Monday, April 27, 2015

Remembering 19-Month-Old Christopher Marchiselli, One of New York’s “Disappeared” Murders

 

[Previously, by this writer:

“Gloria Cadet Case: NYPD Gets Caught Hiding a Murder (Again)”;

“‘Disappearing’ Urban Crime”;

“From Compstat to Fakestat: The Epidemic of Fraudulent Official Crime Reports”; and

“Stix Vindicated! Academics, Magazine Confirm Big City Police Are ‘Disappearing’ Crime.”]
 

Under Mayor Ed Koch, the year 1988 saw a record-breaking number of murders in New York City, 1,896. We can only imagine what the true total was.

However, even that phony number was exceeded the following year, with a new record 1,905 official murders, and that new record was completely shattered in 1990, the first year of the reign of “racial healer,” black socialist David Dinkins. Dinkins’ rule, by far the bloodiest in New York City history, saw the following official numbers for murder: 8,340 in four years, for an annual average of 2,085.

1990: 2,245
1991: 2,154
1992: 1,995
1993: 1,946
 

Leftwing NYC Family Court Judge Rhoda Cohen Transforms Gruesome Murder of 19-Month-Old Son Through Scalding and Drowning into Misdemeanor Child “Neglect”

By Nicholas Stix
August 7, 2012
WEJB/NSU

I found the 24-year-old article below when I was looking for material on Bronx Family Court Judge Rhoda Cohen, who was the worst family court judge I ever dealt with as a foster-care caseworker, a lifetime ago. For Judge Cohen, it wasn’t over ‘til the unfit mother won.

Not that I ever saw the good judge. Fortunately, I only had one natural mother from the Bronx at the time. Most of them were from Brooklyn, where I lived, which is why I was assigned Brooklyn cases.

When my natural mother had a court date, she didn’t bother showing up. That was sufficient grounds to terminate her parental rights for the son and daughter in question, but not in Judge Cohen’s court. Instead, she had us wait around a few hours, and then just issued mom a new court date. And since it was at least a three-hour round trip to Bronx Family Court, plus waiting time, Judge Cohen wasted an entire day of my precious work time.

Another reason this article is significant to me is that it shows not the police, but a judge “disappearing” a murder.

I have reported, time and again, on police agencies’ routine fraud in compiling crime statistics, but notwithstanding mid-1990s’ rumors of several murders in Far Rockaway, where I was then living, I have rarely managed to find reports of “disappeared” murders. However, I am convinced that many murders have been disappeared in this fashion, as part of the revolutionary dip in crime.

You don’t hide the body, you hide the cause of death, or the report, and thus the stat. Or you hide the report. Murders become suicides, accidental deaths, deaths by natural causes (e.g., drowning), or get lost or stolen. In early 1996, Newsday reporter Leonard Levitt learned of a murder that the NYPD had covered up. Once the killing was exposed, the brass asserted that a reporter had stolen all the police reports of the murder from the press room.

[Postscript, April 27, 2015: I contacted Levitt last year, to ask him about that report, in order to find the name of the murder victim, but he could no longer remember the story.]

As Steve Sailer predicted during the Hurricane Katrina anarchy, medical examiners were bound not to examine corpses terribly closely for signs of trauma or gunshot wounds, once the waters subsided, and to find creative ways to reduce the number of the murdered, while the media would diminish the violence, and he was right. (See my reports on Katrina: 1,900-word version; two-part, 3,900-word version—here and here—and 9,900-word version.)

Note, too, that after the authorities did a preliminary count of the dead (who were determined to be white way out of the expected proportion) following Katrina, they never revised it.

I would appreciate readers sending in any reports where the deceased, who were initially reported to have not been murdered, were later discovered to have been murdered.

As for the following story, I checked the New York Times’ archives under both “Christopher Marchiselli” and “April Marchiselli,” and came up with nothing. Longtime Democratic Bronx DA Mario Merola had died in office, after 15 years, of a cerebral hemorrhage, and under his interim replacement, Paul T. Gentile, the office devolved into chaotic infighting, dissuading Gentile from seeking election.

A black, lefty, low-level city judge, Robert Johnson, was delivered the office on an affirmative action platter by the supposedly rival Liberal and Republican parties, and when he polled only 39 percent in the Democratic primary, he was still the party’s standard-bearer, since the next-highest polling candidate received only 28 percent of primary ballots cast. (The New York City primary system for local offices has since been reformed, and in a primary in which no one polls the majority of votes, there must be a run-off between the two top candidates.)

Johnson became Bronx DA on January 1, 1989, and has controlled the office ever since. It looks like he wasn’t interested in making his ally, Rhoda Cohen look bad, of riling feminist voters, or of “increasing” the number of murders in the Bronx in 1988.

I’ll see if I can find out more about this case, but it won’t be easy.

