Here, right at this outset, I have two things to say:
First, it's obviously critical that the killer or killers involved in these
hideous situations be swiftly apprehended before anyone else is murdered.
And secondly, we have no intention of removing any material from
our Hunterbear website relating to any of these matters.
The funeral of Russell Turcotte has been held today, November 18, at Wolf
Point, Montana. He, of course, is the 19 year old Turtle Mountain
Chippewa youth missing at Grand Forks since July 12, 2002 and found
murdered just off Highway 2 near Devils Lake, North Dakota, in early
November.
There have been no arrests yet in this case. Nor have there been any
arrests yet in the murders of the other three Turtle Mountain men -- Jerome
DeCoteau, and Robert and Damian Belgarde -- murdered at Grand Forks in
September 2001: fourteen months ago.
For close to four months after Russell's disappearance, Grand Forks law
enforcement authorities took the position that it was a case belonging to
Wolf Point -- Russell's Montana home -- even though he'd last been sighted
in Grand Forks. No systematic search was conducted by North Dakota
lawmen -- and, when Russell's body was finally found 90 miles or so
west of the Forks -- close to Highway 2 -- it was by a man searching
for cattle that had escaped from his truck.
A couple of days after the murdered body was found, I received a very
strange communication purporting to come from the State's Attorney at Devils
Lake, in Ramsey County, North Dakota. I post it here, with the
qualification that [1] it obviously isn't on any official letterhead; [2] is
apparently sent from the office of the county sheriff -- Steve Hamre --
something we learned only later through our own deductive efforts; [3]
makes little logical sense. Consequently, we see it as a very mysterious
letter -- and, from that perspective, I immediately sent it on to the
Bismarck offices of Governor John Hoeven and State Attorney General
Wayne Stenehjem, accompanied by a letter of my own to them.
The following is the strange letter from Devils Lake, along with my letter
to the North Dakota state officials -- and finally my wrap-up comments for
the present.
And let's hope a far more zealous and immediate search for the killer or
killers is being conducted by North Dakota officials than the apparently
leisurely approach laid out in this extraordinarily strange communication:
----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Hamre
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 10:47 AM
Subject: Russell Turcotte death in Ramsey County North Dakota
Dear Mr Salter,
My name is Lonnie Olson, Ramsey County State's Attorney. At this
moment, agents of the FBI, North Dakota BCI, the Ramsey County Sheriff and
myself are meeting to review the evidence and set a strategy for the
investigation and prosecution of the person or persons responsible for the
death of Russell Turcotte. We are extremely concerned about the amount of
information being leaked to the public. We are asking for the information
to be removed from your web page.
This is a case where the trail of the murderer is cold. In our
experience, we expect that the best chance for the murderer to be brought to
justice is by confession of the culprit. These confessions will not
generally be made to upstanding persons of our society, but to prison
inmates by the murderer who will be bragging in prison in order to gain
social status in the prison society. I am sure you will recognize that a
jury will inherently not trust prison confessions, because these convicts
will always expect a quid pro quo, thus a shorter prison sentence for giving
the information. The ONLY way a jury will believe a prison confession is
when this convict witness testifies to bits and pieces of the truth that
only the murderer would know. Thus I hope you see how imperative is it that
the public not be given the information that only the murderer knows. If
this information is public, the defense attorney will only have to say
"don't believe them,these prison confession witnesses only are relating
information that is known to the public", and the MURDERER WILL WALK.
I speak from experience. In 1986, a young Native American male
named Gilbert Fassett was found dead and very decomposed on what was then
called the Devils Lake Sioux Indian Reservation. Assistant US Attorney
Lynn Crooks released very limited information to the press, and actually
some misinformation. Mr Crooks knew that the best chance of solving this
murder was by prison confession, and that the only way to make these
witnesses credible was by them only knowing the truth that only the murderer
would know. It worked. Werner Kunkel, an acquaintence of Fassett's, was the
last man seen with Fassett . As years went by, he bragged to various people
in prison and to a girlfriend. Six of these people testified including
evidence that only the murderer-Werner Kunkel- would have known. In August
1995, a jury in Ramsey County convicted Kunkel of the murder of Fassett.
The only way this was achieved was through the wisdom and foresight of Lynn
Crooks. Mr Crooks was allowed by the US Attorney, the late John Schneider,
to assist me in the prosecution of Kunkel. The charge had to be filed in
Ramsey County, because all Kunkel's confessions had him committing the
murder in Ramsey County and that he dumped the body on the reservation.
