Friday, January 31, 2020

Bringing Home Adam Essay Example for Free

Bringing Home Adam Essay Adam Walsh in his book â€Å"Bringing Adam Home† conveys different important information concerning people and the society they dwell. This book is based on Mathew Joe’s experience in his investigation for the murder and abduction. The book suddenly reveals the cases of abduction and murder that the world at large gets to be no longer innocent wit. Bring Adam Home is a definitive story about a six year old Adam Walsh who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered in 1981. It explains how Adam stopped by the local store to get some new lamps. He was captivated by a video game at the entrance of the store and begged his mother, Reve, to allow him try it out while she shopped. However, his mother never found him when she returned a few minutes later. His body was later found mutilated in a drainage canal. The book details the botched investigations conducted by the police that prevented discovery of the killer for nearly twenty seven years. The book is one of the finest true-crime stories that can be related to Thomas Thompson’s Blood and Money of 1976. Les Standiford is the author of the story that exposes notoriety of the case. He has authored other nonfiction books and novels such as The Man Who Invented Christmas that was released in 2008. Bring Adam Home tells the story of the young boy’s abduction with the help of detective Joe Matthews, who eventually solved the case. The detective was working for John Walsh’s TV show, America’s Most Wanted, while investigating the case. The book gives a meticulous recount of the events leading up to the kidnapping of Adam from a Sears store at the Hollywood Mall in Hollywood, Florida. It illustrates the unsuccessful search for the missing boy leading to the subsequent location of his severed head bobbing in a canal miles away. The shock of Adam’s abduction and murder, as well as failure by the police to find the killer, was the most consequential in American history. Efforts of the parents of the young boy, John and Reve Walsh, revolutionized the justice system on crimes involving missing and murdered children. It influenced the way local, state and federal authorities investigate such cases. During the time of Adam’s abduction and murder, there were no Amber Alerts and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was nonexistent. In addition, the federal government did not have the pedophile registry or a database for crimes against children. It was a time when children received little attention as they played outside all day. Before his abduction, Adam was playing video game in a departmental store. The report of Adam’s abduction and eventual death led to investigations conducted by detectives from Hollywood Police Department. Detective Matthews joined the investigation team from Miami Beach Police department. Two years after the death of the boy, an illiterate arsonist, Ottis Toole, admitted to kidnapping and killing Adam. The police got this revelation during questioning about several unresolved murders. Toole was later convicted as a serial killer, but Adam’s case was not included among the crimes he had committed. There was a time Toole recanted his confession. However, he admitted to committing the crime several times later. In his confession, Toole explained that he took Adam to raise him as his own child. He only killed him when he found out that Adam could identify him. There are several reasons that resulted in failure by the police to issue charges against Ottis Toole. More prominently, the police failed in their work in correctly documenting the findings. This led to their eventual failure in the gathering of the physical evidence. Therefore, a warrant of arrest was never issued against Ottis Toole leading to dismissal of his confession. Several other facts clearly demonstrated that Toole was the culprit. Firstly, he was the only person who gave twenty five independent confessions connecting him to the crime. Secondly, Toole had detailed information concerning the crime scene that would only be known by the killer. Thirdly, scores of eyewitnesses identified Toole as the killer. The book outlines the tireless work done by the bereaved parents in search for justice on behalf of other missing children. The main attraction of the book is the investigation of the Hollywood Police Department that exposes the bulging of the investigators that had previously worked on the case. Standiford and Matthews carefully builds the case against the police. They provide details that contain numerous leads that were disregarded during the initial investigation. These included some obvious questions that were never asked, a number of crucial witnesses that were ignored, and details concerning incomplete or falsified reports. In addition, the fresh investigation of the investigators exposed evidence that was never examined and a number of vital evidence that got lost. The book exposes the most damning revelation concerning ignorance of the Hollywood police on repeated confessions by a serial killer. The killer had detailed information concerning the crime that was never made public. However, he was never tried for the crime despite confessing to the boy’s murder. The author does not bend facts to show his artistic skills. He details factual information and is not self-consciously literary. The spilling of the narrative follows a matter-of-fact style. This is an excellent choice for a narrative laced with so much mistrust, heartbreak, perversion, and gore. The authors also exposed names of several people that were never mentioned in the initial investigation. The authors recount how detective Matthews was, on numerous occasions, stonewalled by other detectives and superiors from the Hollywood police department. This occurred when he was on loan from Miami Beach Police department as a detective to assist in investigating the case. He was further frustrated when he accepted to assist the desperate parents in investigating the case afresh. It seems the Hollywood detectives and their superiors had ulterior motives of frustrating the cause of justice for the case. Moreover, the disappearance of the boy had attracted national attention with the media being at the fore