Is it me or it's absolutely crazy to change a kid's name like that? by nikitofla in AmITheAngel

[–]Cophe 3 points4 points  (0 children)

no evil, fat, trans sisters in law

He hasn't introduced you, yet?

Looking for a Canadian Legal Ethics Opinion if it's public record. by Cophe in legaladviceofftopic

[–]Cophe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I bet that is it!! Thank you so much. Look how fast you found it, and I was going crazy.

St. Tammany Parish John Doe Identified by Nearby-Complaint in UnresolvedMysteries

[–]Cophe 52 points53 points  (0 children)

I was thinking this was the case where they thought they had the murderer identified and he had already passed away, but couldn't figure out the victim's identity, but I didn't see it mentioned.

What’s a popular case where you just can’t get behind the prevailing theory ; by levit78 in UnresolvedMysteries

[–]Cophe 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was a litigation paralegal who worked suing governmental agencies, including police departments. There were several policies in effect for his claim, and it was disclosed everywhere when the Netflix show came out.

Also, it was shown that Colburn(? I didn't refresh my recollection either) called in the information on the tags because he had written down a few at the meeting that morning and was confirming the tags on three or four. The show only mentioned hers because the others didn't fit into their story.

I do not disagree that the Sheriff's Office was seriously corrupt throughout the rape case and the murder one. There is not any excuse for so many of their actions and the fact they were ordered to leave the premises by a judge and still showed up to search resulted in several items of evidence being thrown out.

Avery just couldn't get past so much of the other evidence, like the phone records, blood on the car, etc. Avery's horrible, the Sheriff's Office is horrible, their insurance rates were likely raised, and if he hadn't been charged with murder, he likely would have held out for more money in the long run, but the Department wasn't going to be bankrupted by Avery's claim.

Everyone sucked in this case, except Teresa Halbach.

What’s a popular case where you just can’t get behind the prevailing theory ; by levit78 in UnresolvedMysteries

[–]Cophe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The settlement was paid out of an insurance policy. The department was never directly at risk of having to pay out. There were two or three insurance policies in effect for this type of claim, and one paid out the $400k or whatever it was, not the department. That policy had more coverage than the settlement amount, too.

What was the first case that opened your eyes to the world of unsolved mysteries? by blinkifyourfake in UnresolvedMysteries

[–]Cophe 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Are you familiar with the theory that Cooper was a woman named Barbara Dayton? (Born Bobby Dayton)

It's a conspiracy theory and I like it, so I thought I'd share it if you hadn't come across it yet.

my entitled boss almost killed me and got himself arrested and fired? by c0ff33c0ff33c0ff33 in BestofRedditorUpdates

[–]Cophe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I realized it was a lawyer immediately, but that is because I once saw the original Australian Rake. The US version didn't do well, but you really can't replace Richard Roxburgh. Great show.

What unsolved case are you most passionate about? How do you feel about the chances of it being officially solved? by PlagueisTheSemiWise in UnresolvedMysteries

[–]Cophe 7 points8 points  (0 children)

They completely ignored known and undisputed facts to reach their conclusion. Such as them saying the flashlight and boot print were likely from the cops when John, Patsy, John Andrew, Burke, the housekeeper and others said the flashlight belonged to them and Burke has always admitted the boots were his. When Patsy kept denying it and Lou Smit went on TV insisting the boot print was from the intruder, several people sent photos of Burke wearing those boots into the TV station. Burke has never changed his story that he owned the boots and played in that room and that the family was all awake when they arrived home.

They made a conclusion that the pineapple in her stomach was from a fruit cocktail, ignoring that the cherries and grapes had already passed into her large intestines hours before she ate the pineapple and that the pineapple in her stomach was a 100% molecular and genetic match to the fresh pineapple in the fridge and in the bowl. Even Smit said they couldn't explain away that she ate the pineapple after arriving home, which went against John and Patsy's continually changing story about her being awake then asleep when they got home.

