Comment and Opinion

Free Alan Yurko

Alan Yurko murdered his girlfriend's ten-week old son. He feels no remorse and just wants to get out of prison. The anti-vaccination liars have adopted this piece of filth as some sort of hero.

You can read more about the insane campaign to free this thing by clicking here.

For more information about this "innocent" man, you can see his Ohio prison record here (original at Ohio DRC) and his Florida one here (original at the Florida state site). His wife (who married him after he was convicted of the murder of her child whose birthday she can't remember) wants him out and they can always have another baby. Actually, getting him out of prison might not be necessary as the murdered child was conceived three or four months before Yurko was paroled last time after serving a few years for aggravated burglary. Perhaps he could escape, although Mrs Yurko would be hoping he was more successful next time than he was when he tried two days after he murdered baby Alan.

Update

Yurko was released from prison in August 2004. More details will be here very soon.

A baby slaughterer gets away with it (28/8/2004)
O. J. Simpson has a new golfing partner. Murderer Alan Yurko is to serve only 2317 days in prison for beating his girlfriend's baby to death, after Circuit Court Judge C. Alan Lawson ruled that problems with the baby's autopsy report justified a new trial. The autopsy report seems to be an extremely sloppy document, prepared by a medical examiner with a history of carelessness, and the judge correctly ruled that the jury in Yurko's original trial might have come to a different conclusion if the autopsy evidence had been presented differently. (In an interesting example of doublethink, Yurko's lawyers claimed at one point in the hearing that the examiner had mixed up the parts of two bodies which were being autopsied at the same time, and at another point stated that there were no other autopsies carried out for a week either side of the one for Yurko's victim. That must have been one very messy and untidy morgue.) Despite what Yurko's supporters are claiming, the judge did not declare him "innocent", and the quashing of the conviction did not support the insane idea that vaccination had anything to do with the baby's death. In fact, the judge quite explicitly rejected the testimony from the usual collection of demented anti-vaccination doctors who appeared before him to tell him why Yurko could not possibly have hurt the child. The anti-vaccination liars don't care about this, though, and they are celebrating the decision with the same fervour that they would apply to, say, news of a measles epidemic in New York kindergartens or the failure of a clinical trial of an AIDS vaccine.

As Yurko's defence strategy has only two components - defence witnesses lying about the terrors of vaccines, and derogation and defamation of prosecution witnesses - and Judge Lawson had pointedly rejected both of them, there was no way that Yurko could risk another trial where the prosecution would be prepared for his tricks. As soon as the order for a new trial was made Yurko's lawyers started plea bargaining, and Yurko pleaded nolo contendere to a charge of manslaughter. Judge Lawson accepted the plea and sentenced Yurko to time served on the original murder conviction, which meant that he could be immediately released from prison. A "nolo" plea means that the defendant does not contest the charge and is prepared to accept whatever the court decides. The difference between nolo contendere and a "guilty" plea is that the "nolo" does not require the allocution which is sometimes ordered when someone pleads guilty to a lesser charge. Allocution is a statement to the court admitting guilt to the charge and expressing contrition, and Yurko's lawyers were never going to let him make any such statement. (Yurko is now saying that he really was responsible for the baby's death because he allowed the child to be vaccinated!) The practical effects of the plea are the same as for a "guilty" plea, in that Yurko's criminal record will show that he has served a custodial sentence as the result of a conviction for manslaughter.

Alan Yurko now has seven convictions for violent crimes recorded against his name - four for aggravated burglary in Ohio, one for battery of a police office in Florida, one for aggravated child abuse, and a manslaughter conviction gained by plea bargaining down from a murder charge. He was also convicted for escaping from custody at the time he bashed the police officer. He is a violent man, who only seems to be able to control his violence while in prison surrounded by other, possibly more violent, criminals. As soon as he was paroled from prison in Ohio he broke his parole and fled to Florida to set up house with Francine Ream, so there is an encouraging possibility that he will soon be back in an Ohio prison to finish the time he owes there. It says much about the anti-vaccination liars that they can use a man like this to advance their agenda, but, as I have said before, if your raison d'etre is causing harm to children then it makes a kind of perverse sense to respect someone who commits the ultimate form of harm.

You can read a report about the court decision in the Orlando Sentinel. Please remember that this newspaper has been sympathetic towards Yurko for some time. Also remember when you see the baby being called "Alan Ream-Yurko" and referred to as Yurko's son, that Yurko was in prison when the baby was conceived and that Francine Ream did not marry her husband until after he was convicted of murdering her son. (At one point she said that she could not remember the baby's birthday.) I was criticised once for suggesting that part of Yurko's motivation for killing the child was that he did not want to be continually reminded of the fact that "while he had been inside a prison, someone else had been inside his girlfriend". Apparently this rather tasteless remark was a worse crime than adding the effects of violent shaking to the broken ribs which had been inflicted in prior assaults on the child during his short but tortured life.

