On August 9, 1991 Nathaniel Bar Jonah (a.k.a. David P. Brown) was arrested in
Webster after getting into a stranger’s car and sitting on a 7-year-old boy’s
lap while the boy's mother was running errands. Later that month District
Attorney John Conte allowed Bar Jonah to take a plea bargain under which he
avoided jail on the condition that he moved to Montana with his mother. Conte
made this deal in spite of the fact that Bar Jonah had a long criminal history
that included attempted murder and kidnapping. A month before he was arrested in
Webster Bar Jonah had been released from the Bridgewater Treatment Center for
the Sexually Dangerous. Once in Montana Bar Jonah stalked and molested young
boys for a decade culminating in a conviction for murdering and cannibalizing
one of his victims. Conte claims he had little choice but to let Bar Jonah go in
1991. The people of Montana know better and the people of Worcester should too.
Conte must be held to task for his reckless disregard for public safety in this
matter. He has yet to give a full explanation of why he let such a dangerous
person go on the condition that he leave the state. If Montana sent us their
pedophiles and murderers we would be outraged, as we should be. Conte must
explain himself on this.
Feb. 15, 1957 - Nathaniel Bar-Jonah born in Worcester as David P. Brown, the
youngest of four children.
1963 - Brown, a first-grader in Webster, suddenly chokes a female classmate.
March, 1975 - Brown, dressed as a police officer, picks up an 8-year-old boy who
is on his way to school in Webster. Two months later he pleads guilty to assault
and battery and is given a year of probation. Charges are dismissed on May 26,
1976.
Sept. 23, 1977 - Brown, again dressed as a police officer, lures
two boys into
his car at a Shrewsbury movie theater, handcuffs them and takes them to a tent
he set up in a wooded area in Charlton. He orders them to disrobe and begins
strangling them. One of the boys manages to escape and notifies police, who
arrest Brown on Route 20 after a brief chase. The other boy is found handcuffed
in Brown's trunk.
Dec. 14, 1977 - Brown pleads guilty to attempted murder and kidnapping, is
sentenced to 18-to-20 years at MCI-Walpole. He is later transferred to
MCI-Concord.
June 5, 1979 - Brown sent to Massachusetts Treatment Center for the sexually
dangerous in Bridgewater for 60 days of observation.
Oct. 11, 1979 - Brown is ruled a sexually dangerous person and sentenced to an
indefinite sentence of one day to life at the Bridgewater treatment center for
the sexually dangerous.
May, 1980 - Ann Gillaspy, a therapist at the treatment center, reports that "Mr.
Brown's sexual fantasies, bizarre in nature, outline methods of torture
extending to dissection and cannibalism; he expresses a curiosity about the
taste of human flesh."
1983 - Brown tells Dr. Robert Levy
that he has read extensively about multiple
murders and has a longstanding interest in torture. Levy reports that Brown's
fantasies of violence are his primary source of sexual excitement.
1988, 1989 - Brown, now going by the name Nathaniel Benjamin Levi Bar-Jonah,
unsuccessfully petitions to be released from the treatment center.
February 1990 - Leonard Bard evaluates Bar-Jonah and reports that "numerous
evaluations have noted Mr. Bar-Jonah's violent fantasy life, as well as his risk
to the community."
Feb. 12, 1991 - After hearing testimony from two psychologists who say Bar-Jonah
is no longer a threat to society, Suffolk Superior Court Judge Walter E. Steele
orders him released from the Treatment Center. Because of an apparent
administrative snafu, however, he won't actually get out until July.
Aug. 9, 1991 - Free for little more than a month, Bar-Jonah gets into a car at
the Oxford Post Office and sits on a 7-year-old boy. He runs off when the
mother, who dashed inside, returns to the vehicle and hears her son's muffled
cries from underneath the burly Bar-Jonah. He is arrested later that day.
Aug. 22, 1991 - Despite his criminal history, the Worcester County District
Attorney agrees to let Bar-Jonah avoid jail by pleading guilty to assault and
battery and breaking and entering. He is sentenced to two years probation,
reportedly on the condition he move to Montana with his mother.
Dec. 18, 1993 - Bar-Jonah allegedly molests an 8-year-old boy he is babysitting
in Great Falls, Mont. He is charged, but the case is later dropped when the
mother refuses to let the boy testify.
Feb. 6, 1996 - Ten-year-old Zachary Ramsay disappears on his way to Whittier
Elementary School in Great Falls.
Dec. 13, 1999 - Bar-Jonah is arrested while lurking around the Lincoln
Elementary School in Great Falls in the early morning dressed as a policeman.
According to police, he is carrying a stun gun, a can of pepper spray, a fake
police badge and a toy revolver. He quickly becomes the focus of the Ramsay
investigation.
Dec. 17, 1999 - Police, combing through Bar-Jonah's apartment, find a list of
names that includes Bar-Jonah's previous victims. The list contains the name
"Zachary Ramsey" (sic). They also find undeveloped pictures of Bar-Jonah and
three boys in various states of undress. He will later be charged with molesting
the boys.
April 15, 2000 - A Great Falls woman reports to police that Bar-Jonah, dressed
as a police officer, came to her door in 1997 and asked to speak to her
5-year-old son, a student at the Lincoln Elementary School.
June 6, 2000 - Police dig up a portion of Bar-Jonah's garage and recover a bunch
of human bone fragments. Testing later reveals they're from a child, but DNA
testing shows they're not Ramsay's.
Dec. 18, 2000 - Bar-Jonah is charged with the kidnapping and murder of Ramsay.
Authorities reveal for the first time they believe Bar-Jonah ate the boy's
remains and also fed them to unwitting friends and family.
Jan. 2, 2001 - The Herald reports that
Bar-Jonah kept a list of 27 names that police suspect could be his Massachusetts
victims from 1963 to 1977. The story sends law enforcement scrambling to
find earlier atrocities the suspected serial killer may have committed.
Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2002.....First trial - Great Falls, Montana
Nathan was convicted on three counts, and faces up to 130 years
in prison, after a trial that lasted less than a week. The 10 men and
2 women jury took only six hours to reach their decision. With no
friends or family beside him, Nathan showed no emotion as the
verdict was announced.
I asked Nathan for his reaction as to how the trial was conducted: "I thought
that the judge was very bias toward me and my attorneys. In almost every case
with motions and all he sided with the prosecution." Nathan Bar-Jonah - 3/6/02
Nathan received the maximum sentence of 130 years without parole.
March 31, 2002
Questions raised in Bar-Jonah case
Martin Luttrell, Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)
Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, accused of killing a 10-year-old Montana boy, left
Massachusetts in 1991 after authorities failed to prosecute him for being in a
car with an unattended 7-year-old boy in Oxford, alleges the lawyer for the
Oxford boy's family.
The fact that Mr. Bar-Jonah was arrested less than two months after being
released from Bridgewater State Hospital, where he had been incarcerated 11
years and classified as a sexually dangerous person, should have been sufficient
warning that he posed a danger to the community, lawyer John W. Towns said.
Mr. Towns said a plea bargain agreement was thrust on the boy's family by
then-Oxford Police Chief James Triplett and a prosecutor in Dudley District
Court little more than a week after Mr. Bar-Jonah's arrest in August 1991. He
said the prosecution failed to tell the judge or the boy's family that there
were signed witness statements, or even that Mr. Bar-Jonah had signed a
statement admitting that he got into the car with the boy.