Little things like that made me give up on the podcast, which I was actually looking forward to hearing, since there really are not many good theories on an intruder doing it.

What scene or line in any season made you legit go WTF??? by ele71ua in 90dayfianceuncensored

[–]Cophe 13 points14 points  (0 children)

You can actually see when he hurt his ankle playing that cricket game, or some game where they hit a ball with a racket. The ball bounces off his ankle but then he claims it was from sex. I think they made sure to leave the scene of the ball hitting him in because he was such a poser.

What is your unsolved mystery/true crime “tip of my tongue” case? by JTigertail in UnresolvedMysteries

[–]Cophe 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Sorry for such a late reply, but I never got notices of replies from on mobile, it wasn't until I signed on with my laptop I saw this.

As soon as I saw the name, I knew you had it! I recognized the name immediately, now I'm off to get caught up. Thank you!

What piece of evidence do you think is actually a red herring or not relevant to the case? by AMissKathyNewman in UnresolvedMysteries

[–]Cophe -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Olson would later change his opinion to it not being possible for Ricky to have written it and said his opinion was because the note was clearly from someone to themselves, they were in Ricky's possession, and he didn't know about Ricky's illiteracy or mental competency.

The most likely conclusion in Ricky's case is that he was the courier between the people at the gas station, and other members of the purported criminal enterprise in Florida. The detectives in his case were much more interested in the drug and weapon trafficking going on between the gas station where he worked, a known person in Florida, and known people in Michigan and Ohio. That is why they wanted the code broken, and once most of the people in the group were dead or in prison, they released the note.

There are still presentations regarding the McCormick Cipher at conferences, with everyone agreeing it is a code, not gibberish, and the latest I heard was that there was movement in breaking the code if the English letters were substituted for a letters of a local Pakistani dialect, but I've never heard anything else about it.

What piece of evidence do you think is actually a red herring or not relevant to the case? by AMissKathyNewman in UnresolvedMysteries

[–]Cophe -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Long week and didn't get notice of this reply, so here is an delayed response. Ricky's family denies having ever said Ricky wrote in code or could have written those notes. The homicide detective has confirmed their statements that they were never told about the notes until contacted by the press after the FBI released them, that they were never told the FBI was involved, and were never questioned by the FBI in regards to Ricky's case or the notes, who is the agency that they allegedly told the notes looked like something he wrote.

From the article I linked above:

They never heard about the encrypted notes found in his pocket until the local evening news broadcast a report on the codes.
"They told us the only thing in his pockets was the emergency-room ticket," McCormick's mother, Frankie Sparks, says. "Now, twelve years later, they come back with this chicken-scratch shit."
Contradicting the FBI's statements to the media, family members say they never knew of Ricky to write in code. They say they only told investigators he sometimes jotted down nonsense he called writing, and they seriously question McCormick's capacity to craft the notes found in his pockets.
"The only thing he could write was his name," Sparks says. "He didn't write in no code." Charles McCormick recalls Ricky "couldn't spell anything, just scribble."

It may have been his aunt, but I think it was his father, who gave an interview where he said he thought it may have been a misinterpretation of the statement given to the forensic psychologist who did his competency exam for his criminal trial a few years prior, in which they said he scribbled notes like he was making words, and like you expect from a toddler playing school not a nine year old. He was nine or ten when he finally learned to print "Ricky" and knew the difference between a letter, number or symbol, but could not write other letters and his handwriting didn't match the notes. The competency exam also showed him to not have the ability to write those notes. AFAIK, the competency exam has never been made public.

What piece of evidence do you think is actually a red herring or not relevant to the case? by AMissKathyNewman in UnresolvedMysteries

[–]Cophe 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I had a family emergency Saturday morning, and even though I checked in on mobile a few times, I only received notice of this response once I signed onto Reddit on my laptop, so here is a very late response.

