Prosecutors unsealed a criminal complaint against a Michigan man on Tuesday accused of threatening to kill a California congressman and FBI Director Christopher Wray, adding to the spate of recent alleged criminal threats against lawmakers.
According to court documents, Neil Matthew Walter made several threatening statements online and in a voice message to lawmakers and law enforcement officials. He is charged with transmitting an interstate threat to injure someone.
It is not clear from court documents whether Walter has been arrested, and a lawyer for Walter is not listed on the public docket.
On November 4, the United States Capitol Police were made aware of threatening voicemail messages allegedly left by Walter on Democratic Rep. John Garamendi’s DC office voicemail, according to court documents.
“John. Hey John. You’re gonna die John. You’re gonna die,” Walter allegedly said in the recording.
In comments posted on a live stream of FBI Director Christopher Wray’s testimony before Congress last week, Walter allegedly wrote, “I will kill you director Wray you will die I will kill you in self-defense,” according to the document.
“I thank Capitol Police and FBI for quickly addressing this threat,” Garamendi said in a statement on Tuesday.
In recent months, several members of Congress and their families have received threats and some have been physically attacked, including the brutal assault of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, last month.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have also warned about threats against law enforcement, and this summer a man in Cincinnati was killed after allegedly attempting to break into an FBI field office with what federal law enforcement believed was a nail gun and AR-15.
A local police officer performed a wellness check on Walter after law enforcement became aware of the threats, according to court documents. During the encounter, Walter allegedly refused to put down a handgun, said he would “defend himself against the U.S. government,” and went on a prolonged rant about “kids being raped, a lawsuit with Putin, and how he is calling everyone all the time, but no one is doing anything about the kids.”
Facebook posts on Walter’s accounts cited in the affidavit contained similar rants about danger to children, including beliefs that a child slave ring was being held in the US Capitol.
Both of Walter’s parents told law enforcement that he has struggled with his mental health over the past few years, and has been in and out of mental health institutions, according to court documents.
SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich – A 19-year-old woman and a child have been charged for dropping a puppy off a bridge into a fenced-in area on the bank of a canal in Northern Michigan.
Up North Live reports the puppy was dropped Nov. 16 over a railing on the Spruce Street Bridge in Sault Ste. Marie. The puppy landed within a fenced area on the bank of the Cloverland Power canal, police said.
The puppy couldn’t escape because of the fences and the canal’s current, but an officer lowered himself over the bridge and lifted the puppy up to another officer, according to Up North Live.
A 19-year-old woman was charged with third-degree torturing animals, which is a four-year felony. She was given a $10,000 bond.
A child was also charged in the case and referred to juvenile court.
The puppy was turned over to the Chippewa County Animal Shelter and later adopted by one of the officers involved in the rescue.
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DETROIT – A Starbucks in Detroit was forced to close on Friday after four protesters blocked the entrance by encasing their feet in concrete.
Four PETA supporters protested Starbucks’ upcharge of non-dairy milk by encasing their feet in concrete and blocking the store’s entrance for four hours with signs and chants.
Two of the four protesters were taken away in an ambulance.
PETA Starbucks protest (PETA)
“Starbucks’ punitive price hike on vegan milks harms cows, the planet, and customers who are lactose-intolerant—many of whom are people of color,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA has appealed to Starbucks to stop profiting from the plant-based milk upcharge, but so far, greed continues to define the company’s position.”
This comes as the latest Starbucks protest from PETA supporters. The previous “cement-in” took place outside of a Nashville Starbucks which resulted in the arrest of four protesters.
Other supporters have superglued themselves to counters in Chicago, New York City, and at the company’s headquarters in Seattle.
The Detroit protest comes on the last day of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Copyright 2022 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — A dangerous lake-effect snowstorm paralyzed parts of western and northern New York on Friday, dumping over 5 feet in some spots with more expected to fall through the night into Saturday. The storm was blamed for the deaths of two people stricken while clearing snow.
The storm’s severity varied widely due to the peculiarities of lake-effect storms, which are caused by frigid winds picking up moisture from warmer lakes and dumping snow in narrow bands.
Residents in some parts of Buffalo spent Friday buffeted by blowing, heavy snow, punctuated by occasional claps of thunder, while just a few miles north, only a few inches fell and there were patches of blue sky.
The heaviest snowfall was south of the city. The National Weather Service reported single-day totals of 3 feet (1 meter) in many places along the eastern end of Lake Erie, with bands of heavier precipitation bringing 66 inches (168 centimeters) in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, 48 inches (122 centimeters) in Elma and more than 3 feet in Hamburg, where rescue crews were called to help a resident whose home buckled under the weight.
Schools were shuttered. Amtrak stations in Buffalo, Niagara Falls and Depew closed Thursday and Friday. Numerous flights in and out of Buffalo Niagara International Airport were canceled.
The storm was blamed for two deaths, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said, tweeting that they were “associated with cardiac events related to exertion during shoveling/snow blowing.”
“We send our deepest sympathies and remind all that this snow is very heavy and dangerous,” he said.
By Friday afternoon, AAA tow truck drivers were having trouble reaching dozens of stranded drivers who defied travel bans and advisories, association spokeswoman Elizebeth Carey said.
“The AAA crews were trying to get to people that had called in saying they were broken down or stranded or had gone off the road in their vehicle. … A lot of our tow truck drivers kept calling in saying that `police turned me away,’” she said. In some cases, tow trucks followed behind payloaders enlisted to clear the way. The AAA passed along other drivers’ locations to police.
Even before the snow began falling, the NFL announced it would relocate the Buffalo Bills’ Sunday home game against the Cleveland Browns from the team’s stadium in Orchard Park to Detroit.
A day later the Bills tweeted photos of Highmark Stadium showing the playing field and its more than 60,000 seats virtually buried in snow, and forecasters warned of an additional foot or more by Sunday.
Scott Fleetwood of West Seneca captured video of lightning crashing outside his home throughout the night, as well as snow swiftly burying the pumpkins on his porch.
“The sky is white. … Everything’s white. The only thing you can see really is the house across the street,” he said.
“My tiki bar is now an igloo,” he added.
Zaria Black of Buffalo cleared several inches off her car Friday morning as she prepared to go to work. The Amazon employee expected she’d be outside much of the day and was nervous about road conditions.
“Right now, it’s looking pretty bad,” she said.
With numerous cars stuck and abandoned, Mayor Byron Brown urged people to stay off the roads in hard-hit south Buffalo, where extra city and private plows were deployed.
“When the snow is falling between 3 to 4, 5 inches an hour, you can’t beat it,” he cautioned drivers at a news conference. “You are going to get stuck.”
Meanwhile, streets in downtown and north Buffalo had been cleared but were virtually empty of traffic Friday afternoon. Buffalo resident David Munschauer was well aware of the wildly contrasting scenes as he walked around.
“I’m 68, and I’ve lived in this town probably 60 of the 68, and it always amazes me,” he said.
Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency Thursday for parts of western New York, including communities along the eastern ends of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. The declaration covers 11 counties, with all vehicles banned from a stretch of Interstate 90.
“I am so proud of Western New Yorkers for heeding our call to stay off the roads last night; it was treacherous,” Hochul told radio station WBEN. “And as a result, we were able to salt, we were able to clear the roads better than we would’ve if they had been filled with traffic, and we really avoided a large number of accidents.”
Catholic Health, which operates several health care facilities in the storm zone, has been preparing for days.
“Our staff has really stepped up, and people have been making every effort to get in where they can. Some associates are spending the night,” spokeswoman JoAnn Cavanaugh said. “We’ve made sure our supplies are stocked — food and things for our patients as well as associates.”
Heavy snow accumulations were also reported in northern New York on the eastern edge of Lake Ontario, and in parts of northern Michigan. Parts of Pennsylvania also were seeing accumulations of lake-effect snow.
Fort Drum, New York, near Lake Ontario, saw 42 inches, the National Weather Service reported Friday.
In southwestern Michigan, state police reported a 20- to 25-vehicle pileup on U.S. 131 in Kalamazoo County. No serious injuries were reported.
“Roads still icy, slushy, we must slow down,” police said on Twitter.
Buffalo has experience with dramatic lake-effect snowstorms, few worse than the one that struck in November of 2014. That epic storm dumped 7 feet (2 meters) of snow on some communities over three days, collapsing roofs and trapping motorists in more than 100 vehicles on a lakeside stretch of the New York State Thruway.
Registered nurse Mary Ann Murphy recalled trudging on foot to Mercy Hospital, husband Steve at her side, in the 2014 storm. The memory made both especially glad she was able to drive to work Friday, despite roughly 2 feet of snow.
“I just kind of gunned it down the street in my little SUV,” said Murphy, who lives about a mile from the Buffalo hospital. “I was just thrilled I didn’t have to walk.”
Friday’s snow also reminded Bruce Leader of the 2014 storm, dubbed “Snow-vember,” which, like this week’s storm, also left some parts of the region buried while others saw just a few inches.
“I was driving back and forth to work to Niagara County scratching my head, like, `What’s all the big hubbub about?′” he said of the 2014 event. “And down there, my friends are like, `Here’s the hubbub,′ sending me photos. And they were doing the same thing this morning.”
———
Associated Press reporters Alina Hartounian in Phoenix, John Wawrow in Buffalo and Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Certification of this year’s midterm election results appears to be proceeding smoothly with little controversy across the country, with a small Arizona county being a rare exception, calming fears that local commissions consumed by talk of election conspiracies would create chaos by refusing to validate the will of the voters.
Action has been orderly even in places where suspicions about election fairness ran deep and led to bitter clashes at local public meetings.
In rural Elko County, the county commission unanimously certified the results just weeks after questioning the reliability of voting machines and expressing support for hand-counting all ballots.
Commissioners praised county Clerk Kris Jakeman for a post-election audit that included random hand-counts backing up the results from machine tabulators. Some commissioners had watched the audit and said it helped relieve some of their skepticism.
“I’ve learned a lot this year,” said Commissioner Delmo Andreozzi. “And I appreciate everybody’s willingness to help educate me and help me become more aware about the whole process.”
It was much the same story in New Mexico, where several rural county commissions have been under intense pressure by some residents to reject certification since the state’s primary election in June.
In Otero County, where a crisis occurred this summer when commissioners initially denied certification after the primary, the general election results were certified this week with a drama-free unanimous vote.
“In my heart of hearts, I think Otero County does a good job,” Commission Chairwoman Vickie Marquardt said. “I have no reason not to certify this election.”
In another rural New Mexico county, where a livid crowd in June berated county commissioners as “cowards” and “traitors” as they certified the primary results, the room fell silent this week as the all-Republican board pored over vote tallies and signatures from poll judges. Commissioners peppered Torrance County election officials with questions before voting 3-0 to certify.
The commission had spent months responding to doubts about voting systems with a hand recount of the primary ballots and invitations to attend security testing of ballot-counting machines.
“I’m not seeing any discrepancies, commissioners. Are you?” Republican commission Chairman Ryan Schwebach told colleagues. He won reelection to the local post with roughly two-thirds of the vote, defeating a challenger who said vote-counting machines can’t be trusted. All but one county in New Mexico certified vote tallies this week.
Conspiracy-focused protesters rallied Friday outside an election board meeting in Reno, Nevada, with signs reading “Don’t certify before hand count” and “We the people demand hand count.” Despite the protests, the Washoe County commission voted 4-1 to certify the results.
County Commissioner Jeanne Herman, who represents the most rural part of the county, which stretches north to the border with Oregon, cast the lone dissenting vote. She made a failed attempt earlier this year to push an election reform package that, among other things, would have posted National Guard troops at polling places and relied almost exclusively on paper ballots.
Christiane Brown, a Reno gun control activist, told the commission that the system worked this year, and even most candidates who had embraced the 2020 election falsehoods conceded defeat.
“Denying results does not change them,” she said. “The people rejected lies, disinformation, intimidation and ignorance, as well as hatred. The voters spoke, the system worked, and the rule of law held.”
In Arizona, the state’s 15 counties are just beginning to certify their election results and have until Nov. 28 to do their canvass and send final vote tallies to the secretary of state. Kari Lake, the Republican who lost the race for governor, has refused to concede and in a Thursday video said she has a team of lawyers reviewing whether Election Day issues at the polls disenfranchised some voters.
The two Republicans who control the board in southeastern Arizona’s Cochise County delayed their certification Friday night after hearing from a trio of conspiracy theorists who argue vote-counting machines are not certified. The board ignored testimony from the state elections director, who said the contention was false.
The board delayed the vote until the Nov. 28 deadline, saying they wanted to see proof and have the three men evaluate it. State Elections Director Kori Lorick threatened legal action “to compel compliance” and ensure that votes from about 46,000 residents were property reported.
The state is set to certify results from all 15 counties on Dec. 5, a move needed before a recount can proceed in the race for state attorney general, which is too close to call.
Under Arizona law, the only role of the elected county boards is to accept the numbers as they are tallied by their elections departments. If they refuse to do so, either the secretary of state or a candidate would sue.
Election certification emerged as an issue after the 2020 presidential election in Michigan, where Trump and his allies pressured Republicans on both the state certification board and the one for Wayne County, which includes Detroit. The results, showing Democrat Joe Biden winning the state by 154,000 votes, were eventually certified.
Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey said her office anticipates having no problems with certification of the Nov. 8 general election. By midday Friday, 71 of the state’s 83 counties had certified results.
“More Michigan citizens cast ballots than ever before in a midterm election, and now bipartisan canvassing boards across the state are certifying the results in accordance with state law,” said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. “We are optimistic that all canvassers will continue to demonstrate this level of professionalism and commitment to upholding the will of the voters.”
___
Sonner reported from Reno, Nevada. Associated Press writers Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta, Ken Ritter in Las Vegas, Gabe Stern in Reno; and Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to this report.
There is a thriving market for pet alligators in Michigan and many of the reptiles are killed or abandoned when they start to get too big.
Local 4 investigated and found alligators for sale at an expo in Kalamazoo, among other locations.
The Critchlow Alligator Sanctuary has 200 alligators under their care that had been abandoned. They are a rescue facility for unwanted reptiles.
“One particular alligator was locked in a dog crate for seven years. He was never able to touch water or swim or touch the ground,” Lina Kelly said. “Some have come in really horrible situations where their mouths have been taped shut and I’ve had wounds all over their faces. So, some of them are locked away in closets and misshapen their spines.”
Kelly said most people don’t realize how big alligators can get. They can reach up to 15 feet long and live for 60 to 70 years.
Local 4 went in undercover with cameras rolling to a Mt. Pleasant home where alligators are being sold.
“How big are they gonna get?” Local 4 asked.
“They can get up to 15 feet. I mean, so, they can get pretty big,” Mike Morningstar said. “Obviously, a 15-foot gator — it’ll kill ya.”