In addition, Mr. Towns alleges that at no time on the day of the plea agreement
were Mr. Bar-Jonah's records of conviction and incarceration shown to the judge,
which he argues would be standard in such a case.
The judge, Sarkis Teshoian, was not informed that the previous day Judge Milton
H. Raphaelson, sitting in the same courtroom, had ordered that Mr. Bar-Jonah
undergo a psychiatric exam.
Judge Teshoian found sufficient facts for a finding of guilty on charges of
assault and battery and breaking and entering into a motor vehicle with intent
to commit a felony, placing a person in fear. He orally agreed to the plea
agreement, said Mr. Towns, who was in the courtroom. But the judge also wrote on
the docket sheet that Mr. Bar-Jonah be given an indefinite sentence to Concord
State Prison, to be suspended for two years, with probation to begin
immediately. Mr. Bar-Jonah was also to receive counseling, the handwritten order
said.
Mr. Towns contends that instead of being taken downstairs by a court officer to
the Probation Department, Mr. Bar-Jonah was allowed to leave the courthouse, and
no probation file was opened.
Had his record been introduced in court, or a probation case opened that day,
Mr. Bar-Jonah would not have been allowed to move to Montana with his mother,
Mr. Towns argues.
``He never would have been allowed to leave the state if he had been put on
probation,'' he said. ``If he had been assigned a counselor, they would have
seen his record of assaults and incarceration. With that in place, he would have
gone nowhere.
``He walked out because he was permitted to. He was never placed on probation.
That is a fair and reasonable conclusion.''
Neither Chief Triplett nor District Attorney John J. Conte returned telephone
calls seeking comments.
Mr. Bar-Jonah was convicted last month in a Montana court of kidnapping and
sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in his Great Falls apartment in 1999, and
of assaulting an 8-year-old boy with a weapon -- a rope and pulley with which he
choked the youngster.
The jury found him not guilty of sexually assaulting a 5-year-old and were
deadlocked on whether he sexually assaulted the 8-year-old.
Mr. Bar-Jonah is slated to stand trial in May for the February 1996 kidnapping
and murder of 10-year-old Zachary X. Ramsay in Great Falls, Mont. Prosecutors
contend Mr. Bar-Jonah abducted the boy as he walked to school, butchered the
boy's body, cooked parts and fed them to unsuspecting neighbors.
No remains of the boy have been found.
Montana authorities investigating the Ramsay case discovered skeletal remains of
a child buried at one of Mr. Bar-Jonah's previous addresses. Those remains have
not been identified.
Montana authorities say they did not know anything about Mr. Bar-Jonah until he
showed up at a probation office asking that his case be supervised. Cascade
County Attorney Brant Light said it appeared that Massachusetts probation
officials did not know who he was when Montana officials contacted them. Mr.
Light's office prosecuted the recent case against Mr. Bar-Jonah and is preparing
for the May murder trial.
``We still have the same questions we did back then. How did this happen?'' he
said. ``I've talked to the probation officer in this, and they had no idea who
he was.
``Massachusetts eventually sent stuff on him, and our probation people were
horrified. We never would have agreed to take him. What could we do?''
He agreed with Mr. Towns' assertion that Montana would have had to agree to
supervise Mr. Bar-Jonah's probation in advance. With no conviction in Montana he
could not be incarcerated, Mr. Light said.
A probation official at Dudley District Court referred questions to the state
commissioner of probation's office, where spokeswoman Coria Holland said that
Mr. Bar-Jonah was placed on probation on Aug. 22, 1991. She said probation
records in the case are not public.
But an Oct. 15, 1991, memo from Dudley court Probation Officer Paul Simone to
lawyer Richard Boulanger, who earlier represented Mr. Bar-Jonah, indicates that
there is no record of a psychiatric evaluation and that Montana officials had
not yet agreed to supervise Mr. Bar-Jonah, who was already living there.
Mr. Boulanger could not be reached for a comment.
With Mr. Bar-Jonah's record in Massachusetts in the 1970s, Montana authorities
were dumbfounded that he was ever allowed out of jail and free to move to
Montana with his mother. Mr. Bar-Jonah's first known victim was a 6-year-old
female playmate he tried to choke in 1963, when they were both 6.
Born David P. Brown, he changed his name to Bar-Jonah in 1991 after being
released from Bridgewater State Hospital. He is now 45.
In December 1974, while driving a car, he pretended he was a police officer and
abducted and choked Richard O'Connor, 8, in Webster. He was also driving when he
again passed himself off as a police officer and abducted, choked and tried to
murder two teen-age Shrewsbury boys in 1977.
When he was 15, in 1973, he tried to lure two Webster boys to a cemetery with a
note composed of words cut out of magazines, offering a surprise and $20. The
mother of the boys decided not to press charges so that the boy could receive
psychiatric help, she said.
Mr. Bar-Jonah had undergone state-ordered treatment at Bridgewater State
Hospital for more than a decade as a ``sexually dangerous person.'' At the time,
he had been convicted of violent assaults on the three boys in 1974 and 1977. He
won his freedom from the center in 1991, after Suffolk County Superior Court
Judge Walter E. Steele ruled that he no longer was a ``sexually dangerous
person.''
Yet, five weeks after his release, an Oxford woman walked out of the post office
and found the 245-pound man partially sitting on her 7-year-old boy inside her
Hyundai Scoop. That incident should have been used as evidence to return Mr.
Bar-Jonah to Bridgewater, Mr. Towns said.
``It is not a quantum leap to see that the object of his interest was the little
boy sitting alone in the car,'' he said.
Mr. Bar-Jonah, who ran from the scene when confronted by the mother, went home a
few blocks away and changed clothes, but was arrested a short time later and
identified by witnesses, police records show. The mother, who was traumatized by
the incident and still upset when police brought him back to the scene, could
not identify him, Mr. Towns said.
In his signed statement to police, Mr. Bar-Jonah said he got into the car to get
out of the rain and that he planned to ask the driver for a ride. At no time was
he accused of sexually assaulting the boy.
Police had enough testimony to try the case, Mr. Towns contends, but the
prosecutor and Chief Triplett went along with Mr. Bar-Jonah's mother to allow
him to move to Montana with her, he said.
He said the boy's mother was called eight days after the arrest and told to be
at court in a few days because the case would go to trial. But when the case was
about to come up, the chief outlined the plea agreement, which she agreed to,
thinking the case would be difficult to win.
``They said it was a difficult case, an uphill battle,'' Mr. Towns recalled,
saying that he only learned of the witness statements and police report later.
``He said it was her word against his.
``The essential part of the plea agreement was that Bar-Jonah go to Montana and
his case be put on file for two years and then dismissed,'' he said.
``There was no testimony at this trial, and there was no introduction of
records. The issue of probation was not mentioned in the courtroom. He, in fact,
was never placed on probation. The file is to be handed to the clerk, and then
it goes to probation,'' explained Mr. Towns.
``In this case, Nathaniel Bar-Jonah was allowed to leave the courtroom. He was
never put on probation.''
