A store surveillance picture of murderer-suicide Pawan Kumar, from June 16 or 17, 2012By Nicholas Stix
Sunday, June 24, 2012, 6:40 p.m.
Expanded on Monday, June 25, 2012, 1:02 a.m.
Everyone in the following story says what a sweet, wonderful (not to mention, beautiful) girl Danielle Mehlman was. Then what was she doing, letting a swarthy foreign stranger lavish expensive gifts on her, while humiliating him in front of other strangers, by showing off the gifts, while going out of her way to emphasize to them that she wasn’t sleeping with him, had no interest in doing so, was sleeping with another man, and was interested in sleeping with yet others?
Am I missing something here?
As my VDARE colleague Brenda Walker has emphasized time and again, and as I know firsthand, immigration is extremely stressful. Many people cannot handle it.
Pawan Kumar claimed that his parents and sister lived her, but that appears to have been the cover story of a desperate killer on the run.
On top of dealing with someone under the stress of having immigrated from a very strange culture, sexually humiliating a man is unwise, unkind, and unsafe, no matter where he hails from. A reader observed,
A supposedly naïve, sheltered Victorian era lady knew one didn't accept gifts from men, unless he was a relation or fiancé. They understood about sexual jealousy. Modern women are knowing, yet seem to know nothing.
But it get worse. The liberated female was not alone. She had someone who was totally dependent on her.
On second look, maybe not totally. The victim was listed as living in Bensalem, PA, while her son was listed as living in Voorhees, NJ.
Will we learn of the possibly chaotic lives that led these two to cross paths? The character of today's multicultural journalism, in which crimes committed by protected groups are reduced to cliches such as "senseless violence" makes that possibility increasingly unlikely.
Next story!
Warning: I am usually the most tolerant guy on the internet when it comes to anonymous cowards who know absolutely nothing about the crime in question, yet who feign omniscience, often insisting they knew the victim, and telling me, “You don’t know what happened, you weren’t there.” However, I have momentarily reached my limit with such characters, and will consign their sage observations to spam, right from the get-go.
DELAWARE: Dewey Beach murder: The final hours
A tale that starts with gummi bear shots in a Dewey bar and ends with a suicide in a New Jersey hotel
By Sean O’Sullivan and Jesse Paul
June 23, 2012, 8:58 a.m.
The Daily Times/Dellmarva Now [Gannett]
Hours before she turned up dead in a Dewey Beach motel room, Danielle Mehlman was at a nightspot in town with Pawan Kumar – the man authorities believe later killed her – doing gummi bear shots with a Wilmington couple and showing off jewelry given to her by Kumar.
Dan Caputo and his fiancée, Cheri Duvall, said they did not sense any issue or tension between Mehlman and Kumar, although they were a bit puzzled at the exact nature of the couple’s relationship.
Caputo said at one point, they referred to Kumar as Mehlman’s “boyfriend” and she quickly corrected them to indicate he was not.
“She didn’t consider the relationship dating,” Caputo said. “She said, ‘he likes to buy me things,’ and showed us this jewelry, a gold necklace and two bracelets. She said right in front of him, ‘I’m not having sex with him, I’ve got a boyfriend.’ ”
Caputo said that it didn’t seem as if Mehlman was being mean, that she was matter-of-fact about it.
Hours after having drinks with Caputo and Duvall at Jimmy’s Grill, Mehlman’s body was discovered in a room at the Atlantic Oceanside Motel, the first homicide victim in Dewey since the resort incorporated 31 years ago.
Kumar’s body was discovered about 24 hours later at a motel in New Jersey, an apparent suicide.
Interviews with Caputo and Duvall, and with the cabbie who drove Kumar from Dewey to Wilmington, provide a picture of events in the hours before and after Mehlman’s death.
Caputo said due to the fact it was late on a Sunday, they were just about the only people in Jimmy’s Grill besides the bartender, which is apparently why Mehlman struck up a conversation with them at the bar. “She was a bit more tipsy than him,” Caputo said, but Duvall said she did not appear to be drunk.
From the conversation, Caputo said he understood that Mehlman and Kumar had only known each other a short time, perhaps a week.
“I never got a clear explanation as to how they met,” he said, or why she was down at the beach with a man she did not consider to be her boyfriend.
“I think he thought there was more going on in the relationship than she did,” Caputo said, adding that he had difficulty understanding what Kumar said due to his accent.
