I Was a Lonely Boy, I'm Not the Only Boy

By Kevin Guilfoile

While reading coverage of the Cornbleet murder in The Daily Herald, a newspaper from the island of St. Martin, I came across this startling sentence:

(Hans Peterson) reportedly inflicted major lacerations on the dermatologist’s hands and feet and then cauterized the wounds with a blow torch before stabbing him to death with a knife.

I had seen it alleged in other foreign reports that Peterson used a blowtorch in his murder of Dr. Cornbleet last October, but I have never read that claim in the American press.

That's probably because it's not true. Not exactly.

I'm told that Peterson confessed to investigators that he brought a blowtorch with him to Dr. Cornbleet's office with the intention of torturing the physician by cutting his hands and feet and then cauterizing the wounds so he wouldn't lose too much blood. This would have kept Dr. Cornbleet alive for as long as possible so that Peterson could cruelly prolong his suffering. But Peterson couldn't follow through with that part of his plan and he described to authorities the reason why.

More on that in a minute, because it touches on a subject we've discussed recently here at The Outfit.

[If you're unfamiliar with the Cornbleet murder case, in which a Chicago dermatologist was brutally stabbed to death by a former patient because the patient believed he was suffering permanent side effects from a prescribed anti-acne medication, start at the bottom and read up.]

Immediately, it struck me that this idea--cutting into the hands and feet and then cauterizing them--didn't occur to Hans a priori. He had to have heard of someone doing that before. I can only speculate, but I know of at least one popular movie--Tony Scott's version of Man on Fire--in which Denzel Washington does something similar to a man's hands with a cigarette lighter during an interrogation. There is also a more obscure film from the late 90s called Thursday. I haven't seen it but here is a monologue from one scene according to IMDb (bold emphasis mine):

BILLY HILL: Well, I ain't gonna s*** ya, pal. When I leave here today, you're gonna be dead as Cinderella over there. Regardless of what you tell me, I'm gonna f*** you up. [opens his bag and takes out a battery-powered circular saw; turns on the saw and holds it in front of Casey's face] YOU READY TO GET STARTED? [turns off the saw] I know you threw out the smack. And you probly don't know where the money is, neither. That's cool. Tho the truth is... I ain't got nothin' better to do, while I wait here for my old friend Nick. [reaching in his bag] Just so you know, I ain't gonna let you bleed to death. [takes out a blow-torch] No, sir. Cuz when I cut you... [turns on the blow-torch] I'm gonna cauterize it. I consider myself an artist. Matter of fact, I picked up this little girl at this club one time... and I cut on her for 16 hours. That's a personal best, but... I keep hoping... [turns on the saw] Alright, now, let's see. I think I'm gonna start at the feet, AND WORK MY WAY UP!

I have no idea if Hans has seen either film, of course.

I have been told, however, that Hans was a big fan of the Showtime series Dexter (based on a series of novels by Jeff Lindsay). I would never suggest that Dexter, or any other television program, caused Hans to become a killer. But Dexter premiered just three weeks before the murder and it's obvious why the character of Dexter Morgan--a serial killer who only kills villainous people--must have appealed to Hans, who rationalized his savagery by claiming that he was somehow a victim of Dr. Cornbleet's greed.

(There will probably be a lengthier post on this in the future, but I should note here that Peterson's assertion that Dr. Cornbleet prescribed him Accutane because he was desperate for patients and wanted Hans to make the mandatory follow-up visits is not only absurd on its face, but refuted by evidence that Dr. Cornbleet had a thriving practice and regularly saw more than 100 patients a week.)

But back to Peterson's confession. Hans allegedly told St. Martin police that he did not use the blowtorch on Dr. Cornbleet because killing a human being turned out to be a lot harder than he thought it would be. Dr. Cornbleet was in fine shape for a man of his age. He fought back. Hans ended up punched and bloodied himself. It took all of Peterson's attention and energy just to subdue Dr. Cornbleet. He had nothing left for extracurricular activity.

In the surveillance video from the night of the murder we see Peterson leaving the office building, covering his face with a sweatshirt and, according to one witness, apparently bleeding from the nose.

Last week Libby wrote an eloquent post about the proliferation of violent images in the media and the difficulty we all have determining which depictions are edifying and which are gratuitous. I don't believe that such images caused Hans Peterson to kill and I won't play psychiatrist and pretend I understand the forces, internal and external, that drove him to that madness. But when it came time to actually murder someone at close range, with his own hands, Peterson discovered that violent scenes on television and in movies and video games (and novels, too) had deceived him. He was completely unprepared for the intensity and the struggle and the blood and the chaos. The motion. The smell. The sound. Real murder was nothing like the movies.

In the first episode of Hans's favorite television series, Dexter Morgan, who is not only a serial killer but also a forensics technician, admires a crime scene (not his) that is mysteriously free of blood splatter. He thinks to himself in a voiceover, "No blood. No sticky, hot, messy, awful blood. No blood at all. What a beautiful idea!"

And not possible except on cable TV.

UPDATE: The Cornbleet family has provided a link that will direct you to the US State Department's web site. There you can send a message directly to the Secretary of State (as Senators Obama and Durbin have done) requesting that she continue to put pressure on her counterparts in the French government for the extradition of Hans Peterson to the United States.

UPDATE 2: "There are multiple victims and multiple villains. I feel that one of the victims is Dr. Cornbleet and one of the villains is Dr. Cornbleet. One of the victims is Hans Peterson and one of the villains is Hans Peterson." Channel 5 in Chicago has posted part of an interview with Hans Peterson's father recorded for an upcoming feature for Dateline NBC. They will be running more of the interview on the news tonight, as well as a reaction from Dr. Cornbleet's son, Jon.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum, Baby

By Kevin Guilfoile

I'm sure you don't know this but The Outfit has a Caribbean doppleganger, a French-language blogger who has been covering the Hans Peterson case from paradise climes with nearly as much diligence as us, albeit with a little less discretion and a lot more flair.

More on him in a moment.

The case is back in the news as a team of French prosecutors, judges, and police officers will arrive in Chicago on Monday to begin their investigation into the murder of Chicago dermatologist Dr. David Cornbleet. They will be interviewing witnesses, detectives, and the family of the victim, and they might visit the Michigan Avenue office in which Dr. Cornbleet was murdered.

(If you're unfamiliar with this bizarre case, in which a former patient of Dr. Cornbleet confessed to his brutal murder but not before fleeing to the Caribbean where he now waits, in a web of complicated extradition laws, for trial in a French court, start at the bottom and read up. I promise you won't be bored.)

Thanks to a legal system that must be the envy of our current administration, Hans Peterson has not been charged with a crime and yet has been sitting in a Guadeloupe prison since his confession last August. Presumably this legal junket to the states will finally lead to murder charges which will then be prosecuted under the French inquisitorial system in an island court.

Unlike our adversarial system, in which the prosecution and defense would duel over his fate before judge and jury, the investigation, trial, and sentencing of Hans Peterson will all be directed by a judge. At trial, representatives for the prosecution, defense, and even the victim will be allowed to make suggestions, but it will ultimately be the judge who interviews witnesses, the judge who weighs the evidence, the judge who renders a verdict, and the judge who issues the sentence.

