Some amateur detectives have found some circumstantial evidence that points to one person.
Richard Haefner was called many things during his 58 years.
[...]
But one thing Haefner, who died in 2002, was never called was a murderer.
Until now.
It would be great for everyone involved if this case could finally be closed.
Norm Stamper, a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition has some thoughts on our marijuana policy:
Hundreds of alcohol overdose deaths occur annually. There has never been a single recorded marijuana OD fatality.
[...]
There have been no documented cases of lung cancer in a marijuana-only smoker, nor has pot been scientifically linked to any type of cancer. (Don't trust an advocate's take on this? Try the fair and balanced coverage over at Fox.) Alcohol abuse contributes to a multitude of long-term negative health consequences, notably cirrhosis of the liver and a variety of cancers.
While a small quantity, taken daily, is being touted for its salutary health effects, alcohol is one of the worst drugs one can take for pain management, marijuana one of the best.
[...]
Alcohol contributes to acts of violence; marijuana reduces aggression. In approximately three million cases of reported violent crimes last year, the offender had been drinking. This is particularly true in cases of domestic violence, sexual assault, and date rape. Marijuana use, in and of itself, is absent from both crime reports and the scientific literature. There is simply no link to be made.
Over the past four years I've asked police officers throughout the U.S. (and in Canada) two questions. When's the last time you had to fight someone under the influence of marijuana? (I'm talking marijuana only, not pot plus a six-pack or a fifth of tequila.) My colleagues pause, they reflect. Their eyes widen as they realize that in their five or fifteen or thirty years on the job they have never had to fight a marijuana user. I then ask: When's the last time you had to fight a drunk? They look at their watches.
[...]
Anybody out there want to launch a campaign for the re-prohibition of alcohol? Didn't think so. The answer, of course, is responsible drinking. Marijuana smokers, for their part, have already shown (apart from that little matter known as the law) greater responsibility in their choice of drugs than those of us who choose alcohol.
According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, a bill has been introduced in California to legalize marijuana.
California would become the first state in the nation to legalize marijuana for recreational use under a bill introduced Monday by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco.
The proposal would regulate marijuana like alcohol, with people over 21 years old allowed to grow, buy, sell and possess cannabis - all of which is barred by federal law.
Ammiano, a Democrat in his third month as a state lawmaker, said taxes and other fees associated with regulation could put more than a billion dollars a year into state coffers at a time when revenues continue to decline.
...
The analysis also concluded that legalizing marijuana would drop its street value by 50 percent and increase consumption of the substance by 40 percent.
...and would probably reduce tourism to Amsterdam by 50%.
A lot of people are having a hissy fit over Michael Phelps's use of pot. (We used to call it "grass" in my day.)
Kellogg has dropped him, so I've decided to never buy another Kellogg product. I'll also inform my family to make sure not to serve me a Kellogg product when I come for a visit.
Still no solution to the murder of Betsy Aardsma.
But David Dekok has a very comprehensive rundown, not just of the murder, but of her life.
Betsy Aardsma's friends and teachers said she was among the best America had to offer in the late 1960s.
Artistic and poetic, imbued with liberal ideals and empathy for the underprivileged, she planned to join the Peace Corps after graduating with honors from the University of Michigan in 1969.
But her boyfriend, David L. Wright, wouldn't promise to wait for her, so she dropped those plans and followed him to central Pennsylvania.
Wright began classes at the Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, while Aardsma enrolled in the graduate English program at Penn State's main campus, taking the bus to Harrisburg on weekends.
She perished in one of the bloodier years of the 1960s, when the Manson family and the Zodiac killer were attacking in California and an unknown serial killer was murdering women around the University of Michigan.
Aardsma's family were relieved she was leaving Ann Arbor. They thought State College would be safe.
Instead, they were about to enter a nightmare that has lasted four decades.
Read the whole article on Who killed Betsy Aardsma?
Update: The second part of David Dekok's article, which goes into the details of the Aardsma murder investigation is now available.
A separate article goes into the five theories about the case.
I was on the Penn State campus the day of Betsy Aardsma's fatal stabbing, in fact, I had been in the stacks earlier that day.
Aardsma was in a narrow row of shelves that now houses bound foreign-language periodicals when she was set upon, according to the locations given in police reports.
She was stabbed once in the chest and grabbed a shelf, sending a row of books cascading down. Some students overheard the noise and found Aardsma on the floor.
They tried to help and initially thought she had fainted. She was wearing a red sweater and red dress on which blood did not show, but she bled into her lungs and died in the library.
So I've long been interested in the case but had assumed that no one was actively pursuing it after nearly 40 years.
That assumption was wrong:
Trooper Kent Bernier inherited the Aardsma case with another state police trooper two years ago, after the previous investigators retired. [...]
"We're just looking at it differently and trying to do different things that haven't been done yet," Bernier said.
Their search for new angles on the old slaying includes modern forensics testing unavailable to the 1969 investigators.
"It's possible now that DNA might be a big breakthrough for us," said Bernier.
He would not give specifics on what was to be tested.
Read the full story of Betsy Aardsma's murder case.
There is even a web site: whokilledbetsy.com
Driving back to Philadelphia this afternoon on the Schuylkill Expressway, I noticed the vanity license plate of the car in front of me:
VERDICT
Probably someone in the legal community, but I'm really curious as to who it might be.
One of my favorite writers and certainly my favorite prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi, has just published a new book.
The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder could be his best one yet.
I'm watching Amy Goodman interviewing Bugliosi right now.
And I downloaded a sample of the book to my Kindle...
...with intent to buy.
Thursday during the late afternoon rush, there were probably eleven people muttering under their breath, as they made their way home; they could have left at least an hour earlier, if only that one juror hadn't been so stubborn.
That's speculation, of course, and wouldn't be admissible as evidence in a court, but it is true that one lone juror did extend the deliberation period by at least an hour.
I was that juror.
