Springfield has the best neighbors ever!

[chris farley]

x.

[thelakelander]

Here's a little blurb about Ponzi's company in Jacksonville from wiki:

After word got out that Ponzi had never obtained American citizenship (despite having lived in the United States for most of the time since 1903), federal officials initiated efforts to have him deported as an undesirable alien in 1922.

Ponzi was released on bail as he appealed the state conviction. He went to the Springfield section of Jacksonville, Florida and launched the Charpon Land Syndicate ("Charpon" is an amalgam of his name), offering investors in September 1925 tiny tracts of land, some under water, and promising 200 percent returns in 60 days. In reality, it was a scam that sold swampland in Columbia County. Ponzi was indicted by a Duval County grand jury in February 1926 and charged with violating Florida trust and securities laws. A jury found him guilty on the securities charges, and the judge sentenced him to a year in the Florida State Prison. Ponzi appealed his conviction and was freed after posting a $1,500 bond.

Ponzi traveled to Tampa, where he shaved his head, grew a moustache, and tried to flee the country as a crewman on a merchant ship bound for Italy. The ship, however, made one last American port call; he was caught in New Orleans and sent back to Massachusetts to serve out his prison term. Ponzi served seven more years in prison.

In the meantime, government investigators tried to trace Ponzi's convoluted accounts to figure out how much money he had taken and where it had gone. They never managed to untangle it and could conclude only that millions had gone through his hands.

Ponzi was released in 1934. With the release came an immediate order to have him deported to Italy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ponzi

[samiam]

Chris told me Otis Toole lived in Springfield for a time. Chris probably wants to ask an "old-timer" from Springfield if he knew him to get some more Springfield history information.  I'm sure she'll say, but Chris is definitely our walking encyclopedia of Springfield history, so that's my guess.

All true!  And we are all waiting on Chris' eyewitness account of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth the First.

Chris, did you know Sir Walter Raleigh?

Now Mister Dare
Your not being a good neighbor

[sheclown]

I didn't realize that it was Art Frazier's house.  Yes, I know that he was her handyman for a time.

I had always thought he lived in Doug's house for a bit, but I don't know where I got that into from .Doug's house (which was once my house) was hit with a Molotov cocktail which burned up the front porch.  I used to joke that the fire saved the house because it killed the cockroaches.

The woman who operated Doug's house as a boarding house for decades still lives in the neighborhood.  I met her nephew.  So did Doug.

[sheclown]

Henry Lee Lucas

Lucas was born in a one-room log cabin in Blacksburg, Virginia, the youngest of nine children. His mother, Viola Dixon Waugh, was an alcoholic prostitute. His father, Anderson Lucas, was an alcoholic and former railroad employee who had lost his legs after being hit by a freight train. He would usually come home inebriated, and would suffer from Viola's wrath as often as his sons.

Lucas claimed that he and his brother were regularly beaten by Viola, often for no reason. He once spent three days in a coma after his mother struck him with a wooden plank, and on many occasions he was forced by his mother to watch her having sex with men. Lucas also claimed that his mother would often dress him in girls' clothing. His sister Almeda Lucas supports his story, and she claims that she once had two pictures of Henry as a toddler dressed in girls' clothing. Lucas described an incident when he was given a mule as a gift by his uncle, only to see his mother shoot and kill it. Another incident Lucas described occurred when he was eight. He claimed he was given a teddy bear by one of his teachers, and was then beaten by his mother for accepting charity.

When Lucas was 10, his brother accidentally stabbed him in the left eye while they were fighting. His mother ignored the injury for four days, and subsequently the eye grew infected and had to be replaced by a glass eye.

In December 1949, Anderson Lucas died of hypothermia, after going home drunk and collapsing outside during a blizzard. Shortly after, Henry dropped out of school in the sixth grade and ran away from home, drifting around Virginia. Lucas claimed that he first practiced bestiality and zoosadism while he was a runaway, and also began committing petty thefts and burglaries around the state. Lucas claimed to have committed his first murder in 1951, when he strangled 17-year-old Laura Burnsley, who refused his sexual advances. Like most of his confessions, he later retracted this claim. On June 10, 1954, Lucas was convicted on over a dozen counts of burglary in and around Richmond, Virginia, and was sentenced to four years in prison. He escaped in 1957, was recaptured three days later, and was released on September 2, 1959.

