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Posted on 06/15/2002 7:56:21 AM PDT by rdavis84
Was Baxter out of his mind?
The massive police report on the investigation of the death of Cliff Baxter, the former Enron vice chairman, would have us believe that he killed himself the day before the suicide exemption on his insurance policy expired, costing his estate a cool $5,000,000. If he did, he was out of his mind.
The 900-page report says that there was no evidence that cast any doubt on the suicide finding, but then includes some important evidence that does just that.
Two letters I sent to the Sugar Land chief of police are included in the report. They explained why the police should insist that the level of Ambien, a sleeping tablet, found in Baxter's blood be calculated.
Overdoses of Ambien can produce a hypnotic trance or a light coma. Baxter's prescription called for one tablet a day, but the number missing from the bottle indicates that he may have ingested as many as four in the five hours before he was found dead. If so, he would not have been able to drive, according to a pathologist who is familiar with the drug.
The toxicology report should have given the amount of Ambien found in his blood. Was Baxter drugged out of his mind? The police did not dispute the claim that it was possible, but they failed to demand the analysis that would have answered the question.
The report shows that they weren't interested in evidence that undermined the suicide theory. For example, they knew that it was important that Baxter owned the gun that fired the fatal shot and the type of ammunition that was used. They found that he bought the gun, a Smith and Wesson .357 magnum, in February 2001, together with a box of Winchester .38 cartridges.
But the ammo that killed him was Glaser, which fires a lot of small pellets instead of a lead slug. It is sold in blister-packs of six. Five cartridges, one expended, were found in the gun. The sixth couldn't be found. Officer Mary Herbrig, in thanking the detective who found the Winchester ammo in Baxter's house, said, "I sure wish they had matched what we recovered."
They made a big search for evidence that Baxter had purchased Glaser ammo. With a box of Winchester ammo in his house, he had no reason to do so. If Baxter had no Glaser, he could not have killed himself with it. This is evidence of homicide, something that has to be ruled out before the death can be declared a suicide. The police handled that by simply asserting that there was no evidence of homicide.
Their report says that the gun was found lying in Baxter's lap on top of his hands, both palms up. They say he pulled the trigger with his right hand and steadied the three-inch barrel with his left and that the blood spatter shows he was facing forward when he pulled the trigger. The recoil would have thrown the gun from his hand to his right and his hand would have dropped to his side. Both hands and the gun on his lap is indicative of homicide.
Officer Herbrig pointed out that they had too few samples of Baxter's known handwriting to obtain a conclusive finding that he wrote the printed suicide note. All they got from the expert analyst was that there were "indications" that Baxter wrote the note. The main indications were that it was on his stationery and in an envelope on which his DNA was found.
If he were drugged, his killer could have moistened the flap with Baxter's saliva. The note and its envelope should have been checked for fingerprints. The shards of glass found in Baxter's hair and clothing should have been tested to determine if they came from the car window that was broken by the police to gain entry. If all this was done, the results were not reported, a good indication that findings were negative.
To firm up the case for suicide, the police revised the account given by deputy constable Head of how he found Baxter's body.
On Jan. 25, they said 15 minutes had elapsed between the time he first saw Baxter's parked car and the time he checked it out and found the body. Now they say he saw Baxter driving the car, and only two or three minutes later he found it parked with the body inside.
At least two witnesses, one of them mentioned in the report, claim to have seen Baxter's parked car long before any police arrived.
Earlier postings about Baxter Murder ------
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/641855/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/627021/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/617668/posts
The recent verdict against the Kennedy Clan proves that these socialists are vulnerable.
Good point. So the killer bought a box of six cartridges, put one into Baxter's head, put the other five into Baxter's gun, and fired one of them off 'somewhere'. Seems plausible.
There were FIVE cartridges total in Baxter's gun, INCLUDING the fired one. So the crook fires a cartridge into Baxter's head, puts the other five in Baxter's gun, and fires one of those into the ground or other backstop somewhere it won't be noticed. The result is that Baxter's gun contains a spent casing which was fired in it, even though that casing is not associated with the fatal shot.