The psychiatric exam ordered the previous day was not conducted, he added. A
handwritten entry on the back of the docket sheet said that Judge Teshoian's
stay-away order as part of Mr. Bar-Jonah's sentence ``superseded'' the order for
an exam the previous day.
``What are we doing the very next day being buttonholed by a chief and a
district attorney for a plea?'' Mr. Towns asked. ``We were never told that a
psychiatric exam was ordered the previous day.
``How do you supersede the order of a judge? You don't. You can appeal.''
He said it is up to the prosecutor to update the judge on the status of the
case, and added that Chief Triplett and the prosecutor were aware of Mr.
Bar-Jonah's background.
``This is something that has not been explained,'' Mr. Towns said. ``They didn't
even try to put the case together. ... What happened in Montana would not have
happened had he been prosecuted in Massachusetts. He was not placed on
probation. He was simply drop-kicked to Montana.''
Address as of June 6, 2002
Nathaniel Bar-Jonah AO#31569
Montana State Prison
700 Conley Lake Road
Deer Lodge, MT 59722
March 4, 2001
UNRESOLVED QUESTIONS ACCOMPANIED RELEASE
Author: George B. Griffin, Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)
Nathaniel
B.L. Bar-Jonah was ordered incarcerated at the Massachusetts Treatment
Center for Sexually Dangerous Persons in Bridgewater in 1979 for a term of from
one day to life.
That potential life sentence lasted 11 years.
Mr. Bar-Jonah, whose given name is David Paul Brown, won his freedom from the
center in 1991, after a Suffolk County Superior Court judge ruled that he no
longer was a ``sexually dangerous person.''
Not long after, Mr. Bar-Jonah, now 44, moved from Central Massachusetts to Great
Falls, Mont., where he has since been arrested and accused of horrific crimes
against children.
He has been charged with five felony counts of child sexual assault, kidnapping
and torture in connection with attacks on three Montana boys. He also has been
charged with deliberate homicide and aggravated kidnapping in connection with
the Feb. 6, 1996, disappearance of 10-year-old Zachary X. Ramsay.
Montana authorities say they believe Mr. Bar-Jonah accosted Zachary as the boy
was walking to Whittier Elementary School in Great Falls. They say evidence
suggests Mr. Bar-Jonah assaulted and murdered Zachary, then disposed of the
boy's body by cooking and eating it, and holding cookouts and dinners for family
members, neighbors and friends, in which he served the boy in spaghetti sauce,
casseroles, meat pies and as charbroiled ``deer burgers.''
If convicted on the child sexual assault charge, Mr. Bar-Jonah could be
sentenced to life in a Montana prison. If convicted of murder in the Ramsay
case, he could be sentenced to death.
Since Mr. Bar-Jonah's arrest in Montana in December 1999, many law enforcement
authorities and child welfare advocates have questioned how Mr. Bar-Jonah could
have been released from the Massachusetts Treatment Center when he had been
involuntarily committed for an indefinite sentence of up to life.
Yet according to court and government documents, Mr. Bar-Jonah's 11-year
incarceration in the center was nearly three years longer than the average
81/2-year stay there for someone who had been adjudicated a sexually dangerous
person.
In fact, some inmates were routinely allowed out of the center under a furlough
system, called the Authorized Absence Program, which allowed convicted rapists,
pedophiles and murderers to leave the treatment center unescorted.
Many held down steady outside jobs while incarcerated at the center. One inmate,
who was committed on May 27, 1979, less than two years after receiving a 25- to
30-year prison sentence for attempted rape, spent years outside the center on
furlough.
In an Oct. 4, 1992, letter to an Arlington lawyer, the inmate wrote: ``Between
1987 and May 29, 1991, I had in excess of 1,700 unescorted absences within the
local community, and as far away as Springfield and Holyoke, Mass.''
The inmate said he worked for a local oil company, owned a home, was married to
a woman who had two children, and was a member of a local Assemblies of God
church.
The Authorized Absence Program was required by a federal consent decree signed
Dec. 31, 1974, by the State Attorney General's office and entered as an order by
a federal court on Jan 2, 1975.
Efforts by the state attorney general and the Legislature to restrict the
program were rebuffed by the federal court in 1980, and again in 1986.
In 1989, when Mr. Bar-Jonah filed the first of two petitions for release from
the center, 58 ``sexually dangerous'' inmates had access to the community
through the Authorized Absence Program.
According to state records, between 1977 and 1989 there were 20 ``identified
major incidents'' involving inmates who allegedly had committed additional
offenses while on furlough.
Some of those offenses involved inmates who had been declared sexually
dangerous, then escaped and eventually were captured and returned to the center.
Others involved alleged rapes, assaults and robberies.
In a September 1989 report, the Governor's Special Advisory Panel on Forensic
Mental Health observed, ``It is noteworthy that these same individuals might
have been ineligible for any programs allowing them access to the community had
they been in prison.''
A revocation of authorized absence privileges was no guarantee that a sexually
dangerous person would not be released.
In June 1991, Michael E. Kelley, a former prostitute and treatment center inmate
who was serving a 15- to 20-year sentence for two rape convictions, was hauled
in from the Authorized Absence Program after a search of his vehicle turned up
cash, credit cards, a rope and a knife.
A memo dated June 3, 1991, that was sent to Mr. Kelley by Leonard Mach, acting
treatment center administrator at the time, stated: ``Due to a large 14-inch
knife being found in the pocket of the driver's door of your vehicle, plus one
hundred and fifty dollars cash, I hereby suspend your program. You shall remain
within the facility until a full investigation is conducted and your team/case
manager can review this situation and make recommendations to me.''
Those recommendations were not long in coming.
According to the June 16, 1991, minutes of Mr. Kelley's ``Restrictive
Integration Review Board annual review,'' the inmate was interviewed on June 12,
1991, by psychologist Robert Prentky, MTC director of research, and therapist
Michael Stevens.
Mr. Kelley explained that he was moving to a new residence and ``had loaded his
belongings on a truck and had to tie them with rope.'' He further explained he
used the knife to cut the rope and that the knife was part of a ``set of knives
that were in a box that were being moved.''
The review board noted that Mr. Kelley had been working ``32 hours per week and
that, in addition ... he had one absence per week in the evening for ACOA (Adult
Children of Alcoholics) meetings and socialization and three hours per week for
family visits.''
``In addition,'' the minutes note, ``he had one visit per month and holidays for
overnights and he was scheduled to be increased to two overnights per month. All
of those visits involved independent transportation.''
The review board also noted that Mr. Kelley, who had been committed to the
treatment center on Dec. 20, 1979, had worked as a production supervisor at a
silk screening company for two years.
``He has been married for 9 years and has a 2-year-old daughter,'' the review
board said. ``He feels he is no longer sexually dangerous because he has learned
to talk about his problems and is no longer isolated.''
The board voted to issue an opinion that Mr. Kelley was ``no longer a sexually
dangerous person.''
But the vote to issue that opinion was not unanimous, according to the minutes.
Dr. Robert Moore, who signed the RIRB annual review, psychologist Judith Power
and psychologist Julie Mack voted in favor of Mr. Kelley.
Psychotherapist Paula Erickson, an alternate board member who had been called to
participate on the review board, and David Pickett, a licensed clinical social
worker who was an ``administrative assistant'' selected as an ``interim board
member,'' both voted against releasing Mr. Kelley.
