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This report aired on Dateline NBC on Friday, Sept. 18, 2009. The full video will not be available online, but you can watch a web-exclusive clip here.
His name was Tim Schuster, and he was having a bad day. Not that he'd say so himself.
Mary Solis: Well, Tim was pretty quiet.
Still, bad day, bad week.
Tami Belshay: He was despondent after being laid off from Saint Agnes.
That was on top of the daughter trouble.
Tami Belshay: Enough to want to have her re-located to-- Missouri to get her straightened up.
And of course, the divorce. Last thing Tim would ever have wanted.
Mary Solis: The sad part of it is he really, really wanted his marriage to work.
Awful how things can pile up on a person. And so, when, on that particularly difficult morning…
Bob Solis: Tim didn't make his appointment.
It wouldn't be the first time a man had left a life not going so well, now would it? And there had been such chemistry once. He was a young nurse, she still a college student. And she was exciting, ambitious.
And after graduation they came here to the heart of the California breadbasket, a little town - a suburb, really - called Clovis.
Bob Solis: Clovis is a really nice community. You find the newer houses there, the wealthier families live there.
Theresa Freed is a TV reporter in bigger Fresno, next door.
Theresa Freed: Fresno's nice as well, but-- a lot of-- a lot of wealthy people do live in Clovis, and it has very low crime.
And here was where they made their life, a somewhat unusual arrangement by traditional American standards. She was an entrepreneur, rose to become the president of her own agricultural chemicals company. A double a type - a smart, demanding boss who succeeded by becoming a workaholic.
He employed soft-spoken empathy as a nurse-administrator at Fresno's St. Agnes hospital. And, at home in Clovis, was Mr. Mom to their daughter Kristen, and younger son, Tyler. He liked that, said these friends and fellow nurses, Mary and Bob Solis. But he was also supporting his wife's ambitious career.
Mary Solis: He allowed her to do what she needed to do by getting off work, coming home, taking care of the kids, making sure they got to their doctor's appointments. Making sure they had their meals. Making sure they did their homework.
And for a long time, it worked.
At the hospital where he helped run the nursing department, Tim was a popular leader. The other nurses liked him and looked up to him.
Mary Solis: He was certainly someone that was open to listening-- to different ideas. If he made a decision he took responsibility and accountability for the decisions he made.
But at home, he remained his quiet, undemonstrative self.
Mary Solis: She was probably the one that pretty much drove what was going on.
Keith Morrison: So he was always-- as soon as you saw him with her you-- at the beginning, you realized he was whipped, as they say?
Mary Solis: Yeah.
Balance of power, as long as no one rocked the boat. There was peace in the Schuster home, its normal discontents unspoken, unexpressed. But you can't keep trouble at bay forever by pretending it doesn't exist. When Larissa laid down the law, Tim went along. But her now teen-aged daughter Kristin defied her. Kristin stood up to her mother's powerful personality in ways Tim wouldn't dream of doing. She'd sneak out of the house with boys, stay out too late, talk back.
This is Larissa's friend, Tami Belshay.
Tami Belshay: She had a very tough relationship with Kristin. I know that they were really-- at it for quite some time.
It got so bad eventually that Larissa sent Kristin away; packed her off to live with her grandparents back in Missouri, a decision Tim did not necessarily agree with. Around then might have been the time when resentments started to boil under the placid surface of Tim's demeanor. In public, however, he suffered in silence, even when Larissa spat out her belittling insults.
Bob and Mary Solis: It was obvious that-- she didn't-- she didn't mind embarrassing him in front of his friends. She didn't mind that at all. In fact, she took relish in that at times. And then the friends that we hung with-- also noticed it. And they made the same comment. You know, "Is there something going on with-- with Tim and Larissa?" "We don't know. Tim never said anything."
What was going on? Increasingly, Larissa told her friends she was fed up with Tim, that he was not a real man. She'd even had an affair and she hated his passive/aggressive response. She even let it get around that he wouldn't have sex with her. She wanted out. Tim seemed despairing.
Mary Solis: I mean they went to counseling. And his thought was that, "Okay, you know, we're both agreeing to go to counseling so there must be a chance that, you know, we can work this out." And that was never gonna happen 'cause that wasn't her plan. Her plan was, you know, you could use the counselor as the opportunity to say to Tim, "This marriage is over with." You know, "We're done."
So, divorce it was, but about as messy as a divorce can be: a process which, for Larissa, was extremely frustrating.
Tami Belshay: Oh, she told me all the nuts and bolts. She told me-- about the frustrations, about the small successes. And then, the retreating to-- losing you know, the small battles with Tim. So, it got to be really acrimonious.
Once, after the split, Larissa sent a young male employee to break into Tim's house and take back items she claimed belonged to her. But somewhere in the painful process, Tim Schuster seemed to grow a backbone. After that break-in, he even bought a gun.
Bob Solis: Tim was changing. He was evolving. And he was changing to a point where he was starting to get some stones. Although he was reluctant at first to do it, he was slowly progressing to a point where he was starting to say, "No."
But the marriage he cared so much about was over. His beloved daughter was gone, the son he adored bounced back and forth through the poisoned air between him and his estranged wife. And then one day he got a pink slip; lost his job in a round of lay-offs at St. Agnes hospital. Had Tim hit bottom? He arranged to meet the hospital's human resources person the next morning.
Bob Solis: Tim didn't make his appointment. And she looked really, really concerned. Well, I also got real concerned, because we knew how Tim was in regards to keeping appointments.
Keith Morrison: Which was what?
Mary Solis: Very meticulous. Always on time. Never missed anything, or he called if he was running late.
What happened to Tim Schuster? What had he done?
Bob Solis: And I says, please, "call-- the police-- we have a friend. He's not answering his phones. And he's registered to carry a handgun."
Something was amiss in Clovis, Calif. Bad enough that nurse Tim Schuster was laid off, on top of all his other troubles. But now this impeccably reliable man had skipped a crucial meeting with the hospital's human resources officer.
Mary Solis: He didn't just blow things off like that, so. And this was important.
Bob Solis: If he said he was going to be there he was there
So Bob and Mary Solis called another of Tim's friends, Victor Uribe. Could Victor check Tim's house? Make sure he's okay?
Victor Uribe: I walked through all the house-- and then when I went into his bedroom, I saw his cell phone and his watch. The phone told me somethin's really wrong because he never went anywhere without that phone.
Victor went to the garage, opened Tim's pickup truck.
Victor Uribe: And I went through-- the glove box and his console-- his wallet was there. There was money in it. Credit cards were there. I mean, this was real-- it was really strange.
So it was. Mary and Bob Solis called the police. Told them Tim wouldn't go missing without a bad reason. Told them about Tim's handgun. But when Detective Vince Weibert heard about Tim's recent troubles.
Vince Weibert: I mean, that right there is a big red flag for us to look at and say something happened here.
Not that Tim had gone postal on anyone - except, perhaps, himself.
Vince Weibert: He-- possibly committed suicide. A man who's going through a divorce-- who's having child custody issues, who may be having financial issues, and now he's laid off from his job and he goes missing that day?
Tim Schuster's disappearance sent tremors through quiet, prosperous Clovis. This just isn't the sort of place where educated, middle-class people simply vanish without a trace.
Vince Weibert: We've kind of got that small town kind of old school thing going on there. Now, one of the things that Clovis has always prided itself on is-- and part of its unique identity has been a very low crime rate.
So suicide seemed the most plausible answer. But Tim's friends didn't buy it. And they certainly didn't believe that the loss of his marriage or his job would have been the reason.
Keith Morrison: He wasn't broken up about it.
Mary Solis: Nope.
Bob Solis: No. He saw-- he saw it as an opportunity, number one, to be with his son. To get some-- some clarity of what's going on in his life.
Mary Solis: He had such a great concern for his kids. Not so much for himself, but for his kids. He would not have left them without a father.
Although, the police put two and two together and figured the timing of all this was probably pretty important.
Vince Weibert: We didn't rule out the possibility of him just saying, you know what, I've been laid off from my job, I'm in the middle of a bad divorce and I'm having problems, I'm going to go disappear for a while. Take off with a friend, go to the mountains, go to Vegas, do something like that.
In which case, it couldn't be that hard to find him. Could it?
Vince Weibert: We talked to any family member that we could find. We went through Tim's-- notebooks. We went through his-- his phone records. We even looked into having the helicopter fly over head in the field to the north of their home to FLIR it to see if there were any heat sources out there.
Keith Morrison: What'd they find?
Vince Weibert: Nothing. Nothing out there.
They even went as far as asking Larissa for information, even though because of the divorce the two hadn't seen each other for months. Still, they asked, would she come in for a chat? Of course, she agreed. And they recorded the conversation.
Detective: Is Timothy capable of--if he wanted to go away start a new life somewhere, first of all, and this is all your opinion, do you think he would do that? And my having a son myself, I wouldn't leave my son, is he capable of just packing up, cashing up a bunch of money and going somewhere else thinking I need maybe would he just snap and do that? Is he capable of doing that?
Larissa Schuster: Uh--I don't know that, I don't know.
Detective: Do you think he would leave your son and not see him?
Larissa Schuster: My gut tells me that no, that he probably wouldn't do that.
So - was it foul play? Had somebody caused Tim to disappear? Of course, in situations like this, police generally like to eliminate the possibility that a spouse - current or ex - might have had something to do with a disappearance. They have to ask. So they did.
Detective: Larissa, let me ask you this, are you the type of person that could have anything to do with him missing?
Larissa Schuster: No. Not at all, no I don't-- I couldn't do --I can't-- I mean, I'd--we've had our problems and I dislike him and you know--and, and we haven't been able to get along but I couldn't do that to my son.
And then Larissa - not terribly useful so far - went home. And 48 hours into the search for Tim, police still had no solid leads. But then - it's funny the little things that make a big difference - one of the investigators was going through Tim's papers, and stumbled on a familiar name:
Vince Weibert: Detective Kirkhart had received Fagone's name by going through the-- by Tim's ledger.