Alligators can grow to be absolutely massive, but that doesn’t stop Mike and Raquel Morningstar from selling young alligators for $200 each. The couple admits the animals they sell usually wind up discarded.
‘They either keep them, or they eat them, or turn them into boots’
“What do people do when they get really big?” Local 4 asked.
“They either keep them, or they eat them, or turn them into boots,” Raquel Morningstar said.
Raquel actually suggested people could eat their alligators when they get too big to handle.
Baby alligators are also listed for sale online with ads that say they “won’t last long.” Who’s buying them? Mike Morningstar said random people.
The Morningstars are licensed to sell alligators. They said they buy them from a breeder in Florida. They resell the animals and mail them around the country.
“We started out with like six and then we had 10 and had an order of 18 and we had 12 more after that and they’ve gone quick,” Raquel Morningstar said.
Mike Morningstar said that there are no legal issues in Michigan and that they can own and sell them. That it’s “not a big deal.”
That isn’t completely true though. While there aren’t any state laws against alligator sales, some Michigan cities have banned them.
The Morningstars told our undercover producer that this is the end of alligator season — but it’s not the end of the issue.
Local 4 spoke with health officials in Detroit and they confirmed they are getting calls for alligators in the city.
The sanctuary Local 4 visited said they have 200 alligators right now and worry more could be dumping off their pets as winter sets in and the gators continue to grow.
CBS News anchor Anne-Marie Green details how Democrats also did better than expected in down-ballot races, winning back control of some state legislatures, during this year’s midterm election.
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Gabriella Vargas is a self-proclaimed “pink-haired, tattooed mom from California who enjoys woodworking and gardening.” She also happens to be one of the most talented investigative genetic genealogists in the world, according to the investigators she worked with. When the 34-year-old Roxanne Wood cold murder case came across her desk in April 2021, “it was deemed unsolvable prior to my involvement,” Vargas said.
Vargas was confident she could solve this cold case – and fast – finally bringing justice for Roxanne Wood’s family. “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant takes viewers inside the haunting case in “The ‘Unsolvable’ Murder of Roxanne Wood.”
In February 1987, Terry Wood came home from a night of bowling to discover his wife, Roxanne, dead on the kitchen floor in their home in Niles, Michigan. Detectives say Roxanne had been sexually assaulted and her throat slashed. DNA was preserved from the crime scene, but given technological limitations of the time, there wasn’t enough evidence to charge any suspects. The case went cold.
Janet Wood
In February 1987, Roxanne Wood and her husband, Terry Wood, went out for a night of bowling with friends. Roxanne left the bowling alley early to return home so she could rest up for work in the morning. But then a man entered her home through an unlocked door. He sexually assaulted her, grabbed a filet knife from Roxanne’s own kitchen drawer and slit her throat. Terry returned home 45 minutes after his wife to find Roxanne dead.
Even though witnesses placed Terry at the bowling alley at the time of the murder, he was immediately considered a suspect.
Investigators found DNA at the crime scene and a sample was preserved. But given the limitations of technology in 1987, not much could be done with it. Terry continued to live under a cloud of suspicion in the community.
As DNA technology evolved, that sample was eventually able to be uploaded to CODIS, a national criminal DNA information repository, in 1999. But no match was returned from that database. As disappointing as that was, everyone was hopeful that the DNA would at least clear Terry when it was tested against his. The result? It wasn’t Terry’s DNA.
After that, the case offered no new leads until 2020.
In order to solve the mystery faster, investigators needed a way to quickly search through the massive case file. They enlisted a group of students from Western Michigan University to digitize approximately 3,500 pages of reports, notes and information into a searchable database.
Around the same time that the students began crunching data, investigators decided to test the DNA one last time. They hired Identifinders International — a company that specializes in genetic genealogy — to examine the tiny amount of DNA left from the crime scene.
“We found out there was, what I would call, a gnat’s eyebrow of DNA left. About 3% of what we normally use,” said Colleen Fitzpatrick, president and founder of Identifinders. “That was the lowest amount of DNA we’ve ever had to work with to solve a case.”
Gabriella Vargas, pictured with Ari, a Goffin’s cockatoo, is a self-proclaimed, “pink haired, tattooed mom from California who enjoys woodworking and gardening.” She also happens to be one of the most talented investigative genetic genealogists in the world, according to the investigators she worked with.
CBS News
Identifinders spent about 10 months working with the data the sample produced, but came up empty.
“It really did feel impossible,” said Fitzpatrick.
Then, one day in April 2021, Fitzpatrick happened to be chatting with investigative genetic genealogist Gabriella Vargas, who worked as a consultant for Identifinders.
“And I said, ‘Well, why don’t you let me look at it?’” said Vargas. “I concluded that I did not stand with the others. I believed that this case was extremely solvable. And I believed that I could solve it.”
So, Vargas got to work. She was able to generate a genetic profile from the suspect’s trace DNA. This genetic profile provided a plethora of information valuable to nailing down a suspect, like where their ancestral origins come from and what race they are.
Once she had the genetic profile, Vargas turned to GEDmatch, an online database where people can upload their DNA results in the hopes of finding more relatives after using consumer sites like 23andMe and Ancestry.com. Users can opt into law enforcement matching, which can allow investigators like Vargas to find matches for their suspects.
Using the results from GEDmatch, Vargas was able to build out the family tree of Roxanne’s killer, going as far back as 1797.
“Essentially what we’re looking for amongst these matches are where they connect to each other. And it led me to a union couple,” said Vargas.
A union couple is where two sides of a family tree meet. This couple was born around 1920, and based on that, Vargas could presume that they would have kids around 1940 or 1950. Thus, the suspect would have to be one of their three sons.
Vargas immediately notified law enforcement of her findings. Investigators conducted background checks on all three sons and eliminated two of them as suspects. The last had a criminal history and had served time for unlawful deviant conduct.
Investigators had their suspect, and his name was Patrick Gilham. But before an arrest could be made, they had to be sure Gilham’s DNA matched the DNA left at the crime scene.
Investigators surveilled Gilham for days, learning his habits and traffic patterns. They even followed him to a laundromat where an undercover trooper collected Gilham’s discarded cigarette butt to be tested for DNA.
The DNA came back from the lab as a perfect match to the crime scene DNA, and Gilham was arrested in February 2022. He was questioned by police for over five hours and insisted he did not remember murdering Roxanne. He said that only a monster could do such a thing.
Gilham later pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and was sentenced to a minimum of 23 years in prison.
Gabriella Vargas, who cracked this ice-cold case in just four days, hopes this innovative investigative technique can help other families in search of justice.
“It’s an honor to be able to work these cases to bring justice to these victims and closure to these families,” said Vargas. “And I will never stop. If anything, I’m more determined now to solve as many cases as I can.”
In February 1987, Terry Wood came home from a night of bowling to discover his wife, Roxanne, dead on the kitchen floor in their home in Niles, Michigan. Detectives say Roxanne Wood had been sexually assaulted and her throat slashed. DNA was preserved from the crime scene, but given technological limitations of the time, there wasn’t enough evidence to charge any suspects. The case went cold. Then, 34 years later, investigative genetic genealogist Gabriella Vargas got to work on what had been deemed unsolvable by many because of the scant amount of DNA that was left.
“I believed that this case was extremely solvable,” Vargas told “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant. “I believed that I could solve it.”
FEBRUARY 19, 1987
Brad Woods remembers February 20, 1987, like it was yesterday. He was just 14 years old.
Brad Woods: I was getting ready for school. … And I can remember my mom pounding on the bathroom door, saying to hurry up, she needed to talk to me.
Hours earlier, Brad’s 30-year-old sister Roxanne, known as “Rock”, had been nearby in her Niles, Michigan, home alone, when she was viciously attacked — her throat slashed.
Brad Woods: When I came out, you know, she had told me that — she had gotten a call that — Rock had been killed.
Devastated, Roxanne’s family couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to harm her.
Janet Wood: She always made people think you’re her best friend. … She just loved everyone.
Janet Wood: She was tall, statuesque. She dressed to the nines. That was very important to her. She was very classy.
Roxanne Wood, nicknamed “Rock,” was described by her younger brother and sister as the rock of their family.
Janet Wood
JanetWood could not help but admire her older sister. Their parents were divorced, and Roxanne had taken on a maternal role with her siblings.
Brad Woods: With divorced parents, a lot of times, you feel like you’re being shuffled between, you know, house to house. … And the one thing that was always stable for me was — was Rock.
Janet Wood: She was being mom to you.
Brad Woods: Yeah. … Rock. You know, she was always there.
Peter Van Sant: She was your rock.
Brad Woods: She was. She was (laughs).
Roxanne’s last name would eventually change from Woods to Wood after meeting future husband, Terry Wood, shortly after she graduated from high school.
Janet Wood: She was working at his father’s company. … Terry was still in high school. … On the wrestling team. … And in he walks. And he’s in his wrestling shorts and whatever. … (laughs) She said, “The nicest looking legs she ever saw.” And — and she was just smitten by him right away.
Roxanne and Terry married in 1982.
Janet Wood: She said it was the happiest day of her life.
Six years later, Janet would change her name from Woods to Wood as well, when she married Terry’s brother, Rob. Both brothers wound up working for the family business. For Roxanne and Terry, it proved to be a bit too much togetherness.
Janet Wood: They got dressed in the morning together, and they rode to work together, (laughs) and they came home for lunch together, and then they went back to work together.
Roxanne’s solution? Taking a job in nearby South Bend, Indiana. A little time apart seemed to help the marriage.
Janet Wood: Very, very content, happy, looking forward to starting a family.
Terry and Roxanne Wood
Janet Wood
February 19, 1987, started out as a typical Thursday evening for the couple. They met for dinner at a restaurant in downtown Niles after work and then went to a local bowling alley, arriving in separate cars.
Det. Sgt. John Moore: From the report, you could tell when Roxanne entered that bowling alley, all eyes were on her.
Michigan State Police Detective Sergeant John Moore.
Det. Sgt. John Moore: There wasn’t a whole lotta ladies there because this was the men’s bowling league, so she drew some attention.
As midnight approached, Roxanne was ready to call it a night, but Terry wanted to stay.
Janet Wood: There’s witnesses where Terry and she said goodnight to each other— hugged, kissed, “Love you. Drive Safe.”
After Roxanne headed home, Terry stayed behind and bowled another game. He then headed home and arrived home about 45 minutes after his wife. Terry entered the house through the garage and once inside, he came upon a horrific sight.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: She was laying on the floor. She had her nightgown on. He said there was a lot of blood.
According to Detective First Lieutenant Chuck Christensen, Terry said he rushed over to Roxanne.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: He got behind her, according to him, and — and picked her head up. And held her — held her head in—
Peter Van Sant: To see if —
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: —his hands for—
Peter Van Sant: — she was alive?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: To see if she was alive, yes.
Finding no signs of life, Terry grabbed the phone and called the local police station.
TERRY WOOD (police call audio): She is dead, she has been cut.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Terry noticed that … her panties were down around her knee/ankle area … her nightgown was pulled up.
DISPATCHER: Now listen to me, OK?
At times, Terry seemed to get belligerent with the person trying to help him.
DISPATCHER: I’m going to get some information from you and I’m going to get a car started, OK?
TERRY WOOD: No, get 50 f****** cars started, g*******now!
DISPATCHER: They are started.
TERRY WOOD: No, they’re not. Now, g*******. Now!
The dispatcher kept Terry on the phone.
DISPATCHER: Don’t scream into the phone because the phone distorts, and I can’t understand you that well, OK?
TERRY WOOD: You mean so you can get a recording on it.
DISPATCHER: No, I’m trying to get some information from you, OK?
TERRY WOOD: Yeah, right.
Terry’s aggressive demeanor on the phone quickly became a red flag according to investigators.
Peter Van Sant: Is that suspicious behavior to you?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: It’s a bit suspicious. … Typically, they’re in … shock, distraught. But not normally do you hear that anger component in there, to the level that it is in this one.
Detective Sergeant Jason Bailey says a seed of suspicion grew even more once police arrived at the home.
Det. Sgt. Jason Bailey: He definitely had fits of rage. I know at one point he was screaming—that he wanted a supervisor, a sergeant there.
Peter Van Sant: Is he making himself a suspect by this kind of behavior?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Everybody reacts differently. But based on this abnormal reaction, I believe he was making himself a suspect.
First responders eventually had no choice but to subdue Terry by placing him in the back of a patrol car. And when they drove him down to the police post for routine questioning, Terry quickly asked for an attorney, which investigators say set off more alarm bells.
Janet Wood: The detective at that time told him within five to ten minutes … “You did this, and I will not rest until I put you away forever.”
Peter Van Sant: An investigator said that to Terry?
Janet Wood: To Terry. … “I believe you’re the killer and I will not rest until you’re behind bars.”
IN SEARCH OF ANSWERS
As investigators began piecing together clues in Roxanne Wood’s rape and murder, the emerging picture offered up just one suspect: her husband, Terry.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: There was no sign of any forced entry.
Peter Van Sant: Did that raise eyebrows?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Absolutely.
But Terry told police they’d been having problems with the lock on the back door, claiming it didn’t work. Investigators, however, remained suspicious.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: We have a sheath, up here, of a filet knife, located near the body.
An open drawer in the Wood home kitchen where a filet knife, thought to be the murder weapon, was kept.
Michigan Department of State Police
That filet knife, presumed to be the murder weapon, had been taken from a kitchen drawer. It was never found.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: That would be odd … that a killer would come to a house without a weapon.
Terry told police that he’d slipped in Roxanne’s blood as he lifted her head to check on her. But there were no blood smears indicating he’d actually done that. Investigators thought they’d discovered a potential motive when they looked into Roxanne and Terry’s past.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: We did uncover an extramarital affair by both parties.
Peter Van Sant: By both parties?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Yep.
Peter Van Sant: And, so, when you have a murder like this, and you learn there was some infidelity, are you wondering, “Could jealousy have been a motive?”
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Absolutely.
Janet Wood: I remember the detective saying … “It was rage. … Only someone close to her would have this kind of rage.” I never bought that.
Janet firmly believed in Terry’s innocence.
Janet Wood: I just knew him too well. … So that just didn’t fit with what I knew. … Terry wasn’t a rageful guy. He may have a sharp tongue (laughs), occasionally, but never a violent— person.
Despite strongly suspecting Terry, prosecutors didn’t believe there was enough evidence to charge him. After just a few months, the case went cold, leaving a cloud of suspicion hanging over Terry. He declined “48 Hours”‘ request for an interview.
Det. Sgt. Jason Bailey: I’d heard stories that at times he’d walk into — walk into a place and somebody would call him “Slash.”
DNA was preserved from the crime scene, but given technological limitations of the time, there wasn’t enough evidence to charge any suspects.