front. Joe Matthews was a topnotch homicide detective who was entrusted the responsibility of unraveling who had killed the boy. However, his concerns on disorganization witnessed at the station handling the case went ignored. There was a time he was excused from the case after suffering a nasty road accident. The case was further groped by new revelations on shotgun accusations and lack of any tangible leads. This was until Ottis Toole, a convicted serial killer admitted to the murder. The investigations dragged for two decades before Matthews got access to all information on the case files. On scrutinizing the information, the detective found out what he had long suspected. The case files showed that there had been sufficient evidence to prosecute the killer of the young boy. Unfortunately, the said killer, Ottis Toole, had died in prison in 1996. He died of liver failure at the age of forty nine. He had confessed earlier to the killings and other grisly crimes. It was hurting for a country that has arguably the best justice system to allow the grieving parents of a murdered child to lead investigations that would culminate to the deserved justice. One may wonder why the case took that long without finding justice. There are several reasons that may have jeopardized the quality of investigations into convicting the actual culprit. During the time period when the crime occurred, DNA forensic technology was still rudimental. This could have been the reason why Toole was not charged for the murder despite loads of evidence linking him to the crime scene. The Hollywood Police Department was highly respected at the time of the crime. Failure by the department to effectively solve Adam’s case may have been caused by assigning wrong detectives to work on the case. The lead investigator failed to perform his duty as the investigation was marred with claims of laxity and lack of proper supervision. The assigned leader of the investigation team was very territorial. This is evidenced by his refusal to consider inputs made by other detectives, especially Joe Matthews. The case would have been closed twenty five years earlier had he put into consideration all the findings. Though nothing could have been done to prevent the abduction, the lead investigator should have solved the Adam Walsh case at the time it occurred. Adam’s father, John, later became a steadfast advocate for missing and exploited children. He was the host of America’s Most Wanted. Through his program, he championed for the transformation of law enforcement on matters pertaining to handling similar cases. The activism of the Adam’s father influenced Congress to pass the Missing Children Act in 1982. Two years later, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was launched. John reunited with Joe Matthews, the decorated Miami Beach homicide detective, after twenty five years of Adam’s death. It was in February, 2006, when the parents requested the detective to re-investigate the case involving their son. The investigator, armed with an arsenal of forensic tools and heartfelt intent, reopened the case and went through all the case files that contained all information pertaining to the initial investigation. After two years and nine months, Joe Matthews emerged with a 10,000 page report that exposed evidence that was never recorded or looked at by the original investigators. The findings had enough evidence to indict Ottis Toole with the abduction and murder. Bring Adam Home is an account of a crime that captured public attention. It is a story of dedication, tragedy, love, and faith. The author reveals the pain and persistence of a family determined to find justice. It reveals how police failed in their work and allowed a criminal remain without being indicted. The story shows how a determined police officer was capable of accomplishing what an entire legal system failed to achieve. It is a testimony of love shown by distraught parents who took up the cause of finding justice over twenty five years after the death of their son. Their struggle and that of detective Matthews has helped the nation develop programs dealing with the exploitation of missing children. Moreover, Adams abduction and death has had an impact on how mothers watch over their children. The themes in the book is much convincing in that, it has a lot of elements of brutality in the form of thriller. But it gets concern most on the unsympathetic characters as the lead officer could term. Also, it was portrayed as bumbling brute which was much discouraging. However, the book is made more attractive when Matthews’s works of detectives get started almost in the middle of the book. This also makes the author to recount in great details. For instance Toole confesses for the various ways of killings he made in his life and the tough readings of parents. The book is much unique in to the fact that, it confronts the readers through various horrifying natures of the world relating to the crime situations that comes to pass. However, with the clear and thorough understanding of the book, it reveals why the investigations took long in solving the crime and also where the investigation horribly went off target. Readers also come to admire the determinations of Walshes and Mathews for not giving up at an early stage until when the book comes to an end. The book is not so much perfect to some extend. This is evident when the police officer reports of the author’s quotes and even some of the information found in it, seem nauseam. After clearing the book, well, the tone is better placed. However since that period; 1981, there have been many rumors and doubts about the murder of Adam Walsh. The book leaves the reader in full world of doubt about the perpetration of the investigated crime. The book also puts the reader in a bad mood in that it disturbs the mind set of a person. The book is much graphic in its illustrations on what befallen the poor Adam. It imposes too much information on the person who was suspected to be behind the murder which is much uncalled for. For instance, if the story was about how the US handles cases of child abduction, it would stick on the issue other than giving more details of different murder, rape and other horrified acts which happened long time ago.

