How do you get a murder investigated when the most likely suspects are police officers? I don't know, you tell me. I tried an experiment after ten years of trying to get officers investigated for the murder of a prostitute. I decided to run for city council and use the opportunities that brings to bring attention to this unsolved murder.
I then sent a letter to the mayor and the city council. The day after receiving this letter at the debate mentioned in it, Lexington Mayor, Jim Newberry, explained why the officers involved had never been investigated. His answer, "Some people live their lives and nobody really notices them. Their lives...don't matter much. Police officer's lives....they matter." This speech was given at Broadway Baptist Church (Yes, I checked for lightning strikes) and was preceded by a speech by Chuck Ellinger's mother inviting everyone to her church's bake sale. Chuck Ellinger also refused to investigate or even acknowledge the letter you are about to read. Mr. Ellinger didn't show for the debate he was scheduled to attend but his mother reminded us several times that she was not there for her son but for her church. I will be attaching a video of Mr. Newberry with a recording of his answer to me at the Broadway Baptist debate.
April 29, 2010
Lexington City Council Members,
By now most of you probably know who I am and some of you have known me for years. However, some of you may not know the details of my situation and why I have ‘called out’ certain council members.
In 1999, after years of investigating escort agencies that were interfering with my legitimate business, I landed a treasure trove of information when Deborah Wardlaw called me. Deborah had figured out that I was investigating the agencies and the officers that had been extorting them and allowing them to continue unabated. We talked and I agreed to leave her out of any of my planned lawsuits or criminal charges if she agreed to fill me in on the information I was seeking. I obtained lots of interesting information from her and was able to follow up by getting recordings, video and documents to confirm her accusations. Not long after this my phones were tapped and I was being put under surveillance.
Months passed and the city starting talking about the escort ordinance. Deborah was upset and didn’t think the ordinance was legal nor fair. You see, she didn’t want to pay extortion and have to deal with the fees and rules under the ordinance. She called and wanted me to go in on an attorney, I explained that I wasn’t in that business and didn’t see the need but wished her luck. She then kept in touch. The further the ordinance went the more upset she got. She informed me that she was going to ‘out’ the cops because she wasn’t going to do both the cops and the ordinance. She had been threatened by some officers over this. I told her to be careful and about a week later I turned on the TV and saw that she had been murdered.
I began recording all of my calls and even when I went out when the phone taps began. Luckily, I had recorded Deborah. I have gone to Margaret Kannensohn and Internal Affairs almost immediately and over the past ten years have sent letters and made calls to almost everyone else. I have a recording of Deborah clearly talking about her fears among much other evidence in her case. The police have no interest in pursuing this path of investigation. Imagine that. The officers she accused, some of them, were placed on the case to investigate it. ???
Almost immediately after the murder my phone taps and surveillance turned into outright harassment and false arrests and charges. During those false arrests and charges for a ten year period of time Margaret Kannensohn held a summons for a child support case for me. Attempts to serve the document have been falsified on the paperwork and, problematic for her office, happen to have been on days that I was falsely arrested for something else or was currently in their jail on a false arrest. According to the County Attorney’s office this would be impossible since in 1997 they adopted a system by which the summons would have showed up on the officer’s computer, the jail’s computer, the dispatcher’s computer and anywhere else connected to the system and would have been known and served while I was being arrested for everything else. Subsequently, the case is still in court and will be included in a long list of civil rights violations I plan to file. The worst part is I still have not met nor had any contact with my daughter who is now 13 years old in her entire life because my file was not officially meddled with by Margaret Kannensohn or taken home to be worked on because her ‘sovereign immunity’ while being sued for this by her own staff says so.
Now, the county attorney wants money from me for all of the years that I was deprived of any contact with my daughter. Mind you, they want back pay and previous insurance, medical costs, dental work, child care and more . I missed the first bus ride, the first bruise, bug bite, A+, B-, lost tooth and the right to have any influence on her life whatsoever. Yet, somehow, hiding my file while prosecuting me over and over for having information implicating police officers in a murder gives them the right to ask me for money?