Prosecutors in Guadeloupe have assured the Cornbleet family that justice will be served in a French court, and I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of their public service. I assume they will seek a thorough investigation and a fair trial. Jon Cornbleet, the son of the victim, recently told the Sun-Times what message he hopes to communicate to the judge:

"I want to explain to them that everybody is upset about this,'' Cornbleet said. "I want to explain to them that this is a huge national case that everybody has their eyes on. I don't think they understand what it has done to my family.''

This might be a message that will be well-received. France is fairly sensitive to victims' rights, even requiring in some cases that the state compensate victims financially when the the offender is unable to.

Of course the Cornbleets have never asked for compensation, as far as I know. I think what Jon Cornbleet would like the French government to know is that the world is watching this case. Or, if not the world, CNN, Inside Edition, Dateline NBC, the United States Senate, the US State Department. And of course, The Outfit. And also Jabiru.

Jabiru is Gilbert Blum, the aforementioned blogger and a St. Martin journalist operating under the auspices of Le Monde who has taken an interest in this case. Apparently he has received much of his information from the local detectives who took Peterson's confession, as well as the attorney who will represent him at trial.

Months ago we reported that Peterson had carried a blowtorch with him on the night of the murder with the intention of cutting off Dr. Cornbleet's hands and feet and then cauterizing the wounds, keeping the physician alive while he suffered. Jabiru goes into far more detail (even if the awkward translation sometimes makes the depiction more lurid):

To carry out his demented mutilation operation, he buys a small blowtorch with gas cartridges, special pliers to “slash the dermatologist with”, a hacksaw, some rope, plus his knife… before the fateful appointment of 24 October 2006. Faced with Dr. Cornbleet, he uses as an excuse a blemish on his buttock and the consultation takes place normally.

Then, as he was about to leave empty-handed, he pretends to the dermatologist that he also has a blemish on his leg to show him. And then the cold-blooded attack begins, releasing a drive to kill pent up since April 2002.

His diabolical delirium (a Dibbuk, as Dr. David Cornbleet’s Ashkenazi ancestors used to say) materialized in the persecution feeling which has been haunting him, eating at him inside his body and soul for the past four years. But in a broken up family context, he does not talk about it. Therefore there is no outside critical mind that could go against the negative deviance of his intimate thoughts. No meeting, no advice, no feed-back from his father, his mother or his sister Stephanie.

He feels perfectly normal and totally logical to punish his persecutor by slashing at his hands and feet so that he may no longer carry out his profession. A fiendish plan, including cauterizing the wounds with the blowtorch!

Under the threat of torture, the physician defended himself, hitting the aggressor with the knife. Then he becomes relentless, with no visible emotion, until he finally finishes him off with the thrust of the knife in the heart of his executioner having become an expiatory victim until his last breath. Leaving the office with warm blood stains, he told someone there to call for an ambulance quickly. On exiting the building, he conceals his face in front of the video cameras.

We might be seeing the first glimpses of Peterson's defense here. I'm not sure if this comes from Peterson's statement or from his attorney but this is the first suggestion I've seen, however improbable, that he did not intend to kill Dr. Cornbleet that day:

His main goal – four years after the first consultation – was not (he said) the death of his executioner, only mutilation… Of course, for all his patients David Cornbleet is everything but an executioner. But Hans is locked within the delirium of his paranoid delusion, controlled by the injustice he feels as a victim.

Much has been made about the effect that the drug Accutane might have had on Hans Peterson, even after only two doses. Peterson's father, also a physician, has gone so far as to say that it was the cause of his son's psychosis. Perhaps the most interesting implication in Jabiru's posts (and in his comments here at The Outfit as well) is the possibility that the defense will include the suggestion that Hans has Asperger's Syndrome.

For the court attorney in Guadeloupe, the burden of defending Hans Peterson is heavy and somewhat tricky. The first trips to the visiting room in the Basse-Terre jail look more like short progressive taming sessions.

The murderer is not talkative. He is autistic, and his distinctive features are:

Lack of communication with people. Reasoning intelligence and good writing qualities, including self-analysis.

A champion of online poker on the Internet, the year the crime was committed, he has 130,000 dollars in his account. Therefore he did not kill for money. “A rational gambler typically knows the expected payoff and loss, as well as the probabilities of winning and losing”, he says.

From now on, his brain, locked into a prison cell, is going to remain shut away inside the prison, like a snail inside its shell. A young French-American borderline individual, coming to take refuge on a French island to avoid the risk of a lethal injection, his trial will probably take place within 2 years. Who is he and why did he kill?

Hans Peterson’s four aces, his “game of bluff” could be Asperger’s syndrome.

Readers of this site know that three months after he murdered Dr. Cornbleet, Peterson began posting to Wrong Planet, an "online resource and community for those with Asperger's Syndrome". Although Hans had registered at the site three years earlier, it was only after Dr. Cornbleet's murder that he began inquiring whether he might have the disorder. Hans was clearly trying to figure out why he was different from everyone he knew.

As far as I can tell Hans has never been diagnosed with Asperger's, a high functioning form of autism that has nothing to do with murderous rage. But it's possible that his attorney is trying to use Asperger's as a mitigating factor in sentencing. Several months after we had first discussed Hans's personal inquiry into Asperger's, Jabiru commented here at The Outfit:

I discuss about that with a french psychiatric expert. Autism and Asperger Syndrom have also to be in your mind to understand a little more about this criminal.

I can only assume that Jabiru is getting that idea from Hans's defense attorney. And although it's difficult to imagine what Asperger's has to do with murder, if Hans's defense is really lining up psychiatrists to attest to that fact it's something that might give observers of this case pause, especially in light of this paragraph from the US Department of Justice analysis of the French judicial system:

Expert witnesses, such as psychiatrists, have a great influence. The court will generally abide by the conclusions of expert witnesses.

Why do I let myself worry wondering what in the world did I do?

By Kevin Guilfoile


Jeanette Sliwinski, the lingerie model who killed three Chicago musicians, including my friend Doug Meis, was found mentally ill and guilty of reckless homicide instead of the three counts of first-degree murder sought by prosecutors. Rather than life in prison, Sliwinski faces a maximum of ten years in prison when she is sentenced later this month.

*******************

When Michael Mukasey, President Bush's nominee to succeed Alberto Gonzalez as Attorney General, faced Congress last week he was presented with a long list of questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he was expected to respond in writing. The resulting document is well over 100 pages. Dick Durbin, the senior senator from Illinois, asked Mukasey specifically about the Cornbleet murder case, which has been reported on and discussed extensively at this site. Mukasey's responses are not edifying in any way, but the fact that the question was asked is significant and so, in the interest of completeness, here is the text of the exchange:

34. On October 24, 2006, Dr. David Cornbleet of Chicago was brutally murdered in his office by a former patient, Hans Peterson. Peterson is a U.S. Citizen who was born in the United States and lived in the United States up until the time of the murder. After the murder, Peterson fled to the French West Indies, turned himself in to the French authorities, and confessed to killing Dr. Cornbleet. Peterson's mother was a French citizen, and therefore Peterson is also considered a French citizen under French law. Because French law prohibits the extradition of French citizens to the United States, France is refusing to extradite Peterson to face trial for his crimes in Illinois. Media reports indicate the [sic] Peterson purposefully fled to French territory and turned himself in to French authorities because he knew that if he was convicted for murder under French law, he would face more lenient punishment than under American law.

a. If you are confirmed as Attorney General, will you work to see that justice is done in the matter of Dr. Cornbleet's murder?

