Kecharaeq2
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I have a sad case all around here. Those of you living in Arkansas may remember it. Please bear with me as it’s an odd case and in danger of slipping through the cracks. I know that the case was technically already solved but Rickey Newman was released from death row in 2016 and since then there has been no word on the case. Why? Because the police and prosecutor were convinced they got the right guy the first time. I’m not so sure, but either way, Marie Cholette and her family deserve the truth and if Rickey was found to be truly innocent, then he deserves it too.
For those not familiar to the case, here’s a brief summary:
On February 15, 2001, Benny Billy, a transient, notified the Van Buren Police Department that he had found a body in the Lee Creek Park area. Upon arrival, Van Buren police officers found the decomposed body of Marie Cholette, a forty-six-year-old female transient, in a make-shift tent composed of tarps and scrap lumber. Cholette had been mutilated. Her neck had been slit, and her torso had been sliced from the neck down to her pelvic area.
In the course of the investigation, the police officers questioned the appellant, Ricky Newman, also a transient and a “rail rider.” This occurred on February 15, 2001. Newman was unable to identify a photo of Cholette positively, but he told police officers that he had met a female by the name of “Hardhead” or “Hardhat” at the rescue mission in Van Buren. He stated that he and the woman had walked to a camp where the railroad tracks made a “T.” There, they met three people named Psycho, Snake, and Copper. He stated that everyone was “huffing” except for himself and that Psycho began talking about human sacrifice which scared him.1 Newman said he left and walked back to a friend's house.
You can find a lot of the information regarding Rickey’s court case here.
FindLaw's Supreme Court of Arkansas case and opinions.
Here are the police interrogation videos that got me looking at the case.
Pre arrest
Night of arrest
Post arrest
It’s a long slog to get through them all, but I’m curious to see how others interpret them. What I see is a false confession predicated by a police officer psychoanalyzing Rickey for over an hour. In that time, Rickey seems to go from adamantly denying the allegations to thinking that maybe he could have dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities) and just doesn’t remember the killings. The problems.
1. Cops aren’t therapists. Rickey Newman was seen by a couple of psychologists while incarcerated and was never diagnosed with DID. He was found to have an IQ of 67 however which would make him more vulnerable to suggestive tactics. He also has PTSD which, while it would make him more likely to disassociate, most likely wouldn’t cause him to have DID. More likely he would dissociate by remembering/reliving the past abuse he experienced as a child… more in the way of a panic attack.
2. Cops aren’t doctors. Prozac and Amitriptyline are 2 different antidepressants. From the interview, Rickey is on Prozac and a heart medication (not sure which). She apparently was found with Amitriptyline in her system. Also, antidepressants are more likely to cause agitation than stupor (except in cases of true severe overdose). Think about it, antidepressants are used to get people up and moving.
3. Cops should know better than to give suspects access to case file info before taking their confession. Enough said. The hot dogs he goes on about were in one of the several pictures he received. And he knows the camp location well so he would know what’s normally there.
4. Cops should be interested in forensic linguistics. What got me looking hard at the interrogations was some of Rickey’s language choices in the third video. It was the first time I heard a killer refer to his victim as a lady. I understand that killers generally distance themselves from victims by not using their proper names…. woman, girl, chick, bi**ch, etc. sure, but lady? It’s 2 very different ways of viewing the female gender. Also, ‘food terms’ rather than ‘hot dogs’? It sounded to me like one of the pretrial reports he received read something like, ‘a number of food items’. Also, it seems rehearsed, like he’s listing rather than remembering. His speech pattern seems more normal in the first 2 videos. Also, you can tell he’s either religious or had a religious upbringing by some of the things he says.
Why would someone give a false confession? Well, if you take a devout person with a low IQ and PTSD, tell them basically, ‘you know, we are pretty sure you did this but don’t remember because of DID’ and send them off into the world to think about that for a bit, things percolate. He actually explains why he’s confessing about 40 minutes into the 3rd video… he doesn’t want to hurt his mom or sister. I should mention, while he does have a criminal history, it seems to be for non-violent crimes (forgery and theft). There is also a Ricky Dewayne Newman in the system. Not sure if they are both him or 2 different people.
By the end of his 1 day trial, he was sunk by his own confession. As far as physical evidence goes, there were a few of hairs in the hobo tent, fingerprints on the AA book and a 3 hour window between brutally raping, killing, cleaning up, and getting back to town. I’m fairly intelligent and I don’t think I could do that well, especially with an unplanned kill.
So, did he do it? If not him then who?
This last part I’m adding as my motivation for wanting to investigate. It’s a quote from a newspaper made by Marie Cholette’s sister:
‘Denise Cholette said she didn't plan to tell Marie Cholette's two daughters, Angela Robinson and Danielle Soule, about the dismissal of Newman's charges because of the effect it would have on them.
"It was a difficult time in my life to lose my childhood playmate," Denise Cholette said of her sister's death.
She said she also believed that her sister's death caused the death of their mother. She said her mother, Ruth, grieved deeply after learning of Marie Cholette's death and died of a heart attack about a year later.
Even though they didn't have a body, Marie Cholette's family gathered in a Michigan church after her death for a service, Denise Cholette said. She said her sister's ashes were sent to her about a year after her death, and she keeps the urn in her basement.
The family never knew why Marie Cholette became a transient, Denise Cholette said. She once worked for Lockheed Missile and Space Co., in Bremerton, Wash., but lost it when violence in her marriage caused her to lose her security clearance.
The family lost track of her as she wandered the country with a succession of boyfriends, Denise Cholette said.
The last time she saw her sister was in the late 1990s when Marie Cholette and a boyfriend named Tom arrived at her home. Denise Cholette said she offered her sister a condo to live in as long as she would get a job to support herself. Marie Cholette chose to go off with her boyfriend, Denise Cholette said.’
