Free Republic

There was also that mysterious blank in the police call logs that night — the only call that wasn’t logged that night was the call reporting Campbell’s drowning.

In a surprising development to come after Tafari Campbell, 45, drowned while paddle boarding on Great Edgartown Pond on Sunday night, an investigation into the incident found that Martha’s Vineyard police left the reason for the 911 call reporting Campbell’s drowning blank. According to Daily Mail, the officers also refused to reveal who Campbell was with at the time of his tragic passing despite the fact that the 45-year-old chef was not alone. Daily Mail found that while the 7:46 PM 911 call was noted in Edgartown Police Department's logbook, the reason behind the call was not. The origin of...

Tafari Campbell, known as one of the chefs who brewed White House beer while Obama was in office, went to work for the former first couple when they left the White House WASHINGTON — The body of the former White House sous chef who worked for ex-President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle was recovered Monday in the waters near their Martha’s Vineyard estate, Massachusetts police said. Tafari Campbell, 45, known as one of the chefs who brewed White House honey ale beer while Obama was in office — using honey from Michelle Obama’s famous South Lawn garden — went...

A former White House executive chef to Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush has been reported missing in New Mexico’s Taos Ski Valley after a planned hiking trip to the area last Saturday. Walter Scheib, 61, was reported missing by his girlfriend when he did not return home from a hiking trip last Saturday. Authorities discovered his vehicle on Tuesday, and have been combing 20 to 30 square miles of mountainous area for Schieb since Wednesday, according to Bob Rodgers, the search and resource officer leading the search for the New Mexico Department of Public Safety. "The terrain is...

The body of a 43-year-old black man was found in an oceanside "pond" that borders the palatial oceanside estate belonging to former President Barack Obama in Martha's Vineyard on Monday. The man had reportedly been paddleboarding on the Edgartown Great Pond in the ultra-wealthy Massachusetts town and disappeared under the water shortly before 8 p.m. He was reportedly without a lifejacket and wearing all black.

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers recovered the bodies of four migrants from the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass. The drowning victims included an infant who was carried into the border river. The drownings occurred in three separate incidents over a 48-hour period. Texas DPS spokesman Lt. Chris Olivarez tweeted a report regarding the drowning deaths of four migrants during a 48-hour timespan over the Independence Day weekend.

Three children died after they were found unconscious early Monday at Brighton Boardwalk in Coney Island, New York, in a possible drowning. Officers first received a call from the concerned family relative around 1:40 am Monday, and were told that the mother may have drowned the three children, NBC News reported. Authorities later visited a local apartment complex, where they encountered a man who claimed to be the children’s father and expressed similar concerns to the other family member, the outlet continued. The mother was found on the boardwalk, barefoot and soaking wet, with some family but not her children,...

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) — Deputies said a 74-year-old man playing golf at a country club in Oldsmar drowned in a pond while looking for his golf ball. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office responded to the East Lake Woodlands Country Club after reports of missing 74-year-old Hermilo Jazmines. Jazmines was last seen looking for his golf ball near the green of hole three at the golf course.

BEAUMONT, Texas (AP) -- Authorities found a shivering toddler clinging to the body of her drowned mother in a rain-swollen canal in Southeast Texas after the woman tried to carry her child to safety from Harvey's floods. Capt. Brad Penisson of the fire-rescue department in Beaumont said the woman's vehicle got stuck Tuesday afternoon in the flooded parking lot of an office park just off Interstate 10. Squalls from Harvey were pounding Beaumont with up to 2 inches (5 centimeters) of rain an hour at the time with 38 mph (60 kph) gusts, according to the National Weather Service. Penisson...

A mountain goat that entered Resurrection Bay in Seward and drowned Saturday was crowded into the water by people following it through the downtown area, troopers said... "It is imperative that wildlife is given adequate space to be able to leave a congested area like downtown Seward," troopers wrote. "(P)eople not giving the animal space and getting close to take photos resulted in a wild animal dying for no cause."

