OH OH - William 'Bill' Comeans, 14, Columbus, 7 Jan 1980 - #1

I just found an open fb page for Bill. I ask to join.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/158081960953860/

I just received the next five articles but am running out the door to a meeting. I will post as soon as I get home.:maddening:

pdxmama said:

So, I actually asked a friend to pick up my kids so I could get these articles uploaded (I know, I know...) and when I click on the attachment button nothing happens. It worked perfectly for the first article and now nothing, any ideas? I've logged out and back in and it didn't seem to help.

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BTW, after you post the first article, you have to select "Manage Attachments" from the drop down arrow on the paper clip. That reopens the window so you can locate and upload more files, even in one post. You may never have had to reboot your browser? I think you'll see what I mean when you get to the next batch of articles.

Quoting us both here to follow up on a single point.
Both posts TBM:

Originally Posted by pdxmama
First attack (this info is different from what we had previously): Took place behind Prairie-Lincoln Elementary School at 4900 Amesbury Way at 8:30pm while he was on his paper route. He was on his bike and attacked from behind.

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GoingByMyGut said:

This is only a short distance from the high school -- about a half block up, going north on Galloway.

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BBM2: I wonder if you could add another pushpin to your map. Here's the issue. When I paste "Prairie-Lincoln Elementary School, 4900 Amesbury Way" into the search field to add another location, Google shows me the location I cite in BBM2.

HOWEVER, that location is actually the district's intermediate school, which has a different name and is on a different street (what's up, Google?!).

When I paste in EITHER "Prairie-Lincoln Elementary School" OR "4900 Amesbury Way" I actually get what I am looking for, the elementary school, and this is where I'd like to see another pin. I think this is the true location of the 1st attack. You'll see there's a big swath of woods behind it.

I would leave the high school pin in -- it's still relevant -- just add this one.

When you do so, an entirely different picture emerges for me. Suddenly the locations appear more clustered around the family home -- likely the perimeter of BC's paper route.

I am not sold on the theory that route competition is involved in BC's murder (though I like the observation that these carriers are on the street and see a lot), because AFTER the 2nd attack Bill quits the route, yet he continues to be stalked and ultimately killed.

However, the new clustering does suggest to me that the killers, or someone closely connected to the killers, may live in the neighborhood.

See what you think.

I think it was someone really really close to home. Like right on the same street. He was kidnapped off his own front porch, and then once when he was only going 2 doors away? And the neighborhood letters seem even weirder. It saddens me to think that LE did not even look at it or take it seriously until it was too late.

GoingByMyGut said:

Quoting us both here to follow up on a single point.
Both posts TBM:





BBM2: I wonder if you could add another pushpin to your map. Here's the issue. When I paste "Prairie-Lincoln Elementary School, 4900 Amesbury Way" into the search field to add another location, Google shows me the location I cite in BBM2.

HOWEVER, that location is actually the district's intermediate school, which has a different name and is on a different street (what's up, Google?!).

When I paste in EITHER "Prairie-Lincoln Elementary School" OR "4900 Amesbury Way" I actually get what I am looking for, the elementary school, and this is where I'd like to see another pin. I think this is the true location of the 1st attack. You'll see there's a big swath of woods behind it.

I would leave the high school pin in -- it's still relevant -- just add this one.

When you do so, an entirely different picture emerges for me. Suddenly the locations appear more clustered around the family home -- likely the perimeter of BC's paper route.

I am not sold on the theory that route competition is involved in BC's murder (though I like the observation that these carriers are on the street and see a lot), because AFTER the 2nd attack Bill quits the route, yet he continues to be stalked and ultimately killed.

However, the new clustering does suggest to me that the killers, or someone closely connected to the killers, may live in the neighborhood.

See what you think.

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BBM - Done http://goo.gl/maps/l3U0q

Yeah! It let me attach multiple documents!

Here they are, I'm too tired to read them all tonight so I'll check them out in the morning.