However, the majority ruling that Mr. Kelley no longer was sexually dangerous
cleared the way for his release from the center. He was returned to state prison
and then, a few months later, was released on parole, and moved into his
Pembroke home to live with his wife and daughter.
It was in 1992, just one year after he was determined not to be sexually
dangerous, that Mr. Kelley used the offer of jobs to lure Colleen Coughlin, 21,
and Debra Levangie, 24, to a remote warehouse in Plymouth.
It was there that he attacked, raped and killed the two women.
At his September 1994 trial in Plymouth Superior Court, Mr. Kelley admitted to
the killings and confirmed the gruesome manner of the deaths.
Ms. Coughlin, an epileptic, suffered a seizure when Mr. Kelley attacked and
raped her. He then hog-tied her with an extension cord and strangled her.
Ms. Levangie was beaten so severely that blood was spattered on three walls of
the room in which she was killed. Mr. Kelley stuffed her nude body into a
computer box and hid it in a back room.
He dumped Ms. Coughlin's body into a trash barrel, then buried her in a shallow
grave in a yard behind his home.
On Sept. 9, 1994, Mr. Kelley, over his lawyer's objections, suddenly changed his
plea from innocent to guilty.
When Judge Cortland Mathers asked Mr. Kelley whether he had committed the crimes
in the way they were described, he replied in a voice that could barely be heard
in the hushed courtroom, ``Yes sir. I am guilty.''
Judge Mathers sentenced Mr. Kelley to serve two terms of life in prison without
the chance of parole. The second life sentence was to be served ``on and after''
the first.
January 12, 2001
BAR-JONAH ARRAIGNED IN MONTANA \ KIDNAP-MURDER SUSPECT PLEADS NOT GUILTY
Author: George B. Griffin, Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)
A former Dudley man pleaded not guilty in a Montana court yesterday to murder
and kidnapping charges stemming from the 1996 disappearance of 10-year-old
Zachary X. Ramsay.
Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, 43, whose given name is David P. Brown, was arraigned
during a two-way video link from his cell in Cascade County Jail in Great Falls,
Mont., before District Court Judge Thomas McKittrick.
Mr. Bar-Jonah was dressed in short-sleeved, orange jail coveralls, and sat at a
table facing the camera, his hands folded in front of him, as he answered the
judge's questions.
Judge McKittrick set a trial date of June 4, with a status hearing to be held
May 25.
Mr. Bar-Jonah is facing one count of deliberate homicide and one count of
aggravated kidnapping in connection with Zachary's disappearance.
Montana authorities said they believe Mr. Bar-Jonah accosted and kidnapped
Zachary on the morning of Feb. 6, 1996, as the boy was walking to the Whittier
Elementary School in Great Falls.
The disappearance generated wide publicity, including a segment on the
``America's Most Wanted'' television series, and led to a nationwide search.
Zachary's body was never found.
Montana authorities said evidence suggests the suspect butchered his victim,
then cooked and served the remains to himself and his friends, neighbors and
family.
The murder charge in the Zachary Ramsay case carries a maximum penalty of death
under Montana law. Two lawyers who specialize in capital homicide cases have
agreed to represent Mr. Bar-Jonah in all the cases pending against him.
The lawyers, Gregory Jackson of Helena, Mont., and Donald Vernay of Big Fork,
Mont., agreed to defend Mr. Bar-Jonah after his former defense counsel, Eric
Olson, head of the Cascade County public defenders office, recused himself,
citing a potential conflict of interest. Mr. Olson told the court that some of
the prosecution witnesses expected to be called in the Ramsay case are people
who have been represented by Mr. Olson's public defenders office.
Mr. Olson had represented Mr. Bar-Jonah since Dec. 15, 1999, the date of his
arrest in Great Falls on charges of impersonating a police officer and carrying
a concealed weapon.
Those charges were filed after he was found lurking near the Lincoln Elementary
School playground in Great Falls. Police say he was dressed in what appeared to
be a police officer's jacket, and was carrying a badge, a toy revolver,
handcuffs and a 200,000-volt stun gun.
Mr. Bar-Jonah also is facing five other felony charges of child sexual assault
and kidnapping in connection with attacks on three Montana boys last year. Those
charges carry a maximum penalty of life in prison in Montana.
A trial was to have been held on the five felony charges beginning Jan. 16. But
that trial was postponed in light of Mr. Olson's recusal.
A meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday to allow Mr. Bar-Jonah's new lawyers
and Cascade County Attorney Brant S. Light, who is prosecuting all the charges
against the defendant, to confer on a new trial schedule.
Mr. Jackson and Mr. Vernay have represented a number of defendants who are on
Montana's death row.
The two lawyers have publicly derided the evidence against Mr. Bar-Jonah in the
Ramsay case, calling it ``flimsy'' and ``circumstantial.''
Prosecutors and police, however, point to what they believe are highly
incriminating pieces of evidence acquired in searches of Mr. Bar-Jonah's Great
Falls home. They include a series of encrypted handwritten messages that, when
deciphered by an FBI special agent, turned out to be grotesque ``menu'' items
with a young boy as the main ingredient.
Potential evidence also includes statements from
Mr. Bar-Jonah's brother, Robert
Brown, who owned the duplex where Mr. Bar-Jonah lived, and testimony from former
``girlfriends'' and roommates, who alleged that Mr. Bar-Jonah talked about
Zachary's disappearance and how the body would never be found because it had
been ``chopped up'' and scattered.
The witnesses also are expected to testify about a pair of ``bloody gloves'' and
a sack of soiled boy's clothing they found in Mr. Bar-Jonah's apartment not long
after Zachary disappeared.
Mr. Bar-Jonah moved to Great Falls in August 1991, to serve out a two-year
sentence of probation imposed by Dudley District Court Judge Sarkis Teshoian.
Mr. Bar-Jonah had pleaded guilty to charges of breaking and entering and assault
and battery on a 7-year-old boy, during an Aug. 9, 1991, incident outside an
Oxford post office.
That offense occurred just months after Mr. Bar-Jonah won release from
Bridgewater State Hospital, where he had been undergoing state-ordered treatment
for more than a decade as a ``sexually dangerous person.''
At the time, he had been convicted of violent assaults on three young boys that
occurred in 1974 and 1977.
Records of his convictions and commitment to Bridgewater, however, apparently
were not made part of the 1991 Dudley District Court case, an omission that may
have contributed to his ability to serve his term of probation in Montana.
Montana officials have steadfastly criticized the Massachusetts decision to
allow Mr. Bar-Jonah to leave the state on probation.
But yesterday, Judge Teshoian defended his 1991 decision, calling it
``appropriate'' based on the facts as he knew them at the time.
Judge Teshoian, who said he has no independent memory of the case, insisted that
the fact that Mr. Bar-Jonah would be leaving the state had no impact on his
decision to release him.
``That has never been the basis on which I would render a decision,'' he said.
``I do not believe that I solve a problem by saying to an individual that this
case would be resolved because you will not remain in Massachusetts.''
The judge said his decision ``would have been on the facts as they were
presented.''
``I deemed it to be an appropriate sentence based on the information that was
being made available to me at that time,'' he said.
Judge Teshoian, who has been a district court judge for 12 years, said he might
have decided the case differently if different facts had been presented to him.