In late 1959, Lucas travelled to Tecumseh, Michigan to live with his half-sister, Opal. Around this time, Lucas was engaged to marry a pen pal with whom he had corresponded while incarcerated. When his mother visited him for Christmas, she disapproved of her son's fiancée and insisted he move back to Blacksburg. He refused, and they argued repeatedly about his upcoming nuptials.

[sheclown]

First known murder

On January 11, 1960, Lucas killed his mother during the course of an ongoing argument regarding whether or not he should return home to his mother's house to care for her as she grew older. He claimed she struck him over the head with a broom, at which point he struck her on the neck and she fell. Lucas then fled the scene. He subsequently said,
“    

All I remember was slapping her alongside the neck, but after I did that I saw her fall and decided to grab her. But she fell to the floor and when I went back to pick her up, I realized she was dead. Then I noticed that I had my knife in my hand and she had been cut.
   â€

She was not in fact dead, and when Lucas's half-sister Opal (with whom he was staying) returned later, she discovered their mother alive in a pool of blood. She called an ambulance, but it turned out to be too late to save Viola Lucas's life. The official police report stated she died of a heart attack precipitated by the assault. Lucas returned to Virginia, then says he decided to drive back to Michigan, but was arrested in Ohio on the outstanding Michigan warrant.

Lucas claimed to have attacked his mother only in self-defense, but his claim was rejected, and he was sentenced to between 20 and 40 years' imprisonment in Michigan for second-degree murder. After serving ten years in prison, he was released in June 1970 due to prison overcrowding.
[edit] Drifter

Lucas drifted around the American South, working a number of mostly short-term jobs. In Florida, he made the acquaintance of Ottis Toole in 1976 and had a romantic affair with Toole's 12-year-old niece, Frieda Powell, who had escaped from a juvenile detention facility. Lucas and Toole both called Powell "Becky", partly to disguise her identity and because Powell preferred it over her given name. Lucas would later claim that during this period he had killed hundreds of people, Toole assisting him in 108 murders. The trio left Florida and eventually settled in Stoneburg, Texas, at a religious commune called "The House of Prayer." Ruben Moore, the commune owner and minister, found Lucas a job as a roofer, and allowed Lucas and Powell to live in a small apartment on the commune.

Powell became homesick, so Lucas agreed to move to Florida with her. Lucas said they argued at a Bowie, Texas truck stop and claimed that Powell left with a trucker. A waitress at the truck stop supported Lucas's account in court.[4]

[sheclown]

"The Lucas Report" confessions and controversy

Lucas was arrested on June 11, 1983 by Texas Ranger Phil Ryan, initially for unlawful firearm possession.[7] He was later charged with killing 82-year-old Kate Rich in Ringgold, Texas, and was also charged with Powell's murder. Lucas claimed that police stripped him naked, denied him cigarettes and bedding, held him in a cold cell, and did not allow him to contact an attorney. After four days of this treatment, Lucas claimed he decided to confess to the crimes in a desperate bid to improve his treatment. Lucas confessed to the murders but claimed to be unable to take police to the victims' bodies. He closed out his confession with a hand-written addendum that read:[8] "I am not aloud [sic] to contact any one I'm in here by myself and still can't talk to a lawyer on this I have no rights so what can I do to convince you about all this." When he was finally allowed counsel, Lucas's lawyer described[8] his client's treatment as "inhumane" and "calculated solely to require the defendant to confess guilt, whether innocent or guilty."

The forensic evidence in the Powell and Rich cases has been criticized as inconclusive.[9] A single bone fragment recovered from a wood-burning stove was said to be Rich's, and a mostly-complete skeleton roughly matched Powell's age and size, but Shellady reports that the coroner stopped short of positively identifying either remains. As with most of his alleged crimes, Lucas has confessed to these murders only to deny involvement later, but the general consensus seems to be that Lucas did indeed murder Powell and Rich. Lucas pleaded guilty to the charges, and in open court stated he had "killed about a hundred more women" as well. This was an unexpected confession, and Lucas later claimed to have been despondent over being suspected in Powell's disappearance. Shellady reports[4] that Lucas said, "If they were going to make me confess to one I didn't do, then I was going to confess to everything." These claims were quickly seized upon by the press, and Lucas, accompanied by Texas Rangers, was soon flown from state to state, to meet with various police agencies in an effort to resolve a number of unsolved murders.

