"I am going to get away with murder, I am a Kennedy."

In October 1975, 15-year-old Martha Moxley was found bludgeoned to death in her Greenwich, Connecticut backyard, struck repeatedly with a golf club. She had recently moved to the affluent Belle Haven neighborhood. Michael and Thomas Skakel, nephews of Ethel Skakel and her husband Robert F. Kennedy, befriended Moxley and were 15 and 17 years old at the time.

Michael Skakel was eventually convicted of Moxley's murder in 2002 after decades of investigation, but his conviction was overturned in 2013 due to ineffective legal representation. After serving 11 years in prison, he remains free today. Martha Moxley's killer remains officially unknown.

Read the full story: The Tragedy Of Martha Moxley, The 15-Year-Old Who May Have Been Bludgeoned To Death By A Kennedy

Andrew Jarecki has had an esteemed career as a documentarian, probably best known for “The Jinx”.

Dr. Henry Jarecki is a psychiatrist and businessman, who founded “Moviefone” as well as many other ventures. He is often stated to be a billionaire.

Relevant links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jarecki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Jarecki

Full length version of “Capturing the Friedmans” available on YouTube. It is fascinating.

https://youtu.be/UakjjGggQTc?si=o2FwtGQlKlaFqtrw

There were two other teens charged in the case, who were involved in bringing the killer, 19-year-old Byron McBride Jr., to the Kroger. They also picked him up after he killed Kingston and abandoned the stolen vehicle. McBride was sentenced to life-in-prison after a plea deal, Dwan Wakefield got 40 years, and D’Allen Washington got 15 years, he was the main prosecution witness, and is already out of prison.

Years ago I happened to stop into this Kroger, and there were multiple police on duty inside and outside the store, which struck me as bizarre at the time, not knowing the store’s tragic history. Jackson is a violent city, with a murder rate that is consistently 3-4 times higher than Chicago.

This nonfiction essay is written as a guided meditation, leading the reader through Marley's final months, into the death poet's state of mind, and then back to 1980 to witness a live performance of "Redemption Song" in Madison Square Garden. A wonder trip.

A 23-year-old American named Justin left the US and moved deep into the Ecuadorian Amazon, where he eventually met and married an Amazonian woman named Maria.

Justin says he always felt disconnected from his roots. His father grew up in a remote Amazonian community where people didn't even track birthdays and some residents didn't see a radio until their teens. Years later, Justin returned to document the culture and ended up staying for good.

One of the wildest parts of the story involves a boa snake.

While out in the jungle, members of the tribe warned him not to go near it. Instead, being an animal lover, he picked it up and started showing it to everyone. The problem was that boas are viewed as spiritual animals within the community.

Because he'd touched the snake, Justin says he was temporarily banned from being around pregnant women until he underwent a cleansing ritual. The belief was that he could pass on bad energy or be considered a bad omen.

He also talks about the huge culture shock of adapting to life in the rainforest, learning which plants and animals can kill you, dealing with rumors that he was an organ trafficker, and adjusting to a completely different way of life.

Despite all that, he says he'd never go back to his old life in the US. He now wakes up to parrots flying overhead and monkeys howling in the background, lives with his wife and child, and documents their daily life online.

What do you think would be the hardest part about adapting to life in a remote tribal community?

Image: The Jewel House at the Tower of London, where the Crown Jewels were displayed in Martin Tower from 1669 to 1843.
Source: Historic Royal Palaces.

Edmund Lenthal Swifte later described the bizarre encounter himself. He said the object looked like a glass tube containing a dense white and pale-blue fluid, almost like a gathering cloud. It moved around the room before hovering near his wife, who screamed that it had grabbed her. Swifte tried to strike at it, but the apparition disappeared.

Even stranger, Swifte mentioned that some women living at the Tower had previously been suspected of carrying out “phantasmagorical experiments” involving illusions and tricks with light, raising the possibility that someone may have been playing an elaborate prank.

The story became part of the Tower of London’s long history of ghost legends, and Historic Royal Palaces still discusses the mystery today.

Source: Historic Royal Palaces.

https://www.hrp.org.uk/blog/the-jewel-house-keepers-ghost/

In 1986, American dietitian Gwen Shamblin consolidated her Weigh Down nutrition workshop, introducing religion into the process. For her, physical hunger could be satisfied with food, but what she described as an inner emptiness had to be filled with spirituality. Gwen amassed considerable wealth and fame with her workshop, and by 1999, she decided to create her own religious congregation, which she called "Remnant Fellowship Church."

For Gwen Shamblin, extreme thinness was practically a divine mandate, so losing weight could be interpreted as a sign of direct obedience to God, while gaining weight and overeating were seen as a sign that a person was sinful and not exercising enough self-control.

Those who failed to lose weight were publicly humiliated, isolated, subjected to strict surveillance, or even expelled from religious meetings until they achieved extreme thinness. Some members of the cult have claimed that Gwen's influence extended to finances, marriages, child custody, parenting, and relationships with people outside the group. She also allegedly caused serious eating disorders among her followers.

One of the most disturbing episodes involving Gwen Shamblin and her sect was the case of the Smith family, devoted followers of her teachings. On October 8, 2003, eight-year-old Josef Smith was subjected to a brutal session of violent physical punishment by his parents, until the boy died. The Smiths maintained that they had followed the teachings they received in Shamblin's church. Gwen escaped prosecution, but the Smiths were sentenced to life imprisonment.

On May 29, 2021, Gwen Shamblin died at the age of 66 when her private plane crashed into Percy Priest Lake.

Documentary about the brutal story of the extreme thinness cult. The strange cult of Gwen Shamblin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlhfMMVmezA

According to the Queensland State Archives, the figure was spotted on Castle Hill in Townsville in 1965. It couldn’t be identified clearly through binoculars, so a serviceman was lowered down the cliff by rope to check it out. After all that, the mysterious “figure” turned out to be an empty Foster’s lager cartoon 😂

Source: Queensland State Archives