Talk:Mel Ignatow

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Questions regarding the Tape Recordings

I just completed reading Bob Hills' book about the Brenda Sue Schaefer murder "Double Jeopardy:Obsession, Murder, and Justice Denied" (copyright 1995) and I noticed two possible discrepancies with the Wikipedia article as presently shown.

1) The Wikipedia article says "Ignatow tape recorded what he did to Brenda and these recordings were later played to the jury. The transcipt is as follows..." but I see no mention of this tape recording at all in Mr. Hills book.

2) The Wikipedia article says (regarding the taped conversation between Ignatow and Mary Ann Shore) "However, he mumbled the word "dug" and the jury also thought he said the word "safe" instead of "grave" on the tape" but Mr.Hills book only suggests that the word "safe" might have been "site", never mentioning "grave" as a possibility. existed 2)Brenda's body was found before the trial 3)Mary Ann Shore was not an immediate suspect. This is a terribly written page! However, in spite of whatever evidence was presented to the jury, there was no way that an all white jury in KENTUCKY would let a black prosecutor win over a white defence attorney, and put a white defendant in prison for any reason.

The last 3 items you listed did need to be corrected in the Wikipedia article. You are demonstrably wrong with the allegations of racism involving the black prosecutor and Kentucky juries. Before this trial ever began, its black prosecutor had already sent a number of white men to prison who had white defense lawyers ... and some of those juries were all white. A jury sees more than just the prosecutor. There was also prosecution testimony from a white coroner, white detectives, white ex-girlfriend, etc. TL36 (talk) 14:07, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We need to add some references for this article. Hills' book would probably be one. RJFJR 17:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I added the Verify tag to the article in response to the concerns raised above. Part of the message requests citations to sources. RJFJR 18:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What was meant by this?

"Brenda's badly decomposed body was not been there for over a year. " Rich Farmbrough. 16:57, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personal opinion not appropriate for an encyclopedia!

Wikipedia articles *must* be written with a neutral point-of-view and subjective writing is verboten. OK? I am very sorry for the loss of life in this case, and I feel pretty much the same as everyone else does about Ignatow, *BUT* leave out the personal opinion, please! Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 23:43, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Removed tag, as this article seems fine to me...and is months old. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.24.35.55 (talk) 11:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article does seem to have a lot of jabs at Ignatow, the murder trial jurors, etc. While of course any reasonable person would probably agree with the jabs, the goal we are after here is neutrality, even in cases like this. Ultimately inline sources would probably help this article a good deal. I have made some initial cleanup edits. --W.marsh 16:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If someone wants to take the time to pick through it, the problematic stuff (along with some good stuff and spelling corrections) seems to have been introduced since last June when I rewrote this; [1]. --Robth^Talk 16:30, 6 December 2007 (UTC) (Note-everything in the first version in that diff has been confirmed with news articles; should have used inline sources at the time to make that clear.) --Robth^Talk[reply]

The prosecutors messed up on this case

Closing opinion-based discussion as per WP:NOTAFORUM

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

They should have not charged for kidnapping, robbery or rape/sodomy in the 1st trial. If they held back on that, since the murder by chloroform was a distinct act, they could have charged and tried only for murder at 1st, and then would have had a 2nd chance to try again for kidnapping, a 3rd chance for rape/sodomy and a 4th for the robbery. I saw the opening statements in part on TV. The defendant (and his attorney) were at that point (by outward appearance) quiet gentle (white) men and the prosecutor was an agitated shouting (black) man. Add-in a star witness who looks like a tramp and the small town hicks (Southern racists?) and the jury missed the truth. Too bad the prosecutor over-reached in the initial trial plan. The Kidnapping, Robbery, Rape and Murder in this case are all distinct crimes which could have been parsed out into separate trials without double-jeopardy. I bet a lot of prosecutors learned that lesson from this trial. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 17:19, 10 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Again, WP:NOTAFORUM --NeilN ^{talk to me} 12:50, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Neil is right. Comments here should be about improving the Wikipedia article, not general comments on Ignatow. --Sancho Mandoval (talk) 00:58, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't be so mypoic. The legal theories involved in the prosecution are highly relevant to understanding how Ignatow initially got off the hook. Not everyone understands trial rules, but even so, it's important to have this post here so people can understand what happened in this case. And yes I know it's infused with my view, but that's why it's on this page and not in the article. It's needed to stir up the board's thinking so that we can posibbly help tell the full story better, but it's not fit for the article in it's current form, hence it's on this page only. FYI: Here's the text of an interesting old article [2] Here's an appeal document which makes my point for me "Appellant was subsequently tried for murder, kidnapping, sodomy, sexual abuse, robbery and tampering with evidence in regard to Schaeffer’s disappearance and death. Appellant was acquitted of all charges." [3] My point is that the prosecution misplayed their hand. There was no need to charge for the robbery, specially since the robbery itself is a distinct act which did not cause the death (or sex crimes, etc), so had they not charged it, they could have easily charged him for the robbery later. Double jeopardy only applies to overlapping concomitant acts, ie; concurrent ones or one right after another. For example Sodomy and Sexual Abuse in this context would be overlapping such that an acquittal on one prevents a retrial on the other. BUT, a robbery is a sufficiently distinct act (he could have buried her with the valuables and there would have been no robbery) that had the prosecutors not charged nor introduced any evidence about in in the 1st trial, they could have charged him for robbery later. As to what Ignatow "robbed" from the victim is not relevant, it's only relevant to know that the charges of murder and sexual violence vs. property crime are sufficently distinct that a skilled attorney could have indeed parsed the charges in such a way as to hold one back in case it was needed. As I see it, this case failed due to prosecutorial over-confidence and I think some team help in digging up some professional analysis regarding this would be in order. I've looked and can't find much worthwhile about this case. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 03:32, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article is the most unobjective pile of garbage I've ever read on Wikipedia.

Fix it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.129.186.234 (talk) 09:42, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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