James Fagone. The name was familiar because this was the very young man suspected of breaking into Tim's new house and stealing back some of the items Tim had taken from his marriage. Fagone, police knew, was a sort of errand boy for Larissa. What was his name doing in Tim's personal ledger?
Vince Weibert: So-- Detective Kirkhart and Detective Daley actually sat down on Monday—and interviewed—James.
Keith Morrison: This person might actually be involved in whatever happened?
Vince Weibert: We thought that he may have some inside information.
Inside information? Theft the year before? Who was this Fagone person, and what did he know? Could he find Tim Schuster?
Tim Schuster was gone. Two decades of Mr. Meek to his wife's domination, and now he'd lost his marriage, his job, and - at least his friends feared - he'd lost his life. But not, they were determined, to suicide.
Mary Solis: He wouldn't do that to his kids. He wouldn't do that to his mom.
So had someone done something to him? Why not ask James Fagone?
Vince Weibert: This is the home that James Fagone would babysit at.
Fagone, it turned out, was 21 years old. And a babysitter before and after the breakup for young Tyler, the Schusters' son.
He was a personal assistant of sorts for Larissa. Fagone was a good kid, by all accounts - good family.
Here's his attorney, Peter Jones.
Peter Jones: Mr. Fagone? Well-- this is a young man who had a-- over a 4.0 grade point average. Straight As in high school. He was in an Annapolis candidate. He-- he was-- really a gentle spirit.
Gentle or not, police believed Fagone might know something about the disappearance of Tim Schuster. So they found young Fagone, and took him in for questioning.
Detective: ...and that we believe that you may have some information that—uh, will help us.
James Fagone: I don't know about too much.
Fagone was very nervous, that was obvious. Maybe because right off the bat the cops dragged up that old accusation that Fagone - along with Larissa - broke into Tim's house, took some things.
James Fagone: Uh, she was--she was just kinda like going around and I was just kinda trying to get a TV and some stuff. So I wasn't' really paying attention and I didn't really wanna know too much, I think that was a problem.
Detective: ...and who's house were you in?
James Fagone : I--I believe it was Tim's, well I--it was Tim's house.
Detective: Tim who?
James Fagone: Tim Schuster.
By now, a few minutes into the warmup questions, Fagone seemed visibly frightened. He half-admitted, he'd helped Larissa take some things from Tim's house the year before. But he knew nothing at all about the man's recent disappearance. So detectives kept pressing him, telling Fagone they knew he had to be involved. And suddenly, his resolve not to tell, if that's what it was, imploded. James Fagone cracked. Yes, he confessed, he was there the night Tim vanished. Was there at Tim's house. And he went there.. with a weapon.
Detective: You mentioned a stun gun. Did you--did you use that at all?
James Fagone: Yeah.
Here in the interrogation room, Fagone's resolve simply collapsed. As detectives asked their questions, he blurted out the whole story.
Detective: How many times did you use it on him?
James Fagone: Couple times.
Detective: Where did you zap him first at?
James Fagone: Just kinda like on the arm or whatever--you know and then he was just like uh—uh, and then he fell like in--in that--that small area.
It happened, said Fagone, at Tim's front door, the night before he missed that morning meeting with his hospital's HR director. After Fagone fired the stun gun, Tim collapsed and fell in the entrance of his house. And then? Well. Then the dismal work of that dreadful night began in earnest. And as Fagone told his awful story, his audience, seasoned detectives remember could scarcely believe their ears.
Keith Morrison: Good God. (laughs) What a story.
Vince Weibert: Yeah. (clears throat) And this is what-- this is what James is telling me-- while I'm sittin' there-- sittin' there talkin' to him. And he is-- he is telling me most of the aspects of this and-- and in-- in fairly good detail.
Keith Morrison: Laying out the whole crime?
Vince Weibert: Laying out the whole crime.
But why would a normal 21-year-old kid, a fine student, a good kid, harm Tim? What motive did he have? And the answer was, maybe he didn't. Maybe someone else did. In fact, when he heard the story himself, Fagone's lawyer was convinced someone must have put him up to it.
PeterJones: He would have never done this in a million years on his own..
What did young James Fagone tell his lawyer, and those policemen? Was he telling the truth? There was more investigating to be done - more to the story than anyone guessed. The real horror hadn't been discovered yet.
The interview rooms in the Clovis Police Department are like any other; which is to say, a very uncomfortable place to be. When the 21-year-old named James Fagone was brought in for questioning, he soon caved under the pressure. This was the rest of his story.
James Fagone: I was kind of messed up and it was kind of scaring me, kinda, you know, worried that she would do something like that.
She? By she, he meant Larissa. He was with her that night, he said. He was frightened, he said; he knew she wanted him to do something. He was going to be her helper, she told him. Or so he said. Larissa paid him for it – $2,000. What did they do? Here's what Fagone told police: on the very night Tim was laid off from his job at the hospital, Larissa directed Fagone to accompany her to Tim's house. He was to purchase and bring a stun gun. They sneaked up the walk to his front door.
Vince Weibert: James said that he waited in the shadows-- near the door while Larissa went up to the front door of the home. He then heard Larissa talking-- saying-- "Tyler's not feeling well. I need you to come to the door."
A few moments later-- Tim came and opened the front door. And at that point James lunged from the shadows-- at Tim, tackled him to the ground. And Larissa jumped on top of them also there inside the foyer of his home. James was stunning him with the stun gun that Larissa had given him the money to purchase. And Tim was struggling. But after a few moments Tim stopped struggling.
That wasn't the end of Fagone's story, there was more to tell. But to believe what he had told them so far, the investigators needed some kind of proof, physical evidence.
Vince Weibert: I asked him, "What had happened to the stun gun?" And he told me that he had thrown it into a port-a-potty somewhere on the outskirts of town in the country. And we actually recovered that stun gun inside that port-a-potty.
Keith Morrison: Wait a minute. You had to go inside the port-a-potty?
Vince Weibert: Yeah. We had to go fishing inside the port-a-potty to go ahead and recover the stun gun.
Something else happened just as the detectives were interviewing the young man: A woman contacted the Clovis Police Department. Her boss had asked her to do something that now seemed suspicious, she said. Her boss, Larissa, who, said the employee, directed her to rent a truck with her own - not Larissa's - credit card. She had already been a little a suspicious when Larissa asked her rent a storage locker the year before, again in her own name... Not far from Larissa's bio-chemical company.
Detective Jim Koch drew the assignment to check it out. He drove to the storage facility, walked down a hallway toward Larissa's locker. He had been told to look for a blue plastic barrel. As he opened the door of the locker, he was hit with something powerful.
Jim Koch: And it was very, very strong odor.
Keith Morrison: Wearing protective gear?
Jim Koch: I had on a breathing apparatus and gloves.
There was the barrel. He opened the lid.
Jim Koch: And when I opened the barrel I-- I saw something that was very, very shocking to me and I recognized immediately as human remains. There was a barrel that's over 3/4 of the way full of fluid and portions of-- of-- body protruding from the fluid. And the body was obviously decaying. It was placed in acid. And the acid was basically eating away at the body.
Had Larissa sealed her ex-husband's body in a vat of acid? Yes, said Fagone, telling the rest of his story back at police headquarters, that's what she did. After he obeyed Larissa's directive to shoot Tim with that stun gun, he said, he helped her drag the body to a big blue barrel.
James Fagone: I helped her prop up the barrel and then she put him in and, uh, she poured some solution in there.
Detective: What kind of solution?
James Fagone: It was really caustic--it was--it was fuming and uh and--and you know honestly she was like you know--I was messed up...she was like --it was too, uh-- it was too, uh, burning my lungs.
Then, said Fagone, he helped Larissa transport the body first to her house and then, the next day, to her chemical lab, where he watched her pour even more acid over Tim's remains. Oh, and something else. Something he could not stop thinking about:
Vince Weibert: The fact that he was potentially alive when the acid was poured on him.
Jim Koch: That's not something that you forget right away.
By the time they heard and checked out Fagone's story, detectives had also found evidence of Larissa's true feelings for her ex-husband. Tim, it turned out, had saved phone messages from Larissa: messages filled with loathing.
Here's one of them:
"I hope to God you burn in hell one of these days, because you will," "I'll tell you what, this is going to come back to haunt you," "You talk about me alienating your kids, you're doing a damn good job yourself. And you just wait, it's coming, sweetheart."
Obviously, detectives wanted to talk to Larissa as quickly as possible, but discovered she was gone. Larissa was 2000 miles away. She'd taken their little boy Tyler on a trip - she was at that moment on her way to visit family in Missouri. No time to waste now.
Vince Weibert: And we had this arrest warrant in hand. Detectives from Clovis Police Department go to Missouri and meet her getting off the plane. And she's arrested for Tim's murder. And the interesting thing is, is that when they tell her she's arrested for Tim's murder, at no point does she ask, "What happened to Tim?" At no point does she ask, "How did he die?" I believe it's because she already knew. Because she was involved in it.
Keith Morrison: She said nothing?
Vince Weibert: She said nothing. She didn't really even, according to the detectives that were out there, seem to be terribly surprised.
They brought her back to Clovis then, and charged her with first degree murder. Charged young fagone, too, also first degree murder. Tim's friends thought about the awful story, and their former social relationship with larissa as bossy wife of tim.
Bob Solis: What kind of person was that in my house? In our home that we-- we opened up--
Keith Morrison: Fed her.
Bob Solis: Oh my God.
Keith Morrison: And gave her your wine.
Bob Solis: Gave our friendship.
And after the shock of the story had settled over Clovis and nearby Fresno, people began to wonder about that odd duo, Larissa Schuster and James Fagone. Just what was their relationship? Was young Fagone in thrall with Larissa? Or was there more than meets the eye? Surely it wasn't a romance, was it?
Theresa Freed: It was so unlikely. She was twice his age, she was his boss.
Detectives looked into that relationship, too, and concluded it was likely more hero-worship than romance. And the implications of that? Well, listen to Larissa's attorney, a man named Roger Nuttall. He says it was Fagone alone who killed Tim in some misguided act of loyalty to the powerful Larissa.
Roger Nuttall: He talked with his friends about his dislike for Tim Schuster, based upon the way in which Tim Schuster treated Larissa and-- and Tyler, as well.