In November 1983, Lucas was transferred to a jail in Williamson County, Texas, where the Lucas Task Force was soon established. While in Williamson County, he was interviewed by then-Sheriff Jim Boutwell. Boutwell is said to have played an important role early in the task force as well as Bob Prince of the Texas Rangers. Lucas stated that he and Boutwell "were like father and son".[citation needed] Shellady describes the task force as "a veritable clearinghouse of unsolved murder." Police officially "cleared" 213 previously unsolved murders via Lucas's confessions. Lucas reported that he confessed to murders only because doing so improved his living conditions, and that he received preferential treatment rarely offered to convicts. Others have offered accounts that seem to support Lucas's claims, for example, that Lucas was rarely handcuffed when in custody or being transported, that he was often allowed to wander police stations and jails at will â€" including knowing the security codes for computerized doors â€" and that he was frequently taken to restaurants and cafés. It was later learned that Boutwell and other task force agents purposely fed Lucas information about other unsolved murders so that Lucas would make "credible" confessions. Lucas was also granted favors while incarcerated that other inmates never received.[10] On one occasion, in Huntington, West Virginia, Lucas confessed to killing a man whose death had originally been ruled a suicide. The man's widow received a large life insurance settlement that had been denied after the initial suicide verdict.

Texas Ranger Phil Ryan reports that Lucas became so accustomed to such treatment that he began "dictating orders" that were often obeyed by Rangers. Ryan also reported that he became concerned about the veracity of most of Lucas's confessions, feeling confident in the accuracy of two of Lucas's confessions, and further stated to the Houston Chronicle that "I wouldn't bet a paycheck on any of the others."[11] Shellady reports that in order to expose Lucas's claims, Ryan invented utterly fictional crimes, to which Lucas would generally "confess" involvement, a tactic also employed by Dallas detective Linda Erwin. Ryan reports the manner in which Lucas typically confessed to a number of unsolved murders: If a police agency suspected Lucas, and if Lucas admitted involvement â€" and his total of some 3,000 confessions suggests he rarely denied complicity â€" they would send the Lucas Task Force a case file with information pertaining to the unsolved crime. Lucas would be questioned at length and sometimes even allowed to read police reports, thus learning any number of details previously known only to police, which he could then use during interviews.

The same Houston Chronicle article reports that Erwin interviewed Lucas after he confessed to 13 murders in Houston. Erwin reports that "when I heard it got to be hundreds and hundreds (of confessions), it was unbelievable to me." Erwin further reports that, like Ryan, she assembled an utterly fictional crime: She "fabricated a case using random photographs from old murders long since solved and details pulled from her imagination ... He claimed credit for the phony crime, and his confession, containing facts she had dribbled out to him, probably could have convinced a jury to convict him, she said." Erwin admitted she was uncomfortable fabricating a crime, but felt it necessary in order to settle questions of Lucas's reliability. Lucas was not charged with any of the crimes he confessed to committing in Dallas.

Lucas' claims gradually became criticized as outlandish and less likely: He claimed to have been part of a cannibalistic, satanic cult called "The Hand of Death",[6] to have taken part in snuff films, to have killed Jimmy Hoffa, and to have delivered poison to cult leader Jim Jones in Jonestown prior to the notorious mass murder/suicide of Jones's group.

In response to these claims, and to reports of the Lucas Task Force's questionable investigative methodology, the Texas Attorney General's office issued a study (sometimes called "The Lucas Report") in 1986.[12]

The bulk of the Lucas Report was devoted to a detailed timeline of Lucas's claimed murders. The report compared Lucas's claims to reliable, verifiable sources for Lucas's whereabouts; the results often contradicted his confessions, and thus cast doubt on most of the crimes in which he was implicated. Attorney General Jim Mattox wrote[8] that "when Lucas was confessing to hundreds of murders, those with custody of Lucas did nothing to bring an end to this hoax," and "We have found information that would lead us to believe that some officials 'cleared cases' just to get them off the books."