So… there you have it two transient ‘rail riders’ in a transient population. People who really don’t HAVE a lot of friends and family to speak for them.
Thoughts?
For those not familiar to the case, here’s a brief summary:
On February 15, 2001, Benny Billy, a transient, notified the Van Buren Police Department that he had found a body in the Lee Creek Park area. Upon arrival, Van Buren police officers found the decomposed body of Marie Cholette, a forty-six-year-old female transient, in a make-shift tent composed of tarps and scrap lumber. Cholette had been mutilated. Her neck had been slit, and her torso had been sliced from the neck down to her pelvic area.
In the course of the investigation, the police officers questioned the appellant, Ricky Newman, also a transient and a “rail rider.” This occurred on February 15, 2001. Newman was unable to identify a photo of Cholette positively, but he told police officers that he had met a female by the name of “Hardhead” or “Hardhat” at the rescue mission in Van Buren. He stated that he and the woman had walked to a camp where the railroad tracks made a “T.” There, they met three people named Psycho, Snake, and Copper. He stated that everyone was “huffing” except for himself and that Psycho began talking about human sacrifice which scared him.1 Newman said he left and walked back to a friend's house.
You can find a lot of the information regarding Rickey’s court case here.
FindLaw's Supreme Court of Arkansas case and opinions.
Here are the police interrogation videos that got me looking at the case.
Pre arrest
Night of arrest
Post arrest
It’s a long slog to get through them all, but I’m curious to see how others interpret them. What I see is a false confession predicated by a police officer psychoanalyzing Rickey for over an hour. In that time, Rickey seems to go from adamantly denying the allegations to thinking that maybe he could have dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities) and just doesn’t remember the killings. The problems.
1. Cops aren’t therapists. Rickey Newman was seen by a couple of psychologists while incarcerated and was never diagnosed with DID. He was found to have an IQ of 67 however which would make him more vulnerable to suggestive tactics. He also has PTSD which, while it would make him more likely to disassociate, most likely wouldn’t cause him to have DID. More likely he would dissociate by remembering/reliving the past abuse he experienced as a child… more in the way of a panic attack.
2. Cops aren’t doctors. Prozac and Amitriptyline are 2 different antidepressants. From the interview, Rickey is on Prozac and a heart medication (not sure which). She apparently was found with Amitriptyline in her system. Also, antidepressants are more likely to cause agitation than stupor (except in cases of true severe overdose). Think about it, antidepressants are used to get people up and moving.
3. Cops should know better than to give suspects access to case file info before taking their confession. Enough said. The hot dogs he goes on about were in one of the several pictures he received. And he knows the camp location well so he would know what’s normally there.
4. Cops should be interested in forensic linguistics. What got me looking hard at the interrogations was some of Rickey’s language choices in the third video. It was the first time I heard a killer refer to his victim as a lady. I understand that killers generally distance themselves from victims by not using their proper names…. woman, girl, chick, bi**ch, etc. sure, but lady? It’s 2 very different ways of viewing the female gender. Also, ‘food terms’ rather than ‘hot dogs’? It sounded to me like one of the pretrial reports he received read something like, ‘a number of food items’. Also, it seems rehearsed, like he’s listing rather than remembering. His speech pattern seems more normal in the first 2 videos. Also, you can tell he’s either religious or had a religious upbringing by some of the things he says.
Why would someone give a false confession? Well, if you take a devout person with a low IQ and PTSD, tell them basically, ‘you know, we are pretty sure you did this but don’t remember because of DID’ and send them off into the world to think about that for a bit, things percolate. He actually explains why he’s confessing about 40 minutes into the 3rd video… he doesn’t want to hurt his mom or sister. I should mention, while he does have a criminal history, it seems to be for non-violent crimes (forgery and theft). There is also a Ricky Dewayne Newman in the system. Not sure if they are both him or 2 different people.
By the end of his 1 day trial, he was sunk by his own confession. As far as physical evidence goes, there were a few of hairs in the hobo tent, fingerprints on the AA book and a 3 hour window between brutally raping, killing, cleaning up, and getting back to town. I’m fairly intelligent and I don’t think I could do that well, especially with an unplanned kill.
So, did he do it? If not him then who?
This last part I’m adding as my motivation for wanting to investigate. It’s a quote from a newspaper made by Marie Cholette’s sister:
‘Denise Cholette said she didn't plan to tell Marie Cholette's two daughters, Angela Robinson and Danielle Soule, about the dismissal of Newman's charges because of the effect it would have on them.
"It was a difficult time in my life to lose my childhood playmate," Denise Cholette said of her sister's death.
She said she also believed that her sister's death caused the death of their mother. She said her mother, Ruth, grieved deeply after learning of Marie Cholette's death and died of a heart attack about a year later.
Even though they didn't have a body, Marie Cholette's family gathered in a Michigan church after her death for a service, Denise Cholette said. She said her sister's ashes were sent to her about a year after her death, and she keeps the urn in her basement.
The family never knew why Marie Cholette became a transient, Denise Cholette said. She once worked for Lockheed Missile and Space Co., in Bremerton, Wash., but lost it when violence in her marriage caused her to lose her security clearance.
The family lost track of her as she wandered the country with a succession of boyfriends, Denise Cholette said.
The last time she saw her sister was in the late 1990s when Marie Cholette and a boyfriend named Tom arrived at her home. Denise Cholette said she offered her sister a condo to live in as long as she would get a job to support herself. Marie Cholette chose to go off with her boyfriend, Denise Cholette said.’
So… there you have it two transient ‘rail riders’ in a transient population. People who really don’t HAVE a lot of friends and family to speak for them.
Thoughts?