Could it be Larissa's rants about Tim were just talk, and her young acolyte took it all more seriously than she would ever have wanted? After all, said attorney Nuttal, there was no physical evidence at all to say that Larissa was the instigator of the murder. It all rested on Fagone's word. In fact, said Nuttal, she didn't do it.
And maybe a jury would agree.
You might think that James Fagone and Larissa Schuster would be tried together for the horrifically gruesome murder of Larissa's husband Tim. But the law has its ways. The trials were separated. And that promised the possibility of a profound consequence. Why? Call it the blame game. Fagone's trial came first.
The prosecutor, Dennis Peterson, spared no detail of the awful incident, the stun gun, the barrel, the acid, and the active role played by James Fagone.
Prosecutor: When he choked out the victim, when he stunned him, when he held him as Larissa binded him. And he did all of these things for future promises of some benefits.
Her idea, in other words, but with his willing participation, as he had conceded in his long and detailed confession. How could he defend himself against that? Two words: Blame Larissa.
Pete Jones, in court: The road to perdition for James Fagone began and ended with a sick sadistic sociopath named Larissa Schuster.
Defense attorney Peter Jones set out to persuade jurors that Fagone hadn't intended to murder Tim. He thought Larissa just wanted to rob him, as they had done, after all, once before! He wouldn't kill a spider. He wouldn't tell you that, but the people who knew him best would tell you that.
With nothing to lose, Fagone testified in his own defense. And though the judge would not allow his testimony to be taped, we can tell you that he portrayed himself as an impressionable boy manipulated by a powerful older woman.
KeithMorrison: Why didn't he just run away?
Pete Jones: Well, you know, I asked him that when he was on the stand. And he said he was genuinely afraid of this woman and what she was capable of. And-- what she was capable of doing to anybody who double-crossed her.
As she covered the trial, reporter Theresa Freed even encountered some sympathy for Fagone. One trial watcher called him a "sweet kid".
Theresa Freed: He seemed like a very credible witness. Like, a kid down the street you might be friends with.
But it was a tough sell, and the verdict came down quickly.
"We the jury in the above entitled action find the defendant James Fagone guilty of violation of section 187 of the penal code. First degree murder of Timothy Schuster."
"One down," thought the Prosecutor Dennis Peterson, "one more to go." but things were getting complicated by then; Larissa's case had become so famous in Clovis and Fresno that her lawyer asked for and won a change of venue here, to a courthouse in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley, a three and a half hour drive away. Was the case famous here? Hardly. Besides, just then everybody's attention was diverted by wildfires raging in the hills not far away. The prosecution's case seemed to be burning too because the prime witness against Larissa - James Fagone - was suddenly not available.
Why? By this time Fagone had launched an appeal of his own conviction, and that action preserved his fifth amendment right against self incrimination, meaning the prosecutor could not compel him to testify. And worse, since you can't cross examine a video, Fagone's confession couldn't be played in court either.
Dennis Peterson: James Fagone was intended to be our star witness. When we le-- lose our lead man out in front-- it just left us that background picture of all of these circumstantial facts.
So, what was left, without Fagone? Well, of course there were those nasty messages Larissa left on Tim's telephone message machine.
"You pathetic bastard a------ I tell you what, I am so glad I'm getting divorced from you because I can't stand your f------ guts!"
Sgt. Koch: Tim had saved all the audio tapes that she had left messages for him that were rude, vulgar, and disgusting.
"You a------, I hate your f------ guts so bad I can't even stand you, I hope you burn in hell."
Sgt. Koch: She said things to him that just actually shocked the jurors. You could see it in their faces. They were absolutely amazed that a lady would talk to a person like that.
And one of Larissa's former employees testified that Larissa seemed to have some evil intent toward her ex-husband.
Witness: Once, I was auditing in the lab and there was a news on the TV that a woman ran over her husband and then Larissa she said that she'll do the same thing if she can get away with it.
There was the storage locker too. The curious business of Larissa paying for it, but asking an employee to put it under her name, not Larissa's. But if there was a star among the bits of circumstantial evidence it would have been ... The acid. Before Tim's murder, the prosecutor revealed that Larissa bought a big supply of hydrochloric acid, rar more than her chemical company normally used.
There could only have been one purpose, said the prosecutor.
Dennis Peterson: The-- the idea of using sulphuric acid or hydrochloric acid to-- to get rid of the remains of a body. All of this, you know, shocks the conscience.
Keith Morrison:
Just diabolical.
Dennis Peterson: Diabolical. It was.
But was that going to be enough to convict? Without James Fagone's detailed confession? Reporter Theresa Freed wasn't so sure.
Theresa Freed: I thought, "How in the world are they going to convict her based on all of the circumstantial evidence?"
And the defense was just getting started. It would turn out to have a secret weapon, a most persuasive element: Larissa herself.
Mary Solis: When you listen to her--I mean she-- looked at the jury. She didn't look out at the audience there. She seemed very calm. Very clear. She knew exactly what to say. I told Bobby afterwards, "They could believe her."
Still, the jury had also heard a dreadful allegation: that Larissa Schuster killed her husband and put him in a vat of acid. How would she talk her way out of that?
Larissa Schuster had always been in control. But now, her fate lay in the hands of twelve strangers, and the gruesome, bizarre details about her husband's murder were truly shocking to hear. A woman who hated her husband so much she drowned him in a barrel of acid. Or so the state claimed. But Larissa's defense attorney, Roger Nuttall, said his client had been misjudged.
Roger Nutall: She-- she's-- she's a very devoted Christian woman. She-- she headed up the Bible studies within the jail during the time that she was awaiting trial.
And as for the evidence against her?
Roger Nutall: All of that is circumstantial evidence but none of it places her at the scene
Remember, her acolyte, James Fagone, had been tried separately, and prosecutors were not allowed to use his confession against Larissa, allowing defense attorney Nuttall to pin the blame on him alone. So, what did Larissa do? She discovered said her attorney that her young friend had killed her ex-husband, and had put him in that acid. She knew police would focus on her because of all those terrible things she had said to and about her husband. So, she helped Fagone take the blue barrel to the storage unit. And that's all she did.
Roger Nuttall in trial: She knows that she's in a horrible situation. The day from hell, so to speak. What do I do now?
At her trial, what she did was talk. A lot.
Clerk: Would you please state your name...
Larissa: Larissa LeAyn Schuster.
This was risky, certainly. But she'd always spoken for herself, liked to be in control and she wasn't about to change now.
Larissa: Behind sights 20/20, I know that I've made some bad decisions that day. I was simply overwhelmed with what was going on in my life on that day.
When did she say she first learned about the murder? James Fagone arrived at her house and told her he killed Tim... But that it was an accident.
Larissa: I had learned that he had put the body in a barrel and it was in- at my laboratory in the warehouse.
But! What about all that extra acid she'd ordered to be sent to her lab just before the murder?
Roger Nuttall: Did you purchase that acid so that you could dump your husband's body in a barrel and pour the acid on it?
Larissa: No, I did not purchase it for that reason.
It was perfectly innocent, she said. She needed the acid to give the lab's glassware a thorough cleaning. The prosecutor tried to counter Larissa, tried to show, for example, that nobody used acid to clean lab glass anymore. But after five days on the stand, Larissa had made a powerful impression.
Theresa Freed: If I hadn't heard the testimony from James Fagone's trial, I would've bought it.
But remember, the jury didn't hear Fagone's testimony. They heard Larissa's version of the story. And...
Tami Belshay: She was unflappable. I thought that-- she handled herself really well. But I also realized, she's very, very intelligent.
Even so, no one expected the amazing effect of Larissa's testimony. As she stepped down from the witness stand, a member of the jury gave her a thumbs-up!
Theresa Freed: And as soon as it happened, everyone else was out of the room, all the other jurors. And the judge talked to her about it and asked her, why did she do that? And she pretty much told the court that she did it because she wanted Larissa Schuster to know that she did a good job on the stand. We're talking about a person who was accused of killing her husband and putting his body in a vat of acid.
Of course, her lawyer didn't mind, especially when the judge allowed the juror to stay on the panel.
Roger Nuttall: I thought th-- "That's fantastic." Because it came at a point where Larissa was being cross-examined
And then, as defense and prosecution prepared for closing arguments, a different juror was dismissed for being disruptive and failing to pay attention.
Theresa Freed: Right after she was kicked off, we kind of hunted her down to find out exactly what she was thinking. And she said that she thought that Larissa Schuster was not guilty at that point.
It only takes one, of course. And so, here in this unfamiliar courthouse in suburban Los Angeles, Larissa and her accusers waited for four men and eight women to make up their minds. They waited for one day... And then two. And on day three, hours ticked by, the restless tension built all morning. Until finally, the news: a verdict.
"We the jury in the above entitled action find the defendant Larissa Schuster guilty - first degree murder of Timothy Schuster."
Guilty. Even thumbs-up juror turned on Larissa. And just like that, the bubble of suspense burst; it was over. Save for the tears and recriminations, and the appeal still to come. And the sentence, of course.
Judge Ellison: And I'm ordering you committed, Ms. Schuster, to the Department of Corrections to serve the rest of your life.
She still had a friend, who sobbed openly here in the courtroom. And her young son Tyler, who'd always believed in her, and now knew she'd never be coming home. So, tears. But remember, Larissa had a daughter, too, Kristin, the one she couldn't control, the one she sent away. Here in court, Kristin was seeing her mother for the first time since the murder of her father. She wanted to tell the judge that for Larissa, life in prison wasn't punishment enough.
Kristin Schuster: If it were up to me, the justice system would be an eye for an eye. But it's not.
Chemistry. What passion it arouses.
Kristin Schuster: I pray you are continually haunted at night by the sight and sound of my father fighting for his last breathing moments on this earth.
There's a balance to the elements of a marriage, a happy formula, a chemistry of love. And when the elements were unstable? Chemistry ended a marriage. And then a life as well. Though even among newlyweds, there's no telling what surprises may emerge behind closed doors.
© 2013 MSNBC Interactive. Reprints