* * *

Appeals Court Finds Mother Guilty of Abuse in Son's Death
By John T. McQuiston
February 29, 1988
New York Times

A Manhattan appeals court has overturned a Family Court ruling and found a Bronx mother guilty of abuse in the death of her 19-month-old son, who was found scalded and drowned in a bathtub. The appeals court also ruled that her 5-year-old son should be removed from her custody.

Testimony in the case showed that the dead infant, Christopher Marchiselli, had second- and third-degree burns over as much as 65 percent of his body. It also showed that he had fluid in his lungs when he was admitted to Our Lady of Mercy Hospital on Sept. 11, 1986. He died a day later.

The infant's mother, April Marchiselli, a 25-year-old waitress, testified that she had left the boy and his 5-year-old half-brother, James, in a bathtub with running water. She said the water turned scalding hot and Christopher fell face down in the water.

Two physicians, Dr. Rea Herrera and Dr. Daniel Kessler, testified that the pattern of the burns on Christopher were inconsistent with Mrs. Marchiselli's story. They said they believed that the baby had been immersed from the chest down for a few seconds in scalding water.

Both doctors concluded that Christopher could not have accidentally assumed the position that had caused his injuries. They also observed in their testimony that James did not have the strength to immerse the baby and then pull him out again.

In its decision Thursday, the four-judge panel of the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court in Manhattan found that ''the only possibility presented by the medical evidence was the presence of an adult 'outside agent.' ''

The panel also found Ms. Marchiselli's account of what happened to be ''inconsistent'' and that it ''fluctuated wildly.''

The appeals judges said they found it ''puzzling in light of the unrefuted medical evidence and the inconsistencies in the mother's stories'' that a lower court judge had found the dotors' [sic; probably a scanning-caused typo] testimony ''mere speculation'' and Ms. Marchiselli's account credible. The lower court judge, Rhoda Cohen of Bronx Family Court, ruled on Aug. 31, that Ms. Marchiselli was guilty of neglect.

The appeals judges reversed the lower court finding and found Ms. Marchiselli guilty of abuse. They sent the case back to Family Court for disposition of James's future care, according to Lenore Gittis, a lawyer for the Legal Aid Society and James's court-appointed law guardian.

Ms. Gittis, who filed the appeal, said it was up to the Bronx District Attorney's office to determine whether the law-enforcement authorities should further investigate Christopher's death. Efforts to obtain comment last night from the Bronx District Attorney's office were not successful.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very interesting reading , Alfred Hitchcock would have some serious material to work with. Too bad for the victims and families these stories are the real thing.I think it is important to bring up and examine old cases. They are often pieces that fit in the puzzle.

Anonymous said...

With all the madness in the world there is a sweet story at dna Chicago, They never stop holding hands, party to host rabbi 99 and wife 100...There are good souls out there.

EdenzAngel said...

I just came across your blog and I can tell you more about the case about Christopher actually but your thoughts about it being a murder are beyond wrong. I am related to Christopher... the article actually has always made me very upset because from what I felt it made Christopher's mom out to be a horrible person. She had problems I give you that but she did not at all purposely murder her baby. April wasn't very aware of things though I believe it to be no fault of her own and I don't believe she deserved the life she had. She was accused of a lie and the Bronx Family Court system only re-victimized her as well. She had passed on several years ago from cancer. She suffered in depression from abuse that was done to her. I believe April had some sort of developmental delay from childhood, as did Christopher but the court was never there to help the family regardless. Bronx Family court is definitely the worst and I can say that from my own personal experience. I know and have seen personally how they hide the real abuse going on right under their eyes and how they allow to pretend to not know and dismiss facts or call "off the record" to hide facts and cover evidence and then they twist things to create negative perceptions in other peoples minds and the newspaper is no better for writing such false article's to mislead and corrupt peoples mind's. Yet if you write or contact the newspaper for true abuse cases or things being hidden or not looked into they ignore it, if it don't particularly benefit their purpose I guess. I remember going to Christopher's apartment and the water in the apartment would change, there was definitely a plumbing issue there, maybe boiler related. I'm not exactly sure why the water would do that but I do remember that and yes I will say it was neglect although I don't fully blame April for I always felt she really didn't know better from her level of understanding or thinking. I do Thank You for bringing Christopher's name up though... I think of him all the time and wonder what he would have been like. I still visit his grave when I can and although the article doesn't do Christopher or his Mom or brother no justice and has no true purpose other than remembrance of a tragic story of such a young child lost too soon. I was glad to see someone think about him and wonder why or what happened. I believe... It is always better to question everything in any circumstance, we should not hesitate to question and find the facts but we should remember to PAUSE and question our own intentions as well and Not add to the possible made up opinions and lies of others which can wound just as bad as the first who inflicted such lies upon some who may be just innocent victims of the systems injustice. #RIP Christopher, LoVe You aLWayz ♡ Rest eaZy lil AnGeL!!! xoXox