Here are a few examples of crimes the Lucas Task Force ruled "closed" based on Lucas's "confessions," when strong evidence has been cited, indicating Lucas was far from the scene of the crime:

    * Lucas confessed to the August 10, 1977 murder of Curby Reeves in Smith County, Texas, while payroll records indicate that Lucas worked a full shift at the Kaolin Mushroom Farms in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.
    * Lucas confessed to the March 20, 1979, murder of Elaine Tollett in Tulsa, Oklahoma, while medical records indicate Lucas was in the hospital in Bluefield, West Virginia.
    * Chris Piazza, then a prosecutor in Little Rock, Arkansas, wrote, of a specific 1981 robbery-murder case in which Lucas claimed involvement, that "the testimony of Henry Lee Lucas ... is dubious, to say the least" and that Lucas's testimony was "inaccurate in nearly every detail."

[sheclown]

Orange Socks murder

Ultimately, Lucas was convicted of 11 homicides. He was sentenced to death for the murder of an unidentified woman dubbed "Orange Socks", after that being the only clothing found on her. Her body was discovered in Williamson County, Texas, on Halloween 1979. Lucas' confession was recorded on audio tape and videotape and, when presented at court, had been subject to significant editing, leading critics to speculate that the removed sections showed authorities coaching Lucas on details of the crime.

Dan Morales, Mattox's successor as Texas Attorney General, concluded that it was "highly unlikely" that Lucas was guilty in the "Orange Socks" case.[13] Though initially skeptical of the Lucas Report, he came generally to support its findings.

Williamson County prosecutor Cecil Kuykendall discounted Lucas as a suspect in the "Orange Socks" case and has stated his opinion that Lucas' confession drew attention from a far more viable suspect, further noting evidence that Lucas was in Florida, working as a roofer, during the time that "Orange Socks" was killed. As cited in an Amnesty International report, Mattox stated that during the time "Orange Socks" was killed, "work records, check cashing evidence, all information indicating Lucas was somewhere else. We found nothing tying [Lucas] with the crime he confessed to and was convicted of."[14] Mattox's office decided not to intervene, so certain they were that the state appeals court would overturn Lucas' conviction in the "Orange Socks" case.

Lucas told Shellady that he confessed to the murder in an effort at "legal suicide," and that he "just wanted to die." Lucas expressed what Shellady describes as "deep regret and sorrow" for offering false confessions, stating that he "was not aware how crooked they [Texas authorities] were until it was too late." The Houston Chronicle article also notes that Lucas offered various motives for his confession spree: Improving his conditions, a desire to embarrass police, and feeling guilt over killing Powell and Rich.

Adding to the confusion, however, was Lucas's habit of making confessions, recanting them, then offering more confessions, and again recanting them. Mattox, wary of Lucas's many false confessions, suggested in 1999 that, in the case of Rafael Resendez-Ramirez, "I hope they don't start pinning on him every crime that happens near a railroad track."[15]
[edit] Clemency and death

Lucas's supposed confidant, Ottis Toole, died on September 15, 1996, from cirrhosis of the liver. He was serving six life sentences in a Florida prison. In 1998, the Texas Board of Pardon and Parole voted to commute Lucas's death sentence to life imprisonment, in accordance with Governor George W. Bush's request, who believed that Lucas did not commit all of the murders for which he was convicted. On March 13, 2001, Lucas died in prison from heart failure at age 64.

[sheclown]

Chris, there are interviews on "You Tube" you may be interested in.

[chris farley]

Thanks Sheclown I was really looking for local stories or lore.  there is nothing to beat word of mouth experiences with people.  I was told one story of when he and Lucas lived in the three storey house on 1st East.  Toole was showing the house, Betty Goodyear wished to sell it.  The person interested in buying was shown through it by Toole and in the attice as Lucas, dressed in a red smoking jacket and ascot washing dishes in the bathroom sink.

But you know I am tired of all this and the ageism and spitefullness I think my interest in Springfield history just closed down.

[sheclown]

Thanks Sheclown I was really looking for local stories or lore.  there is nothing to beat word of mouth experiences with people.  I was told one story of when he and Lucas lived in the three storey house on 1st East.  Toole was showing the house, Betty Goodyear wished to sell it.  The person interested in buying was shown through it by Toole and in the attice as Lucas, dressed in a red smoking jacket and ascot washing dishes in the bathroom sink.