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I have been looking everywhere to solve my problem but couldn't find a solution so i thought i might ask here.
I would like to run both screens Touch screen (DSI) and the hdmi at the same time, however i can only find one framebuffer /dev/fb0
is there anyway to add a second framebuffer? adding an additional driver? modify the kernel? i don't know
if someone could help me i would really appreciate it.

subset: commoncrawl


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Contact us 24/7: 1 800 638680
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Speak to your personal shopping team about purchasing this item.
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- - Swirl a blush brush over the entire compact to pick up the perfect balance of pigment and powder
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- Ingredients: Mica, Synthetic Fluorphlogopite, Boron Nitride, Hdi/Trimethylol Hexyllactone Crosspolymer, Polymethyl Methacrylate, Octyldodecanol; Benzoic Acid, C13-14 Isoparaffin, Dehydroacetic Acid, Diamond Powder, Dimethicone, Ethylhexylglycerin, Laureth-7, Magnesium Aluminum Silicate, Phenoxyethanol, Polyacrylamide, Polymethylsilsesquioxane, Potassium Sorbate, Silica, Sodium Dehydroacetate, Sorbic Acid, Sorbitan Sesquioleate, Tin Oxide, Trimethylsiloxysilicate, May Contain: (+/-): Red 7 Lake (CI 15850), Red 40 Lake (CI 16035), Carmine (CI 75470), Ultramarines (CI 77007), Bismuth Oxychloride (CI 77163), Iron Oxides (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499), Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891)
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Apple is reportedly going to overhaul its MobileMe web service and add some location features akin to Foursquare.
Lending some credence to this notion is a report at Patently Apple that Apple applied for a trademark of the word "Places" in Europe.
Regardless of what happens, we sure hope Apple isn't going to name its location service "Places."
It's already been done by Twitter, Facebook, and Google.
Enough already!


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From Great Lakes Scuttlebutt.....
On Dec. 7, 1854, the passenger ship Westmoreland, caught in a fierce winter storm, foundered in deep waters off South Manitou Island and sank to the bottom of Lake Michigan. Seventeen crewmembers and passengers were lost that day, while another 17 survived, reaching the shore of Platte Bay in lifeboats. Among them were the ship's captain and first mate. Shortly thereafter, rumors began circulating about the ship's cargo, said to have included 280 barrels of whiskey and $10,000 in gold coins – at that time, quite a fortune.
For over a century, treasure hunters and divers have launched expeditions from Betsie Bay, attempting to discover the ship and her treasure. Ross Richardson found the wreck of the Westmoreland on July 7, 2010. Richardson has extensively researched the legend and history surrounding the ship as well as his predecessors' efforts to find it.
Richardson is a Lake Ann real estate agent and a certified SCUBA diver, public safety diver and special deputy with the Benzie County Sheriff's Department. He has identified and documented many shipwrecks, but admits to having been surprised when, on that day in July, his sonar revealed something unusual in the waters off the Sleeping Bear Dunes – something that should not have been there.
Returning three days later with his brother, Richardson found his reward: at about 200 feet beneath the water, and partly hidden by the topography, was the ghostly passenger ship, parts of its structure rising 30 feet above the sand. The lake had preserved the steamer well. "I was pretty stunned," he said. "I'd been researching it for a decade and couldn't believe that I had found it. The ship had been built in 1853, and was an example of great craftsmanship – very elegant and ornate. According to the story, once the captain made it to shore, he stopped off in Glen Arbor and then hiked to Grand Haven. From there, he took a stage coach to Buffalo. After that he can't be traced. Apparently, he was part owner of the ship and lost a lot of money when it went down. It was the first mate who started the rumors of the treasure. The whole thing adds up to a great story."
Richardson said that the Westmoreland was probably the best-preserved shipwreck from the 1850s on the planet, due to fact that it rests in fresh water and is protected from underwater currents. "I never felt any current at the wreck site when I was down there," he said. "The ship is resting in a hole and the underwater geography has protected it. The water is so clear that visibility is good – even at that depth there is enough ambient light to be able to see everything on the deck. It's an 'artifact heavy' wreck – there's a lot of china and other things down there, but I have gone over every inch of that ship and have not found the rumored gold and whiskey. Searching for anything below the deck is like looking for a box in a large factory with the lights off. It's possible that the whiskey was stored in the bilge level, but the deck has collapsed and the risk level in searching for it is too high."
Richardson has not released the coordinates for the ship's location, wanting to keep the site protected. By law, the wreck and everything on it now belongs to the state. "Divers used to be trophy hunters," he explained. "They'd go down and bring up some artifact – a piece of china or some such thing, and while I wouldn't be opposed to bringing some things up for museums, I'm glad that we can now take videos of our finds. They are today's trophies."
Richardson has been described as a "passionate and knowledgeable" speaker. He has given presentations at many venues in the Great Lakes region, including Ann Arbor, Milwaukee, South Haven, Traverse City, Sault Ste. Marie and others. He has worked with David Trotter and with Clive Cussler's National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) Team, and has served on the board of directors of the Michigan Shipwreck Research Associates for nearly a decade.
Richardson is currently at work on a book about Michigan's missing people, aircraft and ships.
"There are over 200 open 'missing persons' cases in Michigan right now," he said. Solving their mysteries and those of the more than 50 as yet undiscovered shipwrecks he believes lie beneath Michigan's waters is all part of what this intrepid explorer and author calls "a way I can help the community and provide a service."
Richardson's book, "The Search for the Westmoreland, Lake Michigan's Treasure Ship" (Arbutus Press), is available on his website and at local bookstores.


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The word 'quack' comes from the old Dutch word quacksalver - 'one who quacks (boasts) about the virtue of his salves'. Medical professionals regularly used the word 'quack' to discredit anyone whom they disagreed with, especially unqualified healers. But a genuine 'quack' is someone who sells medicine for treatment while knowing that it doesn't work.
The high peak of quackery was in the 1700s. Large cities such as London and Paris attracted quacks because both England and France had weak regulations against their practices. Other countries such as Austria and Russia had harsh regulations which were brought in not only to protect the public but to maintain the 'professional' status of trained doctors. An attempt in England in 1748 to prevent the sale of medicines by anyone except doctors failed. It was only in 1858 that a medical act set up a 'Medical Register' of qualified doctors.
Quacks took advantage of people's fears. They came out in force during plague or cholera epidemics. Other quacks made fortunes out of useless remedies for common aches and pains - stomach pain, headaches, bowel disorders, and so on. There was a special market in quack beauty products and love potions. They also loved to take advantage of the latest scientific discoveries, selling cures using magnetism, electricity or X-rays.
Famous quacks relied on having style and personal charisma. They aimed at rich patients. There was a strong element of drama in quack medicine and the most successful quacks spent lavishly to draw people in, putting on medicine 'shows' to entertain them, and writing books or pamphlets to advertise their products.
Effective scientific medicine gradually undercut the old quack trades, as did pharmaceutical and training regulations. But unregulated practitioners operating in today's medical marketplace continue to be described as quacks by some in the medical profession.
Related Themes and Topics
Related links
Techniques and Technologies:
R E McGrew, 'Quackery', Encyclopedia of Medical History (London: Macmillan, 1985), pp 294-298
R Porter, Health for Sale: Quackery in England 1650-1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press 1989)
An acute contagious fever with high levels of mortality. Both the 'Black Death' that swept Europe in the 1340s and the Great Plague of London in 1665 are believed to have been bubonic plague.
A sudden widespread occurance of an infection with high numbers of people affected.