Michigan Department of State Police
DNA was left at the crime scene. A sample was preserved but given the limitations on technology back in 1987, not much could be done with it. Still, Roxanne’s family never gave up.
Janet Wood: I didn’t lose hope ever. … I mean, this guy just didn’t do this and then lead a clean, pristine life, the rest of his life.
DNA technology evolved, and the sample was eventually able to be uploaded to CODIS, the national criminal DNA database in 1999. But no match was returned. As disappointing as that was, everyone was hopeful that the DNA would at least clear Terry when it was tested against his. The result? It wasn’t Terry’s DNA.
Peter Van Sant: So, did that eliminate Terry as a person of interest, as a suspect in this case?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: No.
Peter Van Sant: Why not? It’s not his semen.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Just because you find semen in somebody doesn’t necessarily mean that that person is the one that killed them.
After that, the case offered no new leads until 2020.
After more than three decades of compiling thousands of reports, police were drowning in paperwork. That’s when a professor and an innovative group of students at Western Michigan University figured out a way to speed up the investigation.
Dr. Ashlyn Kuersten: The real-world experience I think is priceless.
Dr. Ashlyn Kuersten teaches a criminal justice studies program. For years, she’s been talking to Detective Christensen about how her students might help on a cold case.
Dr. Ashlyn Kuersten: What a great partnership that would be if we could ever make something like that happen.
Investigators enlisted a group of students from Western Michigan University, including Samantha Rogers and McKenzie Stommen, to digitize approximately 3,500 pages of reports, notes and information about the Roxanne Wood case into a searchable database. “I was hopeful that we would be able to solve the case or move the case forward,” said Stommen.
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So, the professor and the detective came up with a plan. Dr. Kuersten’s students would process around 3,500 pages of documents accumulated since the day Roxanne was murdered into a single, digitized database. Samantha Rogers was one of several students who worked on the case.
Samantha Rogers: The officers are able to search by name … and see if they’ve already been interviewed. If they needed a follow-up. …They can search locations. … Things that they wouldn’t be able to do just flippin’ through thousands of pages.
McKenzie Stommen says the decades-old files were a solemn reminder of how long some victims wait for justice.
McKenzie Stommen: It gave … a sense of gravity to what we were doing that these cases have gone unsolved for that long.
Around the same time the students began crunching data, Christensen decided it was time for a Hail Mary pass. Colleen Fitzpatrick is the president and founder of Identifinders International, a company that specializes in genetic genealogy.
Colleen Fitzpatrick: It’s been used in forensic cases to help identify — unidentified remains and violent offenders for violent crimes.
Christensen hired her genealogy company to examine the tiny amount of DNA preserved from Roxanne’s case.
Colleen Fitzpatrick: We found out there was, what I would call, a gnat’s eyebrow of DNA left, about 3% of what we normally use. … That was the lowest amount of DNA we’ve ever had to work with, to solve a case.
Identifinders spent about 10 months working with the data the sample produced but came up empty.
Colleen Fitzpatrick: It really did feel impossible, it really did.
Then one day in April 2021, Fitzpatrick happened to be chatting with investigative genetic genealogist Gabriella Vargas who worked as a consultant for Identifinders.
Gabriella Vargas: And I said, “Well, why don’t you let me look at it? … I concluded that … I did not stand with the others. … I believed that this case was extremely solvable. And I believed that I could solve it.
So, Vargas got to work. Incredibly, she was able to generate a genetic profile from the killer’s trace DNA.
Gabriella Vargas: It … tells me where does … their ancestral origins come from. Are they Eastern European? Are they Mediterranean? Are they African American?
Peter Van Sant: And what was the race of this person?
Gabriella Vargas: Caucasian.
“Roxanne Wood’s family was my motivation for working as hard and as fast as I did,” Gabriella Vargas, an investigative genetic genealogist, told “48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant. “They never gave up hope that one day, justice would be served.”
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Vargas then turned to an online DNA service. When consumers use DNA sites like 23andMe and Ancestry.com, they can take their results and upload them to a broader database called GEDmatch in the hope of finding more relatives.
Gabriella Vargas: They can choose to opt into law enforcement matching. If they do that, I can see if they are a match to my suspect.
Vargas was able to use GEDmatch and the genetic profile she developed to start to build the family tree of Roxanne’s killer.
Peter Van Sant: How far back did you go in time?
Gabriella Vargas (showing family tree to Van Sant): One side of the tree … the ancestor was 1823. On the other side, the top ancestor was 1797. … Essentially what we’re looking for amongst these matches are where they connect to each other. … And it led me to a union couple.
A union couple is where two sides of the family tree meet.
Gabrielle Vargas: This couple was born around 1920. Based on that, we can presume that they would have kids around 1940, maybe 1950. … It would have to be one of their children.
The couple she found had three sons. She let the detectives know. They did background checks and eliminated two of the three brothers as possibilities. They were down to the last brother.
Det. Sgt. John Moore: He’s been involved in a lotta different things, a lotta —
Peter Van Sant: Violent things?
Det. Sgt. John Moore: Horrible — violent things, sexual deviant things. You name it, he’s probably been involved in it.
Peter Van Sant: And you connect the DNA with someone who has a history of violent behavior … you got yourself a suspect.
Det. Sgt. John Moore: Absolutely.
DNA LEADS TO SUSPECT WITH A VIOLENT PAST
After 34 years and one last chance at solving the case with a speck of DNA too small to see with the human eye, Detective Chuck Christensen’s daring bet paid off big.
Det. Lt.Chuck Christensen: And to know that we had come to this point was simply amazing.
Michigan State Police now believed they had finally tracked down Roxanne Wood’s killer.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: We were confident now we were going to solve this and make an arrest.
Peter Van Sant: You could now pinpoint who that individual was that had committed these awful crimes. And who is that person?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: That individual is Patrick Gilham.
Patrick Gilham — a man who was living just a few miles from where he allegedly raped and murdered Roxanne Wood.
And it turns out, he had a troubled past.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Had been a drinker.
Peter Van Sant: Was he into drugs?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: He’s into drugs. Just an individual that was … lost in life and a bad individual … based on his background.
When detectives dug into Gilham’s criminal history, they found a connection to another disturbing case eight years before Roxanne’s attack.
Maureen Farag was attacked by Patrick Gilham in her Gary, Indiana, home in 1979 — eight years before Roxanne Wood’s attack.
Robert Farag
Robert Farag: My wife, Maureen, was attacked by Patrick Gilham in 1979.
Robert and Maureen Farag and their two young daughters lived in Gary, Indiana, back in September 1979.
Robert Farag: We were just kind of blossoming into adulthood with the kids, with our lifestyle, with our jobs.
Robert was economic director for the city, and Maureen was an art teacher at the local middle school.
Peter Van Sant: What is it about Maureen that you fell in love with?
Robert Farag: Wow. I can’t say one thing only. … She was very attractive, which just caught my eye. … She was so nice. People gravitated to her because of her warm personality.
One night, while making his way home from a business trip, Robert called Maureen with a favor.
Robert Farag: I said, “Maureen I don’t have my keys to the house, could you leave the side door open.”
At around 11 p.m., Robert turned onto his street. He’ll never forget what he saw.
Robert Farag: When I pull up—I see the police cars.
Robert quickly found Maureen, who calmly told him she was in bed when she was startled awake by a noise downstairs.
Robert Farag: Maureen sees this guy going through her purse. … He got scared, whatever and chased her. Maureen started going upstairs. And he grabbed her at the bottom of the stairs and got on top of her. And he tried his best to molest her. He wasn’t successful.
Maureen told Robert the man then took her purse and fled. Throughout the attack, Maureen had stayed quiet. She didn’t want to awaken her two girls.
Peter Van Sant: That takes an incredible amount of courage. … She was willing to sacrifice herself there, if need be, to protect her 1 and 3-year-old daughters.
Robert Farag: Yes. Maureen had a lot more than courage. She had strength.
About a week later, Gilham was pulled over in Gary for a traffic violation. A police officer noticed credit cards on the seat next to him. They were Maureen’s.
Robert Farag: The police officer called me and said, “We picked the guy up. We’re bringing him in to the station.”
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: When he was interviewed by police, he said, “All I remember is going into the house. And I blacked out and woke up with my pants around my ankles.”
Patrick Gilham was charged with burglary and unlawful deviate conduct. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 years in Indiana State Prison.
Peter Van Sant: How did you go on with life from that point?
Robert Farag: We forgot about it. … We changed our house. We changed our neighborhood. … She never told anybody because she felt that was a private issue.
Patrick Gilham was charged with burglary and unlawful deviate conduct. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 years in Indiana State Prison — but only served seven years of his sentence before being released.
Patrick Gilham served just seven years of his 14-year sentence. About four months after his release, police believe Gilham assaulted Roxanne Wood.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Criminals learn as they go. And I believe he learned from that first crime he did that, “I better not leave this witness alive because I will be in prison for a long, long time.”
Maureen Farag died in 2018 from cancer not knowing anything about the Roxanne Wood case. Now, armed their DNA evidence, investigators were ready to move in on Patrick Gilham.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: At this point, we decide to get a surreptitious sample to compare to the profile that we had from Roxanne Wood from the scene. And we do this through our undercover surveillance team.
Ryan Codde: I’m Ryan Codde. And I am a trooper with the Michigan State Police.
Peter Van Sant: And you do some undercover work from time to time?
Ryan Codde: I do. I’m assigned with a fugitive recovery team for the Fifth District.
In May 2021, Codde and his team surveilled Gilham in South Bend for days on end and picked up a crucial clue that would aid them in collecting his DNA.
Ryan Codde: We noticed that he was a smoker.
In May 2021, undercover investigators surveilled Patrick Gilham in South Bend for days on end and picked up a crucial clue that would aid them in collecting his DNA: he was a smoker.
Michigan Department of State Police
Peter Van Sant: And why does that help you?
Ryan Codde: Just in the simple fact that uh, you know, when you’re smoking, it’s a great source of DNA. You have your lips directly on the butt of the cigarette. And your saliva gets in the cigarette.
Hot on Gilham’s tail, the team witnessed their target flick a cigarette butt outside his truck window while driving.
Peter Van Sant: Oh boy, you’re rubbing your hands, you’re going, “This is gonna be that final piece of the puzzle,” that you had talked about, right?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Yes. Yes.
Det. Sgt. John Moore: But there’s a twist. We sent that up to the lab right away. A couple days later the lab director calls me, and he said, “It’s not a match.”
A CRUCIAL PIECE OF EVIDENCE
Det. Sgt. John Moore: DNA is DNA. If … it’s not a match, it’s not a match.
Detective Moore says investigators were shocked when the lab called to say the DNA sample from Patrick Gilham’s cigarette butt did not match Roxanne’s killer.
Det. Sgt. John Moore: We were scratchin’ our heads. … I called the trooper that grabbed that cigarette butt, and I said, “Is there any way at all that you lost sight … when it flipped outta his finger?” And he said, “… a car drove by right then.”
It was possible the cigarette butt tested was not Gilham’s.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: The only thing logically that we can do is go back and get another one.
So undercover Trooper Ryan Codde headed back to work, once again tailing Gilham.
Trooper Ryan Codde: He pulled into this laundromat … which we saw as a window of opportunity that he would most likely be coming out to take a smoke break.
This time, Codde was determined not to lose sight of Gilham’s discarded cigarette butt for even a moment. And instead of tailing him in a car, Codde followed Gilham on foot.
Trooper Ryan Codde: I’m not a smoker. … And there was a gas station right over on the corner that I saw. And I — I was like, “Well, you know, I need to go over and get a pack of cigarettes … and — sit on the — the curb next to the laundromat.”
Trooper Ryan Codde: He came and took a seat — probably about six to eight feet away from me. And we had a smoke together (laughs).
Peter Van Sant: So how did you strike up a conversation with him?
Trooper Ryan Codde: I just tried to say hi to him … made some small conversation. … He liked the Red Wings.
It wasn’t long before Gilham finished his cigarette and went back inside.
“48 Hours” correspondent Peter Van Sant, left, with Michigan State Trooper Ryan Codde outside of the laundromat where Codde picked up Gilham’s cigarette butt.
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Trooper Ryan Codde: I — saw him throw his cigarette — which was right — right in about this area. And — so it was a great situation because the cigarette was by itself.
Trooper Ryan Codde: So, I pull out — a glove and go over, and I picked the cigarette up with my hand.
Peter Van Sant: Was it still — was it still smokin’—
Trooper Ryan Codde: Oh, it was — it was still warm. Yes, it was (laughs). So I wrapped it up inside that glove, I stuck it in my pocket, and — and headed out.
Investigators held their breath until the results from Gilham’s cigarette butt came back. It was a perfect match to the DNA left at the 1987 crime scene.
Det Lt. Chuck Christensen: I was ecstatic. I was very, very happy.
But investigators were not yet ready to make an arrest, opting to bring Gilham in for an interview in July 2021.
DET. SGT. JASON BAILEY: You’re not in trouble. You’re here voluntarily.
Detective Bailey says they told Gilham they needed to question him about an old case.
Det. Sgt. Jason Bailey: “Do you know anybody by the name of Roxanne?” He explains to us, “I know two Roxannes.” And he says, “One’s a stripper, one’s a drug addict.”
Gilham was shown a picture of Roxanne Wood.
DET. SGT. JASON BAILEY: That girl look familiar? You ever met her before?
PATRICK GILHAM: Nope. Never met her.
DET. SGT. JASON BAILEY: That’s a newer picture. Here’s an older picture.
Then Gilham was shown a second photo of Roxanne.
PATRICK GILHAM: Nope.
DET. SGT. JASON BAILEY: Never seen her? Never met her? Don’t know who she is?
PATRICK GILHAM: (shakes his head no)
Det. Sgt. Jason Bailey: And I said, “Well, we’re here to talk to you about her. This woman’s been assaulted.”
Patrick Gilham reacts after being shown photos of Roxanne Wood during questioning.
Michigan Department of State Police
PATRICK GILHAM: This is too much for me man. (Waves his hands in the air, taps hands on table.)
Det. Sgt. Jason Bailey: You could see his body just tense up, and — almost to the point of hyperventilation, hands started shaking, threw his hands, you know, back in the air. … I’ve never had a reaction outta somebody … like that in 23 years of doing this.
Peter Van Sant: Does he continue talking?
PATRICK GILHAM: I gotta talk to my lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Jason Bailey: At that time, he requested to speak to his attorney.
PATRICK GILHAM: I gotta talk to my lawyer, man.
Patrick Gilham was arrested at his South Bend, Indiana, home in February 2022, just days shy of the 35th anniversary of Roxanne Wood’s murder.
Michigan Department of State Police
In February 2022, just days shy of the 35th anniversary of Roxanne’s murder, Patrick Gilham was arrested at his South Bend, Indiana, home.
Roxanne’s brother, Brad Woods.