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Career Opportunities For Recipients Of Degrees In Mathematics :: Argumentative Persuasive Papers

The Many Career Opportunities For Recipients Of Degrees In Mathematics I have chosen to do Possibility 7. It states that once a person decides to study mathematics they are limited to the possible fields of work that is available to them. According to this statement the only possible jobs are teaching jobs at the school, college, and university levels. It also talks about how this can be dull to some and how a person can't become a millionaire this way. I am in total opposition of this statement. I believe that if a person studies mathematics they have a world of options open to them. By no means does studying mathematics limit a person to the teaching profession alone. Mathematics majors are in demand in the work force. The jobs are out there if the perspective workers have good job search skills, which are essential. The teaching profession alone offers an assortment of different levels of teaching. One could teach at the elementary, middle school, high school, college, and university levels. There are also teacher's aids, research assistants, and student teachers, as well as substitute teachers. The demand for teachers is elevating at an alarming rate. This goes for teachers in general, but especially for teachers interested in teaching in the mathematics or science fields. Besides being a teacher, who technically is a mathematician, there is also the obvious profession of being a mathematician without being a teacher. There are also opportunities such as becoming an engineer, a research scientist, or a manager of a business. Mathematics majors work for such companies as IBM, AT&T Bell Labs, American Airlines, FedEx, L. L. Bean, and Perdue Farms Inc to name a few.(Source III) There are also mathematicians employed in such government agencies as The Bureau of the Census, Department of Agriculture, and NASA Goddard Space Center.(Sources III and IV) Mathematicians are needed in the fields of law and medicine as well as in the arts, such as sculpting, music, and television. The possibilities are seemingly endless. When you think about it, almost every job involves mathematics. It is true that not every job opening could be properly satisfied by a person who majored in mathematics, but for the most part that person would have an advantage over other applicants because of their knowledge in mathematics. I believe that a strong background in mathematics is an asset to a person looking into just about any field of work.