Neighborhood Saturated by Police


Mystery Still Lingers Over Death of Billy Comeans


Neighbor of Slain Youth Arrested for Penning Series of Death Notes


New Rome Woman Admits Threats to Neighbors


Terrorist Search Enlist Aid of Handwriting Analyst

OK, I'm not sleeping, I'm reading about being choked to the point of unconsciousness :smile:

Here's the thing. Everything I'm reading (and I don't have a really good, trustworthy link yet so this is not confirmed fact) says that if you are choked until you lose consciousness, as soon as the airway is no longer restricted you regain consciousness. If that doesn't happen, it's usually because there is some kind of damage to the brain due to lack of oxygen. Once you have been unconscious for 6 hours, it's considered a coma. BC was out for 5 1/2 according to reports.

So, if he has a rope tied around his neck, restricting his airway so that he laid unconscious for over 5 hours, how did he eventually wake up?

We've read that he eventually woke up and walked home at 1am but this story just doesn't add up to me. So many missing pieces.

pdxmama said:

OK, I'm not sleeping, I'm reading about being choked to the point of unconsciousness :smile:

Here's the thing. Everything I'm reading (and I don't have a really good, trustworthy link yet so this is not confirmed fact) says that if you are choked until you lose consciousness, as soon as the airway is no longer restricted you regain consciousness. If that doesn't happen, it's usually because there is some kind of damage to the brain due to lack of oxygen. Once you have been unconscious for 6 hours, it's considered a coma. BC was out for 5 1/2 according to reports.

So, if he has a rope tied around his neck, restricting his airway so that he laid unconscious for over 5 hours, how did he eventually wake up?

We've read that he eventually woke up and walked home at 1am but this story just doesn't add up to me. So many missing pieces.

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BBM1: Right -- this is why you can't kill yourself by choking -- you would pass out before you were dead.

BBM2: As I've said, this is troubling me too. I'm repeating myself, but I wish we knew whether they did a tox screen (wouldn't this be SOP?). I suppose he could have initially passed out, then slept? The stress/trauma could have physically exhausted him? I mean, he's just a kid -- at that age my daughter might not have woken up for 12 hours. I have the impression that BC used the word "unconscious" -- but how could he tell the difference between that and sleep? All that said, I strongly suspect some sort of drug, the effects of which lasted the length of time he slept.

BBM3: I don't think we really know that his airway was restricted while he was unconscious or asleep. I actually think if he was, he wouldn't have lived to tell the tale, or he would have been comatose/brain dead.

The use of a pharmaceutical would also explain how the killers were able to spirit him away the night he died. I wonder what was available at that time?

pdxmama said:

Yeah! It let me attach multiple documents!

Here they are, I'm too tired to read them all tonight so I'll check them out in the morning.

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Thank you! Very busy day ahead. But when I read these, I can finish the case info sheet/timeline.

GoingByMyGut said:

BBM1: Right -- this is why you can't kill yourself by choking -- you would pass out before you were dead.

BBM2: As I've said, this is troubling me too. I'm repeating myself, but I wish we knew whether they did a tox screen (wouldn't this be SOP?). I suppose he could have initially passed out, then slept? The stress/trauma could have physically exhausted him? I mean, he's just a kid -- at that age my daughter might not have woken up for 12 hours. I have the impression that BC used the word "unconscious" -- but how could he tell the difference between that and sleep? All that said, I strongly suspect some sort of drug, the effects of which lasted the length of time he slept.

BBM3: I don't think we really know that his airway was restricted while he was unconscious or asleep. I actually think if he was, he wouldn't have lived to tell the tale, or he would have been comatose/brain dead.

The use of a pharmaceutical would also explain how the killers were able to spirit him away the night he died. I wonder what was available at that time?

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BBM1 - Me too.

BBM2 - True. I guess they could have thrown the rope around his neck, tightened it until he passed out, thrown him in the bushes and driven away, at which point the rope loosened and, though still unconscious, his airway was no longer restricted.

To me, the two prior attacks support this being killers who were not experienced and didn't realized what it took to actually strangle someone.

pdxmama said:

BBM1 - Me too.

BBM2 - True. I guess they could have thrown the rope around his neck, tightened it until he passed out, thrown him in the bushes and driven away, at which point the rope loosened and, though still unconscious, his airway was no longer restricted.

BBM2: To me, the two prior attacks support this being killers who were not experienced and didn't realized what it took to actually strangle someone.

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BBM1: That's my thinking as well.

BBM2: Totally agree.

Earlier in the thread (post 26) I mentioned that I thought it might be "the early experiments of a psychopath." I kind of got away from that since then (with the whole high school bully connection), but I am returning to it. My sense now is that it's someone who knew BC peripherally.