I could go on and on about the murder of Gilbert Fassett, someday I
may write a book about it. It had a lot of fascinating twist and turns, but
that is something for another day. For this day, I ask for your assistance
so that we may have the best possible case to present against the murderer
of Russell Turcotte. I also ask for you to keep this between ourselves, as
I would very much prefer to keep our strategy a secret. The murderer may
very possibly be reading your website.
Lonnie W. Olson
Ramsey County State's Attorney
>From Hunter:
This is addressed to the Governor and the Attorney General, State of North
Dakota, Bismarck [11/07/02]
Gentlemen:
As you are aware, I've been involved -- as much as possible -- in
endeavoring to secure justice for the three murdered Turtle Mountain men at
Grand Forks and also long-missing [and now known to have been murdered]
Russell Turcotte. [Wayne, by the way, knows me reasonably well.]
I have just received a very strange communication purporting to come from
the Ramsey County States' Attorney's office -- Mr Lonnie W. Olson. The
e-mail address used to send it gives the name of a Steve Hamre. These names
mean nothing to me since the last Ramsey County States' Attorney involvement
I've had was with the late Lew Jorgensen, some years ago. This odd letter
is attached and you'll note that it really makes little logical sense in the
context of criminal investigation. It occurs to me that it could easily be
a crank -- or, even possibly, someone with his own vested interest in this
tragic matter.
The letter addresses me by my former name which I legally changed in 1995 --
and which I now use only for purposes of historical identification.
The material on our website relating to Russell Turcotte's disappearance and
confirmed murder is comparatively minimal: my logical speculation about
what happened -- based on a generation of residence in that section of North
Dakota -- and communications from Turcotte family members who have kept me
very closely posted to this moment.
Given the very strange nature of this -- and its departure into other and
unrelated case matters -- I am sending it to your offices forthwith.
Although I have no intention of publicizing this strange communication, I am
sending a copy to several family members simply for reference: My wife,
Eldri; my son, John, a writer at Glyndon, MN in the Fargo area; and my son,
Peter, an editor of the Lincoln Journal Star -- sister paper of the Bismarck
Trib of which Pete was for some years State Editor.
Here is our website page on the Turcotte tragedy.
http://www.hunterbear.org/NATIVE%20AMERICAN%20COMMISSION%20PAGE%204.htm
With best wishes, I am
Cordially,
Hunter Gray 2000 Sandy Lane, Pocatello, Idaho 83204 208/234-9174
And finally this wrap-up note by me, Hunter Gray [November 18, 2002]:
I've heard nothing from any North Dakota official source regarding this
strange letter I received -- no confirmation that it's actually from Lonnie
Olson, State's Attorney of Ramsey County -- nor has there been any response
of any sort to my communication to Gov John Hoeven and
AG Wayne Stenehjem. Steve Hamre, from whose system
the letter purportedly from Olson was apparently sent, is the sheriff of
Ramsey County -- and we have determined that the sending address
seems to be located at the Lake Region Law Enforcement Center at Devils
Lake. This is, of course, the same general setting in which the two Sioux
kids, Marty Hegland and Tammy McKay, were very badly treated by "lawmen"
back in '87 -- as we were building our effective 'rights campaign at
Devils Lake -- and that touched off our boycott and related actions in
that racist bastion. See this page from our Hunterbear website for some
highlights of these campaigns http://www.hunterbear.org/Devil's%20Lake.htm
Given all of this -- and the absence of any responses
at all from the North Dakota state officials to my letter of many days
ago -- we are now making this public.
In any event, the Olson letter -- whether actually written by Olson or
not -- apparently comes from some sort of official source. Be that as it
may, I obviously have no intention of removing or reducing my website page
covering the Turcotte tragedy in any fashion whatsoever. And, as I
mentioned in an earlier note, I've now added to that page my website link
on Northern Plains racism which gives some of the many highlights of our
battles at racist Devils Lake. [I've also, on the same page, added a bit
regarding the sorry and increasingly obvious racist situation right here at
Pocatello which draws our efforts as well.]
http://www.hunterbear.org/NATIVE%20AMERICAN%20COMMISSION%20PAGE%204.htm
Lynn Crooks, mentioned in the "Olson letter" in
connection with another case, is the Assistant US Attorney who engineered
the frameup of Leonard Peltier at Fargo.
In Solidarity -- and more later
Hunter Gray [Hunterbear] [formerly John R Salter, Jr]
Regional Organizer, DSA Anti-Racism Commission
Chair, Native American Commission, SPUSA
Member - Solidarity
Member - CCDS
www.hunterbear.org
Protected by NaŽshdoŽiŽbaŽiŽ
and Ohkwari'
_______________________________________________
Leninist-International mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