Kumar, a citizen of India, was in the United States on an H1 B work visa, said Harold Ort, in a statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Newark, N.J. The News Journal was unable to determine where he worked or how long he’d been in the country.
Mehlman, who was from Bensalem, Pa., told Duvall that she was a schoolteacher, and media reports said she was a teacher at Planet Abacus Charter School in Philadelphia. Site Director Claudia Lyles said Mehlman had previously worked at the school but did not work there this school year.
“She was not here during my time here,” Lyles said. “I’ve been here since the end of November.”
Mehlman worked occasionally at the The Oasis, a gentleman’s club on Essington Avenue just outside of Philadelphia, according to a manager and dancer there. The manager, who identified himself to a reporter but asked that his name not be used, said Mehlman hadn’t worked there long, but once every few weeks would work the 9 p.m.-2 a.m. shift.
The manager said she “was a very sweet girl. She really hated to [work at Oasis]. She was very beautiful, and we hate to lose her. She didn’t cause any problems.”
A Delaware State Police detective visited the club as part of the investigation into Mehlman’s killing, the manager said.
At Jimmy’s Grill, Duvall said she chatted with Mehlman about where to go and what to eat in Dewey Beach. “She was really friendly and told me she was a schoolteacher.
We ‘friended’ each other [on Facebook],” she said, adding Mehlman took a picture of them with her cellphone and promised to send it to them over Facebook.
“While we were sitting there, she showed me a couple of texts from a guy she said she really did like,” Duvall recalled, saying the text was “something about ‘Where are you, I want to see you.’ ”
But, Duvall said, Mehlman reiterated in regard to Kumar, “I’m not going to have sex with this guy because I don’t love him,” but she added that Kumar was next going to take her to buy a Coach purse.
“I guess close to 9 p.m., they said they were going to the Starboard and they wanted us to go,” Duvall said. She and Caputo begged off. “We left and went home [to a beach house] and that was the end of it,” he said.
“Nothing seemed out of the ordinary,” Duvall said, adding she now regrets not going with them to the Starboard. “I have this strange feeling that maybe we should have gone.”
“She really wanted us to go,” she said.
About 10 hours later, just after 7 a.m., Beach Ride Taxi in Lewes got a call from someone who wanted a ride to the Wilmington train station. When dispatch asked him for his name, the man said, “you have my number, that is enough,” according to 56-year-old Jim Allen, owner of Beach Ride.
Allen himself went out on the call and arrived at Old Inlet Bait and Tackle nearly four miles south of the Atlantic Oceanside Motel to pick up his fare. He found a man, whom he later identified to police as Kumar, waiting outside with two plastic bags filled with clothing.
Allen said he immediately recognized the man.
“I saw [Kumar] get thrown out of the Starboard at 10:30 the night before while I was dropping off another fare,” Allen said. “I saw him in the parking lot [with] the bouncer grab[bing Kumar] and pushing him out like ‘you’re not welcome here.’ ”
Allen asked Kumar to show him proof that he had cash to pay for the ride, at which point the passenger pulled out a fistful of bills. Allen asked him how he had gotten to the tackle shop, but Kumar refused to answer.
As the two started heading North on Del. 1, Kumar changed his mind about where he wanted to go and told Allen to take him to 3120 Naamans Road –Kumar’s last known address, according to police – which he said was his parents’ apartment.
“I could barely understand his English, his accent was so heavy,” Allen said. “I asked him to write down the address so I could put it in my GPS. He kept asking every 10 minutes how far away we were.”
Allen tried to strike up a conversation, which, he said, was “like trying to pull teeth.”
“[Kumar] said he was down visiting friends and that his car had broken down,” Allen said. “He told me that his parents owned two businesses in Wilmington and that he had a sister who was in law school at Widener.”
Kumar said that he had only been in the United States for two weeks and was heading back to India on July 1 to attend medical school, Allen said.
At about 9:40 a.m., the pair arrived at the Stratford Apartments complex in Brandywine Hundred, where Kumar paid the $344 fare, with no tip, and Allen drove away.
“He just seemed very, very nervous,” Allen said. “He was disheveled and had the same clothes on as the night before. You could tell he hadn’t shaved.”
At around 10:45 a.m. Monday, a housekeeper at the Atlantic Oceanside Motel in Dewey Beach found Mehlman’s body in a ground-floor room. Police said she had been stabbed multiple times.