ANSWER: I am not familiar with the specific facts of Dr. Cornbleet's murder.

b. If you are confirmed as Attorney General, will you work with other federal agencies to ensure that U.S. citizens who have dual citizenship with another country are not able to commit murder within the United States and then surrender to the authorities of the other country in order to avoid justice in the United States?

ANSWER: It is true that dual citizenship can raise complex issues. I would consider this type of question on a case-by-case basis and examine the facts and applicable law in each situation in which it arose.

On October 24, the first anniversary of Dr. Cornbleet's murder, Channel 5 in Chicago ran another update on the case. Much of this material will be used in the upcoming Dateline NBC feature.

The Cornbleet family is still asking people to contact the US State Department and urge them to continue to pressure the French to extradite Hans Peterson for the crime.

UPDATE: The story of Dr. Cornbleet's murder will air tonight (Monday, November 5) on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 at 9:00 PM Central Time.

'Cause Sorrow Is Just All The Rage

By Kevin Guilfoile

"Justice will not be found through the legal system...Would taking some of their money even be justice? Their lives would go on, just with a little less money. Our lives will never be the same."

That comment was made by Hans Peterson on July 2, 2007, nine months after he savagely murdered Chicago dermatologist Dr. David Cornbleet. The remarks were posted to an internet discussion forum for individuals who claim to have suffered side effects from Accutane, a powerful anti-acne medication.


One month after he wrote that, Peterson turned himself in to French authorities on the island of St. Martin. According to reports, he told police that he murdered Dr. Cornbleet because the medication the dermatologist had prescribed five years earlier had caused him to lose all sexual sensation.

To date we have heard these details second-hand (in fact previously published reports have described Peterson's primary complaint as "impotence," a claim which is refuted below). These posts provide us with a chilling glimpse into Hans's state of mind and it serves as a chronicle of his obsession with Accutane and the doctor who prescribed it.

Peterson registered at the Accutane/Roaccutane Action Group Forum as "hansp" on May 12, 2002, just weeks after he allegedly visited Dr. Cornbleet's office for the first time. (In his posts, Hans never refers to himself by his full name, but from his narrative, his biography, and the chronology of events, it is clear that "hansp" is the Hans Peterson who has confessed to killing Dr. Cornbleet.) On June 16 of that year he posted his first comment.

"In late April, I went to see a dermatologist for my very mild, but persistent acne. He was an unethical old man who suggested accutane. He said that it was a very safe and popular drug with no serious side effects. I was never given a blood test. He never showed me the consent forms that he is required by law to make me sign. I was started on 80 mg per day. (I weigh around 190) He said that I could take the entire day's dose at once. When I picked up my prescription, the pharmacist conveniently forgot to give me the FDA required medication guide. When I picked up the medication, I was under the impression that accutane was an extremely safe drug.

"I took it for 2 days. Then I got a bad headache and read about the side effects. I stopped right away. I thought that I was safe having only taken a few pills. However, about 5 days later, I got really depressed and couldn't sleep. My ears started to ring around this time, and a lot of hair around my hairline began to fall out. (The roots of these follicles were black, normally they're white.) My appetite went away around this time as well. A couple of days after this, my libido vanished and I lost virtually all sexual sensation...It has been over a month and a half since my very brief experience with accutane and most of these effects have not improved at all. (I sleep a little better as I am starting to get used to the ear ringing, but that is about it.)

"Am I permanently affected from taking an acne medicine for 2 days?"

More than 60 posts from Hans follow over the next five years. They show a man becoming increasingly obsessed with the drug Accutane and the effects he believed it was having on his body and his mind. He attributes a series of ailments, including depression, to the medication but the two that he claims most haunt him are a constant ringing in his ears and a loss of sexual sensation.

On November 15, 2002 Hans wrote:

"Since taking a relatively high dose of accutane for a very short period of time 7 months ago, I have been experiencing persistent sexual problems. I would describe it as a loss of libido and sexual sensation. I have lost virtually all interest in sex. When I do engage in sex or masturbation, the act is no longer pleasurable. I can get an erection and otherwise function normally. The pleasurable sensation is just gone."

On April 30, 2004, in a thread specifically about "Erectile Dysfunction," Hans wrote:

"How am I coping with it? Not particularly well. You take a drug in order to increase your chances of getting laid, and end up not being able to enjoy getting laid. (Getting an erection isn't that big of a problem - it's the near complete loss of sensation.) I guess you could try to enjoy pleasing the other person, and all that crap. But, still, this side effect is horrible..."

As the years pass, Hans tries to become more familiar with both the science and the unsubstantiated claims made about Accutane. He consults with other doctors, who are not able to prove a link between his ailments and the drug he took briefly years before.

On February 6, 2003, he wrote:

"I have just begun law school, and tasks like paying attention or concentrating are not as easy as they were before I took Accutane. Perhaps I can use whatever legal knowledge I gain to take my revenge... I have nothing else to live for."

(The list of side-effects that members of this forum attribute to Accutane is so long that it would be difficult to find a response from drugmaker Roche for every single one. In the past Roche has denied a connection between Accutane and the most serious conditions alleged. "It's our conclusion, along with the outside experts and the FDA, that there is no scientific basis that links Accutane with depression or suicide," a spokesperson told Reuters in 2002.)

In a few of these posts, Hans seems to be formulating his rationalization for murder. According to Hans, Dr. Cornbleet is a villain who "deceived" him by knowingly prescribing a dangerous drug without providing any warning of the harmful effects associated with it. Hans also suggests a possible motive for this: Greed. On October 9, 2002 Hans speculated that Dr. Cornbleet was "desperate for patients, and, if I were to go on accutane, I would have to see him every two weeks for a check up."

These two claims would seem to be inconsistent, however. Presumably Dr. Cornbleet did not tell Hans that Accutane was an "extremely safe" and "popular drug with no serious side effects" that nevertheless required an intense schedule of bi-monthly monitoring visits.

And yet, especially compared to the standards of internet discussion forums, Peterson's writing is frequently clear and concise. At times he even grows impatient with his fellow posters, chastising them for throwing out statistics and claims without citations:

"Is there anyone that can tell me where this information is actually published? I admire the effort of the people that run this site, but you should really provide some adequate form of citation, so we know that these figures aren't just pulled out of the air...I don't doubt the truth of these statements, but in order for this website to be taken seriously, there needs to be some way of verifying the claims that are made on it."

After a period of frequent activity in the spring and summer of 2004, Hans disappears from the forum for two years, returning on September 20, 2006, just four weeks before he would travel from New York to Chicago to murder Dr. Cornbleet. On that day he posts two links--one to a depression study reported on the BBC web site and another to a video on YouTube. On October 10, he posts the complete text of an article about Dopamine.

