This is the second dismemberment crime I've read about this month. The first being the recent murder and dismemberment of a woman in New Orleans - allegedly by her boyfriend who, according to a note found in his front pocket, later killed himself.

What is it with murderers who dismember their victims after they kill them?

What are they trying to prove - just how inhuman they are?

Or - on the contrary - are they trying to prove just how inhuman they think their victims are?

Join me, as I unravel this mystery and so much more . . .

THE suspect in the murder and dismemberment of a Filipina caregiver working in Israel is being hunted by police in that country, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said in a statement Tuesday.

In his report to DFA Secretary Alberto Romulo, Philippine Ambassador to Israel Antonio Modena said the prime suspect, a former boyfriend of the victim, was expected to see Michelle Alonsagay Jamias of Rosario, Batangas at her flat the evening of November 3, when she was murdered.

He said the suspect works in Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv, and also maintains a flat in the capital city.

Police are confident that the suspect is still in Israel.

Modena said the victim’s remains were autopsied at the National Forensic Medicine Institute in Tel Aviv and her remains may be repatriated to the Philippines either Thursday or Friday.

After learning that the dismembered body of a Filipina was found in a garbage heap across her flat in Haifa, some 100 miles north of Tel Aviv, Modena immediately dispatched Vice Consul Thaddeus Hamoy, Assistance to Nationals Officer Rodrigo Gavino and Welfare Officer Francisco Cruz there.

While searching for clues as to what makes these people tick, I ran into this detailed report of the New Orleans incident, which I will reproduce in full, for the record.

A suicide note in the pocket of a man who jumped off the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel on Tuesday night led police to the grisly scene of his girlfriend's murder, where they found her charred head in a pot on the stove, her legs and arms baked in the oven and the rest of her dismembered body in a trash bag in the refrigerator, according to police and the couple's landlord.

In the note, Zackery Bowen, 28, confessed to killing his girlfriend, Adriane "Addie" Hall, 30, on Oct. 5, according to police sources and friends of the couple.

So, which is it - 'the couple's landlord' or 'friends of the couple' who have personal knowledge of the so-called confession?

Why don't we see any statements from these so-called friends?

Officially, police declined to release the name of the victim, saying she was still a "Jane Doe" until the remains of her body could be forensically identified.

"This is not accidental. I had to take my own life to pay for the one I took," Bowen wrote in a suicide note found in a plastic bag in the front pocket of his pants.

The note was IN A PLASTIC BAG??? And no one thought that was strange???

The note directed police to the scene of the crime and gave a synopsis of what he had done, according to sources familiar with the case.

A source familiar with the investigation said detectives found in the couple's apartment two pots on the stove, one containing a woman's head and the other her hands and feet.

Next to the pot containing her head were carrots and potatoes that had been cut up; none had been placed in the pots.

In the oven were turkey-basting trays containing human legs and arms, the source said.

At least one of the pans had seasoning sprinkled on the limbs, the source said.

Whoever did this was one twisted son of bitch.

No cannibalism

At an afternoon news conference, Cannatella said there was no evidence of cannibalism, and an autopsy on Bowen, done 13 days after he claimed to have committed the murder, showed no evidence of human body parts in his system.

Actually, Bowen didn't claim anything - he's dead.

That's what the note claimed.

Yet, for some reason, police were so eager to accept it at face value that they started looking for other crimes to pin on the dead man.

Police gave no indication they suspect Bowen might be a serial killer, but detectives said they were compiling a detailed profile of Bowen to submit to an FBI database that stores suspected acts of serial violence.

Homicide Detective Ronald Ruiz said he is looking at other murders nationwide to see if they can be connected to Bowen.

When police arrived late Tuesday night at the apartment Bowen and Hall shared, they found a screed from Bowen, printed on eight pages in his girlfriend's journal, providing a graphically detailed accounting of the slaying.

He started the note formally, giving his full name, Social Security and driver's license numbers, and his date of birth.

Absolutely incredible.

Whoever wrote that note wanted to be DAMNED sure that the blame was pinned on Bowen.

"Today is Monday 16 October 2 a.m. I killed her at 1 a.m. Thursday 5 October," Bowen wrote. "I very calmly strangled her. It was very quick."

But what Bowen did after he killed Hall was anything but quick. He claimed in his note to have sexually violated her body several times, eventually passing out in a drunken stupor on the futon next to the corpse.

The next day, he went to work delivering groceries, then came home and moved the body to the bathroom tub, where he used a handsaw and a knife to dismember her remains.