I mean, take the car -- yes, aqua cars (and who knows what someone means by aqua, so I'm including all strains of light blue in my mind) may have been more abundant then, as more cars from the 60s were still on the road and this was a more popular color then. But it still would have been easily picked out. As heavily as LE was investigating this, I think they would definitely have followed that lead. To me, that means no one at the high school had such a car, or those who did were eliminated by alibis and character.

Perhaps one of the two killers lived in the neighborhood, and the one who owned the car lived outside it. Or maybe one of them only lived in the neighborhood formerly, and knew Bill as a golden child in former days, which may have made him derisive out of jealousy. If these two creeps wanted to experiment, I could see the thinking going, "we'll bring him down a peg." Or maybe they just thought he'd be an easy target.

There could be a third individual that went to BC's school -- or maybe knowing BC's locker number (and those of his BFF and GF) is an argument that one of the killers did indeed live in the neighborhood. (I am assuming the school notes are connected, but the later notes are not.) But then again, in those days schools weren't as well protected. During a HS's after-school activities, anyone could walk in ... I'm just not sure, in this case, how someone from outside the school would know which lockers to put the notes in. Would finding them in an unlocked front office be a stretch? They would have been in a hard copy folder back then, not on computer.

The thing that bothers me is that I can see no reason for anyone to be THAT angry at BC or that determined to kill him. I think they may have plucked him from the range of people they barely knew (and slightly resented) to carry out their sick little agenda.

However, the other strange thing is the fact that there are TWO assailants and presumably killers. Who was leading whom? Are they friends or relatives? Do they share a motive? Or was one more motivated to kill Bill than the other? Are they both young or is one older? The success rate of their efforts suggests both young and fumbling, but I think one could have been more eager, aggressive, or in charge. Another possible motive could be jealousy over a girl. It sounds like BC inherited the paper route from his brothers, so I don't think it was someone who formerly had the route.

Just thinking aloud ... I think I would look at neighbors who moved before 1979 and who had sons in the age-range of 17-21 in 1979-80, then at the kids those sons were connected with socially. Did they remain connected with anyone still living in the neighborhood? Not sure of course how you would even do this.

Okay, off to work --

The two assailants really bothers me also. I almost wonder if they never meant to kill him but just meant to assault him and scare him (like most bullies would) and it went too far the last time.

This is such a strange case-how could this boy be in the position 3 times to be accosted by thugs, someplace so close to home, and it seems, the police were not on notice? That's awfully bold, and almost implies that the perpetrators did not fear getting caught, unless they were psychopaths

pdxmama said:

Yeah! It let me attach multiple documents!

Here they are, I'm too tired to read them all tonight so I'll check them out in the morning.

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I've gotten through three of these and there are some surprises, but I'm getting a cold and don't have it in me to post right now. The third article ("Neighbor of Slain Youth Arrested for Penning Series of Death Notes") is cut off at the bottom. There could be a paragraph or more missing in each of two columns? Just wondering if that's the way it looks on your end too. More tomorrow.

pdxmama said:

Yeah! It let me attach multiple documents!

Here they are, I'm too tired to read them all tonight so I'll check them out in the morning.

Click to expand...

Article two was very informative.
1. Toxicology report says he had Valium in his system. No one knew where he got it.

2. The first two scenes there was no sign of struggle. The third scene was disturbed by too many people.
3. It had rained two days before the second attack, but Billy's light color pants and shoes showed no signs of soil. This was when he was passed out under a tree for five hours.
4. He was given a lie detector test that showed signs of him trying to conceal something.
5. A teacher told police he had been asking how you could make yourself pass out.
6. FBI ruled his death inconclusive. Ny detective auto asphyxia- which was also want the local LE believed.

GoingByMyGut said:

I've gotten through three of these and there are some surprises, but I'm getting a cold and don't have it in me to post right now. The third article ("Neighbor of Slain Youth Arrested for Penning Series of Death Notes") is cut off at the bottom. There could be a paragraph or more missing in each of two columns? Just wondering if that's the way it looks on your end too. More tomorrow.

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Feel better soon!