The next post is February 7, 2007, more than three months after the murder:

"I was deceived by my doctor almost 5 years ago into taking this drug (no consent form, no med guide, no warnings whatsoever). I took a rather high dose for two days. TWO DAYS!!! (albeit an 80 mg undivided dose) Life altering, presumably neurological, problems which I never experienced before have plagued me ever since.

"I will never know again what it is like to pleasure a woman because I no longer have any sexual sensation - I will never again experience what silence is due to the constant ringing in my ears - I will never know who I would have become because of what this motherf**king drug has done to my mind. A drug which I should have never been prescribed...In at least some cases, such as mine, this drug just does its damage when its taken, or shortly thereafter, and that's it. No real hope of recovery, doctors are useless, the damage is done.

"Doubt my problems and their connection to Accutane all you want - I know I wouldn't believe a word of it if I had never taken the drug and someone told me the story I have told above. The truth is, I'm a rational non-hypochondriac who still can't believe how his life has been changed by this drug."

He posted four more times before he turned himself in to St. Martin police in August. On July 2, his second-to-last post he wrote:

"Justice will not be found through the legal system. There is no way to objectively verify Accutane-induced permanent neurological problems. Even if there were, it would be near impossible to legally prove causation. Even then, statutes of limitation would have run... If and when the **** ever does hit the fan they will just point out how strenuously they claimed their ignorance about permanent problems.

"Would legal justice even be justice, anyway? The people who have profitted from Roche's deception won't be personally brought to justice -- they will be shielded from personal liability... Roche's stock might drop, that's about it, it still would have been rational for those ***holes to deceive regarding Accutane in the first place: its profits over the years have been more than enough. The corrupt FDA, as a gov't institution, can't be held liable....

"There is no foreseeable retributive action in the legal system which would make their fraud regarding Accutane a mistake. Their decisions were economically rational and they know it. Would taking some of their money even be justice? Their lives would go on, just with a little less money. Our lives will never be the same.

"If you seek real justice, it will not come through the legal system -- they know this, that's why they continue to deceive and play ignorant. It is the financially rational thing to do..."

Cornbleet Murder Case Media Alert

For Outfit readers who have been following the case, this week Channel 5 in Chicago ran parts of an interview with Hans Peterson's father, Dr. Thomas Peterson, which was taped for an upcoming edition of Dateline NBC:

"There are multiple victims and multiple villains. I feel that one of the victims is Dr. Cornbleet and one of the villains is Dr. Cornbleet. One of the victims is Hans Peterson and one of the villains is Hans Peterson."

Here is part two of the NBC interview which explores the Accutane angle in slightly more depth and includes a response from the victim's son, Jon Cornbleet.

Chicago's ABC affiliate (WLS, Channel 7) also ran an interview with Dr. Peterson. That piece includes a statement from Dr. Douglas Bremner, the Director of the Emory University Clinical Neuroscience Research Institute, who performed a brain imaging study a few years back that claims to show that Accutane has an effect on the orbitofrontal cortex.

If you're confused by the conflicting scientific claims made about the risks of Accutane (also known as Isotretinoin), here is a good explanation of why you're confused, referencing Bremner's study, a more recent study which shows no link between the drug and depression, and another that calls for more studies. If I understand it correctly, Bremner's study showed how Accutane might be linked to depression, but it did not actually show a cause-and-effect relationship:

Dr. Bremner explains that to invoke depression, isotretinoin must influence the brain. During the investigation, brain function of the subjects was measured using positron emission tomography (PET) before and after four months of treatment with isotretinoin. Isotretinoin treatment was associated with decreased brain metabolism in the orbitofrontal cortex- the area of the brain known to mediate symptoms of depression. Yet, there were no differences in severity of depressive symptoms between the isotretinoin and antibiotic treatment groups before or after treatment.

The local CBS station (WBBM, Channel 2), includes some quotes from an interview with Dr. Peterson on its web site, but has no video.

UPDATE: The local papers all have updates on the anniversary of Dr. Cornbleet's murder.

One Of These Days I'll Chase You Down

By Kevin Guilfoile

The first thing that hit me sideways was the phrase "professional internet gambler."

If you're a crime buff there are few things that can become more obsessive than a real-life mystery in progress and we have one in Chicago right now. This week there was a huge break in a well-known local murder investigation and although details are sketchy and weird at this point, those few details don't add up at all. And I suspect that when the truth is known the story is going to get weirder. And more interesting.

Last October the body of 64-year-old dermatologist Dr. David Cornbleet was discovered by his daughter in his 12th-story Michigan Avenue office, just across the street from Millennium Park. Cornbleet had been bound, gagged, and stabbed over twenty times. Surveillance video showed what appeared to be a young man entering the building just before the killing and leaving just after. In both instances he seemed to be hiding his face. A witness who rode the elevator with the suspect back down to the street reported that he had injured his nose and had blood on his sweatshirt, as if he had been in some sort of struggle.

The video ran for several days on Chicago television. Promising leads turned cold. The victim's family raised money for a reward and Dr. Cornbleet's son, Jon, created a MySpace page for soliciting tips from younger people--perhaps the killer's peers--who might not follow the mainstream media.

In June, apparently in part from leads developed on the internet, a 29-year-old New York resident and "professional internet gambler" named Hans Peterson (left in high school photo) became a "person of interest." DNA in Peterson's New York apartment was compared to DNA left behind at the crime scene. Two months after the murder, Peterson apparently had fled to the island of St. Martin where he applied for and received French citizenship. Last week, he turned himself in to St. Martin authorities, claiming that he committed the murder because five years ago Dr. Cornbleet had prescribed some acne medication that Peterson believed had made him impotent.

Because the French will not extradite their citizens in capital cases, bringing Peterson to Chicago for trial has suddenly become complicated.

Obviously there are many holes in this story which will be filled in the coming weeks and months. And I suspect that some of the "facts" as we currently know them will turn out to be untrue. But the bones of this story--New York internet gambler seeks acne treatment in Chicago, has bad reaction, then five years later returns to savagely murder the doctor who wrote the prescription--just won't stand up on their own, especially when you compare the complete irrationality of the act to the cold calculation of applying for foreign citizenship in order to avoid prosecution in the United States.

The local TV stations have been all over this story. The Tribune put news of the confession on Page 3 of Metro, probably because they know so little about Peterson and what they know is somewhat dubious. The Sun-Times seems to be giving it a little more wood with no more information. There are skilled reporters working the beat, however, and my gut tells me this story is going to blow up into front page weirdness in the coming days.

And although I will almost always put my money on professional reporters having the edge over internet gossips, this story might turn out to be an exception. Hans Peterson has friends. Some of his friends must know his story. Some of those friends no doubt have blogs.

I'm not making any predictions, but this could be the kind of halfway-under-the-radar tale the internet was born for.

Looking Through Some Photographs I Found Inside A Drawer

By Kevin Guilfoile


When I first wrote about the Cornbleet murder case it was largely because I couldn't figure out why no one had published a photo of the confessed killer. It certainly seemed relevant. It still does.