But, he said, ``I don't know what the facts would have been that would have been
presented. How can you speculate as to what you might have done?''
Mr. Light responded to Judge Teshoian's comments, saying they did not lessen his
dismay and still did not explain why Mr. Bar-Jonah was released.
He said he could not believe a judge would not have a complete file on a
suspect's previous history.
``They all knew about his background,'' Mr. Light said. ``Why was he released
anywhere? My point is he shouldn't have been released at all, in Massachusetts
or Montana or anywhere, based on his background. How many chances are we
supposed to give individuals like this? It seems to me if someone like this
comes before you, you have an absolute duty to protect the public from him.''
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
January 11, 2001
MONTANA NEVER KNEW BAR-JONAH'S FULL RECORD
Author: George B. Griffin, Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA)
As accused cannibal Nathaniel Bar-Jonah faces arraignment in a Montana court
today on child murder and kidnapping charges, authorities there are questioning
why they received no official notice of his Massachusetts criminal record
involving assaults on young boys.
Mr. Bar-Jonah, 43, formerly of Dudley, is to be arraigned this morning in
Montana's Cascade County District Court in connection with the disappearance of
Zachary X. Ramsay, 10, in 1996.
Montana police and prosecutors believe Mr. Bar-Jonah kidnapped Zachary as the
boy walked to school, then killed him and disposed of the body by butchering and
eating it.
Mr. Bar-Jonah, whose given name is David P. Brown, moved to Great Falls, Mont.,
in August 1991, to serve out a two-year sentence of probation imposed by a
Dudley District Court judge.
The probation sentence came after Mr. Bar-Jonah pleaded guilty to charges of
breaking and entering and assault and battery on a 7-year-old boy.
That incident took place outside the Oxford Post Office on Aug. 9, 1991, about
five months after Mr. Bar-Jonah was released from two years in Concord State
Prison and 11 years in Bridgewater State Hospital, where he underwent treatment
as a ``sexually dangerous person.''
Under an agreement with the court, Mr. Bar-Jonah moved almost immediately from
Dudley to Great Falls, where he lived off and on with relatives.
Although Mr. Bar-Jonah had been adjudicated a ``sexually dangerous person'' and
had spent more than a decade in a state mental hospital, details of his
treatment or incarceration apparently were not in documents before the Dudley
court in the 1991 case.
In addition, explicit details of Mr. Bar-Jonah's commitment to Bridgewater were
not sent to probation officers in Montana, even after that state's ``interstate
compact'' office asked for more information on Mr. Bar-Jonah's background.
Michael F. Redpath, a supervisor in the Montana Department of Corrections'
probation and parole office, said the first contact his office had with Mr.
Bar-Jonah was in August 1991, when the former Dudley man came to the probation
office to report.
Mr. Redpath, who was a field investigator for the agency at the time, became Mr.
Bar-Jonah's probation officer and learned of his commitment to Bridgewater when
Mr. Bar-Jonah volunteered the information in an interview.
``Mr. Bar-Jonah came out to Montana unbeknownst to us at the very beginning,''
Mr. Redpath said.
Mr. Bar-Jonah's reporting for probation was unusual, Mr. Redpath said, in that
there was no advance notice, nor any instruction from Massachusetts on how the
probation should proceed.
``In this particular case, he just showed up,'' Mr. Redpath said. ``He walked
into our office one day and said he was advised by Massachusetts to report to
the probation officer in Great Falls.''
The first paperwork from Massachusetts arrived around Sept. 11, 1991, according
to the scant data that still exists in Montana records. Mr. Redpath was assigned
Mr. Bar-Jonah's case based on the initial paperwork from Massachusetts.
``What was interesting about this was when I met with Mr. Bar-Jonah, he started
telling me about his background and, of course, I was stunned,'' Mr. Redpath
recalled.
``The file the interstate compact sent out did not reflect any of that
information,'' he said. ``All it reflected was a very thin interstate compact
report that documented the assault and break-in outside a post office and that
he got two years probation.''
He said Mr. Bar-Jonah was ``quite candid'' about his incarceration and
commitment to Bridgewater.
``I was taken aback,'' Mr. Redpath said. ``There was no file on that.''
On Oct. 1, 1991, Constance Perrin, Montana's interstate compact supervisor,
wrote to the Massachusetts interstate compact office for more information.
``In order to provide adequate supervision in this case, additional background
information is needed,'' her letter said. ``We are also requesting the most
recent psychological/psychiatric report that is available on (the) subject.
Please advise us if Barjonah was required to register as a sex offender in
Massachusetts. As soon as we receive the additional information, we will
complete our investigation. Your cooperation is greatly needed and
appreciated.''
A copy of that letter was forwarded on Oct. 15, 1991, to Worcester lawyer
Richard Boulanger, who was Mr. Bar-Jonah's defense counsel of record in the 1991
Dudley District Court case and also was the court-appointed lawyer who
represented Mr. Bar-Jonah in his successful appeal for release from Bridgewater
State Hospital.
The letter was accompanied by a note from Paul Simone, a probation officer at
the Dudley District Court, who told Mr. Boulanger, ``I cannot find anywhere in
the court records if a psychiatric evaluation has ever been done.
``I brought this problem before Judge Teshoian and he urges your office to make
Mr. Barjonah aware that if supervision is rejected in Montana, he will have to
be available for further court proceedings in this Commonwealth,'' Mr. Simone
wrote. ``Perhaps some communication from your office to Montana would be helpful
to Mr. Barjonah.''
No record survives in Dudley District Court or Montana probation office files to
show whether Mr. Boulanger responded to that request.
Mr. Boulanger has not returned calls placed to his office by a Telegram &
Gazette reporter this week and last.
Mr. Redpath said Mr. Bar-Jonah supplied him with ``some of the documentation,''
including some mental health reports. Massachusetts officials, he said, also
provided more information in response to the Oct. 1, 1991, inquiry. The
additional information, however, was ``not in detail'' about Mr. Bar-Jonah's
11-year commitment to Bridgewater, or his criminal record prior to that
commitment, Mr. Redpath said.
``The bottom-line decision was made by interstate compact to supervise him
here,'' Mr. Redpath said. ``He was out here; his brother was here; he's going to
live here. Obviously, Massachusetts dumped him. So the question is, what do we
do? Do we ignore him, or at least supervise him for the two years that we've got
him?''
Mr. Redpath said Montana probation department officials decided to accept
supervision of the probation, believing that Massachusetts would not take steps
to get Mr. Bar-Jonah back if probation was rejected.
``My job was to supervise him for two years, and, for all practical purposes,
that was uneventful,'' Mr. Redpath said. ``Throughout that time, there were no
mandates from Massachusetts for registration or psychiatric treatment or any of
those types of things you would normally do. His probation was under our
standard rules, with no special conditions, other than supervision and home
visits.''
HELENA -- The Montana Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the conviction and 130-year prison sentence of a Great Falls man for sexually assaulting one young boy and abducting and torturing another.
A five-judge panel unanimously rejected Nathaniel Bar-Jonah's myriad claims of illegal searches, improper use of evidence in court, unfair trial and biased jurors. One by one, the high court upheld rulings by District Judge Kenneth Neill of Great Falls.