But you know I am tired of all this and the ageism and spitefullness I think my interest in Springfield history just closed down.

we all are.

Check out the interviews on Youtube if you get re-interested.

[chris farley]

For what it is worth, I believe history is fascinating when it is told storywise

At 9.45 on the evening of January  4th 1982 a house fire raged in Springfield, 21 firefighters fought the blaze for 30 minutes until it was brought under control.  Eleven tenants were in the wooden rooming house when the fire began. Regina Hersey, 16, suffered a broken back and leg when she jumped from the second floor bedroom.  David Thompson, 21, received second degree burns on his hand.  Dorsey Anderson 67, suffered minor burns,  Jumping was the only route out for some tenants since the fire was in the hallway having travelled up the stairs. The most severly injured person was 64 year old George Nicholas Sonnenburg.  He was found unconscious on the floor of his room  shortly after the fire was put out.   It was later proven that the fire was the work of an arsonist  Sonnenberg’s death led to the first felony murder conviction for one Ottis Elwood Toole, who it is now believed was one of America’s most prolific mass murderers, along with his partner and sometime lover Henry Lee Lucas. Toole was found competent to stand trial and was given a death sentence in April 1984.
   Toole was born on March 5 1947, we believe his family lived in Springfield, he always considered this his neighborhood.  The description of his childhood is horrific.  He had a Satanist Grandmother who considered him the “Devil’s Child', a mother who was a religious fanatic, a drunken father who allowed him to be molested when he was the tender age of five. He dropped out of school in the 8th grade, and it is said he “derived satisfaction from torching vacant homes”.
   By his own admission his murder spree started when he was just 14. It was a travelling salesman who solicited sex, afterwords Toole ran the man down with his own car.   
   In 1976 he met Henry Lee Lucas in a Jacksonville soup kitchen  They were immediate soulmates, sharing many of the same childhood degradations and memories of murders committed. They decided to join forces.  It is said by 1983 they had travelled this country killing people at random. Their victim count is thought to be several hundreds.
   As they drifted back and forth and in between murders Toole held short term jobs, one of which was being a handyman and sometime caretaker for one Betty Goodyear, who owned many rooming houses in Springfield. One lady tells the story of going with her mother, circa 1980, to look at a house that Ms. Goodyear had for sale  There were actually two for sale on 1st Street East, being shown by Toole..   She only wished to see one but, Toole insisted that she also look at the other, a three storey.  He also insisted that she take a look at the attic.  In that attic was Henry Lucas, in a red satin dinner jacket washing dishes in a bathroom sink.  She could not get out of the building  fast enough, there was such an evil feeling in there.
   At the time of the Sonnenberg murder trial, Toole was already serving a 20 year sentence for burning two Springfield houses in May of 1983, he was fingered by youths who aided him..  It is believed  he torched 40 houses, he said he hated to see them standing empty.  Most sadly it is now proven that he abducted and murdered Adam Walsh.
   The house in which Sonnenberg died was none other than 117 2nd Street East, now so beautifully restored by Art and Gretchen Frazier.  Betty Goodyear probably could have had the house razed in 1982, but, she didn’t, to her credit she saved it. It is probably one of the oldest if not the oldest in the district. The first found reference to it is in the 1887 (compiled 1886) directory, when its address is given 1st West of Helen (now Market) at 2nd. The directories that early do not have street listings so unless you have a name of someone living in the house, the only way to trace it is to read the entire book.  The house is most probably c1884 or it could be earlier.
   Toole died in prison in 1996 of cirrhosis of the liver.  It was said of him “He loved three people, his mother, Betty Goodyear and Henry Lee Lucas”.    

[fsu813]

Chris - we're using this for the bike tour, for sure!

[Miss Fixit]

Around the corner from the Frazier's home, on Hubbard, are the homes of former Florida governors and a well known confederate officer who later was one of the most influential railroad men in Florida.   On third, between Hubbard and Main, are two homes built by the same man.  He built the second, smaller home next door to his original house because he was tired of his relatives coming to visit and staying for too long.  Both are architecturally significant.  More good stories assoicated with these homes and an easy way to route the bike tour back towards the SPAR office, Uptown and City Kids.

[Dan B]

^ Me thinks a thread split is in order. Mods?