Brad Woods: It didn’t seem real. It was nothing like I had ever played in my mind of how I would be when they came to the door to say, “We’ve got him.”
Detective Christensen then met face to face with the man who had lived for decades with cruel rumors and doubt: Terry Wood.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: I sat him down and explained … he was no longer a person of interest, and we knew he had nothing to do with it.
Terry and Roxanne Wood
Janet Wood
Peter Van Sant: How did he react?
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: He was very emotional. He started crying, of course … was bewildered, and in shock.
As a 35-year-old burden was lifted off Terry, the hammer was about to fall for Gilham.
DETECTIVE: You’re under arrest, OK?
Investigators questioned him for five-and-a-half hours at a police station in South Bend, with Gilham only asking for an attorney at the very end. At times, he spoke in circles.
PATRICK GILHAM: I can’t believe I did it — if I did it. But you’re saying I did so.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: When pressed on it, he just kept saying … “You guys are telling me I did this. And if I did this, I’m a monster.”
PATRICK GILHAM: I’m a monster, man. If I did that, that’s a monster. That’s a monster, man.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: “Only a monster would do this.”
DET. SGT. JASON BAILEY: Let me ask you this. How do you think your DNA was found with her?
PATRICK GILHAM: I have no clue.
DET. SGT. JASON BAILEY: How do you think?
PATRICK GILHAM: I have no clue man!
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: He said that several times during the interview when he was confronted with the case facts. And he kept saying, “I don’t remember.”
But Janet Wood says Gilham’s reaction when he was questioned seven months prior proved he was lying now.
Janet Wood: He visibly reacted. … shook like a leaf, leaned back in his chair, pounding his chest.
PATRICK GILHAM: I gotta talk to my lawyer.
Janet Wood: “I think I need a lawyer.” … You tell me he doesn’t remember what he did.
Gilham was charged with Roxanne Wood’s murder. But had a golden opportunity to apprehend him decades earlier slipped through investigators’ fingers?
DAY OF RECKONING
In the summer of 1987, just months after Roxanne Wood was murdered in her home, her alleged killer crossed paths with yet another woman. It was a hot night in South Bend when Rose Caparell went outside to her front lawn.
Rose Caparell: I was standing down there watering and all of a sudden, I hear this loud car coming down the street.
Rose, standing alone, says she noticed a blue El Camino, driven by a stranger, getting closer.
Rose Caparell: I looked, and he had a taillight out on the car. … about three, four minutes later I hear the same car coming back down this street.
Peter Van Sant: Now, it had a bad muffler, right?
Rose Caparell: Oh, the muffler was loud. … I just got a feeling that somethin’ just wasn’t right. … And by the time I got halfway to my front door, a man came around the corner of the house.He had a stocking cap on, and he had a full beard. All you could basically see was his eyes. … I just turned and ran, screamin’ down the street.
Peter Van Sant: Have you ever run faster in your life than that moment?
Rose Caparell: No. And I’m not a runner. And I ran.
Rose says she ran to a neighbor’s house and called local police, but the assailant had escaped.
Peter Van Sant: What do you believe would’ve happened if that man had caught up to you?
Rose Caparell: My thought was he was gonna rape me.
In the summer of 1987, just months after Roxanne Wood was murdered in her home, her alleged killer crossed paths with Rose Caparell in South Bend, Indiana. “I truly believe that I would’ve been — raped and murdered,” she told “48 Hours.”
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A few days later, while Rose and her family were driving to dinner, her daughter Tina says she spotted that same blue El Camino with a burned-out taillight in a parking lot.
Tina Caparell: My mom says right away, “That’s the car.”
Stunned, Rose and Tina say they went to call the police leaving Rose’s husband, Stan, a retired Marine, waiting for the car’s owner.
Tina Caparell: I came back … to my dad holding a gun at the attacker sitting on the ground.
Tina says her father demanded the man hand over his driver’s license. They say the name on that license: Patrick Gilham.
Tina Caparell: We had never heard the name before.
Rose says the police never arrived, so Stan lowered his gun and let Gilham leave. She says she later reported the incident at the South Bend Police Station.
Rose Caparell: We didn’t pursue it ’cause we figured they would be doin’ somethin’ with it.
No arrest was ever made. Decades later when Caparell saw the report of Gilham being arrested for Roxanne Wood’s murder, she and Tina decided to tell their story to the Michigan police.
Peter Van Sant: Imagine if the police had come. They might have solved Roxanne Wood’s case just a few months after it had occurred.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Possible. Yes.
Peter Van Sant: An opportunity lost.
Det. Lt. Chuck Christensen: Yeah. Yeah. It could have went that way.
But in April 2022, Gilham’s day of reckoning finally came.
Rose Caparell: When he walked in, I openly said, “Piece of s***.” … I didn’t realize I was saying it as loudly as I did.
In a Michigan courtroom, he faced some of people whose lives he had viciously altered.
Janet Wood: He made eye contact with me. He sat down and he looked up. And he stared right in my face.
Even though Gilham had insisted to investigators that he didn’t remember murdering Roxanne, he later pleaded no contest to second-degree murder. And now everyone waited for his sentence to be handed down.
Brad Woods: It was almost like being face-to-face with the devil. I remember being shaky, and nervous, and I just couldn’t believe I’m sitting this close to the person that did this.
Brad and Janet finally got the chance to address the man who killed their sister all those years ago.
JANET WOOD (at sentencing): Patrick Gilham is the very definition of a nightmare women fear our whole lives …
Janet Wood addresses Patrick Gilham at his sentencing. Gilham, wearing headsets, appeared confused, as though he’d seen a ghost, when looking at Janet.
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According to Brad Woods, Gilham appeared confused, as though he’d seen a ghost, when looking at Janet. He wore headphones in order to hear.
Brad Woods: Janet does look a lot like Rock … he was probably in shock, seeing her sitting there.
JANET WOOD (at sentencing): …His actions gave all of us a life sentence, while he got to live his as a free man. … And we are here today to see him finally pay something for what he’s done which is likely the rest of his life in a cage like the violent animal that he is.
BRAD WOODS (at sentencing): It seems like people like him find Jesus in prison, but don’t bother looking because the devil will be the only one greeting you.
When it was his turn to speak, Gilham offered an apology and a prayer.
PATRICK GILHAM: I can’t believe I did what I did. And I pray for them every night. I am so sorry. I just hope that sometime in the future, with God’s help, that they can start to forgive me.
The judge sentenced Gilham, who was 67 at the time, to a minimum of 23 years in prison. Sitting in court, Terry Wood, now vindicated, watched as his wife’s real killer was led away. Robert Farag witnessed Terry’s pain firsthand.
Robert Farag: I shook his hand. He was, you know, shaking, crying. I felt more empathy for him than I could for any other person I’ve met.
Terry was cleared and his wife’s killer found thanks, in large part, to advances in technology. Genetic genealogist Gabriella Vargas, who solved a decades-long cold case in just four days, says she’s eager to do it again.
Peter Van Sant: As a result of your work, more and more law enforcement agencies will be coming to you, more and more families hoping that you can do your miracle work and solve their cold cases. That’s quite a burden for you, isn’t it?
Gabriella Vargas: Oh, absolutely not. It’s an honor. It’s an honor to be able to work these cases to bring justice to these victims and closure to these families. And I will never stop.
As the Wood family finally found some peace, their rock will always be with them giving them the strength to move forward. Janet remembers a dream she had about her sister.
Janet Wood: We were in downtown Niles. … She came up and grabbed me. She goes, “Janet.” And I was like, “Rock, oh my God.” And we’re walkin’ and walkin’ and walkin’ and just laughin’.
Sisters Janet Wood, left, and Roxanne Wood.
Janet Wood
Janet Wood: And all of a sudden, I look up and it’s dead silent. And we’re at the gates of the cemetery. And I said — um, I said, “Oh.” I said, “Do you have to go back?” And she goes, “Yes.” She goes, “But it’s fine.” She goes, “I’m good. I’m really good.” (Claps her hands) That was it.
Patrick Gilham will be eligible for release in 2040 with good behavior.
He will be 86 years old.
Produced by Susan Mallie and Jennifer Terker. Stephen McCain is the development producer. Lauren Turner Dunn and Emily Wichick are the field producers. Ken Blum and Mike Baluzy are the editors. Lourdes Aguiar is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
But with a heightened focus on voting problems and irregularities nationwide, Ann Arbor became a target for false information following reports of long lines of voters waiting to cast ballots late into the night Tuesday in the college community.
Elections officials, government watchdog groups and other experts, however, said the election process was carried out according to state law.
Here are the facts.
CLAIM: City officials in Ann Arbor were registering new voters and allowing them to vote long after the polls closed on Election Day.
THE FACTS: The false claim gained traction after a Republican candidate for Michigan secretary of state issued a lengthy statement on social media singling out the vote in Ann Arbor — a liberal bastion that’s home to the University of Michigan — as proof of election malfeasance.
“We will not tolerate the lawlessness of the Ann Arbor city clerk,” Kristina Karamo wrote in her Election Day tweet, which has since been liked or shared more than 1,200 times.
The Trump-endorsed Republican, who ended up losing to incumbent Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, doubled down on her claims Thursday in a tweet that was also widely shared.
“The Ann Arbor clerk is engaging in mass Election Crimes. Illegally registering people after 8pm,” another Twitter user wrote, echoing the false claim. “They are arrogantly breaking the law.”
But Michigan state law allows any person in line when polls close at 8 p.m. to register to vote and to cast a ballot, election officials and experts told The Associated Press this week.
“Although we say the polls are open until 8pm in MI, if you are in line before 8pm and stay in line you can vote,” Sharon Dolente, a senior advisor for Promote the Vote, wrote in an email. “The same is true if you need to register to vote first, in order to vote.”
Promote the Vote, a coalition that includes the NAACP, the League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union, coordinated an Election Day hotline and had hundreds of observers at polling locations throughout the state on Tuesday.
Dale Thomson, a political science professor at the University of Michigan in Dearborn, agreed, noting that Michigan voters in 2018 approved same-day registration, meaning voters can enroll up to and including on Election Day.
The Michigan Department of State, which oversees elections statewide, confirmed with Ann Arbor officials that all voters registered after 8 p.m. had been in line before polls closed and that each person was provided a document to verify that, said Jake Rollow, an agency spokesperson.
“Eligible American citizens have the constitutional right to register to vote and vote, and if they are in line at the 8 p.m. deadline on Election Day, they must be allowed to do so,” he wrote in an email.
Joanna Satterlee, a spokesperson for the city of Ann Arbor, said the waiting voters were handed a “ticket” in the form of a blank application to vote.
Only those in line holding the application were permitted to register and vote, she said. Staff were also present to ensure no one joined the lines after 8 p.m.
Satterlee said the city didn’t have a count for how many votes were cast by those waiting in line past 8 p.m. on Tuesday, but that the last ballot was issued shortly after 1 a.m. Wednesday.
She said the three voting locations impacted were City Hall and two sites on the University of Michigan campus, where hundreds of waiting voters were seen wrapped up in donated blankets and sipping on hot cocoa as temperatures dropped below 45 degrees.
The U.S. Department of Justice, which posted election monitors in other Michigan cities, declined to comment, and Karamo’s campaign didn’t respond to messages this week.
But the secretary of state’s office said it will work with city officials, university administrators and student leaders in Ann Arbor and other college communities to “identify and implement practices to prevent such situations” going forward.
Michigan State University on Friday said it experienced similarly long voting lines, with the last ballot cast on its East Lansing campus at 12:09 a.m. Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, long lines in some locations, most often university towns, have been a challenge in Michigan for years,” said Dolente. “This was true before same day registration was adopted. Promote the Vote looks forward to working with election officials to prevent it from happening in the future.”
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
Far-right candidates who promoted the thoroughly debunked theory that schools are providing litter boxes for students who identify as animals didn’t fare well Tuesday, with several key Trump-allied candidates losing their elections—although a few big names survived.
GOP candidates, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have spread the debunked theory that … [+] students are identifying as cats and using litter boxes in schools.
Getty Images
Key Facts
Loser: New Hampshire Republican Senate candidate Don Bolduc falsely claimed students at a New Hampshire high school had identified as “furries and fuzzies” and used litter boxes provided by the school, although the school denied his claims—he lost to Sen. Maggie Hassan (53.6% to 44.4%).
Loser: Heidi Ganahl, a GOP candidate for Colorado governor who repeatedly claimed without evidence that public school students “all over Colorado” were dressing up as animals and communicating with barks and growls while schools are “tolerating it,” lost on Tuesday to Democrat Jared Polis 57% to 40.8%.
Loser: GOP House candidate Catalina Lauf, running for election in Illinois, tweeted at CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski last month, “this is not a hoax and is happening in schools in Illinois, too”—she lost this week to Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.).
Loser: Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen, who asked on the campaign trail why elementary school students are able to “choose their gender” or why they are given “litter boxes” at school, also lost on Tuesday, falling to Democrat Tim Walz 52.3% to 44.6%.
Loser: Ed Thelander, a Republican House candidate in Maine, spread the myth last month before backtracking and admitting the theory had no basis, lost in a 62.8% to 37.1% landslide to Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine).
Winner: In Ohio, Trump-backed Republican J.D. Vance, who promoted the debunked theory, saying in an interview on the right-wing Billy Cunningham Show last month it’s a “crazy point we’ve reached in this country where schools are doing this stuff”—he defeated Democratic challenger Tim Ryan in the key Senate race, taking in 53.3% of the vote.
Winner: Far-right Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R), who has supported multiple QAnon conspiracies, falsely claimed students were dressing up as cats and using litter boxes, telling reporters outside a campaign event in September, “that’s their prerogative”—she soundly defeated Democrat Marcus Flowers, receiving 65.9% of the vote.
Undecided: Far-right GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), one of the loudest supporters of the theory, has called it an “identity crisis” that goes beyond “furries” to the question of gender identity, saying “when we have a large portion of the population who can’t tell us what a woman is, there’s a crisis”—she holds a narrow lead over her Democratic challenger Adam Frisch in a surprisingly close race that hasn’t yet been called.
Key Background
The theory came into the national spotlight in January when Michigan GOP co-chair Meshawn Maddock posted on Facebook, “Kids who identify as ‘furries’ get a litter box in the school bathroom.” One day later, a far-right social media account called Libs of TikTok tweeted a video of a Michigan school board meeting where a woman claimed “kids who identify as a cat or a dog” use litter boxes in school bathrooms—while the school superintendent denied the claim. Libs of TikTok went on to post similar theories, in one instance calling a Kentucky sex education teacher a “predator,” a post that Fox News host Laura Ingraham picked up, calling out schools for being “essentially grooming centers for gender identity radicals.” Over the next several months, the theory caught on among far-right candidates and right-leaning media hosts, even though there was never any evidence of students identifying as animals. Earlier this year, several GOP state officials, including Colorado state Rep. Scott Bottoms, Texas state Rep. Michelle Evans and Nebraska state Rep. Bruce Bostelman, caught on to the “furries” theory, although Bostelman walked back on his claim that students are using litter boxes, admitting it had no basis. An NBC News report found at least 20 right-wing candidates and elected officials spread the debunked theory this year, and that every school district they referenced has denied the claims as untrue. School officials across the country have debunked the claims, with some writing to parents to assure them students are not using litter boxes.