Bar-Jonah, 47, was convicted in 2002 of kidnapping and assault involving a 15-year-old boy and his 12-year-old cousin in 1998 and 1999.
Police also considered Bar-Jonah their chief suspect in the 1996 disappearance of a 10-year-old Great Falls boy, Zachary Ramsay. Murder and kidnapping charges against him were dropped in 2002, however, after the boy's mother said she was prepared to testify she believed her son was still alive.
Investigators suspected Bar-Jonah butchered the Ramsay's body, then cooked the body parts for meals fed to unsuspecting neighbors. Zachary's body was never recovered.
In his appeal to the Supreme Court on the kidnap and assault convictions, Bar-Jonah contended the case was flawed from the beginning because it started when he was illegally stopped by police officers while walking near an elementary school in December 1999.
He said authorities had no justification to stop and question him, but the Supreme Court saw it differently. Police were aware that Bar-Jonah had been convicted 22 years earlier in Massachusetts of kidnapping and trying to murder two young boys while posing as a police officer.
Given that background, the fact that Bar-Jonah was walking near a school at a time when children would be walking to school and was dressed in a police-style jacket was sufficient reason for the officers to stop him, the court said.
Officers had sufficient evidence to suspect that Bar-Jonah had or was about to commit the crime of impersonating a police officer, the justices held.
Likewise, they said the items seized in two searches of Bar-Jonah's apartment were legitimately taken because they were related to the suspected crimes of pretending to be a police officer and carrying a concealed weapon.
Cameras, photo albums with pictures of children, and other photos and negatives were "reasonably related" to the Bar-Jonah's motive for committing the crime of dressing up like an officer in order to gain the confidence of his young victims, the court said.
Because the search warrants were tied to the charges against him at the time, the searches were not a mere pretext that authorities used to look for evidence linking Bar-Jonah to Ramsay's disappearance, the court added. If that was a motive for the searches, it does not matter because they also had a legitimate reason, it said.
The Supreme Court concluded Judge Neill made no mistake in refusing to move the trial a second time, from Butte to Billings, because of pretrial news coverage. While the reports of possible cannibalism probably stirred strong feelings, the news coverage "did not go beyond the objectivity expected of the press," Justice John Warner said for the court.
He also said Bar-Jonah failed to show he was prejudiced by the Butte trial and that moving the trial to Billings would have served any useful purpose.
The court found no fault with letting jurors see Bar-Jonah's photo albums containing hundreds of pictures of children, including the two victims. The books served a valid purpose of showing why Bar-Jonah befriended young boys and supporting testimony of the victims, the court said.
Copyright © 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a
division of Lee Enterprises.
Cannibal Child Killer Nathaniel Bar-Jonah
NATHANIEL BAR-JONAH
Classification: Cannibalistic Paedophile
Arrested: December 20, 2000
No. Victims: 1+
Active:1993-2000
Age:42
Victim Profile: Young Boys
MO: Pretended to be a police officer to lure away young boys
Fetish: Collected names of boys, served the remains of one of his victims to
friends and neighbors. Location: Montana, Massachusetts, Canada
October 2, 2002 - Confessed cannibal killer
Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, accused of
butchering a 10-year-old boy and feeding him to neighbors, won't face
murder and kidnapping charges because the alleged victim's mother believes her
son is still alive. Zachary Ramsay's mother, Rachel Howard, said she was
prepared to testify she did not believe Nathaniel Bar-Jonah had killed her son
in 1996, prompting prosecutors to drop their case. "I did not want Bar-Jonah to
be convicted of a crime that I did not believe he did," Howard said.
Hher belief is based on several things, including a videotape she says shows her
son at age 12. She said police did not believe the boy in the video was her son.
Bar-Jonah, 45, already serving a 130-year prison sentence in Montana for
kidnapping and sexual assault in a separate case, was accused of abducting
Zachary while he walked to school. The boy's body was never found, and
authorities have said evidence suggests Bar-Jonah killed the boy and disposed of
his body in meals served to unsuspecting neighbors.
Searches of Bar-Jonah's house nearly three years ago turned up lists of
children's names, including Zachary, and encrypted letters in which Bar-Jonah
wrote about such dishes as "little boy
stew," "little boy pot pies" and "lunch is served on the patio with roasted
child."
Bar-Jonah was convicted earlier this
year of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old Great Falls boy, and hanging the boy's
8-year-old cousin from a kitchen ceiling. Those assaults occurred in 1998
and 1999. Bar-Jonah has appealed the verdict. Bar-Jonah spent 11 years in a
Massachusetts mental hospital after one attack in which authorities said he
tried to kill two boys. Before that, he had forced an 8-year-old boy into his
car and choked him with his belt. Shortly after his release, he assaulted
another boy. Under a 1991 plea agreement with Massachusetts prosecutors,
Bar-Jonah was allowed to move to Montana with his mother. Montana authorities
were outraged to learn of the deal after Bar-Jonah's arrest.
February 21, 2002 - In his trial for molesting three children in Grat Falls,
Montana, Defense attorneys for pedophile-killer Nathaniel Bar-Jonah tried to
downplay testimony from three boys who said they were molested by him. According
to the attorneys the youngsters were coerced by police. However, an FBI
especialist -- while admitting that detectives may have made mistakes -- said
the witnesses were not lying. One of the boys said that Bar-Jonah, who was his
neighbor, put a rope around his neck and hanged him from a kitchen ceiling. The
others testified about sleepovers at his house and how the man had touched them
sexually.
The oldest victim -- who is now a teenager -- acknowledged to defense attorney
Gregory Jackson that he visited Bar-Jonah in the Cascade County jail and sent
him a letter in 2000 -- at Bar-Jonah's request -- praising him as a friend.
"Nathan, you treated me really nice," the letter read. "You never harmed me in
any way. I really miss you, big guy. You were like the dad I never had." Jackson
suggested that police and FBI interviews of the teen-ager, his then-5-year-old
brother and an 8-year-old cousin influenced the boys to make the accusations.
Cascade County Attorney Brant Light told the jury that Bar-Jonah patiently spent
months befriending the boys only so he could victimize them. "This is a man who,
at age 42, had only one ambition -- to pursue young boys and molest them," he
said.
In what seems to be the first cannibal-murder case of 2001 and police in Great
Falls, Montana arrested child molester and sexual sadist Nathaniel Bar-Jonah for
the murder of 10-year-old Zachary Ramsay, who disappeared in 1996. Montana
authorities have never recovered Ramsay's body and now believe Bar-Jonah ate the
remains and also fed them to unwitting friends.
They also suspect Bar-Jonah could be a
serial killer after finding an unidentified child's bones in his garage and have
enlisted the FBI's help in finding victims in other areas, including the
Massachusetts.
Dozens more
Police said they found the names of four former Webster boys on a handwritten
list seized from accused murderer and pedophile Nathaniel Bar-Jonah's Montana
home. Police say that 27 of the 54 names
on the list may be those of Massachusetts children whom Bar-Jonah knew when he
grew up in the town of Webster (as David P. Brown) in the 1960s and
1970s. Included on the list are names of three boys whom Bar-Jonah was convicted
of abducting in 1975 and 1977. Webster police Officer John Bolduc said he
recognized several other names on the list despite misspellings. Bolduc's
department received the list from police in Great Falls, Montana, where
Bar-Jonah is jailed on murder charges.
