woman found dismembered in israel
This is the second dismemberment crime I've read about this month. The first being the recent murder and dismemberment of a woman in New Orleans - allegedly by her boyfriend who, according to a note found in his front pocket, later killed himself.
What is it with murderers who dismember their victims after they kill them?
What are they trying to prove - just how inhuman they are?
Or - on the contrary - are they trying to prove just how inhuman they think their victims are?
Join me, as I unravel this mystery and so much more . . .
THE suspect in the murder and dismemberment of a Filipina caregiver working in Israel is being hunted by police in that country, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said in a statement Tuesday.
In his report to DFA Secretary Alberto Romulo, Philippine Ambassador to Israel Antonio Modena said the prime suspect, a former boyfriend of the victim, was expected to see Michelle Alonsagay Jamias of Rosario, Batangas at her flat the evening of November 3, when she was murdered.
He said the suspect works in Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv, and also maintains a flat in the capital city.
Police are confident that the suspect is still in Israel.
Modena said the victim’s remains were autopsied at the National Forensic Medicine Institute in Tel Aviv and her remains may be repatriated to the Philippines either Thursday or Friday.
After learning that the dismembered body of a Filipina was found in a garbage heap across her flat in Haifa, some 100 miles north of Tel Aviv, Modena immediately dispatched Vice Consul Thaddeus Hamoy, Assistance to Nationals Officer Rodrigo Gavino and Welfare Officer Francisco Cruz there.
While searching for clues as to what makes these people tick, I ran into this detailed report of the New Orleans incident, which I will reproduce in full, for the record.
A suicide note in the pocket of a man who jumped off the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel on Tuesday night led police to the grisly scene of his girlfriend's murder, where they found her charred head in a pot on the stove, her legs and arms baked in the oven and the rest of her dismembered body in a trash bag in the refrigerator, according to police and the couple's landlord.
In the note, Zackery Bowen, 28, confessed to killing his girlfriend, Adriane "Addie" Hall, 30, on Oct. 5, according to police sources and friends of the couple.
So, which is it - 'the couple's landlord' or 'friends of the couple' who have personal knowledge of the so-called confession?
Why don't we see any statements from these so-called friends?
Officially, police declined to release the name of the victim, saying she was still a "Jane Doe" until the remains of her body could be forensically identified.
"This is not accidental. I had to take my own life to pay for the one I took," Bowen wrote in a suicide note found in a plastic bag in the front pocket of his pants.
The note was IN A PLASTIC BAG??? And no one thought that was strange???
The note directed police to the scene of the crime and gave a synopsis of what he had done, according to sources familiar with the case.
A source familiar with the investigation said detectives found in the couple's apartment two pots on the stove, one containing a woman's head and the other her hands and feet.
Next to the pot containing her head were carrots and potatoes that had been cut up; none had been placed in the pots.
In the oven were turkey-basting trays containing human legs and arms, the source said.
At least one of the pans had seasoning sprinkled on the limbs, the source said.
Whoever did this was one twisted son of bitch.
No cannibalismAt an afternoon news conference, Cannatella said there was no evidence of cannibalism, and an autopsy on Bowen, done 13 days after he claimed to have committed the murder, showed no evidence of human body parts in his system.
Actually, Bowen didn't claim anything - he's dead.
That's what the note claimed.
Yet, for some reason, police were so eager to accept it at face value that they started looking for other crimes to pin on the dead man.
Police gave no indication they suspect Bowen might be a serial killer, but detectives said they were compiling a detailed profile of Bowen to submit to an FBI database that stores suspected acts of serial violence.
Homicide Detective Ronald Ruiz said he is looking at other murders nationwide to see if they can be connected to Bowen.
When police arrived late Tuesday night at the apartment Bowen and Hall shared, they found a screed from Bowen, printed on eight pages in his girlfriend's journal, providing a graphically detailed accounting of the slaying.
He started the note formally, giving his full name, Social Security and driver's license numbers, and his date of birth.
Absolutely incredible.
Whoever wrote that note wanted to be DAMNED sure that the blame was pinned on Bowen.
"Today is Monday 16 October 2 a.m. I killed her at 1 a.m. Thursday 5 October," Bowen wrote. "I very calmly strangled her. It was very quick."
But what Bowen did after he killed Hall was anything but quick. He claimed in his note to have sexually violated her body several times, eventually passing out in a drunken stupor on the futon next to the corpse.