At the right is a recent photo of Hans Peterson, who savagely tortured and murdered Dr. David Cornbleet in his Michigan Avenue office last October, allegedly because Peterson believed a medicine Cornbleet had prescribed four years before had made him impotent. Although I'm not sure exactly when, I have reason to believe the picture was taken after Dr. Cornbleet's murder.

Less relevant but still interesting are these photos of the street and apartment where Peterson lived after he fled the US for St. Martin.



This morning a resolution was introduced in the Chicago City Council asserting that France's refusal to extradite Peterson "offends the notions of justice of this body and...the people of the City of Chicago." In response Mayor Daley has promised to raise the issue in an upcoming meeting with the mayor of Paris, Chicago's sister city.

I'm not sure that will have any impact at all, but as my good friend Lew Temple likes to say, good on them.

If all such efforts fail, the Sun-Times has a brief explanation of what Hans's French trial would be like.

The Trial of Hans Peterson: Tuesday's Testimony

By Kevin Guilfoile

(For more background on this story look at this and here, or you can really go in-depth with this excellent Chicago Mag article from 2007.)

Another update from the Guadalupe trial of Hans Peterson, killer of Chicago dermatologist Dr David Cornbleet.

This report contains a pretty thorough summary of yesterday's testimony, including that of Peterson's French mother and the Chicago coroner who examined Dr. Cornbleet's body.

Peterson's mother, who was born in France (a fact that enabled her son to apply for French citizenship and avoid extradition) describes dramatic changes she perceived in her son after just a small dose of Accutane. The medical examiner said that the extent of the injuries suffered by Dr. Cornbleet resembled those of a "hate crime."

One interesting detail--it appears the family of Dr. Cornbleet is also represented by an attorney, who has the right to cross-examine witnesses. He pointed to Peterson's history of problems managing his anger and observed that Peterson's mother is not a medical expert who could identify a link between Accutane and Hans's ailments.

(Also, read this thoughtful, personal piece from Chicago magazine's Whet Moser on the start of the Peterson trial.)

DAY FIVE UPDATE: Shortly after the arrest of Hans Peterson, some speculated that the most he could serve under French law was 20 years. Today, the prosecution asked for a sentence of life plus 22 years.

Jon Cornbleet on the Peterson Verdict

By Kevin Guilfoile

Justice has been a long time coming for members of Chicago's Cornbleet family. It's been five years since Hans Peterson drove here from New York and brutally tortured and murdered their dermatologist father in his Michigan Avenue office.

After a year-long manhunt and an even longer extradition battle, Hans Peterson was convicted this week by a French court in Guadalupe and sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for 22 years. It's the maximum penalty allowed under French law.

Yesterday, Dr. Cornbleet's son, Jon, spoke to reporters about the verdict



Incredibly, even though this was a huge story in Chicago in 2006 and 2007, and received national attention on shows like Dateline NBC and Inside Edition, not a single English language print media outlet has reported this week's trial and verdict (I'm not aware of TV coverage either, but it's possible I could have missed it). An exception was Whet Moser's thoughtful and personal piece on the trial for Chicago magazine's web site.

The Chicago Tribune does have a story today about an Australian who was sentenced to two months detention in Indonesia for marijuana possession, but nothing about the conviction on the same day of an American who stabbed a Chicago doctor more than two dozen times just a few blocks from Tribune Tower.

(For more background on this story look at this and here, or you can really go in-depth with this excellent Chicago Mag article from 2007.)

UPDATE: Here's a television report (in French) that includes scenes of the courtroom and a comment from Peterson's mother:



UPDATE 2 Jon Cornbleet will be addressing the Chicago media Tuesday (11/29) morning. I assume we'll finally see local coverage of this story Tuesday night and Wednesday.

The Prisoner Who Now Stands Before You

By Kevin Guilfoile

On October 24, 2006, Hans Peterson drove a rented car from New York to Chicago and walked into the Michigan Avenue office of dermatologist David Cornbleet. His intention was to torture the 64-year-old physician with a knife and blowtorch.

Torturing and murdering someone, even someone more than twice your age, turns out to be more difficult than it seems. Dr. Cornbleet fought back. Peterson eventually overpowered him, however, stabbing him more than twenty times until he was dead.

We followed the Cornbleet case extensively here at The Outfit, even publishing the first photo of Peterson after his arrest, and uncovering Peterson's ominous postings on an Accutane web site. But there hasn't been much news on that front in quite a while. Peterson fled to the island of St. Martin where he was eventually arrested by French authorities. He has been sitting in a jail in Guadalupe for four years.

Today he finally goes on trial for "murder and acts of torture and barbarism." (Even though this was once a high-profile case with primetime network coverage and an appeal for extradition from then Senator Barack Obama, I can find no coverage of this at all in the English-language media. Many thanks to the pen pal who alerted me to the news.)

It appears the case will be a war of experts, with the defense attempting to mitigate Peterson's guilt by claiming that the Accutane prescription Dr. Cornbleet had written for Peterson's acne several years before the murder caused significant and irreversible damage to Peterson's brain.

French justice is slow to arrive, but swiftly delivered, apparently. A verdict is expected by the weekend.

We'll post it when we hear it.

UPDATE: Here is a very brief summary of the first day of testimony.

UPDATE 2: Summary of Tuesday's testimony.

Where a Man Can Lose His Mind

By Kevin Guilfoile

On an August afternoon in 2007, John Mullarkey sent a text message (by some accounts to his mother) with his blood-splattered cell phone: I stabbed my self at demi.s i love you.

That same instant, Gayle Slomer of suburban Pittsburgh heard a desperate, frantic shriek outside her daughter's window. She ran out the door to find her daughter's 16-year-old neighbor Demi Cuccia bleeding in the front yard from more than a dozen stab wounds. Moments later Mullarkey, Cuccia's on-again-off-again boyfriend, emerged from Cuccia's house, a 10-inch, self-inflicted gash across his own neck. "Get away from me! I hate you!" Demi screamed at Mullarkey.

It was one of the last things she ever said.

Mullarkey confessed to the brutal murder at the scene. Later in the hospital, still unable to speak, Mullarkey wrote on an eraser board and handed it to an Allegheny County homicide detective: If somebody did something bad and they were taking medication, Mullarkey wrote, would that be a defense?

Approximately four months before the murders, Mullarkey began taking the powerful prescription acne medicine Accutane. According to the defense, Mullarkey stopped taking the meds just days before the murder because he was concerned about side effects, which included radical mood swings. Friends of Cuccia's however, paint a picture of Mullarkey as always having been controlling and jealous, and in the days before the murder, Mullarkey sent Cuccia a series of increasingly desperate emails and texts concerning the state of their relationship.

It's a shocking story, but many of the details will sound horrifyingly familiar to Chicagoans, as well as to readers of this site.

On October 24, 2006, respected dermatologist Dr. David Cornbleet, was viciously stabbed to death by Hans Peterson, a former patient for whom Cornbleet had allegedly prescribed Accutane several years earlier. Like Mullarkey, Peterson claimed to have stopped taking the drug after he became concerned about side effects. In fact, Peterson claimed to have taken only a couple of doses. Nevertheless for more than four years afterward Peterson would describe a series of persistent and unbearable side effects that he blamed on the small amount of Accutane he had taken in 2002.