Evidence also shows Bar-Jonah traveled
to Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan and Washington. The FBI
is working with authorities in those states and others to review missing
children reports.
Bar-Jonah was convicted in 1977 of kidnapping and trying to kill two Shrewsbury
boys. He was sentenced to 18 to 20 years in jail before being deemed sexually
dangerous and shipped to the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater.
According to Bar-Jonah himself it was his Lord and savior who shepered his
release from the center in July 1991.
"I've seen God take a hopeless situation like when all avenues were closed it
seemed and I'd never, ever be released," Bar-Jonah wrote in the rambling he sent
to the Great Falls Tribune. "Yet God told me I would and I believed Him even
though the evidence of my release was not there. Then totally out of left field
I got 2 - Yes, 2 - Christian psychiatrists who believed in me. That was a
miracle in it self (sic) to find 2 Christians in that profession in
Massachusetts. The state had a lot of evidence on their side, yet the judge
sided with me."
canada
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There was a large piece of plywood that was smeared with a wide indelible stain despite being repeatedly scrubbed with bleach. Lab tests indicated the board was struck several times with a sharp instrument. There were also the names of thousands of children.
"There are lists of children that you can just turn page after page after page
after page," said Brant Light, the lead prosecutor on the case. Also found were
3,500 pictures of youngsters. "He had notebooks where there's pictures of
children cut out of annual school books and newspapers with their names
underneath -- just like collecting baseball cards," Mr. Light said.
Police also found stun guns, stun batons, police badges, police patches, and a
realistic toy revolver. When police arrested Bar-Jonah in December 1999, he was
dressed in a navy nylon jacket, circling an elementary school and was allegedly
carrying a stun gun, a toy pistol, a fake police badge and pepper spray.
Bar Jonah:
The media's making of a Monster
A local reporter’s tale of the media frenzy surrounding
the case of accused cannibal Nathaniel Bar-Jonah
By Kim Skornogoski
Courtesy of The Montana Standard
Nathaniel Bar-Jonah listens to testimony by clinical psychologist Janet Hossack
during his trial in Butte District Court in February on charges of kidnapping
and sexually molesting boys in Great Falls.
The first time I heard about Nathaniel Benjamin Levi Bar-Jonah, police requested
I write a story warning parents to watch out for a pudgy man in a navy jacket
walking by a Great Falls elementary school. With no charges and no details why
Bar-Jonah was considered dangerous, I refused.
The next day, he was arrested after police learned the stun gun he was carrying
was considered a concealed weapon. That was the first front-page story about the
odd man from Massachusetts.
I’ve been writing about him ever since. In two years, the Tribune has published
more than 180 stories and editorials about Bar-Jonah, with endless angles to
keep local readers interested.
Dating back to age 17, Bar-Jonah was repeatedly convicted of dressing as a
police officer to lure young boys into his car, then choking and molesting them.
Yet, he slipped through the system, serving months, not years in jail. Weeks
after he was released from a mental hospital for sexual predators, he reoffended.
Instead of going back to prison, he was sent to Montana to live with family.
Local police suspected Bar-Jonah abducted Great Falls 10-year-old Zachary
Ramsay, who vanished walking to school one February morning. That story
emblazoned our front page but was buried inside other papers across the state.
Few papers outside Great Falls were interested when police found bone fragments
belonging to an unknown child buried in Bar-Jonah’s garage.
But when accusations of cannibalism surfaced, the story captured the attention
of journalists worldwide. Police charged Bar-Jonah with homicide Dec. 19, 2000,
saying they will never find Zachary Ramsay’s body because Bar-Jonah disposed of
it in chili and stew served to family and neighbors.
My editors — with the Montana Freemen and Unabomber media frenzies fresh in
their minds — warned me of the barrage of national press to come. The
Massachusetts and international media caught on right away. A TV crew from
Germany flew to Montana, and the British Broadcasting Company aired stories
about the case on its radio show. The story was so widespread that some friends
of my family were asked during a visit to China if they knew Bar-Jonah.
Courtesy of The Montana Standard
Cascade Deputy County Attorney Susan Weber listens intently to a prospective
juror's answer in District Court in Butte during the first day of Nathaniel
Bar-Jonah’s trial in February. He was later found guilty of kidnapping,
assaulting and molesting two Great Falls boys and sentenced to 130 years in
prison.
A Washington Post reporter came to town for Bar-Jonah’s arraignment, seeing him
for only two minutes on a jail TV monitor. The two Boston papers flew out
reporters and photographer teams to spend a week touring Great Falls and
interviewing neighbors.
One week, Canadian journalists dove into the story after hearing Bar-Jonah once
crossed the border, fearing a missing child could be linked to him. The next
week, it was Arizona reporters who were interested after 20 Great Falls women
were sent prank letters from someone pretending to be Bar-Jonah. The return
address was the home of a Mesa, Ariz., state senator who had nothing to do with
the letters.
CNN, Fox News, the New York Post, a Japanese wire service, National Public Radio
and the TV shows Extra and America’s Most Wanted all did stories about
Bar-Jonah. Others, including the Spokesman-Review, picked up Associated Press
stories.
Within weeks of each other, Dateline NBC and CBS’s 48 Hours sent crews to Great
Falls. Dateline dedicated an hour to Bar-Jonah and the loose release policy at
the Massachusetts state mental hospital, while 48 Hours spent roughly 12 minutes
focusing on the Great Falls case. As airdates approached, producers from both
networks called me to see what I knew about the other newsmagazine’s story and
when it would run. CBS pushed up its airdate a week to broadcast before
Dateline, which in turn pushed their project back a month.
For Bar-Jonah’s first trial on sexual assault, kidnapping and assault with a
weapon charges in Butte, reporters from the Denver Post, CBS and the Los Angeles
Times ventured through Montana. The spotlight will probably shine brightly again
for the homicide trial expected to begin late this summer in Missoula. Boston
papers, Court TV and other national and regional outlets are expected to come
knocking.
With all this attention came the typical stereotypes of Montana — a place where
wackos and Old West justice thrive. Great Falls was depicted as the perfect
small town, with orderly streets and little crime. To create this picture,
reporters universally noted that it is rare to have more than one murder a year
in Cascade County and that no one questioned the Ten Commandments chiseled into
stone slabs at the steps of the courthouse.
In a story titled “Outrage in Big Sky Country: Montana miffed at Massachusetts
for release of accused cannibal killer,” the Boston Herald described Great Falls
as: “Tucked between majestic mountain ranges and surrounded by miles of wheat
and cattle farms, this cowboy outpost on the Missouri River is no stranger to
violence. But neither the old fashioned drunken shoot-’em ups nor the crystal
meth madness of recent years could have prepared anyone in Montana’s
second-largest city for Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, the hulking child molester from
Massachusetts who arrived in 1991 with his own twisted brand of sinister
sadism.”
The Boston Globe said Great Falls is an orderly town, its residents having a
deeply embedded sense of independence and clear definitions of right and wrong.
“And normal still means that when somebody crosses the line, they may get put
back in their place with the business end of a hunting rifle.” A local dentist
was then quoted saying someone would surely shoot Bar-Jonah if he were ever let
out of jail.