Tangent
“Furries” is a subculture that’s existed for years among some adults who dress up as animal characters. Adults who dress up as “furries” also include a high percentage of queer members, although the community that participates in the subculture decries characterizations of the practice that focus on a perceived sexual element—a form of fear mongering that’s been called “fur-mongering.” The theory that children are identifying as cats and dogs, however, seems related to as right-wing policy makers introducing legislation that targets identity and transgender rights in schools, including Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law preventing elementary school teachers from instructing on gender identity, as well as numerousstate bills targeting trans children in school sports—although several, including in Utah and West Virginia, have been blocked in courts.
Surprising Fact
Last month, popular podcaster Joe Rogan, who has a huge conservative following, said on his Joe Rogan Experience that a school “had to install a litter box in the girls room” for a student who “identifies as an animal,” backtracked on his claim two weeks later, admitting “it doesn’t seem like there was any proof that they actually put the litter box in there.”
In February 1987, Roxanne Wood was viciously murdered in her Niles, Michigan, home. DNA that was preserved from the scene helped crack the case more than three decades later.
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It could be days, maybe even weeks, before we know who will control Congress. But here’s one thing about the election we know already: It turned out well for the Democrats and terribly for the Republicans.
In a midterm year, when the party in power typically suffers big losses ― and at a time when voters were anxious about inflation and crime, and just plain exhausted from three years of pandemic ― Democrats effectively fought to a draw in federal races while making some important gains at the state level.
My home state of Michigan is as good an example as any. Incumbent Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson all won easily. So did ballot measures to keep abortion legal and shore up voting rights. Democrats prevailed in some key, very close U.S. House races and a whole bunch of state races too, allowing them to get full control of the Michigan legislature for the first time since 1983.
The Democratic wins were so convincing that, except in a few places like Arizona, Republicans couldn’t even make their usual conspiracy claims about Democrats stealing elections. Instead, they went right to the recriminations stage, arguing with each other over who’s to blame.
For many conservatives, the culprit is obvious: It’s Donald Trump, for pushing the party to nominate untested candidates with fringe views, for keeping the focus on his attempts to relitigate the 2020 election, and for using his leverage over donations and money to undermine the work of official party organizations.
New Yorkers saw a version of this argument on newsstands Wednesday. The cover of the New York Post depicted “Trumpty Dumpty,” and columnist John Podhoretz wrote inside that “Toxic Trump is the political equivalent of a can of Raid” because he is “perhaps the most profound vote repellent in modern American history.”
The editorial page of The Wall Street Journal ― yes, another part of the Murdoch empire ― was just as harsh. It scorned Trump’s “perfect record of electoral defeat” since his surprise 2016 presidential win, and blamed him for creating a “political fiasco,” all under the headline: “Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser.”
Here in Michigan, the GOP chief of staff issued a memo (obtained by the Detroit Free Press) blaming the party’s losses on Trump ― directly, because his influence had alienated some big donors, and indirectly, because the candidate he backed for governor, Tudor Dixon, turned out to be a terrible nominee whose Trumpy affect and extreme views dragged down the rest of the ticket.
“Independent voters were turned off by the top of the ticket and trickled down statewide,” the memo said. “We didn’t have a turnout problem. Middle of the road voters just didn’t like what Tudor was selling.”
As somebody who covered the Michigan campaign and paid close attention to others around the country, I wouldn’t dispute any of this. As in other states, Dixon’s support for abortion bans alienated independent and even some Republican voters. Her attempts to stoke anger about LGBTQ-themed books in schools didn’t win them back. Her refusal to acknowledge the 2020 election as legitimate came off as weird to some swing voters, and downright disqualifying to others.
But as a diagnosis of what ails the GOP, this focus on Trump’s influence strikes me as incomplete ― and, coming from these prominent conservatives and influential party leaders, just a wee bit lacking in self-awareness.
Yes, the Republican Party has a Trump problem. But Trump didn’t create the problem on his own.
Remember, The GOP Embraced Trump
The Trumpification of the Republican Party happened right in front of us in 2015 and 2016, when Trump was running for president. The conservative establishment and key players in the party had a chance to reject his candidacy, and some tried. But many backed Trump or at least made peace with his candidacy, because it was the shortest path to their goal of getting power and implementing their agenda.
They weren’t exactly wrong about that. But once in office, Trump alienated large swaths of the population right away, with a bullying, nasty attitude toward immigrants, communities of color and political enemies ― and a frontal attack on the Affordable Care Act. That effort failed, but he was successful at another project: packing the judiciary with conservatives. And that effort led directly to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, a highly unpopular decision that was a primary factor ― maybe the primary factor ― in the GOP’s midterm losses.
None of these things happened simply because Trump willed them. They happened because they were what the Republican Party and the conservative movement had wanted to happen for a very long time. Repealing “Obamacare” was a multiyear crusade. The project to end abortion rights ― and, more broadly, to fill the courts with deeply conservative judges and justices ― has been underway for decades.
And it’s not like the GOP or its supporters appear to be rethinking the party’s posture today. The Post’s cover line on the morning after the election was “DeFuture,” over a photo of Florida’s GOP governor, Ron DeSantis ― around whom the party establishment and its allies have been rallying. But while DeSantis may be smarter and less impulsive than Trump, his political posture isn’t particularly different. He’s even got the same mannerisms, which may or may not be accidental.
How this will all play out over the coming months and years is impossible to say, in part because Trump and DeSantis seem to be on a collision course over who should be the 2024 presidential nominee. A lot had to break the Democrats’ way this year, and it’s always possible that something resembling current GOP politics will fare better next time, in a different overall political environment.
But one other lesson of this election is that the Trumpification of the GOP has created what looks like an enduring political opposition, by animating voters to elect Democratic officials who could be in power for a while.
Michigan is once again an instructive example. The class of Democrats who first won in 2018 ― and have now won re-election ― includes Whitmer, Benson and Nessel, as well as Rep. Elissa Slotkin and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, whose floor speech against anti-LGBTQ bigotry earlier this year went viral and made her a fixture on cable television. It’s not coincidental that they’re all women, relatively young, and in sync with the more open-minded cultural values of a new generation of voters whose support was a critical part of Tuesday’s victories.
The influence of these voters will only grow with time, creating a long-term challenge for the GOP. And it’s not a challenge the party can overcome simply by ditching Trump, even if that’s possible.
The problem for young voters ― and plenty of not-so-young voters ― isn’t that Trump is part of the Republican Party. The problem is that he belongs there.
MILWAUKEE — Two of the more notable games on Friday’s college basketball schedule are taking place on an aircraft carrier and in a baseball stadium.
No. 2 Gonzaga will face Michigan State on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in the San Diego harbo r to celebrate Veterans Day. Wisconsin is playing Stanford at American Family Field, the retractable-roof park that is home to the Milwaukee Brewers.
Staging neutral-site games in non-traditional venues isn’t new. Michigan State coach Tom Izzo has scheduled games at many different sites over the past two decades.
“We’ve been ‘Outside the Box U’ for 20 years and other people are catching up,” Izzo said. “That’s good, and that’s why I didn’t want to pass up this game.”
Izzo’s penchant for this began in 2003, when Michigan State lost to Kentucky in front of 78,129 fans at Ford Field, the home of the NFL’s Detroit Lions. Soon enough, plenty of late-round NCAA Tournament games started taking place in football stadiums.
This won’t be the first time Izzo has coached a game on an aircraft carrier.
Michigan State lost to top-ranked North Carolina in November 2011 on the flight deck of the USS Carl Vinson as President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama watched from courtside.
Stanford coach Jerod Haase was a North Carolina assistant coach for that 2011 game. Now, he’s preparing his team to play the first basketball game at a baseball-only stadium since San Diego faced San Diego State in 2015 at Petco Park, home of the Padres.
“It’s an experience for our guys to talk about when they’re old like me, about how they played in a baseball stadium,” Haase said.
The offbeat settings come with potential obstacles, particularly when they’re outdoors. The roof will be closed for the American Family Field doubleheader that includes a women’s game between Wisconsin and Kansas State.
The 2011 North Carolina-Michigan State game on a carrier finished less than an hour before rain fell.
A year later, condensation on the respective courts wiped out an Ohio State-Marquette game aboard the decommissioned USS Yorktown in Charleston, South Carolina, and a Georgetown-Florida game aboard the USS Bataan at Naval Station Mayport around Jacksonville, Florida. Florida and Georgetown did play the first half before the game was scrapped.
During that 2012-13 season, a Syracuse-San Diego State game aboard the flight deck of the USS Midway Museum was delayed two days due to rain. And, windy conditions affected 3-point shooting when it was played.
The teams involved believe the opportunity is worth the potential drawbacks.
Gonzaga coach Mark Few jumped at the chance when the idea of playing on a carrier was proposed.
“Tom Izzo told me it was the coolest thing he’s ever done,” Few said. “I said, ‘OK, I’m in.’”
Wisconsin coach Greg Gard says his hopes of having the Badgers play a game at American Family Field started about 15 years ago, when he was an assistant coach and the stadium was known as Miller Park.
Various plans were discussed over the years.
“We were going to do a doubleheader basketball-hockey and set up ice in the outfield,” Gard said. “Everything was on the table at one point in time.”
Gard is about to realize that dream — minus an ice rink.
Wisconsin and Stanford practiced Thursday on a court that encompasses much of the ballpark’s infield, with baskets in the vicinity of first base and third base.
The pitcher’s mound was removed, and fans will sit in temporary stands courtside, as well as in some of the stadium’s permanent seats.
“Listening to our players as we walked up out of the dugout, what their reactions were, I think it turned out really, really good,” Gard said.
Wisconsin forward Tyler Wahl, who has attended just one Brewers home game, tried to envision just what to expect on Friday.
“I’m excited to see what it looks like with basketball, bringing a whole different crew of fans,” Wahl said. “Hopefully it will be cool.”
It might not be a one-time deal.
Brewers president of business operations Rick Schlesinger said he was hopeful that the contest was the first of many chances to host hoop games at the ballpark.
Gard says he’d love to see an NCAA regional at American Family Field, though it could be tough to host that kind of event in late March while still having the ballpark’s grass surface ready in time for baseball season.
For now, Wisconsin and Stanford are looking forward to a unique experience in an atypical early season game. Michigan State and Gonzaga feel the same.
“I’m a little bit old school and I believe the college education is much more than just what you learn on the classroom and the games themselves,” Haase said. “It’s all the experiences around them. I think this provides that.”
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AP Writer Nicholas K. Geranios and AP Sports Writers Larry Lage and Bernie Wilson contributed to this report.
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AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and https://twitter.com/AP—Top25
IONIA, Mich. — A woman has been ordered to stand trial on second-degree murder and other charges after five bicyclists were struck by her vehicle as they rode in a summer charity event in western Michigan.
Ionia County District Judge Raymond Voet said during a preliminary hearing Thursday that Mandy Benn was intoxicated by a “cocktail of drugs,” despite testimony that she had only therapeutic levels of medication in her system, MLive.com reported.
Voet also said Benn, 42, acted with a “wanton and willful … disregard of life.”
Ionia County Prosecutor Kyle Butler has said Benn was trying to pass a UPS truck on July 30 on a rural road in Ronald Township when she crossed the center line and hit the bicyclists who were participating in a three-day endurance ride for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Ronald Township is northeast of Grand Rapids.
Benn had no alcohol in her system but had slurred speech and couldn’t follow instructions, said Butler, who added that there was evidence she used prescription drugs.
Edward Erickson, 48, of Ann Arbor, and Michael Salhaney, 57, of Bloomfield Hills, were killed. Three other men were hurt.
WZZM-TV reported that a woman who lives along the road where the bicyclists were struck witnessed the crash.
“My window faces the road, and I saw a body flying through the air,” testified Shoni Mayle.
After the bicyclists were hit, Benn appeared confused and disoriented, Ionia County sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Phillip Hesche testified.
“She looked right at me, and she says, ‘Wow, officer that almost looks real,’” Hesche said. “I was really taken aback by that. It was like she was on a different planet.”
Geoffrey French, a state police toxicology unit supervisor, testified that three prescription drugs were found in Benn’s system. Prosecutors said she did not have a prescription for one of drugs.
French agreed with defense attorney Walter Downes that there were therapeutic levels of medication in her system. “None of the results were super, super large,” French testified.
But the medications can have adverse effects, he said while being questioned by the prosecution.
Democrats saw successes in legislative chambers across several battleground states in the midterm elections Tuesday, flipping a few of them to Democratic control while stopping Republicans from winning supermajorities in others.
In Wisconsin, Republicans needed to net five seats in the Assembly and just one in the Senate to reach a two-thirds supermajority — a major development that would have expanded the power of Republicans in the Legislature to override vetoes by Democratic Governor Tony Evers, who was reelected Tuesday. While Republicans flipped the seat they needed for a supermajority in the state Senate, Democrats held on in the Assembly and prevented a supermajority there. Republicans need a two-thirds majority in both chambers to be able to override Evers’ vetoes.
Evers, a lifelong educator who upset Republican Governor Scott Walker in 2018, often refers to himself as the “goalie” against the Republican-controlled Legislature. He has vetoed a record 126 bills, stopping the Legislature from expanding gun rights, limiting abortions, blocking schools from anti-racism instruction and banning COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
He has also blocked more than a dozen voting laws from Wisconsin Republicans: one measure would have made it more difficult to obtain mail ballots; another would have prohibited election officials from correcting information on absentee ballots; and one would have reduced the power of the state’s bipartisan elections commission.
“Key Democratic victories today in Wisconsin may have prevented the MAGA GOP from completely overriding the state’s election system,” said Jessica Post, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the campaign arm for Democratic state legislative candidates.
“Wisconsin’s GOP has not been coy with their intentions, and despite every advantage, Republicans were unable to muster the numbers to completely unleash their regressive agenda on Wisconsin,” she added.
In Michigan, where Democratic incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was reelected Tuesday, Democrats flipped both the state House and Senate giving the party a “trifecta” for the first time since 1984. The state was a huge target for the DLCC, who spent $2 million in the state to help down ballot Democrats. In total, $24.8 million was spent on advertisements for Democratic state legislative candidates in Michigan, according to AdImpact.
“These results show that millions of Michiganders trust Democrats to protect abortion, build an economy that works for everyone, and reject GOP hate,” said Post.