Accutane has had a long history of both success and controversy. Many, including Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak, whose son committed suicide while on the drug, have tried to link it with depression. Roche, the pharmaceutical company that distributes Accutane includes a hefty warning label as required by law, but claims no causal link to depression, suicide or violence has been found.

The Mullarkey case, which has gone to trial this week, appears to be the first time a defendant has claimed his judgment had been impaired by Accutane. The results will be watched very carefully in Chicago, and in Peterson's native Eugene, Oregon, and also in Basel, Switzerland where Roche is headquartered.

If the Accutane defense succeeds, we will no doubt see it again.

Even if it doesn't succeed, I suspect we will see it again.

The story of Dr. Cornbleet and Hans Peterson is just as tragic but far more bizarre than the Mullarkey case. The tale includes a lengthy manhunt across several states, the nuances of international law and extradition, the television show Dexter, online poker, Barack Obama, a strange claim about Asperger's syndrome, and the heroic intervention of an Iraq war veteran. More than anything, though, it's about fathers and sons. I won't repeat all the details here, but if you follow this link and start at the bottom you can get, if not the whole story, a good sense of it.

As John Mullarkey sits before a jury, Hans Peterson sits in a jail cell on the island of Guadaloupe. He has been there for almost two years. The French government refuses to send him back to the US to face judgment, but they also seem reluctant to deal with his crime themselves. No charges have been filed and none seem to be coming in the immediate future. Under French law, Peterson can be held for another two years without trial. Although they serve a different system in a different jurisdiction, Peterson's court-appointed lawyers no doubt will also be watching the outcome of the Mullarkey case with keen interest.

Finally, a meaningless but eerie coincidence: I first wrote about the murder of Dr. Cornbleet 11 months after the crime, on August 15, 2007. The post went up around 9:30 Central Time.

John Mullarkey murdered Dana Cuccia just seven hours later.

UPDATE: A pharmacist testified in the trial yesterday that Accutane likely caused Mullarkey's depression and a mental disorder. On cross examination the pharmacist admitted that his experience with the drug was limited to what he'd read. "I don't think the FDA would (require those warnings) unless there was a problem with the drug," he said.

TOTALLY UNEXPECTED UPDATE: Roche pulls Accutane out of the US Market after an unrelated jury verdict in a class action lawsuit awarding more than $30 million dollars to users who experienced inflammatory bowel disease. More later.

UPDATE: A jury in Pittsburgh took just two hours to convict Mullarkey of first-degree murder.

To Cry, Kill, and Die; To Lie, Hate, and Fear

By Kevin Guilfoile

Hi, I have always been different from most of my peers - extremely quiet, unable to engage in any sort of small talk, somewhat obsessive, intelligent, and somewhat unable to make friends. Many of these qualities I attributed to the fact that I grew up in a house in the middle of nowhere, with no immediate neighbors, and the way that may [sic] parents were rather different than most people in the town that I lived near. (White trash town - my father is a doctor, my mother from France, and not used to many American customs) I was always considered talented and gifted in school, but I struggled socially (many people felt I was mute), and I have never been in a real relationship in my life despite my above average physical attractiveness. I am now 28 years old and recently moved from the United States to an island in the Caribbean.

Recent readers of this site will recognize in those words the troubled voice of Hans Rudolph Peterson, who one month ago confessed to last October's savage murder of Chicago dermatologist Dr. David Cornbleet.

(If you're new to the case, or if you've been directed here by the recent flurry of Peterson coverage, you can find links to previous reports in our last post related to Peterson's online activity at the Accutane/Roaccutane Action Group Forum. A version of that post also appears on the op-ed page of today's Chicago Tribune. If you are a regular reader of this site, our usual rotation of contributors will resume on Friday.)

The above introduction was posted to yet another internet discussion, this one at Wrong Planet an "online resource and community for those with Asperger's Syndrome." Peterson registered at the site in July of 2004, but apparently didn't post until February 4, 2007, three months after Dr. Cornbleet's murder. He joined the discussion only twice, but the posts seem to provide one more fold in the map Peterson was trying to follow to the source of his mental illness. As in the Accutane discussions, he is trying to find a concrete reason why he became the person he did. It is also perhaps the most revealing glimpse we've had into Peterson's psyche. In his own words, he provides a vivid picture of just what what Hans sees when he looks into the mirror.

I suppose what I am trying to do here, is determine whether or not I have AS. I have many of the attributes typically attributed to AS:

* Social awkwardness/lack of intuitive understanding of social situations: I have never felt comfortable with small talk, or making friends. It's not that I don't want do, I definitely do. I just find myself pushing people away frequently because I'm generally clueless regarding friendships - and, probably more importantly, I seem very averse to initiating or continuing normal social interaction with people that I have just met.

* Excessively logical rather than emotional thought processes. I'm not the person one would want to come crying to for comfort. My brain just doesn't work that way. I seem to always look at things from a logical rather than emotional perspective. (I have emotions, they just seem more warped and diluted than those of most other people.)

* Above average intelligence. In many (most?) areas of intelligence I am substantially more intelligent than my peers. When it comes to long term memory, or understanding systems, or writing, or most academic subjects I am just a lot better than most of my peers. (I have always done exceptionally well on standardized tests, etc.)

* Lack of organization/attention span. In classes or lectures I have never been able to take notes - not even a single page. For some reason, the whole idea of writing things down repulses me. When I am paying attention, I just try to process what is being said rather than writing anything down. Also, I frequently find myself staring out the window or at a wall with my mind wandering around some subject or idea totally unrelated to the class or lecture. These factors undoubtedly hurt my academic performance. I tried to correct them to some extent, but my success was very limited. Also, I virtually never clean my room or even use a garbage can - as a result most of my rooms/apartments are not very pleasant places in which to hang out.

* At points in my life, I have been rather lazy about my hygiene as well. Just not shaving or wearing the same clothes frequently because I become bored with the process of picking out different clothes to wear. (This has not always been the case, there have been stretches in my life where I have been rather hygienic.

* Obsessive interests: Generally I am either very interested in a subject, or not interested in it at all. This has resulted in quite varied performance in school and work. Also, I suppose, when I was a child, I would have very specific interests that I would obsess over at the expense of everything else (such as dinosaurs or geography). I have generally grown out of that pattern, however, the all or nothing interest that I have in subjects largely remains.

However, i do not have some of the common AS attributes: (at least I'm not aware of having these)

* Panic attacks: I can't even comprehend what it feel like to have one.

* Lack of coordination: I'm not especially coordinated, but nor am I especially uncoordinated.

* Stimming: I may have this, I'm not sure, I certainly don't do the over the top full body convulsion type of thing, but I do fidget a fair amount, and I almost always bounce one of my legs up and down when sitting.

Also, my line of work doesn't seem typical for someone with AS. I am a professional poker player and a key part of that is thinking from the perspective of one's opponents. However, in the setting of poker, this can be done in a very logical and systematic manner, so maybe it isn't that hard for someone with AS.

