I was living in that area. It was big news that stunned me and my friends.
When I tried to put myself in her shoes, I couldn't be like her anyway. How could she be so ruthless?
This horrific event made me sick.
--Joe Zbichak
(Stills from the movie "Stuck", adapted from this case)
1
On October 27, 2001, police in Fort Worth, Texas, received a report that a male body had been found in Cobb Park.
Officer Brad Patterson of the Fort Worth Police Department immediately arrived at the scene and conducted an initial investigation.
The deceased was a white male with no shoes and socks on his feet.
He had impact injuries to his head, multiple fractures on his body and, most tragically, his left leg was almost amputated.
In addition to the body of the deceased, no other blood stains were found at the scene, and it was certainly not the first scene; All indications can also be preliminarily determined that this is a car accident victim.
Shortly thereafter, police in Fort Worth identified the deceased. The man was Greg Biggs, 37, a professional bricklayer.
But they looked it up again and couldn't find any useful clues until four months later, when they received a report call.
The call came from a woman named Maranda Daniel who said she knew what was going on with "the guy in Cobb Park."
The police will be suspicious. Because in the process of handling the case, almost every one of the clue providers they come into contact with will say so.
But what happened next shocked the police.
It was Already March 2002 and the weather was warming, but the police followed the clues provided by Maranda and after investigating, they returned to the harsh winter.
Not only did you go back to one of the coldest winters, but you had to strip naked and sink into the ice cave.
This turned out not to be a simple car accident and a body dumping case.
2
On the night of October 25, 2001, at a club in Fort Worth, 25-year-old female nurse Chanter Madeira was partying with a few friends.
(Madeira, the heroine of the case)
They not only drank alcohol, but also smoked contraband, and refused to go home until most of the night.
The car was originally driven by Madeira's friend Frye, and when they arrived at Fry's house, Madeira could have stayed with her, but she refused.
So the rest of the way, she went alone.
Although Madeira had drunk some wine and taken some medicine, he had not yet reached the point of unconsciousness and physical inactivity. But she was in an accident when she turned around Loop 820.
Her 97 version of the Chevrolet suddenly made a "bang", and then a person got into her car.
Madeira hit someone! The man was hit, crossed her right windshield, and flew straight in.
A small part of his body was in the car, a large part of his body was outside the car, and the whole thing was stuck there.
A person suddenly encounters such a change in the middle of the night, which is enough to frighten the soul, and the average person will urgently brake, fix the soul, and judge how to deal with it.
But Madeira was startled and sped up.
People's emergency response is different, and madeira's operation is actually not particularly unexpected. But Madeira is still a long way from home, and she has not stopped.
Madeira had to pass nine public telephones along the way, but she didn't stop and make any calls.
Madeira was close to the hospital, no more than 6.1 miles away, and she did not take the injured to the hospital.
Fire stations in the United States all have medical emergency functions, and Madeira is only 0.7 miles from the nearest fire station, and she still hasn't gone.
Madeira also has an older brother who is a firefighter and is on duty nearby, but she has not asked his brother for help.
Madeira is a nurse, she has professional medical knowledge and ability, she does not even have the simplest of injury inspection and rescue.
She just sped all the way and drove the car home.
When you get home, drive the car into the garage, pull down the garage door, and go back to the house.
That scene was as if the speed of life and death was being performed.
But not for the speed of other people's lives and deaths, but for her own life and death speed.
And her next action is even more surprising and unexpected.
3
Madeira's initial performance can be understood as fear and panic, but it is the same all the way up, which is difficult to explain.
Even if she was unconscious for a moment because of drinking and taking medicine, she would not have shown the same heinous indifference and coldness in the following hours, until the next day when she dumped her body.
(Movie Stills)
Madeira went to the garage a few times when she got home, but what did she do?
Every time she saw the victim moaning and crying for help, she said sorry.
But that meant sorry, she still didn't do anything.
Madeira went in and out until 3:30 a.m., when he saw that the victim was still not dead, so he made a phone call.
But the call was to Frye, come and pick me up.
Frye came, Madeira jumped into the car, immediately screamed for her to drive away, and then they went to Frye's house together.
Made a few more phone calls at Fry's house, trying to find someone to help, but couldn't find it, so she took Frye and came back.
She said at this time, I hit someone.
Fry followed Madeira into the garage and saw the man, who was still alive and groaning! But Fry, who was also a nurse, did nothing.
She just said, should I call 911?
And when Madeira said she couldn't call the police, she did.
The bricklayer Greg was still not dead, and Madeira and Frye had no good way to do it for the time being, so they finally turned off the lights and left, and went back to Frye's house to sleep.
It was a car accident because of them, and the victims were in the homes of nurses, bleeding, moaning, and calling for help.
They left while the wounded were still alive, and they were going to sleep.
They left Greg there, leaving him alone in the dark to bleed until the last drop was shed.
Greg was clearly surrounded by people, obviously living among humans, but he was abandoned by his kind, two women, two nurses.