Yoda said:

Article two was very informative.
1. Toxicology report says he had Valium in his system. No one knew where he got it.
2. The first two scenes there was no sign of struggle. The third scene was disturbed by too many people.
3. It had rained two days before the second attack, but Billy's light color pants and shoes showed no signs of soil. This was when he was passed out under a tree for five hours.
4. He was given a lie detector test that showed signs of him trying to conceal something.
5. A teacher told police he had been asking how you could make yourself pass out.
6. FBI ruled his death inconclusive. Ny detective auto asphyxia- which was also want the local LE believed.

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Yoda said:

Feel better soon!

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BBM1: Yes, there sure are some surprises there! I was really stunned by the turnaround of LE in this article. If it's possible to come to dislike two detectives from a single news article, that's how I came away feeling. In spite of the new evidence, I had the sense these two felt they were above the coroner's findings. Some thoughts:

* The valium makes perfect sense to me. I am grateful that it may mean BC didn't know what hit him the night he died. IMO, it also potentially validates the 5-6 hour "nap" after the second attack, as well as possibly the fuzzy mindedness I am attaching to BC's inability to describe his assailants after both attacks. Sticking with the possibility of attackers, they stepped up their game with the choking each time, maybe they did so with the drug doses too? Valium is fast acting on injection -- I remember that an oral surgeon used it for my daughter's 3-hour bony impacted molar surgery years ago in an IV drip and it was considered "general anesthesia." Also, it is an amnesiac -- it causes forgetting of anything you were conscious of when you were on it!!! For me, this drug explains the lack of struggle in all attacks, as well as the lack of struggle.

* Was it this article or one of the others that says, at the time of assault #1, BC was on a trail 50 yards into the woods behind the elementary school? Is that a shortcut somewhere, I wonder -- home perhaps by way of the RR tracks? I have the sense that, at the time of this article anyway, LE "reads" this as BC seeking privacy.

* Yes, the "crime scene" was probably quite a mess, and it probably hurt LE and the coroner not to see the way the scarf was tied around Bill's neck. But -- hello! -- breathing was a little more important at the time. It disturbs me that these two cops called the crime scene a "death scene." It was NOT. BC died at the hospital. The crime scene was a mess because human beings tried to save the boy's life! They seemed to ignore that little detail ...

* Can a lie detector test be reliably administered to a 14-year-old?! I thought it could not be given to kids because of their impressionability/suggestibility and the blurry line between imagination and reality? Does anyone know how this is seen today?

* And the teacher -- well, if all teachers were saints, I'd have no problem with this, but they are ordinary people with all sorts of personalities (helpful and, well, not so much). We are not told when BC asked the teacher this Q, but given the fact that the first attack happened so close to the beginning of the school year, I am guessing the convo occurred at least after that and maybe even after the second one. What if BC's Q was a reaction to LE's suspicion of him? By that time, LE may have already been taking samples of Bill's handwriting to rule him out in the case. Maybe he said to the teacher "How could I have made myself pass out?" and the teacher (or LE) took it out of context? LE sure likes hearsay when they think it works for them ...

* We are supposed to believe that a 14-year-old sought "self-gratification" outdoors?! And his routine was to take valium first? And to do it in the middle of delivering papers or collecting for his paper route? Give. Me. A. Break. So I guess then that quitting his paper route was a deliberate cover for his actions?

Sorry about this little rant -- I read this stuff before bed last night but it's only just now that it's getting me P.O.'d. Last night the "new evidence" these two detectives gave made me take a step back. But this morning I realize how discredited it must have made the family feel -- both for themselves and their son. It feels like slander to me. I think one of the red flags in this article is the detectives' lack of professionalism and any regard for the family --- they are blase about publicly brandishing their POVs; they brazenly disregard the coroner's findings; and they make the official designation of homicide seem like a well meaning but uninformed decision. (IOW, they don't only discredit Bill, they discredit their own.) Did anyone else feel the arrogance in their position, or am I overreacting?

The next articles are an eyeful too because of the development that the 54-year-old mentally disturbed neighbor confessed to sending the letters between July and Oct. 1980.

BBM2: Thanks, Yoda

Oh wow, I'm sick too so I haven't read the articles myself. I'm pretty surprised about the Valium. I wonder if there was any way to determine how it was administered? Would there still be pills in the stomach contents? Is it standard to look for injection sites during autopsy?

I'm off to read through now.