I have a variety of mental issues: depression, extreme shyness, and some shades of OCD.

So, do you think I have AS? (I took the online test, it said I was very likely an aspie.) If I am, what difference does it make? AS isn't a disease, right?. It does not have a known cause, or 'cure' for that matter. As a syndrome, is it just a group of attributes which seem to be rather correlated? I dislike some of my attributes, such as the social awkwardness. Does the idea that these things may be part of a greater syndrome make it easier to deal with? I don't know yet. I guess one good thing is that I now know that there are others that have the same peculiarities as me.

It's not clear that Hans ever concludes that he has Asperger's Syndrome, but three days later he joins a music discussion at the same site.

Although I doubt it was written with AS in mind, Tool "46&2" describes my mental state fairly well. In particular the obsessive tendencies, introspection, desire to analyze, and desire to change.

(From what I read it may have been written about some sort of Jungian psychology or the next step in the evolution of the human species, but the lyrics are vague enough to cover a wide variety of topics, including AS.)

These are the words to the song Forty Six & 2 by the band Tool, the lyrics which allegedly described Hans Peterson's mental state "fairly well" just three months after he bound, gagged, tortured, and stabbed David Cornbleet more than twenty times:

My shadow's
Shedding skin and
I've been picking
Scabs again.
I'm down
Digging through
My old muscles
Looking for a clue.

I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own confused
And insecure delusions
For a piece to cross me over
Or a word to guide me in.
I wanna feel the changes coming down.
I wanna know what I've been hiding in

My shadow.
Change is coming through my shadow.
My shadow's shedding skin
I've been picking
My scabs again.

I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been.
I've been wallowing in my own chaotic
And insecure delusions.

I wanna feel the change consume me,
Feel the outside turning in.
I wanna feel the metamorphosis and
Cleansing I've endured within

My shadow
Change is coming.
Now is my time.
Listen to my muscle memory.
Contemplate what I've been clinging to.
Forty-six and two ahead of me.

I choose to live and to
Grow, take and give and to
Move, learn and love and to
Cry, kill and die and to
Be paranoid and to
Lie, hate and fear and to
Do what it takes to move through.

I choose to live and to
Lie, kill and give and to
Die, learn and love and to
Do what it takes to step through.

See my shadow changing,
Stretching up and over me.
Soften this old armor.
Hoping I can clear the way
By stepping through my shadow,
Coming out the other side.
Step into the shadow.
Forty six and two are just ahead of me.

A likely irrelevant but nevertheless creepy coda to Hans's brief foray into the Asperger's site is provided by another poster who calls himself Flagg. Like several other members of the online Asperger community, Flagg tries to welcome Hans and encourage him to post further.

"Welcome to the unending battlefield of Outer Planet," Flagg writes. "I'm the unofficial host of the slaughter, Liquid Ocelot."


DIPLOMATIC UPDATE: "U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Barack Obama (D-IL) today sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging her to consider, in light of the State Department's support for France's extradition request for Manuel Noriega, to publicly request that the Government of France extradite Hans Peterson, an American citizen who reportedly confessed to the 2006 murder of Dr. David Cornbleet in Chicago."

MEDIA UPDATE: The syndicated television program Inside Edition will be featuring the murder of Dr. Cornbleet today (Thursday, September 13). In Chicago, that show airs at 3PM on WLS-TV channel 7.

And The Victim, Well He Won't Come Back

By Kevin Guilfoile

Perhaps you amateur detectives would like to know what really happened.

That's from a mysterious comment to my last post on the Cornbleet murder case. If you can excuse me on a lazy holiday weekend, I'm going to revisit the story.

Someone calling himself "Accutane Peterson" weighed in several times to defend confessed killer Hans Peterson (left in a high school photo) with some vehemence. In our thread this person identified himself as an anonymous member of the Peterson family, but Accutane Peterson has left similar comments in other news groups where he identifies himself as Hans Peterson's father. His long and sometimes rambling replies nevertheless give you the outlines of what will undoubtedly be Hans's defense if he ever goes to trial.

I also wrote about the story over at Radosh.net where I revealed some of what I've learned about Hans from various people close to the case. The discussion there has also been informative. If you would like clarification of some of the extradition issues that have been in the news, I encourage you to read through them.

And finally I'd like to point everyone once again to the online petition to have Peterson extradited back to the US. It's looking more and more like a futile effort, however, and, bizarre as it may seem, it appears Hans, who does not even speak French, will be tried as a French citizen in a French Caribbean court for a brutal murder he committed in the US against another American.

C'est la something or other.

Update: Jocelyn Cornbleet, Dr. Cornbleet's daughter, is scheduled to appear on Greta Van Susteren's Fox News program On the Record this Monday night at 9 PM Central.

So You Want To Be Rapture Ready By The Time You Hit Calumet City?

By Kevin Guilfoile

"What do you want me to do, hire my enemies?"

That's a probably apocryphal quote that's been attributed over the years to just about every machine politician in American history, from Boss Tweed to Richard J Daley. But we're in the middle of an election cycle without end and I happen to have three friends with books coming out, really, really good books, each very different from the others, and you probably haven't heard of any of them yet.

I didn't know Charlie Newton eight months ago when I was sent an advance copy of his debut novel, CALUMET CITY. The publisher was hoping I would give it a blurb. I read it and I loved it, although my blurb turned out to be unnecessary after Lee Child called it "The best cop noir in years" and Booklist gave it a starred review. But I started emailing Charlie, a Chicago native who now lives in South Africa and we finally met when he was recently stateside, so I will disclaim my friendship with him when I tell you it's a book you have to read. And not just because of the fantastic hook.

The protagonist of CALUMET CITY is Patti Black, a south side symbol of community policing and the "most decorated cop in Chicago." I was maybe a quarter through the book and already in love with the character of Patti when something triggered a memory in my brain and I googled that name. Immediately I came across a ten-year old article in the American Prospect, written by another friend of mine Jonathan Eig. Jon's article was about the real Patti Black, a southside symbol of community policing and the most decorated cop in Chicago.

Charlie Newton has made up a painful backstory for character Patti, but the hours and hours he spent on the real streets with the real Patti are vivid on the page, and his pitch-perfect noir voice feel's absolutely authentic. The novel is shocking and violent and fast-paced and difficult to put down the same way a rattlesnake is once you have his head pinched.

(By the way, Charlie is going to be a guest on Rick Kogan's terrific radio show, The Sunday Papers, this Sunday morning (March 16) between 6:30 and 7 AM on WGN 720 AM. If you don't live within a few hundred miles of Chicago, you can listen on the internet.)

Daniel Radosh was my editor back when I was a contributor to the web site Modern Humorist. Daniel is a former writer for Spy Magazine, a contributing editor for The Week, and a popular blogger, perhaps best known for his hilarious and weekly New Yorker Cartoon Anti-Caption contest. Daniel's new book is called RAPTURE READY: ADVENTURES IN THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE OF CHRISTIAN POP CULTURE. It's a fascinating and extremely funny first-person exploration of the mostly separate but multi-billion dollar subculture of evangelical pop-culture that occasionally crosses over into the mainstream in the form of Left Behind books and Sixpence None the Richer albums. But Daniel takes you much further, into the world of Christian raves and theme parks and stand-up comedy and sex therapists and pro wrestling and BibleZines and superheroes and traveling skateboard exhibitions and television prank shows (did you see the episode of Prank 3:16 when the teenage girl thinks she's been "left behind" after the gang fakes the rapture?). That last one might sound snarky when I say it, but Daniel covers all this territory with great humor and also respect.