Keep on running, Alan (2/9/2004)
After I wrote the piece last week about slaughterer Alan Yurko getting out of prison, I thought I would help him to tidy up some unfinished business. This is what I wrote to the Ohio Dept of Corrections:

I don't know if the Ohio DRC has been informed by the authorities in Florida, but Alan R Yurko, a technical parole violator in Ohio, was released from prison in Florida on Friday, August 27.

Yurko was prisoner number A 216942 in the Ohio system, and fled to Florida as soon as he was paroled. I believe that the Ohio authorities located him in Florida, but he could not be extradited as he was in prison for the aggravated assault of a police officer and also awaiting trial on a charge of murder. He was convicted of the murder, but a judge ordered a new trial last Friday. To avoid a new trial, Yurko pleaded nolo contendere to a charge of manslaughter and was sentenced to time served, putting him back on the streets.

As he has legally completed his sentence in Florida, there would seem to be no impediment to getting him back to Ohio to face parole violation charges and to complete his sentences for his four convictions there.

Go get him. I do not want to pick up a newspaper to read how this violent man has claimed another victim.

Thank you.

And here is what Ohio DRC said to me:

Thank you for the information you provided on our offender, Alan Yurko.

Yurko was released from the Florida Dept of Corrections on 8-30-04 due to his vacated Florida sentence.

On 9-1-04, Ohio issued a warrant for the offender for the offense of parole violation. Orange County Sheriff's office is cooperating with us and is helping locate the offender.

If I can be of further assistance, let me know.

Arlette Brown
Ohio Adult Parole Authority

That should make me even more popular with the anti-vaccination liars.

I didn't think that they would like it (4/9/2004)
As I suspected, the anti-vaccination liars were not very happy when they found out that I had written to the Ohio corrections people to let them know that Alan Yurko was available to come back to serve whatever time he owed to that state's prison system. One suggested that I should spend a long time in hell, and another seemed to think that only a person who was pro-vaccination would consider parole breaking to be a crime. A friend of mine was summarily dumped from an anti-vaccination liar mailing list for simply mentioning that Yurko had been in prison in Ohio. This was not really surprising, as the current mythology about Yurko is that he was employed as a construction worker before moving to Florida (a previous mythology had him being a pre-med student) and the fact that he was imprisoned between December 19, 1989, and April 8, 1997, was inconvenient for the mythologisers. The best response, however, said:

As anyone with any brains knows, Alan is as far from violent as one human being can be. These people ought to spend life in prison plus ten without parole for not only supporting but insisting on the mass poisoning of children and adults. Of course, they could get out for time served if they agree to receiving the same vaccines in the same dosages and the same order as children get.

"As far from violent as one human being can be"!! This is a man with seven convictions for violent crimes plus one for escaping from custody, and who breaks his parole within days of being released. (By the way, I must apologise for getting Yurko's record wrong in something I wrote previously. I had forgotten about his convictions for aggravated child abuse and escaping.) I have always thought that the anti-vaccination liars lived in a different universe, and now I know they have a different dictionary as well. And as for me taking a course of childhood vaccinations, just let me know the time and place and I will be there.

To check up on the latest situation surrounding the slaughterer, I sent the following email to the Orange County Sheriff's office. I expect to be even more unpopular shortly.

I realise that with Hurricane Frances tearing up trees and houses this is probably a matter of low priority for you right now, but has any action been taken to find Alan Yurko who was released from prison in Florida last week? He was Prisoner Number X13917. The Ohio authorities have informed me that they issued a warrant on September 1 in an attempt to get him back to that state to face parole violation charges, and they said that the Orange County Sheriff's Office was helping.

Any information about this man would be appreciated.

Thank you, and I hope that the threat from the hurricane is soon past.

He's back inside (18/9/2004)
Baby slaughterer Alan Yurko is back inside. He was arrested on September 9 and is being held in custody awaiting a hearing to have him sent back to Ohio to do some more of the time he owes there. Meanwhile the mythology mills have been running three shifts a day plus weekends to produce fairy tales about this "hero". Some of the stories are listed below, with my comments.

• It's cruel to lock him up again after all he has been through - He should have thought of that before he skipped parole
• He didn't skip parole, it was a mix up with the dates - The Ohio DRC web site says that he was paroled on April 8, 1997, and defines "date paroled" as the date the prisoner was released from incarceration.
• No, that was the date his parole ended, he was released sometime in 1996 - Right! Four counts of aggravated burglary, each carrying a sentence of 10 to 25 years, and he gets out in 6-and-a-half years with a parole period of eight months.
• But we have a letter from the Ohio DRC to the Orange County Jail which says that he was released on July 12, 1996 - Good. I'll write to the Ohio DRC to ask for clarification. If they wanted to be kept up to date on his situation in December, 1997, it seems that maybe his parole didn't end in April, 1997.
• The Ohio DRC withdrew the warrants against him in 1999 - There is little point in keeping warrants open, with the associated paperwork, when the offender is in prison for life.
• He only went to Florida to see his baby being born - The baby was born in September. If his parole ended in April, what was the problem?
• He only went for a few days - As I said above, if the parole period had passed, what was the problem?
• He only went to Florida because his girlfriend was sick when she was pregnant - But I thought you said ...
• The judge found him innocent - No, the judge found that some of the evidence used to convict him was suspect and ordered a new trial.
• Going back to prison will prevent him from pursuing his new career as a paid public speaker - It will also foul up his run as a write-in candidate for the Presidency on November 2, but them's the breaks.