After a few days, headlines dropped the accused in front of cannibal and serial
killer. One story in a Boston paper said Bar-Jonah frequently returned to the
Bay State possibly to kill children and “feed his sadistic sexual appetite.” Of
course, he also could have flown back to visit his mother and sister.
Sadly, this wasn’t much of a stretch from what the National Enquirer wrote about
Bar-Jonah. Quoting a “police insider,” the tabloid compared “that sicko” to
fictious character Hannibal Lecter and notorious Minnesotan Jeffrey Dahmer. Of
course, none of the Great Falls investigators had talked to the National
Enquirer.
Fearing more stories would further contaminate potential jurors, the county
attorney quickly silenced Great Falls police. Desperate for a face and a voice
to go on air, national reporters turned to local journalists for information.
Like other local journalists covering the case, I was greeted day after day with
pink messages from various media sources when I arrived at work. Generally, I
talked to people who did their homework and were fact checking and sent the
others to the Tribune’s Web page.
Often reporters would offer a quid-pro-quo — I help them now and down the road
they would help me. Some would ask for sources’ phone numbers, a description of
Bar-Jonah’s home or basic information about Great Falls. Almost always, they
wanted to know how local residents reacted to
the allegations of cannibalism and
an opinion on Bar-Jonah’s guilt. I wanted to be polite and helpful, but after
several rude requests and the constant insistence to supply all the background
material in the 82-page affidavit, my patience wore out.
“Tell me about that guy who kidnapped all those kids and fed them to the people
of your town,” demanded a producer with the Sally Jesse Raphael show. After
repeatedly telling her Bar-Jonah’s name, I tried to set her straight, saying he
is accused of killing one boy. I directed her to our Web site and even gave her
the office number for the county attorney.
In the next few days, she called repeatedly, never remembering Bar-Jonah’s name
or any of the case background. She asked me to explain the lists filled with
children’s names found in Bar-Jonah’s apartment and wanted to know the names of
the investigators and prosecutors.
It escalated from there.
The day before the show was to air, the woman offered to pay me (while I was on
the clock working my own stories on Bar-Jonah for the Tribune) to track down
Zachary Ramsay’s mother Rachel Howard, who lives in Choteau. When I didn’t take
the bait, she begged me for the names and phone numbers of any of Howard’s
neighbors, friends or family members, suggesting the show would send them a
pizza to persuade them to talk on the show about kidnapped children. I refused.
I’m ashamed to say that I did get duped into talking to the National Enquirer,
under the guise of the National Media Group based in Florida. After answering a
few basic questions — the population of Great Falls, Bar-Jonah’s age, height and
weight — I asked a few questions myself and learned that the “media group”
produces stories for several national and international publications including
The Globe and the National Enquirer.
The headline translates to “Mysterious Montana, land of bears, trout and racist
fanatics,” and was featured in the April 6, 1996 edition of La Repubblica in
Rome after Montana received national attention because of the Unabomber and the
Freemen.
Police, prosecutors, the FBI, Bar-Jonah’s family and others also grew frustrated
to see their words twisted. Media savvy Cascade County Attorney Brant Light
clearly learned his lesson about pre-trial publicity in February after talking
to more than 100 potential jurors in Bar-Jonah’s first trial on sexual assault
charges. Every one could name Zachary Ramsay and knew details about the
homicide. At a recent press conference releasing an affidavit charging the head
of the local food bank with a 1964 double homicide, Light handed out the
professional code of conduct for lawyers, highlighting what he could and would
not talk about.
While sensationalism was the choice for many news organizations, several
resisted and got the story right. As to be expected, industry leaders like The
Washington Post and The New York Times had well-organized, accurate and artful
stories.
But they didn’t have a lock on good work. Some of the best stories and best
investigative work was done by The Worcester Telegram & Gazette, a Massachusetts
paper that covers Bar-Jonah’s hometown. Their staff produced a series looking
into other people who were released from the state’s mental hospital for the
sexually dangerous and examined the hospital’s policy allowing predators out for
week-long unsupervised furlows.
The Hartford Courant was responsible and thorough, having more success than
Massachusetts police in tracking down some of the children (now adults) named on
a list found in Bar-Jonah’s last apartment.
At the Great Falls Tribune, which produced an eight-page section the day after
charges were filed, also had to face accusations of sensationalism. Executive
Editor Jim Strauss quickly responded to inflamed readers by writing a column.
Readers questioned the timing of our coverage — being so close to Christmas —
and wondered if we considered how tourists would view Great Falls after reading
such accounts. Some people suggested that we enjoyed printing the gruesome
details of the case, knowing it would sell papers.
Unlike many of the East Coast papers, the Tribune didn’t print many of the cannibalism details that were included
in the affidavit. Many of Bar-Jonah’s writings describing meals that included
specific child body parts were deemed too graphic for our readers, who were also
warned by a large editor’s note at the top of the front page. And while
Bar-Jonah’s name in a headline does sell papers, the Tribune hasn’t made much
money from the story after repeatedly dedicating wide-open pages and paying
overtime for reporters to cover the story.
Over the last two years, the Tribune has put its stamp on the Bar-Jonah
coverage. I hope that readers associate our work with the quality stories done
at other papers, stories that shined because the reporters realized that the
news didn’t need to be dressed up to sell itself.
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CASE OF THE PEDOPHILE CANNIBAL
The second court case is as evil and demonic as the one involving the "dog from
hell", the lesbian and the depraved lawyer. This one is presently taking place
in Butte, Montana and involves a 43 year old cannibalistic pedophile by the name
of Nathaniel Bar-Jonah. The Montana Cascade County District Attorney has charged
Bar-Jonah with kidnapping, raping and killing 10 year old Zachary Ramsay and
then eating parts of the body and
serving the rest to his unsuspecting mother, friends and neighbors. Detectives
have since made three excavations in Bar-Jonah's former home and found 23
human bone fragments. There is a strong possibility that Bar-Jonah may have
raped, murdered, butchered and eaten more than just 10 year old Zachary Ramsay.
The police also found Bar-Jonah's gruesome writings that refer to "Little boy
stew", "Barbecued kid" and "Little boy pot pies." Debby Cotes, a woman Bar-Jonah
met in 1996, recalls him bringing over spaghetti with meal balls on Christmas
and stew meat, chili and a meat pie, all with strange-tasting meat. She told
police he said he'd killed, butchered and wrapped the meat himself.
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The first trial taking place in Butte, Montana is for the kidnapping and torture
of three boys. In May a new trial will begin in Missoula for the rape, murder
and cannibalizing of Zachary Ramsay. In the trial underway in Butte, three boys
are expected to testify on what happened in Nathaniel Bar-Jonah's cramped,
smelly apartment on the edge of the Montana plains. They will describe how the
oldest one was locked in the bedroom and forced to undress and how his 9
year-old cousin had a rope put around his neck and was hoisted up on a pulley to
the kitchen ceiling. The 9 year old dangled from the kitchen ceiling, naked and
choking and until he lost consciousness.
How does Satan figure in this macabre and evil case. According to Doug McGiboney,
a person who lived next door to Bar-Jonah's apartment, he had to take the new
next-door neighbor's cat after the couple moved into Bar-Jonah's unit because
the cat refused to go into the residence. "They had the apartment exorcised, and
. . . the cat went back in after that," McGiboney said.