I had been fighting this corruption, literally dodging bullets and trying to get Deborah’s murder solved for 9 years when I was served with this. THIS, was going absolutely too far. I have had enough and I’m not going to take it anymore.
I began working harder than ever before documenting evidence, investigating officers, council-members and anyone who was avoiding investigating these officers or giving me the runaround. That’s when I decided that I was going to make it the next few government employees asked responsibility to do something about it. Besides, it is their job anyway. Instead of the runaround, I would demand that they call the people they want me to call and report their findings to me. I wanted to end the political banter that keeps everything from getting done in this country and on this case specifically.
That is when I contacted Chuck Ellinger and Stan Lee. Stan Lee was too busy working on a bill to make cat abuse equal to dog abuse when I first contacted him. The next time around, well, he decided that Deborah’s profession didn’t sit well with his Family Values political stance. Too bad he forgot the story of Jesus and the throwing of stones; also a prostitute.
Chuck Ellinger, well he tried the same old pass me around to the same old people that I had been passed around to in the past. So, I personally hold Chuck responsible for looking into these recordings and at least ordering an investigation into the ballistics of the officers mentioned to the one taken from the murder. Yes, Deborah had a checkered past and I had looked down upon her while investigating the escorts. After we had talked for months I realized that she was a mother, a grandmother, a person, a human and equal to myself. Yes, equal to the rest of us no matter her profession. I realized that her murder and death deserved to be solved. Her family deserved closure and the officers, if guilty, need punished. Are all of your closets clean? Christianity is mentioned quite often by Ellinger and Stan Lee and many other Kentucky politicians during campaign years. Jesus said, “He who is without sin should cast the first stone”. Would you be the first to cast a stone at Deborah? By ignoring the evidence in her murder you are doing just that.
I now ask the entire council: Will you ask for an investigation into the officers mentioned by Deborah Wardlaw just approximately one week before her murder? Will you lay down the stones of denial and accusation; reflect on your own skeletons in your own closets and give Deborah Wardlaw the respect she deserves as a human being equal to yourselves? I hope the lesson taught to Ellinger can be taken with him throughout his career to remind him that we all have our faults. I would hope that Mr. Ellinger would want the same respect given to Deborah Wardlaw as would be given to himself. How about the rest of you?
I have already asked for Mr. Ellinger to give a response to this by this evening at 5 PM just prior to the debate on Harrodsburg Rd. at 6 PM through the Barefoot and Progressive blog. This debate will take place at a church, conveniently, because we may be teaching more Bible lessons tonight if the first time around didn’t get absorbed adequately.
I cannot see any reason why the recorded voice of a murdered woman naming people who had recently threatened her life would not be investigated except for the fact that she named police officers. If there is some other reason that my years of unabashed efforts to get this done have fallen on deaf ears then please respond with that reason. Otherwise, I look forward to working with the council presenting my evidence as soon as possible.
In Liberty,
Christopher Hignite
Please contact the Lexington, Ky city council, Mayor Jim Newberry, Vice-Mayor Jim Gray, Internal Affairs and the Kentucky Attorney General's office and ask why the ballistics on the officer's guns have not been compared to the murder evidence after years of my reporting on this. Help me solve this murder and bring closure for her family. Your life, my life, my daughter's life, Pleas Lucian Kavanaugh's life, my friends in the Special Olympics lives and even Deborah Wardlaw's life matters. It's time we remind local government that they are our employees and we are their bosses. Murder is a heinous crime and a civilized society must prosecute anyone who commits this offense, even if that person works for the government.
No, even more so. Let's pass laws that anyone working in a civil service position gets time added for their crimes for the additional crime of violating our trust and their oath. The reduced sentences common for convicted police officers and others inside of our government do little to deter others from repeating these crimes.
Lexington, Ky city council : 200 E. Main St, Lexington, KY 40507 (859) 258-3010, Internal Affairs: 150 East Main Street Lexington, KY (859) 258-3625 and the Kentucky Attorney General : 310 Whittington Parkway, Suite 101. Louisville, KY 40222. Phone: (502) 429-7134. Fax: (502) 429-7129
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVLSfzOqfCw
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