The next day, he went to work delivering groceries, then came home and moved the body to the bathroom tub, where he used a handsaw and a knife to dismember her remains.
An autopsy conducted Wednesday confirmed that Hall was strangled and dismembered after her death, police said.
You can't be 'strangled to death' and be 'strangled AFTER death' at the same time - it's one or the other.
This is either shoddy journalism, or something far more sinister.
"He appeared to clean up the bathroom a lot after he did it," one officer said.
So, why would someone who leaves a note with all his identifying information confessing to the crime - CLEAN UP after himself in an effort to cover up his tracks???
Directed by a spray-painted note on the wall, police found the victim's head burned beyond recognition in a pot on top of the stove. Her legs and arms were in the same condition in pans inside the oven, police said.
In his note, Bowen wrote that he put her feet and hands in pots of water on the stove burners.
Bowen was from Los Angeles, police said, but apparently had lived in the New Orleans area for some time. He registered to vote in Louisiana in August 1996.
Friends said he claimed to have served in the military in Iraq and Bosnia, and displayed both pride and angst in that experience.
Hall was not a New Orleans native either, although police said only that they believed she came from Pennsylvania. She registered to vote at a New Orleans address in 2002.
Signs of trouble
As of Wednesday, police had found no other evidence of domestic violence in Hall and Bowen's relationship, said Chief of Detectives Anthony Cannatella at a police news conference.
Yet, we're supposed to believe he just snapped, cut her to pieces, and burned her to a crisp? Get real.
After being tossed out of their apartment on Gov. Nicholls Street in the French Quarter at the end of September, the couple rented an apartment together at 826 N. Rampart St., above a voodoo shop, said their landlord, Leo Watermeier, who recently ran for mayor
Hmmm, ambitious too.
"He may have in retrospect seemed a little troubled," Watermeier said of Bowen early Wednesday morning, hours after he led investigators to the gruesome scene inside the apartment.
Though they appeared happy when they rented the Rampart Street apartment -- telling Watermeier they had fallen in love on the night Hurricane Katrina struck, when Hall gave Bowen shelter -- they soon had a bitter falling out, Watermeier said.
After the storm, the couple lived a vagabond existence in the shattered city, becoming feature fodder for the swarm of reporters eager to profile post-flood diehards.
But on Oct. 5, during a dispute over which of their names would appear on the lease, Hall told Watermeier she intended to kick Bowen out of the apartment, after finding out that he had cheated on her, Watermeier said.
Bowen did not take the news well, Watermeier said.
"He said, 'Did you just let her sign a lease alone? Because I'm screwed. I'm totally messed up now. She's trying to kick me out of our apartment,' " Watermeier said.
Hall admitted she was trying to throw Bowen out, he said. "I caught him cheating on me, and I am kicking him out of this apartment," she told Watermeier.
Watermeier told the couple to work through their differences and get back to him.
So, do we have ANYBODY'S word for it besides WATERMEIER'S???
He never saw Hall again, and assumed they had worked it out.
Second thoughts
Bowen's suicide was discovered Tuesday about 8:30 p.m. when his body was spotted by someone in an upper floor lounge of the Omni Royal Orleans.
Police determined that Bowen had jumped from an outside terrace near a swimming pool on an upper floor to the roof of the Chartres Street garage on the fourth floor, police said.
They couldn't figure out WHICH terrace? Did they even bother looking into it?
Bowen methodically planned the suicide.
He left police the phone number of his estranged wife, spray-painted on the wall in the Rampart Street apartment, while warning them in his note that he hadn't talked to those closest to him. "I didn't contact any of my family," he wrote. "So that'll explain the shock."
Unbelievable - this really takes the cake.
If this doesn't send red glaring signals to the detectives assigned to this case then THEY should be investigated.
On Oct. 9, according to his letter, Bowen came home from his job and again set to work dismembering Hall's body, in an apartment where he had set the air conditioning at 60 degrees. Then he stopped.
"Halfway through the task, I stopped and thought about what I was doing," he wrote to police in his girlfriend's journal. "The decision to halt the first idea and move to Plan B (the crime scene you are now in) came after awhile.
I scared myself not only by the action of calmly strangling the woman I've loved for one and a half years, but by my entire lack of remorse. I've known forever how horrible a person I am (ask anyone)."
. . . . . . .
Bowen did not commit this crime.
This was NOT a crime of passion.