The aunt of drowned Syrian refugee boy Alan Kurdi says a controversial new cartoon from French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is "disgusting." "I hope people respect our family's pain. It's a big loss to us. We're not the same anymore after this tragedy. We're trying to forget a little bit and move on with our life. But to hurt us again, it's not fair," said Tima Kurdi from her home in Port Coquitlam, B.C. The cartoon suggests that Alan Kurdi, had he grown up, would have been like the sexual attackers in Cologne, Germany, on New Year's Eve.

THE father of the three-year-old boy whose lifeless body washed up on a Turkish beach, rocking the whole world to its core, has been accused of being a people smuggler who captained the fateful voyage. A woman who lost two of her three children on the vessel made the stunning claims to Network Ten via her cousin, who lives in Sydney, on Friday night. The image of Aylan Kurdi’s dead body was the catalyst for Australia to accept 12,000 Syrian refugees who are fleeing persecution in their homeland.

MATAGORTA BAY, Matagorda County - For hours after their boat sank, Ken Henderson and Ed Coen treaded water in the Gulf of Mexico, talking about life and death while struggling to survive. For more than 30 hours, it worked. Then Henderson was forced to make a decision that would save his life, but not his best friend's. "This is the last-ditch effort, but I'm going to go for help or you're not going to make it," Henderson told Coen, just before cutting the strap that connected them in the deep, cold waters off the Texas coast. "I understand," Coen responded,...

Scott Brown beats Martha Coakley -- and life goes on Well, that was quick. I thought the Apocalypse would be, you know, more of a blockbuster production, with a lot of explosions and computer-generated effects. Instead, just a phone call of concession -- offstage, no less -- from Martha Coakley to Scott Brown. You’d think from the overheated commentary that this was the end of the world (as we know it). Instead of having 20 more votes in the Senate than the Republicans, the Democrats now have only 18 more votes. Run for your lives. From the Democratic Party’s point...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A man accused of making more than $7 billion off the investment schemes of jailed financial manager Bernard Madoff drowned after having a heart attack, authorities said Monday. Jeffry Picower, 67, was found at about noon Sunday by his wife, Barbara, at the bottom of a pool at their oceanside mansion. She pulled him from the water with help from a housekeeper. He died a short time later at a nearby hospital. An autopsy conducted Monday found he suffered a heart attack and drowned, said Dr. Michael Bell, chief medical examiner for Palm Beach County....

Bluffton, In - Authorities say a Bluffton man apparently drowned when a skid loader he was operating fell into a manure lagoon in Wells County. An Indiana conservation officer says 23 yr old Nicholas Cruz had been cleaning out a cattle lot at Sunny Park Dairy and dumping manure into the lagoon when he apparently lost control of the skid loader.

Coalition forces in Afghanistan say around 60 Taliban militiamen drowned while attempting to cross the Helmand river, one of the country's biggest. They were fleeing military forces in the Kajaki district and had constructed a makeshift raft of tyre tubes and wooden planks.

WASHINGTON – Alcohol-related deaths on U.S. roads rose to their highest level in 14 years in 2006, while the overall number of people killed in traffic crashes declined slightly but still topped 43,000, according to preliminary government estimates Friday. The Transportation Department said that drunken driving deaths rose 2.4 percent to 17,941 after a slight decline in 2005. It was the highest level since 1992 when 18,290 deaths were reported. Alcohol-related fatalities accounted for 41 percent of all traffic deaths, which dropped less than 1 percent last year to 43,300. Annual auto deaths have hovered around 43,000 for the past...

EXPLORERS have found a previously unknown site scattered with artefacts from the Titanic that could shed new light on the final moments of the world's most famous ocean liner. "We found a new debris field about 900 metres south of the stern, which supports my long-standing belief that the Titanic began to break apart and sink further south than where she currently sits," expedition leader G. Michael Harris said today. Mr Harris, whose grandfather led the first wave of expeditions in the early 1980s, made the 4km dive with his 13-year-old son through freezing waters in a three-man submersible. The...

First time on the internet... A newly found photo of Mary Jo Kopechne has been posted at fatboy.cc This is not the standard "yearbook" photo of Mary Jo.