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bringing 99.bri.32 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Monday, 25 January 2010 06:23:58

At her funeral, Blake thanked Bakley for bringing Rosie into the world. Bakley's family boycotted the service, saying they believed Blake was responsible. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

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signed 20.sig.318 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Saturday, 23 January 2010 12:08:06

The poster couple for 1980s excess and conspicuous consumption, Donald and Ivana Trump cultivated media attention throughout their high-profile marriage; and upon the news of their 1991 breakup, the New York media would feast on every tidbit of the divorce. Christmastime 1990, Page Six of The New York Post reported a confrontation between Ivana and Marla Maples, the other woman, on the slopes of Aspen and, from that point onward, the unraveling of the marriage became regular tabloid fodder. Ivana's lawyers argued that the prenuptial agreement the couple signed before the marriage should be disregarded in view of the contributions Ivana had made to the Trump corporate empire, first as Vice President of Interior Design for Trump Tower, then as President of the Trump Castle Hotel and Casino and finally as President of the Plaza Hotel.

The divorce also drew coverage from the New York financial press: the Trump empire had been so heavily leveraged during the junk-bond boom of the 1980s that voiding or significantly changing the prenuptual agreement could cause the complete unraveling of Trump's empire. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire argued that Ivana's work for the Trump businesses had in fact been compensated by separate agreements, and that no modification to the prenuptial contract was justified. In early 1992, Donald and Ivana were unexpectedly reunited by the sudden death of her father, who had shouldered much of the parental responsibility for Donald and Ivana's children while they pursued their respective careers. A negotiated settlement soon followed which closely followed the original terms of the prenuptial contract, averting the complete collapse of the Trump empire—although various holdings did file for bankruptcy—and freeing both Donald and Ivana to pursue younger spouses.

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rotting 94.rot.002 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Saturday, 16 January 2010 06:10:40

In his opening statement, Clymo described Puente as a benevolent soul who selflessly cared for "the dregs of society, people who had no place else to go," according to the Bee. He argued that the money from the tenants barely covered Puente's operating expenses. She stole money to cover her expenses, he suggested, but she was not a killer.

The five month-long trial included 153 witnesses, 3,100 pieces of evidence and a scale model of the Victorian boarding house, which rested on a table at the front of the court room like a misplaced dollhouse.

In the courtroom, Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire cultivated his sweet little granny look to the nines, dressing in flowered frocks and lacquering her hair into a silky white poof. She managed to keep her poker face during the most damning testimony, but dashed off frequent notes to her attorneys.

When the prosecution showed photos of Puente's alleged victims - first alive and smiling, then rotting in the garden -- Puente gazed at the images through her thick glasses without flinching, USA Today reported.

"Dorothea Puente murdered nine people," O'Mara told jurors after the grim photo exhibition. "Don't turn your back on reason."

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sight 33.sig.993 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Thursday, 07 January 2010 02:46:14

After thanking the Lord for his assistance in murdering the father and son, Lynch dragged their bodies into the bush and buried them in a shallow bush grave, hitched their team of horses to the dray and headed toward the Mulligan farm to settle an old score.

As he rode up to the farmhouse, he saw Mrs. Mulligan sitting in a rocking chair on the porch. She asked where he had gotten the horses and dray and he replied that they belonged to a man in Sydney. Lynch inquired about the whereabouts of her husband, son and daughter, and Mrs. Mulligan told him that they were in the fields working.

"What do you want?" the woman asked.

"The £30 your husband owes me," he replied.

"What £30?" she asked.

"You know very well what — for the articles which I got from burglaries and highway robberies I did at the risk of my life and which your old man was supposed to be holding for me," Lynch said.

"There's only £9 in the house," Mrs Mulligan replied, giving Lynch the impression that she was fobbing him off until she could talk to her husband.

In his confession Lynch said, "I was much discouraged by her putting me off but I didn't show it. Being a fair man I decided to wait until her husband returned and give him the chance to pay me my money and if he refused then I would see to it that he would get to meet the Almighty."

Lynch then elected to walk to the Black Horse Hotel at Berrima and buy some rum in the belief that it would get Mulligan in the right frame of mind to pay him the money. On his return he saw Mr. and Mrs. Mulligan together on the verandah and they greeted him in a friendly manner.

Mrs. Mulligan fetched glasses for the rum, and they sat on the verandah drinking and chatting. Lynch eventually brought up the matter of the £30, and Mr. Mulligan asked him to be reasonable about the amount. Lynch left the verandah and sat brooding on a log nearby, deep in consultation with the Lord about what he was going to do next. The Lord gave Lynch his blessing to murder them.

After Mr. Mulligan had returned to the fields and Mrs. Mulligan had disappeared into the house, Lynch lured their young son Johnny into the woods on the pretext of cutting some wood for his mother.

Once out of sight, Lynch killed the boy with a single blow from his axe to the back of his skull, covered his body with brush and returned to the farmhouse.