This is the first decade Michigan’s independent redistricting commission has been used, and Democrats in the state have credited it as one reason they’ve been able to make gains in these chambers.
Prior to that, Republican majorities were drawing the lines going back as far as 2000.
In Pennsylvania, with four races still left to call as of Thursday morning, Democrats were just two seats away from flipping the state House. If they do so, it would be the first time Democrats would control the state House since 2010. State Rep. Joanna McClinton would become the first Black woman to serve as speaker in the state.
Minnesota’s Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party also gained full control of the Legislature by maintaining the state House and flipping the state Senate. The Republican State Leadership Committee, which oversees legislative races as well as state Supreme Court and secretary of state races, had Michigan and Minnesota on its target list, but also expanded its map earlier this year to force Democrats to play in Oregon and Wasington.
By Wednesday morning, the GOP had not flipped any state legislatures. But Republicans did win state Supreme Court races in Ohio, holding their 4-3 majority and replacing a retiring swing vote conservative judge with a more reliable one. Republicans also flipped two state Supreme Court seats in North Carolina and now hold a 5-2 majority in the state.
Their wins there could have implications for redistricting this decade.
Republicans also secured a supermajority in North Carolina’s state Senate, though they fell short of a supermajority in the state House.
In a statement, RSLC communications director Andrew Romeo pointed to the $130 million dollars of Democratic spending on ads in these legislative battlegrounds, and Republican victories in North Carolina, Iowa and South Carolina.
“With minimal gains at the federal level, the Republican power we held and gained last night in the states will be all the more important for stopping Joe Biden’s disastrous agenda. We know that last night was just the beginning of the radical left’s full-throated assault that they will mount against our GOP-majorities in the coming decade, and the fight to stop socialism in the states continues,” he added.
Aaron Navarro is an associate producer for the political unit at CBS News, focusing on House and gubernatorial campaigns as well as the census and redistricting.
CNN Opinion contributors share their thoughts on the outcome of the 2022 midterm elections. The views expressed in this commentary are their own.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent a clear message to every Republican voter Tuesday night: My way is the path to a national majority, and former President Donald Trump’s way is the path to future disappointments and continued suffering.
Four years ago, DeSantis won his first gubernatorial race by less than a percentage point. His nearly 20-point win against Democratic candidate Charlie Crist on Tuesday sent the message that DeSantis, not Trump, can win over the independent voters who decide elections.
DeSantis’ decisive victory offers a future where the Republican Party might actually win the popular vote in a presidential contest – something that hasn’t been done since George W. Bush in 2004.
Meanwhile, many of the candidates Trump endorsed in 2022 struggled, and it was clear from CNN exit polls that the former President – with his 37% favorability rating – would be a serious underdog in the 2024 general election should he win the Republican presidential nomination for a third time.
My friend Patrick Ruffini of Echelon Insights tweeted a key observation: DeSantis commanded huge support among Latinos in 2022 compared to Trump in 2020.
In 2020, Biden won the heavily Latino Miami-Dade County by seven points. DeSantis flipped the county on Tuesday and ran away with an 11-point win.
In 2020, Biden won Osceola County by nearly 14 points. This time, DeSantis secured the county by nearly seven points, marking a whopping 21-point swing.
DeSantis combined his strength among Latinos with his support among working class Whites, suburban white-collar voters and rural Floridians. That’s a coalition that could win nationally, unlike Trump’s limited appeal among several traditional Republican voting segments.
Last year, it was Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin of Virginia who scored an earthquake in a Biden state by keeping Trump at arm’s length and focusing on the issues. Tonight, it was DeSantis who ran as his own man (Trump rallied for Marco Rubio but not DeSantis at the end of the campaign) and showed what you can do when you combine the political instincts required to be a successful Republican these days with actual governing competence.
DeSantis made a convincing case that he, rather than Trump, gives Republicans the best chance to defeat Biden (or some other Democrat) in 2024. With Trump plotting a reelection campaign announcement soon, DeSantis has a lot to think about and a solid springboard from which to launch a challenge to the former President.
Scott Jennings, a CNN contributor and Republican campaign adviser, is a former special assistant to President George W. Bush and a former campaign adviser to Sen. Mitch McConnell. He is a partner at RunSwitch Public Relations in Louisville, Kentucky. Follow him on Twitter @ScottJenningsKY.
Let it go. If election night confirmed anything for me it is this: We can all – voters, doomscrollers, pundits and election deniers included – stop believing every election revolves around former President Donald Trump. Instead, when asked in exit polls across the country, younger people, women and other voters in key demographics said their top concerns were inflation, abortion rights, crime and other quality of life issues.
What a relief. It finally feels like a majority of voters want to re-center American politics away from the toxic, conspiracy theory-driven rhetoric we’ve experienced over the past several years.
Yes, Republicans are still projected to take control of the House of Representatives, with a narrow (and narrowing) majority – but will that make much difference? Despite the advantage Democrats had in the chamber the past two years, President Joe Biden has still had to battle and compromise to get parts of his agenda passed. How the balance of power will settle in the Senate is unclear, with a few races in key states still undecided as of this afternoon. It will likely hinge, again, on Georgia, and a forthcoming runoff election between the incumbent, Democrat Raphael Warnock, and his GOP challenger, former football star Herschel Walker.
No matter what party you claim, there were positive signs coming out of the midterms. My hometown, Philadelphia, and its surrounding suburbs, came up big in another election – rejecting the Trump-backed New Jersey transplant, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and helping to send Democratic candidate John Fetterman to the US Senate. Pennsylvania voters also rejected an election denier, Doug Mastriano, in the race for state governor, and made history by electing Democrat Summer Lee as the state’s first Black woman to serve in Congress.
Maryland voters, meanwhile, elected Democrat Wes Moore as their state’s first Black governor. And in New England, Maura Healey became Massachusetts’ first female governor. She’s also the first out lesbian to win a state governorship anywhere in the US.
Democracy, freedom and equality also won out on ballot issues.
In unfinished business, voters tackled slavery, permanently abolishing “involuntary servitude” in four states – Vermont, Oregon, Alabama and Tennessee. (Louisiana held on to the slavery clause under its constitution, however.)
Despite efforts to limit voting rights across the nation, voters in Alabama approved a measure requiring that any change to state election law goes into effect at least six months before a general election. And, in Kentucky, voters narrowly beat back an amendment that would have removed constitutional protections for abortion rights – one of several instances in which voters refused to accept restrictive reproductive rights measures.
Still, the highlight of my midterms night was watching 25-year-old Maxwell Frost win a US congressional race in Florida – holding a Democratic seat in a state whose 2022 results skewed red, no less. More and more, we are seeing young people energized, voting and stepping up with fresh ideas to lead this democracy. I’m here for it.
Roxanne Jones, a founding editor of ESPN The Magazine and former vice president at ESPN, has been a producer, reporter and editor at the New York Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Jones is co-author of “Say it Loud: An Illustrated History of the Black Athlete.” She talks politics, sports and culture weekly on Philadelphia’s 900AM WURD.
Voters made Tuesday a bad night for former President Donald Trump. Despite his efforts, many of his favorites not only lost but denied the GOP the usual out-party wave of wins that come in midterm elections. This leaves a diminished Trump with the challenge of deciding what to do next.
In the short term, the man who so often returns to his well-worn playbook resumed his years-long effort to ruin Americans’ confidence in any election his team loses. “Protest, protest, protest,” he told his followers, even before all the polls closed. In a sign of his declining power, no mass protests ensued.
Nevertheless, false claims of election fraud will likely be a major theme if he follows through on his loudly voiced hints that he plans to run for the White House again in 2024.
To run or not to run is now the main question. It’s not an easy choice. Trump could end up like other one-term presidents he has mocked, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, who retreated from politics and devoted themselves to new interests. However, he has other options. He could revive his television career – Fox News? – or return to his businesses. Or, he could develop a new role as leader of an organization that can exploit his prodigious fundraising ability, and give him a platform for grabbing attention, while leaving him plenty of time for golf.
Running could forestall the various legal problems he faces, but he has lawyers who might accomplish the same goal. Fox News is unlikely to pay enough, and his businesses are now being watched by a court-appointed overseer. This leaves him with a combination of easy work – fundraising and pontificating – combined with his favorite pastimes: fame, money and fun. What’s not to like?
Michael D’Antonio is the author of the book “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success” and co-author, with Peter Eisner, of the book “High Crimes: The Corruption, Impunity, and Impeachment of Donald Trump.”
Democrat Kathy Hochul won the New York State gubernatorial race, and thank goodness. Her opponent, Lee Zeldin, is not your typical moderate Republican who usually stands a chance in a blue state. Instead, he’s an abortion opponent who wanted voters to simply trust he wouldn’t mess with New York’s abortion laws.
Zeldin was endorsed by the National Rifle Association when he was in Congress. He is a Trump acolyte who voted against certifying the 2020 election in Congress, after texting with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and reportedly planning to contest the outcome of the 2020 election before the results were even in.
New Yorkers sent a definitive message: Our values matter, even in moments of profound uncertainty.
Plus, Hochul made history as the first woman elected to the governor’s office in New York.
This race was, in its final days, predicted to be closer than it actually was. Part of that was simply the usual electoral math: The minority party typically has an advantage in the midterms, and Republicans are a minority in Washington, DC, with a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic majority in Congress. And polling in New York state didn’t look as good for Hochul as it should have in a solidly blue state: Voters who talked to pollsters emphasized crime fears and the economy; abortion rights were galvanizing, but didn’t seem as definitive in an election for a governor vastly unlikely to have an abortion criminalization bill delivered to her desk.
The polls were imperfect. It turns out that New Yorkers are, in fact, New Yorkers: Not cowed by overblown claims of crime (while I think crime is indeed a problem Democrats should address, New York City remains one of the safest places in the country); determined to defend the racial, ethnic and sexual diversity that makes our state great; and committed to standing up against the tyranny of an anti-democratic party that would force women into pregnancy and childbirth.
However, Democrats shouldn’t take this win for granted. The issues voters raised – inflation, crime – are real concerns. And the reasons many voters turned out – abortion rights, democratic norms – remain under threat.
Hochul’s job now is to address voter concerns, while standing up for New York values: Openness, decency, freedom for all. Because that’s what New Yorkers did today: The majority of us didn’t cast our ballots from a place of fear and reaction, but from the last dregs of hope and optimism. We voted for what we want. And we now want our governor to deliver.
North Carolina’s Senate race received less attention than contests in some other states – possibly a result of the campaign having lesser-known candidates than states like Georgia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
In the waning weeks of the race, multiple polls had the candidates – Democratic former state Supreme Court chief justice Cheri Beasley and Republican US House Rep. Ted Budd – separated by a percentage point or less.
Perhaps more than in any other Senate campaign, the issue of crime loomed large in North Carolina, with Budd claiming in his speeches that it had become much more dangerous to walk the streets in the state. That talking point, along with his focus on inflation, appeared to help propel him to victory in Tuesday’s vote.
Beasley, by contrast, focused much of her attention on abortion, making it a central plank of her campaign that she would stand up not just for women’s reproductive rights, but workplace protections and equal pay.
The two candidates were vying for the seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Richard Burr. Despite being seen as a red state – albeit that is less solidly Republican than neighboring southern states – North Carolina has elected Democrats as five of the last six governors and two of the last six senators.
Former President Barack Obama won the state in 2008 but lost it in 2012 by one of the closest margins in the nation. And while Donald Trump won the state in 2016 and 2020, he never received 50% of the vote.
Douglas Heye is the ex-deputy chief of staff to former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a GOP strategist and a CNN political commentator. Follow him on Twitter @dougheye.
Many of us suspected that Democratic Florida Congresswoman and former House impeachment manager Val Demings would have an uphill battle unseating incumbent Sen. Marco Rubio, and weren’t entirely surprised when she lost the race. With 98% of the vote counted, Rubio won easily, garnering 57.8% of the vote to Demings’ 41.1%.
As it turns out, Tuesday was a tough night all around for Black women running statewide. Beyond Demings’ loss, Judge Cheri Beasley narrowly lost her Senate bid in North Carolina.
And in the big heartbreak of the night, Stacey Abrams lost the Georgia governor’s race to Gov. Brian Kemp – a repeat of her defeat to him four years ago, when the two tangled for what at the time was an open seat.
Abrams shook up the 2018 race by expanding the electoral map, enlisting more women and people of color who turned out in record numbers – but she fell short of punching her ticket to Georgia’s governor’s mansion. And on Tuesday she lost to Kemp by a much wider margin than in 2018.
Had Abrams succeeded, she would have been the first Black woman to become the governor of a US state. After her second straight electoral loss, America is still waiting for that breakthrough.
Meanwhile, an ever bigger winner of the night was Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis, who handily defeated Democrat Charlie Crist.
DeSantis’ big night solidifies what some feel is a compelling claim to front-runner status for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, on what turned out to be a strong election night for Republicans in the state.
It’s hard for a Democrat to win statewide in the deep South. And as Demings, Beasley and Abrams have shown, it’s particularly tough for a Black woman to win statewide in the region: In fact, it’s never been done.
All three women were well-qualified and well-funded stars in their party. But, when we look at the final vote tallies, it tells a familiar story. Take Demings, for example, a former law enforcement officer – she was Orlando’s police chief – and yet, she did not get the big law enforcement endorsements. Rubio did, although he never wore the blue.
That was a big red flag for me, and it showed how much gender and race still play in the minds of male voters and power brokers of my generation and older. For Black women, a double burden of both race and gender at play. It is the nagging story of our lives.
As for Abrams, I think Kemp was helped by backing away from Trump and modulating his campaign message to appeal to suburban women and independents.
Abrams, meanwhile, just didn’t have the same support and enthusiasm this time around for her candidacy. And that is unfortunate, but for her to lose by such a big margin says much more.
At the end of the day however, these three women have nothing to regret. They ran great campaigns, and they created great future platforms for themselves. And they each put one more crack in the glass ceiling facing candidates for the US Senate and governors’ mansions.
Reflections on the morning after Election Day can be a little fuzzy: Chalk it up to a late night, incomplete data and a still-forming narrative. Still, as a longtime Pennsylvania election-watcher, I see three clear takeaways:
1) Pennsylvanians don’t take to extreme anti-establishment candidates. The GOP candidate for governor, Doug Mastriano, broke the mold of just about any statewide candidate in the last few decades.
The state that delivered wins to center-right and center-left candidates like my father Gov, Dick Thornburgh, Sen. Bob Casey and Gov, Tom Ridge gave establishment Democrat Josh Shapiro a wipeout double-digit victory.
2) “You’re not from here and I am” and “Stick it to the man” proved to be sufficiently powerful messages for alt-Democrat John Fetterman to win his Senate race, albeit by a much smaller margin.
