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Diary of a Hitman
What I learned about the Iago hypothesis while writing the Fuhrman at the Movies chapter of Iago in Brentwood and the first two Smoking Gun books had little impact on anyone. The hypothesis itself looked like a crazy quilt of highly improbable, seemingly impossible and unnecessarily complex components better suited to a Raymond Chandler screenplay than a real murder case. But so did the items of evidence at the Brentwood crime scenes inextricably tied to Ron Phillips and his West L.A. Homicide investigators Mark Fuhrman and Brad Roberts. That’s what I used to construct the hypotheses, expecting, of course, that it would collapse of its own highly improbable, seemingly impossible and unnecessarily complex weight when the essential components were investigated – but it didn’t.
The bottom line is simply that if O.J. didn’t commit the murders, the cinematic crazy quilt of evidence against him had to be stitched together by the people who did – the active killer and a uniquely qualified preparation, execution and follow-up network. The operative phrase is “uniquely qualified.” If you can get past the apparent absurdities of what it would have taken to frame O.J. in a way that was consistent with the evidence and the laws of physics long enough to examine them, you get a list of theoretical people who had to match real people. Digging deeper, you get those people with Mark Fuhrman uniquely qualified to be the active killer and Brad Roberts uniquely qualified to back him up as the active killer and the de facto lead investigator on Bundy and Rockingham.
There is evidence of an aborted attempt on Nicole Simpson’s life in January, 1994 when she was living on Gretna Green that spilled over into the double homicide on June 12. The January scenario gives you a hitman using a gun as the murder weapon. The June 12 murders give you a rage killing committed by O.J. personally with a knife or a hitman hired by him depending on the strength of his alibi. There was enough flexibility in the evidence, the processing of the evidence and Fuhrman’s notes to go either way, even if it had to be argued that O.J. was betrayed by the hitman he hired to kill his ex-wife. That scenario happens to be a twist on what happens in Diary of a Hitman ('91)
None of this is as far-fetched as it sounds when you factor in the Fuhrman-Roberts connection to the March 21, 1994 unsolved murder of Robert C. Hurd who was killed with a hammer in his Las Vegas, Nevada home. If Michal McClinton was a professional killer tapped by Fuhrman and Roberts for the aborted January hit on Nicole with Bill Wasz as the fall guy, the timing of Hurd murder bridges the gap between January and June. It provides a practical test of what Fuhrman could do as the first lead detective on the scene to set the direction of a murder investigation carried on by other detectives and to test the viability of using him in a modified Diary of a Hitman scenario on Bundy.
This is not a theory of what happened with Fuhrman, Roberts, McClinton, Hurd and the murder victims on Bundy or why. It's just one of many things that could have happened for one or two of many reasons using Fuhrman's Murder in Brentwood reference and movie reference in both cases as a guide. The problem, however with Ron and Nicole being shot to death is the noise factor. A hitman would use a silencer. But with a silencer you lose the flexibility of setting up either a rage killing scenario or a murder for hire. For a rage killing without the noise, you need a strangulation, a beating, a hacking, slashing or stabbing -- by someone with the skill to do it silently.
Nearly every iteration of every story that flows from the evidence against O.J. and what Fuhrman said or did to associate himself with it has a movie or TV show counterpart like Diary of a Hitman and Magnum, P.I.. These are where most of the patches in the crazy quilt come from. They are in the position of the Bundy murder victims, the hammer-like blow to the back of Nicole’s head, her watch stopped at 10:03, the flowers, the barking dog, the evidence below Ron Goldman’s boot, the “Gold” in his name and the name of his gym, etc. Hundreds of these etceteras uniquely associated with Fuhrman and Roberts form the basis of Fuhrman at the Movies, The Smoking Gun and The Smoking Gun 2.
Between Fuhrman, Roberts and Phillips you get these things in context from the movies: significant birthdays and death days, tombstones, lit candles, pizzas, numbers like 22, 32 and 101, a bleeding killer, pizzas, time shifting, hearts, diamonds, clubs and baseball bats. You get messages on tape recorders and telephone answering machines, brass, “turn type” locks, and the killer’s clothes in a washing machine.
The acid test of the methodology used to match these patterns of the Bundy killer to Fuhrman is whether they are repeated in what he did after they were written. What separates fact from theory is whether or not the predictions implicit in the theory work in practice. For instance, you have a ball that you have reasons to believe will bounce when you throw it on the floor. That’s only a theory. If it’s wrong, the ball won’t bounce when you throw it on the floor. If it bounces, you no longer have a theory. You have a fact.
In November, 2002 Fuhrman made his own movie loosely based on his 1998 Murder in Greenwich book. As a co-writer and the producer of this fictionalized account of his 1997 investigation of Martha Elizabeth Moxley’s 1975 murder, he stitched it together from patches of dozens of other movies. But that’s not the half of it...
The phrase “stitched together” in this context is the way a patch (a distinctive scene) from one movie is joined to another by common threads of names, themes, actors, characters, writers, directors, producers, dialog, wardrobes, props, settings, scenarios and locations.
When you follow up on Fuhrman-related movies and TV shows released before the murders, you discover other patches and threads that pop up with as much frequency as the ones you started with. You find milk, birds, butterflies, ghosts, eggs, magicians, warlocks, witches, the Devil, men with white hair and no hair, water, water and more water; raining, beading, flowing, standing, rolling, spraying and cascading. With or without rain you get thunder and lighting. With or without water you get bathtubs, sinks, swimming pools, blood mixed with water and water simulating blood. You get Catholic symbolism, satanic symbolism, red ink that symbolizes blood, bridges, boats, bears, leopard skins, tigers, railroad crossings, railroad tracks, trains, train stations and hitmen.