A couple staying in the motel said that it was a quiet night and they didn’t see or hear anything unusual.
Sometime after he was dropped off in Brandywine Hundred, Kumar made his way to Belleville, N.J., just north of Newark, according to police.
On Monday night, Kumar checked into the Belleville Motor Lodge and told the clerk he would be checking out the next day, according to the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office. When he failed to check out on Tuesday, employees tried to contact him and found the door to his room was locked.
Belleville police were called and found Kumar’s body in the room and a suicide note, said Deputy Chief Mark Minchini. The medical examiner attributed his death to an overdose.
“There was no information that [Kumar] had any specific links to Belleville that would explain why he went there,” said Katherine Carter of the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office.
State police confirmed Thursday that Kumar had used the cab service to reach Wilmington and said they had investigated evidence in Allen’s car and had spoken to Caputo.
Sgt. Paul Shavack of the Delaware State Police said despite the fact that the suspected killer is dead, an aggressive and thorough investigation is continuing. He said they are still proceeding as if it was a criminal investigation and plan to release the details when it is complete.
Looking back,Duvall said she gets a sick feeling and wonders if Kumar was thinking or planning about what he would later do.
Caputo wonders if Mehlman’s off-hand comment dismissing her relationship with Kumar – and stating that she would not have sex with him – set Kumar off in some way. “I just keep thinking back and wonder if we never had that conversation,” he said.
The couple said they did not realize the importance of their Sunday night meeting until Tuesday when they picked up a copy of The News Journal and read about a murder in Dewey Beach. Caputo then went to delawareonline.com to read more.
That’s when he saw the picture of Kumar released by police and called over his fiancée.
Their first reaction was that it looked just like the person they had met. They didn’t realize it actually was him until they read the story and saw the names.
“When I saw the picture and read the article, I just started to get tears in my eyes,” Duvall said. “Really, it just puts a big lump in my stomach. We really had a good time and planned on keeping in contact. She was so nice.”
[I thank the anonymous reader who sent me this tip.]
27 comments:
Just so you're aware, the Prom picture of "Danielle Mehlman" is not the same Danielle Mehlman that was murdered..
A supposedly naïve, sheltered Victorian era lady knew one didn't accept gifts from men unless he was a relation or fiancé. They understood about sexual jealousy. Modern women are knowing yet seem to know nothing.
You sure? They both seem to have the same nose.
The lesson is not to get hooked on someone obviously out of your class/league ... looks wise, or anything else. Because when that person breaks up with you (which they eventually will, when they ask themselves, "Why am I dating beneath my station?) or finally levels with you after deciding to end their flirtation ... YOU will get very depressed when you realize you will probably never date someone that nice again. ~SoCo
So... it's her fault she got murdered? I don't understand the point of this article, other than to blame the victim.
While I respect the fact that everyone is entitled to their own opinions, it is a true shame that someone such as yourself would put such a spin on this situation. This was my sister, my family, and you are speaking like you are some master investigator in this and know all the details through and through. Do you not have a heart? or dignity? or respect for what those of us who knew and loved Danielle are going through? I'm not saying that much of the situation makes sense, because it doesn't. But the fact that you would indirectly imply that this was brought on by her own doing, that it was her fault, is wrong, so very wrong. It in no way justifies Mr. Kumar killing her. Angry, upset, hurt, these are reasonable reactions. Murder is not. You speak in your article of people "claiming" to know Danielle, etc.......yet you speak as if you know everything and know so much about her. Truth is, the only thing you know is what you've read online. Show a little respect for our family and let this be.
Mr. Stix,
While I respect the fact that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and have the right of free speech, I must admit that I am not a fan of this article. In reading the article, you indirectly imply that it is the victims fault. I agree that there are many people who claim to know the victim and truly don't, and others that claim to know all the facts but truly don't. However, your article is based purely on what is already posted online, just with your own opinions and spin put into it.
You see, Danielle was my sister. There will never be justice since Mr. Kumar took the cowardly way out of dealing with his actions. He was a big enough man to kill her but not man enough to face the consequences for his actions. None of us will ever know or understand what led up to this. But for the sake of our family, please don't imply that this was Danielle's fault. We are all devasted enough. Put some thought behind your "reporting" and think of those of us who did truly know her and love her before you imply such things.
Dear Ms. Blakley,
I extend my condolences on your loss. However, I offer no apologies for what I wrote.