Alan Yurko was released from prison in Ohio in March 2005. The Ohio corrections department had recently been quite embarrassed by the news that thousands of prisoners who should have been released on parole were still locked up. Not only was this depriving these people of their freedom, but it was costing the state many tens of millions of dollars to feed and guard them. Yurko was a beneficiary of the backlash.

Al(l)an's back! (7/1/2006)
Back inside, that is. Well, actually he seems to be out on bail now, but baby slaughterer Alan Yurko was recently detained on charges of burglary, drug possession and aggravated theft. The report from the Cuyahoga Common Pleas Court web site has his first name as "Allan" but the birthday is the same, he lives in Ohio and you can only stretch coincidence so far. Here is an extract from the court records. The picture on the right showing the vascular structures in the brain is there to remind us how much damage can be done to a ten-week-old child's brain from a beating administered by an adult.

CASE INFORMATION
Number: CR-05-473467-G
Caption: THE STATE OF OHIO VS ALLAN YURKO
Status: CASE OPEN
Judge Name: LILLIAN J GREENE
PO Name: N/A
Next Event: PRE TRIAL CONFERENCE SET FOR 01/11/2006 AT 09:00 AM IN ROOM 16C JUSTICE CENTER
Arrested: CLEVELAND PD

DEFENDANT INFORMATION
Number: 96328
Name: ALLAN R YURKO
Status: DEFN JAIL
Date of Birth: 12/11/1969
Race: WHITE
Sex: MALE

BOND INFORMATION
Bond Number 482731
Amount 2500
Type CASH/SURETY/PROP.
Date Set 12/16/2005

ACTIONS
Event Date Event
09/21/2005 ARRESTED
11/17/2005 INDICTED ORIGINAL
12/01/2005 CAPIAS
12/14/2005 JAIL
12/16/2005 ARRAIGNED

CHARGES
Statute Description
2925.11 DRUG POSSESSION

OTHER DEFENDANTS
Defendant Nbr Defendant Name
175333 SCOTT A MEYER
111602 DAVID A PIETRASZ
70155 TINA R SKEENS
141656 TRACY J HOLPUCH
10749231 MARK WARNER
10749238 DAVID CASTELL

OTHER CASES
Other Cases
CR-05-473142-A
CR-97-354103-ZA
CR-97-353205-A
CR-89-244427-ZA
CR-89-244368-ZA
CR-89-244699-A
CR-89-244247-ZA
CR-89-236864-ZA
CR-89-237238-ZA

Proceeding Date Filing Date Side Type Description Image
12/19/2005 12/22/2005 N/A JE FIRST PRETRIAL SET FOR 01/11/2006 AT 09:00 AM.

The comment above generated the following complaint:

From: "Caroline Stuard"
Subject: alan yurko
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 08:51:18 -0700

Mr. Bowditch: I am an old friend of Alan Yurko . you stated that Alan was detained for drug possession, and burglary. Do you have any proof to show me? I need to know. If it is not true you will be sued for slander. You caused that family enough pain. If you have the proof or numbers I can call, let me know…

Caroline Stuard

I replied:

I see that you read about this on the Millenium Project Blog, which is often an abbreviated copy of what appears on the main site. Had you read the main site you would have seen that the Case Number in the Cuyahoga Common Pleas Court for the drug possession charge is CR-05-473467-G. The arrest took place on September 21, 2005.

By the way, it is usually considered unwise to threaten legal action in the first communication, especially if the wrong offence is mentioned (slander is spoken, the written form is libel), but as you did it the threat has been added to the collection of vacuous legal threats which I have received over the years.

Vacuous legal threat counter: days and still waiting.

And this came back:

From: "Caroline Stuard"
Subject: Alan Yurko
Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2006 07:14:21 -0700

Hey there Mr. Ratbags: I read what you said about Alan Yurko. Didn’t you ever hear of "innocent until proven guilty?". Speaking of breaking the law, there is a law that states that you cannot use a persons last name on a website without getting the persons permission. Gee, I do not remember giving it to you. Should I sue you? Hmmmm Let me think about it. I have a personal question to ask you, hope you do not mind. When you were a baby did you accidently fall on your head ? Or were you vaccinated? That could explain why you are such a vile human being. I am sure your mom is SO PROUD of you. I bet you offering to sell someones kidneys was a wake up call for her. What happened to you, Mr. Bowditch? Did something tramatic happen in your life to see the world in such a dismal way? Do you even believe in God? Or do you have a problem w/ him too? You let me know. Until then I will say a prayer for you. Hopefully whatever the problem you have going on inside of you, that made you this way, will one day go away. You could do a lot of good if you wanted to . But instead you prefer to spread your vile words on to everyone else before knowing all the facts. Peace, Caroline Stuard