Again and again you get characters from Star Trek, The Twilight Zone and detective novels written by famous authors like Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christi, Daschle Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane and Elmore Leonard that were turned into screenplays.
Fuhrman crammed all of the above and more into his 88-minute movie, notwithstanding material he wanted to put into it that he couldn’t for reasons that were beyond his control.
Something else beyond his control is the extent to which things he might not want to include in his stories cling to things he wants to spotlight. It’s the flipside of what the Bundy killer did with the blue knit cap and the leather gloves that called up images of O.J. in The Naked Gun sneaking around at night in a blue knit cap and wearing leather gloves as football color commentator. The Naked Gun also gives you George Kennedy as Ed Hocken, Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin, Priscilla Presley as Jane Spencer, joking reference to O.J.’s football stardom as a U.S.C. Trojan and Buffalo Bill running back and everything that comes with them. The first tier ramifications are multiple. They are unmanageable and they loop right back to Mark Fuhrman and Brad Roberts.
Diary of a Hitman ('91) with Forrest Whittaker as Dekker, Sherilyn Fenn as Jain and Lois Chiles as Sheila, doesn’t need McClinton as a theoretical hitman to draw in Fuhrman and Roberts. But look at what you get with McClinton, the "home service" and former "security" guy with the guns at the Las Vegas Palace Station Hotel in that role...
1 Forest Whitaker as Dekker the hitman in the Pittsburg Train Station telling his story on the phone in flashback. 2 The train at the station platform that will be departing for Denver with the woman and baby Dekker was hired to kill. 3 Marlin (Brad Roberts) sculpted with a chainsaw in ice at a winter festival in a park. 4 Seymour Cassel as Koenig, the man who lines up the hits for Dekker, meets with him in the park. 5 Koenig and Dekker on a park bench discussing the noise factor in Dekker's last hit in an underground parking garage. 6 Dekker getting his instructions for his next hit from a mime and playing with the mime's German shepherd.
7 Dekker getting message from Koenig on his telephone answering machine and his married sex partner, Sheila. 8 Following Koenig's instructions, Dekker meets with his client Al Zidzyk in a Church for further instructions. 9 On the night before the hit, Dekker visits a bar next to an Italian restaurant displaying a Pepsi sign. 10 Dekker smashes the widow of Mercedes Benz so he can pop the hood and stop the honking horn 11 Lois Chiles as Sheila curses Dekker for not appreciating her. He says that they are not exactly lovebirds. 12 Dekker washing his clothes in the basement of his apartment.
13 A man who was in prison with Dekker but now has a pizza business is on hand when Koenig's package arrives. 14 In the package is a silencer. Dekker hides it and his gun in a toolbox below a tray with screwdrivers and a hammer. 15 Dekker is harassed by Det. Shandy (James Belushi) who threatens to search the toolbox looking for a bronze vase 16 With toolbox in hand, Dekker arrives at the condo with his target Jain Zidzyk the only occupant on the 6th floor. 17 Posing as a TV repair man knocks on Jain's door and she sprays him with champignon thinking he's her husband. 18 Dekker sends Jain scrambling in fear while Mitzi Gaynor sings "I'm as normal as blueberry pie" on her record player.
19 When Jain sees the toolbox, she deduces that Dekker is the TV guy. and attends her baby while he gets his gun. 20 Dekker looks in on her with the baby and the baby's toys, which include a stuffed toy tiger. 21 Jain goes to the kitchen to attend a roast when Dekker points his gun at her and grabs her when he hears a noise. 22 The noise is Jain's sister Kiki having trouble turning her key in the brass lock. 23 Responding to Dekker's threat to kill everyone, Jain tries frantically to get Kiki out of the apartment. 24 Sharon Stone as Kiki, is mostly concerned with her spray painted leopard coat and her trip to Las Vegas.
25 Dekker stands by toolbox try (with the hammer in it) hiding his Smith and Wesson Revolver. 26 Dekker and Jain finally get Kiki to leave by by making her think that they are having an affair. 27 Dekker tastes the icing on the cake that Jain had delivered for Al's birthday. 28 Dekker cuts the cake with a folding lock-blade knife. 29 Jain tells Dekker that her name rhymes with rain. He tells her that his is "the name of this gun; Smith and Wesson." 30 Jain flees to her bedroom and tries one last desperate move to save herself and her baby. It doesn't work.
31 Dekker is finally won over by his hatred of Al and Jain's love for her baby. He take's her to the pizza man's house. 32 Dekker pays for Jain and the baby's first class train ticket to Denver and sees them off at the train station.
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art52811.asp
Black Birds Baked in a Pie?
Pie birds are also sometimes referred to as pie vents, pie funnels, pie chimneys or pie whistles. Although commonly known as pie birds, they can also be found in many other shapes. Primitive, basic pie birds were shaped like inverted funnels. While most are shaped like birds with their beaks wide open, there are pie birds shaped like a great variety of other animals. There are also pie bird holiday figures like Santas, snowmen and trees ... pie bird nursery rhyme characters, early Americana folk characters and other little people.... pie bird teapots, lighthouses and much more.
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