I am a crime writer. Doing my job requires my making moral judgments. You are telling me, in so many words, to retire from crime writing.
Did you tell the reporters whose work I based mine on that they were “insensitive”? If not, why not? Everything that I wrote explicitly was based on clear implications that they made in their story. If you don’t believe me, go back and re-read their story.
Did the witnesses whose on-the-record statements heavily influenced me, misrepresent your sister?
If you want to fill in the gaps of what the reporters have so far written about your sister’s demise, and/or correct their errors, and/or explain how your sister came to be in the position she was in, please be my guest. However, as I made clear in my column on your sister’s murder, I am not a “sensitive” cliché-monger.
I have seen a few murder victims in my day, and I’ve survived many a murder attempt. I seek to understand how crimes come about, and how people can protect themselves from becoming crime victims. I am particularly concerned about white women who recklessly put themselves in harm’s way, a topic I have repeatedly written on. Then again, I’ve written on probably over 1,000 other crimes, as well.
I’m probably even more concerned about seeking justice for crime victims, and often follow up on the same crime for years on end. As you noted, however, when your sister’s killer committed suicide, that matter became moot. Nowadays, that is the closest approximation of justice that most survivors will ever see—suicide by the killer’s own hand, or suicide-by-cop. Today’s criminal justice system rarely metes out serious punishment to those who commit heinous crimes.
We live in a very dangerous time, in which any one of a thousand little oversights or errors in judgment can cost a person his life, especially a woman. Lazy crime writers who deal with murder as superficially as possible, and thereby avoid giving offense, are a dime a dozen.
I don’t see how I can do my job diligently and assuage your feelings.
Sincerely,
Nicholas Stix
This is absolutely disgusting... Absolutely no reason to be murdered.
First, RIP Danielle. She did not deserve what happened to her. I feel terribly sorry for her little boy and my condolences to her family.
Here's my take on why this happened, after reading this story and assuming that everything reported here is true. This guy must have seen her at the Oasis and plied her with more money than the other customers and so she must have given him extra attention. This would have led him to think there was something going on between them, and she may have "gone along" with it outside the club to get him to ply her with more gifts. He thinks there's something going on between them; she thinks there's nothing there and when matters come to a head, he killed her in a fit of rage. And when he realized the situation he was in, he decided to take his own life.
There was a similar famous case of Tennessee Titans QB Steve McNair who got into a relationship with a young waitress, plied her with bling and a SUV and even told her it was serious and when she realized it was not, she shot him and later herself. I don't want to make any moral judgements, but it should serve as a warning to both men and women who get into relationships that are not "relationships" just because of other advantages.
Well, she was a prostitute who was playing game to extort money from this innocent naive man. She does not appear to have a profession other than this. Therefore, she could have been killed by one of her other clients ("boyfriend"),
May "Danielle Mehlman" RIP. I fell sorry for her and her family and specifically to the cute little four year old. None of my below comments are meant toward Danielle Mehlman.
White Female with the Third World? Do you think that White females are angles and innocent? You can see these angles in CL personal - causal Encounters section a lot. Are we still living in 18th Century?
Have you been to the so called third world country. You have to go there to see so many White prostitues. Its all money for many of the so called White females. If money is there they will do anything.
Please dont generalize and degrade a country for some crime Mr Nicholas. Look around this country where many are living a worst life than persons in many countries in Africa. We are going down while the so called third world countries are growing faster. Remember our president went begging to the contry you are referring as third world country for $10 billion defence deal, which they didn't give a shit. And still we are begging them to open the FDI so that our Walmart, Target , Costco and others can do business. Last but not theleast, we are begging them to give Atomic power plants contracts while sending a double agent by name David Headely to commit terrorism in their country. Dont we look like a third world country now?
"Well, she was a prostitute who was playing game to extort money from this innocent naive man. She does not appear to have a profession other than this. Therefore, she could have been killed by one of her other clients". And this indian guy killed himself as he would have been in the situation.
You bloody Jerk,
Pawan Kumar was from India and India is not a third world.
U r such an a$shole with pathetic attitude ..you racist
An immigrant need not always be in stress.
By the way you are offending India by calling it third world. Did you even know how many scientists in US hail from India? Please get your facts and do yourself some favor. Be respectful to others!