Amplified by more than $300 million in campaign spending (making PA’s the most expensive Senate race in the country), those two simple themes spoke to the quirky, stubborn authenticity that is a longstanding strand of Pennsylvania’s political DNA.
3) In the home of Independence Hall, independent voters made a significant difference. Pretty much every poll since the beginning of both marquee races showed the two party candidates with locked in lopsided mirror-image margins among members of their own party.
Over 90% of Democrats said they’d vote for Shapiro or Fetterman and close to 90% of Republicans said the same of Mastriano or Oz. The 20 to 30% of PA voters who consider themselves independent voters may have been more decisive than most tea-leaves readers gave them credit for.
Most polls showed Shapiro and Fetterman with whopping leads among independent voters. They may not have been the same independent voters: Shapiro’s indy supporters could be former GOP voters disaffected by Trump, and Fetterman’s indy squad could be young voters mobilized by the abortion rights issue (about half of young voters are independents nationally).
The growing significance of this independent vote in close elections may increase pressure on both parties to repeal closed primaries so that indy voters can vote in those elections. Both parties will want to have more time and opportunity to court them in the future.
With Florida ripening to a deeper and deeper Red, Pennsylvania may loom larger and larger as the most contested, consequential swing state in the country: well-worth watching as we move inexorably to 2024.
David Thornburgh is a longtime Pennsylvania civic leader. The former CEO of the Committee of Seventy, he now chairs the group’s Ballot PA initiative to repeal closed primaries. He is the second son of former GOP Governor and US Attorney General Dick Thornburgh.
The line of students registering to vote on Election Day stretched across the University of Michigan campus, with students waiting for over four hours. There was a palpable sense of excitement and urgency around the election on campus. For many young people, especially young women, there was one motivating issue that drove their participation: abortion rights.
One of the most important and contentious issues on the ballot in Michigan was Proposal 3 (commonly known as Prop 3), which codifies the right to abortion and other reproductive freedoms, such as birth control, into the Michigan state constitution. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, many Michiganders have feared the return of a 1931 law that bans abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, and contains felony criminal penalties for abortion providers.
Though the courts have prevented that old law from taking effect, voters were eager to enshrine reproductive rights in the state constitution, and overwhelmingly voted in favor of Prop 3 with over 55% of voters approving the proposal. This is a major feat given the coordinated campaign against the proposal. Both pro-life groups and the Catholic Church strongly opposed it, and many ads claimed it was “too confusing and too extreme.”
The issue of abortion was a major focal point of the gubernatorial campaign between Gov, Gretchen Whitmer and her Republican challenger, Tudor Dixon. Pro-Whitmer groups consistently highlighted Dixon’s support of a near-total abortion ban and her past comments that having a rapist’s baby could help a victim heal. Whitmer’s resounding win in the purple state of Michigan is certainly due, in part, to backlash against Dixon’s extreme positions on the issue.
After the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, so many young voters felt helpless and despondent about the future of abortion rights. However, instead of throwing in the towel, Michigan voters showed up and displayed their support for Whitmer and Prop 3, showing that Michiganders support bodily autonomy and the right to choose.
Isabelle Schindler is a senior at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy. She is a field director for College Democrats on her campus and has worked as a UMICH Votes Fellow to promote voting.
From the beginning, the US Senate race in Ohio wasn’t expected to be close. In the end, it wasn’t – with author and political newcomer J.D. Vance defeating Rep. Tim Ryan by over six percentage points.
Republicans also swept every statewide office in Ohio, including the elections for justices on the Ohio Supreme Court who, for the first time, had their political party listed next to their names on the ballot. This will give the Republicans a dependable majority on state’s highest court, which is significant since there is an ongoing unresolved legal battle over the drawing of state and federal legislative districts.
It is now safe to say that Ohio, for so long the quintessential swing state, is a Republican state. What happened is simple to explain: White, working-class voters have become a solid part of the Republican coalition in the Buckeye State. In 2016, then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump convinced these voters that the Democratic Party had abandoned them to progressive and internationalist interests with values they did not share. This shift was symbolized by the movement of voters in the former manufacturing hub of Northeast Ohio, once the most Democratic part of the state, to the GOP.
The question going into 2022 was whether the Republicans could keep these voters if Trump was not on the ballot. The Democrats recruited Rep. Tim Ryan to run for the Senate because he was from Northeast Ohio, having grown up just north of Youngstown. They hoped that he could win those working-class voters back, and Ryan designed his campaign around working-class economic interests, distancing himself from Washington, DC, Democrats and even opposing President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. Once the votes were counted, however, Ryan performed only slightly better than Biden had in Northeast Ohio. In fact, he even lost Trumbull County, the place where he grew up and whose voters he represented in Washington for two decades.
Ohio Democrats will face another test in two years, when the Democratic Senate seat held by Sherrod Brown will be on the ballot. Brown won in 2018, but given last night’s result, the Republicans will have no problem recruiting a quality candidate to run for a seat that, right now, at least leans Republican.
Paul Sracic is a professor of politics and international relations at Youngstown State University and the coauthor of “Ohio Politics and Government” (Congressional Quarterly Press, 2015). Follow him on Twitter at @pasracic.
Pennsylvanians clearly rejected the worst of right-wing extremism on Nov. 8, sending a strong message to former President Donald Trump that his endorsement doesn’t guarantee victory in the Keystone State.
Trump proved to be a two-time loser in the commonwealth this election cycle, despite stirring up his base with screaming rallies for Republican candidates Dr. Mehmet Oz, Doug Mastriano and Rep. Scott Perry.
And a lot of people are breathing a long, hard sign of relief.
Mastriano, who CNN projects will lose the race for the state’s governor to Democrat Josh Shapiro, scared many Pennsylvanians with his brash, take-no-prisoners Trump swagger. He inflamed racial tensions, embraced Christian nationalism, and once said women who violated his proposed abortion ban should be charged with murder. On top of all that, he’s an unapologetic election denier.
Dr. Oz, meanwhile, couldn’t shake his carpetbagger baggage, and Oprah’s rejection – on November 4, she endorsed his rival and now-victorious candidate in the Senate race, John Fetterman – seems to have carried more weight than Trump’s rallies, at least in the feedback I’ve received from readers and community members.
All of this should compel some serious soul-searching among Republican leadership in Pennsylvania. What could have they been thinking to place all their marbles on someone so outside of the mainstream as Mastriano? Did they think Pennsylvanians wouldn’t check Oz’s address? Will they rethink their hardline stance on abortion?
In a widely-watched House race, Harrisburg City Councilwoman Shamaine Daniels made a valiant Democratic effort to unseat GOP Rep. Scott Perry, after the party’s preferred candidate pulled out of the race. But her lack of name recognition and inexperience on the state or national stage impacted her ability to establish a base of her own. So the five-term incumbent, who played a role in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, will return to Washington – though perhaps with a clipped wing.
Many Pennsylvanians may be staunch conservatives, but we proved we’re not extremists – and we won’t embrace Trump or his candidates if they threaten the very foundations of democracy.
Joyce M. Davis is outreach and opinion editor for PennLive and The Patriot-News. She is a veteran journalist and author who has lived and worked around the globe, including for National Public Radio, Knight Ridder Newspapers in Washington, DC, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague.
In the last two years, President Joe Biden, Sen. Jon Ossoff and Sen. Raphael Warnock, all Democrats, won in the Peach State. There has been a raging debate in Georgia political circles since then as to whether these races signal a long-term left turn toward the Democratic Party, caused by shifting demographics, or whether they were merely a negative reaction to former President Donald Trump. Tuesday’s results point strongly to the latter.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who had rebuffed Trump’s demand to overturn the 2020 presidential result, cruised to a convincing reelection on Tuesday with a pro-growth message by defeating the Democrats’ rising star Stacey Abrams by some 300,000 votes. His coattails also propelled other Republican state candidates to victory – including the Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger who had also defied the former President – and helped to keep the Georgia General Assembly firmly in GOP hands.
However, before sliding Georgia from a purple political state back into the solid red state column, we still have one more contest to look forward to: a runoff for the US Senate, echoing what happened in Georgia’s last set of Senate races.
Georgia requires candidates to win over 50% of the vote and the presence of a Libertarian on the ticket has thrown the heated race between Warnock, the incumbent senator and senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and Georgia football great Herschel Walker into an overtime runoff campaign to be decided on December 6.
Both Walker and Warnock survived November 8 to fight another day despite different strong headwinds facing each of them. For Warnock, it has been Biden’s low favorability rating – hovering around 40% nationwide, and only 38% in Georgia, according to Marist. For Walker, it has been the steady drumbeat of personal allegations rolled out over the past few months, some admitted to and others staunchly denied.
Warnock has faced his challenge by emphasizing his willingness to work across the aisle on some issues and occasionally disagreeing with the President on others. Walker, who is backed by Trump, has pulled from the deep well of admiration many Georgians feel for the former college football star.
Both of these strategies were strong enough to get them into a runoff, but which strategy will work in that arena? The answer could be crucial to determining which party controls the US Senate, depending on the result of other races that have yet to be called. Stay tuned while Georgians enjoy having the two candidates for Thanksgiving dinner and into the holiday season.
Edward Lindsey is a former Republican member of the Georgia House of Representatives and its majority whip. He is a lawyer in Atlanta focusing on public policy and political law.
In his bid to win a seat in the US Senate, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan tried to appeal to working class voters who felt abandoned by establishment Democrats. Those blue collar voters – many of them formerly members of his party – overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2016 and again in 2020.
Unfortunately for Ryan, his strategy failed. He lost to J.D. Vance by a decisive margin, according to election projections.
It was, perhaps, a predictable ending for a candidate who threw away the traditional approach of rallying your base and instead courted the almost non-existent, moderate Trump voter. And it’s a shame. Had Ryan won, Ohio would have had two Democratic senators. The last time that happened was almost 30 years ago, when Howard Metzenbaum and John Glenn represented our state.
But in wooing Republicans and right-leaning moderates, Ryan abandoned many of Ohio’s left-leaning Democrats who brought him to the dance.
That approach was perhaps most evident in his ads. In a campaign spot in which he is shown tossing a football at various computer screens showing messages he disapproves of, he hurls the ball at one emblazoned with the words “Defund the Police” and dismisses what he disdainfully calls “the culture wars.”
Another ad showed Ryan, gun in hand, hitting his mark at target practice, as the words “Not too bad for a Democrat” appear on the screen. To imply you’re pro-gun rights when majority of Americans support gun control legislation – and when your party explicitly embraces a pro-gun control stance is bewildering. Ryan’s ads on the economy began to parrot the anti-China rhetoric taken up by Republicans. And when President Joe Biden announced his student debt plan in an effort to invigorate the Democratic bringing economic relief to millions of millennial voters, Ryan opposed the move.
As a Black woman living in a metropolitan area, I would have liked to see him reach out to communities of color, perhaps by making an appearance with African American members of Ohio’s congressional delegation Rep. Joyce Beatty or Rep. Shontel Brown. But I would have settled for one ad addressing the economic or social concerns of people who don’t live in the Rust Belt.
Ryan might have won if he’d gotten the kind of robust backing from his own party that Vance got from his – and if he’d courted his Democratic base.
Brianna N. Mack is an assistant professor of politics and government at Ohio Wesleyan University whose coursework is centered on American political behavior. Her research interests are the political behavior of racial and ethnic minorities. She tweets at @Mack_Musings.
Wisconsin remains as split as ever with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers surviving a challenge from businessman Tim Michels and Republican Sen. Ron Johnson barely holding off a challenge from Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.
In late February, Johnson, who Democrats hoped might be a beatable incumbent, was viewed favorably by only 33% of Wisconsin’s voters, according to the Marquette University Law School poll. He was viewed unfavorably by 45% of the electorate with 21% saying they didn’t know what to think of him or hadn’t heard enough about him. He finished the election cycle still seen unfavorably by 46% with 43% of the voters holding a favorable view of him.
However, Democrats decided to run possibly the worst candidate if they wanted to win against Johnson. At one point in August, the relatively unknown Barnes actually led Johnson by 7%. But familiarity with Barnes didn’t help him. Crime was the third most concerning issue for Wisconsin voters this election cycle, according to the Marquette University Law School poll, and Johnson’s campaign successfully attacked Barnes for statements in support of decreasing or redirecting police funding and for reducing the prison population. In the end, Johnson came out victorious.
So, with Republicans winning in the Senate, what saved Evers in the gubernatorial race? Perhaps it was women voters.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade meant Wisconsin’s abortion ban from 1849 went back into effect. Michels supported the no-exceptions law but then flip-flopped and said he could support exceptions for rape and incest. Johnson, for his part, successfully deflected the issue by saying he wanted Wisconsin’s abortion law to go to referendum.
Another issue that may have soured women voters on Michels was the allegation of a culture of sexual harassment within his company. Evers’ campaign unsurprisingly jumped at the opportunity to argue that “the culture comes from the top.” (In response to the allegations against his company, Michel said: “These unproven allegations do not reflect the training and culture at Michels Corporation. Harassment in the workplace should not be condoned, nor tolerated, nor was it under Michels Corporation leadership.”) Michels’ divisive primary fight against former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch also didn’t help his appeal to women voters, especially in Kleefisch’s home county of Waukesha, formerly a key to a Republican victory in Wisconsin.
If Republicans are going to win in 2024, they need to figure out how to attract the support of suburban women.
James Wigderson is the former editor of RightWisconsin.com, a conservative-leaning news website, and the author of a twice-weekly newsletter, “Life, Under Construction.”
Eight years ago, New Jersey City University began several ambitious efforts to expand its campus locations through real-estate deals and a public-private partnership meant to bring in more students and money.
But the university’s grand vision has crumbled in the wake of the pandemic: Enrollment has slid more than 14 percent over the past two years, the university ended the previous fiscal year with a $14-million budget deficit (more than 10 percent of its total budget), and the president who helped lead the expansion plans resigned suddenly in June. College leaders are preparing to cut programs and faculty members, and the state’s governor has called for an investigation into the institution’s finances. Some state lawmakers are even questioning whether the university, commonly called NJCU, should remain open.
NJCU’s story is a cautionary tale for similar institutions — small public regional colleges with ambitions to expand in a crowded higher-education market. While its real-estate dealings have drawn unfavorable scrutiny, the university was responding to challenges that face its peers, in northern New Jersey and around the country: increased competition for a declining number of high-school graduates.
“It was reasonable for them to take a shot at growing,” said Robert Kelchen, a professor and head of the department of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. “But the overall pool of potential students is far smaller than anyone was expecting, and students are generally wanting to go to bigger, more selective institutions.”
The university’s fiscal situation will not get better anytime soon. Enrollment is projected to fall again next year, and officials estimate a shortfall of nearly $13 million in the 2023 fiscal year, according to a September report to the university’s Board of Trustees.