This was a meticulously planned brutal murder by a vindictive, remorseless son of a bitch who did not perceive his victim as human - AT ALL.
_____________________
Walt Philbin can be reached at wphilbin@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3302. Laura Maggi can be reached at lmaggi@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3316.
has anything to say (positive or negative) about this post.
what's the matter - am I the only one who thinks this New Orleans case stinks to high heaven?
Hey, quasi - where are you?
Bowen wasn't the killer. Addie Hall used to flash her breasts at passing police vehicles. I'd say the prime suspect is one of those policemen, and the landlord, Watermeier, was part of the cover-up. They burnt the body to eliminate forensic evidence.
"Apparently killed by boyfriend", 'apparently' being the operative word.
maybe Watermeier killed her and the cops are covering up for him.
Whoever killed her, it seems almost certain that it was NOT Bowen.
But, it's really a catastrophe that no one is taking a closer look at who committed this atrocity because if you and I are right that madman still roams the streets of New Orleans and is sure to kill again.
'Do you know what it means, to miss New Orleans, when that's where you left your heart ?'...I've played and sung this great tune so many times, I can do it in my sleep, and I love it so well, because I'll always miss New Orleans, now that it will never be the same. After the wonderful times I spent playing Dixieland down in Rampart St., where this voodoo curse came down, and seeing all those beautiful, soulful natives' lives washed away, after the levees were blown, it is now only with tears that I can turn my gaze back upon it at all. I was there for the turn of a great century, of the birth o' the blues and jazz which is our greatest heritage, and which is enshrined at Armstrong Park as a tribute to "Satchel Mouf" Louis Satchmo Armstrong. Louis will always be the first saint to go marchin' in with the Zulu Parade. It is strange to realize that a town of such good vibrations could be so steeped in the occult, but that is still a greater part of it's great mystique. Leo Watermeier would appear to have quite a public profile, in light of his involvement in fund raising and management for the Armstrong project, and the cultural venue in general. He had also conceivably used that background as a base for a recent run for Mayor of the "Crescent City", in addition to being very upfront about his sexual orientation, which he ran on as a non-issue, also being a Co-Chair for a Chapter of a Gay Alliance. It is difficult to envision how someone this socially gregarious could be implicated in something as heinous as this, which absolutely reeks of voodoo. But that could also be a non-issue, as both Bowen and Hall were indeed quite gregarious as well. First we have to decide if we are looking at one, or two murders. Qrs, I surmise that you are looking primarily at the modus operandi, or operative signature, of one or both murders, and finding many current parallels to other current crimes of dismemberment, specifically, and indeed it is hard not to make such intimations. From my own observations, I would tend to concur with what, not who, you may perceive this "twisted son-of-bitch" to be. The fact that you followed up your post with an account of a dismemberment in Israel would appear to give the lie to that fact. Along those lines, I can only offer my own fractured opinion of this signata. If it is indeed not one, but TWO murders we are looking at, then I would be prone to suggest that both scenarios seem to project an almost classic signature, the business of doing people from heights being a well worn example. You look at the sheer impunity of it, another sign. As I had thought to post long before, but dissuaded myself, I feel that alcohol definitely, and possibly mind altering drugs may have played a part. To conceive of Mr. Bowen having gone to such great lengths and meticulous methods to accomplish this might imply methedrine. I find it important that there appeared to be some issues of low self-esteem on his part, having to do with personal failures, but most interesting to me that he had reportedly done a tour of duty in Iraq, where he could have witnessed this sort of handiwork first-hand, if not by his own hand. You have raised many further perplexing questions which I won't address at the moment, which all have a certain cogency. All I can say with any finality at this stage, after taking more than one revolting look at this case, is, I believe you could be looking at two distinct murders. Whoever did Addie had to have access to the premises, and that doesn't rule out our mercurial Mr. Watermeier, does it ? Do YOU know what it means ? To miss New Orleans ? To miss it each night and day ? There's just one thing more, I miss that sweet one I long for, even more than I miss New Orleans...
thanks for sharing your thoughts on this incident, which because of its gruesome nature and unanswered questions has captured my attention.
I didn't know that Watermeier was gay - that does not rule him out as a suspect, however. It only changes the dynamics.
I wish others would contribute to the discussion, as I can't help but fear for others, if what I suspect is true.
The only thing worse than what happened to this poor woman is what may happen to the next, if I'm right.