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Does Happiness Heighten Your Productivity?
April 3, 2018
Hosted by Dr. Barbara Young
[Download MP3] [itunes] [Bookmark Episode]
Guest Information
Episode Description
How challenging is it for you to find a work, home balance? Are you struggling to juggle all the moving parts of your life and find happiness? Well today's guest, Victoria Huff will have some encouraging words for you. As founder of TheHappyExecutive.com, she will share steps to show you ways to find happiness and increase your productivity.
Transformation for Success
Tuesday at 12 Noon Pacific Time on VoiceAmerica Empowerment Channel
Are you looking for something more, better or different? Here is your opportunity. Transformation for Success will help you discover a future for change with possibility thinking, new vision and creative solutions to impact a more fulfilling lifestyle. Dr. Barbara Young, an accomplished leader and change guru provides empowerment commentary and interviews with successful personalities from such diverse fields as the movie/TV entertainment industry, technology, corporate leaders, authors and healthcare industries. Our topics cover creating lasting transformation in challenging and conducive environments, while entertaining how creating change can have an impact on the success of individuals from a mind, body and spirit perspective. Transformation for Success airs Tuesdays at 12 PM Pacific time on the VoiceAmerica Empowerment Channel.
Dr. Barbara Young
Dr. Barbara Young is an internationally sought-after speaker/consultant on leadership development and transformation success. She is an educator, life coach, author, transformation success expert and television/radio talk show host. For 25 years, Dr. Young has worked with professionals and world leaders from Fortune 400 and 500 companies, academic institutions, city municipalities, health care agencies and non-profits. She is passionate, high energy, spiritual and dynamic. She excites, inspires, educates, empowers, challenges and helps individuals and organizations to use transformational principles personally and professionally for success that she designed from a "holistic" perspective. Her view is radically unique. She provides this perspective via her workshops, speeches, private coaching sessions and specially designed life growth "Personal Best" Success seminars. More importantly, she offers success solutions and results that work.
Dr. Young shares her definition of transformational change and success with the "how-to" principles she mastered in her own life experiences that led to transform her life. Her professional careers include: counselor, higher education senior level administrator, professor, entrepreneur and talk show host. Dr. Young is the powerful "Dr. B" who has inspired to action some of the most successful people across the world who has transformed their lives today.


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Artist description:
The other main character of my favorite tv show, Castle. Detective Kate Beckett played by Stana Katic [Link]
Flash Draw Created May 05, 2012 460 x 640px Unless noted Copyright 2012 Pareeeee.
We encourage you to submit a comment and let the artist know what you think of this drawing. Please log in or join to post a comment.
Post a comment
awesome pic!!
awesome drawing! 5/5
How'd I miss this one!? It's beautiful. Come back buddy, I miss you and your art :)
Hey! Every time I visit drawchat you're not there!!! Where'd YOU go?
No one is ever there when I go on D: Lol. In about a week I'll be on holidays so hopefully I can catch you on sometime then? :D
awesome drawing! 5/5
Very nice work! :) 5 hearts
Wow! Great drawing!
wowsers great syle +5
Fabulous draw! 5h
Very nice she is beautiful...5/5
beautiful portrait !


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New York, April 24, 2012--Brazilian political journalist and blogger Décio Sá was shot and killed Monday night in the city of Sao Luis in northeastern Brazil, according to news reports. The journalist was sitting in a bar waiting for a friend when an unidentified man entered, walked to the bathroom, and shot Sá six times before fleeing the scene with a motorcyclist who was waiting outside.
Sá, 42, wrote about politics for 17 years for the local newspaper O Estado do Maranhão and on his personal blog, Blog do Décio, which was one of the most widely read in the state, press reports said. Sá's blog was known for critical reporting on politicians and corruption, according to Cezar Scanssette, a journalist with O Estado do Maranhão. Due to the nature of his reporting, the journalist had "many enemies," Scanssette told CPJ. Scanssette said he was not aware of Sá receiving any threats.
Investigators told reporters that the murder was a contract killing carried out by "professionals" who had most likely mapped out the journalist's daily routine. Police said they would be looking into Sá's blog as a possible motive for the murder.
"We are deeply saddened by the killing of Décio Sá," said Carlos Lauría, CPJ's senior Americas program coordinator. "Brazil is leading the region in journalists murders this year, a terrible record compounded by a pattern of impunity. Brazilian authorities must fully investigate this crime, determine the motive, and prosecute those responsible."
The day of his death, Sá wrote on his blog about the trial of gunmen implicated in a murder that was allegedly ordered by a local businessman from a political family. Officials also told reporters they would investigate whether the killing was linked to another case Sá reported, in which a local politician was implicated in a prostitution ring and the murder of a university student.
José Sarney, president of the Brazilian Senate and whose family owns the O Estado do Maranhão, called the crime "an attack on democracy." Sá is survived by his wife, who is pregnant, and an eight-year-old daughter.
In February, two Brazilian journalists were murdered in one week. No one has been arrested in either case. Brazil appeared for the second consecutive year on CPJ's Impunity Index. Last week CPJ wrote to President Dilma Rousseff to express concern about this record and other recent actions taken by the Brazilian government that contradict the president's expressed commitment to guarantee freedom of expression and make human rights a priority.


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Tool for Improving "Mark All" Speed in Contract Administration
One of my users complained recently that, when using the "Mark All" button on the Revenue Recognition screen in Contract Administration (Dynamics GP: Transactions: Contract Administration: Revenue Recognition), it would sometimes take 6-8 hours for the process to complete. This was not to post the revenue, merely to mark all of the records in the window for processing.
Now, in some of our larger company databases, over 30,000 records were being marked to process, due to a combination of:
- # of contract records
- the business process of recognizing multiple months worth of revenue
Clearly, this is not an acceptable amount of time to wait for a process to complete. I arranged to do a SQL trace while the user clicked the "Mark All" button. I found that the Revenue Recognition window would run a SQL stored procedure (SVC_Check_Contract_Revenue) for every contract record in the window to determine if the contract was "Marked to Post" by another user. If so, a message would display, alerting the user to the fact that another user had a record marked to post. Technically, the code was:
- examining the SVC00625 table (SVC_Contract_Revenue_WORK)
- looking at each contract/fiscal period combination to see if another user also had that contract/fiscal period record marked to post (MKDTOPST = 1).
The key thing I found was that this routine was being run row-by-row, one record at a time. Even though the check was very quick to complete for any one given record, the number of records it had to check added up to the 6-8 hours I mentioned earlier. Fortunately, I was able to devise a solution to this issue. In reality, my users did not care if someone else posted the record, and did not need to know which contract in question was going to be posted by someone else. It was enough for them to know "Hey – some of the records you want to mark are currently marked by someone else. I'm going to skip marking those particular records, and just mark the ones that are safe to post." By taking this approach, I could craft a routine which would work on ALL records at once, which was orders of magnitude faster.
The solution I devised to this problem involved 4 components:
- I modified the Revenue Recognition window to add my own "Mark All" and "Unmark All" buttons. I hid and disabled the actual "Mark All" and "Unmark All" buttons in Modifier.
- I created a custom stored procedure (X_OT_SVC_REVREC_MARK_UNMARK_ALL) to mark all/unmark all records to post. It will skip any records marked by other users, and raise an alert if any are found.
- I added VBA to the window which will call the procedure when either of the buttons are clicked.
- I noticed that the window did not refresh to show the buttons as checked/unchecked after the stored procedure was run. I also noticed that if I clicked the "down" arrow on the keyboard, the line would refresh. So, I recorded a macro of pressing "down" 16 times (as that's the number of rows that show in the window) which is then called from the VBA code.
If you're experiencing slow performance when marking/unmarking all, try using the code pack below to implement this solution in your environment (test first!). Instructions on how to install are included, as there are a few tweaks you will have to make based on how your environment has been crafted. If you have questions, or if this solution helps you out, please leave a comment below!
Download the package here: Enhanced Mark All Revenue Recognition Routine.zip