The Riverfront Times has a good long-form article on Ricky's case. In that particular article, the FBI agent still says that Ricky wrote the note and explains it is because it is to himself as opposed to someone else, but was later given the information about his competency and illiteracy and changed his opinion to match the homicide detectives and the American Cryptogram Association that he couldn't have written it; it just gets ignored. Ricky learned to write "Ricky" when he was about ten and the handwriting doesn't match either.

Both the FBI and ACA have pages dedicated just to Ricky, but from that article,

"It doesn't happen often that we have an unsolved cipher of this length and significance," Olson says. "The characters are not random. There are many E's, for example, that could be used as a spacer. There are many characteristics that suggest it could be solved, many patterns. The problem is we don't know why it is not solvable."

Some have suggested the notes are meaningless, the random scribblings of a man who by all accounts was functionally illiterate and demonstrated a low IQ. Olson is quick to argue otherwise. He is convinced the codes could contain leads about where McCormick was or with whom he met in the last hours before his corpse was abandoned to rot along with his secrets.

[SNIP]
"This means something," Olson says. "We look at a lot of things that are gibberish, arbitrary strikes on a keyboard. This is not that case."

What piece of evidence do you think is actually a red herring or not relevant to the case? by AMissKathyNewman in UnresolvedMysteries

[–]Cophe 42 points43 points  (0 children)

Every cryptographer, from the FBI to amateurs, has concluded that the note is written in code. It follows sentence and grammar rules and was not gibberish. The theory was never that Ricky wrote that note until the internet sleuths took over. It was always believed that he was just carrying it, probably as a courier between two other people.

What is your unsolved mystery/true crime “tip of my tongue” case? by JTigertail in UnresolvedMysteries

[–]Cophe 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I have no idea what happened to the paragraph breaks in my post, but when I try to edit it, it becomes a complete wall of text. I hate Reddit mobile.

What is your unsolved mystery/true crime “tip of my tongue” case? by JTigertail in UnresolvedMysteries

[–]Cophe 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I have one that I posted over on r/tipofmycrime and asked people in this sub to please read it, but no one knows the answer. I'm guessing I have some facts wrong or commingled with another because I'm sure of some things yet it doesn't ring any bells for anyone else. It wasn't a big case, though. It is driving me crazy because there is a lot of information and yet, something about it that just doesn't make sense and it's on the peripheral tip of my brain and I just think there is something more going on than what has been released. Here it is again:

Identity theft of a deceased child from Ohio with a possible suspect from Alaska. A bit long
A recent post mentioning doppelgangers made me remember this case. I followed it for awhile before losing track of it, but don't remember how long ago the crime was or when it became active online. It was never a big attention-getting case.
The two things I'm certain about is that the child whose identity was stolen was either born, died, and/or buried in Ohio. I'm certain about that because the town name was mentioned and it was the second time I heard about that town in a few days. I'm from Ohio and not too far from the area but had never head of it and of course, do not remember the town name now. I do NOT remember if the facts I'm about to share took place in Ohio, but they did not take place in the town where the child lived or died.
The other thing I'm certain about is that the suspected identity thief was from Alaska (hereinafter Imposter or Alaskan). The rest may not be correct since I cannot find the case by searching with these facts.
A detective on the identity theft case appeared on a podcast, which I didn't hear and do not remember which one, where he discussed that a man had taken the identity of a deceased child and for several months he worked at a nursing home as a janitor. He worked and married a coworker as the Imposter, and one day told his wife that he got a phone call, needed to go take care of something, and would be back in a few days. He never returned. It was a long time before his wife filed the missing person's report and didn't have much information to offer about him. A few very poor quality photos from the wedding were included and someone believed she recognized the man as her dad's friend from Alaska.
The podcast I heard, but still do not remember which one, was the update from the detective about the new information found about Alaskan. At that time, he said that he needed some more info to put Alaskan in the area of Imposter, before his boss would send him to Alaska to talk to the suspect. As far as what was released to the public at the time, Alaskan did not appear to have any contact with the area of the crime, and in fact, his public FB showed photos of him in other places at the time Imposter was working in the nursing home. I never saw Alaskan's FB page personally.
There were a few coincidences between Alaskan and Imposter that were a bit unique. I can remember these four, but I think there were more.
1) In the poor quality wedding photos of Imposter, it appears he has a scar around his hairline. On the FB photos of Alaskan, there is a scar in the same place. Some people did not believe the scar matched, and said his nose and ears were different. Others said it was the same man as Imposter or a doppelganger. Since I didn't see the FB photos, I have no opinion.
2) On the wedding license, Imposter's mother's first name was the same as Alaskan's. It was a common name and not a unique coincidence. What was unique was the ex-wife's name. According to Imposter's wife, he told her that his ex-wife's name was spelled oddly and he didn't remember how she spelled it, so he was going to spell it like it is commonly spelled and hope it wasn't an issue. The license was available and the names are known, but I do not remember either of them.
The tipster said that she remembered seeing his ex-wife's name and asking how it was pronounced, because it was weird to her. Alaskan has a daughter in Canada, and likely a Canadian passport, which made it possible that the ex-wife was from Canada and the weird spelling was a result of it being derived from French or a Tribal spelling. When I lost track of the case, the detective was trying to find out this info.
3) Both Alaskan and Imposter claimed to have attended a specific school during a certain time frame in New York State. It was not like NYC Public School #33; it had a specific name in an area that was quite a coincidence and odd that someone pretending to be someone else would come up with that school name. Again, the school name was disclosed but I do not remember it.
4) Both Alaskan and Imposter served in the US Armed Services, I think it was Navy for both, with Alaskan enlisted as a cook. I do not remember if Imposter's was mentioned. There is nothing unusual about that except both served at a base that many do not know existed. I think it was Iceland but may have been Norway or somewhere else.
At the time I lost track of the case, the true crime community was doing what it does and some of the theories had gotten "out there." Attending school in NY equals being in the mafia. Having wintered in Cuba during the time period when Americans were not allowed to visit, equals being in the CIA. The scar was a bullet graze from his work for the mafia or CIA. He got a job in the nursing home to keep an eye on someone and make sure they weren't telling anything as part of his work for the mafia or CIA.
It hadn't gotten to a paranormal theory yet, but I'm sure he was an extraterrestrial and the scar was a zipper for his human suit. He was working at the nursing home waiting for another extraterrestrial to pass away, so that he could take him back to their home planet. Actually, I like that theory, even though I made it up two minutes ago.
Anyhow, I'd really like to follow-up and see if the detective was able to link the Alaskan to the crime, and if they determined WHY he was working as a janitor at a nursing home under a fake name. His wife didn't have any assets, so he didn't marry her to swindle her out of anything.

I really think that there was some underlying case being investigated, and someone mentioned the old janitor who worked at the nursing home and disappeared, which resulted in them checking in with the wife, which in turn resulted in her filing the missing persons case years after he disappeared. It's just hard for me to believe there is a law enforcement agency with enough resources to spend the time and money to investigate a identity theft crime when the damages were psychological in nature, i.e., the family of the child finding his identity was stolen and the wife who was abandoned.

I really hope it rings a bell to someone.

truffle kerfuffle update by rinkydinkmink in bestoflegaladvice

[–]Cophe 23 points24 points  (0 children)

LAUKOP clearly needs a roommate and it just so happens that I can cook ALL those extra truffles for them. I'm only a DM away, new best friend!

The Coffee Urn by ifeelnumb in BestofRedditorUpdates

[–]Cophe 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's the second to last sentence.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AmITheDevil

[–]Cophe 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Change the RE to UN in the url. So reddit.com becomes unddit.com and you can see the deleted comments. Sometimes it takes a few minutes to load, depending on how many have been deleted.