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Critical evaluation †blood brothers Essay

The play did not open with the curtain going up but instead with the lights going up. My seat was in the gallery, which is quite high up, but after I got over the sense of vertigo my view of the play was fine. I could not see the gantry at the back of the stage or the very front of the stage, but very little of the action took place in these areas. The play was written in the early 1960’s by the Liverpudlian playwright Willy Russell and was first performed in the early 1980’s. The play is a ‘slice of life’, or an impression of life starting in Liverpool in the early 1960’s through until the 1980’s, of poor working class families. The play combines music and song with narrative. The set of Blood Brothers consisted of, on either side of the stage a row of terraced house fronts. At the back of the stage there was a gantry which was used by the narrator and once by Mrs. Johnston when she sang a song that was an overview of the action that had just taken place, there was a countryside backcloth with two moveable ‘brick wall’ flats which moved across to cover this. The set was very appropriate for the play, it combined well with the ‘slice of life’. The props were minimalist and brought on stage by the actors. There were four moveable flats, two that slid across the floor and two that came down from the ceiling. All the costumes and fixings were appropriate for the era of the play, they worked well together producing a realistic setting. The play opens with the twin brothers, lying down on stretchers and then being carried away. The narrator then informs the audience of the events that have just happened and then the play begins. The play is about Mrs. Johnston, a working class mother of seven children who after her husband has left her for a younger woman discovers she is pregnant with twins. Mrs. Johnston is a cleaner who works for a middle class couple, Mr. and Mrs. Lyons. Mrs. Johnston tells Mrs. Lyons of her predicament and so Mrs. Lyons who can not have children of her own and whose husband has gone away on business for six months offers to take one of the twins for herself and bring him up as her own. After some persuasion Mrs. Johnston gives one of the boys to Mrs. Lyons. She finds it difficult to keep Mrs. Johnston on as her cleaner because she can see that there is a bond between mother and child and so fires her. Several years pass, the boys are now seven, nearly eight, they meet when out playing, become great friends and ‘Blood Brothers’. Both Mrs. Johnston and Mrs. Lyons try to keep the boys apart but are unable to do so. In a desperate attempt to separate the boys the Lyons move to a house in the country well away from Mickey and the estate where the Johnston’s live. A few years later the council decide to demolish the estate where the Johnston’s live and relocate the families to the countryside close to where the Lyons now live. Mickey has a girlfriend, Linda, a girl he has known since childhood. One day when they are out walking they come across Eddie, (Mickey’s twin), and rekindle their friendship. The twins are now sixteen years old and their friendship continues to grow until it is time for Eddie to gone away to university. However Eddie declares his love for Linda before leaving but she continues her relationship with Mickey and soon falls pregnant with his child and so they marry and move into Mickey’s home. Mickey’s older brother, Sammy, gets into trouble and Mickey agrees to help him out but instead ends up taking the fall for Sammy killing a man and goes to prison for seven years. During this time he becomes depressed and withdrawn from Linda. She turns to Eddie for support and they soon become emotionally attached. When Eddie’s mother becomes aware of the romance she tells Mickey who, now out of prison, goes to Eddie’s work place. Mrs. Johnston now feels she must tell the boys that they are brothers but this is too much for Mickey to understand in his present mental state, distressed and confused he shoots Eddie. Just as Mickey is doing this a policeman takes aim and fires killing Mickey. Both men are dead. On the whole the script and the play were very good. At first it took a little time to get in to the play but it soon flowed naturally. The play held the audience’s interest by the use of the narrator who appeared on the stage behind the action and would burst into song. A lot of information was given on the characters through the use of song, so the audience received much of the necessary information without realising it. The part of Mrs. Johnston was played by the singer and actress Dennis Nolan. Ms. Nolan described the history of her character through the song ‘Just like Marilyn Monroe’. Her story is not extraordinary or uncommon. A girl from a Roman Catholic working class family who falls in love with a young man who takes her dancing and says she ‘looks a lot like Marilyn Monroe’. Romance soon fades once the babies start arriving. Possibly because of her faith, which would have instilled a belief that children are a blessing, she soon has a large family and her husband begins to look elsewhere for what he first found attractive in his wife. He begins to go dancing with a girl who he says ‘looks a lot like Marilyn Monroe’. When he leaves home Mrs. Johnston discovers she is pregnant with the twins of the story. This is when the events that lead up to the final tragedy really begin. Mickey is the twin that Mrs. Johnston kept. He grows up in this very poor working class family but as a child is mainly happy and full of mischief. He does not expect an easy life and accepts who he is and what his future will be. He does not expect to go to university like his friend Eddie because in his mind and at this time it was usually only children from better off families who went. Mickey would have been happy to work and bring up his children in a working class family. It is unemployment and bad choices that take away his pride and his future. He becomes very depressed, feels worthless and finally sees his marriage fall apart. The actor who played Mickey had to act the part of a child through to an adult, his mannerisms were very good and his gestures appropriate for the different ages. When he was seven Mickey acted and moved as if he was seven and when he was twenty he acted and moved like a twenty year old. His voice changed as well, it moved from a high quick voice to a deeper more solemn one. Linda is the childhood friend of Mrs. Johnston’s children and especially of Mickey. The two children grow up together, play together and become girl and boyfriend. This relationship is threatened by Linda’s attraction to Eddie, Mickey’s twin, but although she realises that it is Eddie that she loves she does not end her relationship with Mickey. When Eddie goes away to university she becomes pregnant with Mickey’s child and marries him. Linda’s role in the play is huge, it is her relationship with Eddie which finally destroys Mickey and leads to the final tragedy. The play contained quite a lot of swearing but this was only used to aid the script and made it more realistic. At the end of the play many people in the audience were in tears which showed how good the performances had been. As a straight play this would have been a very sad story of some very hard lives but because the story is told partly in song the mood is much lighter. It shows that there can be laughter in even the most difficult of lives, but also how our own upbringing, superstitions and prejudices can make our lives more complicated and more difficult.