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Bill Rundell, Denver MS, Spends One Year on a Montana Reservation and Helps...
The Blackfeet Build
Their Future
By ROBERT PARKER /Editor
The two-story office and factory sits on the edge of town amid Ml grass, rutted roads, and the stark beginnings of an industrial park. A saw-toothed mountain range looms through the haze like the intangible dream that sustains the people of Browning, Montana.
Who are these people, and what is their dream?
In the office of BIDI, the roster of employees begins the story. It includes names like: Edward Conway, Dale Salois, Frank Harrison, Jr., Joe Crawford, Merle Trombley . . .
And: Francis Bull Calf, Aaron Shootsfirst, Clarence White Grass, Irvin Spotted Eagle, Galen Arrowtop .. .
The story of BIDI (Blackfeet Indian Developers, Inc.), like that of Montana, is the story of red men and white men struggling to earn a living from the northern plains. From the white trappers' invasion of the early 1800s, to the decline of the buffalo and the rise of Indian reserva-tions at the end of the century, and to the Federal pro-grams of today — it is a story at times of conflict, at times of cooperation.
Despite the protestations of the American Indian Move-ment, the decade of the 7D's shows some evidence of be-


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e-Profile is a user generated profile of an individual. Wikipedia and similar sites do not allow people to create pages of their friends, e- profile does. Create a profile of your best friend here and tell the world what great person he or she is. e-mail with the word "Contributor" in message line to cmh at aded.co.za Become a contributor or simply add a comment. For a free entry go 2:For your free directory entry.
Friday, 18 November 2016
Ameenah Gurib-Fakim,
President of the Republic of Mauritius Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, Feel free to add your comment. For a free directory entry go to:For your free directory entry.Do you know this person? Add to this page. Do you know anything more? Add to the page.
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Alumni Association
Everyone benefits when you stay connected after you graduate. You benefit by having a powerful network of Wabash contacts around the world. You benefit by remaining in touch with faculty and staff members who serve as life-long mentors and role models. Your fellow Wabash men benefit as they count on you to be there when your support is needed. Future Wabash men benefit when you help recruit talented young men for your Alma Mater.
Continue to develop and strengthen the connections you have formed as a Wabash man. Reach out to others and build your social network. Keep your contact information current so you can reach out to others with similar interests and goals and they can reach out to you.
The Wabash alumni website should be your first information stop as an alumnus. Check out the news, the calendar, and the Class Communication section for the latest on your classmates, teammates, fraternity brothers, etc.
The on-line database, Alumni eServices, gives you quick access to the latest contact information for other Wabash men. You can also update your contact information directly on the web site. It's yours for life and at no cost. The database is updated nightly, so it's your most up-to-date information available within the Wabash network.
Wabash Magazine is yours for life. Just make sure you keep your contact information up to date. Published four times annually, it weaves a wonderful campus tale through compelling words and pictures.
You remain a member of the Wabash Works network in the Schroeder Center for Career Development – you don't need to do a thing but stay active.
Meet other Wabash alumni, parents, and friends by joining a Wabash regional association in your area.
Follow Wabash on Facebook. Join the Wabash Linkedin group, which is now more than 5,000 members strong. Follow us on Twitter. Access is in the palm of your hands via smart phones, tablets and other devices.
You're a Wabash man for Life - Seriously!
Alumni & Parent Programs
Hays Alumni Center
P.0. Box 352
Crawfordsville, IN 47933-0352
email: firstname.lastname@example.com


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Welcome to Café Espresso's place on the internet.
Café Espresso, located in Portsmouth, NH has been serving outstanding breakfasts for many years. With fresh ingredients, passionate chefs, and fast friendly service, Café Espresso is one of Portsmouth's favorite breakfast spots.
Come have your eggs, any style, or try one of our amazing egg benedicts. If your really hungry, try our Pancake, Waffle, or French Toast piglet. It is sure to fill you up. Let us know which one is your favorite! Or start your weekend with one of our great daily specials and a mimosa! Breakfast just how you like, delicious, fast, and affordable.
- Fresh Baked Pastries
- Fresh Coffee from Port City Roasters
- Easy parking
It only takes one visit to see why everyone is talking about Café Espresso!
We are conveniently located in Downtown Dover at 471 Central Ave and in the heart of Portsmouth at 800 Islington Plaza, across from Hannaford Supermarket. Come in and check out our famous breakfasts at a great price, all day long. You can find our menu right here, and don't forget to stop in to check out our daily specials, they are creative and delicious.
And don't forget about our new lunch menu. Come in and try our homemade soups, creative salads, wraps, panini's, and our famous burgers. We have something for everyone with our veggie wraps and burgers.


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On Exhibit: Rocky Shore
Animal Facts
Scientific Name
Haliotis sp
Animal Type
5-12 inches (13-30 cm), varies with species
octopuses, nudibranchs, other snails; Phylum: Mollusca; Class: Gastropoda
depends on species—from intertidal ledges down to the deep reefs at 213 feet (65 m)
Natural History
A flattened, spiral shell protects this marine snail's muscular foot—a highly prized dish on seafood menus. Those holes on the edge of the shell serve several functions: they release eggs or sperm, discharge metabolic wastes and allow water to flow out after passing through the animal's gill chamber.
Mostly sedentary, an abalone clings to rocks while waiting for a piece of kelp to drift nearby. The abalone clamps down on the kelp with its foot and then munches on the seaweed with its radula—a rough tongue with many small teeth.
Abundant 30 years ago, abalone once supported huge commercial and sport fisheries. Due to overfishing and disease, today's abalone face extinction—the white abalone is officially listed as an endangered species. To protect abalone, strict fishing laws have been enacted. For example, laws prohibit commercial abalone fishing, and sport fishermen may take only red abalone—with a limit of three animals per day, and a total of 24 animals a year. Many more restrictions apply to abalone fishing—be sure to check them out if you're thinking of diving for abalone.
In the U.S., commercial fishing for abalone has ceased. Find out more about the sustainability of farmed abalone as a seafood choice in the Seafood Watch section of our web site.
Cool Facts
If an abalone is touched by a sea star, it twists its shell violently to dislodge the intruder and then gallops off—abalone style.
An abalone's blood is blue-green. Since the blood contains no blood-clotting mechanism, an injury can be fatal to the abalone.
On the black market, abalone sell for as much as $100 each. Poaching and selling abalone is a risky enterprise though: one poacher was sentenced to three years in jail and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.
Abalone produce pearls by secreting a shell over parasites or irritating particles of gravel that lodge in their flesh. Some abalone farmers, hoping to harvest pearls at a later date, are now seeding abalones.


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It's a long way from the Limousin region of France to a blueberry patch in Oregon, but when the two collide the result is a luscious dessert called a flognarde. A what? They - the ubiquitous 'they' - insist a clafouti made of anything other than cherries is a flognarde. I'll accept that as long as they're willing to admit that this simple dessert - a cross between a pudding and a cake - is one of the glories of the French peasant table. It's best served warm and eaten the day it's made.
Blueberry Flognarde
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
2 large egg yolk
1 large whole egg
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup 2 % milk, scalded and kept warm
1/4 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups blueberries, picked over, rinsed and dried
Confectioners' sugar for dusting
1) Adjust a rack to middle-third of oven. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Generously butter or spray a 9-inch flan or cake pan. Set aside.
2) Combine sugar and egg yolks in a large bowl; beat at medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes, or until eggs are thick and lemon colored. Add whole egg and mix to combine. Add butter, a tablespoon at a time, beating to incorporate after each addition. Reduce speed to low; beat in flour, salt, then milk and, finally, lemon zest, lemon juice and vanilla extract.
3) Pour batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle berries over top of batter; press down lightly. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until the batter sets and top is brown. Cool slightly. Dust with confectioners' sugar. Serve warm. Yield: 8 servings.


