More yard work getting done from the hackberry collapse a few weeks ago. The tree service came out to grind the stump Friday. And since we’re spending money on trees, we’re having the big osage in the back yard taken down. It’s every bit as large as that hackberry was and it’s not healthy. If it goes the wrong way, it’d take out part of the sunroom.
I’ve had this dream since we moved here of putting some sort of treehouse or deck in this tree, because it’s got a huge set of limbs about eighteen or twenty feet off the ground where they all split off. I think most of the limbs probably aren’t strong enough now to support what I want, so I’ve asked our tree guy about only taking the crown of the tree so I can put a deck and gazebo up there. I’m not holding my breath that it’ll be in good enough shape for that to happen. But it’d be cool to do.
Genealogy Math
Always check your math in family research.
My 3rd-great grandfather Labon was born in 1821, to Katie. My dad didn’t have a father listed for her, and at the Smith reunion, I learned why; his mother wasn’t married at the time, and never fully admitted to who the father was. She gave vague hints, to be sure, and DNA research indicated those hints were likely correct. But other than my dad’s information and the family legend, I didn’t have any more information about her.
Off to FamilySearch I went.
There I found Labon, with Catherine Hand listed as his mother. That made me curious, since Hand wasn’t the last name I was expecting. It further showed her as married in 1802 with five children, including my Labon.
But it showed her date of birth as 1799.
And honestly, I breezed right past the issue at first. I was too focused on looking at her family and comparing them to the expected family. I felt like something was off, but I couldn’t quite figure it out.
In my defense, it was pretty late at night when I was looking at this. When it finally registered, I questioned my sanity for a moment and even pulled up the calculator to check the math.
Yep, 1802 – 1799 = 3.
The entry for Catherine Hand shows her married to John Smith at age 3. John was 47 at the time, and they supposedly cranked out five kids in the seven years they were married. Not impossible or even improbable for a normally-aged woman.
But John Smith died in 1809, and I can’t figure out how he could have fathered a child in 1821.
Pay attention to dates, and always check your math.
Dean Gillispie
Dean Gillispie spent twenty years in prison, wrongfully convicted of three sexual assaults. The detective in the case, Mathew Scott Moore, hid evidence and rigged witness lineups. Gillespie was finally declared wrongfully imprisoned in 2021, ten years after being released from prison and four years after being exonerated.
He sued the Miami TWP Police Department for his wrongful conviction and won a US $45 million judgment. But the township says it can’t afford to pay it and may declare bankruptcy.
Archived article at the Cincinnati Enquirer
Archived Dayton Daily News coverage
Somehow, the township is claiming—with a straight face, I’m sure—that Mr. Gillispie didn’t show “specific evidence of past, present, or future physical pain or suffering, and no specific evidence that Gillispie is reasonably likely to suffer any loss of enjoyment in the future.”
Seriously? The man spent 20 years in maximum security, was labeled a violent felon, and had to deal with being convicted of three sex offenses, and that’s not “suffering?”
In what world?
Look, I’m sorry for the residents of Miami Township (they live in Montgomery County in southwest Ohio). It sucks that their taxes are likely going to go through the roof. But how does that compare to what Dean Gillispie went through? Life as a convicted sex offender is no bed of roses, especially in prison. He was convicted of assaulting twin sisters in one attack and another woman in a second attack. Guaranteed he was targeted in prison, even in maximum security. Every time he got a new cellmate, he had to tell them what he was convicted of. It’s a ritual incarcerated people go through as part of their introductions. And it probably presented a real threat to his safety every single time, because prisons are not safe places for sex offenders.
The detective in the case used a photo in the lineup that was not the same as the others. It had a different finish and was zoomed in closer to Gillispie’s face than the other photos in the lineup. Those differences would emphasize his picture over the others and could encourage the victims to identify him.
Oh, and there were the receipts from the campground in Kentucky where Gillispie was at the time of the attack. The detective had those and failed to disclose them.
Matthew Scott Moore should have been criminally charged for what he did to Dean Gillispie and for what he did to the victims in this case.
What did he do to them?
He prevented them from getting justice for the crimes they suffered. They were assaulted in 1991. It’s a 34-year-old cold case now. They don’t get much colder. It’d be nice in my mind if they could sue the department and the former detective too, but because of court precedents and statutes of limitation, I doubt it’s possible. So they’ll slip through the cracks like so many other victims in similar cases.
2,703 of the 4,186 cases listed at the National Registry of Exonerations have two victims: the exonerated person convicted of a crime they didn’t commit, and the victim of the original crime.
Never forget them.
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