An autopsy conducted Wednesday confirmed that Hall was strangled and dismembered after her death, police said.

You can't be 'strangled to death' and be 'strangled AFTER death' at the same time - it's one or the other.

This is either shoddy journalism, or something far more sinister.

"He appeared to clean up the bathroom a lot after he did it," one officer said.

So, why would someone who leaves a note with all his identifying information confessing to the crime - CLEAN UP after himself in an effort to cover up his tracks???

Directed by a spray-painted note on the wall, police found the victim's head burned beyond recognition in a pot on top of the stove. Her legs and arms were in the same condition in pans inside the oven, police said.

In his note, Bowen wrote that he put her feet and hands in pots of water on the stove burners.

Bowen was from Los Angeles, police said, but apparently had lived in the New Orleans area for some time. He registered to vote in Louisiana in August 1996.

Friends said he claimed to have served in the military in Iraq and Bosnia, and displayed both pride and angst in that experience.

Hall was not a New Orleans native either, although police said only that they believed she came from Pennsylvania. She registered to vote at a New Orleans address in 2002.

Signs of trouble

As of Wednesday, police had found no other evidence of domestic violence in Hall and Bowen's relationship, said Chief of Detectives Anthony Cannatella at a police news conference.

Yet, we're supposed to believe he just snapped, cut her to pieces, and burned her to a crisp? Get real.

After being tossed out of their apartment on Gov. Nicholls Street in the French Quarter at the end of September, the couple rented an apartment together at 826 N. Rampart St., above a voodoo shop, said their landlord, Leo Watermeier, who recently ran for mayor

Hmmm, ambitious too.

"He may have in retrospect seemed a little troubled," Watermeier said of Bowen early Wednesday morning, hours after he led investigators to the gruesome scene inside the apartment.

Though they appeared happy when they rented the Rampart Street apartment -- telling Watermeier they had fallen in love on the night Hurricane Katrina struck, when Hall gave Bowen shelter -- they soon had a bitter falling out, Watermeier said.

After the storm, the couple lived a vagabond existence in the shattered city, becoming feature fodder for the swarm of reporters eager to profile post-flood diehards.

But on Oct. 5, during a dispute over which of their names would appear on the lease, Hall told Watermeier she intended to kick Bowen out of the apartment, after finding out that he had cheated on her, Watermeier said.

Bowen did not take the news well, Watermeier said.

"He said, 'Did you just let her sign a lease alone? Because I'm screwed. I'm totally messed up now. She's trying to kick me out of our apartment,' " Watermeier said.

Hall admitted she was trying to throw Bowen out, he said. "I caught him cheating on me, and I am kicking him out of this apartment," she told Watermeier.

Watermeier told the couple to work through their differences and get back to him.

So, do we have ANYBODY'S word for it besides WATERMEIER'S???

He never saw Hall again, and assumed they had worked it out.

Second thoughts

Bowen's suicide was discovered Tuesday about 8:30 p.m. when his body was spotted by someone in an upper floor lounge of the Omni Royal Orleans.

Police determined that Bowen had jumped from an outside terrace near a swimming pool on an upper floor to the roof of the Chartres Street garage on the fourth floor, police said.

They couldn't figure out WHICH terrace? Did they even bother looking into it?

Bowen methodically planned the suicide.

He left police the phone number of his estranged wife, spray-painted on the wall in the Rampart Street apartment, while warning them in his note that he hadn't talked to those closest to him. "I didn't contact any of my family," he wrote. "So that'll explain the shock."

Unbelievable - this really takes the cake.

If this doesn't send red glaring signals to the detectives assigned to this case then THEY should be investigated.

On Oct. 9, according to his letter, Bowen came home from his job and again set to work dismembering Hall's body, in an apartment where he had set the air conditioning at 60 degrees. Then he stopped.

"Halfway through the task, I stopped and thought about what I was doing," he wrote to police in his girlfriend's journal. "The decision to halt the first idea and move to Plan B (the crime scene you are now in) came after awhile.

I scared myself not only by the action of calmly strangling the woman I've loved for one and a half years, but by my entire lack of remorse. I've known forever how horrible a person I am (ask anyone)."

. . . . . . .

Bowen did not commit this crime.

This was NOT a crime of passion.

This was a meticulously planned brutal murder by a vindictive, remorseless son of a bitch who did not perceive his victim as human - AT ALL.

_____________________

Walt Philbin can be reached at wphilbin@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3302. Laura Maggi can be reached at lmaggi@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3316.

Submitted by qrswave on Tue, 2006-11-07 12:33

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