WAIT A 'COTTEN-PICKEN' minute...some revolvers got 5, NOT 6, chambers.
whas-up HERE?
And there were six cartridges total in the glaser pack - one of which was never found.
As he falls further and further into the grip of paranoia, I have to wonder. I have been watching his insistence that TWA 800 was downed by a missile that hit the centre fuel tank for some time (regardless of two facts: the evidence shows the tank exploded from inside out, and the evidence shows conclusively that nothing penetrated the structure that completely surrounds the tank from the outside). To insist on a conclusion that is impossible, given the physical evidence, is a warning sign of a mind not functioning normally.
Here Irvine makes a bunch of argumentative assertions and accepts them as facts, on his own say-so. Here are a few:
Hmmm. Well, he did kill himself. Not exactly a sign of real sharp reasoning. I don't know how many people review their insurance policies before they blow their brains out... I suspect that if Baxter was concerned for his "estate" as Irvine puts it, or more generally concerned for his family, he would have faced the music like a man and not killed his miserable self. Ultimately suicide is a selfish and cowardly act.
OK, I get it. He's his own evidence. Obviously the police aren't too impressed with his reasoning... or his hysterical self-promotion.
"The number missing from the bottle" means only that those were not in the bottle, not that they necessarily were in this guy. All the "if this, then that" is idle speculation.
So far, Irvine has only shown that they weren't interested in his feverish speculation....
Not unusual for people who buy a single pack of Glaser to fool with it, to fire a single shot to see what it does.
Also not unusual for the police to be unable to find out when someone bought one small package of ammunition. For them to be able to do this, which is apparently what Irvine would like, would require an incredibly intrusive computerised system. This man is no friend of liberty... but we knew that. He's just a friend of his own ego.
First, this is pure speculation on Irvine's part. Who says he bought the ammo? Maybe a friend gave it to him. Maybe he did buy it. Lots of people buy different brands of ammunition (especially something promoted as strongly as Glaser) just to try out. But Irvine knows no more about what Baxter was thinking than you or I. If Irvine were logical he would probably not make this mistake.
Second, there is a very good reason for someone to buy a small quantity of Glaser ammo even if he has other ammo -- it is a superior defence round. If Irvine were conversant with firearms he would certainly not make this mistake.
If, if, if. If Baxter were Superman, he could have blown up Flight 800 with his X-Ray Vision and turned his mind to puree by merely thinking hard. (Maybe that's what happened to Reed Irvine).
Uninformed speculation is evidence of nothing. There are a lot of "ifs" in Irvine's "evidence" and there is no real evidence there.
Nopt necessarily true. After suicide, guns are found in all kinds of places, including in the suicide's hand. Once again Irvine is stating something as fact which just isn't so. A judge would call this "asserting facts which are not in evidence" and sustain any objection to this. Isn't Irvine a lawyer? No wonder he's gone in for celebrity instead... he can't be a very able one.
Another outright false assertion.
Pretty good indications. Handwriting analysis is pretty dodgy anyway.
More "ifs". And getting more and more farfetched. The killer writes a note and seals it by pulling out the victim's tongue, while he's on the scene... pure Hollywood.
That none were found doesn't mean no one looked. Paper is not always great at retaining prints.
Right, maybe the aliens from the planet buzzcon left them after they used poor Baxter for sexual expirements... geez. So our master killer that thought about using Bax's tongue for a flap moistener, left him full of glass from who knows where (maybe the landing light on his saucer), and didn't worry about it because he knew the cops would break a window to get in.
Incidentally, they did that because the car was locked. And the keys were inside.
Now he's really reaching... asserting that what is NOT in the report proves his if, if, if, if, case.
Hmmm. Maybe Head was misunderstood, misreported, or maybe he didn't remember something right. Human memory is very unreliable, which is why phantom "eyewitnesses" are key ingredients in conspiracy fevers. This element too is not missing from Irvine's "case."
As a homicide cop Reed Irvine is a failure. He ought to stick to being a fund-raiser, self-promoter, and minor celebrity. He does have some benefit as a training aid in logical fallacies, however.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
A classic example of this was the gun found in Vince Foster's hand.
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