It's like the picture from the movie Buried Alive:
A man did not know why, by whom, put into a coffin, buried in the ground.
It was dark all around, there was no one around, no one could see him, no one could hear him. The phone could be dialed out, but he himself didn't know where the location was.
He's the only one struggling in the whole film, lonely, nervous, terrifying, desperate, with almost no lines.
Sometimes people will have nothing to say, sometimes there will be no one to say, sometimes they will say useless.
Only one second goes to death, to destruction.
What kind of state of mind would that be?
4
Madeira returned the next morning.
Driving Fry's car with another male friend, Kleit Jackson.
When Madeira called, he told Clett that I needed help.
When she got to the road, she told Clett: I hit someone and messed things up.
But Kleit followed her to the garage and saw a man stuck in the car with his feet hanging down to the floor, just touching it to see if he was dead.
Greg was sure that he was undoubtedly dead, so the next thing was how to deal with the corpse.
Madeira's plan was to burn it, but Clayt said it couldn't be burned, it couldn't be buried, it had to be placed in a place where others could see it. In this way, his family will give him a suitable funeral.
He's such a nice guy.
(Madeira cries in court)
But Clayt then said that he would not move the body, not alone, so Madeira called again and called his cousin Tyrone.
This is obviously not a trivial matter, and the average person will be surprised, frightened, and even disgusted when he encounters it, but the strange thing is that Frye, Kleit, and Tyrone, whom Madeira found, have not taken it seriously.
Tyrone arrived, understood the situation, and immediately started to move.
Together, they rolled the victim into a carpet, tied them up, carried them into the trunk, and sent them to Cobb Park.
After the incident, in order not to leave evidence, they also took the blanket, threw it away, and went to the car wash to clean the borrowed car.
But do you think this will cast a shadow on Madeira? No.
She soon returned to normal and was able to party and eat, drink and have fun again.
Four months later, she was even able to brag about it at parties.
It happened that Fry's friend Maranda Daniel was also there, and Madeira said to her, I killed a man.
Then he smiled at Maranda.
That's how Madeira was caught, and police then found the vehicle in her garage and extracted Greg's hair and blood from the car.
Madeira can't escape!
But that's not all.
Madeira also had a performance similar to that of Lau Rongzhi.
5
Madeira's sin is a sin I can't imagine.
So in a creep, I went to check her trial file, wondering what she was thinking and why there was such a demonic existence on earth.
As a result, I found that Madeira, like Lau Rongzhi, had also appealed.
She had been sentenced for tampering with evidence and murder, but she was only willing to accept tampering.
Madeira's second instance was conducted in the 371st District Court in Tarrant County, Texas, and when I looked at the file, wasn't this the American version of Laurjung?
Lo was brutal and involved in seven murders, including a 3-year-old child.
And madeira, because of an otherwise simple car accident, can not only let a person bleed to death, but also go to sleep.
In the 20 years that Lao Rongzhi hid in Tibet, he raised dogs, played the piano, learned to paint, and was at ease.
She will also often send circles of friends, post her favorite stars, or share chicken soup and say something: "Thanksgiving, everyone I meet in life."
Madeira, on the other hand, was able to continue eating, drinking and having fun after four months, just like no one else.
She could even be proud of it.
Lau was a teacher and Madeira was a nurse, and they were both "most loving" professions.
After Luo Rongzhi was caught, he was able to laugh in the photo.
And Madeira laughed when she said she "killed a man."
In court, Lao Rongzhi once said: "You can say that I am not excellent, but you cannot say that I am not kind."
And Madeira once said in court that I had no criminal record in 25 years and that I was a good person.
In the second trial, Lao Rongzhi repeatedly stressed that she was "raped" and "coerced" by Fa Ziying.
In the second trial, Madeira has always stressed that she has drunk alcohol and taken medicine, she is very afraid, and her brain is confused.
When Lao Rongzhi said "sore spots", he wept several times.
Madeira, on the other hand, cried almost constantly during the trial.
Lao Rongzhi called himself "silly white sweet".
Madeira and her defense attorney both said that Madeira "did terrible things, but she wasn't a terrible person." ”
Lao Rongzhi once said that she disdained robbing property, "I admit that I did it, and I do not allow the law to be desecrated."
Madeira, on the other hand, said that I confessed to tampering with the evidence, and I did not recognize the murder. I'm just panicking, losing judgment, I don't have the heart to kill, I'm not killing.
"I'm 48 years old and I've never had a facelift." Why did Lao Rongzhi jump out of such a sentence as soon as the trial began?
Because I didn't have a facelift, it means that I don't feel the need for hiding, I don't have those behaviors.
If I didn't have a facelift, it means that the first trial was wrong, false, and had big problems, and should be overturned and restarted.
And what Madeira has been stressing — that neither the evidence nor the facts are enough to convict me, that the trial court has been deliberately misleading the jury — is undoubtedly a play.
In the end, at the end of the second trial, Lao Rongzhi said that she had been tormented inside, could not sleep, and made a "sincere apology".
