cops stayed on the case and made an arrest on June 7.

The victim was identified as 21-year-old Angel Cortez. Thursday police arrested 38-year-old Victor Angulo. Officers also arrested his girlfriend, 32-year-old Olga Varela as an accessory to murder.

Motel, money, murder, madness,
Let’s change the mood from glad to sadness

In West Hollywood in early June the body of an unidentified male was found about 10 min from Mel’s Drive-In.

Los Angeles police officers were called to Willoughby and North Genesee avenues on Saturday to investigate a foul odor. That’s where officials found the decomposing remains wrapped up inside a truck.

According to the Los Angeles Times's L.A. Now blog,

Neighbors told KTLA that the black Cadillac Escalade had been parked in the same spot since Thursday.

Daddy went a ridin’ in his old car,
Took the dog with him ‘cause it ain’t too far

And at the Eastern end of the Sun Belt:

Two people were found dead in a Lehigh Acres home by a sheriff’s deputy responding to reports of a foul odor coming from the house, according to Lee County Sheriff’s Office reports.

A headline from the News-Press in Fort Meyers gives the sad story: “Man, stepson found dead in Lehigh Acres; Odor leads deputies to an Alzheimer’s patient and his caregiver.” The deceased were an 88-year-old Alzheimer patient and his 61-year-old stepson who was his full-time caretaker.


Be true to your school now,
Let your colors fly

We leave you with a selection of lighter items the San Clemente Sheriff’s Department crime blotter, courtesy of The Orange County Register:

A woman told the Orange County Sheriff’s Department that she was in the shower when someone reached into the small window above the shower and took a photo of her. The incident was reported at 8:35 p.m. Monday . . .

Perv!

Five youths reportedly toilet-papered San Clemente High School. 10:52 p.m.

Who says kids today don’t respect tradition?

Suspicious person/circumstances. 600 block Camino de los Mares. A woman said she suspected someone had died behind a tree because of a foul odor coming from the area, where she said a homeless man usually sleeps. Sheriff’s deputies investigated and did not see any bodies. 9:55 a.m.

No body home!

Until next time, remember: always trust your nose.