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Tag Archives: Survival Horror
A Game of Survival: How Indie Developers Revitalized Survival Horror
The original Resident Evil, or Biohazard as it is know outside of the US, sunk its teeth in me at a fairly young age. Countless hours were spent roaming the halls of the mansion, my ears perked for the slightest sign of the undead.
I've been a gamer since I can remember, and there are plenty of games I enjoy, but those early Resident Evil titles had something that has become increasingly rare throughout gaming as a whole. They were challenging. That's not to say they were overly difficult, but rather that they asked more from gamers than the usual fare. Ammo was scarce. Rooms required thorough searches as their contents largely determined life or death. Health did not regenerate. My knife was pathetically weak, only usable as a last resort. I was forced to seek out gasoline in order to burn the dead lest they rise again and devour my foolish adolescent self. Every window brought the threat of zombified dogs so intent on devouring me that they would leap through the glass in pursuit. Even the number of times I could save was limited to the number of ink ribbons I managed to find. And it was for all of these things that I fell hopelessly in love with the game.
Other games like Dino Crisis, Fatal Frame, and the spectacular Silent Hill were soon to follow, leaving a host of sequels in their wake. Resident Evil 2 and 3 served up more of the nail-biting suspense delivered so perfectly in the first game, and gamers ate it up. Survival horror was going strong, terrifying gamers late into the night, challenging them to persevere in hopeless situations.
Fast forward a few years to the release of Resident Evil 4. As anyone will tell you, RE4 is a spectacular game. However, it isn't a survival horror game. Instead of combing through dimly lit corridors in search of keys and ammunition, RE4 focused on putting the player into a Hollywood blockbuster, giving them ammo hand over fist and setting up the next set of targets as soon as the current group had been obliterated. The franchise had shifted into the landscape of action games. Although the horror aesthetic remained, the tension was largely absent. Out of ammo? Switch to a different gun. Better yet, just buy more.
The game was remarkably popular, and its near-perfect scores from all the major gaming magazines cemented it at the forefront of a trend that would alter the course of survival horror games, essentially diverting their lifeblood into the effort to create games for the action crowd. For a time, action horror took the center stage with franchises like Dead Space, Left 4 Dead, and the now mutated Resident Evil. As far as big developers were concerned, survival horror had taken a backseat.
The rebirth of survival horror first started in 2007 when indie developer Frictional Games released a terrifying little game called Penumbra. Unlike most main stream horror games, Penumbra didn't drop boxes of ammo at the player's feet. In fact, Penumbra didn't even bother to give players a gun. Armed with nothing more than a flashlight, glow stick, and eventually a hammer and ice pick, the game left players remarkably vulnerable, conveying a sense of helplessness not seen in gaming for some time.
Players took on the role of a man who travels to Greenland to unravel the mystery surrounding the contents of a safety deposit box left behind by his late father. It doesn't take long for the player to become cut off from the rest of the world, falling down a mine shaft into what appears to be a military installation left over from the Second World War.
Technically, the game was nothing groundbreaking, but the feeling the experience evoked in players was impressive. When describing the game to a friend, I said it was the closest I'd ever come to experiencing John Carpenter's The Thing first hand, a statement which still holds true. Penumbra worked to create fear in meaningful ways. Hiding was vital to survival, and yet the mere sight of certain enemies could cause the protagonist to panic and reveal his position. This left players crouched behind stacks of crates as they listened to something that sounded like the equivalent of a lion pass by, their imagination working overtime as the protagonist's heartbeat sounded from the speakers. Like survival horror games of old, the environments were confined, making the player feel claustrophobic and remarkably exposed. On more than one occasion I found myself staring into a small space I'd have to crawl through, listening to something crawl around somewhere inside. The atmosphere and sense of complete helplessness gave the game its flavor.
Several other Penumbra games followed, and although they garnered a cult following, they remained relatively under the radar of most gamers. It wasn't until Frictional Games' next project, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, released in 2010 that the company's following exploded. Amnesia used many of the mechanics found in Penumbra, but with several tweaks and a new setting. Rather than exploring the secrets of the frozen north, players awoke to find themselves in a castle, and, true to the game's title, suffering from a case of amnesia. Like Penumbra, the protagonist was affected by fear, only the fear was quantified in the form of a sanity meter. Actions like traveling through an unlit room or stumbling upon a corpse would reduce a player's sanity while standing in a brightly lit area would restore it. However, this time around players weren't even given the luxury of a hammer as a defense, but rather a lantern and nothing more. A lantern that consumed fuel and attracted unwanted attention. Hiding in the dark made the player's brain turn to mush until bugs crawled over the screen and the protagonist dragged himself around the floor by his chin, but the alternative was never much better. Like the characters in the best mythos tales, players were doomed no matter what they did. As with its predecessor, the strong sense of atmosphere and mortality made Amnesia into something special. The game was a huge success, selling well over a million copies, quite a feat for an indie developer. Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs followed in 2013, it's preorder scrolling across Steam's featured items screen with all of the other big-budget titles. Survival horror had its pulse back.
A more recent release on the road to survival horror's revival was 2013's Outlast from Red Barrels Studios, another indie company. Founded by former Ubisoft employees and industry vets behind games such as Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, and Assassin's Creed, the team took their years of experience along with the recent trends set by Frictional Games to push the envelope and bring the new brand of survival horror not only to the PC, but to the newly released PlayStation 4, dragging the long lost horror elements back into the living room. Once again, players were isolated and helpless, taking on the role of a journalist investigating strange reports from an insane asylum. The protagonist's only possession? A handheld camera with night vision. Like Amnesia's lantern, the camera burned through energy and needed to be fed new batteries periodically, which could leave players stumbling around in the dark with the crazies. While Outlast didn't feature any sanity meter as Amnesia did, the horror elements were plentiful. My heart raced more than a few times, particularly during the game's opening scenes.
Last year also saw the release of State of Decay, an Xbox Live arcade game now available for PC through Steam. The game placed players in an open world environment during the aftermath of a zombie outbreak, prompting them to gather limited resources, recruit survivors, and establish strongholds against the undead hoards. The catch? If a character died, even the protagonist, they were gone for good, and the game went on without them by switching the player to another survivor. This concept of mortality, that players are not unstoppable killing machines, is what makes this new wave of horror games compelling. You are weak. The world is frightening. You can lose. This debut title by indie developer Undead Labs quickly sold over a million copies.
With so much money being brought in by these indie companies pushing boundaries, it's no surprise major developers are following suit. Sega's Alien: Isolation is slated for release this Fall, and despite the last few Alien games being complete flops even in the eyes of the action gamers for whom they were intended, Isolation certainly looks promising. Rather than blasting through hordes of xenomorphs, players must survive against a single alien without the use of weapons. Judging from the gameplay released by IGN, it would appear that the developers have chosen to draw inspiration from Ridley Scott's film rather than James Cameron's, for which I am extremely grateful.
At last year's E3, Bethesda showed a demo of new survival horror title The Evil Within. The game is being developed Shinji Mikami, the man behind the original Resident Evil, and promises a return to the roots of survival horror. And so we come full circle.
However, just because the big names have taken notice doesn't mean the indie developers are done. Far from it. Frictional Games is set to release SOMA, their latest project, sometime next year. This time players will find themselves in a futuristic science fiction setting, and from the footage released thus far, the experience looks to be every bit as terrifying as falling down a mine shaft or waking up in a castle without a working memory.
Undead Labs is hard at work on an MMO in the same vein as State of Decay, and Red Barrels is nearing the release of Outlast: Whistleblower, a DLC prequel to the original game. There's plenty of gore and suspense on the horizon, and I for one cannot wait to start rationing my ammo and hiding in the back of closets.
Posted in Articles, Blog, Video, Video Games Tagged Alien: Isolation, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Biohazard, Dead Space, Dino Crisis, Fatal Frame, Horror in Video Games, Left4Dead, Outlast, Penumbra, Red Barrels Studios, Resident Evil, Sega, Shinji Mikami, Silent Hill, State of Decay, Survival Horror, Undead Labs, Video Game Culture, Video Games 1 Comment