And so did Madeira, who said:
"I'm sorry for what I've done to your family, I'm sorry for the pain I've caused to my family, I'm sorry for the crimes I've committed against society, I'm really, very sorry."
You see, are Lau Rongzhi and Madeira the same type, like twin sisters?
Are they all incomprehensible, psychologically powerful, and not chaotic?
So what is the "little white rabbit"? What is a "murderer"?
The heart is never absolute, and the depraved and rotten heart may still have a bright paint skin.
This reminds me of Dumas's beautiful women.
They can charm all men with gentleness, nobility and holiness, and on the other hand, they can apply murderous lipstick to their sexy lips.
There are some people in this world who are either natural killers, or killers of the times, killers of opportunity, killers of need, and killers of encounters.
What they are, who they are, the key depends on who they meet, for whom, when, where, what needs, whether there is a conflict of interest.
No wonder our ancestors repeatedly admonished!
The heart of harming people must not be there, the heart of preventing people must not be without, don't be particularly stupid not to look at the face, or not to watch the next episode.
The FBI also has a survey showing that the more evil people are, the more they will say that they are good people.
They rationalize their defenses, and they sometimes feel like they're really good people.
So how was Madeira ultimately convicted?
5
The focus of the second instance trial in the Madeira case was whether Madeira was negligent or clearly committed a felony of "endangering human life".
That is, whether there is a direct causal relationship between her and Greg's death.
The prosecution mainly relied on Dr. Nizam Peerwani, the chief forensic doctor of Tarrant County, to appear in court.
I'll give you a rough idea.
Prosecutor: What happens when you continue driving after an accident?
Forensic: This can cause the injured person's body to constantly shift, tear or increase vascular trauma, causing greater damage to the left leg that has been almost amputated.
Prosecutor: If you had pulled him into the car or pulled him out of the car, would you have been seriously injured?
Forensics: Yes, this requires medical experience.
Prosecutor: Can it be judged which injuries of the victims occurred after the impact, or were caused by improper exercise?
Forensic: Absolutely.
Prosecutor: Do you think putting a victim in a garage would be a danger to his life?
Forensic: Yes.
Prosecutor: Do you think there's a better chance of getting help by leaving him on the side of the road?
Forensic:...... Open space, there will be more opportunities for people to see and ask for help.
(The forensic doctor was probably a little annoyed.) But prosecutors sometimes ask obvious questions to make the jury clear. ）
Prosecutor: Do you think that sending the injured person to the garage and not giving him medical care was the cause of his death?
Forensic: Yes.
Prosecutor: Why?
Forensics: Because our forensic results showed that the victim's internal organs did not cause major trauma, his main cause of death was prolonged blood loss. He would have been saved in a few hours.
……
All in all, the prosecution exhausted almost every possibility during the trial and only gave up. In the end, the defence was incapacitated in almost every way.
Madeira was a nurse, an adult, and her biggest problem was not at the beginning, but after fleeing the scene.
This kind of thing is unacceptable to any normal person, so the court and the jury, after synthesizing all the evidence, unanimously passed:
Madeira was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison for murder and 10 years for tampering before being released in 2052.
She is not eligible for parole until 2027.
The two accomplices who helped Makeira dump the body were sentenced to 10 years.
As for Fry, why wasn't she punished?
Because she made an agreement with the court to testify to death madeira in exchange for immunity.
The dust has finally settled on the Madeira car accident, but the impact of this case can never be eliminated.
A living man, stuck in Madeira's car, and Madeira continued on his way.
In any case, Madeira was not to the point where he could not figure out that he was killing.
But as a nurse, as a human being, she not only did nothing, but also went to sleep.
Madeira and her accomplices have amazing performances, and no one can know why a person, a group of people, would do such an anti-common sense, anti-human thing for a meaningless result.
It's a crime that can make ordinary people "sick", and it's material of particular interest to anthropologists, and it's often the favorite type of story for writers and directors.
So in 2008, the United States gave birth to another movie based on the Madeira case: "Stuck".
"Stuck" belongs to black humor and has changed a lot, but it has done a lot of thinking and discussion about human nature and human reactions under pressure.
It's also a good title.
This means:
Someone is trapped, and everyone can encounter some kind of dilemma, unable to retreat, desperate and helpless.
Madeira's case "stuck" Greg and everyone else. The movie "stuck" the people in the movie, and also "stuck" all the audience.
While there is justice and punishment, there is no political correctness or absolute relief.
Human nature, the dilemma of human nature; Law, there is a legal dilemma; The world, there is an ambiguous gray area.
So how will Lao Rongzhi be judged?
Was she sentenced to death, and some of the shadows and questions followed?
How can we improve ourselves, with our surroundings, so that there are only "people" around us?
If not, what should individuals and societies do?
Choosing forgiveness like Greg's son Brandon?
Tell everyone, "If love is what keeps the world moving, then compassion makes it sincere"?
I can't answer.
• END •
Text/Nine Crow Culture
Graph/Network