Eight years ago, John Warner and I were hired to write a quickie humor book about then president elect George W. Bush. We knocked the thing out in 19 days and only a few months later, MY FIRST PRESIDENTIARY went to #1 on the Washington Post bestseller list. A dime will probably buy you ten copies of that book now, but John is out this week with another entry into presidential campaign politics--SO YOU WANT TO BE PRESIDENT? Like everything John writes it is smart and funny and relevant and you should buy two because it makes a great gift.

MEDIA ALERT: For all those who have followed the David Cornbleet murder case here, this Sunday night, the entire hour of Dateline NBC will be devoted to Dr. Cornbleet's killing. It will include interviews with both Jon Cornbleet, the victim's son, and Dr. Tom Peterson, the father of accused killer Hans Peterson.

Ridiculously Late Weekend Post

By Kevin Guilfoile

Wednesday night (January 7) at 9 PM, the Discovery Channel debuts a new show, Personal Justice and the first episode is an account of the murder of Dr. David Cornbleet, which we have followed closely in this space over the last year and a half. (Scroll to bottom and read up for full recap of the Cornbleet story.)

Also today's New York Times Magazine includes a feature on Chicago's own Andrew Bird, whom we've also talked about in the past. Bird's upcoming album, Noble Beast, is expected by many to be his breakthrough record and in the article he seems to have a charming amount of midwestern angst about the attention large-scale success might bring. I've seen Chicagoans expressing similar sentiments over the last year whenever Barack Obama's election or the possibility of a Chicago Summer Olympics in 2016 comes up. For very different reasons, both politicians and artists in this city are often quite happy to go to work each day under a modest amount of scrutiny. On the other hand, I have great hope for a culture in which a guy as brilliant and quirky as Bird can become a rock star.



By the way, for those less familiar with Chicago indie music but more familiar with stuff kids watch on TV, Bird is better known all over the world to pre-schoolers like mine as "Dr. Stringz" from a popular episode of Jack's Big Music Show on Noggin:



In politics and art, we could all use a guy who knows how to fix stuff about now.

Much of madness, and more of sin

By Kevin Guilfoile

For three years running the last week of October has given Chicago its Days of the Dead.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the disappearance of Stacy Peterson, the suburban housewife, gone missing and presumed dead.

Last Friday, October 24, was the two-year anniversary of the savage stabbing murder of Dr. David Cornbleet by one of his patients in the dermatologist's Michigan Avenue office.

And next year around this time we will have another grim anniversary, that of the Hudson slayings, including the kidnapping and murder of seven-year-old Julian King.

These murders have one thing in common besides the date: As of this writing they are, to different degrees, unresolved.

The body of Stacy Peterson has never been found. Her husband Drew remains the primary person of interest in the case, but he's never been charged. He continues to appear on television--local news, the Today Show--for reasons that aren't entirely clear. He insists he is innocent and that Stacy ran away with another man.

Hans Peterson confessed to the murder of Dr. Cornbleet. Because he turned himself in to French authorities on the island of St. Martin, and because his mother was born in France, Hans will be tried under French law on the island of Guadaloupe for the murder of an American, by an American, that was plotted and executed entirely on American soil. The French have yet to charge Peterson with murder, although he has been sitting in an island prison for over a year. I am told that under French law a judge can hold him on "suspicion" for up to four years without trying him. Indeed, no timetable or trial date have been set.

In the Hudson murders police have focused on William Balfour, the estranged husband of Julian's mother Julia Hudson (Julia is also the sister of singer and actress Jennifer Hudson). According to today's Tribune, police may be looking for an accomplice, as well.

Homicides occur every week in Chicago, which this year holds the dubious distinction of the nation's highest murder rate. So far this year, 150 more Americans have been killed in Chicago than in Iraq. But lately, in the last days of October, which have traditionally been ones in which we remember our dead, it seems we've been getting some horrible extras.

Murders that horrify us, that defy explanation--cases that refuse to close, that refuse to go away.

Coming Attractions -- Crime in Chicago

by Libby Hellmann

Welcome to 2009! I can’t remember a year with so many criminal developments, investigations, and trials on tap for Chicago. For blogs like the Outfit, you couldn’t ask for a better line-up. It’s every bit as exciting as the coming attractions at the movies. Here’s just a sample of what’s coming…

Roddy, We Hardly Knew Ye.
But we’ll get to know him a lot better this year. Apart from his impeachment –practically a done deal -- and subsequent trial in the Illinois Senate, there’s also US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s criminal complaint, which will be followed by another indictment and trial (assuming Blago continues to maintain his Nixonian innocence). Whatever happens, it’s safe to say we will have him to kick around all year. Btw, the ethics law that prompted some of Blago’s behavior went into effect January 1. For an interesting history of how it almost didn’t come to pass, click here.


Rezko: Round Two Everybody’s Favorite Fundraiser, Tony Rezko, will be on trial again in February. This time, he’s accused of a $10 million loan fraud scheme involving state deals. In part, he’s accused of asking a state official to draft a letter that got him big loans from the state to finance his pizza business. Oh, and Las Vegas would like to know why he skipped out on nearly half a million dollars in gambling debts.
Pepperoni, anyone?


The Cop you Love to Hate
We ought to be hearing more from the States Attorney’s office about suburban cop Drew Peterson’s role in the murder of Wife Number Three and the disappearance (and presumed death) of Stacy, Wife Number Four. Unfortunately, the unlawful gun charges against him – which could have put him in jail for a while – were dropped in November. Still, this guy’s arrogance and narcissism make OJ – and even Blago -- look like pikers. Oh, and he’s engaged – again. Can you say “Run .. don’t walk?”

The Other Peterson
Kevin has kept us up to date on the other Peterson situation, the murder of dermatologist Dr. David Cornbleet. (See below). Check out the show, Personal Justice, on Discovery this week.

Fast Eddie Slows Down
Former Alderman Ed Vrdolyak, who made daily headlines twenty years ago for, among other things, leading the “Council Wars” against Harold Washington, the city’s first black Mayor, will be sentenced this week for receiving kickbacks on the sale of a building. Ironically, Fast Eddie got his name, in part, for eluding the law – he’d been investigated for a number of shady schemes for years. (Think he was Blago’s mentor?) Now, though, thanks to Stuart Levine -- a guy who seems to know everybody’s dirty laundry, btw – Eddie skidded to a stop. He pled guilty last November.


Not So Entertaining
Although it involves a well-known Chicago entertainer. An indictment has been issued against the man accused of killing the mother, brother and nephew of Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson.


Pretty impressive list, right? But I’ve barely scratched the surface. Time for you to report in. What have I missed? Which of these Chicago stories do you think will be the most compelling?