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Agent: Central Islip gangster said he killed mom, not son
An FBI agent testified Tuesday that a member of the MS-13 street gang confessed to him that he had killed a 19-year-old Hempstead mother, but did not murder the woman's 2-year-old son.
Sean McMullen, an agent with the FBI's Long Island Gang Task Force, said that shortly after he began to question Adalberto Guzman, then 17, the Central Islip resident admitted to killing the mother, Vanessa Argueta, 19.
But Guzman said that another MS-13 member fired the two shots that killed Argueta's toddler son, Diego Torres, McMullen testified at the U.S. District Court in Central Islip.
Guzman is on trial for racketeering conspiracy to murder both Argueta and Diego, as well as murdering each of them.
Federal prosecutors John Durham and Raymond Tierney have said that a number of government witnesses will testify later in the trial that Guzman boasted of killing the 2-year-old and even talked of keeping a toy ball that Diego played with, eventually giving it to the daughter of a girlfriend.
McMullen said that he flew to Miami International Airport in May 2010 to question Guzman about the February murders that year in Central Islip, after he was arrested trying to re-enter the United States on a flight from El Salvador.
Guzman was "extremely calm, poised" in recounting the killings, after initially denying that he was involved, McMullen said under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham.
McMullen said that Guzman spoke in fluent English. Guzman was born and raised in the United States, first in California and then on Long Island, officials have said.
According to Guzman's confession, McMullen said, MS-13 members decided to "drop," or murder in their slang, Argueta, because she had "disrespected" the gang by trying to have rival gang members beat up her former MS-13 boyfriend.
Guzman said that he, the former boyfriend, Juan Garcia, and a third member, Rene Mejia, then went on a "mission" -- MS-13 slang for an action to commit murder. McMullen testified Argueta took Diego along.
Guzman claimed that they told Argueta that they were going into a wooded area in Central Islip to smoke marijuana, McMullen said. But when they entered the woods, Mejia and he shot Argueta.
Diego began "screaming and crying" and the ex-boyfriend then fired two shots into the 2-year-old's head, according to Guzman's account, McMullen said.
Mejia has pleaded guilty in the case, and Garcia is being sought.
On cross-examination, one of Guzman's attorneys, Gary Villanueva, noted that McMullen had gotten Guzman to sign an acknowledgment that he had been informed of his Miranda rights, but not of the notes taken of his supposed role in the killings.
McMullen said it was FBI policy not to do so.
In his opening, Villanueva said that his client is being framed by government cooperators.
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President Obama's May 9 announcement of his support for same-sex marriage unsurprisingly prompted immediate opposition from his detractors on the right, but it has found support in an unlikely place. In a sermon posted on the web last Friday, Senior Pastor Frederick D. Haynes III of the Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas blasted his congregation and other pastors for their outrage over Obama's announcement, and, over shouts of disapproval from parishioners, unflinchingly declared his support for the president and the gay community.
Haynes said of Obama:
"He swore to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution – not the Bible, but the Constitution of the United States. He is not the pastor of the United States, he is the President of the United States. And for the first time in the history of this nation we have a president who has dared to use his position to make the democratic promise available not just for a select few, but for everyone."
Haynes went on to express disbelief at the overwhelmingly negative reaction of black churches to Obama's new stance, demanding an explanation from his flock.
"You should have seen pastors scurrying and hurrying to call out the president on what he said was a personal opinion. But whenever you like to ostracize other people it's because there's a fear that you have yourself, and the fear that you have finds itself rooted in an ignorance of other people. Or in a projection of your issues. Either there's ignorance or there is a projection of your issues… It really blows my mind how outraged you are. You are so outraged over what the president said. First of all, take a chill pill. Take a deep breath. Everything's going to be all right. You will not lose your 501(c)(3) if you do not marry same-sex couples. But I've got a question for you. Why are you so upset? Why did it bother you so? Why were you so emotional that you had to clothe your anger with the Bible and justify your bigotry with scripture? Why did you have to do it?"
Haynes added:
"Have you ever read the Gospel and heard Jesus say anything about homosexuality? …Black folk can't even deal with homosexuality because we got issues with sexuality. And because we got issues with sexuality we can't have a healthy discussion about homosexuality. Why, why do you get so upset? Why are you so mad at the president?"
Amid shouted objections and booing, Haynes continued, "Why are you so angry? Jesus never said a word about it. … Maybe we need to talk about what issues you may have. Evidently you've got some major issues or an ignorance rooted in fear." In response to the crowd's obvious displeasure, a resolute Haynes told his congregation, "Y'all not feeling this, but I'm going to preach the gospel anyhow. We love to judge other folks' sins because it keeps it off of us as opposed to looking at us."
When President Obama unequivocally declared his support for gay marriage following years of "evolving" on his position, political experts across the country predicted swift backlash from the black community.
This has not been the case, says Cal Jillson,a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
While Jillson concedes that polling suggests that African Americans tend to be more resistant to gay marriage, "The mistake was in assuming that that fact would overwhelm the very broad and deep support that African Americans had for President Obama in 2008 and still have today.
"Obama won the black vote 19 to 1 over John McCain in 2008. McCain got about 3 percent of the black vote, and Obama got the rest. And that is up from the normal 10 to 1 advantage that blacks give to the Democratic Party."
Despite the fact that Obama's announcement caused "significant disappointment in some quarters of the black community," Jillson predicts that black Americans will continue to vote Democrat "in overwhelming numbers" in 2012.
"All voters make their decisions based on a wide range of issues. Gay marriage is only one of those issues. I think the number of black voters who would say, 'I liked Obama in 2008, but now because of this one judgment I'm not going to vote for him' will be very small. That will be an uncommon reaction. So I don't think the Obama announcement is going to have a significant effect on the polls," Jillson said, adding, "He's not going to win 19 to 1 this time around; I think he'll lose a little bit of his support among blacks, not simply because of gay marriage, but because of a whole range of things that have disappointed many Americans, the economy being foremost among them. So rather than the normal 10-1, they may give Obama 15, 16, or 17 to one rather than 19 to 1."
According to a May 23 Washington Post/ABC News poll, 53 percent of Americans overall say gay marriage should be legal. Most of those surveyed said Obama's stance on gay marriage would not be a major factor in their vote for president, and those who said Obama's new position would make them more likely to support him for a second term were about equal in number to those who said it would make them oppose his reelection.
The poll also found African American support for same-sex marriage at 59 percent, up from 41 percent in polls prior to Obama's announcement.
Religion continues to be a powerful force in the formation of political ideology. "Americans fundamentally believe in fairness, but many, like the President, have struggled to reconcile that core belief and the question of marriage equality," Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese said in a press release following the President's announcement. "The President's words will no doubt inspire thousands more conversations around kitchen tables and in church pews. We are confident that our nation will continue to move inexorably toward equality and we thank the President for so boldly leading us in that direction."
Added Jillson, "I think many ministers steer clear of politics because they have congregations that might be divided in terms of partisanship or ideology. Many black ministers face an overwhelmingly democratic congregation, and some of those black ministers are used to talking about politics in their sermons and leading their congregations in terms of how to view various candidates and issues – and that's certainly the case across much of the South, and Texas, and in Dallas… Ministers in the South are used to talking to their congregations about politics, but they're used to having a congregation that shares their view pretty uniformly."
The tense scene that took place at the Friendship-West Baptist Church last week may be a sign of the changing national discourse on marriage equality.


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Statements on Auditing Procedure
Issued by the Committee on Auditing Procedure, American Institute of Accountants, 13 East 41st Street, New York 17, N. Y.
Copyright 1943 by American Institute of Accountants
No. 19
November 1943
Confirmation of Receivables (Positive and Negative Methods)
"EXTENSIONS OF AUDITING PROCEDURE," approved by the member-ship of the American Institute of Accountants and issued in 1939, contains the following recommendation:
"That hereafter, wherever practicable and reasonable, and where the aggregate amount of notes and accounts receivable represents a significant proportion of the current assets or of the total assets of a concern, confirmation of notes and accounts re-ceivable by direct communication with the debtors shall be re-garded as generally accepted auditing procedure in the examina-tion of the accounts of a concern whose financial statements are accompanied by an independent certified public accountant's report; and that the method, extent, and time of confirming receivables in each engagement, and whether of all receivables or a part thereof, be determined by the independent certified public accountant as in other phases of procedure requiring the exercise of his judgment."
It will be noted that the method of confirming receivables in each engagement is left to the judgment of the independent certified public accountant as in other phases of procedure requiring the exercise of his judgment.
Generally speaking there are two methods of confirming receiv-ables by direct communication with the debtor, known as the "positive" and the "negative" methods. When the "positive" method is used a communication is addressed to the debtor asking him to confirm to the independent public accountant the accuracy or other-wise of the balance shown. When the "negative" method is used a communication is addressed to the debtor asking him to advise the independent public accountant only in cases in which the amount stated is incorrect.
In dealing with confirmation of receivables from the government, the committee stated that "Extensions of Auditing Procedure" "did


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Nov. 9, 2000
By JOE TONE, Editor-in-chief
The Santa Clara
SANTA CLARA, Calif. --Dustin Warford squeezes a Rawlings NCAA basketball under his left elbow while he peers upward into the unforgiving eyes of all-conference guard Brian Jones. Then, inside the Malley fitness center on this early Saturday morning, he waits.
He waits for an assistant coach to bark out instructions on what play to run and how to run it. He waits to put the Rawlings on the floor, for the moment when he will immediately be engulfed by the superior size, skill and speed of Jones. He waits, intently and eagerly, for his basketball career to resume.
For Warford, and most walk-ons that take the practice floor for Santa Clara's men's and women's basketball programs, this moment - when their opponent is their teammate, the ref is a whistle-less assistant and the only spectators are the rest of the team - isn't just a small part of their basketball career. It actually is their basketball career.
Walk-ons are unrecruited athletes who try out for a team. If they make it, they get minimal game opportunities to show if they can play - a concept which isn't exactly incredibly rare for Santa Clara basketball. Good walk-ons, however, are. Every season, several high-hope freshmen contact women's coach Chris Denker and men's coach Dick Davey interested in trying out. Every season, after a couple days of conditioning and realizing that college basketball isn't exactly the same as that high school junk they used to dominate, those several dwindle to two or one, or even none. "That happens a lot," Denker says. "On the first day of conditioning, they usually realize it's not for them."
The one's who stick with it, like Warford, usually make their only contributions to the team in practice, and aren't encouraged to return after one year.
"Don't put yourself through the punishment of practice," Davey will tell walk-on athletes after a year of service.
Davey told this to Warford, but apparently, the idea didn't stick. Warford returned for a second, third and eventually his fourth season this fall. He still works as hard as anyone on the team, Davey says, but is still not threatening enough to crack the coach's rotation.
"It's a business," Warford says. "Coach Davey's pretty straightforward (about playing time)."
But just because they're told up front that they aren't going to play, walk-ons normally don't just accept their role as a practice player. Women's guard Caroline Gruening walked on in 1998, and appeared in only 11 games as a freshman. Two years later, she's on a scholarship and is a major contributor: she scored eight points to go with five rebounds and five assists in 30 minutes in the Broncos' exhibition opener last week.
"(Walk-ons) can be extremely valuable," Denker says.
But while Gruening has been able to surpass some of her scholarship teammates and eventually show in games that she is worth forking over money for, Warford hasn't. Although Davey was able to "reward" him with scholarship money last season, this season he's back to being a walk-on, and in no season has he seen the floor enough to contribute in game situations. Last season, he played in only 11 games and averaged less than two minutes of court time in those games, despite enduring the grueling regimen of a Division I college basketball team. Maybe Coach Davey should have done a little more discouraging. Or maybe not.
"Sitting on the bench isn't always fun," he says. "But it's not that I haven't worked hard. There are just some good players ahead of me. BJ's good. Brian Vaka, Delano (D'Oyen), even the freshman, Kyle Bailey - they can play."
This is what stands in the way of most college walk-ons: recruited athletes who not only can play, but who are getting paid to play. Walk-ons, meanwhile, just have to sit around and wait. Wait, like Caroline Gruening did, for players to slip up or get injured so she could prove herself. Or wait, like Dustin Warford does, for his career to resume, and eventually end, at Saturday-morning practices with all-conference guards smothering and hounding him while he tries his best to prove that he too can play. There are other options, for Warford, though, right? He could always just ask Coach Davey for more playing time, couldn't he?
"I'm a basketball player," he says. "I'm not dumb."