Monday, January 6, 2020

Womens Suffrage in the United States - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 2 Words: 625 Downloads: 7 Date added: 2019/07/03 Category Law Essay Level High school Tags: Women's Suffrage Essay Did you like this example? Prior to 1920, women in the United States did not carry the right to vote in political elections, for the privilege of voting was solely for caucasian men. Women across the country desired for equality- to have the social, economic, and political status as men. Unfortunately, these ambitions were seen as irrational and continuously neglected by many men. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Womens Suffrage in the United States" essay for you Create order These brave women sought to prove that they were capable of more than just tending to children and carrying out household chores. American women felt it necessary to be recognized as citizens that contributed to society in both political and economical aspects. The Womens Rights Movement started to take shape and be more recognized in the 1950s. Unfortunately, the timing did not work in their favor. Just as the movement was gaining more and more attention from others, the Civil War began. This interrupted any progress in the fight for womens rights. Upon the conclusion of the Civil War, another group was awarded the right to vote. On February 26, 1869, the Fifteenth Amendment reached enough attention to pass through, thus granting African-American men the right to vote. With the passing of this amendment women had a sense of optimism and excitement anticipating that they too may also win the long awaited legal dispute to vote in elections. While being oppressed, women were so desperate for equality that some of them dressed as men just to attempt to cast their vote. Other actions some suffragettes took were hunger strikes. These women would starve themselves just to get attention to prove their point of equality. Risking their lives, their freedom, and their health were all drastic measures they viewed as necessary steps in achieving their goal. The fight for womens suffrage lasted mostly between the times from the American Revolution to 1920. Many of the women that founded this movement also took part in the abolitionist movement to end slavery in the 1830s and 1840s. These women were intelligent, strong- wi lled and persistent. They knew what they wanted and they were ready to fight for it. An important woman in this movement, Alice Paul, began an Equal Rights Amendment and gained popularity with her crusade. Alice Paul and her supporters would arrange parades to raise awareness of womens equality. Through this, Alice Paul and the rest of her organization gained many more supporters. Some women were beaten and arrested for simply talking about how they deserved to be treated better. Opposition was using propaganda and stating women should not have that right. President Wilson was a big support to this movement. He talked to the senate about adopting womens suffrage after World War l ended. After many years of protesting, arguing, and fighting, the 19th Amendment, womens right to vote, went through the ratification process in 1919. Before Senate passes the 19th Amendment, there were many states that adopted womens suffrage prior to this happening. Some states to adopt this act were Oregon, Arizona, Montana, and South Dakota. Some states to reject this act included Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts. Other actions that were occuring to help this movement was women living in Arkansas could vote in primary elections, and in 1917, Jeannette Rankin became the first woman elected to congress and is part of the House of Representatives. Most of these particular steps supported the movement and helped the Amendment pass. However, some actions were taken to try and stop these women from overcoming their goal. Alice Paul was put in a prison because the government was trying to break her will of leading the other women. This did not stop the women because they soon had the 19th Amendment go through the ratification process, and all they can do is continue to support and hope the 19th Amendment is ratified.