How did things get this bad? Faculty members who objected to the expansion plans blamed the former president for mismanagement and betting the university’s future on risky ventures. None of the projects “have shown proper return on investment to date,” said a University Senate resolution of no confidence approved a year ago, “and it’s unclear when and if they ever will.”
University officials acknowledged the deals have not worked out as planned, but said the arrangements are not entirely to blame for their fiscal troubles.
“Would you have been able to predict a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic?” said Andrés Acebo, the university’s general counsel, describing the impact of Covid-19 on enrollment. “Since the fall of 2018, the university has lost close to 1,300 students,” Acebo said. “That would have a seismic impact on any institution. It would make life easier to say that real estate is the problem.”
Public regional universities, like NJCU, enroll about 40 percent of all college students nationally, and a far larger percentage of minority, low-income, and first-generation students than better-known flagships and top research universities do. At NJCU, for example, more than 70 percent of students qualify for Pell Grants, according to federal data, and two-thirds are Hispanic or Black, a reflection of Jersey City’s extraordinary diversity.
But a lack of state support, limited ability to attract students from outside the region, and sparse fund raising have made the university vulnerable to economic downturns and demographic shifts that have led to fewer high-school graduates, especially in the Northeast and upper Midwest.
In Connecticut, for example, the system of state colleges and universities is facing a budget shortfall of nearly $270 million, according to news accounts, in large part because of declining enrollments and increased labor costs.
In Michigan, public regionals are shuttering dorms or selling buildings to developers to offset the loss of tuition revenue, while enrollment at the flagships, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and Michigan State, has remained strong and is even growing.
NJCU has fared worse than many of its peer institutions. From 2016 to 2021, undergraduate enrollment tumbled more than 21 percent, according to data from the university.
This fall’s enrollment declined nearly 5 percent from a year ago, university figures indicate, and it’s projected to decline 8 percent again next fall, according to the September report to the university’s board.
At one point, the university had a plan to put itself on a better footing, to serve more students in the region and diversify its revenues.
In 2014 the president, Susan Henderson, signed a 20-year lease on a 70,000-square-foot building to house its business school, with an annual rent of $2.3 million.
In 2017, Henderson was among the officials who broke ground on a 22-acre development that included a dormitory for the university, a performing-arts venue, and several commercial sites for apartments, retail stores, and parking. The land is owned by the university, but under their public-private partnership, the developers will not begin paying rent until the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years.
In 2018 the university signed a 40-year lease for space at a former U.S. Army base, some 50 miles away from the campus, that was being redeveloped by the state. That deal cost NJCU about $1.6 million a year beginning in 2021.
Initially, those plans seemed to work. Undergraduate enrollment grew 7 percent from 2014 to 2016, according to university figures.
But then enrollment dropped. And over time the real-estate deals led to financial problems, according to university audits and financial analysts at the bond-rating agency Moody’s Investors Service, in part because NJCU’s early enrollment projections were too rosy.
For example, the university’s foundation created a separate limited-liability corporation to finance the construction of the dormitory in the 22-acre University Place development. But because the university didn’t fill the dorm, it has “decided” to pay the corporation nearly $3.5 million since 2020 and has committed $3 million more for the current year, according to an auditor’s report.
Acebo, the university’s top lawyer, also blamed the financial problems on the university’s financial-aid program, which he said had increased from $3 million to $14 million in recent years. The program guarantees that the state’s high-school graduates from families earning less than $65,000 a year can complete their degrees without any student loans if they attend full time. It was another cost that was difficult to cover due to falling tuition revenue and increased operating expenses.
Henderson did not respond to a request for comment.
While enrollment has fallen at NJCU, the possibility of recruiting more students in the region is dimmed by the crowded market for higher education around Jersey City.
Within just a few miles of the university are several other institutions — Essex County College, Hudson County Community College, Rutgers University at Newark, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology — that are competing for some of the same students who typically attend NJCU.
Some institutions are openly advertising for students in NJCU’s own community. Saint Peter’s University, the Jersey City campus famed for its surprising success in the 2022 NCAA men’s basketball tournament, is even advertising at bus stops around the campus, said Francis Moran, a professor of political science at NJCU and president of its University Senate.
Montclair State University, about a 20-mile drive from NJCU, touts a seamless-transfer program with Hudson County Community College, which is just two miles away. Students in certain majors can start at Hudson and are guaranteed admission to Montclair to complete a bachelor’s degree. Unlike NJCU, enrollment at Montclair has declined only slightly during the pandemic.
For competitive reasons, NJCU should be considering ways to add other locations as expansion projects, said Tennessee’s Kelchen, who was previously a professor at Seton Hall University, which is just 14 miles from NJCU. “If they didn’t try to grow, other universities would eat their lunch,” he said.
But the university needs to be realistic, he said, about the kinds of projects it pursues and the competition for students in the region.
Despite the challenges of enrollment and competition, New Jersey’s elected officials have cast the university’s financial problems more as a matter of mismanagement and questioned whether it can remain open.
“I firmly believe an independent investigation into the school’s finances and operations would be in the best interests of the public at this time,” Gov. Phil Murphy said this past summer in a news release announcing his request for such an inquiry by the state comptroller.
In the announcement, the governor, a Democrat, cited news reports that the university’s “2014 surplus of $108 million vanished within one year due to pension liability and the issuance of bonds toward a greater expansion venture.”
The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
University officials have pushed back on those claims, explaining that the governor and journalists have confused the net position with a cash surplus. Instead, they have said, the negative net position is the result of 2015 changes in accounting rules that required NJCU to subtract the cost of pension liabilities that are paid by the state.
Audits and financial analysts have flagged other problems in the university’s development plans. For the past two years, the university has paid $1.4 million to the Strategic Development Group, a real-estate development and consulting firm owned by a former member of the NJCU foundation’s Board of Directors, Anthony V. Bastardi.
“In both fiscal years 2021 and 2020, the university incurred expenses of $0.7 million in monthly retainer fees, pertaining to real-estate consulting and project-management services,” according to the university’s audit.
Acebo said Bastardi’s company had been hired through a competitive bidding process and presented no conflict of interest.
Bastardi, who was on the foundation’s board from 2016 to 2020, said in an email that his company had “served as the special adviser to the president and Board of Trustees on real-estate matters. Our services were procured by means of state-compliant, competitive procedures, and our contract with the university was approved by its Board of Trustees.”
No matter the reasons, the university’s financial woes will have a deep impact on employee morale and the student experience.
Campus leaders are considering cutting up to 30 percent of academic programs, including many nondegree offerings, said Moran, the professor. More than 20 faculty positions could also be eliminated, he said, on top of the more than 40 already lost through attrition in recent years. NJCU employs about 250 full-time faculty members, according to university data.
Many faculty and staff members who do keep their jobs will see a pay cut. The faculty union and the university have agreed to unpaid furloughs of five to 18 days, depending on the employee’s pay.
Moran said many of his colleagues on campus are frustrated by the sense that NJCU is being singled out for a problem affecting many other public regional colleges in the state.
At the same time, the governor added $100 million to the state budget to renovate athletic facilities at the flagship campus of Rutgers University. NJCU’s total budget is less than $140 million.
“We’re going to lose faculty,” Moran said, “but Rutgers is going to get $100 million for a football stadium.” By contrast, he said, NJCU’s request for state money “is a drop in the bucket.”
Former President Donald Trump posted on social media on Tuesday to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the midterm election in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania. “Here we go again!” he wrote. “Rigged Election!”
Trump’s supposed evidence? An article on a right-wing news site that demonstrated no rigging. Rather, the article baselessly raised suspicion about absentee-ballot data the article did not clearly explain.
In 2020, Trump and his allies made a prolonged effort to discredit the presidential election results in advance, spending months laying the groundwork for their false post-election claims that the election was stolen. Now, in the weeks leading up to Election Day in 2022, some Republicans have been deploying similar – and similarly dishonest – rhetoric.
Trump is not the only Republican trying to baselessly promote suspicion about the midterms in Pennsylvania, a state that could determine which party controls the US Senate.
After Pennsylvania’s acting elections chief, Leigh Chapman, told NBC News last week that it could take “days” to complete the vote count, Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who has repeatedly promoted false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, said on a right-wing show monitored by liberal organization Media Matters for America: “That’s an attempt to have the fix in.”
It isn’t. It simply takes time to count votes – especially, as Chapman noted, because the Republican-controlled state legislature has refused to pass a no-strings-attached bill to allow counties to begin processing mail-in ballots earlier than the morning of Election Day.
But other prominent Republicans piled on. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas tweeted a link to an article about Chapman’s comments and added: “Why is it only Democrat blue cities that take ‘days’ to count their votes? The rest of the country manages to get it done on election night.”
Even aside from the fact that the big cities that tend to lean Democratic have many more votes to count than the small rural counties that tend to lean Republican, Cruz’s claim is plain false.
Counties of all kinds across the country – including, as PolitiFact noted, some Republican counties in Cruz’s state of Texas – do not complete their vote counts on the night of the election. In fact, it is impossible for many counties to have final counts on election night.
American elections authorities do not declare winners or official vote totals on election night. Rather, media outlets make unofficial projections based on incomplete data.
The health challenges of the Democratic candidate in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, have also been used to cast preemptive doubt on the possible outcome.
After Trump was defeated by Joe Biden in 2020, some right-wing personalities insisted the election must have been stolen because Biden was such a poor candidate. On Fox last week, as Media Matters noted, prime-time host Tucker Carlson made a similar argument about Pennsylvania’s Senate race – suggesting people should not accept a Fetterman win because it would be “transparently absurd” for a candidate who has had difficulties with public speaking and auditory processing since a stroke in May to legitimately prevail.
But there would be nothing suspicious about Fetterman winning in a state Biden won by more than 80,000 votes in 2020. Fetterman has led in many (though not all) opinion polls – and polls have repeatedly found that Pennsylvania voters continue to view him far more favorably than they view his Republican opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz.
The city of Detroit, like other Democratic-dominated cities with large Black populations, has been the target of false 2020 conspiracy theories from Trump and others. And now the Republican running to be Michigan’s elections chief is already challenging the validity of tens of thousands of Detroit votes in 2022.
Less than two weeks before Election Day, Kristina Karamo, a 2020 election denier and the Republican nominee for Michigan secretary of state, filed a lawsuit asking a court to “halt” the use of absentee ballots in Detroit if they weren’t obtained in person at a clerk’s office and declare that only those ballots obtained via in-person requests can be “validly voted” in this election. That request would potentially mean the rejection of thousands of votes already cast legally by Detroit residents – in state whose constitution gives residents the right to request absentee ballots by mail.
Karamo’s lawyer vaguely softened the request during closing arguments on Friday, The Detroit News reported. And other prominent Republicans have so far kept their distance from the lawsuit.
Nonetheless, the suit sets the table for Karamo, who is trailing in opinion polls, to baselessly reject the legitimacy of a defeat.
Other Republican candidates have vaguely hinted at the possibility that Democrats might somehow cheat on Election Day or during the counting of the votes.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told reporters this week that “we’ll see what happens” when it comes to accepting the results of his reelection race, The Washington Post reported, adding: “I mean, is something going to happen on Election Day? Do Democrats have something up their sleeves?”
The Daily Beast reported that Blake Masters, the Republican Senate candidate in a tight race in Arizona, told a story at an October event about how he can’t prove it’s not true that, if he beats Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly by 30,000 votes, unnamed people won’t just “find 40,000” for Kelly. He told a similar story at an event in June.
There is no basis for the suggestion that there could be tens of thousands of fraudulent votes added to any state’s count. But Masters’ comment, like Karamo’s lawsuit, achieves the effect of many of Trump’s pre-Election Day tales in 2020: prime Republican voters to be distrustful of any outcome that doesn’t go their way.
The mother of two boys who died following a house fire in Michigan earlier this year is pushing for an independent investigation after two firefighters were accused of lying about properly searching for survivors.
Zyaire Mitchell, 12, and his brother Lamar, 9, died soon after a fire at their home in Flint on May 28.
Several weeks later, an investigation led by the fire department found two firefighters tasked with the initial search of the room the children were in lied about properly sweeping for victims. Almost seven minutes later, the children were found by other firefighters. Both later died at a hospital from smoke inhalation, their mother said. State fire investigators ruled faulty electrical wiring caused the fire.
In his July report, Flint Fire Department Chief Raymond Barton determined the two firefighters — Daniel Sniegocki and Michael Zlotek — should be terminated from the department, “due to the nature of the incident in question, and the actions or lack of action possibly contributing to the loss of life of two victims.”
But instead, the city accepted the resignation of one of the firefighters and a second was “disciplined,” Barton said in August, without elaborating on what disciplinary actions were taken. On Friday, the city provided CNN with a copy of a letter sent to Zlotek dated July 28 detailing his two-week suspension.
Barton refused to comment further on the investigation or its outcomes when contacted by CNN on Saturday.
Attorney Robert Kenner, who is representing the boys’ mother, said he thinks there is an indication of racial bias in the way the investigation has been handled because the children were Black.
“I can’t say in good faith that these firemen intentionally failed at their responsibility because these boys were African Americans, I would never say that,” Kenner said. “I think the way it was handled subsequent to the boys being found was a disparity in how others have been treated.”
Speaking at a press conference Friday, the boys’ mother, Crystal Cooper, said, “Only if I could just give six minutes, my babies would still be here with me. I just want justice for them. They didn’t deserve this. Every day is a struggle knowing that I won’t see them anymore.”
Kenner accused the city of a coverup and on Friday called for another investigation.
“There was an investigation by a Chief Raymond Barton and, what he found, was that two firemen — Daniel Sniegocki and Michael Zlotek — fabricated and lied on a report and said that they checked the room,” Kenner said. “Based on what they said, the chief did his own investigation and what was uncovered was they couldn’t have checked the room, they didn’t even mention anything about a bed, the location of the bed, the location of items.”
“No parent should ever have to go through this,”the attorney added. “No parent. So, what we’re calling for, we’re calling for a thorough investigation, an earnest investigation, no cover-ups, no change in documents. We’re calling for the truth.”
Kenner on Saturday told CNN the decision not to terminate the firefighters came from the office of Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley.
A representative of Flint Firefighters Local 352 told The Flint Journal that the two firefighters are being scapegoated in the matter because they failed tosearch a small room on the second floor of the home due to extreme heat and low visibility.
CNN has reached out to the union for comment.
“The mayor is in a hotly contested race right now and made the decision not to terminate based on political reasons,” Kenner claimed. “He’s tied to the fire union and didn’t want to upset the union or other constituents.”
Neeley is facing former Mayor Karen Weaver in the election on Tuesday.
Neeley, the mayor,told CNN, “There is absolutely no truth to the allegation that there is a cover up.”
“We continue to lift this family in prayer, and we are sad to see their pain shamefully exploited,” he added.
CNN has attempted to contact Zlotek and Daniel Sniegocki for comment.