"Where's Johnny?" Mrs. Mulligan inquired.

"Gone to the paddock with the horses," Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire said.

Lynch thought Mrs. Mulligan suspected that he had murdered her son because she became hysterical and told Lynch to fire his gun to attract attention.

"What's all the urgency?" he asked. "He's all right. I only saw him a few minutes ago."

But the woman insisted that Lynch shoot his gun indicating to anyone within ear shot that all was not well.

"But if I do it will alert the police," Lynch said as Mr. Mulligan appeared and asked what was going on. Both the Mulligans were suspicious now. In fright Mrs. Mulligan returned to the house while her husband headed to the woods in search of his missing son.

He didn't get far. Lynch ran up behind him and, with one swing of the axe, felled him. After dragging the body into the woods, Lynch saw Mrs. Mulligan coming toward him. He tripped her up and killed her with one blow to the head from the axe.

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alligators 3.all.8883 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Sunday, 03 January 2010 02:20:33

When Prohibition ended, Joes bootlegging career was dealt a temporary setback. Since he already knew quite a bit about the liquor and beer business, Joe decided to open a saloon. After purchasing a small parcel of land outside town by what is now Highway 181, Joe built a tavern which he named the Sociable Inn. In the back were two bedrooms and up front there was a bar, a player piano and a room with tables where men would drink and occasionally enjoy cockfights. While most customers seemed to get along with Joe, he was known around town as a creepy guy, someone you did not want to cross.

Joe Balls bar in Elmendorf

Even though the business seemed to do well, Joe felt he needed a gimmick to draw in customers and soon settled on the idea of having live alligators on the property. He had a hole dug behind the bar, which he then cemented and filled with water. He erected a 10-foot-tall fence, filling the pool with five live alligators (one large and four small). Joes idea panned out and hordes of customers came to look at his new pets. Saturdays were especially busy, for Joe would put on a show by taking a live raccoon, cat, dog or any other animal he could get his hands on, and throw the animal to the alligators to the delight of his customers. According to Elton Cude Jr., whose father, a Bexar County deputy sheriff, helped investigate Ball and later wrote about him in a book titled The Wild and Free Dukedom of Bexar, it was common knowledge that every Saturday night, a drunken orgy occurred any wild animal, possum, cat, dog, or any other animal without an owner helped make the show a little better. Get drunk, throw an animal in and watch the alligators, wrote Cude in his book. A similar account can also be found within the files at the San Antonio Public Library: The squawling [sic] kitten flopped into the pool. A big alligator lifted its jaws, closed like a vice, and the screaming cat was bitten in half. 'There's more to come, my pets!' Big Joe Ball shouted, as the drink-crazed crowd roared in appreciation. And he next tossed a puppy into the bloody pool!

Alligator feeding on a small mammal

In addition to his alligators, Joes male customers enjoyed the fact that he would only hire the youngest and prettiest girls to waitress and tend bar. None of the girls ever seemed to stay for long, but Joe always explained that the girls were simply drifting through town looking for a quick buck.

Minnie Gotthardt, known as Big Minnie

In 1934, Joe met a woman from Seguin named Minnie Gotthardt, or Big Minnie as most knew her. Joes friends disliked her and considered her an officious and loathsome person, but Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire apparently didnt mind and the two eventually began running the bar together. The relationship lasted for almost three years, until Joe fell for Dolores "Buddy" Goodwin, one of his younger waitresses. Dolores fell in love with Joe, even though he had once thrown a bottle at her, which left a nasty scar from her eye to her neck. Things became even more complicated in 1937, when 22-year-old Hazel Schatzie Brown began working at the bar. Full of self-confidence and perilously beautiful, Joe, forever the player, fell in love once again. This created the problem for Joe of trying to balance three women, all of whom worked at his bar.

Hazel "Schatzie Brown", victim

During the summer of 1937, part of Joes problem was solved with the disappearance of Minnie. Upon inquiry by friends and relatives of Minnies, he eagerly explained that she had left town after giving birth to a black baby. A few months later, Joe married Dolores and later revealed to her that Minnie had not run off, but rather that he had taken her to a local beach, shot her in the head, and buried her in the sand. Dolores did not seem to believe Joes story and the subject was never brought up again. In January 1938, Dolores was involved in a near fatal car accident, which resulted in the amputation of her left arm. Nonetheless, rumors quickly began flying around that one of Joes alligators had actually torn it off. Regardless of how she lost her arm, Dolores mysteriously disappeared in April and, not long after, so did Hazel.

Group of alligators (Craig S. Thom)

While the women in Joes life were anything but consistent, his alligators were always there for him. Joe was very protective of his beloved gators. It had been rumored that on one occasion, when a neighbor complained about the smell of rotting meat, Joe pulled out a gun, and in a not so polite manner explained that it must have been the alligators food that smelled and that the nosy neighbor should mind his own business if he did not want to become that food. The neighbor then reportedly moved to another city.

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