CBS News cites forensic experts who report that Dr. Shane Truman Todd, whose family lives in Marion, Montana, did not write the suicide notes found near his body in Singapore.
Prior to his death, Todd informed his family that he feared for his life because the company he was working for may have been involved with transferring US national security secrets to China.
Here’s the latest:
Dr. Carole Chaski, the executive director of the Institute for Linguistic Evidence in Delaware, sent the Todds an “official assessment” — according to the book — and that assessment states: “The alleged suicide note is not a real suicide note.”
Dr. Chaski made that determination after running Shane’s notes through a piece of software that analyzes text and said she would be willing to testify to that in court of law, the book states.
The notes also were examined by a second expert Dr. David Camp, a professor of criminal justice at Blackburn College in Illinois, and, according to the book, he wrote a ten page analysis that concluded the notes were “not written by a person who was socialized in the same culture or with the same linguistic pattern” as Shane Todd.
PRIOR POST
Weekend Wrapup: Must-See 48 Hours on Montana Family
For those of you about to take off to enjoy a Labor Day weekend in Montana, make sure you set your DVR’s to an important episode of 48 Hours. Plus, PERC’s Terry Anderson has a great read in The Wall Street Journal: “Why Ducks Quack for Obama.” A liberal blog from the Flathead Valley says the head of the Montana Democratic Party should be fired. And, James Conner ID’s the guy who flipped the bird to a videographer at a John Walsh (D-MT) fundraiser…and you’ll never guess who the guy used to work for.
Those stories and more are in today’s Weekend Wrapup.
First, the story of Marion, Montana’s Mary Todd and the tragic death of her son in Singapore.
She was on Friday’s CBS This Morning. Here’s the clip:
The story of Dr. Shane Truman Todd will air on CBS’ 48 Hours Saturday night. Here’s a sneak peek:
CBSExpress.com offers this preview:
Peter Van Sant and 48 HOURS return to a family’s quest to prove their son was murdered and did not commit suicide as officials in Singapore say and they’re determined to clear his name in an updated edition of “Spies, Lies & Secrets,” to be rebroadcast Saturday, August 30 (10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
Despite an investigation suggesting that Shane Todd was depressed and he killed himself in Singapore, his family maintains he was murdered because he refused to share high-tech secrets that could harm the United States. The family also alleges official wrongdoing with the investigation, which included key evidence being destroyed that may have led to a killer.
Did Shane Todd die protecting American secrets? His brothers react to his death: http://t.co/KU1j9ounWi #48Hours Sat, 10/9c
— 48 Hours (@48hours) August 29, 2014
The mother of Shane Todd, an engineer she says was murdered in Singapore over espionage, speaks with @CBSThisMorning http://t.co/TBb7iQpeer
— 48 Hours (@48hours) August 29, 2014
In other news, Terry Anderson with the Bozeman, Montana-based PERC has an interesting piece in The Wall Street Journal: Why Ducks Quack for Obama; The boom in gun sales has created a revenue gusher for wildlife restoration
Terry is also a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
Here’s an excerpt from the piece:
Gun owners may view President Obama as public enemy No. 1, but wildlife have reason to cheer. Thanks to gun control policies supported by the president and leading Democrats, gun and ammunition sales have skyrocketed and so have excise tax revenues. Those revenues are earmarked for wildlife restoration.
The surge in gun and ammunition sales since President Obama was elected has increased Pittman-Robertson funds to more than $760 million in 2014 from $310 million in 2008. A similar tax on fishing and boating equipment, from the 1950 Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration Act, generated another $325 million for fish restoration in 2014.
Environmentalists and recreationists who benefit from “pay to play” taxes, however, are getting a free lunch. Some outdoor equipment and clothing companies—such as Patagonia with its “1% for the Planet” program—give a share of their profits to environmental causes. Hiking, biking and fishing clubs also help to build trails, clean up streams and improve habitat. But the day-to-day cost of natural resource and recreation management is paid by license fees, excise taxes and other state funds.
Happy Labor Day: Judge Molloy Forces More Layoffs in Flathead
From The Flathead Beacon: Citing Log Shortage, Stoltze Announces Cutbacks at Sawmill; Earlier this week, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy ruled in favor of environmental groups opposed to logging in the Stillwater State Forest
“This is just agonizing,” Stoltze General Manager Chuck Roady said. “This is hard to grasp.”
Statewide lumber production and worker wages increased in the first six months of 2014, according to a new study, but Roady and others in the logging industry have raised concerns in recent months over persistent litigation that has tied up timber sales across Northwest Montana.
Here’s something that stood out today…The Flathead Memo (a liberal blog): Democrats should fire Andrea Marcoccio
Which led me to this hidden gem…Democratic doofus flips off GOP tracker
Shot by a GOP tracker at a gathering for John Walsh in Helena on Saturday, 26 July. The flipper’s name appears to be Chuck Butler. This kind of sophomoric gesture, however soul satisfying it was for Mr. Middle Finger, does nothing to help John Walsh.
Chuck worked for Judy Martz and has normally been a Republican. He is involved with [a] health co-op that is after some federal help. Probably accounts for his battlefield conversion to a Democrat.
When you get home from the Labor Day weekend, keep your eye out for the latest copy of Range magazine. Dave Skinner apparently has a top notch report on the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act soon to hit the shelves, as The Fairfield Sun Times reports:
When the Wilderness Act was signed in l964, Skinner writes, it had wide acceptance as a means of preserving outstanding natural areas for the future with the remaining land dedicated to long-term, multiple-use management. Sadly, it didn’t happen that way, he says. When public support for the Wilderness Act tanked, enter the manipulation by environmentalists. Greens both inside and outside government have turned to an onslaught of other means to control and/or remove land uses they dislike—through appeals, litigation, administrative fiat, bureaucratic delay, endangered species, conservation easements, even national monument designation under the Antiquities Act.
The strategy is to block land uses in hopes the land users go away. Skinner says the strategy has worked, and cites as an example the Rocky Mountain Front, a visually stunning landscape where for 150 years closely-knit communities of ranchers and farmers have quietly gone about making their living.
With oil apparently killed off, the LCNF moved on to “travel management.” Public motorized trail use and winter snowmobiling in the popular Badger Two Medicine was totally banned, and only 16 miles of single-track motorcycle trail remains open on the other 290,000 acres of the Front. Overall, only a minimal network of atrociously maintained main roads remains for general public travel and use.
Much more will follow, including the manufactured support behind the RMFHA, and what the locals really have to say, in the upcoming issue of Range magazine.