Otherwise you'll be a Racist writer vs Crime writer
Its a sad that something happened like this. This kind of event creates stereotype thinking. The murderer deserved it. I have no remorse over his loss.Only god would know what happened in that room.
At the end - May their souls rest in peace
We are assuming Pawan is the killer although the sources don't confirm that yet. All the information available are only stating that he is the prime suspect just because a couple met them at a nightspot or because the guy was the last one to be seen with Danielle - however this doesn't confirm that he is the killer.
What could be appropriate at this moment is to pray for these souls to RIP and keep their families in our Prayers.
On a side note, Mr Nicholas Stix you shouldn't be addressing a country like India as Third World. Also the immigrant(s) you are talking about are no stranger because you are forgetting that America is not just land of opportunities but it is the land of immigrants. When it was discovered people migrated from different countries and it has all kind of races, religion & nationals.
It would be inappropriate & immature to come up with such a header
I work in Dewey, and can quite reliably state that Kumar and Mehlman came to town together (in her car), checked into the motel together (Kumar registered with his actual name & Wilmington address) and were seen around this very small resort town by many people - fellow bargoers, motel workers, store clerks - on that Sunday. Anyone who doubts that Kumar was the killer, or smells some kind of harebrained conspiracy, is sadly deluded.
@"John"
Reading your syntax and grammar makes it obvious that you are not an American. More likely the resident of the "Third World" country referenced in this thread.
Nicholas, like a true crime writer made few appropriate observations and some of them can be inuendoes, unless we have some mechanism to know the minds of two persons who met only for two weeks
The crime reporter obvously make less than half of what Pawan was making and doing this for the fun of it than anything else.He , ofcurse makes very valid observations like Victorian,immigration is stressful,From strange(but victorain) alien culture.....
Victorian,Stressfull immigration and alien from strangs culture(may Victorian culture) are important observations made by the crime writer who may probably less than half of what Pawan was making but doing it for fun.
Nocholos made a good observation"They both have same nose"
Mehlan is 26 and already lived her full life with 4 year old kid living away from her. She goes on a dating website as she cant' find any in the immediate surroundings.Small teacher a long time back and a reluctant(???) stripper and she has car, no body knows how she got it.
Pawan on the face of it has good education and sound job. He is probably naive compared to Mehlan a far as life experience is concerned. With his kind of background, no Whiteman(or African American) of American orgin would have given a second look if they had known that she is stripper.Pawan may not have known that she was stripper. Big mystery is that, why he was buying her so many when he is expected to leave USA on july1st.
Let some of the readers understand this and we will come back with more ...Vishnu1
Nicholos Stix some times gets carried away with his so-called investigative journalism. Every body knows that crime reporting doesnt' need any great intelligence. It just needs some imaignation, some commonsense and little bit of English(Which all Americans have it). He goes beyond his mandate(becuase he claims that he is crime writer and not and economist or public policy formulator), when suggessting that Cognizant emply only American "Top Flight" as if to feel that he has become "Mark Zukerberg" by setting up a smnall time website/blog and making little bit money from the clicks of desperate whitemen.Doesn/t he know that American schools are producing quite a few strippers like Mehlan??
Hope he gets some donations and use them for purchase of gadgets to his son,ala john Edwards.
Nicholos himself said that he has first hand knowledge of immigration and who are those driveby American commentators??
vishnu
I came across this article. While I am not an Indian immigrant, but I belong to the community and I have relatives that are.
I am guessing this guy has had some psychological issues that were never dealt with as psychiatric care is not sought in India, even if they sport some of the world's best docs and engineers.
THen you have a case of a shameless golddigger who probably met this guy on craigslist's casual encounters(which is used by a lot of women as an indirect way to prostitute themselves).
As far as the victim's comment that she wouldn't have sex with that guy, I agree with the other couple that this probably set something off in this loser guy. But the interesting thing is they were registering in hotel rooms together. I have a hard time that she didn't provide at least non emotional sex with him and her comment reflected merely that she was not comfortable disclosing that in public. Which still probably set him off because he realized he was a mere john to her. She probably insulted him in some way when he pestered her later that night in the hotel and probably told her to explain her comments at the bar. Then this wretched excuse for a human being murdered her in a fit of rage.
Moral: if you are going to be a golddigger, don't play with fire. There are plenty of level headed guys who will willingly accept such an arrangement. If you do this with some stranger off the net, you are really gambling with your life, no matter what race or nationality the guy is.
Post a Comment